 
# WYRD WORLDS II

Ebook edition

**Table of contents**

Title and copyright

WYRD WORLDS II

Horizon by Ross Harrison

The Visitor by Neil Shooter

A World Taken Over by Douglas Schwartz

The Joy Of Socks by A.L. Butcher

The Colonial Plague by L.L. Watkin

Humanity Was Delicious by Ubiquitous Bubba

My Last Day by Zach Tyo

Guisarme by Barbara G. Tarn

Rock Of Ages by Steph Bennion

The Diner by Michael Puttonen

Homeless by Neil Shooter

Gy by Peter Lean

Irrevocable by L.J. Hick

Poisoned Ground by Laurel A. Rockefeller

Sasha And The Collared Girl by Stan Morris

Quest For The Purple Pumpkin by Victoria Zigler

Free Will by A.L. Butcher

At The Bottom Of The Lake by Clark Graham

Changing Everything by Josh Karaczewski

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Steph Bennion

Ubiquitous Bubba

A.L. Butcher

Clark Graham

Ross Harrison

L.J. Hick

Josh Karaczewski

Peter Lean

Stan Morris

Michael Puttonen

Laurel A. Rockefeller

Douglas Schwartz

Neil Shooter

Barbara G. Tarn

Zach Tyo

L.L. Watkin

Victoria Zigler

Also available from WyrdStar

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* * *

# WYRD WORLDS II

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Foreword]

WYRDSTAR BOOKS

www.wyrdstar.co.uk

Copyright Notices:

_Horizon: Kira part 2_ (c) Ross Harrison 2014

_The Visitor_ (c) Neil Shooter 2014

_A World Taken Over_ (c) Douglas Schwartz 2014

_The Joy Of Socks_ (c) Alexandra Butcher 2014

_The Colonial Plague_ (c) L.L. Watkin 2014

_Humanity Was Delicious_ (c) Ubiquitous Bubba 2014

_My Last Day_ (c) Zach Tyo 2014

_Guisarme_ (c) Barbara G. Tarn 2014

_Rock Of Ages_ (c) Steph Bennion 2014

_The Diner_ (c) Michael Puttonen 2014

_Homeless_ (c) Neil Shooter 2013

_Gy_ (c) Peter Lean 2014

_Irrevocable_ (c) L.J. Hick 2014

_Poisoned Ground_ (c) Laurel A. Rockefeller 2014

_Sasha And The Collared Girl_ (c) Stan Morris 2014

_Quest For The Purple Pumpkin_ (c) Victoria Zigler 2014

_Free Will_ (c) A.L. Butcher 2014

_At The Bottom Of The Lake_ (c) Clark Graham 2014

_Changing Everything_ (c) Josh Karaczewski 2014

Cover artwork copyright (c) Ross Harrison 2014

www.ross-harrison.com

All rights reserved.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Smashwords license notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the shared copyrighted property of the contributing authors and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by the authors. Thank you for your support.

Smashwords publishing history

First published September 2014

This short story anthology is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors' imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

* * * * *

# WYRD WORLDS II
###  Foreword

[Title Page] [Contents] [Horizon]

WELCOME TO WYRD WORLDS II! The original _Wyrd Worlds_ anthology rode upon a new wave of independently-released collaborations; and now we're back! Like last year, this ebook is the work of an international collection of science fiction and fantasy writers, independent authors old and new, who have come together through the book recommendations site Goodreads to contribute to this collection.

This ebook contains a bumper 19 short stories from 17 authors, encompassing a wide range of science fiction and fantasy. Here lurks tales of the future, steampunk and time travel; of magical realms and fantastical deeds; and of things so weird they defy categorisation. As before, this anthology contains a wide range of stories, all born from a drive to create, share ideas and to entertain:

_Horizon: Kira part 2_ by Ross Harrison

_The Visitor_ by Neil Shooter

_A World Taken Over_ by Douglas Schwartz

_The Joy Of Socks_ by A.L. Butcher

_The Colonial Plague_ by L.L. Watkin

_Humanity Was Delicious_ by Ubiquitous Bubba

_My Last Day_ by Zach Tyo

_Guisarme_ by Barbara G. Tarn

_Rock Of Ages_ by Steph Bennion

_The Diner_ by Michael Puttonen

_Homeless_ by Neil Shooter

_Gy_ by Peter Lean

_Irrevocable_ by L.J. Hick

_Poisoned Ground_ by Laurel A. Rockefeller

_Sasha And The Collared Girl_ by Stan Morris

_Quest For The Purple Pumpkin_ by Victoria Zigler

_Free Will_ by A.L. Butcher

_At The Bottom Of The Lake_ by Clark Graham

_Changing Everything_ by Josh Karaczewski

This ebook is offered free for your reading pleasure and to provide a taster of the world of independent publishing. Variations in American and British spelling (you say color, I say colour; you say trunk, I say hello, mister elephant) have been retained to reflect the book's international flavour. If you like what you have read, further details of other works by the contributing authors can be found at the end of this ebook. In the meantime, enjoy!

Steph Bennion

Editor

September 2014

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# HORIZON

KIRA: PART 2

### Ross Harrison

[Foreword] [Contents] [The Visitor]

It was just her and a boy, alone. Kira had to concentrate on keeping him alive.

_PISSERS_!

Kira shifted her weight against the door. Her muscles burnt, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold it shut against the snarling beasts.

"'urry the 'ell up!" she shouted at the ceiling.

The reply was muffled.

One of the beasts threw itself at the door. Then again. Either it was too tough to be hurt by the violent action, or too frenzied to notice the pain.

"Any time now. No rush or anythin'."

A second animal joined the concentrated effort to get in at their food. Every crash knocked the door open a little bit more. If one jammed its head in the gap next time, her weight wouldn't be enough to get it shut again.

Kira's heart thumped almost as violently against the door through her back. It didn't help that they'd had to sprint to this rundown service station when the beasts spotted them. Under that sun, even the two-minute run had sapped her strength.

A grinding, scraping sound on the roof preceded a heavy thump outside and a short yelp. The crashing stopped, replaced now by the weird, gulping bark of the beasts.

More grinding and scraping above preceded another heavy thump and more yelping. That quickly stopped.

Kira tried to listen for movement, but she could barely hear over her heartbeat and breathing.

A firm, steady knock on the door startled her. But then relief flooded her. She pulled the door open.

"'Hurry', 'hell', 'anything'," Flip said.

The boy stood between the corpses of two of the beasts, a bloody length of brass pipe in his hand. One was crushed under a large brick, while a second brick pinned the other, and Flip had finished it off. The third and final animal had cut its losses and retreated towards the horizon.

"Looks like we can finally eat," Kira said.

"I'll keep watch."

Flip grinned and snapped his magnifying goggles down from his scruffy blonde hair. The bulbous eyes flicked to the top of Kira's dusty corset. She slapped his head.

Admittedly, there were probably a number of more important topics of conversation while they were crossing the desert, but the first thing Kira had brought up were rules. Rule One was: "No starin', peekin', leerin', peerin' or otherwise givin' prolonged attention to Kira's chest area." Breaking this rule would result in a slap to the head.

Although she was certainly no stranger to being interested in someone unattainable and stealing glances at them, she thought it about time that the boy – eight years younger than her – stopped this irritating practice.

Flip returned to the back room, where he'd scrambled through a hole in the roof the first time, leaving Kira to skin and cook the beasts.

* * *

They sat on the roof, quietly chewing the barely-edible meat.

This roof had once been the floor of the first storey, and remnants of the walls provided them with some cover from prying eyes. Not that there were many of those in the middle of the desert.

On the horizon to the east sat the ruined city they'd been headed towards for the last six days. After the Government had destroyed their home town, and everyone in it, that city had been their only real choice.

Kira had half-expected them to die before they got halfway to the city. Thankfully, there had been a number of small buildings like this one, invisible from their town.

"Should only be another day," Flip said, staring at the city. "Probably get there about nightfall tomorrow."

Kira shook her head. "Ain't a good idea, arriving at night. I think we'd better start walkin' as soon as the sun goes down. Get there about midday."

Flip exaggerated his groan. "We've been walkin' all day. I'm tired!"

"Really? 'Cause after walking six days across the desert, I'm still full of beans." They both rolled their eyes at each other. "We don't know who or what might be in that city. It's safer to arrive in daylight."

"Fine." Flip looked towards the sun. "We've got about an hour to sleep then."

He climbed back through the hole to the ground floor. They'd jammed the door closed with the large bricks, so if the escaped beast returned, it wouldn't have any luck.

Kira wouldn't sleep. Not for an hour. It wasn't worth the nightmares. Six days ago, she'd killed a man. He had betrayed her town to the murderous, oppressive Government, and would have killed her and Flip... but killing was killing. And it was the first time she had ever killed a human being. Every sleeping moment since was filled with the hole in his chest, his blood on the sand and on her hands, her town sinking into the desert.

No, an hour's sleep wasn't worth that.

Kira sipped at her water bottle. One of the places they'd come across on the way sheltered a rundown well. It wasn't particularly clean water, but it was drinkable. They had less than a day's water left now though.

Like she'd said, they had no idea what they might find once they reached the city. It could be deserted, or full of bandits, cannibals, monsters, vampires, zombies. Anything. Okay, maybe not anything.

Kira's eyes dropped to her corset. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached into one of its pouches and pulled out the ring. A simple lump of glass, with a brass mount. But it hadn't always been clear glass.

The ring belonged to Michael, from her home town. When he had it, there was an awful, yellow, reptilian eye in that glass. Kira had always thought it was just an ugly ring, until the day Michael betrayed them. Then she realised that it really was an eye. It had looked right at her, and somehow given Michael orders. And then... disappeared. As crazy as it seemed, she was sure it was somehow linked to someone back in New Haven.

She'd taken it when they set off for the ruined city on the horizon. Sometimes, she wished she hadn't. It made her skin crawl. What if the Government could use it to find her? Not that they had any reason to. But she couldn't bring herself to throw it away, just in case, one day, it could somehow help them.

She put it back in the pouch, and thought about the comforting pressure of her half-top as she returned to watching the dusk shadows creep down her dusty, scratched legs.

* * *

Kira's feet burnt with every step. The desert had retained the heat throughout the night, and now the sun made things so much worse. The tweed jacket seemed to suck in the heat, but without it, her leather corset – not to mention skin – in direct sun would be worse.

Flip lagged a few dozen steps behind, letting out an anguished groan every now and then. Finding a way to carry his brass pipe without burning his hands had been frustrating him since the sun came up, but Kira quickly got tired of checking his progress.

It was taking longer than expected to reach the city; midday had already overtaken them. She didn't know which was worse: staring ahead at the city that never seemed to get any closer, or staring down at the unchanging white of the desert.

After what seemed like a lifetime or two of dragging her heavy-booted feet, she looked up again. The city finally took on some proper shape. Huge, skeletal buildings stuck up into the sky; some were maybe thirty storeys high! Wide, flat streets beckoned her. Something about it was welcoming.

"About time!" Flip moaned. "I don't see anyone around. That a good thing or a bad thing?"

Even with his goggles, he could easily miss anyone who wanted to stay hidden.

"I don't know." That depended on who the anyone was, she supposed.

Kira's foot caught on something, and she hit the ground hard.

As she forced herself back up – a feat much harder than it should have been – Flip arrived beside her, giggling quietly. Using his face mask to protect his hand from burning, he took hold of the L-shaped piece of metal protruding from the sand and heaved.

The rest of the object came out easily.

"Looks like a shield," Flip said.

The thing was a strange, skewed square shape, and curved. Half of it was solid metal, while the top had a big hole, with remnants of glass around the edges. On the other side was a handle. Kira thought it looked a bit like a shield too, but some kind of hinges on one end made her think it was a small door.

Flip tried to hold it up like a warrior advancing a siege on the city, but the door/shield was too heavy. With a disappointed frown, he discarded it.

Now that they were getting closer to the city, a dark grey road was beginning to emerge out of the desert. Another five minutes of walking and there was little sand left under their feet. They both took the opportunity to pour out the build-up in their boots.

Kira could see the questions in Flip's eyes. The worry. They'd spent the past six days and nights with a goal: get to the ruined city on the horizon. Well, now the city wasn't on the horizon any more; it was right in front of them. What was the goal now? Make a new home here? Hope for a friendly community to join? But what if there was no one, or they found an unfriendly community? The once-hopeful possibilities were slowly becoming more scary.

She supposed they did have a pressing new goal: find water. Hers had run out an hour ago, and Flip was in the process of shaking his bottle's last drops onto his tongue.

"City this big, there's gotta be water somewhere," she said. "Let's find it."

Flip nodded.

A few minutes later, they were swallowed by the city's shadows. It wasn't a cool shade, but at least their skin had some respite from direct sun.

The road started to rise and soon, they were level with the buildings' first floors. Streets crossed beneath the raised road at regular intervals. They stopped at one of these points.

The street below stretched so far into the distance that the edges seemed to meet. It was littered with rubble from the broken buildings and big metal things. They looked like the motorcar things Kira had seen in New Haven, only more curved. Most even had roofs. Now she knew where the little metal door had come from.

Wind whistled through the bones of the city. A squawking bird echoed from inside the nearest building. Flip batted away a fly. Everything seemed so peaceful. But someone was here. Kira could feel it. She could feel their eyes. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep.

"We'd 'ave made it," Flip muttered.

"What?"

"The Father said we wouldn't make it to the 'orizon. He said we'd be killed by beasts and brig... brag..."

"Brigands."

"But you an' me made it."

"That don't— Doesn't mean a bigger group, settin' out at a different time, would have. An' we've only just got here. There's plenty of time to get killed yet."

Flip didn't find that amusing. Neither did she.

Kira took a last glance at the long, ruined street and moved on. "Horizon."

Flip's parents had got some idea into their heads that if they spoke "properly", and taught Flip to do the same, then their fortune would be better. Or some rubbish like that. When he'd started hanging around Kira, they'd had stern words with her concerning how she talked. She didn't pay much attention at the time, but when they died and left him alone, it hadn't seemed right to continue to ignore their wishes. So she tried to pronounce words the way they would have. Perhaps it was some sort of comfort to Flip.

Although some if it was becoming habit, speaking that way just wasn't her. The longer she had to force it, the more tiring it became. And it never seemed to make much difference to Flip's speech anyway. Except that he'd taken to correcting her, too, now.

She thought about what else the Father had said. The idea of other Government-like groups out here in the unknown. She doubted there were any in this city, but it would be worth getting a look at the surrounding area.

"Flip, I need to borrow your goggles."

"What for?"

Kira remembered that they'd belonged to his father. That and his pocket watch were the only things he had to remember them by.

"I'm goin' to get to the top of that building." She pointed at the tallest building she could see, a short distance down from them. "She what I can see."

"Why can't I do it?" he asked, cradling the goggles.

"'Cause I can't see out your bleedin' eyes! I just wanna see what else is out there." He seemed even more reluctant than she'd expected. Perhaps they'd become more precious since he and Kira lost their town. "Please. I promise I'll be careful with them."

He handed them to her with a small sigh.

"I won't be long. Don't go far. An' keep that rifle ready."

Kira crossed the street between two rusted motorcars. Most of this side of the building had crumbled, but the other three walls seemed mostly intact. The falling rubble had caught between the building and the road's barrier to create a small bridge. It didn't exactly look stable though, so Kira jumped the short distance.

The room she found herself in was full of wooden tables. Each one held a box with a black window. Some of the tables had been broken up and gathered into a campfire, but it looked months old, at least.

Wire hung from what little was left of the ceiling, swaying in the calm breeze. It tapped her half-top as she carefully picked her way through the rubble, avoiding the gaping holes in the floor.

The stairs were just outside the room, and intact enough to take her to the fourth floor. There, her luck ran out. The top two floors were the most badly damaged, and on their way down, they'd taken the rest of the stairs.

_I should have sent Flip_ , she thought.

Moving more carefully now over the damaged floor, she stepped into the first room. More tables, more weird boxes. Rotting chairs with star feet looked like they'd once been comfortable enough to sleep in.

Most of the ceiling in here was absent, so Kira used one of the tables to climb up to the next floor. Her ears were immediately met by rattling and tapping. Her hand whipped to the pistol at her hip, but her eyes soon found the source. Strips of a kind of hardened cloth hung from the top of a large window, half-covering it. It rattled in the breeze, and tapped against the wall.

She could see right away that this was as high as she was getting. The top floor and the roof were missing entirely.

Kira had no idea how this curtain thing was meant to work, so she just took hold of two of the strips and yanked. The flimsy strip holding it up clattered to the floor. Sunlight blinded her. The breeze carried a light dust with it, so she pulled Flip's goggles over her eyes.

The city wasn't as big as she'd first thought. It was long, taking up a good chunk of the horizon as they approached, but it wasn't wide. Whatever had ruined this city must have come from the other end. The further into the distance she looked, the worse the destruction got. The taller buildings were snapped in half, crushing those below. Motorcars seemed to have been lifted and thrown into other buildings.

Her heart sank to her stomach. There was nothing on the horizon but more desert and heat haze. She wasn't sure why she felt bad about that. It wouldn't have made much difference. This ruined city, the next; what did it matter?

Then her heart threw itself back to her chest. She could see movement about a mile away, at ground level. Not a person, though.

She flicked down the goggles' magnifying lenses.

It was water! Water spraying out of some kind of manmade fountain.

Kira stared at it for a few minutes, waiting to catch the slightest movement that would suggest people were there too. There was none. But while she watched, she thought back to her home town. They'd had a system of keeping water fresh. The Father had got the idea from an old book. He'd called it a "Hero Fountain", or something like that.

It was pretty simple. It required three containers. A sealed one full of air at the bottom, another full of water in the middle, and then a basin on the top. Tubes connected them. Basically, the water would go from the basin to the air container, forcing the air into the water container, which then forced the water up into the fountain.

That was the problem. It wasn't long before the air would run out and the containers would have to be switched around. So if the fountain thing she was looking at now was the same, that meant someone was nearby.

But it was water. And they needed water.

Kira pushed the goggles back over the brim of her half-top and stepped back.

The world was confused and loud for a moment. Then it was hard and dusty and sore. She gasped, inadvertently sucking in air thick with dust and coughing violently to get it back out.

She felt dizzy. She decided not to sit up just yet. Instead, she tested each part of her body. Her feet worked. Her knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, neck and head. The fall was short and seemed to have done no damage beyond winding her.

Finally, she opened her eyes. They were met by a length of metal poking out of the rubble. In was an inch from her neck. She was frozen for a few seconds as visions of what might have happened flashed through her mind.

With a groan, she turned onto her back. It took a moment to work out what had happened. That window up there had been at head height just a minute ago, and now it was one storey above her.

Her hands slapped the top of her head. Her hat! Where was her half-top? Where were Flip's goggles?

Through the haze of dusty sunlight, Kira spotted a shape that wasn't there before. There was a person crouched in one of the windows. Flip? No, too big for Flip.

Kira reached for her pistol, but it wasn't in the holster. Seeing this move, the figure in the window dropped to the floor in a half-crouch. She scrabbled about in the dust beside her until her fingers found the pistol. She whipped it up to the figure's face just as he pounced forward.

Amid a mass of shaggy hair and wild beard was a patch of sun-darkened skin. Pale blue eyes almost seemed to shine in contrast. He held a stained but sharp machete to her throat.

Kira remained motionless and silent while she considered her next move. The man's posture was like some kind of wild animal, hunched in readiness to pounce again.

"My bullet will move faster than your blade," Kira said finally, forcing confidence into her voice. "Make a move, and you die."

"Maybe." The voice was deceptively weak. It had a kind of light roughness, as though he gargled sand. "But your friend will die too."

Suddenly, he was holding a pistol out to the side. Kira followed it towards the stairs. Flip stood at the top, his rifle aimed at the wild man.

"Put your little knife down," Flip said, moving towards the window. Clever: the sun would make him appear less solid, harder to hit. It should also have strained the man's ability to keep them both covered, but he paid no heed to Kira's warning, and stepped aside, where he could still aim at Flip with the machete to her throat.

"Fire a gun like that, boy, and it'll throw you out the window."

"Who are you?" Kira asked, thinking it wise to keep things as civilised as they could be between three people pointing weapons at each other.

"You're the ones in my city," he rasped. "Who are _you_?"

"You own this city?" Flip said with a smirk.

"We're just passin' through," Kira said quickly, with a sharp glance at the boy. "Our town was destroyed and we had nowhere else to go."

The man studied her for a minute. "You're from that town they destroyed with the airships."

"How do you know 'bout that?"

"Hard to miss big shiny things floating in the sky, spitting lightning, and giant clouds of dust where a tiny speck of a town used to be. Even from this distance."

They all watched each other for another minute, and then the wild man slowly straightened up and lowered his weapons.

Kira waited until he holstered his pistol again before lowering her own. Flip was more reluctant, but the man didn't seem to consider him a threat anyway, so he slung the rifle over his shoulder. He kept the brass pipe ready, though.

"We should go," the man said. "Others will have heard the noise you've made here."

He let his machete lead the way down the stairs, leaving Kira and Flip unsure what to think of their new acquaintance. Flip looked to her for direction, but she only had a shrug for him.

Kira looked around for her hat. There it was, a few feet away in the rubble. The goggles were still there. She reached for them.

"Are you okay?" Flip asked, now the man was gone. "Did all this collapse?"

"Flip," Kira said, her stomach in knots. "I'm so sorry."

Flip looked down at her hands. The goggles were in one, the left main eyepiece cracked, and one of the magnifying lenses in the other. The lens itself was undamaged, but the arm had snapped off.

The expression on his face was stuck somewhere between its previous worry and its new devastation. She could almost feel the pain pouring from his heart, and a tear trickled down her cheek.

"The floor collapsed under me..." Even that seemed like a weak excuse in the face of Flip's hurt.

"You promised."

His tone prompted more tears to chase each other down her cheeks.

"They can be fixed," she said, with as much confidence as she could muster. "We'll find a replacement lens, an'—"

"Give me my watch."

Kira pulled the shiny pocket watch out of a pouch on her corset. She'd been keeping it safe for him since they set out for the horizon. He pulled it out of her hand and disappeared down the stairs.

The goggles felt heavy in her hand. She didn't completely understand how they meant so much to Flip, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that they did. Perhaps when he had them, it kind of felt like his dad was there with him, or something.

Then she looked down her half-top again, and the realisation hit her. She knew exactly how he felt. She felt the same about that hat. It had been her father's. If anything happened to it, she'd be devastated. It would be like the last remnant of him had been taken away. He'd finally be dead.

Flip was never seen without the goggles on his head. Five minutes in her care, and they were wrecked. The only way she could make him feel any worse was if she'd taken the watch and dropkicked it out the window.

Having to go back outside and face Flip was the last thing she wanted to do, but that man wouldn't stick around. If the water she'd seen was his, they needed to go with him. Besides, she hadn't liked the way he'd mentioned "others".

Kira shoved her oversized half-top firmly over her head and hurried down the stairs. Outside, Flip was sitting on the road's central barrier, staring at the inside of the watch. Kira knew there was a faded picture of his parents in there, and the leaden guilt pulled at her heart again.

The wild man hung over the side barrier to get a better look underneath the road. He seemed satisfied and stepped away. As he turned to head down the road, he gave Flip a disgusted look. Kira didn't know what he had against a boy he'd just met, but she'd have to keep a close eye on him.

She took a deep breath and turned to Flip. "C'mon. We should go with him."

Flip silently closed the watch and put it safely away. As he stood, he instinctively reached to the top of his head, but his goggles weren't there. Part of Kira wondered if he did it intentionally, to make her feel worse. It didn't matter.

"I saw water from up there," Kira said, quickening her pace, but refusing to jog to catch up to the man. "Is it yours? We ran out a couple of hours ago..."

It was hard to tell from behind, with so much wild hair blowing in the dusty breeze, but the man seemed to shake his head.

"It's not?" Kira asked, dismayed.

"It's mine," he said. "You can fill one bottle each. That's it."

She knew that wouldn't be enough; she could guzzle down a full bottle right now. But they'd have to take what they could get. "Thanks."

Amid the dead, silent buildings, every step they took seemed to echo right across the city. Under the relentless sun, Kira began to regret arriving during the day. If she listened hard enough, she was sure she could even hear it baking the road. She was used to the sun, of course – she'd lived in the middle of a desert, after all – but all these roads and buildings seemed to multiply its heat. Every motorcar she walked past blasted heat at her like a campfire.

Eventually, Kira spotted a long, two-level motorcar sitting under the raised road. It was high enough for them to easily drop over the side onto its roof, and then down to the street.

They used the big metal carcass as cover to scan the area. No movement drew her eye. No unusual sounds. Kira had been trained as a scout, but that didn't really mean much in the middle of the desert. Few of those skills translated to this situation. She looked for birds taking flight, unusual shadows, out-of-place sun reflection. Nothing.

A glance behind told her that Flip was in no mood for sneaking about. He was lost in thought, or memory. He'd follow her, but make little effort to stay hidden.

Further up, a collapsed building blocked the road, so they cut through an alley dotted with old campfires. The walls were covered with indecipherable graffiti. It seemed this ruined city had been home to a fair number of people not long ago.

_Where the 'ell d'they all go?_ she wondered. _Maybe I don't wanna know. I'll ask 'im later._

They picked their way through the remnants of the city's mysteriously absent occupants to the other end of the alley. It opened out into a section of street obstructed at both ends of the block. This area looked almost like someone's garden, or courtyard. She supposed it was.

The light breeze rippled tattered curtains in some of the windows overlooking the garden. Others, mainly on the lower floors, were tightly boarded up.

A few items of clothing hung, drying, from a length of rope. A fire pit built into a big crack in the road. Some animal bones, picked clean. And there, against the wall, the hero fountain.

The sound of the splashing water was hypnotising. It sounded so clean and fresh. Kira could almost taste it already. It took all of her self-control to not shove the wild man out of the way and run straight to it.

The basin on the top was constructed from half of a huge metal drum, almost as long as she was tall. The two airtight boxes below it sat on makeshift shelves, easy to swap round.

Without a word, the man pointed to the fountain. He sat on a pile of carefully stacked bricks and watched her closely. Beside his seat, enclosed in some scraps of metal and more bricks was dry dirt. A tiny, equally dry tree stuck up from the dirt, where he'd obviously been trying, and failing, to grow things.

She climbed a rusted stepladder beside the fountain. The narrow pipe running from the basin to the air container was cool to the touch. A green mesh lay across the top of the basin, keeping the water relatively clean. Kira pulled it aside by one of the corner weights and plunged her flask into the tepid water. She couldn't wait for the air bubbles to stop, and poured what she'd collected into her mouth. It wasn't the freshest water she'd ever tasted, but she didn't care. She drank until she had to stop to gasp for breath.

"Hey!" The man leapt to his feet and yanked his pistol out again.

Flip was too slow getting to his rifle, and the man had his pistol levelled at the boy's head in a second. Kira expected it, though, and had her own pistol out in a flash.

"I told you one bottle each," the man growled.

"I'm sorry, but we've walked across the desert to get 'ere—"

"That's not my problem. Or it wasn't. But now you've decided to make it my problem, after I brought you to my home."

"Why did you?" Flip asked. "You don't seem the friendly type."

The man turned his glare on Flip for a few seconds, and then back to Kira, as though dismissing him. But it was a good question.

"It's them 'others' you talked about, ain't it?" Kira said. "Those others."

Flip gazed around at the windows, as though suddenly afraid they were being watched.

The man... "What the 'ell's your name, anyway?"

His pale eyes glinted in the shadows of his beard, studying Kira's. They flicked down to her pistol, as though determining if she was truly capable of shooting him.

Whatever his conclusion, he eventually returned his own to its holster. "Jag."

"Jag?" Kira repeated. "Your name's Jag?"

"Yes, my name's Jag. Yes it's a nickname. Yes there's a story behind it. No I won't tell you."

Kira gestured for Flip's bottle. He handed it to her without taking his eyes off Jag. His rifle was in his hands again, and that was probably where it would stay.

She filled the bottle and gave it back. Pointedly and defiantly, he took several mouthfuls and handed it to Kira to be refilled again. Jag narrowed his eyes for a moment before turning his attention to his pack.

Kira climbed back to the ground and watched Jag for a few minutes. He rummaged in his pack the whole time, but she knew his attention was on her. Flip was right: he wasn't friendly, so why had he brought them with him? Why had he shown himself at all?

"Well?" she said.

"Well what?"

"Why did you bring us here and what does it 'ave to do with whoever you were talkin' about?"

Jag finally stopped rummaging, and brought out a length of dried meat. He ripped a piece off with his teeth and chewed. Not wanting him to think he was succeeding at tormenting them, Kira pulled out the remaining couple of pieces of overcooked meat from the previous night's meal. He seemed more amused than annoyed or disappointed as he watched them eat.

"Some gang drifted into town a couple of days ago," he said. "They didn't know what they'd driven into. The creatures killed half of them the first night."

"Creatures?" This was sounding worse and worse.

"They come out at night. They scour the city for prey, and if they don't find any, they turn on each other."

"How do they survive like that?" Kira asked doubtfully.

"They only started appearing about a month ago. And there were a lot more of us then. They'll probably move on soon, but there are still some of us left to hunt for now."

"You're not alone?" Out of the corner of her eye, Kira saw Flip tighten his grip on the rifle and glance around at the windows again.

"When our numbers got low enough, our neighbourly spirit pretty much evaporated. I watched as families turned on their single friends and neighbours, dragging them out into the street as sacrifice. They thought if the creatures were fed, they wouldn't try so hard to get inside the buildings. They were wrong," he added, "but that didn't stop them doing it again and again."

"So you ran before it was your turn," Kira surmised.

"It was only a matter of time."

"Why didn't you all leave?" Flip asked.

"Leave!" Jag exclaimed. "Of course! It's so obvious now. Why ever did we not consider that? Oh, the lives we could have saved by jumping into our airships and flying to the next town."

"Sarcastics is for arses," Flip informed him. "You arse."

"So you brought us 'ere because... safety in numbers?" Kira asked. "Didn't sound so safe."

"No." Jag chewed the last of his meat. "There's only a handful of them left alive on that side of the city, and now the gang's here the creatures will pay more attention to this side. There's no point trying to fight them off, because they come back every night. They must breed fast, because there's never any fewer."

Kira tried to anticipate where this was going, but she had no idea. He wasn't suggesting they help him kill or drive off the gang, was he?

"Get on with it," Flip snapped. "What do you want?"

Jag glared at him. Kira had never heard the boy speak like that before.

"They came on motorised bikes. Are you catching up now, boy?"

"You want one of them bikes so you can get out of the city," Kira said. It didn't seem a bad idea. Except for the part where they belonged to a gang.

"Since your little town disappeared, there's nothing on the horizon but sand and heat haze. To set out walking is a better way to guarantee death than staying here with those creatures. But with a bike that can go as fast as these things, I could make it. _We_ could make it."

"So you want us to help you steal the bikes." When she said it like that, it sounded simple.

"Some of them were damaged," Jag said. "By the sand, by stray gunshots when they were attacked by the creatures, and by the creatures themselves. So if we sabotage all but two of them—"

"Three," Flip corrected.

"They can't follow us on broken bikes."

"And we can't sabotage or steal bikes with a gang beatin' us up or shootin' at us," Kira pointed out. "And how do we tell what ones are working and which ain't? And how do we know how far they'll get us? Maybe we'll get a mile out of the city and they'll conk out."

Jag let out a very long breath. He'd brought them there of his own free will, and yet it was as though he was barely able to force himself to tolerate their presence. He pulled a rough stone from his pack and started, unnecessarily, to sharpen his machete.

"I've been watching them," he said, maintaining a steady voice. "The working bikes have been made ready to leave and separated from the broken ones. They want to get out of the city as soon as they can; they're not going to do so on bikes that will 'conk out' in the middle of the desert."

The attitudinal air quotes reminded her again of Michael, when he'd mocked her way of talking. She narrowed her eyes and tried to think of an intelligent comeback. Nothing came to mind.

"You still haven't said how you expect to get the bikes away from the gang," she said instead.

"With a distraction," Jag told her, as though it were obvious. "One of us will create a distraction big enough to get the attention of all of them, and far enough away that the other two will have time to sabotage and steal."

"I wonder which one of us will be left with a gang between 'em and the bikes," Flip said. "Will you be creatin' the 'straction?" he added innocently.

"How old are you? And you still can't speak?" The way Kira brought her hand to rest on her pistol grip may have been the reason he quickly moved on. "Of course I won't be creating the distraction, and leaving two drifters I've just met to liberate my only means of escape."

Rather than retort, Flip shoved the rest of his meat into his mouth. The expression he tried hard to suppress told Kira that he instantly regretted it.

"You come with me," Jag continued, addressing Kira. "He creates a distraction. That way, I know you're not going to disappear on me, and he knows you're there to stop me doing the same. Does that, or does that not, make the most sense?"

"What kind of distraction are you plannin' that will take all of them away from their precious bikes?" Kira asked.

"Ten blocks from them, there's an old two-storey motorcar. It's precariously balanced on the edge of the raised road. All it will take is a good enough pivot and it will topple over. It will smash through the front of the building beside it and make a hell of a lot of noise. That building is half-destroyed already; it might even collapse. That racket will draw the gang's attention. They'll go in force, in case it's some kind of attack or something."

"And what happens to anyone left with the bikes?" This was Kira's main concern.

Jag stabbed his machete into the dry dirt beside him. She supposed that was her answer.

"I don't call them a gang just because there's a group of them," he said. "They raided the homes of some of the families right after the first attack by the creatures, when they knew people would be at their weakest. In the middle of the attack, I saw one of them shoot a woman in the leg as she fled from the creatures, so she'd distract them and allow him to get to safety. If we have to defend ourselves against them, the world will not be any the worse for it."

Kira still didn't like it. She was pretty sure self-defence didn't count as justification for killing people you were trying to steal from. Aside from that, there was the danger. She wasn't a soldier; she killed animals, not people. She killed for food, not possessions. The idea of fighting other people, let alone killing them, made her feel nauseous.

Flip shifted the rifle in his grip, and she was reminded of her recently acquired responsibilities. She had to think about him, now, not just herself. If this city was as dangerous as Jag claimed, then she needed to get Flip away from it. By any means necessary.

"Alright," she said, although Jag didn't seem to have been waiting for her agreement. "I take it we need to do this before nightfall?"

"Unless you want to spend a sleepless night frightened for your life," Jag said, retrieving his machete and standing. "Fending off relentless, hungry beasts and praying the gang won't come and take advantage of your weakness. And a pretty, young thing like you should be especially adverse to that idea. There aren't any females in the gang," he elaborated, as though she needed it. He hesitated for a moment, eyeing her choice of apparel. "Did you really walk across the desert in a leather corset?"

Kira sighed. "It was all I 'ad. Had."

"And the tweed jacket over it, of course."

"Yes, an' a tweed pissin' jacket." She sighed again as she felt the heat rising up the back of her neck. "I dressed for New Haven, not the desert."

She might have imagined it, but Jag seemed to avert a double-take at the last second when he heard the name 'New Haven'. That raised her suspicion, but she decided not to address it for the time being.

"I've gathered a dozen containers for water," Jag said, disappearing into the building's shadowy entrance hall. "Help me fill them up, then I suppose you can drink as much as you want from what's left. I won't be needing it."

He returned with the containers strung together and handed one end to her. The prospect of drinking until she was fit to burst, and perhaps even using the rest to wash, inspired a burst of energy, and she set to work filling her share of the containers.

* * *

The sun would abandon them in less than an hour. It had taken longer than expected to transport the barrel and metal pole that would serve as Flip's pivot, and then return to their position on the other side of the gang's 'compound', as Jag called it. Now they just had to wait for the crash.

Kira looked up at the dimming sky. "I s'pose I should ask about these creatures of yours, just in case. What are they, exactly?"

"Not much more than you'll have come across in the desert. But these ones tunnel, which I guess has made them a bit stronger. They're only really dangerous because they come in packs."

Kira pictured all the wild, mutated animals she'd come across. None were particularly big, but they were all dangerous in packs. There was one in particular she always kept an eye out for: a fat, scaly, dog-like thing with a crocodile head. They were deceptively stealthy and fast.

"They're relentless. If they know you're on the other side of a door, they just keep throwing themselves at it until either they get through, they knock themselves out, or something else draws their attention."

"Well, let's hope this... 'plan' of yours works then."

Flip timed things well, and they didn't have long to wait. The metal screams woven through the booming crash travelled farthest. There was no chance of the gang failing to take notice.

Kira and Jag waited another couple of minutes and then headed carefully towards the gang's compound. There was nowhere they could have perched to watch the gang's movements without getting too close, so they had to rely on the noise drawing their immediate attention. If not, there could be a lot of running involved in the rest of their day.

They ducked through ruined buildings and along a few alleyways until they reached the outskirts of the compound. Flip had given his rifle to Kira, as he would need to be as light as possible to make sure to be nowhere near when the gang came to investigate. She held it like a safety blanket as Jag moved ahead.

Their route was up an unstable pile of rubble and through a gaping hole in the side of a building. As soon as Jag disappeared inside, Kira started up the pile. The rubble was firmly enough wedged, and she made it to the top without disaster.

Gripping the rifle, she stepped into the darkness of the building. She found herself in a windowless corridor, and it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. She couldn't see Jag, so she took the corridor to the left. The dust she sucked into her lungs as she went told her this was the way he'd come too.

The corridor opened into a big room with a long table in the middle. Jag was crouched at the window and gestured for her to stay low. She crept to the other side of the window and carefully peered out.

The building they were in circled a large courtyard. The courtyard was filled with dead plants and saplings that hadn't quite made it to trees. From the centre protruded the only tree, and it was dead. She counted fifteen long, heavy-looking motorised bikes.

No one seemed to be around.

A handful of dirty tools lay scattered around some of the bikes, as though they'd been dropped in a hurry. It all seemed to be going according to plan so far. But, just as with Jag's courtyard, this was overlooked by a lot of windows. Any one of them could conceal someone. Even a solitary gunman, left to guard their encampment, could ruin everything. But they didn't have time to go through the buildings floor by floor.

"Well, it seems clear," Jag said, sounding as unconvinced as her. "It's now or never; we won't get another chance like this."

He hurried out of the room's only other door, Kira on his heels. They located the stairs. Enough of them remained to reach the ground floor.

The hallways down here were eerily cool. Kira and Jag swiftly and quietly made their way through the maze created by collapsed ceilings and walls. The place was empty. Eventually, they reached the hallway that ran alongside the courtyard. Rubble blocked the doorway, but there were plenty of windows. Each and every shadow gave in under Kira's piercing gaze; there was definitely no one around.

They stepped through an empty window frame. The bikes seemed to be loosely arranged into two groups. Since the tools were scattered beside only one of these groups, Kira assumed the others must be the ones that worked. She rushed over to examine the nearest.

It was huge: nearly twice as long as she was tall, and twice as wide. A heavily-welded metal frame held it upright. The dull silver bike looked like the locomotives she'd seen in books. All pistons and... stuff.

Jag pulled out some kind of stopper at the back of one. His nose turned up. "Runs on oil, but I don't know what kind. Smells bad."

The odd, salty stink reached Kira's nostrils as Jag replaced the stopper. It didn't smell like any oil she'd ever used. "So we can set fire to it and destroy the rest of the bikes," she said. Part of her felt bad at the idea of destroying these people's bikes just so she and Flip could flee the city. But then she remembered what Jag said about them.

"I don't know how long the oil in these tanks will last," Jag said, staring at his water bottle. "We should probably take some stores with us."

Kira didn't like the idea of either the oil or water running out in the middle of the desert, so she wasn't going to argue.

While Jag poured away precious water in favour of oil, Kira checked the discarded tools for anything useful. Given that she didn't know how the bikes worked, there seemed little point in taking them, really. But one glinting object did draw her eye and rouse her excitement: goggles. She knelt beside them and compared the size to Flip's broken lens. The dirt-smeared lenses on the ground were slightly bigger than Flip's, but with something abrasive, she might be able to grind the edges down until it fitted. She bent the goggles until both lenses popped out, then pocketed them.

A potential solution for the snapped magnifying arm sat not five feet from her: a welding box. The problem was the noise it made. She'd seen men in her town use them when metal things needed fixing or joining. The crank on the side made the pointy metal stick thing nearly white-hot, then it could be used to join metals together. She recalled them using a third piece of metal as some kind of go-between, too, and she presumed that was what the length of dull metal beside it was. But the box had to be cranked for a few minutes before it was ready to use, and the buzzing sound reached every corner of her town. It would echo across half the city here.

"I've got enough," Jag said. "Let's get going."

Kira was torn for a moment between leaving the welding box and taking it with them. It wasn't big, but she was going have enough trouble with the monstrous bike without adding to the awkwardness.

_Flip's goggles ain't important enough_ , she told herself, with more than a hint of recurring guilt.

Jag kicked the welded frame flush with the bike and it immediately toppled onto him. He swore as he hit the ground and the contents of his pack scattered. His body prevented the bike from creating too much noise on the ground.

"This isn't going to work," he groaned. "Damn things are too heavy; we'll have to take just one."

"There are three of us," Kira reminded him as sternly as she could while keeping her voice low.

"I know that! But one bike is better than none. And the boy is small; we'll fit."

Kira wasn't convinced. She would have to keep a closer eye on Jag, in case he got it into his head to drive off and leave her and Flip.

She hurried over to help heave the bike upright. Jag was right: it would take both of them just to wheel this one bike out. She didn't like to think how gargantuan and muscled the gang must be.

Once it was back on its stand, she turned to help shove things back into Jag's pack. String, dried meat, a handful of bullets, and a ring.

Kira's stomach seemed to drop and then leap back up to punch her heart. She couldn't move for several seconds, but when she could, she whipped out her pistol and pointed it at Jag's surprised face.

"Where'd you get that ring?" she demanded. Jag's eyes narrowed for a second, but he didn't respond. "Did the Government send you?"

"What are you babbling about?" he said dismissively, but she could see the concern in his eyes. Like he'd been caught in a lie.

Kira's shaking hand reached into the pouch on her corset and pulled out the matching ring. "This one belonged to a traitor who let everyone in my town die. I took it off 'is finger after I put a bullet through 'is chest." She pulled back the pistol's hammer with a dangerous click. "Where'd you get yours?"

A shout interrupted them. It sounded like some kind of jeer, and was only about a block away.

"We've got to go!" Jag hissed. Kira set her jaw. "I'll tell you about the damn ring later, once we're safe."

Kira had little choice. She reluctantly holstered the gun and kicked Jag's pack over to him. He grabbed the string out of it and reeled off a length. With a quick slice of his machete, he took the length and dipped it into the oil reserve of one of the other working bikes.

While he worked, Kira hurried to where the gang had erected a makeshift door across what had once been a glass corridor between buildings. It was the only way they could get the bike out. It took all of her strength and bodyweight, but the door slid open with a grinding that set her teeth on edge. Unfortunately, the 'door' had no hinges. All it took was a stone to jam the bottom, and the top decided to keep going.

Oh... piss... off!

She dived aside as the thick sheet of metal and wood crashed to the ground. The boom bounced off all the walls and deafened her. When the echoes finally died, the silence was equally deafening. Jag was as frozen as she was.

Then chaos erupted.

Kira leapt to her feet and rushed to the bike. Jag swung his machete at the ground beside the length of string he'd trailed from the other bike's tank, and the spark lit the oil soaked into it. They heaved the bike forward as more shouts came, getting closer and closer.

Her feet kept sliding from under her as they tried to force the bike forward faster than it was willing to go. But the more it sped up, the easier it became. Soon, they were through the ruined glass corridor and into the street. Jag steered it towards an alleyway on the other side. With any luck, they wouldn't be seen by the gang.

Kira glanced behind, hoping the bike would explode soon. The oil burned pretty damn slow.

As they reached the mouth of the alley, a crack behind was instantly followed by a bullet slapping into the brick beside Kira's head. Dust from the impact blinded Kira in one eye and she nearly dropped the bike on Jag.

She was about to reach for her gun when the explosion finally came. It wasn't as big as Kira had been expecting, but it was sure to get the job done, and whoever had shot at her didn't do so again.

A few more explosions followed as they hurried away down the alley.

* * *

Kira paced back and forth, checking out the window with each pass.

"Where the 'ell is he?" she eventually demanded of the street.

"I think it's pretty obvious," Jag muttered. "They have him."

She stopped. It was the only reasonable explanation. Flip should have been back ages ago. Before them, even. Night was coming. Another fifteen minutes or so, and they'd have more than just the gang to worry about.

"Maybe that's why they haven't tried to find us," she said. "They'll wait for us to go to them."

She eyed Jag's pack. She hadn't mentioned the ring again since they stashed the bike. At first, it had been because she was too out of breath. Then because she was afraid to make any sound in case the gang was nearby. Then it was just easier and less stressful not to ask. Part of her also wanted Flip for backup. As usual, she was in two minds about what was most important.

"Well?" she snapped, more aggressively than she intended. "Tell me about the ring."

Jag chewed a piece of his dried meat and stared at the ground.

"Did they send you to turn the people in this city?" she demanded. "To make 'em accept the Government's rule? And then betray them and let them die if they didn't? Maybe that's why the city's so empty."

Jag glared at her for a moment, but didn't respond. He finished his meat and began to sharpen his machete again. She didn't know how much more sharpening it could take.

"Let me guess," she continued. "They told you it was the only way to keep your family safe."

Jag threw his whetstone into his pack and stood so abruptly that Kira instinctively reached for her pistol. "You don't know a damn thing, little girl," he hissed.

"Then tell me. All I know about them rings is that the person who's wearing them is a spy. Pretends to be people's friend and then betrays them. I just wonder if you had time to betray the people here, or if the creatures got to 'em first."

Jag's fingers whitened around the machete. His eyes flicked to her hand on the pistol for just a second, and he thought better of whatever had gone through his mind.

"We need to leave," he said, grabbing his pack and heading for the stairs. "That boy's either dead or as good as."

"We're not leaving him," Kira stated. "We have to go and get him."

"No we don't. If he's alive, the gang will be waiting for us. But their bikes are destroyed, so they can't follow us. Common sense dictates, then, that we leave, right now."

He disappeared downstairs. Kira was right on his heels.

"I'm responsible for him," she whispered as shoutily as possible. "I can't just leave him here to die."

"Then don't. Good luck with the gang of killers who've barely even seen a woman in who knows how long."

"There's only one bike," Kira said, trying to keep her tone from sounding like a plead.

"Then good luck with the creatures, night after night."

They'd wheeled the bike into the entrance hall of what seemed to be a building full of small, individual homes. Jag fastened his pack to the side of the bike. Kira watched for minute, trying to think of something to persuade him.

"An extra person would be useful," he said. "Especially someone with two guns and the skill to use them."

She was surprised at how appealing the idea of just leaving now was. No dangerous gang to worry about. No creatures to hide from. A nasty little voice in the back of her mind told her that, without Flip, she stood a better chance of surviving anyway. She shook that thought immediately, with a terrible, sickly guilt in her stomach.

"You know as well as me he's probably dead already," Jag went on. "You could go on a rescue mission and die for nothing. Unless he was a complete moron, he knew the dangers and made his choice."

Jag finished preparations on the bike. This was it. Stay or go, she had to decide now.

"I'll tell you everything you want to know about the ring," he said. "About what yours can do for you. How it can save you. Or you can stay here with your dead friend and wait to be eaten."

A storm raged in Kira's stomach and chest. Fear, guilt, hope, the very real promise of relief and liberation. If she got on that bike, she'd be safe in just a few minutes. She'd have all her questions answered. She'd finally understand what the Government was doing, and why. If she didn't get on the bike, who knew what would happen? In all likelihood, she wouldn't live to see the dawn.

She stared at Jag, and felt the tears roll down her cheeks. Did she really have a choice?

"Get on the bike," he said, more gently than usual. "I know it's difficult, but it's the only way."

Kira felt sick. She was suddenly short of breath and light-headed.

No, she didn't have a choice. The decision was made. Now she just had to carry it through and try to live with herself.

No sound came when she opened her mouth, so she closed it again before she vomited. The weight of her decision pulled her eyes closed and she nodded, wiping the hot tears from her cheeks.

Jag nodded back. "Let's get going then."

No choice.

Through vision blurred by more tears, Kira watched Jag turn back to the bike. She knew she had to move quick or she might change her mind. Her shaking hand pulled the pistol out of her holster and raised it to Jag's back. The gun was so much heavier than she remembered; the trigger so much stiffer. The shot was deafening in the confines of the corridor. This time, through the ringing in her ears, she didn't have to hear the sickening sound of a man's blood splattering on the ground.

Jag slumped over the bike, whatever words he'd been about to say escaping his lips in an eerie, horrifying wheeze. And then everything was silent again.

The Government was an oppressive, murderous organisation. She didn't need to understand it beyond that. But she did need to keep Flip safe. The bike was the way to get him out of the city and to safety. She couldn't let Jag take it. That would have been like putting a bullet in Flip herself.

Kira stared at her hand. It wasn't shaking now. She felt strangely calm. It may hit her again later, but for now she had to move. The gang, and who knew what else, would have heard the gunshot. That might work in her favour, if it cleared some of them out of the compound.

She grabbed Jag's machete and headed outside. No one seemed to be out there for the moment, so she stepped out and dragged the one-hinged door closed behind her. Hopefully they wouldn't find the bike.

Long shadows lay over the street and nearly reached the top of the buildings beside her. There was no chance of getting Flip out of town before nightfall. But that wasn't the main problem for now.

In her mind, she ran through the route they'd taken from the compound. Instead, she headed around in an arc big enough that she was sure she'd avoid any of the gang investigating the shot. After a couple of minutes, a handful of birds taking flight a few blocks down the street suggested that someone was, indeed, heading for the source of the shot. She didn't stick around to see how many. The more time she wasted, the higher the danger of running into the creatures.

She tried hard to keep her thoughts on that and on Flip. There was no telling what would happen if she let herself think about Jag. About the fact that she'd just murdered a man.

Eventually she found herself looking at the gang's compound from an unfamiliar angle. Slight movements at some of the windows drew her eye. It took a minute, but she realised it was dancing shadows cast by a fire somewhere inside. Perhaps the wreckage from the exploding bikes was still burning.

With her rifle at the ready, she darted across the street and down an alley. Other than the main gate, which seemed an unwise choice, the only way in that she knew of was via the pile of rubble at the side of the compound. She arrived at it from the other direction this time, but it appeared equally stable on this side.

She slung the rifle over her shoulder, swapping it for the machete, and began to climb. It wasn't such easy going this time, with one hand gripping the machete, but she refused to put it away.

Too much had happened recently to call it luck, but something was with her, as she reached the top of the pile without disturbing any loose rubble. No one was waiting there for her either, which was certainly a plus. It seemed like a stretch to imagine that the gang hadn't thoroughly explored the surrounding buildings, and so didn't know about this entrance, but with no clear signs of a trap, and no other path, she continued on.

This time, it didn't take so long for her eyes to adjust. She followed the same windowless corridor as before, but this time there was no disturbed dust to suggest recent movement. Maybe they really didn't know about this entrance. Or maybe they just didn't expect her to come back. She didn't like the implication of that.

She unholstered her pistol and crept forward into the room overlooking the courtyard. As slowly as humanly possible, she poked her head further and further around the frame, taking in every corner and window. Just like last time, the place seemed deserted. Unlike the last time, a teenage boy with scruffy blonde hair was tied to the dead tree.

_Flip!_ It took a lot of willpower to refrain from shouting that out loud.

She didn't have a lot of choice about what to do next. It could very well be a trap, but sitting here and not walking into it wouldn't get Flip to safety. It would, however, ensure they were still about when the gang returned from investigating the gunshot.

The bikes were completely destroyed, and wouldn't be pieced back together any time soon. But they weren't still burning. The fire was somewhere inside the building over to her right, so perhaps that's where the rest of the gang was. Either way, she had to move.

She followed the same path she took the last time, down the stairs and through the chilly maze. She quickly reached the corridor running alongside the courtyard, and stopped again to check for signs of movement. Nothing.

Before the nerves could get to her too much, Kira stepped through the broken window and hurried towards Flip.

"You alright?" _Bloody 'ell, Kira, seriously?_

Flip stirred a little, as though woken from sleep.

"Oi!" she hissed, as she circled the tree, making sure he was only tied with rope.

He looked a little groggy. They'd probably had to knock him out more than once. The bruises on his face seemed to suggest so. As he recognised her, he started to become more alert.

He shook his head. "They said the creatures will be out soon. They think they'll be left alone if I'm out 'ere."

They were offering him up as a sacrifice in the hopes of saving themselves! Jag was right about them.

Kira swung the machete at the rope on the other side of the tree. After so much sharpening, the blade bit straight through the rope and into the dead bark. It took a few jerks to get it free again, while Flip collapsed. It seemed more like the strain of standing still for this long than anything serious, as he quickly clambered back to his feet.

"We 'ave to get out of 'ere!" he hissed. "Only a few of 'em left."

Kira didn't have to be told twice, but before she could move, Flip's eyes widened. With a roar, a tan-coloured shape flashed past her, knocking her aside and landing heavily on the boy.

As Kira regained her footing, she heard boots pounding behind her. She spun, whipping the machete in a sideways arc. The gang member's head sailed over her shoulder and his body crumpled. With barely a thought, she followed this up with a shot into the side of the man trying to throttle Flip.

Then the gunfire really started.

It was deafening in the courtyard. Flip rolled from under the dead body and grabbed the rifle, which had fallen from Kira's shoulder. She led the dash back towards the window, firing a shot towards what seemed like the source of the gunfire.

The fact that neither she nor Flip had any bullet holes made her think that the creatures may have made a timely appearance. She wasn't about to hang around to find out though. There was noticeably less firing now, so at least some of them must be following. Or dead, she supposed.

She led Flip through the maze, miraculously remembering the way. At the top of the stairs, they grabbed a nearby table and shoved it down the stairs, heavy end first. The legs caught on the steps and it tipped. It wouldn't buy them much time, but it could be the difference between life and death.

They hurried to the hole in the wall and scrabbled down the rubble. Kira wanted to destabilise it as she went, but there was no way of doing so without burying herself and Flip at the same time.

In her hurry to get away, she found herself unable to remember which way the bike was. The panic blocked her decision-making, and she just froze at the sight of so many possible exits.

"C'mon!" Flip shouted, and started across the street.

It was in vaguely the right direction, so Kira followed. She followed through a doorway, along a hall, across a kitchen, out the back door. All feeling became unbearable heat and weakness. All sound became heavy breathing and her heart beating heavily on her eardrums. Street after street, alley after alley, building after building; they ran and ran in a blurred, confused pattern.

Finally, Kira could run no more. The moment the thought entered her mind, her muscles took their cue and gave in. She collapsed heavily and rolled. The ground under her face felt like dry dirt, not paving, but now her eyes were shut, she had no intention of opening them again.

"Kira!" Flip hissed.

She didn't respond, and she felt him run up beside her and kneel. Soft silence crept into her ears as the weight of her own body evaporated.

* * *

Kira's dreams were confused and uncomfortably warm, but they didn't last long. Then the world was gently rotating around her while she snuggled into the most comfortable bed she'd ever been in.

She lay there, enjoying the feeling, for a minute before reluctantly opening her eyes for just a second. She felt the frown form on her face before its cause found her brain.

The 'ell is Flip doin' in my bedroom?

The world stopped turning and her bed became stone. Her heavy tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she was sure someone had poured sand down her throat.

Her will to sit up wasn't enough; her body's will not to was stronger. She settled for opening her eyes again.

Flip stood at the side of a window, his back to her. They were in a small, dingy room. As her memory returned, she realised Flip must have dragged her into one of the buildings while she was unconscious. At least they'd done enough to lose their attackers before she passed out.

The moon was directly in line with the window, and the silvery light lay over her in a cool blanket.

She knew the sensation in her head: dehydration and borderline heatstroke. Everything about the last week had been a mistake. The walking every day with little rest, travelling to the city in the midday sun, a leather corset in the middle of the desert, as unavoidable as that was.

