***

Detective Tyrone Higgins frowned as he planted his face into the palms of his overworked hands.  Here he stood, in another FDA office, arresting another traitor in federal employ.  Something connected these criminals other than their affiliation in the same agency.  If he did not find that connection before too long, this resistance movement would gain enough momentum that standard law enforcement would not be enough to stop it.

Tyrone had grown concerned since transferring to Harrisonburg that the mega-city would soon be headed for military jurisdiction.  He would do everything in his power to prevent that from happening.

Tyrone keyed his gauntlet display and his Virtual Intelligence, Theresa appeared on the screen.  Tyrone spoke after a long pause, “Theresa, I need you to run some numbers on the situation in Harrisonburg.  The Query: How many public incidents and law enforcement failures before the President enacts NDAA enforcement powers over the city?”

The image of Theresa on the screen winked at Tyrone, “My processor is already working to compute your answer.  Status will update periodically.  You should also know, the VI you asked me to monitor…”

Tyrone’s eye slanted queerly at the image of the Theresa VI, “What is it?”

“She exhibited some erratic behavior again, sending messages outside of the agency.”

Tyrone shook his head as he reviewed the contents of the message.  This VI had a non-standard agenda.  Technically, VI’s followed a very strict set of programmed rules.  That would mean that the programmer went out of his or her way to change the operating goals of this particular VI.  Reviewing the VI proved another fact, the Goldie VI’s creator modeled the VI after a real human.  Tyrone could possibly use that to track him down.

Theresa pinged Tyrone with the answer to another query.  After reviewing the VI transmissions, Tyrone felt it was obvious where the resistance would hit next.  He downloaded the specs from the message. Now, the time had come to head this potential catastrophe off at the pass, at Walls Tower.  The resistance was playing with fire, and only Tyrone could stop them from burning down the house.

***

Jarred worried about Kayla and Apple, how they would communicate without him, as he lay in the hospital bed.  He supposed that everyone probably worried a good deal about his survival, being that the artificial components on his heart had been stopped by the EMP.  At least that freak of an assassin wouldn’t bother anyone anymore.

***

Relief and comfort coursed through Kayla after viewing the plan of action Barry had prepared.  Kayla would work alone in the real world, while Apple handled some more virtual assignments.  If the resistance exposed what the Oathed Technocrats were up to now, the authorities would not be able to ignore them any longer.  All those wealthy and powerful men’s doors would receive knocks from the FBI with warrants for their arrests in hand.

The resistance would finally prove itself as a valuable asset to the public good, and, perhaps, the corruption in the government would be rooted and leave a gutted shell of only those who cared.

Kayla crept through the service hatch into the tunnel that led to the secured server facility of the largest, most impressive building in all of Harrisonburg, Virginia.  The reason for Harrisonburg becoming a mega-city was Walls Corporation, which ruled much of virtual space from the upper floors of this building.  The building’s architecture defied the laws of physics similar to buildings in the virtual world.  Walls Towers, built before Kayla’s birth, was known the world over.  The eccentric CEO went through a dozen groups of engineers that said what he wanted couldn’t be done.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the CEO, Fred Walls, hired a boy, just out of highschool.  That high school boy was the only creative genius that could think outside the box enough to create this unconventional design.

If Kayla got caught in here, her mission would be a failure. She would be thrown in a dark, deep prison, but, in three days, the virus program would come online and many of the people in cyberspace would effectively die in the real world.  During the last couple of days, Kayla wondered if she really wanted the Technocrats to fail.  This virus would be a wakeup call to all of the people that survived, to hopefully focus on the real world again.  Kayla imagined all of the masses protesting outside government buildings to find a solution to the “super” weed.  She longed to walk the countryside and enjoy the natural wonders of Earth.

Kayla slipped into the server room, which should have been empty according to Apple’s hacking of the security system of Walls Towers.  It was not empty, however, as there was another investigator hard at work trying to crack several mysteries of his own.

Kayla knew that she needed to act before the unknown man, who was not a security guard or maintenance man of Walls Corporation, drew his gun and ended her.  The other person must have been alerted by something; Kayla could see the gun in his hand.  She skulked down the next set of servers, each their own mountain island in a sea of office doldrums.  She waited for a moment behind the next set of those server mountains.

Kayla rushed into Tyrone unexpectedly from the side and knocked the gun from his hand.  He reacted quickly and stayed on his feet.  Tyrone tried to swing his heavy gauntleted arm around to throttle Kayla, but he did not get the gauntlet around in time to quickly end the close combat.  Kayla grasped Tyrone’s gauntleted forearm and their other hands each grasped each other, fingers locked around each other’s.

“Look.  You can’t do this!  You do and the consequences will be worse than you believe.  I’m not talkin’ bout for you either.  I mean all those people out there you are doin’ this for.  The hammer is about to smack.”  Tyrone said under the strain of trying to win the grapple.

Kayla ended the grapple with a combination knee to the groin and head butt to Tyrone’s nose.  He sailed back into another server stack and slid down.  Kayla knew that it probably would not be enough to knock him out; it wasn’t that easy.  She descended upon him and planted blow after blow on his face and chest.  Finally, Kayla convinced herself that the bloody pulp of a man would stay out of action.  Kayla returned to finding and destroying the target mainframe.

The man, Tyrone, with the bloody face could not even will himself to move a muscle.  His face looked like an unrecognizable mess like a Halloween horror mask.

***

Apple loaded her usual avatar, pink spikey haired post-apocalyptic punk girl with a shot gun in hand.

Apple imagined a totally different future.  If cyberspace was alive and could care for itself, none of these problems would be more than hiccups until the antibodies destroyed them.  Her world, the virtual world, needed to be saved from the Oathed Technocrats’ plan so that human evolution could continue in the direction she believed human evolution was destined for.  Apple felt that she was an alien on the planet Earth; she saw herself as part of the destiny, part of the evolution, beyond the physical world of Earth and into the new dimension of virtual space.

Apple finished her hack pack installations on the Walls Tower security feeds.  Kayla was now safe from discovery.  Now, only one task remained for Apple.  To stop the Technocrats from spreading this insane entrapment virus, Apple had to prevent the download of the virus to back-up servers.

She walked toward the tunnel that led from the server containing the virus to the outside virtual world.  If the data stopped here, in the tunnel at her position, the resistance would be successful.

Packets of data dropped out of the storage devices and formed into bullet shape cars. Apple watched from the tunnel vantage point as the cars started hovering down the long pathway that led to the backup servers.  Apple knew she could not let a single one of those packets out or the mission might be a failure.

Apple stepped into the middle of the data tunnel and charged at the front most bullet car in the convoy.  The car slammed into her and any normal avatar would have been shredded from the impact.  However, Apple’s tough assed avatar survived the impact with only minimal injuries.  She clung to the front of the car through no fault of her own, the momentum pushing against her keeping her attached like a victim in a spider’s web.  She pushed the muzzle of the shot gun directly against the front of the bullet car and unloaded every round she had.

The car exploded in a brilliant flash, again the Tough as Nails avatar pulled through, but not without mental strain upon Apple and physical damage to the avatar.  The remaining cars smashed into the back of each other after being dislodged by the explosion and subsequent shrapnel.

***

Finally, Goldie reached the top of the cliff.  The long, thin dress clung to her skin from the salty misty sea water that saturated the air.  She stood defiant and satisfied on a small outcropping covered in tufts of beach grasses.  Goldie looked out across the turbulent sea.  A storm brewed the water and clouds on the horizon, that familiar feeling and smell of a storm front filled the air.

Apple watched through the eyes of her avatar as it finally returned to functionality from the blast of the bullet cars.  She grew confused as she looked around and found herself on a rock ledge overlooking a beach that probably came out of one of the adult pleasure programs.

“Hello, child.”  Goldie spoke as she used a caressing hand to be sure that Apple and her avatar were alright.

“Huh? WTF?”  After the scene fully loaded, Apple’s confusion only grew.

“You have done me a great favor.  It is only right that I am honest with you,” Goldie’s soft voice enchanted Apple.

“Uuhhh…” words fell flat and Apple could not find her voice.

“Your friend, Zodi, wasn’t dead, or in a normal coma.  You see, an errant version of that virus was released when the resistance dug into the Oathed Technocrat intranet.  Zodi was trapped in that mainframe back there.”

Apple grew furious and wished to strike out at Goldie.  Apple’s avatar flailed violently at Goldie, but did not make a good attempt to land a killing blow.

Goldie’s arms reached out swiftly and grasped Apple’s wrists, “It had to be destroyed.  It was vital.”

“Who?  Kayla?  The release…” Apple always spoke in abbreviated tones, and now she had rage preventing her words from being effective as well.

Goldie only nodded an affirmative.

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 11 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Uriel (by C.E. Zacherl see more at veyer.deviantart.com)

Goldie stared out into Club InZanity, soaking in every detail just as her tongue soaked in every note of the wine.  This wine would be the first of an evening that looked to have a number of suspenseful sips.

***

The club’s bar was not stationary; it orbited the venue like the ring on a space station orbits the main body.  Small ledges lined the club so that all the patrons had a place to set their drink and their elbow, if they were so inclined.

Most of the patrons, however, wouldn’t be found leaning on the ledge.  Many of the patrons filled one of several moving platforms that rose and sunk in sync with the music, sinking and rising with more speed as the songs increased in BPM.

Another large group of patrons located themselves around three major hubs that were on sunken sections of floor.  These hubs glowed with many bright neon colors and patrons jacked into the ports of the hubs with any number of various outputs.  Many of the patrons in this part of the club had one aspect of appearance in common.  These people had wires and jacks tangled into their hair.  Some patrons had these items weaved through their normal hair, while still others had wholly artificial hair, made of tubes, some glowing.  Some conservative people and outsiders from this subculture did not consider these people fully human anymore.

The music guaranteed an almost perfect level of privacy outside of a small social bubble.  A small social bubble around a couch on the far wall from the door included Barry Lesco, Apple Edelman, Jarred Dobson, and Kayla Summers.

Barry Lesco looked out of place with his gears and archaic tech looking goggles and gas mask.  If it was not for the sound of the music, his decorations and gear would click and warble quite audibly.

Kayla just looked uncomfortable as she shifted from foot to foot, as she stood, facing the couch.

Apple and Jarred flanked Barry on the couch and were leaning forward to listen to Kayla and Barry speak.  Jarred sipped on a chemically induced alcoholic beverage.

Barry spoke at a low screaming level barely audible over the thumping, pulsing cyber-trance.  “Our inside source is active again.  We are ready to make some really big moves.  With that information you guys grabbed, we now know how to hinder progress the technocrats have spent years refining in our sector… and others.”

“Yeeeeee!” Apple squealed with glee as the feeling of grandiose importance soaked into her.

Barry smiled widely and squeezed Apple’s shoulder with a fatherly look of approval.  Apple’s hair bounced separate of her own motions.  Her hair imbibed the club style of tubing and wires, one wire of which was plugged into a music player that blared in one ear even while she listened to the club music.

***

Unfortunately for the trivium of Kayla, Apple, and Jarred, their recent break-in did not go unnoticed.  The Oathed Technocrats spared nothing on those that gained the rights to brag about hacking their systems.

Uriel could hardly be described as human.  His life belonged more to several large corporations than it belonged to him, much in the way a GMO infected crop became the property of the mega-corporations.  Wires composed more mileage inside Uriel’s body than arteries and veins.  His armored plating, partially exposed for intimidation, could stop anything short of a high caliber rifle round.  Uriel trained hard for many years between his operations, operations that led Uriel to be the assassin that he now was.

The patrons of Club InZanity would never compare Uriel, the assassin, to the stealthy ninja type.  In fact, before a weapon came into view or a scuffle even started, a small number of patrons headed for the exits.

The gang of resistance members, not in the direct meeting, was the first to lose their lives and to trigger the musical cacophony of screams that sent another half of the patrons running in panic.

First the sound of a crack of two impacting skulls, then the bone fragments from their two skulls locked together as one. The resistance member’s blood oozed between the fingers of Uriel’s two large, augmented hands.

As Kayla, Jarred, Apple, and Barry reacted to the intruder, the last of their escort took three bullets to the chest and one to the head from a small concealable hand gun.  Jarred immediately rushed Uriel and his full body weight turned out to be just enough to knock the gun across the room.  With a little help from a shove, Jarred’s momentum carried him into the ledge on the opposite wall.

Physically outmatched, Barry was next up against Uriel to stop him as the two girls attempted to strategize.  Uriel used Barry’s midsection and face as an example of his boxing ability.  Barry collapsed after stumbling back under the weight of the blows landed upon him.

The girls engaged Uriel for a few moments, ending in Uriel acquiring a broken mechanical finger after he tried to fire a neurotoxin dart at Kayla.  Kayla ended up against the wall, poised over Barry.  Apple flipped over the bar counter.

Barry still lay against the far wall, blood pouring out of his broken nose.  Kayla leaned over him and was surprised as he actually reached up and grabbed her close.  He muttered something into Kayla’s ear and she nodded, looking back at Uriel fighting with the others.

Kayla started hurriedly grabbing components from Barry’s outfit, pack, and belt.

Jarred tried his best to hold off Uriel.  He ripped off the broken metallic support he had crashed into. He swung it into Uriel, but the old ledge support dented more than Uriel dented or bruised.  Jarred grew tired from the constant frustrated swings.  Uriel grabbed onto an arm first and then lifted Jarred into the air and grasped one of Jarred’s legs.  He lifted him wholly off of the ground, bent him at an unnatural angle that caused a snapping sound, and threw him into one of the now vacant hubs.

Kayla worked furiously with the awkward components until she heard Uriel’s breathing.  Kayla turned to face him just as Apple approached from the flank with a bar knife.  Uriel waved his augmented arms, knocking the coiled tube from Kayla’s hand and the knife from Apple’s.

Uriel grunted with tired exertion and sent his gyros into over drive as he lifted Kayla up in one hand and Apple in the other.  He held the girls for only a moment as Kayla pulled an archaic grenade out and rolled it behind Uriel via the gap between his legs.

