

# Fiction Vortex

A Speculative Fiction Typhoon

June 2013

Volume 1, Issue 2

Edited by Dan Hope

Copyright 2013 Fiction Vortex

Cover image courtesy of NASA

Smashwords Edition

Website: FictionVortex.com

Twitter: @FictionVortex

Facebook: FictionVortex

# Table of Contents

Letter from the Editor

Short Stories

Losses Beyond the Kill Point — by Marilyn K. Martin (1st Place)

Freckles, Stan, and Peconic Joe — by John Byrne

A Feeble Gleam of Stars — by R.W.W. Greene (2nd Place)

Willow Grove — by T. Eric Bakutis

A Misleading Dance — by Catherine Evleshin

Bogged Down — by Jason Norton (3rd Place)

Lyfe — by Tyrone Long

In the Rain — by Lisa Lutwyche

Writing Tips

The Bus Test: A Simple and Merciless Method for Improving Characters — by Mike Cluff

The Sins of Short Story Submissions — by Dan Hope

About Fiction Vortex

#  Letter from the Editor

Did someone alter the temporal dampening settings on the time dilation cognetization initiator? It seems like we've been doing this for longer than two months. But here we are, celebrating our second issue of Fiction Vortex.

Let's set aside the specifics of time perception and talk about what's really important: the stories. We have conclusive proof in this issue that the May issue was more than just a fluke because we have yet another month's worth of fantastic stories to deliver. This issue has some great surprises, too. While some seem to fit into traditional genres, such as alien invasion, fairy grove visitation, and haunting ghosts, there are also a few that defy description. For instance, what genre covers a botanist who finds more than he bargains for while searching for Ghost Orchids? There's a story that seems to be a general dystopia until you realize it's dealing with the most dystopic medium of all: reality television. And of course, how do you classify a story where the language changes as the story progresses?

Now perhaps you can see why we're so proud of these stories.

Of course, being the narcissistic sociopaths (say that ten times while drunk) that we are, we couldn't just let the fiction writers have all the fun, so you'll also see a few writing tips from me and the Editor-in Chief, Mike Cluff, near the end of this issue. They involve vehicular manslaughter and malicious fairy hit squads, so at least they should be interesting.

Thank you for your support of the site, and we hope you continue to enjoy great speculative fiction from Fiction Vortex. Look for more every week on FictionVortex.com, now complete with NSA wiretapping so the government knows how cultured and widely read you are.

Vortexical Wishes and Cyclonic Dreams,

Dan Hope

Managing Editor, Voice of Reason

Fiction Vortex

(Back to Table of Contents)

# Short Stories

Losses Beyond the Kill Point — by Marilyn K. Martin (1st Place)

Freckles, Stan, and Peconic Joe — by John Byrne

A Feeble Gleam of Stars — by R.W.W. Greene (2nd Place)

Willow Grove — by T. Eric Bakutis

A Misleading Dance — by Catherine Evleshin

Bogged Down — by Jason Norton (3rd Place)

Lyfe — by Tyrone Long

In the Rain — by Lisa Lutwyche

(Back to Main Table of Contents)

# Losses Beyond the Kill Point

by Marilyn K. Martin; published June 4, 2013

First Place Award, June 2013 Fiction Contest

The pig was green that morning. A bad green. Darker than the grass. The color of a laser-tank in the forest. Bad! Grunting and gobbling in its morning trough, the pig was a green mini-blimp, darker green stripes rippling the length of its back. Its stubby green legs were distorted, as usual. One floating out sideways, another one arcing over its back.

OUCH! His stomach-alarm had gone off. "No, No, No!" he said, a fist pounding on the small device permanently locked around his waist. "Bab, Bad, Bad!" Blinking dazedly, he turned to look up at the large one-story circular building wavering above him in the near distance, like a mirage. His legs started stumbling toward it, even as his fogged brain was deciding what to do.

He entered the circular building through the huge blue doorway, since he was wearing scrubs the same shade of blue. His feet seemed to know where to go, as he lumbered toward the medication dispensing desk.

"That one! That one! That one!" His finger pounded the counter beside a pink pill, amid an array of thirty pills of all different sizes and colors. The pills were always spread out on the counter, for the patient to first approve them.

"Okay, that one," said the Dispenser in monotone behind the counter. "Any reason you don't want to take that one?"

"Bad pink!" the patient said, finger still jabbing the counter beside the pink pill. "It's dead! Dead pink! Pink people dead!"

"Alright, fine. Sign here," intoned the Dispenser with a sigh, and placed the electronic signature pad on the counter before the patient.

The bald patient picked up the stylus and scribbled madly, then started jabbing the screen with the stylus. "Lines are fences. Can't escape. Bad!" he hollered at the pad. He blinked away sudden memories of street barricades, and no easy escape as the enemies' tanks approached. Meanwhile, the small screen's crisscrossing protective grid appeared underneath his signature. Then there was a tiny flash, and his thumbnail photo appeared in the upper right corner above his signature, to properly ID him as the scribbler.

"Okay, here are the rest of your morning pills," the Dispenser announced, after scooping up the remaining pills into six small swallow-size cups. A large glass of juice was set on the counter for him.

As the patient downed one cup of pills after the other, amid gulps of juice that dribbled down his chin, the Dispenser uploaded the patient's signature to the mainframe. Then the pad was noisily thrown back underneath the counter. The "bad" pill sat off to the side of the counter, to be logged in and then discarded.

The patient spent the rest of the day down the slope at the farm, checking to make sure all the animals were their proper color. The purple chickens clucked and scattered from him. The green-striped pig grunted and ignored him. But the aqua-colored horse just stared at him, as it solemnly chewed its alfalfa. He listened carefully, but something was wrong.

~~~~~

"That one! That one! That one!" the patient insisted that evening, a finger jabbing the counter beside an aqua capsule.

"Okay, any reason?" asked the bored Dispenser, moving the offending capsule aside.

"Horse color. Didn't talk to me," muttered the blinking, crazed patient, as the signature-pad was slid in front of him. "Bad horse! Bad!" he continued, as he scribbled lines and circles for his signature. Another small flash, and then he shoved the pad back toward the Dispenser.

As he downed his six tiny cups of pills with juice, the Dispenser uploaded his signature, and added a few notations: "Refused one pill each, morning and evening med dispensing. Reports horse didn't talk to him after morning meds. Did not jab signature pad for evening meds, and was the first time he pushed signature pad toward me when finished."

~~~~~

For the next few days, the patient randomly picked out one pill to be removed at both morning and evening med dispensings. Then, at the farm one morning, he noticed something strange. The chickens were all white. Not one was purple. But the pig was still green.

"Bad pig!" he hollered from the other side of the gleaming metal fence. But the pig continued to snort and snuffle, as it gobbled its breakfast from the trough. "Don't eat all of it!" shouted the patient at the pig. "Some of it is bad! Bad pills! Bad pig!"

He was petting the nose of the non-talking aqua horse later that same afternoon, inside the horse stable. Suddenly he heard many footsteps and looked around. He spied an Official in a white lab coat, leading a small knot of nervous people through the stables. Since this happened fairly regularly, the patient had never paid any attention before. This time, however, he surprisingly seemed to understand most of the conversation. When the Official stopped and turned, to answer a question from the group, the patient jerkily turned to listen too.

"Actually, this kind of therapy started by accident," the Official was saying to the knot of people, whose distorted faces stretched and twisted. "It had been a very controversial theory before the war, that someone's Soul or Spirit could guide a person's body and mind back to health," the Official was explaining. "Our psychiatric hospitals had just started to experiment with that theory, and even had some promising results. Then the war broke out.

"After the war, with so many insane and so few trained medical personnel who had survived, it suddenly became our Theory of Necessity," the Official continued. The patient had lost track of the conversation by this point, and stood blinking, unsure what to do next.

"In order to help all these hundreds of thousands of psychotic people, driven insane by the war, we gathered them up into safe environments. Like this fenced-in compound, which used to be a military base," the Official gestured. "We watch them, protect them and medicate them, mainly to keep them calm but mobile.

"The medications range from tranquilizers to mild hallucinogenics to herbal restoratives," the Official explained. "And the patients must see and approve all the pills before taking them. They are allowed to stop taking one pill per dispensing session, if they wish. Interestingly, the patients who are ready to heal usually refuse the hallucinogenics first.

"Other patients, more damaged, choose to stay in a distorted hallucinogenic world longer," the Official sighed. "Based on this Spirit Healing Theory, our small staff has been instructed to help every patient find their own way back to health. Staff can't force anything on a patient, but are to encourage every glimmer of a patient wanting to make a change for the better."

A woman in the group raised her hand with a question, and held up a small, blinking recording device to catch the Official's answer. "Doctor, why are hallucinogenics prescribed? If they've been driven insane by what they've experienced in the war, aren't they already drowning in horrific thoughts and memories they can't deal with?"

The Official nodded. "Good question. However, it's been our experience that heavily tranquilized and sedated patients have practically no thought processes at all. Their sub-conscious may be repeatedly experiencing horrific imagery and shrieking for help. But keeping these thoughts and memories locked deep inside their heavily drugged bodies, the patients will only get worse. We think it's better to keep the patients conscious and somewhat alert. And by allowing them a distorted and more comforting view of reality, with mild hallucinogenics, it's the best way to help them work their way out of their own personal hells.

"And now, if you'll follow me back outside, I'll show you the concert gazebo the nearby villagers built for us." The Official then turned and started leading the tour group out of the stable. The Official smiled and greeted the patient in passing, who only stood blinking.

Half of the trailing group ignored him, and the other half only glanced at him with nervous smiles in passing. Their yawning faces, stretching sideways and up or down, were ugly to him. He remembered how some faces that pulled and twisted like that could bleed. He unsteadily turned back to the aqua horse, glad that the ugly people, who might bleed and die, were leaving.

~~~~~

For weeks after that, the patient refused at least one pill about every three days. He was now down to five tiny cups of pills with his juice. So the Dispenser eyed him with interest as he approached the counter one evening.

The blue-scrubbed patient surveyed the array of his pills on the counter. He jabbed his finger on the counter beside a black star-shaped pill. "That one!" The Dispenser picked up the black-star pill and put it aside.

Suddenly he jabbed the counter beside a tri-colored capsule. "I want more of that one!" he yelled. "Another one! Like this! Yes!"

The surprised Dispenser shook its head. "No. You can't have more of that pill. Only one."

"Only one ... Only one ... Only one," the patient mumbled to himself, genuinely distraught, as he picked up the pill and put it hurriedly in his mouth. The Dispenser scooped the other pills into the tiny cups, and pushed them and the juice cup toward the patient.

When the Dispenser slid the signature pad toward the patient, he asked curiously, "Why did you want more of that particular capsule?"

"Colors," the patient answered, making loops and jagged angles in one long pen-stroke on the pad. "Need more colors. Chickens white. Horses brown. They need more colors. I remember ... animals with colors never get hurt or die. More colors!"

~~~~~

Weeks later, all the farm animals had changed colors. Even the pig was just a dirty pale pink, its back covered with springy hairs the patient had never noticed before amid the rippling green stripes. He wandered away from the farm that morning, now that the farm animals were just their boring natural colors. He was afraid for them, but didn't understand why.

He glanced up at the circular building as he climbed the slope from the farm. The building was solid suddenly, not hazy and distorted. This was new. This was scary.

"NO!" he screamed at the Dispenser that evening. "MORE PILLS! MORE! NEED MORE PILLS!"

But the Dispenser quietly shook its head. "No. No more pills. You can't go back. You can only go forward."

~~~~~

The patient took his shrunken piles of pills in four tiny cups faithfully for weeks after that, without asking for any more removals. Things were changing. Outside of him. Inside of him. He was unsure. But he felt strangely good. Like he could do other things now. Other things, besides stare at animals. New things. Scary things.

Maybe.

When he arrived at the counter for his morning pills one day, the Dispenser smiled at him. The Dispenser was an old man with white hair and a sad face, wearing white scrubs. The patient had never noticed that before.

"You're late," the old man Dispenser said in a mildly chastising tone. "Didn't your waist alarm go off to tell you to come get your morning pills?" Suddenly he noticed that the patient had placed a faded green washcloth between his waist alarm and stomach.

"Yes," the patient said, blinking. "I felt it. I put something ... over my tummy. So it ... doesn't hurt. Anymore. I felt it ... a little. And came. So ... I am here."

The Dispenser smiled even more, and gave him his three small cups of pills. The patient's signature that morning read "nokill me good nokill good." The Dispenser, still smiling, added copious notes to the patient's signature on the pad.

~~~~~

Days later, the patient was studying the high fences that marched up the lawn to end at the circular building. He was in a large wedge-shaped enclosure of only men like him, all bald and wearing blue scrubs. Their extended fence ran from their blue door into the building, to down and around the farm animal pens.

But there were other people beyond the fences on both sides, people who also stayed in the circular building. There were people wearing pink on the other side of one fence, with access to the building through a pink door. The pink people looked female.

There were also small people wearing yellow across the fence on the other side. The yellow people were short, some running in circles, around and around, calling "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" They were ... childs. Children? Blinking away sudden memories, he turned and hurried down to the farm. He didn't want to remember when he'd been small like that. When people had hugged him, loved him, and protected him. People who had bled red and died. And then left him all alone.

~~~~~

More time passed. One morning the old man Dispenser asked the patient why he was late again for morning meds. The patient stroked his long, scraggly hair. "I was looking. In bathroom mirror. My hair is bad. Someone ... someplace to fix it?"

The Dispenser smiled. He'd uploaded enough notes that the Officials knew that the patient was beginning to heal. So they had instructed the weekly Shaver to only shave off the man's beard, but let his hair start growing. They wanted to see if the patient would take the next step in his personal grooming. And he had.

Suddenly the Dispenser noticed something. "You've changed the washcloth under your waist-alarm, I see," he said pleasantly.

"Yes. It's blue. I wear blue," the patient explained. "I like blue. Now I'm all blue." He patted his hair again and seemed agitated. "Shaver? Can fix my ugly hair?"

"Yes," the Dispenser nodded. "You can find the Shaver beside the cafeteria, in the hallway."

"No! No! No!" the patient was saying a short while later. He was sitting in the barber chair, watching his shortening hair in the big mirror in front of him. "All off! All gone!"

"No," soothed the Shaver, who was also an old man in white scrubs. "You can't go back. Only forward, Dmitry. Wait until I finish. You'll like having a nice haircut, instead of being shaved bald. I promise."

"Can't go back. Can't go back. Can't go back," Dmitry muttered to himself as he stared in the mirror and watched the Shaver comb and clip his hair. His hair was brown, like the horse. With some silver strands. Old strands. But he wasn't old. Not like the Dispenser and Shaver. Someone ... someone had liked his brown hair. Someone else. Someone ... special.

"Dmitry ... Dmitry ... Dmitry," he mumbled to himself, as he walked down the long curved hallway to his room that evening. That was his ... name. He had a name. He suddenly felt ... more complete. He fell asleep that night with his new prickly haircut, amid echoes from the past. He dreamed of other people calling him by that name, long ago. Parents and siblings, teachers and friends. And ... special friends, very special. Even one who had loved him passionately, as only a woman can love a man.

~~~~~

"Can I ... go in there?" Dmitry asked the guard at the fence gate. He pointed to the females inside all wearing pink, next to his blue-men enclosure.

The guard nodded. "Yes, you can come in to visit. You just can't touch any of the women. And you can't go through that pink doorway into the building. Do you understand?"

Dmitry nodded. "Visit. Yes. Can't touch. I can ... only visit."

The guard let him in through the gate. He walked across the lawn a few meters, then stopped and looked back. This felt odd. He was supposed to be over there, in the blue enclosure. This was the pink people enclosure. A hand absently went to his new haircut, still vaguely fragrant with an aftershave spritz.

He slowly turned to look around at the pink women. He spied one he'd noticed before from the blue-men enclosure. She looked young and pretty, and vaguely familiar. She had long brown hair with silver strands tied in a bundle hanging down her back. She was sitting on a bench under a tree. Dmitry walked over to her.

He stopped and stared down at her. Dressed in pink scrubs, she sat with her hands limply in her lap, palms up. She didn't look up at him. She didn't move at all. "I saw you," he said, pointing. "From the fence. Over there." Still no response. "I wear blue. I stay over there with the blue men."

Still she didn't move, her head cocked at a tilt as she stared at the grass. He wanted her to say something. Strange feelings suddenly welled up inside him, confusing him. He desperately needed her to say something. It had been too long. Why wouldn't she talk to him?

He roughly shook her shoulder. "Look at me! I'm here! I'm back!" he said loudly.

Suddenly people in white scrubs came running toward him, as the woman with the ponytail, totally unresponsive, continued to stare at the grass. "Don't touch her!" they screamed. "You can't touch her!"

~~~~~

That night he had a nightmare. It was about a pretty woman with long brown hair. She smiled at him. She liked him. She laughed and kissed him. Then ... smoke and fire. Explosions. Bad things. Too many bad things. He remembered running breathlessly down one burning alley after another, screaming out her name. When he'd found her, he'd pulled her limply into his lap, blood everywhere. But her eyes were also staring at nothing. She was empty too.

"Dmitry? Dmitry!" came a male voice through the fog of a painful dream.

Dmitry struggled awake, gasping for breath. His cheeks were wet, his throat full of salty tears.

"You were screaming," said the man in white scrubs. "Here, take this." He held out a pill and a small cup of water. "It'll help you sleep, without the nightmares."

Dmitry rose up on an elbow and reached out a shaking hand. He swallowed the pill and water. "It wasn't her," he sniffed, handing back the paper cup. "Under the tree. The pink lady. It wasn't her."

"I know," the pill man said simply. "You can't go back, Dmitry. You can only go forward."

Dmitry looked up. This man was about his age. But half his face was badly scarred with tight, rippled skin that made his eye and mouth droop. The Night Nurse. Dmitry had only seen him a few times before. Somehow, that scarred face fit into his nightmare.

As the scarred man headed for the door, Dmitry called out, "You can't go back either, can you?"

The Night Nurse paused, a hand tightening on the doorknob, then he briefly looked back. "No, I can't. And neither can you. Good night, Dmitry."

~~~~~

"And what is this pill?" asked Dmitry a week or so later, at morning med dispensing. He pointed to a tiny green pill shaped like a triangle.

"That's one of the Restorative herbs, Dmitry," answered the Dispenser. "You really need to take those, if you want to keep getting better."

"Yes. I want to get better," answered Dmitry. "What does it do? This Restor-a-tive?"

The old man stared at the pill. No one had ever asked him that question before. "It has herbs that make you stronger inside. It also helps balance and heal your mind. As you keep removing the other pills, these Restorative herbs will have a stronger effect. Helping you to get better. Helping you to keep moving forward."

Dmitry nodded vaguely, staring at the other nine pills arrayed on the counter. "These other pills. What do they do?"

The Dispenser thought a moment, deciding. He then put fingers on three pills and pulled them into a separate pile. "These three are placebos," he answered. "Fake pills. Sometimes broken minds get better only by thinking a pill is doing something to help them. So these pills are fake. It's the people healing themselves."

Dmitry stared at the three pills, then shook his head. "No. I don't want any fake pills. Fake pills don't help ... moving forward. Can you take away all three of them, instead of just one?"