"Kira," Flip whispered, seeing her open eyes. "You okay?"

She had to try a few times before any sound came out of her dry throat. "Just moonbathin', Flip. Could do with some water."

"We don't 'ave any. They took mine, an' you didn't 'ave any with you, I checked."

Slowly, for the sake of her head, she pulled herself back a bit so she could lean against the wall. All was still and quiet outside. Peaceful. She wondered where the gunfire had gone. Had the gang run off the creatures? Had the creatures eaten them all? That seemed unlikely.

The door was blocked by some piece of furniture or other, and the window was the only other way in. She guessed Flip hadn't dragged her up any stairs, so it was possible the creatures could get in through that if they found them, but so long as they stayed quiet they should be fine. Hopefully.

Flip sat down nearby. Not as close as he usually would. She guessed he still hadn't forgiven her for breaking his goggles. That seemed like a long time ago now, and such a small thing compared to everything that had happened since. But she had to remember it was still big to him.

Her mind was filled with things she should say. How sorry she was about the goggles, again. What happened with Jag, and why. She felt like she needed to explain why she'd gone back for Flip, risking her own life. She also kind of felt like she needed to make him thank her for it, but by the way he kept glancing at her, she was sure that was one of the things his own mind was filled with.

But neither of them said anything. They sat in a comfortable silence for about an hour, almost forgetting what was waiting somewhere outside. The silence itself seemed to go some way to mending the rift between them.

Then Kira heard something. Flip heard it too, as he raised the rifle towards the window. It sounded like winded, wheezy breathing. The machete was the closest thing to hand, and Kira gripped it tightly, carefully climbing to her feet. She moved towards the window, placing each step slowly and silently.

Her own heartbeat threatened to drown out the breathing noise. Perhaps moving _towards_ the sound wasn't the best idea, but she kept going. The silver moonlight was suddenly more eerie than peaceful.

Kira wanted to check that Flip was still covering her with the rifle, but she knew better than to... _Nice work, Kira. Just turn away from the danger and look be'ind like an idiot._

A snorting, phlegm-soaked half-bark, half-roar startled her and she spun back to the window, machete first. The creature's long, spiky tongue flopped onto the floor and writhed for a few seconds while its former owner screeched and retreated from the window. It's squishy yelps would certainly draw attention.

While Kira rushed to help Flip unblock the door, she compared the thing to every creature she'd come across so far. As Jag had said, it wasn't much different to the mutated lizard-dog things that came out at night near her home town. Fur and scales vying for domination over its compact body. It might be a bit sluggish and ineffectual on its own, but when others were drawn by its calls, she and Flip would be in trouble.

Ignoring the occasional splinter, they freed the door and darted outside. Around the corner, the creature was still sharing its pain with the world, but there were no others in sight. They could come from any direction, so Kira and Flip didn't bother to think about it; they headed straight down the narrow road ahead and across the next street.

"Where the arse are we goin'?" Flip demanded.

"We've gotta find the bike, but I don't know where we are."

Flip stopped running. He looked about him for a moment, and then rushed along to the next street. He looked along to the left, then along to the right, then pointed to something.

"I came along 'ere," he said. "The big motorcar thing is down that way, so the gang is back the other way."

It took almost an hour, sneaking along murky streets and alleys, ducking into doorways to avoid the prowling beasts, but they eventually found their way back to familiar territory. Kira didn't want to get too close to the gang's compound, because they'd almost certainly be watching out of the windows.

Kira led the way around to where she was finally able to find the path back towards the bike. She had to follow the same wide arc she'd used when coming the other way, so as not to get lost again, but eventually, she found herself staring across the street at the one-hinged door. Behind that door was their way out. In front of that door was a dead creature, and a live gang member.

Kira slowly pressed herself against the wall, pistol drawn just in case. The man had his back to them, examining something on the low doorstep. In the moonlight, all she could make out was a vague mark on the step. She guessed it was her bloody footprint.

He seemed wary of what might be on the other side of the door, and kept tapping it with his foot. When nothing happened, he gave it a harder shove. The bottom of the door screeched loudly, and the man jumped back in fright.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kira saw the barrel of Flip's rifle lower over her shoulder until it was level with the gang member. Unlike her, the boy had never killed a human being, only animals. She couldn't let him have that on his conscience. Before she registered what she was doing, she grabbed the barrel and shoved it upwards. How Flip didn't fire by accident from her abrupt intervention was beyond her.

She didn't get the chance to see what emotion he'd chosen for his face. The screech of the door, and perhaps the earlier shooting of the creature, had drawn attention to the man. The same gargling bark-roar that confronted Kira earlier echoed along the street, startling the man again.

Kira pressed herself even flatter against the wall as he stepped away from the door to get a better look at the danger. He pointed his gun at the source of the noise for a second, but quickly abandoned that idea. Kira guessed there must have been more than one creature staring back, because he turned tail and ran for it.

After his footsteps died away, a few seconds of silence followed, and then pattering of paws preceded a minor stampede. About a dozen creatures, mostly of the lizard-dog type, clattered past in pursuit of the man.

Staying absolutely statuesque, Kira and Flip watched them out of sight. None of the things saw them, but they didn't move an inch until the galloping had faded from hearing.

Kira took a moment to breathe out her relief, and then they carefully darted over to the door. Together, they got the door open quietly.

Flip's gasp at the sight inside was barely audible.

Kira stepped in, with no choice but to look into the grey, dead face of her decision's consequences. She forced herself to consider Jag's corpse the same way she would anything else that happened to be in the way, and heaved him off the bike. Flip still stood in the doorway, staring.

"I didn't 'ave a choice," she said, without looking at him. Out loud, it sounded very weak.

She checked the saddle for blood, but it was all splattered on the wall, brown now. So, with nothing left to do, she threw Jag's pistol into his pack and started to heave the bike towards the door.

"Make sure there's no one outside, Flip," she snapped.

He was still staring at Jag, but her tone snapped him out of his trance. With the briefest of glances at Kira, he stuck his head back outside.

"Nothin'."

Flip helped her roll the giant machine through the door and onto the street. He stayed beside the bike while she climbed on, so that he'd be able to kick up the metal frame when she got it going. This was the part that caused some trouble. The only motorcar she had ever been in had already been running when she hijacked it, so she wasn't sure how to get this thing running.

Applying some logic, she followed the oil tank downwards until she spotted a short lever. It was stiff, but with a sharp yank, flames burst to life behind a grille.

In the heat of the city, the oil and water wouldn't have been able to cool too much, which would be an advantage. After only a minute, what she could only assume was the pressure gauge started to slowly rise.

The next six or seven minutes were tense, spent staring at every possible approach point, and feeling very vulnerable out here in the street. Thankfully, the gurgling and faint hissing from the bike didn't make enough sound to draw attention, and the gauge's needle reached the section painted green without any more gunfights.

Kira climbed into the saddle and took a deep breath. Last time she'd been at the controls, she'd crashed the flying motorcar in the desert. At least this one didn't have so far to fall.

The controls seemed simple enough. There was a short lever to disengage the brake, and another with three settings to control the speed. With the brake off, Kira set the second lever into the first notch. The goliath began to roll slowly forward. The sounds inside the bike became louder and louder. Spitting, hissing, chugging, rushing, roaring.

Soon, the bike picked up enough speed that Flip was able to kick the stand up. He jogged alongside for a few seconds until it reached running speed, then jumped on. The thing was so heavy that the boy's negligible weight barely affected its course.

After some movement and grunts from behind her, Kira realised Flip had his back to her. She didn't dare more than a quick glance behind, but he seemed to have his rifle ready, in case anyone came up behind them. Probably a good idea. Knowing there was a little bar at the back of the saddle for him to hold onto, she pulled the speed lever into the second notch.

Now the hissing and puffing and chugging was all she could hear, under her and bouncing back from the buildings. There was no way they would be leaving the city unnoticed. But they were already going at a decent speed; it would be hard to hit them. The creatures might be fast enough to catch up, but hopefully Flip would be able to take care of that.

The real problem was finding a way out of the city. She had no idea where she was going, but if she just kept to the same direction, they'd reach the edge eventually.

For nearly ten nerve-wracking minutes, Kira navigated through the streets, avoiding the old, rusted motorcars and the collapsed buildings. Twice, she heard Flip fire his rifle, but he didn't urge her to speed up, so she never took her attention off the road ahead. A few buildings they passed were surrounded by creatures, who ignored them. With a heavy heart, she guessed the remaining inhabitants Jag had spoken of were inside.

And then, there was the desert. Just a few blocks down, it stretched out into the distance like a still, silvery ocean. The moment she was past the final abandoned motorcar, she pulled the lever in to the final notch and they chugged out of the city.

Kira had no idea what was in this direction, if anything. She only knew that it wasn't the way they'd come, and they were away from the gang and the creatures in the city. Nothing else mattered for now.

* * *

Kira didn't know how long had passed since they left the city. The road had been swallowed by the sand, but the pointy bits on the bike's wheels ensured that wasn't a problem.

The rush of wind in her face had become hypnotising, and she'd fallen into a dreamlike state. All of the week's events played out in her mind at exaggerated speed. Except for the really bad parts. Those were slow.

Letting Flip down so badly, fighting the gang, running for their lives. It was all so exhausting and exhilarating and terrifying. Then killing Jag in cold blood. Murdering him. That kept replaying in her head. It wouldn't stop.

She realised they were slowing down. Without thinking, she'd pushed the speed lever all the way back, and was pulling on the brake. From top speed, it took nearly a minute to come to a complete stop.

Leaving Flip to struggle with the weight of the thing, Kira stumbled off the side and threw up. Scalding tears ran down her face and dripped into the sand as she collapsed to the side. She curled into a ball, the deep, howling sobs pulling on her every muscle.

Flip's hand carefully landed on her shoulder. He said nothing.

The crying faded. She remembered why she'd done everything she'd done. The only thing that would keep her going. It was just her and a boy, alone. She had to concentrate on keeping him alive.

But the glimmer of hope she'd found deep within her a week ago was dead.

* * *

Ross Harrison _lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back. 'Horizon' is a sequel to 'Kira', which appeared in the original 'Wyrd Worlds' anthology._

* * * * *

# THE VISITOR

### Neil Shooter

[Horizon] [Contents] [A World Taken Over]

Time is relative. On an ordinary blustery British night an extraordinary visitor comes.

THE GIANT LILAC HEDGE shields me from sight. It's a dark night, cold, wet and miserable, and no one is about. It's also Good Friday.

Finally the sound of voices and a car engine starts. Headlights pierce the gloom, but don't reveal my presence.

A front door closes, and I fancy that I can hear a little of the glass vibrate as it does. The car pulls away, and all is quiet apart from the wind in the branches.

Presently, the time feels appropriate, and I cross the empty suburban street towards the house. The small gate is well-oiled and silent. The path is startling in its familiarity of brick borders and paving slabs. Tears spring unbidden to my eyes, and I haven't even reached the door. There's the window with frosted glass, and there is the shadow of citronella plants in the living room window, silhouetted against those mustard yellow curtains.

It's almost too much for me, now that it is happening, but this is what I am here for, and what I came to do. I knock on the door.

A dog barks. Jet is mostly lab and spaniel, with a white mark on his forehead.

A light flicks on, and a familiar shape appears in the glass pane of the front door. The door opens, and a friendly chuckle precedes the words, "Did you decide to 'ave that extra one after–" but stops when his eyes see it is not Paul, his sort-of new son-in-law, come back for another drink after all, but me.

Jet growls menacingly. He must be able to sense some kind of wrongness about me, or perhaps he recognizes me and is confused, and scared.

I hold up my hands and say, "It's okay Jet, I'm just standing here."

The man's hazel eyes narrow, but mine are wide open, soaking in the reality of the moment. He has a square face, well-proportioned and usually quite friendly, if perhaps a little prone to sadness the past little while. His hair is thick and classically long, with short back and sides. It's the colour of vanilla ice cream. He has an ample belly, despite the tummy exercises he once told me about, and now that I see him with my adult eyes, I see that he is worn and tired. Right now he smells of whisky.

"'Oo the 'eck are you, and why d'you know my dog's name?"

"My name is Dean," I say, letting the name sit in the air a moment. "I want to talk to you for a little while, that's all. Can I come in? It's a cold night."

"Wot d'you tek me for? I di'n't just fall off a Christmas tree, you know. Now, go on wi' you."

The man starts to close the door in my face.

"Wait! I'm going to show you something that will change your mind, if you'll just give me a moment."

The door stays open. He looks at me suspiciously, but says, "Go on then." Curiosity has got the better of him.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a small device, four inches wide and six inches long. It looks like a piece of cloudy glass, but of course it is much more than that. It is my tab.

I touch the glass and a screen springs to life, bathing my face in a colourful light. I find what I'm looking for, and then turn the screen towards him.

His mouth opens, and then closes again without any sound coming out.

I speak for him. "This is your wife, and your granddaughter. Do you remember playing frisbee that day?"

He nods, unable to look away from the picture. I pull the tab back to me, and swipe to the next image to show it to him. "And this is you and your wife when you retired. This picture is on your sideboard, isn't it?"

He nods.

"Can I come in?"

Too confused to say no this time, he steps back, and growling Jet takes a step back too, not trusting me at all.

Being in the house is a very odd experience. There are things I remember so clearly, like the runner on the lusciously varnished wooden stairs, but other things that jump out at me jarringly – the glass statuette on top of the television set, the mug beside the huge stereo that says "Granddad" on it, full of pens, pencils, and with a wooden letter opener jammed in the middle of them.

I follow him into the living room, where the scent of citronella mingles with the smoke from the open coal fire. He goes over to the chair at the far end of the room, and reaches beside it, to a bottle less than half full of a golden liquid. He fills his glass and takes a good swig of it, still holding the bottle, and still facing away from me. His gaze seems to fall on a silver framed picture of the day he retired. I stand at the opposite end of the room from him, by the door, just watching the way he moves.

Jet is lying down between us, on the rug in front of the fire. He is no longer growling, but still watching for any sign of danger from me.

The old man turns to look at me. "'Oo the bleedin' 'ell are you? Why d'you 'ave my pictures? What d'you want?"

"I just want to talk. Can I sit?"

He waves absently at the couch with the whisky bottle, and sits down in the lone chair that used to be his wife's spot.

"Your grandson is called Dean, isn't he? You bought him those boxing gloves hoping to make him more manly, but it didn't work, did it? You remember him playing with his grandmother's clip-on earrings? You remember those little threads he used to weave and knot together, and then tell you they were parts of clothes from the future?"

Emotions flit across his face one after the other, but he doesn't say anything.

I continue. "He was supposed to come and see you today, wasn't he? But he didn't come, and didn't even call. He lay on his settee all afternoon watching black-and-white musicals with his mum. He thinks he's got all the time in the world. But he doesn't, does he?"

"What 'ave you done wi' my grandson?"

"Nothing, and I'm not going to do anything. He's missed his chance and he's going to regret today for the rest of his life."

"'Ow d'you know all this?"

"I'm from the future."

He empties his glass, and fills it again. "Are you off of Star Trek or summat?"

"No, I'm just from the future. I'm your grandson Dean."

"Impossible. You're as old as I am."

"Older. Who else knows this story? Mum pushed me into the house through the bathroom window once when I was little, when she came over without a key and no one was in. The key was in the kitchen where it always is, but I couldn't find it, so I was trapped inside the house until one of you came home.

"One time, grandma put her hand through the glass window in the back door, and had to have stitches and a tetanus shot. Another time she went to the doctor, walked there as well, because she'd had chest pains, and he told her she'd had a heart attack. More? I always used to follow you part of your way home from our house, so that I could keep waving to you, and so that you weren't quite gone yet. You'd turn back and wave, knowing I was going to be there.

"And here, I have some more pictures to show you. Here, I'll show you how to work this. Just move your finger like this from right to left and a new picture will come." I hand him the glass rectangular tab and watch him look at the future of his family. He soon gets the hang of swiping.

"Paul and Cath? They look so..."

"Old? They end up managing forty-three years of marriage. Not bad, especially considering the late start they had."

"They get married..."

"In a few years. A civil ceremony, of course, as they're both divorced."

"Are these their children?"

"No, _her_ grandchildren."

"Who's this getting married?"

"Janice."

"Your little sister? Oh, ah. I can see it now. Funny, it's as plain as day now. Dun't she look like 'er mum!"

After a moment he says, "There's none of you?"

"I prefer to be _behind_ the camera."

"That's a shame. And you never married?"

"Ah. Well, I suppose I was always too busy."

"I'm glad you grew up into a decent fella."

"Well, I always thought I would have disappointed you in that department. You see, I never was manly enough. It just wasn't for me, just the way I am."

He looks up at me, earnestly. "You mean you're a pufta?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"Anyone could'a seen that comin' a mile off. You always were a sensitive lad."

"I always imagined it would have been difficult to tell you. I didn't want you to be disappointed in me."

"Have you had a good life?"

"Yes, on the whole."

"And did you find 'appiness? Did you fall in love wi' anyone?"

"Yes, a few times."

"Then you're a lucky man. I found your grandma, and... well, people thought I was too young for 'er. But, oh, we were 'appy together..." The tab slips out of his hand and hits the floor with a ping.

"Oh, did I break it?"

"Probably not."

He reaches down to pick it up, and his fingers brush a certain part of the screen. "Uh, oh. I've done summat..."

He hands me the tab, and when I look at it, I laugh. "You're trying to connect to the net!"

"'Oo's Annette?"

"No, it's... never mind."

"I di'n't break it then?"

"It's virtually indestructible."

He take a sip from his drink, and then looks me in the eye. "Dean, why did you come 'ere?"

"To see you. To talk to you. To let you know that the lazy selfish boy who didn't see you today loves you very much."

"He's a good lad. I mean, _you're_ a good lad. But I'll see 'im tomorrow..."

I don't say anything, and he knows.

"I don't see 'im tomorrow, do I? I don't see 'im ever again, do I?"

"No."

"I... I'm goin' to die..."

"Yes."

"And that's why you can come an' show me all these things I'm not supposed to see. Oh, they're a good lookin' bunch o' kids..." And he knows he'll never meet them.

"I'm sorry." I look down, unable to bear the look on his face.

"Sorry? That's rich. You came all the way from the future to tell me I'm goin' to die, and you're sorry?"

"Actually, you're a personal interlude. I came to the past to do something else entirely."

"An interlude, am I?"

"No one will notice this indiscretion. And I lived my life for today. I can't change anything in the past or it'll change the future."

"But you _'ave_ changed summat. You changed _me_. You changed _tonight_. I don't want to die! I want to see all those babies and marriages!"

"I know, but for me, from my perspective, you died fifty-three years ago. I'm older than you are!"

"I could live another twenty year!"

"If you wanted to live another twenty years, you wouldn't drink so much..."

"You come into _my_ 'ouse, and call me–"

I put my hands up. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I've had fifty-three years to think about how it must have been for you, losing your wife, living alone surrounded by relics of her, losing the love of your life after you had been so much to each other, even after both your families said things against the marriage."

His anger has seeped away. "Oh, ah. She wa'n't too o'd fo' me. She were just perfect."

"And your life together always inspired me. But grief... grief changes you. I think you drink as much as you do because part of you thinks that each bottle is a little more off your lifespan, so you can be reunited with her."

"It _'as_ crossed my mind, ah..."

"So wouldn't you rather see your grandchildren grow up, and the great-grandchildren you've seen in these pictures come to life?"

He takes a sip of his drink, and sighs. "Life? It's not life without 'er in it."

"Which is, in a way, why I have taken the risk, in coming here, in speaking with you, and showing you these things. You're sort of an experiment..."

"I am?"

I smile awkwardly. "I'm not sure how to explain it. Are you ready for some temporal physics?"

"I'm no egghead..."

"You don't need to be. Let's see. Right. Time travel into the past is impossible, so no one tries to do it."

"But you've done it, a'n't you?"

"Yes, there are still a few people who don't believe in impossible."

"But it's supposed to be impossible?"

"Yes. Imagine... a balloon. The surface is the fabric of space and time, and the whole universe and the whole history of the universe exists in that little layer of rubber. A person's life, for example, would be a little line on the surface of the balloon, from the place and time where their life starts, to the point where it ends. Travelling in time requires that you join two pieces of the balloon's surface together so you can step from one to the other. Are you with me?"

"Mmm."

"Well, if your balloon isn't inflated, you can quite easily push a pin through both sides of the balloon, and in essence, you've crossed from one piece to the other."

"But you've put a 'ole in it. A balloon wi' 'oles in it is neither use nor ornament."

"Exactly right! And that's why people think it is impossible. Sticking with the idea of a balloon, if you blow up the balloon, and tie it, and try to join the two parts of it with a pin, it will deflate, or just pop, depending on how much air you've blown into it before tying it. But if your balloon is not _very_ inflated, you can still pinch it between your finger and thumb, so that the inside surface of the balloon is touching, and the balloon isn't then broken, and doesn't pop or deflate."

"When you came 'ere – to now – you di'n't pop the balloon, did you?"

"No, and I believe that's because of the nature of the universe itself. If time travel causes the universe to pop, then _either_ time travel is impossible because the universe hasn't popped, or no one will _ever_ perform time travel, again, because no one has popped the universe. So because there _is_ a universe, time travel is either not possible, or perfectly safe. There _is_ a universe, and it has not popped, even though I have travelled through time."

"But it could pop now, cou'n't it?"

"If travelling through time made the universe pop, the effects of the pop would travel backwards and forwards through time, and destroy the whole fabric of the universe. Or rather, would _already_ have destroyed the whole fabric of the universe."

"Okay."

"If the balloon popped, it wouldn't matter where on the surface it had been pricked, it would pop just the same. Now, imagine an already deflated balloon, scrunched up into a ball. The surface is the same as if it was inflated – there is still the same amount of surface – but now lots of pieces of the surface are touching each other. We believe the universe is infinitely wrinkly, so that all points are able to touch all the other points."

"The universe is a wrinkly balloon."

"Precisely! Now, if the universe is like a partially-inflated balloon, and time travel is like a pin hole, then any time travel will cause a slow puncture. So either the universe is wrinkly _because_ the reality of time travel has made it that way, or because the two have no impact on each other.

"All of time and space are a single thing – the surface of the balloon – so there is no imbalance caused by moving from one point to the other, just as there is no imbalance caused to the orbit of the Earth when we walk across the street."

"Don't you want a drink?"

"No, thanks. I'm an alcoholic. I don't drink anymore."

"Oh. Sorry. You want me to stop?"

"Don't worry, I'm not wavering. Besides, I still have my real work to do. So, as I was saying, this was a kind of experiment, because for all we do know about the nature of time and how it works – and that time travel works at all – there is so much that we don't know for sure. This – this situation, with you and me – I think of it as a potential reverse grandfather paradox. You know what the grandfather paradox is?"

He shakes his head. "Can't say I do."

"A man travels back in time to kill his grandfather before his father is conceived, preventing his own conception, thereby preventing his own intervention and causing what is know as a temporal paradox. I'm not trying to kill you. If anything, I'm trying to save your life, or at least see if it is possible for me to do so. I wondered if I would make it to your door, or if I would be run over while crossing the street, or mugged in front of your house, or somehow prevented from speaking to you, so that I couldn't interfere with things. I wasn't. This tells me that either my conversation with you here tonight won't change anything, or that it doesn't matter if it changes anything."

"What?"

"If nothing changes, then you die as you did in my past, and there is no paradox. But if you do survive the night, it should cause a paradox, because the thought of talking to you again is what propelled me into science, and into temporal physics. In a way, time travel exists because, in my past, you died in my childhood. If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and phone me, it would change my entire life, and be strong evidence towards proving a multiverse model of space-time..."

I stop talking when I realize my audience is no longer listening. His eyes are closed, as if he has just drifted off to sleep, just an old man having a nap in his favourite chair.

Jet is lying in front of the fire, between my grandfather and me, his head nonchalantly resting on his paws in a facsimile of relaxation, but he is on alert, ready to protect his master at a moment's notice.

I can't tell if the old man is breathing, but when I stand up, thinking to check him, thinking of trying to wake him, Jet is suddenly alert, a piercing look in his eyes, daring me to take one more step closer, daring me to get bitten.

"You won't bite me today, Jet."

When he sees I'm not about to escalate the situation, Jet settles back down, with an eye still on me, but confident that I know my place.

I realize that this is it. This is how they will find him in the morning, sleeping peacefully, with Jet lying just so, guarding his master, faithfully, as a friend.

The moment has passed. Time is linear after all. And everything is as it was.

"I love you, granddad." I say it because I hope he can still hear me, if there is any part of him that is still aware.

"I'm sorry, Jet." I say it even though he doesn't understand what I mean, and can't imagine what his own future holds.

I reach for my tab, launch a particular app, enter my password, and destination instructions. It's time for me to go do my job.

* * *

Neil Shooter _grew up in England and now lives in a quiet suburban corner of Ontario, Canada. This deeply personal story is a science-fiction version of some of his own childhood experiences. 'The Visitor' is exclusively published in Wyrd Worlds II._

* * * * *

# A WORLD TAKEN OVER

### Douglas Schwartz

[The Visitor] [Contents] [The Joy Of Socks]

He had conquered the world. How much more effort was it going to be to unconquer it?

NOW THAT GUS NUSSBAUM, mad scientist, had successfully taken over the world, he came to the conclusion he didn't want it anymore. It took years of planning and work to conquer the world. How much more effort was it going to be to unconquer it?

"There are 4303 new emails all asking the same thing! Can you believe it?" Gus said, outraged.

"It can't be that bad," came a voice from the cage in the corner.

Gus pushed his chair away from the computer and rolled over to Sal's brass birdcage. Inside the cage, a stack of animatronic pancakes sat on a plate. Tinted glue had been poured over the pancakes to look like a permanent dousing of syrup. A single pat of artificial butter slid across the surface, over the mock syrup, following Gus's movement.

Gus let himself go while working in his lab. His hair was a mess, his clothes slept-in and food-stained, and he hadn't showered in a couple days. Even when he was not at his best, he was handsome enough he could have used his looks to help conquer the planet without trying hard. It was definitely his brains mixed with his charm that had helped him take over the world.

"But, it _is_ that bad, Sal! People want to know what they should do! Even the other scientists are begging me to validate their work. I swear, they are like a bunch of kids wanting me to check their homework."

"They admire you. They want to learn from you," said the pancakes. Its rounded edges moved apart like lips.

"I appreciate their admiration, but I still think they are a bunch of useless idiots!" Gus said.

He stood up and pushed his chair back towards the computer desk. It rolled away, hit a power cable, and tumbled over sideways a few feet before the desk. Gus left the chair on the floor and stomped over to the whiteboard. Looking over his notes and equations, he committed it all to memory before erasing the board.

"You don't need any of that?" the pancakes asked, the pat of butter watching him closely.

"No, Sal, I don't. Not until I set things right."

He erased the last of his notes and picked up one of the dry erase markers. He tapped the marker against his chin.

"How do I release control of the world?" he said, more to himself than to Sal.

"Well... how did you take control of the world in the first place?" she asked.

"By doing the opposite of what many others tried before me. Where they tried to conquer by being loud and violent, I was quiet and peaceful."

"You call experimenting on the homeless peaceful?"

Gus reminisced on his experimentation. It was true that he had subjected homeless people to immoral medical procedures, but he had advanced health care tenfold.

"I stand by what I said. I made sure the ones who wouldn't make it died peacefully in their sleep."

Gus stared at the whiteboard with its few crumbs of discarded writing. How could he release control of the world? He was the first to successfully take it over; he would be the first to release control of it, too. But, how?

"You could delegate," Sal suggested.

"No. They'd just mess things up, again," he said, drawing a picture.

"Nice moose," Sal said.

"Thanks," he grumbled. He dropped the marker into the whiteboard's tray, walked over to the sofa, and threw himself face first into the cushions.

The pat of butter swiveled across the pancakes to better see Gus.

"If only people still believed it was Lester Rudolf, and not me," Gus moaned.

"If only Dan Neederman hadn't killed Lester Rudolf," Sal said with a sigh.

Gus pushed himself up and said, "That's it! Dan Neederman!"

"What about him?"

Gus leapt off the sofa and strode to the brass cage. He laughed and looked down at the pancakes.

"Dan started this. Maybe he can help end it!" Gus said. "Sal, I could kiss you!"

* * *

On the plane trip to Chicago, Gus closed his eyes and thought about his interview with Dan Neederman, the man who had killed Lester Rudolf. For the past two years, the interview was a painful subject both Gus and Sal avoided. Listening to the dull hum of the plane's engines, Gus daydreamed of the interview, trying to recall every detail.

Dan Neederman was the first person to learn the truth of Lester Rudolf. For years, Gus Nussbaum has implemented his world-changing, and often immoral ideas through Lester Rudolf. Like what any good reporter should do, Dan Neederman did his homework, connected the dots, and discovered Lester Rudolf was actually the pseudonym Gus Nussbaum used to cover his tracks while setting his ideas in motion.

Dan invited Gus to the studio under the impression the show was doing a segment to promote science and education. Instead, Dan presented undeniable facts about Gus's projects, buttered Gus up like garlic bread, and forced Gus to admit he was the mastermind, thus killing the pseudonym of Lester Rudolf. Gus was flattered and then crushed by his own ego.

Gus especially remembered Dan's last question, "Do you have any advise for the budding scientists watching at home?"

It was a simple reply, but Gus looked into the camera and said, "Stop and think. Do the right thing."

The public ate his words up. Within days, 'Stop and think. Do the right thing.' appeared on tee-shirts and baseball caps. An internet meme trended for months with his words over pictures. Some pictures showed people doing idiotic blunders, while other pictures displayed people accomplishing amazing, heroic tasks. For some reason, Gus's words stuck with people and, for once, people stopped to consider what they were doing, and started doing what was right.

While on another talk show loosely disguised as a news show, the host went into more detail of Gus, his secret projects, and how his creativity brought positive change to the world, even though the ideas were unconventional and somewhat immoral. At the end of the show, the host said, "No disrespect to any elected official, I think you've proved yourself a better leader to creating a better world." At first, Gus was honored. He did want to change the world for the better, but hadn't considered leading the world to a brighter future. He did nothing to discourage the notion. The prospect of people seeking his guidance spiraled out of control. Now, Gus was horrified at the thought of being the world's leader.

The pilot interrupted his daydream. "We'll be landing in fifteen minutes, Mr. Nussbaum," said the voice over the intercom.

Gus, who drifted off thinking about his climb to world domination, cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Clarkson," he said.

* * *

Dan was sat at his desk among heaps of paper, staring at his computer, when Gus arrived at his studio's office. Gus knocked loudly on the door, causing Dan to leap about a foot off his reclined desk chair. Dan swiveled around and gawked at Gus standing in the doorway.

A wide grin appeared on Dan's face. "Gus Nussbaum, ruler of the world, so good to see you again! Come in!"

Gus looked at the cluttered office and didn't see much space to welcome a person. He opted to stay in the doorway.

"You killed Lester Rudolf. I'm here to avenge his death," Gus said.

Dan's mouth dropped open. His eyes darted from the blocked doorway to the only window with the blinds lowered.

"Not really," Gus said with a grin, "I need to speak with you. I hope I'm not interrupting."

Dan chuckled nervously. His chest slumped with relief. "I'm going over notes for the next show. Come in."

Gus, calculating the flammability of paperwork in Dan's office, stood his ground in the doorway.

"People are driving me mad. Ever since they appointed me their leader, it's like they can't think for themselves."

Dan stood up and stretched. He picked up his coffee mug, and realized it was empty. "People are idiots. I need more coffee. Walk with me."

They walked down the hall together to the studio's break room. They passed people in the hallway who smiled broadly and swooned at Gus, as if they had never seen a celebrity in their television studio.

"It's not only thinking for themselves, but they lack imagination, too. I mean, it's not like I shot them with my ray gun and turned them all into children."

"You have a ray gun?"

"Three. I can't deal with people and all their questions. I don't want to be their leader. You set me on the road to world domination. Can't you undo this? Can't we resurrect Lester Rudolf, and claim he's the mastermind?"

"Gus, you know I can't do that. That would be unethical," Dan said as he refilled his coffee mug.

The two burst out laughing.

"Okay. Stop. Stop. You're going to make me spill my coffee."

"Seriously, though. Do you have any ideas of how I can give up the world?"

"Whoa! You're the idea man, not me. When you think of something, give me a call, and I'll interview you."

* * *

Gus went into hiding for a week. Not wanting to deal with the temptation of checking his email, he unplugged his computer and hid it in the back of his closet under a pile of winter clothing.

"What am I going to do, Sal?" he said from the sofa.

The caged pancakes sat motionless.

"Sal?"

"I heard you. I was in the middle of something. Sorry," Sal said. The pat of butter swiveled around until it spotted Gus on the sofa.

"What am I going to do?" Gus repeated.

"Have you tried giving the people bad advice?"

"Oh, yes," Gus said, "They wrote back to thank me. They said it was a good learning experience. Even when I do wrong, I can do no wrong!"

"You've kept a few of your more immoral ideas on the back burner. Maybe it's time to give the public a shock. You now have the funds to pull any of them off," the pancakes said.

Gus leapt up from the sofa. "Maybe it _is_ time."

He rummaged around in the boxes stuffed with his old paperwork and notes. The butter watched him dart around the room, making his lab a bigger mess than it already was, but still not as bad as Dan's office. By the fourth box, Gus pulled out a thick, red folder, loaded with hundreds of loose sheets of paper.

"Gotcha!" Gus exclaimed.

Gus walked to the table and shoved things aside to make room. A carton of Chinese takeout from the night before tipped over the edge of the table and landed upside-down on the floor, splattering rice and sauce everywhere. Gus peeked over the edge of the table, made a mental note to clean it up later, and then focused on the contents of the file. Sifting through all the projects within the folder, he settled on two.

Over the next few weeks, Gus set the two projects in motion. First, Gus tried a special kind of cigarette he invented as a means to stop people from smoking. A chemical reaction would occur inside a person's lungs from a single puff from the cigarette. The smoke would, momentarily, give the person the sensation of drowning, thus scaring them from wanting another drag.

At first, Gus thought the plan had worked. People were outraged by his cigarettes, thinking it was a cruel trick. One smoker had a heart attack, triggered from the effects of the cigarette. During the autopsy, it was discovered that the victim's lungs were clean, even though he had been a chain smoker for years. Days later, the situation turned around. Gus received praise and thanks for helping millions of smokers kick the habit for good. Plus, they've never felt healthier.

Gus moved onto the next project and launched a satellite into orbit. The satellite's sole purpose was to pick a city at random and crash into the center of town. Gus's original idea was to test people on how to quickly deal with an impending disaster, but he skipped the warning, to let people immediately deal with the aftermath. When the satellite crashed, some of the propellants inside caused more destruction than he had intended. Surely, his satellite destroying a majority of a heavily-populated area couldn't be good. Wrong. The town the satellite picked at random had been a trouble spot for decades. Most of the town was populated by some of the most bigoted, racist, intolerant people in that part of the country.

Many people from the neighboring areas showed an outpouring of public support, and helped rebuild the destroyed community. The survivors of the town had a change of heart. When they discovered it was one of Gus's satellites, the people said, "Oh well. Accidents will happen sometimes."

One person said the failed satellite was a blessing in disguise. She called it an "Act of Gus." Another person picked up on the biblical reference and joked, "Gus works in mysterious ways."

"Great!" Gus said, "Now it's worse! Now people are liking me to God!"

"Oh dear," said the pancakes.

"Sometimes I think death is the only way out of this," Gus said. He made a face as his mind drifted away, deep in thought.

"Killing all the people would not be an option," Sal said.

Snapping back to the present, Gus said, "Not their deaths. Mine. Although, your way would make the world a lot quieter. But, then how would I get things done without people's help?"

"You are _not_ going to kill yourself," Sal said.

"No, I'm not. Where would that leave the world for you? If people are relying on me for their answers now, what kind of panic would ensue if I suddenly was no longer around to think for them. No, I worry that if I give up the world in the wrong way, it could mean chaos!"

"It can't possibly be that bad," Sal said.

Gus approached his whiteboard, erased the moose drawing, and thought. He wrote as he spoke, "Have you seen my inbox today? There are 77,586 emails, thanking me for helping them quit smoking, or still asking for my advice for whatever it is they are working on. There are a lot of smart people out there, but they won't collaborate with each other. They don't mind bothering me, yet they're too afraid of other people stealing their ideas, for the glory or the money. Some people claimed they were slowed down because they were too afraid of what others might think, or afraid the government would shut them down. That kind of thinking slows progress. That's why I didn't care. I did it anyway. It's better to do and ask for forgiveness rather than not and ask for permission. Isn't that what they say?"

"Something like that," Sal said. The pat of butter swiveled to look at the whiteboard. Gus had written the words 'think' and 'collaborate'.

"Is it as bad as that? Not everyone is pestering you. There are billions of people in the world, and only a few thousand have looked to you for inspiration."

"More like looking to me for approval. I don't care about their projects. I just want to work on my own."

"Now you sound like a hypocrite."

"But, I don't mind collaborating. I have worked with people."

"True, when you hid behind the name Lester Rudolf."

"Sal, that's not fair."

"No, _you're_ not being fair. People look up to you because you _do_ care. They know that you've cracked a few eggs and people have died, but the proven results have been so much better than the alternative. You've shown them that. They are looking to you, because they want that success with their own projects. They want you to show them how to get there, too."

Gus nodded. "You know, for a stack of pancakes, you sure are smart."

Sal laughed. "Gee. Thanks."

"Dan said to call him when I had an idea. It's about time to give him a call."

"You have an idea?"

"Yes, I do."

Gus wrote one more word on the whiteboard: 'Death'.

* * *

Preparations had been made for Gus's next idea. He sent a plane ticket to Dan Neederman, and made all the arrangements to hold a special interview from his lab. Very few people had seen Gus's lab, except for various food delivery people and Sal. He hauled out the food containers, boxed all the loose papers, and vacuumed down the sofa where the interview would be conducted. Even the whiteboard had been thoroughly erased. Everything was ready.

Gus opened the door and invited Dan inside. Dan cautiously walked through the door, looking around as he did, as if Frankenstein's monster lurked behind the door or in a shadowy corner.

"So, this is where the magic happens," Dan said. "I expected more colorful liquids bubbling in beakers and a Jacob's ladder buzzing in the background."

"This is my lab. It's where I come to think. I use various other facilities to actually make what I think," Gus said.

"Much neater than my office," Dan said.

"You should have seen it a couple of days ago," Sal said.

Dan jumped. He did not see anyone else in the room.

"Who said that?" Dan asked, looking around.

"That's Sal, my assistant," Gus said, pointing to the cage.

Dan cautiously approached the cage.

"Hi Dan," the pancakes said.

Dan jumped again. "A talking stack of pancakes?"

"You know, I'm more than your assistant, Gus" Sal said.

"Yes, but we don't have time to get into that," Gus said, giving the cage a look.

"Nice to meet you, Sal," Dan said, nervously smirking at the pancakes.

"It's nice to finally meet you, too," Sal replied.

Dan pulled his attention away from the caged pancakes. "Ready to get set up?" he asked.

The reporter's crew entered the lab a short while later. They brought in a bit of extra light, moved the whiteboard closer to the sofa, and positioned the two cameras. A stylist groomed Dan, preparing him for the camera. Because of the extra lighting, she applied a light base to Gus's face to reduce any glare.

Gus and Dan discussed briefly the flow of the interview. Dan assured Gus he would try not to kill off any alter egos, and Gus agreed that everything should go smoothly. He had been preparing what he was going to say and do for the past couple days. They worked out the cues with the camera operators for when the interview would move from the sofa to the whiteboard. The interview was not going to be broadcast live, but they both hoped to get the footage they needed in a single take.

"Ready Gus?" Dan asked.

Gus breathed deep and exhaled, "Yes. Are you ready, Sal?"

"Always," said the pancakes.

"Let's do this," Dan said.

Dan signaled for the camera operators to start filming. Pausing for a brief moment, Dan launched into the interview.

"Over six years ago, one man and his unconventional ideas shook up the world and made it a better place to live. Less than four years ago, we appointed him as our leader who would continue to show us a brighter tomorrow. You know him well – Gus Nussbaum. Gus, thank you for welcoming me into your lab."

"Thank you for coming."

"As I understand it, you have an extraordinary new project you'd like to share with us?"

"That's right. One that I hope will revolutionize the world. Well... another one."

Dan and Gus shared a brief laugh.

Dan turned toward Camera One, and said, "This is truly an exciting moment, folks. Even though I was invited here, I have no clue what Mr. Nussbaum is about to share with us. My heart is racing. Tell us... what project are you working on?"

"It's not what I'm about to work on, but what I am inviting the world to help work on."

"And, what would that be?"

"I call the project, 'Crossroads'. May I address the camera directly?"

Dan nodded. Gus turned and looked into Camera Two.

"Since our first interview, I have received thousands of letter and emails from people all around the world. Not only have people thanked me for what I have done, they have asked for my guidance. I am flattered by your words and touched by those requesting my opinions. The truth is, I am unable to respond fairly and objectively to each email. If I were to do that, I would have very little time to continue making this world a better place. And, that's why I have invited Dan to my lab to introduce you to Crossroads."

Camera Two followed Gus to the whiteboard, while Camera One stayed on Dan. At the whiteboard, Gus drew a light bulb in the center of the whiteboard. To the side, he drew several stick figures, then corralled then with a circle. A solitary stick figure stood alone on the opposite side of the light bulb.

"Right now, this group of people represents the public."

He drew a line from the group of figures to the light bulb. Then, he drew another line from the light bulb to the solitary figure.

"People have ideas all the time, but they have been sending their ideas to me."

He demonstrated the single line from the group, through the bulb, to the solitary figure.

"Crossroads is a social network where everyone can collaborate and share ideas."

He erased the circle of stick figures and then drew independent figures in a ring around the light bulb.

"Anyone can contribute his or her thoughts and ideas, with the intention of bringing our ideas to life."

He connected the bulb to each figure. The result looked like the light bulb was radiating outward.

"That way, we all have a chance to shine, and envision a brighter future."

"A brilliant plan!" Dan said.

"I started the network this morning. More information about this network will be available after the interview. Already, I have shared some of my current projects."

The door kicked open. An angry man stormed into the lab. He had a scrawny body, and a wild, mess of brown hair. He said in a nasal whine, "You mean _my_ projects!"

Cameras One and Two quickly swiveled from the surprised faces of Gus and Dan to the stranger who burst through the door.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my lab?" Gus demanded.

The man scoffed, "As if you don't know. You've been stealing my ideas for years and claiming them as your own!"

"That's absurd!" Gus said.

Dan sat with mouth open, too shocked for words.

"You even stole my name!" the man said. He pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at Gus.

"What is this man talking about?" Dan asked.

"Shut up!" the man squeaked at Dan, not moving the gun away from Gus. "Say my name."

Gus gulped. "No."

The man cocked the gun, and spoke in a soft, steady voice, "Say my name, and admit you stole my ideas."

"Lester Rudolf. And, I admit to nothing," Gus said.

" _Doctor_ Lester Rudolf," the man said. "And, wrong answer."

The man pulled the trigger, and shot Gus in the chest. Red splattered the whiteboard. Gus collapsed in a heap on the floor, blood pooling around his crumpled body.

"Oh my God!" Dan said, "Please don't shoot. Don't shoot!"

The man's hands shook as he stared down at Gus's body. "I did it. I did it," he muttered, over and over.

"Please, put the gun down," Dan said calmly.

The man held the gun out, like he was going to drop it to the floor. In one swift movement, he pulled the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. The back of the man's head burst outward, and he, too, collapsed to the floor.

Dan leapt from the sofa to Gus's side. "Shut the cameras off!" he screamed.

"Gus. Why did this happen?" Dan said, crying.

"Are the cameras off?" Gus croaked, quietly.

"Wha...?" Dan said. He stumbled backwards away from Gus's body.

"Yes, sir, they are." said the operator of Camera Two. He and the other operator casually wound up their cords as if nothing happened.

Gus sat up, and said, "Thanks fellas."

"Wh- wh-... what?" Dan spluttered.

"Do you think it worked?" Gus asked.

The other man sat up, and said in a more feminine voice, "I think so."

"What kind of sick joke is this?" Dan said. He turned red through the disgust on his face.

"I'm sorry, Dan, for not giving you a heads up, but I needed your candid reaction. And, this isn't a joke. This is all part of my Crossroads project."

"But... what?" Dan said. He panted and scooted further away from Gus. He pulled himself onto the sofa and sat with his head lowered between his knees.

"How did the effects look?" the other man asked.

"Incredible. I almost believed it myself," said the camera operator.

"You guys were in on this?" Dan asked his camera operators.

They shrugged and nodded.

"Can someone please tell me what in _Hell_ just happened?" Dan shouted.

"Dan, I introduced you earlier, but this is my sister, Sally Nussbaum," Gus said, indicating the strange man who faked the murder-suicide.

The stranger was no man. It was Sally, who reached up and pulled off the wig of wild hair to reveal her natural blonde hair beneath. Fake blood dripped from the pouch concealed within wig in her hands.

"Hi. I'd shake hands, but..." she said, showing the red staining her hands.

Dan shook his head. Before he could ask, Gus said, "Sally is an artist. She and I worked out the special effects for this interview. She also made the caged pancakes. Our hotline to each other."

"But, why go through this elaborate scheme?" Dan asked.

"I told you I didn't want to take over the world. I just want to work on my projects in peace. The only way I could be left alone is if I died. But, the world looked up to me so much, I didn't want it to be thrown into chaos by my death."

"If I show this footage, you'll do just that," Dan said.

"But not with the Crossroads network already in place," Sal said.

"That's right," Gus said, "With that in place and with me out of the way, people will start collaborating with each other, not relying on me to do their thinking of them."

"How do you know people will use Crossroads?" Dan said.

"You'll show them the interview, including my tragic death. They _will_ start using it. If they really looked up to me, they will fulfill a dead man's wish."

"Or, start using it out of respect for the dead," Sal added.

Gus nodded.

"Also, I did this to officially kill off Lester Rudolf. If he's going to die, I wanted to be the one to pull the trigger."

"You have a twisted way of doing things," Dan said.

"I know. Again, I'm sorry I had to use you," Gus said.

Dan cracked a smile and shook his head. He gave Gus a hug, and agreed to show the interview's footage.

"What if someone exposes your secret that you're not really dead?" Dan asked, as he and his crew finished packing up.

"I've experimented on homeless people and smokers. I dropped a satellite on a town. If some hotshot reporter figures out I'm not really dead, that reporter better hope he doesn't wind up as part of a future project."

"Gotcha," Dan said.

* * *

In a secluded cabin on a mountain side, Gus set up another lab. He sat at his computer with his cage of pancakes nearby, and clicked through the latest entries in the Crossroads network. He flagged a few ideas to contribute to later, and commented on a few other conversations.

The camera within the pat of butter watched him type.

"Fred Stouller? Seriously?" Sal asked.

"Yes. With Lester gone, that's my new pseudonym. Why? What's wrong with Fred?" Gus asked.

"Nothing," Sal said. "How long do you think it'll take until someone figures out that's an anagram of Lester Rudolf?"

"I imagine someone will figure that out eventually."

"And, when they do?"

He entered a new idea into the network, and said, "Gus will rise, again."

* * *

Douglas Schwartz _supports his city's motto of "Keep Austin Weird" by writing quirky, offbeat fiction. More of his absurd fiction can be found in his debut novel, 'Checkered Scissors'._

* * * * *

# THE JOY OF SOCKS

### A.L. Butcher

[A World Taken Over] [Contents] [The Colonial Plague]

The imps knew what they wanted from the Bringer of Offerings...

THE ROUND DOOR OF THE MACHINE opened and in once more came the Offerings; many sizes and shapes, but all pale of colour and light of hue and all deliciously filthy. The Bringer of Offerings poured in the Fragrant Powder, but as tiny bulbous red eyes watched and sharp-teethed mouths chuckled the imps knew it would not be sufficient to eradicate the glorious stench they so craved!

Tiny clawed three-fingered hands gripped the edge of the Door of Many Holes. With a push it swung open to reveal the faces which owned the red eyes and the sharp teeth. Water poured in, gleefully the imps squeaked and slid into the pile of Offerings, hands grabbing and pulling to see what had been brought. They were hoping this time there would be the wonderful stench, the pungent odour of the Socks, as the last lot of Offerings had been most disappointing. Imps loved Socks, the taste, the feel of the crispiness of a week-old foot cover. The stinkier it was the more they adored it and craved it. The thought of rolling in such a cheesy, foul stench was what imps lived for.

They rolled and bounced as the water washed over them, seeming to be able to ignore the rushing torrent. The imps sniffed, hoping to find what they sought, yet although the Offerings were indeed rather stinking what the creatures sought was not there. Bright blue tongues licked, tasting the grime and feeding upon the dirt, the stains and the lumps of grease. Hopefully they snorted, they searched with desperation to find only meagre gifts, and most unsatisfactory. The odours of sweat, a myriad of foods and even something much more unsavoury filled pointed noses. Squeaks of displeasure echoed within the Round Cavern. These were not Socks. Such high-pitched squeaks and squeals the Bringer did not hear, as their hearing was so feeble as to hear only the rumble and roar of the Machine.

The chief of the imps, Ikthik, banged a tiny matchstick upon the glass of the Round Door. At once the Machine ceased its rolling and imps slid and swam to sit upon the pile of Offerings, now soaking and foaming. Ears swivelled to listen and all were quiet.

Ikthik grunted, he squeaked and squealed, the matchstick waving wildly. Poking a nearby lump he jumped upon it, angry and despairing. As one, many small heads nodded, mouths grinned eagerly and two large imps scooted backwards towards the Door of Many Holes, dragging it open. From the stash of inferior Offerings, which lingered behind the door, they pulled out a large bright blue pair of boxer shorts. One imp looked at them longingly, it liked those particular items, these ones were particularly disgusting being of the two-weeks between washes variety. It dreamed of such items, of course it reminded itself they were not Socks but still, such treasure should not be sacrificed. Swiftly the imp shook its head, to receive a questioning glance from its companion. The imp shrugged and kicked the underpants away before pointing to a bright red and rather shredded pull-over.

The imps dragged the item through to squeaking cheers and clapping of clawed hands and placed it at the feet of Ikthik with a bow. Slinking away backwards, bowing and scraping, the two imps exchanged the shared glances of a job well done and a secret kept. Ikthik held aloft the item of crimson red with strength surprising in one so tiny. With a joint cry of revenge the imps slithered and slipped back to the Door of Many Holes, disappearing into the darkness as the Machine began to roll and rock once more.

Sometime later the Bringer fetched out the abandoned Offerings, groaning as he held aloft a pink-stained shirt and formerly white underpants now a fetching rose-pink. Grunting he pulled the ruined load from the Machine, his face wearing a look of anger and confusion as the red pullover tumbled out. It was a red pullover he did not even own.

* * *

Alexandra Butcher _is the British author of several short stories, including the mythic 'Tales of Erana'._

* * * * *

# THE COLONIAL PLAGUE

### L.L. Watkin

[The Joy Of Socks] [Contents] [Humanity Was Delicious]

It's been years since Missra was executed and her soul shut away, but being the most powerful magical healer of her generation gets her out of the box occasionally...

COLONISTS CAUGHT SUCH ENTERTAINING DISEASES, whole new spectra of infection developed on the long journey back to civilised medical care. The corpses of those who failed to survive the trip were the most outlandish, but the still-living were interesting enough.

This particular sickness had symptoms of a luminescent green skin tone accompanied by the unmistakable stench of decay. The affected could see, smell and feel their own flesh rotting from their bones, and since they now produced their own light they couldn't even hide in the dark.

Missra could have hidden her glee had she wished too but she made no attempt. Every bursting sore which laid a new layer of pus onto the normally clean white hospital wall, every machine whose hastening beeping presaged heart failure, every sobbing relative brought her grim satisfaction. Nothing had cheered her as much since her death as the sight of her enemies suffering, and the colonists were certainly her enemy. It was a good thing that her ghostly existence was tied to an inanimate object with limited expressiveness, leaving her pleasure noticeable only to experts who saw peculiar light reflections deep within the jewels of her crown prison. Those experts were focussed on the suffering patients, so Missra was left to feel however she pleased.

Before her execution her cages had bars, heavy stone walls and drugs to limit her powers. This new one was more attractive but also more difficult to escape from; she had been trying for a decade to no avail. Neither the freedom of her father's star-dwelling people, nor the ultimate rest of her mother's mortal folk was obtainable. Her only remaining hopes were that a true death would follow naturally in the course of time, or that she would out-exist her jailors and be freed by default.

It was a shame that, unlike her own suffering, the pain of the hated colonists would be brief. As a reward for their bravery in volunteering for placements on off-world colonies in the first place they were guaranteed the very best of care if the worst happened. Which it did frequently; this was the third colony-destroying disaster this year. The very best care still meant Missra, over a decade dead or not; no purely human medical treatment could compare with her power.

Sheania moved through the ward with studied poise, carrying Missra along with her, tied to the crown which she wore in her golden hair. Those who could genuflected manically as she passed, those who could not cowered as much as they were able. In the twenty years since she had seized control of the church Sheania had grown her influence to unstoppable heights. Missra had been her last opponent of any vigour, now reduced to a vague bitter spirit haunting a piece of jewellery. She had heard talk lately of declaring Sheania a goddess in her own right rather than a mere half-human sorceress, and even that might not curb the woman's ambition.

"Do you see what it is?" The high priestess' voice was soft, she did not want to be overheard admitting ignorance. She also did not want to be ignored. The question was layered with magic, compelling a response.

"Don't you?" Missra's reply was sarcastic, and not particularly quiet. "I thought you were all-knowing."

It was petty, and Sheania only rolled her eyes. They both knew that healing was not within her power. The patients were not aware of this shortcoming in their idol, and those within earshot seemed confused.

"We come to offer holy healing," Sheania announced to the room. "We shall lay hands on each of you, and you will be made whole again."

"Oh you and your royal 'we'," Missra grunted. She felt Sheania's power spin her insubstantial form in a whirlwind.

"Don't make me make you," the priestess warned. "You know how it will end. You might as well obey in the first instance."

"I enjoy their suffering." More for spite than feeling, Missra refused to act. "They may as well die. Being dead turns out to not be so bad."

The battle was short. Even in life Missra had little affinity towards imposing her will on others. Sheania was the best there had ever been at getting her own way.

Healing had once brought Missra such satisfaction. She had worked the longest hours possible in the worst districts of the city with no reward but to know lives were spared. She had been born with skills ensuring her wealth and luxury, even if she did nothing with them, so her actions had been for pleasure alone. This was different, these were not the suffering and grateful poor but hard people, fanatical in their devotion to her hated murderer and jailor, willing to leave home and family to take Sheania's message to the stars. As the two women worked their way down one side of the long thin room and then up the other, methodically healing each bed they passed, Missra felt the hardness of these patients sink into her, even as she pushed the sickness out of them.

There seemed an endless supply of sickbeds. By the time Missra had healed the last bed on her round the first had been refilled with a new arrival. Sheania shot a questioning look at the priest attending him.

"How many more?"

"A new vessel has returned, holiness."

He was middle-aged but Missra did not recognise him. He could be from a different city, though his accent was local. Sheania had been moving priests around a lot lately. Missra hardly ever saw the same attendants twice.

"And they are sick as well?"

Frustration coloured Sheania's tone. She needed the colonies to work; under her own restrictions, her new empire did not produce enough food to feed itself. If the colonies failed her people would starve, and she would be powerless to stop it. Yet they did fail, and she knew her own policies made it less likely each would succeed. To counteract this statistic she had seeded dozens at once, waiting for the one which would take root.

"Yes, holiness, all are sick." The priest hesitated. "Those who were not dead. The return journey is particularly long from this site."

"Bring all those who survive to us here."

"I'm not an endless supply!" Missra protested loudly. The priest jumped but ran to give the instruction anyway.

"You will heal until you cannot do more." Sheania moved to lay her hands on the new arrival, and the methodical circuit of the room began again, and again, and again.

