 
Selected Short Stories

featuring

New Corpse Smell

by Nicolas Wilson

#  Foreword

Hi. I'm Nic. This is a short story collection of mine. Other stories and information about upcoming work can be found on my website: www.nicolaswilson.com. Interspersed with these short stories, you'll find snippets of novels I'm working on. I'm calling them entertisements, because the word amuses me. Keep going to reach the fiction, or you can view the Table of Contents (including synopses of the stories in this collection).

# Shades of Cray

Day 0

My name is Alistair Cray. I was born to African American parents. I've spent the majority of my professional scientific career working to make myself white. Predictably, this has caused some controversy.

They all think I'm a racist- that may be the first thing liberals and white supremacists have ever agreed on. And those who don't think I'm a racist assume I'm a coward, that I can't take the discrimination, that it's all about closing the wage gap, or the opportunity gap, or about being able to walk down a dimly lit street without every white woman crossing to the opposite sidewalk. And I'd be lying if I said I'll miss any of that, but I see those changes as unintended perks.

My critics have dubbed me "transracial." At first I thought it was a boon, because it would link my studies and my thought to the transgender movement, and maybe even the nascent transhuman movement.

What I found instead was that trangendered people, on the whole, were just as disgusted by my work as evangelicals. In retrospect it shouldn't have surprised me. Blacks aren't statistically more likely to favor gay rights than whites; in fact, there's some polling data to the contrary. Apparently, even those of us most affected by intolerance don't recognize our own intolerance.

But it isn't about them, and at the risk of alienating the good people who have come this far into reading this, it isn't about you, either. It's about me. It's something I've always felt, always been.

Kids in school made fun of me, called me an Oreo. Growing up in a predominantly black school, being singled out as too white was not conducive to a happy childhood, and that lack of connection made me look for intellectual stimulation elsewhere, amongst my teachers, and amongst my studies.

But it goes back before that, even. Growing up, I used to have wonderful dreams. Dreams of splendor and fantasy. A knight fighting dragons for the favor of beautiful princesses, a spaceship captain romancing and blasting his way across the unknown corners of the galaxy, even simple quiet moments with a family of my own, smiling wife and happy, energetic children. In all of these dreams, without question or pretension, I was white.

I'm sure there are those who would hear that and presume that an Anglo-centric U.S. media warped my innocent brown mind- but as far back as I can remember, I felt white. It was quite a shock, really, when I started to realize that little dark child in the mirror was me.

That doesn't mean I don't love my parents, or don't respect them. Just as the son of a bricklayer might want to be an astronaut (or the son of an astronaut might want to be a bricklayer), I simply don't want what my parents had. I remember the first time I discussed it with my mother, she slapped me, and said, "Thank Jesus your father isn't alive to hear you say that."

I wish he were. I wish he'd lived long enough for me to get up the courage to tell him. I'm proud to be his son, proud that he worked so many extra hours at the mill to put me through school. Proud that he was so strong, and brave, and confident. I wanted to be all those things, to emulate him in all those things, but my whole life I felt like a swan raised by ducks. I know in our beauty-obsessed culture, that sounds like a value judgment, because swans are prettier, and more majestic, but it's not; my parents are simply different from who I think I am. I still think I am a swan, and being a swan means being myself, not just quacking and waddling like I was raised to, to fit in.

But I wanted to jot down some of the technical bits, too. There are certain genes affiliated with racial characteristics, and more than half of my research focused on tracking those down.

Next, I took a sequence of my own DNA, and replaced African traits and characteristics with European ones. It sounds simple, but it wasn't, and my research was enabled by the Human Genome Project and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of other studies and research techniques.

This DNA was then placed inside a virus. Due to the agreement I have with some of my financial backers I can't be too specific, because there are genuine medical uses for this technology- like eliminating sickle cell anemia- but like AIDS this virus invades host cells, and replaces their DNA with the genetic material the virus is carrying.

Now, before I could inject myself with that virus, I had to undergo intense chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Otherwise, my immune system would have gone to war with both the viruses and with cells already infected with the altered DNA.

The combination of radiation and chemo can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and weakness. I have the quadfecta. I've typed most of this from the toilet in the clean room, and just staying on the thing makes the room spin, which only makes me more nauseous, and brings the vomiting back that much quicker. I should wrap this up, because every sentence makes it more likely I'm going to vomit on my laptop.

Day 7

My labs show new blood cells are beginning to grow. That means the transplant is taking hold, that my immune system is slowly being rewritten.

The last of my hair fell out. It had clumped at the top and back of my head, like a yarmulke. If my mom were taking my calls, I would have joked that it was a sign I was supposed to be Jewish. Even if she were taking my calls, I doubt she'd have laughed.

I spoke on the phone this morning with a transplant specialist from Boston. He wanted to make sure I was mindful of "graft-versus-host disease," when he accidentally coined the term "race graft." I think I like it. He immediately started to back-pedal away from the term, and it was only then I realized that, despite the depth and creaminess of his voice, he was white; it was only his guilt that gave him away. "Does it matter?" he asked, almost petulant.

"Not at all," I replied. I spent another 45 minutes talking to him. In part, I wanted to make sure he didn't feel awkward or slighted; he'd already gone out of his way to participate in my work, and I owed him gratitude for that. And perhaps more importantly, I was rather lonely.

Day 12

My lips fell off this morning. I should explain; for days, I've had skin flaking off in chunks, where the outer layers have been deprived of nutrients, dried and fell away. This isn't too unnatural, as the skin replenishes itself about every two weeks.

This morning while eating breakfast, my lips cracked, and flaked off. It was a little like losing baby teeth; it came away like it had always been meant to come away, but there was still a little pain as I twisted and pulled where it stuck at the corner. Smaller, paler lips poked through the torn skin, sensitive because they'd never touched the air before.

And I decided I wanted to keep my old lips. Not forever, and not really for long. But I decided I wanted to keep them long enough to say goodbye to who and what I'd been. So I started keeping the larger pieces that came off in a Rubbermaid tote. I figured that would keep bacteria at bay as well as anything else.

Obviously, I wanted to have the "remains" cremated, since burying a few handfuls of skin flakes seemed both macabre and histrionic. But as the day grew long, I decided I didn't just want to bury some ashes in my backyard, I wanted pomp, and ceremony. In a very real way I was killing my former self so I could have a different life, so I felt I owed him at least some kind of funeral.

I called my mother, because she'd buried my father, and because, really, she was my best friend. I was surprised she answered. She hardly spoke to me, which I'd expected- though expecting it didn't make it hurt any less. Finally, I asked her to just tell me whether, if I did hold a funeral for my former life, she would come. "I might," she said, and there was a moment's silence before she added, "because the son I raised is dead." She hung up.

Day 17

The infectious disease specialist I'd been consulting with hated the idea, and was actually screaming at me on the phone until I reminded her, "It's not good for me to get excited." So she compromised. I could hold my funeral, but I had to hold it in the early morning, forbid sick people from attending, and stay on a respirator the entire time.

Oh, and my eyes are still very sensitive to light outside of the clean room, so I've been wearing these thick protective lenses. The combination of the respirator and heavy goggles make me feel a bit like Darth Vader attending Anakin's funeral.

Not many friends showed up; of course, I don't have many friends, and never did. I wonder if that will change, if being more myself will make me more outgoing, or if I am that socially isolated kind of a person inside, if that's still a part of who I'm going to be. I can't help but feel like a moth inside his cocoon, wondering what kind of butterfly will emerge.

I hadn't bothered calling most of my family, because I knew by now most of them couldn't understand. A few of the few I called showed, but even the ones who did wouldn't sit near me, save for my gay cousin, Alan. Alan likes me because now he isn't the family's black sheep, just "blue gray to match my eyes."

By and large, my funeral was filled with white coats, colleagues- but they came, and that meant something.

Near the end of the ceremony a woman snuck into the back. She was dressed in black, with a veil, and I'd have sworn it was my mother if it weren't for the protective goggles keeping out so much light. I thought I could talk to her afterward, but after the eulogy, she was gone.

Day 20

My hair has started growing back. Right now it's just peach fuzz, but it feels good not to be bald anymore. I left the color the same; it was always the same color as my dad's hair, and I wanted to keep it, but it's coming in softer and straighter. Alan really wants to take me wig shopping, but for now I just want to see what it does.

And my eyes are finally healed enough to ditch the glasses, and adjusted enough that I can see clearly, so for the first time I'm really seeing myself in the mirror. I tweaked my eye color away from brown, but I was purposely nonspecific. They turn out to have a greenish hazel center, and a silvery blue corona.

But staring in the mirror, I'm not the man I thought I'd be. Echoes of my former features still wash over my face, like my nose, still broader than my wanted, my lower lip still poutier than I'd pictured. Some of it is probably swelling, and will go away, but... I maybe overestimated the amount of change I'd see.

I could have surgery, I suppose, but that feels like it would be too shallow; like it's one thing if a transgendered person gets breast implants, but it's another if they opt for the double Ds; it's the difference between chasing perfection with a scalpel and just trying to be complete. Maybe this face is just me, and maybe this is the me I should try to get comfortable with. I guess time can tell on that.

And my mother called. As soon as I answered, she hung up, but it's the first time in a a long time that she's called me.

So I decided to take a walk, just around the block. Half of my consulting physicians would have conniptions if I told them, but I decided I could bundle up, and not let anyone breathe on me, and be relatively safe.

Outside, everything is different. For the first time I feel I'm seeing a new world, with new eyes. And I hope I'm not the only one who does.

Table of Contents

# Leaving Lost Atlantis

Dear Jean,

I've tried not to be bitter. I haven't always been successful. But I held my tongue when you told me, in front of our daughters, that I was a failure and a fuck-up. I gritted my teeth and bore your insults when you berated our sex life in front of my coworkers. I bit through my lip when you told me you'd fallen in love with someone else (and you took pains to tell me it was the first time you'd felt anything like love in a very long time). So it's with some pleasure, but only a modicum of bitterness that I'm writing to tell you you were wrong: I found Atlantis.

I know I've been missing for a while, and I'm sure you're pissed as hell. I wanted to write sooner, but I couldn't. And I feel bad about missing my support payments. If you want, you can claim the life insurance policy I had through the school and my pension, too- just tell your lawyer I faced "imminent peril" and did not return; I never got around to taking your name off them- to be honest, I didn't have anyone else I'd have wanted the money to go to. But it's not like you ever needed your share of my pittance from the university; your new "love" has more money than I'll ever see. Taking me to court for support, and for custody, after the divorce was settled- that was spite, and I don't understand it, frankly. You left me- what was there left to be spiteful over?

I don't want to be followed, but I'll say it was in one of those old books I was chasing. I lost the eBay auctions to collectors, but it turns out most true collectors are happy to let an expert give his opinions on occult artifacts. Information from those pinged off things I'd already read, and I pieced things together and, well, I figured out where the island had been.

Now I don't know what made me do it. I'd had other leads before that came to nothing, and I still had money left on the grant from the university, I could have rented one of those new unmanned submersibles, really put on the Ritz, but somehow I knew that I couldn't let the school know where I was, or what I was doing. So I emptied my savings and chartered one of those little one-man subs. It was cramped, and smelled like rotten fish inside it, but it got me under the sea.

The whole way down, in that stinking sub, I thought it stank because it leaked, and had probably killed its last inhabitants- that not only was I not going to find Atlantis, but I was going to drown like a fool. I was doing my best to steel myself against impending failure, when I saw them: pillars on the sea floor.

The first few looked just like the ones at Stonehenge- obviously man-made, but otherwise sort of innocuous- too perfect to be naturally occurring, but showing no purposeful placement. But as I drew closer, I could see they were covered in hieroglyphic markings, sort of a simplified Cyrillic alphabet. The letters glowed blue, and there was a bright flash, and suddenly the pillar was covered in English characters, and they swirled together into a large message that read, "Hello. Please disembark at left."

I guided the sub to a small empty space that seemed designed for accepting small vessels- the underwater equivalent of a port. Via radio, the ship's crew were adamant that I not leave the little sub, but I told them it was designed for this sort of thing. I adjusted the gauges inside the sub, so the pressure slowly came down until it equalized with the water around us, then the sub began to fill with water.

In the meantime, I readied and checked my equipment. It was going to be a strenuous dive, nearly 600 feet down, but nothing I hadn't been through before (of course, the last time I'd dived down to that depth I'd suffered from severe nitrogen narcosis and couldn't remember anything that happened- though that's far from atypical).

My sub was at the bottom of a low hill maybe ten meters tall- a good sign, I thought, since pressure lessens going up rather than down. But I swam over the top of the hill, only to be confronted by a deep depression in the ocean floor. I could see the same bluish glow as the pillars had given off, but not much more despite the lamp in my hand. I continued down.

The depth gauge at my wrist read nearly 200 meters, but still I swum down. I began to panic; I hadn't calculated a dive this deep, and soon my breathing gas mix would become a liability; then a calm hit me, and I knew it would be all right. I was meant to find this place- it all was happening for a reason (I realize now this was just nitrogen narcosis, and its accompanying euphoria).

At 260 meters, or about 850 feet, I felt something brush my leg. Then something struck me in the shoulder, or rather bumped into me at speed. I spun around, trying to get my bearings, but the light barely penetrated the water. I could make out a humanoid arm or leg swimming past, but at such a rate and speed there had to be dozens of them around me. Suddenly, inside my head I heard a voice say, "Do not fight. We will not harm you." Of course, this was completely contradicted by the throbbing pain in my head that accompanied the message, so intense that I peed myself and passed out.

I awoke with holes beneath my jaw, and lungs full of salt water. I wanted to struggle, but I'd been strapped to a table, and I think I was also sedated, because even when I moved, my muscles responded only weakly. Raw panic gripped me, and I fought to keep myself from throwing up, when of their own accord, my lungs pushed the water up, then sucked another "breath" in, all through the new slits in my neck.

I was suddenly aware that there were two people in the room. One of them was a woman, and looked every bit like a woman on the surface, aside from the fact that her hair splayed in a halo from her face, playing gently in the ocean currents. She smiled, and said, "Welcome to Atlantis," though this time her voice in my head was gentler.

"You should not have tried to swim to us. You nearly died, and we were already on the way to get you." She was an ambassador of sorts. She told me that when the sub's parent vessel couldn't raise me on the radio, they'd remotely recalled the sub and left.

I found that she could hear thoughts I wanted her to (though I had to work a little to restrain certain thoughts- I accidentally told her she was cute). I still haven't learned enough about them to know if it's a naturally evolved telepathy or some kind of technology they haven't explained to me yet, but it seems both passive and intelligent; they don't have to concentrate, and at the same time they only broadcast what they want known.

But the reason I'm missing, and the reason I couldn't write, is Atlantis has rules about contact with the outside world. They let me in, but I couldn't leave, couldn't write. I had to appeal directly to their ruler to have an exception made. But after poring through their histories, I can understand their shyness.

The legend according to Plato is that Atlantis unsuccessfully attacked Athens, and then sank into the sea. The truth is different. The Atlanteans were thousands of years beyond Athens; they were working on rocketry, for God's sake. But they were also a peaceful city-state; in Latin over the city gate is the inscription, "the just do no harm." It was the Athenians who sought conquest, despite their disadvantage. Rather than be party to a slaughter (and likely, due to the allure of their vast wealth and technology, many slaughters yet to come), the Atlanteans decided to hide their island nation in the single place it would impossible for war to find it: beneath the sea. Their technology was decades beyond ours, even now; I've looked at schematics for gigantic machinery that I can scarcely fathom, but suffice to say they accomplished the impossible.

Of course, the Athenians were the "victors" according to history, so they wrote the books, and Atlantis became the defeated aggressor. I suspect that Plato, like Galileo after him, ran afoul of the ruling class of his day, and rather than a premature ending, decided to slightly alter the wording of his philosophical treatise, without altering its meaning. That history has lost its original context is unfortunate, but such a thing rarely survives the trials of time.

Atlantis always hoped a day might come when mankind would soften enough for them to return to the surface. It really pains these people to have science that could virtually end hunger and disease, but be unable to share it because our species would just find a way to engineer it into a superior method of murder. By their count, we're nearly as backward today as the Athenians were thousands of years ago.

Their philosopher-king in the Platonic (or perhaps it was Socratic) mold is largely an executive- imposing the will of the people, rather than his own edicts. Their republic is far more directed, and is focused around weekly community meetings where direct votes are tallied. I mean, it's honest to God democracy- no oligarchy of any kind.

They've harnessed thermal vents for electricity that provides for all of their power, and the architecture is, there aren't words, really. The city is capped by a rocky-looking dome that keeps the city hidden from anyone who might look to scan it from the surface, but built into its crags are these giant, vibrant buildings that claw and scrape at the "skyline" in an architectural style that feels like it's influenced by Egypt, only if ancient Egypt were the dominant culture in the 24th century. Beneath the dome everything is lit by a brilliant blue glow.

It's all so beautiful, so perfect. I remember college, and we spent nights staring up at the stars, talking about how wonderful seeing those ancient, fabled societies would be. I only ever wanted to share them with you; and when our marriage started to have trouble, I just buckled down, because I thought if anything could fix us, if anything could give us back that fire we had, it was sharing something like this.

But we can't. Because you left me. And married someone else. Because of that, you'll never see Atlantis. Our daughters will never see Atlantis. If you have any heart left, you won't tell them what they're missing. I'm only telling you because that girl I loved in college, I wanted her to know that it was real, that us and it and our dream, all of it, was possible, just waiting to be touched. I know we haven't been the best of friends lately, but we were once, and I hope you can start dreaming again; it would be the saddest thing in the world to me if you couldn't.

Don't for an instant worry about me. It might all sound lonely, being the only surface man in a strange land. But I've met someone, too. Her name is Mera, and she's beautiful; you'd probably say she's too young for me (and might not be wrong about that). We'll be married next month. She's already pregnant, too; beautiful twin boys, healthy as clams. And I know I always told you your breasts were a nice size, perfect for my hands, and that they wouldn't sag after you breastfed our children (though somehow they still did a little), but hers are larger, and firmer, and underwater, they'll never sag. That might come off as bitter, and perhaps it is a little, but I only mean to say I'm happy. I wanted to be happy with you, but I'm happy without you anyway. And I do hope you find happiness without me. Truly.