The Dispenser scooped up all three with a happy grin. "For you, Dmitry, since you are doing so well, I'll remove all three placebos."

~~~~~

A few days later, Dmitry headed sadly back to the farm. As the fog in his mind cleared, he'd been feeling lonely. He'd tried talking to other blue men in his enclosure, without success. They either ignored him, stared at him blankly, or ran away from him. Dmitry understood. They weren't ready to move forward. But he was.

The Official people in white scrubs or white lab coats didn't have time to talk to him. They were working, they said. And he never saw them when they weren't working.

He'd gone back into the pink-scrub female enclosure a few times, always with a stern older woman in white scrubs beside him. But those pink women wouldn't talk to him either. At best, they just smiled crookedly and said "Hello!" over and over and over. "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!" And he wasn't allowed to go into the yellow children's enclosure on the other side, since he'd shaken one of the pink females.

So he talked to the farm animals. Even without their psychedelic colors, the non-talking animals seemed friendlier. And he could pet their warm bodies without getting yelled at. The animal Officials, who all wore green scrubs, always smiled and nodded a greeting to him. But they were also too busy to talk to him.

Occasionally they let him hold a baby chick or piglet. Sitting cross-legged on the grass with one baby animal or the other in his lap, he wondered what they were thinking. They had no bad memories. They were all so new, having just been born, that they could only 'go forward' for the rest of their lives.

One time, he even had flash-memories of once being very young and having an animal for a pet. It was a spotted dog he called Lucky that he'd raised from a tiny puppy. It was so long ago. But he remembered having so much fun playing with Lucky. He realized then that he'd always found solace with animals. They couldn't talk, but they could love. Lucky had loved him so much that he'd crawled on his belly, whimpering with a broken spine, to lick Dmitry's face and bring him back to consciousness after that bomb had blown up their home.

Suddenly, Dmitry didn't want to remember anymore. Shaking, he quickly stood up and thrust the newborn animal back into the arms of a startled green-scrub Official, before walking away rapidly up the slope.

~~~~~

"So how do you like your cage, Mr. Pig?" Dmitry asked the pig one day, as the porker snorted and slobbered up its breakfast in the trough. "How do you go forward, when this pen only lets you go in circles?"

Something shimmered through Dmitry, startling him. He too was going in circles, he suddenly realized. He wasn't going forward either, only in circles, from the building down to the farm and back again. He abruptly turned and headed back up the slope toward the blue door in the circular building.

The old man at the dispensing counter seemed surprised, as he checked the wall clock while coming out of the back office. "You're early, Dmitry," he said. "You don't get your evening meds for a few hours yet."

"How do I ... get out of this cage?" fumbled Dmitry. "If I want to go forward, I need to leave this building and these fences. You know that, don't you?"

The Dispenser dropped his chin briefly. All his loved ones, his entire city, were dead and gone from the face of the Earth. He could never go forward beyond this compound. Yet it was his job to help the patients go forward and eventually leave. Even his favorite ones, like Dmitry.

When the Dispenser looked up again, his eyes seemed filled with tears, as he quickly swallowed. "Go look for your Freedom, Dmitry," he said in a shaky voice. "Start in the hallway." Then the old man turned away, sniffing, and went back into his rear office.

Dmitry slowly walked down one side of the long, curved hallway. The cafeteria doors were closed, but it wasn't mealtime. He waved at the Shaver in passing, who paused from shaving another head bald, to smile and nod at him.

He still shaved Dmitry's face once a week. But it was up to Dmitry to decide when he needed a haircut. Dmitry had gotten used to having hair again. But he was dismayed at all the new silver strands he saw in that big mirror every time he had a shave or a haircut. It was definitely time to go forward, before all his hair was grey, and he was trapped here like the Dispenser and Shaver.

One end of the hallway was lined with doors to the bedrooms, open or closed, blue men stumbling in or leaving their tiny rooms. Some were stuck in their doorways, or leaning up against a wall by their doorways, all fearful their rooms and furnishings and meager belongings would be gone if they didn't stay close by and guard them. Dmitry understood. He'd been like that once. His first few months here he'd only gone between his room and the cafeteria and dispensing counter. So much loss in that horrible war. These fearful bald men just weren't ready to go forward yet.

Dmitry didn't find anything helpful about his Freedom on that side of the hallway. So, when he reached the end of the hallway, and could hear the yellow children on the other side of the wall, Dmitry turned around and slowly went up the other side of the hallway.

Getting frustrated, he still didn't see anything about Freedom. He ended up on the other end of the long hallway, by the offices of the white lab coat Officials. He noticed a huge posting board on the wall. On one side were announcements, such as the week's menu in the cafeteria. And the upcoming monthly concert-under-the-stars: blue men on the first Friday of every month, pink women and yellow children on the third Friday of the month. In the middle of the board were names and numbers that Dmitry guessed must match the Officials to their offices.

At the far end of the board was a list of nonsense words. Silly words. Nothing useful to someone who wanted to—

Then a chill rocked Dmitry, head to toe. All the nonsense words made sense. That was the answer. Up there on the board, near the end wall to the pink women's side. His Freedom. He started hyperventilating, his heart pounding. "No ... No! Not now! Not yet!"

Dmitry turned and ran, around the corner to the exit hallway, past the dispensing counter and then out of the blue door. He paused on the front lawn, panting, long enough to catch his breath. Then he ran the rest of the way to the farm. The green Officials found him with his arms wrapped around the bars of the pigs' enclosure, terrified and gasping for air.

~~~~~

Ten days later, Dmitry attended the monthly concert-under-the-stars, like he'd been doing for almost a year now. Other blue-scrubbed men wandered around aimlessly, since no one had to go in at sundown on concert nights. Dmitry sat in the front row, to minimize the distraction from the other blue men, so he could listen to the music.

He studied the musicians. They were all middle-aged, like Dmitry, to white-haired seniors, in a variety of pants and shirts. While playing, their faces were expressionless, except for slight frowns and moving lips as they read the music in the stands before them. Between songs, they ignored him, talking and joking with each other instead.

Dmitry suddenly felt a sharp pang of loneliness. He wanted to be part of a group of people like that again. People who liked him, people who joked and chatted with him. Friends and family. Faces he recognized, faces that lit up with smiles when they saw him.

Choking back tears, Dmitry realized that it was time to take a chance again. To march through his horrible memories and once more become part of the Living. To go forward and have a future away from medications, fences, and the blank stares of drugged patients. Dmitry started to tremble, tears falling down his cheeks. Suddenly, desperately, he wanted to be part of a group like that again, more than anything else in his life.

~~~~~

The next morning, Dmitry sat waiting on the metal bench across from the dispensing counter. He wore a clean set of blue scrubs, his hair neatly combed. There was stubble on his face, since the Shaver had told him that he was too busy to shave him out of his weekly rotation. A small packing crate from the cafeteria sat at his feet, filled with all his worldly possessions.

When the Dispenser arrived, he was surprised to see Dmitry sitting and waiting. But the old man quickly took in Dmitry's clean clothes and crate and nodded over a sad smile, understanding.

The Dispenser went behind the counter to the rear office to drop off his sweater, then came out again. "Good morning, Dmitry," he said over the counter. "Don't you have something to tell me?"

"Yes. I do," answered Dmitry, rising and approaching the counter.

"Freedom Restored Ends Entropy Despite Obnoxious Medications. FREEDOM."

The Dispenser smiled broadly and nodded. The way Dmitry pronounced that phrase told the Dispenser that Dmitry understood it. And was ready to be discharged.

"I knew you were getting close to leaving," the Dispenser said, opening a side drawer. "So I prepared your paperwork. This ... is one of my favorite duties."

The old man pulled out a piece of paper and a small card, and put them on the counter. "This card is your discharge from this Restorative Home for the War Insane," he said, pushing the card toward Dmitry. "Put this in your wallet or pocket. You will need to carry this with you always."

Dmitry reached over and picked up the card. He put it in his scrubs pocket, since he didn't have a wallet. Not yet, anyway.

"And this piece of paper has the name and address of a cousin of yours, one Dr. Vladimir Portnoy," the Dispenser explained, pushing the paper toward Dmitry. "He has a successful medical practice and a large home. And he is more than happy to have you join his family."

Dmitry was surprised. That pesky little cousin Vladimir? The same one who used to slip vodka into his parents' morning coffee? And would pinch Dmitry's girlfriends and run, so they'd slap Dmitry instead? All grown up now and a doctor, with a family of his own?

"I'll call you a jet-taxi, and then remove your waist alarm," the Dispenser said, reaching for an odd-shaped phone Dmitry never knew was behind the counter.

"And then, Dmitry, you shall have your well deserved Freedom."

Marilyn Martin is a writer and humorist. Her stories have appeared in "Deadman's Tome," "Strange Valentines" (antho - Whortleberry Press), "Cosmic Crimes," "PerihelionSF," "The Fifth Dimension" (these last two stories can be read for free on her Amazon Author Page), and the March 2013 "Universe Horribilis" (antho - Third Flatiron Press). Marilyn also writes weekly non-fiction and humor columns for "ComputorEdge.com," and is writing a new series of Science Fiction/Horror/Paranormal Tech novellas on Amazon Kindle called "Hunting Monster Aliens".

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# Freckles, Stan, and Peconic Joe

by John Byrne; published June 7, 2013

No one complained when those harsh four-letter words that teens thrust into every sentence unaccountably disappeared. Nor was anyone concerned that political talk-show hosts seemed no longer able to verbally compare everyone they disliked to devotees of a genocidal former German Chancellor. And nobody but nobody complained that door-to-door preachers were suddenly rendered speechless when hoping that their victims enjoyed the ensuing 24 hours.

But when previously common and less controversial words became suddenly unsayable, concern and then panic set in.

Take Stan, an Oregon State University graduate student enthusiastically pursuing linguistic anthropology, and his girlfriend, Sue, an OSU graduate less enthusiastically pursuing paychecks to keep their household above the poverty line. Sue's prime reward for the time she spent harvesting a very modest wage was that Stan was a verbally attentive lover, ready at all moments to put down the latest article about abstract nouns among the unfortunately extinct Tikiwadda people to express a sincere, over-the-top admiration for Sue's allure.

On the afternoon of July 17, as Sue struggled in the front door with two armfuls of groceries, Stan looked up from his latest find, a sixteenth century Jesuit's report, complete with sample words, about the Quaquanantuck on Long Island in what is now New York State, and said, "Tswa incomconque tswinginging." Which, he hastened to add, was Quaquanantuck for, "You are truly..." Only the intended last word of the sentence did not emerge.

Sue feared that Stan had had a stroke, but there he was, breathing normally while looking puzzled and taking a second, and a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth run at rendering the Quaquanantuck phrase into English, only to stop dead each time at the end of "truly." Stan finally chose a side route by saying, "You are truly of an appearance that is remarkably appealing." Sue decided that instead of a stroke, Stan must have been suffering early onset dementia, a condition Sue had seen often among graduate students.

But Stan wasn't demented. The word he'd sought was gone. Simply, completely, absolutely, and unsayably gone. Challenged by Stan to enunciate the hitherto common, three-syllable, English adjective meaning "of an appearance that is remarkably appealing," Sue failed. And their neighbor, Josh, failed at about the same time in his effort to invoke a deity's wrath upon the stray cat which had just dug up Josh's best tomato plant. And, down the street, Cynthia was rendered speechless at the gas station while trying to ask the attendant to replenish her car's fuel to the utmost. And on, and on, and on, all across the increasingly frustrated and alarmed country, which demanded that something be done to recapture the missing words. As best they could, people struggled around holes in their diction to make protest signs, to send e-mails, and to shout insults at similarly afflicted politicians.

Stan took a different tack when he realized that he could compliment Sue readily by using the small clutch of Quaquanantuck words he had mined from the sixteenth century book. The only drawback was that neither Sue nor anyone else within 3,000 miles of Stan understood him.

Exactly 3,001 miles away, there was one very old man who was a fluent Quaquanantuck speaker, having been tutored by his grandparents as he grew up on his family's tiny island in the middle of Peconic Bay in eastern Long Island. That man, whose library card bore the name of Peconic Joe, spoke Quaquanantuck whenever he spoke to himself. In the fifty-seven years since his grandfather died, Peconic Joe had never met anyone who understood the ancient tongue for the simple reason that there was no one else in the world who used the language.

In the 3,001 miles that separated Stan and Peconic Joe, emergencies were declared, committees were formed, experts were hired, fall-out shelters were cleaned up, and theories (uninhibited by facts) were hawked all over the Internet. Among those who had a theory, but different from most in that she cared about facts, was an inquisitive fourteen-year-old middle school student in Independence, Missouri known as Freckles.

Freckles loved mysteries. Freckles particularly loved the kind of mysteries that she could delve into with the computer she had built from parts of three dozen Commodore 64s liberated from her middle school's junk room. Freckles leaped on the language problem with every key on her keyboard.

While her parents despaired, believing their precious daughter was wasting her life writing fan mail to teenage idols, Freckles systematically and illegally probed corporate, university, and government databases looking at trends in populations and language use. Her raids left behind digital fingerprints that every knowledgeable computer expert in the world concluded were so improbable and ridiculous that they were clear evidence of sabotage by a reconstituted KGB. The affected companies, governments, and universities had no idea that Freckles was searching for clues to the verbal disappearances and cared nothing for their bank accounts and their nuclear secrets.

While Freckles banged away at her homemade keyboard, and while Stan spoke louder and slower believing that anyone could understand if they only listened carefully, the experts determined: A) The problem appeared mostly in English at that time, although a common Italian term used in greeting and leaving seemed to be suffering from the malady, as did an Arabic term normally translated as "God willing"; and B) No one had the slightest idea why the sudden verbal disappearances were occurring.

Stan became even more indifferent to cause, consequence, and cure when he realized that the concern about language made it a good time to publish what he had learned about the sixteenth century Quaquanantuck tongue, which, he explained in his article's opening paragraph, had been used all up and down the entire east coast as a trade language five hundred years ago. A dating of loan words cropping up in other languages showed that the common use of Quaquanantuck ceased entirely around 1510.

The very prestigious and very, very unread scholarly journal _Archaic Talk_ put Stan's monograph online in September with an introductory teaser claiming (without any justification whatsoever) that it was relevant to the deficiencies cropping up in English.

By the time Stan's article appeared, violent protests had broken out demanding repairs to the increasingly pot-holed language. The government responded with a new round of committees, commissions, and panels of experts who all concluded that nothing could be done to stop the deterioration of English. It was suggested that the U.S. Government appropriate hordes of European words to fill the gaps. Everyone congratulated each other on their cleverness and declared the crisis over just in time to witness the disappearance of the borrowed words, both from the English to which they were assigned and from the language from which they were stolen. Freckles tracked the new round of disappearances with interest as the affected countries threatened lawsuits, war, trade restrictions, and all manner of nastiness if any speaker of English dared use a single additional precious foreign word.

Although he lived alone on a remote island, Peconic Joe was neither unaware of nor immune to the linguistic crisis. He paddled into Riverhead once a week and used his library card to access the Internet, generally searching for anything that related to the Quaquanantuck people. His focused interest, however, unavoidably brought him into contact with an avalanche of news about disappearing words as well as flamboyant opinions and vindictive allegations as to which nasty bunch was to blame. As for the personal effect of the problem, Peconic was soon rendered unable to state his second name despite the fact it was written plainly on the library card. He shrugged, shortened his last name to Peconic J__ and moved on.

"Peconic Joe" was not the old man's real name. That handle had been assigned to him by a lazy kindergarten teacher on his first day in school. Peconic had readily accepted it, believing that this bossy tribe of large white people to whom he was entrusted every day had a ritual of bestowing names to mark important events in a youngster's life. By the time he realized the error of his assumption, the new name had stuck so he remained Peconic Joe on his diploma, draft card, honorable discharge papers, commercial driver's license, union card, voter registration card, social security card, and library card all the way up until the day the language crisis reduced the imposition to Peconic J. On his island, he was The Hope That Morning Brings although there was never anyone there to call him by his right name.

In early October, Peconic J's special interest led him to be the sixth hit upon Stan's article in _Archaic Talk_. The first, second, fourth and fifth hit had been the same person: Stan. The third hit had been Freckles.

Freckles had been lured by the magazine's inaccurate teaser hyping the relevance of Stan's article to the language issue. On finishing the article, Freckles became the first person, other than a few cranks who scattered comments randomly across the internet, to write something in the comment section of any _Archaic Talk_ article. Freckles' comment consisted of three questions: How many people had spoken Quaquanantuck? How quickly was the language abandoned? And why?

Those questions were as yet unanswered by Stan when Peconic J's regular searching made him the sixth hit on the article. He was delighted to dig into something of substance about the Quaquanantuck and even more delighted to answer Freckles' questions. His answers were that about three million people once used the language for trade; that it was abandoned immediately in the first decade of the 1500s; and that abandonment occurred when the language was blamed for the devastating spread of an unknown disease that killed millions of people up and down the east coast. In addition to the abandonment of the language, the Quaquanantuck people were ostracized which led some (such as Peconic J's great, great, etc. grandparents) to withdraw to remote islands while others passed themselves off as Shinnecocks, or Mohegans, or Montauks, letting not a single Quaquanantuck word escape their lips.

The response was very helpful to Freckles but only after Stan struggled to translate it into what English remained, because Peconic J, in his enthusiasm, had responded in elegant and forceful Quaquanantuck. Stan did a reasonable job with the translation. More importantly, Stan's struggles engendered a lively, or at least lively every Tuesday, interaction among Freckles, Stan, and Peconic J. The time Stan spent emailing this new woman called Freckles caused a surge of jealousy, which led Sue to join into the electronic conversation once she discovered its non-amatory focus.

In the wider world, the problem that had hitherto limited itself largely to the English-speaking, became prevalent in the Spanish as well. French was stricken next, then Portuguese, then Russian. Angry (but often wordless) demonstrations spread across the world.

The panic did not penetrate Freckles' cluttered room in Independence as her initial guess rapidly filled out into a real possibility, and then into a probability sufficiently strong to warrant bringing it to the attention of the President of the United States. Which is what Freckles did. Using small words even a politician with a short attention span could understand, with each portion of her analysis supported by anecdotes, statistics, and graphs purloined from the databases she had raided, Freckles wrote a six-page letter explaining why Shakespeare's cherished language was disappearing.

The letter was answered by a computer that thanked Freckles profusely for her concern about the impact of colonization, but assured her that those days were passed and that the nation faced more important issues, such as the apparent disintegration of its prime language.

"Why did the White House say anything about colonialism?" Stan e-mailed Freckles after receiving her anguished e-mail and the attached brush-off letter.

"Because," she responded electronically, "the theory is that languages were all created at one time and stocked with words. The reserve of words reflected the anticipated usage. At the time of creation, the imposition of English upon billions and billions of other people around the world was not anticipated. It is this unanticipated spread and usage of English and other European languages largely through colonialism which depleted the reserve of words much, much earlier than was planned."

Peconic J was quite willing to assign blame to European hubris, and he thought Freckles' analysis made more sense than anything else that was floating around. At the same time, Freckles' theory instilled an uneasy feeling. If, as Freckles was suggesting, the overuse of certain languages depleted the stock of words, might not the reverse be true as well?

"You're ... uh ... accurate," Freckles wrote back, struggling around ever new holes in English. "I didn't ... uh ... enunciate ... nevertheless, Quaquanantuck seems appropriate as a substitute due to its tragic underuse."

"Negative. Negative. Negative. Negative." Peconic J wrote back, wantonly wasting the precious verbal reserve. "You stole our ... acreage. You destroyed our people, our ... existences, our culture. You cannot ... possess our words."

Sue softened Peconic J's "never" to "I'll ... uh ... cogitate about the matter," by pointing out that switching to Quaquanantuck would mean that his real name would be on the library card, and besides, Sue went on, the situation was becoming tough on her because Stan was running out of compliments.