Finally, weariness conquered political necessity and Sheania allowed herself to be persuaded to rest. Missra feigned equal exhaustion until the priestess was sleeping. Perhaps she was, after all, an endless supply of power now, without her body to weigh her down.

It was pointless to heal these people. They were being marched directly from the hospital to the ships which would take them to the next identified planet, and they would be moved on each time until they either died or found a new home they could survive in. Once you volunteered there was no coming back home. Maybe this time they'd catch something blue, or bloody, or swift. Maybe they'd be the ones who died on the way back, or maybe she'd see them cross her hands again before the year was out.

The healing was just another of Sheania's political stunts, a bribe to round up more volunteers and a symbol of her ideology and intent. _We reward adventurers now, as long as they are pious in their voyages. We love nature and don't use farming or terraforming techniques. We respect the purity of species so we exile aliens and half-breeds, or burn them._ The memory of flames lit before Missra's eyes at this bitter thought; the smell of her own flesh cooking, fat melting, smoking, Sheania watching through the haze of heat. Hypocrite, the priestess was just as alien as Missra was.

The door opened, allowing a thin ray of light across the room, glinting on Sheania's hair, on the jewels of the crown. Missra blinked away the memory, surprised to find herself looking down at the other woman, farther from the crown than she had thought possible. A teenage boy carried a tray into the dim chamber, set it down beside his mistress.

As he released it Missra noted that his hands were marked with what they now called the "demon sign"; each of his unusually-long fingers carried an extra knuckle. He bore no other signs of his alien heritage, the pollution was probably two, even three generations back now. In her lifetime such heritage would have led to expert schooling and generous benefits. Now it marked him as a slave. He needed to be careful to avoid the flames.

"My fingers were like that. I had more of my father in me than you have, mind; much more." She hardly realised she had spoken aloud until the boy started.

"Who are you?" he whispered, then frowned, eyes darting nervously around the small dim room. "Where are you?"

"To the first, my name is Almissrani Korba, but most people call me Missra because that's a mouthful." Missra grinned, or at least, imagined herself grinning. "To the second, I'm here, obviously. I presume that I inhabit some sort of spirit box which is tied to that crown over there. I haunt it, if you will. I'm no expert on exactly how that was achieved."

"I saw your execution." The boy seemed unnerved by her comments, and he did not offer his own name in response. "My father made us all watch on the television. It looked awful, I'd never seen someone die before." He hesitated briefly. "He said it would be quicker than you deserved, but it wasn't quick at all and he couldn't watch the end. He turned the sound off and picked up his book. I watched until the end."

"Thank you." It seemed the only response. He can only have been five or six years old then, Missra thought. What kind of man makes his pre-school son watch a woman be burned to death? Did he imagine he could cure the boy of his own biology? Did the boy inherit these signs from the mother then? Most likely she would never see the boy again, and never know. "You should obey her, and her followers," her warning was likely unnecessary, but it was all she could offer. "Or you'll end the same way."

"Yes. That was father's point." The boy bowed in the direction of her voice and let himself out, leaving her to her thoughts.

How many of her people had fallen into line behind Sheania? This boy was the first Missra had seen since her death. She had assumed friends, family and colleagues had followed her to the flames, but maybe not. Maybe some had surrendered to the indentured servitude Sheania had offered as an alternative, partially forgiven because they were too valuable to be killed if they were prepared to cooperate. Some may even have been too valuable to be destroyed even if they wouldn't cooperate. Perhaps they had shared her fate and now moved around as spirits tied to various religious icons.

The food which the boy had delivered had turned cold by the time Sheania awoke. Missra spent the intervening time brooding in the darkness, wondering if she had endangered the boy by speaking to him, or been selfish to allow her own need for some companion other than Sheania to overwhelm her caution. The boy didn't need to be attractive, clever, witty or even nice, all he needed to be was not Sheania.

"Are you rested?" Sleep had restored Sheania's self-confidence, together with her arrogant tone.

"Yes." No need to let her know just how little rest Missra had needed.

"Then we begin again."

The new round of patients was little different from the first, except that the delay in application of healing had left them time to develop even more bursting sores and sickly light. The third in line was so far progressed as to be glowing on the inside, causing a laser-like explosion of light whenever she opened her mouth, a green shine which only highlighted that her teeth were clinging precariously to her rotting gums.

"This is the best natural light source I've ever seen," Missra commented dryly as Sheania cupped the woman's contorted face in her hands. "If you could control it you would never need to pollute the atmosphere making artificial light again." It was a pet hate of Sheania's that even in her revolution she could not enforce darkness on the population, but nor could she provide doctrinally-acceptable light sources.

"Be healed," Sheania blessed. Only an angry tightness to her eyes betrayed that she had heard the ghost.

Missra obediently pushed her power out into the woman but withdrew it again hastily.

"Too late," she warned, a split second before the woman's face split from temple to chin, spattering Sheania and all her paraphernalia with small globules of glowing fluid. The heart monitor alongside beat a final rapid tango before stilling, the woman's body falling back with an awkward thud as Sheania recoiled.

"That's new." Missra sensed Sheania's anger at her flippancy and hastily cringed. How fickle she was that a few days' demonstration of her powers being stronger, and her cage less confining than she had thought, could make her so bold. "I mean, I think this one had a second different infection, one which is resistant to my healing."

"Either that, or you are not as rested as you claimed."

Sheania crossly wiped her face clear of gunk before explaining to the distraught priests that she had been just too late this time. Missra decided not to tell her that the pus was surely infectious. She would figure it out soon enough. It would be amusing to see.

The remaining patients were not as troublesome, allowing Missra time to notice that several family members, visitors and hospital staff were showing early signs of the same infection. Now she looked she could see it clearly, but they seemed oblivious themselves. Outwardly healthy, they walked out through the unguarded doors into the city. A new shift of nurses was arriving with the infection already causing them some discomfort. They must have been infected yesterday, or was it the day before?

Missra realised with a start that with this degree of infectiousness, some of those she had healed already would have been re-infected before they got out of the building, just from associating with the staff or visitors. Unless her healing gave them some temporary immunity they would have carried themselves off onto their new ships towards new colonies, taking their sickness with them. At least they wouldn't have such a long journey back once it was noticed.

"I wonder if anyone survives without my healing."

"Few," Sheania acknowledged grumpily. "But I think we're on top of it now."

Missra held her peace. The worst was barely started. One healer was never going to get on top of this. She pushed her healing power into one patient after another regardless, drops in the ocean by now. By the time they had circled the room again, the priestess was sure they had healed all the afflicted and announced her intention to return to her chambers across the city to rest.

"This is ruined." Sheania's voice was weary as she scrubbed pointlessly at the drying stains which spoiled her rich silk robes.

"Just think how many innocent worms lost their lives creating your glorious outfit, only for you to destroy it on its first outing." Missra couldn't help but jump in. Sheania's hypocrisy was never displayed as clearly as in her fondness for fine fabric.

"It's linen," Sheania lied, waving off the criticism. Though tired, she did not appear sickened. It would be typical of Missra's luck if the woman's alien heritage gave her, and her alone, immunity. They might then be left spending all eternity with only each other to talk to.

Missra had travelled this route from the hospital to the temple many times in her lifetime; it had been a daily journey in the early days of her career. It had taken less than an hour then, but under Sheania's pollution restriction policies the road was hopelessly congested and the journey took three times as long. New vehicles were pegged to slower speeds, which paradoxically had led to them being cheaper to produce. There were so many more vehicles around that Missra doubted the overall effectiveness of the policy.

She was startled at how few buildings she recognised along the way. Everywhere there were building sites or towering apartment blocks where familiar landmarks had once stood. The city was made over anew in Sheania's image.

"If we cannot colonise then we shall have to introduce breeding restrictions," Sheania admitted softly, gazing unhappily out at the gridlocked traffic and overbuilt surroundings. "It is the only other way to match our needs to what the planet can safely supply."

The big cull coming up in the next few months will help the overpopulation substantially, Missra thought sourly. "You could always kill off anyone who is particularly resource indulgent," she said.

"I already have, as you well know."

"Only the ones who disagreed with you."

"And then the ones who refused to give up their lands. And then the ones who broke the law. And then the ones who needed more than the state could provide. And then, and then, and then." Sheania sighed deeply as they pulled in to the temple in gathering darkness. She alighted the vehicle and crossed the small courtyard to enter her home by a small side door. "Had I known in my youth the amount of blood which would be needed to wash away our sins and leave us here, so close to a new beginning, I might have baulked at the task."

"You fool yourself," Missra snorted. "It was perfectly clear at the start how much blood would flow and many people, myself included, told you so. You swore then to bleed and burn your way through the human population until they learned to live in harmony. Then you did it, for more than twenty years now."

Sheania lifted the crown from her head and placed it in its resting place. "More than twenty years," she repeated, looking her age for the first time in Missra's memory. "Oh yes, much more than twenty. Sleep well old friend."

She closed the doors to the cabinet, cutting off Missra's offended shriek, denying any friendship between them.

At the best of times it was boring to sit in the dark inside the cabinet, and now Missra chafed to know what was going on outside it was even worse. She listened for any little noise outside, but there was none, few had cause to pass by here. She found it impossible to judge time without ever being weary, hungry or thirsty, without seeing her nails or hair growing, or her ribs beginning to show from starvation. All signs she had used to count the days of her imprisonment while still alive, but useless now. Alone with her thoughts it could be weeks that passed before Sheania came back. Or years.

"I am missing time." The soft sound of her whisper echoed in the confined space. "It has been much more than twenty years since Sheania rose to power, much more than ten since my death. She does not take me out as often as I had thought."

When said aloud it seemed just common sense. How else could she be so constantly amazed at the speed of the changes Sheania wrought? The population had exploded to the point of desperation. Not only were there spaceships, but real projects to site colonies on other worlds. The whole city had been rebuilt.

"Yet I am still here." No normal haunting would last more than a decade. Missra had been holding onto the hope still that this natural deadline could free her, but clearly it could not. "I'm getting stronger with time, not weaker." The thought was little comfort.

It was the boy from the hospital who opened the cabinet. He looked unchanged, the same expression of practiced indifference, the same poorly-concealed pimples.

"How long has it been?" In future this will be the first question I always ask, Missra promised herself.

"Eight days. You are needed again." The boy reached gingerly to pick the crown up in his slender fingers and carried it deeper into the house.

"Why didn't Sheania come to get me herself?" Missra saw him wince as she said the name. "It's not done to use her name anymore is it?"

"Addressing the living goddess by her name can lead you to uncomfortably warm places," he confirmed.

"Ah. How long has that been going on?"

"The burnings? Yours was the first, just over a century ago." Missra winced but the boy just shrugged. This was a fact of life to him. "It's just population control nowadays. They do a dozen a day in the central square."

"It must be hard not to fall foul of one rule or another."

"Volunteer to go off world. They never burn colonists, or the families they leave behind." The boy lowered his voice as they approached the main apartments. "I shouldn't talk to you, you make me careless."

"Not intentionally." Missra's reply was a white lie. She didn't force him to speak but would if she needed to. Nearly a century ago? That would make Sheania nearly a hundred and fifty years old, and still looking thirty. No wonder they called her a living goddess.

There was a smell in the air here; familiar, a mix of disinfectant and stale sweat. The smell of sickness. Sheania was lying in state on a couch in her main audience chamber. She was alone and looked irritable. It was a bit difficult to tell through the green glow and lumpy pustules which overlaid her expression.

"You're very slow," she snapped at the boy, who simply bowed and put the crown down within her reach.

"You look dreadful." Missra made no attempt to conceal her pleasure. In fact, she added extra smugness for good measure.

"You knew," Sheania accused her. "You knew it was infectious, you had to have known." Her angry words broke off into hoarse coughing. The phlegm she spat sparkled in mixed green and red droplets which she stared at in horror. The disease was in her lungs.

Missra didn't deny her knowledge but spoke to the boy instead. "You should stay well back. You haven't got it yet and you don't want it."

He scampered swiftly backwards and stood as far away as he could without leaving the room. Sheania glared at him malevolently and he looked everywhere but at her.

"Get on with it then," she snapped.

"No, I don't think so."

"Don't make me..." The threat was interrupted by another fit of coughing.

"You can't make me." Missra pointed out the obvious. "And it's about time you let go anyway. How did you keep me here a century?"

"Talkative, is he?" Sheania deflected the question.

"Only to charming ghosts I'm sure. Answer the question."

"You will stay as long as I wish it."

"Good. We'll both be at peace soon then." Sheania just laughed spitefully, her cunning eyes narrowed. Missra sighed. "Don't tell me, 'death is only the beginning'."

"The old spells are the best."

Sheania surrendered enough to gurgle lengthily as the pustules in her lungs burst to flood them with fluid. Otherwise her death was anticlimactic. She returned almost immediately as a perfect, if slightly translucent, copy of her young self, standing just to the side of her own corpse and looking down at it disinterestedly. Behind Missra the boy dropped to his knees in helpless awe, but his goddess ignored him.

"I have centuries of work ahead of me to keep these people in line. Those of them that survive the plague you nicely failed to warn me of. And you, oldest friend, will continue to do exactly what I need of you for as long as I need you."

There was no escape.

* * *

L.L. Watkin _is the pen name for writing partnership Liz and Louise Smith. 'The Colonial Plague' is set in the same world as their two novel series 'Leviathan' and 'The Handmaiden'._

* * * * *

# HUMANITY WAS DELICIOUS

### Ubiquitous Bubba

[The Colonial Plague] [Contents] [My Last Day]

Imagine you were the werewolf who ate the last human. What will you eat now? More importantly, how are you going to get off this alien ship?

HUMANITY WAS DELICIOUS. I mean, they were drool-inducing, stomach-growling, and lip-smacking good. Some days, I almost wish I hadn't eaten the last one.

Scowling, I sat on the bench swing on the porch, sipped my coffee and gazed out at the woods behind my house. Something uneasy twisted and fretted in the marrow of my bones. My muscles twitched and the hair on my arms stood on end. A light breeze slid over the hills, slinking between the trees and tiptoeing across the yard. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The scents untangled and paraded across my brain. The Puget Sound's mild aroma fainted to the background. Among the overwhelming pine fragrance, I picked up traces of deer, bears, squirrels, chipmunks, and other pseudo-animals. If I really worked at it, I could ignore the stench of the werepigs next door.

I hate werepigs. They're obnoxious, arrogant, and they taste terrible. To be fair, all were-folk have one thing in common. Our flavor is absolutely horrible. I mean, you have to be starving to eat another were-person.

That's the problem, of course. We're starving. I ignored my stomach spasms and sipped my coffee. I fought the urge to slip into my wolf form and help myself to my "other white meat" neighbors. A werewolf has to have some self-respect, you know.

I slapped at the back of my neck. "Knock it off, Karl," I snarled. A mosquito flew to my side and shifted. The swing rocked as a human-shaped form landed.

Karl grinned. "You should have seen your face, dude." I shrugged. He always said that. I pointed at the extra mug of coffee on the patio table and he scooped it up eagerly. He closed his eyes and inhaled the steaming drink. "Man, I can't remember the last time I had some of this stuff!"

"It was yesterday, Karl. We do this every morning." I tossed a towel over his bare legs. Modesty was not a common quality in most were-creatures.

"I can't remember that far back," Karl said, just before burning his mouth.

"I know what you mean," I answered. It wasn't Karl's fault. Were'squitos aren't known for their memory. "I don't understand time, myself," I added.

A heavy clawed paw sprang to my throat. I brushed it aside. "I keep telling you, Jane," I said. "You're not as stealthy as you think you are. I picked up your scent earlier."

In spite of the fact that I knew who was behind me, my hackles sprang up when the werecougar hissed. I stifled the instinct to leap into my wolf shape and pretended to calmly sip my coffee. Jane and I enjoyed an uneasy truce. More accurately, we tolerated each other. Today, the tension twitched like a steel spring. With a creaking groan, she turned into her human form.

"You know I like to play with my food." She slipped into a robe, poured a cup of tea and eased into a plastic chair on the other side of the patio table. My eyes narrowed. I always felt on edge around her, watching for the inevitable pounce. "What's this nonsense about not understanding time?" she asked.

Karl burned his mouth again. I sighed. "I was trying to remember it again."

Jane frowned and stared into her tea. "We've talked about this. It's gone and we can't go back."

"I know," I protested. "I've been doing this for a long time. I'm just... just having trouble knowing how long it's been."

Karl sipped his coffee without burning himself, set his mug down, and fist-pumped enthusiastically. Jane stared vacantly at the trees. The three of us sat in silence for several minutes, feeling the breeze and ignoring the werepigs.

"You were taken decades before me," she said at last. "Did you count the winters?" I shook my head. "Why does it matter to you?" she groaned.

"Do you remember when we were human?" I asked softly. "Humans were so worried about time. They wore it on their arms, marked its passing on walls, and wasted their lives watching it slip away. I don't know why they did."

Jane sipped her tea and glared over her cup.

"I used to know, at any moment, the exact time of day," I continued. "Now, I only mark the coming of night, the time of the hunt, and the vague awareness of the change of seasons."

"So?" Jane scowled. "What else matters?"

I stood and walked to the edge of my deck. "Come over here and look that way," I said, pointing between a pair of firs. She stalked to my side and peered into the distance. "See?" I asked. "You can see a little of what's left of Seattle."

"I know what Seattle looks like," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's a bombed-out desert. Humans levelled the place in the last war."

I waved away her comment. "That's not it." I rubbed my eyes as I gathered my thoughts. "The ruins are old." She blinked, not getting the point. "Very old," I added. "Okay, let's try looking at this differently. When was the last time you heard of anyone seeing a natural animal anywhere in the world?"

Jane's frown deepened. "There could be real animals somewhere," she protested weakly.

"Really?" I barked. "Really? They were either eaten by weres or slaughtered by humans during the war."

Silence smoldered in her eyes. A faint growl lurked behind her sneer. "We had no choice," she hissed.

I willed my muscles to relax and sipped my coffee. It was an old argument with no resolution.

"Is anyone else hungry?" asked Karl, shattering the foul mood before it could ignite. "Hey, Loner, what's for breakfast?"

_Loner_. That's me, of course. I don't remember my original name. Some of us have forgotten ourselves. Over the years, I've had a variety of names. When I left the pack near the end of the war, they called me Loner. That's been my name for several decades.

That's typical for older were-creatures. We heal quickly and we don't age like humans. We won't die of old age. At least, we won't while there are so many more colorful ways to go. Fingers snapped in my face, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Hello?" Jane called. "Do you have any food?"

I sighed and pointed to my house. "I've got a weresquirrel and a shank of weredeer in the kitchen. Help yourselves."

"Dibs on the weredeer!" shrieked Jane, running madly for the kitchen door.

Karl shifted and flew after her. I shuddered and gulped down my coffee. That particular weredeer had an especially vile flavor.

A stick flew over the fence and landed on my deck. "Fetch the stick!" taunted one of my porcine neighbors. They laughed and hurled debris into my yard.

"I hate werepigs," I muttered. Reaching under the patio table, I pulled out the shotgun. There's nothing quite like the sound of a double-barreled shotgun cocking to get attention. I waited until the porkers had fled indoors, and then returned the gun to its hiding place.

Irritated and impatient, I paced aimlessly around the deck. The sense of anxiety I'd felt all morning intensified. I glanced at the kitchen. Those two would eat until there was nothing left and then Jane would force Karl to clean up the mess. My restlessness spread out to the hairs on my arms. My bickering companions might be blissfully unaware, but my skin crawled, as if it knew that everything was about to change.

* * *

A dull, insistent low moan wandered aimlessly through the trees. My ears twitched, struggling to locate it before it faded away. With a clang, it rose again, stomping down the grass. The sound had a name, if only I could remember it. I snatched my shotgun from under the patio table. I might not recall what we called the noise, but I knew a warning when I heard one. The last time I heard this particular alarm, I became an unwilling celebrity.

_Bell..._ That's the name. I closed my eyes to focus on the memory. The huge bell in the town square... No one ever rang that bell unless they had a very good reason. It rang when the mushroom cloud dwarfed Seattle. It clamored when humans burned the mountains bare. It reverberated in my soul when I was declared a pariah.

"Do you hear that, Loner?" asked Karl from the doorway.

"Of course he heard it, moron." Jane glared at the were'squito. "Everyone heard it. The question is what are we going to do about it?" Before I could respond to her, a distant howl wafted across the morning. Several discordant cries echoed their reply. "The pack will be there."

I pulled out a pair of bricks from a short wall. I dug around in the gap until my hand closed on a small box.

"They won't need me, then," I said as I pulled out the case. I flicked it open and picked up a handful of shotgun shells. "You guys should go, though. It's bound to be important." Stuffing the ammo in the pocket of my robe, I sniffed the air. "I think you'd better hurry," I added, nodding to my neighbor's house. A loud squeal rang out as a pink Hummer raced across my front lawn.

Jane growled in disgust. "I hate werepigs," she spat. I nodded. It was a common sentiment.

I turned to head inside, but Karl caught my arm. "We should all go," he said. "It's been thirty-seven years since they rang the bell. I think most people have gotten over you by now."

Jane choked on a laugh. I glared at Karl. "Gotten over me?" I argued. "I don't think so."

"They gave you a shiny medal," Jane protested. "Even Dale had to roll on his back and offer you his throat." She bit one nail absently. "I still say you should have taken it."

"The medal?"

"Yeah," she answered. "That, too."

"Since you remember that so well," I protested as they led me to my garage. "I'm sure you also remember that I was named Public Enemy Number One and the pack put a bounty on my head."

"Brittany Ann was so mad at you," laughed Jane. "I thought we were finally going to see her shift. I've always wondered what sort of were-creature she was. You know, don't you?"

I shook my head. "Everyone is afraid to find out what she is. If there was such a thing as a weredragon, she'd be a mean one."

"Well, she looked like she was about to eat you in one bite," Jane continued. "How did she catch you, anyway?"

"I don't know how anyone found out about the bunker," I said as I climbed into my pickup. "I mean, no one else was there." Karl coughed and looked away.

"Shut up and drive. I don't want to miss anything." Jane snatched a pair of shades from the dashboard and grinned. "This ought to be good."

I groaned and put the truck in gear. "Why am I listening to a cat and a mosquito?"

"Hush. It's one of your few qualities. Right, Karl?"

Karl nodded. "It's worth noting that before your unfortunate award ceremony, it had been seventy-eight years since the bell warned us of napalm in the forest. That was roughly five hundred and sixty-two years after the bombing of Seattle."

"You can't remember yesterday," I growled. "How can you remember that?"

"Remember what?"

I grimaced and swerved around a sinkhole. Jane laughed. "You guys make me feel young."

Karl frowned. "I don't know why. You turned two hundred and eighty-three last month." Jane slapped him half-heartedly, and I felt my mood lift for a moment.

"I told you to stop counting after a hundred and ninety-seven," she snapped. "Isn't there a 'no math in the truck' rule?"

I nodded. "She's got you there, Karl."

He sighed and closed his eyes. "It's all I've got left. So much lost... So very much lost..."

* * *

Vehicles cluttered the lawn in front of the courthouse steps. I backed into an open space near the edge of the crowd. Given my history, I needed a good escape route or two. I stowed the shotgun and my spare shells behind the seat. If things went south out there and I had to shift suddenly, I didn't want to provide an enemy with a loaded weapon. "Can we go now?" whined Jane.

"Oh, all right. Let's go. Come on, Karl."

We followed a herd of weregoats through the crowd. They climbed over the hood of a Jeep, trotted around a fresh carcass on the grass, and ducked behind a heavily-bearded muscle-bound barrel-chested man with a shiny badge pinned to his flannel shirt. The werebears were working security again. This one slapped a nightstick across my chest.

"What are you doing here, Loner? No one wants to see you."

Jane snickered.

"Are you sure? I had a dream that everyone wanted me to come." I paused. "No, wait." I waved the thought away. "That wasn't it." The security guard grinned in anticipation. "They wanted to watch me shove that stick down your throat." His upper lip curled. "Sideways," I added. He growled, nostrils flaring.

"I see you're making friends again," breathed a familiar voice behind my ear.

"Hey, Dale," I said without looking over my shoulder. "Have you met Thag?" I motioned to the guard.

The nightstick landed on my shoulder. "Not here," hissed the guard. "You pups can tear each other apart later, but not yet." He leaned in close so we could enjoy the stench of weresalmon on his breath. "I get the winner."

A squeal of feedback from the courthouse steps cut short our exchange of pleasantries. An elderly man at the podium tapped the microphone a few times to make sure it was on, and then shifted into a lion. A deafening roar exploded out of the speakers scattered around the square. The werelion stepped away from the podium and glared at the crowd.

"Thank you, Leon," yipped a high voice. A hand reached up to the microphone and bent it down. "I think we have their attention now." A small girl climbed a stool to peer over the top of the podium. "Hello, weres!" she called with a wave at the crowd. "As most of you know, I'm Brittany Ann and I'm in charge here. Any questions so far?" She glared at her subjects, daring any to respond.

"Good!" she smiled. "I'll get right to the point. Early this morning, our scouts around Seattle reported a sighting." The crowd's sudden gasp gave voice to my skin's crawling. "They haven't been seen in hundreds of years, but we have confirmed reports from multiple sources," Brittany Ann continued. "We don't know why they came back since there are no humans left for them to take."

"Thank you, Loner," snarled a werepig in the distance.

"Silence!" screamed our fearless leader. She twirled blond hair around one finger and scowled. Leon stepped forward and stared down at tight-lipped faces. Hearing no response, Brittany Ann's eyes brightened and she patted Leon's side. "As I was saying, we don't know why they've returned or what they want. All we know is that one of their ships flew low over Seattle, and then raced away towards the Pacific."

Frantic whispering leapt across the square. Brittany Ann rolled her eyes, tapped one foot and waited. My skin crawled in anticipation.

"Time to go," I whispered.

Leon roared and everyone froze.

"So," Brittany Ann said with a hair flip. "Now you know why I rang the bell."

"Now," I hissed. I turned and Thag's massive hand gripped my neck. Dale sneered and snapped his fingers. Werewolves slid into formation around me.

"Stay," he growled.

"Anyone who wants to be taken can leave now," called Brittany Ann. "Everyone knows that they always prey on loners and outcasts. We're safe in large numbers."

"She said I could go," I protested.

Dale's face split into a grin. "Not you, Loner. We have unfinished business." He jabbed me in the chest with each syllable. His eyes narrowed. "You ate my food."

"Is that right?" I asked. "Are you sure it was yours? I mean, I didn't think you wanted it anymore after you and what was left of your pack ran away like scared Chihuahuas."

Karl snorted and stifled a grin.

"Watch it!" growled Dale.

"Yipping, whiny little babies," I added.

A nightstick cracked Dale's nose. "Down," ordered Thag. "Be quiet."

"Loner?" Brittany Ann's voice froze my blood. She sounded close. "I know you weren't trying to leave." By the look on Jane's face, it was obvious that Her Royal Highness was right behind me.

"Well, you're a busy person," I started.

"Of all the were-creatures here, I would have thought you would be the most curious about the news." Her sickeningly syrupy voice could only mean I was in deep trouble. "After all, you're one of the oldest weres still alive." People shifted to make room for her as she paraded out from behind my back. "Do you know what people say about you?"

"Oh, you know how it is with the masses. You can't trust anything they say."

"They say that no were turned you. They say that you were stolen." She paced in front of me. "Rumor has it that a ship snatched you up and changed you." Brittany Ann motioned to the guard. He kicked the back of my knees and forced me down to her level. "Legend says that the kidnapped ones came back and either turned or ate the rest of us. Is that what you did, Loner?"

"I wouldn't put too much stock in legends, Brit." A cold breeze crept from her face and slapped at my eyes. "What does it matter?"

A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. _Oh, that's not good_ , I thought.

"That wasn't enough for you, though, was it? Oh, no! You hunted and ate the last human being in the world." She pressed her face up to mine. "The Last One!" she shrieked. Everyone else took three large steps away from me. "We are starving now," she snarled. "The entire world is starving thanks to you."

"He wasn't that big. I don't think there would have been enough for everyone." Her smile faded and Jane ducked behind Karl. "Come on, Brit," I cajoled. "We've been over this a dozen times. None of you were there. I would have shared if everyone else hadn't run away." Dale bristled. "Besides, I brought back a bone."

"You were caught burying it in your backyard," protested Brittany Ann.

"Have you met my neighbors?" I asked. "They're werepigs, you know. Besides," I continued, "we both know that's not why you wanted me to stay." Her eyes flicked towards the sky. "I've told you this several times. I don't remember being abducted."

"It's hard to remember something that happened seven hundred and twenty-three years ago," Karl interrupted.

The royal glare slid to his smiling face. Brittany Ann's left eyebrow arched. Jane held her breath.

"Karl," I barked. "Stop fooling around. You can't remember what happened five minutes ago." I caught Brittany Ann's eyes. "He's a were'squito," I explained with a shrug. "You know how they are. Besides, we have bigger issues right now." I paused to collect my thoughts. "The ships are back for a reason. They always want something. When they find it, they take it. The best survival strategy is to avoid being found. We have to go now."

"So, you slink off into the woods and let them take the rest of us," she hissed. "I can see why you like that option."

"They only take what they want. If they aren't looking for you, they won't bother you." I paused as Leon growled softly. "If you are on their list, then you need to take cover. Since there's no way to know who or what they want to grab, the smart move is to disappear and wait them out."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane ease her way towards the far edge of the crowd. _Good. At least she'll get away_ , I thought.

Brittany Ann paced back and forth in front of me. She sighed, closed her eyes and held up one finger. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth for a moment. Her eyelids slid up halfway and she blew aside a wisp of blond hair.

"Let's put that to the test, shall we? I think we will all stay here and see what happens." She nodded to Thag and he shoved me down. I rolled on my back as a choke collar slipped over my head and chains wrapped around my limbs. "Chain the mutt to the statue," she ordered. "He's not going anywhere."

I shifted in an instant. One advantage in being a very old werewolf is that we shift faster and easier. Practice makes perfect, you know. Chains which had tightly bound my human arms and legs slid from my slender canine form. The collar jerked tight and I yanked against the pull. With a growl, I circled Brittany Ann, wrapping my leash around her legs. She fell and the slow-witted guard dropped his end of the lead. I quickly pawed the collar over my ears and sprang backwards, free at last.

Dale and the rest of the werewolf pack shifted, snarling and growling. I caught Dale in mid shift, flipped him on his back, and bit down on his throat until I tasted blood. The flavor was hideous.

He whined while the pack yipped in confusion. Brittany Ann staggered to her feet and then scrambled up on the werelion's back.

"Loner," she snapped. "Now you've done it. You dare to defy me? I am your worst nightmare!"

A large shape blotted out the sun. I dropped Dale's throat and shifted to human form to get a better look.

"No," I said pointing upwards. "You're not."

* * *

My head ached. I know that sounds insignificant, but that was the only thought I could manage at first. One eye forced its way open and tried to convince the other that this was a good idea. It wasn't.

I groaned and pushed myself up to kneel on the cold rubbery floor. Prone bodies sprawled all around me. A constant low-pitched droning rumble resonated in my bones. I didn't have to wonder about my surroundings, because I remembered it all too well. Roughly the size of an airplane hangar, the dimly-lit room oozed a swirling purple mist. The walls and floor felt like soft, springy rubber and smelled faintly of ammonia. The space appeared empty, but I was not deceived. I knew I wouldn't have much time before the others started to revive. The more someone has been taken, the quicker they awaken. This was not my first ride.

I stumbled over a few bodies to grab my clothes. It may seem trivial given the circumstances, but my jeans and flannel shirt felt like a suit of armor. I threw them on and stepped quietly through the purple fog towards the edge of the crowd. I stopped when I got to Jane. She hadn't gotten away after all.

Groans escaped from raw throats around the room. I shook Jane hard.

"Wake up fast," I said. "Now." She moaned and cracked an eye open. "Trouble," I said.

She rolled into a crouch. "Karl?" she whispered.

"I don't know. I didn't see him." Something bit the back of my neck. I slapped at it. To my right, Karl shifted into human form with a smile. "Will you please stop that?" I snapped. "Do you have any idea how irritating that is? Also, would it kill you to grab some pants?"

Karl snagged a pair of sweats, probably dropped by another werewolf, and slipped them on.

"We're back," he sighed. "Do we have a view this time?"

"Hush," I snapped. "We need to fade into the background."

"Where are we?" whispered Jane. "What's going on?"

I turned to meet her gaze. "We've been taken."

She whipped her head around to examine her surroundings. "How do you know?"

I pointed at Karl. "It's not exactly our maiden voyage."

Her eyes narrowed. "Didn't you say you couldn't remember?"

"I didn't at first. After a few rides, some things got easier to recall."

"How many times have you done this?" she whispered.

"A few."

"Seven," Karl said. "This is your seventh time."

"Thanks, Karl," I sighed. "Now tell her your number."

"Sixty-three."

Jane's mouth gaped. "He seeks them out, catches a ride when they are taking someone else," I explained. "They don't realize they picked up an extra mosquito until he's on board. Karl's been picked up so often, he's filled in the gaps in my memory."

Across the room, a groan crawled out of a stirring body.

"We don't have much time," I whispered. "They're going to wake up and we need to avoid a fight. It's very important that we appear human to our hosts."

"Over here," called Karl. "I found one."

"One what?" asked Jane, stumbling in his direction.

"There are invisible walls scattered around the room," I said. "If you know where they are, you can slip behind one and use it like a shield." I walked forward with my arms outstretched. "Here it is." I knocked lightly on the surface. My hands ran along the wall until I found the edge. "This way." I led Jane and Karl around the barrier. "We can stay here for now."

"Loner. Find Loner." Brittany Ann's voice sent chills down my spine. "Somebody find that werewolf and bring him to me."

"I get to kill him," croaked a raspy voice.

"Oh look," I whispered. "Dale is awake."

"That's twice now you've let him go," Jane chided. "You really need to work on that."

"You will do as you're told," Brittany Ann scolded Dale. "You've got a little something on your neck," she said in a syrupy lilt that would freeze bone marrow. "Be glad you still have one."

A blindingly-bright image sprang to life across one wall. An oblong face appeared, pale and inhuman, peering through the haze with huge black eyes. Silence fell as we stared. The head was huge in proportion to its stick-thin neck.

"Meep. Meep meep meep," it said.

I clamped on hand over Karl's mouth. "Hush."

"Meep meep."

Karl shook free. "He's asking if the pest is back."

"How do you know?" asked Jane.

"He speaks Meep," I explained. I shrugged at her next unspoken question. "I know. Everything they say just sounds like that to me, too. I can't make any sense of it. We just started calling them Meeps for lack of a better word."

She nodded at Karl. "The pest?"

Karl grinned and raised one thumb in reply. "Here I am," he called out.

I groaned as all eyes fell on us. "We were hiding," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot."

"Meep! Meep meep meep meep meep."

The image vanished and my eyes struggled to adapt to the dim light.

"Loner!" yelled Dale. He charged at me, shoving people out of the way.

"How's the throat?" I asked. He screamed and lunged, hurling himself at his target. His face bounced off of the invisible wall with a deeply satisfying smack. He rebounded and landed flat on his back. "I bet that hurt," I said in mock sympathy. He responded with a soft whimper.

"What have you done?" asked Brittany Ann, stepping lightly through the crowd. "You have much to answer for, wolf."

"Hang on, Brit." I held my hands up, protesting my innocence. "I'm not responsible for his face."

"I'm not talking about the stupid dog," she answered. "You betrayed us to the Meeps."

"What? That's crazy talk. I told you we weren't safe in town. I said that we needed to run. Besides, they picked me up with you."

She placed one hand on the invisible wall between us. "And yet," she mused. "You aren't really with us after all."

"What? Are you talking about this thing?" I asked, tapping on the wall. "I just found it here. I thought it might come in handy. I do find it interesting, though, that you have a name for our kidnappers."

She smiled as she ran her fingers along the wall's surface. "I think we can stop pretending that you don't remember being here now, don't you?"

I looked around, as if studying my surroundings for the first time. "I don't know if this is the same ship."

"I've been on this one twenty-seven times," offered Karl in a helpful tone. "You've been here twice before, Loner."

"Thanks again, Karl."

"They'll probably gas us again once they realize that none of us are human," he said.

I groaned. "That's supposed to be a secret, remember?"

"I love secrets," Karl grinned. "I really enjoyed the one where we used the tracking system on a ship to find a bunker and then teleported ourselves inside it. That was a great secret."

All eyes burned into me. "What?" hissed Brittany Ann. "You teleported to a bunker? Is that how you found the last human? Is that how you got him? You used a Meep ship to hunt?"

"Karl, we're going to need to have a long talk about secrets," I said.

"That's cheating!" yelled Dale. "We had that bunker surrounded and you stole our prey."

"You were swinging in a net twenty feet off of the ground and sobbing like a scared puppy," I sneered. "As soon as you got free, you ran away with your tail between your legs." I turned to the crowd and added, "I have him on video if anyone wants to see."

"That's enough," Brittany Ann said. Leon growled in Dale's ear. "Let's back up a bit, shall we? You used something on the ship. How did you do that?"

"Karl, keep quiet and let me explain it," I said.

"No." She pointed at the were'squito. "I'd like to hear this from Karl."

"Hear what?" he asked.

She frowned and tapped one foot. "How did you use the ship to teleport?"

"Loner released me from a pod and I used the ship's computer," he said with a smile.

"What is a pod?"

"Oh, right," Karl said. "You probably don't remember that. Most people don't. After they knock you out, they put you in something we called a pod to experiment on you."

"Experiment?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Loner happened to wake up as they were putting him in his pod and they ran away. It might have had something to do with the fact that he shifted into a wolf right in front of them." Karl bobbed his head in time to a rhythm only he could hear.

"They just ran away?" Brittany Ann asked. "Why didn't they just shoot him or something?"

Dale snickered.

"They never come in the room if we're awake," Karl answered. "They always knock us out first. I think he surprised them. Anyway, he opened my pod and woke me up. The door to the room was locked. Fortunately for us, the security system utilized voice commands. I ordered the door to open and we left. We wandered around for a while until we found the teleporter."

"Can you do it again right now? Can you send us back home?"

"Of course not!" Karl exclaimed. "The console we used is in another room."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "If we go to that room, can you do it again?"

"Oh, sure. It's pretty easy. You just follow the on-screen prompts and it walks you through the process."

"You read Meep, too?"

I groaned. _So much for our tactical advantage_ , I thought. "Okay, Brit," I said. "Yes, he understands their language. Don't ask me how. He can't remember this morning, but he can recall dates and an alien language. That's why we are the best chance all of you have of getting off this ship in one piece."

"I can see why we need Karl," she said with a toothy grin. "You look less valuable by the minute."

"That's because you don't know what's coming next."

"You do?"

"How long can you hold your breath?"

Brittany Ann's smile grew disturbingly wider. "I think you'd be surprised," she said.

Jane's fingers tightened on my arm, pulling me back from the terrifying twinkle in the young girl's eyes. The crowd eased away, not daring to breathe. Words failed me. Her gaze held me still and I thought I felt a trap closing.

She never blinked as she shifted, dropping to the floor. Her head widened and stretched. Armored scales covered her body. A massive tail lashed out, knocking terrified weres off of their feet. She slowly opened her mouth and bared her teeth.

"A werecroc!" gasped Jane. "She's a werecroc!"

"Well, I guessed weredragon, so I was close," I said. "I'm just glad she's on the other side of that wall. The bad thing is, now they know she's not human."

The purple fog thickened and rolled down from the ceiling. Thag fell on his face. Brittany Ann snapped her massive jaws at the invisible barrier between us, but could not break through. I pulled Jane and Karl down with me.

"Lay down so you don't hurt yourself when you pass out," I told them.

Inches away, Brittany Ann's cold amphibian gaze held my eyes. Neither of us blinked as the fog flowed around us. My last conscious thought was, _I hope I wake up before she does_.

* * *

"Meep meep, meep. Meep. Meep." I held still, willing my breathing to slow and resisting the urge to open my eyes. The voice moved a few feet away. "Meep, meep meep meep meep."

Cautiously, I cracked one eye open. Meeps wandered between the pods. I flexed my arms and felt the restraints at my wrists tighten. I tried my legs and discovered that my ankles were bound as well. A belt tightened across my forehead. A blue light flashed above me and the door to my pod hissed shut.

"Meep! Meep meep meep meep, meep." Three of the big-headed aliens peered into my pod. All pretense of unconsciousness gone, I struggled to break free. "Meep, meep."

I wasn't sure, but I thought they were laughing. A needle jabbed into the back of my neck and I fought the rising panic. The Meeps moved on to the next pod, leaving me to battle in vain against my bonds.

I shifted and howled in agony. While the arm and leg cuffs felt looser on my lupine legs, they held my limbs straight. I kicked my hind legs free and breathed easier. Wriggling my shoulders, I pulled my forelegs out of the wrist restraints. Shifting back into human form, I jerked the strap from my forehead, yanked free of the needle in my neck, and lunged at the door. The pod turned blue and a familiar purple haze descended over my eyes. I curled up as much as I could at the foot of the pod to avoid it as long as possible. Consciousness slipped sideways and I felt my muscles relax just as the pod door opened.

"Hey, Loner." I stared at Karl's feet for a moment. "What are you doing in there?" I groaned and rolled out onto the cold floor. "I wonder if they have any coffee around here," Karl mused. "I haven't had coffee in years."

"It was this morning," I croaked, shaking my head. "Where are the Meeps?"

"I can't tell you. It's part of the game."

"Karl, I am not in the mood. I'm serious."

"So are they. They're totally committed to it."

I sighed and pulled my clothes on. "Okay, what's the game?"

"It's like hide and seek," Karl answered. "If you find them, they run away."

"What happens if they find us?"

"Purple fog."

"Got it. Let's open some of these pods. We can use them to create a diversion while we look for a way off of this ship."

"That seems like cheating. I'm not sure that's in the rules."

"I just added it to the rulebook, Karl."

"Oh, alright." Karl smiled. "I didn't know we could do that."

I ran my hands over a pod door, searching for a release. "How did you open my pod?"

"I told the computer to do it."

"Voice commands, right?" I nodded. This might be easier than I had thought. "Can you tell the computer to open the other pods?"

"Sure." Karl rocked back and forth on his heels, humming softly. He grinned at me and bobbed his head.

"I meant, would you do it now, please?"

"Oh, right. Okay." Karl walked up to a console. "Meep, meep meep. Meep meep meep meep meep. Meep."

Around the room, pods hissed. Doors released and slid open. I ran around the room, looking in each pod until I found Jane. I pulled her free of the restraints and dragged her out into the open.

"It might take a while for her to wake up," I said. "We need to get her out of here before the others wake up. Someone might take out their anger at me on her. Grab her legs and let's go."

We hefted her up and lumbered to a closed door.

"Meep meep, meep," ordered Karl.

The door slid open with a faint whoosh and we stepped out into a long corridor. We hauled our unconscious friend down the hallway. I heard the door close behind us and I relaxed for a moment. At least we were safe momentarily from our fellow were-folk.

A hand lashed out and scratched at my face. I dropped Jane and stepped back. She snarled and rolled into a defensive crouch.

"Well, look who's up from her nap," I said.

Her head whipped around as she took in her surroundings. "Where are we?"

"Shhh!" warned Karl. "We're hiding."

"What?"

"It's a long story," I said. "You don't want to know. We got out of the pods and we are trying to find a teleporter so we can get off of this ship."

"Where is everyone else? Where's Brittany Ann? Did you know she was a crocodile?"

"Some are in a room back that way." I pointed with my chin. "Karl opened their pods, so they should be able to get out. We need to get out of this hallway before anyone finds us. Karl, let's see where this door leads." I tapped on a nearby portal.

"Meep meep, meep."

"I still can't get used to that." Jane shook her head and stood up.

"Just wait," I said. "It gets really annoying after a while."

We walked in and the door slid closed behind us. Four computer monitors displayed gibberish in bright colors in the center of the otherwise empty room.

"Karl, what can you do with this?" I asked. He studied each monitor. "Can you access the teleporter from here?"

"Sure, no problem." Karl hummed for a moment.

"Well?" Jane snapped.

"Oh, we can't use them to go home," Karl said with a smile. "You'll never guess the reason why. Go ahead, though. Try to guess."

"Is it because of the game? I already told you that we changed the rules." I hoped we weren't going to have to go through another rule discussion.

"So did they."

"What?"

"They changed the rules, too."

"That doesn't sound good," Jane observed.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Huh?"

"The rules, Karl! What do you mean that the Meeps changed the rules?"

"Oh, that." He shrugged. "You said that if we teleport back to Earth then we win, right? Well, we can't do that anymore."

I forced myself to remain calm. "Why is that, Karl?"

"Earth isn't there anymore."

"What?"

"I mean, it's about three-point-six light years away."

"I don't know what that means," Jane said. "I take it that's a bad thing, right?"

"Where are the Meeps taking us?" I asked.

Karl shrugged. "I don't know."

"Do you think you could take a look and find out?" I growled. "Can you turn us around and take us home?"

"I can't navigate from here, but I can read the ship's logs."

"That's a start. Oh, while you're at it, can you remotely open the door to the pod room to let our fellow Earthers out? Having them run around and cause some chaos may keep the Meeps busy for a bit."

"Meep, meep meep, meep."

"It's really unnerving when you do that," complained Jane.

I paced the room in silence. Karl studied his monitor intently. Jane flexed and stretched her limbs.

"Loner, I think you want to read this."

"I can't, Karl. Can you tell if the Meeps have found us?"

"They haven't yet, but they will very soon. They're scanning the ship systematically. That's why you need to look at this now. We don't have much time."

A faint odor caught my nose. "Purple gas," I whispered, scanning the room. "Time's up."

Karl opened our door and we scrambled into the hallway. A wolf howl echoed in the distance. We ran in the opposite direction. Monitors on the walls flashed images of Meeps glaring at us. Blue lights pulsed and a purple haze floated down from above.

"Get us out of here, Karl!" I yelled.

He meeped at a door and we ran inside. It slid shut behind us and I froze. Computer monitors and tactical displays covered the walls. In the center of the room, a chair turned around.

"Loner, I see you've been enjoying yourself."

My blood ran cold. "Hey, Brit," I answered. Jane sank her fingernails into my arm and hid behind me. "Glad to see you're okay. You, too, Leon," I added, nodding to the werelion.

She smiled and spun her chair slowly. "I've been waiting for you. I think we have a few items to discuss." She pointed to a nearby empty chair. "Come. Sit down."

"Oh, I'm fine. I think I'll guard the door over here.

"I don't think we have anything to worry about in here, little wolf." She flashed a cold smile. "The Meeps don't appear to pose any threat at the moment. I don't suppose you could tell me why they don't gas us in here? Any thoughts?"

"That's because this is their control room," offered Karl.

"Thank you, Karl," I said.

"I can read the rest of the logs in here," he added.

"Really?" asked Brittany Ann. "So, you've been reading? What have you found?"

"I was just about to tell Loner when the Meeps found us. I think it's pretty important."

"If it's important," she began. "You'd better tell me."

Karl stepped up to a console. "Meep, meep."

"Well?" She paused, listening to a faint echo of her voice from somewhere outside the room.

"We all need to hear it," he answered. "It concerns all of us. I know why they came to Earth."

Jane and I perked up. "Why?" I whispered.

"They thought it would make a nice park. The Meeps live to invade other worlds for their own amusement. They find a habitable planet, eliminate the inhabitants, and take it over. The problem is that they have no offensive or defensive weapons."

"I'm confused," I said. "How does that work?"

"Instead, they abduct a small number of sentient beings from the target world and modify their genetic code. These altered creatures are designed to infiltrate the population and destroy them from within."

"They created weres," Jane hissed.

Karl nodded. "They started with werewolves in the Middle Ages. Humanity fought back and the Meeps had to tweak things a bit. They created wererats and wiped out a good portion of Europe. Humans eventually prevailed, however. The survivors altered the details of the story to prevent panic and claimed that the disaster was due to an outbreak of plague. Encouraged by their momentary success, the Meeps continued to experiment with different forms of were-creatures. By the early twenty-first century, the planet had been seeded with a number of genetically-modified human-eating species."

"They changed us and turned us against our own kind," I muttered. "They used us to destroy their opposition."

"They wiped large portions of our memories, in an effort to eliminate resistance," Karl continued. "That's why most of us can't remember being taken. They gave us an instinctual hunger for the taste of humans. Even so, the Meeps didn't expect us to eat all of humanity. Based upon their previous experiments, the human response was so violent, that the Meeps thought that humans would eventually exterminate us. The actual plan was that the surviving humans would expend all of their weaponry and violence on weres and have nothing left to attack Meeps. We exceeded their expectations."

Brittany Ann frowned. "Then why did they take us now? If our work is done, why are we still alive?"

"I don't know, yet," Karl answered. "I need more time."

"Then, I suggest you get busy." Her eyes snapped to me. "Loner, we need to talk." She stood up and patted Leon's furry flank. "Walk with me."

"Stay with Karl," I whispered to Jane. "Keep him focused. He gets distracted easily." I followed Brittany Ann and Leon to a distant corner of the room. She motioned for me to step closer.

"I would hate to think that you and your bug were planning to escape and leave the rest of us stranded," she whispered. "I just want to be clear about this. Your best hope of survival is to take us with you."

"Brit," I began. One of her eyebrows rose. "This ship is heading somewhere. We don't know where. There's nowhere for us to go until Karl figures out what's going on. Once he does, I don't know that we can turn this thing around and go back home. Even if we make it back safely, there's no guarantee the Meeps won't come for us again. Besides, what do we have waiting for us there? We're starving, remember?"

"I'm not sure it's wise to remind me of my hunger at the moment."

I swallowed hard. "I get your point. All I'm saying is that we need more information before we take action."

"You know it's only a matter of time before the Meeps try to knock us out."

I nodded. "I know. Let's hope Karl is a fast reader."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that. He's a strange one, even for a were'squito."

"Karl is... unusual," I said. She motioned for me to continue. "Okay, before the war, he was a scientist who studied were-creatures. He was, very possibly, the most intelligent human being alive. He was trying to modify our genes to allow us to coexist with humanity when he was turned by a swarm of were'squitos. You know that were'squitos have almost no memory. There simply isn't room in their tiny brains. The fact that he can remember dates or alien languages is amazing."

"That explains Karl," Brittany Ann said. "What about you? How much of that little history lesson did you already know? Since you've been around so long and they've taken you several times, I'm a little curious."

"I had my suspicions, but I didn't know for sure. I couldn't think of anything else that would account for the spread of so many types of were-creatures. I mean, we could only turn humans into our kind of were-folk. A werewolf couldn't turn a human into a weretiger."

A strange smile slid onto Brittany Ann's face. "That's the only way a were can be created, right?"

"Well, humans were either turned by the Meeps or by one of us." Suddenly, I felt unsure of myself.

"What is a were-creature, really?" asked Brittany Ann softly. "What are we?"

"We are a shape-shifting hybrid of a human being and an animal with an instinctual hunger for human meat." I paused as her smile grew. Comprehension dawned. "You weren't human," I whispered. "You were a crocodile who was turned by Meeps."

She ran her fingers across her arms. "This form amuses me." She stared into my eyes. "Unlike you, I have no sentimental attachment to humanity other than a fondness for edible food." She stared into my eyes. "Very few live once they know of my true nature. In fact, Leon is the only other one I can think of at the moment." The werelion rubbed his massive head against her hand. "Do you know how many werewolves I've eaten over the years?" I shook my head. She leaned forward. "There's always room for one more."

"I can get Dale for you if you'd like," I offered.

She laughed softly. "You amuse me, too, Loner. Let's keep this little chat between ourselves, shall we?"

I nodded quickly. "Look, it really doesn't matter how we became who we are. What's important now is who we choose to be from this point forward."

The door whooshed open and I jumped at the sound. A Meep fell headlong into the room.

"Alright!' called a familiar voice. "Now we can get this party started!"

A trio of werepigs charged into the room. The Meep scrambled behind a chair.

"Loner!" yelled one of the newcomers. "Somebody put this dog on a leash."

"There goes the neighborhood," I muttered.

"How dare you shut us out there with the Meeps and the sleepy time fog? I'm gonna beat you senseless."

They ran forward and I shifted to my wolf form in a heartbeat. I bit the first one on the thigh and released him quickly. I shook my head, trying to clear that taste out of my brain. _Decaying squid vomit_ , I thought. _That's what he tastes like_. I sank my fangs into the belly of the second werepig. _No_ , I told myself. _That's an insult to decaying squid vomit_. The third attacker started to shift into his pig form. I snapped at his face and he fell on his back. A massive roar froze me in my tracks. Leon pounced and the pig vanished under a cloud of fur, fangs, and claws.

A flash of movement caught my eye. The Meep dashed for a side door, triggering my hunting instinct. He threw himself through the doorway and I landed on his back as the door closed behind us. As my fangs sank into him a strange and unfamiliar sensation overwhelmed me. I bit down until he stopped squirming. I examined this strange feeling. It had a name. What was it? Oh, yes. _Delicious. Luscious. Savory, mouth-watering, succulent, scrumptious, and delectable..._ It had a lot of words. It had a lot of very tasty words.

I don't know how long I feasted before the door opened. The moment felt unusually awkward. I swallowed a large mouthful of Meep.

"Loner!" yelled a voice.

I slowly bent down and took another luxurious bite. My tail wagged with delight. It was slightly embarrassing, but I couldn't help it.

"Stop him!" yelled Brittany Ann. "He's got food!"

In hindsight, I probably should not have tried to fight off the entire horde, but I couldn't help myself. One thought continually raced through my brain. Meeps tasted better than humans.

* * *

"Hey, Loner," called Karl from across the universe. "Are you awake yet?"

I groaned and tried to hold my head together. "I hope not," I said.

"I don't think you're going to like this."

"Good. I'd hate to break with tradition."

Two fingers waved in front of my eyes. "That's twice," screamed Brittany Ann. "Twice now you've gorged yourself on food while the rest of us starved."

"Oh, good," I moaned. "Everyone's here."

"You knew Meeps were food, didn't you?" she accused. "No wonder you wanted them all for yourself."

"Has anyone ever told you that your voice could split planets?" I asked. I pushed myself to sit. "No, I didn't know they were food. I never got close enough to one to find out. The last time, they ran away before I could get a bite."

"How was it?" asked Jane, licking her lips.

"Ohhh! Meeps are fantastic. Imagine a human steak, but ten times better." Several stomachs rumbled in response.

"Okay," said Brittany Ann, clutching her empty tummy. "We will divide up the rest of the Meeps on board. No one goes 'Loner' and hogs the whole carcass for himself."

Everyone glared at me. I just smacked my satiated lips and smiled.

"Karl," called Brittany Ann. "How many more Meeps are on board and where are they?"

"There were one hundred and five more, but they left a little while ago."

"What?"

"Yeah, they launched some small pods and got away."

"Who is flying the ship, then?"

"Well, the ship is taking care of that," answered Karl. "It's executing the last orders it was given before the crew left." He checked a monitor.

"Then turn the ship around and take us home," Brittany Ann ordered.

"So, here's the bad part," Karl began. "The Meeps locked me out of the computer."

"You were right," I said. "I don't like this." I stood and stretched my legs with a groan.

"Some of you have a problem," said Brittany Ann. I scooted a little farther away. "We can't go home, we can't control the ship, there's no food, and we're starving."

"I can't force myself to eat werepig again," said Jane. Leon shivered at the recent memory.

Brittany Ann locked eyes with me and her smile spread across her face.

"You know, we might try these computers again," I said.

I turned to slip out of the room and found my path blocked by a werebear. I looked back and Brittany Ann had dropped to the floor. Her smile stretched unnaturally as her face lengthened. I shifted into a wolf and slipped between Thag's legs. Hearing the cries behind me, I ran.

A forgotten memory attempted to surface. It felt important, but I couldn't get a handle on it. I dashed through a small opening and sprinted along a service tunnel. There was something about time. I squeezed through a narrow opening and raced along a hallway towards the rear of the ship. This felt right. It had something to do with marking time. I really don't know why humans worked so hard to mark the passage of time.