\- Peter

_Jean,_

_I've been through every friend and associate in your ex-husband's address book; even the higher-ups at his university think he's vanished without a trace. I don't like taking money from people who get no benefit off it. You want me to keep chasing geese it's your dime, but he's out of the state, likely out of US jurisdiction. I'd also raise the specter that this letter ain't what it says; it's him saying goodbye, on account of he's leaving the world behind- hell, you're a grown up girl- offing himself. You don't pay me for advice, so this is on the house: let it go. Chasing bad blood gets you nothing but more of the same._

_Maurie_

_P.S. Figured you'd want his letter back; maybe your girls will want it someday. Sorry about the coffee stain._

Table of Contents

# An Iraqi Christmas Carol

I could never pronounce or spell his first name; his last name was Zakaria. He was a proud Muslim, but he liked that his name came from Zakarias, a messenger of Allah, and father of the Prophet Yahya, or as westerners know him: John the Baptist. There was a world of difference between him and us, a poor Iraqi translator and the American Army ostensibly here to give him democracy, but Zakaria was the kind of person who liked to emphasize what we had in common, instead of what made us different.

He was killed by an IED, planted just a little too far down an alley to be called roadside. We were just walking on foot, talking about something, his son, I think. And suddenly I wasn't walking anymore; my body moved sluggishly, my ears hurt and I was having trouble focusing my eyes. I tried to get up from where I fell, but didn't have the strength, so I crawled over to him. There wasn't enough of his chest left to perform CPR on, and I took one deep breath in so I could sigh, only it made me realize the sharp pain in my own chest, the warm wetness spreading out from my wounds. I passed out.

Doctors patched me up, and when I came to, they told me that Zakaria saved my life; as close as I was to the explosion, if he hadn't absorbed the most of it, the shrapnel that sliced into my chest would have cut my heart in half. I don't have any delusions that he wanted to die for his country- or for me- or even that he thought that he might. But he did. I could have gotten a medical discharge, served out my tour on a safe little base in Kansas or Kentucky, but I couldn't do that, not now.

His widow invited me to Christmas dinner, but I declined. Her husband, wittingly or not, saved my life; I wasn't ready to look across a table and know how far I had left to go to pay that debt.

I still wasn't in my right head, still hadn't realized that she was putting on Christmas dinner for me, because it's not like the holiday had any significance for her. Of course, if I'd been there, either none of what happened would have, or I'd have been dead and unable to do what I'm about to do.

Some militia men, claiming to be Mahdi Army, burst through Zakaria's door. In life, her husband had been able to hide what he did for us- even the fact that he worked with us at all- but in death, his secrets came out. The Mahdi needed to make an example somewhere, and they heard he had a son. If the boy had been even a few years older, the example would have been written in blood on his mother's doorstep, but his age gave them enough pause they took him with them, instead.

Which is why I have a ruck filled with magazines and grenades and a claymore or two, why I'm out this late, why I'm sneaking around the base perimeter. I hear the shuffle of feet and stop dead; they have me to rights, and from the tone of their voice they know it: "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

My muscles tense; if it was a ranking officer or an MP I wasn't getting out any way but through them- but as I turned I recognized the voice, and then the build of the silhouette it belonged to, and deducing his partner was easy: Dartsman and Troy, the balance of my fire team. They're not bad guys, and not stupid guys, they just get into conversations like:

"Seen too many John Wayne movies, I think."

"Is that it? Going out to play lone sheriff cleaning up the town with pure grit?"

"This is the US Army, you don't piss without a buddy watching your six."

"Just make sure your buddy ain't watching you piss."

"We assumed you were just shocked and awed; if we knew you were fantasizing-"

Much as it pained me, I cut off their witty banter: "Okay. I get it. I'm an idiot for not inviting you idiots to go AWOL to do something potentially illegal." At this, a third man moved in the darkness, and I was suddenly aware of a badge glinting off his chest in the dark.

This time it was definitely Dartsman who spoke up. "Right, this is Dawud, a policeman. He's the one who told me about the kidnapping. He speaks broken enough English to translate, and when we're done cracking skulls, he'll make arrests."

"Anything else he can tell us?"

Dawud's eyes narrowed in the dark. "One man, he was recognized, by a neighbor. But to me, he will not talk. Instead, he takes down my name, for later, he says." Dawud spit on the ground.

"Let's go play bad cop," said Troy.

The man lived only a few blocks from the Forward Operating Base, and we were there in a matter of minutes. When Dawud pointed out the residence, we stopped to discuss our ingress.

Dartsman pulled a brown bottle out of his pack, and a bottle opener. "That isn't-" I started, but he cut me off.

"It is. I stowed it away after the Super Bowl party." Because drinking isn't allowed in Islam, out of deference, we didn't drink in Iraq, but February the brass had made an exception- and got each and every one of us two free frosty ones. He handed Troy a Polaroid camera, then popped the top off his beer.

Then Dawud knocked on the front door. A man in his thirties with a long, straggly beard answered the door; he looked haggard. Dawud pushed his way in, and we followed. Dartsman handed the bewildered man his open beer label out, muttered, "Hold this, and smile," and pointed at Troy, who was pointing the camera at them. Dartsman threw an arm around him, gave a wide grin and put his thumb up as Troy snapped the picture.

The man blinked after the flash, still trying to figure out what had just happened, and when he realized what he was holding, he nearly dropped the beer. "You spill it and I'll break that bottle off in you," said Dartsman, hurriedly grabbing it from him. He upended the bottle and chugged until it was empty, then heaved a heavy, pleasured sigh.

Troy showed the man the photo, and Dartsman leaned against him. "Mighty damning. Collusion and drinking. Your fundamentalist friends will be pissed."

The man's lip quivered. "Please," he said.

Dawud pushed the man over, and he fell back over a chair; the man scrambled, suddenly defensive. "The boy," he said coldly. "We will bring the boy back to his mother, or you will return to yours, in a box."

The man's eyes shuffled around the room, to each of us, in a circle, until he realized Dawud was the only one playing any kind of ball at all. He raised his hands and stood up slowly, "All right, all right. They'll have taken him to a safe house. I can point to it on a map."

The safe house was a klick and half away, so we had plenty of time to contemplate the possibilities. Troy started with: "Well, it's not any fortification we know about."

"Course, if I had a dime for every patrol that's stumbled on a new fortification, or a trap, or an IED, all without being pointed towards it-" Dartsman didn't even try to finish; none of us wanted to hear it.

After a long, cold silence, Dawud spoke up. "I do not think it's a trap." His voice was trembling, but there was a certain kind of conviction that made it more convincing. "I've been lied to, misled, and I've heard the truth. I do not think he lied." Nobody said anything else until we arrived.

The tip seemed legit. The apartment safe house opened into a side door that led to an alley, and was respectably defensible. The only thing even a little odd about it was that it was so perfectly suited to being a safe house.

We got in for a closer look, and through binoculars we could see inside the place; it was well lit, without curtains. "I don't think they're Mahdi."

Dawud took a look. "I agree. Mahdi are not so stupid. They do not even have a sentry. But the boy, I cannot see the boy." Which meant he couldn't just call in his cavalry, so we had to stay off book.

I hesitated a moment before speaking. "Okay. That just confirms that we need to go as soft as we can. If they push we hit back hard, but if we can get by with a show of overwhelming force then we do it that. And there are probably civvies in the surrounding apartments, so even if it comes to shove, keep it tight, three rounds center mass. Dawud, you stay behind us. You're a cop, but this is what we do for a living, and this is no time for amateur hour."

Dawud shook his head. He was a detective, not SWAT. He didn't want to be at the front any more than we wanted him there.

Troy led, because he's the best with a lock pick. Dawud recognized the lock on the door, a standard one, "Simple, to pick," he said.

Troy had barely hunched over when there was noise at the front door, "... night. My wife will be anxious to have me home." Then the knob quickly snapped around and the door opened. The man's smile faded as he stared down the barrel of Troy's shotgun mounted underneath his M4.

Dartsman yanked him by the collar out into the space between buildings, zip-tied him and threw him at Dawud's feet.

"The boy," he asked, "where is the boy?" The man's eyes flicked excitedly from Dawud to Dartsman, still hovering over him, and the M4 in his hands. Dartsman removed a grenade from his webbing, and slid the lever underneath the man's collar and put his finger on the pin.

Then Dartsman pulled out his best Chris-Tucker-five-octaves-lower impression and said, "Motherfucker I will give you a frag necktie."

"No no no, no no no," the man said hurriedly. "Boy, upstairs."

"What about guns?" Dawud asked. "Are there any guns?"

"Guns, yes," the man said, nodding vigorously.

"But do they carry them, are they armed?"

"Armed? Armed, no. Guns, they keep in back, in kitchen."

"How many are inside?"

"Four, with me. Three now."

Before we could ask any more questions, we heard a man from inside saying, "Born in a damned barn, can't shut a damned door to save his-" he stopped as he recognized the glint of light off of gun barrels. His eyes darted back into the apartment, but as his eyes adjusted, he realized they were pointed to him, so he stepped slowly out of the apartment.

Troy zip-tied him, too, and we left them both with Dawud. I stood on the steps, Troy and Dartsman were close enough I could feel their breath. "On my go, 2, 1, go."

I moved right, towards the front of the house, where we had been able to see through the windows most clearly. We'd anticipated it would be clear, but you never want to just assume. Troy went left, aiming that under-barrel shotgun, knowing anything that got in its way would cease to be, a moment later. Dartsman hung back a moment, until I swung around to cover Troy's side, and then came in behind and between us.

"S'that-" Dartsman cut himself off, and we all realized we heard running water coming from what must have been a bathroom. A man came out, smiling wide, looking satisfied. He realized in slow motion that the front door was standing open, and U.S. Army was standing there with guns pointed on him. He rabbited.

"Got-" I was about to say, but Troy was already two steps ahead of me. He belted the runner in the back of the head with the butt of his M4, and the man slid into the kitchen like a runner stealing second.

Troy was first into the kitchen, and cleared it before we passed its threshold. He flipped the runner over. "Where's the fourth man?"

"Upstairs." Troy and Dartsman wasted a second exchanging a look; I was already moving for the stairs. I burst through the only door at the top. The fourth man was standing, holding the boy, with a large kitchen knife in his hand. At the sight of me he spun, putting the boy between us, but holding the knife half between the boy and himself and me and him.

Dartsman was a step behind me, and immediately aimed his M4 at the knife in the man's hand.

"Dartsman, you got the knife?" I asked.

"Oh yeah."

Troy entered the room; he probably remembered to zip-tie the man in the kitchen. "Troy, we clear of the next apartment?"

He leaned towards the window. "Unless the neighbor's really tall and standing on his roof."

"Take his hand off."

The bullet smashed through his forearm, smacked his hand against the wall, and the knife spun towards the floor, light slicing off it like a falling disco ball. The man fell to the ground and spent a moment cradling his wounded arm before realizing he was close enough to the knife to make a go for it; only in the second's pause, Troy moved closer, and put his boot down on the man's throat, and his rifle beside his head.

I stopped a moment, unable to move; unable, really, to not see Zakaria in his son. I realized he was terrified; I told him, "I knew your dad. He was a good man." The boy hugged my leg.

Dartsman zip-tied the last man, and they helped him to his feet. They marched him and the kitchen runner to Dawud. When he saw that the boy was all right, still clinging to me, he smiled. "Praise to Allah you're safe."

After the first half klick, Zakaria's son climbed up in my arms; Dartsman carried my M4. When we got to his home, Dartsman and Troy started in on a joint excuse about where they had to be. "No," I said; "you wanted in on this, you're going to see it through."

I knocked on the door, and Zakaria's wife answered. Her eyes were swollen and red, but they lit up instantly when she saw her child looking sleepily at her. "Mommy?" he asked as they reached out for each other, and she took him into her arms. After a long moment, she realized she wasn't strong enough to hold him up as long as she wanted, and had to set him down, where he hugged her knee.

She turned to us and said, "Dinner is cold, but I must insist you let me warm it for you." After twenty minutes, she emerged from the kitchen with several dishes approximating an American Christmas dinner; there was even a subdued red and green color scheme to the decorations in the dining room.

We were waiting as she served up dessert when Troy, who often doesn't have the common sense God gave to ferrets, said, "I'm surprised to see you celebrating Christmas."

Zakaria's wife smiled indulgently. "We respect the People of the Book, and believe in the Book and in the miraculous birth of Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. We disagree with claims of his divinity, but he is still a Prophet of Allah. And those who follow him, whether they realize it or no, too follow Allah. We are family, more than you realize."

Troy smiled pleasantly as her words and the flavors of her dessert washed over him. Then he said, "Neat. Can I have another slice of pie?"

Table of Contents

# Quarter

My dad was a liberal, the kind who thought we should cut the military budget. Hell of a thing to hear, as a kid, your old man ranting about how 5% of the world's population shouldn't be paying 40% of the world's defense tab- especially when there are deficits. He always thought having that big, bloated military budget was why every generation we seemed to get into another war.

They cut our budget down to a fourth of what it was, increased cooperation with NATO countries in R & D. Functionally our military became targeted to short-term ops, and consisted almost entirely of special ops.

I don't know if dad was right or not, but I've heard it compared like this: our old military was a shield- meant to act as a deterrent, but the new, lean military was more like a sword- where you had to use it to show that the sword- a good offense- could be just as effective as the shield- the good defense- had been. It means the active duty army we've got are active 68% of the time; we actually have a deployment schedule, now.

We don't operate foreign bases, either, so we have to stay with the locals, often in private homes. Sometimes the locals don't like that, but usually a call to the local cops gets it sorted. It feels a little... un-American, doing that, because of the third amendment, though I guess any time we're in country it's kind of war time, isn't it? And most of the time we're only in country to help the locals, and usually at the request of their government.

Though that's not why we're in Myanmar, or Burma, if you want to piss off the junta. And I guess we're kind of here to piss off the junta. On the 40th anniversary of the 1988 protests, the junta cracked down on protestors- hard. But this time video phones and social network sites spread the message before it could be spun; we were just winding down a mission on the Pakistan-Afghani border, so we were in the neighborhood.

Burma's taken prisoners, that they're holding without trial. My dad sent me a ranty email about an old base called Guantanamo and reaping the whirlwind- I love him but he's a throaty old bastard- and I have more important things to worry about than whether we're historical hypocrites. The Lady of Burma's been dead a while, though the junta swear up and down she died of natural causes (though they're always pretty vague on what nature did to her). No, we're here to loose the so-called revolutionary leaders, which from our intel are mostly a group of old Buddhist monks and a few upper middle class merchants.

The Burma mission's important in another way, because it marks the ten year anniversary of our organ harvesting program. Basically, anyone KIA, ours or theirs, forfeit their organs. It saves our country, annually, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives. Dad says it's "sick, but, you know, practical." We give half to the local hospitals, and medevac the other half back to the states. The last few years we've actually run what the State Department called an "organ surplus," where we sold organs to other countries- not enough that we're self-sufficient yet, but if the curve continues, we will be in six years' time.

I'm marginally in charge, but since I don't speak the language it doesn't feel like it. On short notice, the Company couldn't get us a direct English to Burmese translator, so everything from the translator's going through our med officer who speaks Chinese (though he tells me there are a lot of similarities, so at least he might be able to tell if the translator's jerking us around). Dad still bitches that we don't use electronic translators (because "it's the goddamned future, damnit"), but after we almost started an old-fashioned shooting war in Taiwan with those, the Pentagon says we use real people.

At least the Company translator isn't a complete coward- I've had a few, like that one in Libya, where the after first shots were fired he tried to run; of course, standing up and presenting a broad target to an enemy soldier is nearly guaranteed to get you killed- and nobody outruns a bullet. Honestly, we lucked out that in that skirmish- the opposing commander spoke broken English, because it meant he could surrender when the time came for it, and we ended up dragging him around for the rest of our trip; he wasn't such a bad guy, for an asshole.

Our translator, this time, stayed with us, and when we made our first contact he did exactly as we did, got behind cover, and then he watched and he waited for orders, same as the rest. It was a hastily crammed together checkpoint; the junta probably got wind we were blowing through this way, and tried to muster some farce of a resistance; they probably think we're French or Portuguese, because I doubt they'd throw bodies at the US.

I felt bad returning fire, because these poor stupid fuckers aren't our enemies; they might not be our friends, either, but taking apart some local police and army for no good reason doesn't feel right. At least they're volunteer, not conscripts. But the battle was over almost before it started.

One of the Tatmadaw, the name for their military, opened fire too soon. Not only were we too far out of range for a decent shot, but they hadn't finished setting up their .50 cal, and it gave up their position. We returned fire, slowly advancing, and we hadn't even spun off a force to flank them when it was done. One of theirs took a 5.56 through the chin and smacked pavement, and the others thought it a good idea to do the same, sans bullet.

We hustled the rest of the way down the street. The barrier was even more pathetic than it looked from a block away, just a parked car and a bunch of trash piled up around it in a narrow alleyway.

Maloney was just behind me in hopping over the barrier. Maloney's new, just added to us for the trip to Afpak. He got into some shady shit there, not fiendish, but I got the sense he was dipping a toe in to see how the water was, and I was starting to suspect the reason he got transferred to me in the first place was because he was an asshole.

There were three guards kissing concrete, and Maloney stooped over the one bleeding, with his field knife out- I assumed to render assistance- but Maloney jabbed it in the bullet hole and sliced from exit wound to entry wound, sawing through his throat in the process.

I grabbed Maloney by the webbing and smashed him into the wall; one of the guards panicked, thinking we were all prisoner executing psychopaths, reached for his gun, and got the butt of an M4 into his cheek for it from Smithson. "Sir?" Maloney asked, with a grin that said he knew what the fuck he'd done, but thought he could pass it as some kind of monkeyshines. "State of medicine around here, he likely would have died from that. And that body, that's a quarter of a million dollars worth of transplants, just lying there."

I let him go, and turned to walk away. Maloney picked up his knife, and started back towards the body. "Leave it," I told him, and turned back to him, "and if you pull this shit again I'll shoot you myself."

I hate being in a country like Burma. Times aren't as high in the US as my dad says they were when he was young, but you don't see poverty, real poverty, like they have in Burma. And the fucked up part is the country's actually been doing comparatively well. The last twenty years their government opened up, and their economy's been on the mend- so it's still this bad after getting better.

And it doesn't help that this is after the protests, which were attacked by the military, and became full-fledged riots. Broken glass and windows everywhere, bombed out husks of cars; it feels like we're back in Israel. I hate being in Israel; you never know when someone's going to shoot somebody else.

It's getting late. We can't storm the base they're holding the prisoners in at night. So we found a neighborhood not far from our path.