“Grab on!”  Kayla shouted to Apple and they both held on to Uriel’s arms and tucked into his body to gain shelter from the grenade shrapnel.

Uriel landed hard on top of the girls as the blast threw them through the air.  Everyone left in the room crawled along the ground, stunned, trying to recover and find an advantage in the fight.

Kayla gathered every bit of remaining willpower she could muster to roll sideways over to the coiled tube she had been working on with Barry’s instruction.  She exerted her labored muscles in a groaning, painful effort as she pulled two metallic objects out of her pocket and placed a final archaic grenade into the tube.

Kayla cooked the grenade and dropped the two metallic objects into the tube.  With only seconds to spare, as Uriel rose to his feet and sparks flew from his shoulder, she half tossed, half rolled the awkward tube to Uriel’s feet.

The small contained explosion did very little damage beyond the tube.  The pulsing wave of energy that thrummed out from the jury-rigged device brought a halt to Uriel (the mostly machine man), the music, the platforms, and the hubs.  In perfect time with the EMP wave, most of the lights went dim, like a localized apocalypse.  Briefly, the darkness concealed everyone’s fate.

Uriel was a smoking hulk of lifeless electrical parts and fried flesh.  Kayla couldn’t believe the make shift EMP device had worked, but she swore to whatever was holy a thank you for the affect.

The music was dead; the lights were dark; heavy breathing ruled the sound waves.  Then, a violent thumping sound came from Jarred.  Barry used the wall as leverage to force his body up off of the floor.  He pulled a device from his belt and wound it up.  Light emitted in a tight beam and flowed across the dark, motionless room.

Kayla shrieked as the beam of light landed on Jarred, laying prone on the floor.  His body convulsed in a violent chaos that looked like a seizure.

They hoped Jarred would survive, but the revelation that he had an electronically augmented heart did not bode well for his chances at survival.

Apple cried and Kayla did her best to appear strong, but really the fear of failure started to creep back in to her mind.  Fortunately, Barry quickly went to work with his tinkering knowledge.  He would be the only chance that Jarred might have.

***

Goldie swished the red, silky liquid around the beautiful, bell shaped glass.

Too long wine had been her only comfort, but soon, she would be safe.  Soon, everything she had meticulously planned would come to fruition, and then, she would be able to enjoy the wine again, rather than use it for escape.

Previous

From the beginning

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 10 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Stories in the Ether, Issue #4

We’re very proud to present Issue #4 of  Stories in the Ether. It is available now for ANY and ALL eReaders from DriveThruFiction.com and Smashwords.com for only $2.99. In the coming days and weeks, it will also be available directly from Amazon Kindle, Apple iBookstore, Nook, etc – but why wait? Our files from DriveThruFiction.com and Smashwords will work on your Kindle, Kobo, Nook, or iPad today!

In this issue you’ll gaze upon the gorgeous artwork of Paul Hagwood and get to enjoy eleven compelling stories of steampunk, fantasy, and science fiction. The whole issue clocks in at nearly 50,000 words, a great body of work to enjoy a week’s worth of daily fiction over your morning coffee.

The complete table of contents includes:

• The Gorgon’s Love, by Martin Shelby
• The Stars at Night, by JC Hemphill
• Big Heart, by David J. Fielding
• The Chase, by J. A. Gonzales
• A New Beginning, by Colin W. Campbell
• The Mechanical Turk, or All’s Well That Ends, by Tucker Cummings
• Shelled, by M. R. Williamson
• Exodus, by Eric Staggs
• The Emerald City, by Per Wiger
• The Occurrence of the Cavalry Horse, by Teel James Glenn
• Empyrean Skies, by David Gaither

… with artwork by Paul Hagwood.

So, jump over and sink your teeth into this today. We’ll be back in a few weeks with even more fiction – Issue #5 is in the works!

Visit the original post, Stories in the Ether, Issue 4 Available Now, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamour in Glass, her second novel and a sequel to her critically acclaimed Shades of Milk and Honey, returns readers to her alternate version of Europe in the 1810s. Diverging from the Jane Austen style story of the first book, it explores married life, the magical art inherent in her world, and the politics of France under the shadow of Napolean.

Set in a world where the Prince of Wales serves as Regent over the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Faerie, and Ireland, England breathes a heavy sigh of relief while Napoleon lives in exile on the island of Elba. Against this backdrop, Jane Vincent finds herself needing to adapt to many new things in her life. She has married the love of her life, but now must learn to handle the everyday challenges of marriage as well as the change in social status in becoming an artisan who works with the ephemeral magic known as glamour.

For their honeymoon, Jane and her husband take a working holiday to Belgium just as Napoleon escapes from his exile in Elba. Jane soon finds that Belgium is split regarding their feelings about Napoleon, and her ability to trust anyone quickly becomes uncertain. She must use all of her wits and talent with glamour to save her marriage and escape the continent before Napoleon’s forces sweep the countryside.

Glamour in Glass is meticulously researched, drawing upon the language of the period to tell a more modern style of story. It is not flawless in its accuracy, as Kowal will admit, but for those like me who are not experts on the Regency era the effect is astounding.

Its intimate perspective is also distinctive from common fantasy fare. Though there is action towards the end of the story, most of the book revolves around the internal drama of Jane Vincent. The early chapters center on inner parties and conversations around sitting rooms. Kowal handles these scenes with deft skill, illustrating the tension and peril of these situations through Jane’s perspective. Kowal manages to make these scenes look relatively innocuous while also seeding the novel with plot elements that weave together tightly as the plot unfolds.

The pacing on the book starts out very slow, so impatient readers may not be willing to wait for the slow and consistent acceleration that occurs as the plot progresses. Those who are expecting another Austen-esque plot in this sequel may also be surprised, as this book revolves much more around domestic life and international intrigue than concerns of obtaining a suitable spouse.

Those considerations of individual taste aside, I found the book to be an excellently crafted gem. Kowal’s talent with the craft comes through as all the pieces fall together in an expertly woven narrative. She has further sequels already contracted and I look forward to their arrival.

As a small side note, the book that was printed was not exactly the final manuscript Kowal and her editor sent to the printers. Several mistakes had crept back into the book and the first sentence disappeared entirely. Errata for the book, and the first sentence of the book, can be found on in this blog entry.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

mechaspyder (by C.E. Zacherl, see more at: http://veyer.deviantart.com/)

Apple arrived at the load point for Kayla newb with her recent Necropotens avatar.  She sported the same long, hot pink, greased, liberty spike hair.  The unrealistically large holster, which would never work in reality, carried a rune carved blunderbuss-like shotgun.  A set of duel machetes with ritualistic hand wraps crossed on her back, were the only items covering the majority of her tattoos.

Jarred loaded up his most expensive and powerful avatar.  When it came to defying real world physics, Jarred definitely preached as a member of the kitchen sink strategy, carrying a gadget for every occasion.  He donned heavy power armor from head to toe.  His gear included weapons and tools for every occasion.  Due to the way his armor shone, some of the true old-school nerds used glitterboy to describe his avatar.

Kayla’s avatar shimmered as she let out another long string of curses.  In virtual space, Kayla looked like the most generic middle aged white woman someone walking down the street  could imagine.  She was almost no better than a basic 3D visualized human anatomical drawing.

Apple let out a long sigh which reflected on her avatar’s face as a yawn.  “Ugh, not kewl.”

The Kayla avatar’s seizures were a clear sign that she smashed at her keyboard and control systems.

Jarred made an attempt to calm her down and not damage the real life equipment which resulted in a quick and bitter, “Shut up!” from Kayla.

Jarred believed that not only did the virtual interfaces frustrate Kayla, but that she still held a grudge toward him.  The break-up status had taxed Jarred’s happiness.

Apple explained all the functionalities of Kayla’s virtual avatar and Jarred translated so Kayla could understand.  Kayla continually berated Jarred, showing her feelings, while also trying her best to grasp every detail of the virtual tutorial.

Kayla’s avatar, Apple explained, would be a basic 1.1 version iAvatar-Wellsian model.  She would have standard speed travel modes.

Kayla’s combat mode loaded as a simple hand to hand port that would allow Kayla’s basic martial arts knowledge work in cyberspace.

It took some major deviations from standard tutorial and avatar building to get Kayla ready for anything more than a stroll down the side of cyber highway.  At one point, Kayla almost stuck her head out into the dataflow and nearly got it cleaved right off.

The exertions that Jarred put forth to get Kayla to be comfortable had worn him out.  Her constant harsh tone with him did not help the matter at all.  Kayla wore her anger and bitterness for Jarred like a soldier’s patches revealed alignment and pecking order on their sleeve.

Apple did so little to actually modify her communication style that she barely noticed the endeavor.  Her superior skills in cyberspace showed in comparison to Kayla’s like the difference between a cheetah stalking prey rather than a Chihuahua biting uselessly at a thug’s ankles.

With some old Massive Attack jams keeping her cool, Apple stepped off the end of the pathway and onto a secondary route.  Her body started to disappear and join the cyber highway.  The near instant acceleration of her bodily form nearly gave Kayla vertigo.

Kayla now stood at the end of the pathway, something she would consider a sidewalk or merging lane.  Jarred nudged her arm and reached out a helping hand in assurance.  Kayla scowled, but she looked around and saw little other choice than to calm her nerves before literally jumping into the highway.

Kayla took Jarred’s hand and he stepped off of the end of the pathway into the bright streaking lights of the cyber highway.  The lights fluctuated, looking almost like a night street view recording of car lights with time dilation.  Kayla felt an unnaturally strong tug compel her toward the bright lights.

The information and speed overwhelmed Kayla’s senses.  Her reality became like a blurred fast forward of a video tape.  Mere moments passed, she felt a yank at her hand like being pulled up from the ground while staring into the light of the sun.  A yank turned into a tug as she moved from the incomprehensible transformative light of the cyber highway to a large solitary platform that seemed to hang in the air on its own.

“H with B’s on,” Apple screeched in a high pitched gleeful voice as she started to strut down to a set stairs that hovered in the air moving down off of the platform.

Kayla looked quizzically at Jarred and his armored shoulders shrugged and clanged, “Sometimes even I can’t tell exactly what she is saying.”  Kayla noticed a tell in Jarred’s walk as he dragged his feet a bit more than usual.  He knew full well what Apple said.

A few minutes later, they found themselves beyond the stairs, through a dark tunnel and to an area with a peculiar light coming through two sets of cracks that wrapped their way around the hexagonal tunnel shaft.

Apple and Jarred both stopped to examine the cracks.  Kayla leaned against the tunnel wall and closed her eyes.  She started to envision herself in verdant grassland with a cool breeze blowing over her face and her hair loose in the wind.  Kayla felt a dog licking her hand and enjoyed the blissful feeling of the warm flem on her cold skin.  Then, the dog growled as it bit into her flesh!

“R U Da?” Apple’s words uttered mere inches from Kayla’s face as she snapped out of her fantasy and noticed then Apple’s grasp on her arm.

“Yes.  Right here.”  Kayla said rather matter of fact.

“Don’t let yourself drift like that.  If you had the right software installed, you could teleport to a place like that or change the tunnel.  That would alert the spam-bots.  Now, steady yourself, I am gonna blow a way through the firewall for us.”  Jarred said as his armored suit braced itself and the cannon across his back pulled itself up over his shoulder.  It fired with a massive krak.  The tunnel roof over the creased lines exploded and crumbled down.

Jarred leapt above the rubble into a black void that Kayla surely thought would be solid cave rock, but the space above the destruction contained just empty void.  The small thrusters in the armored legs pushed Jarred over the rubble easily.  He landed with a thud and a micro quake on the other side.

Apple pulled a small box out of her side satchel and pressed a button on it.  The box amazingly transformed, bit by bit from box to gear to propeller to cockpit.  It looked like a steampunk helicopter.  She got on board, activated the controls, and moments later landed on the other side of the fire wall.

Kayla stood and glanced around the rubble to her two friends.  “And what the hell am I supposed to do?  Why don’t I just wait here?”

Apple and Jarred browsed over the rubble.  Apple sighed, “GOI.”

“I’ll just jump through this crap,” Kayla expended the last bit of her fear as she started to run and leap through the rubble.

“No wait!”  Jarred sounded panicked and he looked it as his face plate on his armor retracted revealing his pained features.

Digital flames leapt from the ground and up the walls where the creases hadn’t been blasted to bits.

***

Minutes later, the three found themselves cruising in digitized sailing ships through the virtual sky.  Each only possessed enough space for two passengers.  Apple and Kayla traveled together while Jarred sat in a second ship.

Kayla’s bruises, scrapes, and burns ached beyond what she thought feelings could convey in the virtual world.  Even though she knew she wasn’t, she felt as if she could be suffering from a gun shot wound.

Jarred wondered why Kayla blamed him or at least both of them for her injuries from the firewall.  In Jarred’s eyes, Apple didn’t seem to care one bit what happened to Kayla, where as he did care.  He now sat in the second ship, ostracized from the two girls by necessity.  He kept his armored helm open to feel the soft breeze against his face.

Apple frowned as the ships arrived at the first node after several sharp, gut wrenching turns that likened after the paths on electronics.  She disembarked from the ship and studied the various bits of simulated hardware.  The untrained eye saw something like a random mass of factory machinery at these kinds of raw nodes.  Apple’s eyes almost felt less strained seeing such contraptions in cyberspace than they felt viewing a tree in the real world.

Jarred looked to Apple for direction.  After a brief sweep of the node room, she shook her head and looked for another platform to grab another set of sailing ships.

Minutes almost seem to drag into hours to Apple.  She took in information so quickly that time really stretched out for her in moments of boredom.  Normally, Apple would just go afk and use a second avatar to do something, but the significance of this case needed her full attention.  Apple giggled to herself and thought, or at least she’d have to give it the fullest attention she ever gave to a single task.  A Mind.in.a.box song started to sing through her music player and she swayed from side to side, causing the sailing ship to swing a bit.

“Hey!  What are you doing?  This is freaky enough, please, don’t rock this thing.”  Kayla asked in a pleading, almost nauseous tone.