A loud crash told me that my pursuers were not far behind me. I ran past a room lined with empty pods. I considered hiding in one, but I knew I didn't have time. There it was again. Briefly poking above the surface of my consciousness, I realized the memory was not about time itself, but about the marking of a specific time. Karl would know. In fact, Karl did know because he had been there. I came to an intersection of hallways and stopped. Something small bit my right ear and flew away. I turned right and ran for my life. Several feet ahead of me, Karl shifted into human form and held up six fingers. I fled past him and then it hit me: _Six o'clock_.

The memory kicked my brain in frustration. Six o'clock... Not a time, but a location on a watch face or a ship's schematic. The cries of an angry mob rose louder. My paws dug into the rubbery floor and I hurled myself towards the rear of the ship. A loud roar tore through the dimly-lit corridors. I raced into what appeared to be a large cargo bay and scrambled for cover.

Karl shifted into his human shape and sat on a large crate. "Hey, Loner," he said cheerfully. "Are you excited?"

I ran in circles, unable to find a good hiding place.

Snarling, snapping, howling and roaring, the mob poured into the cargo bay. I dropped into a defensive crouch as they circled me.

The persistent droning rumble we had heard since coming aboard stopped abruptly.

"Hey, everybody," called Karl. "Guess what?" I snapped at a werewolf who had stepped too close. "Are you ready for this?" Karl continued. I shifted back to human to try talking my way out of trouble.

A werepig lunged at me and a cougar's paw slashed across its snout. The pig snorted and stared at the cougar's bared fangs. Scrabbling as fast its tiny hooves could fly, it fled, squealing in terror.

"Thanks, Jane," I said.

She stood at my side and shifted. "I hate werepigs."

"Listen up, everyone!" I called. "The Meeps did this to us. They stole us from our homes, changed us into monsters, and sent us back to eat our own people. Once we fought their war for them, they left us to starve to death. They destroyed us. We few may be all that is left of the Earth. Are you going to continue to follow their genetic programming and kill each other?"

A loud clang rang through the bay. One wall split open in the middle and the two halves slid apart. Bright sunlight poured through the opening.

"Loner," said Karl. "You are going to love this."

"Karl," called Brittany Ann. "What is going on?"

"I told you," he answered. "The ship followed its last commands."

"Out of curiosity, what were those?" I asked.

"To bring their cargo back to the Meep home world to be dissected."

"You mean..."

"Yes."

Brittany Ann met my eyes and smiled. We stepped out onto the surface of a new world. Passing Meeps froze in their tracks and stared in surprise.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"Starving..."

* * *

Ubiquitous Bubba _studied the lore of the Storyteller, the mysterious art of the tall tale, and the pervasive universal existence of Bubbas. They're everywhere. As he wandered universes, he discovered that there's always a Bubba around when you need one._

* * * * *

# MY LAST DAY

### Zach Tyo

[Humanity Was Delicious] [Contents] [Guisarme]

Disaster awaits the Earth, yet an unexpected gift brings joy.

"DAD, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?" She tries to hide the concern in her voice as she speaks vainly through the comm link implant. I know she desperately wants me to join her and her mother, but I would be nothing more than a coward if I made Jeff face this alone.

"Honey, you know the answer to that. Get on the shuttle and comm me once you break orbit."

She's either angry at my decision, or the solar radiation has interrupted the UHF transmissions from our implants; regardless I know I have just spoken with my daughter for the final time. There seems to be a sort of irony that our last conversation should be so informal and mechanical, a true reflection of our relationship for the whole of her 24 years.

I open the solar shield covering the window for a look at the night sky. Though the hour is near midnight, the sky is still very much glowing. An aurora is putting on a brilliant show in the sky. Colors dance across what remains of the atmosphere; blues, reds, greens and others that are perfect representations of God's sense of humor as he gives those of us not departing a final display of beauty.

The monitor's beeps emanating from Jeff's room begin to steadily increase their frequency. Doctors had diagnosed him with a rare disorder that took away his voice fifteen years ago, then his mobility five years later. A home had been recommended several times over, but much to the dismay of my logically-minded wife I choose to take over Jeff's care myself. It was a costly move that resulted in the loss of both my wife's love and my relationship with my daughter.

I'm met with a smothering heat as the door to Jeff's room opens. He had somehow managed to override the locked interface and opened a window. Even at this hour the temperatures outside are near 250 degrees; if it hadn't been for the monitors informing me he would have been dead in minutes. I walk to the window and slide it shut, manually locking and securing it in the process.

"I'm sorry son, I'm as bad as the rest of the world," I say. "I should have known you'd figure out what's happening."

The computer gives me three separate warnings as I remove the various nodes and IVs covering his body, each time I have to pause and verify my credentials. The agitation I feel subsides quickly, however, as I stifle a laugh at the human ability to get lost in the moment no matter what the situation.

Back in the living room, we take seats in front of the picture window. The light show has already ceased, being replaced by the early light of predawn. A quick glance at the thermometer set up outside reads three hundred degrees, a substantial jump over the past ten minutes.

A dull ringing in my ears takes my attention from the picturesque scene in front of me.

"Dad, we convinced the Captain to idle for five more minutes. If you hurry you can make it." There is a panic in her voice that she cannot hide; the trait is a happy reminder that her mother's cold logic, while ever present, did not take hold and the compassion I tried to instill in her has remained in her conscious mind.

"I'm sorry honey. You know they wouldn't let someone with Jeff's condition anywhere near a shuttle."

The tears she's holding back finally break through. "I don't understand. You let mom take me away so you could take care of him. Don't I deserve you after all these years?"

"You know it's not as simple as that. I have been lucky enough to have two perfect children, and as much as it pains me I have to say goodbye to one of them now. Honey I've never been more proud of someone than I have you; from your first steps to your graduation you have constantly amazed me. You'll go on to do great things on Second Earth, just never forget what I've taught you. I love you honey."

Without allowing her a chance to try and change my mind, I end the comm link and turn off my implant with a thought.

"You know your sister always loved you harder than anyone," I tell Jeff. "Even your mom does. She just has different ways of showing it."

Jeff stares out the window, his eyes darting from the horizon to the thermometer. I took his opening of the window as both knowledge of our impending peril, and a curiosity in what was happening. He had constant access to the world database at all times, meaning he had probably read most of what was coming.

"In a few moments the sun will peak over the horizon and instantly vaporize all liquid water on earth, even that stored miles underground. The ensuing pressure will cause massive explosions that will wipe out most of the Earth." I pause to see if there is any acknowledgement in his eyes as I explain what is about to happen. "I wasn't sure what you knew and figured you deserve an explanation."

A shaking sensation takes over as the sky lightens and sunrise moves to seconds away. I silently condemn the scientists who calculated the expansion of the sun was still billions of years away. It was only 3015 after all; Earth had survived the loss and reforming of the atmosphere, asteroids, two nuclear wars and four pandemics in the past thousand years alone.

There is a tragic irony that isn't lost on me. The same scientists who saved the world countless times had heavily miscalculated the end of the sun's hydrogen. The speed with which it was transforming into a red giant was a universal joke, and the punch line was coming.

On the horizon, a grey cloud appears amidst the tremors. The Earth was giving up its water in the form of steam in an instantaneous transfer of energy. I find myself momentarily awestruck at the beauty and terror intertwined on the horizon, and approaching at an indescribable speed.

As it approaches, the father in me leaps forth and I dive in front of Jeff, embracing him tightly. I have heard of shuttle crashes where they find parents had performed the same action, though most of the time in vain, to try and protect their children. At this moment I can't decide whether it's an action that tries to shield the child or a mechanism that protects the parent by giving us hope that our last action will save our child.

"I love you buddy," I say.

I grip him even tighter as the sun breaks the horizon and my back begins to blister. The last hope I have is that the house's heat shield will keep Jeff's pain to a minimum before the explosion of the water reserve beneath the foundations wipes us out in a flash.

"I... love... you... too." Jeff's strained words wipe the pain away.

I feel selfish as the tears begin to stream down my face. It had been fifteen years since he uttered a word at age four. I had always imagined our conversations with that same voice I always held close to my heart.

A deafening sound emits from below, and a momentary flash forces my eyes shut. I have a sensation of being lifted into the air, and I know my end is here. Even the blinding light and inevitable end, however, cannot erase the joy of the gift my son gave me on my last day.

* * *

Zach Tyo _is an American author from the Ohio Valley area. He is currently working on several short stories, due in September 2014, that are connected via a love for a happy ending wrapped in tragedy._

* * * * *

# GUISARME

### Barbara G. Tarn

[My Last Day] [Contents] [Rock Of Ages]

Members of the Assassins' Guild might be trained to kill, but they're also people with loved ones to protect and avenge.

GUISARME WOKE UP IN ANGUISH. She'd heard a desperate cry for help and now felt the emptiness of loss in the pit of her stomach. The bond was gone. Francisca was probably dead.

As she realized this, her eyes popped open and she gasped. The pearly light of dawn filtered through the window and the building, the seat of the Guild, was quiet. Which didn't mean much – the Assassins' Guild was always a quiet place since its members might need to sleep during the day.

She jumped off her pallet, her heart racing. Something had happened to her _acharya_. She rushed through the empty, darkened corridors, but the Head of the Guild was not in his office. She went downstairs to the canteen, and saw only three people were already up – or maybe didn't go to sleep at all in the case of the raven-haired young man who sat nursing a goblet of ale, looking dejected.

Startled to see him alone, Guisarme joined him.

"Kilig! Where's Acharya Saif?"

"Dunno," was the somber reply.

"Kilig, it's important! I think Francisca failed her mission!" she insisted frantically.

His brown eyes looked at her from behind the bangs.

"I don't know where he is, Guisarme," he said slowly.

"He didn't take you with him?" Incredulous she shook her head and slumped on a stool. "I wish Francisca had taken me with her on this mission!" She started biting her nails, frowning in concentration.

She knew her relationship with Francisca wasn't the same as the bond Saif and Kilig shared. Francisca had taught her the trade, given her her assassin's name – Guisarme the Throwing Spear – and then they'd parted, although there was still a strong bond between them. The three years of training were in the past, but their special relationship made any chance meeting a joyful reunion.

Kilig had finished his training a couple of years earlier, but didn't seem ready to cut the umbilical cord with his _acharya_. The adoration in his eyes whenever he looked at Saif was obvious, and Guisarme knew they were lovers and worked together.

"He's not on a mission," Kilig said, interrupting her musings.

"He's not?" She was startled. "And where is he?"

"I told you I don't know."

"Drat. I can't find Talwar, I need to know what Francisca was working on." More nail biting and frowning. "Think I could sneak into the office and look at the records?"

"It's locked," Kilig reminded her. "Unless you decide to switch trades with a lock-picker, forget it. We haven't seen her the past month, but maybe Nimdja knows something."

"Nimdja! Thank you, Kilig! Is he here?"

"I think he went out, looking for company," Kilig grumbled, averting his eyes.

"Oh." Guisarme's enthusiasm faded again. But by then she'd attracted the attention of the other two assassins and soon everybody gathered to listen to what she had to say, including the Head of the Guild, Talwar.

They knew she was half-blood and her Genn father had transmitted to her not only the pointed ears and sapphire eyes, but also some of his magic. She could 'feel' some people she was very close to, and Francisca was one of them. She had visions and dreams and could deal with magical beings better than most Humans, who were usually too awed to even address any who crossed their path.

"I heard her scream, and then she was gone," she said. "I think she's dead! What was her assignment?"

Talwar, stared at her, then sighed, averting his eyes.

"Guisarme, we sent her because she is the best. If she failed..." He shook his head and looked at her again.

"Who is the damn bastard?" she exploded. "I will avenge her!"

"No. Especially not on your own. You're too young to succeed where an expert failed."

Guisarme cursed her Genn blood, which made her look younger and grow slower. She'd been an assassin for ten years already and she was still considered a newcomer. She glared at Talwar who turned to the senior members.

"Come to my office and we'll discuss what to do."

With gritted teeth Guisarme watched them leave the canteen. She punched the table and ignored the pain. The sense of impending doom hadn't left her and flashes of her dream kept replaying in her head even if she was wide awake.

"Are you all right?" Kilig's voice startled her. He looked worried.

"I'll be all right only when I'll have avenged Francisca," she muttered, furious.

"I'll go with you," Kilig said. The twenty-year-old who didn't seem to shave stared at her, determined. "I'll help you avenge your _acharya_."

She looked into his brown eyes and slowly nodded, hoping he wouldn't put himself in trouble so Saif would come save him. He probably didn't know how to work on his own, though, and since she was older, he'd follow her orders.

They both went to sit in the cloistered courtyard, in front of Talwar's office. Guisarme's heart was still beating quickly as she waited. Visions of blood and torn flesh flashed in her head and she shivered in spite of the warm morning.

Kilig started toying with his brass wheels, absently making them spin slowly on his finger without throwing them. He juggled with two at the same time to keep both hands busy, but didn't look like he was going to use them.

Guisarme thanked the gods she'd left hers in her room. Although she could normally kill in cold blood, she was so upset at Francisca's disappearance, that she wanted to hurl all her throwing weapons at Talwar. Although there was no real hurry since Francisca was probably already dead. She better calm down before looking for her _acharya_ 's killer.

* * *

Talwar's office door opened and the elders came out, including Nimdja who stopped next to the seated youths and stared at Kilig who pointedly ignored him. Guisarme jumped to her feet, but Kilig didn't move, although he stopped toying with the brass wheels.

"Where's Saif?" Nimdja demanded. He was tall but slim, with his black hair cut short and his beard closely trimmed. He wore two brass wheels around his wrist and had two daggers in his sash.

"Dunno," the young man muttered, his face hidden behind his bangs. The shoulder-length hair curled up slightly at the end. Guisarme thought he was cute, but wanted to slap him for the reply, the very same answer he'd given her a couple of hours before.

"Kilig, we've been selected for this mission, so I don't care if you fought with him, you'll have to work with him again," Nimdja said sternly.

"Good luck in convincing him," Kilig retorted. "He dumped me. Said I should start working on my own."

"Where is he?"

Kilig looked up, his brown eyes glaring through his bangs. "I. Don't. Know. Which part of 'he dumped me' didn't you get?"

"I'll come." Guisarme chimed in. "Francisca is my _acharya_ , I have the right to avenge her."

"She was mine and Saif's friend as well," Nimdja replied a little impatiently. "Talwar thinks it should be the three of us."

"If Saif is not available, I am," she insisted.

"Saif is no longer an assassin," Kilig said, hanging his head again and putting the brass wheels on his wrists. His foot tapped constantly on the stone floor.

Nimdja stared at him, then at Guisarme's determined expression. He sighed.

"Fine. Pack for a week, bring all your weapons. Let's go."

* * *

Guisarme packed her daggers, brass wheels, the pole-arm and a short bow with its quiver of arrows and joined Nimdja and Kilig in the Guild's courtyard. With the blade taken off and hidden in the packs, the shaft of their pole-arms looked like a walking stick.

They went to the river and took a barge to the coast, although it would be only a one-day trip.

"Who are we dealing with?" Guisarme asked, seated on the wooden floor of the barge, narrowing her eyes at Nimdja.

"Rakshasa, lord of a small fief on the hills," the elder assassin explained. "His court is sick of him, but he's obviously a real demon, if he dispatched Francisca."

"We don't know for sure she's dead, do we?" Kilig asked, worried.

Guisarme inhaled deeply to calm the beating of her heart.

"I'm afraid she is," she muttered.

Nimdja nodded. "She'll be honored as heroine if that's the case. Now, we need to study our target. I know Francisca went there disguised as a dancer."

"She taught me the dagger dance if that's what you had in mind," Guisarme noted.

"Talwar thought it would be three men." Nimdja flashed a smile at her. "I didn't tell him Saif isn't coming and you're filling in for him."

She raised her eyebrows. "So what was the original plan?"

"To go in as knife-throwers," Nimdja replied. "Kilig would be the target boy, since he's the youngest. Although you're the girl, so you could do it as well."

"I'm better at throwing knives than at standing still," she retorted, glancing at Kilig who had stiffened but didn't say a word.

Nimdja chuckled. "I think the headstand looks more dangerous if the target is male," he said, staring at Kilig who shrugged and averted his eyes.

"I trust you," he muttered. "You're Acharya Saif's friend."

"And do you trust Guisarme as well?"

Kilig took a quick look at her and nodded.

"Good." Nimdja grinned. "We could do a double ladder of death as well. A female knife-thrower is also quite sexy."

Guisarme scoffed. Yes, men could fall for that. Then she thought about their mission – her first teamwork.

"I don't know many assassins who work in pairs or groups," she said. "Kilig and Saif were an exception."

"But you've worked with Francisca before," Nimdja replied. "Besides, I heard you have found a new kind of dagger."

"Yes, it comes from the north, where those barbarians love to disembowel each other." She smiled briefly. "I'm good at throwing it as much as using it in close combat."

"What's the difference with ours?"

She took it from her sash and they huddled to hide it from the other passengers. She pressed the handles together and the blade split in three, becoming a trident. She heard Kilig gasp and Nimdja grunt his approval.

She quickly closed the trident and showed how the blade looked much like the other throwing daggers they used, with the two bars to hold it. Nimdja nodded. He had a twin-bladed dagger with the same handle with two bars perpendicular to the blade, albeit fixed.

"Good. We'll still have to figure out what hidden skill Rakshasa has. I can pass off Kilig as my son, but your dark-blond mane and pointed ears show we're not related, so you'll be his girlfriend. We're a family of jugglers, we'll entertain the lord for one night to get in the palace and study him."

Guisarme and Kilig nodded, one determined, the other a little worried.

"But." Nimdja raised his finger and stared at Guisarme. "I want you to remember we're a _team_. Nobody tries anything alone, understood?"

Slowly, Guisarme acquiesced. She understood the danger. She could still hear Francisca's cry for help.

"I won't try anything on my own," she promised. "And if I feel something about him, I'll let you know immediately, so we can revise our plans."

* * *

Rakshasa ran a fief on the river shore. A white palace at the top of a hill towered over lower houses, a small temple and a busy marketplace. A straight paved road took carts, wagons and pedestrians from the village to the river. Olive trees were the most common in the hilly area, interspersed by terraces of vineyards.

Nimdja, Guisarme and Kilig reached the main square in front of the palace and asked for a wooden panel to start their show. A shopkeeper told them they could use his old door, so they placed it against the palace wall and people gathered around them.

Kilig did a headstand against the improvised target board and Nimdja threw two knives, one into each of the top two corners of the old door. Kilig moved his legs apart until they touched the knives embedded in the board and Nimdja threw a series of knives in the "V" formed by Kilig's legs.

"Careful with my boyfriend," Guisarme teased as the knives progressed threateningly towards Kilig's crotch.

"Don't worry, I won't emasculate my own son," Nimdja replied, throwing the last knife.

The crowd laughed and cheered. Then Kilig stood straight and Guisarme joined Nimdja for the double ladder of death: standing side by side, they simultaneously performed a rapid sequence of throws around Kilig's body while aiming so the trajectories of their knives crossed, starting from the bottom and building the 'ladder' on each side of Kilig on the opposite side of where they stood.

The crowd roared and applauded at the new stunt and Nimdja thanked the audience for their patience. They performed a few more tricks, and then everybody disbanded, going back to work. Nimdja and his 'assistants' were invited to drink and eat at the inn on the square, where both the innkeeper and the serving maid gave them some information about the lord they had barely glimpsed as he watched their show from a first floor balcony.

Rakshasa was a meat-eater and imported venison, since the cows were not considered good enough for him to eat. Since he'd been entrusted with the fief, he'd eaten all the geese and most of the pigs, leaving only fish and frogs to his people. The innkeeper felt he should apologize for the vegetarian meal he provided the jesters. The wine, milk, cheese and oil produced in the fief were heavily taxed to allow the lord to buy his supplies of meat, and his tenants were tired of starving to feed him.

After the meal, Nimdja requested a room where they left their packs and then headed for the palace. It was the local courtiers who had actually requested an assassin to get rid of the lord, since they were the only ones who still had some means to buy the service.

Nimdja doubted they'd talk to him, though, so he asked to see the chamberlain, who came to the entrance hall to hear what they had to say.

"Are you here to offer a private performance for our lord?" he asked.

"Actually, we're here to do a joint show with the dancer who came here four days ago," Nimdja answered. "Didn't she mention we'd be coming?"

"Uh... no." The man stared puzzled at them.

"Where is she?" Nimdja insisted.

The chamberlain frowned and pursed his lower lip, lowering his eyes.

"She vanished in the Lord Rakshasa's room," he admitted. Then he noticed the silken noose on their wrists and realized who they actually were.

They had left the brass wheels and daggers in their packs, so they weren't too obvious as assassins, but the noose they had wrapped around their wrist gave them away at a closer look.

The chamberlain gasped in surprise. "You come from the Guild too?"

"Yes, since Francisca never came back from her mission here," Nimdja answered. "We were sent to investigate."

"Oh. Well, I'm afraid she failed..."

"Why didn't you notify the Guild?" Nimdja asked.

"We don't have any money left to pay another assassin. She disappeared with the payment and..."

"If she was killed, like we think, it's a question of honor for the Assassins' Guild to avenge her."

"Oh. We weren't aware of that."

The fear evaporated as the man told them everything he knew. Francisca had come, asked some questions about Lord Rakshasa, and then she had danced for him – a very sexy belly dance, the chamberlain had wondered where she kept her weapons. The lord had invited her to his room, and she'd never come out. The nobles thought he'd eaten Human meat, since he'd come out of the room alive, healthy and strangely happy.

"Did the kitchen receive new meat?" Nimdja asked, puzzled.

"No. But I've seen him eat raw meat when he was very hungry," the chamberlain replied.

"What kind of monster is he?" Guisarme shivered in disgust.

"Did it ever occur to you to revolt?" Nimdja asked the man.

"He scares us." The man shrugged. "Come."

The chamberlain took them through narrow corridors meant for servants only and let them peep through a hole that opened on the great hall.

Rakshasa was a bulky man, seated on a pile of cushions on a platform that put him higher than the rest of his council. Guisarme thought he had a statuary beauty and probably enormous strength, but that wasn't what had beaten Francisca. She moved aside to allow Kilig to take a look and closed her eyes, trying to see with her mind.

She felt magic. The man had magical blood. He must be a hybrid, like her, but she felt none of the Genn magic. Probably another Magical Race, then. The Sila were harmless and certainly not meat-eaters. They belonged to Air, had wings, and were closer to birds than Humans. The Waiora favored fish and other water creatures, since they were Water's people.

She felt hot and as Fire breathed over her, she knew the answer. A Fajrulo. The man was half-blood, like her, but his Human parent had mated with the most unpredictable of the Magical Races. Probably unknowingly, since Fajrulo were shape shifters.

Her eyes snapped open as she gasped.

"Felt something?" Nimdja whispered.

She nodded quickly and motioned to get out of the narrow corridor. They left the palace and went back to their room at the inn on the main square.

"So?" Nimdja asked as soon as they were alone. They sat in a circle on the inn's floor and Kilig started fidgeting with the noose wrapped around his wrist.

"He's a half-Fajrulo," Guisarme said, worried. "I wonder if he's aware of his other nature... if he is, none of us can kill him!"

"What do you mean?" Kilig asked, puzzled.

"The true form of the Fajrulo is the dragon of legends," she explained. "Like the one who destroyed Arquon and wiped away the jungle in that part of the land. The desert born from it is still spreading and it certainly helped the fall of the southern kingdoms."

Nimdja nodded, thoughtful. Kilig was breathless and wide-eyed.

"Now, Rakshasa is a half-blood," she continued. "And our only hope is that he isn't aware of his true origins. Because if he is, much like me, only his Fajrulo parent can stop him."

"How do we find out?" Kilig asked.

Guisarme pursed her lower lip.

"His love of meat, his eating it raw, his bulky frame show his Fajrulo side," she said. "But we didn't hear of any dragon, and nobody ever said he used witchcraft, so I think we're safe. Francisca was probably taken by surprise, though. Half-Fajrulo are definitely harder to kill than Humans."

Kilig's eyes went from her to Nimdja restlessly. He was the junior member of the team and was waiting for their decisions. Nimdja pondered, then looked at the young man.

"You're a good target boy." Kilig nodded as Nimdja half-smiled. "But how do you score at target practice?"

"A hundred percent." Kilig proudly straightened his back. "Acharya Saif is the best archer in the Guild."

Nimdja chuckled. "I know." He turned to Guisarme. "The close approach obviously doesn't work. What do you think?"

"Even if we all throw our knives and brass wheels at Rakshasa at the same time, it's risky." Guisarme glanced at her own bow and quiver. She looked at Kilig's determined expression and Nimdja's thoughtful face.

She slowly nodded. "It will have to do. Arrows or throwing spears will be safer."

"I think, since we're dealing with a not-completely-Human being, that we should bend the Guild's rules," Nimdja said. "If we want to avenge Francisca's death, we'll have to use poisoned arrows."

"But Acharya Saif dumped his previous apprentice because he wanted to learn poisoned weapons!" Kilig protested.

"Abhaya wanted to _specialize_ in poisoned weapons," Nimdja corrected. "It's cowardly, and as a rule we don't use them on men. They do use them in Agharek, though. And, like I said, we're bending the rules because we're dealing with a half-blood."

"Imagine he turns into a dragon, Kilig," Guisarme added. "Your noose would be useless and daggers too. I think we should bring our pole-arms to finish him if the poisoned arrows aren't enough."

Nimdja nodded. Both stared at wide-eyed Kilig who reluctantly agreed.

Nimdja grinned and put one hand on his shoulder.

"I'm very proud of you, _my son_. You were very still and did an excellent job today."

Kilig averted his eyes. "Thank you," he muttered.

Guisarme put her arms around him and pulled him closer.

"I'm proud of you, my dear boyfriend," she teased. "You managed to keep your manhood! I should try it some day!"

Kilig blushed and glared at her. She giggled and let him go.

"Let's get some sleep." She yawned. "Tomorrow is going to be much worse..."

* * *

There wasn't any vegetation suitable for an ambush or even an excuse to go on a hunt, so the three assassins went back to the chamberlain, requesting access to the palace's flat roof. Rakshasa wasn't a recluse, so they could try to take him down when he went out onto the streets.

The bulky man was a whole head taller than his men and horses refused to carry him, so he was always on foot. In the mornings he usually went for a walk on the paved road through the village to the river and back.

The chamberlain told them arrows didn't kill him, but he'd never considered poisoned arrows. Guisarme had managed to find some venomous herbs and berries, and she prepared a poison in which they dipped all their arrow points. The view from the terraced roof was perfect up to the river – except it was a long shot to hit the lord in front of the barge.

Rakshasa was strolling back towards the palace. He was two steps ahead of his escort of assorted guards, and his servants carried goods downloaded from a barge. His smile was pleased and Guisarme felt his relaxed state.

She nodded at Nimdja and Kilig and they took aim. Three arrows flew towards the lord and hit his chest. He stopped, surprised, screamed in anger and ripped them off with one hand, glaring at the archers who shot again and again until he had a dozen arrows sticking out of his body. At that point he had stopped to try to get rid of them and was marching towards the palace, cursing loudly.

Guisarme, Kilig and Nimdja retired to the end of the terrace and dipped their brass wheels into the poison. When Rakshasa emerged from the spiral staircase, they promptly spun the brass wheels on their finger and hurled them at the furious man.

His fury was barely slowed by the ugly gashes on his legs as three more poisoned brass wheels hit him. With a roar, he started taking off arrows and wheels stuck to his body, slowly coming to a stop to get rid of them all, glaring at the three assassins who were hoping the poison would make him crumble.

Guisarme felt his pain and anger, then a surge of Fire magic. The dying half-blood screamed and turned into a red dragon the size of two elephants. It opened his wings, but couldn't lift itself off the ground.

Guisarme cursed under her breath. She dipped the blade of her pole-arm in the poison and rushed forward. The wounds could not be seen on the dragon's body, but the poison was coursing through his veins. The change of shape had taken Rakshasa by surprise and he didn't know how to handle his new form.

"Guisarme!" Nimdja called, alarmed.

"He doesn't know how to spit fire!" she shouted back. "Let's finish him, now!"

As she charged the wounded beast, she heard the footsteps of the two men behind her. The dragon was clumsy and hurt, but also big. A clawed hand threw her against the terrace trailing, taking her breath away.

She saw Kilig sinking his blade in the dragon's belly, and then the shaft broke. She caught her breath and rushed back to fight while the dragon tried to bite Kilig's head off. Kilig was nimble enough to throw himself to the ground and roll away, but the dragon moved one step forward to meet the three assassins, roaring in frustration.

Panting, Guisarme managed to almost chop off the clawed hand that had sent her flying. Nimdja and Kilig stood their ground, even if Kilig was bleeding and had lost his main weapon.

Then the fiery beast recovered its Human form as it collapsed, panting. Nimdja promptly stuck his pole-arm in Rakshasa's heart. The body twitched twice, then was still.

But then it burst into a magical flame that made Nimdja jump back and Kilig gasp loudly. It eerily flickered for a moment, then vanished, leaving no trace.

Guisarme exhaled in relief, holding her bruised ribs. Now she really hurt everywhere in the quiet after the battle. Kilig collapsed, breathless, his arm bleeding from a close encounter with the dragon's teeth. Luckily it hadn't been cut off. Nimdja knelt next to him to bandage the wound and quickly smiled at Guisarme.

"Well done, Guisarme. We wouldn't have made it without you."

Guisarme nodded and lay on the terrace floor, closing her eyes to catch her breath.

* * *

The chamberlain took them to Lord Rakshasa's room, where servants weren't allowed. But since he was no more, the chamberlain was bold enough to open the door so the three assassins could find evidence of Francisca's passage.

The stench was unbelievable and the chamberlain rushed to the windows to let in some light and let out the air impregnated with the smell of carcass. The room looked like an ogre's cave – a meat-eating ogre who'd left bones of all sizes around. He'd eaten mostly birds and mice who had dared to visit him, but in a corner Nimdja found much bigger remains.

Kilig stayed by the window, pale and wide-eyed, but Guisarme joined Nimdja. She fell on her knees at the sight of the clothes and jewelry thrown in a heap next to whatever was left of a Human corpse. The demon had eaten it raw in the two days since her dream and there wasn't much left of Francisca.

Guisarme threw up, with Nimdja holding her head. It was impossible to determine how Francisca had been killed. Nimdja requested something to gather the remnants and then they built a funeral pyre in the main square of the village.

Guisarme gathered Francisca's ashes, and then the three of them went on the barge that took them back to Godwalkar. Guisarme slept fitfully on the barge during the night, often reliving the fight with the dragon or seeing Francisca eaten alive by a monster. Her ribs hurt and her mood was gloomy, so she didn't speak much until they reached Godwalkar.

She left Francisca's ashes in the main temple's crypt, then huffed with pain.

"I must have broken my ribs," she finally admitted. "The dragon threw me against the railing, glad it didn't break my back!"

Nimdja nodded. "Kilig's arm needs a healer too. You two better go to the Genn palace, I'll report to Talwar. We'll hold a ceremony in memory of Francisca at the Guild when you feel better."

"Which may be tomorrow for the physical part," she said. "Genn healers are very good."

"Let's make it the day after tomorrow," Nimdja replied with a half-smile, squeezing Kilig's shoulder.

He waved them good-bye and she turned to Kilig, who was still pale and looked haunted.

"Let's go." She sighed. She couldn't blame him for being upset. She'd never fought a dragon before either. And then entering Rakshasa's room... She held Francisca's golden armbands and bangles to her bosom, her heart tightening in her chest. She'd give the jewelry back to Francisca's family, but she'd never forget her _acharya_.

They reached the Genn palace and found a healer, one of Guisarme's aunts who spread her hands over their bruises and wounds. Her golden powder magically healed them, but also drained them of strength. They lay side by side in a room of the palace, a little drowsy after a light meal.

"I wanted to thank you for helping and for coming along," Guisarme said, thoughtful. "I thought you couldn't exist without Saif. But you proved me wrong."

"I didn't know I could do that either," he muttered. "But I know what it means to lose your _acharya_."

"Well, Saif is not dead, is he?"

"It's as if. He's no longer an assassin. What was Francisca like?"

She reminisced about her relationship with Francisca while he listened carefully. They compared their experiences, and then remembered the fight that had brought them to that room.

"I don't want to sleep alone!" he whined, as if realizing his own loss.

"I'll be with you if it makes you feel better," she said. She didn't feel like spending the night alone either. Kilig was revealing himself for the first time, and she liked what she was discovering. The young man was shy but attractive in his own way.

"Um... I don't think we should be here..." he said.

"Why, because I'm not Saif?" she asked, amused.

"It's not proper. We shouldn't..."

"What?"

He blushed. "We shouldn't sleep together," he muttered averting his eyes.

"Oh, come on, Kilig," she teased. "What's wrong with sleeping together?"

He snorted, but soon he nestled against her, his mouth exploring. He was aroused, so she decided to take what she could.

* * *

The first light of day entered the room and touched the pillows of the bed, gently waking Guisarme from her sleep. She sighed and opened her eyes to see the bed wasn't empty. Kilig was still asleep.

She caressed his smooth cheek, thoughtful. He had proved his worth during their mission, not panicking when Rakshasa had turned into a dragon. Maybe he wasn't just an appendix of his _acharya_ after all. And he was a good lover as well. He was full of surprises!

His hair half-covered his face, so she pulled it back – which startled him awake. Brown eyes stared at her and widened in shock.

"Guisarme! What..." He sat, looking around the spartan room, panting. "Oh my... did we really do what I think we did?" He glanced helplessly at his naked body.

"What do you remember?" she asked with a giggle.

"It's been a wild ride... and I was also lonely... and you were there..." He blushed, unable to look her in the eyes.

"I'm impressed by how good you were. I thought you'd be a virgin."

"Why would you think that?" he asked, puzzled.

She lay on her back, staring at the wooden ceiling. "I know I can't ask too much of Saif's lover."

He gasped and choked on his reply.

"I wasn't a virgin when I met him," he grumbled. "Actually, he saved me from a life of prostitution."

"I see." She glanced at his embarrassment and saw the pain in his eyes again. "So you've been with women before."

He nodded and frowned at her. "Yes, but not since Acharya Saif took me on as an apprentice. And don't even think that you can pin me to any duty. If you're pregnant, it's your business and I don't want to know!"

Startled, she stared at him.

"Is that where Saif is?" she asked cautiously. "With the mother of a child he never knew he had?"

"Yes!" Kilig sat up and threw his hands up in frustration. "He dumped me for a damn woman!"

"Will you tell me exactly what happened?" Guisarme insisted, putting one hand on his shoulder to calm him.

He shook his head and sighed heavily.

"When we met that woman, she said Acharya Saif was her son's father," he answered absentmindedly. "Saif stared at the boy and then told me it was time I started working on my own."

"You know, maybe it's time you look for other mentors," she said. "I mean, I know you're an accomplished assassin, but there are still things you could learn..."

He glared at her. "Like what?"

"Like fighting women."

"We don't kill women or children."

"Tell that to Rakshasa."

He snorted in frustration.

"I've wanted to kill that woman who stole my Saif myself," he grumbled.

"I apologize on behalf of all the women of the world," she said, turning her head the other way to hide her smile. Gods, Kilig was obsessed with his _acharya_! Or maybe madly in love – and totally heartbroken now. Poor Kilig.

Kilig stared at her, suspicious. "It's not funny, Guisarme."

"I'm sorry, what can I say? So, we spent the night together. What are you going to do, kill me?"

"I probably should," he grumbled. "But you're faster and better than me."

She chuckled. "Maybe I had a better teacher, and I didn't fall in love with him. Unlike you."

He glared again, then averted his eyes. "I hope you'll be content with last night and won't come back for more."

She shrugged. "Will do. So, what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know."

"Well, if you don't want to sleep alone, my bed is always available for you."

He hesitated. "Thanks. But I think I've had enough. I'll see you around. And even if you get pregnant..."

"Yes, yes, you made that clear!" She rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I don't get pregnant unless I want to. Perks of being a half-blood."

"Really?" He looked surprised.

"Yes." She smiled at him. "Saif might have some Genn blood because of the color of his eyes, but I'm a real half-blood and I know what I'm saying."

"You have very blue eyes," he said. "Uncommon for a Human."

"And don't forget the pointed ears." She pulled her hair back one to show it off.

He smiled sheepishly. "Are you sure you're a woman?"

"I'm female," she assured. "The rest..." She shrugged. "How many women assassins do you know?"

"I've heard of only five."

"Exactly. Was the woman who stole your Saif an assassin?"

"Uh... no."

"So you can spend one night with me. I'm not that kind of woman!"

He smiled against his will. "You're stubborn, Guisarme!"

"You bet I am. Will you avoid me from now on, or are we still friends?"

He rolled his eyes. "Still friends," he conceded, offering his hand.

"Thank you, my dear boyfriend of one mission." She grinned. "Will I see you at Francisca's memorial?"

"Of course." He nodded. "She's a heroine. I'll be there."

He quickly dressed and left.

Guisarme sighed. Sleeping with a heartbroken man wasn't much fun, so parting wasn't too bad after all. He'd been a decent companion during the mission and a pleasant lover for an hour or two, but she wasn't in love. And she knew he was still obsessed with Saif. But then hopefully some work would become available and take his mind off of his lover, and everything that had happened from the day Saif had dumped him.

She wondered when Saif had had a woman. He'd always looked more interested in men. But then, maybe he was drunk, and some maid had taken advantage of him.

She ran her hand in her dark-blond mane. Men were complicated enough without having to deal with men who loved men. She better move on too. Time to honor her _acharya_ one last time and then she could be off to a new adventure.

* * *

Barbara G. Tarn _is a writer, sometimes artist, mostly a world-creator and storyteller._

* * * * *

# ROCK OF AGES

### Steph Bennion

[Guisarme] [Contents] [The Diner]

Letters from the past were hidden for a reason. But stealing them was child's play compared to an unexpected family reunion...

KEDESH SWUNG HER LEGS through the open window, caught a glimpse of a torch beam on the far side of the dimly-lit courtyard two storeys below and froze. The creak of the rope attached to her harness sounded loud in her ears, but there was no danger of the distant guard hearing it against the din of downtown traffic wafting over the wall of the compound. After what seemed an age, the bobbing torch slipped behind the row of ornamental bonsai flanking the entrance to the neighbouring office block and was gone.

She pulled the rest of the rope through the window, dropped the trailing end to the manicured lawn below and heard it land with a soft thump. Her refraction suit had blackened to match the carbon-brick facia of the building, dark grease masked her pale face and her red tresses were bundled inside an old beret she liked to sport on such furtive occasions, completing the camouflage that made her just one more inky shadow in the gloom. A crescent moon hung in the dull red glow of the midnight sky but no stars were to be seen. The bright lights of the sleepless metropolis had joined with the noise to pollute the Shanghai night.

"Look at me," she murmured. She grabbed her bag and swung it onto her back. "Barely started the final innings and the city is already partying into the night."

Moments later she was on the ground and scurrying fast towards the fence at the rear of the compound, the only barrier between her and the wharf-side warehouses on the murky Huangpu River. The Que Qiao Corporation records storage facility in Pujiangzhen, a backwater of the corporation's ever-expanding empire, had become a dumping ground for three generations of electronic and paper documentation generated by tireless administrators. The offices at this time of night were silent, yet the few security personnel on site were more than ready to greet strangers with a blast from a plasma rifle, even more so if they happened to recognise who it was climbing out of a second-floor window. There seemed to be nowhere left on Earth where Kedesh had not at some point annoyed local Que Qiao agents.

The boat was waiting for her, quietly bobbing upon the choppy waters alongside a secluded wharf. No sooner had she emerged from the shadows when the skinny Chinese boy at the wheel lifted the pistol in his hand, before lowering it again as he recognised her. Kedesh hurried for the ladder that led to the water and climbed down into the boat.

"See anyone?" she whispered.

"Just a cat," he replied. "I hate it when they stare at me like that."

"A cat?" Kedesh gave him a curious look. "Was it that evil bitch of a tabby?"

"It's gone now," he reassured her.

The boy slid into the pilot's seat and with a deft flick of the throttle the boat's electric engine purred into life. By the time Kedesh sat down beside him the wharf and warehouses were far behind. The open-roofed craft was a small amphibious hydrofoil of a type used by the river police, which once auctioned off at the end of their working lives were snapped up by black-market couriers who preferred to keep off the roads. Kedesh and her young accomplice would not be troubled by the local gangs, who watched out for disgruntled rivals as well as local law-enforcement officers and usually kept their distance at the sight of another boat. The police were a different matter. Kedesh kept a nervous watch on the river as their craft, riding high on its foils, raced upstream towards the bridge. She was anxious to be off the river and into the chaotic anonymity of the city streets as soon as possible.

"You look nervous," the boy observed. "Everything go alright, miss?"

"It went fine," she said. Her refraction suit flickered wildly as it tried to mimic the glint of the city reflecting off the dark water and she switched it off. "I was expecting the guards to bowl a few googlies but it was a smooth run. First time for everything, I suppose."

The river was quiet and Kedesh began to relax a little. Back in the records facility, she had not stopped to examine what she had liberated from the storeroom, but now took the opportunity to dig into her bag and withdraw the stolen file. The printed summary upon the scuffed cardboard folder had faded and was illegible. Inside, she found a series of six hand-written letters, each one sealed in a flexi-glass sheath, a common method of preserving old paper documents. Curious, she cast her eyes over the first and looked for a date.

"Gosh," she murmured. "Twenty-second century. These are a hundred years old!"

"Are they valuable?"

"Maybe. It looks like personal correspondence," she replied. "I wonder why the client was so eager to get hold of them? Letters this old are no good to incriminate anyone today."

The handwriting was in neat long-hand, though the writer seemed inordinately fond of exclamation marks and using smiley faces to dot every lowercase 'i'. The lure of having a genuine piece of history in her hands was too big a temptation and Kedesh began to read.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

17 September, 2168.

Dear Shasti,

I hope you've settled in okay! University is so different after living at home all these years. I've been here a week now and I still haven't quite got into the swing of things, although I have three party invites already! The workload for astrophysics looks heavier than I had expected, but there's no going back!

Cassandra, my mad room mate, is into all those plastic fusion bands you rave about. She's promised to drag me to see Deathstar Shuttlebus next week, who amazingly are coming here to play the student union bar. Apparently they're doing a series of secret gigs to try out new material before their next big arena tour. If you want to come down, I'm sure I could put you up for the night.

Sorry this note is so short but I'll write again soon. I'm single-handedly keeping the art of letter-writing alive! Keep in touch!!

Freyja.

"Hmm," murmured Kedesh. She lowered the letter. "Not what I expected."

They were slowing and settling back into the water. She glanced through the windscreen and felt a familiar jolt run through the hull as the foils retracted and were replaced by wheels. Ahead, a slipway beckoned beneath the bridge, bringing with it the uncomfortable roar of traffic from the Shenjiahu Expressway.

Her young pilot guided the car to the bank, onto the slipway and back onto dry land with well-practised ease. Once safely out of the water he brought the car to a halt while they waited for the fabric roof to unfold over their heads. Kedesh took advantage of the pause to retrieve her touch-screen slate from her bag. Its screen doubled as an image scanner and she got to work placing the sheathed letters onto the flat surface, capturing them one by one into the slate's memory. Copying stolen documents intended for a client was a little underhand, but she knew better than most that Que Qiao archives often turned up prizes too valuable to ignore. Even if the letters in question looked innocent in the extreme.

"Do we need to swap places?" Kedesh asked the boy. She placed the final letter in position for the scan. "I can't imagine they give out driving licences to fourteen-year-olds."

"I'm nearly fifteen!" the boy replied haughtily. "Anyway, they do in Shanghai. They changed school leaving age to thirteen so there's enough workers to look after you oldies."

"Cheeky monkey! There's only ten years between us, young man!"

The boy grinned. The roof clicked into place and locked to the windscreen frame. The amphibious boat on wheels now looked more like the ground cars speeding along the expressway ahead. Her young pilot-come-driver urged the vehicle into motion once more.

"The spaceport?" he asked.

Kedesh slid her slate back into her bag and nodded.

"No need to rush," she told him. "My client won't be there for a while."

Traffic was heavy on the Shenjiahu Expressway as they joined the rush of vehicles heading east. Kedesh felt safe on the bustling highway, for although Que Qiao security agents patrolled the streets, neither they nor the local crime syndicates were stupid enough to take their petty squabbles onto the main roads. The slightest mishap could easily cause a city-wide traffic jam and while most of Shanghai did not care about the ever-increasing murder rate, disgruntled commuters before now had forced resignations at City Hall.

The thought of possible delays led Kedesh to mentally prod her cranium implant, the tiny processor chip lodged in her brain, to bring up the local traffic news. As the voice of the newscaster filled her head, she removed her beret, slipped on a jacket to hide her refraction suit and got to work wiping her face clean of grease. Her implant's translator application struggled to keep up with the high-speed Mandarin chattering inside her skull but it seemed they would reach the spaceport in plenty of time.

Turning off her implant audio feed, Kedesh returned her attention to the letters in her hand. All six were written by the same person and each bore a date that fell within the final few months of the same year. The Selly Oak address told her the writer was a student at the University of Birmingham, back in Kedesh's native England. As she began to read the second letter, she saw it was in a similar vein to the first.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

3 October, 2168.

Dear Shasti,

Sorry you couldn't make it down for Deathstar Shuttlebus. The band came and joined us at the bar afterwards and I got a signed photo from singer Darrow Lightbane! It was a really good show. I never used to like plastic fusion stuff – me being an old dark hippy, I'm more into Melodious Black – but they got me dancing along with everyone else. They did mostly new numbers, but played all their hits in the encore, including a fantastic twenty-minute version of 'Skeletal Requiem' that quite blew me away! Pity you missed it.

I met this bloke at the gig. Before you start thinking smutty thoughts, let me tell you it wasn't anything like that! I'm pretty sure his name was Miles (it was very loud and we were shouting to hear each other!) and he was just, well, weird! He was next to me while I queued at the bar after the band finished and we got talking about the gig. He was quite a music fan, though a bit of a walking fashion disaster. I'm pretty sure he wasn't a student. He reckoned he'd seen the Beatles at The Cavern in Liverpool and Elvis Presley in Las Vegas – I assume he meant nostalgia acts, like that stone-age disco comedy band Yabba Abba Doo we saw at Glastonbury last year – but honestly there were times I thought he was pulling my leg. He came out with the strangest things! For example, he confessed to being "fascinated by seventies music", to which I pointed out it was '68 and we still had a couple more years to go. His response was to look at me as if I was mad, but in a really cute way!

To cut a long story short, this guy suddenly left as if I'd said something to upset him, or that he'd taken offence when I spilled my drink down his trousers (it was an accident, honest!). But when I later popped outside for a breather I saw him by the playing fields. You know how when people are queuing for a bus they keep looking up the road, waiting for it to come round the corner? Well, this guy was doing the same thing; looking, then glancing at this huge watch I'm sure he wasn't wearing before, only he was standing in a field. I was a bit worse for wear and worried that I'd offended him, so I left him to it. He was gone by the time the union bar emptied so I guess I'll never see him again.

Speaking of the awesome Melodious Black, a gang of us from our house are going down to London next weekend to see them at Wembley. It's the final gig before they knock down the stadium to rebuild it all again, though the band have promised to demolish it with noise! I really want to see them live again – and they're being supported by Roller Ghoster, who Cassandra reckons are the next big thing – but I'm not keen on stadium gigs and the only tickets we could get are up in the gods. But it's a day out and studying is getting me down at the moment. Will it ever get any easier?

I'll write again in a few weeks. See you soon!

Freyja.

Kedesh frowned. She was not impressed that she had risked life and limb to break into a secure Que Qiao facility just to retrieve ancient tales of university life. Yet her client had paid her very well indeed and she could not help wondering if she was missing something important. She looked at the letter again and scrutinised the text carefully to see if there was any sign of a hidden code, but saw nothing.

"What's so fascinating?" asked the boy. Their car was in the line of traffic queuing for the exit for Shanghai spaceport and they had slowed to a crawl. "Top secret, I bet."

"You'd be amazed how banal these are," Kedesh said and sighed. "They're letters from a student in England twittering about some bloke she's met and bands they've seen, none of whom I've heard of. Apart from Elvis, of course."

"She saw Elvis?" The boy looked impressed. "When he was still alive?"

"In 2168? Don't be daft," she retorted. "But she reckons she'd met someone who had. Probably one of those tribute acts. When you think of all those in music who have come and gone over the years, it's amazing how Presley is still remembered today."

"My brother went to Las Vegas a few years ago," the boy remarked. "He said the whole place is a shrine to Elvis, like some holy city, even more than Graceland. He says everywhere they went it was as if Elvis was their god."

"And they said religion would be knocked for six once we reached the stars," Kedesh said drily. "Instead, it just becomes more fractured and bizarre by the day."

With a sigh, she returned the folder of letters to her bag and settled back in her seat. Their vehicle crept onwards through the traffic towards the bright lights of the spaceport, moving like driftwood upon a swollen muddy river. The rolling of the car upon its soft springs, the gentle whir of the engine and the warmth of the night air at the open window invited her to embrace her weariness. Just then, a loud roar assaulted her ears, jolting her back from the edge of sleep. A silver Skylon Interstellar spaceplane appeared in the sky, blasting up and away from the runway ahead.

"I hate spaceports," muttered Kedesh. "Not one of them serves a decent cup of tea."

* * *

The winged geishas hovering outside the cafeteria were impressively-rendered holograms, but Kedesh was in no mood for their incessant and incredibly-annoying sales pitch about flight offers to Tokyo. The café was an American-run establishment, modelled in an industrial gothic style with bare brick walls, fake rusty-steel panelling and a mechanical arm at the doughnut counter that in a previous life had a better-paid job welding roof panels on a ground car production line. Nevertheless, it was a welcome if dingy respite from the clinical brightness of the spaceport terminal's main hall. Kedesh bought a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin, retreated to a corner table and sat down with her back to the wall, making sure she faced the entrance. She was due to meet her client in half an hour on the other side of the spaceport and had no intention of being surprised before then.

Her young driver had disappeared with the car on some mysterious errand Kedesh did not need to know about. With no one to talk to and nothing but a dull baseball game showing on the large holovids around the room, it was only a matter of time before her gaze dropped to the bag at her side. She was convinced there was more to the letters than met the eye. It was with no great reluctance that she picked up the third of the six and began to read.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

25 October, 2168.

Dear Shasti,

Roller Ghoster are LOUD!!! The concert was incredible! I'm still not that keen on their music, but I can see why people love them so much. And guess what! He was there; the weird guy I met at the Deathstar Shuttlebus gig! His name is Nilus (not Miles!). He recognized me straight away and we soon got chatting. He's really nice but did say some funny things at times. When I asked him what he thought about Roller Ghoster he said, "They were one of the greatest bands of their time," using the past tense. He also seemed to think it was the third time we'd met, not the second and insisted he had seen me at a Dead Pirates Society gig a while back, but I've never seen them live. Coincidentally, Cassandra has been begging me to go with her to see them at Villa Park next month.

How's your degree going? I've been asked to start thinking about possible subjects for a research paper, but I haven't a clue where to begin. The stargazers have already block-booked the Uni's telescope and competition is fierce for the few places up for grabs on the space station. Someone suggested I revisit Einstein's theories to see how they fit with my father's own work, but mum is trying her best to dissuade me from getting involved with the extra-dimensional drive project. I do miss my father. Mum isn't coping well and has pretty much taken up residence at the research centre on Ascension Island. I don't blame her; I still get the occasional visit from the police, asking me again about what happened. They never did find Professor Braithwaite or those two detectives.

Enough of my woes. Until next time...

Freyja.

"The extra-dimensional drive project," murmured Kedesh, but that was not what had captured her attention. "And Nilus...?"

She once had an uncle called Nilus, a promising young exobiologist who disappeared twenty years before whilst exploring the icy wastes of Ascension, a planet in the Barnard's Star system. That the letter mentioned a place called Ascension Island was confusing; given the date of the letter, the mysterious isle and its research centre had to be somewhere on Earth. Kedesh wondered if one had been named after the other.

Her thoughts returned to the writer's unexpected mention of the extra-dimensional drive project. It was the first clue as to why the letters were worth stealing. Krakenspreken, the inventor of the famous interstellar drive, had opened up the cosmos in a way only science-fiction writers had ever imagined. He was a legend in a similar vein as Newton or Hawking and now she imagined her client as a shadowy antiquarian, supplying the desires of wealthy history buffs and collectors, for she guessed artefacts such as these letters would be worth a lot to the right buyer. To hold in her hand a letter written by Krakenspreken's only daughter that mentioned the great man himself was a little awe-inspiring.

"I'm not charging enough for this job," she grumbled and reached for her tea.

What intrigued her was the reference to detectives, who did not appear in the story taught at school. What she did recall is that Krakenspreken's daughter too disappeared in mysterious circumstances a year or two after her father's death, with most historians postulating that the grief-stricken student had taken her own life. Kedesh knew researchers could not have seen the letters in her hand. The friendly tone of Freyja's words were not those written by someone on the edge of despair.

Kedesh closed her eyes, prodded a mental switch and considered the time display her implant caused to appear briefly in her mind's eye. She picked up the muffin and took a bite. She still had time to finish her tea and read one more letter before she met with her client.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

19 November 2168

Dear Shasti,

Hello again! I was going to call but needed to write this down and sort my brain out. Things are getting seriously weird! I met Nilus again; at a Dead Pirates Society gig, would you believe! The Pirates were playing Villa Park (music, not football!) as part of their European Tour and Cassandra dragged me along to check them out. And at the bar, there he was! Nilus didn't recognize me at first, which was puzzling since he knew me straight away at the Melodious Black gig.

He seemed more distant this time and it took a while to break the ice (even the 'ten-tonne penguin' joke didn't work). He got mixed up again and thought it was only the second time we had met when of course it was the third. Funny thing is, at the last concert he said he had seen me at a Dead Pirates Society gig and here we were! Very confusing. The gig itself was awesome. When I made a comment on the mad antics of the singer, Nilus said something strange: "a great loss to music," he said. I told you things were weird.

How's studying going? Analysing Shakespeare has to be easier than doing likewise with neutrino signatures of decaying black holes. A friend of mine in her third year asked me to proof-read her history thesis on 'Sociological change to Britain and Europe during the expansion of the Roman Empire', which sounds very impressive – and she was able to do all her research without leaving the Uni library. On the plus side, I might get a trip to Hawaii if I'm lucky enough to be offered a slot on the telescope there.

I'll try and write again before Christmas, if I can find time between the parties! (Those in the physics department involve lots of lasers, dry ice, lab-brewed alcohol and very bad dancing.) We have to meet up during the break!

All the best,

Freyja.

"Interesting stuff?" purred a nearby voice.

Kedesh jumped. Engrossed in the letters and a very sticky muffin, she had not noticed she was no longer alone. The tall, raven-haired woman perched on a nearby stool wore the smug smile of a conspirator and an equally-brazen floor-length coat of silver and black fur. The eyes that gleamed from her smooth olive features had yellow irises with dark vertical slits for pupils, which most people would have dismissed as fancy contact lenses, albeit after a hasty move to another table. Kedesh suspected the truth was far more disturbing. She eyed the woman warily.

"That's just not cricket, creeping up on people like that," she complained, stuffing the letters back into her bag. "It's bad for my digestion."

"Marion Kedesh," remarked the woman. "As I live and breathe. Did I frighten you?"

"People like you don't live or breathe," Kedesh retorted crossly. "And no. It's merely your presence that makes my stomach turn."

The woman ran her tongue across her teeth in the manner of a predator contemplating its next meal. Kedesh shuffled uneasily on her seat. She had crossed paths with the woman twice before, yet had no idea who she was or what she wanted. On both occasions, reports to her superiors had been met with wary glances and perturbed frowns.