Convincing people to let US soldiers not sanctioned by their government stay in their homes is about the right combination of patience, caution and intimidation. Leave one of those out and they're likely to go fetch the local police while you sleep, but this translator seemed prepared for the eventuality. He knew of a place in the poorer section of town, and I had to do little more than stare at the patriarch as they negotiated to be sure it got done right. "He would appreciate $200 American dollars, please," the translator eventually said, and I began to wonder how much more English he might speak. But $200 was a good amount- low enough that it wasn't a token to prove he was cooperating before turning us in, though not so high that he was obviously reluctant to house us at all (and would probably turn us in anyway), and I had more than enough petty cash on me.

I was on the third watch, and it was 1:15 exactly when I heard a gasp, just a little too loud. I figured one of the men had shacked up with one of the daughters, and I was going to have to slap the shit out of him for compromising the mission (to say nothing of our safety). But as I walked through the house, only one light was on, inside the father's room. I cracked the door. Maloney had opened up the old man's throat, and the old man was trying vainly to hold it shut and breathe.

I froze for a moment, as if by not opening the door, maybe the old man might not die, that by remaining in the hall, that second of time might stay unbroken, but he fell quietly onto his bed. I shoved the door open, and Maloney's head snapped in my direction, and I put a bullet through it. In that moment, I didn't think about it, but it hit dead center forehead, so we could harvest his eyes.

There was some commotion in the house, but apparently gunfire was not an unusual occurrence, and after a few soothing words from the interpreter everybody went back to bed. It wasn't until 2:00, Smithson's turn on watch, that anyone came into the old man's room. "You're on duty," I told him, "I'll finish up here." Smithson understood, looked at Maloney, then to the old man, and shook his head.

At sunrise Smithson went out to scout the base; by then I'd finished harvesting the old man and Maloney, and had Smithson drop off the organs at the nearest hospital in the family's name. He came back with a fairly substantial check, but some bad news. Apparently, the junta had used its powers to conscript several thousand of the village locals overnight- men who didn't even know how to hold a rifle right, let alone aim it well.

By then, the women of the house had begun making breakfast. The men wanted to stay to eat, until I told them what had happened. There wasn't a one of them that would rather stay for what happened when the women found out one of our own had murdered their father, husband, or grandfather. So we set off on foot, hungry and pissy.

None of us were looking forward to a firefight with civilians, but we hadn't made it much past a fifth of a mile before we got the call in. Apparently, news of the conscription had gone out on the internet media, and the protests gained a lot of ground, up from one in four protesting to only one in four not.

Our Company contact said the generals had pretty much no choice but to let the prisoners go, since many of the conscripts had left in the early morning hours; apparently Maloney's bullshit at the barricade scared a bunch of them. That psycho inadvertently saved lives. Still, the only thing I regret about shooting him was not doing it sooner.

Table of Contents

# Werehouse

My cousin Amy has never been completely right. But she was always happy to see me, and in my family, that's pretty special. So I never really asked what wasn't right about her; we got along fine, so what did it matter?

So I was out of the loop when she ended up on the streets. Another cousin, Ben, mentioned that he was going looking for her, and that was the first I heard. The next time was a couple months later, and Ben told me he'd found her and taken her home, and she just went back on the streets. She was legally an adult, so she couldn't be forced to stay home.

But her family was worried (or at least parts of the family were). There'd been a few deaths lately downtown, pretty violent, pretty gruesome. You know how they always say murders and suicides spike when there's a full moon? Well, these were all happening when the moon was full.

Local police had only managed to keep the feds out of it this long because the MO of the murders was so varied. The kinds of slashes, even the weapons and the aggressiveness, seemed to indicate completely different people. And the cops said they had unknown DNA from the scene that didn't match the victims, and was different from scene to scene.

And I maybe wouldn't have ever got involved, except my mom ran into her at the farmer's market, and they got into it; I guess she thought my mom was there to drag her home like Ben had. But it scared my mom, and she and Ben talked me into trying to sort it all out. They thought Amy might listen to me where she wouldn't to other people; maybe because I'd never treated her like she was any different from the rest of us (and I admit that was mostly because I don't know how different that might have been).

I'd worked my way through school doing security work, and you'd be amazed how many eventual law enforcers start out there. I knew half a dozen people with ties to that community- mostly corrections, but enough that I got a few minutes with the detective leading the case.

"We haven't put it in the papers, yet- mostly because the moment we do, the feds will have to take the case from us, but the people who turned up dead got robbed. Not just muggings, I mean their cars go missing, and before the body's found their homes get broken into, too. It's scary how quick and clean it is. But our boss has political ambitions- and he'd like to be able to hand the feds a nice thick steak of a file instead of the pile of sliced bologna we have- his words. Personally, I think the man should worry less about running for office and more about a coronary bypass- but I'm just a lowly homicide detective- ain't my job to save people, just to figure out what killed them."

I left enough of a pause to sound like I gave a crap about him or his boss, then said, "I know from the papers most of the victims have come from the park downtown. My cousin's homeless, been hanging around down there during the days."

"You think he's involved?"

"No, no, and my cousin's a she. No. She might smack somebody around if she thought they were getting in her face, but this, no."

"Well, you've got another week and a half, if this freak keeps to pattern. After that we're probably going to have to hand it over to the feds, anyway. You could try looking into the Warehouse, though. That's where most of the homeless down there sleep."

"The Warehouse?"

"Yeah. Not an official name or anything, but it used to be a warehouse for, I don't know, a couch company that went out of business or something, but it was renovated and turned into a homeless shelter. People call it the Warehouse, still, only," he hesitated, but knew there wasn't any turning away from it, "only now instead of housing furniture nobody wants it's a place we store people nobody wants."

"Hmm." I said, and after a moment I got up. He muttered an embarrassed goodbye, and I nodded as I left.

It seemed at the time, and seems more so now, to be a crackpot idea, but I had literally nothing else I could think of. So I dressed in my crappiest clothes and got on a bus downtown.

I'd expected something shabby, industrial and foreboding, but the Warehouse had as its entrance a large three-story home, perhaps originally corporate offices; its namesake had been attached at a later time to the backside of the property. I shambled nervously up the steps, and a man who I couldn't be sure if he worked or lived there asked, "First time?"

I was nervous, and couldn't look him in the face. "Yes."

"I know that look. Looked the same way when I first got here. Come on." He set down a wrench on the windowsill and waved for me to follow him. He took me into the building, past a secretary, who he called "Clarice," and acknowledged with a nod, and led me down a hall to a staircase. He took me to the top and pointed down a thin hallway. "Last door at the end. Boss likes to meet new people, talk to them about the rules, get them settled." Then he disappeared back down the stairs before I could realize I never got his name.

I walked slowly to the door, and had finally gotten up the courage to knock when a voice from inside intoned, "Come in." I did, and was immediately greeted by a man standing behind a desk. From his posture, he must have been looking past the warehouse towards the river through the window behind his chair. "I thought I heard Hector, and that usually means a new guest. Hector used to be a tenant here; now he takes care of the day to day. Caroline is technically in charge, but she's more of what you might call a public relations person. But where are my manners. My name's Howard."

He was a tall, thin man with a mildly receding hairline (masked somewhat by a short cut); he seemed to have an accent, though I couldn't place it, and it only existed every few words, and only for a moment. He stretched out a bony hand for me to take, and I did.

His hand was warm in the palm but cold at the fingertips. I stammered out, "I don't want to be a burden. I have skills. I-I want to be useful- however that might work. Computers, communication, a little security work."

He sighed, and looked down towards the warehouse, where a dozen disheveled homeless people were milling about. Some were talking, and laughing, but a few were silent, staring at a world they could not touch.

"Everyone has skills. But I won't assume you meant to be patronizing; after all, you've only just fallen on hard times, and it's not uncommon to assume that the homeless really are just a gaggle of shiftless layabouts." He recognized, I think, that he had spoken too harshly, and his eyes softened noticeably. "I will take your offer under consideration, but I'd suggest, for your sake, that you put your abilities into looking for work. Allow yourself to entertain whatever prospects may come your way- many of the people here aren't fortunate enough to have that option. If you would like you can speak to Caroline about any assistance she might need."

I turned to walk out, but suddenly his voice became higher pitched, before lowering again "Oh, in ten days time, you'll be put out. I'm afraid we have festivities planned which cannot be made to accommodate you. I can see to it that you're fed, and can have a word with another of the local shelters if you want for a bed for the night."

My heart beat imperceptibly faster, and I waited until I'd closed his office door to breathe again, for fear I would betray myself. Ten days? At the full moon. But that had to be a coincidence.

I spent most of the next week fixing computers, which meant anything from formatting and installing a fresh OS to opening up a case to show Caroline, "Someone spilled hot chocolate with marshmallows in this; there are little white blobs burnt into the circuit board. It's dead." I also helped her with some coding for a blog that she was trying to set up to keep local donors and "friends of the shelter" up to date. Then one morning I came into her office and she said, "That's it, you've fixed all our computers. You're now useless to me."

For several days after I became useless, I shadowed Hector, and assisted with manual repairs. I hadn't done that kind of work since I'd helped my father tear out our kitchen- and I had still been too young for him to trust me with anything more complicated than pulling out the old boards and mortar.

I saw my cousin once, at lunch, but when I tried to walk over to her, a man whose head and face was covered in gray whiskers stepped between us. I think his name was Bill. "No cutting in line," he said, poking a crooked finger into my chest.

I tried to push past him. "I don't care about the line," was all I got out before he shoved me. I stumbled over a chair and smacked my face into a folding table. One man helped me up, and by then Bill was being held back by several others who were trying to calm him down. Amy was already gone.

It was the day of the full moon when Bill sat down beside me at breakfast. "Sorry," he said quietly, "about the other day. I'm not always in my own head. Sometimes I just have to watch myself be crazy." He slid his chair closer to mine, and his voice got quieter.

"I know you have to leave tonight- everyone knows." As if on cue, I noticed several sets of watchful eyes flick over me, then away as they realized they'd been noticed. "Do yourself a favor- never come back. Bad things happen to those who stay." I might have entertained it as a threat, but Bill looked up from his tray and his eyes were earnest and a pale blue, and I knew, at the least, he believed what he was telling me.  
"What if I've no place else to go?"

"There's other shelters," he whispered, "but you know that." With a speed that frightened me, he grabbed my hands and rubbed them with the pads of his fingers. "Your hands are still soft. Whatever work you done, you've done it long and well enough you ain't worked as hard as you have the last week. You don't belong here. I ain't the only one to think so. There's nothing but danger here for you. You oughta get while you can- is the last advice you'll get out of me." The old man abruptly released my hands, and picked up his tray and walked away.

I didn't know what to make of it. But I didn't get much of a chance to, either. That night I packed up the things I brought, namely an old fraying backpack filled with clothes, and left the shelter. I returned less than a half hour later, skulking through the shadows. I didn't even make it through the front door before Hector, far stronger than he looked, seized me by the collar and led me in. "Hector? It's me," I stammered as he led me through the empty lobby. He didn't speak, just kept pushing me, holding my collar at such a height and angle I couldn't resist, down the hall, up the stairs. I wriggled to break free, but all I managed to do was dig my shirt deeper into my neck.

He pushed the door at the end of the upstairs hall open with my face, and with enough force that I thought he would throw me inside, but he didn't let go. Howard was looking out of his window, down towards the warehouse. "Ah, there you are. I was beginning to think you'd lost your nerve. Hector, if you'd be so kind as to bring him to the window."

Hector walked me like an awkward marionette, kicking my ankles whenever I didn't move my feet fast enough. "Now, normally, we don't leave the doors open like that, but it's for your benefit." The yard below was lit by an unseen moon, hidden behind clouds. Inside the warehouse I could see a man, one I thought I recognized- I think he was the one who helped me up in the cafeteria. He was lashed to a big wooden "X" in the middle of a circle of the homeless.

"I can't expect you to understand, frankly; ours is an old culture, very foreign from yours. Lionel, who's tied to the cross- and I'm not certain you've met-is an object lesson." Bill, the old man covered in graying whiskers, looked up in our direction. Howard nodded, and Bill produced a long, thin knife. He held it beside Lionel's neck, then shoved the blade into the center just behind the trachea and pulled forward, tearing out his throat in a torrent of blood.

Lionel's face twisted, beyond the contortions of pain. The skin of his face stretched taut, then broke at the edges of the mouth, and his blood ran down his cheeks and chin, tributaries into the rivers pouring out of his neck. His nose pressed forward out of his skull, causing his face to take on a bestial silhouette; it was very much the image of a wolf trying to force itself through a drum of flesh, until suddenly the last vestige of life poured out of his cut throat, and the beast subsided, leaving his human appearance intact as his head fell forward.

"What do you know of wolves who look like men?" Howard asked, then looked at me, and realized I was too stunned to reply (though I suspect his question was largely rhetorical, anyway). "Then I suppose you've never heard of a Vargulf. Wolves need blood for the monthly ceremony of Lykaia; without it, they turn, and lose all reason, and sanity. Wolves kill for this blood. A Vargulf is a wolf who did not join in the Lykaia. They are driven mad by the moon. They do not simply kill without discriminating- they essentially kill for the joy of murder; you might use the term rabid as a touchstone, but it's far more insidious than that."

"I don't know that I'd put much faith in Ovid's interpretation of our genesis, but we are cursed. We change with the seasons and the moon. We take no joy in death or the destruction we wreak, But we try to minimize our impact. You may have noticed certain... eccentricities already amongst us. We prey upon those who are unfortunate; they are often not among man's pristine specimens. But those who survive the ceremony become one of us- they become family. But when someone who is unstable is transformed into a beast, what else could you think the outcome would be but unstable beasts? We are cautious, and attempt to keep the urges of the pack in check- but there are always exceptions. Broken people who break things."

"Lionel below was one such person. He was the source of the murders recently. Certain others were profiting off the deaths beside him- but they will be dealt with less harshly." He stopped, and ran his tongue across his teeth; I realized they seemed sharper, and I was compelled to look up at the moon. It was hidden behind a thinning sheaf of fog, but every moment its features became more prominent as the condensation before it faded. Howard's clean-shaven face was already peppered with long whiskers that I'd have sworn I could see growing.

"But I believe the real reason you were ever here to begin with was Amy. You smell like her- just a little."

Amy came into the room. She made quick, intermittent movements, like a chicken. "Hey cous," she said, and the way she emphasized it made the word sound like a swearword- but she'd always talked like that, and moved like that, too. Really, the only thing that had changed at all was she'd put on a little weight, so the quick movements seemed a little more forceful and intimidating.

Standing beside her was Danny, her husband. He was trying to be coldly impartial- though we'd met a few times before, and he seemed pleasant, apologetic, even, as if he had to explain the forceful turn in Amy. But now he was watching her, and Howard, subordinate to them.

Howard mused: "Perhaps we could let you go. Having seen a functioning social element here, perhaps we could rely on your discretion. But we'd never know. How many cycles would it be before you counted the waning moons and decided we'd taken too many victims, that your conscience could no longer handle the strain? Four? Seven?"

"Ultimately, the question is one of survival. Lionel, by breaking our laws, was a threat to our pack- and now, so are you. You are an unfortunate case, too, because you're an intruder; we can't simply turn you and hope for interdependence. You still have friends, and resources beyond these walls. But beyond any other considerations, however, tonight is the Lykaia, and we need the blood sacrifice."

My eyes widened. "But Lionel-"

"Lionel was one of us- and a Vargulf besides; his blood would merely infect others, and those untainted would become Vargulf for want of the proper ceremony." He turned to Amy. "You should say your goodbyes."

There was the hint of tears in her eyes, though her plump face was becoming more elfin, the fine blond hairs on her face thickening and darkening. "I'm sorry- but you made me choose between the family I want, and the family I didn't." She turned away from me, and said to her husband, "Make it quick."

He was only barely recognizable as a man beneath the elongated bones in his face, and the thick hair sprouting over his skin, but his eyes failed to keep his stoic vigil.

"Sorry," he said, and put his hand on my shoulder, and his teeth around my throat.

Table of Contents

# Atlas Dug Up

Before you ask, and everybody does, Ayn is pronounced like "mine." But this is less my story, than his: his name is William Edward Hickman. I'm sure that name conjures up all manner of degeneracy, including the death of Marion Parker. I became fascinated with him at the same time as the general populace, lured into his circle of infamy by the newspaper coverage of his ordeal. One quote in particular drew me to him: "What is good for me is right."

I struck up a correspondence with him. Because his "crime" was committed in Los Angeles, he was to be tried there. I suggested, due to the barbarity of it, that he attempt an invalid's plea under the new statutes; I imagined that he might take offense to this, and so I ended my suggestion by saying, "What is good for you must be right."

In our letters, I discovered he was born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness, absolutely lacking a social instinct or herd feeling. He had no organ for understanding the necessity, meaning or importance of other people. They did not exist for him and he could not understand why they should. He was the prototypical Nietzschean Superman, and I found once his trial began that I could no longer abide my existence so far removed from him, so I began to visit.

His lawyer vainly attempted to pin the murder of the 12 year old girl on an accomplice- one who it turns out had been in prison at the time of the kidnapping. When arguments were concluded the jury met a scant 43 minutes; they decided to hang him for his "crime."

Awaiting his execution, we sought permission from the prison to wed, but they would not release him for a formal ceremony. I was able to pass the marriage certificate to Ed through the chaplain, but it returned without a witness' signature, and when I tried to pass the document through again it disappeared. I think the guards were trying to stop me from becoming a widow.

I was present at his hanging. He'd told me in his last letter that he "didn't fear death, and didn't believe there was anything after that to fear." They hauled him up to the platform, and he wasn't standing on his own anymore; even before the trap fell from beneath him and he dangled from the rope around his neck. Then the trap fell, and his body with it, and I swear over the sound of the rope, and the creak of it against wood, that I heard his neck snap, and my heart with it.

There was a "service" for him after that. The state was putting him in the ground, and I knew there'd be nothing but people spitting on him in attendance. No matter what he did, there's something loathsome in the virtuous indignation and mass-hatred of the public; it's repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives virtuously condemning a "criminal." I couldn't bear to see it, so I retired home.

I could not sleep that night. Thoughts of Ed lying in the mud, waiting for decay... he was too beautiful to simply let rot. I dressed myself and set out into the night without purpose beyond action; something needed must be done. I drove to the county cemetery. There was an old gravedigger working by lamplight, and I knew instinctively whose grave he was filling up.