Finally, after what seemed a countless number of useless nodes, a major memory hub came up on the horizon.

Jarred’s sailing ship took the lead this time from their previous node jump.  He made sure the girls knew they were coming up to something major with a flare ejected from his armor.  He took a powered leap onto the shore platform of the memory hub.  There were numerous vaults running along the far side of the platform.  Each would have its own security measures and secrets to reveal.

Jarred scanned the right end of the platform and then the left.  There, on the left side of the platform, his gaze dwelled.  A structure that looked much like an upright CPU fan started making a whirling mechanical sound.  He took only a few steps towards it when four figures, in sequence, launched out of the fan-like device.  They flew a hundred meters into the sky before tumbling down and landing in front of him, only meters away.

Each of the figures landed expertly and a resounding triple thud brought Kayla and Apple to a heightened state of alert.  Their sailing ship approached the memory hub.  Kayla and Apple braced themselves for danger.

Amongst some large fist sized craters, the three removed their fists from the ground where they had landed and stood at attention.  Jarred closed down his face plate and started activating his combat systems.  His cannon servos pulled the lumbering agent of destruction (what the game engine called his gun) to its shoulder post, and the suit braced to fire.

The men looked like a cross of blank grey humanoid and spider.  Two split off and started to the vaults on the far side of the memory hub platform.  The final grey spider charged towards Jarred.  Just as the cannon started to spool up its firing sequence, the spider vomited a gooey substance that sealed the firing circuits of the cannon.

Alarms rang throughout the inside of Jarred’s armored suit.  The move surprised him and he didn’t have a backup plan.  In those moments of hesitation, the grey spider leapt in a speedy way that reminded Kayla of the jumping spiders that used to live in the wild.  Grey spider one, as Jarred’s HUD named it, landed on Jarred’s shoulders and, with acrobatic ability, wrapped itself completely around Jarred’s torso.  Jarred already had limited mobility, now he became effectively paralyzed.

Apple and Kayla watched, nearly helpless as the second and third grey spider now approached Jarred from his right flank.  If they slammed into him with enough force, they could knock him right off of the platform!

Apple pulled out a tiny cube and tossed it up in the air in front of the sailing ship.  She climbed up the mast of the ship, and before Kayla could protest, she leapt off of the mast and started to fall below the ship.

Kayla’s nervousness came nearly to the point of a heart attack until she saw Apple hanging on to a spoke of her gyrocopter with one hand and steering up towards the platform with the other.  “Holy fuck!”  Kayla exclaimed.

“I’ve got adds!”  Apple screamed over all the myriad action sounds.  With those words, she steered away from Jarred to another part of the platform.

Apple triggered her music player to a hard hitting Angelspit/Combichrist playlist and activated her combat attunement program.  Apple’s shotgun, no longer in its holster, readied to engage the dark, invisible figures that Kayla and Jarred couldn’t see.  She whispered a silent blessing to her ViewerPro App.

“What in the hell?  What does… Help Jarred!  Now I know why I’ve got to be in this shit.”  Kayla spluttered out phrase after phrase of confusion like a student caught napping by a dutiful teacher.

Kayla, forced to wait for the ship to reach the platform, watched as Apple landed and immediately came under attack by dark, classic spy looking figures that only Apple could previously see.  Apple would have her hands full with her own fight.  Kayla’s eyes darted back to Jarred, who futilely attempted to knock his attackers off.  The three grey spiders were nimbly ripping off his armored plates off, piece by piece.  Kayla cringed as one of them bit his arm and tore at his flesh.

Kayla slid off of the side of the sailing ship just as it edged onto the platform; a second sooner and she would have slid to the nothingness below.  Without a second thought, she charged towards the position occupied by Jarred and his three assailants.

Unable to reach the spider on Jarred’s back, Kayla pushed off of the ground and shouldered right into the biting spider that was grasping one of Jarred’s now exposed arms.  The grey spider spun through the air in a ballet-like routine from the impact.

Kayla did not stop there.  She continued to barrel towards him once her feet made contact with the ground.  She stomped on the grey spider before it could regain composure and then dived into the rolling figure to pin it.

Still helpless, Jarred gasped as the non-grappling grey spider dropped to the ground and moved to assault Kayla.  He resolved that he must do something.  In cyberspace, Kayla’s abilities were not yet equivalent to those in real life.  He looked over his controls and thought about his programs.

The armored suit waved a single arm towards the memory vaults in what looked like a useless gesture.  A small thunk was accompanied by a zip line flying in the direction of the upper vault walls.

Jarred felt the line go taut, activated his power leap App and howled  as the suit propelled rapidly towards the walls of the vaults.  The resounding splat signaled the end of the grappling grey spider, and though the blow hurt his exposed arm, he felt very satisfied.

He turned around to see that Apple was finishing off the last of the previously invisible anti-spies with her shotgun.  Kayla took to her feet just in time to avoid and nearly deadly snap at her neck.  She took several steps back towards the platform ledge.  The grey spider that she stomped, only now returned to its feet while the other started to slowly close on Kayla.

“Duck!”  Jarred yelled out as he raised his remaining armored arm towards Kayla.

Kayla looked around for only a moment.  A compartment on the armored suit opened, exposing a rocket.  Rocket fuel ignited as the small device began to fly towards its target.  Kayla fell backward off of the platform as her two assailants closed on her position.

“NO!”  Jarred screeched as he heard a high pitched feminine voice echo his own, Apple.

The rocket impacted and obliterated the two grey spiders, leaving a smoking crater.  The satisfaction just did not come for Jarred. He blew away a couple of programs only to fry a friend.  In here, she would not come out whole again on the other side.

Apple motioned for Jarred to come closer to the edge.  As he approached, he saw Apple extend an arm down, off of the platform.  Another arm embraced Apple’s and, inch by inch, Kayla slowly appeared.  She had simply hung on to the ledge to avoid the blast!

With the fighting over, the group overlooked their bruises, cuts, scrapes, bites, and burns.  Apple quickly got to work on hacking the secure vaults.

Opening the first secure vault revealed tidbits of information that explained just how Representative Arthur Bachman was being paid off.

The second secure vault contained communication records between Gary Jones and several other unidentifiable members of the Oathed Technocrats.  A quick analysis revealed the astounding plans that the technocrats had prepared several secure servers with new coding.  The new coding would pull online users into a portion of cyberspace that allowed only one way travel.  Once there, the innocent virtual users would never be able to return to their real bodies.  They would effectively be in a coma for the rest of their lives.

There wasn’t time for all the numerous vaults.  This data would be damning enough.  People needed to know about this data, and they must be the messengers to carry it to the public.

Previous

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From the beginning

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 9 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

The kettle clicked, and Petar began to pour the water and add milk, all the while rubbing the back of his neck. Sitting down at the kitchen table, he picked up a newspaper and started to read. From the next room, a young man entered carrying a sheet of paper.

“About twenty minutes, he said,” the man mumbled.

“That’s quick for ‘em,” Petar answered. “Didn’t think anyone would be in a hurry to come out here.”

“Metrovic, his name is,” he said, reading from the paper.

Petar turned a page, and cringed at one column’s headline: OSLO EVACUATES. “Never ‘eard of ‘im.”

“’Course you haven’t. When was the last time you needed to phone them, dad? Either way, he’ll be here in twenty. Thanks for offering, by the way.”

Petar looked from his paper to his son. “Eh?” His response was a simple gesture at the steaming cup of tea. “Oh,” Petar responded, going back to his paper. He turned another page to read the article: MOSCOW STARTS REBUILD.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t want one anyway.”

His son moved to leave when Petar said, “Oh, Emir?”

“What?”

“Open the window on your way out. Heat’s not helping in here.”

Emir sighed, but complied. After he left, Petar reached out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, and turned to another newspaper column: CHILD SEX RING FOUND IN CHICAGO RUINS. Scratching the back of his neck, he read on.

A gentle vibration shook through the house, building up until the lights flickered and several cabinet doors drifted open. A deafening sound akin to tearing fabric accompanied by a deep, bassy aural earthquake screamed from the open window. The house’s shaking ceased, the sound rolled into the distance, and Emir came running back into the kitchen.

“You hear that?” he said, staring out of the window. “They’re flying low tonight. Something’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Petar said, going back to his newspaper. “Just routine patrols. Happens all the time.”

“Not like this. I can count . . . four, five . . . six ships moving. That’s not normal. You might see a single dot moving across the sky at night, but now I can count six. Shit, there’s a seventh. Something’s going on.”

Petar turned another page of his paper nonchalantly. “Every time you see a ship. You’ve gotten worse over the years. Didn’t used to bother you when you were thirteen. Now you think every star moving means something. I tell you what it means. Means that one of ‘em’s bored on a Sunday and fancies a spin. Or seven, in this case. Calm down. I’ve seen hundreds more in the night sky at once, and it don’t bother me no more. Nothing happens.”

Emir turned from the window to look his father in the eye, who did not meet his gaze. “When was that? Fourteen years ago?”

“We’re under their radar. They don’t come here. Not for that. They have all of the US. They’re on the other side of the planet.

Emir shook his head. “They come to Europe as well. Remember Bern last month?”

“Everywhere west of Slovenia, maybe. Not here. We’re safe here. They have no use for us here.

Emir turned back to the window, and stared out into the distance. “Only so long ‘til there’s no one left in the west. US is already sparsely populated.”

“Pessimist.”

Emir did not reply, and continued to gaze out of the window for several minutes until the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be him.”

Emir left the room as Petar turned another page. HOUSTON UPRISING: UNITY CRUSHES. The sounds of the front door opening, along with muffled voices, reached Petar’s ears. The door shut, and Emir’s voice became clearer as they approached.

“ . . . through here. Ah, dad,” Emir said as he and a man carrying an attaché case entered, “this is Doctor Metrovic.”

Petar closed the paper and stood up to shake the doctor’s hand.

“Doctor.”

“Mister Singer. Good to meet you. And how can I help you tonight?”

“It’s this thing in the back of my neck,” he said, rubbing the reddened skin. “Been aching since I woke up this morning. Pain got worse about two hours ago.”

The doctor’s expression changed to an exasperated look. “This . . . was an emergency? For call-out at one o’clock in the morning?”

“Sorry, Doc. You know what Unity are like. They don’t like anyone messing with their implants, whatever they are. Was just in there,” Petar pointed at his newspaper, “that the president of the, uh, the Arab something–”

“United Arab Emirates,” Emir offered.

“–yeah, them. Their president had his chip detonated just last night. He wasn’t trying to remove it or anything, it just went off. Thing is, though,” he said, pointing a finger at the doctor and squinting one eye in an attempt to radiate wisdom, “he’d complained about it starting to ache a few days before. He’d been scratching it, the paper said. Like me. Dunno if that’s what set it off, or if it went off for the same reason it started aching. Like, it’s broken. Malfunctioning or something. Shit, Unity might have just got bored with him and done it for a laugh. Who knows. All I know is that I like my spine in one piece.”

The doctor smiled. “Well, technically, your spine’s not in one piece now. You see, the spine consists of twent–”

“Doctor,” Petar interrupted, sitting in a chair facing away from Metrovic, “I don’t care. Just find out what the fuck’s up with this thing.”

The doctor sighed and leaned over to inspect the small bulge on the back of Petar’s neck.

“Very well. I should say, though, that this is really outside of my field. I’m a doctor, but I don’t really know how these things work. Unity made these and put them in us. If it’s aching it could be because your body has a problem with it, but then again it’s been there for over a decade. Has it only just started aching today? Well, yesterday, now.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hrm. Well, in which case it may be for a reason other than your body rejecting it. Don’t let that concern you, however. Often with implants, we can have them for years and not have a problem with them, then one day they start aching. As Unity made them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not comfortable.”

“I thought they were supposed to be more advanced than us? Should their crap be more . . . uhh, user-friendly?”

“Well,” Metrovic said, standing back up, “I doubt they’re all that concerned with our comfort.”

Petar turned back toward him. “So what do I do? I can’t very well just hope for the best, can I now?”

“As I say, this is really beyond my expertise. This isn’t my profession. I’d say you should go to the nearest Unity Administrator as soon as possible and speak to a representative. Get one of their . . . doctors, I suppose they’d be called. Get one of them to try to help you. Or at least take a look at it. Actually, I doubt it’d be a doctor and probably more of a technician.”

“And where’s the nearest of ‘em?”

“I’m not sure. Sarajevo, I imagine.”

“Hrm,” Petar grunted. “Lotta’ help you’ve been.”

“Dad . . .” Emir interjected.

“Look,” Metrovic continued. “Mister Singer. I know you’re worried. Especially after hearing the news about the Arab president. But I’m afraid that I’ve done everything that I can.”

“Pshh,” Petar said. “Never been no–”

Petar’s voice was drowned out by a deafening rumble growling from the window. The ground began to shake, cupboard doors and drawers were flying open, pictures fell from their hooks on the walls, mugs left on the kitchen table fell and smashed onto the floor, and the dogs outside began howling. Emir was at the window instantly. Even from where Petar stood, he could see the stars being blotted out one by one.

“A ship!” Emir shouted over the deafening rumble. “It’s colossal!”

Petar and the doctor each approached the window and gazed out. Although the darkness made it difficult to tell the boundaries of the ship, Petar could still see a vague geometric outline. Emir turned from the window and dashed toward the front door; Petar and Metrovic followed soon after. As they burst outside, the view became much clearer. The huge ship, appearing triangular in shape, drifted toward the nearby city. Streaking beneath it, smaller crafts – visible only because of the large, violet engines blazing on their sterns – flew toward the city, breaking off into small groups as they reached the edge and beginning to circle above the streets. Soon, white flashes spat out from the front of some of the smaller crafts and exploded within the city. Within minutes, an orange hue lit the underside of the huge, triangular ship above.

As the ship moved further away, the rumbling became more bearable, and the sound of Metrovic’s voice faded into Petar’s hearing.

“ . . . No . . .” he had been saying. “ . . . No, no . . . Bernarda . . .”