"Hilarious," the woman remarked dryly. She nodded to the bag. "You found Freyja's vacuous dispatches, I see. Have you read them all?"

"They are for a client and not for my eyes!" protested Kedesh, though not entirely convincingly. She wondered how the woman knew about the letters. "And I'm not about to discuss them with some shadowy femme fatale who won't even give me her name!"

"I thought I'd stick with Athene. It was good enough for Braithwaite and those policemen. The way they turned up on our doorstep was quite unexpected."

Kedesh gave her an odd look. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"It's wasn't on Earth at all, my dear," Athene replied. "Please try to keep up."

"You're talking in riddles," Kedesh retorted. "As for the letters, they're just the usual teenage nonsense. Apart from possibly revealing a hopeless crush on some guy called Nilus, I'm not expecting any surprise curve balls from the two I've yet to read."

"Some guy called Nilus?" The woman raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Coincidence! Nilus isn't that uncommon a name."

"It was a hundred years ago. And so much more interesting than Marion."

"I chose that name myself," grumbled Kedesh. "Anyway, these letters were written long before Uncle Nilus was born. Don't try and get all mysterious with me."

"Mysterious?" The woman looked more sly than ever. "You're the one who stole the letters from a secure facility. You've now worked out that they were amongst the last things Freyja wrote before she disappeared. Don't deny you're not intrigued."

"I'm playing a straight bat with this job," snapped Kedesh. "You won't catch me on the back foot again. Or are you just here out of the goodness of your heart, to guide yet another unsuspecting pawn along the path of enlightenment? It's like having a personal demon on my tail, though admittedly one with a bit of style."

Athene smiled. "Thank you! It's not easy when you get to my age."

"And how old is that?"

"In aeons or galactic years? I've lost count."

"As enigmatic and unhelpful as always. Do you ever give a straight answer?"

"That would spoil the game," Athene said, speaking in mock confidence. "You lot can be just as bad. The king of Ithaca couldn't open his mouth without lying and would steal the clouds from the sky given half a chance. Wonderful physique though," she added, with a wistful sigh. "I could stare at him all day. You, on the other hand, should watch that sarcasm. You'll end up lonely and bitter."

"If the alternative is sitting here listening to your babble, lonely is fine," said Kedesh. "Let me know when your psychiatrist publishes his book on mythical delusions of grandeur. You must excuse me. I have an appointment to keep."

"Fine," grumbled Athene.

Kedesh reached for her tea, drained the last tepid mouthfuls and turned to pick up her bag. She caught a brief flash of silver in the corner of her eye as a cat-shaped blur leapt away across the cafeteria. When she looked back, the woman had gone.

"Maybe the delusions are mine," Kedesh muttered. She made a mental note to grill her boss about Athene at the first opportunity. "I'll be glad to get back into space."

* * *

A crowd of holovid newscasters had gathered in the main hall, eager to catch the local contenders for the _Gods of Avalon_ holovid show before they boarded their flight to the Alpha Centauri system. Kedesh did her best to ignore them as she made her way to the domestic terminal. Her client was flying in from England and an earlier communication made it clear he had no intention of leaving the spaceport during his brief few hours in Shanghai.

The London flight had finished disgorging its passengers. A solitary figure remained in the waiting area on her side of passport control, sitting with his back to her near the wall of glass overlooking the berthed spaceplanes outside. There was something eerily familiar about the seated figure and she was struck by pangs of recognition even before he heard her footsteps and turned. As he rose to greet her, Kedesh stumbled to a halt in surprise. The man's pale, deeply-lined face looked much older than she remembered, his customary tweed suit was worn through and his grey hair had receded to just a few wisps on either side, but the smile was the same as it had always been.

"Grandfather!" she cried.

She ran towards him and hugged him tightly.

"My dear Marion!" The old man's smile softened into a contented toothy grin as he returned her embrace. "How you've grown!"

"I'm twenty-four!" she said, adopting a mock scolding tone. "It's so good to see you! I had no idea you were here in Shanghai," she confessed, then realisation struck her. "Are you my mysterious client? What's with all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?"

"Hush-hush," he replied. "Too many questions! All will be explained."

His voice was wheezy. Kedesh quickly motioned for him to sit back down, took the next seat and waited for him to recover his breath. She had already spotted the small medical monitor on his belt, which was reassuring in a way as such devices were designed to automatically call for help should the wearer suffer problems. Nevertheless she felt guilty at not having been in contact with her family back home for so long.

"How have you been keeping?" she asked hesitantly. "How's granny?"

"We're both fine," he replied. "Your grandmother has a whizzy hoverchair to get around on now and I can't keep up with her these days. She misses you, of course."

"Sorry. I've been busy."

"Helping the sick and wounded of the five systems!" he remarked and chortled. "Is that what you do with your Saint John Ambulance folk?"

"I work for the Grand Priory. My job is a little more, err... specialised."

"No need to be coy with me, my dear. Your grandmother and I worry dreadfully when we hear about the things you've got yourself involved in, but I'm proud you've taken a stand for what you believe. Not many do these days."

"Um... thanks," said Kedesh, wondering what it was her grandfather had heard. "I must come and visit sometime. Do you still have the house in Greenwich?"

"Good gracious, no! We had to move when the new barrier failed in '57. Everything north of the park is underwater now. We took the compensation offered and bought a place near your aunt in Norwich. It's very nice," he reassured her. "Very flat, Norfolk. Ideal for hoverchairs."

Kedesh had a million and one things to ask her grandfather, but for some reason did not know what to say. He was first to break the awkward silence.

"The letters," he said and hesitated. "Did you get them?"

"I did," she confirmed and patted her bag.

"Did you read them?"

Kedesh paused. "Some of them."

"And do they... do they say anything about Nilus?"

"They mention someone of that name," she told him cautiously. "But they're a hundred years old! You can't possibly think they have anything to do with Uncle Nilus. They're just the tedious ramblings of some student in Birmingham, who happened to be Krakenspreken's daughter. You can't keep chasing false hopes like this!"

"Nilus is my son," he said. "I will not give up hope!"

"Father misses him just as much as you," Kedesh said gently. She was too young to remember her uncle and only knew him through family photographs and her father's stories. "He's accepted Nilus is dead. I'm sorry to be harsh."

"I can see you haven't read them all," he remarked. "If you had, you'd know why Que Qiao kept them locked up and out of sight. I heard the tale about Krakenspreken's daughter many years ago. It's taken me all this time to confirm there was real evidence to back it up and to learn where it was kept."

"Yes, but what has it got to do with Nilus?" asked Kedesh. "Uncle Nilus, I mean; not some student's random boyfriend from the twenty-second century."

Her grandfather sighed and fiddled nervously with his jacket. The note of scepticism in her voice was obvious and he suddenly seemed reluctant to voice his thoughts.

"Have you ever seen an ashtapada?" he asked eventually. "Huge spider, big as a man? Rumoured to exist on Yuanshi, I believe."

"I've heard of them," Kedesh said carefully, curious as to where the conversation was going. Her next assignment was in the city of Lanka on Yuanshi, a moon in the Epsilon Eridani system rumoured to be the home of humanoid aliens, the legendary greys. Her colleagues had taken great pleasure in relating stories about monster arachnids and other scary aspects of Yuanshi's native wildlife.

"There are some who reckon the ashtapada has mysterious powers and once served as steeds for the greys," he told her, his tone secretive. "Even today, hunters on Yuanshi tell of seeing greys riding upon the backs of such creatures, deep in the uncharted jungle!" Her grandfather leaned closer. "I never told you that I once travelled to Ascension, to meet the woman who searched for my son's lost expedition. I saw proof that the creature they came across in the Northern Ravines was also an ashtapada!"

"But that's Barnard's Star, not Epsilon Eridani. And the atmosphere's poisonous!"

"Not in the Ravines!" he declared. "I believe Nilus was somehow spirited away by the beast. Maybe he learned the secret only the greys once knew!"

Kedesh put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. "Really?"

"Yes, really!" he snapped. "Some years later I was contacted by a man, a retired administrator who used to work for Que Qiao, who said he had once seen a collection of letters written by Krakenspreken's daughter that may shed light on my search. He told me where to find them, which is the information I passed to you."

"That's ridiculous!"

Her grandfather looked hurt. "May I have them?"

"They're all yours." Kedesh pulled the bundle of sheaths from her bag and handed them over. "Good luck in trying to find evidence of ashtapada-riding aliens in twenty-second-century England. I don't think it would be much of a secret if a giant spider had ever turned up in Birmingham."

Her grandfather took the sheathed letters. "Just these six?"

"That's the lot."

The loud metallic tones of a passenger announcement broke across the hall and her grandfather paused to listen as they heard mention of his flight back to London. To Kedesh's surprise, he barely glanced at the letters before rolling them up and slipping them into his jacket. Moments later, he was climbing to his feet and preparing to leave.

"There's no rush," she said quickly, standing up beside him. "They've only just opened the gate. We have so much to talk about!"

"No, I must go," he replied. "My old legs don't carry me as fast as they used to!"

"Grandfather..."

"It was nice to see you again," he said and gave her a hug. "Look after yourself. I do worry about you, all alone out there, flitting from one planet to the next on your moral crusade. Your grandmother frets as well but won't say anything. Your mother and father, too. If you're ever in England, make sure you look us up."

"I will," said Kedesh. "Please, no more chasing ghosts. Nilus is dead."

Her grandfather smiled, turned and walked away. Kedesh hesitated, wondering whether to follow, then sank back into her seat. She brushed away a stray tear and decided that breaking into a secure Que Qiao facility was child's play compared to a family reunion.

"Ashtapadas!" she murmured and smiled. "You're a daft one, grandfather."

* * *

She had a few hours to kill before her own flight out of Shanghai and soon found herself back at the cafeteria, nursing more tea and cake. Kedesh felt guilty for not telling her grandfather she had taken copies of the letters, but their bizarre conversation and her earlier encounter with Athene rested heavier on her mind. Once sure she would not be disturbed, she retrieved her slate from her bag, called up the fifth document and began to read.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

21 November, 2168.

Dear Shasti,

I know it's only been a couple days since I wrote, but I have a confession to make. I didn't tell you everything about what happened after the Pirates gig. It was so weird I'm struggling to put pen to paper, but I must write it down before I go mad!

After we left Villa Park, we were rather worse for wear and so went to get some fresh air in Aston Park, just across the road. I left the others collapsed on the grass and wandered off by myself to have a look at Aston Hall, not that you could see much in the dark. Suddenly, I spotted Nilus, walking by himself in the park. I called his name and waved, but as soon as he saw me he ran away. Well, this peeved me, so I followed. It was secret-agent stuff; lurking in the bushes, that sort of thing. As I got close, he glanced at this huge watch on his wrist and took off, running across the field as if he was late for something! I was so puzzled and annoyed (and maybe slightly too drunk) that I decided to run after him.

I chased him across the park to a place surrounded by trees and hidden from the city around us. There was nothing to see apart from a large, lonely tree in the middle. Nilus made his way to it and stood underneath. I stayed back in the shadows at the edge and settled down to watch. All of a sudden, this HUGE spider climbed from the tree!! When I say huge, it was as big as a horse! Really, really massive. Afterwards I wondered if it was a some sort of robot, like those mechanical mules the army uses, but at the time it totally freaked me out. As I watched, it clambered to the ground and Nilus walked towards it. Then he was lost in the darkness and all I could see was this black mass beneath the tree. Moments later I caught sight of Nilus' face; and he saw me! I had inadvertently wandered into the open whilst all this was going on and was in full view in the moonlight. His face froze, then he smiled and gave me a little wave before disappearing back into the shadows.

The huge creature with all its horrible legs suddenly emerged from the darkness and ran across the field, with Nilus riding on its back! Before you ask, it wasn't the drink making me see things! I've never seen anything like it in my life and was so scared I ran screaming back to Cassandra and the others. They thought I'd been attacked but I didn't dare say anything. We left soon after and ended up in a nearby pub, but although I felt better after a few rum and blacks, I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone until now what I saw that night! I mean, who would believe me? Do you?

Call me soon, please! And don't have nightmares about giant spiders!

Freyja.

Kedesh pursed her lips and frowned. Even after the strange conversation with her grandfather, finding that the letters did mention monster arachnids after all was unexpected. She was not so sure that drink was not to blame for Freyja's tale, but it was certainly a very strange story. Reaching for her tea, she turned to the final letter and began to read.

Room 311 Victoria Hall,

Grange Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

2 December, 2168.

Dear Shasti,

Thanks for your letter and no, I haven't gone mad! This will be very brief, for I'm rather rushed and midway through packing my bags for an impromptu winter vacation!

Nilus turned up on my doorstep, out of the blue, looking all apologetic and saying that he hadn't meant for anyone to see him that night in the park, but also that he didn't realise who I was until afterwards. He said, "If anyone could understand what I'm about to tell you, there is no one better qualified than Krakenspreken's daughter."

He started off with what I thought was a joke: that he was born in New Birmingham, a domed settlement on a planet called Ascension. I thought he was winding me up, or getting confused with the Skylon launch site on Ascension Island, so I just laughed and told him there's no such place. You will never believe what he said to that! I quote: "There's no such place – yet!" That's right, he swears he's from the future. About a hundred years into the future, to be precise; he says New Birmingham is the city founded by the settlers who made the trip to Barnard's Star in the 'Dandridge Cole'. That's the asteroid colony ship they're still building out beyond Mars!

He saved the craziest bit for last. Nilus told me (with a straight face) that the giant spider thing I saw is a real living creature, not a robot! Here's the truly crazy part: Nilus reckons these spiders were bred by ancient aliens to travel from one world to another! They can somehow manipulate other dimensions in a similar way as my father's space drive, though much more effectively. Nilus says these alien spiders are able to weave tunnels through space-time and build pods that can ride through from one point in space to another. He says the reason I keep meeting him is that the fire in the old astrophysics building at Uni, the one that killed Professor Braithwaite and the policemen, left behind some sort of portal, though it will disappear soon. It was my father's experiments that created it! If all that isn't mad enough, he said that the ends of these tunnels can exist at different points in time, which is why he got confused about when he saw me and at which gig.

This all sounds totally ridiculous, I know. Yet Nilus was so serious when he told me and is really keen to introduce me to his friendly 'weaver', as he calls it. The poor creature was lost and all alone on that planet of his when it found Nilus and since then they've become inseparable, like a cowboy and his horse in those terrible ancient movies your boyfriend likes so much. He reckons they've been travelling these tunnels together for years.

I imagine you're probably chuckling quietly to yourself and wondering if your old mate hasn't gone completely mental! I promise to call straight away if and when I get to meet Nilus' mysterious alien travelling companion (or if I discover I've been hallucinating all week, whichever comes first). In the meantime, he offered a prediction for you from the future – the Dead Pirate's Society song 'Reindeer Sandwich' will come out of nowhere and be the number one download this Christmas! Remember that come New Year when I ask you again whether you think I'm crazy or not!!

Nilus is picking me up soon and has promised the trip of a lifetime! I told him of my woes at putting together a science paper; if what he says is true, investigating these space-time tunnels is too good an opportunity to miss. My father's work proves such tunnels can exist; his ED drive creates something similar, though only for a split second. Nilus said there just happens to be a portal in Princeton that existed in the 1940s. If I am to revisit Einstein's theories for my research, how better than to hear old Albert speak first-hand!

See you soon! I have an time-travelling weaver to catch!!

Freyja.

Kedesh stared at her slate in disbelief. It was too incredible for words, yet she knew Krakenspreken's daughter had disappeared without trace around the time the letters were written. Que Qiao had kept them locked up for over a century, which was a sure sign all was not what it seemed, as was Athene's cryptic remark about Braithwaite and the policemen. If what her grandfather believed was true and the correspondence was genuine, the universe had just become more magical than Kedesh ever believed possible.

"Good old Uncle Nilus," she murmured. "Riding through time on a big friendly spider with a girl at his side. Some people have all the luck!"

She dropped the slate into her bag. Smiling, Kedesh rose to her feet and strode from the café, celebrating the moment with a joyous spring in her step. A tabby cat, curled beneath a table near the door, opened an eye as she passed, licked its lips in a particularly smug and self-satisfied way and promptly went back to sleep.

* * *

Steph Bennion _writes science fiction for young adults and adults young-at-heart. She also occasionally compiles anthologies like this one._

* * * * *

# THE DINER

### Michael Puttonen

[Rock Of Ages] [Contents] [Homeless]

Sometimes a life lived hasn't been lived at all.

Tick-tock. Never was, never were.

Tick-tock. Never was, never...

FRANK LASSITER STARED up at the antique pendulum clock hanging on the bland white wall. The words running through his mind came from an old nursery rhyme his mother used to read to him. He couldn't remember what the rhyme was about, only that there was the sound of a ticking clock and a menace to the words. Frank shifted position in his comfortable armchair. He hated waiting. Someone once told him that impatience was his middle name. In fact, he had two middle names, Oswald and Willard. He avoided public mention of either.

Francis Oswald Willard Lassiter. He disliked the name, or at least the first three parts. Francis was bad enough, but to be saddled with Oswald and Willard too! When still a young boy, he began calling himself Frank so the other boys wouldn't tease him for having a girl's name. His mother insisted it was a good name for a boy, and besides, the girl's name was different. Francis and Frances seemed pretty much the same to Frank. Taunting children did not differentiate.

The words of the nursery rhyme faded away as several others flashed into Frank Lassiter's mind— _brothers and sisters_. With a start, he asked himself aloud, "Do I have any?" He paused to think. Of course he had, and a good number of them, too. There was his brother Je...?

For some reason he could not retrieve the complete name from memory. An attempt to recall his other siblings failed as well, as his brain conjured only vague shadows in their stead. Frank shuddered. Something was wrong. Something had gone haywire in his mind. Perhaps he should go see someone about that. Yes, yes, he should see a... a...?

Frank Lassiter was thirty-nine years old, the same age as the eternally young Jack Benny, an old-time comedian he had heard about from his late grandparents. They told him the man had claimed, for years, to be one digit shy of forty. Howard and Nancy had watched the comedian's show on TV and had been big fans. They insisted the man was hilarious. Of course, the eternal youth thing was nothing more than a bit, Benny's shtick. No one remains thirty-nine. He aged, as all do, and had been dead for years. He was close to eighty or something when he died. Frank had been thinking a lot about death lately. Perhaps approaching forty does that to you.

The wall clock pendulum swung in a measured rhythm, causing the clock to tick with each completed arc. Afternoon sunlight squeezed through narrow slats of half-closed blinds, streaking the hardwood floor of Frank's living room with parallel lines.

_Never was_. _Never were_.

Damn rhyme. What did it mean? His failure to recall that stupid nursery tale in its entirety, simple verses he once knew by heart, annoyed Frank. The few stray words that rattled around in his depleted memory made no sense. _Nothing_ in the past few days made any sense. It had all changed the day the diner came. When was that? Last Tuesday?—Wednesday? Everything confused him lately. Frank drew a long breath and slowly let it out. He sneezed.

Damn feathers.

How long until the diner returned? Five o'clock, that's what he said. A peek at the clock showed it was only four-thirty. Still a half hour away. Frank sat quietly for a few moments and then glanced around the room. Puzzlement over the unfamiliar surroundings triggered a sharp spike of panic. _Where was he_? He stared in wonderment at the maple stand to the left of his armchair that held a dusty lamp with a cock-eyed shade. _Whose house was this_? For a moment, Frank's muddled thoughts overwhelmed him. Then, he breathed. This was _his_ house. Yes, of course. Of _course_ it was. Frank breathed easier. His parents had left the house to him. When was that? After they passed away, that's right. His father, Stan, had lived a long, fruitful life until years of smoking caught up to him. His mother, Liza... no, wait... Linda?

The doorbell rang. Frank jumped at the sound. The diner! He was early. Frank rose from his seat and made his way to the front door. His legs felt awkward. He stepped with a strange motion that was deliberate and jerky. At the door, Frank struggled to turn the knob, as he seemed unable to find or move his arms. The knob twisted, startling Frank, and then the door pushed inward. A pleasant-looking man, tanned, with dark, immaculately-styled long hair and wearing a black suit leaned in. One hand grasped the doorknob; the other held a broadax. When he saw Frank, the man offered a delighted smile, showing off perfect white teeth.

"Hello, Francis," he exclaimed, his tone jovial. "I know I'm a bit early, but that shouldn't matter to you." He gave Frank a knowing laugh.

Frank noted with wonder, and with a slight pinch of apprehension, the dancing flames in the man's eyes, as if a fire burned within each iris. Sunlight flashed off the broadax's blade, which sported an edge honed to an exquisite acuity.

"Please, come in," Frank greeted his visitor. The enthusiasm in his tone surprised him, as in the recesses of his depleted mind he vaguely sensed that a gracious invitation to a man carrying an ax defied reason. Yet even through his growing mind fog, Frank was aware how strange his life had turned lately. For days he had felt a detached connection to his surroundings, as his thoughts had grown increasingly hazy, with reason and common sense often eluding him. His memory had faded over the past week, and he found it hard to recall significant events from his life. Even his words felt scripted now, as if he no longer controlled them.

The diner entered, scanning with disinterest the bland walls until his eyes lighted upon the pendulum clock. He advanced toward it, and after leaning his broadax against the wall, reached up with both hands to open the clock's glass face. A porcelain figure of a farmer in overalls stood behind the glass. With care, the man grasped the figurine and placed it in a pocket of his suit.

Frank watched with mild interest, but still with that strange detachment. Somehow, he knew the figurine, the clock, perhaps even the house itself belonged to this man. He no longer felt ownership. All those years living here began to blur together. He could not distinguish one from another, could barely remember them. Still, his mind held a pocket where clarity yet dwelled. Within it, an intense curiosity about the man and his intent remained.

"Who are you?" he summoned the resolve to ask.

The man turned to Frank, offered a warm smile, and then motioned for him to have a seat in his comfortable chair. Frank felt compelled to do as bid, and then waited for the man to answer. The man reached for his broadax, stroked its blade absently, and then began to speak.

"I am the diner, as I informed you. I have lived, and will live, forever. You, however, have never lived. What I mean by that is that you have not lived as you think you have. Your life has been an illusion, one I provided for you. I presented it to you as an alternative to the dull one your kind is fated to experience."

Frank listened to the man with growing confusion. His kind? Illusion?

"What are you talking about?" Frank felt an increased uneasiness, and an agitation grew that his dulling wits could not suppress.

The man looked upon him with compassion, a reaction that only intensified Frank's confusion.

"What do you remember about your life?" the man asked with kindness.

The question surprised Frank. His life? He took a moment to consider a response, and soon realized with a growing panic that he remembered nothing. _Nothing!_

"Oh my god!" he wailed. "What has happened to me?"

"Don't be alarmed," the man soothed. "All is as it should be. As a favor to you, I will allow you a glimpse back at the life you thought you led. Begin to recall."

With the man's words, the darkness in Frank's mind lifted. Images flooded in, images of people and places, of events, minor and major from a life rich in varying actions, adventures, and emotions. Occurrences involving love, sickness, joy, anger, all flashed through Frank's consciousness, and he felt all of it, every moment in its entirety, all shown to him within a few seconds. His brothers Steven and Jerold, his sisters Roxanne, Karen, and Cynthia all appeared in scenes that had incredible clarity and impact, as if happening now. His mother, _Linda_ , had made a special cake for his tenth birthday, one decorated with the racecars he had once loved so much, a love that had faded with the passing years. His father hacked from a longtime smoking habit as he showed Frank how to fillet a fish caught during a summer outing. Abby, his first love, again kissed him in that delightful way only she could, or at least in the way he _thought_ only she could. The moments raced on, all complete, all experienced in their full measure—emotionally, physically, spiritually. When the last image and emotion faded away, Frank pleaded with the man to bring them back, but the man politely declined.

"That world is gone," he told Frank. "It is time. The diner comes—today."

Frank remembered. He remembered the words to the nursery rhyme.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

In a time that never was, they never were

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

The children play until it's time to pay

The children run but can't get away

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

The diner comes—today.

Frank recited the ditty aloud to the man, and then sneezed. "Damn feathers," he complained.

The man smiled and nodded his head. "Yes, feathers," he said.

Frank stared at him. "Am I missing something?"

"Have you ever closely examined your name?" the man asked.

"I don't understand."

"What do the first letters of each of your four names spell when put together?"

Frank took a moment to muse on that and then said, "F-O-W-L. What of it?"

"It is your true identity."

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

"That nursery rhyme tells you, but you got the words wrong."

"I did?"

"Yes. Look at yourself. What do you see?"

Frank glanced down at his body. "I see feathers. What of it?"

"When I allowed you a glimpse of your life, did you see anyone with feathers?"

Frank thought on that and his eyes went wide.

"What does this mean?"

"It means that I provide a service—a humanitarian one, if you will—for those bound to live uninspired, dull lives. I let them imagine themselves as something else. For you, I chose a human fantasy, which I tweaked to keep it interesting, to make its appearance more... well, real. Still, a life of illusion is not true life. Although time can be a flexible element in a fantasy world, it remains fixed in a physical one. You have been living in both, and I'm afraid you have reached the allowed limit in your physical existence, your real life. Your nursery rhyme explains your fate; though, as I said, you got the words wrong. It is not _children_ who play, not _children_ who pay."

Through Frank's increasing fog, a last glimmer of light showed. "Chickens," he said. "It's about chickens, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Frank had put the pieces together, but the implication roused no concern, as he felt an increased immersion in a pleasant mental apathy.

"So, why do you call yourself the diner, anyway?"

The man grasped his ax handle with both hands and lifted the heavy blade. He held the ax in a suspended position above his right shoulder.

"It is simply a name that suits the circumstances. I choose an appropriate moniker, one I feel best matched to the current project. I took this one from your real life—the one that now ends."

A farmer strode from a coop clutching a writhing, squawking bird. Over a hardwood block, brown-stained and lined with cuts, he positioned the bird and raised his cleaver. Crimson blood spurted from the neck cavity. The severed head of Francis Oswald Willard Lassiter lay unmoving on the block. His body leaped up and began to flop wildly, wings fluttering, carrying the body for a short distance until it dropped dead upon the oft-scratched dirt of the farmyard. The diner-to-be stood over the corpse.

"Chicken for dinner tonight," he said.

* * *

Michael Puttonen _writes YA adventure/fantasy novels, short stories, and the occasional children's tale._

* * * * *

# HOMELESS

### Neil Shooter

[The Diner] [Contents] [Gy]

Winter didn't end, but his world has. Is he completely alone? In a world gone cold, what can keep the spark of life shining?

IT FELT LIKE FEBRUARY, but it wasn't.

The frigid wind bit his exposed fingers as he wrote. The sun was nothing more than a vague disk, high in the sky, hidden behind the thick grey clouds. The pen kept freezing. He blew a little of his precious heat onto it. The pen didn't like this weather either.

He snorted at his own lunacy. The burst of hot breath reminded him of steam from an old engine in a period drama, and he remembered the strange accents, unfamiliar uniforms, and frilly dresses. The pause had been too long. The flow of ink had stopped again.

Writing seemed futile. Like an act of desperation. Why was he doing it? Words wouldn't make any difference to anything. But it didn't matter that the words he wrote didn't make sense. The words helped him hold on to himself. He needed to hold on to as much as he could. The man he used to be. The man he couldn't be. The man he would never be again.

Everything he'd ever cared about was gone. His home. His family. Even the city. All gone.

All he had left of his old life were those bits of himself that he could scribble down on scraps of stolen paper while the ink still flowed in his freezing disposable pen. What good were memories? What good were words?

He looked up at the sun. Sometimes he thought that it seemed a little brighter, a little bolder, but it was never bright or bold enough to bring any colour back to the world, or any hope either. This fake sun mocked him, taunted him. This sun was an impostor, a liar, and a thief. The real sun had been bright and hot in July. He'd laughed under the summer sun. He'd struggled over near-molten sand into painfully-cold lake water. The real sun had watched him play, kiss, make love. The real sun had offered him hope, and encouragement. He'd taken the real sun for granted. He'd thought it would always return, but the real sun had deserted him.

He remembered the things of colour; the flower, the blade of grass, the birds singing in the early morning, the blue summer sky, but the memories didn't seem real. He thought he remembered that colours had been real, but now only his dreams held any colour. Perhaps that was all colour had ever been. Perhaps he was just remembering his dreams.

Sometimes it felt easier to think that way. Better to think of dreams, fleeting and meaningless, than the alternative. Better than the reality.

Sometimes he forgot that it was July. Sometimes he thought it was still December. Sometimes the strains of holiday melodies danced across his mind and he wanted to sing, wanted to turn and switch the tree lights on, to light up the gloom, to fill him with the promised cheer.

His Christmas shopping was done, and all that careful wrapping. The tree lights would light up, and then fade as others came alight, a beautiful, shimmering wave of light and shadow, like a magic spell from an old cartoon, a hypnotic dance of such simple beauty.

The turkey was thawing.

There had been a pint glass of egg nog, the little flakes of nutmeg still swirling in the vortex after he'd stirred in some cheap rye.

That's when the knock had come.

* * *

He had to stop scribbling for a while when his appetite came back in a great, wracking wave, and desperately duelled his nausea.

To try to calm his stomach, he took out a chocolate bar from his emergency trove, and tore the faded wrapper with sudden urgency.

He chewed, without tasting anything. The wrapper had been a golden orange at one point, hadn't it?

He didn't let himself eat it all, not all in one sitting. He had to be careful. He had to save something for later.

* * *

He was lost in a daydream, about ice-cream and purple tulips, but he came back to himself in a hurry when he realized he could hear something.

Sound was bad. Any sound meant that someone or something else was making it. Sound meant danger. Silence was golden. And in the silence and the snow, sound carried so well.

He could hear something behind him. He couldn't see what it was because his shelter was in the way. It wasn't much of a shelter, but it kept the wind and snow off him. And it blocked his view of part of his little ravine.

He grabbed his stick. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He'd carved the stick into a spear, using a sharp stone, like some caveman artisan. Such activities kept him busy, kept his mind occupied, and gave him purpose.

The stick was sturdy, and it helped him keep his balance when he got dizzy, or stood up too fast. He needed to see what was making the sound, and the stick helped him stand to face his foe.

He saw the shape of it at once – a shaggy golden-haired shape nuzzling in the snow. Had it seen him? Or smelled him? Was it following his trail? His scent?

When his madness had taken him into the city to find pen and paper, he had come from that very direction, from behind this golden foe. From the valley mouth, from the south, and to this little, sheltered ravine. He'd brought this foe upon himself.

The dog sneezed, and snow showered around its snout. It shook its head, and its baleful brown eyes locked with his.

Man and beast, two feral creatures. They stood there for a long moment, locked in a frigid freeze-frame, looking at each other, sizing each other up.

And then, with a snarl and a growl, it bounded towards him.

It closed on him, this monster that used to be a Buster or Goldie or Sandie, and leaped for his throat.

Adrenalin and luck could do amazing things. His arm came up more by reflex than thought. The arm was scant protection in itself, but the stick was his ally.

The stick swung at just the right moment, knocking the beast hard on the side of the head. The dog still collided with him, and they fell to the packed snow outside his shelter in a tangle of coat and fur.

He must have dazed it more than it dazed him, because he was up and jabbing his stick at it before it could lock its jaws around his jugular. Its brass name tag tinkled against its collar as it dodged his thrusts, tolling like church bells in the stillness.

At last, the tip of his spear-stick hit home, hit it somewhere in the face. It yelped, and staggered back. It looked at him resentfully, before loping away, leaving an intermittent trail of blood behind it.

The trail was no good to him – he didn't have the energy to give chase or hunt the dog down. All that action had fired him up, but now that it was over, the flow had dried up, icing him over like a puddle on a frosty morning. For a while there, he'd felt like his old self, but now he leaned heavily on his stick, winded from the action. Red blood dripped slowly down the shaft.

The dog was free, and alive, but so was he, and he'd driven it off.

He'd won.

For now.

* * *

His head was pounding. He shouldn't waste his energy whining about it, really. He knew it didn't help, but he couldn't stop himself. There was no one to give him any sympathy or comfort. No one but himself. And who heard his thoughts but himself? Who heard his silent screams? Who kept him warm at night?

He sneered at himself. He was afraid to laugh at his own ridiculousness. He might not be able to stop once he started. He knew that laughing would be the end of him. Of his sanity, such as it was.

But he could whine to himself, through his poor journal of his days, on scraps of salvaged paper. The pathetic story of his existence, or the story of his pathetic existence. He was beginning to question the point of the continued existence of his pathetic life.

He was shrivelled, now, from what he had been. Brittle. But the words were still there, dried onto him, though holding only shadows of their former meaning. The old juices still wanted to flow.

Not everything had frozen yet. But this writing was a good thing. He was right to do it. It was helpful. Writing, scribbling, was an anchor. His memories were all that was left of him. Only the memories were real.

He used to be a heavy sleeper, but not anymore, not since... Not since. Now he had trouble sleeping at all. And when he did sleep, he all too often jumped awake out of evil dreams that he was glad to have forgotten, and, lying awake, he made monsters out of the darkness, or from the creak of a distant branch. One day there would really be something there, in the darkness. One day, something would come at him in his sleep and get him.

At night there was no moon. There were no stars. No hope. No guidance. Only darkness. His end would come in the darkness, he was certain.

* * *

Sometimes, he saw things in the darkness. Lights. Bobbing lights. And the whispering of a voice. The suggestion of one. Unless the sounds were just echoes in his head, like the crashing of ocean waves inside a seashell.

Here in the valley he'd never found tracks in the snow. Not people tracks, anyway. There were still dogs, and there must still be raccoons. Raccoons were too resourceful to have perished. Raccoons would be the future. Raccoons and squirrels.

When he went into the city, he had seen people tracks. No people, but their tracks. Tracks don't last long in the snow, so he knew he was not absolutely alone.

But he may as well be. There were no friends anymore. It was every man for himself. Or woman or child, sure, but such distinctions were meaningless now. He was the sum of humanity, and he was a man. He was a man, still. For a little while longer, at least. And he must live for himself and only him. It was _this_ man for himself. There was no other cause, no other reason. Only to survive as long as he could, and as best as he could. That was the only way he could still win.

* * *

He was a monster.

His emergency rations were gone – his 'civilized' food. He'd taken to laying traps. He'd met with little success.

But today... he'd caught a rat. Its head trapped in his makeshift noose, he'd followed the sounds of it scratching and scrabbling. His trusty spear had helped him again – a prone target was so much easier to skewer. But now... Now he was stuck.

He had a dead rat on his stick. Its glassy eyes stared at him unblinkingly, full of a final kind of surprise. But he couldn't do anything with it.

Man had lost the ability to make fire.

He was as afraid of fire as any animal would be. He was nothing more than a beast, a stupid creature of the woods. He was as craven as a mouse, nervous as a squirrel, and shy as a chipmunk. All images of the past. All meaningless!

He felt alone, but he feared, more than anything, the truth that he was not alone. If he made fire, those in the city who'd made the tracks he'd seen, those others would find him, if they were still alive.

And finding meant killing. They would take his clothes, his things, his stick, his stash – if he had any of it left when they came.

His rat. His raw, red rat.

They would take his rat. They would take all that he had.

No matches. No light. No heat. He'd tried rubbing two sticks together, once. He got so cold, sometimes, that he craved fire more than life. He'd seen a guy rub sticks together on TV. But he'd never been able to make it work. He didn't think he was doing it quickly enough. He didn't think he could do anything very quickly anymore.

Sitting there looking at his dead rat, he came to a decision. He had to go back into the city. If they took his rat, he'd be ratless. If they took his stick, he'd be defenceless. And if they took the coat off his back, then he'd find that sheltering, numbing touch that he always used to read about. It might not be so bad.

* * *

It was late morning.

The wind had died down, and he had found a seat in a glass-walled bus shelter. He could see all around him.

He was on a bridge that crossed the bottom of the valley, and crossed the river. He could see more of the monotonous sky from here, and less of the black skeletal fingers of long-dormant trees.

And from the bridge he could see the empty husk of the city. The rotten shell of it.

At this time of day it looked much as it always had, although without the hustle and bustle. It was at night that the stark reality became impossible to ignore.

* * *

He stopped dead when he saw the stranger. They just stared at each other, paralyzed by mutual fear and mutual distrust. They didn't speak. They didn't engage each other. They just looked, and looked.

And then he took a step backwards. And then another. And when he judged himself a safe distance away, he turned and hurried off through the drifts, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, afraid of the loneliness, afraid of the stranger, afraid there would be someone else ahead, afraid that there wouldn't ever be anyone else.

He found a bench, blown clear of snow. He felt drained by the bag full of newly-found supplies he was lugging around, and by the fear of coming face to face with another human being.

And he was in trouble. It was later than he'd realized. He'd done too much rummaging. Too much wandering. He was too far into the city. It was too late to get out by nightfall, and too dangerous to be wandering about at night – too many hiding places.

No. Much better to find one of those hiding places himself. Bed down. Keep a low profile.

He still had light to find a good spot.

* * *

The shadows in the city were more lumpy, more textured. More ominous. The silence was different.

Perhaps it was just the wind. Perhaps not. He didn't like it. He wasn't used to it. Or maybe he was just more on edge because of the stranger, and the unfamiliar surroundings. No, not unfamiliar. Too familiar. Too resonant with memory. Things he'd forgotten. Walking along here in the warm sun with Katie on his arm. The thick, smoggy air. The flowers. The pigeons. The fountains. The posters. The colours. The noise. The sunlight. The blue sky. Was it really ever–

A light!

He looked up and one of the lights in his mind's eye was real. There was a light in the tower! Was it a beacon or a warning? Had it always been there? Why hadn't he seen it before?

Light could only be made by people. But what were they trying to do? To help... or to lure?

The guy from earlier – was he behind it? Had he seen the light? The others in the city, if there _were_ still any others in the city – had they?

He had to find out.

* * *

He'd climbed these steps in twenty minutes, once upon a time. A blustery Sunday morning, throngs of people waiting patiently to climb these stairs for charity. Charity!

The steps had been busy with people, some hurrying past, some staggering carefully upwards, some hanging their heads in despair and fatigue, others walking around the edge of each landing to give the climbing muscles a few moments of rest, while at the same time maintaining the momentum to carry them up the next flight.

This time seemed to take forever, and even after so much time in such a dark concrete cavern, his eyes could make out no detail. But the darkness was alive with the workings of his mind. If something jumped out at him, he would fall back, and roll, and bounce, and roll, on and on, a long, long way.

But he didn't need to see. He could feel his way. Each railing was the same as the one on the flight below, each landing the same as the last.

He had to rest often. The climb was taking a lot out of him.

His footsteps reverberated off the metal steps, echoing in the empty stairwell, all the way up, and all the way down again. Sometimes the echo didn't seem quite right, and he would stop, wherever he was, in mid step, and wait for the echoes to die down.

The stairwell felt too open, too exposed, and at the same time too confined, too constricting. It was the darkness messing with his mind.

Sometimes he thought he could hear a shuffling sound coming from below, and the fear pounded in his ears, threatening to be the end of him. But then he would convince himself it was all in his head, that maybe the whooshing in his ears was the same as the shuffling sound. It sounded so reasonable that he sometimes believed it.

A sudden light startled him so badly he almost tumbled backwards. Far below a bang sounded, extinguishing the light, and making the darkness even darker than before. The door? Blown open by a gust of wind? But he had fought so hard to open it, surely the wind wasn't strong enough to do it, even for a moment?

The only alternative was... And he was gripped by a panic that got him moving again.

This ascent of the tower did not take twenty minutes. He knew that eventually the railing would change, that the landing would stretch out before him, but then the next stairwell found his feet instead.

He was close to despair. He was a fool, and this dizzying climb was going to kill him. He had to sit. He had to rest. Maybe he would even sleep.

He cradled his head in his hands, but the movement made him aware of something. There was a faint light coming from above. He looked up, and off in the distance was a dull red light, perhaps some kind of emergency lighting that still survived, hanging on by a thread, hanging on for him.

The light seemed like such a victory, and the exultation carried him back to his feet and upwards.

He was getting close, so close, but he had to stop. He panted hard. He was pushing himself too much. It would be too funny to expire of a heart attack like this.

Abruptly, despite his need for air, he held his breath. There was sound. It wasn't the whooshing of his pulse in his ears. It wasn't his imagination. It was a real sound. A sound made more noticeable by urgency and proximity. An approaching sound.

He couldn't afford to rest any longer. Someone was following him, behind him, beneath him, on the steps, ascending with him, coming after him, and getting closer. It hadn't been the wind, and he'd been a fool to think it could have been, to let himself think it.

He rushed on upwards, glancing up at the red light growing above him, glancing down for some sign of the maker of the sounds. When he saw him, the shock of it made him stumble again. The red light was stronger now, and he could see several flights down, well enough to see a person-shaped shadow coming up, making no effort to be quiet anymore, not now that his cover was blown.

He was distracted by the presence below, and tripped, losing a precious part of his lead. And finally the last landing was here, and the door where in another life people had cheered him on for those final few yards, making him feel like an athlete, like a winner.

He ran to the door as fast as his throbbing legs would carry him, and pounded on the door, hardly caring if they shot him, or beat him, or even pushed him all the way back down, as long as he could escape.

Behind him, a dark figure stepped into the red glow of the emergency light, and removed the glasses from his eyes. The figure held out his hands, the gesture of peace, of having no weapon.

"It's okay," said a man's voice. "I'm not going to hurt you. My name's Tony. We'll help you."

"Egh-em-uh." This was what he said in reply, or something like it – there was no way to spell what he'd said. He hadn't spoken in such a long time, not even to himself. He wasn't one for talking to himself. Slippery slope, he'd always thought, and if once you started down the dark path...

He coughed. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"David." It was a croak. He sounded awful. Worse than awful.

"Nice to meet you," said Tony, and then called out, "Katie! You can open up, it's okay!"

Katie! David turned quickly as the door opened, and warm golden light washed over him, making him feel suddenly human again, but at the same time utterly wretched. There in the doorway shone an angel of femininity.

"Hello," she said, as startled by the sight of him as he was of her. "I'm Katie."

But she wasn't _his_ Katie. Not his. His Katie was gone.

* * *

They ushered him in, either figuring he was no threat, or assuming they could take him.

He was close to a window, and looked out into the darkness. It was still the thick of night, and all he could see was his own reflection, a shadow of a man, bedraggled and threadbare.

And he saw Katie put her head close to Tony's and whisper something into his ear. Then Tony nodded, and took a few steps towards him.

"Dave," Tony said. "Can I call you that?"

Some people were funny about their names. David nodded.

"Come on, Dave, let's get you cleaned up. Katie will get you some fresh clothes, and I'll help you get washed. Okay?"

David nodded, and let himself be led away.

* * *

Standing naked in the bathroom in front of a waist-high mirror and a sink full of dirty water and used wash-cloths, he couldn't help but stare. There was so little of him left. He used to worry about his expanding waist, his fat intake, the calories in his mocha latte. His Katie had wanted him to cut back, to be careful what he ate. But now he was mostly skin and bone. He barely recognized himself, and yet when he turned, so did the reflection. When he stuck his tongue out at the apparition, it responded in kind. No, it wasn't a trick. It was him. He looked like death warmed up. That's what his mother would have said.

* * *

Tony came into the bathroom and stood awkwardly near the doorway, holding a small bundle.

"Katie is heating up some soup for you. But you need to take it easy for the first little while. Your body isn't used to much food."

David wouldn't say he was clean, necessarily, but he was cleaner than he had been.

"Some clothes," Tony said, holding out the bundle. David took it. "Oh, and here's some deodorant."

David nodded and accepted the offered items. _I smell_ , he thought. _Of course I do. I haven't bathed in six months._ "Thanks."

Tony gave him some privacy, although when a complete stranger has just seen you in all your glory, what use was privacy?

He dragged on the strange new clothes, and sprayed something pungent and sweet-smelling under his arms, and a few other places for good measure. The smell caught in his throat, and he gagged, spluttering, coughing.

Tony rushed in, but David just waved his hands, as if to say he was going to live. He didn't know how long he would live, but his luck seemed to have recently improved. His stomach shuddered to life with a wracking thunderous growl.

"Come on," Tony said. "Soup's ready."

* * *

The soup was from a can, and it smelled like ambrosia, or nectar, or manna from heaven compared to anything he had eaten for a long time. He watched carefully as Katie ladled it into a bowl.

"It's just some chicken broth," she said. "You have to take it easy for a few days."

The broth was hot, and it thawed out parts of him that he thought he would never feel again. He was ravenous, but they made him save half of the soup for later.

And they told him what had happened, or what they knew of it.

The end had happened at Christmas. They said volcanic dust in the sky had blocked out the sun. It hadn't seemed much different in the first few days, not in Canada, but in most of the world it was obvious. Temperatures everywhere plummeted, even in the tropics. Right away, food was hoarded wherever it was produced, or taken by armed gangs, and the supermarket shelves soon emptied. Martial Law hadn't stopped the looting. The chaos had spread even to stolid old Toronto. Like the Invisible Man a million times over, men and women acted out their basest desires, with no one to confess to, and no repercussions for their sins. When there was no one to stop you, how did you stop yourself? How did you hold yourself back? If only the fear of getting caught had stopped you, you didn't.

Some people didn't wait for food to run out, or even to run low. The police were taken out, one by one. There just weren't enough of them to turn the tide on such ubiquitous anarchy. The army wasn't here in the city, and no one knew where it was. No one knew anything, really. Wind-up radios told the same shortwave story. This kind of thing was happening everywhere. The nations of the world had all crumbled into neighbourhoods controlled by gangs.

While some had been able to flee to the country, to relatives perhaps, the chaos spread to those smaller communities too, and no one was safe anywhere if word got out that you had food.

The ravine had been the safest place for him, out of everyone's way, out of the line of fire. By February, ninety percent of the world's population had perished.

Tony and Katie had come in off the Lake, on skidoos, and skis, from one of the few places that had power, and green plants, and food, and warmth, a couple hundred clicks east of the city. They talked of greenhouses in a sheltered valley, of wind turbines, and solar panels – yes, even the few photons that gave the semblance of day were enough to power things, like heaters, and lights. They had to be careful, but it was enough.

They were certain the clouds wouldn't last forever. There had to be other people living quietly in hidden corners of the world, people who perhaps had already been used to fending for themselves. The time had come to change the cycle of death, of destruction, to gather the survivors and build a new life. The sun would come back one day, and there would be a new world.

Tony and Katie had come to the city because the ones who'd come before had been killed. That's why they had been so careful. There were other survivors here and there, but the time was approaching that they'd all have to be left behind, so those who had gathered could begin to rebuild.

And he had come.

They told him he was a survivor, that he hadn't lost hope, that he was the kind of person they were looking for. That he was the kind of person the world would need if it was to be rebuilt.

They would wait a week or two longer, they said, and return to their little oasis, with him if he was willing. It would be a long journey, but they had gas, and spare vehicles. There was nothing to worry about. They had taken care of everything. And did he want to join them?

"It's a lot to take in," he told them. He was still reeling from the moment he had heard her name. It sounded good. It sounded great. It sounded too good to be true. More than he deserved.

They nodded solemnly.

It was late. They showed him to a place where he could sleep.

* * *

He slept for hours, fed and warm for the first time in months. He woke up to find himself looking out of the window, at the clouds. The clouds were so close, he felt like he should duck.

The city lay dead before him, dead and grey. Huddled shadows. Desolation. There was no sign of any oasis, nothing worth seeing out there. But of course he didn't see any sign of life. On a clear day you could see for miles from up here, but not far enough. And any oasis that could survive the troubles in the New Year would have to be secluded, would have to be far away from the city.

It made sense. It all sounded so plausible.

But there was something else, and he couldn't put his finger on it. They were wary of him. So wary, and so eager. They were keeping something from him.

He didn't like secrets.

* * *

He heard one of them come part way into the room, and then retreat. They didn't know how light a sleeper he was. He lay still, enjoying the warmth, enjoying the comfort that he had thought would only be accompanied by an icy death. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was slow. He must seem fast asleep to them.

But they also didn't know how attuned his ears were to picking up sounds in the silence. Sounds meant danger, and now the sounds of their voices crept through the rooms of the tower, and into his head.

"He's out of it." Tony.

"What do you expect? He's been living rough for six months. It'd send anyone a bit squirrelly." Katie.

"Poor guy."

"I'm surprised he's still alive."

"You should have seen him naked."

"No thanks."

"What do you think he makes of us?"

"I think he's scared of us. He's been living off adrenalin. Fear was all he had, I guess." She was right. Fear had helped him survive.

"He seems confused. Suspicious."

"We'll have to be careful, then." She was right again.

* * *

Tony never saw it coming. He just crumpled to the floor in a gasping heap. It was surprising how far the blood went.

Katie ignored the body on the floor, seeming to take this development in her stride, but the fear in her eyes was real enough.

"I've sprung your trap," he said.

"What trap?!"

"I've had enough of your lies!"

"Dave, listen! You're making a mistake! Katie's not dead! You didn't kill her!"

That slowed him down for a moment.

He had to knock her out so he could tie her up. So he could think. He sat looking at her, remembering.

When his Katie told him she was leaving him, he had snapped. He had raged and yelled, and she had cried and apologized, which just made him angrier. She'd told him all sorts of lies. That there wasn't anyone else. That she just needed some space, some time. That she just needed to get away.

He'd hit her. He demanded that she tell him the name of her secret lover, demanded that she admit there was another guy. He couldn't believe she would rather be alone than with him. He knew they could work out their problems. And when she said no, he had knocked her to the ground.

She was still. She was quiet. And he filled up with the horror of what he had done. He couldn't face the consequences. He couldn't face the truth of it. So he ran.

Winter wasn't the time to be homeless, but there were ways to stay warm, and at the time there was still heat, hot food, hot air.

Then something had happened, and all hell broke loose. He didn't know what was happening. He didn't know what to do except remove himself from it. He ran, again. He hid, again. He found a hole to hide in.

No one had looked for a man in a ravine. There were other, more pressing things going on. He gathered supplies, and built his shelter, and no one bothered him. No one was looking for one particular murderer, with the city rioting, and burning.

And then she woke up.

She looked at him warily, afraid he was going to attack her again, or worse. She didn't need to worry about that though. He couldn't remember the last time he had risen to any occasion.

"You said Katie is alive?" He scarcely dared hope it was true.

Katie nodded, and winced in pain. "She's with us."

"Tell me."

"She only hit her head! When she came to, you had gone! The day the end came, she was already with us – she was already safe! And despite everything, despite what happened, she just wants you back, just wants you to be safe! Will you come back to her, Dave?! She's waiting for you!"

"Lies."

"No, Dave! It's all true! If you give me a chance, I'll prove it!"

"How?"

"I'll take you to her!"

"Why didn't she come herself?"

"She couldn't. She's pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Pregnant."

"Listen to me, you crazy old man!"

"I'm not crazy!"

She said he was, but he wasn't! She was just angry that he wouldn't let her go, lashing out, and trying to trick him with her lies. If she wasn't careful, he'd shut her up.

He left her alone for a bit, to cool down, and to help him clear his head. But he still couldn't think straight.

He needed the whole story.

Katie told him everything she could think of to say.

"It's worse than we said before. But better too. The city. It's dead. We haven't seen anyone alive in the month we've been here. Except you. You don't want to die out here alone and frozen, do you? Let me bring you to Katie!"

"I saw tracks."

"The only tracks we saw were yours. We followed them as far as we could. We have drones, remote controlled replicas from some show, from a toy store."

"I saw the lights," David said.

She nodded. "It was the best way to cover the city, once we'd managed to boost the signal. We looked for you as a favour to Katie, but we came to search the whole city. But there's no one." Katie laughed. "Except for you. Katie said you were too stubborn to die..."

"What else did Katie say?"

"That she dreamed about you. That she thought you were alive. That she didn't give a damn about the odds, she could feel you. She talked to me before I left. Told me the things... that had happened. The things you'd said. She knew it was a long shot, but look, here you are. She was right..."

"She's really alive..."

"How else could I have known what happened? What you did to her?"

"I suppose..."

"And I don't know why, but she still loves you, and wants you back. Wants you safe. If you just let me go, I'll take you to the skidoos and we'll go back to her, and she'll prove all this is true."

He didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to do. If it was a lie, this Katie would pay. But if it was true...

"Deal."

"But–"

"I said 'deal'!"

"We have to bring Tony with us!"

"He's dead."

"Are you sure? I want to check! His wife is back home waiting for him. The skidoos can handle the extra weight. If he's dead, let his wife bury him at home."

"I killed him. Forget about him."

"Look, I know you're under a lot of stress, but really all you need is some warmth, and some food, and something to look forward to. I understand, really I do. If we can just get you well again, we can take the skidoos back home, and everything will be fine."

"No. We leave now. Today. And forget Tony. He's dead. And I don't trust you. We leave now."

"Alright..."

* * *

He bashed the guy's brains out, but it was too late. When he lifted him off her, she was already dead. Broken neck, he thought.

They had been trudging through the snow drifts, towards the skidoos, towards the Lake, Katie pulling the bumpy bundle of their supplies behind her on a makeshift sled. And now she was dead.

Again the world was silent. Again, he was the only living thing in it, as far as he could tell. No flowers, no blades of grass, no dawn chorus to wake him. He was alone again, and he stood in the cold wind, stunned into immobility.

But if he kept standing there, he would die too. He would expire right here. And what if Katie really was out there somewhere waiting for him? That thought was the only one that could stir him.

Katie and her assailant lay in the snow, dead and still. He could only leave them where they lay. He gathered what he could salvage from the bodies and added it to the bundle on the sled.

He found the skidoos where she'd said they would be, and packed them with the supplies from the sled. He felt eyes on him, and looked around him, but there was no one. He looked back the way he'd come, and saw the darkness of the bodies in the snow with his footsteps and sled marks leading from them, or to them. But he turned back toward the lake, the frozen bay.

His dead Katie was alive, and this other Katie was dead. And he was wandering somewhere between them both.

There was only one way to find out if this Katie had been telling the truth, and that was to find his Katie, and ask her.

He knew to head east along the lake shore. So, he'd start with that. It could hardly be worse than cowering in the night in his little ravine. At least he would die like a man, facing his destiny head on.

Or find his wife and beg her forgiveness.

One or the other.

* * *

Neil Shooter _'s 'Homeless' was originally published in November 2013, and is the introduction to a series of stories set after one particular end of the world._

* * * * *

# GY

### Peter Lean

[Homeless] [Contents] [Irrevocable]

The Book was the knowledge that could open the door, but the worlds had been separated for a reason...

AROUND 'THE BOOK' sat the children of Gy's clan and Gy amongst them. He was one of the older kids, almost an adult really, and he and the rest of his class were about to graduate in the coming week. But for the Book lessons, all the pupils were brought together; the big ones who already had their pointy ears and a full head of dark blue hair, and the little ones who were still bald and round-eared. They all sat in concentric circles around the antique book, the cover of which was made of genuine leviathan leather and the pages of heavy parchment. The master followed the text with his old, knotty finger while the younger kids took turns reading.

The Book studies were Gy's favourite subject, and though he sometimes skipped riding lessons or javelin training, he always attended the lessons with old professor Mhrraas. The latter, as indicated by the number of letters in his name, was a man of great importance in the Liosalfar society, which rewarded achievements by adding letters to one's name. Eleven letters was the most anyone could hope for, while two letters were the least one could be awarded. Gy hoped to soon become Gyl, because at his age most boys already had three, sometimes even four letters to their name. His friends, Sar, Luc and Ale, sometimes teased him about that, but Gy took it with a smile because his father, whose name was only Gool, had explained to him that the letter system was not to be trusted anymore. After the end of the Great War, when letters were awarded for bravery on the battlefield, it had become corrupted by systemic nepotism. Nowadays, having a long name only meant that you came from an influential family.

"In my days, they rewarded knowledge and courage," said Gool in his loud growling voice that covered the roar of the bellows and his hammering of a blade on the anvil. "But now, arrr, things have changed. Suddenly, anyone who is related to a member of the council has a name as long as a rainy day. Arrr, my son, in truth it's a sad state of affairrrs!"