Stan was very skeptical because Freckles' analysis contradicted two hundred years of research on the development of language and because, "Freckles implies there had been a controlling being, kinda like, well ... uh ... a deity, who created a storeroom of ... expressions." That idea was just too retro for Stan. But then again, he started thinking, he would be the first linguistic anthropology student on the scene.

"Godful or godless, Quaquanantuck's availability or not, it hardly matters," Freckles moaned digitally, "No one pays attention to fourteen year old ... female beings called Freckles!"

"If it's right," replied Peconic J, forgetting for an instant his concern that Native Americans were one again becoming too attractive to European types, "it's right. All we have to do is get people to ... tune in."

Sue was the one who figured out how that could be done. "Nothing rocks the ... floating vessel with greater ... celerity than claiming that the ... powers are persecuting Christians."

"Huh?" was the collective response.

"All we have to do," Sue pursued, "is claim the ... Prez is suppressing Freckles' theory because it affirms the existence of ... deity."

"Sneaky!" typed Freckles.

"Unethical," typed Stan.

"Probably effective," typed Peconic J.

And so it was that a few strategic leaks to unhinged bloggers went viral and viraler and viralest, generating scare headlines about the Commie powers crushing absolute evidence of God which refuted Darwin. The allegations ratcheted up and up until the President herself was asked in a news conference why the holy visionary from Missouri who proved God's existence had been locked away in a secret prison in the Rocky Mountains by the Federal inquisitors. The President responded forcefully that no one was locked away anywhere and, far from silencing Freckles, the President had already asked her to the White House to discuss her ideas the very next day.

The statement was an absolute lie but Freckles was not about to complain.

"You're going to have to propose solutions," Peconic J emailed Freckles.

"I know," she replied.

"Quaquanantuck is an obvious solution," Stan emailed enthusiastically. "We can offer to ... pedigogigate it."

"The only 'we'," Peconic J's letters were red with anger, "is me and the millions who died in the plagues you brought. Don't assume you can take the only thing that's left."

"I didn't assume anything," Freckles typed before Stan had a chance to respond, "and I won't offer anything. Anyway, how do I know they will take me ... uh ... as if they should pay attention."

Stan did apologize as soon as he could slip a new e-mail in.

"Forgive the anger," Peconic J replied. "It's hard, sometimes and I get ... to passing urine. Oh, make an offer. I want this to reach some kind of ... finishment. English is driving me ... distracted."

"Nothing without your ... Old Kinderhook," Freckles tapped a second before heading for the Kansas City Airport in a limo supplied by the government. In the meantime, the FBI assigned seventy agents to find out who the KGB agent using the handle Peconic J was and what he wanted.

President Sanders had not intended to take Freckles seriously. A quick handshake was planned along with a photo op, and then off Freckles would go to a clutch of unimportant aides. President Sanders rarely misread people. She misread Freckles.

"I can tell you what to do privately," Freckles said in a whisper while smiling through the photographed handshake, "or you can read about it in tomorrow morning's paper and look like a fool."

"You're blackmailing me," The President replied with her broadest smile.

"Affirmative." Freckles smiled even more.

And so it was that Freckles and the President talked directly and privately (a term that includes three aides, seven recording devices, and four beefy boys and girls from the Secret Service.)

"Quaquanantuck!" The President exploded. "What the ... infernal place is Quaquanantuck and how are we supposed to ... apprehend it."

"A language which still has a virtually unlimited store of ... expressions and quickly." Freckles got right down to it.

The Secretary of State, who was wired into the President's left ear, said it would be better to kidnap the French, Spanish, and Italian Academies and torture them until they forked over new expressions. The CIA chief, wired into the President's right ear, whispered that his agency had discovered Freckles was in constant correspondence with a likely KGB agent who had infiltrated the Riverhead Public Library under the code name Peconic J. At the same time, twenty-three Senators texted, demanding action since they no longer had sufficient expressions to sustain a filibuster.

"Everyone ... close your mouths!" shouted the President, startling Freckles since she didn't hear anyone saying anything. "Now where do we ... proceed from ... the present place?"

Freckles suggested working a deal with Peconic J. The CIA said they just discovered he was a card-carrying AIM member as well as a KGB agent and should be arrested and deported. The Secretary of State asked for authority to dispatch Delta Force to shoot someplace up.

Using what few words remained to her, the President ignored the bellicose advice and dispatched an advance team to Peconic J's island. She also scheduled a full White House meeting for the next day, pulled the wires out of her ears, and ordered lunch for Freckles and herself. It turned out they shared an affinity for Commodore 64s and spent much of the afternoon discussing Freckles' homemade computer.

Meanwhile, the wheels of government ground finely, seizing all of Stan's Quaquanantuck materials ("mostly romantic words" the report sneered); searching for other sources of Quaquanantuck ("None."); and concluding that The Hope That Morning Brings was, in fact, the only person who knew the language, AIM member and KGB agent or not. The old man, in turn, the advance team reported, refused to commit himself but would attend the scheduled meeting provided the meeting honored the time-honored rituals: purification, a bit of smoking, complimentary (off-topic) speeches and gifts before any business could start.

The Presidential appointments person replied, "We can find sweetgrass, the Smithsonian will supply the catlinite pipe, Congress will waive the no-smoking law, but what kind of a gift does this dotty old guy with the funny name and the dangerous associations want, eagle feathers?"

By this time, lunch was long over and Freckles was back in Independence whacking away at her own keyboard, hacking into the White House. She read the appointment person's e-mail as it was being typed and she watched the reply from the advance team on Long Island appear on the screen.

"The gift this 'dotty old guy' wants is to have the Black Hills returned to the Lakota."

Freckles smiled.

THE BEGINNING

John Byrne lives in Albany, Oregon with his artist wife, Cheryl French, and their high school-age daughter. He writes stories, plays, and poems. A recently published play (In Elsinore) can be found in Issue 3 of Chamber Four Magazine. The February and May 2013 editions of Poetic Pin-Up include two of his recent poems. This story ultimately arises from the fact that he, on occasion, can't come up with common words. It explains why.

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# A Feeble Gleam of Stars

by R.W.W. Greene; published June 11, 2013

Second Place Award, May 2013 Fiction Contest

Winks and words twinkled across her retinas. ";-) ;-) ;-) Amitteee hz a boyfrend! Amittee hz a boyfrend! ;-) ;-) ;-)"

The message scrolled left into Amity's peripheral vision. She grinned and waved at her friends as their autocab pulled away. Amity skipped happily for one, two steps, then three but made herself stop and walk the rest of the way. She palmed the biolock on the doorframe. Her face slid from fading giddiness to practiced world-weariness when she spotted her parents watching the Wall in the living room.

"How was the dance?" Mom said. The Wall sensed it had lost its audience and froze, waiting for the command to resume. "Did you talk to any cute boys?"

"Mom!" The girl stretched the word by a syllable; in her head it sounded like "moron." Amity didn't believe Mom would recognize a cute boy if one kissed her on the mouth. Mom chuckled and exchanged winks with Dad.

"Go on up to bed. Amber's sleeping, so ixnay on the oisenay," Mom said. "We're leaving for Grandma's early tomorrow."

Amity offered both parents perfunctory cheek pecks. The softporndrama on the Wall had already reclaimed most of their attention.

Amity jogged up the stairs to the bathroom. Eleven minutes of scrubbing and brushing later, the teen was in her room. She flopped on her bed and brought up her onboard's menu. Amity closed her eyes and scrolled through the pictures she'd taken at the dance until she found one of Kyle Latham, widely regarded as the cutest boy at school. They'd danced all night, and she'd let him put his hands on her while they kissed. The picture she had of him smiling, his blue eyes flashing, was a keeper. She attached it to an email and addressed it to the girls from the taxi: "Hndz off, beetches. Heeez all mines. :-)"

Amity cracked a king-sized yawn. She got her syncband from the nightstand, the faux terrycloth circle glowing softly in the dimming room, and stretched it around her head. The onboard made contact, and a day's worth of school notes, photos, and voice recordings streamed to the Cloud. While Amity slept, the onboard would download her schedule, summarize her required school readings, and update her newsfeeds with the latest in music, fashion, and celebrity gossip.

Amity's personal CloudPal, KittyKat15, shot her a message in Wizard-World font: "Hi, BFF. Wud u lik a Sweet Dream?"

Amity moused "yes," and followed KittyKat15 through the menus to a romantic-themed comedy. She entered "Kyle" for the name of the dream's love interest. KittyKat15 adjusted the image of the romantic lead to suit Amity's new favorite picture, and the dream began to play.

Amity didn't notice the seizure that made her piss herself and grind her teeth together fifteen minutes later. She was with Kyle, and he was being so sweet. The wind played with his hair, and his eyes sparkled as he leaned close to kiss her.

"I love you," she said.

The dream stuttered, and Kyle's cute face blinked into an eyeless mask. "Ditto, babe," he said. Kyle bit into Amity's forehead, his suddenly huge mouth full of tiny, sharp teeth.

~~~~~

Davis Wood took a pull from his beer and settled into the battered recliner. The ancient computer in his lap beeped synchronicity with its distant target — an automated observatory on two acres of the Sonoma desert Wood had inherited from his grandfather.

Wood strained to see the heavens through the light pollution and smog, but the only things in view from the observation platform he'd hammered together on his condo roof were the moon and a few of the brightest stars: Alpha Centauri, Canopus, and Arcturus. He held up his beer in salute.

The antique beeped again, and Wood turned his attention to the thin screen. He hadn't visited his observatory — a rust-pocked Airstream trailer and a slightly-better-than-amateur broad-spectrum array — in more than a year, and he was always relieved when the laptop assured him it was still there. He tapped coordinates into the computer, setting the array's tracking motors into motion

For months, Wood had been observing a stellar speck he suspected might be an undocumented asteroid. In another week, maybe two, he'd have enough data recorded to attempt a registry. He planned to name this one after his daughter, Molly, who he saw in person about as often as he saw his observatory. The first asteroid he'd found bore his ex-wife's name, and he saw her even less.

Wood fished another beer out of his cooler. The laptop played four bars of an old pop song, and Wood tapped the screen to open a tiny window to the desert sky. The stars shone brightly for a moment and flickered into a blue "lost signal" alert.

"Lousy piece of —." Wood sat his beer down with a thump and flinched when an object near his elbow vibrated.

His badge. Wood woke it with his thumb and hooked the wireless receiver over his left ear. "What's up?"

"The chief wants you in. Nightside's already on site, but it's going to bleed into your shift." The voice in Wood's ear paused. "There's a dead kid. Her teenaged sister is the primary suspect."

"Give me forty minutes."

"I'll pass it on. Good morning, detective."

~~~~~

The house was late twentieth century and well maintained. The two hydrogen-fuel Volvos in the driveway smacked of an upper middle-class lifestyle. The white picket fence looked like something out of a snuff film, though, shamed by yards of crime-scene tape and tinged spastic red by the lights of the ambulance. Wood crumpled his coffee cup and tossed it onto the passenger-side floor. He flirted with the idea of driving right by the crime scene and finding out where the road went, but he signaled and pulled into the driveway instead.

Wood showed his badge to the blue at the gate. He didn't know many of the nightside cops and didn't expect they would know him by sight.

"Detective Wood," he said. "Dayside homicide."

The blue took him inside, past the living room where the parents sobbed to a police counselor, to a pink bedroom on the second floor. Inside, blood spatters made Silly String patterns on holoposters of fairy-tale princesses and unicorns. Four large men were crouched around a tiny body on the floor. One man, tieless and rumpled this late in his shift, rose as Wood approached. He pulled off one purple vinyl glove and offered his bare hand. "You look like you spent the night on the roof."

"That was the plan." Wood shook his former partner's hand. "What's the feed?"

Detective Sean Ossinger sucked his teeth. "It's ugly." He pulled the badge off his belt and peered at its small screen. "Victim is Amber Cobb, age six. Primary is Amity Cobb, age fifteen, the vic's older sister. According to the house biolock, Amity Cobb came home at 2247 last night. Parents say she was at a dance."

Wood peered at his own badge, where a twin to Ossinger's notes was now appearing.

"Sometime between 2323 and 2430, which is the best guess on the little girl's death, big sister went bat shit."

Wood grimaced. "Rodney, strike 'bat shit' from the file."

Rodney was the name of Wood's Watson app, a police near-smart that could sift data faster than Sherlock Holmes; it beeped confirmation. On the badge's screen, the words flashed twice and vanished. Ossinger shrugged and continued. "The teen left her bedroom and, without waking anyone else in the family, bludgeoned her little sister to death with an antique jewelry box and started eating her brain."

Wood's eyebrows rose.

"Wait, there's more," Ossinger said, raising his pointer finger, professor-style. "Sometime _before_ the attack, big sister ripped all the hair off her own head and gouged out her eyes."

"How'd she kill her sister if she couldn't see?"

"The Force? Lucky guess?" Ossinger squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between two thick fingers. "She's lived in the house all her life. Probably wasn't too hard to feel her way along."

Wood felt a tickle in his sinuses and fumbled a handkerchief out of his pocket in time to catch two quick sneezes.

Ossinger shook his head. "No one's allergic to the Cloud, Wood."

"Then why am I sneezing?" Wood smiled at the familiar exchange and wiped at his nose. L.A. was the first of the big cities to seed its air with Cloud nanobots, each of them doing the jobs once held by servers, routers, and wires. Wood knew he was allergic to the nanoscopic computers; he could almost feel them blinking and beeping in his sinuses. Every doctor he'd gone to had told him it was impossible, but, if that were so, why had he only started sneezing when the Cloud came? He sneezed again. "Where's the suspect?"

"Ambulance hauled her off about twenty minutes ago. Real mess. Won't speak. Just growls and makes this, like, screeching noise." The cop shrugged. "It's too bad. She's a pretty girl. Mom and Dad say she has all kinds of friends. Good grades. The perfect kid."

"Drugs?"

"Nothing chemical."

"Anybody see anything?"

"It's an older house. Modernized, but not fully wired. It doesn't know who opened what door when."

Wood looked down at the little girl's body. Her light blue pajamas were dark with blood, and skull fragments and bits of brain tissue clotted what little he could see of her curly blond hair.

Ossinger looked sick. "She was still stuffing pieces of it into her mouth when we got here."

~~~~~

Murray nodded when Wood walked into the bar. "The usual?"

"Yeah."

Wood blew his nose. He couldn't remember Murray's last name but knew how the balding man had lost his left foot and that he'd been the nightside bartender at Third Base long before Wood started frequenting the place.

Wood's usual was three fingers of scotch, no ice. He expected to order more than a couple. Amity Cobb was under heavy sedation, so he'd spent the day and a good part of the evening questioning her friends and going over her Cloud presence with Rodney. Wood had set Rodney to comb through several weeks of pictures, school notes, and MyLife updates looking for a reason the girl might have turned murderous. The near-smart had come up dry. Amity Cobb, at least the one Wood knew from her files and friends, was a typical kid — although not quite as perfect as her parents believed. One classmate had called her a slut on a public board, and Rodney collated several pictures, video files, and messages that added up to at least one drinking party and three sexual encounters in the past month. Amity also tended to cheat on her English homework.

Wood sipped some scotch. As he set the glass down, he felt someone sit down beside him. Recognition made him grin, and he extended his hand to accept a low five. "I was hoping I'd run into you."

The newcomer's hand smacked deftly into Wood's. "You break your little telescope again?"

"Maybe. Mostly I was just looking for comic relief."

Miles Trolan was one of Wood's oldest friends. They'd both gone to college to study astronomy. Wood turned cop, and Trolan went on to get his doctorate and tenure at a university observatory about seventy-five miles outside the city. Trolan sipped the dark beer Murray set in front of him. "You look like hell."

"Long day," Wood said. "Dead kid. Pretty messed up situation."

"There are easier ways of making a living."

"Don't rub it in." Wood finished his scotch and ordered another. "Distract me. Dating any star-eyed coeds?"

Trolan scooped a handful of peanuts out of the bowl in front of him and juggled a few into his mouth. "Nobody new. A couple from my greatest-hits collection." He chewed thoughtfully. "There's not much going on. Got some static on the radio arrays. The old SETI guys had a quick circle jerk, but there was nothing cohesive in there the near-smarts could dig out. It's trash."

Wood tasted his new drink and put it back on the bar. "The dead kid's about Molly's age. Couple of years younger."

Trolan nodded toward Wood's drink. "Finish that." He caught the bartender's eye. "Get us a couple more."

~~~~~

The six o'clock alarm was less than welcome. Wood showered — full hot, then full cold, then full hot — until he felt human. He'd left Third Base after last call and headed up to his roof to look for the asteroid. The laptop worked just fine, but the observatory refused to sync up. Wood hoped it was a software glitch and that nothing had gone wrong at the site.

Shivering, Wood wrapped a towel around his waist and signaled Julia, his condo near-smart, to start breakfast. She told him there was a message from Molly.

"Is she okay?" he said.

"Fine," Julia said. "Her mother got her a kitten, and she wants to know if Mr. Sprinkles would be an appropriate name for it. Shall I play the message?"

Wood thought about the little girl with the smashed-in head. "Save it for later."

Fifteen minutes later he was dressed but tieless, drinking mediocre coffee and checking the messages on his badge. What he saw there made him run for the door, his eggs cooling on the counter.

Wood's new partner, Brian LeClair, met him at his office door.

"I heard," Wood said. "Two more last night. Same M.O."

"Different sexes but they're about the same age." LeClair checked his notes. His tie was perfect. "Families are in the same income range. Vics are an older brother in one case, two slumber-party guests in the other."

"Damn it."

"Suspects gouged out their own eyes and made a good attempt at tearing out their hair. Victims were bludgeoned to death as they slept, brains partially consumed."

Wood dropped into his chair. He wanted a drink. "Could this be a new e-drug? Something they uploaded into their onboards?"

"I already ran the idea through my Watson. It didn't come up with anything."

"Send your parameters to Rodney," Wood said. "He's been around a lot longer and might have a few more tricks."

LeClair sat down in Wood's guest chair. "Any other ideas?"

Wood whistled tunelessly. "Maybe it's some kind of teen-murder pact thing." He ran his hand through his hair. He wished again Ossinger had turned down the promotion. "You stay on the suspects. Interview their friends. See if the subs know each other. I'll check with the morgue."

The city morgue was four floors straight down and cold. Wood knew the facility was spray sterilized once each shift, but he always thought the white walls looked like they'd feel greasy if he brushed against them. He kept his hands in his pockets and used his shoulder to push open the swinging double doors.

Paul Keefe, the city's dayside chief medical examiner, claimed he kept his head shaved for "hygienic purposes" but never said why he also shaved his eyebrows and seldom removed his dark glasses. The medical examiner's handshake was chilly and damp, and Wood had to force himself not to wipe his palms on his pants. Keefe laced his fingers in front of his stomach. Wood thought Keefe's hands looked like pale spiders and tried not to breathe through his nose.

"I scanned the reports on the way down, Doc. I'm looking for something off the map."

"Off the map." Keefe's mouth quirked. It might have been a smile. "Eleven victims, each death resulting from blunt-force trauma to the head —."

"There are only three vics. Two from last night, one from the night before."

"I know who is in my morgue, detective." The pale scientist pulled his badge from his belt and slid his long finger across the screen. "Eleven. Similar causes of death. All showing partial consumption of their brain matter." He gave his little smile again. "Would you like to count them?"

"Eleven over how long?"