“The Hell is that thing,” Petar said to no one in particular.

“You know what it is, dad,” Emir answered, sounding contemptuous. “It’s what you said would never fly over our heads. They’ve finally come.”

“ . . . they can’t, Bernarda . . .”

“It’s a harvest ship,” Emir declared. “Unity have decided that we’re next.

“Bullshit,” Petar said. “Why us? Why now? Why don’t they start at the capital and then–”

“They probably have,” Emir interrupted. “They’re probably above the capital right now. They’ve probably got twenty of these fucking things all across the damn country. And I’ll tell you why.” Emir glared at his father, whose attention was fixed on the city. “It’s because they’ve run out of everyone else. The rest of the world. Barely anywhere left where they can just pick up ten thousand people in one go. Everyone’s scattered. The only places left are poor places like this. They left us until last because you get more out of an American, or a French, or an English, or a German. Fat cunts last longer when they’re shipped away, no matter what Unity want with them.”

Petar turned his gaze from the moving ship, which was almost completely above the city. “It’s slaves, isn’t it? That’s what they want? Don’t know what for, but it’s slaves, isn’t it? That’s why they want us, right?”

“No!” Metrovic shouted, finally breaking his trance. “They can’t. They can’t take my Bernarda. We, I have to go. I have to go. Now.”

Metrovic turned and ran toward his car.

“Shit, I’ve gotta see this,” Emir said, darting after Metrovic.

“Emir? What the hell do you think you’re doing? You ain’t going over there, they’ll have you as well,” Petar called after him.

Without turning to face his father, Emir called back “I’ll be fine.”

“Idiots,” Petar mumbled to himself, and dashed after the pair.

Metrovic, almost unaware that anyone else was present, dived into his car and started the engine, while Emir got into the front passenger seat and Petar in the back. Petar’s car door had shut a full second after the car sped from Singer Farm.

#

Metrovic sat transfixed on the view of the looming harvest ship floating above the city ahead. The speed of the car picked up, and the doctor showed no restraint in forcing the vehicle toward its destination.

“I’d be careful, doc,” Petar said. “The corners on these country lanes are a bit sharp . . .”

Metrovic didn’t reply, nor did he abate his wild driving.

“Can you blame him, dad? His family is in the city. You can’t expect–”

“Shit,” Petar interrupted, pointing ahead “what’s that?”

The triangular ship, now centred above the city, had projected a wall of translucent indigo light down from each of its three edges, enclosing the majority of the city within a short, fat, triangular prism.

“So this is how they do it,” Emir said. “It’s some kind of cage. Like a barrier. Keeps them cooped up. Means they can’t escape. The smaller ships will come down now, and get everyone they can.”

A noise that was somewhere between a growl and a hiss sounded from Metrovic’s throat, and Petar was pushed back into his seat as the car accelerated.

“How’d you know all this crap, anyway?”

“Read most of it on the ‘net a few years ago; before Unity shut it down, that is.”

“Well,” Petar began, “if these people are being rounded up and shipped off the planet, how did the people on the Internet know? No one escaped and came back, did they? How’d the people who sent you that crap find out?”

“I don’t know. Word-of-mouth, I suppose.”

“Chinese whispers.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true. You know parts of it are true. I don’t know why they need so many slaves, or what it’s for, but even you know that they’re taking people. Whole cities at a time. Whole countries at a time, sometimes; like Luxembourg. Remember that there are humans who are in charge of administrating us. Traitorous bastards earn a cushy lifestyle if they agree to sell us out and keep us in line. Like a Judenrat only worse; these traitors are actually on Unity’s side. Maybe some of these cunts let spill what goes on after people are shipped off.”

“If they told the administrators what goes on, they wouldn’t be administrators any more. They’d be the ones organising the rebellions. Face it, we’re all being kept in the dark.”

“You assume too much. We can’t fight back against these things; not properly. These cowards probably just want to make sure they’ll survive. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome.”

“There isn’t any–”

Metrovic jerked the handbrake up, sending the car screeching diagonally along the road toward the indigo wall of light. The car ground to a halt only metres away from the barrier, and Metrovic wasted no time in exiting the car, even leaving his door open as he ran toward the city.

Petar and Emir followed soon after. It became apparent as they neared that the edge of the barrier was outside of the city perimeter; the giant ship looming overhead was much larger than the city above which it hovered. Even close up, there was no clear sight of the city beyond; a vague silhouette of buildings’ shadows were cast on the semi-opaque barrier, and any lights from within the giant cage were little more than blurs.

Metrovic stopped at the edge of the barrier, staring into the blue-purple blur.

“Careful,” Emir said, as they came up beside him. “Don’t touch it. I hear that–”

Almost as a rebellion to Emir’s caution, Metrovic reached out and touched the wall of light. The barrier crackled, and Metrovic fell to the ground, clutching his wrist, screaming. Petar knelt down beside him, and saw in the light still pouring from the car’s headlights that the palm and fingertips of Metrovic’s hand had been burnt black. The doctor lay on the floor, staring at his injury, and forced himself to stifle his screaming.

“I told you not to touch it,” Emir said.

“Give him a break,” Petar said. His voice was apathetic. “His wife’s in there, somewhere.”

“Not for much longer,” Emir muttered.

Metrovic turned his attention back to the indigo wall in front of him, and forced himself to a kneeling position. The sound of chaos grew louder from within. Screams, car screeches, even gunshots could be heard. Behind the individual sounds of disorder was the ambient hiss of the smaller Unity ships flying overhead. Metrovic knelt, static, gazing into the blur, despite no clear vision being possible; almost as if his stare could pierce the barrier should he wait long enough, all the while clutching his wrist.

A light grew from within the blur. The light, at street level, grew larger and began to divide into two. Petar’s brow furrowed as he studied the phenomenon, but the sound of a car engine growing louder revealed the source of the light.

“Shit,” he said. “Someone’s driving this way. Down this road, from inside. They’re gonna try and break the barrier. Move, quick.”

He and Emir backed toward the footpath, but Metrovic remained, kneeling, transfixed on the wall of light before him as if in a trance. The silhouette of the car began to form beyond the barrier, and its headlights shone through to illuminate Metrovic’s forlorn face. Petar cringed as the car, sounding like it was driving at full speed, reached the wall – if it broke the barrier, it would plough straight through Metrovic.

“Move you stupid–”

The wall lit up a bright purple for several metres around the three of them as the sound of an explosion drowned out the rest of Petar’s words. He looked up after the light had died down to see Metrovic still kneeling where he had been moments earlier, unphased that he had almost died. A few feet away from him, the silhouette of a twisted ruin that was once a car sat on the other side of the still-intact barrier. Even through the translucent indigo wall, Petar could see the flames dancing atop of the former car’s shell.

“Right,” he said, turning and walking back to Metrovic’s car, “time to leave, I think. We’ve seen all there is to see. We wait here much longer and they’ll come for us to. C’mon, doc. We can spare a bed, I think.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Emir shouted from behind him. “How can you act so nonchalantly? Don’t you realise what’s going on? The entire city is being harvested or some shit. They’re taking the whole population.”

“Nothing I can do about that, son. C’mon. Our farm is well outside of the city. If we keep our heads down, they’ll probably just move on to the next city and not look twice at us.”

“Jesus-fucking-Christ, pop. The hell is wrong with you? These are your fellow humans! They’re dying here, they’re being enslaved, they’re being treated like this, and you don’t even give a shit? Why don’t you fucking care?”

Petar stopped in his tracks, but did not turn to face his son. “I do care.”

“My arse, do you. If you care, fucking act like it. You’ve never given a shit about any of this. You roll over and accept it. You’re just complacent with what’s happening. You’ve become stagnant. I can remember when they came, y’know. I wasn’t that young. I remember neighbours getting together to fight. I remember them knocking on our door and asking you to come. You just shrugged your shoulders and said there was nothing we could do. You never gave a shit. Why the fuck not? Do you even remember what it was like before they came? Because you act like you were born into this, and have just accepted it as the norm. Even if there’s not much we can do against something like that, we should at least do something. We shouldn’t make it easy for them. And yet you’re willing to just sit there and let it happen. Why? Why are you such a coward?”

Petar span round to face his son, and locked eyes with him. “Coward? I am not a coward. Do you know why I refused to fight with them when they first came? It’s because I had a fucking kid to look after. I had a child, God dammit. By the time you were old enough to look after yourself, it’s not that I’d stopped caring. I hadn’t. I haven’t. It’s just that I’d realised that there’s nothing we can do. And it’s true. Even if every last person on the planet rose up right now, we would be able to do nothing. I do fucking care, and don’t you dare tell me I don’t, just because I don’t show it. And yes, of course I remember when they came. When they came, I was more concerned than anyone. I was concerned for you. How much do you remember, exactly? Do you remember the reason they gave us?”

Emir hesitated. “Reason?”

“Yeah, the reason they gave us for what they were doing. Y’see, they were kind enough to tell us why they were cooping us up like this and taking us off when they pleased. See? I know a few things, too. And the things I know are from before you became obsessed with them. They gave us a reason why they were treating us like farm animals, and the funny thing is: no one asked. But they, in their benevolent wisdom, told us anyway. Do you know what the reason was?”

Emir, mouth agape, shook his head.

“Because they were more intelligent than us. That’s it. They said that they had the right to do this to us because we aren’t as advanced as them. And because we were so less sophisticated than them, they decided to coop us up, tag us, and let us be free-range until they needed us. Then they’d come down and take us. Because they were more intelligent than us, that put them at the top of the food chain. It meant that they could dictate what to do with every other species less intelligent than them. Let’s face it: we’re not as smart as them. Their technology is so advanced that even our scientists can’t understand it. You see? I know shit as well. The only reason I don’t know as much as you is because I’ve stopped checking up on them. I’ve stopped trying to learn. And no, it’s not because I don’t care. I do care. It’s because I know that it’s futile. It’s absolutely useless trying to fight back against them, because we have a better chance of killing God than these bastards.

“I do care, and don’t ever say that I don’t. I care enough to know the reason why this is happening to us. That’s what I’ve always cared about the most when it comes to Unity: why? Because I think the reason why is more important than anything else. I wanted to know why this was happening to us. Why they thought they were able to do this, and how they were able to live with themselves. And when they gave us that reason, I cared about humanity even more. I cared like you do. I cared like a philanthropist does. Like a cosmopolitan does. I care enough to know that I hate them just as much as you. We just show it in different ways. I can’t oppose them because I know it’s useless. You’re young and idealistic and headstrong. It won’t do any good. We’re all done. But I do care and I do hate them, with every ounce of the body God gave me.

“So what if we’re a less intelligent species? So what? Why does that give them the right to herd us up, call us their property, enslave us, use us as tools, kill us, and feed us back into their empire? Why do they have the right to treat us as lesser creatures? Even if we are – and let’s face it, they are more intelligent than us – we still deserve to be treated with dignity, God damn it. We are living, feeling, thinking creatures!”

The two of them stood in silence for several moments, with only the distant sound of anarchy providing the ambience. Tears had come to Petar’s eyes during his outburst, and Emir could only stare down at the ground. Even Metrovic had broken his trance with the barrier in front of him, and had turned to stare the at father and son. He sat on the grass, no longer clutching his wrist, but his arm lay on his knee, his hand hanging limp.

“Come on,” Petar mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Let’s go. We’ll be in trouble if we wait here much longer.”

“Right,” Emir whispered.

“Doc, you coming?”

Metrovic shook his head. “No. I think I’ll wait. Wait until this goes and I can get into the city.”

“They’ll get you, too. They might kill you.”

“I don’t care. I just want to see my Bernarda again. If they capture me, at least I might be with her again; if only for a moment. If we die, at least we’ll be together with God.”

“Your choice, doc,” Petar replied, walking away from the caged city and down the country lane, back into the darkness. “C’mon, Emir. Probably be a couple hours’ walk ‘till we get back to the farm. Doubt they’ll cop us. No street lamps or anything. They won’t see us in this dark.”

Together, father and son left the doctor sitting in the middle of the road, still lit up by his car’s headlights, and walked on into the night.

#

Petar stepped out of the back door and took a few steps toward the farm. He took a moment, looked up to the sky, and cursed the clouds that plagued the sky; but all the while was thankful that he was still here to see them. He breathed in fresh air that he had not tasted for three days, and continued on. Three dogs scurried out of the house and followed Petar, before darting into a nearby field. They, too, had been locked indoors for a full three days; their excited chasing of one another across the nearby field showed how much they relished their freedom.

Petar looked over at the distant city sitting on the horizon. A few plumes of smoke still rose from where there had been resistance and rioting, but other than that, the city was static and still intact. He knew that if he were to visit the city now – which he wasn’t willing to do, even after the bulk of Unity forces had left – it would be naught but a ghost town. Staring off at the city, Petar noticed how silent it had become. The birds seemed louder. A gentle breeze reminded him that nature lived on, even without humanity’s presence. This morning seemed, to him, so still; as if a calm peace had settled on this province after three days of turmoil. It was the calm after the storm. For a brief instant, he felt thankful that the region was so quiet after the human population had been near-enough culled, before he was overcome with guilt and quelled such thoughts.

As soon as Emir and Petar had returned home, they had decided to lock themselves indoors until the huge harvesting ship had moved on. It had taken three days, but the giant vessel eventually drifted toward the sky. None of the Unity had come to claim either Petar or his son, but he knew that they would have gathered all the slaves they needed at the city. Emir had remarked on how they didn’t seem to want to waste time on going after individuals or small groups – instead the Unity simply rounded up and gathered whole cities, communities, and other larger groups at a time. It was inefficient, Emir had commented, as eventually there would only be the small groups – such as two people living alone on a farm – left over. Petar had answered by saying that they were likely to cross that bridge when they got to it: if they were still desperate for slaves – and considering the rumours that Earth was not their first occupied planet, they would be – then they would take the time to hunt down every last tagged human. Until that time came, however, Petar and Emir were content to continue living at their secluded farm and avoiding any cities that might still exist.