Gy was a realist. He knew that he would never be rewarded for his courage, of which he had very little, or for his battlefield skills, since the only combat skill he had fully mastered was the arcane art of retreat. Indeed, he could run away from danger faster than anyone he knew. So for a third letter in his name, he pinned all his hopes on being rewarded for knowledge. He knew by heart entire chapters of the Book, and he learned more every day.

The Book, also named the Book of Dreams, was an ancient manuscript that told the stories of the first founders of the Liosalfar community thousands of years ago. It told of the epic battles fought against the Dokasalfar and the Dwarfs who wanted to deny their race their share of land under the sky of Altergaia, the world to which the unwanted races had to escape when they were exiled by the Adamites from the old world.

For centuries, no one knew how the ancestors of the Liosalfar, who now lived in the Oneiria, the Dream Land, had travelled to the new world. Many thought that they must have had a long-lost technology which enabled them to build starships capable of crossing the frigid immensity of space. These beliefs were now dead, thanks to the ancestors who, from where their immortal souls resided in Oneiria, had found a way to contact the most erudite scholars of the Book, the Dream Book, which taught, amongst other arts, the secrets of oneiric travel. It was such an arduous technique to master that only a handful of Liosalfari elves had been able to master it and use it effectively. Professor Mhrraas was one of these rare few, and Gy, in his youthful ambition, hoped that one day he would become one, too.

Five years later

Gy gazed into the blue sky scattered with small, irregular clouds, looking for a sign. He'd been walking for the last two days, and started to wonder whether it had been a good idea to leave the village to venture in the forbidden land. And, even worse, to do it alone.

One step after the other, sweating under the merciless sun, he reached the top of the hill and sat on the grass. The wind gently brushed his dark hair, uncovering his pointed ears. Instinctively, Gy raised his hands to cover them. Then he smiled and let the wind caress his face; no one else was there, nobody could see him.

* * *

Pola was going home after the Friday class. As always, one full week of lessons at the college had exhausted all her energies, and all she wanted now was to reach home, turn her iPod on, and shut the world out of her room's door until the morning after.

Her classmates had organized a party, but she was not interested in it at all. She rather liked to read a book, watch a movie, or simply lie on the bed and close her eyes, musing on the random images of strange worlds flashing before her eyes. Pola had tried once to talk about that with her friends, but they looked at her as if she was nuts, and since then she had given up, preferring to keep it only for herself; a hidden, secret world to explore when the noise of life was lower.

Her father used to tease her when she was younger: "You must be a little fairy, with that copper red hair and those orange little freckles on your nose!" He smiled at her and stroked her long, red hair before she ran away, pretending to be annoyed by his remarks, but secretly loving them. Now he was not with her anymore. He had left one sad Monday evening, to buy something around the corner, and never came back; as it happens to thousands every year in the world, she had learnt.

* * *

The big brown bear slowly moved into the pine forest, making his way with heavy steps among the multicoloured flowers and the big orange butterflies, looking for shelter away from the first raindrops. The sun was about to set and the full moon would soon make its appearance in the evening sky. He turned his head at a crackle in the distance to his left. The bear's yellow eyes scanned the bushes, illuminated by the pale light of the moon. For one instant he believed to have seen a familiar and never forgotten silhouette, but decided it was only a game of shadows, a trick played on him by the moonlight with the complicity of the memories that still haunted him, after an indefinite time he could not even measure.

* * *

Pola's eyes gently closed under the influence of the sweet music playing into her ears, and her tiredness made her soon fall asleep.

Glimpses of an extremely green landscape – as she had never seen before – flashed before her eyes, at first fragmented and confused, but slowly more and more clear. She saw a forest, and high blue mountains in the background. Then her look reached a spot in a green stretch at the edge of the forest, near a small lake, scattered with thousands of flowers among which flew giant orange butterflies, and she saw the big animal, a majestic and mighty brown bear that was making his way to the water.

Her eyes lingered on the countryside and suddenly stopped on a slender figure at the top of a hill. It was a young man, or at least so it looked to be. He wore oddly-shaped clothes, which looked as if they were leather-made, and a pair of shiny brown boots, also in leather. His hair was very dark and he was gazing into the distance, unaware of her look. She suddenly felt as if she was spying on him, invading his privacy, and felt embarrassed. At the same time, he turned his head and looked at her direction, as if he had perceived her presence.

Pola woke up abruptly and opened her eyes.

* * *

Gy stood at the top of the hill, gazing into the distance and scanning the landscape below, in search of possible signs showing him the presence of pursuers. He saw nothing unusual. Just the dense forest, a huge expanse of green trees and, at the end of it, a chain of high mountains surrounded by a light blue haze.

_Well, no sign of them_ , he thought, and decided to descend the hill and venture into the forest. The risk to meet any of the enemies of his people was higher and higher every step he took, but he had to do it. The vivid dream he had had two days before was a clear sign from the masters, showing him the location of one of the Doors. The passage to the other world for which the _Liósálfar_ , the white elves to which he belonged, had been looking for ages. Then, suddenly, the masters had chosen him, a young elf.

He had heard from his father – as his father had learned from his grandfather, and so on – the stories about the doors, passages to another world, a world inhabited by another race, different from the elves, and at the same time from the _Døkkálfar_ and the dwarfs. A strange, weird world, full of unimaginable marvels, and dangers, too. He had studied the Book for five long years, and finally, one night, he had a dream, different from all the other dreams he ever had. Actually, it was full day and he was fully awake when he suddenly fell into a state of deep relaxation, and soon he found himself immersed in a soft but incredibly-white light, viewing as from the top of a mountain the place he was heading to now.

The passages to the other world were, according to the Book, located near lakes and rivers, and opened only under particular conditions and in certain periods. Someone said once in a hundred years, or even more. And only with full moon.

His friends' eyes had shone in surprise and envy when he talked about his dream. They could not believe that he – the son of the blacksmith – had been chosen, and not one of the more valiant members of the clan. But old Mhrraas had given his approval, and he had left. And now it was too late to go back, even if he wanted to – which he actually did not.

He decided to lie down and closed his eyes, savouring the warm touch of the sun on his pale skin.

* * *

An indefinite time later, perhaps one hour, or one second, Gy was thrown into the world of Oneiria. There, he found himself face to face with the Grand Master who was the most ancient and most powerful of the Oneiride ancestors, and whose name was spelled with so many letters that even if all the mass of all the stars in the universe were ink, it would not suffice to write the half of it. And since pronouncing such a name would take until the end of time, the Grand Master simply introduced himself as '1'.

1 was recognizable as a Liosalfari elf, taller and thinner than the Dwarfs but shorter and less muscular than the brutish Dokasalfari elves. As for the Adamites, who still inhabited the old world, Gy did not know what they looked like.

1 was dressed like an ancient warrior, the like of which Gy had seen pictures in the Margani book. He wore a light coat of golden chain mail and carried three javelins in a quiver on his back. When he looked down at himself, Gy was surprised to discover that instead of his usual turquoise leather trousers and tunic, he too was dressed as a warrior, only his chain mail outfit was silver instead of golden.

"Welcome to Oneiria, young Gylkanezool, it's an honour to finally meet you. We have been expecting you for ages and ages and yet, we are surprised to find that you are so young. You are indeed by far the youngest son of Liosalfar to ever reach us here in Oneiria. My name is 1."

Gy scratched the ground with his foot, embarrassed.

"I am Gy, Sir, simply Gy. Perhaps you are mistaking me for someone else, evidently someone of great importance since he has so many letters in his name. But me... I'm just Gy, the simple son of Gool, the simple blacksmith of Liosalfar." Gy paused for a second and then added as an afterthought, "Also, err, Sir 1, you keep saying, 'we', but there is only one of you... Mister 1... if I may say so..."

1 looked down on Gy with benevolent eyes. He mumbled to no one in particular, "Hmm, yes... humility is a most important quality in a traveller. We think it makes one lovable and only someone loved will get through to the other side."

They stood face to face in a dark grotto, the entrance of which was an opening situated behind a waterfall. Gy reasoned that to enter the cave, he must have passed through the curtain of water that masked the opening, but he was perplexed because he couldn't remember doing so and, even more disconcerting, he was completely dry. Behind 1, the cave ran deep into the darkness, an obscurity so dense that Gy felt that if he tried to walk into it, it would stand in his way like a wall of granite.

Confused as he was, Gy felt there was something familiar about this – and about 1. He had never seen the cave, neither had he ever set his eyes on 1 who was an extraordinary character; he certainly would not have forgotten had he met him in the past, yet he had the feeling that he knew about him, and about the cave.

"I read about you!" he suddenly blurted. "I read about you in the Book!"

1 nodded appreciatively, and excited, Gy exclaimed, "I know this is Meddleom, the nexus of the worlds, where the universes are contiguous, where despite being mutually exclusive, they touch and connect!"

1 was impressed. He put his hand on Gy's head with his palm flat on his forehead and closed his eyes for a second. Then he observed, "Hmm, yes... you are very knowledgeable. We have rarely encountered a man who knows quite so much about the Book, let alone a boy. Perhaps you will be the one who makes it to the other side..."

"The other side?" asked Gy, intrigued.

"Many have tried, you know?"

"Have any of them succeeded?"

"Not one in the last thousand years," replied 1 sententiously.

At that moment, a loud crack was heard, and from within the waterfall behind Gy emerged a Dwarf who jumped into the cave with the deafening shriek Dwarfs use to intimidate their enemies in battle. He wore armour of thick leather studded with black iron nails, and a helmet made of the skull of a Dokasalfari elf he must have killed in combat. He held the chain of a heavy mace in one hand, and in the other he brandished a redoubtable battle axe.

Gy had to fight every atom of his timid nature to stop himself from running and hiding behind 1. Instead, he stood his ground and with a shaky but determined hand, he drew a javelin from the quiver on his back.

The Dwarf was terrifying because despite being half of Gy's size in height, he was much larger than him in girth; he was practically as wide as he was tall. His face was hirsute and what little skin around his blood-infused eyes that wasn't covered with hair was crimson and angry.

He camped himself in front of Gy, whose knees turned to wet towels, and emitted a guttural growl that froze Gy's blood in his veins. Involuntarily, the boy stepped back and, to his great shame, he bumped into 1 who stood behind him. The Dwarf spun the heavy mace above his head and it went round and round with a whooshing sound.

Spinning the mace and slashing blindly in front of him with his axe, the Dwarf darted forward and it seemed to Gy that no amount of courage or determination on his part would suffice to stop him. But Meddleom had been safely guarded by 1 for a thousand years and it seemed to Gy that the least he could do was to die in the effort of keeping the Dwarf out.

He pointed his javelin forward in a defensive stance to withstand the attack. When the Dwarf got so close that Gy could feel the wind generated by the motion of the mace, his courage deserted him, but not his resolve; he closed his eyes and waited to die. His ears deafened by the evil Dwarf's battle cry, his nostrils saturated with the creature's acrid stench, Gy sent a last thought to his father and his wife, the gracious Paletinna, hoping that somehow they would learn that their son had perished in battle in the defence of Meddleom and that they would be proud of him.

The impact of the mace that would pulverize his skull did not come. Instead, he was lifted in the air by a pair of hands that moved him to the side out of harm's way. He opened his eyes and found that it was 1 who had saved him, and they both stood aside and watched the Dwarf pass them by, screaming like a banshee and slashing his way through the darkness blindly with his massive axe.

Horrified, Gy turned and looked up at 1 and cried, "He has passed through! Meddleom has been breached! And all because of my cowardice!"

He saw the Dwarf run forward into the darkness of the tunnel, and devastated, he collapsed into a heap of shame and sorrow.

But 1 helped him up to his feet and spoke gently to him, "Cowardice? We saw you stand your ground even though the Dwarf who attacked you was a seasoned warrior, whereas you are almost a child with little or no knowledge of combat. Longer names than you would have run and hid, but you stood your ground. Indeed, had we not pulled you out of the way, he would have surely killed you. This is not how a coward behaves... believe me, we've seen a few."

Gy looked up at the grand master and opened his hands widely to express his utter distress. "So what you are telling me, Mister 1, is that it's not because I'm a coward that the Dwarf passed through me like a hot knife through butter?"

1 nodded. "That's right, not a coward, quite the opposite really."

Gy continued as if he was not having a dialogue, but rather was talking to himself as if he was thinking aloud. "Not a coward, but untrained, weak and inept as a fighter! Oh! Here is a feather I can't wait to have sewn to my cap."

He let his head hang and shook it desperately. The words of Gool the blacksmith resonated in his ears: "The letters were awarded for courage... and knowledge..." But he realized now that he had none. He knew deep down that standing his ground against the charging Dwarf was the result of the paralyzing terror which had petrified him, and not a suicidal notion of chivalry.

"It's a sad, sad state of affairrrs..." he mumbled to himself with his father's rolling 'r'.

"I can see that you are very worried by what has just happened, but really, you shouldn't be. Like us, the Dwarfs and also the Dokasalfar have been trying for ages to pass through Meddleom to invade the old world. Although they differ from us in their motives and tactics, we all really want the same thing. That is, to reach the other side of Meddleom and break into the old world to meet the Adamites, if there are any left apart from Scarlet."

"Scarlet?" asked Gy, intrigued.

1 ignored the question and went on expatiating: "This said, as I told you earlier, our motives are different. We want to meet the Adamites to learn from them, if they have anything to teach and discover, if there is a way to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship with them. The Dokasalfar want to exact vengeance on the Adamites for having expelled their ancestors from the old world, and as for the Dwarfs, they want to destroy the old world because that's what Dwarfs do. They like chaos and carnage. They want to kill the Adamites for the sake of killing."

Gy, fascinated by all that he was hearing, which was written nowhere in the Book, had forgotten to feel disappointed at his own performance when he faced the attacking Dwarf.

He asked in his simple and candid manner, "I see, the Dwarfs and our cousins, the Dokasalfari, want the same thing, despite the different reasons that motivate them, right?" 1 nodded, so Gy continued, "So why don't they cooperate? Why don't they work together?"

1 smiled widely with evident and genuine pleasure. "My! It is so refreshing to speak to someone who uses his head. For us here, good conversations are rare and far apart... we miss that."

_Again with the 'we'_ , thought Gy, but he said nothing.

1 continued, "Your question is very pertinent, young Gylkanezool."

Gy rolled his eyes at the long-winded name by which 1 kept calling him for no apparent reason, but again he did not interrupt him.

"But you see, if they could find a way to cooperate, to help each other towards a common goal despite their past enmity, then they would have understood the very concepts of mutual assistance, cooperation and cohabitation, and it would become clear to them that the very thing that brought them together, the killing of the Adamites, was wrong. They would understand like we have that whatever the Adamites have done to our forefathers is not to be visited on their descendants, and that the right thing to do is to find ways to help each other make both our worlds better.

"They have tried, you know, the Dwarfs and the Dokasalfari, to work together, but every time they mounted a joint expedition, they ended up fighting and killing each other. You see, the thing about killing is that it's a very potent and very efficient form of communication. Killing someone is the clearest, most unequivocal way of saying to that person: "I don't like you." No danger of being misunderstood. It's succinct and effective, so people who use it sometimes quickly become lazy and start using it all the time. Do you understand?"

"I think I understand," said Gy thoughtfully. "But," he added, "it is sometimes necessary, isn't it? I mean, if someone attacks you or threatens the wellbeing of someone who is dear to you?"

1 raised his eyes and replied with a sad undertone in his voice and in his eyes. "Yes, of course, Gylkanezool, killing is sometimes inevitable, but know this, even if one kills for the right reasons, something inside the killer dies in the process. The heart is like a flower and every time you kill, one petal shrivels and dries and falls until all that is left is a parched barren stem instead of a heart. It's very sad you know. It's what happened to Peter Jenkins, the bear."

"A bear named Jenkins? That's unusual, isn't it?" said Gy as he walked towards the darkness into which the Dwarf had disappeared.

"Come Gylkanezool, let's us walk to the end of this tunnel to Meddleom, and on the way I'll tell you all about Peter Jenkins and his daughter, the one we call Scarlet."

* * *

Pola always wore sunglasses, big black impenetrable sunglasses like the ones worn by movie stars when they want to walk around incognito. But it wasn't for anonymity that she hid her beautiful emerald green eyes. If anything, those glasses which she never took off made her more conspicuous. She was the kind of girl who, however quiet she was and however low-key she dressed, everyone noticed. It had been like that in high school and it was just the same now that she went to college. She was extremely beautiful, tall and shapely with a lavish mane of fiery red hair that made her stand out like a scarlet lioness. Her beauty made her the centre of attention of all the boys, and that in turn made all the girls hate her. But since she haughtily refused to acknowledge the boys' efforts to get close to her and she superbly ignored the girls and their jealousy, she soon became an outcast, a pariah in a society of which she refused to be a part.

Pola's mother passed away giving birth to her and she grew up with only one parent, her dad, whom she called Papa and everyone else called Pete. He was an accountant for a big firm and had a bright future ahead of him until his daughter arrived and his wife departed. Heartbroken though he was, he didn't have the time to mourn, because the little baby girl needed all his attention. He quit his position at the firm, and to make a living he did contract jobs from home. The money wasn't as good and there was no future to speak of, but his number one priority was to stay close to his little girl and be available for her.

He knew from the start that she was different, by the way she moved when she slept, the way her eyes rolled backwards sometimes when she was awake and then she was gone for several minutes. He called her name, shook her to awake her, but all for naught. When her eyes rolled backwards, it was as if her body was an empty shell. Then, after a few seconds, a few minutes or sometimes a couple of hours, she would return. Always happy and smiling, she'd roll her eyes back to where they were supposed to be and say, "Oh, Papa! I had a lovely dream. I saw a flower with a thousand petals and a giant orange butterfly!"

He got used to it eventually, but at the beginning it scared him very much. After her first 'seizures' he had her checked by a neurologist who charged him an arm and a leg to tell him that there was nothing wrong with Pola. "Perhaps she is just daydreaming," offered the specialist, as he showed them the door and pocketed his cheque.

Pete made it a habit to ask Pola about her dreams and it soon became evident to him that every time her eyes rolled back, she went to the same place. There was a tunnel, hidden by a waterfall through which she walked in the dark, and at the end of the tunnel there was an immense, beautiful prairie of green grass with patches of multicoloured flowers. There were birds and butterflies and rabbits and ladybugs. It sounded like an idyllic safe haven to which she retreated in her head for comfort.

When she wasn't daydreaming, Pola was a perfectly well-adjusted little girl. She went to school where she had plenty of friends and she achieved good results in all the subjects she studied. She was an avid reader and a prolific and imaginative writer.

But at some point when she became a teenager, she began to show signs of unrest. Pete asked her what was bothering her and she replied that he wouldn't understand if she told him.

"Try me!" said her father. She did and it turned out she was right.

The problem was that at the time, she herself didn't understand fully the situation with which she was faced, and what she related to Pete sounded like the insane ravings of a lunatic or the inventions of an infantile mythomaniac.

She spoke of people who were not really people, some tall, muscular and dumb, others short, fat and evil, and others yet who had blue hair and pointy ears.

She was very excited and spoke too fast, her words tumbling out of her in her frantic effort to make herself understood.

"It's politics, Papa, politics I tell you. They want to have the power because now they are stuck there, and they want to be here... I think. They were here before, like, a long time ago but they got kicked out by... by... by us, I guess. The little evil ones, they are furious, all they want is to destroy the... the... well, us, I guess. They want to destroy us and the big stupid ones also. It's only the ones with the blue hair that are nice. It's only them that... Papa? Papa! Are you listening to me?"

Pete was a tall, heavyset man with hands like baseball gloves. He put a concerned hand on her forehead and found that she was burning with fever.

"Shhh," he said. "You're gonna make yourself sick. Calm down, Pola my darling, calm down..."

She fell asleep and he turned off the light and closed the door to her room before retiring to the living room to drink a little too much whiskey, until he fell asleep on the sofa like he did every night since he had become a widower.

The doorbell woke him up in the morning and he went to open it wearing the crumpled clothes he had on when he fell asleep – and only one shoe. At the door stood the doctor whom Pete had asked to come see Pola for her fever the day before. Doctor Whaltzar had been their family physician for many years and he knew how hard Pete had taken the demise of his wife, which was why he wasn't shocked to find him in such disarray. He looked with sad, understanding eyes at the empty bottle of whiskey that lay on the floor near the sofa.

Pete cleared his throat, mumbled some good mornings and asked the doctor to follow him to Pola's room. He opened the door and moved out of the way to let the doctor in first to see his patient in her bed, and he entered after him. They both stood over the girl's bed, horrified by what they saw: she was covered with bruises, angry reds and blacks and blues. Her tumefied eyes were half closed and she had a nasty cut on her forehead.

While Pete was still in shock trying to understand what had happened to his daughter, Whaltzar had already dialled 911 and the police were on their way to arrest Peter Jenkins.

He protested that he was innocent, but he was wearing dirty clothes and stank of alcohol so no one believed him. Pola screamed that it wasn't him, that it was the Dwarfs who had attacked her with intent to abduct her and use her as a gateway to destroy the world, and that she was saved by 1 who fought off the Dwarfs.

"One what?" asked the investigating policeman.

"Not one, 1! The Liosalfar grand master, the one who knows the whole Book by heart..."

The policeman screwed his finger to his temple and rolled his eyes, and Pete was taken in for questioning. Before they took him away, Pola cried, "I'll come to see you tonight, Papa, and when I do, you must follow me!"

The policeman pushed Pete forward and sniggered. "Sure honey, you do that, and bring the dwarf and the gang-master with you... ha ha ha..."

She mumbled, "It's grand master... and the Dwarfs must never cross over to—"

The door slammed and she burst in tears.

That night, as he lay to rest on the hard bunk in the holding cell, after having been relentlessly pushed around by a detective who wanted him to confess despicable crimes against his own daughter, Pete closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless torpor. Suddenly, from within his sleep, he heard a voice talking to him.

"Papa, I've come for you..."

He looked around and there was Pola standing in front of a waterfall inside a dark grotto.

"Is this really you?" he asked, because she looked so different from her usual jeans and tee-shirt self. She wore an outfit of tight brown leather with matching riding boots and had what looked like a short gladius sword hanging from her belt.

"Yes, yes it's me, Papa, come with me now."

She offered her hand but he hesitated, asking, "Am I dreaming, is all this real?"

A cute little smile, that reminded Pete of how she looked when she was little, curled the corners of her lips.

"Yes and yes," she replied, laconic. He seemed baffled so she elaborated. "Yes, you are dreaming, and yes, all this is real, very real indeed. Welcome to Oneiria."

She offered him her hand and he took it as they walked into the tunnel. While they advanced in the dark towards the distant glow of the entrance, she explained.

"Papa, it took me years to understand what this place is, and if I had not met 1, the grand master of The Book, I would still be in the dark. This place, this tunnel is a gateway from our world to Meddleom, the Nexus of the universes. This gateway exists inside me, inside what you may call my dreams. I am the conduit, through me passes the path that leads to Earth."

Pete tried to wrap his head around what he was being told, still half-believing that at any moment he would wake up in the holding cell and shake his head remembering this crazy dream.

She continued, "Now, what you need to understand is that there are other worlds with other races of people who live in them. The world to which our Earth is connected through Meddleom is called Altergaia, and the inhabitants of this world used to share the Earth with us humans. But eons ago, our ancestors found a way to vanquish them and they thought they had killed them all, but the other races had copies of the Book that holds the map to all the portals of all the conduits of the universe. They used it to find Altergaia and colonize it.

"The grand master at the time knew that in the future the banished races would want to return to Earth and exact revenge on the humans who had tried to annihilate them, and to prevent this further massacre, he erased all mentions of the portals leading back to Earth from all the copies of the Book, and so Earth was safe from retribution. But then I was born and it turns out that I am a naturally-occurring portal. The problem is that the Dwarfs and the Dokasalfar, who are the most virulent enemies of humanity, have learned of my existence, and since then they have been trying to abduct me so they can control me and have a safe passage back to Earth. They are always very careful not to kill me, because if I die, their hope of striking back at the humans dies with me, but they are ruthless. You saw with your own eyes what they are capable of doing. But I have a plan that will put an end to this threat once and for all."

While talking, they had arrived to the entrance of the tunnel that opened to the great green prairie, and Pete was able to see for himself all the things that Pola had told him when he asked her about her dreams: the grass and the flowers, the butterflies and the bunnies, and it was all real. He fell on his knees and begged her forgiveness for not having believed her.

She kissed the top of his head and told him, "It's okay, Papa, really! I can't blame you. I wouldn't have believed me either..."

She laughed her joyous laugh that sounded like a peal of crystal bells, and Pete shed tears of happiness at the sound of this voice which he adored more than life itself.

"But it was important for me to bring you here and show you Meddleom. You must never cross the threshold of the tunnel, because if you did, you would change your appearance and become... the thing that most resembles your inner nature, and you could never return to Earth. I am the only one who can go back and forth through the portal because I, err... I am the portal... Does that make sense?"

Pete nodded, and asked, "You said you had a way to make sure that the... Dwarfs? Was it? Never cross over. What is your plan? And is there anything I can do to help?"

She smiled gently at him and replied, "Yes, Papa, you can kiss me and hug me and return to where we came from."

Pete joyously took her in his arms and kissed her cheeks and her eyes and her forehead and she laughed and laughed. He finally put her down and said, "There, my baby! Now you have been kissed and hugged, and now let's go home."

She shook her head sadly and said, "Papa, you will go home alone. I have to stay a little longer to do what needs to be done to ensure humanity's safety."

"Yes, about that, you didn't tell me how you are going to do that..."

She smiled and said, "It's simple, Papa; I will destroy the portal so no one can ever cross it."

"But," he started, baffled, and as he said the words, he understood the terrible truth of what he was asking. "How can you destroy the portal? You said that you are the..."

As in a nightmare, he saw her fist close around the handle of her short sword. She lifted the weapon and aimed it at her chest.

"Nooooo!" he cried.

At that moment, a calm voice from outside the tunnel called her. "Scarlet, stop! What you propose to do is most admirable, but if you die here, in Oneiria, the portal will remain open forever, and you will have accomplished nothing!"

The sharp, murderous point of the gladius stopped an inch from her heart and she turned to face 1. "Very well," she said with unshakable determination. "I will return to Earth and finish what I started."

Pete knew that there was only one thing he could do. Without a word, he ran towards the prairie and as soon as he crossed the threshold of the tunnel, he metamorphosed into a great brown bear.

He turned to face his beloved daughter and said, "My darling daughter, I will stay here forever and protect you and the portal. I will dismember your enemies and shred them to pieces! I swear on the memory of your mother, whom I loved dearly, that this portal will be as impossible to cross as if it didn't exist! But I beg of you, my darling, my heart, my soul, do not harm yourself!"

She looked at her father, the bear who spoke to her, but she only heard roars.

She understood his roars and ran into his arms.

* * *

1 walked side by side with Gy in the prairie as he told him the story of Scarlet, the conduit girl, and her father the bear who had killed more Dwarfs and Dokasalfari invaders than all the wars ever fought, in his effort to keep his promise to his beloved daughter.

* * *

Peter Lean _writes science fiction and fantastical short stories._

* * * * *

# IRREVOCABLE

### L.J. Hick

[Gy] [Contents] [Poisoned Ground]

He did not accept finality. All he knew was that he had to change the impossible.

THE CAR ROLLED TO A HALT by the side of the trees, its engine and lights switched off. Not that there was anyone around to observe its approach in the dark, but the driver felt the need for caution. He left the vehicle, closed the doors gently and quietly opened the boot to retrieve a heavy cloth bag and a cylindrical sling. Once he had closed the boot of the car, he made his way into the woods.

He paused to put on what looked like a pair of ski goggles before continuing on his way. The glasses that now adorned his face lit up the woods like a summer day. He made his way through the thick barrier of branches, bushes and foliage before stopping some hundred yards from the boundary of a heavy wooden fence topped with barbed wire.

He opened the sling and withdrew the sleek black metal shapes from within. He locked the different sections into place, carefully checking his work before adding the sight and silencer. He crouched down, pulled the rifle into position and put his eye to the sight, slowly bringing it through an arc to survey his surroundings. When he had done this a dozen times, he slung the rifle across his back and took a position at the fence itself.

He used the wooden fencing as a support and once more took the rifle in an arc in front of him. There was no gate here, just the fencing, and on the other side there were small trees and bushes that served to mask the area beyond. The house that stood beyond was a huge Victorian building. The moon shone brightly, illuminating its roof and the brickwork and tiles that had seen better days.

He ran his scope along the contours of the building, playing with the top of the roof before using the chimney as a guide to drop to the first bedroom window. There were four windows with lights on downstairs and two of the bedrooms were lit, including the first one. He knew his target would pass by one of the vantage points but it could be some time.

He placed the rifle to one side and used a more manageable pair of binoculars instead of the rifle's sight. The night was young. He decided to give it until one hour before daylight before abandoning his task if the opportunity to complete it did not arise.

Patience was a virtue that he possessed and prided himself on. When the hours passed and the slight drizzle of rain fell upon him, he never cursed or moved for shelter, he just held his position and waited for his chance. A third light came on from one of the upstairs bedrooms and a shape shuffled across to pass quickly in and out of view. He picked up the binoculars and held his view on the window. Sure enough, there was his target, adjusting his tie and briefly glancing through the window itself. When the light disappeared from the bedroom, he picked up the rifle and focused it on the first window to the left of the building, then scanned the room as best he could. He could make out the medium-sized portrait on the wall and the shelving that stood to the right of it. The windows were narrow and decorated with strips of metal. He knew the windows were indented with thick glass, which at this distance made his target very difficult to hit. He hoped and prayed that when the time came he did not miss.

He focused the sight on the portrait. His target entered the room and moved from one side of the window to the other, seemingly laughing and chatting to other people in the room who must have been seated. His target reappeared with a drink and paused to look at the portrait. This was the opportunity, the area was too narrow to wait any longer and he might never get another chance. He squeezed the trigger slowly and deliberately.

The bullet shattered the window and fizzed into the portrait, narrowly missing the man's head and embedding itself in the wall behind. There were screams as it dawned on the rest of the occupants what had just happened. The man who had nearly took a bullet dropped to the floor. Lights came on in the rest of the rooms of the house and the alarm sounded, shrill and whining. It would not be long; the police would arrive and check the immediate vicinity before extending their search beyond the grounds and into the woods.

He calmly took the rifle to pieces, put the main body back into the sling, and placed the sight, magazine and silencer back in the bag together with the binoculars. Using the night vision, he made his way back to the car and placed the bag and sling beneath the covering in the boot. He started the car and lit up a cigarette before winding the window down and driving back onto the road. He travelled a little way down the road before putting the lights on and increasing his speed. The narrow country lanes lasted another two miles before he took the slip road that fed onto the main road. He pushed down the accelerator and drew deeply on the cigarette, smiling widely as his car found other cars and lorries to mingle with on the highway.

* * *

Ronald Mason was tired of the endless questioning by the police. Yes, someone had tried to put a bullet in him, but what he really wanted to know was whether they were going to catch the would-be assassin and why had someone made an attempt on his life.

Ron was a renowned physicist and when the funding he had been so dependent on to continue his studies was withdrawn, he did not hesitate to borrow the money to fund his own research. With a couple of breakthroughs in particle physics, his company grew and attracted bigger and wealthier investors. At the age of thirty-five, he was rich beyond his wildest dreams, but that meant nothing to him. It was the research and the advancement of science that fulfilled him. Dancing on the cutting-edge of science was the lifeblood for him.

His wife Carol made yet another coffee for the detectives, mumbling that nobody seemed to drink tea nowadays, and only sat down when the last of them had left and the man who actually was going to do something arrived. She was still shaken by the events of the previous night and for the first time in her life was grateful for not having children yet.

Gary was a detective of some thirty years and the owner of his own private security firm for the last ten. The police had offered them protection and Ronald had agreed to the standard hotline and the car parked outside the house, but nothing else. Gary had looked after security for a while now at Ron's firm and he had never let Ron down, made any mistakes or failed to respond when the situation demanded it.

"So what did the police say?" asked Gary.

"They said they'll find the man who did this and have a car sat outside to keep an eye on me and Carol," said Ron.

"Well that'll stop a guy with a sniper rifle. They don't even know where he took the shot from yet," said Gary, shaking his head.

"I heard one of them say that the shot must have been taken from behind the fences in the woods, but the others reckoned it was impossible for the sniper to take the shot accurately from there. The windows here are small and when the shot was taken I was not standing still. The sniper would have known that he would have to be incredibly lucky to hit me from there, so he would not have taken the shot," said Ron.

"But he did take the shot and missed," said Gary. "You know the police seem to think that everyone's an expert these days but maybe this guy isn't as good as they think. Maybe he's just someone with a grudge who unfortunately has a sniper rifle."

"I see what you're saying, but where does that leave us?" asked Ron.

"It leaves you in a position where you can't take any chances," said Gary. "So if it's alright with you I'm going to put two of my best people here with you. They will watch you closely every day. When you go to work, one of them will go with you and the other will stay with Carol."

"I'm not sure Carol will be comfortable with being alone in the house with another man," said Ron.

"I said people Ron, not men. One of them is a woman. They are on their way here right now. Trent and Karen are their names. They will make sure you are never alone until either the police or my guys catch this man."

It was not long before the two bodyguards arrived, who turned up in separate cars. Trent had a sleek black BMW and Karen a silver Audi. Trent was a blond, youthful-looking man. Clean-shaven and with bright blue eyes, he could have been the postcard American surfer. Instead, he had no discernible accent but spoke softly and precisely. Karen had long hair that was bunched in a bob at the top. Dark brown eyes stared from beneath her auburn hair and once again, she appeared to have no accent.

"Where are you two from?" asked Ron.

"We're not allowed to tell you that, sir," said Trent.

"Well I can't place either of your accents," said Ron. "Don't think you're American though."

"We are both multi-lingual," said Karen. "That's probably why we have no accent to speak of."

"All that phrasing hey?" said Ron.

He introduced them both to Carol and when Gary left, the pair of them did a grand tour of the house and arranged things a little differently outside. They erected screens just off the windows to deter any further sniper attack from a distance and placed a series of electronic alarms and sensors at different access points to both the house and the grounds.

"That's everything secure now Mister Mason," he said. "We'll leave you alone now. You won't see us as such but we will be watching. If anyone tries to enter the grounds, we'll know about it. Gary has patrols on the property and in the morning I will come with you to work and Karen will stay with your wife."

"Oh, I thought you were going to stay overnight as well," said Ron.

Trent shook his head. "No need. Once you are in here, you are safe. When you leave the house though, that's when we need to know. So don't even put a toe out of that door if we don't know about it," he said.

"Okay. We'll remember that," said Ron.

"Is there ever a time you can think of when you are completely alone?" asked Trent.

Ron looked at Trent for a minute or two without speaking.

"Not really. Not if you include me and Carol being together. Why do you ask that?" asked Ron.

"Should that be the case for any reason, you need to let me know so I can be with you," said Trent. "If you had an accident or something, how would we know? It's a bit like health and safety at your work."

"Ah, of course, that makes perfect sense," said Ron.

Trent and Karen left the property. With the doors and windows locked, Ron and Carol went to bed, safe in the knowledge that the army of dogs and flashlights that patrolled the grounds were _their_ army of dogs and flashlights.

Over the coming days, the security arrangements for the couple remained consistent. Trent and Karen arrived every morning and Trent would accompany Ron to work whilst Karen remained with Carol. The women would discuss everything from houseplants to world politics and Carol was amazed at the level of knowledge of world affairs Karen displayed. Trent stuck tight to Ron's side and always asked whether Ron would be alone at any point. This was never the case, however. This was Ron's company and there was always someone with him. In the evenings, Ron and Carol would relax with a glass of wine after their evening meal. Ron had started to look at the damaged portrait regularly, rubbing the bullet hole with his finger.

"What is it about that picture that fascinates you so much?" asked Carol.

"It's not the picture, it's the bullet hole. They keep saying the man who did this had to take an impossible shot, but if he was a professional, why take an impossible shot?" asked Ron.

"Perhaps he panicked," said Carol.

"Why would he panic? Neither the police nor Gary have found any clues as to who he might be. They haven't been able to pinpoint the position he took the shot from and there are no tyre tracks nor footprints anywhere in the area other than ones we can account for," said Ron. "That's not what bothers me the most though."

He beckoned Carol over to the portrait and pointed towards it. It was a portrait of his father and remained hung on the wall despite the damage, waiting to be repaired once the police gave him the okay to do so.

"Look where the bullet went," said Ron.

The bullet hole was in the dead centre of his father's forehead.

"It's almost as though he was deliberately aiming for that place," said Ron. "How could that be and why would he want to do that?"

* * *

The next morning Trent stood outside, leaning on the car, waiting for Ron. The sun was already oppressive and the glare made it difficult to see. Trent wore the sleekest-looking pair of sunglasses Ron had ever seen and seemed to have no trouble with the sun, even if it involved looking directly at it.

Ron was hurrying to the car and as Trent opened the door, he accidentally caught Trent in the face, sending his glasses crashing to the ground. Trent cursed, but not in English. Ron looked at him for a moment and then found his words.

"What was that? Mandarin? Japanese?" asked Ron.

"I spent some time out there and had to learn some," said Trent.

"Are you fluent?" asked Ron.

"It's more of a dialect to be honest. I'm not sure most of it is spoken correctly. Some of the cursing has stuck with me. That wasn't directed at you by the way, just the glasses. They're sort of one of a kind," said Trent.

"That's okay, don't worry about it. Shall we go?" asked Ron, smiling.

He climbed into the back seat. Trent walked to the front passenger seat as the driver started the car. As he turned to face the house, he caught the glare of Karen who stood in the doorway staring hard at Trent. He smiled and waved but Karen just kept staring.

That night as Ron and Carol were relaxing, watching television, they heard the sound of a muted argument outside. Ron dimmed the lights and peered cautiously through the window. There, standing by their cars were Trent and Karen. They had both left the house a good ten minutes earlier but had not yet left the grounds. Trent seemed to be apologising for the most part, with Karen poking him in the chest every now and again. She never stopped her verbal assault on him, pausing only once to turn in an angry circle wagging her finger before plunging it into his chest.

Ron turned to call Carol but she was already behind him, watching the couple arguing.

"What the hell do you think is going on there?" asked Ron.

"Don't you know? Don't you see it?" asked Carol.

"See what?" asked Ron.

"They're a couple, Ron. Look at them, they argue like a married couple. She cares a lot about what he says and does," said Carol. "Look how guilty he looks."

"Says the woman," said Ron, smiling.

The next day Carol stood in the kitchen, making herself and Karen a strong cup of coffee and burning a couple of rounds of toast. She spread the butter thinly on the toast and turned back to Karen, speaking as she munched.

"How much longer do you think you two will be here for?" she asked.

Karen shrugged her shoulders. "Until the job is done. Whenever that is," she said.

"Gary seems to think that whoever did this won't be back," said Carol.

"Thinking is not enough, we have to be sure," said Karen.

"What if we are never sure?" asked Carol.

"We will be. Trust me, we will be," said Karen.

"Are you two a couple?" asked Carol, suddenly.

Karen looked startled by the question and responded in a defensive manner.

"No, not at all. Why do you ask?" she asked.

"We saw the two of you arguing outside last night," said Carol. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be intrusive but you looked just like a married couple out there."

Normally, Karen would laugh at a suggestion like this. In all her time with Carol, she had been amiable and had shared a similar sense of humour but this time there was no change in expression, just a stony face.

"It was just about work, that's all. Nothing you need to know," said Karen.

Carol decided to stop the conversation there and pursue another subject. Karen plainly was not happy with this line of questioning, whether she and Trent were a couple or not.

"You know Ron and his team are on the verge of some breakthrough at work. He says that the world will never need to dig for coal or drill for oil again. That energy will be free for all. Do you think that's why someone tried to kill him?" asked Carol.

"What sort of breakthrough?" asked Karen.

"I don't know. Don't get me wrong, he does tell me these things, he tries to explain it but I don't understand. All I know is that he says it will change the world. Things will change for the better," said Carol.

"Did he say when he is likely to complete this breakthrough?" asked Karen.

"Well last night he was waxing on about how in a month or two they'll be ready to go," said Carol. She thought that the conversation might bring back her amiable friend but instead the stony-faced one remained.

"In a month or two," said Karen.

* * *

Trent had become accustomed to Ron's infatuation with routine on the car journey and never thought to ask why they had to stop at a certain shop to get his newspaper. The regular stops at the small terraced house, where Ron would enter the house to spend an hour in there at least every day on his way home from work, finally got the better of Trent's curiosity.

"You can tell me to mind my own business if you like, but why do we stop here every day?" asked Trent.

"In that house is someone very important to me," said Ron. "I always said I would look after him and I keep my word. He's a good friend."

"You never come out of the house with him though and he never comes to yours. Hell, we could give him a lift there and back if it's that important to you Ron," said Trent.

"You don't understand. He's severely disabled," said Ron. "He can't leave the house. I wish he could but he can't."

"Can you trust him?" asked Trent.

Ron turned and stared at Trent. The anger in his face was barely disguised. It was as though the question was unforgivable.

"I guess that answers my question," said Trent. "I'm sorry I asked."

* * *

That night, Ron and Carol were looking through the window again. Ron was beginning to wonder whether the two of them were beginning to lose the plot. The argument took the same format once more, with Trent on the defensive and Karen pointing and doing most of the talking. This time she pointed towards the house every now and again. Was she pointing towards the house though, or was she pointing towards Ron and Carol?

"For a couple of bodyguards they seem to have let their own guard down a little too much," said Ron.

"She said they weren't a couple, but was incredibly defensive about it," said Carol.

"Perhaps we should tell Gary about this," said Ron. "I have to admit, it's beginning to disturb me a little."

As he spoke, Trent moved towards Karen and grabbed her by the arm as if trying to calm her. The struggling Karen continued to point with her one free arm and protest but relented when Trent pulled her close and hugged her warmly. Ron and Carol both smiled as Trent lifted Karen's head to his and kissed her passionately.

"Well I guess that allays my fears," chuckled Ron.

"I did say," said Carol.

"Yes, you did sweetheart," said Ron. "Let's respect their privacy." The couple both moved away from the window as Trent and Karen continued their kiss outside.

* * *

Their secret observation of the bodyguards made their personal relationships with them much closer. Trent would go into the newsagents with Ron and got to know the shopkeeper. They would even stop off for a drink together at a nearby pub on their way home, but Ron never let Trent come into the terraced house with him. Carol and Karen had now started to go shopping together, interrupting their spending to take lunch. They also had a regular planned diet of television that they adhered to religiously. Carol never broached the subject of Trent and Karen's personal relationship again, however.

One night as Ron looked out of the window, he noticed that Karen was gone but Trent remained outside gazing at the night sky. Ron pulled on a coat and ventured outside to join him.

"You should not be outside," said Trent, his gaze not leaving the sky.

"Am I not safe with you and the flashlight army out here then?" asked Ron.

Trent smiled and Ron walked towards him. Ron stopped and gazed at the night sky along with Trent. The stars twinkled in the clear sky. Trent pointed towards what seemed a particularly bright one.

"Looks like a star, doesn't it. It's a planet though. Venus," said Trent.

"Is this a particular passion of yours?" asked Ron.

"I have not seen the stars in such a long time," said Trent, suddenly in a world of his own, his face drawn with remorse.

"I'm sorry?" asked Ron.

Trent turned from his watch and smiled at Ron.

"I meant I don't have the time to watch the skies these days. There was a time when that was all I used to do," said Trent.

"Really?" asked Ron. "Was that as a child?"

Trent shook his head and gazed towards the sky once more.

"As a child and as a man. I shouldn't tell you this but I was a scientist as well. Events caused me to take a different path and so I find myself here, far from home, doing a task I should never have had to," he said.

"A scientist? What was your specialisation?" asked Ron.

"Geology. I was concerned with the environment," said Trent.

"So what on earth made you become a bodyguard?" asked Ron.

"I worked with a man called Johnson. He was a physicist. We argued about everything. The state of this planet suited Johnson. He became very rich by suggesting alternatives to conventional ideas about cleaning up the environment," said Trent.

"What alternatives?" asked Ron.

"You're a physicist. You know that if you could put a mirror on the moon that the image in the mirror would be two or three seconds in the past?" asked Trent.

Ron nodded.

"Johnson believed that you could open a window in the mirror. That you could talk to people in the past," said Trent. "He thought that you would be able to guide them and tell them what they needed to do to keep the planet clean. A few of us helped him in his research. The problem was that you would need to be looking in that mirror from light years away to talk to people from many years ago."

"It's impossible," said Ron. "You would need to be 20 light years away from Earth just to see ten years ago."

"Not if you viewed it for a short period of time from another dimension. A dimension physically close to ours," said Trent. "Johnson viewed it as a series of mirrors and windows."

Ron laughed and slapped Trent on the back.

"Conjecture and fantasy, I'm afraid Trent," said Ron.

"Only, Johnson said that he had achieved it. He could talk to people in the past," said Trent. "We dismissed it as first but then Johnson suddenly started to inherit large amounts of money and he became an expert on historical events."

"So you think he was planting seeds and actually talking to people from the past?" asked Ron.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it," said Trent. "But something had changed. Johnson became more and more powerful as well as rich. I asked him whether it would be possible to actually step back in time and change the past. Put the Earth right. He just laughed at me. He said that even if we could go back in time, we would change nothing in the present because the past had already affected it," said Trent.

"Well it is the obvious conclusion," said Ron.

"Didn't stop us from trying to time travel though," said Trent.

"Did you succeed?" asked Ron.

Trent shook his head.

"Johnson made it public knowledge. He blamed us for wasting huge amounts of public money. I couldn't get a job cleaning test-tubes after that," said Trent. "Johnson didn't want anyone going back in time for some reason. It was as though his wealth and power came from his monopoly on the subject."

"So what made you become a bodyguard?" asked Ron.

"You don't need to know that," said Trent.

"Well if you have qualifications, you can still do the thing you love. After this has finished why don't we see if we can find a place for you in my company? It's never too late, Trent," said Ron.

"It is too late, Ron," said Trent, smiling at his friend. He climbed into his car and wound down the window to wave a hand at Ron as he drove away from the house.

Ron watched Trent drive his car through the gates. Once the car had vanished from sight, he turned to go back towards his house. He stopped and looked up at the night sky. There, shining brightly in the night sky was Venus. Ron suddenly felt cold and very alone. He hurried back inside quickly to embrace Carol.

* * *

Trent's revelation that he too had been a scientist cemented his friendship with Ron. Their relationship continued to flourish, although Ron did not broach the subject of Trent's previous occupation and Trent never spoke of it either. Their stops at the pub became more frequent but did not interrupt the regular visits to the terraced house.

Gary and the police were no nearer to solving the identity of the mysterious sniper. In fact, the police now seemed to have no interest in Ron and Carol at all. Even Gary was beginning to doubt the wisdom of keeping so many men at the property, to the extent that he was considering withdrawing Trent and Karen from the job. Trent had protested however, stating that this could be exactly what the assassin was waiting for. Gary agreed, not least because he could not afford to take the risk.

The weeks passed without incident and the winter set in, making the days shorter. One day, they stopped at the terraced house as normal and Ron left Trent and the driver to enter the property. He was longer than usual and Trent became restless after an hour passed by. He was on the verge of leaving the car and entering the house when Ron came back outside and returned to the car.

"Everything alright?" asked Trent.

Ron was shaking a little but stared through the windscreen, seemingly fascinated by the views outside the car. Trent stared at Ron and then the driver. He was relieved when Ron spoke.

"Yes, never better. Best I've felt in a long time," said Ron. "Trent, there is something I have to do, something I am meant to do. I need someone to help me with it."

"Do we need to pick up someone you work with?" asked Trent.

"No. It has to be you, Trent," said Ron. "Just you and me together, totally alone. No one else."

Trent looked at Ron and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Ron, what is it? Are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Tell the guards to keep away from the property. I don't care how you do it. And get Karen to take Carol out for a meal or something," said Ron.

"Okay Ron, not a problem," said Trent.

Trent phoned the guards at the house and told them to step back from the property, telling them that the assassin might be trying to access the boundary from either the wood or the fields. He then rang Karen, who agreed to take Carol out for dinner. Ron noticed Trent was busy texting Karen as well but did not ask why. He just smiled and enjoyed the night-time views from his seat in the car.

As they pulled up to the gates, the two men blocking their entry opened the gates and waved them through. In the rear-view mirror, Ron could see both men leaving the grounds of the house in a black BMW. The driver pulled up by the front of the house and then as Trent and Ron made their way into the house he left as well. Karen and Carol had already left and the house was completely empty except for Trent and Ron.

Ron was pouring his fingers over the bullet hole in the portrait of his father.

"He never thought I would amount to anything. He called me a fanatic, a dreamer, a man who did not know the meaning of sacrifice. He was wrong," said Ron.

He moved away from the painting and sat down at the small writing bureau. Taking out a notepad from the drawer, he ripped a page from it and wrote what looked like a single word on it. He crumpled the paper up into a small ball and gripped it tightly in his right hand.

"I am ready," he said, and looked up at Trent.

Trent stood no more than four feet away from Ron, his gun pointing at Ron's head. Ron raised an eyebrow for a second but said nothing.

"I'm sorry," said Trent. "We have become good friends, I know, but what you are going to do, I have to stop it. I put the bullet in the portrait of your father. It isn't disrespectful but no man could hit you from there, I had to get inside. I also had to keep Karen and me safe. We cannot go back. We have to give ourselves time to get away and start a new life. This has cost us so much already. A personal bodyguard, close to the target was the only way. It has taken so long to get you alone, but this way it will be at least four or five hours until they discover your body."

Ron still said nothing, but started to twirl a pen around in circles on the top of the wooden bureau.

"Ron! Ron! Don't you want to know why?" asked Trent.

Ron looked up at Trent and smiled at him as if he was silently forgiving him.

"In six weeks time you realise the breakthrough you have been working on. Dark matter will become a reality for the world. You will be able to harvest it and provide an endless supply, solving all the energy needs of the world. One man will corrupt it however, he will convince you that it can meet all sorts of needs and you will harvest so much that you can no longer control it. Our world will be grey and dark. My world, Ron," said Trent. "The trees are all dead and the oceans are a murky brown mud. The atmosphere is barely breathable and when you look to the sky at night, all you can see is the black fog. No sun, no stars, just the impenetrable black fog.

"I had to come back and prevent you from bringing this slow death to the world. Johnson said it wasn't possible, that we could not go back in time, but we found a way, Ron. We cannot go back though. It's a one-way ticket, so I had to bring Karen with me, my wife. One of our leaders, Johnson, argued against it. He seems to prefer our world as it, poisoned and less populated, easier to control and rule, but the council voted against him and sent us back. If there was another way to do it, I would, but I cannot take any risks. The only solution is to kill you."

Ron still did not move but spoke at last. "Tell me. This dark matter? Will it make me famous, would it make my father proud?" he asked.

"Initially yes, and I suppose your father would be proud, but..." said Trent.

"Then do it. Do it now, while I still have resolve. While I still believe in sacrifice," said Ron.

Trent steeled himself and fired the gun, sending a single bullet through his friend's forehead. Ron slumped, face down on the bureau, his blood spilling across the wood. Trent holstered his gun and took a moment to kiss his friend lightly on the back of the head.

"God forgive me," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Trent ran from the building and made his way across the grounds. Vaulting the boundary fences and running into the woods, he pushed back the branches and twigs as he ran in and out of the trees. In the distance, every ten seconds, a car horn made a single sound. He ran towards the noise, breathless, afraid and distraught at what he had just done. The tears streamed down his cheeks. As he left the woods, he fell into the arms of Karen, sobbing hysterically.

"It's okay, it's okay," said Karen, stroking Trent's hair.

"It's not okay. He was my friend. He trusted me and I killed him. I killed him, Karen," said Trent.

"You had no choice. What else could you do? You did what you had to," said Karen.

Trent looked at the silver Fiesta parked by the side of the woods.

"It's a rental. False ID. By the time they find Ron, we will be long gone. New identities and a new life. This is our world now Trent. We cannot go back, but we at least know our world will not be poisoned," said Karen.

Trent dried his eyes and slowly composed himself.

"Johnson said it could not be done. He said you couldn't change the past because it has already happened. Irrevocable he called it. Yet, here we are. Johnson was wrong, thank God. I am so glad he was wrong but I hope that wherever Ron is, he forgives me. Carol is safe, isn't she?" asked Trent.

"I left her at her mother's with one of the security team. We saved her at least. Ron was my friend too and I am trying not to imagine Carol's grief when she discovers what has happened," said Karen.

Trent pulled himself to his feet and the couple climbed into the Fiesta. Karen sat in the driver's seat and looked across at her husband, who was still struggling to hold back the tears. She leaned across, kissing him gently on the cheek before starting the car. They both turned and smiled at each other and clasped hands gently.

The lorry losing control on the corner behind them came hurtling through the rear of the Fiesta, pinning it between itself and a large oak tree, crushing it into a pile of twisted metal and killing the occupants instantly. Only the hands of the couple were visible in the carnage, still holding each other tightly.

* * *

The group of people moved away from the grave and began to disperse into smaller groups, all having their own respectful discussions. Gary stood behind the man placing a single white carnation on the grave.

"You never told me about him. You never told anyone about him, only Carol," said Gary.

Ronald Mason stood up and straightened his coat.

"He was the same as me. A scientist. Truth is he was brilliant, far better than me," said Rod. "But father ridiculed him because John wanted to talk to other worlds, different dimensions. He was thirty years old when he claimed that he could talk to people in the future. His behaviour grew erratic. He would wake up screaming; even attacked people, saying that they wanted to kill me. We found a gun in his house and that was the last straw. I had no choice but to keep John away from the rest of society, for his sake as well as theirs."

"Schizophrenia?" asked Gary.

"Paranoid schizophrenia," said Ron. "Very acute."

"I have put my resignation on your desk back at the house," said Gary.

"Why?" asked a shocked Ron.

"Why? The people I put close to you were the very people who wanted to kill you," said Gary. "I swear that at the time I put my faith in them, they had worked for me for years. Valued and trusted employees. Yet now, after their death, I know that they came to see me just six weeks before the bullet hit your father's portrait."

"Who were they?" asked Ron.

"We don't know. The cops don't know. It's as though they came from another world. No trace of a real identity, although they had a brace of brilliantly forged identities."

"They nearly got away, I'm told."

"Yes, an unfortunate or fortunate accident, depending how you look at it," said Gary. "Lorry driver lost control on a corner, swears that the wheel just went loose. Their car was crushed between the truck and a tree. The sniper rifle and bullets that match the one in your wall were in the boot."

"I wonder why they wanted to kill me?" asked Ron. "John kept saying that someone was coming to kill me. The man in his head warned him that he had to save me. On the day Trent shot John, I stopped off at the house as normal only to find his two carers unconscious. I found John in a room by himself, he kept saying it's today, it's today. Sacrifice, I know sacrifice, he kept saying. I asked him who warned him, tried to calm him before phoning for help for the carers but he just said, 'I will tell you after I am gone'. Then he stuck a syringe in me and the world went black. Woke up in just my underpants," said Ron.

"He switched clothes with you and climbed into the car with Trent," said Gary. "Trent thought John was you. He never suspected a thing."

"Identical twins. Even the hair," said Ron. "You know, he insisted on changing his name just before he lost it completely. Said it was important, he made me promise never to tell anyone. He even managed to falsify documents to show that he had died at birth. For all intents and purposes, I had no brother, well not one that the history books would know of, anyway. He said they must not know of him, whoever they might be. The man in his head told him this," said Ron.

"Trent thought it was you. Thought he had his man. I'm sorry Ron," said Gary.

Ron smiled and wiped a tear from his cheek before placing a hand on Gary's shoulder.

"You're not responsible for this, Gary. They fooled us all; me, you and the police. In two weeks time I have a very important announcement to make. I have discovered something that will change the world. I need people around me I can trust. I am refusing your resignation. I expect to see you back at work tomorrow morning, nice and early," said Ron.