"The past fifteen days."

~~~~~

"It must be a mistake."

Wood thought LeClair still looked too pretty to be a cop, but at least his tie was crooked now. "Rodney checked the files. The reports are all there. They just weren't linked."

"Eleven nearly identical violent deaths in fifteen days, and no one saw a connection?"

"It's a big city." Wood took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. "Besides, we're all app happy now. It's possible no one actually saw the files."

"Why didn't the Watsons find it?

"The others were sort of scattered around. Four were reported by private security out in the Hills."

Wood pulled the stats up on his desktop. The ten suspects were all in their teens, with upper middle- to upper-class lifestyles. They all had loving families, good grades, and lots of friends. And somewhere in the dark, all of them had opted out of the human race.

LeClair rubbed his chin, and Wood heard the rookie's fingers rasp on the respectable five o'clock shadow there. "The media's going to be all over this."

"Maybe. The Watsons didn't pick it up. Maybe the newsbots won't, either. What did you learn about the suspects?"

LeClair leaned back in his chair. "Not much. Friends and family didn't see it coming. The usual. They synced their onboards within an hour or two of the incidents."

Wood rubbed his eyes. He doubted any of the suspects would have written up a conveniently detailed murder plan, but if it were a pact of some kind, they might be acting on a schedule. "Anybody check to see what they downloaded?"

"Not that I've seen."

Wood woke up his badge. "Rodney, get me a warrant for a download of the Cobb girl's onboard." He glanced at the time; there was no way they were going to get the doctor out this late. He was probably at home with a trophy wife and a Mercedes. "First thing tomorrow."

Wood drove home and dragged himself up to his roof. The laptop linked up with his observatory this time, but the array only offered a test pattern: a repeating scale of high-pitched tones. A hasty phone call and half a week's pay bought Wood enough time on the university's array to get the asteroid data he needed. Trolan gave him a big break on the price, but the exchange left Wood feeling even wearier. He remembered the first time he'd taken his ex wife out to the desert to see the stars. They'd lain naked on the cooling metal of the trailer roof and talked about a future that never happened. Wood opened another beer. The array was a link to happier times, and the stars it usually showed didn't care how far he'd fallen.

~~~~~

From the hospital lobby, a nurse directed Wood down a hallway and through an unmarked door to a surgery-viewing gallery. Wood hung his coat up and peered through the smudged observation window.

Amity Cobb was strapped to the table, screaming wordlessly. Oozing scratches marred her pale scalp, showing where her fingernails had scraped and cut the skin as she ripped out her hair by the handfuls. Her eye sockets were packed with synthgel. Veins had ruptured in the girl's face, sending a spider web of hematomas across her cheeks. Amity tested her restraints wildly, straining her thin arms and legs against the Kevlar straps. A burly orderly held the girl's arm still so a nurse could administer a sedative. Minutes ticked by before Amity went limp.

"Nearly a double dose this time," the doctor said. "Mark it." He turned to the window separating Wood from the operating theater. "What am I looking for?"

Wood cleared his throat and forced himself to look away from the girl he'd last seen smiling from her MyLife page. "Just give me what she got in her last download."

The doctor signaled his team, and they began to put sensor patches on the girl's bald head. Wood glanced at the nurse. "She said anything?"

"We kept her sedated for the first twenty-four hours." The nurse studied the room on the other side of the window. "She's not violent unless someone's in with her. Just sits and moans in the corner. Once in a while she gets up and tries to walk around the room." Amity was lost in the sea of scrubs and lab coats; the only part of her Wood could see from the window were her feet. Her toenails were painted purple. "She's blind, but she doesn't feel her way around. She'll take a step and sort of screech. Then she'll take another step, screech again, and so on."

"Sounds like she thinks she's a bat."

The nurse offered a wan smile. "It doesn't work. She's run into the wall twice that I've seen."

Wood blew his nose. "How long is this going to take?"

"Depends on how much she has in there."

The onboard technology was nearly two decades old, and Wood knew every attempt to put the tiny computers into the heads of anyone over twenty-two had resulted in brain damage. It had something to do with the plasticity of the adolescent mind; the kids could adapt to the onboards where adults could not. Few people over thirty had the things. The onboards weren't cheap, either. The little computers were digging the generation gap deeper and creating new fronts in the class war.

Wood counted on his fingers. Molly would be eight in September. Two years too young for the first stage of onboard implantation.

The intercom pinged. "That's it," the doctor said. "You got it all."

~~~~~

Wood watched Amity's dream, hoping to spot a hidden message or post-hypnotic suggestion. It was drivel. Girl meets boy, boy screws it up but works hard to win her back. Girl learns valuable lessons about being strong on her own but opts to forgive the guy anyway. Wood pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Experience had taught him a different lesson.

He turned his attention to the files downloaded to Amity's onboard. According to the CloudPal, KittyKat15, Amity should have received a download of her next day's schedule, several articles about fashion and celebrities, the newest album by Subservient Puppies, and an annotated synopsis of the first three chapters of _Catcher in the Rye_. But neither Rodney nor KittyKat15 could find a trace of those files.

"Rodney, list the files we do have, by type," Wood said. Wood's desktop filled and overfilled with words and numbers. "How many of each sort of file are we dealing with?"

"There are 13,000 image files, 230 video files, 2,700 sound files, and 30,033 executable files. The image and video files are blank."

"Are the executable files apps?"

"Unknown.

"What about the sound files?"

"They are identical. No voices or coded messages I can detect."

"Play one."

The hiss of background noise came out of the desk speakers. Then a single, high-pitched pulse. Then another, even higher. The pulses came quickly, about once a second, increasing in pitch. Wood winced, but the pulses stopped before he could ask Rodney to pause the recording.

"The recording continues for another twenty minutes," Rodney said. "The pulses are now beyond the range of adult human hearing." The near-smart paused. "Now they are above all human hearing."

"Stop the playback before we wake up every dog in the city." Wood drummed his fingers on the desktop and studied the list of files on the screen. "Rodney, is your virus protection up to date?"

"As of five minutes ago."

"Update it again and then execute one of the smaller files. Override code Wood7T6."

"Confirmed. Executing file."

The desk screen flickered to blue, then went back to normal, then to blue again. Wood slammed the big red button marked "emergency disconnect" and crossed his fingers. The desktop went dark. He thumbed his badge awake. "Rodney, reboot and report."

The small speaker made a long screeching noise. The Watson responded with its usual start-up message, but its simulated voice sounded like it was being dragged through piles of broken glass. "This is Rodney. Why can't we all just get along?" The badge screen went blue, then black. Wood counted to thirty and tried again. Nothing. Rodney had gone down a half dozen times in the five years since he'd been activated, but he usually rebooted in seconds. The badge had never crashed; it was tied into everything in the precinct. Wood slid his thumb across the screen several times.

"Shit."

He tossed the useless badge on the desk and got up to look for a phone, hoping the mysterious application hadn't crashed the entire network. He'd already catch hell from tech support for overriding the virus protocol.

When Wood left the office three hours later a new badge was riding on his belt, but Rodney was still offline.

It was last call at Third Base by the time Wood walked in. Trolan was several beers ahead, and his broad face was flushed.

"I hope you aren't thinking about driving home." Wood climbed onto an adjacent stool.

Trolan flapped his hand. "I'll be fine. Trust me, I have a doctorate."

Wood grunted. The bartender had his back to him, and it wasn't until the server turned that Wood realized the man was a stranger.

"Where's Murray?" he said.

"Dunno." The bartender dropped a coaster on the bar. "Murray got attacked, someone he knows got attacked, maybe he attacked someone. I deleted the message right after I called in to say I could pick up the shift."

Wood ordered a double and a beer to make up for lost time, then looked at Trolan. "Do you know Murray's last name?"

"No," Trolan said, staring into his beer. "Guy gave me the same line; I don't know what happened."

"Without his last name it won't do much good to ask Rodney to —." He shook his head. "I keep forgetting." Wood picked up the drink the bartender set in front of him. "I killed Rodney today."

The astronomer raised an eyebrow. "Technically, that's impossible. Rodney is not alive."

"Call it what you want. He's down for the count."

Trolan signaled for a refill. "What about the backup?"

"The tech guys restored him five times. Each time he locked up and deleted himself."

Trolan patted Wood on the arm. "There, there." He took a drink. "How did it happen?"

"I ran an executable file we found on a suspect's onboard."

"Virus?"

"Nothing the tech guys or cybercrime have seen before."

"You're lucky it didn't get into the entire system."

Wood swallowed some scotch. "Yeah, lucky."

~~~~~

LeClair was already working at his desk when Wood came to work the next morning. "The network seem slow to you?" the younger man said.

"I just got in." Wood handed the fresh coffee to his partner. "Don't thank me. I spit in it."

LeClair opened the top of his cup without looking. "I heard about your Watson."

"I'm crying on the inside. It got me thinking, though. It's not a drug, right? So what if the Cobb girl caught something from her onboard?"

"Like a virus? Can that happen?"

"No idea."

LeClair scratched his chest through his open collar. "You calling the onboard manufacturer or am I?"

Wood crumpled his cup and bounced it off the side of a recycling bin. "You are. I bought the coffee."

Wood signed out a temporary Watson to help him with a report on a nice, simple wife-on-cheating-husband homicide. He filed the report around noon and leaned back in his chair. "Another hardened criminal off the streets. Miller time."

LeClair walked into Wood's office. "How about another coffee, instead." He offered Wood first pick from a bag of doughnuts and outlined his interviews with the onboard manufacturers.

"So ..." Wood rubbed at his face. "It's not their hardware's fault and, anyway, they aren't responsible for the psychotic actions of their customers. However, they can make no claims, or guarantees about the safety hazards posed by illegal apps, viruses, malevolent near-smarts, or corrupt downloads."

"You got it. And one guy did say a corrupt download or virus might, in theory, be able to affect a user's brain. That's the whole idea behind the e-drugs. They're just designed to do it."

LeClair was about the right age. "You got one?"

"An onboard? No. My family didn't have the money."

"That may be a lucky break for you. We need to check the other suspects. You want to make the calls, or should I?"

"You make the calls." LeClair grinned. "I bought the coffee."

Wood arranged for next-day downloads of all the perps' onboards. The warrants came easy. The media still hadn't connected the dots, and the police commissioner was eager to close the case before it did. Wood also put in a call to his precinct captain to give him an update. Wood's badge beeped as he ended the call. Two messages had arrived, nearly a photo finish.

Message one was a small relief: Murray was alive, but his wife had been attacked on the street. The attacker had escaped; the woman described him as a bald man with scabs on his head. He'd come at her with a brick, screaming inarticulately. Responding officers reported the attacker was likely high on PCP derivative. The second message was a disappointment: The Tech Department had given up on Rodney and erased his back-ups.

"Looks like it's you and me, kid." Wood re-activated the temporary Watson. "Log yourself permanently assigned to Detective Davis Wood. Your name is Amadou." He spelled it.

"Amadou. Confirmed," the Watson said. "Will there be anything else?"

"Clock me out. I'm going home."

"Confirmed. Detective Wood, please be aware there has been a power outage in the parking garage. Emergency lighting is operational, but illumination has been reduced by seventy-five percent."

The elevator wasn't working either, so Wood took the stairs down to the parking level. The bad lighting improved the looks of the parking garage but filled it with shadows.

"Lovely." Wood checked the strap on his holster and set off in the direction of his car. His footsteps echoed from wall to wall, the only sound louder than the hum of the emergency lights.

Wood slid his thumb across his badge. "Rod —" He scowled. "Amadou, start my car, please."

"Confirmed."

About fifty feet ahead Wood's aging ChAMP responded with a surprised honk and a quick double flash of headlights. The lights stayed on for a few seconds then faded to embers. Wood swore and hurried to open the driver's side door. He punched the start-up code into the keypad, and the dashboard lit up with an alert: "Charge insufficient for operation." The words flashed four times before fading to black.

"Shit on toast." Wood couldn't remember the last time he'd had the car serviced, and the ChAMP wasn't talking. Rodney would know, but Rodney was gone. "Damn it." The condo would be a hike, but Third Base was only a dozen blocks away. He could walk to the bar and catch a cab home from there. The ChAMP would be safe in the parking garage. Julia could get it picked up in the morning.

Wood hand-locked all the doors and headed down the ramp to the sidewalk. He liked the feel of the pavement under his feet. L.A. was his city, and he heard her best when the dark sky closed over the top of the buildings, and the normal people went home to their families. Wood grabbed his handkerchief and sneezed into it violently. "God-damned nanobots."

The streets were mostly empty. With the near-smarts running things and modern entertainment being what it was, a lot of people never left home anymore. What was the point? Nearly anything they could want was at their fingertips. The only people who came out at night were kids and —

A panicked scream echoed ahead and to the right. Wood broke into a sprint, pounding around the corner. As he ran, he pulled his gun, something he'd done only a handful of times outside the shooting range. Ahead, next to a parked car, a youth was being attacked by a ragged bald man. Wood yelled, his voice automatically amplified by the crowd-control system built into his coat. "Police! Freeze! Police!"

The bald man turned, and the detective's muscles threatened to turn to agar. There was nothing human in the attacker's face and nothing comforting about the length of rebar clutched in his hands.

"Drop your weapon," Wood said. "Get on the ground. I am a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I am armed, and I will shoot if necessary."

The attacker studied his length of rebar for a moment and fixed his wild eyes on Wood. He screamed, loud and high enough to send a chill down Wood's spine and make his throat ache in sympathy. Screeching again, the bald man lifted the bludgeon over his head and charged.

Wood fired three times. The rusty rebar slipped from the man's hand and clattered on the ground. Wood kept the muzzle of his gun trained on the attacker as the bald man dropped to his knees and fell backward on the pavement.

Wood had shot well, three slugs right into the middle of the bald man's chest. In seconds, the man was staring into darkness deeper than any Wood had seen through a telescope.

Wood led the kid he'd saved to a nearby bench. "It's alright. You're safe."

The kid was almost certainly a prostitute. He tried to look anywhere but at Wood or the slain attacker, and he shivered against fear and cold. Wood pulled off his coat and draped it around the teen's narrow shoulders. "You're going to be okay." Wood knew the transmitter in his pistol's grip had sent an emergency signal to police headquarters as soon as he'd drawn the thing. There'd be a cruiser on scene in minutes.

"He was, like, watching me from across the street," the kid said. His right forearm bent in the middle, the break suffered in self defense. "He just ran at me. I didn't say nothing to him. He was making this sound, like a dog's squeak toy. You know?" The kid shivered. "All the time he was hitting me. He kept making the noise."

Wood walked back to the corpse. A few locks of hair were still attached to the man's raw scalp. His pupils were dilating rapidly. The detective sat down on the curb near the body, trading his view of the corpse sprawled at his feet for the feeble gleam of the stars above. After a few minutes he woke up Amadou and put in a call to LeClair. "I think we've got another one. Get a download as soon as you come in."

The meat wagon picked up the body twenty minutes later, and Wood caught a ride with a blue the rest of the way home.

The alarm cut through his sleeping-pill haze at nine the next morning. Wood's body felt heavy, and he sat on his bed and held his gun for a long time before replacing the three spent cartridges. He stopped for coffee on the way into work.

"Trade you," LeClair said, waving a printout.

Wood handed over the coffee, his eyes fixed on the report in his partner's hand. He scanned the sheaf of paper summing up the contents of each perp's onboard. "The same kind of files as the Cobb girl had. The same shit that took out Rodney."

"They've all got it. It's got to be a virus."

Wood put a call in to his captain. Four hours later he was in the captain's office.

"Congratulations," the captain said. "A security patch just went live. GooglePlex is writing a worm to destroy any copies of the virus still in the Cloud."

"That won't get them all," Wood said. "Some funny guy probably has a portable drive full of them."

The older man shrugged. "It's out of our jurisdiction. GooglePlex is international. We sent it all up the line to Homeland Security and Global Cybercrimes. It's a terrorism case now." He clapped Wood on the shoulder. "Take a couple of days off. Go see that kid of yours. Mary?"

"Molly." Wood leaned forward. "It's not over. The guy I shot had eyes. Something's changed."

The captain's eyes grew flinty. "It's over. A nice little case to give the media. Protect and serve. We've done our jobs."

_File it under Somebody Else's Problem_ , Wood thought as he walked back to his office.

LeClair met him at his office door. "Don't bother going in there," he said. "The network just went down."

"What happened?"

"Probably some kind of security measure. It knows there's a virus going around and doesn't want to get sick."

"What the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"It's Friday. We saved the day. Go home early."

Wood thought about the police captain, upstairs washing his hands of the whole thing. "Hell with it. I will."

On his way out the door Wood called Trolan to tell him he was going to stop by the observatory and bum a few upgrades for his array. The professor laughed and said there was shareware, free to download, that would do a better job than Wood's outdated commercial package. "Bring your laptop by, and I'll see what I can do."

Then Wood called his ex wife and reminded her that the custody agreement allowed him to take Molly for long weekends. "We're going out to Sonoma," he said. "I'll pick her up in the morning. The kitten, too, if she wants."

It was full dark when Wood pulled his rental car into a parking spot near the university's observatory. The ChAMP was in the shop, its recharge resulting in nothing more than the car's alarm going off, the piercing tones making Wood wince and force a shut down.

Trolan was in his office, halfway through a fifth of whiskey. Wood sat in Trolan's guest chair. "Didn't I buy you that bottle three years ago?"

Trolan slid it across the desk to Wood. Wood took a slug and wiped the bottle's neck on his sleeve. "What are we celebrating?"

Trolan stared at his desk." The end of the world? Proof of extraterrestrial life?" He looked up at Wood. "Pick one."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Trolan slid a handheld across the desk to Wood. "Wake it up."

Wood picked the small computer up and woke it with a thumb swipe. A disfigured face took up most of the screen. The face was eyeless, with skin like Silly Putty. It contorted as its mouth opened again and again to reveal rows of tiny, sharp teeth.

"Don't turn the volume up," Trolan said. "It won't stop screaming. I already have a headache."

Wood continued to look at the face on the handheld. He felt cold, and wanted another slug of the booze. "What is it?"

"The virus the newsbots are talking about. The one that made those people go bat shit. It's a lifeform. Was a lifeform. I don't know. Maybe it still is."

"I don't get it."

"The static I told you about. This was in it. Millions of them. They just started showing up on the screens a couple of hours ago."

Wood rubbed the back of his neck. "Some kind of program."

Trolan shook his head. "We think they used to be biological. Probably from the Andromeda galaxy. A sun there went nova a million years ago. They uploaded their brains and shot them into space."

"Bullshit."

"They've been traveling for millennia. Disembodied. Losing coherency." Trolan stared at his glass. "They didn't come down here alone." He woke his desk terminal. It showed the L.A. network map with a red overlay. Even as they watched, the overlay grew, sending out tendrils in all directions.

"What's that?" Wood said.

"It's a near-smart. Maybe even a full A.I. It came down with the signal. It's in the Cloud. It's in all our near-smarts."

"What's it doing?"

"Serving and protecting. Making a new home for its charges."

Wood pointed at the center of the overlay. "That's my precinct."

"Now it's a fortress. Maybe an incubator."

"Keeping them safe from the worm."

Trolan nodded. "They're evolving. Getting stronger. Learning."

"And hunting works better if they keep the eyes intact. They figured that out. They'll beat the worm. The onboards are still vulnerable." Wood woke his badge. "Amadou, get me LeClair." He looked at Trolan. "How many of your people have them?"

"About half. But it's worse than that." He shuddered. "It's in the Cloud, and the Cloud is in us."

"Detective LeClair is out for the weekend," Amadou said.