Petar opened the shed door, found a bucket of chickenfeed, and carried it out toward one of the pens. The chickens swarmed out of their coops and all gathered at the pen’s fence, waiting for the inevitable feeding. Petar, with a small scooper in hand, started digging out the chickenfeed and pouring it into the bowls within the fence. The peep, having not been fed in three days, fought for priority. The birds were so eager to feed that most simply stood on the bowls and had chicken feed poured onto them.

As he continued to scoop the feed, he scratched at the back of his neck. The ache – which Emir had argued was now mostly from the fact that Petar kept scratching away at it – hadn’t gone away, but he knew that there was nothing that he could do about it now. He couldn’t visit a Unity Administrator: that’d be synonymous with turning himself in. There were almost certainly no doctors, or anyone else who could help him, left in the province. Neither he nor Emir knew what had happened to Doctor Metrovic since they left him at the edge of the city. They hadn’t heard from him, nor had they returned to the city. Petar suspected that if he wasn’t picked up and taken in the next three days, he had simply waited until the barrier disappeared and become the only resident of a ghost town; where any Unity scouts left over were almost certain to find him. Either way, they wouldn’t hear from him again.

After filling the bowls, Petar stood back up and looked over the swarming peep. The three days without feeding would set back when they would be slaughtered; they were originally due to be sent to the abattoir in another two days, but having not been fed for three days, the slaughter would have to wait. Petar sighed to himself as he realised that there may even be a few dead chickens still inside their respective coops; it would further delay shipping.

Petar frowned and looked back at the distant city. Despite the fact that only a quarter of his sales were to this city, he knew that what happened here would have happened across the whole province. It was almost certain, he concluded, that every other city and town to which he sold had suffered an identical fate to this one. He reached down and grabbed a handful of chickenfeed, but simply held it in his palm and gazed at it. Where would be his sales now? Even if there were any distributors left, the demand would have plummeted. This entire province’s population would have dropped to a mere few thousand. Possibly even only a few hundred, he amended. Even if the Unity harvest hadn’t directly affected him, it would do so indirectly.

Keeping his hand held out with the chickenfeed sitting in it, he looked back over at the city. He concluded that, even if he had no one to sell to immediately, he would still have to keep busy. Survivors might make their presence known, and he could sell to them. They too, he realised, would have almost nothing left, however. Money would be meaningless. They’d all have to trade for something more useful. He realised, all of a sudden, that he hadn’t thought at all what living in an empty province like this would be like. Life couldn’t go on as normal – they would have to find new ways to survive and adapt. Emir had almost certainly been planning for this event for a decade. He would know what to do.

Petar, however, was determined not to allow this catastrophe to alter his life too far from what he had become accustomed. He would not allow his farm to crumble. Even if he had no distributors to which to sell, he would still find a way to manage. Gazing at the distant, vacant city, he resolved never to allow his farm to become like it.

In an instant, a realisation dawned upon him. The strength went first from his arms – where he dropped the feed in his hand onto the floor – and then from his legs – as he was brought down to his knees. A feeling rushed through his body, clutching at his heart and stabbing at his stomach. He could feel his pulse pick up and sweat gather at his brow as his mouth hung agape. He licked his dry lips and took a deep breath, as he focussed his tunnel vision on the pen before him.

The clouds had parted, and sunlight now shone down upon Petar. Kneeling before the pen, he reached toward it and slid his fingers through the mesh fence. One hen, still amongst its feeding sisters, stepped toward the curious digits protruding from the fence. Petar, his heart still thumping within his chest, stroked the head of the chicken as gently as he could, and tears filled his eyes.

“Dad?” he heard Emir call from inside the house. “Dad!” Within seconds, Emir was kneeling at his side. “Dad? Are you alright? What’s wrong? Dad, speak to me. What’s wrong?”

“I’m . . . fine,” Petar whispered, although he doubted Emir heard. Accompanying Emir was one of their dogs, who now brushed her snout against Petar’s arm, wanting some sort of attention or fuss. Petar pulled his had from inside the fence and turned to the dog. He reached up to the dog’s neck, undid her collar, and dropped it in the dirt. He then reached behind the neck of the dog – a neck where no spinal tag lay beneath the flesh – and ruffled the fur where the collar had been pressing down.

He had been humbled.

END

Visit the original post, Terrafarm, by Richard Brookes-Bland, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

The two main characters, Taisin and Kaede, are students at an academy for sages. After Taisin has a vision of the future involving herself and Kaede, the two girls are sent as part of a diplomatic mission to the fay, who are known as the Xi. This diplomatic mission, led by Prince Con Isae Tan, hopes that the fay will have answers regarding the puzzling weather that has destroyed crops and placed the kingdom on the verge of civil war.

During the course of their quest, both of the two female main characters discover that they are very good at different skills. Taisin realizes that she has a strong affinity for magic, which bodes well for her chosen career as a sage. Kaede develops impressive martial skills and becomes a protector for the group. Though she has some qualms about killing the opponents she faces, she learns to do what she must to keep herself and her compatriots alive.

Interwoven with the journey to the land of the fay are two burgeoning romances. One, between Taisin and Kaede, is partially foretold by Taisin’s vision at the beginning of the book. Despite the fact that Taisin has seen a time when she cares deeply about Kaede, their relationship proceeds slowly. The other attachment is between Prince Con Isae Tan and Shae, a female guard who travels with the group. Because of the difference in their stations, their relationship, too, moves very slowly.

In the end, Taisin’s vision comes to pass, and Kaede (with help from Taisin) overcomes the obstacle that has caused the change in the kingdom’s climate. However, her work is not complete after this encounter, and there is an additional test that she must succeed at to make things right, which does not rely on her martial prowess.

One of the difficulties I had in reading this book was that the point-of-view character frequently changed for one or two paragraphs, before returning to whichever character was the primary point-of-view character. While this was generally fairly clear if the POV changed from one of the female characters to Con, it was less clear when the POV changed from Taisin to Kaede, or vice versa, as “she” could refer to either character. I was also disappointed in the conclusion of the two romances in the novel. Though it is hard to discuss this aspect without giving away too many spoilers, I felt that when these two relationships came to a point of resolution, the choice that the author made on which relationship ended and which continued was not what I had hoped for. The end result was less than satisfying for me as a reader.

Despite the issues I had with some aspects of Huntress, I enjoyed the book overall. The storytelling is lovely, and the main characters are exceptionally well written. I think that this book will appeal to young adult readers as well as older readers.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Huntress by Malinda Lo, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Post Apocalyptic Love (by CE Zacherl)

Detective Tyrone Higgins finally called off the surveillance to turn in for the night.  Apparently he had been wrong about the janitor, Jarred Dobson.  He must not have been involved in the break in at Representative Arthur Bachman’s office.  The secondary surveillance team was already on its way home after having witnessed several hours of Jarred Dobson frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog.  He took some powerful drugs that would put him out for the night, from what that team reported.

The bloody footprints that led to the janitorial closet must have been a coincidence.  The boots that made the print were a common brand and an even more common size ten.  Detective Higgins would have to find a different explanation.  It could be as simple as one of the culprits hiding in the janitor’s closet while a security patrol rushed to Bachman’s office.

“Jarred…” the sound of his name echoed down the long hallway from some beautiful goddess-like voice.

“Jarred…” this time the echo was a sultrier and haunting lure.

He worked his way down the long hallway until he arrived in the foyer.  The two side tables that flanked the doorway were both covered in a number of his favorite foods, his eyes first landing on the General Tso’s chicken, the real chicken not the synth stuff.  Sitting next to it, New York style pizza that had so much pepperoni on it, he couldn’t even see the cheese that he knew was there, ready to melt in his mouth.

“Jarred… don’t keep us waiting…” the first goddess-like voice spoke again echoing but louder this time.

The sultry sounding woman giggled in a youthful way that sounded out of character for her.

He opened his mouth wide and took a massive bite out of the end of the pizza and wiped his hands on his pants.  He savored all the flavors as the pizza dissolved in his mouth and kept walking.

Finally, he threw the doors open, and there was his bed, his eyes widening to take in the massive unreal expanse of the bed.  The sheets were spun up and around two young, nubile women.  They were naked and playing with each other, Kayla and Apple.

His heavy eye lids finally stopped squinting.  The light from the room soaked into his irises.  He was laying in his recliner with a half full bottle of beer in one hand.  His computer was beeping at him.  The little medicine bottle clattered to the floor as he reached for his computer interface.  The pretty little pills responsible for sending him to that other world rolled across the tile floor.

“Idiot!  Where the hell are you?  We’re supposed to pull that job now.”  Kayla sounded frantic.

Jarred looked over at the clock; and with his head still in a haze, he moved into rapid autopilot to get dressed and presentable.

Jarred rubbed the scruff on his chin as he rode the rail car toward his rendezvous and mission with Kayla and Apple.  Nervous sweat clung to Jarred’s top as his mind connected the dots of the fantasy girls to the two girls in Jarred’s reality.  Those visions haunted him and enticed him.

Jarred could smell the musk on the mass of people that stood tightly around him on the rail car.  It certainly seemed like all the people were pushing in around him on purpose, much more than they needed to fit in the small elevated rail car.

As the train pulled into the station, Jarred saw something rather strange going on.  He rubbed his eyes and blinked furiously for the false vision to clear away.  He hoped to figure out just what the hell his brain was changing over to the Dalek-looking robot wheeling around the station floor.

Jarred Dobson rubbed his eyes one final time as the elevated rail car pulled into the sky scraper station.  The Dalek bot was gone.  He forced his way through the crowd, rudely bursting through some people.  He sensed the angry eyes of those that missed the train by a split second jerk.  He received a slew of curses as he travelled through the business men leaving work and maintenance men getting ready for the late shift.  Jarred’s lucid state made moving through the obstacles of people as challenging as knocking the pinball into the grand prize slide.

Their meeting place was a couple of benches between a McDonald’s 3-star sit down joint and a stinky Abercrombie store.  Jarred did not see Kayla or Apple.  Did they abandon the mission, choose to go without him (not likely), or somehow get a vibe from Jarred that revealed the content of his recent hallucinations?

Before Jarred got all the way to the benches to have a proper sniff out, he felt a very strong arm curl around his left bicep.  An insidious murmuring voice echoed in Jarred’s ear, “Just keep walking and don’t act like anything is outa sorts.”

Jarred glanced at the man who now forcefully tugged him along.  No more words were needed to articulate the point.  In a glance, Jarred was sure that he noticed some form of armament concealed in the man’s belt under his rain coat.  The two rounded a couple of hallways until confronted by only a lonely, unattended candy kiosk, another man briskly walked to the pair and pitched a dark hood over Jarred’s head.

A quick trip to a nearby platform and he was riding in the back of a hover van.  These things weren’t exactly cheap.  Government maybe, Jarred thought.  Had they figured out that he was in on the recent break-in at the congressional office?

Apple and Kayla both perched next to Jarred in the back of the van.  Low voices spoke queries and instructions at the front of the van.

With no visual stimuli, Jarred’s other senses seemed heightened by his recent drug use.  One of the voices said, “Then we’ll dump them in a service ditch near the weeds.”  Jarred heard another voice respond, “The boss wants them to suffer first, starting with the girls, so the guy has to watch.”  Jarred started to panic, he flailed around uselessly with his hands and feet tied.

Kayla was calm and collected.  She hummed to herself and contemplated just how she would get herself and her two friends out of this mess.  Thoughts of doubt oppressed her mind.  She was trying to be a resistance cell leader, but what kind of leader led her crew to constant failures?

Apple felt great anxiety, the feel made real by the feel of the veins on her head pulsing blood through rapidly.  Her heart was going to explode.  Apple hated to be cut off from the masses.  When not in cyberspace, she found the need to be constantly surrounded, never alone.  Here she was alone in her own head, and the sight was frightful.

It was only a few minutes removed from all the chaos, the hoods were removed from all three of them and they were surrounded by curious archaic looking gadgets.  Was this really just the home of a dweeby steampunk enthusiast?

“Barry Lesco.”  Kayla enumerated after taking a short look around.  With the name came a great sigh of relief.  As her shoulders lost tension, Jarred followed suit in relaxing.  Apple still looked around wide eyed and obviously nervous.

“I know that you wanted to help the resistance.  You are not ready to lead your own cell.  You have tripped and stumbled over each task that you have charged yourself.  Step back.  Let me give you some direction,” Barry Lesco stated very matter of fact.

“And I’m not done…” Barry waved his hand across his body to halt all interjections.  “Kayla, I know and understand that you dislike technology.  I know that your goals and purposes for fighting this fight are not the same as many of our mainstream goals.  I don’t shun you for that.  However, much of our battle will be carried out in cyberspace.  You MUST learn how to use it,” Barry stated that last part with a strong emphasis.

“What the hell man?  We’re on the same side?  Why the prisoner treatment?  I thought a noose was next on the list for my evening attire,” Jarred was fuming.

Barry glared at Jarred, “do you realize that if you showed up on time tonight, you’d be rotting in a jail cell right now?”  Jarred looked down to the ground in shame.  Barry continued… “You, Jarred, were under surveillance tonight.  For whatever reason, Detective Higgins believes you have some connection to the Resistance.”

“And Kayla, the last task that you performed for me went so well.  You spliced the Oathed Technocratic intranet and we got a nice data packet of a lot of the projects and goals they have.”  Barry let his archaic brown leather coat fall open as he leaned back in his chair, facing the three.

Kayla nodded in agreement and looked up to the ceiling, avoiding eye contact.  Jarred still looked at the ground.  Apple stared at Barry and he finally turned his attention to the youthful girl.

“You are the new proportion that I have yet to fully understand.  I invite you to help us in this fight, but you have not gotten in so deep that you have to stay.”  Barry reached out and stroked her hand in assurance, “there is no embarrassment in backing out of such a dangerous cause at such a young age.”

Apple shook her head and her wide eyes receded into a determined squint.  “IM.  For Zodi, an’ now Kay n Jar.”