I told him to reverse course, but all he said was the county paid him to put a body in the dirt, not bring it back up. I pushed my pistol, a pistol I'd bought to defend myself, into his neck and he didn't say any more, just started digging again. After a half an hour he collapsed. Digging up was harder than pushing dirt in a hole, he said, and I couldn't stomach his weakness, so I took the shovel from him and pushed him aside. He claimed he was feeling faint and lay down in the grass and was soon asleep.

But I continued to dig until I hit wood. The box Ed lay in was more crate than coffin, and they had not bothered to nail the lid in place, so mud had filled it in. I finished the digging with my fingers so as not to cause him damage, but when I reached his arms I discovered with horror that they had been severed at the elbow. Further down, I found that his body from the hips below was missing, and his organs cored out.

I hefted the husk of Ed's body into the trunk, and covered it with a blanket. I felt a pang in my heart; it was not enough to have unearthed a part of him- so long as he was incomplete so would I be.

I knew the guard in charge of solitary prisoners, where Ed was kept before his murder; I had initially tried to convince him to pass our marriage certificate. He had said that Ed was his responsibility until he was in the ground. I drove to the pub where I'd first arranged to meet him, and he was at his usual stool.

I used my feminine enterprises to convince the young guard into a car, and only then did I show him my pistol, at which point he told me everything. After the hanging the body was spirited away, where members of the police and the Parker family mutilated it.

They'd tossed portions of the corpse, including his limbs, in Elysium Park, the same park where Ed scattered Marion's remains. The guard drove me to the spot and helped me to locate most of his various pieces, but inevitably some were missing. And I realized then this didn't matter, because what remained of Ed would have returned to me a cripple, mangled and beaten, and I seized upon the idea that here, in the young and guilty guard, lay the solution. I shot him through the throat, taking care to avoid any damage to the spine. His body was heavier than Ed's, but I drug it to the trunk, and piled on top of it the other remains we'd discovered.

By sunrise the three of us in our various states of disrepair were back in my apartment. Exhausted from my labors, I fell into the bed, where I had also lain the remains, and slept soundly.

When I awoke, I bathed the remains with a cloth and alcohol, and began in my mind to dissect Edward; certainly I wanted to have care to preserve as fully his body as could be, and to use the guard for parts only where necessary, but this in practice took considerable planning. I started by cutting away the rough, torn areas of flesh, and when I was done set about piecing together the arms.

The legs were another matter, and I decided to remove wholesale the upper torso of the guard and preserve as much of the lower limbs as possible, since several portions of Edward's original legs had been picked clean by scavenging animals before I discovered them. This also meant inserting the spine and organs into Ed's torso- but only after carefully cutting out those that had been left clinging to his ribs.

Now, taking great care, I sewed the pieces together, having pains to connect arteries and line up nerves with their severed endings. By sunset it was accomplished, but I felt that there was still some lacking; I had preserved as best I could the majority of Ed and the guard's blood, but his cheeks were still pallid. I had once given blood to a wounded relative in my family's pharmacy in Russia, and rigged together a similar system to transfuse the body. I stopped when I began to be dizzy, and only barely managed to close my own cut before I passed out.

I cleared away the last few pieces of the guard, but still, there was a lifelessness to Ed that I found unnerving. I remembered reading of experiments made by Prevost and Batelli on dogs with electricity and the heart, and now I could not contain my curiosity. I tore the cord from my reading lamp and placed positive and negative ends to the right and left of his chest; his body arched as his glorious muscles flexed. I removed the current, and for a moment I dreamed that his body still twitched as if alive again.

My long day had drained once again my vitality. I decided to fall again back into bed, and curled around Ed, now complete, and even though he was cold, I felt warm in his arms.

I woke near to midnight. I believed I'd felt his hand squeeze my arm. I put the thought aside, and was nearly back to sleep when again he squeezed me, and this time I turned to him and perceived his eyes staring at me- following me. I whispered his name, and pressed myself to him and his breath came out, heavy, and something in that sigh was exhilarating, perhaps for the mere sake that for the first since I'd written him, our bodies were in proximity to one another.

I kissed him, and he responded. I will forego the lurid details, except to say that, mid-coitus, he wrapped his hands around my throat; I quite liked that: a man in control, of his destiny, of me.

The entire time, he did not speak, and afterward, lying in his embrace, I began to wonder if he could, or if his time in the dirt had robbed him off some of his higher faculties, until he whispered in my ear, "Ayn mine," and squeezed me possessively, and I thought it might not be so wrong to be possessed like this.

Quickly our lives settled. There was a slight prick of interest from the police, who knew that I had tried to marry Ed, but rumors of his mutilation and subsequent treatment by the police hushed the investigation of that and the guard's disappearance. I continued to write for the Hollywood studios, toiling in my obscurity. Ed returned to the work he did well, subtle robberies and cons.

He showed how impossible it was for a genuinely beautiful soul to succeed in our present day, as in all modern life one has to be a hypocrite, to bend and tolerate. Ed demanded sovereignty of himself- he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule, and unable to obey, when he deserved to command.

It was blissful. Then, come the spring, Ed brought someone home. A girl, younger than me, and I thought, perhaps, she reminded me of Marion- or at least the black and white photograph of her from the paper. And my disapproval must have shown on my face, because he looked to me, stared into me, and then he shrugged.

And for an instant, I became afraid I had idealized Ed, that he might not be everything I believed him to be, and in truth he most likely isn't. But it does not make any difference, because if he isn't, he could be, and that's enough, and it is likely mere jealousy. And do I deserve even to be jealous, or more importantly, do I deserve to have Edward only for myself?

She came and went over the better part of the summer, and in that same span his interest in me began to wane, until one afternoon, after she'd left for her home, I asked him, "Why did you kill Marion Parker?"

He paused to think a moment. "It was a dual force, I think, the impulse to harm anyone I care for, and a desire to execute a master crime." He had, he explained, labored for the majority of his life in petty crimes, but he had decided to strike out at the plain mediocrity of this very average society. Initially, he had envisioned a grand scheme, with the ransom money as seed for a larger, wider plot; but he admitted underestimating the police, and the abhorrence of a public unused to having its laws flouted- outraged at the audacity of one man to live as he pleased. I wondered aloud when his crimes would return to their former extravagance, and he became wounded; I had not guessed that his "death" had chastened him, but his reaction was transparent.

A few days passed, and I rarely saw him save when we shared our bed, until I came home to find him there, with that girl again. By that point he had already cut away her limbs, and was tearing the entrails out of her chest. Calmly, I asked the girl's name- I thought it only proper- but he would only call her Marion, though I thought it preposterously unlikely that was actually the case.

I should have been disgusted, and perhaps somewhere I was; but I was thrilled, because his interests in her had been different- no more a competitor of me than the air he also needed.

But for several days her body remained in the apartment, where I'd first found him and it in our bed, and when finally I asked the purpose it served he claimed he had been waiting for the proper mood. He kissed me, and at the beginning I did not question his meaning, but then he began to choke me with one hand, and in the other, choke the lifeless body of his second Marion.

I continued to kiss him, but unlike at other times his grip did not slacken, but tightened. My lungs burned for lack of air. "Please" I managed to squeeze out. I tried to open my eyes, and realized I had never shut them, that I was blacking out. I fumbled at the nightstand, for the lamp, since repaired, that had brought him to me, and I smashed it into his skull.

He lay on the bed, as he had when I'd first finished sewing him back together; the only signal of his life poured liberally from his temple, and my heart bled in kind. This brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy turned into a purposeless monster. But by whom? By what? Yes, he is a monster now. But the worse must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn't it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to outbalance degeneracy in his eyes? I felt disgust well in me as I raised the lamp one final time to right society's wrong, and put my Atlas back in the ground.

Table of Contents

# Blood Falls

_The following was found written in pencil in a small snow cave 70 yards from the Blood Falls base camp in Antarctica._

My name is Henry Bentham, and I've been a biologist for fifteen years. I've known Charlie Astrid most of my adult life. So his text message of a few weeks ago had all the immediacy of a telegram: "Taylor Glacier cave-in, Blood Lake exposed. Expedition!"

Charlie was an extremophile-phile, the weirder and more resistant the organism the more excitable he became. I tried to convince him, back when it still mattered, to get into marine biology- under the sea there are creatures that survive in and near volcanic vents, who survive extreme cold and extreme pressure. At the time I thought he wanted to share classes with me, but he later explained that it was the fast evolutionary turnover that turned Charlie into an extremophile microbiologist.

We'd talked about Blood Falls, a constantly running spigot from an underground lake sealed tight by a glacier from outside influence for nearly 2 million years. There were microorganisms living in that lake, thought to be responsible for the blood-red color of the water in the falls, evolving independently, sealed off from the rest of the world in one of the most inhospitable corners of the world. This was his Valhalla, which was sort of funny, since the falls were very near to the Asgard mountain range. Charlie wanted desperately to study the falls, but had never gotten his chance, because they'd been explored time and again, samples taken time and again.

But when I called back, he explained how this was different: "The collapse has sectioned off about a third of the underground lake, and exposed it to the air. We have a unique experience to not just look at the piss seeping out of this lake's urethra, but we can stick our fingers in its guts and see what squirms out of the primordial ooze." Charlie already had funding lined up- he'd always had funding waiting for anything to justify a trip to the falls- but this was big- huge- this was a once in a species type of scientific event. I couldn't have said no if I'd wanted to.

As our expedition ramped up, more and more donor money flowed in, and with more money came further expediting, until after what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time we were standing on the edge of the Antarctic ice shelf. I'd been to Antarctica once, spent a season in McMurdo. Charlie'd been here three times before, only once in an American base- he spent a summer at a Japanese station even though he speaks none of the language (80% of their staff spoke English- but still). Anne Ashworth was a geologist from the University of North Dakota, and our meteorologist was named Sam (he had enough of a speech impediment that I never could quite catch his last name). I never saw our guide outside his winter gear, but his name was Alex (though I can't honestly be sure Alex was a he- if he was, he had a slight frame, and one of those androgynous faces that, especially when covered by a parka and goggles made it impossible to know for sure).

We'd brought along Yamaha Vikings (I'd nearly fallen over laughing when one of the Finns who'd come along on the supply ship referred to the snowmobiles as "scooters"- though she didn't seem to understand what was so funny). I felt poorly for Scott and Amundsen and the rest, making the slog on foot, and we weren't going anywhere too near the pole. We made good enough time that we reached the site of the cave-in with time to set up our camp for the night. After we'd pitched our tents and secured our gear, my heart raced as we all started undressing, and I thought I'd definitively learn Alex's gender, but as he slid out of her parka and goggles he turned away. (S)he kept on enough layers that neither a masculine nor feminine frame became apparent.

The next morning we set out onto the ice. Alex was an experienced ice climber, and he (or possibly she) reminded us that we were practically walking on ice now, and to be accordingly cautious. That reminded me of my childhood, when my father had pulled my arm from the socket yanking me off a frozen lake we were playing on, for fear that we'd fall through. I asked Alex just how dangerous it was walking around on top of an already partially collapsed glacier. "Ridiculously," he said, with a laugh that truly terrified me.

Alex walked us through the basics of climbing, and we were beginning our approach of the cracked lip leading down to the lake when there was a loud crackling sound. "Shit," he said, "I'd hoped this wouldn't happen." We saw a crooked line of lightning flash through the ice beneath our feet, and then the world tilted. I was the farthest back towards the edge of the glacier as our section sheered off, and dug in my heels and flung myself at what was to be the new ledge. I swung my ice ax, and it caught, and for a long moment there was stillness, until the ice we'd been standing on smashed onto the icy floor some 400 meters below.

I took a moment to breathe, but knew I wouldn't be able to hold too long (or worse, have the strength to pull myself up). I couldn't gain traction with my boots. I smiled through a beard that always made me look older than I was, but thankfully protected from some of the cold, and told myself it was time to stop acting like a doddering old bastard and pull like a man, damnit (I was certainly nowhere near old enough to die for want of a pull-up). I gave one last good yank, and the ax shifted as I rolled over the edge and to relative safety.

I used the radio to call the ship, but they said the weather wouldn't allow for help just yet, and I looked at the sky and understood completely. Yesterday, Sam had told us the weather looked fine for the week; this morning he told us he'd been wrong, but that we should be able to batten down at base camp come nightfall and be fine. I was beginning to suspect Sam was an asshole, because the sky was already a dark gray, and I could tell that not a mile away, a harsh snow was falling, and getting closer.

But I knew that if anyone survived the fall down there, they wouldn't survive the snow- I had little choice but to climb down. Alex had been a good guide, and we had more than enough rope, even though our first anchor had slid down with the rest of our team. I set an anchor as far back as I could while still leaving enough rope to get down to the bottom.

The ice was nearly sheer, but I was cautious enough to move down slowly, chiseling out footholds that I knew would be my salvation on the trip back up. Less than a quarter of the way down snow began to pelt me, and I began making only one foothold every ten feet, then twenty, then fifty. My eyes were beginning to sting, and only then did I realize that I hadn't pushed my goggles down off my forehead. I was cursing my own stupidity as I slid them down, certain I would be of no use to anyone because I'd never reach the bottom alive, when I hit the knotted end of the rope, and could slide down no further.

I looked down, and the ground was eight feet below. Damned son of an overcautious bitch. I unhooked from the rope, and fell- I tried to roll, but my ankle caught a moment too long on the ice, and I sprained it as I tumbled. It hurt pushing myself back onto my feet, but I told myself I could still jump high enough to catch the rope- after all, I had to.

I saw Alex's body first, twisted horribly by the way he fell. He had sunk his ice ax into the ground at her feet, and held on until the ice broke in half, and the ax came loose with a four-foot chunk of ice. His hood and goggles had fallen back, but this only served to deepen the mystery that for all its inappropriateness now seemed all the more important. I peeled down his coat and checked for a pulse, and my imagination nearly convinced me to check beneath his clothes to be sure- until the full macabreness of the idea hit me.

The ice flow had fallen in a jagged pile of crystalline stone- not entirely unlike a collapsed building. Blood was beginning to pool along the edge of the fall, and as I followed it I was able to make out pieces of Sam and Anne's clothing underneath the rubble. I dug furiously, and was surprised to find how close they'd ended up together; but neither of them had a pulse, either.

Charlie. My heart stopped in my chest a moment. I knew he was probably dead, too, but scanning the collapse, I hadn't seen him. I turned around, and for the first time took in the beauty of the underground lake inside the glacier. The entire cavern glowed red from the reflected color of the water, and amid its milky ochre there was a spot of blackness, near to the shore- and I realized it was Charlie. I rushed down the snowy shore, not thinking then that it had been hours since the fall, not thinking that if I'd gotten myself soaked there was no way in all the hells I could have survived the climb back to the surface of the glacier. But I had slipped my Wellington boots over my climbing shoes before I dug out Sam and Anne, and the water never splashed over them.

I pulled Charlie up out of the water, dragged him up the shore to where it flattened out. I checked for a pulse, but there was none, so I started CPR. I gave him fifteen compressions, then two breaths- but there was water in his lungs, and they wouldn't go in. I was starting another round of compressions when Charlie's eyes opened wide, and he sat bolt upright.

He started to gag. "You have water in your lungs, and probably stomach," I said. "It needs to come up." I helped roll him onto his side, into a rescue position, and he started vomiting. Mixed with his food, it looked like blood and meat, and it rolled down the shallow incline towards the water. "I guess we've contaminated the uncontaminated pool," I said, and laughed though I didn't feel like laughing.

But Charlie was silent. "Charlie?" I put my hand on his shoulder, and when he didn't respond I shook him. "Charlie?" He put his hand on mine and squeezed it, and I let out a relieved sigh as my head rolled back. Snowflakes fell onto my forehead, and I suddenly realized how cold it all still was. "Charlie? Charlie, you need to get out of your clothes." He didn't move, but I walked back towards Alex. "Charlie, your clothes are soaked. You'll freeze to death if you don't get out of them." I stripped off Alex's outer layer, coat and pants, not even thinking anymore about what I'd pondered so much earlier. "Here, put these on. We're going to have to climb out of here. There's a storm, and we need to get to camp before we freeze."

Slowly he pushed himself off the ground, wiped the vomit from his cheek, and started to remove his clothes. I glanced back at Alex, wondering if some of her (his?) inner layers could be salvaged, but bodily fluids had already started to soak through them- which rather would have defeated the point of changing Charlie out of his wet clothes, so I removed some of my extra layers to share with him, and suddenly the world was much colder still.

"The rope is about eight feet off the ground. I think we should be able to jump up to it- I guess I could try carving some footholds if we can't. We should hurry- we're both in danger of freezing to death, now."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Wait. We/I did not know how to address you/use the meat puppet/Charlie to communicate." The voice was Charlie's, but wrong, like he was talking with a hand around his throat.

I turned. "Charlie, this is not funny and completely not the time."

"We/he was your friend. We- no, I, am sorry for his loss. I did not kill him. He had taken in too much fluid and cold. There was nothing I could do. I wanted to leave, and see the world away from the lake. But we had evolved to live here, without sunlight; I could survive outside, but would die without iron. Charlie has iron."

My eyes went wide as my mind raced. It had been hours since Charlie had ended up in that lake- he'd been dead for hours, either drowning or from the exposure. And it was then I noticed his veins and arteries, all of them, sticking up and out, not pulsing as blood flowed through them, but engorged, full. Had I not been holding the ice ax, anticipating our climb, perhaps I'd have reacted more diplomatically, but I swung the ax into the center of Charlie's chest, and he stumbled back. The wound didn't bleed, though there was a splash of orange ochre on the blade.

"Give me back ourselves." Charlie grabbed the ice ax from me, and another hand, orange-red like rust, extended out of the chest wound and touched the blade, slurping the red off the ax's edge.

I ran, and I knew instinctively that Charlie was behind me; there was no time for footholds, no time to pile up ice for a stool, so I simply leapt. I smashed face-first into the ice wall, and for a moment I thought that was where I would die, strangled by the corpse of my friend, but then the pain in my face and chest subsided, and the rope in my fingers registered. I pulled myself up, just as Charlie's fingers swiped at where I'd limply hung.

But even as I started my climb, I noticed the rope go taut- he'd managed to grab a hold of the end below me. As fast as the adrenaline made me climb, he seemed to gain on me. More than once he grabbed my boot, but could not keep hold as I kicked him- though not so much from a lack of strength as a certain unwieldiness.