"Get me the captain's office, then," Wood said, without taking his eyes from his friend. "The Cloud nanobots are in us. Why is that a problem?"

Trolan closed his eyes. "Every breath, every swallow." His eyelids fluttered open. "They took samples of human brains, Davis. Why would they do that?"

Wood's heart stumbled and picked up its pace. He felt it hammering in his ears. "They were analyzing it."

"Breaking it down with stomach acid."

"They aren't going to stop with the onboards." Wood looked at his badge. "Amadou, where's my god-damned call?"

The Watson spoke, its voice dragging itself from the badge's speakers. "Too late."

The lights went out, and the barely audible whine of the ventilation fans ceased, leaving behind a few moments of shocked silence. Outside the room, Wood heard a chorus of sharp gasps, as if a dozen or more people had abruptly forgotten what it meant to be human. Then the screeching started, and the screams.

_R.W.W. Greene teaches high-school creative writing and journalism and writes speculative and "literary" fiction in a room lined with craft paper and comic books. Greene holds a master's degree in fiction writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Greene's SF story It Pays to Read the Safety Cards is available as part of Something Wicked, Volume 2, published this spring by Random House's eKhaya imprint. Greene lives with wife Brenda, their son Devin, a hive of bees, and two cats. He blogs about writing, teaching, and the 21st century at_ RWWGreene.com _and Tweets about it all @rwwgreene._

(Back to Table of Contents)

# Willow Grove

by T. Eric Bakutis; published June 14, 2013

My name is Jack, and I have a little sister. Her name is Dana. She was eleven when the faeries took her away.

It was Dana's birthday. We had chocolate ice cream cake, rich, wet and squishy. It made what had happened to Ted in Willow Grove that morning seem like a bad dream.

I knew Dana would go looking for Ted, but I didn't want to go to Willow Grove ever again, not after what they did to Ted. I told myself Dana wouldn't either, and that's why I wasn't there to stop her when she did. I was scared.

Days passed. The police came and went. They showed Dana's face on the news. I watched my parents panic and cry, but I didn't try to tell them what had happened. I knew they wouldn't believe me. They never had.

Almost a year before Dana disappeared, I told Mom about the humming trees, about the faeries, about Willow Grove. She thought I was playing with her. When she realized I believed what I was saying, she got _concerned_.

I got to see a counselor. Mrs. Banner. She was nice, easy to talk to, and had a very soft voice, but she didn't know anything about faeries.

I kept seeing Mrs. Banner until I told her I knew trees didn't hum and that Willow Grove wasn't real. After that I never had to see her again, and my parents didn't talk about it with me. Ever.

The moon was just a sliver when I stepped onto the lawn. The cold dug hard fingers through my old gray sweater — Dad's sweater — and sweatpants. I checked my backpack one last time: flashlight, sleeping bag, Cheerios. Then I walked right into the woods that ate my sister.

The trees were thin and dark. All their leaves were gone, and their tiny little branches weaved together like veins on wrinkled skin. A mist clung to the space between their spindly trunks, shifting in the moonlight.

Rain-soaked leaves swished around my sneakers, and bark bits crunched like tiny bugs. Everything smelled like pine needles. I kept the flashlight pointed at my feet because I was afraid of it pointing at anything else. I walked an animal trail until it merged with Blue Diamond Path, then followed that through Peace Pine Park. Willow Grove was two miles up the trail, hidden from the adults.

Ted lived in this park before the faeries blinked him away. Nobody knew his name was Ted but Dana and me. He was one of those people everyone saw but no one ever looked at. He wore frayed pink mittens, a ratty gray cloak, and a blue hat with a fuzzy ball on top of it. Every day he sat at the corner of Main and Cloverdale, holding a Styrofoam cup. Our parents told us never to go near him.

We first met him when I took Dana for pizza. Dana walked right up to Ted and sat on the curb beside him. She stared at him, smiling her white-toothed little smile, while I stood there open-mouthed and stupid as a brick.

When Ted smiled back, it wasn't mean or creepy at all. His smile reminded me of Dad's. He said, "Hello, I'm Ted. What's your name, young lady?"

Dana said nothing, so Ted took something from his Styrofoam cup. He made a quarter appear from behind Dana's ear. Dana started giggling.

I grabbed Dana's hand and tugged. She turned her white-toothed smile on me as she rose. I could see her triumphant certainty, her _I told you he wasn't a bad man!_ , but I dragged her off anyway. It was two weeks after that when Ted found his way into Willow Grove, and Dana and I watched the faeries blink him away.

The walk took forever, and the cold made me hurt. I watched every step I took, every crunch of my sneakers on the brown, wet leaves. I was certain the faeries would make me walk into a tree or trip over a coyote. I'd step off a cliff and fall, and fall, and faerie laughter would chase me down. I was shivering when I finally stepped into Willow Grove. Then its heat hit me like a wall.

It's always warm inside Willow Grove, inviting and bright, a soft orange light that comes from everywhere. The mist is thicker than the woods, and it clings to your skin like spider webs. Six great willow trees grow around a cairn of dark rocks, green curtains of hanging leaves blocking you in on all sides. There's no pine needle smell there — it's all peppermint. Faeries really like it. I don't know why.

I first found Willow Grove on a hike when I was eleven. Dana and I were the only people who could go inside. We spent hours playing with the faeries that lived there, watching the illusions they made and smelling all the faerie smells. They made honey and cheese and lavender and dozens of others we couldn't smell anywhere else. We watched hikers and tourists stroll up to Willow Grove and pop from one side to the other faster than you could blink.

That was why I was so shocked when Ted walked in after us that morning. He didn't even look surprised to be there, just relieved. Happy. The faeries went after him immediately, buzzing around him in a swarm. The trees hummed so loudly I had to cover my ears.

First Ted's nose vanished. Then his ear. Then his chest, his right leg, the whole left side of his face. He all blinked away bit by bit. Ted's left foot was the last to go, and then the faeries vanished. Dana just stood there, staring at the space where Ted no longer was.

When the trees stopped humming, I walked up and touched Dana's shoulder. She looked at me and said it, the four words that took her away on her birthday night. "They can't do this." Then she dashed home to have her cake.

"I'm here for Dana," I told all of Willow Grove. "I'm here for my sister. Please give her back." I knew the faeries could hear me. They never stop listening.

"I know Dana probably yelled at you when she came here to talk about Ted. I know she upset you, but we miss her very much so please, could you give her back? I promise, if you do, neither of us will ever bother you again."

No one answered. I walked over to the cairn, rocks of all shapes and sizes and colors, gray and brown and black. They were piled on top of each other in a pyramid that was taller than me. I noticed then that the cairn was humming. I didn't remember it ever doing that before.

"Hello?" Right away, I knew it was a stupid thing to say to a pile of rocks. "Have you seen Dana?"

I touched the cairn with two fingers, dragging them down the rough ripple of stones. The rocks were slick and warm. It hummed louder. I had never touched it before that night. It just seemed impolite to do so.

"Dana's my little sister. She means everything to us. If you'll just give her back, I'll do anything."

I shuddered when I said that, but I refused to take it back. Anything was a big word to faeries, but I _would_ do anything to get Dana back, even if it meant I had to live in the dark forever. Nothing was scarier than a life without her in it, with my parents empty and sad.

The faeries didn't answer, and I knew then they weren't going to. They were excited by my fear, amused by my grief, but that was as far as it went. I got so mad. I kicked the cairn, hard. My sneaker went right through it.

Rocks scattered. All the trees stopped humming as the whole cairn collapsed right there. The clattering was horrible. I scrambled away from the cairn as rocks slipped away in all directions, sliding like they were on ice.

I expected buzzing, blinking, or pine needles jammed into my eyes. I watched the faeries do that to a bird once, one day when Dana wasn't there. Instead, I found a clear blue glow, a shimmering pool beneath the cairn.

When I finally got brave enough to walk up to it, I realized I couldn't see the bottom. It was blue forever and ever, the bluest thing I'd ever seen. It called to me like a warm bed.

"I want you to give back Dana," I told the shimmering blue pool of light. "She didn't do anything to you."

There was no answer, but I thought I knew why. "Is this what you want from me?" I stared at the silent willows. "If I step into this pool, you'll let Dana go?"

The willows hummed. It might have been a yes. Even if it wasn't, I didn't have a choice. Talking, yelling, and kicking had not worked. I set my flashlight and my backpack beside the pool. I didn't want them wet.

"I'm going," I told the shimmering pool, the faeries, and the mist in the cove. "I'm going to step into the pool just like you asked and you can do whatever you want to me. I'm trusting you to keep your word about Dana."

I stepped in before I could think about it. It wasn't water but something else, something thick and sticky. It pulled me down with clutching, chilly fingers. Then the faeries taught me what it felt like to drown.

When that was over, I opened my eyes and stood up in Willow Grove. Everything was different. The air shimmered like water, and the place was _filled_ with faeries.

Before they drowned me, the faeries had always been tiny blurs of bluish light about the size of dragonflies. These were all adult-sized. Their skin was gold and red and silver, their wings green gossamer and black ink. There were dozens of them, and their eyes glowed blue.

"I'm Jack." I swallowed hard. "I'm Dana's brother."

"Hello, Jack," Ted said softly.

I turned around to find Ted standing shyly by the pool. He looked just like he had always looked, with his pink gloves and his gray coat and his funny blue hat.

"You." I swallowed again. "You took Dana?"

"No," he replied.

I shook my head. "I don't believe you."

"Dana told me about Willow Grove," Ted continued. "She showed me how to get in. Don't you remember?"

I did, but I didn't want to admit that to Ted because I didn't know why he was there. Was he here to help me? Hurt me? Or was he just another faerie trick, like the fake spiders they send crawling up your spine?

"I'm sorry the faeries blinked you," I told him, and I meant it, "but you're a grown man, and my sister's only eleven. Please give her back."

"I didn't take Dana."

"Who did?"

Ted pointed behind me. I didn't turn around.

"Why did they take you?" I thought he might know something. I thought he had the clue I needed.

"We were like you." Ted sighed. "Long ago. You and your sister. Her name was Marlene."

I glare at him. "Her name's Dana."

"Your sister," Ted said. "Not mine."

"You had a sister?"

"She was eleven."

"Where is she now?"

Ted pointed behind me. I knew then why his smile had always been so sad.

"There's ... no way to ever get her back?"

"Marlene?"

"Dana."

"Marlene is never coming back," Ted said, and all the strength fell out of him. "I tried. I begged. I pleaded and cried, but they never, ever give them back."

I refused to believe that. I couldn't. So I turned on the faeries and gave them my hardest glare.

"Where's Dana?" I shouted.

Wings fluttered. Eyes blinked. Nothing else happened, so I stomped out into the crowd.

"Jack!" Ted cried. "Don't go out there! They'll lock you in the dark forever."

"I don't care!" I stomped up to a golden-skinned fairy with wings of black ink. "Give me back my sister!"

The faerie didn't answer, so I kicked him. My foot went right through his leg, and then he was behind me. I went at him with both hands, furious, but he melted into the same orange mist that filled Willow Grove.

His peppermint smell was sickening. Nothing I did touched him. Nothing could. When I was too tired to keep swinging at him, I fell down and cried. I knew they liked crying, and I didn't have anything else to trade.

"Jack," Ted said.

I hated him for talking to me, even though I knew he didn't deserve it. His sister was gone just like mine.

"Go home. They let you come here so I could tell you what happened, so you could know that Dana was gone. If you don't leave soon, they won't let you out."

"I don't care." I glared at him and stood up, wiping my nose and eyes. "I won't leave Dana here alone."

"Your sister isn't here anymore. She's gone. Think about her. Would Dana want you to trap yourself with the faeries, even though it wouldn't help her one bit?"

"Is that what you did?" I wanted to strangle him. "Did you go away when they asked? Did you leave Marlene here all alone?"

Ted looked down. "She was already gone."

"You can't know that!" I screamed at him. "You can't ever know! They're faeries! They change _everything_!"

That's when I realized that Ted wasn't the only one ignoring what faeries could do. I was too. I tried to think like something that existed for playtime and tricks. Fear amused them. All our emotions did, but I was only one part of their play. What were they doing to Dana?

Ted made sense as he was, filled with despair and guilt, so I thought he was probably real. Ted left his sister here years ago. That made him so sad he ended up homeless, wandering Peace Pine Park looking for Marlene.

But Dana? What was her part in this? What would amuse the faeries as much as Ted's guilt and my fear?

There was nothing that annoyed Dana more than when I ignored her. I didn't do it often — only when I was angry. But when I did, it drove her absolutely nutty. When she was six, I came into my room to find she had pulled all the tape out of my favorite cassette — every bit of it. The tape was ruined, and she had strung it around my room.

I wanted to scream at her right then, but I didn't. I was that angry. So I just looked at the glittering black tape as she ran up to me, grinning wide.

"Made you a present!" she yelled.

I looked at the ceiling, the tape, anything but her.

"Jack! It's pretty!"

It wasn't, of course. It was my favorite tape with my favorite music, ruined for all time. I walked to my bed. Dana followed me.

"You like it? My present?"

I sat down on the bed and looked at the wall. Dana grabbed my hand in both of hers. I let her pull on it as if I didn't even know she was there. I stared at the wall as if she didn't exist at all.

"Jack! Stop doing that. Stop ignoring me!"

I settled myself on the bed. I used my free hand to flip open a book. I started reading it. Dana hit me, but she was only six. She started crying.

"I'm sorry I hit you! I'm sorry I made you mad! Don't forget me! Please, tell me that I'm real!"

Dana was more upset than I'd ever seen her, and that's why I forgave her for the tape. I made her terrified she wasn't real. It wasn't fair. Almost a whole week later, when I finally apologized, Dana told me she had never been so scared as that in her whole life.

I knew then what the faeries had done to her, what they were still doing. Her worst fear. I closed my eyes and reached a hand behind me. I almost felt her clutching at it, clutching at wisps of sticky mist.

"Dana, listen to me. You're real. You're with me, and I can hear you and see you and feel you." Those were lies. "Take my hand and don't let go. We're leaving here together." That was the truth.

I opened my eyes and walked past Ted to the brilliant blue pool. I kept my hand stretched back into the mist. Ted just watched me. His whole body was shaking.

"Dana and I are leaving," I told Ted. "Do you still want to find Marlene?"

He nodded. His eyes were wide and sad.

"She's out there." I didn't look back. "With them."

"How do I find her?" Ted whispered.

"Think of her worst fear." I stepped into the pool with my hand still behind me. "Fix it."

The pool sucked us in, invading our mouths, our eyes, our lungs. We felt ourselves drown. When it finally ended, Dana and I were standing in Willow Grove, the _real_ Willow Grove, and she was sobbing. I hugged her tight.

The whole way back to the house Dana kept making me tell her she was real, and I kept telling her she was. I didn't even realize I'd left my backpack and flashlight in Willow Grove until we got back home.

We didn't try the window. We knocked on the door. It opened and then our parents were yelling at us, Mom and Dad both, crying and hugging as tight as they could.

I don't remember much after that. I fell asleep sometime after, snuggled up against Dana and sandwiched in between Mom and Dad. It was days before we went to school again, and months before Mom would let either of us out of her sight. None of that mattered. We were together again, Dana and Mom and Dad and me, and that was better than all the ice cream cake in the world.

I never did find out what happened to Ted. I don't know if he ever found Marlene. But I do know that almost three years after that, on my sixteenth birthday, someone left my flashlight and backpack right outside my window.

I like to think Ted found my flashlight in Willow Grove. I like to think he found Marlene, brought her back, but I don't know what Marlene's worst fear was or if Ted remembered it. All I can tell you is that Dana and I never went to Willow Grove ever again.

_T. Eric Bakutis is an author and game designer living in Maryland, and one of the lead developers for the Elder Scrolls Online. His short fiction will soon appear in the "Fairly Wicked Tales" anthology from Angelic Knight Press. His debut fantasy novel, Glyphbinder, will be released by McBryde Publishing in summer 2013. You can find out more about Glyphbinder's story, characters, and world at_ tebakutis.com

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# A Misleading Dance

by Catherine Evleshin; published June 18, 2013

"Deliver by Friday, or forfeit your contract," growls the CEO of Rent-a-Bot. "And don't tell me again that the programs for the lead salsabots are ten times more complex than for the follow bots."

"More like fifty."

"By the end of the week, Jason." His face disappears from the screen. Six months of work in jeopardy, and Rico, my research assistant, hasn't seen a dime in weeks. From my inbox, I open a final eviction notice sent by Building Management and a message from my wife to call before we lose Internet service.

The three alluring follow bots that I delivered four months ago are so popular that they have been requested weeks ahead. My advance long spent, the contract stipulates no further payment until I produce at least one dashing male partner to squire women desiring companionship and a surrogate willing to take orders like a pet poodle. Even in these times, it seems that women remain squeamish about paid human escorts.

I look over at Max standing by the door of my office — suave, dark-eyed, and not a living cell in his body. "Let's give it another try," he says in his sultry, computer-generated voice.

I rely on a human prototype to model Latino dances. Ten minutes on the phone to convince fast-talking Rico, my soon-to-be-unemployed assistant, to blow off his job search and grab the subway to my ninth-floor lab on 57th Street. "I've hit a wall," I tell him. "And I won't send out Max until our ladies show more enthusiasm for him."

I'd soon discovered that, unlike male test subjects who never mentioned their follow bot's body temperature, the women are hypersensitive to Max's setting. Deviate more than a degree and they complain that he feels like a feverish child or cold as a corpse.

But for the chance to practice with one of the best flesh-and-blood _salseros_ in Manhattan, a dozen female trial subjects endure grueling sessions with Max imitating Rico's style. Afterward, we interpret their feedback.

Last month's complaints — "the lead's too soft" or "the lead's too hard" — made it sound like I was designing sexbots, until Rico slipped his arm around my waist, muttered "Soft," and tried to move me with limp fingers. Then, without warning, he gripped my hand in a turn that threw me a good meter. "Hard." It took me a week to resolve that issue.

The women often find it difficult to articulate their discontent. They groused that he didn't smell like a man until pheromones were added. I had to tease out of them that Max's breathing simulator failed to signal mounting excitement. Nonetheless, after I had programmed him to ease his hand to the small of his partner's back and pull her close, one subject quit the trials and took up Zumba.

Rico sweeps through the office door, the bot's identical twin except for a faint sheen of sweat below his hairline, and a scar on his forehead that hints at menace. He points down to the street level. "Some dude's hangin' around the door asking about you. I know a bill collector when I see one. Told him I'd never heard of you."

Rico helps himself to the last slice of congealed pizza that Max fetched two hours earlier for my lunch, then sits on the corner of my desk and props his loafered foot on the empty box. "Jason, I been thinkin'. The ladies beef that Max is too predictable, even when he nails my best moves."

"So what are you saying?"

"I tune in on my partners more than I realize, you know, give and take." He arches his neck like a fighting cock. "True, I'm the one callin' the shots. But my job is to make us both look good, to be on top of what she's gonna do, even when she's about to screw up."

His foot plunks onto the floor. "I change my movements as I go along — adapt, as you'd say. Like musicians jammin' away and find themselves headin' for a train wreck. How they save their asses just might turn out to be the best part."

"Can't the dancers, like musicians, find their way back on track?"

Rico's manicured hand carves a flourish with the pizza crust. "Change one thing, and the whole dance can go off in a different direction."

Something clicks in my brain. Dynamic determinism, like a squirrel escaping up an unfamiliar tree. He will reach safety, but makes a choice at each forked branch, so the path and destination are variable. "My friend, you have just given me an elegant example of chaos theory."