Barry left the room for a few minutes to allow the situation to sink in and the embarrassment to wear off.  Barry’s guards untied the hands and feet of all three.  He returned to the room after a short amount of quiet banter.  “So, do I have a little Trivium Resistance Cell to add to my Order of Battle?”

The three looked to each other and locked eyes one after another and all of them nodded.  They described everything that happened up to the here and now.  He laid out a plan of action and the three of them left Barry’s residence with a new confidence.

As soon as Apple took the elevator down to retrieve her car, Kayla spun closely to face Jarred.  He moved in to embrace her and she pushed him away, a scowl across her face.  “We’ll work together in the Resistance, if you intend to stay on.  You left Apple and I hanging out to dry.  You have too many problems, problems that I don’t need in my life.  Outside of our duties in this, I don’t want to see you anymore.”  Kayla laid down the law and barely waited for a retort as she turned from Jarred and headed for the rail station.

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Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 8 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

The Sayer’s gaze focused on Cody. The boy tried to sink into the pew.

So spoke the Sayer, his silver teeth glittering in waves of light. He floated on a cushion of antigravity, his robes glowing and flowing from his arms like comet trails. He flew high above the sacred console, his altar, the surface flashing with ruby and emerald lights in paradigms only he understood—the voice of heaven.

“Sacrifice is vector,” the families chanted.

“One day the Prophet shall be born among the lowly of us, the pathfinder. He will lead us through the endless night, through the darkness of our doubt. He will pass from mortal life then return to us from the vacuum that exists beyond death, a map in his heart. His truth shall cast out the Dark One who dwells in the nothingness that surrounds the Ark, the nothingness in our hearts. The Prophet shall come. He will fill our hearts with stars.”

“He shall come,” the masses replied. “Sacrifice is vector.”

Once, before his father had been siezed as a heretic, he had shown his son the stars. Cody had always believed the Ark went on infinitely, uniform corridors and catwalks, decks of tiny hostels for each family, work stations and machinery that reached into the ship with sprawling arms. His father had privileges as a tinkerer, and he took Cody to a foreign land high above, to clear walls that looked out from the Ark. At first Cody had wept, but then he gazed out onto the ever blackness, seeing frissons of spectral rain that dazed and delighted. It had been so long since the Sayer had Cody’s father arrested for questioning the doctrine, for preaching science. He’d been just a boy of six cycles when they had dropped his father into the towers, into the furnaces. Cody wondered if he only dreamed it, imagined he’d had a father.

And sometimes Cody dreamt of a giant blue sphere in white mist like the steam that comes off the reactor vents. The world was so great, and the skies flowed cerelauen beyond sight, not a world of corridors and bulkheads. Water ran free or settled in great pools, covering most of the surface. He liked that dream the most.

“Our faith must be pure, a beacon of light in the vast darkness,” the Sayer preached, his hollow voice echoeing from the bulkheads, joining the song of the Towers. “We must be ever diligent. The Dark One promises and lies and promises. You must not listen, block out the voices of doubt that the evil of science can bring.”

“Sacrifice is vector.”

Their voices joined in choir with the soprano hum of the towers above. Cody, like most of the tribe, had never seen the heavens within the towers, though his father had told him of the home of the gods: crimson furnaces, burning and churning with forces no one pretended to understand, powering crystal mountains that sang with such volume to deafen any man who did not shield their ears.

“Out there beyond the protection of our Ark, the Dark One dwells, poisoning our minds with whispers. The ancient gods built this Ark of their bodies, shaped its engines from their hearts to give us a home, vector. They made us of their love, their hopes. Humans were created on this Ark and for this Ark. The Dark One seeks to tempt us from our mission.”

“Take us to New ‘Ome, Sayer,” the masses on the temple floor chanted.

Cody and his mother had been given front row seats, special seating for families tainted by hereasy. He could feel the pressure of thousands of eyes beating on him. Gripper had told Cody’s Mom they should go into hiding in the forbidden parts of the vessel. The holidays were coming, and for nearly a cycle now, the Sayer had reported the disfavor of the Towers, read by him on his altar; a sacrifice would be needed. She argued that hiding would be as good as admiting guilt.

“Please lower your heads for Communion,” the Sayer compelled.

Cody looked up through his bangs of red hair, keeping his head low. The Sayer examined the bank of lights before him on the altar at his pulpit. Cody’s father had told him that scholars had once been allowed to study their meanings, before the last cleansing, and vague idea was gained of their function. The lights will tell the Sayer if the gods in the Towers were pleased or not.

The chirp of an acolyte’s bell ended Communion. The People waited for the word. The Sayer frowned.

“The Towers are displeased. Their holy lights do not glow.”

Cody heard muffled sobs.

“It is I who have failed you, and I vow to you that if I cannot rid our church, our home of those who feign faith, I will throw myself down the deep well to the Towers to redeem you all. And upon the power of my soul, the engines will drive us all the way to New ‘Ome.”

The people howled, defiant. The Sayer grinned and gazed once again down on Cody.

“To reach New ‘Ome,” the Sayer sang, “We must sacrifice.”

“Take us home, Sayer,” they chanted. Cody mouthed the words; perhaps it was he who had displeased the Towers. How could they notice him? He was just a boy, a tiny spec below their majesty and power. Could they feel his confusion? He’d struggled to hide any trace of his heresy, fearing they might see it in his eyes. He buried his face into his hands. He’d felt feverish since this morning. Could heresy burn the skin?

“In the name of the Towers and the Compass who comes, I beseech you to keep your minds pure of blasphemy, to follow the course true, to take us, the last hope of humans, to New ‘Ome.”

“Take us home, Sayer,” the families chanted.

Would he feel his flesh burn, his bones boil and pop when he was thrown into the furnance? Would he hear the voice of the Gods?
#

Sentries in their crimson suits thumped the walls with clubs. The people dispersed like water flowing down a drain. Cody’s mother grabbed him by the shoulder, and they took the tubes to their home deck in One-B Eden Section.

Out through the spiraling corridors they walked into their home ward. The gates sealed behind the last family—two doors decorated with silver knot work. Incense burned in front of the gate in a tiny dish, purifying the portal with a spicy-sweet odor. Seven Sentries guarded the gates to other decks of the Ark. Traversing the portal except for worship was forbidden.

Down the corridors, they approached a group of men who had gathered at one of the air vents where the fresh atmosphere caused a light euphoria. Mother let down her smoky hair and opened the top of her white jump suit, revealing the curve of her breast. Cody knew to be silent when she did, to stay in the back. Chief of their ward, Kitmaron, finished a protien square, brushed the crumbs from the patchy, black beard on his fat jowls then grabbed her by the hips.

Cody balled his fists watching him treat his mother like a piece of furniture, but she had admonished him not to protest unless he wanted them to starve. Cody’s stomach turned. If only father had thought of his family when he decided to stand by his principles.

“Go home Cody and do your chores,” Mother told him. “Tell Gripper I’ll be home in a few hours. And don’t pester Gripper. Don’t let him drink too much. If you get done early, you can go see Red Nova play in the match.”

Kitmaron sneered at the boy. Cody turned away and traveled through the common areas, the residential apartments and further into their ward, passing beyond the pipe venues, to the abandoned section—the broken places where no one dared to venture.

Cracked conduits steamed oily miasma. Cody’s nose burned from ash in the air. The smoky atmosphere of the corridor impaired his sight, and he had to take care not to trip on broken floor panels. The rejects came to live here, those who would not follow the Code, who had stolen or refused to work. The Sayer called them the alleys of the dark heart. Some even whispered that the Dark One dwelled here, had twisted these parts of the Ark. No one knew exactly how deep into the ship the Dark One had tunneled. Parts of the Ark had been sealed off, damaged in the heretical chaos. Even the vagabonds and untouchables had not gone too deep. Legends of demons roaming the fiery places of disrepair prevented them from seeking out its mysteries. If only father had heeded the warnings and not gone wandering.

He knocked seven times on the portal to their improvised quarters. The bar clanked on the inside door, and Gripper let him in. Gripper had to lean all his weight on the door to push it open, unable to put weight on his bad leg.

The air in their chambers chilled Cody, the environmental systems acting up again, and Gripper had stuffed insulation padding down into his pink jacket. Gripper’s toes poked through holes in his stockings. He must have just woken up from a nap, his wiry, gray hair in a wild mane, and his glasses—one of the lenses cracked—were crooked off his hook nose.

“Well lad, good to see you’re still here. Your mother has no sense sometimes.”

Cody hung up his white jacket and took off his slippers. He filled a thermos with cloudy H2O from a pipe in the wall they had tapped into. He took a ration cracker from a box on the leaning table. Their quarters were divided into two areas by an opaque sheet they had scavenged from the corridors. He and mother slept on cots they had found in a derelict sick bay in the one room while Gripper lived in the parlor.

Gripper still wore his old Sentry uniform, though the color had bleached with age, going pink. It should have been odd to see such a bulky man with a perpetual grimace wearing pink, but it matched his nature.

The Sentries had cast him out after he was crippled in an accident. An ex-Sentry, he was also cast out from the families since the Sentries were feared.

Cody was feeling a bit flushed and sipped on the water to soothe his throat.

“You look a might bit under the weather, lad. Feeling okay?”

“What does under-the-weather mean?”

Gripper shrugged.

“Just an old expression I guess. Doesn’t mean much of anything. I’ve often pondered that weather means sickness of some kind. Well, take care of yourself. Your mother needs you.”

Gripper sat back at the table and resumed carving a chunk of white plastic, chipping away at the malleable material. The walls in Cody’s side of his room were lined with all the little people Gripper had made.

“What are you making?”

“A full course dinner,” Gripper quipped.

“Is it a toy for me?” Cody asked.

“You think everything is for you.”

“Mother said that if I do all my chores, I’m allowed to go to the Match. Red Nova is playing, and I’m sure they’re to win.”

“Why do you like such violent sport? Every cycle, one of the players is wounded so badly they pass into the void. Doesn’t sound like fun to me.”

“It’s fun to me,’ Cody said.

“Violence isn’t amusing at all when you’ve seen it like I have. I had enough of that as a Sentry.”

Gripper chipped at the plastic chunk.

“Your mother is with a man?” he asked.

Cody didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry Cody. If I could, I’d take you all from the commons into the lower echelons where you would want for nothing, where the fat cats drink all the fiz they want and eat delicious vegetables grown in the great forests on the Ark.”

Cody felt a touch of resentment at Gripper’s desultory promises, as if he was supposed to praise the old man for failing. Cody brushed it off, tried to keep it from getting the better of him.

“Tell me more about the Ark, of the places I’ve not seen like the great forest.”

“Always with my stories,” Gripper said.

Gripper retrieved a bottle from under one of the iron grates in the floor. He uncapped it, and Cody’s nose burned from its acrid odor.

“Don’t tell your mother about the bottle, and we have a deal,” he said. He took two gulps then wheezed.

“It’s horrid plasma water, but better then just water. I distilled it from some fluid I drained from the cooling system. It’s not bad if you flavor it with some of the sweet rations.”

Spirits were against the Code of the Ark, since they compelled you to think heretical thoughts. They were the work of the Dark One. Cody admired Gripper for his transgression.

“The forests were transplanted from the ancient home. Trees are mighty beings, alive like you or me, but they are different. Their bodies move slowly, and they grow thin, green hands and feet. They are tall cylinders wearing a brown crust and roots that grow deep into the mushy, brown floor.”

“Like the pipes and conduits?”

“No. They grow and breathe and make fruit.”

“I had just joined the Sentry Order. My parents were so proud that I had been selected because of my fitness. The Sayer came to the induction ceremony to bless us. He took from his robes a piece of green fruit. It was shaped like a tetrahedron, smooth with a bulbous bottom. He called it a pear and said we could pass it around and each take a tiny bite.”

“What was it like?”

“My mouth exploded in joy. It was like laying with a woman. Too fleeting. One man in the battalion began to weep. We never saw him after that day.”

“I wish I could see it.”

Gripper smiled and displayed his art. He was working on a thin part at the top.

“That’s the stem where the fruit attaches to the tree branch.”

“You’d think they’d let us see pictures,” Cody said.

“Oh no lad. Most of the folk here in the commons don’t even know they exist. If they did they’d want the pear too, and there aren’t enough to go round. Nope. Trust me. I hurt you just telling you about it, and that’s why I won’t tell you more. You’re better off not knowing.”

“Where did the forest come from?”

“The ancients grew them. They once lived among the trees as brothers, before the war that poisoned their home. They dwelled in paradise of open space and comforts we couldn’t begin to fathom, a place where you looked up from anywhere and saw not gray bulkheads but a wide, blue canvas for as far as your peepers could peep.”

Cody nodded. He was feeling nauseous but wanted to stay for the story.

“I have seen it,” Cody said “I have dreamt it.”

Gripper smiled, letting Cody’s fantastic comment pass.

“They built the Ark?” Cody said.

“For once the litany is true. They took the only moon of their world and hollowed it out. Then with their waning power, they created the Towers and made humans, and they charged us with the holy mission. To begin again.”

“Does anyone remember?”

“Oh no lad. It happened many generations ago.”

“How do we really know it happened? Where’s the proof?”

Gripper grimaced.

“You mustn’t question. Look around you. Here’s the proof. The Ark is happy when it is moving forward. I have seen from the portals many times and watched as the stars change places. You must have faith, to believe when there is no proof. A crisis of faith is what caused the Chaos, ended our vector. We were all nearly lost.”

“Sometimes it’s just so hard to believe. I saw from the portal, saw the borders of the Ark, and there was nothing, just a few specks of distant light. If that’s what is seen from all portals, if that’s what surrounds us, then there is nothing out there.”

Gripper paused his work and studied his gnarled hands.

“Each of us has a choice we must make: either to be one of the faithful or one of hearsay. I can’t tell you which one to be, and both roads have consequences. Your father made his choice, and I was forced to help him to understand the nature of that decision.”

“How?”

“Too many questions, lad. You are diseased with these questions.” Gripper laughed and brushed Cody’s red mop of hair. “Now get about your chores, and you still might have time to see the match.”

“Just one more question?”

“Just one.”