Gary smiled and nodded and walked away as Carol embraced her husband from behind.

"You alright?" she whispered in his ear.

"I guess so," said Ron. "How did he know that on that particular day someone would try and kill me? Father ridiculed him, but he was a bigger man than us both. Somehow, he knew he was going to die and yet he made sure I was safe. He made the sacrifice."

"Didn't he say the voice in his head warned him of all this?" asked Carol.

"He always said he would tell me how. I guess we'll never know now," said Ron.

Carol hugged Ron tightly and he returned her embrace. Gary was running back towards them, holding something in his hand. Ron and Carol separated as Gary approached.

"I almost forgot," said Gary. "John had a piece of paper crumpled up in his hand when they found him. He had written just one word on it. It makes no sense to me or the police but you should have it."

Gary gave Ron the crumpled paper and turned to leave as Ron unravelled the paper.

On the paper written in ink was just one word.

Johnson.

* * *

L.J. Hick _is an author, guitarist and former advisor to major banks. His debut novel 'Gods and Monsters' is the first book in his series 'The Last Days of Planet Earth'._

* * * * *

# POISONED GROUND

### Laurel A. Rockefeller

[Irrevocable] [Contents] [Sasha And The Collared Girl]

Lady Abbess Cara of house Ten-Ar must find the cause of a mysterious plague of illnesses before it is too late for the city of Nan-li...

THE CITY OF NAN-LI in the southwestern continent of Xi-Nan Fang glittered dimly over the smog, its silver-white porphyritic granite glinting weakly in the blue-white light of B345A15, the Beinarian sun. Two li outside of the city of 589,000 residents, a thick cloud of dark smoke hovered over the massive strip mine run by house Ana.

Lady Abbess Cara's eyes widened from the back seat of her low-altitude shuttle as Lord Knight Ronel expertly piloted the shuttle towards the mine. Where clearly over 600,000 ancient trees once stood, only the barest of roots and twigs remained, turning the once lush forest into red-black barren wasteland. Instinctively tears fell from her eyes. As Lord Ronel lowered the shuttle to the ground, parking it ten zhang from the mine, he noticed her tears.

"Why do you weep, Your Excellency?"

"Can you not feel it, Ronel? The air, the land, even the Amba Mederi Ocean from three hundred li away – all that was good and healthy here is gone," lamented Cara.

"Your Excellency, Lady Rachel is expecting you. You _did_ call this meeting with her at the mine, remember?"

"To verify the reports, yes, of course. When we are done here, I want to meet with Lady Healer Gwyneth of house Gurun at Nan-li Central Healing Center. She is still head researcher investigating brown-eye syndrome, is she not?"

Ronel turned on his touch pad computer, looking up the information for Lady Cara. "I believe so, yes. Will shir-or 5.25 be convenient?"

"Make it so," commanded Lady Cara, disembarking from the shuttle and striding towards the mine entrance.

* * *

At the mine, Lady Engineer Rachel of house Ana waited sternly for Lady Cara's arrival, annoyed that her rival in the Great Council insisted on inspecting her mine. As Lady Cara reached her, Rachel offered the Anan gesture of respect half-heartedly.

"Welcome to Nan-li, lady abbess of house Ten-Ar."

Lady Abbess Cara offered Rachel the Ten-Arian gesture of respect. "Thank you for receiving me on such short notice."

"Given the public accusations you made on the floor of the Great Hall of the Assembly, how could I refuse?" sniped Rachel curtly, leading Lady Abbess Cara into a compact surveying cart.

As Rachel piloted the small craft designed to navigate the mining strata, Cara took atmospheric and mineral readings with her tablet computer. Stopping Rachel every hundred zhang to collect mineral samples from the only mostly stable back walls and floor, Cara studied the readings carefully, the occasional surviving root twig or nut making it into her sampling. Each time Cara stopped Rachel to collect another soil sample, Rachel's irritation grew, the flecks of brown in her grey eyes glowing as her anger increased. Finally, the survey completed, Cara aimed her computer at Rachel for a full medical scan.

Rachel growled at her. "What are you doing now?"

"Running a preliminary health scan on you," answered Lady Healer Cara absentmindedly.

"You do not have my permission to examine me, healer. I really do not care that you are the head of the healers of Ten-Ar or what your baby-sitting knights may think. Call them all if you like; the law stands with me on this."

"Lady Engineer Rachel, are you aware that you are dying?"

Rachel guffawed at her sarcastically. "Really? What kind of Ten-Arian nonsense is this?"

"With all due respect, Lady Rachel, recognizing your position as one of house Ana's representatives on the Great Council, how old are you?"

"One hundred and sixty-eight yen-ars, eighty nine beinors – why?" growled Rachel.

"You have the body of a woman twice your age. I am detecting early and middle-stage cancers across your body's systems, including two tumors in your brain and the beginning of lung cancer."

"I am _fine_ ," reassured Rachel.

"That is not what my scans indicate."

"What scans? You came here to verify reports you received at the last session of the Great Council!"

"I head the healers of Ten-Ar, Lady Engineer Rachel. For over fifty yen-ars I have researched and healed countless patients across all strata of Beinarian society."

"You know nothing about me – or my people," asserted Rachel.

"We shall see," challenged Lady Cara, taking her leave and heading back to Lord Knight Ronel.

* * *

"Are we done here?" asked Lord Knight Ronel as Cara approached him.

"I want to run some detailed scans on nearby foliage and walk through the nearest forest if there is time. I have a theory, Lord Ronel; one that makes me very uneasy based on my readings so far this trip."

"As you wish, Your Excellency," complied Ronel, firing up the engines of the shuttle and expertly piloting it to accommodate Cara's instructions.

On the edge of a large forest consisting mostly of nara, kara, and nanla trees, Cara stepped out, Ronel guarding her carefully as the distracted healer worked. Overhead fabku chirped unseen until landing on a branch above them to dine on kara berries, their zygodactyl feet expertly positioning the choicest fruits on each cluster, dropping each fruit half-eaten to forest floor. A wild konyn hopped across their path to the fruit, munching greedily at the bird-harvested feast, its ears and long tail twitching as it listened for predators. Ronel beamed at the beautiful sight. Nature in all its magnificence lay around him. With fewer cities and industry, Xi-Nan Fang was one of the most beautiful places on the entire planet, filled with glaciers in the southeastern polar region, glorious mountain chains, and spectacular canyons creating icy cold rainbow waterfalls and raging rapids to challenge even the best navigator from house Cashmarie. Tourists from across Beinan flocked to Xi-Nan Fang to enjoy both its beauty and its many sporting opportunities.

A stream raged suddenly at their feet. A powerful salmon-like fish called a łosoś leapt and twisted into the air like a powerful gymnast. Twelve zhang ahead of them, Lady Healer Cara spotted a small waterfall eight zhang tall, behind which she noticed a small cave. Careful of her Ten-Arian crimson-edged kirtle gown, she collected water from the falls, scanning it with her computer before returning her equipment to the pouch on her belt. Smiling, she filled her hands with the water and drank deeply, Ronel following suit and satiating his thirst.

"Dong-Bei has nothing like this! I have never seen so much beauty, Your Excellency."

"Forests are some of the most beautiful places in all the universe. They say other worlds have forests just as beautiful as this one – some even kol-based, not silizium-based as all life on Beinan is," replied Cara, equally awed by the nature around her.

"Kol-based life?" puzzled Ronel.

"Yes! Long ago we traded with a number of kol-based societies across a dozen galaxies – now such journeys are the stuff of legends," mused Cara, her eyes darting back down to the readings on her computer. Alarm filled her eyes. "Ronel – we must cut this short. I must conference with Lady Healer Gwyneth immediately!"

* * *

Nan-li Central Healing Center sparkled like a Beinarian diamond. 0.6 li from the main entrance to the healing center stood a brand new "Central Nan-li Healing Center" stop on a prominent light rail line. As Lady Cara briskly navigated the healing center, healers, patients, and healers-in-training all bowed respectfully as she passed.

Lady Healer Gwyneth intercepted her. "You said it was urgent?"

"I've finished my readings at and near the Nan-li argene mine," scowled Cara.

"Is it as bad as reported? Thirty percent increase in atmospheric argene and two-hundred percent increase in both bilast and dilast?" asked Gwyneth.

"No – the levels are in fact much higher since the last time we took readings. But it gets worse. Without her permission I scanned Lady Engineer Rachel of house Ana, the one who keeps fighting Ten-Arian efforts in the Great Council to improve mining safety and protect the health of area residents. Gwyneth... I detected at least six cancers growing in her."

Gwyneth halted, a sudden wave of vertigo collapsing her into a nearby chair. "Banumu Hehe help us! I checked her medical records, Cara; there was no evidence of any illness five yen-ars ago when she came in for her last physical."

"I have soil, water, and vegetation samples with me for the healing center lab to conduct comprehensive analysis, proof that our position as healers about the mines is correct: we are on the verge of a major ecological disaster if we do not find a way to stop strip mining operations and restore the forests. Nowhere should there be more than one bilast molecule per billion in our atmosphere. At the mines the atmosphere is a full five percent bilast – enough to kill anyone not on special breathing gear. But that's not the worst news."

"It gets worse?" stammered Gwyneth.

"The crude on-site refining is creating atmospheric argene which is saturating everything. We know from studies conducted by both Ten-Ar and Gurun since the Nan-li mine opened in BE 5300 over two hundred yen-ars ago that direct and unprotected exposure to argene destroys Beinarian helices, creating not just the surge in cancers we've both detected, but attacking our very retinal penta-chromatism, destroying two of our five retinal cone receptors."

"How can anyone function with only three retinal receptors? Such a condition would make an affected person all but completely blind in our atmosphere," noted Gwyneth.

"Creating an epidemic of de facto blindness and creating the sort of massive under-class that could destroy our carefully-built constitutional monarchy. Back at the Ten-Arian monastery we call this disease 'brown-eye syndrome.' It attacks the eyes slowly for those newly-exposed, but far faster on those born here, or to one or more sufferers."

"Are you saying that with each generation born here and exposed to argene, the condition becomes locked into the helices, moving from generation to generation even after a person or family leaves this area?"

Lady Healer Cara gazed into Lady Gwyneth's darkening eyes. "Yes. Primary estimates indicate it may take several generations to fully correct the damage. But surely you know this – your eyes, my friend! You have early stage brown-eye syndrome!"

"I know. But being healers we both know no permanent solution can come without the support of the Great Council. If they will not listen to our data, to the results of over one hundred yen-ars of research – what then? Cara, there are over 589,000 residents in Nan-li alone; hundreds of millions more across the northwestern region of Xi-Nan Fang where they dig most of the mines – not just for argene, but countless other minerals."

"Perhaps the lab will have some answers for us that our training as healers-in-chief of our respective houses cannot find based on the data at hand," offered Lady Abbess Cara.

"I will have the lab run analysis right away. Can you stay in Nan-li overnight? I estimate it will take from six to eight shir-ors to run a comprehensive analysis – assuming no critical care patients arrive in the emergency ward."

"Can you suggest a nearby lodging establishment with good food?"

"Lan-xing Ulen is not far away. I understand they offer a rather palatable breakfast buffet, including Belarian waffles."

"Belarian waffles? Really? Well then Lan-xing Ulen it is!"

* * *

"Welcome to Lan-xing Ulen. How may I help you?" A blue civilian droid hovered before them.

"Two rooms, please," answered Lord Knight Ronel.

"We have several room options," offered the droid. "What perimeters should I search for in order to find each of you the perfect lodging?"

"I am Lord Ronel; my mistress is Lady Abbess Cara of house Ten-Ar."

The blue of the droid's skin brightened. "Dignitaries from Dong-Bei! Well then, I have a two-bedroom luxury suite available to your mistress for thirty tai-ors per beinor, featuring two private bedrooms, a common living room, private access to global communication channels, and access to a small private garden. You are the abbess' knight protector?"

"I am," affirmed Ronel.

"Do you still wish for two rooms or is this suite to your liking?"

"We will take the suite," agreed Ronel, offering a triangular payment card to the droid.

The droid scanned his payment card. "Welcome to Lan-xing Ulen. Please enjoy your stay."

* * *

The next morning Lord Knight Ronel sat in silence with Lady Abbess Cara in the dining room, nursing a glass of kelan juice thoughtfully. The abbess relished a plate of Belarian waffles with kara berry jam, and a hot steaming mug of the same minty hot chocolate traditionally served at formal occasions like weddings and royal court receptions. Clothed from head to toe in black, with only a narrow band of Ten-Arian crimson adorning his modest trousers and doublet, he felt naked without his heavy, two-handed Ten-Arian broad sword.

"Your Excellency, are you sure I should not wear my sword?"

"Why would you need to be armed, Ronel? You think there is going to be danger at Nan-li Central? It is a healing center, not a war zone."

"With all due respect, Your Excellency, that healing center has you written all over it; you were the one who proposed its construction. You were the one who insisted on it featuring twice as many research laboratories than the typical healing center. That healing center is at the forefront of medical research for the region. Yes, it services many of the poorest on our world – but it is clearly your work. That makes you a target, especially here."

"I am a healer, not a warrior. Why would anyone want to kill me? My heart is to end suffering and make our world worthy of its many blessings."

"Healers know things that the rest of us do not. That makes you a threat, Your Excellency. But more than that – you are the ranking leader of our house, even above the Masters of Ten-Ar. Theirs is a chorus of voices, but you speak with the strength of a single healing voice."

"If you feel so strongly about it, lord knight – by all means arm yourself as you see fit. I want to avail myself of this delicious food. Go back to our suite once you finish your meal and join me here."

* * *

As commanded, Lord Knight Ronel returned to their suite to find the abbess' communications system flashing with an incoming message.

"This is Lord Knight Ronel," he answered.

Lady Healer Gwyneth's image appeared. "Lord Knight Ronel, I am relieved to find you still alive."

"What happened?"

"An attack, my lord! Twelve of our best healers and healers in training studying the samples Her Excellency collected last beinor were found murdered – bilast poisoning."

"Bilast? The abbess found high levels of bilast at the mine, did she not?"

"She did. The data and samples are still here – thank the goddesses – but I fear for her – and myself. Clearly whoever is responsible wants everyone to think this was some personal blood feud. I do not believe it; these particular healers and healers in training were our top planetary experts on radiation poisoning and local ecology," explained Gwyneth.

"Without which you cannot offer authoritative testimony in the Great Council if I understand the political situation."

"Correct! Ronel, I am afraid for the abbess. Can I meet both of you there with the data? I do not feel comfortable transmitting it from here. We have no clue who killed them or where they are; unless you disagree, I prefer to not provide an obvious path to your whereabouts."

"I am supposed to meet the abbess in the dining room directly. Can you meet us there?"

"I will try!" acknowledged Gwyneth.

* * *

"Your Excellency, behind me!" screamed Lord Knight Ronel as he entered the dining room to Lan-xing Ulen.

His trained eyes had spotted the green light of a laser spear preparing to fire from across the room. Touching a button his belt, a protective force field expanded off his right wrist as he drew his laser épée from the scabbard also holding his heritage broad sword. With an intensifying low hum, the would-be assassin's triangular-pyramid-shaped-tip laser spear discharged a green-blue plasma bolt at Lady Abbess Cara, barely missing her with a barrage of sparks as she ducked beneath her table and crawled towards and behind Ronel's force-field shield. Undaunted, the attacker crept behind the cover of the hot-bread bar before aiming again. With lightning reflexes created by a lifetime of rigorous training Ronel deflected the second plasma bolt off his sword, the bolt ricocheting into the finely-tiled floor, charring it.

With Cara still crouched behind him, Ronel charged towards the attacker, his left arm slashing towards him with his épée against every rule taught to the knight by his mentors. The attacker cried out in pain as the épée hit his right forearm with a gush of blood. Ronel, now close enough to see into the attacker's face, noticed brown flecks in what appeared to be a young man's eyes. Turning off his laser épée for the xiao-shir, he wrestled the laser spear away from him with precise blows to the arm and wrist. The spear rolled away harmlessly, its tip fading out.

Anger flashed in Ronel's eyes as he subdued the attacker. "Why! Why are you trying to kill us?"

"Our jobs. She would close the mine. My wife, my children – without jobs from the mines, we will all starve to death! Please! My life is not important – but my babies scream with hunger!" wept the miner.

"She built the healing center to help you – why do you not see it?" cried Ronel.

"What good is a healer if you die of hunger? We do not need more healers. We need food. The food grown around here is no good no more. It is poison to my babies."

"He's right," answered Lady Healer Gwyneth, her tablet computer in hand, along with a pouch containing the samples Cara collected the previous beinor. "The crude refining at the mine has released such toxic levels of argene into the air and soil that locally-grown food is no longer safe to eat. Proper refining from a better and more expensive facility could do much – but not nearly as much as re-growing the forests themselves.

"What 'er ye sayin'?" asked the miner.

"The strip mining is giving you work, yes, but the way house Ana conducts the mine is poisoning everything within a four hundred li radius – including, I fear, coastal marine life."

"But we are more than three hundred li from the ocean!" protested the miner.

"Yes, yes we are. Yet food is brought in from the Amba Mederi Ocean. From the raks and fish served on the table to the sea vegetation that is normally so nourishing – nothing grown here is safe to eat," explained Gwyneth. "We are all dying from argene radiation poisoning."

"Poison or not, food is food and we a'nt got none to 'at."

"I fear that is on purpose, my lord."

"I ai' no lord – just a bloke who canna bear the sounds of my children hungry."

Convinced her life was no longer in danger, Lady Abbess Cara rose. "There is more going on than just irresponsible mining practices. Come with us – bring your family – we will take you to the capital city in Dong-Bei where you can find work doing something safer than this and where your family will never go hungry again. I swear to it as Abbess of Ten-Ar."

* * *

"His Majesty will see you now," announced the hovering JDP5, King Gareth's personal droid.

Dressed in her most formal Ten-Arian crimson gown, Lady Abbess Cara bowed her head respectfully towards the droid before entering the King's private office. Inside, King Gareth fixed his grey eyes onto a series of reports flashing across his tablet computer. Cara bowed deeply to him.

"Thank you for seeing me this beinor, Your Majesty!"

Gareth's eyes met her, catching his breath for a moment. "You are... most welcome. Excuse me, you are?"

"Lady Abbess Cara of house Ten-Ar. We have not met, Your Majesty, unless perhaps you personally attend sessions of the Great Council. I have – created many enemies there."

"You are the Ten-Arian healer advocating for safer conditions for the poor and disadvantaged, are you not?"

"Your Majesty, the health and well-being of all Beinarians is at risk. When I received reports on my desk beginning in BE 5493, I dedicated myself to better understanding and helping people sickened by the strip mine near Nan-li City. I petitioned for and you granted permission for houses Ten-Ar and Gurun to jointly build Nan-li Central Healing Center with its state-of-the-art research facilities and laboratories. Now, after many yen-ars of research and the hard work of healers across both our houses, the data is conclusive."

"Is this the data in front of me now? Showing a strong link between de-forestation and both atmospheric bilast and argene levels?" asked King Gareth.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"I see here a recommendation for the re-planting of the nara forests, along with other complimentary species designed to reclaim soil displaced by mining operations. Is that correct?"

"My liege, if I may be so candid: it is my contention not only that the mines are creating this new, sight-taking disease called 'brown-eye syndrome', but these irresponsible mining practices are behind much of the latent misery in the region, including widespread hunger. If we simply switched these practices for slightly more expensive, but many times more ecologically responsible and efficient measures, we most likely will be able to not only stop brown-eye syndrome before it creates multi-generational mutations and damage to our helices, but reverse the obvious poisoning of the local population. I have, in fact, one with me whom I beg you to take into your personal service so that he and his family may leave Nan-li forever," petitioned Cara.

"This is the one who attacked you with a laser spear?"

"Yes."

"You do not begrudge him?"

"He is poor; he thought killing me was the only way to feed his children. Please, Sire, have mercy on him!"

King Gareth rose, eyeing her. "I will on one condition."

"Name it."

"You join me for dinner."

"And after dinner?" suggested Cara shrewdly.

"Go or stay as you prefer. I hope you will choose to stay tonight – or at least return that I may know you better," suggested King Gareth, his mind already undressing the abbess.

Lady Abbess Cara curtsied, "As you wish."

* * *

The Great Hall of the Assembly stood stately against the stormy sky. In the upper atmosphere, a massive hurricane more than ten thousand li in diameter raged violently, filling the lower atmosphere with thunder, lightning, and hail that tumbled more than fell from tumultuous turbulence. It was as if the planet itself were at war with different parts of itself, broody and contentious.

Dodging the irregular-sized hailstones, Lady Abbess Cara tried in vain to prevent her carefully-braided black hair from falling out of its pins holding it into a matronly style. Her hair, like the storm, preferred chaos this morning.

With an entourage of healers and all ten Masters of Ten-Ar at her side, equal delegates to the Great Council, the abbess felt confident her appearance before the Great Council would persuade her peers to choose wisely on behalf of the poor, even as her mind drifted to the night before in the king's bed, nine beinors after the king's initial invitation. Was she wrong to allow King Gareth to seduce her? Fighting what she knew was the inevitable biological inclination to meditate on her first experience with a man, she breathed deeply, hoping the night before would not show to others, but suspecting any royal appearance in council chambers might trigger an instinctive response.

As two master knights opened the heavy wooden doors separating the offices beyond with the main council chamber, Lady Cara's resolve and focus returned. Taking their customary places in the massive chamber, the abbess felt a certain pride as she crossed the granite floor mosaics telling the story of the Great Migration to Beinan, before turning her attention to Honorable Lord Horatio of house Xing-li, the current chair to the Great Council.

"Lords and Ladies of the Great Council," he announced. "I declare this session convened."

Lady Abbess Cara stepped forward, her tablet computer ready. "Your Honor, may I address the Great Council?"

Lord Horatio bowed respectfully, motioning to the abbess to the podium. "The chair recognizes the abbess of Ten-Ar."

Cara stepped forward to address the council from the podium. "Honorable Peers of Beinan, I come to you as abbess of Ten-Ar and the duly elected healer-in-chief of the healers of Ten-Ar, long recognized as the most skilled of all Beinarian healers. A crisis lays before us, one of our own making. In Xi-Nan Fang, hunger ranges, the local food supplies poisoned needlessly. With the loss of great forests to strip mining operations and crude on-line refining, the land can no longer buffer against the radiation emitted by argene. Making this misery worse, the refining process releases the nerve toxin bilast and its nearly insidious isotope dilast, killing and maiming indiscriminately.

"But there is hope, my friends. Small adjustments in mining and refining operations, paired with more ecologically-responsible practices across Xi-Nan Fang can clean the air, the soil, the water. Simply planting more nara trees throughout each town and village can provide critically-needed nirlar to the air, protection against argene and the argun ore from which it comes, and nara fruit harvestable by all who are hungry. Simple food forests and parks can change our planet in drama ways – if we have the courage to do what is right."

Lady Engineer Rachel of house Ana rose, clapping sarcastically. "Bold words, healer! But at what cost? Our jobs? Our wages? From the safety of the Ten-Arian monastery, these offered resolutions must sound like the perfect fix to what you see as a problem. I for one see the economic consequences of these proposals as far worse – coming from the king's whore, no less!"

Lady Cara felt trapped. Did the king seduce her just to undermine her position? Before she could answer, the Honorable Lord Horatio stepped forward.

"I move we dismiss Her Excellency's proposals as a Ten-Arian conspiracy to cripple our economy. What say you, shall we dismiss these charges against argene mining? House Ana?"

"Yeah."

"House Cashmarie?"

"Yeah."

"House Xing-li?"

"Yeah."

"House Miyoo?"

"Nay."

"House Gurun?"

"Nay."

"House Slabi?"

"Yeah."

"House Shem?"

"Yeah."

"House Balister?"

"Yeah."

"House Ten-Ar?"

"Nay."

Lord Horatio stood proudly. "The 'yeahs' have it. Resolution against argene mining dismissed six votes to three. There will be no further debate on this matter."

Shock filled Cara's heart – shock and foreboding as she quietly left the council chamber unnoticed. The Great Council would not even hear her evidence! How could they care so little for the poor, for the suffering? Knowing she was used by the king to undermine her credibility, a thought crept into her mind: what if the greater power for change lay not in her position as the leading healer for her world – but in the bedroom of the king himself? Though she did not love King Gareth and resented his lustful temperament, her heart quivered. Could it be that her best chance to serve might be in sacrificing herself to his lust in order to attain the power she needed to change her world?

Saddened by her vision, a single tear fell – for her people, for her future as the king's de facto whore – and for all the suffering she knew would come of this vote.

* * *

Laurel A. Rockefeller _is the author of 'The Peers of Beinan' medieval science-fiction series. A glossary to the world she has invented can be found on her website._

* * * * *

# SASHA AND THE COLLARED GIRL

### Stan Morris

[Poisoned Ground] [Contents] [Quest For The Purple Pumpkin]

The man was willing to trade his prized possession, but she was already lost.

AT FIRST WE THOUGHT it was an old man and his daughter, but as Sasha and I drew near, we saw that the girl had a leather collar around her neck and a rope, of about twenty feet, connected to the collar. There was a glaze in her eyes, and at first I thought she might be blind. The old man was sharpening a knife on a stone, and when he became aware of us, alarm changed his visage. He grabbed an old shotgun and pointed it in our direction. I lifted my hands to my sides and showed him my open palms. I had to take shallow breaths, because as I neared him, I smelled his foul odor.

"Who are you?" His voice was thick with suspicion.

"Travelers, like yourself, Sir," I answered. "Harmless."

"What do you want?"

"We trade goods for goods? How about you? Will you trade?"

"What are you looking for?"

"The same things as all who survived the Fog. Food, clothing, guns, ammunition, and transportation."

"I got none of that, except what you see." He waved his shotgun.

The girl had hardly moved. She might have given us a disinterested glance, but that might have been because she heard our voices.

"Who's the girl? Your daughter?"

His laugh was a cackle. "That's a good one." His grin changed to a scowl. "I ain't no pervert. 'Course she's not my daughter. I bought her up north. North of Tahoe. There's a crew up there that's got a bunch of them for sale. They robbed me though."

He picked up a good sized twig and threw it at the girl, hitting the side of her face. Now that I was close, I could see that she was about sixteen. Her hair was filthy, and she stank even worse than he did. I moved to the side away from downwind.

"They said she could cook, but she ain't no use but for just one thing." He spit at her, making his anger with the girl obvious.

"One thing, huh?" I laughed. I gave Sasha a lascivious grin and said, "I understand that. I could use another girl. Will you trade for her?"

"Hell, no, I won't trade her. I don't care if she can't cook. She keeps me satisfied and warm at night. That's more than a lot of men got these days."

"I've got an extra wagon and a horse."

Surprise widened his eyes and greed kept them wide, but suspicion still controlled his voice. "A wagon and a horse? A nag I'll bet. I bet the thing's half dead. The wagon will be useless."

"She's a good horse. Healthy. I keep all my livestock healthy. Just look at her." I pointed to Sasha who had sat down at my feet.

The old man's face turned thoughtful. "She does look healthy. Don't she try to run away?"

"She knows better."

He emitted a contemptuous laugh. "This one didn't. Had to beat her half to death before she learned." The girl's vacant expression didn't change.

"Our camp is about an hour away."

I could see that he was considering the offer. The wagon was a powerful inducement and the horse an even greater one.

"Where you from?" he asked.

"There's group of us to the east. About thirty men and half that number of women. A few kids."

His eyes narrowed. "Maybe you're trying to lead me into a trap."

"We have wagons. We have horses. We have women and guns. We don't need an old man and an extra knife."

He recognized the truth of that by my clean clothes and by Sasha.

"Where's this wagon and horse? Why aren't they with you?"

"I always rest my horse, just like I rest my women. Can't ride 'em forever. I put my horse in a little gully and set the wagon sideways, so it couldn't roam. If you're willing to take a walk, I show you."

He considered that and then observed, "You're not American, are you."

"If you mean that I'm not Caucasian, the answer's no. My parents were Korean. Does it matter?" I let the tone of my voice become belligerent.

"No, no," he answered hastily. "Tell you what. You walk ahead and let your girl walk by me. I'll feel safer."

"Fine, but don't touch her. Got that?"

"Hands off. Just show me this wagon."

"Sasha, stay by this man," I commanded in a stern voice. She lowered her eyes and nodded.

I led the way, and he followed, dragging the girl behind him, holding his shotgun. He hardly noticed Sasha falling into step next to him. The fool did not know that his death walked at his side.

* * *

A light rain began to fall as we made our way back to the wagon. The collared girl kept up easily, but the old man gave her rope a yank, now and then; purely for the pleasure of brutalizing her, it seemed. He kept his shotgun handy, but since Sasha was by his side, I wasn't worried. The trail had been well traveled before the Fog, and there were still odds and ends people had discarded along its way. Occasionally the old man stopped to examine a piece of debris.

As we proceeded, he continued to berate and belittle the girl, and occasionally he sent a mean barb Sasha's way. I could have added a comment, or two, in order to stay in his mind set, but I had already set the hook in this despicable carp, and so there was no reason to exacerbate Sasha's anger. As each moment passed I became more amazed at her ability to control that anger, for she had certainly never used that control when I irritated her. So, I let his cruelty slide away. Of course, had he attempted to touch her, I would have killed him, if Sasha had given me the chance.

When he spied the wagon and realized its fine condition, his greed almost caused him to drool, and he wiped his grinning mouth. He was so taken with his good luck, he neglected to give another yank on the rope when the girl stumbled from fatigue. His cunning eyes narrowed, and with a quick glance, he surveyed our surroundings, noting how the wagon could be moved by just one person, and fixing in his mind where I stood.

So positive was he of his triumph, he could not help breaking into that cackling laugh as he slipped the end of the rope under his arm and swung his shotgun toward me, but even if he had been more circumspect, Sasha was waiting. She pulled her pistol from her pocket and smashed him aside his head.

"Auggk," he screamed, turning away and grabbing his face.

In a smooth motion she returned the pistol to her pocket and grabbed the shotgun, but she had misjudged his strength. He kept his desperate grip and began to move the barrel toward her mid-section.

"Kim!" she cried.

I was already there, grabbing the barrel and thrusting it upward. He screamed and kicked at us, and with our faces close I saw her wince when his heavy boot connected with her shin. Anger surged through me, and I slammed the barrel backwards against his face. He finally let go, cursing at us, holding his temple from where blood streamed.

"Thieves!" he yelled.

Together we tied the man's hands behind his back with a piece of thin sturdy wire, and then Sasha bent down, lifted her dress, and removed her knife from the sheath fastened to her pants. She turned to the girl whose expression had not changed, unless from a slight widening of the eyes. The girl saw the knife, and a resigned expression crossed her face. That expression faded into blankness, and she closed her eyes as Sasha neared. I wondered what she thought when Sasha cut the rope and then slipped the knife under the collar and severed it. Sasha threw the collar to the side, and as she turned back to where I held the man, the girl's eyes opened, and the blankness gave way to puzzlement.

We hauled the man onto the wagon bed before we moved it, leaving a small space to lead the horse from the gully. When the horse had been retrieved and yoked to the wagon, Sasha took the girl's hand and gently pushed her up and onto the seat. It took a few minutes travel to find the right spot. It was muddy beneath the tree, but we didn't mind the grime.

When he saw what we intended, the man began to whimper, and when Sasha threw the end of the rope over the branch, he broke into loud sobs. He said he was sorry, and he begged us to let him go. Ignoring him, Sasha tied the girl's rope around his neck, and we forced him to stand in the middle of the wagon. In retrospect, I wish we had faced him the other way, for as we drove away his heels dug into the wood of the wagon bed and scraped along, making a dull screech, and the girl turned and watched him swinging. I glanced down at her, and then I faced forward again, not wanting to see that face, suddenly alive and filled with a fierce, hate-filled joy.

* * *

Even after we had moved from sight of the swinging body, the girl watched, and then she turned around, faced the front, and the disinterested expression reappeared on her face.

"What's your name?" Sasha asked, after we had traveled far enough to relieve some of the tension we were feeling.

A look of alarm spread across the girl's features.

"Never mind," Sasha hastily added. "You can tell us later."

A quick look of relief, and then the girl seemed to will her face back to disinterest. I wondered if that was the expression the old man had required during her time with him. That expression remained on her face for the rest of the day. We stopped an hour before sunset to make camp, and only then did her expression change to one of puzzlement, and after a time I realized that it was because we did not command her to help with our chores.

Sasha and I did not discuss our sleeping arrangements, but I did not zip our bags together. Somehow I knew she would want it that way. We had not returned to the old man's camp, so we had not retrieved whatever meager belongings he had managed to accumulate. Although September had made its appearance, the days had grown warmer, so the extra blankets were sufficient for me if I slept in my clothes. I put the blankets next to Sasha's sleeping bag and left my bag on the other side of the fire to give the girl some privacy.

While we were eating, Sasha asked the girl for her name, once more.

This time the girl lowered her eyes to the dirt and replied, "Pig."

For a moment, Sasha just stared at the girl, and then rage spread across her features, matching my own anger. Seeing this, the girl folded into a ball and cowered against the small rock on which she sat.

"It's okay," Sasha said, taking a deep breath. "We're not mad you. We're mad at that man."

I'm not sure the girl believed us, for it was a long while before she lifted her head to gaze cautiously at us.

"He probably changed your name from something that was close," I remarked. "Maybe your name was, Peg?"

She lowered her head and did not reply.

"Peg is short for Margaret," Sasha added. "I'm going to call you 'Margaret'. If there is another name you like better, just tell us, and we'll call you that."

Again, there was no reply.

Sasha and I rarely looked at the watch we had been allowed to carry with us on our journeys, and we never consulted it for information about when to retire, but we always seemed to become sleepy at the same time. There would be a yawn from one, and then the other would mimic it, so when she stood and rubbed her eyes, I rose, too.

"Time for bed," I said to no one in particular.

Margaret stood, and in one motion she lowered her arms, crossed them, and pulled her dress over her head, so she was naked. She walked to our bedding, turned to us with a questioning look and waited. It took a speechless moment for us to realize that she was wondering which of us would use her that night. Perhaps she thought it would be both.

"Over there," Sasha said gently, motioning to where I had set my sleeping bag. "You can have some privacy."

Once again that uncertain expression appeared on Margaret's face. Sasha walked to my bag and motioned for her. Obediently, Margaret followed, and Sasha soon had her zipped into the bag. I would have spoken to Sasha when we were in our bedding, but I did not, since Margaret would have heard, and I did not want to treat the girl as an object.

In the middle of the night, I felt Sasha rise.

"Where are you going?" I heard her ask.

I lifted my head and saw Margaret standing at the edge of our camp.

"If you need to pee, I'll go with you."

Margaret glanced once at the darkness, and then she shook her head. Sasha got out of her bag, retrieved my sleeping bag, and laid it between us. Margaret slept between us the rest of the night and did not make another attempt to leave. After a long time, I heard her soft snore.

"She could have been me," Sasha whispered.

I shuddered. We were years from Eagle's Retreat, but we had not forgotten.

* * *

The next day we entered a Fog Pool Area. This is what we called places that had pools of Fog not connected to the main body of Fog covering the Earth. The Fog was ebbing at a constant rate; about three hundred and fifty feet a year. As it did, pools formed due to uneven geography. They fell at a rate consistent with the main body, so eventually some dissipated. These pools were not dangerous after they had diminished to less than five feet deep. We had seen deer safely crossing shallow portions of the Fog, but pools more than ten feet deep still contained whatever form of life inhabited the Fog, so they were still death traps.

There were times when the firebreak road on which we were traveling crossed a pool. When that happened, we were forced to maneuver the wagon around the danger zone. It wasn't easy, and at times we had to move big boulders and clear brush. We never asked Margaret to help; her chore was to rest and to rebuild her strength. Sometimes we noticed her peering into the Fog, so we talked to her about it, until we were assured that she understood the danger.

We tried to get her to speak to us, and at first she responded, but as time went on, her blank expression returned, and she spent much of her time staring into the distance, ignoring us as if our attempts to create a normal life for her was causing her to remember everything that had happened. One day I noticed her twisting two pieces of vine in a circle, and after throwing us a furtive glance, she placed it around her neck. When she saw my stare, she hastily removed the handmade collar and threw it on the ground.

Sasha tried to cheer Margaret by telling her about Petersburg.

"You'll like it there. No one will mistreat you. You'll be free."

The girl shrank away as if Sasha had given her a warning.

On a misty day, we stopped earlier than usual, not wanting to chance accidentally driving into one of the many Fog pools in the area. As we were setting up camp, Margaret wandered away.

"Kim," I heard Sasha call.

I looked up and saw Sasha gesture to something behind me. When I turned, I saw Margaret standing at the edge of a small ravine. I went to get her and found her staring into a pool of Fog. Her expression made me uneasy, and I gently urged her away from the edge. Without speaking she followed me back to camp.

That night, she smiled at us when we spoke to her, and even offered a sentence or two. She ate her dinner as if she was enjoying it, and without our asking, she damped down the fire when Sasha began rolling out our bedding. Sasha and I glanced at each other as she was doing that, pleased that she was emerging from her depression like an animal leaves its den after winter.

The next day she helped us break camp, and then she climbed without instruction or urging into the bed of the wagon. Sasha and I shared the driving chores, and that morning it was I who held the reins. We started slowly, because the mist, although not thick, was still present. After only a few minutes, Sasha turned.

"Margaret? Kim, stop."

I pulled up on the reins, and Sasha leapt to the ground.

"Margaret."

When I turned, I saw that Margaret had slipped from the wagon bed and was walking back toward our camp.

"Margaret."

Sasha's exasperation sounded in her tone as she began following the girl. And then as we watched, Margaret broke into a run. Sasha called to her again, and stepped up her pace. I jumped down, and ran after them, but by that time Sasha had figured it out.

"Margaret, wait," she called. Panic had entered her voice.

Margaret ran faster. In the forest there are few who can outrun Sasha in a footrace, but the girl had a big head start.

"Margaret, stop!" Sasha screamed, putting everything she had into that desperate chase.

I had never outrun Sasha until that day, but somehow I steadily gained on her. Sasha was only a few steps behind when Margaret came to the edge of the gully and leapt forward, hanging for a moment and then disappearing. Sasha's agonized sobbing cry ended in a grunt when I tackled her at the edge. She slid forward until her upper body hung over the fog. I slid forward too, so we both saw Margaret's hair floating on the surface of the brown muck, now boiling. For another second it floated as if in testament that she had lived, and then we saw her hair suddenly plunge beneath the surface of the muck as if it had been yanked from below.

* * *

It seemed as if an eternity passed while we lay there, staring transfixed at the deadly pool where Margaret had chosen to end her suffering, and then I heard Sasha expel her breath and slump forward, and that brought me out of my trance. Her dress had flown up to her waist when I tackled her, so I dipped my fingers beneath the waistband of her pants, and I dragged her backwards, until the total of her body was resting on solid earth.

She lay still for a long moment, and then she rose and dusted her trousers. She glanced once more at the pool, muttered, "Stupid girl," and turned to me.

"Did you pull the brake on the wagon?"

"Yes," I replied, still staring into the muck.

"Good. We can make our travel distance if we hurry."

Her words shook me from my shock, and I turned my attention to her. Her words may have been firm, but her face was pale with unshed tears, and she was breathing from her mouth as if she didn't trust her nostrils. I shook my head from side to side.

"I'm going to make a marker."

"We don't have time for that."

Her tone was sharp, and on a normal occasion I would have not hesitated to acquiesce. This was not a normal occasion; I began to scan for materials to mark Margaret's passing. Sasha strode toward the wagon, turned and yelled at me.

"Come on!"

There were stumps and sticks available, but there were also stones aplenty; including slate. I spotted a hefty round rock, retrieved it and placed it on the ground, close to where she had made her leap. I found another and carried it to the same spot.

"Suit yourself."

Her sharp tone had turned bitter. She walked back to the wagon.

I built two piles of stone, side by side, and then I went looking for a large flat piece of slate. I found a rock with a flat section partially detached. Rain, wind, and sun had begun the separation process, and I finished the job by inserting a thin oak branch and pounding the branch's end until the thick tablet broke free from the rest.

It was a heavy piece, and I was able to manage only a few steps before I was forced to set it down and wait until I had regained some strength. Seemingly uncaring, Sasha watched impatiently while I moved the heavy stone. Finally she approached as I was taking another break, and I waited for her to berate me.

"Take that end," she said, and she stooped to grab a side.

Together we manage to carry the heavy stone the rest of the way.

"I want to stand it between the piles," I explained, so we leant it on one pile and let it slide into the slot between the two.

While she held the slate steady, I positioned the rocks around it, so when we stepped away, the slate remained upright like a headstone by a grave. During our pre-teen years we had been taught in school how to make dyes from natural sources, and now we used that information to write on the headstone, "Margaret."

"I'm going to say a prayer," I told Sasha.

"Fine," she replied, and she walked back to the wagon.

After Sasha's mother died, Sasha's brother, James, asked our only acknowledged atheist, Jean, if she knew a prayer, and she responded by teaching him one. According to Sasha's mother, Iris, my parents had been Buddhists, but I did not have any memories of them engaging in spiritual activities, and I have never practiced Buddhist rites. So I modified Jean's prayer in memory of Margaret. Here is the prayer I spoke next to her gravestone.

Margaret lies here in death's sleep.

I pray, please God, her soul, you keep.

I hope, someday, she will awake.

But God, if not, her soul, please take.

In this forest

your green trees grew.

Please, Bless this ground

from your sky, so blue.

As I walked back to the wagon, I remembered stories about the old world that existed before the coming of the Fog. I remembered people talking about doctors who helped people like Margaret. They used words like 'social worker' and 'psychiatrist'. It will be a long time before those people return.

I climbed into the wagon. Sasha and I drove away from that sad place, not speaking, enveloped in sorrow.

* * *

Our mood was dreary as we traveled at a sluggish pace to our next camp. Sasha never spoke to me unless it was with a snap in her voice and with fury on her face. Even nature's foliage seemed to be distraught and angry. Limbs hung in our way, slapping at us as we passed. Noxious odors blew by. Tree roots reached up, causing the horse to stumble. Thorns from unfriendly bushes stabbed at us from the side, and a contemptuous wind arose, smacking our faces with painful droplets. Sasha's blond hair, short of her shoulders by inches, blew haphazardly, giving her a crazed look. But we did move out of the Fog Pool zone.

Before dusk arrived we found a rocky semi-flat camp in a grove of widely spaced Jeffrey pines. Sasha jumped down and began unhitching the horse, so I grabbed the tent. We worked in silence as we usually did, but this silence could not have been described as companionable, it was more sullen. I was tired of Sasha's misdirected anger, and though I did not voice my discontent, I'm sure it was evident when I hammered the innocent pegs into the earth.

But our habits were ingrained by then, so we could not help but work together when we built a fire and prepared our dinner. By then, Nature had finished punishing us, so the wind died and the rain ceased. It was not a cold night, but when Sasha left our camp to use nature's facilities, I quickly unrolled our bags and zipped them together in the tent, lowering the flap to hide what I had done. I felt as though we needed to be together that night, but I knew she was more likely to accept this if the positioning of our bags was completed before we retired.

She returned and sat down, her face weary and lined, looking much older than her seventeen years. I had found some dry oak, and the fire sparked merrily as if trying to cheer us. As we sat on our tarps, avoiding the wet ground, a bit of peace settled over us. After a time, the clouds dissolved, and the stars lit up. Our sadness was not gone, but it was abating.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Nothing to talk about. She was stupid."

"What else do you think we could have done?"

Sasha's blond eyebrows furrowed as she considered my question. I had asked this by chance, but I was glad that I had asked, because for the first time that day, I saw reason take the place of anger or sadness on her face. Her answer was slow and drawn out, as if she was still considering her words as she spoke.

"We did all that we could, Kim. We did all we could."

"Yes, I think you're right, Sasha. We did what we could to help her, but it just wasn't enough."

"She was lost by the time we found her."

"Yes."

Not long after that, I went into the tent and crawled into our bag. I turned toward the canvas and pretended to sleep. When she opened the flap and saw what I had done, she stopped at the entrance. I waited to see what she would say or do. Then I heard her sigh.

"Move over."

My pretense had failed. I should have known it would. She climbed into our bag and lay on her back. After a time I heard her emit a strange snort and then another. I was puzzled at first, and then as the snorts continued, I realized that she was trying to quell cries. I turned over.

"Come here."

She didn't argue, instead she turned, and I slid my arm under her shoulders, turned her on her side, and drew her face against my chest. After a few moments, she gave up and let out loud painful sobs. She cried a long time that night, and I held her in my arms and gently covered her head with my hand, so her hair would not be dampened by my tears.

* * *

Stan Morris _is the author of seven books, including the novel 'Surviving the Fog', which created the post-apocalyptic setting for the above short story._

* * * * *

# QUEST FOR THE PURPLE PUMPKIN

### Victoria Zigler

[Sasha And The Collared Girl] [Contents] [Free Will]

A glittering surprise in the woods leads Polly to another world, where just being human is punishable by death...

"GIVE ME MY DOLLY BACK!" Polly cried, stamping her foot in rage as tears of frustration spilled from her sapphire blue eyes to roll down her lightly freckled cheeks.

Robbie just threw back his head and laughed, continuing to hold the doll out of reach of his little sister. Teasing her was one of his favourite things to do, and he wasn't going to stop just because she started to cry. Her sapphire blue eyes might work on others, but he had the same eyes and seeing them glisten with tears had no effect on him. He knew that being four years older than her he should be looking after her and not teasing her, but teasing her was so much fun that he couldn't resist; especially since they were alone in the woods. There were no adults around to tell him to stop.

"Robbie!" Polly whined, standing on tiptoe and stretching her arms up as high as she could in an attempt to reach her doll. "Please!"

"You're eight years old, and too old for dolls," Robbie told her, still laughing as he held the doll out of her reach.

"But she's mine, and I want her!" Polly shouted, stamping her foot crossly.

"Come and get her then," Robbie said, laughing harder as he turned and began to run through the trees with the doll still clutched in his hands.

Polly started to run after him, but her shorter legs and tear-filled eyes had her falling further and further behind as she stumbled her way through the trees, falling over tree roots and into prickly plants and bushes, which scratched her arms and legs and tore her pretty pink dress.

After a while, Polly realized she couldn't even hear her brother's laughter any more. Her legs were hurting so much from the effort of running and from being grazed as she fell that she knew she couldn't run any more. So she decided to sit down on a handy tree root to rest a while, noticing as she did so that her pretty pink dress was dirty as well as being torn.

Looking around, she realized she didn't know this part of the woods. All she could see wherever she looked were trees, and she knew at once she was lost, because every tree and every path looked the same to her. This made her feel very frightened, so she wrapped her own arms around herself for comfort, and tried to stop the tears that still fell, but it was no good; they just kept on falling. She was lost and alone in the woods, without even her doll for comfort and company, and she was very frightened indeed.

"I want Mummy!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

Just then, she thought she saw something glittering near the base of a nearby tree. Brushing aside her golden-blonde hair, which had come loose from its ribbon as she stumbled after her brother, she wiped her tear-filled eyes and looked again. Sure enough, something glittered near the base of a tree almost directly opposite where she sat.

Curiosity making her forget her fear, and stopping the flow of tears, Polly stood up and went over to the tree in order to take a closer look. At the base of the tree, among its large roots, was a hole of some sort, like the kind an animal would dig for a burrow. The glittering was coming from inside the hole.

"Maybe it's treasure?" Polly said to herself. "Or a magic fairy wand."

She began to get quite excited as she thought of all the fun she could have with a magic fairy wand, and all the things she could buy with treasure. So, not thinking about all the reasons why crawling in to a hole among the roots of a big old tree might be dangerous – and, let me tell you, there are plenty of reasons why doing so is dangerous – Polly began to crawl inside.

The hole was a reasonable size for a burrow, and Polly was small for her age. She managed the crawl quite easily, only hitting her head once on a particularly large tree root near the entrance to the burrow, the pink ribbon from her hair – which had become loose, as ribbons often do when you don't sit quietly – slipping from her head and landing among the roots of the tree. She hardly noticed either thing though, so focused was she on the glittering she could see up ahead.

Now, usually when one crawls in to a burrow, there will be a bit of a tunnel to crawl through at first, then a slightly larger space will open up, usually filled with leaves and other such things, which the creature who calls that particular burrow home has collected up to make a nest. Sometimes you'll even find the creature at home, which is rarely a pleasant experience for you, since the sorts of creatures who live in burrows don't generally take too kindly to visitors crawling through their doorways uninvited like that. But in Polly's case something entirely different happened. You see, Polly crawled and crawled, and when the tunnel eventually opened out she found herself crawling out of a hole at the base of a tree that looked exactly like the one she'd crawled in to.

At first Polly thought she must have gotten turned around somehow, but when she looked around her mouth fell open in shock, and she saw at once that there was no way she could have gotten turned around.

In front of Polly was an enormous lake, the midday sun hitting the clear water so that it glittered like silver. But even more amazing than the glittering lake was what was in the middle. For at the centre of the lake was a small island, and on that island stood the most enormous tree Polly had seen in her entire life. It was so big, in fact, that there were winding pathways carved in to the side of its trunk. Though Polly couldn't see very much from this distance, among the enormous branches of the huge tree was a thriving town, complete with houses, shops, and even important buildings like a town hall and a library.

From her spot on the edge of the lake, Polly stared in amazement from the glittering water to the enormous tree, so engrossed in admiring them that she failed to notice when someone came up behind her.

"Hello there," said a voice from behind Polly.

Polly spun around, finding herself face to face with a girl who looked to be around her own age, despite the other girl being much taller than Polly. The girl had a slender figure, red hair, green eyes, a delicate pointed face, and pointed ears. She wore a simple light leather tunic, had a leather pouch tied at her waste with a leather thong, and had bare feet.

"I am Arael," said the girl. "And this is my sister, Derwyn," she added, pointing to an identical girl who stood beside her. It was obvious to anyone who looked at them that they were identical twins.

"I'm Polly," said Polly.

Arael said nothing, but looked closely at Polly, then reached out a hand and touched one of her ears.

"Hey," said Polly, pushing Arael's hand away.

"What is wrong with your ears?" asked Arael, a look of concern on her face.

Polly's hands shot up to her ears, feeling them with frantic fingers in an attempt to find the reason for Arael's concern. But they felt just like ears should feel, and she lowered her hands with a bewildered frown on her face.

"There's nothing wrong with my ears," Polly answered, once she was certain of this.

"But they are so round," said Arael.

"They're supposed to be," said Polly crossly. "Not like your pointed ears."

"But all elves have pointed ears," said Arael.

"You're elves?" asked Polly, her eyes as big and round as saucers in her amazement. She had, of course, heard of elves from the stories she'd been told before bed at night; stories you might know yourself, if you're the kind of person who enjoys fairy tales. But Polly never thought she'd ever meet an elf, let alone two of them.

"Yes," said Derwyn. "We are elves. We are the guardians of the forest, and the keepers of law and lore."

"Oh, I see," said Polly, trying to sound as if she understood so as not to seem stupid or rude in front of the elves, even though what Derwyn had just said didn't make much sense to her.

Arael looked at Polly for a long time and said nothing. In fact, she did this for so long that Polly began to feel rather uncomfortable.

"Stop looking at me like that," said Polly at last.

"Are you a human?" asked Arael, in a shocked tone.

"But she cannot be a human," said Derwyn, taking a step back. "There have not been humans in our world for centuries. Father would not allow it."

"Well, yes, I'm a human," said Polly.

"How did you get here?" asked Arael.

So Polly told them about getting lost after Robbie ran off with her doll, and about crawling through the tunnel-like hole beneath the roots of the tree. When she was done, Polly turned to point out the hole among the roots of the tree behind her. But it wasn't there.

"I don't understand," Polly said, looking down at the space between the tree's roots where the hole should have been, confusion clearly etched on her face.

"I think I do," said Derwyn.

"You do?" asked Polly and Arael in unison.

"Yes," said Derwyn, nodding. "It must have been one of those magic doorways."

Arael's look of confusion vanished, but Polly looked just as confused as ever.

"It is like this," said Derwyn, noticing Polly's confusion. "There are many different worlds, and they all exist side by side, mostly without touching. But sometimes they float close enough for long enough to make a bridge or doorway between them. There is no way to know where or when this will happen, nor for how long the doorway will stay open, but it happens."

"And it looks as though you came through one of those doorways," said Arael.

Polly still wasn't sure she understood properly, but she understood enough to know she wasn't going to go home any time soon, so she began to cry.

"Do not cry," said Arael, rushing to Polly's side and hugging her.

"I w-want to go h-home," Polly sobbed.

"We will find a way to get you home," Arael promised.

"We had better do it without Father finding out," said Derwyn.

"M-Mummy always said we sh-should ask for help if we n-need it," Polly said between sobs.

"We cannot," said Arael. "Nobody can know you're in our world."

Polly wriggled out of her embrace and gave her a confused and watery look.

"Arael, do not continue," said Derwyn. "She is frightened enough already."

"She must know," said Arael. "It is only fair for her to know her life would be in danger if an adult were to learn of her presence in our world."

"I agree," said Derwyn, a hint of reluctance in her voice. "But we cannot stay here in the open," she added. "Any one of our elders could come along in a boat from another part of the shore, or from the town across the lake."

"That is true," agreed Arael. "We shall take her out of sight," she announced.

Before Polly could say or do anything, the two elves each took hold of one of her hands and marched her off among the trees out of sight of the lake and the enormous tree town. Just in time too, for no sooner had they disappeared than a small wooden boat came in to view with two adult elves on board.

Once they were sure they were in a spot that was hidden well enough, Arael and Derwyn started to explain the part of their history that meant Polly was in danger just for being a human. It was a long story, and poor Polly – who really wasn't fond of history – became dreadfully bored, and may have struggled to pay proper attention had it not been for the warning about her life being in danger. I'll save you the trouble of the long story though, and simply tell you that after a nasty, not to mention rather messy, war that happened so long ago that humans had forgotten it, and only the very oldest elves could remember any of the details, humans were banished from the world of elves, and a law was passed that meant any human found in the elven world would be killed immediately.

"So," said Polly, once the two elves were done with their history lesson, wanting to make sure she had things right. "Because of a war that happened years and years ago, any human – even a little girl like me – is supposed to be killed; even if we don't mean to be here."

"That is correct," said Arael and Derwyn in unison.

"It is rather a foolish law," said Arael quickly. "That is why we are trying to keep you safe rather than attempting to kill you as the law states."

"I w-want to go home," Polly wailed, starting to cry again.

"We will find a way," Arael promised, hugging Polly again.

"But how?" asked Polly.

There was silence for a while, broken only by the sounds of Polly's sobs, and the sounds of forest creatures doing whatever it is that forest creatures do when humans are minding their own business and letting them be.

Then Derwyn clapped her hands together excitedly, startling a bird who had been singing in a nearby tree.

"I have it!" Derwyn shouted.

Arael and Polly stared at her in open-mouthed amazement.

"What is it you have?" asked Arael after a moment.

"The purple pumpkin," said Derwyn in her normal voice.

"No. You certainly do not have such a thing," said Arael. "I would know if you had the purple pumpkin. We are almost never parted, so if you had such a thing I should have seen it on your person."

"You misunderstand," said Derwyn. "The answer to our problem is the purple pumpkin."

"Pumpkin's are orange," said Polly, thinking perhaps Derwyn was confused.

"Usually," agreed Derwyn. "But this one is purple."

Polly looked at Arael, expecting to share a look of confusion and concern with her, but instead saw that she was smiling.

"Of course," said Arael. "If we had the purple pumpkin we could wish you home."

"Just a small taste of the purple pumpkin will grant you any wish," Derwyn added.

"I could wish to go home!" Polly said, jumping up and down and clapping her hands excitedly.

The elves nodded.

"Let's go get it then," said Polly.

"That is the hard part," said Derwyn. "The purple pumpkin only grows in the Northern pumpkin field, which is a day's walk through those trees," she said, pointing. "And it can only be harvested on the night of the full moon."