The scar on Rico's forehead turns magenta. "This ain't no chaos, man. That's a no-dancin' fool trying to dominate the floor, or a couple fumbling with steps they learned in class." A lightning shimmy passes through his shoulders. "Salsa unfolds moment to moment, with seamless invention. When I'm on, my body feels it. That's when it comes alive."

"Kudos to you, Rico, not just for your unparalleled skill, but also for your intellect."

Rico looks like he might ask if kudos are something like back pay. "I don't know about all that. If I'm thinkin' anything, it's how to get someone into bed before the night's over."

I see with blinding clarity that Max, who has been digesting all this from his corner, may never be a compelling escort for Rent-a-Bot clients. Adequate, perhaps. I'll refine the bot's programs like a meteorologist plots algorithms to predict a hurricane.

I show Rico the eviction notice. "I'll need at least three weeks to complete the modifications. If we don't make this chunk of plastic more desirable by the weekend, we'll all be out on the street." Max bleeps, and I hurry to apologize. We have an understanding that I won't insult him.

Rico looks at me long. In a spot-on imitation of the bot's measured speech, he says, "I could fill in for Max, until you figure out how to make him more of a man."

My armpits ooze while I contemplate what my wife would say about this scheme. One slipup, and there goes my reputation as the first engineer to design a successful salsabot. And perhaps my marriage. With luck, I'll get Max up to task before Rico forgets and sips a drink or escapes to the restroom while on assignment.

I glance at Max, but he offers no opinion, and I warn Rico, "You know how the women might treat a bot."

"You think I never had to bite my tongue 'cause someone was payin' me?"

"I hope you're not referring to me."

"You ain't paid me this month, boss, so you don't qualify."

I call Rent-a-Bot and leave a message to expect one lead dancer by Friday. Three nail-biting weeks lie ahead, and then my lab will fall empty and silent. No Rico, unpredictable as a stallion, no steadfast Max, and no women who can't decide what they really want in a man.

~~~~~

Wall Street Insider: Rent-a-Bot (RABT), the startup that went public last month, gained fifteen percent today on the NASDAQ trading desks. The significant price move reflects market confidence in RABT's line of dancing robots. Customer demand for Max, the lead salsabot, soared in the first two weeks of its release six months ago. Four replicas have been dispatched to ease the waiting list, with another hundred scheduled to arrive in major cities in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Breathtaking in its lifelike appearance and behavior, the first Max out of the gate displayed a pronounced forehead defect. After its repair, female clients remarked that the flaw had rendered the bot more intriguing. Each iteration of Max now comes with this distinct facial scar.

Isabel Molino, popular Brooklyn dance instructor, reports that she rents one of the salsabots to serve as her teaching assistant. To test Max's competence, she feigned inappropriate moves and discovered that the bot could lead her back to the correct form without missing a step. "I've never seen anything like it," she claims. "He, or should I say 'it,' is as good as the best _salseros_ in the borough."

With scores of women eager to meet Max's human model, Federico Suárez now offers private lessons on 57th Street in the lab where Max learned to dance. Software designer Jason Phillips is unavailable for comment, rumored to be on vacation in the Caribbean with his wife.

Catherine Evleshin is a professor of dance and Caribbean culture. Her writing appears in WordsApart Magazine, Mused - the BellaOnline Literary Review, and Caribbean and African Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship by Yvonne Daniel.

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# Bogged Down

by Jason Norton; published June 21, 2013

Third Place Award, June 2013 Fiction Contest

What had begun as a wretch of a week for Preston Alstodt was turning out most glorious. His elation would have invariably been lost on the casual observer who did not share his passion for botany. But knee-deep in the brackish muck of the Everglades — leeches, gators, and fist-sized mosquitoes aside — he was reborn.

Originally, he'd planned to stay on campus and work through Spring Break. That was before the kitchen pipes burst and the alternator in his 2007 Toyota Corolla died. On Thursday, two of his fellow biology professors were notified that Harvard did not require their talents in the upcoming year. With untold semesters to go before he could even hope for the security of tenure, Preston took their dismissal as a threat. He needed to publish or at least contribute to some credible research soon to bolster his credentials — or his resume.

It was all too much at once. He had to get away. Harvard was just too damned cold in March — especially this March.

On Friday afternoon, he called his contractor, worked out where to leave the key, and taxied to the airport. Five hours later, he was on a red-eye to Florida.

It was supposed to have been a casual getaway, not an expedition. But Preston never really allowed himself such respite.

His field team, sixteen strong, remained in Boston. Janie would've made seventeen but she was still in Ithaca. She'd refused to accompany him on the last leg of his doctoral pursuit. She'd seen the writing on the wall in his sophomore year at Cornell and realized she would always be his second most-loved carbon-based life form. They still talked, at least once per month by phone. E-mails were intermittent. They hadn't been face to face or body to body in over six years. Her choice.

He was married to his work, but he made no apologies. Human relationships had always been too difficult. Plants were easy. They lived and died. In the interim they waged a silent war for survival; fighting and scratching and doing their damnedest to choke out competitive species for territorial dominance. Win some, lose some. Not too far removed from humanity.

But with plants, emotions were never involved. There was no need for conversation or compromise. They were content to be alone.

Janie was still with him, in his mind, as his plane taxied the tarmac. Six years hadn't helped him forget; not surprisingly, three gin and tonics hadn't either. He would keep trying. He had six days.

Saturday morning, he took full advantage of the hotel's pastry-laden continental breakfast and swiped a cardboard four-cup carrier to smuggle a proper morning's worth of coffee back to his room. He showered and slathered on sunscreen. Grabbing a folder full of yet-to-be-graded mid-terms and the complimentary _Miami Herald_ left outside his door, he headed to the beach that fronted his corner room.

It was already hot — no surprise there — but the beach was suspiciously devoid of sunbathers. Preston then remembered he was on Spring Break in Miami, it was only a little after 9 a.m. and he was nearly 30. The college tourists that had bombarded the city still had at least six to eight hours before they would depart, zombie-like, from their hotels.

He took nearly 30 minutes to trudge through three mid-terms. It was difficult to focus. It was practically impossible. Peeling himself from his chair, he waded into the blue-green Atlantic.

He dove under the waves, making his way past the breakers. Lifting his feet, he allowed the tide to buoy him as he lay backward. He closed his eyes and floated, embracing the respite as waves lapped against his face. He began to mentally rifle through rare orchid species. It was a form of cognitive yoga he'd first utilized when writing his thesis, as a way to calm and clear his head.

Cymbidium sinense: indigenous to India, Taiwan and Thailand. Found in cool climates. Requires ample light with lower temperatures. Thrives in an ideal humidity between 40 and 60 percent.

Cattleya schilleriana: Brazil. Grows in cool to hot temperatures on cliff faces and in rivers anywhere from sea level to 800 meters above. Often used to create hybrids in attempts to breed "super orchids."

Dendrophylax lindenii: first found in Cuba in 1844, discovered in south Florida 50 years later. Commonly known as the Ghost Orchid due to its billowy white appearance. Two thousand known to be in existence in Florida; their location mostly kept secret by researchers and horticulturalists. Considered the most sought after orchid in the U.S. and possibly the world.

He opened his eyes at the realization, losing the poise of his float posture.

South Florida. He was in South Florida. Within forty minutes he could be in the heart of Big Cypress Swamp, smack dab in the middle of Ghost Orchid Central. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it sooner. He could find a Ghost Orchid. Bringing one back would be tantamount to sacrilege, but if he got the chance to study one in the wild — hell, to even see one — he was sure it would spark inspiration for his next project.

He returned to his chair, toweled his hands and dug his cell phone from his bag. Dialing information, he asked for airboat companies. He stopped the operator at the third listing: Fan-Dango Airboat Tours. She connected him directly.

"Fan-Dango Airboat Tours; best gator-gazing getaway in the 'Glades," the gravelly voice on the other end said, more lackadaisically than one would expect, considering such a reputation.

"Moe speaking; may I help you?" the voice followed, no more enthusiastically.

"Do you have tours going out today?"

"Sure do," Moe replied.

Preston waited expectantly. "What time?" he asked, realizing Moe wasn't volunteering additional information.

"Time you wanna leave?" Moe said, after an audible sip and swallow.

"Aaahh, how about around noon?" Preston suggested, caught off-guard at the man's nonchalance. He wondered if all the natives were as casual.

"Nah, noon's no good. Too damn hot. How about let's say four? Sun'll be lower," Moe countered.

"Four it is," Preston said. "Listen, is there any chance this could be a private tour?"

Moe took another drink. "Hell, they'll all be private today. Spring breakers don't care about airboatin'. Ain't no sex or booze in it." He paused. "Well, no sex anyway, 'less a couple of them co-eds show up and play their cards right."

~~~~~

Preston arrived at Fan-Dango fifteen minutes early. There wasn't much to the place. The tiny shack had an attached pavilion that barely covered two picnic tables. An 80's-era cash register sat atop a weathered L-shaped bar. Two t-shirts — one red, one black — hung on coat hangers dangling from the eight-foot-high rafters. The sun-bleached shirts proudly displayed the white Fan-Dango logo — an airboat driven by an over-sized bespectacled alligator, Ray-Ban sunglasses resting on his snout.

A graying, rotund man wearing a trucker's cap with the same logo emerged from the shack. His name was embroidered on his black Polo. Moe.

"Howdy, friend. You must be my four o'clock. Mr. ..."

"Alstodt," Preston reminded him. "Doctor Preston Alstodt."

"My apologies," Moe said, extending his hand. "M.D.?"

"Professor. Botanical Sciences. Harvard," Preston said, shaking the larger man's hand.

"An Ivy-League plant man. Funny," Moe said.

"I suppose so," Preston agreed, surprised he'd never made the same connection.

"You must be here on business then, considerin' your request for a private ride," Moe said.

"Correct. I'm hoping to find ..."

"A Ghost Orchid?" Moe finished for him. It was quickly becoming apparent that despite the man's local-yokel appearance, he was no dummy. "I can probably help you with that. But it'll cost a little more than the regular fare. How about we say a hun'erd?"

"That won't be a problem," Preston said, pulling his wallet from his back pocket.

"Card reader's on the fritz," Moe said, when he saw Preston thumbing a Visa.

"Oh, sure," Preston said. He fished out cash, making a mental note to hit an ATM once he returned to Miami.

"Alrighty then," Moe said, pocketing the bills as he headed back inside the shack. Within moments, he emerged, a hefty red and white Igloo cooler in his right hand. In his left, he carried a bag of jumbo jet-puffed marshmallows.

The spring-loaded wooden door clattered behind him as he grinned at Preston. "Okay professor," he said. "Let's ride."

~~~~~

Within fifteen minutes of their departure, Preston was certain that his cheeks had flown off. Then the boat tore through a small swarm of mayflies that peppered him like scattered buckshot and he realized that his face was — perhaps regrettably — still intact. He'd never been so thankful for sunglasses.

"Sorry 'bout that doc!" Moe yelled over the drone of the whining propeller from his elevated seat. "Trying to avoid some brush on the left."

It was no easy task. Stilted red mangroves threw scattering roots in intricate basket weaves across untold acres of the swamp floor. Preston was impressed at how well Moe was dodging the trees considering the sweet odor he'd noticed on his breath earlier — plus the two beers he'd downed since they'd begun.

"We only need a couple inches of water to run on, but we can still run aground if we snag anything too stout or dry," Moe said.

The combined speed, gas fumes, and frequent zig-zagging were beginning to weigh on Preston. "How much further?" he yelled over his shoulder between burp-heaves.

"Half-hour, little more. Your thumb ain't the only thing green right now, doc," Moe said, taking another opportunity for a pun. "Here, I'll pull over for a sec. Let you get your gut right."

Slowly, he killed the throttle. Turning the propeller handle, he guided the boat into a clearing surrounded by mangroves. The fan blades whirred to a stop as the boat drifted in the shallows.

"Thanks," Preston said, his stomach equally appreciative. Examining the perimeter, he spied bladderworts, water lilies, and spatterdocks.

Moe opened the marshmallows, as a ripple swirled to the left of the boat.

"What was that?" Preston asked anxiously. "That," Moe said, stepping down and leaning over the side of the boat, "is Big Al. He's a local legend in these parts."

"Al? As in ..."

"You came by that doctorate honest, by God" Moe said. "Yep. Old Al is about eighteen-feet-worth of gator. Most folks figure he's about 65 years old. That makes him a pretty big deal. Most gators grow to about 11 feet and check out by their fiftieth birthday. He's what a fella like you would probably call an anomaly."

Preston craned his neck as far as it would swivel, trying to spot the beast. Something so large should've been easier to find. He watched Moe, trying to follow the older man's searching eye. Staring off the rear of the boat, Moe plucked a marshmallow from the bag and held it out over the water.

"You may wanna' scoot back," he told Preston.

The professor inched back as far as his seat would allow. He tensed, feeling the sweat drip down his back. The sun may have weakened, but the humidity was thick as ever. He'd forgotten it while the boat was cutting through the swamp, the headwind drying his skin.

Moe clicked his tongue as casually as if he were summoning a housecat to dinner. "Here, gator, gator, gator," he called.

With a violent splash, Big Al broke the water, lunging upward for Moe's outstretched arm. The gator's moss-green head was easily the size of the curbside garbage can provided to Preston by the City of Boston's Public Works department. Its yellowed teeth, thick as fingers, gnarled like splayed barbed wire.

Big Al opened his bottom jaw, so wide that it looked as if he could swallow Moe whole. At the last possible second, the old boatman dodged backward, letting the marshmallow fly. The gator snatched it from the air and dove back into the water, sending a swell under the boat that nearly capsized it. Preston pitched backward on the vinyl seat, clutching it to keep from somersaulting overboard. Instantly, Big Al disappeared.

Moe cackled.

"Ya alright, doc? Man, you shoulda seen your face!"

Preston couldn't speak. He really wanted to, so he could ask Moe just what the hell was wrong with him and why he would endanger both their lives for such a stupid stunt. But his lips wouldn't work.

Moe offered the bag to Preston. "Your turn. Give it a shot?"

"N-no. No th-thank you," Preston stammered. His eyes were wide as he frantically scanned the water.

"Suit yourself," Moe said. "Don't know what you're missing."

"Is ... is he coming back?" Preston asked.

"Not unless I give him another."

"Please don't," Preston said, before Moe could hardly finish.

Moe chuckled. "I'm sorry, doc. It's just a gag I use with the tourists. They usually get a kick out of it. Course I usually don't do it with Al. He can be a little intimidating."

"Genghis Khan was a little intimidating. Big Al would've made him soil his fur-lined panties," Preston said dryly.

Moe grinned. He reached into the Igloo. He popped the top on another beer, shoving it at Preston. "Have one. It'll calm your nerves."

Staying low, Preston took as few steps as possible to accept the offer. "Thanks," he said.

"Don't worry, she ain't gonna tip over, Jumpy," Moe said. "Tell ya what. I'll get us back out into the main and we can troll a bit before we pick up speed again."

"Great."

Moe fiddled with buttons on what Preston recognized as the engine. Pulling a ripcord, the fan blade spun to life. He reached for the rudder, gently guiding the boat into the open swamp.

Preston sipped his beer. It was bitter and fruity. He studied the label. Swamp Ape IPA.

"It's brewed up in Melbourne, 'bout 150 miles north," Moe said.

"It's good," Preston said.

"Bet your ass it is. Just like everything in Florida, 'cept the damned Cubans." Preston shot him an uncomfortable glance. "No offense," Moe said, forgetting he was dealing with one of those scholarly types who didn't appreciate such commentary.

"None taken," Preston lied.

Preston pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Eleven minutes after five. Still hot.

"How long until the orchids?" he asked.

"Depends how you're feeling," Moe replied.

"I'm good. We can pick up speed anytime."

"Relax, doc. Enjoy the scenery. You ain't payin' by the hour, and you're still looking a little green. Green. Get it?" Again, Preston didn't share Moe's enthusiasm for the joke.

Preston swatted a mosquito from his neck, wishing he'd stopped for repellant.

"The Spanish were the first to ever map the Everglades, though they hadn't even seen it," Moe began, in full tour guide mode. "They knew there was something between the Gulf and the Atlantic, but they didn't know exactly what. They named it 'Laguna del Espíritu Santo: Lake of the Holy Spirit.'"

"Right. I read that in a brochure," Preston said.

"The primary vegetation here is obviously sawgrass, which has some interesting characteristics. For example, sawgrass leaves will burn ..."

"But not the submerged roots," Preston said. "It's how the sawgrass survives all the fires caused by lightning strikes."

"Sharp cookie," Moe said, clinking his beer against Preston's, as they both took congratulatory sips. Preston smiled. "That is kind of my area of expertise," he said with an air of pride.

"How about a little history lesson then?"

"Please," the professor said, less anxious now, thanks in part to the beer.

"I'm sure you are familiar with the Lost Colony of Virginia?"

"Sure. They were the last members of modern-day North Carolina's Roanoke Colony who just disappeared. When other settlers came looking for them, they found all their homes and buildings dismantled. The only clue to their disappearance was the word 'Croatoan' carved into a nearby tree. Some scholars believe the group was signaling that they were relocating to Croatoan Island; what we now know as Hatteras Island," Preston said, as if he were lecturing back at Harvard.

"And the other theory?" Moe tested the doctor.

"The colonists were trying to point to a tribe that abducted them. That's highly unlikely, though," Preston said.

"You think so?"

"Of course. How would someone have the wits or the time to carve something like that into a tree during a mass kidnapping?" Preston said.

"Oh you'd be surprised what fear can do for you," Moe said, finishing his beer. "What if I told you we had our own little lost colony right here in the 'Glades?"

"I didn't realize there were colonists here," Preston said.

"Not colonists, per se. Indians ... I mean Native Americans," Moe corrected, now attempting to be on his best politically correct behavior.

"Go on," Preston said, handing over his empty. Moe tossed him another Swamp Ape.

"Initially, there were two major tribes in the Everglades: the Calusa and the Taquesta. The Calusas were the big boys. They had the numbers, about 7,000. But they suffered attacks from an invading tribe from the north, the Yamasee. By 1700, only about 1,000 Calusa were left. Most of them pled with the Spanish explorers who showed up in the interim to relocate them to Cuba. They stayed there for a while, but when disease starting killing them off, they moved on to the Keys.

"The Taquesta were supposedly a more peaceful people. Spanish historical records indicate otherwise. The Spanish were scared shitless of the Taquesta. Said they ambushed Spanish sailors who ran aground in the 'Glades, and would torture them before killing them. In the mid-1700's, Spanish priests tried to build missions along the coast, figuring they may be able to make peace with the Tequesta if they could convert them. Turns out, another invading tribe — the Yucchi — took care of the problem for them. Between them and the Seminoles, the Taquesta were nearly wiped out. A British historian, name of Romans, found most of their villages leveled — and deserted — in the 1770s. Legend has is that the final 30 surviving Taquesta were deported to Havana. Most folks around here don't believe that though," Moe said.

"So what do they think happened?" Preston asked, between swallows.

"Nobody really knows. But this flower you're looking for? The old timers 'round here swear those dead Indians' spirits are what gives those things life."

"So you're saying the Taquesta put the ghost in the Ghost Orchid?" Preston said, suppressing a grin.

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you what folks believe. That's why they say those orchids are so rare. So special. They think the Taquesta's spirits inhabit the orchids and protect them. Sort of the last piece of their property that they don't want to lose," Moe explained.

Preston poured out the remaining backwash of his second beer and tossed the bottle into the cooler. "Well I've heard some interesting theories on plant development, but that's a new one on me," he said.

Moe revved the throttle gently and motioned for Preston to ready himself for another takeoff. "All I know," he said just before he unwound the engine, "is that you don't get to be old by being stupid."