Remarkably, I reached the top ahead of him by enough that I was able to unhook the anchor. The rope slid across the ice, and disappeared over the darkened edge of the abyss. But when I looked down, I saw that he had only fallen a few tens of yards, and was still climbing up using my footholds. I tried throwing heavy things from the camp, but every impact only seemed to give him further energy.

The snowfall became so thick it was difficult to navigate. I could scarcely make out the yellowed blobs of the other tents though they were scarcely six feet apart. I felt my way inside the equipment tent and tried the radio again. This time, the storm was throwing up enough interference that I could not be heard (or at least could not hear their reply). It was only then that I remember that Sam had been carrying the satellite phone- that it was at the bottom of the cavern with his corpse.

I knew then that Charlie must be close. We had no weapons to truly speak of- more axes, but I'd seen how well those did the job. So I grabbed a pencil and a handful of papers and ran out into the snow. At five paces the tents disappeared, and I was counting on that to keep Charlie from me. I found a hole in the snow large enough to shield 2/3 of my body from the wind, and began to write.

I wasn't certain when I began that I was going to have the time to write that all down. I'm freezing to death, after all, and Charlie's out there, somewhere. I believe I heard him a few hours ago thrashing around the campground. I don't know what he wants, what he plans. Perhaps it's nothing more sinister than a walk about- perhaps he'll discover me any moment and murder me.

But I've run out of things I had to say, now to things I want to, and I hope I've strength enough to finish. Beverly, Teresa, I'm sorry. I always told you it would be later. That after college, I'd have more time for you, or after my postgraduate work, after my doctoral thesis, after my internship, or my research. I wanted that later to happen; it was a light at the end of a tunnel, and though I enjoyed thoroughly the journey I never wanted to miss out on our destination. But I'm not sorry that I will miss it, because that's my own doing; I'm sorry that I've deprived you of me for so long, and in the end, that you will be deprived of me from this moment onward. I love the both of you endlessly; T, be nice to your mother. It was never her fault.

Your loving husband and father,

Henry

_Neither Charlie Astrid, nor any of the other members of his five person team, has been seen since the expedition to Blood Falls set off from the SS Mikucki. The Mikucki confirms the request for assistance at 0935 AM local as the last contact from the expedition._

Table of Contents

# Murder Your Darlings

Malcolm Dane was the best creation of my career, my Sherlock Holmes, my Parker or Jack Ryan. I remember an interview I gave to some small book review website (mostly because the interviewer was cute), where she asked how I created such a thoroughly remarkable villain. I'd thought about it before, though I'm still not sure if I was being clever, but I told her, "Simple: I don't write him as a villain. No one thinks of themselves as evil, or stands near train tracks they've tied damsels to, twisting their mustaches. Not Pol Pot, not Stalin, not even Hitler."

It was the facile answer, but there was something to it, too. Malcolm was a hero, and not just in his own mind. He was a hero who'd gone rotten. Like if Superman was a son of a bitch, or if Batman was a cunt, if Spider-Man's radioactive spiderbite pushed him over that social ledge and he pulled a super-powered Columbine.

But Malcolm didn't need superpowers, or even a mask to hide behind. He was a businessman- one so good he could talk his way around or through anyone, or nearly so. That was the trouble. I grew weary, coming up with increasingly more savvy and intractable protagonists for him to antagonize. So I decided to end his career.

I started an uproar killing him. If I'm really honest, I was tired of writing him, tired of his goddamned smirk, tired of having to one-up every prior outing just to sell more books (and feeling like a literary Michael Bay for my troubles).

But Malcolm was smarter than me. Because he didn't die. And he was never the sort to turn the other cheek when someone tried to kill him.

Not that I knew it was him- not at first. Honestly, that first night, I thought it was just a fan, deranged, and beautiful, but a fan who'd internalized my first novel, a tragic love story surrounding a failed double suicide. She was every bit my Mary Anne, big red hair that dated back to the nineties, soft strawberry lips, and freckles that sparkled in dim light but almost disappeared when I turned on my bedroom light.  
She wasn't supposed to be there. I'd been at a mixer pushing publicity for an anthology of short stories. I knew enough about the difference between a gift horse and a Trojan one not to confuse the two, and asked her what the hell she was doing on my bed.

She said she couldn't leave me- no, that she couldn't leave without me. She swore I was Dylan from the novel, up and down. I tried calling the police, but she tore the phone from my hands and threw it out the window. I tried to talk her down, convince her she was mistaken, convince her that she needed to let me take her to a hospital for her slit wrists. Instead, she came at me with the knife in her hand, and in the ensuing struggle she was stabbed. I use the passive because we fell together, and I don't know who pushed the blade home.

She bled out while I waited for the ambulance, with my hands in the wound vainly trying to keep her fluids in. When the paramedics came in the room I was still holding her, tears streaming down my face. One asked if I knew her, and I said "I, I've never met her before in my life."

But it wasn't simply that she died- though that was tragic. She knew things. Things I'd written down a long time ago, an epilogue to the novel that had been too clean, too pretty, and too personal. I'd never admitted to my publisher or even my agent it existed; I'd burned it without a soul ever seeing it. But she knew every word of it; they were the last words she spoke to me.

The police took me in for questioning. Her fingerprints were on a rock she'd used to smash a window to get into the kitchen. Her fingerprints were on the knife- and she'd quite honestly been bleeding a long time before I got home. But still they asked me questions, about who she was, what she wanted, what I said. And that likely would have been that.

Only I know a few people, not in high places, but we'll call them above-ground places, a detective sergeant, a few aids in the mayor's office, people who can learn things, not people who decide them. And as far as anyone could tell, the girl didn't exist. Fingerprints weren't on record. She didn't match any missing persons account for several hundred miles- and she was the kind of girl someone was bound to notice missing and come looking for.

And finally, slowly, I found myself recognizing that she wasn't some fan cosplaying, that it wasn't a lovestruck girl in a push-up bra and a sundress from a thriftstore- every aspect, every line in her face, every speckle in her eye, was Mary Anne. It could have been one of those déjà vu moments- it had to be, after all- but I couldn't just leave it alone.

So I had to make a call, to Lucy. Lucy was Mary Anne in most of her facets. When we were young and stupid, she'd even looked the part, except for her eyes, muddy brown eyes, which I'd never quite felt did the rest of her beauty justice. We'd changed since then, and that tragic love story that, even then, was a melodramatic retelling was even further from the truth now than it had been then.

Lucy was well. Her husband had taken a teaching position at Western Washington University, and as soon as she tied up some loose ends in Portland, she planned on moving up there for him. A little part of me was let down by that; the Lucy I'd known would never have uprooted like that, but the Lucy I'd known had never been married, either. My musings ended abruptly when she said, "I was pregnant."

"Was?" I asked.

"A few weeks ago. I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this," but it was told, already, and I still loved enough of her that I wanted to comfort her, and told her to go on. "We- I lost the baby. It wouldn't have been so hard, but the baby wasn't supposed to come for a few more weeks, and Marc's semester had started already- I've been so alone."

But as she went on to describe it, how she woke up bleeding, my blood ran cold. "When did it happen, exactly?" I asked, already knowing the answer. It had been the night, that same night, when I'd killed Mary Anne. And I knew there wasn't anything coincidental about that. There couldn't be.

I've always liked my agent, Kati Richardson- she's a shark with a heart of gold, but she's part agent, part lawyer, and that combination can make her cold; I think it's because of that more than anything else (her uptight librarian attractiveness, or even the fact that I've known her only a few years) why I usually confide in my manager, Albert.

"You're nuts, kid," he said. "There's nothing wrong with that in general; I mean, all writers are whack-jobs, because if they weren't they'd do something healthy like living their lives, rather than inventing better ones for themselves and their readers to live vicariously through. So inherently, there's nothing wrong with you being nuts. But if you start internalizing this shit, if you start looking for ways to blame yourself for other people's problems, you'll start yourself on a very dark road indeed. Look, bottom line, what do you need? What do you want from me, to feel okay about all this? I can get you a gun, unregistered, if you think that kind of thing would help. Uh, if you don't mind parting with some of that advance, we could hire you some protection."

I sighed, and thought for a moment. "What I want, is for you to ignore how insane this really does sound, and indulge me. What if, somehow, there is a connection? I'm not making any guesses as to what, or how. But what if there is something rattling around in my subconscious, something that now has consequences for people I care and cared about."

"Kid, you remember what I told you, first manuscript you gave me? I told you it was raw, but that it had potential, but that the one thing you had to do was fall out of love with it, by which I mostly meant out of love with yourself. You've got to get distance, closure, see that you're not as clever or talented as people think, and that even sometimes when you are, you've got to cut things that don't belong in your story."

"Murder your darlings," I whispered.

"That's right. From the sounds of it, you murdered that epilogue because it didn't belong- and from the sappy shit you've been dribbling at me, I think you did the right thing, there. I still think you're trying to do-good, with this Lucy business. She lost a kid, and that's very sad, but it wasn't your doing, unless by way of not knocking her up when you were young retards in love with nubile young bodies, you want to take the blame on yourself. Your call. But sleep more. Jerk off more, if you think it'll help. But calm down. And if things go south, call me first."

He talked a lot of sense. Albert lives and works out in the hills, so it was a long way back through town, and I was still driving when my agent called. "You need to come here. Hurry." The phone went dead. I tried calling back, and got nothing but dial tone. I tried her cell, but after two rings it dumped me to voice mail. So I called Albert.

"Yeah, I know a guy. Technically a PI, mostly an enforcer by trade. Might want to wait for him outside Kati's office." I told him I'd try, "By which you mean I need to hang up right the fuck now so I can tell my guy to hurry because you're not going to wait for him." He did just that.

My agent's office is in one of the scrapers downtown. I've never much liked it, because it all feels too corporate, too intimidating; or maybe I've never gotten used to this part of my success- maybe that's why I still have Albert, who operates out of a home office that's got a loveseat for an office chair. But she's very good at what she does.

And I can't help but wonder and worry as the elevator climbs too slowly towards her office on the sixth floor, but what my mind lingered on most was why I always called her my agent, or Ms. Richardson, why I'd never called her Kati.

Then there's a ding and I tell my brain to shut up for once. Half of the floor is taken up by her and a group of agents, the other half by a dental and orthodontic collective, and because of that there's always an oddly sterile feeling (and sometimes smell) to the hallway.

The light was still on in Kati's office, and when I tried the door it was ajar.

Kati was standing against the wall behind her desk. Her hair, usually pulled back in a tight bun, was mussed, and were it not for the terror on her face, would have made her prettier. A man, short and slight, with blonde hair and too-deep dimples, stood on the other side of her desk, holding her letter opener out to be threatening. I recognized him immediately as Ernie, from a book I'd written called _Guy Love_.

"The letter opener's different," I said. He looked at it in his hand, and it fell to the floor. He turned red.

"I, I didn't know how else to get a hold of you."

Kati slid back into her chair, and her fingers danced nervously along her desk, near the phone. "Don't call the police," I said. She stared two little holes in me, but after a moment, her composure returned, and she nodded.

Ernie walked over to a sliding window and sat down on the sill, hanging his feet out over the street. I knew the scene. The book was about male relationships, but the one with Ernie I'd largely adapted from a childhood friend and almost sweetheart; and this tilted the narrative too far. I sat down beside him, and in my mind I saw the water rushing between our feet instead of cars.

"I don't know any other way to say it," he said, "so I'll just come out with it: I love you. And I don't care if that queers our friendship, because a friendship based on lying ain't one worth saving. I think you maybe feel a bit the same, but I know just one way to know." He leaned in and kissed me, and I wasn't sure if I was remembering that summer when Cassie kissed me, or the moment I'd written about with Ernie, but I didn't pull away. "So say something, David, don't just let me sit here like a fool," he said, blushing again.

Using my character's name brought me back out of my thoughts, and I said, "I'm sorry, Ernie. That friendship you aren't worried about, means something to me. The kiss meant something, too, but not what you'd like it to mean. So, I'm sorry, truly."

Ernie lunged, only this time I was ready, and rather than let him get his hands around my throat, hanging over the window's edge, I pushed him, just enough that his momentum carried him forward, out away from the building. He smashed into a lamp post at street level, but it didn't pierce him the way I might have thought, and instead crumpled under him.

I stared a moment at his body, sitting peaceful where it lay. I hoped he died quickly, and without much pain. And as I stood up, a large man burst through the door. Kati had been dialing the phone, but he put his fingers down to hang it up. "We ain't calling no police."

"You pushed that man out the window," Kati said, ignoring Albert's man and speaking directly to me.

"I need you to call the Modesto operator, ask after Cassie Bais. She'll have been in an accident, a fall. I want to know she's all right."

"You pushed-"

"Call her. I need to know she's okay."

Kati didn't pretend to understand, but in her mind she seemed to be adding up her commission based on my book sales and the sales of other authors I'd helped steer to her collective. Apparently I was worth enough for her to play along- at least for the moment, because she dialed. After a moment's talk with an operator, and another moment speaking with someone else, she hung up the phone. It was a moment before she was able to speak. "She fell off the landing in her home. Broke her ankle. It just happened. How did you-"

"Ernie. Was a character based off of Cassie. Something like this happened, once before."

"That break-in, at your apartment," she mouthed, but there was almost no breath behind it. I nodded.

Albert's man stepped between us. "I'll take care of the body. He's staying at your place tonight. Knockin' boots is optional- but that's your story and you're sticking to it." Kati looked embarrassed, almost to the point of interrupting. "You called him in, late at night. Bodies disappear, phone records don't. He stayed at your place. So take him there."

She did. Though we didn't. I think she was still a little unnerved by the whole situation, so I preemptively volunteered to sleep on her couch- or her floor, whatever made her more comfortable. She threw some blankets on the couch, whispered goodnight, then more forcefully said, "We'll discuss this," then closed and locked her bedroom door.

We did discuss it, over breakfast. She didn't know what to believe- but then, neither did I, but she decided to trust me (after the lawyer in her gave a dissertation on the fact that by going along with me last night she had already de facto decided to trust me- or at least implicated herself so thoroughly that to turn me in was to turn herself in, too).

Then she blushed as she asked, "Have you ever written about me?" And I blushed a little, too.

"A little," I said. "A few little quirks and mannerisms have made it into some characters. But the bulk of stories where you factored haven't been published."

She blushed even harder at that, but pressed on. "Do you think," and stopped.

"I think you're probably safe. Especially now, knowing what I know, I think I've got a handle on how to tackle this." Still, I told her to take a little time off, go somewhere out of town and relax, "Expense a ticket somewhere sunny."

Later that day, I got a message on my phone from Eugene, the matriarch of Kati's agent group, saying that she'd gone out of town on a family emergency, that anything urgent should go through Eugene, for the moment.

Kati was gone a week before I got a post card. It was plain she'd gone out of her way to keep her location anonymous, and even the card itself seemed written in code. But basically she wanted to know what had happened, and if it was safe for her to come home.

And nothing had happened. I was beginning to think I'd been crazy all along, that all of those things were coincidental, and that I'd murdered two innocent if strange people. Then I received a call from Erika.

Erika Dulac was the love of my life. Unfortunately for me, I met her when I was still too stupid to recognize that. Every single love story I ever wrote started around her, and every single time I found myself stripping out every part of her, because it was too easy. Falling in love with Erika was effortless- and no conflict meant no story; of course, ruining my relationship with Erika had been effortless, too.

I tried to know as little about Erika as possible, because unlike Lucy, everything for her went well. With Lucy there were moments when I could feel like she would have been better off with me; with Erika I could never claim to be more than a speed bump in her life. So when she called me, my heart fluttered. I thought perhaps for a moment that the world wasn't as cold and as cruel and as dark as I'd always believed, that perhaps second chances were possible.

She was staying at a dive motel on the north side of town, and I broke every major traffic law getting there as fast as I did. Her room was on the lower floor, and I ran around the building.

She was standing on a chair. She'd smashed a hole in the ceiling, and tied a rope around a support beam, and the other end around a neck I could almost taste. She was wearing her homecoming dress, and was every bit the girl she'd been in high school- she was the girl I'd known in high school.

"You came," she said, almost surprised. I recognized the scene, a cruel little fiction I'd written only once, days after she left me. I hadn't even bothered to hide her behind a pseudonym.

"Of course," I said. Her foot landed on the back of the chair. "Don't," I whispered.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because," I said finally, "your sadness is my fault. You weren't angry, or bitter- I was. And," I paused, not sure how far to tell, "you're not the only one you'll hurt. And I know you better than that." She hesitated a moment, and even lost her balance, causing the chair to buckle and sway beneath her, but then she pulled her makeshift noose over her head, and stepped down. She collapsed on the edge of the bed, burying her head in her hands.

"Ernie I could believe. Mary Anne, even. But you- even when I tried to write you cruel, mean- by day's end I'd retract it, because even at my most bitter, and angry, I knew better. You didn't come here, or come to these conclusions, on your own. Someone's pulling strings, aren't they?" And immediately, the moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew the son of a bitch responsible: Malcolm Dane. I changed my question: "Where is he?"

He was three doors down. I didn't bother knocking, but kicked the cheap motel door in. He was sitting at a small round table in the corner, sipping tea, with only the bed lamp illuminating the room. "I have to know," he asked. "Did she do it? I regretted not convincing her to use a shotgun like Hemingway, because then I wouldn't have to wonder- and I _hate_ suspense."

"What do you want?"

"Simply? Money and women, and a pulse with which to enjoy them. I suppose I could have just slipped kiddie porn on your computer and sent you to prison, but this seemed like it would hurt more. Besides, in prison someone might have tried to murder you, and that just never would have done." The realization must have shown in my face. "Ah, so you hadn't figured it out. Your creations, they're all bits and pieces of people you know, but mostly hiding behind those crudely constructed masks, they're you. So the damage you've done wasn't just to your friends- I'd guess you've taken a good slice off the end of your life, too- no more than a smoker or an overeater, but enough that you might kick before seeing, well, not yours, but someone else's great grandchildren."

"So what's the point of this? I don't see you having an endgame. After all, you didn't come up with all of your clever ploys- I did."

He smiled. "You come up with grifts over the course of two years writing a book. I do it over the course of four minutes waiting for water to boil for my tea. But really, there's no ploy here. I'm you, you're me. Admittedly, I was angry with you for trying to kill me, and I did marshal some of your more tender moments against you, but frankly, you'll notice that none of the real monsters came after you, none of the mercenaries, hitmen, psychopaths, or even dirty cops. I lobbed softballs over the plate for you, knowing that every home-run you hit just hurt you and the people you love that much more. But I never wanted you murdered. Because I'm you. Unlike most of the characters you've dealt with, hell, unlike even most of your other mains, I'm you, removed of the moral tropes and allowed to function as a purely Darwinian creature. As for you- even assuming you could best me, do you really want to wager that you left enough of yourself out of me that you'd survive my end?"