"When's the next full moon?" asked Polly.

"Tomorrow night," said Arael promptly.

Polly looked down at her short legs. They were scratched and scraped from all the times she'd fallen while trying to chase Robbie, and filthy from crawling through the burrow-like doorway in to this world. She wasn't sure if she could manage a whole day of walking on those legs. But if she didn't she'd never get to go home, and she missed her Mother and Father. She even missed Robbie a little, though she had to admit that it was a nice change not having him tease her.

Tearing her eyes away from her own scratched and dirty legs, Polly looked in the direction Derwyn had pointed. Then she took a deep breath, squared her small shoulders, and started walking. Without a word, Arael and Derwyn fell in to step beside her, knowing the only way to stop the younger girl from being a victim of a law that had nothing to do with her, was to help her get home before anyone else found out she was in their world.

They walked, and they walked, until Polly's legs just wouldn't carry her another step, and she had no choice but to sit down and rest. They were all getting pretty hungry too, but luckily the elves knew the forest well and knew how to find food. So, leaving Polly with Arael, Derwyn went to see what she could find, returning quickly with a selection of berries and nuts. Most of them were new to Polly, who really had very little knowledge of what was edible in a forest, but the elves assured her they were safe to eat, and she really was rather hungry, so she began to eat her share, which turned out to be very tasty.

While they were eating, they heard a rustling in a nearby hedge. They were all immediately on full alert, not to mention worried, but when the creature emerged it turned out to be nothing more than a hedgehog, which blinked at them a few times before rolling itself in to a ball. Even Polly knew what a hedgehog was, so on seeing it they all immediately relaxed and continued eating. By the time they were done, the hedgehog had figured out they weren't about to eat it and unrolled itself so it could wander off to do whatever it had been doing before.

Once they had eaten, Derwyn and Arael reminded Polly that they had a long walk to do if they wanted to make it to the purple pumpkin in time, so they set off again. They walked until it got dark, then Arael and Derwyn set up a shelter for them so they could get a few hours sleep.

"Won't your family worry about where you are?" Polly asked Arael as they settled down to get some sleep.

"Yes," Arael answered. "But we can easily think of something to tell them to explain our absence when we get home."

It was an uneventful night, and Polly was very tired, but she didn't sleep much. She missed her family so much it hurt, and was frightened of what might happen to her if they didn't make it to the purple pumpkin in time.

They got up before the sun had risen, Polly especially still feeling quite tired, and Arael gathered breakfast for them while Derwyn dismantled their shelter. Polly was amazed to see that when she was done clearing up you never would have known anyone had slept there.

"Another elf could tell," Derwyn said. "But it takes an expert tracker to spot signs of an elf camp once it has been dismantled."

After a breakfast that was much the same as the meal they'd had the day before, they set off again to find the purple pumpkin. All three knew that they had to make it to the field and find the purple pumpkin before nightfall if they wanted to be able to harvest it under the full moon and give Polly her wish.

Some time later, after the sun had fully risen, a noise in a nearby tree stopped them in their tracks. They held their breath and waited in fear to be caught. But it turned out to be nothing more than a squirrel, which ran along the branch of a nearby tree, leaped from it to one in another tree, then continued to do this until it was out of sight. Polly and the elves let out their breath, sighing with relief, then continued walking.

About midday they stopped to eat and rest again, and Polly was relieved when she realized that even she could tell the trees were thinning out. The afternoon shadows were getting long, however, when they finally made it to the edge of the pumpkin field.

"It's somewhere among these?" asked Polly in a small voice, staring at the vast field of pumpkins that stretched before them like an orange and green ocean.

"Yes," Derwyn told her.

"We had better begin our search if we want to find it in time," said Arael.

So they all started looking, walking through the rows and rows of pumpkins in hopes of spotting the rare purple pumpkin. They searched and they searched, while the sun got lower and lower in the sky, but all they saw were pumpkins in various shades of orange.

Polly was just starting to think it was useless, and tears were threatening to fall, when Derwyn gave an excited cry and ran forward. The others followed her, and Polly found herself looking at the most enormous pumpkin she'd ever seen in her life. But the size wasn't the only amazing thing about it. No! The pumpkin was without a doubt bright purple.

They had found it just in time, for by now the sun was setting. Polly, Derwyn and Arael stood near the purple pumpkin to wait for the sun to finish setting and the moon to rise. Finally, after what felt like several hours, but was actually a much shorter time, the full moon could be seen shining above them. But just as they were trying to decide which bit of the pumpkin would be best, they heard a voice behind them.

"That there pumpkin is private property," said the voice.

The elves and the little girl spun around to face the speaker.

Marching along the row of pumpkins in which they stood was an old elf with white hair and beard, dressed in the same style as Arael and Derwyn, but where their clothing looked new, the old man's clothes and belt pouch were patched and frayed. The man moved with surprising agility for his age, and was soon beside them.

Polly and the elves looked at each other with terror written all over their faces. They had been caught, and now Polly would be killed; and they had been so close to sending her home!

"Please, sir," said Polly bravely. "I just want a tiny bit so I can have my wish and go home."

The old elf looked closely at Polly, then his mouth opened in shock and he gave Derwyn a questioning look.

"Yes," said Derwyn. "I do know what she is. You can plainly see however that she is just a child; a small girl who came here by accident and wants to go home."

The old elf said nothing.

"I know what the law says," continued Derwyn. "But look at her, sir; she is just a frightened little girl who wants to go home, and I see no reason to punish her for that. She has done no harm, and will be able to do none if we send her home tonight. Nobody else need know."

"Aye," said the old elf, nodding slowly. Then he sighed, took a small silver flask and a tiny wooden cup from the pouch at his waist, poured some of the purple liquid from the flask in to the cup, and held the cup out to Polly.

Polly took it, but stood there looking from the cup to the old man, then back again. It was barely bigger than an egg cup, and looked very simple, but even a quick glance showed Polly that it was beautifully carved with simple designs.

"You needn't harvest the pumpkin the same day you drink it, lass," the old elf said, giving Polly a gentle smile. "Just so long as it was done at the full moon."

Polly still looked confused.

"In that there cup is juice from another harvest," the old elf explained. "Take yourself a wee drink, my lass, and make your wish."

Polly looked at Arael and Derwyn, who both nodded, then she took a deep breath and lifted the cup to her lips.

"I wish I could go home," Polly said, once she'd drained the cup of the purple liquid.

At first nothing happened, and Polly was about to say she didn't think it had worked. But then her whole body started to feel all tingly like it did if her foot fell asleep, and the air around her was suddenly full of sparkles in gold and purple. The world around Polly began to look blurry, and she could hear the elves saying goodbye as if from a great distance.

"Goodbye!" she shouted, just to make sure they heard her.

Then the light of the sparkles became so bright she had to close her eyes, and she felt a jolt in her stomach like the kind you feel when you miss a step when walking downstairs. Then it was gone and she couldn't feel the tingly feeling any more.

Polly cautiously opened her eyes and peered around her, only to find herself back where her adventures had started, staring at the tree where the hole had been. She knew it was the same tree, because there, near the roots of it where it had dropped when she hit her head as she entered, was the pink ribbon that had been in her hair. Polly picked up the ribbon, her brief moment of relief at finding herself back in her own world fading quickly as she remembered she was lost. Then she heard a familiar voice, and relief flooded her body as a smile spread across her face.

"Polly, where are you?" came her brother's voice. "Oh, do stop hiding," Robbie pleaded, his worried face appearing around a tree not far from where Polly stood.

Polly was sure the main reason he was worried was because he'd get into trouble if he lost her, but she didn't care. She was so relieved to be home that she threw herself at him the moment she saw him.

"Oh, Robbie," Polly cried, hugging her brother tightly despite holding her newly recovered pink ribbon in one hand and the wooden cup the old elf had given her in the other. "I'm so glad to be back in our world again. I mean, it didn't look that much different than ours, and the elves I met were really nice to me, but they weren't supposed to be and I just got lucky."

"I've been looking for you for hours," Robbie said, ignoring her.

"But I was gone for nearly two whole days," Polly told him.

"Two hours maybe," replied Robbie.

"But I camped for the night in the forest with the elves," Polly said. "And walked and walked to get to the field where the purple pumpkin was," she added.

"What're you talking about?" Robbie asked, irritated now. "Look at the state of your dress. You're going to get it when we get home. Stop talking rubbish and come on."

"But I'm not talking rubbish," Polly insisted, letting go of her brother and holding up the little wooden cup to show him. "One of the elves gave me this cup. There was purple pumpkin juice in it, and I drank it and wished to come home."

"I'm too old for your silly imaginary games," Robbie snapped.

"I'm not playing a game," Polly replied, stamping her foot crossly.

But Robbie ignored her, pushed the cup aside, and shoved her doll at her so roughly she staggered back a step. Then he turned towards home, calling over his shoulder for her to follow him.

Glancing down at the little wooden cup, Polly knew she hadn't imagined it at all. After all, if she had imagined it, where had the cup come from? But she decided it wasn't worth arguing with her brother. Instead she tucked her doll safely under the arm that held her ribbon, and followed him home, the cup still held tightly in her other hand.

* * *

Victoria Zigler _is a blind author of children's fiction and poetry. When she remembers to spend some time in the real world, it's mostly with her hubby and pets._

* * * * *

# FREE WILL

### A.L. Butcher

[Quest For The Purple Pumpkin] [Contents] [At The Bottom Of The Lake]

The other Grand Wizards thought Leonardos eccentric, indulging the little World Marble like a favoured child...

THE GRAND WIZARD LEONARDOS stood at the east gate of the Hall of Aetheria. The stout ebony pillars of the tall bronze gate bore carvings which moved as the eye perceived them in a most disconcerting manner. Torches of bright sapphire fire flickered upon the room from scrolling sconces, but no oil dripped and the fire never died. In such a vast room even the Eternal Fire left shadows, which too had some sentience, and so to chase them to the corners, where arcane eyes watched the proceedings and slithering tentacles reached for the sandaled feet of passers-by, a huge crystal chandelier glittered myriad lights, like stars. The black, snakelike chain vanished into a roof so lofty it had its own weather.

Many of his colleagues liked to wear the old-style togas and grow long wild beards, or rather far-fetched robes or gowns of thunderbolts or starlight. Most impractical, Leonardos thought, preferring more practical attire; loose, comfortable trousers of tartan such as those favoured by the Northern Tribes of the blue-green world he tended. A cravat of dark ivy green tucked into a white ruffled shirt and the many-pocketed long leather trench-coat swung around the black studded boots he wore. Boots which clacked against the marble floor and drew him many stares from the other Wizards and Grand Wizards. Togas were awkward, and he kept tripping over the robes.

He liked affections of the different eras of the aforementioned blue-green world and he ignored the comments of his colleagues as he rummaged in pockets full of all manner of items, most of which even he was unsure of but they had seemed interesting at the time. Wistfully he thought to the time, upon the blue-green world when the glowing Tablet of Writing had been available, or was that would be available? He never could keep up. Making sure no one was looking, he plucked the Tablet from the innermost recesses of his coat and grinned as the shiny surface burst into light and the icons appeared. That was more like it.

Shaking his head, he thought not for the first time why the others still insisted he leave his orders on stone. Really, they were not the easiest medium on which to communicate and besides if one was being indecisive or careless the whole process must be started all over again. Even for a Grand Wizard it was a laborious exercise. They were heavy, and he usually ended up dropping at least one on his foot. Once more he remembered why he had swapped the drafty, open-toed sandals for the sturdier Doc Martin's.

Noticing one of the other Grand Wizards staring at him, Leonardos hastily shoved the device away and chose a dark-hued granite slab. Still, he thought, that was free will for you. Sometime sheer stubbornness prevailed on the part of the inhabitants of such worlds, and of course the Wizards themselves. He remembered the great argument between the Grand Wizards on that idea he had put forward about the Shining Tablet and the hasty explanations he had to think up as to where he actually acquired said item; they would have scoffed had he told them about the Pyramid on Talos Alpha. It had just been one little idea, he thought to himself, where is the harm in it? Then he glanced around the dark World Marbles hanging in the Hall of Aetheria and answered his own question. The small creatures had seemed quite taken with the pyramid idea for a while, at least it had kept them amused. Even now, or possibly then, they were asking questions about them, usually the wrong ones. Unanswered questions were what the Wizards were good at. They had seemed quite taken with those Stone Circles as well now he thought on it. Odd little things, on that blue-green planet, at least those he had not to hint at too much.

Time itself meant nothing to him, of course, but since his last proper visit it seemed... What was the phrase those creatures used?

"Oh yes," he murmured. "'A long time ago'."

Leonardos chuckled at his own joke. A number of the other Wizards turned to stare at him. He thought the blue-green planet a quaint, rather amusing place with many misguided beliefs, but as he informed his colleagues, it had 'potential'. He intended to see that that potential was achieved.

He motioned them back to their own business and laughed inwardly at their reaction. Leonardos knew the other Grand Wizards thought him eccentric, indulging the little World Marble like a favoured child. The tiny blue-green world trailed a bright blue aura; it was the only tiny globe which now held life, at least around the star it circled. His gaze lingered upon the little ball and then his eyes turned to its red-hued neighbour, the one with just a faint haze of mist around it, almost nothing, almost a mere memory. He recalled the small, three-legged creatures which had once run upon its surface, building those odd domed cities which had risen high and plunged low beneath the surface. Such entertaining little things they had been, if perhaps rather short-sighted. Leonardos recalled the war; he was familiar with such foolish notions as the worlds in his care seemed keen on such pastimes. The war had been for what little was left, taking all that there had been and more, always wanting more. Yes that had not really gone according to plan, still, he thought, you live and learn. As he chuckled again he thought that phrase was inappropriate in so many ways.

The Grand Wizard remembered the Great Cosmic Bell had rung but once and those creatures and their little world had crumbled to nothing save red-brown dust. He had found himself sad at the event but knew in the Great Scheme of Things such events had to occur; lives, species, even planets themselves rose and fell and rose and fell again. Such was the Way of Things, yet he thought it had happened rather sooner than he expected, which Leonardos considered was impressive for someone who was omniscient. If they chose to ignore the warnings, who was he to change things? It was free will. Or so the other Wizards had said.

As his eyes returned to the blue-green world he wondered if it would go the same way, once again his omniscience failed him. He tried, he really did but the small, stubborn creatures seemed to ignore his hints, the little devices he left. As his fingers closed around the smooth surface of the Tablet he thought they were bent instead on blaming the Grand Wizard. That was free will for you.

* * *

Alexandra Butcher _is the British author of the 'Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles' fantasy series._

* * * * *

# AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE

### Clark Graham

[Free Will] [Contents] [Changing Everything]

A tabloid journalist discovers his outlandish stories just might be true.

IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE, the lights of different colors dancing across the night sky. It was like different colored spotlights going through a green worm-shaped cloud. The thin narrow cloud of lights stretched from horizon to horizon.

"Norrsken," said Herr Carlsson, my Swedish host, as we both stood there looking up. He was a tall, round, red-faced man with light brown hair. Not that you could tell as he had on a thick brown fur hat and a deep green parka.

The night air was bitterly cold. I could see my breath, but it hung in the crisp air, like it was freezing as soon as it left my lips. Then it slowly disappeared, just before I breathed out again and started the process over. I could feel the outline of my lungs as I breathed in the freezing cold air.

"Northern lights," I responded at last. Being from the Southwest United States, I had never seen it before, but had been told about it. It was even more amazing than what had been described to me. I stood there trying to ignore the cold, but it was penetrating every opening in my clothes. The skin on my face was feeling plastic, almost frozen. My wrists were feeling the bite of cold air sneaking in the gap between my gloves and my coat. At length, I could take it no more and asked my host if we could go in and warm up.

"Ja Ja," was his response.

We walked on packed snow as we made our way across his driveway and into his house. He opened the red side door and we both walked in. The door was quickly shut to keep out the cold. There was a coat rack and we unbundled. I took off my hat and scarf, then my grey winter coat and gloves and then kicked off my snow-encrusted boots. I could feel the warmth of the fireplace as I made my way into the living room. The wood stove was in the corner but it was unlike anything I had seen. It was a massive ceramic tube about four feet wide and it stretched from floor to ceiling. It took up an entire corner and was pure white. There was a small trap door in the bottom where the fire was raging to heat up the ceramic tube. When the stove was hot, it stayed warm the entire night, even when the fire had died down considerably. I sat in the chair next to the furnace and tried to thaw out my frozen face. It must have been as red as my wrists were. My host looked as if he had just come in from a springtime stroll.

"Is cold," My host said when he came into the room and sat down. He must have been looking at my red face.

"Yes it is very cold." I was just overstating the obvious at that point. "But it feels good in here," I added.

"Tack," He responded. I took it to mean thank you, but was not entirely sure.

We talked for several hours while his wife brought us tea and homemade pastries to snack on. It was a herb tea made out of roses that I had never had before, with a sharp flavor easily quelled with the addition of some sugar. When he finished his tea my host walked up a narrow staircase in the back of the room and in a few minutes, came back down with a metal tube wrapped in a towel. He placed it on the coffee table in front of me like it was a piece of great value.

As I peeked under the towel, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a check from my employer. I could see the corner of the check where it said, 'The Day After Tabloid Inc.' as he unfolded it. It was for fifteen hundred dollars for the story of how a UFO fell into the lake behind his house. It didn't matter to the paper if the story was true or not. Just as long as we had a face and name behind the claim we would run with it. I had pictures of the man pointing to the frozen lake where the UFO was suppose to be and with the story he had told me, it would be good enough.

I kinda felt guilty for all of the grief his neighbors were going to give him in the coming months after I ran the story. Our subjects in the stories we ran usually got a great deal of ribbing about what they claimed to have seen. Some got it so bad they actually had to relocate. Being that the paper would be in America and he was in Sweden, I hoped that it would insulate this nice man from a lot of that.

I had spent four years in Journalism school in nearly the top of my class but after graduation, the only job I could find was with the tabloid. After a few years of reporting on things people dreamed up or imagined, I was being typecast and it was getting harder for me to find a job at a large newspaper like I had hoped for starting out. The fact that most of those newspapers were now laying-off journalists didn't help my cause either.

The tube that he had handed me was supposed to have come from the UFO, although it looked like any other piece of metal to me.

My host's wife grabbed some blankets and a pillow for me and they motioned for me to sleep on the couch that I had occupied for the last few hours. They then made their way up the narrow staircase behind the couch and up to bed.

It was one of the most comfortable couches that I had ever slept on. I was deep in dream state when the creaking of the stair alerted me to the fact that someone was coming back down. The back of the couch faced the stairway and to see who was on the stairs would have caused me to get up and look behind. I felt no threat and just waited until whoever it was passed in front of me.

To my surprise, a young eighteen or nineteen year old woman passed the couch on the way to the kitchen. She had long blonde hair and was slender with a well-toned body. She was just wearing a tee-shirt. When she got to the kitchen she turned on the light and got some milk out of the refrigerator. After pouring herself a glass turned to go back upstairs. That is when she spotted me.

"Oh hello," she said, "You must be the reporter that my father was going to talk to. Welcome to Sweden. I'm Lena."

"Tony, I'm from an American Tabloid. It's good to meet you," I stammered. She must of sensed my nervousness because she smiled as I was talking.

"Well off to bed with me. You have a nice trip back," she said and then she walked back past the couch and up the narrow stairs to bed.

I still could not wrap my mind about what had happened, but I had pleasant dreams the rest of the night.

In the morning, after a quick breakfast, I drove to the airport and caught my flight back to the States. It was a long flight and when I arrived home, I took a cab straight to my apartment and got eight hours of good sleep. The next morning I brought the tube and the pictures to my boss. He loved the story idea but did not want to include the metal tube.

"Throw that away. It looks like a pipe!" was his only comment. If it didn't look alien then he didn't want it in print.

I had a different idea however. Something felt different about this story. Maybe it was the sincerity of the man and his family, I don't know, but I went to have the pipe checked out with one of my college friends who was a metallurgist.

After I handed him the tube and told him where I had gotten it from, he told me to give him a few days and he would tell me what I had. Meanwhile the story ran. I tried to delay it but the boss wouldn't wait for anything to do with the 'pipe'.

Like most of the stories, I got a few emails from those who believed and a lot of emails from those who did not. I even got one guy to say that he had seen an alien ship go down in the ocean when he was on a cruise. Somehow none of the other passengers had seen it.

It took a few weeks but my friend the metallurgist called me up asking me to join him at his lab. I caught a taxi and headed down. When I got there he had the tube on a table.

"Check this out," he said. He took a large hammer and smashed a large dent into the tube.

"What are you doing?" I yelled.

"Just wait," he said.

As we watched, the dent slowly popped back out. I picked up the tube, but there was no scratch or mark on the metal and it was now perfectly round.

"What type of metal is this?"

"Can't tell you," he replied, "It's not from this neighborhood."

"You mean New York State?"

"No I mean the Earth. I've seen and worked with every metal known to man, but I've never seen this stuff before. It's from out of town, I mean way, like extraterrestrial out of town. I did a lot of tests on it but it doesn't match anything in the international database."

"Can I quote you on that?"

"No and if you do I will deny it. Winding up in your tabloid has a way of ending careers quickly. I don't want any part of that."

After nodding that I understood, I caught a cab back home and hid the tube. If word got out that I had it, I would have people trying to take it from me. Later on I moved it to a safe deposit box.

Now I had an obsession. I had to see if that ship was actually down there. I took scuba lessons and received my certification and then went back to my boss with a story idea.

"I want to take another stab at the story about the spaceship in the lake."

His bald head seemed to get a little redder. His short frame looked even smaller while sitting in his chair chomping on his cigar. He took a deep breath before speaking.

"Some people believe every word we print," he said. "Some just like it for the entertainment value and read about what weirdoes are saying. Some people don't believe at all. I don't expect my writers to get caught up in any story. Write it and move on to the next. Don't try to prove them true because you will fail. It's a waste of time. We don't revisit stories, we just go on to the next."

"I believe this one to be true though."

"I see that I need to distract you. I want you to be on a plane in the morning, I have a couple of women who say they hatched a Triceratops egg and were raising the beast until he ran off into the woods. Do my a favor, don't believe, just write the story and take some pictures." His face was getting red again.

I did what I was told, but signed up for my vacation in August when a certain lake would be ice free. Paying for my own airfare this time, I flew to Sweden.

I could not believe the difference in the countryside. It was a huge change from the frozen wasteland that I had visited the winter before. It was like a forested park everywhere I went. Even the cities had a lot of green in them. When I arrived at Herr Carlsson's he was working in the yard with his wife. I could seen Lena sunbathing on a blanket next to the lake.

Since I had emailed them before I came, they were expecting me. They even helped me unload my scuba gear that I had rented on the way up. Lena did not get up but just waved from the distance.

After donning my gear I walked into the lake. It was murky water and I could not see five feet in front of me as I swam down into the depths.

I was down a hundred feet when I finally spotted something large and metallic in front of me. As I swam towards it I noticed that it was smooth metal almost chrome in appearance. I continued to move around it to gauge the size and shape of the thing. It was saucer-shaped and about fifty feet round and twenty feet top to bottom. By that time I was running out of air so I surface came to shore.

"It's there, it's really there!" I yelled.

Herr Carlsson just nodded, "I know, I know."

"We have to do something, tell somebody. We have to drain the lake or get a crane. We got to get that thing out of there!"

I was so excited that I was talking very fast. It must have been too fast for my host because he called Lena over to translate. She stood up and put on a sundress that had been lying next to her. When she came over my Herr Carlsson said something to her in Swedish and she nodded her head.

"He says that there is nothing we can do. We told the government, they laughed, we told the neighbors, they laughed. We tried to hire a crane to get it out, they asked what it was and when we told them, they laughed."

"But there must be something we can do?" I said. "There has to be!"

"We have tried everything, but we just get laughed at." Lena said.

Here I was, sitting on the biggest find of the century and I could not get anyone to believe me. Probably because I was a reporter for a tabloid that makes its money by sensationalizing everything. As a journalist I had lost all credibility.

As I stood there speechless Herr Carlsson just said, "Nobody cares. Come, the wife has lunch ready."

He took me by the arm and led me into the house. We were followed by Lena.

It was the best Swedish Meatballs I have every eaten, much better than the one's I usually buy from the frozen food section of the grocery store. At least my trip had not been a total waste.

* * *

Clark Graham _is a writer of Fantasy. His book 'Dwarves of Elvenshore' started it all._

* * * * *

# CHANGING EVERYTHING

### Josh Karaczewski

[At The Bottom Of The Lake] [Contents] [About the Authors]

Two men set out into one of America's roughest neighborhoods as one piece of a grand plan to change everything...

WE WERE THE SECOND TO LAST TRUCK TO GO, after the San Francisco, before the San Jose. Ah, Oakland, you were my neighbor growing up, but the kind of neighbor you generally leave alone, because they are quick to anger and random acts of violence. I'd visit you for an A's game, or Cost Plus before they put one up in Pleasanton; for Quinn's Lighthouse on The Embarcadero; took the kids to Fairyland a couple of times; I had to sign some mortgage documents once downtown, and I worked at the airport for five years, though on the rare occasions that I flied I preferred San Jose's Mineta—otherwise I was just passing through you to cities I liked better.

Now I came to be neighborly, to help you change yourself, as the rest of America will soon begin to change itself, and so the world.

We got onto 880 North at 6:00am, Paul following in my old Ford Explorer; though every kind of car was available to us I suggested the Ford wouldn't draw the wrong kind of attention. There would be plenty of traffic on the way from Milpitas to our drop point in Oakland, and we couldn't use the diamond carpool lane with Paul alone following us, but we should get there well before the eight o'clock announcement, yet not so early that we become a stickup target there waiting.

The driver wasn't in on it, and since I'm a better writer than conversationalist we didn't talk much on the way. He was a light-skinned gray-haired black man named Ron; I was thinking perhaps early sixties. Ron didn't offer any conversation besides comments on the drivers he believed drove like "idiots" (too slow), or "maniacs" (too fast). I mechanically gave him words of agreement, and looked at the profiles of the commuters. What wants would they fulfill? What needs? What objects of desire would they acquire to discover that their life is no greater by its possession? What hungry man, with the wealth of the world's cuisine available to him, would really just want a McDonald's hamburger? That Asian man in the blue Honda eating an Egg McMuffin—would he have one hand on the wheel, and the other on an Eggs Benedict? Would that portly man in a white shirt and tie—I clock him as a salesman—with a cup of 7-11 coffee, be drinking Jamaica Blue Mountain tomorrow? How many of them would not even be here on the roads tomorrow?

So that I wouldn't add to my nervousness I thought of these changes of taste instead of the big changes, the paradigm shifts, the schisms soon to come. I had only had one cup of coffee myself before we left—a Molokai Estate I liked, but hadn't had since my honeymoon, since they only sell it in Hawaii—but I was fidgeting like a rabbit on Adderall.

At 98th Avenue the traffic congested in earnest. An accident on the shoulder, crumb trail of white and red broken plastic, crumpled fenders; the involved parties uninjured enough for them to be pacing by their vehicles, yelling into their cellphones, waving their fists at the morning they were having. The accumulation of their worries at this moment: of being late to work, of having to deal with insurance companies and repair shops, arguing over fault; it make me smile. Tomorrow things were going to be so much easier.

Well, maybe not tomorrow, but after the _Acceptance Period_ began, certainly. We estimated two weeks at the most.

Next we passed the Oakland Coliseum—or whatever corporate sponsor name it has this year; that would obviously change—corporate naming. I wondered how professional sports would deal with the shift. How would players redistribute themselves? When everyone had the opportunity to attend, how would they determine who got what tickets? My guess would be a lottery system. I had no idea how they would get anybody to clean the place afterward though—the seagulls could take care of the food waste, but who was going to volunteer to be a peanut shell sweeper, or spilt soda/beer sprayer now?

_Beer_. How would they control how much beer fans had? Something tied to their ID? Of course Doctor Brandon, our founder and lead scientist, believed all that will work itself out within the year, but I don't know—Brandon has lived in science-fiction worlds more than in our own since college, and I get out of the lab more to see how people really behave.

* * *

We exited the freeway, and within the first block I saw the first mini-unit. If my hair wasn't gelled down, it would have joined the rest of the hair on my body by sticking straight out. Seeing it there, people walking by, disregarding it, uncurious; I the only one that saw it and knew its purpose, this thing that would soon be distrusted, feared, fought over, debated and argued about, then finally accepted as driving a new era—I tell you, it was electricity in my veins. Only Ron's presence kept me from bouncing on the seat and hooting like one of my kids in Disneyland's parking structure.

The drop points for the mid-sized units were generally chosen for accessibility. Political factors to drop points were also enjoyed when possible. The Oakland drop was on International Boulevard: a place of prostitution, drugs, gangs, and the kind of working class that is one bad week from drowning, or turning to crime to keep their heads dry; a land of Valjeans and Thenardiers.

There were those big changes again, the ones that drained your heat and churned your stomach when you thought that finally, after all the years of planning, research, experimenting, refining, production to today's distribution, and all in secret, that it had started! The process of changing everything had begun, and I had to hold my breath to keep from hyperventilating. _Small changes, think of the small changes_ , I chanted inside, and so looked at Ron, and tried to guess what he would get with his forthcoming unlimited resources. A top of the line barbeque with top of the line meat, bottles of cognac and brandy with letters following their names, gold accessories? I felt a bit of shame that I was only imagining stereotypes: the black blue-collar worker drinking Hennessy while his ribs smoked, but quickly sidestepped my guilt by wondering how subcultures would shift in the new era. With the world available, how will the familiar change? Will regional tastes persist? Culture tastes? Sociologists and Cultural Anthropologists are going to have rich meat to chew on for years.

We reached the vacant lot chosen for the drop a little after seven-thirty, and had the unit offloaded and ready for the eight o'clock announcement. We had bought the lot—whatever small building had once been there had been boarded up, and then burnt down by some transients, so there was only a rectangle of foundation we put the unit on and a few faded parking spaces around it—but the set of permits I had for the unit were fakes, just for show, and wouldn't stand up to a phone call. How can we have a permit for a machine that no one but our team knows about?

Ron drove off leaving Paul and me and the unit. Paul was one of us: a child of East Oakland who prospered despite the dangers and limitations of his environment. He had told me once what he did for the team but it fell out of my ear as soon as he said it, so I just classified him as one of the _computer guys_. Paul also told me once about the night before his AP Computer Science test when he was studying and a bullet had punched through his wall, lodging in his mattress. "That I was at my desk studying saved my life, and it validated every late night at the books since." He could answer any technical question the crowd would have, but honestly, I was most glad then for his presence: it made my wussy white behind less clenched having a young black man with long braided hair by me in this neighborhood as we waited. It made me feel less conspicuous. We looked at each other as we paced, checking the clocks on our phones, trading nervous smiles for nods of encouragement; it didn't release all of the static electricity from our bodies, but enough of it that we didn't run whooping down the street like mad men. If either of us smoked we would have smoked like _Mad Men_.

That stretch of paved ground, weedy and cracked, was a waiting room as the clock ticked toward the birth of a new era.

The screen on top of the unit came alive at eight sharp. Though we had seen the prerecorded video already, we watched captivated, occasionally glancing around to see if other people were stopping to watch as well. I saw a bundled woman of indeterminate race at a bus stop look over as she waited, and a young white hooker watch from the side of a check-cashing store, coffee and a cigarette steaming and smoking from arms crossed against the morning on her much-exposed skin; everybody else kept walking, minding their own business. I thought, _The world is changing and you're missing it!_

On the screen Dr. Brandon Roberts talked, introducing the units and what they could do for fifteen minutes, closing with the invitation to _Go outside and try one right now_! Short and sweet, the board had concluded for the initial announcement. The rest will fall into place. Paul and I turned from the screen which now showed an animated _Replication Station_ logo, ready for the people to come streaming out of their apartments and businesses to try the unit. I looked about. The bus had come for the woman; the hooker ground her cigarette butt under a dirty high heel, and watched the cars to see if any wanted to slow for her services. The bell on the door of an Asian market across the street dinged, and our faces jerked over to see an old man emerge. _Here we go_ , I thought, and was at the point of yelling across to him, _Over here, we're over here_ , when the man began sweeping the sidewalk with choppy swipes toward the street. The breath I had taken to call out dribbled out.

Beside me, Paul checked his phone. "Eight nineteen," he said.

It had been four minutes so far and no one had come over! The world had been changed for a full nineteen minutes now, and no one was acknowledging it.

"You think they thought it wasn't real?" I asked him.

"Maybe. I guess we've been on the project long enough that we've forgotten how unreal it sounds."

Made sense. But what to do about it? Our part of the plan was to demonstrate the unit. Several cars drove past without pulling into the lot. A pair of Latino workers approached the bus stop and sat. A kid on a bike rode past, late for school.

"We have to get their attention somehow..." I said, but the one whose attention I most wanted was the hooker. Hers was the life that needed immediate change. A silent ice-cream truck went by then, and it gave me an idea. "A megaphone."

Paul soon had one from the unit handed toward me. I had never used one before, but I managed to hit the right button to amplify the words.

"Hey, everybody, come see the amazing Replication Station! Yes, you, come over and see. You too. It's alright, come on over."

The old man stopped sweeping and stared over, a breeze blowing the wispy hair at the back of his head over his bald dome. One of the men at the bus stop had headphones on and looked down the street, but the other turned his head, and the hooker stopped her trolling stroll.

"Sheesh, I feel like a carnival barker..." I said to Paul, who sniffed a laugh, then again through the megaphone, "Come over and see the invention that will change _everything_ ," and other similar enticements and constant coaxing until the hooker, and one of the bus stop men came over. The old man brought two ladies, one old and one young, out from inside, but they stayed in front of their market by the angled bins of their produce to watch.

"What's your name, miss?"

She hesitated like she was making a decision, rather than accessing memory, before answering, "Violet."

"And yours?"

"Hugo."

"And did either of you see or hear the announcement for the Replication Stations?"

Hugo hadn't. Violet said, "What showed over that screen there?"

"Yes."

"A little."

"Did you understand what it was about?"

"No," she admitted.

Up close, Violet looked younger than she had from across the road, young enough that she belonged in class—I couldn't tell if it was late high school or early college but at a desk surely, dressed in shoes that she didn't teeter on as she walked and wearing more than the half-square-yard of cloth that covered the whole of her body.

"Well, this is a Replication Station, a medium-sized one. It can make for you near anything you want. Are you hungry, Violet?"

"Sure."

"If you could have anything to eat, anything in the world, what would it be?"

Violet's freckled nose crinkled as she thought, then she said, "My grandma's blueberry pancakes."

I shrank a bit at this, but tried not to show it as I said, "Well, I'm afraid I can't offer you your grandma's blueberry pancakes specifically. You see, this can replicate anything that has been scanned into it, but I don't think that includes anything your grandma has made. But here," I pushed the _Ready_ button on the unit's touch-screen and said, "Blueberry Pancakes." A list appeared. "See, you can choose any of these options—see this number here? That means that there are seventeen different versions of blueberry pancakes you can choose from so far, some homemade ones, and some from restaurants. Which one do you want to try?"

"You have blueberry pancakes in there?" Her tone said that she didn't believe me.

"No, I'm saying that this machine will replicate any of these seventeen examples of blueberry pancakes that have been scanned. Pick one."

"Alright then," she said, with a smile that she was going to call my bluff and prove the trick. "Denny's."

_Sixteen other options and she chooses Denny's?_ I thought, but said, "Okay, now push the button that says 'Replicate'.

She did, and the open cubby-hole next to the touch-screen held a plate with blueberry pancakes. "Where did that come from?" she asked. "I didn't see anybody inside push it out. Did you see who did it?" she asked Hugo.

"No."

"Go on, take it, try it," I said.

"This is too weird" she said. "How did you know I would want blueberry pancakes?"

"I didn't."

"Then how did you know to have them in there?"

"They weren't in there. The Replicator made them."

"This is a joke, right. They gonna make me sick?"

"Course not—no joke. They're perfectly fine."

"This isn't some kind of reality show, right?" she said, looking suddenly fearful. "I can't be put on TV now."

"No, nothing like that, I promise."

"You want me to take a bite?" Paul pitched in.

"Yeah."

"I like blueberry syrup with mine," he said. After pushing the ready button he said, "Another fork and IHOP's blueberry syrup."

"Are you doing this with mirrors?" Violet asked. A brown plastic carafe with _Blueberry_ stenciled on its front was now beside the plate. "I watched, and all of a sudden it was just there!"

"Yeah," Hugo said, "How're you doing that?"

"It's the Replicator," Paul answered. "You see, what the Replicator does is take atoms, molecules, and all their parts and puts them together to replicate anything that has been scanned. We've scanned millions and millions of things: food, drinks, clothes, shoes. But say there's something we don't have scanned, like your grandma's blueberry pancakes. So what you need to do is have grandma whip up a plate, and have it scanned. Just put it in here, push 'Scan', and name it. Then whenever you want that taste of Grandma's kitchen, you can have a plate identical to the one that's been scanned. Until then..." Paul poured some bright purple syrup onto one edge of the blue-spotted pancake stack, forked out a wedge, and ate it.

"Huh," Violet said, watching until he swallowed.

"Hey, can this make me a can of Rock Star?" Hugo asked.

"Of course, just punch it in." As Hugo chose his variety from the list I took the plate and napkin-wrapped utensils out and thrust it into Violet's hands. She sniffed at it.

"Hey, look?" Hugo told her. "They had my flavor!" Then taking the can, he said, "Thanks!" and jogged back over to climb aboard the bus that had just pulled up.

"Sure thing," Paul said to him.

I was just about to comment that I thought Hugo still believed we were playing some kind of practical joke, but as the bus pulled away the three Asian shopkeepers came across the street behind it, walking fast.

"Hey!" the old man was saying, and then when he came up close added, "You can't put a vending machine here."

"This isn't a vending machine, it's..."

"That man just got a can from out of it. How can he get a can from a machine that isn't a vending machine?"

"It's a Replicator."

"I don't care what you call it," the older of the ladies said. "You can't sell those here across from our store!"

"We didn't sell it..."

"Didn't sell it? We saw him buy it! Don't lie to me!"

"Sir, this machine does not take money."

"Credit cards then, I don't care. You can't have it here. You take it away."

"Sir, you don't understand. This isn't a vending machine, it's a Replication Station. It can replicate anything. We can't take it away—it's going to change things, change everything."

"If you're not going to take it away I'm going to call the police!" the old man said, and bustled away back to his shop, the ladies following, firing sour looks back at us.

"Now you're in trouble," Violet said ironically, her mouth half full. When she swallowed she said, "Really, guys, tell me how you're doing it. You have someone in there, don't you, and some mirrors. Swear there's no cameras filming me."

"Violet," I began. I felt a little bad about how angry the shopkeepers were. Even though I knew that things would turn out for the best society-wise, the change would make their business superfluous. I shook it off so that I could explain to the girl. "I want you to understand that this is not a trick, not a joke. There is nobody inside this machine, I promise. This machine will change your life you see. You will not need to do... what you do anymore." More people had gathered following the commotion from the shopkeepers, and I included them in my speech. "Things are going to change fast, starting now, money will go away soon—no one will need it. No one will need to do... distasteful things to put something in their stomach. No one will need to steal, when any need or want can be had for free! You there," I asked of a young black man. "Name something you want."

"An Egg McMuffin!"

"It doesn't have to food, it can be anything."

"But I'm hungry."

"Alright, Paul, get him an Egg McMuffin."

"Can I make it a combo, with orange juice?"

"Sure, whatever. How about you sir, remember, it doesn't have to be food. What's something that you have wanted but don't have the money to buy?"

"A gold chain."

"Paul, get this man a gold chain."

Paul passed the boy a McDonald's bag and his juice, and then brought out a chain to hand to the man.

Among the crowd I heard murmuring, _They gave that guy a gold chain_.

"I want a gold chain," Violet said, as if she was on a game show and thought that she had chosen the prize behind the wrong curtain.

"We can get you a chain if you want, Violet. We can get you diamonds or rubies or emeralds, whatever you want. But what I want you to see, is that we can give you whatever you need to change your life. What would it take to stop you from doing what you do? You don't need to pay for food ever again. You don't need to pay for clothes, or anything. If you don't ever need money, then you won't need to sell yourself."

"Where am I gonna get money from then? From you? You don't know what it's like. How are you gonna tell me that?" The girl went from purring to claws in a flash.

Paul tried, "Violet, what we're saying is this isn't the only Replication Station. There are other ones around, and soon there will be one in every home. And every one will be able to give you anything you need, so that you will never have to do anything you don't want to do to get what you need."

"But I need money to live," she said. "Can that thing make me money?"

"No, we can't replicate money because that's counterfeiting. And by the end of the week money isn't going to be worth anything anymore."

"Well then, I want a gold chain too."

"Fine!" I shouted, and pushed Paul away from the touch-screen. "A gold chain. How about two?" I handed her two. "How about five?" I handed her three more, it was all I could do not to throw them at her. Before I could ask if she wanted ten gold chains she pivoted on a high heel and started at an awkward run down the street. "Alright," I bellowed, turning back to the growing crowd. "Is there anyone else here that wants something besides a gold chain?"

There was some grumbling about how _if the ho got some gold chains why couldn't they_ , but then a voice came out of the crowd, asking, "I need a bike."

"Perfect!" I said, thinking _Now they'll get it!_ "What kind of bike, describe it."

"A cruiser. Light-blue."

The man that stepped forward, a white guy, was dressed hat-to-tattooed neck and arms-to-sneakers in light-blue, so I found a bike from the list I thought would match. "So, this port here is good for food, and other small items. But if you need something bigger, like furniture, or, a _bike_ , you just come over to the side." As I rounded the machine a light-blue beach cruiser with chrome trim emerged from the open end. I toed up the kickstand, wheeled it around for everybody to see. "It's nice, huh?"

The man put a tentative hand out, grabbed a handle bar. When I was sure he had it I released my grip. The man swung a leg over, put both hands on the handlebars, looking up and down both sides of the bike. I stepped back, and looked to Paul. Our eyes said, _They're getting it! They're finally getting it!_

The man rode in a slow figure-eight, stood up, stepped down on the pedals, and tore away down the street. Someone in the crowd laughed, and said, "Boy stole your bike man!"

"It was his bike," I mumbled.

"Can I get a bike?"

"Can I get a couple gold chains?"

"Can I get a couple of gold chains, and another Egg McMuffin?"

"You can get whatever you want! That's the point! Anything you need."

"And you're just givin' this out for free?"

"Yes!"

"Man, I don't think you know where you are. You go flashing all these gold chains around and someone's going to rob you."

"You the one givin' my girl gold?" a man said, pushing to the front.

"What?"

"My girl Violet—you givin' her gold? Think I'm just gonna let you take what's mine? Huh?" The man threw the gold chains at our feet and put his arms out wide. His arms were sleek with muscle under a tank top. The crowd made a tight bubble around him, and pressed in tighter.

Paul and I both had our hands up, the universal sign of _Be cool, man, we're all friends here_. I said, slowly, evenly, "I'm not trying to steal anybody."

"Think you gonna take what's mine with a little bit of gold?" he asked. Only imagine curse words after every second or third word, and finished by referring to her by the way rappers refer to their women.

"Hey, hey, we're not here to steal your girlfriend, we're..."

Paul cut me off, grabbing my arm and, whispering, "She ain't his girlfriend: he's her pimp." _Oh_ , I thought, blushing.

"What'd you call me?"

"What? Pimp?" Is there another word for it?"

"What did this boy call me?" he asked the crowd.

_A pimp_ was the crowd's consensus.

"Boy I ain't no pimp—I am a female distributor!"

"Look! We were just demonstrating the Replication Station. It's..." but then I broke off because, what was I going to say? The machine was designed to put guys like this out of business. If Violet didn't need money to get what she needed to survive and thrive she wouldn't need to sell her body. If no one needed money for food or things then no one would have to steal, or hurt or kill someone to take what the other had. Drugs would go next because we didn't allow the Replicators to replicate them, and who would want to risk their freedom and their lives producing them if you could keep your family fed and clothed for free?

The man in front of us was one of the enemies we thought of as we worked on the Replication Stations—we knew there would be a backlash from the villains of civilized society—but this scenario was never brought up in any strategy session I ever attended. The plan was always: make the announcement, demonstrate the Replicators, and then lay low through the following social upheaval as monetary systems became irrelevant and people turned away from lives of crime. We were never supposed to be confronted by the thugs themselves.

I scanned through the crowd for help, looking for a face that wasn't showing blood-thirst, saw none; I turned to Paul—he was turned away pattering on the Replicator's touch-screen. When I turned back to the pimp he was lifting up his tank top to show the gun tucked into his sagging pants, the silver grip bright against the dark-purple of his boxer shorts. His mouth opened and closed, contorting with words of immanent violence but my sense of hearing had shut off. The crowd surged closer, ready to see the holes appear in my body the better. My mouth opened, but I was unaware of what came out: it could have been a plea, or just a noise of fear, or no sound at all. The female distributor's hand closed on the gun, pulled it free, fired.

Two things happened simultaneously. The squawk of a police cruiser, preceding the instruction, _Put down the gun and put your hands up!_ came from the street behind the crowd, and then from behind me Paul yelled "Diamonds!", and indeed a sparkling hail began to rain down onto the crowd.

Everyone save for the pimp dropped to the ground, clawing pushing grabbing at the stones amongst them. The female distributor turned to run and tripped over the nearest diamond grasper; he bear-crawled over the roiling crowd and when he reached the edge sprinted off down the street. One cop pursued him, while the other tried to wrench his arm away free of the old man from the Asian market. Paul yelled something in my ear and dragged me towards and into my SUV, and sped us away.

* * *

The next morning Paul and I returned. During the night the Replication Station had been tagged with graffiti, the letters of some gang claiming it as part of their territory. Someone had taken a crowbar to the panel under the touch-screen, probably looking for the money they assumed this machine took. From where the female distributor's bullet had hit the screen a mishmash of flickering colors splayed out from the hole and its fissures. The touch-screen was gone completely.

We worked quickly. Through a tablet Paul carried, he told the Replication Station which parts to release from its body and replicate. On the opposite side of the machine from the large replication port was a large bin, open on the top, that we never had the chance to introduce. I put the vandalized components in here, and the station broke them down into individual atomic pieces, storing some, releasing others into the atmosphere after forming them into fresh air we had scanned from a deep forest meadow by a snowmelt stream. Paul had to replicate a ladder for us to install the new screen, and after we had it brightly proclaiming _Replication Station_ , we fed the ladder to the bin and left.

Driving away, I asked Paul, "How many more times do you think we'll have to come out here before they figure it out?" That poor little pronoun _it_ having the whole process of re-civilizing society as its antecedent.

Paul scoffed, grew quiet. As I waited I looked through the clumps of prostitutes to see if I could find Violet. I was at the point where I thought he wasn't going to answer when he said, "More than we should have to, man. Much more."

* * *

_'Changing Everything' may eventually get expanded into a mock-nonfiction novel, or not; regardless it'll have to get in line behind the three other novels_ Josh Karaczewski _is simultaneously working on in the San Francisco Bay Area._

* * * * *

# ABOUT THE AUTHORS

[Changing Everything] [Contents] [Title Page]

Steph Bennion

Ubiquitous Bubba

Alexandra Butcher

Clark Graham

Ross Harrison

L.J. Hick

Josh Karaczewski

Peter Lean

Stan Morris

Michael Puttonen

Laurel A. Rockefeller

Douglas Schwartz

Neil Shooter

Barbara G. Tarn

Zach Tyo

L.L. Watkin

Victoria Zigler

What did you think of this ebook?

Share your thoughts with a comment or review!

* * *

# Steph Bennion

Rock Of Ages

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Steph Bennion** is a writer, civil servant and occasional musician, born and bred in the Black Country but now living in the big, bad city of London, England. Her witty space-opera mysteries for young adults and adults young-at-heart are written as a reaction to the dearth of alternative heroes amidst bookshelves swamped by tales of the supernatural. _Paw-Prints Of The Gods_ , a sequel to her debut novel _Hollow Moon_ , was published in 2013.

Website: www.wyrdstar.co.uk

* * *

# Ubiquitous Bubba

Humanity Was Delicious

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Ubiquitous Bubba** spends a significant amount of time surrounded by imaginary characters from bizarre universes. He's been known to hold conversations with animals, inanimate objects and food, which frequently diverge into philosophy, speculations on the nature of Reality/Unreality, and the proper role of cheese in society. He enjoys relaxing at home with his wife and three kids. His debut novel, _Reality Challenged_ , was published in 2012.

Website: UbiquitousBubba.wordpress.com

* * *

# A.L. Butcher

Free Will and The Joy Of Socks

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Alexandra Butcher** is the British author of the _Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles_ fantasy series and several short stories in the fantasy and fantasy romance genre, including the mythic _Tales of Erana_. She is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet and a dreamer. When she is grounded in the real world she likes science, natural history, history and monkeys.

Website: libraryoferana.wordpress.com

* * *

# Clark Graham

At The Bottom Of The Lake

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Clark Graham** is a writer of fantasy. His book _Dwarves of Elvenshore_ started it all. Now there are six books in the Elvenshore series and a standalone novel, _Slayer of the Osgarth_.

Website: elvenshore.blogspot.com

* * *

# Ross Harrison

Horizon: Kira part 2

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Ross Harrison** is a writer of, primarily, science fantasy. He has been writing since childhood without thought of publication. When the idea was planted by his grandmother to do so, it grew rapidly, and here sits the fruit. The NEXUS series is his main body of work, but he has made brief forays into steampunk with _Kira_ , and noir thriller with _Acts of Violence_. Ross lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back.

Website: http://www.ross-harrison.com

* * *

# L.J. Hick

Irrevocable

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**L.J. Hick** is an author, guitarist and former advisor to major banks. Born in Birmingham, he now lives in Warwickshire, England with his wife and three children. His debut novel _Gods and Monsters_ is the first book in his series _The Last Days of Planet Earth_ , which concerns myths, religion, the environment and politics, delivered in a humorous style. The second book in the series is due for release later this year.

Website: thelastdaysofplanetearth.co.uk

* * *

# Josh Karaczewski

Changing Everything

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Josh Karaczewski** sometimes feels like he is the only writer living in San Leandro, California, but that's only until he can retire somewhere warmer. His stories have been published in several literary journals, while his books include the seriocomic novel _Alexander Murphy's Home for Wayward Celebrities_ and _My Governor's House and other stories_. Until the riches pour in, he will continue forcing high school students to read, write and think.

Website: www.oralrandomly.blogspot.com

* * *

# Peter Lean

Gy

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Peter Lean** is the pen-name used by the author for his fiction works. Jurist in 'real life' and author of several law books in his native Italian, he started recently to write fiction. He has published a number of ebooks, including his collection of short stories _Photographs:_ _A Journey Through Space, Time, and More_. His debut novel _The Guns Of Napoleon_ , based on his short story that appeared in _Wyrd Worlds_ , was published 2013.

Website: www.goodreads.com/book/show/18009911-photographs

* * *

# Stan Morris

Sahsa And The Collared Girl

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Stan Morris** was born in Linwood, California. At age twenty-one he moved to New Mexico, where he met the teenager he later married. Now with two sons, they have since moved to Maui where he retired after years of assembling computers. He is the author of seven books: _Surviving the Fog_ , _Surviving the Fog – Kathy's Recollections_ , _Sarah's Spaceship Adventure_ , _The Colors of Passion and Love_ , _Sam's Winnings_ , _Kate's Movie Star_ , and _Amy's Hero_.

Website: sites.google.com/site/stanandrene/home

* * *

# Michael Puttonen

The Diner

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Michael Puttonen** is a Minnesota native and author of young adult adventure/fantasy novels, short stories, and children's tales. His _Sanyel_ series tells the story of a gifted teenage girl born into a dangerous world. _Seven and One Tales for Young Readers_ is a collection of thought-provoking stories for young children. Michael sees life from a philosophical angle, loves all things anomalous, and dabbles as a cartoonist, albeit one with debatable artistic aptitude.

Website: www.michlputtonen.com

* * *

# Laurel A. Rockefeller

Poisoned Ground

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

Born, raised, and educated in Lincoln, Nebraska USA, **Laurel A. Rockefeller** is an amateur scientist and amateur historian known for her lavish world building in her _Peers of Beinan_ science-fiction series and her meticulous research in her _Legendary Women of World History_ series. Books released this year include _Good-bye A672E92 Quintus_ , _Catherine de Valois_ , and _Boudicca: Britain's Queen of the Iceni_ , now available as audio books.

Website: peersofbeinan.wordpress.com

* * *

# Douglas Schwartz

A World Taken Over

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Douglas Schwartz** lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children. He funnels his creativity into fiction writing and tabletop game design. _Checkered Scissors_ , his first novel, was published in October 2013, and he has a short-story collection due out very soon. His quirky, imaginative writing style has been described as the "They Might Be Giants of prose". An avid Whovian, Doug also considers himself a chronological time traveler.

Website: www.checkeredscissors.com

* * *

# Neil Shooter

Homeless and The Visitor

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Neil Shooter** grew up in northern England and now lives in a quiet suburban corner of Ontario, Canada. After the stunning success he has not had over the past eighteen months of self-publishing, Neil finds himself limited by reality, but escapes whenever possible into one fantastical realm or another.

Website: www.smashwords.com/profile/view/neilshooter

* * *

# Barbara G. Tarn

Guisarme

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Barbara G. Tarn** is a writer, sometimes artist, mostly a world-creator and storyteller. She's been building her world of _Silvery Earth_ for a number of years: stories, comprise shorts, novels and graphic novels. Her Silvery Earth novella _The Hooded Man_ received a honorable mention at the Writers of the Future contest. Used to multiple projects – a graphic novel is always on the side of the prose – she writes, draws, blogs and ignores her day job.

Website: creativebarbwire.wordpress.com

* * *

# Zach Tyo

My Last Day

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Zach Tyo** is an American author from the Ohio Valley area. Though his first loves are his wife and son, he found a third two years ago in writing. Having been an avid reader all his life he dove head first into writing 'the great American novel', but quickly discovered he had no idea what that meant. He is currently working on several short stories, due in September 2014, that are connected via a love for a happy ending wrapped in tragedy.

Website: ztyoauthor.com

* * *

# L.L. Watkin

The Colonial Plague

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**L.L. Watkin** is the pen name for writing partnership Liz and Louise Smith, two sisters from the North of England who have been writing fantasy, paranormal and science fiction for nearly ten years. To date they have published four novels and several short stories in two series _Leviathan_ and _The Handmaiden_ , plus numerous other short stories. As well as writing they publish a couple of fanzines, blog a bit and enjoy spoiling their rabbit, Buzz Lightyear.

Website: www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LLWatkin

* * *

# Victoria Zigler

Quest For The Purple Pumpkin

[About the Authors] [Contents] [Title Page]

**Victoria Zigler** is a blind author of children's fiction and poetry. When she remembers to spend time in the real world, it's with her hubby and pets, though she sometimes indulges in other interests such as crafts, music, movies, figure and role-playing games, and doing a little cooking and baking. Victoria was born in the shadow of the Black Mountains in Wales and has been writing since she knew how. She became a self-published author in 2012.

Website: www.zigler.co.uk

* * *

# Also available from WyrdStar

### WYRD WORLDS

Science-fiction and fantasy short stories

An anthology of science-fiction and fantasy short stories by indie authors brought together by the social network Goodreads. The collection, which contains 14 stories from 12 writers from around the world, includes a wide range of speculative fiction, from slices of fantasy and time travel to steampunk and science-fiction. The tales vary widely, yet are all born from the same drive to create, share ideas and above all to entertain!

_Wyrd Worlds_ contains stories by Steph Bennion, Ubiquitous Bubba, Alexandra Butcher, Emma Faragher, Ross Harrison, Josh Karaczewski, Peter Lean, Stan Morris, Neil Shooter, Barbara G. Tarn, L.L. Watkin and Gary Weston.

For news on forthcoming publications, please go to www.wyrdstar.co.uk.

* * * * *

[END]