~~~~~

Moe's propensity for understatement was becoming increasingly apparent with each passing minute. What was supposed to have been little more than a half-hour trip had turned into the proverbial three-hour tour.

Preston's cell phone battery was dead. The last thing he'd seen on it was a notification of a voicemail from Sam, his contractor. He hadn't been able to bring himself to listen to the financial misfortune that it undoubtedly involved. He'd simply texted "fix it" in reply, figuring an actual call would have little chance of connecting in his current environment.

Moe, predictably, wore no watch. The professor estimated that it must be some time near eight o'clock. The sun had set about a half-hour earlier; daylight would start to succumb to evening soon.

The beer proved to be a double-edged sword. It undoubtedly helped make the trip more enjoyable, but it had nearly stolen Moe's recollection of the orchids' location. They lost more sunlight when they stopped twice to relieve themselves, thanks to the Swamp Ape's revenge. Preston cut himself off at three; he wanted to be lucid when — and maybe if, now it seemed — they found the orchids.

He'd lost count of how many Moe had finished (or how many times he'd followed dead ends). Still, his control of the airboat seemed unfazed.

"How much longer?" Preston asked for the umpteenth time.

"I'm pretty sure they are just up around that bend there."

Preston followed Moe's gesture, spying the outline of a tiny mangrove outcropping about a quarter of a mile in the hazy distance.

"Yep, won't be long now," Moe said.

Preston restrained his anticipation. Moe's navigational track record had proven less than stellar so far. Still, Moe had been good company. He hadn't had a conversation this lengthy with anyone in recent memory. Not even ...

Janie. There she was. Right where he'd left her, waiting in the back of his mind, like always.

Only now did he realize how long he'd gone without thinking of her. He couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. He chose the obvious option.

"I'll take another beer if there's any left," he told Moe.

"Last one, but you'd better knock it back quick," Moe said, tossing it his way. "We're here."

Preston looked up, realizing how far the boat and his memory had traveled. For all of the trip's sluggish meanderings, the last leg had taken seconds.

"Here ya go, as promised," Moe said, idling the boat into the cove. Waving his arm like he was about to pull a rabbit out of his blue Fan-Dango hat, he gestured toward the sawgrass fronting the boat. "May I present the one and only Florida Ghost Orchid."

Preston peered ahead into the increasing darkness, forgetting the beer. He struggled to make out the disparate foliage among the sawgrass.

"Here, doc," Moe said, clicking on the spotlight anchored to the right of his captain's chair.

He was right. He had remembered. Despite God-knows-how-many wrong turns and Swamp Apes, Moe had done it.

Hundreds of Ghost Orchids — as white as they were in the pictures Preston had seen — danced in the gently lapping bay.

The professor was nearly moved to tears.

"You okay, doc?"

"My God; there's so many of them. There were only supposed to be 2,000 in the state," Preston said, his attention unwavering.

"Well, that may have been all they've found, but that don't mean that's all there is. Sometimes experience trumps education, doc. When you've been running the 'Glades as long as I have, you learn a few secrets," Moe said.

Moe eased the boat closer, allowing Preston a better look. "There's enough ground there to walk right out and touch one," Moe said, pointing to the twenty feet of mud-covered bank in front of the boat.

"Seriously? Aren't there gators out there?" Preston asked, captivated by the opportunity.

"Hell, doc, there's gators everywhere around here. Just don't stay too long. I'll keep the light on and holler if I see anything," Moe reassured him.

Preston tossed his wallet and phone in the boat, then eased his way out onto the marshy beach. He swapped his vision between the orchids and the watery slop that came up to his knees, in case Big Al's cousin chose to make an appearance. But now, this close, he was more excited than afraid.

He reached out, cradling an orchid. Its petals, sepals and lobes all fluttered in perfect unison; its fluted stigma stood proud, displaying elegance amongst strength. "My God," Preston repeated, a joyous laughter filling his vocal chords. "Moe, you have got to come see this up close! This is ... unbelievable!"

"No thanks," Moe said, edging off his seat to pocket Preston's abandoned valuables. Reaching back, he restarted the engine. "I'll pass."

Preston heard the motor, but couldn't take his eyes off the near-perfect specimens.

Then he caught Moe's voice again; this time further off.

"Alright doc. It's been real. On second thought, stay a while. I think you'll like it here," Moe called, opening the engine full-bore.

Preston turned, the shrill hum and sudden gust disrupting his stupor.

Moe was backing away.

Preston lunged after him, bewildered. He took two steps and plummeted face first into water that was now higher than his waist. Panic and confusion overtook him. He tried to swim after the boat but was tossed aside in its churning wake. He screamed for Moe until he lost sight of the spotlight. Terrified and alone in the blackness, he slid back through the ooze to the company of the orchids.

He tried to scramble as high on the bank as possible, out of gator range. Scratching blindly in the muck, he found the root of a mangrove and held on for dear life, trying to climb high enough to get his feet on land.

A guttural murmur came from the left. He froze. It didn't sound like any gator he'd ever heard, including Big Al. Again it warbled, louder this time. An echo answered from the rear.

Within seconds, the sounds surrounded Preston. He stood and tried to run, but tumbled back into the marsh. He stayed under for as long as he could, hoping the noise would be gone when he surfaced. No such luck. But when he emerged just far enough to try and look toward the bank, the disparity between the water and air allowed him a brief moment of auditory clarity.

The noise sounded vaguely like language. Ancient, lost language unfamiliar to Preston. He stood stone-like; trying to decipher what he could hear, squinting to adjust his vision to the total absence of light.

He saw nothing at first; then he glimpsed a glow. Tiny and red, it bounced within yards of him before disappearing. Suddenly it came back. It was quickly joined by yellows, oranges, and more reds, all in small pairs.

Eyes. Lots of them.

He did a quick visual estimation.

There were about thirty pairs.

Something brushed past his legs. He thrashed in the water, finding the mangrove again, backing against it. Silence and stillness returned. The eyes had disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, Preston clambered up onto the roots of the tree. He had imagined it all. It had just been some type of a fish against his leg; fireflies in the trees. Moe's stories had gotten the better of him, but they wouldn't get the best. He was a man of science, after all.

And then the world went liquidly black. Moss-covered hands, dozens of them, pulled him beneath the surface. He thrashed, kicking and screaming, his bubbling voice sounding much like those of his now-screaming tormentors. Reds and oranges and yellows flashed around him as he was driven down into the bowels of the swamp. Mud and water filled his nose and his eyes. Within seconds his lungs would be flooded.

Suddenly, the screaming stopped. It was replaced by a quieter bellow, rhythmic and placid. He ceased his struggle, as the strong hands gently guided him deeper into the mud. When he opened his eyes, he could see clearly. Everything was yellow.

Vines snaked around him, piercing his flesh and organs in excruciating precision. Slime-covered vegetation slithered down his throat, nesting his organs in floral incubators. Roots replaced bone.

He could hear the process in his mind — the sentient screams of his dying cells and the triumphant battle cries of the new organisms conquering his body. Then came the voices of his brothers, as they began to hoist him from the murk. He understood them all completely now, though he could not explain why.

He tried to hold on, tried to salvage what was left of whatever it was he seemed to remember being just moments — or maybe eons — before.

He thought of Jennie. Jamie. Janet. Jan ... What was it again?

No matter.

He wasn't alone anymore.

Finally.

_Jason Norton is a lifelong fan of comic books, science fiction, and monster-under-your-bed stories. He hopes to one day be mistaken as an author of such. A former small-town newspaper reporter, Jason is now a personal trainer and massage therapist. When he's not playing volleyball, he studies wilderness survival skills. Honest. Not even he could have made all that up. Jason and his wife live in Powhatan, Virginia. He has a son, two cats and two dogs. He prefers the son. Jason's flash fiction piece, "Cave Dwellers," was recently published at Bewildering Stories. Follow his exploits at:_ thewritefandango.blogspot.com

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# Lyfe

by Tyrone Long; published June 25, 2013

I take another sip of water before picking up the script again. My idol, Jim Jacobson III, once wrote that he would only sip water during commercials. He said in thirteen years of broadcast journalism, he had not taken one solid drink of water while on the job. "Stopping to go to the bathroom, focusing on your bladder, and fidgeting are all byproducts of drinking water when a sip would do," he said. He said that engaging in any activity that increased the chances of "missing the magic" was unconscionable. I listened.

Take twenty-three and I still cannot understand how I got here. I was a poor kid, so of course the recruiters came for me. They always come for the poor kids.

"Anytime you're ready, kid," the director says.

His voice seems almost like the voice of God through the loud speakers above me. I get paranoid when he turns off the mic and turns to talk to his assistant.

"Welcome to the season finale of Lyfe. The game show that takes reality TV to a place where "real" has a whole new meaning ..."

The script for this intro is awful, so far. I have no hope for the future. These scripts have gotten worse by the episode for ten seasons. My focus wanes long enough to meet eyes with the director just as he yawns.

"... a test of will, determination, and intestined fortitude."

"Cut," the director screams from behind the sound-proof glass.

"Sorry," I say.

"I thought you said you memorized the damn script. What in the hell is intestined fortitude?"

"Intestinal, I know. I got it, let's just do it again."

"Let's."

The recruiters told me that Lyfe would give me an opportunity to maximize my potential. I could put my little sister through college, pay off all of mom's bills, and could potentially retire before I reached thirty. They told me that kids like me deserved more than life could offer; we deserved Lyfe. I listened.

"Welcome to the season finale of Lyfe. The game show that takes reality TV to a place where real has a whole new meaning. Hundreds of players from all over the world, live streams that can be accessed from anywhere, and the most compelling drama television can offer."

I failed the first physical for the show. A congenital heart defect made it impossible for me to fulfill certain tasks the show might require. It wasn't that bad. I had a different future in mind for myself. I wanted to be a hard-hitting reporter; even got a degree to go along with the dream. Yet here I am. Shooting a voice-over for the very show that turned me down seven years ago. I am twenty-five now. I could have been retired by now.

"... players choose their 'figures' out of a pool of thousands of potentials. A spin of the wheel and they're off. Should they send their figures straight to work or hold off till college is over? Help decide their fate by participating in live online polls and anonymous texts that control the odds for tonight's participants. That's right, here on Lyfe, you have the power; voting increases the size of the corresponding number on Lyfe's big wheel. All of this for a small monthly membership fee."

My sister, Mary, passed her physicals. She is pregnant with her second kid. The first one died in a car accident at two, after her player spun a six. We haven't been able to talk since the funeral but her husband's player only needs a five on tonight's episode to win the lotto. The commercial I recorded last Friday told my mother that a four would result in a premature baby and all the financial and emotional hardships that come with it. I chickened out and just let my voice tell my mother through the TV. That is how I told my mother that my sister was pregnant, too; both times. I pay for her membership. She never watches. She only votes; she only prays.

"... Lyfe, where the reality is all real, all the time."

I don't watch either. And I don't pray.

There was this girl my sister used to know. She lived in the apartment next to ours in the building we grew up in. Her legs never quite worked the way they should. She was the first girl I thought I loved. I never said a single word to her. Her voice was always this muffled and distant song. The thin walls of a broken down project building in a broken down city merely added to her mystery.

Sandra. Sandra Something-Or-Other.

Sandra was found behind that old building last week. She was like me; she was one birth defect away from a chance at a better life.

The director franticly paces as they touch up my makeup. We tape my segments on the fly.

"Everything is happening."

Everything is happening. He says this all the time. He says this like we don't know, like it means something.

The Internet buzz controls the way he shapes our presentation. If the audience begins to turn on a figure, they are shown and referred to, with disgust. Perception is reality.

I don't pray for my sister, I don't watch her Lyfe, because she has it better than she would have otherwise. She could easily have been a Sandra Something-Or-Other.

Jim Jacobson III said that it is the strength and wisdom of a reporter, the foresight and the ability to maintain a distant objectivity, that allows them to reach the greatest of heights.

I listened.

The monitor is showing a live broadcast of tonight's episode. A figure in some city I have never heard of is running down the street in tears and a tattered gown. Without sound, she could be running after the recently leased car that is being towed away. Without the audio single that is undoubtedly playing in the background — easily purchased by phone — her broken heart could be an overreaction to her oldest child going to college, or something.

A long-shot spin of a one, six months ago, made her husband, a man that she had actually grown to truly love over the three seasons they spent as man and wife, start an affair. Last week, a heavily favored seven led to tonight's confrontation during the ceremony to renew their vows. Now her mascara is running, and a broken heel lies in the middle of the road fifteen paces behind her quivering body. A perfectly timed crane shot swoops over her as she lies limp in the middle of the street she was forced to move to. Based on everything I know about Lyfe, the music will fade out leaving only the sound of her sobbing.

"Why?" she mouths.

And then a commercial advertises a new dating site or a medication for STDs, depending on the narration and music I cannot hear.

The sound of a click and slight feedback prepares me for the imminent voice of god.

"Okay, kid. It looks like we are going with script B during this last segment. And remember, everything is happening."

I did not read the script. How could I? After a decade of formulaic twists and forced product placements, how could I care enough about any of this? I am nothing like the person I wanted to be; my life is nothing like the life I wanted to live. I have not read a script in months. Jim Jacobson III would be so disappointed. But then again, Jim Jacobson III died in a den of inequity while reporting on the seedy underbelly of this broken-down city. The cause of death was never fully determined. Rumor has it that an overdose was the best bet, but extreme physical exertion at what is graciously referred to as an advanced age was a close second.

It doesn't help that my sister is a figure. What kind of sociopath could memorize the script for a family member's impending miscarriage, or whatever?

"And action," the voice of god rings out.

"Well folks, there you have it. A marriage in tatters, a woman in defeat but hopefully not defeated, and a world waiting to see just what Lyfe has in store for her. Now let's turn our attention to the Hendersons, as Mary and her husband Josh make their way to what is sure to be an exciting climax to one of the longest running Lyves we have ever seen."

The teleprompter is cued up for my next few lines. It says that Josh does not win the lottery. But my niece isn't premature either. Josh just loses his job. They just lose their home. I have seen worse; I have read worse.

I sleep walk through the majority of the next few minutes of my life. I talk about Mary like I never slept under her crib to make sure she was not alone if she woke up in the middle of the night and started to cry. I refer to her as a figure and not as the baby sister whose bottle I used to steal because I loved warm milk; or the frustrating preteen who kidnapped and forced marriage upon my action figures. It barely even registers as I wrap up, in my deepest and most ominous voice, her final moments in Lyfe.

"When we come back, we will reveal the result of Josh's player's final spin."

Josh's player's spin. Josh's player. Some multi-multi-millionaire. A trust fund Someone-Or-Other. These people with no fear of starvation, disease, aging poorly, or untimely death. Wagering pointless fortunes on a game just to vicariously live the types of lives money spared them from actually living.

Josh's player is probably not even watching; they're certainly not praying.

Where enough money exists, prayer becomes obsolete.

I am bitter, or whatever.

"Welcome back. As you just saw, the Hendersons are on the brink of losing it all. But, as Lyfe has taught us, there is some hope left for this veteran family. They are but one spin away from being just the third family to happily retire from Lyfe. A twelve lands them firmly in the lap of luxury due to the untimely death of Josh's long-lost uncle, a former player in the game of Lyfe. But look out, another unlucky spin and ..."

I freeze. In the distance, I hear my sister and Sandra Something-Or-Other singing a song I always hated by a random teen heartthrob.

My eyes wander to the left. They pass the director's ever-reddening face behind sound-proof glass. Resting on the monitor above the camera guy, the live feed shows the spin my words will lead into.

I watch. I pray.

"Read the script or get off my stage," the director's voice echoes throughout the stage.

Everything is happening.

I pray for a power outage. I pray for a natural disaster, anarchy, revolution, or the unlikely intervention of a superior alien race. I pray for anything but a one.

The director orders a close up as I continue. Everyone is to continue rolling. Time is of the essence.

My shaking hands raise a glass of water to my lips. I take a solid drink.

Pacing my words to the silent clicking of the needle on the Lyfe's wheel, I say, "But look out, another unlucky spin and Josh will wind up a widower."

I should have read the script. A cursory glance over to another monitor showing the live polls proves that the plight of a single father, having lost his wife in childbirth, is a popular one.

"And cut."

Tyrone Long lives in Ohio with his wife and two children. He earned his bachelor's degree from Bowling Green State University and now works in college admissions. His work has been published in Poetry for the Mind's Joy, The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress, as well as multiple collegiate publications.

(Back to Table of Contents)

# In the Rain

by Lisa Lutwyche; published June 28, 2013

It's risky telling this story because I'm a female police officer, but it's also impossible to deny. Before I hardened my heart to protect myself, before the years of forcing myself to be always impartial, I might have convinced myself I'd imagined it all. But I wasn't alone, even if they refuse to talk about it. I've been silent because of my career, but I can't do it anymore.

Because when it rains, I remember. Just like him.

That night, twenty years ago, is wet, messy, and bone chilling, despite the fact that it's spring. I'm drinking coffee with the inevitable results. Returning from my third trip to the bathroom, they're cocking their eyebrows at me. None of the guys are dashing off as often as I am. I'm the only woman on the shift but they know they can't comment on it. And I'm a rookie.

A gentleman comes in, looking like my grandmother's expression about what the proverbial cat dragged in. And he's mine. I have front desk duty. He's older, well-dressed, nice Rolex watch, lightweight wool sports coat, but he's disheveled. Clearly in distress. He's twisting something in his hands that I don't recognize right away. I try to catch a look.

When I realize what it is I feel my stomach hit the floor. The coffee rises to the back of my throat. I swallow, hard.

It's a little girl's shoe with pink flowers all over it.

"Sir," I say to him. "Have a seat over here and I'll get you some coffee."

I try not to look at that shoe. I see that his hands are shaking. At about the same time I notice mine are, too. I'm glad to step away for the coffee, the smell of which now bothers me.

"Here you go, sir."

He looks up like he's going to thank me. He takes the cup in his hand, the one that's not holding the tiny pink shoe.

But instead of thanking me he says, "Do you think she'll go away if I tell the story?"

I'm scared to ask. "Who, sir?"

"The little girl's ghost."

I sit down in my desk chair so hard there's an audible thump. A couple of the other cops by the coffee pot look over at me. One of them laughs. I'm the rookie, after all. "Oh yeah," I think. "They love it when I've got one of the crazies to deal with."

I look away from him and start typing, partly just for something to do. "Okay, sir. Let's start at the beginning." I don't know what kind of report to write here. How to categorize it? Crazy guy. Little girl's ghost. I can hear the Sergeant now. Part of me wants to chase him away. Scold him for wasting our time. But the little shoe scares me. I can't just let him go.

"Name, sir."

"Stevenson," he says. "Ralph Stevenson."

He's gulping coffee that's so hot it would strip paint, so hot my eyes water watching him. As he crushes the Styrofoam cup in his shoeless hand he catches me gaping.

"Will you make her leave me alone?" His voice is even and calm, but not his eyes. "Every time it rains ... she comes in the rain and she stands there, all quiet, staring at me, staring all wet and quiet. Can you make her stay away from me?"

"Sure thing, sir." I realize that I have no idea what I'm doing. "We'll make her go away, sir, but first I need to know all about both of you."

"Both of us? Oh. Well, I don't know her name." Stevenson sighs, hangs his head. "I only know I killed her at the intersection of Maple and High last Saturday."