It seems like an anticlimax now. Perhaps I should have struggled with him a bit, first, for show. But I shot him in the face. You see, I'd let Albert get me that gun. Malcolm barely had time to react, barely had an instant for the smug smirk to slide off his face before his face slid off his face.

And it cost me. I have headaches strong enough that I hear Arnold Schwarzenneger yelling, "It's not a tumor!" and it echoes like those Ricola yodelers. And I'm not as quick on my feet. My mind's a little slower, and I forget things I haven't written down (really only a slight inconvenience for a writer), and Albert keeps pushing to have me tested for Alzheimer's. And I keep forgetting to ask Kati to a proper meal- though I think there are other reasons for that.

Table of Contents

# Mine

"I want you to take a deep breath, Mr. Prasith. Good, now if you can, count backwards from ten for me, ten, nine, eight- that's good. You seem to be awake. No, no, don't speak- I know this seems like the opposite of how it's usually done, and it is. See, I cut the line to the isoflurane, so the room was full of anesthetic gas. That's why the nurses are out on the floor there. But I still need you conscious for the procedure; this clever little device is a re-breather, scrubs the anesthetic out of your lungs as you breathe. And I told you not to talk- not that you can, because that was the other thing I gave you, a paralytic agent."

"Don't be scared, Mr. Prasith. 'Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. Mr. Samphan. How could I forget to keep up our little charade?' Anyway, where were we? Oh right, your heart's failing. Now I wonder why that might be? I mean, you had your last full check not seven months ago. The doctor said you were fine, maybe your cholesterol was a bit high, but congestive heart failure just seven months later? I imagine you were planning on having a talk with your doctor about that, weren't you? Once you'd gotten your new heart?"

"Well, you might notice we've already made the incision. Customarily, you wouldn't be conscious for this part, but customarily the anesthesiologist wouldn't lying unconscious on the floor; you like that I made him spoon with the big male nurse? I thought it would be funny- besides which, I can't stand homophobes."

"Your eyes keep darting to the cooler. No, I haven't forgotten your heart, but honestly, why would you want that old thing? Been in some fat man for forty odd years; it probably would have given out on him by the end of a decade, if he hadn't been stupid enough to scrimp on his diabetes medication. They had to take his foot, and he was greedy and wanted to keep the leg, but the leg got gangrenous, and by then it had gone too far. Still, this heart's too good for you, which is irrelevant, because I have something better."

"No, don't try to sit up, you can't anyway, and it isn't time for show and tell. Right now I just want to tell you a story while I work. You already know I'm one of the best cardiovascular surgeons in Cambodia, though if it would make you feel more comfortable, I can always, ahem, call it Kampuchea. But what you may not know, what a cursory background check on me may not have discovered, is I had a family, once. I lived in the west, but my family originally came from the east, in the stretch of land Nixon bombed for fear of communists, which ironically enough gave you and your leftist allies control of the country. And when the Vietnamese, who Nixon had been fighting, finally overthrew you, the west became the seat of your Khmer Rouge."

"Because you couldn't win, you holed up in the west, far enough from Vietnam to be safe, and to be certain, you salted the earth with landmines. My original family, with my parents, fled Nixon's bombs, and ended up on the opposite side of the country. Now my new family, it started with my wife, Kalliyan. She was born in the west. We were young and foolish and ignorant of the atrocities of war, and in love enough that when she became pregnant, we decided to be married. And from the day of that accident, I thanked my former selves religiously, because I knew in this life I'd done nothing to deserve her."

"Our first daughter we named Chantrea. She remained our only child until I graduated from the University of Health Science in the capital. My son, Nhean, was born after we returned home, and after him a second daughter, Sopheap. What we did not know is that while we were in Phnom Penh, the entire countryside near our home had been mined. By forces under your command."

"Don't try to speak; you'll choke on your own spittle at that rate, and I can't have that- especially not before I finish telling my story. My children and the neighbor's children liked to play football in the field just past our home. They had played there a hundred times, without any incident, and my children regularly won; how could they not? They had their mother's legs, long, powerful, but graceful. But on this particular day, my son had the ball, and was making a break for the net. He feinted to the left, and threw the goalie, so he had an open shot at the net."

"The shot went wide. My wife had made lunch, and when calling the children didn't work, she ran onto the field and grabbed Nhean by the arm (being a boy, and strong-willed, the girls always followed his lead). He looked to his mother, mewling already about how she'd ruined his shot, but she was no longer listening."

"She had heard stories of the mines, stories that seemed like so much gossip in our protected little world. But she knew when she stepped in that spot on that field, she knew they were real, and she knew what was about to happen. She threw Nhean as hard as she could as the mine went off."

"My son was made deaf by the explosion; Kalliyan did not survive, though she did not die immediately."

"My wife's sister took my children, and she was right to do it. I could hardly function, certainly couldn't care in any meaningful sense for myself. And it would have broken me to fail my children, too."

"You took something from me, and I believe enough in Karma to think I should give you something in return. Don't sit up, just move your eyes, look into the mirror I'm holding over you. Disconcerting, isn't it, to look inside yourself like that? I know, it's difficult- even with suction, there's still an awful lot of blood. Here, follow my finger. You see this, here. It's too circular, geometric, to be organic. Now look here, in the corner, do those numbers mean anything to you? MN-79. I imagine that takes you back. And I can tell from that look in your eyes, I chose wisely. China, Belgium, Russia, the US, you put a lot of mines in your country, but the MN-79 is Vietnamese. I do not know you for a racist, but certainly, the idea that the Vietnamese will be the ones to finally kill you must sting."

"You'll notice I had to rig it differently, or the weight of your organs pushing down on you would have just set it off the first time you sat up. And honestly, if my goal was to simply blow you up, I'd have done it and left by now. But trust me, any attempts to remove it will set it off; anyone foolish enough to give you so much as the Heimlich will set it off. In its current condition, your heart will give out within the month. The mine will not last near that long."

"Now I'm going to begin sewing you up. Incidentally, you won't remember this. Not at first, anyway. Side effect of the paralytics and anesthetic. You'll remember things slowly, details coming back to you in pieces, and at first you'll doubt it all, doubt that any of this could be true. And when eventually you come to realize that it is, you will be resigned to it."

"I must admit, I lied, earlier, or misled, maybe. I didn't do anything to your heart. That was all you. The cost of drowning your conscience. Your other doctor was either a hack, or, more likely, he recognized you. General Prasith. You were a Brigadier, right? I can never keep track, though I guess I'm more interested in your time as a Lieutenant Colonel, anyway."

"It was years after the Vietnamese kicked you the hell out of power, but like a tick dug into a dog's ass, you refused to be chased out, determined to kill the host as soon as be burned off. You couldn't win militarily. The monstrous things you'd done in power ensured no one would ever willingly give you control again. And you knew that even the UN couldn't turn a blind eye to your horrors forever. But still you could have pulled a Mengele, run off to South America to die peacefully on beaches you didn't deserve. Instead you and your kind stayed, and mined the countryside. And really, that's all of your biography that's relevant. Pardon the slapdash suture- but as I see it there's no point in wasting the effort on a cadaver."

"I was, I was granted amnesty by, by King Sihanouk himself."

"Damn, I'm sorry, I must have used too little gas. Let me just adjust that, now, if you could, say all the letters in the alphabet backwards. The last letter of the alphabet is not "A," and no, no, it isn't "J" either. So you can't. That's good. Means you've got just enough. To test it, I'm going to lean in real close, close enough you could reach up and choke the life out of me, and tell you: you're going to die. I've killed you already. Hmm. Got a wiggle out of the left pinky."

"Now, one last thing, another dose of the isoflurane. Once you've breathed this in, you'll go to sleep, then I'll shut off the supply. You and the rest of the staff will wake up slowly to find the work already done. I'm taking the heart back to a friend at the University of Health Sciences, to give to someone who might deserve it. At this point all that's left is to breathe in, deep. Really? You're going to hold your breath like a petulant child? I can stand here for quite some time- we have the OR reserved for another three hours, and you can only hold your breath until you pass out, at which point your body will breathe in anyway. You can count backwards from ten, or I'll do it for you. Ten, nine, there you go, nice deep, gasp, eight, seven, six... five..."

Table of Contents

# Failure Cascade

My dad was a failed spy, who became a lousy spymaster, who eventually found his way to failed Vice Presidential candidate. I was a failure in school so I got into ROTC, and to keep me from fatal failure in Afghanistan, dad got me time guarding the Gulf of Mexico from a boat. But I was a failure at that, too, so I got involved in some of the family's businesses, and failed there, as well. But my daddy wanted me to be less of a failure than him- to at least fail at trying to be President, so he used the clout he had left to get me a slot in the space program.

Of course, the space program hasn't been the same since they retired the Shuttle. The Russians promised to keep the Soyuz open to us, but then there was a fracas in some former Soviet Bloc country or another and we sided against them, and they told us exactly where we could stick their rocket. Our replacement, Orion, got scuttled because it was used by Republicans as an example of Democrat overspending, so neither party could justify keeping it alive.

So we spent more than the cost of Orion on a space elevator, instead, and since neither party wanted to be the ones who abandoned space to the Russians, everyone kept their mouths shut about it this time. It wasn't an elevator in the traditional sense (the fact that I remembered an elevator in the traditional sense meant I was older- by far- than my fellow astronauts), but a long tower built from carbon nanotubes, basically artificial diamond rope, that could carry several times more weight for its mass than any metal. The tether, as it was called, wasn't rigid, but was held in place by the pull of the space station at the end, like how a morning star's chain is kept taut by the weight of the flail. And you didn't ride in a car attached to a cable, but in a climber, which most people called widowspiders- because of how they looked and how many people they'd killed before the engineers got the bugs out of them.

Daddy must have had more juice than I realized, because I wasn't just on the mission- I was mission commander. Most of the others were scientists and engineers- only me and Bill were real airmen, and even though he was more experienced, I got the feeling that something had happened with him a long time ago, something nobody wanted to talk about, that kept him from the job.

Most of the others didn't know the full intent of our mission. The Russians had gone back to the Moon, and every indication was that they wanted to put a permanent base there- and a missile defense system to keep other nations from landing. So we were going to beat them to that punch.

The red lights of the alert system began to flash, and I knew what it meant; I'd been reading my manual all day before we left, trying to make sure I kept all my procedures in mind. The alarm meant we were entering the inner Van Allen belt, and the climber was about to be pelted with radiation. I got onto the intercom and hesitated a moment to collect myself before I spoke, "We're approaching inner VA. All crew report to your seats."

There were fourteen of us, and I did a headcount to be sure, though we didn't really need to, since they'd only bolted in enough seats for the crew, and they were all filled. To shield us from the radiation, the crew compartment was in the middle of the storage bay, lined with all of the supplies that were coming with us up to the station. Everyone was buckled into their seats; half of them had been up before, and those that hadn't seemed to be talking to the ones with experience to calm their nerves, and for a moment I worried I didn't have the authority to say what I should, "It's going to be fine, people. Strictly routine."

As if to contradict me, there was a loud squeal, like what I'd imagined banshees sounded like when my mother first told me about them on Halloween when I was nine. The climber shook, first like it was being buffeted by the wind, then as if we should have bought tickets for the ride. There was a crunch, and we all froze, because it wasn't the metallic sound of a damaged climber we'd all prepared to respond to- this was harder, harsher- like the sound rocks make when you're a kid and bash them together, only amplified a hundred times.

We waited, two words on the tips of our tongues: failure cascade. It was probably a fiction, but one too terrifying to ignore. A failure cascade was what happened when the tether's nanotubes snapped, and fired off diamond shrapnel faster than rifle rounds in all directions, striking other parts of the elevator and dominoing in a destructive chain-reaction.

It was a moment before I realized that the climber had stopped, and another moment before I was certain that another break wasn't pending. The red warning LEDs flicked green, and I tapped into the control console to retrieve the incoming message.

Diane and Nathan shared a look from their seats a row apart, only the moment he realized it, he looked away, and when she remembered why, so did she, turning red and looking sad. I remembered an inkling from training, where I thought they'd been seeing each other, until a few weeks later when Nathan got engaged to one of the ground engineers instead. I put it out of my mind, there were things that needed me. I read the message onscreen from Mission Control, and spoke loud, clear. "Spider's finished examining the damage. It's more than our climber can fix on its own, they'll have to send up something more specialized in our wake. They're pretty sure, you know, 90th percentile, that if we keep going up the elevator will hold just fine. Of course, in that small window of error, there's the possibility of catastrophic failure and horrible reentry death. Since it's our safety in the balance, it's our call: so do we act like astronauts and fly by the seat of our jumpsuits, or do we pull the chute and give up our chance to live in the sky?"

Damn.- I hadn't meant to bias it like that, but after all, these were astronauts, and for some of us, maybe all of us, this might have been our one and only chance at leaving orbit, and- I hadn't finished berating myself by the time everyone had pointed towards space. I pressed the send button on the radio, "Mission Control, we're going up." There was a brief pause, just the slightest hesitation as the laser signal relayed from our geosynched satellite, then theirs back to us.

"Copy, you are go for climb." A cheer went through the crew as the widowspider resumed its ascent. But there was something gnawing at me, and I didn't know why, but I looked to Diane, and there was a cloud over her. She noticed me looking in her direction, and her eyes became wide; I flashed a modest smile and nodded, and she seemed to relax.

After a while, the red light flicked off. "That's the safe zone, people, from one and a half to three radii, between Van Allens. If you want something to eat, drink, need to use the restroom with some privacy, to take a nap not in a flight chair- now's your last opportunity until we reach the station." There was a moment before anybody moved, then Bill unbuckled and strode off, and he caused a cascade of movement as the rest followed suit.

I remained in my seat behind the console, staring absently at the three dimensional scan of the damaged tether section, the widowspider's control computer occasionally highlighting fractures and breaks, beeping out a simple child's lullaby of restrained complaint.

Then I kicked out of my seat, filled with a purpose I couldn't describe, but I knew I had to get closer to the tether, as close as possible. I went down to the maintenance mezzanine between decks. There was an eerie sense of deja vu; the trainer in Houston was precisely the same, down to weird splotches of paint on the door (code from a previous and unknowable regime). I ducked my way through pipes and over vents, stepped cautiously over grates whose blackness extended beyond the dim utility lighting. I didn't know what I was looking for, or even if I could find (or recognize) it if I were able to stumble on it.

And I almost stepped on it. It was a little thing, a child's music box, placed in just the right way over one of the vents that its shriek had wailed through the climber, resonating at exactly the right frequency to disrupt the broken nanotubes. If it had been on an even remotely smaller section of the tower, it could have snapped it entirely.

Attached to its side was a small Geiger counter. The Van Allen radiation had set it off. I swallowed hard, and weighed my options for a moment. It was possible the device had internal explosives; anyone willing to use such sophisticated sabotage perhaps wasn't above more conventional methods. What was worse, the widowspider had been swept by security teams before we left, and cleared, which meant the only people who even had access to the mezzanine was the crew: my fellow astronauts. A shiver went through my spine, thinking of what one of those eggheads could have constructed, hooked to a simple mercury switch so it went off the moment I touched it. I thought it would be foolish to pick it up, that I had to have more time yet to examine it, and-

That's when the red LEDs began to flash again, and before I had a moment to think it over, I picked up the music box and I was running back for the crew compartment. I stopped at the first console I came to, and sent the intercom message "Outer Van Allen, everyone back in their seats," and I knew the excitement was heavy in my throat. When I'd reached our compartment I stopped, forced my heart to beat a little slower, forced my legs to walk with purpose, my face to let all of its tension go, and walked inside.

I let the sensations of the room engulf me, not paying attention to any one person, not focusing on anything, but trying to let it all reach my senses unfiltered. I held the music box in my hands as if it were nothing at all, because I knew to most people it would be nothing but a moment's curiosity. And then I felt them, eyes on me, angry and terrified in the same instant, and I let my eyes focus, then, panning across the room, until I saw the eyes staring at me, now glaring, for a moment, before she realized I'd looked back at her.

I set the music box down on the ground where I'd been standing, then said, loudly, "Everybody buckle in. The outer belt's where things could get interesting." I waited, until all the crew members were in their seats, most of them looking at me expectantly. Most of them had noticed the box by now, and were peering quizzically at it. But one person was refusing to look at it now. Her eyes occasionally darted to me to see if I was still looking at her. I flashed Diane the same smile from earlier, and her mouth dropped open, and she started to shake, before she balled her fists and forced herself to stop and pushed a terse return smile onto her face.

"Okay, I want everyone to remain calm." I paused, just long enough for the thought to sink in, but not enough time for people to start worrying why I needed them to remain calm. "We have a saboteur. The high-pitched wail, the damage to the tower, both came from this. It was meant to go off during the higher radiation of the second Van Allen belt, a point where the tether is at its weakest, and at a point where we would be high enough to float off into space."

And as I said it out loud, I watched the effect it all had on Diane, and the mournful way she occasionally looked at Nathan, I understood why. "She wasn't trying to kill us- not directly. Nate, I hate to air people's laundry here, but I'm afraid yours is a little too dirty to ignore." Diane went rigid, afraid to look around, because she knew I was close- too close. "You had a, fling or whatever, with Diane, and when you ended it, whatever it was, well, she knew that fiancé of yours is on Earth, and I think she thought if she could just have you alone, keep you away from her, she could rekindle that whatever-"

Nathan started to unbuckle his belt; he wanted to stand, and defend Diane, maybe defend himself and his own part in it, but that wasn't why I'd stopped talking. Goddamn me, I knew she'd snuck the music box on board, for all intents and purposes a bomb under these circumstances, I didn't know why I hadn't thought she might have brought a gun, too.

It was made of ceramics and plastics. I knew the weapon; it was the kind of gun we'd kept on the space station since one of the Russians killed one of the Italians over a Chinese woman a couple of years ago; the Indian commander tried to separate them, and got his throat half-slit, almost by accident, and the rest of the crew had to watch as the Italian crew member was suffocated because they were busy trying to keep their commander from bleeding out in zero gravity. But I was distracted, and the history, the preparation, ran past me in an instant. The gun used pressurized gas and a lead-tipped ceramic slug that was meant to penetrate and then shatter; since each round had to have enough pressurized gas to accelerate to subsonic speed, it only held three shots, though some models only had one or two. She was far enough away and her hands were small enough that I couldn't be sure which variant she had. She was pointing it right at my heart.