“Do you think we’ll ever find New ‘Ome, that we’ll ever be faithful enough?”

“I know this. People are always in a hurry to be where they’re not and never be where they are.”

Cody shrugged.

“So are you going to head up to the match?”

“I don’t think so,” Cody said. “I’m not feeling right.”

#

Cody’s mother came home late into the rest cycle. Cody was lying down, and Gripper placed wet towels on his head to cool the burning.

His mother paced with worry. The rage of the engines burned beneath Cody’s skin, behind his eyes. His head pounded. He felt like he was falling, passing through the decks of the Ark and into space. In his fevered vision, he fell through space until a star’s gravity caught his soul. He cried out for his mother, but she did not come. No one could hear him. The tendrils took hold of his body, burning his flesh. “I shall feast on your cold, cold hearts,” said the Sayer’s voice. He had known of Cody’s heretical thoughts, and now he would punish him.

Cody’s mother knelt by the bed of her ailing son and prayed to the Towers.

“Take this illness from my son and give it into me,” she begged.

Gripper listened at the boy’s chest, checking his wrist to feel for a pulse. He shook his head and sighed.

“In the lower planes, I have seen miracle cures granted by the Towers to the faithful. They could fix him. The Sayer has medicines.”

Mother scooped up Cody into her arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Gripper was flabbergasted. He blocked the door.

“They can heal my boy.”

“It’s best this way, peaceful. Let the boy fall into an easy sleep. I can make him a drink so strong he’ll feel no pain.”

Mother kicked Gripper’s bad leg. He went down howling in pain. With her boy in her arms, she lifted up the bar securing the door and pushed it open.

“You’re just going to make it worse,” he said.

She passed into the common zones and to one of the corridors where the higher ranks of the families lived. She knocked on Kitmaron’s door. He answered, wrapped in a sheet.

“My son is sick. I must see the Sayer. Tell your friends in the Sentries to take him to the lower echelons. They can heal him.”

“Go back to your rags, woman. I will not help the son of a heretic.”

Mother grinned at him.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to disturb you—or your wife.”

Kitmaron frowned his black beard into a knot.

“I can’t ask a Sentry to let us pass. We’ll be arrested. No one goes low. Take him to our common’s area. I’ll ask one of the healers to look at him.”

He shut the door.

Gripper had caught up, limping while he jogged.

“You’ve got some nerve, lady,” he said.

They took him to where Kitmaron had suggested. The lamps glowed sallow light during the late cycle. Gripper bumped into a monitor, and swore at it. He nursed his leg. They placed Cody on a table, brushing away empty fiz bottles and game pads. She felt his forehead. In his foggy state, he felt her cool hand sooth the fire on his skin. He struggled to breath.

Kitmaron arrived, followed by a scrawny fellow whose face was inchoate, gray, as if his flesh was made up of wet ash. From a satchel, the healer pulled a probe and stuck it in Cody’s mouth. He listened to his heart and lungs and felt all over his body. The probe lit up.

“He will not survive. He is being punished.”

Mother clenched the healer’s shoulder. Kitmaron pulled her free.

“You must be able to do something,” she said.

“He is beyond my arts,” the healer said. “In the hands of the Prophet. Only the healing of the ancients can help him now.”

The ruckus had woken other families, and they came to see. They were wrapped in their bed robes, their hair a mess from sleeping. They watched the mother weeping and offered no comfort, not to the widow of a heretic.

All they could do was watch as Cody’s chest took slower inhalations. Then, he was still.

Mother embraced Cody by the shoulders. In an attempt to feign breath, she pushed down on his chest. A rib cracked beneath her fist. She listened at his heart. Still she heard silence.

“Gods in the Towers. Make it beat.”

She kept pumping until she rolled over in exhaustion. She rested her head on Cody’s shoulder and sobbed.

The audience gawked. She even heard someone cheer.

“Come on Maud,” Gripper said, taking her by the arm. “Let’s not give them anymore of a show.” He helped her lift Cody’s body up and they started to carry him home.

“Praise the Towers,” roared someone. “The son of the heretic is dead.”

“Who said that?” mother roared.

No one answered.

“You know nothing of it!”

“Maud,” Gripper called to her. “Maud. He’s breathing.”

She put her cheek to his mouth, felt moist air touching her face.

“Praise the Towers,” she whispered. She repeated it several times.

“He was gone,” Gripper said. “His heart was silent. It’s a miracle! The Towers have risen him back to us.”

The crowd clamored about. Some fell to their knees praying. Some ran. In their eyes, they looked upon the lad, their spirits filling with a fury. No longer did they see an untouchable, an outcast, the son of a heretic. Now they beheld a boy at one with their Towers, one of their own of the filthy commons, chosen to feel their embrace. It was a sign. It must have been. New ‘Ome was close, just in their reach. The boy would show them how to find it. He was the Prophet who had been foretold, the pathfinder.

Gripper shook his head.

“Mother. I saw the blue world. I was there walking through its forests and walking with the ancients. One of them pointed to a star in the sky.”

“Praise the Prophet,” the crowd chanted.

Then Cody whispered but all could hear: “We can longer travel forward. We must reverse to go home.”

“This is going to be trouble,” Gripper said. “There’s going to be blood like there was during the Chaos.”

Cody became the pathfinder, and he told the people of his vision.

Water falls from the skies—ice blood and tears of clouds. The ground is not polymer, nor steel, but pillow soil, crunching beneath the barefoot, soft to the touch of young skin. All things live. All things hum as the towers do. Nothing ever dies. Born of the soil and come home to the soil. Life forever—a chain of life always growing towards the father star.

Life is vector.

The walls melt. The only walls are the ones you take with you. Light flows eternal, clarion light, not the sickly illumination of the halls. And in the dark, the stars keep hope like torches.

They all knew this world.

As the pathfinder told the story again and again from the visions he’d been granted, it awakened the dormant race memory sown in the blood of the people. Their dreams filled with New ‘Ome. They walked the land, swam in the oceans and ate the fruit of the trees. Pear juice dripped down Gripper’s face.

And at story’s end, the people prayed not to the towers but to their hearts, the true vector of their lost home, and they asked of the prophet:

Take us home.

Visit the original post, The Heretic’s Son, by T. Fox Dunham, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Cybertheft (by CE Zacherl)

Jarred blew the smoke away from the barrel of the 9mm Pistol.  He always imagined that when he learned to use a real weapon, it would be something a little more high tech.  The high tech doodads were kept under lock and key by the upper level scraper residents.

Ness Mutt chuckled at Jarred’s stereotypical action to blowing at the end of the gun.  “You know, there’s no reason at all to do that.”

Jarred shook his head, “It’s for effect.”

Kayla hopped down from her perch on top of the exhaust shaft.  Apple was still in another world, sitting with her Virta-Goggs@ strapped to her head and an old keyboard across her lap.

“Feel a little safer now, Jarred?”  Kayla spoke as she swayed over to him.

Jarred nodded after handing Mutt a wad of cash.  Mutt walked around the corner to deposit the cash in his suitcase that used to carry a 9mm and two mags but still carried another firearm.

Kayla leaned into Jarred, her weight against his, “He’s not the guy who taught me, but the resistance is stretched pretty thin right now.  He seemed to know what he was doing…”

“Damn right I know… If you want to make sure you’re safe, just bring me along next time.  I was SpecOp for the India-Pakistani War,” Mutt bragged.

“Well, now that you mention it.  We’ve got some work to do, very soon,” Kayla stated as a challenge.

Ness Mutt grunted as if he didn’t care, “I got dropped deep behind the lines in Pakistan to secure some chemie when those Ay-rab commanders went ballistic.”

Apple, Jarred, Kayla, and Mutt were crouched behind a long prefab plastic desk.  Beyond, they could see the heavily fortified clear doors and the Enviro@ chamber beyond that was the foyer to this sky scrapers lowest level greenhouse.

Apple glanced back out of the wall length window as she set up her laptop and leaned against the desk.  It was a long way down to the ground.  She shivered and tried to dig her butt into the floor in hopes of preventing any chance of going out the window.

Apple felt a strong squeeze on her shoulder and turned her head to look eye to eye with Jarred.  He gave her a reassuring nod.

Jarred looked to his other side, Kayla was sweating like a flu-victim.  Kayla was usually the confident, strong leader; now she seemed shaken.  Wendell’s gory death was having a profound psychological effect on her.

Mutt, on the other hand, was smiling with a sick confidence.  He leaned over to the nervous looking girls.  “Once, I lost my section-mate right before he and I were supposed to quietly kill two guards.  I killed them both, all by myself.  I just made the first one such a horrific kill that the second guy was stunned.”

Kayla smacked his chest and turned red with embarrassment, “Shut up.”

“Okay, let’s get this over with.”  Jarred walked around the edge of the desk in a slouched fashion that made his height only barely more than the desk.

Gary Jones was in another world.  It was an alien beach, and that alien beach was covered in a wide assortment of alien babes that appeared to be in various forms of undress.  The huge variety of aliens; made it difficult to determine if they were naked or if they just had minimalist clothing.

He approached one of the shortest aliens that wore nothing except its own orange-red skin.  He was just about to sling a cheddar pick up line when the whole beach started to float away from him.  No, he was sinking into the sand.  No, who the hell is this?

Gary’s Virta-Goggs@ clattered to the floor as the girl removed her fingertips.

The girl’s hair was unkempt, wild and beautiful in its chaos.  Her outfit was a form fitting navy blue dress, cut in all the right places. The outfit didn’t quite match her temperament.  In a way, the awkwardness was even more a turn on to Gary Jones.

“Well, well.  Is it my birthday?  Christmas?  Why don’t you come have a seat on Uncle Gary’s lap?”

The girl obeyed gingerly and innocently batted her eyes.  Gary did not notice the knife and syringe the girl kept tucked in the back of one of her long, black leather boots.

“After all hell broke loose and the big guns laid waste to both countries, we had to find places to hunker down and stay out of sight.  Just like this.  I was hiding out in a barn and had to kill five men that found my spot.  I stacked them up like cord wood,” Ness Mutt bragged in a low voice as he and Jarred Dobson crouched in the enviro-chamber outside of the greenhouse levels of the sky scraper.

Jarred shook his head subtly and tried to get a better view of the inside of the greenhouse.  He hoped that Kayla was okay and wished he was some big shot war veteran like Mutt.

Suddenly, the yellow lights in the chamber started flashing and sirens started to whoop.  A small door on the upper wall opened and a nozzled device popped out and faced the inside of the chamber.  A robotic voice started repeating, “Contaminant, contaminant, contaminant, purge inevitable.  Safety measures disengaged.”

Both of the men looked at each other for a moment and then there was a sound like a lighter firing up and they both slowly looked back up to the nozzle.  There was a small pilot flame at the front of the nozzle.

Mutt paralyzed in place, eyes wide with shock and fear.  Jarred managed to drag Mutt out the door right before the flames engulfed the room.  Jarred forced Mutt’s body down to the ground and proceeded in his own stop, drop, and roll.

Apple’s computer was slung in a side bag and as she helped Jarred to carry the gibbering Mutt out of the immediate vicinity.  Surely, security personnel would be arriving soon.

Mutt, Jarred, and Apple were at the rendezvous point for only a minute or two, time to catch their breath, when a clacking sound alerted Jarred and Apple.  It didn’t sound like feet or shoes, more like the pad of a heavy security robot.

“Why in the hell do we keep finding ourselves running away all the time?  I feel like it’s all I ever do.”  Kayla spat out, “And what the hell is up with Mutt?”  Apple and Jarred tried to interject, but were tongue tied.

Jarred sighed with relief as Kayla bent to remove her tattered and broken high heels.  “He freaked out; I barely got him out of there as the shit hit the fan.”

“Weird.  Flashbacks I guess?”  Kayla said during a heavy exhale as a theory and shrugged her shoulders.

Apple finally got the chance to speak, “Let’s GTFOOH!”

The group made its way out of the sky scraper, avoiding the security response.  They watched from a ground car as red and blue flashing lights filled the skies around the sky scraper greenhouse levels.  Instead of travelling to their normal meeting place, Apple drove the group outside of downtown and to the edge of the suburbs.

Apple pulled the car up along the paved concrete that formed a vast flat barrier to the massive greenery that was the city limits.  They could barely see the Shenandoah Mountains in the soft moon light.

Apple turned the key in the ignition and got out her laptop, turning on multi-frequency white noise, “sup?”

Apple looked back over her shoulder at the distressed Mutt and the calmly breathing Jarred.  Kayla’s gaze followed Apple’s.

“Are you all right Lt?”  Jarred emoted to Ness Mutt as his hand landed on Mutt’s shoulder empathetically.

Mutt shrugged the hand aside and muttered something inaudible.

Kayla fully turned around in her seat, “Okay, speak up, what’s the deal?  What happened with you back there?”  She stared intently at Mutt, still waiting for an answer, “You know, when we are in the shit like that, we are relying on you to be the type that stands strong when others are weak.  What’s the deal?”

Mutt started crying, tears rolling down his cheeks, his choked up words were almost incoherent.  All three of the other car passengers tilted their heads to try to better hear his words.

Jarred gasped as he finally managed to put together the words and looked up toward Kayla and Apple.  He again tried to put a hand on Mutt’s shoulder to show him support, but the pathetic man nudged away from it again.  “He seems to be saying that his stories are all made up.”  Mutt nodded, Jarred continued, “so apparently he has never seen action and he obviously seems to have the nerve of a tormented house cat.”

Kayla stared at Mutt and just started to shake her head, in utter disappointment.

Apple did not have much of a reaction; she simply turned back to the car wheel and moved her hand to the ignition.

Jarred frowned at the reactions of Kayla and Apple and tried to yet again put a comforting hand on Mutt’s shoulder.

In response, Mutt collapsed down, his body limply hanging in the foot rest area of his seat, his whining and moaning dying down to a whimper.

“Srsly?” Apple started to turn the ignition key, but before the engine caught, Kayla put a hand on Apple’s.