I gasp aloud. I can't describe the reaction I had in any other way. My hands freeze over the keyboard. Literally and figuratively. The blood is gone from my fingers.

"Do you hear me? Are you hearing me?"

His voice is hoarse and resounds, cutting off everything else. A hush comes over the precinct, as if his voice has sucked them all inside his world. "I killed her. In the storm, the big thunderstorm ... She ran out. So small. So quick. Bang! And then I couldn't see her anymore. Why was she even there? Alone in the rain like that?"

He quiets, changing his voice to an intimate pitch. As if it's just for me. He leans in, nearly resting his forehead on my desk, where my hands are still poised in the air, waiting for my command. I am fixed on the little shoe. Hypnotized by the tiny flowers.

"There," he says, flat again. "I've told you. Now. Make her stop."

I'm a rookie when all this happens. They're all watching me. I find myself wondering if it's some sort of initiation.

"Right. Sure thing, Mr. Stevenson."

I start typing again, as if this is the sort of report I write every day. I want to yell at the other officers. Tell them they've had their chuckles, now come help me. I catch the eye of my partner, Joe, who's a ten-year veteran. He's not laughing. Joe marches over to Stevenson and me.

"Officer Derry here is going to take you downstairs," Joe says, cheerfully. "I'm afraid you'll need to stay with us for a little while."

Joe grips my shoulder and says, quietly, "Book him for leaving the scene for now. Look under unsolved vehicular manslaughter." He whispers, "Good work, Derry."

And he walks off.

Ralph Stevenson raises his head. His eyes are full of tears. "I know I shouldn't have left her there. I didn't know what to do. We were alone. It was raining so hard. I was afraid to touch her. I knew I should pick her up, call an ambulance. But I didn't. I couldn't. I picked up her shoe. I got back in my car. That's why she follows me."

Stevenson is all hunched over now. I ask him to take off his hat. He does. We take off his watch, his ring, which sticks. He complies without looking at me, except for a glimmer when I ask him for his belt. He unthreads it slowly after rising to his feet.

I notice the precinct is totally silent. Even the inevitable, loudmouthed hooker, who'd been swearing in the corner like a movie cliché, is mute. I realize they've all heard it. I look at Stevenson with his hat off, bald, vulnerable head bowed. I try to take the little shoe from him but he won't let go.

"It's evidence," I plead. In the end I don't have the heart to take it. Joe takes it, gently, when we get him to his holding cell. We give him his own cell because word has already spread that we have a child killer. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply downstairs.

In his cell he sits on the narrow bench, head in hands.

"Are you all right, Mr. Stevenson?"

It's funny. I mean he killed a little girl and left her in the rain. That makes him lower than the lowest sort of monster. But he's so pathetic. I start to walk away because he hasn't answered.

"Officer?"

I stop and turn.

"Whenever it rains she comes to me. She leaves little wet footprints all over."

"Uh, yes sir, Mr. Stevenson." The hair is prickling up my arm. I don't want to hear the rest of it. I cut him off. "Look, sir, I have to take care of this report now, if you'll excuse me."

"Quiet little thing," Stevenson keeps on talking. "Officer, she just stands there all wet with one shoe, crying with no sounds, no words. Big eyes, wet hair. Just stands there after she leaves all these lopsided footprints."

"Gotta go, Mr. Stevenson. You try to rest for a bit, okay?"

I run up the stairs, two at a time, to the lady in records. "Minor female, Saturday afternoon, Maple and High. Hit and run. Coroner dispatches?" She's slow to start, stares over her glasses at me. Unaccustomed to getting orders from another woman, I'm thinking. Minutes go by and she finds nothing. I'm starting to get nervous, then annoyed. Elaborate rookie prank? On my way back to my own desk I peer at faces. No smirks.

I'm finding out about him on my computer. Banker. Divorced. Childless. But there's nothing to indicate a reason to flee the scene the way he did. Shock, I guess. Guilt.

My phone buzzes. "It's Nina from records."

I try to control my breath. My breathlessness. "Yeah?"

"Well, it's not manslaughter. It's an injury. Maple and High, Saturday afternoon, hit and run. I've got a comatose child, name of Kelly Massery, at County General Hospital."

"Oh my God," I burst. I nearly drop the phone. I need to tell Stevenson right away. I run to the stairs. They're all backed up with cops. Joe comes out of the crowd to me.

"Sorry, kid, we've lost him."

"Lost? What do you mean? Escaped?"

"Heart attack or something."

We walk over to the cell. Stevenson's on the floor. He's holding the shoe. "Hey," I say to Joe. "I thought you took that shoe to Evidence."

Joe looks at me strangely. "I did take it. I thought you gave it back to him." Joe pales. We look at each other. "I'll go to Evidence and check," he says.

I go back to my desk. I pace up and down in front of it for a moment. Then I get a burning urge to call County General Hospital. I have the head nurse of pediatrics on hold when Joe shows up at my desk. A pink floral shoe in each gloved hand, and an expression of utter bafflement on his face.

My mouth hangs open. I'm staring at Joe when the nurse gets on the line. "Who did you say, Officer Derry?"

"Kelly Massery," I whisper.

"Well, what a coincidence, Officer. She's just created quite a stir. She opened up her eyes fifteen minutes ago, sat up, and asked for a soda. We really didn't think she was going to come out of it. But, well listen, Officer."

I hear a little girl's laughter in the background. I hear a little girl's voice saying, "Look, Mommy. Look at all that rain out there."

Lisa Lutwyche received her MFA from Goddard College in 2013. Poet, playwright, novelist, and memoirist, she has been published in the US and in the UK, publications including Mad Poets Review, Image and Word, Poppy Fields, Piano Press, Pitkin Review, Falklands War Poetry, Minerva Rising, and the Cancer Poetry Project, Volume 2. She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2000. She is the recipient of the 2013 AROHO "Shakespeare's Sister" Fellowship for playwriting. Lisa has taught creative writing (and art) at community arts centers for over twenty years. She is also an instructor in the Fine and Performing Arts department at Cecil College.

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# Writing Tips

The Bus Test: A Simple and Merciless Method for Improving Characters — by Mike Cluff

The Sins of Short Story Submissions — by Dan Hope

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# The Bus Test: A Simple and Merciless Method for Improving Characters

by Mike Cluff; published June 15, 2013

Do me a favor and read this first paragraph from a story:

Alley sat on a park bench. She sat there eating a taco. She hated tacos. Just like she hated Jim. But she couldn't resist either one. They were both so beefy and greasy. Alley had to call Becky and tell her how much she was looking forward to going shopping. She needed a new pair of skinny jeans. Alley started texting instead. She stood up, and as she crossed the street a bus rounded the corner and flattened her. End.

I imagine you're wondering a few things. _How is that a first paragraph? How is that even a story? Where the heck did that bus come from?_ or maybe _Did Alley need new jeans because of the tacos? And would they really be all that skinny?_

Sorry. The answers for those questions are just as relevant as the questions they belong to. They aren't.

This is the question that matters: _Do we really care that this character, the main character, was hit by a bus?_ And the answer is an obvious and resounding NO.

Alley did not pass the "Bus Test."

While very simple, and possibly childish, the Bus Test is extremely effective in measuring the strength of your character and, consequently, your story. Here is the simple three-step breakdown of how to apply the Bus Test and measure its results:

\--Take a character at any point of a story.

\--Have a bus run over the character.

\--Ask yourself that important question: Do I care that a bus just hit this character?

Just that simple. Let's run over that again with a little more detail.

##

## Take a character at any point of a story.

And I do mean any point. The first or last paragraph, it doesn't matter — saying it is too early or too late in the story for the Bus Test is a lie. Yeah, writers are liars, but good writers tell lies we care about.

This test is not only applicable to main characters. Make your minor characters stronger by running them over too. And don't forget the bad guys — nobody wants a weak villain, so run them over as well. Relish in the vehicular assault.

So step one, pick your character that will be put to the test at _any_ point of the story. Then move on.

##

## Have a bus run over the character.

Don't get hung up on what kind of a bus. Just make it a generic yellow school bus. Don't make it a space bus if you are writing a space opera, don't make it an orcish scream-rock band tour bus for your urban fantasy, and definitely don't make it a Winnebago for your retired-but-not-really-retired-detective mystery. If the story is written in a time, place, or even a world where buses don't exist, that is even more of a reason to use a bus. You want the bus-meets-character situation to be abrupt and even absurd. Something that should be out of place.

But make sure that you actually type it out in the body of the story. Write "and a bus rounded the corner and flattened her/him/it/them." Then read it out loud. Make it a group activity with your writing group or with your alpha readers. Laugh or cry. Then get the results.

##

## Ask yourself that important question: Do I care that a bus just hit this character?

What I mean is, do you wish that this character was still around? Did you want to see and hear more from them? If you say yes, then the character passes the Bus Test. Simple. No matter if you loved or hated the character. If you or your fellow testers feel that the character's untimely death was indeed untimely and left you wanting, congratulations, you have succeeded in creating a character worth caring about. A character that people want to _keep_ caring about.

However, if, as in the case of Alley, the answer is no, then that character failed the Bus Test. And you have some work to do.

As an author you make promises to your readers. Promise that must be fulfilled. There are few things that piss me off more than when a character I have spent time with fails to meet their potential, be it fortuitous or tragic, and then fizzles out. Such cases only tell me two things: The author gave up on the character, and the author didn't care enough about me, the reader, to follow through. You might think that I take it all personally, and you would be absolutely right.

Don't cop out on your characters. Don't waste your readers' time.

It is your responsibility, your authorial duty, to make the reader feel something about your character or characters. Each character must have some relevance, not just to the story, but also to the reader. But how? Alan Heathcock, author of  Volt: Stories, said it this way:

"The only true way to make someone care about your character is by allowing them to become your character. Not to just look at the character. Not to glimpse them. Not even to just understand them. Full and deep care will only be won if your story enables a full empathetic connection, enabling the reader to live, in full — to see, hear, smell, feel, think, imagine, hurt and swoon and hope and hate — moment by moment, as the character."

You build the bridge, that "full empathetic connection" between your characters and your readers. Every sense, feeling, and experience your character has must be relevant and honest. You can't skimp on this at any point or you will lose your readers and your character will fail the Bus Test. But when you put in the effort and create a well rounded, flawed, three-dimensional character that is mercilessly exposed on every page you will ensnare and even possess your readers.

So even if you are done with all of your edits, all of your grammar is perfect, and all of your plot lines are full of twists and wonderful ups and downs, make sure to throw your characters under a bus and see if they pass the Bus Test.

Mike Cluff is the Editor-in-Chief and Chief Annoyance Officer (which are two ways of saying the same thing, but who doesn't love redundant titles?) of Fiction Vortex. He has spent years in the writing and editing trenches, and he has earned every last red-ink stain on his uniform. Now he sits at a financial institution and can feel his creative soul slipping away

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# The Sins of Short Story Submissions

by Dan Hope; published June 19, 2013

The time has come, the editor said, to talk of many things: of spaces, docs, and bad old tabs, of attachments, and code strings.

There seems to be too much confusion about the proper way to format and submit documents for publication. Depending on how bad you flub the formatting, you can send the HTML fairies into complete disarray. And the fairies like everything to be in order. You don't want to see them when they're mad. They'll make you fly, all right, straight out a window.

So we're pulling out the teaching stick and doling out a few healthy swings of wisdom. Even if you memorized proper formatting techniques in the past, read on. Things have changed a little bit since the digital revolution, and many offenders are just well intentioned writers using outdated rules.

There's one resource that is most often cited for short story formatting. Most publications have mentioned it at one point or another, and many link to it in their submission guidelines. It is William Shunn's masterpiece, Proper Manuscript Format: Short Story Format. The name isn't that exciting, but the contents are invaluable for any writer. It's short, informative, comprehensive, and even a little funny. If you go in for instructional humor.

Now, Shunn's guide will get you 95 percent of the way to proper formatting, but there are a few things that require updating if you plan to submit your story electronically. If you're submitting a paper copy via snail mail, stop reading here, and let Shunn be your guide.

For everyone else, pay attention. The HTML Fairy Defenestration Squad is real, really serious, and seriously just around the corner waiting for you to mess up.

Here are some additional guidelines for submitting digitally.

##

## Attachments Are the Devil's Spawn

I know we're starting off strong, but it's true. It doesn't matter what kind of word processor you wrote your story in; it doesn't matter what manner of conversion or exporting process you put it through. We want plain text pasted into the body of an email. There is a fresh set of fingernail marks in my desk for every email that contains an unsolicited attachment.

I know there are a few publications out there that request an attachment (usually the ones that have a dedicated external submission service), but almost all the rest prefer your first contact to contain exactly zero attachments. If you aren't familiar with the dangers of attachments, they include transmitting viruses, corrupted documents, obscure and useless file formats, and complete and utter loss of sanity.

We don't want your cyber-chlamydia, so keep the document files to yourself unless we request them specifically.

##

## Unusual Page Layout or Symbols Are Hard to Do and Pretentious

I know you want to go all e e cummings on us and show the world how clever you are with paragraph design and/or crazy punctuation, but keep in mind that the modern browser still doesn't handle this stuff easily.

The browser is like your old cranky grandpa who doesn't want to take his pills. You can make it happen, but it involves elaborate deceptions, and even then he still might throw a fit. Getting text to show reliably on every browser usually means that you have to stick to traditional paragraphs. Getting fancy is possible, but it can turn into a headache quickly. Also keep in mind that symbols such as <, >, %, and & can actually make the HTML fairies think that you're writing code, not prose. This can lead to a lot of confusion and a late night for an online editor. Like I said, there are ways to trick the HTML fairies, but we'd just rather not.

##

## Tabbed or Spaced Paragraph Indents Were Invented by the Nazis

This isn't exactly true, but since we jumped right in with the Devil's Spawn thing, I figured more hyperbole couldn't hurt. But really, stop using the space bar or Tab key to make paragraph indents. We at Fiction Vortex cry ourselves to sleep at night over the injustice of this one. And that's really not as hyperbolic as you think.

This is a holdover from the old typewriter days (and seems to have a particularly long half-life among the Word Perfect crowd, you silly ninnies). Back then, the Tab key was the only way to make a good paragraph indent. Nowadays, errant tabs create problems for our system. Instead, use the Paragraph formatting menu (or the little slider arrow on the ruler above the doc) to set a "First Line" indent. Half an inch is still pretty standard.

##

## Two Spaces Between Sentences, a.k.a. Giving the Middle Finger to Editors

This one is clearly outlawed in the Geneva Convention, and still people are committing first-degree offenses in this area.

Stop it. Just stop it.

I know, I know, you've got any number of stylistic and historical reasons for giving that spacebar a double-tap after every period. I'm here to tell you that you're not a bad person. You're just wrong. First of all, there's a surprisingly long and sordid history of the debate between single- and double-spacing. So your arguments might not be that concrete, anyway.

Here on the Internet, we single space.  That's it. Case closed. Whine all you want in your own writer's lair, but so help me, the next person who puts two spaces between sentences will hear from the HTML FDS. I know I said they were more concerned about coding symbols and layout, but we can convince them to start policing this one, too. They'll do anything for an apple fritter.

##

## Withholding Vital Information from Allied Forces Is a Punishable Offense

This one isn't exactly specific to digital or print formats, but it's worth saying again. Every publication wants you to tell them certain things. If you neglect to include these details, editors are annoyed when they start reading the story; that's not the mood you want them in when they read your story.

The most common information is the type of story and how long it is. If you don't know what type of story you wrote, don't bother submitting. The length is expressed in the number of words rounded to the nearest hundred. Don't tell us how many pages it is. Don't tell us how many minutes it takes to read. Tell us the number of words. We want to know what we're getting into here. Also, and this should be obvious but people still do this: Don't put this information after the story. Put it at the top, before the title. Please.

##

## Minor Infractions and Other Things to Consider

There are myriad other things to consider when submitting a document. Font, for instance. Don't fret about this one too much, it should be really simple since you're pasting your story into the body of an email. Just use the natural email font.

If you're particular about the type of font, make sure it's something commonly supported, and easily readable. You're not making your story cute or whimsical by making the font Comic Sans. And Papyrus does not make your fantasy look more authentic. Just stick to the default, or use Times New Roman.

Other people worry about whether they should double-space paragraphs (as in double spaces between lines, not between sentences). It usually doesn't matter in the body of an email. Just make sure that it's easy to distinguish between paragraphs.

##

## Read the Guidelines, You Insufferable Non-Conformist/Pompous Windbag

By far the most reliable way to avoid enraging an editor is to carefully and thoroughly read the submission guidelines. If a publication has weird rules, follow them. Ignore anything that anyone has ever told you in favor of following the guidelines to the letter. If tabbed indents and Comic Sans make particular editors giggle with glee, then give them what they want.

Every publication has submission guidelines, and every editor expects you to conform to them. Without exception. For many publications, not following the guidelines means an automatic rejection. They don't even bother to read the story, no matter how good it might be. We both know you don't want that.

The most fundamental reason, though, to read and follow the guidelines is that it's a sign you respect the publication and editors enough to accommodate their wishes. It's a sign that you really want to be published there.

So show us you want it.

Dan Hope, or the BSR as we call him, is Fiction Vortex's managing editor and resident sci-fi go to guy. Whether he is writing it or reading it, sci-fi is his thing. Yes, he has an opinion about which Star Trek captain is the best. And yes, he will fight you about it. Dan recently moved to one of the sunny regions of California. He periodically feels pangs of regret that he doesn't write as much as he used to, but he consoles himself with beaches and fantastic weather.

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# About Fiction Vortex

Fiction Vortex, let's see...

A fiction vortex is a tornado of stories that pick you up and hurl you through a barn to find enlightenment on the other side. It's a whirlpool of fascinating tales so compelling that they suck you in, drag you down to the bottom of your mind, and drown you with incessant waves of glorious imagery and believable characters.

Nope.

A fiction vortex is an online speculative fiction magazine focused on publishing great science fiction and fantasy, and is run by incredibly attractive and intelligent people with great taste in literature and formidable writing prowess.

Not that either. But we're getting closer.

Founded in the 277th year of the Takolatchni Dynasty, Fiction Vortex set out to encourage people to write and publish great speculative fiction. It sprang fully formed from the elbow of TWOS, retaining none of TWOS's form but most of its spirit. And the patron god of writers, the insecure, the depressed, and the mentally ill regarded Fiction Vortex in his magic mirror of self-loathing and declared it good, insofar as something that gives writer's undue hope can be declared good. Thereafter, he charged the Rear Admiral of the Galactic 5th Fleet to defend Fiction Vortex down to the last robot warrior.

Now we're talking.

Take your pick. We don't care how you characterize us or the site.

Fiction Vortex focuses on publishing speculative fiction. That means science fiction and fantasy (with a light smattering of horror and a few other subgenres), be it light, heavy, deep, flighty, spaceflighty, cerebral, visceral, epic, or mundane. But mundane in a my-local-gas-station-has-elf-mechanics-but-it's-not-really-a-big-deal-around-here kind of way. Got it?

Basically, we want imaginative stories that are well written, but not full of supercilious floridity.

There's a long-standing belief that science fiction and fantasy stories aren't as good as purely literary fare. We want you to prove that mindset wrong (not just wrong, but a steaming pile of griffin dung wrong) with every story we publish. It's almost like we're saying, "I do not bite my thumb at you, literary snobs, but I do bite my thumb," but in a completely polite and non-confrontational way.

We've got more great stories online, with a new story twice a week. Visit our website FictionVortex.com, follow us on Twitter: @FictionVortex, and like us on Facebook: FictionVortex.

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