"It could have been perfect," she said, and for the first time I realized she was sobbing. She looked to Nathan, who instinctively half-raised his hands, even though she kept the weapon trained on me, and repeated, more quietly this time, "It could have been perfect."

"It doesn't have to end like this," I said, and I immediately regretted it, because her eyes, no longer mournful, flicked back to me.

"Shut up." She said. "You ruined this. Ruined everything." My chest got tight, and I knew what was about to happen, and before I could stop myself my eyes shut. The sound of it was actually very light and soft- just gas escaping at a high velocity, which was nothing to the concussive bang of powder. The ceramic bullet seemed to have the same softness, and it felt like someone flicked my chest with a finger, like my mom had done when George and I fought as kids.

And an instant later the pain came, as a hundred different cuts inside my chest all opened at once, and it was like a choir's crescendo, a blinding moment, like the beauty of light coming in through a stained glass window as the swell of their song peaked- only the religious experience was pain, and I felt for a moment like I was being crucified from the inside out. I was only vaguely aware of hitting the ground, and the extra pain that came with that, as the impact hammered the ceramic shrapnel deeper into my wounds.

My eyes opened, though it took me a moment to realize it. The crew reacted quickly, dividing neatly into two groups that had either come to my aid or attacked Diane, as if there'd been a plan all along and this was just its next step- but I knew that was just the kind of thing that came from training vigorously with the same unit for as long as we had.

And I found myself laughing inside my own head (though I certainly couldn't have done it physically): the first thing I'd done well, first job I'd done right- and I'd fucked it up anyway. I saved lives, and I got to die a hero, but... I became vaguely aware that the medical officer and a few of the nonmedical doctors were talking around my body. A few of them, a growing majority, it sounded like, wanted to cut the climber loose, abort the mission. The medical officer wasn't really arguing against it- she just knew that I was dead either way, sometime in the next few minutes. I wouldn't live long enough to splash down, let alone make it to a hospital advanced enough to save me- and even that was a pretty big if.

The problem was they seemed to like me; it had always been my better feature, I knew, being liked. It came so much more naturally than being competent. None of them wanted me to die, especially when there was something, some gesture that could at least absolve them of their guilt.

I sat up, and realized how much I'd been dissociating the pain; dozens of little razors with purchase in my chest slashed new holes in my flesh as I did, and I winced, and shuddered as I tried to keep myself from throwing up. I grabbed the nearest doctor, and I didn't know who it was until I saw our geologist, his little mousy face suddenly horrified to be held so close to me. "Keep climbing. I've been killed for this mission, and you damn sure aren't aborting on me."

I let go of him and all but passed out; my body went numb, and limp. I smacked onto the floor hard enough that for a moment the pain in my head outstripped the pain in my chest, but with every beat of my heart the chest pain grew, and grew, until it was almost everything, and then I felt myself floating away from it, and I became aware of my surroundings as if I no longer had a body of my own.

Bill, my second, came over. Diane was unconscious, buckled into her seat, restrained with some cords. "What's the word?" he asked, not sounding hopeful.

The geologist, Marvin, Mortenson, something with an M and an N that I knew and couldn't grasp, turned to him, afraid to be the one to tell him, but sat up straight anyway, realizing at that moment he was still an astronaut, and trying for all he could to live to that, "He wants us to keep going, sir."

Bill paused, giving me a moment of silence in his own head, and then turned to the crew. "You heard him. Everyone who's not attending to the commander, get back in your seats. We've still got work to do."

I realized then how tired I was, not just in my body, that was no longer moving save for the dull palpitating of my heart, the slow and staggered breaths that stopped and started around sharp pain as they went. I was so tired, in my eyes, and they rolled shut, and so tired in my own mind, I felt that if I could only stop thinking for a moment, just rest my head for a minute or two, everything would be just all right...

Table of Contents

# Euthanasia

I've gotten used to not sleeping much- my internship was pretty useful preparation for that- but it's hard getting used to shunning the sun. It goes up, I go to bed. I get up in time to see it sink below the horizon. It just makes me uneasy- that's the reason I haven't been sleeping. Of course, if I'd known the chief of medicine would be here tonight, that might have been the cause. But I didn't know, not until he paged me with a message to come to his office.

"Jack, have a seat." He's calm, too calm. He must have slept all day to be this calm, or started in on the scotch he was pouring himself before I got here. I sit down, not awake enough to be comfortable, though my eyes and mind are on the edge of sleep. I'm drifting, back in med school, where my instructor's going on about Hippocrates and his damned oath- of course the only part that echoes is the part everybody knows, "First, do no harm."

I hear laughter, first my father's, the way he'd laugh when he was drinking too much, but it grows and stretches until I know that it's coming from me, and then I know why: the oath is bullshit. The harm we do is rarely medical, but often there for even a fool to see.

And last night I was fool enough to see it, a man who'd beaten his son nearly into a coma, probably would have, had he not stopped in the middle to get a beer. The boy knew where his father kept his shotgun- knew enough to disengage the safety, how to make it roar- everything but how to make sure his father died. He was hit in the groin, and the wound was a mess. He'd been shot from close enough he was burned by belched barrel fire. Most surgeons couldn't have saved him, but I chose not to even try. He was far from my first.

The chief of medicine's glass clanks against the edge of his desk when he sets it down. He pours another two fingers and my mouth waters because I want one, but of course I'm on-call, so he doesn't offer me a glass. "I said when I hired you that you were one of the most talented surgeons I'd ever met. Well, as it turns out, I was underselling your ability. Your numbers over the years have been so good you've bumped up the stats for the entire hospital. But it seems like ever since you came onto the night shift you've had a little more trouble."

"And Jack, it isn't so much that you've had a few more errors, lately, just that you've been having more fatalities. In fact, I think fatalities have been universal, when it gets right down to it. You either save people or they die, though still favored heavily towards the living end of that spectrum. But I was going through your case work over the last year, and I found that your difficulties started before the shift change, and I wondered why that might have been."

"I-" my throat was too dry to choke out another word.

"Don't, Jack, don't." My fists balled up inside my coat pockets, gripping a scalpel that isn't there- but even if it were, I wouldn't- not on a man whose only sin was being smart enough to see through my lies.

"I'm not worried, not about your ability, anyway. But how are things at home? Everything all right with your family? It was a kind thing you did, taking the night shift, but it can grind a person. Night does strange things to people, makes them do strange things to each other. We see a lot of that come through our doors. If it's taking its toll- you just say the word, we'll work something out. Maybe a rotating schedule, something. I just wanted you to know, we're here for you. Not just me, but this entire hospital- we take care of our own. If you've got a need, and it's something we can give, we'll do it."

My pager goes off, a text. "I have to go. Looks like there was a meth lab raid, one of the suspects killed one of the cops and took a bullet himself." He raises his glass in my direction and nods. His eyes are tired, but I think that's from the drink.

As I walk through his office door my eyes roll back into my head, and I know I'm not up for saving a life; then again, that wasn't really what I was thinking, anyway.

Table of Contents

# Shrink

He sat down on my couch. His suit, which likely cost a month's revenue at my practice, was rumpled and stained with sweat. His hair had thinned considerably since he began seeing me a year ago, and it was disheveled. His eyes were tired and dry; his face tightened a moment and he rubbed his eyelids. "How do you feel?" I asked.

"Small," he sighed. "Smaller than ever before."

"Why is that?" I asked, leaning forward.

He smiled, stopped rubbing his eyes, and fixed me with a stare that was piercing, but not unfriendly. "I want you to know I'm not a callow moron."

"Why is that important to you?" I asked, crossing my legs to extend out the moment he had to think before he answered.

"Because most people think that I am. You're different. You listen, for a living, and you have the intelligence to understand my conundrum. Businessmen have gotten a bad shake, but we aren't," he stopped, and sighed.

"I know layoffs are a temporary resolution; it was originally a grave measure to a temporary budget shortfall. But the problem is, and this is mostly because of the shorter business cycle, it's no longer temporary."

"By laying off a section of the workforce, you're cutting your maximum potential performance. You save for this quarter on payroll, which looks good on paper, but you're just stealing from your next quarter's productivity. And aside from the staff you lose, which, unless you're a complete moron, you hired for a reason initially, the cuts take their toll on morale, which also affects productivity."

"Any number of factors can affect profitability; in this downturn, we've had a lot of orders canceled or payments delayed, though the big one is still increased competition from foreign companies- shrinking market share. But when we miss our numbers, we reduce staff to make up the difference- which cuts future productivity- in essence voluntarily shrinking our market share even further."

He took a breath and held it; over the course of his soliloquy his gaze had fallen to the floor, and he didn't let the breath loose until his eyes flicked back to me. The breath seemed to be the only thing keeping him up, and he slumped noticeably in his seat as it left him. "You make a very impassioned but weighted argument, but that's all intellectual. How do you feel about all of this?"

He swallowed; he hated the process, even if he needed its outcome. "I'm tired, of being vilified, being the bad guy. My hands have been tied every step of the way. Have I been complicit? Have I lost esteem in my own eyes? Absolutely; I thought at a certain point that I would stop being somebody else's whore, but if you're not management's bitch you're the shareholder's, and either way they're turning your ass out."

He winced; he recognized how he was using his profanity as a crutch. "I liked my job; I was good at my job. I got to where I am because I could grow a business; they've turned me into a joke, an arborist pruning a dying tree."

His eyes narrowed, brow furrowed; "But doctor, we're dancing around the central issue, here, and I want you to be frank with me. It's difficult enough to have to ask the question aloud, without jumping through the usual analytical hoops." He paused, trying to regather his steam, but his eyes focused back to the carpet, and his question came out in a whimper: "Could stress be causing my penis to shrink?"

I paused, and pondered for a moment, then shrugged my shoulders. "Probably."

Table of Contents

# Indian Gift

Being kind, the woman serving drinks in the train car might have mistook the pair of men as father and son; being unkind, she would have guessed grandfather and grandson. The younger man, who she'd heard called "Pete," flicked his cigarette out the open window.

"Take care, son. Matt Horner was an ornery son of a cuss. Shot a lot of men dead; cold blood dripped off his hands in the day."

"Allegedly," the younger man said, settling into his seat. "Horner's only been linked to a handful of actual deaths, you know, ones with bodies or kin we can find, ones that aren't just a part of his legend. And of those, there's only one we can prove he shot, and that was in an honest duel."

"Parts of legends disappear, son, don't mean they're any less true."

"Whiskey?" the woman asked, holding out a bottle and a pair of glasses.

"I'm working," said Pete, with irritation she didn't deserve.

"Figure he's working hard enough for the both of us," the older man said with a wink in his eye as he dropped a few coins in her palm; she wasn't sure if he was being an old flirt or kind, as she'd found in old men the two are almost indistinguishable, at first. She poured his drink then walked away. "You should relax. You're making me nervous. And Horner's already a nervous sort; you make him anxious and he's like to shoot us afore we get a word out."

At the station they were met by a man with two beat up old horses, and a hand-drawn map. They followed it out of the skeleton of a town into the grassy hills. "Used to be Indian territory," the older man, who went by Gene, said.

"Whole country used to be Indian territory," said Pete, though the way he said it you wouldn't know how exactly he felt about it.

They didn't say anything else until they arrived at a beat to hell little shack built out of scavenged boards against the side of a squat plateau of red rock. Gene knocked. "Keep your mouth shut and your hand off your goddamned gun," he said quickly.

The door opened, not fast, not slow, just regular, like nothing special was happening. But rather than a man, all that was there was the sawed-down nose of a double-barrel shotgun, and past that darkness. Smoke from the wick of a kerosene lamp wafted out of the black beyond what little light broke through the door. "How can I help you?" asked a voice from behind the gun.

Gene glanced nervously to his younger partner, but knew both men were on a hair trigger. "We work for the government, but we ain't here in any official capacity, you understand. The Bureau might take an extra interest if we turned up missing, but they like as not wouldn't. The boy here is young, and stupid; I'd appreciate if you could lower that shooter before he's moved to get me killed."

Twin hammers on the double-barrel came down, slow and quiet, then the shotgun pointed away as the man carrying it walked back over towards the lamp, and lit it with a match.

Gene didn't wait for an invitation, but he also didn't move too close, or too fast, just walked into the house, keeping a clear distance. Pete's instincts wouldn't let him move, not at first, but then he caught the other man's eyes, and he knew that standing outside the front door weren't an option, either.

The floor creaked beneath Gene's feet, and Pete's hand went to his gun. At that same instant, Gene noticed a blue bit of cloth hanging off a chair, and spun towards the younger man, with his thumb on his hammer. "You put up that gun or I'll shoot you myself." Pete didn't understand. Gene nodded at the blanket, small and blue. "His family's in the house, and I will be Goddamned before I let you start a fight in here over a creaking floorboard." Pete lowered his gun into his holster, and Gene turned back to the other man, who hadn't moved at all.

"Matthew Horner, I feel safe to presume," Gene said. "I'd put out my hand for you to shake, but I doubt you're inclined." The point of a handshake was showing somebody you didn't have any aggression- or a weapon- and at the moment he had both. "I'm going to advise you to think on this as a business proposition. Now before you object, this ain't about your skills, which I'm informed you retired from using. Problem is, you're a wanted man, and the authorities are now aware of your whereabouts. They're duty bound to take you in."

"But, and this is where that proposition comes in, there's an Indian fellow up in the hills. His entire tribe sold off their land, collectively, but he won't budge. The authorities can't seem to get to him; he's killed a posse or three in more or less cold blood."

Horner cocked back the hammers on his double-barrel. "What are you asking of me?"

"Honestly, Matt, we're giving you the choice Jesse James never got. You do this thing for us," he paused, "then me, or the boy here, or whoever comes next after us, doesn't put a bullet in the back of you. Now, I know that look. You're a man of his own honor; it don't sit right to even entertain us in your home, leave be any offer we bring with us. But the boy and I, we're the pony express, after a fashion. We're the carrot, or as close as is like to be used. What might follow us is a mighty big stick, indeed."

"My boss don't want to admit to Indian Affairs that he can't handle one old redskinned coot, nor does he want to deal with the Marshals Office on account of you. He counts two birds, but he thinks he's got an idea better than any stone, though were I gambling man, I'd wager his first stone he'd throw'd be Pinkerton detectives."

Horner thought a moment, and it lasted a long time before he spoke. "You'll answer a question," and it was plain by the way he said it that he hadn't asked it yet. "Why?"

"We ain't got to tell you shit," Pete said with a snarl, his hand trembling over his gun.

"Now calm down, son; he's had you dead to rights since we first came through his door. He'll shoot you first, I guarantee it, and hope he's still enough years on me or I've gone soft enough- ain't a dance I'd step to lightly. But you, son, you die, so take your stupid thumb off your hammer or we'll both turn and shoot you- I swear to your God I will." The younger man eyed the oldest and realized he wasn't blowing smoke, then threw his hands up in the air.

"I ain't supposed to say shit, boy's correct in that, but you want to know because you think a man's got a right to know the reason for the evil he does. And I can respect that. There's gold in them thar hills- black gold. The Indian bought his Dawes Act allotment, good, legal, and proper, back before anyone thought there might be oil there. But the rest of the tribe upped stakes and sold, and a court of the law says his deed went with theirs."

"Now, I could give a shit, you want to reason with him, or shoot his legs out from under him while he's taking a shit. Your means are your own; ends are all I'm concerned with. And if you don't mind, I'll take my leave. I hope, sincerely, this is the last time I see you." Gene tipped his hat; Pete eyed the other man, not wanting to turn his back on a man with a gun. "He ain't going to shoot you in the back, son, but if you linger too long he might feel inclined to shoot you in the front." A grim smile poked out through Horner's dark whiskers. Pete walked away.

The next morning Horner kissed his wife and got on his horse. It'd been years since he'd rode with such grim purpose. He'd seen Indian Joe several times at the general store, maybe even spoke a word to him, once. It felt like he was standing over some poor man's grave, walking up to the front door. There was blood in the dirt, dried.

Horner didn't knock; policemen knocked, soldiers sometimes, too, if there was anyone higher than a lieutenant in sight. "Joe?" he said, and there was a tremble in his voice he hated to betray. There was a long pause, but before he gave a thought to calling out again, he heard another door, slamming as it caught the wind. He didn't bother trying to turn fast or draw- by that point Joe had him dead if he wanted him.

"You here to steal my land?" Joe asked. The question, the possibility Matt might be some lost fool, was the only thing keeping him alive.

"No. But I would like to have a jaw at you." Joe lowered his rifle.

The old Indian nodded at the door. "It's open." Horner led the way inside, and once there, Joe fixed him with a stare, then flicked his eyes towards a round table with a chair. "Sit." Horner did; the old Indian was wilier than he looked; Horner knew drawing from a chair would slow him down. "You with them oil men?"

Horner's eyes told most of the story. "They-"

Joe held up his hand to cut Horner off. "What are they holding over you?"

Horner lowered his eyes, not proud of his reply. "Got a past."

"Don't we all?" asked Joe, and for the first time Horner looked into his eyes and saw another man, there, and the same kind of pride and shame hiding behind an old man's smile. Then he looked back to the table, steeling himself.

"Ain't looking for sympathy, but before I kill a man, or before I even try, I owe him to look in his eyes and tell him why. In my young, wild days, or maybe if I didn't have a missus and young one at home, I'd barricade here with you and help you defend your homestead. But this ain't a fight you can win; ain't a fight I could, either."

Joe walked over to a cabinet; Horner didn't look up, half expecting the old Indian to produce a pistol. "Rum?" he asked, and instead he pulled out a bottle and a pair of dirty glasses, and Horner nodded.

Joe poured two big shots before Horner could protest, then tossed his back with abandon. Horner's pupils narrowed to slits, dancing from the rifle propped against the table, to Joe, his head still back as he swallowed; he knew could shoot the other man down without a care. He didn't.

Horner took up his glass and swallowed it, and the burning liquid seared pictures of his family alone, and that hard, bitter life, if he died, into his mind. Joe sighed, and Horner tried not to let it be seen that he was reaching for his gun, thinking the Indian was sighing over starting a gunfight until the old man said, "I'll go."

Horner was surprised enough his hand drifted away from his pistol, and he asked, "Did I hear you correctly."

"I don't even want the land- I've just been stubborn. I hate it here. Land's terrible. Nothing grows. Cattle won't graze. You passed my herd on the way in, probably mistook them for deer. And everyone I knew left a long time ago." He was sad, but he was tranquil in his sadness.

"It ain't right," Horner said.

"When was it?" asked Joe. Horner didn't have an answer for him.

Joe asked for one thing, that Horner stall the oil men a few days, long enough to remove his personal belongings, and to drive as much of his herd would go, and he obliged him gladly.

Six days after he sent a telegram east, Horner received a return visit. He recognized the knock at the door, and like last time shooed his family into the back room; he wondered if they were reneging on the deal. Horner saw Gene, the older man, first. "We come in?" He stepped out of the way to let them through.

A long, tense moment passed; Horner couldn't get a read on Pete, and the older man was stifling something. "Seems they didn't trust Joe, so even with your assurances, they brought some hired guns to his place." Then Gene almost smiled. "Apparently, the old Indian dynamited his place before he left, so that when they arrived to force him away, the whole place went kablooie. It was big enough the oil well caught fire, and the oil company's still trying to get it put out."

"Best of all possible outcomes- not for my employer, mind you- but for the general state of justice in the world. Now, for your troubles, I wish I could give you a pardon, but the governor's a hard man to bribe, besides which it's not clear that crimes committed in the territory would have been covered, anyway. But we got you the next best thing." The older agent handed Horner a newspaper from the day before, and at the bottom of the front page was a story titled, "Notorious Outlaw Matt Horner Dead."

Horner's eyes flicked to the kid, assuming that was the moment he'd feel a bullet in his chest, but Pete was standing with his shoulders low, shaking his head. "You're dead," Gene beamed. "Me and the boy claimed the bounty off some drifter couldn't take 'No' for an answer, roughly fitting the description. And Marshals don't hunt dead men." Gene turned on his heel, and tipped his hat. "Do enjoy your little slice of heaven, son, I do believe you earned it." Pete slunk out behind him.

Table of Contents

# Parallel

The secret of the multiverse is the kind of thing you'd expect to be held by a sect of mysterious Buddhist monks, or at least a deep-thinking philosopher, but I learned it in school- at the satellite university. And it wasn't in my physics class- but in web design.

One day the instructor held me after. He said he had something to show me. He waited until the silence was thick, and I was about to ask what he needed when he started to speak. "Reality isn't the things we see, or hear, or feel- there's a lot going on there, under the surface. There isn't just this world, but countless ones. But they exist on top of one another, like plates in an anatomy textbook. What we see, then, is the average of all existing universes- in the same way that the two different pictures from your eyes are synthesized into one."

"I figured out how to look at these other worlds. Walk in them. Touch them." Mostly bemused, I asked how. "How about a programming example. Let's say you want to open up FireFox- you don't start programming from scratch all the commands that go into starting FireFox- you just run the program. It's something your brain already does. It knows how to synthesize all of that input- all you're doing is convincing it not to- but instead to focus on just one input."

He described it as "reprogramming the sensory parts of your mind," but in practice it was as much about meditation as it was about any kind of complex logic problem solving. I played with his techniques for a week, usually barely able to do more than catch glimpses of things that shouldn't be there- like a horse galloping towards me in the middle of the campus commons; then again, when I was younger I'd believed I could talk in tongues. But the things I thought I saw, I couldn't talk to, and it didn't seem like they saw me, let alone felt inclined to talk.

Then one night I woke to the sound of heavy breathing. I realized I had been asleep, that the breathing had been layered into a dream- a dream about my father. My father killed himself when I was thirteen; he'd been having an affair with a woman at work, and she ended it- and while I never blamed her, because there were obviously other things at play, it factored heavily in my dreams about him.

But the breathing was loud, real, and certainly not mine. "You shouldn't have come here." I knew the voice immediately, and my eyes broke open. "This was my house- mine and your mother's. Only she took it from me in the divorce." I knew that wasn't right- dad hadn't lived that long- mom only found out about the affair because he swallowed a shotgun.

He put his hands around my throat. I don't remember much of what he said, then, but he blamed me, for siding with her, for living with her after she took his house, for living with her and her new husband while they rented his house out. But I knew he wasn't a ghost- just someone from a place different from this one. I closed my eyes, told my mind to filter things again, and his fingers slid through my neck as he dissipated like vapor.

The next day I talked with my web design teacher. "Why did you show me this? It's not just because you think I'm bright enough to do it, or even understand it. So why?"

He stroked his beard, suddenly very professorial, preparing his sophistry to answer a student's question. "Hmm. Okay, how about this: think of the multiverse as an organism. As decisions, and I mean important ones, not should I put butter or jam on my toast ones, but as their consequences manifest, universes split, like cells dividing. Normally, that's fine- after all, we exist in an at least theoretically infinite space. But sometimes, something happens that shouldn't. A universe becomes warped, tainted, and its histories, maybe even its physics, are no longer descended from its parent universe- you can think of it as a kind of multiversal cancer."

"Now in an organism, there's a defense system that cleans out cancer cells- but in the multiverse- well, there's none that we know of. But I discovered a universe just like that. Right now it's just a small deviation- a girl who doesn't seem to exist anywhere else but this one world, and not as part of the mean, like a cell with damage on a single chromosome. But if we let it continue, the damage will multiply over time- eventually, it could kill entire universes, squeezing them out. So we have to burn the cancer out. And that, in a nutshell, is why I need you. You see, I met this girl while teaching a class in one of these other worlds- so she has some connection to me, and that connection could allow her taint to travel over into our world, or, more worrisome, into the collective reality, in effect infecting all universes at once."

"This is a bit much to take in." I hesitated. "But you want me to kill this girl." I'd started it as a question, but it ended a statement.

"There was a world, far removed from the consensus, where my mother didn't die from cervical cancer. I was, of course, happy, because I had her back- though only kind of. But one day she told me she'd started dating a man- and naturally, I felt protective, and tried to look into him. And he didn't exist here; I couldn't find evidence of him existing anywhere. And details kept changing, and I was convinced he had to be a con artist, and planned to tell my mother so, only to find the two of them having lunch- and he was now a woman. The inconsistencies increased, metastasized, until there was no longer any denying that there was something wrong. So one day I walked with my mother's lover to the grocery store, and when a large truck passed by, I shoved her into its path."

"But already the damage had spread. I recognized it in my mother at the funeral. I visited another couple of times before I realized what was going to happen, and stopped; I'd buried my mother once before, and couldn't stand to do it again. Eventually I overcame my cowardice, and tried to return, but she was gone. In fact, that entire world was gone, replaced by something barely even recognizable as the Earth."

"It's no small burden, I know- but our time is short, and you'll need to decide soon, or your decision will be made without you." I pondered for the next thirty hours, unable to sleep, unable to force myself to read my schoolbooks. So I "glanced sideways," which was how I'd started referring to it, and attended the class where he'd met her.

It wasn't difficult finding her- she sat up front in the class, and stared up at him with raw admiration, dutifully scribbling in a little notebook. Of course, he hadn't mentioned that she was beautiful, with long, curly blond hair and a round but pleasant face.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I decided to talk to her. Perhaps it was simply that she was beautiful, and I was still young enough that that was a controlling factor. But as class ended, I made sure I bumped into her rather hard on my way past her seat, knocking her bottled water out of her hand and emptying its contents on the carpet. "Oh, I'm so sorry," I said. "Please, let me buy you a cup of coffee, as a peace offering."

She smiled, a little dubious, and said, "That's got to be the clumsiest come-on I've ever seen."

"No, it's- really, it's not. I just, I feel awful. Just let me buy you a cup of coffee, to ease my conscience. You don't even have to drink it, if you don't want to. It's just my penance."

She smiled, and followed me to the cafeteria. When we got to the barista she bit her lip and she said, "Actually, I should probably just have some tea."

"Tea sounds perfect," I said.

We sat just long enough for it to get awkward before she smiled at me. "So, um, tell me about yourself," I said, stumbling over the words.

"Well, my name's Clare, but I might have already said that. Um, I'm not sure what you want to know."

I really wanted to know that she was a closet anti-Semite, or something, anything, that would make me want her dead- or at least make what I'd come here to do easier. "Uh, why are you in the web design class?"

"I'm a digital technology and culture major- a fancy way of saying I want to start in web design and eventually tell other web designers what to do. Oh, and I want to be successful enough at it that I'm not working on porn websites."

"So you want to be in the top 10% or so of web designers, then," I teased.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I'm an, um, English major, actually. I took the class kind of on a whim- I needed an elective in that time period. But Dr. Barbeau seems great." At the mention of his name she became suddenly animated.

"Oh, I know. I've taken every one of his classes I could. It started in a community media class a couple of semesters ago and- he's just wonderful. Knowledgeable, but he's really good about conveying that in a way that's really generous and easy to get." Then she sighed, and absently prodded her tea with a stir stick. "This is the last of the classes he teaches," she said, almost sad, then she looked squarely at me for a second, and said, "I need to go to the bathroom."

I counted to twenty after she'd left, then stood up slowly and followed her. The café was largely empty, since only students who didn't have class were here, so not an eye was on me. I walked to the women's bathroom door, and paused only a moment to prepare feigned surprise if I ran into someone else there, and pushed the door inside.

My hand had been fixated on the pocket knife in my jacket for nearly fifteen minutes, tracing its subtle contours, my fingernail stepping across the serrated back of the blade. My thumb caught on the switch, prepared to flick it open at a moment's notice. The bathroom looked empty, and oddly genderless, save for the lack of urinals. I began to wonder if Clare had just run out on me when I heard a little gasp, soft and wet.

I froze, certain someone had noticed me, but a second gasp came, and a third, which became a sob. Great, slimy sniffles echoed across the bathroom tiles, and I shivered, my fingers suddenly repulsed by the blade in my pocket. I left the bathroom.

When she returned, I pretended to be surprised that her eyes were puffy and red. "Are you- are you all right? Did something happen?"

A large tear streaked down her cheek; and she seemed to understand that it was inevitable, that the size of the ball of moisture was equal to the size of her pain, and that it was more than she could fight- more than she could ever hope to wipe away. "I'm pregnant," she said. There was a pause, before she added, "don't congratulate me. Everyone else does. Of course, nobody asks if I want to be pregnant, or if her father wants to be her father. Really, how many people were actually trying to have a baby when it happened to them? It's always people trying who can't, and people who weren't who do... it all was just an accident-" she stopped, horror striking her features as she realized she'd said too much.

"An accident- not a mistake. Wait- it's Dr. Barbeau's, isn't it?" She knew her face had already confirmed it, and nodded slowly.

"Oh my god. I can't believe I've been so stupid- he can't be with me. I just, I feel like such a fucking cliché." I let her talk; she didn't blame him- she'd seduced him- and when she stopped, I gave her platitudes, because the truth would have been far worse. I told her I'd see her around, in class, maybe, if I didn't drop it; I had to deflect when she asked for my number, because I didn't think my cell would work across worlds, and I knew the immediate rejection of the moment would sting less than the persistent rejection of ignored phone calls.

As soon as she went home for the day, I went to Barbeau's office. He had his reading glasses on, and regarded me with a cold look; it woke something animal in me, and I fought to keep a snarl from my lips. "It isn't done. I talked to her. And I know what you did."

He tried to get up, I think to let his tall frame add to his aura of authority, "Wait-"

I pushed him back down into his seat. "You're going to pay for her education. You're going to pay for her medical costs, and you're going to pay child support. You're going to pay in cash, because I'm not pushing across checks that will be cashed out of a version of you who didn't sleep with his student. This is not a negotiation- you will do these things, or I will ruin you. Oh, and if you make another attempt to harm her- or if you're even dumber and come after me- I'll ruin enough of your parallel lives that it will irrevocably fuck your aggregate."

His mind raced for a moment, as he pondered all the possibilities, and I think he realized he was getting off light. "Fine," he said, "now get out of my office."

I had to wait a day, because Clare's class only met Mondays and Wednesdays. I dropped in after her class was over. "So you didn't decide to stick it out?" she asked, a little hurt I hadn't stayed, if only to keep her company.

"I kind of need to talk to you. Coffee?"

"Um, I'm not really sure I can..." she said, and my ego shrunk a little.

"It's not about you and me- it's about your baby, and Dr. Barbeau." She mouthed the word "Oh," and got up and followed me. We were silent all through ordering, and it wasn't until we sat down that I finally spoke. "I'm sorry. I couldn't just let things go. I talked to Dr. Barbeau. He- he said he never intended for things to happen the way they did with you- and for obvious reasons they can't continue. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if his lawyer advised him to pretend like he didn't know what you're talking about. But he's agreed to help you pay for your baby, including covering your medical bills and child support. He also volunteered to pay for your tuition. His one condition is that you don't tell anyone the child is his. I know it's not ideal- but he'd lose his job, his livelihood- he knows he made a mistake. He doesn't want you to think of this as hush money- he just wants to do right."

I had to keep telling myself that I was lying for her, and for a different Barbeau than the guilty one, but I still felt like crap for it- particularly at the end, when with tears in her eyes she actually thanked me. "For obvious reasons, he can't give you the money himself, so I'll be the go-between. You probably won't see me in class anymore; it's just not my kind of thing, but I'll be around."

Table of Contents

# New Corpse Smell

You learn to live by smell. The intestine uses bacteria, protozoans and nematodes for digestion. Shortly after death, these microorganisms devour the intestinal wall, and leak out into the body cavity, releasing digestive enzymes into the body. Cells begin to rupture, particularly cells rich in enzymes like the liver, and those with a high water content, like the brain. Flies lay eggs at wounds and orifices, and within the first 24 hours, maggots hatch.

The transition of bite victims from life to death can be seamless, even to an observer. In the first few hours the corpse is most dangerous, because they outwardly appear to be human, and continue to exhibit normal levels of strength and dexterity, and even maintain higher brain functions, including the ability to communicate; they may continue to breathe, though this is only reflexive and requires active concentration. Their responses become increasingly aggressive and feral, as their bodies flood with epinephrine, making them very fast, strong, and violent. Freshly dead corpses can be detected through the stench of their bite wounds. Facial muscles are among the first affected by death, causing the corpses to drool. Their saliva reeks of decomposition, and bite wounds are soaked in it.

Several hours after death, rigor mortis seizes up muscles and joints. The corpses become stiff and usually lay on the ground, giving the appearance of death. During this time, livor mortis, the settling of the blood in the lower extremities, occurs, as heavier red blood cells are pulled down by gravity. The upper body becomes pale, while the lower body becomes dark and swelled with blood. As interior musculature dissolves, the outer layer of skin separates, giving the appearance that the corpse is wearing a thin, loose-fitting plastic coating. Ammonia collects in the lungs, and usually diffuses through the mouth and nose. However, liver dysfunctions such as cirrhosis can also lead to a build-up of ammonia in the body post mortem, so this should not be taken as a sign that a corpse is immobilized.

The body produces cadaverine and putrecine, amines that are heavier than air and stay low to the ground. Cadaverine is what gives semen its distinctive smell. During this time corpse hunters are the most active, using dogs to detect the higher levels of the amines in the corpse. During this phase, a knowledgeable corpse hunter can approach and incapacitate the body with impunity.

In two to three days flexibility returns to the corpse. In the absence of oxygen, intestinal microorganisms respire, releasing hydrogen sulfide and methane. These gases build up within the skin and cause bloating, and their smell attracts a second wave of insects, some of which prey upon the maggots. Blue/green discoloration and distension, as well as a purple marbling of the skin, usually beginning at the stomach, occurs. Often, these gases and fluids simply purge via the rectum, but the body cavity may rupture as well. This phase is characterized by the distinct smell of rotten eggs, and signals danger, because the strength of the smell can mask the number of corpses in the area.

At approximately three weeks the hair, nails and teeth detach, and the first generation of maggots mature into adult flies. Butyric fermentation begins as bacteria metabolize glucose, creating butyric acid as a byproduct. Butyric acid accounts for 3% of butter, and can be found in Parmesan cheese and vomit. This signifies the final paralysis of corpses as the vestigial muscle tissue is broken down, and gives off a pungent, cheesy aroma. Corpses are rarely able to stand at this point, and mold develops at the places where the body touches the soil. This mold has reportedly been collected for use in "corpse liquor," an aphrodisiac some claim aids in the seduction of corpses. If the body is in danger of becoming uninhabitably acidic, the microorganisms stop producing butyric acid and use an alternative process that creates butanol and acetone as byproducts. This can cover the dairy smell with a heavily alcoholic paint thinner/nail polish remover smell. As a bonus, this mix of butanol and acetone is highly flammable.

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

**Table of Contents**

Foreword

Shades of Cray: The story of the first transracial individual.

Leaving Lost Atlantis: A man writes his ex-wife, after discovering what happened to Atlantis.

An Iraqi Christmas Carol: A small group of soldiers and an Iraqi policeman mount a rescue for a kidnapped boy.

Quarter **:** A military team designed for assassinations loses control over one of its members in the middle of a mission.

Werehouse: A man trying to help his homeless cousin runs afoul of a society of murderers.

Atlas Dug Up: Two philosophical equals have a love affair that continues after death.

Blood Falls: An expedition to the Antarctic goes south, after a rock wall collapses.

Murder Your Darlings: A writer finds himself convinced one of his characters is trying to kill him, after his loved ones start getting hurt.

Mine: A doctor exacts revenge on a former-General.

Failure Cascade: A ride on a space elevator goes horribly wrong.

Euthanasia: A surgeon gets caught between his oath and his vengeful calling.

Shrink: An executive ponders the consequences of modern business.

Indian Gift: An ex-outlaw is drafted into convincing an Indian to sell his land.

Parallel: A professor familiar with inter-dimensional travel tries convincing one of his students to kill another.

New Corpse Smell: Observing decomposition.

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.

Thanks From The Author

Other Works By Nic

# 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.

# Boarder Legalese

Yarr, matey. Here thar be legal wordings. Never have me weather eyes met upon your horizons, says I, nor have I spoke of ye. The troubled waters o' these pages be filled up with imagined and legendary monsters and treasures, but be ye warned: I fear there be no truth to these tales. A sliver may lie in the heart of these, but that sliver is distorted through bottom of a rum bottle- and the bottle's rum- and at the core they be lies and fancy, and any man or beast claims otherwise is a blaggart and a pirate, and may find himself at the end of me steel. If ye see the skull and bones flying above a ship, be wary, and prepare to repel boarders. And if the Jolly Roger sails against the red, give ye no quarter, because ye can expect none.