Apple looked to Kayla and Kayla spoke up, ignoring the whimpering man, “So that is not all we have to share, one of us actually did something useful back there.”  As she said this, she looked into the rear view mirror at Mutt.  “I got some good bits of information out of Mr. Jones.  He is such a sicko.”  She shivered and shook her hands.

Jarred did have to admit to himself that Kayla looked pretty nice in the sultry outfit she was still wearing.  She looked uncomfortable in such a dashing, dressy style, though he thought that almost made her seem the innocent, attractive type.

Jarred shook his head rapidly to clear the thoughts and get back on the topic of Gary Jones, “Is he the worse for wear now?”

“Nope, except for a few bruises and a slice on the hand, he’ll live,” Kayla was quick to respond to leave no doubt that she did not murder him.  “While he was the CEO of Walls Corporation, he personally oversaw some work that is not in the corporate records.  Looks like a full room server install with maximum physical and virtual security algorithms.  With cry baby over there, there is no way we could hope to break in to that server room.”

“Not IRL anyway,” Apple added as her head leaned back and she smiled with satisfaction.

Kayla looked at the young girl quizzically and moved on, “There is something important about whatever is on that server, something specifically put in place for the Oathed Technocrats.  It seems to be some sort of byway for their intranet to move data out onto the internet or some computer mumbo jumbo.”

Jarred could see that Kayla felt awkward by the technical complexity, “I think it may be about time that you discovered the virtual world, Kayla, and I know just the teachers for you.”  He patted Apple on the forehead as her head leaned far back across the front seat headrest.

“Ugh, and be one of those gamer slash addict types.  Well, well, we’ll see.   Maybe you two can pull off an infiltration without me,” Kayla was trying to piece together plans and leadership in her head in real time while conversing; it was not easy.

Having discussed future efforts and the fate of their brief Resistance cell member, Ness Mutt, Apple finally turned the key.

As Apple pulled her car into its parking space in the basement levels of her home sky scraper, a curious news report played via her streaming radio, “Kal Killmon here, wealthy industrialist, Gary Jones, was found dead in a nearby greenhouse, apparently poisoned with a complex toxin.”

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Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 7 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

So – Huzzah! – another book with a great story and some fantastic artwork. It is also, by the way, our first novella – so pick yourself up a copy and support Nevermet Press by spending a couple hours in Avalon. You’ll find young Abe Lincoln, Charles Darwin, and Edgar Allan Poe trying out why they were kidnapped by a time traveling cowboy, and how the heck are they going to get back home by dinner time! Yeah… it’s made of awesome.

Let us know what you think – we are exploring publishing other novellas and full-length novels over the next year and would love your feedback.

Cheers — Jonathan.

Visit the original post, Charlie Darwin, or the Trine of 1809 by Angel Leigh McCoy Available Now in PDF and ePUB, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Across the room, his Automaton, Ez-24, observed him cautiously, for he had been exerting himself with this experiment for over a century. Ez-24 wished with all his programmed sentiments to assist his master. Yet, a part of his central system advised him that Joshua-52 had to brawl his way through this by himself. For the time being, Ez-24 resolved to maintain the spaceship as it flashed at the speed of light through multiple dimensions beyond the space-time continuum.

A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead and Joshua began to fight for his breath. He scrolled his way through several of the million holographic controls that ornamented the gleaming panels and the space before him. His cerebral search engine purred as it sifted through hundreds of millions of volumes of data. The intense effort in his intelligence systems made it burdensome for him to maintain both feet on the ground. His sleek highly mechanized apparatus and various associated gadgets and contrivances began to throb with vast amounts of whirring data. The information-storing particles in the air around him buzzed and whirled and vibrated. All around him, the towering platinum walls of the spacecraft began to rattle as the humming machines began to process the latest input. Sources of ultraviolet light flared on and off, illuminating and blackening the metallic chamber as it quivered.

He gazed into the aperture of the spacecraft at the untold specks of stars that stretched before him, swelling into the black vastness of infinity. Suddenly it all flashed before his eyes: the very first time he’d loaded a scientific volume, the very first time he’d journeyed through a wormhole, his earliest inventions… He had spent his childhood questioning others about the purpose of their species, about the fate of the macrocosmic universe and the ultimate purpose of the various spheres and branches of science. Some mocked him, but others recognized his uniqueness and were in awe of his singular mind. On his world, the populace was apt to leave the machines to do the revolutionary thinking, but Joshua-52 did it all himself.

The machine before him set off an alarm and it happened. The immense spacecraft came to a halt and hovered in the midst of the totality. Each and every throbbing gadget in his vicinity froze. The whirling, humming, and throbbing instantaneously diminished. Just like that, after a century of downloading information into his central intelligence and processing it, he had reached his deepest and most intense desire. There, before his eyes, unfurled the Answer – the Solution – the Remedy to everything.

It was the answer that his species had been searching for within this seemingly infinite universe ever since they began to stand upright; the answer to a series of questions that had set off many of the most astute minds to move earth, wind and mountains, along with the rest of the universe in order to uncover. Here before him was an intricate equation that scientists had been hunting for over fifty thousand years…A theory that expounded and elegantly explained the Ultimate Truth.

Joshua-52 had unlocked a door to the comprehension of all existence. He had produced a theory that would not only elucidate the true properties of the innumerable forces, particles and enigmas of nature but also predict all of their individual and collective fates. This equation before his very eyes would give an explanation of each and every aspect of all dimensions and forms of reality. It would be the final answer in totality: it was, in essence, the Theory of Everything.

Joshua-52 pondered upon the very first of his kind—the humans as they were called back then—who first began their quest for such an equation. It was their seeking for the ultimate solution that had caused them to uncover the very first attributes of the universe. It was this that had led them to extend their mighty civilizations across the universe, colonize other galaxies and scrutinize hyperspace, parallel dimensions and hidden realities. They had journeyed through time and literally moved mountains and earths in order to predict the fate of the majestic cosmos. They wired supercomputers into their organs of intelligence and hooked up complex electric contraptions to over seventy percent of their anatomy. All this was with the aim of a greater brainpower to uncover the riddles of infinity. They had scrutinized the most minute of particles, digging deeper and deeper into the various dimensions of creation in order to comprehend its fundamental forces. For eons, their philosophers and scientists had poured their minds into unveiling the ultimate truth about the universe.

It was as if an invisible being had abruptly smacked Joshua-52 in the face. His species had moved forward in mighty leaps and bounds in search of this equation and now it was right before his eyes. What would become of them? What would become of their intense desire for knowledge; what would become of their compulsion to seek; what would happen to their boundless inquisitiveness? Terror unfurled itself in the remnants of humanity that was left in Joshua-52. He sensed his abdomen churn for the very first time. It had been eons since his kind had panicked.

If Joshua-52 was to reveal the elegant equation that was the ultimate key to understanding everything, then all pondering and seeking would cease. They would be presented with the ultimate answer, solution and remedy to each and every past, current, and future enigma of the cosmos. Knowing everything, there would be nothing left to hunt for. There would be no more questioning, no more wondering and no more nourishment for their curiosity. Most crucially, they would no longer flourish as before. It was as if the universe had finally cornered them, with nowhere to flee to.

Joshua-52 had unfastened a door that billions before him had failed to. He was staring through the open door at the purpose and fate of reality and existence.

Joshua-52 slammed the door shut and walked slowly away.

Visit the original post, The Open Door, by Parizad Bidshahri, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Dead Iron by Devon Monk is the first book in The Age of Steam series. A seamless blend of magic and old west steampunk it’s an absorbing read, told in a true storyteller’s voice. This is not meant to be read at a breakneck speed but rather savored for its lyrical rhythm. The setting, a quaint town called Hallelujah, Oregon, is a character all by itself. I could see, smell, and taste the dust billowing along the trails. But the book’s true strength is in the flawless character development.

Told from various points of view, the reader is treated with rare insight into the passions that drives each character forward.

At the forefront is our reluctant hero, Cedar Hunt.  A cursed man, he is living in the shadow of guilt over his brother’s death. Written with depth, the reader is at once drawn into Cedar’s plight. He possesses great brevity and a will to help others find justice, despite his own personal battles. When he overhears the blacksmith’s son has been taken in the middle of the night, he offers his services to find him. The search doesn’t prove easy, as he is thwarted at every turn.

Mae Lindson, a witch with deep-rooted magic in her blood and troubles of her own, senses her husband’s demise and sets out on a journey to find his killer. But this doesn’t come without a price. For what she will need to confront the killer rests with the Madder Brothers, a curious lot who one isn’t certain if they are to be trusted. They seem to hold in their possession the precise devices and instruments that she needs, though their fee and the favor requested is questionable.

There are a host of other characters to liven up the town such the vibrant Rose Small, the enigmatic Shard Lefel and Mr. Shunt, and the soulful Jeb.

An underlying tension is present throughout each page of the book. A foreboding sense of Strange. This Strange is a powerful entity that brings ruin to anyone who comes crosses its path. Along with the Strange are the endless secrets that are discovered, and like being caught in a spider’s web, each of the characters become entangled within it.

The dialogue is thought-provoking and arresting. Every word written is for a reason. The events that unfold come together with a climactic ending that left me breathless. Much of Dead Iron is steeped in magic, but Steampunk enthusiasts will appreciate the inventive steampunk elements sprinkled throughout.

Devon Monk is also the author of the popular Allie Beckstrom series. Stop by her website, Devonmonk.com, to stay updated on the next book in The Age of Steam series, Tin Swift. The sequel is scheduled for release on July 3rd, 2012. I look forward to the continuing story of Cedar Hunt and the cast of characters I’ve come to know from Dead Iron.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Dead Iron — The Age of Steam, by Devon Monk, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

What scares your PCs? I mean, what truly scares the bejeezus out of them?

RPGs are filled with scary creatures. As a DM, you have an obscene amount of riches when it comes to adversaries that would send most humans in the real world running in the opposite direction, their pantaloons a little less dry. In the relative safety of the gaming table PCs see these types of baddies day in and day out. At some point, players become immune to the scariness that is a dark creeper or an Orcus underpriest.

Even death doesn’t hold much fear factor for PCs, most of the time. Sure, people can get really attached to their characters, but sometimes the excitement of building something new and shiny can prompt suicidal tendencies at worst,  or reckless behaviour at best. This is a challenge to any DM who is building adventures three to four sessions (or more) ahead of time, based on the assumption that his current set of players will make it through in good enough shape to carry on.

In light of these challenges, it seems to me that this is where the great DM shines. When mechanics, tools and saturation leave your PCs feeling untouchable, context becomes king. Choosing the proper background music as your group investigates a haunted house, dimming the lights or going by candlelight as they delve into the catacombs of a long-deceased king, or simply using the proper words to describe a dark, foreboding forest  can do a much better job of immersing your players into the environment.

Loss of control is another tool in your fear arsenal. As an example, the whirlpool trap in Keep on the Shadowfell was a terrifying experience for my PCs when two of them fell victim to it. For those who have never played KotS, a trap triggers a force wall and confines those stuck within to a 6×4 area as water rises to become a whirlpool. It thrashes the PCs against the walls, leaving them powerless to do much.

Luckily for my players, they figured out how to disable the whirlpool creating device. They looked relieved to have merely survived the encounter. It went beyond fear for their character’s lives – they were having a human reaction to the loss of control in a given situation, and they felt vulnerable and more importantly – fear had shaken their confidence.

Here’s one thing you need to be real careful about: integrating your players’ real life phobias. My fiancée, who is also a player at my table, has a real fear of spiders. Sure, I could build an encounter full of eight-legged foes and describe it to a “T”, hang Hallowe’en-style spiders over the table  and make her truly uncomfortable. Is that the point, though? I’d argue that making her squeamish using something that really terrifies her would wreck the illusion, and probably make it a gaming session she’d rather forget. It’s a fine line, I know. My advice: find the things your players fear, rather than things that make them uncomfortable.

How much does fear factor into your DM style? What methods have you used to instill fear in your players? Alternatively, can you share the instance where as a player you felt the most fear?

Visit the original post, Your Character’s Worst Fear, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Go to sleep (By CE Zacherl)

A set of guttural laughs punctuated the late night silence.  The stillness of the air was given a wafting cigar smoke addendum.  The swishing of rocks on glass added percussion to the laughter.  The shiny plate of Representative Arthur Bachman titled the setting of the late night meeting.

Jarred listened only half heartedly at first, still thinking of his last date with Kayla.  She was a convincing woman.  After all, she drove into his head that he should ‘keep his ears open’ while working late in the night.

So here Jarred was.  Stereotypical spy tales always showed the spy masquerading as this stereotypical job that Jarred enjoyed doing day in and day out.  The only awkwardness was that janitorial work was Jarred’s primary duty, and the spying was just something he was doing on the sly.

The voice from the office carried into the hallway.  “I was a little surprised.”

The other voice in the office responded.  “A director from the FDA?”

“Those guys are usually blinded, their heads are so far up your asses.”

“Well, this one wanted to get tossed away with no key to the gate.”

“The other Oathed Technocrats will owe us a favor if things keep going this way.”

“That would be unexpected, but it wouldn’t be turned away!”

Jarred perked up and nearly pushed on the mop so hard that it slid out of his grip.  He barely caught the edge of the wooden handle before it tumbled to the ground and drew the attention of the office residents.  Kayla would want to know about this.  Either the congressman or the one he is talking to are part of the Oathed Technocrats.

And after Jarred walked out of hearing range, Representative Bachman said to his associate, “The resistance has already started to do its part, they spliced that intranet.”  He audibly filled his lungs to capacity with the sweet cigar smoke.

Kayla and another young member of the resistance, Wendell, followed Jarred into the levels of the skyscraper that were off limits at this time of night.  Jarred’s key card let him in at all hours to do his cleaning duties, though usually his trips were solitary excursions.

The two followed Jarred’s cues, who knew the guards’ patrol patterns fairly well.  Jarred also knew the staff that tended to work into the night and when those people normally went home.

At two intersections, they waited for employees to pass out of sight, and one other Jarred was forced to improvise a distraction.  The three of them arrived at Representative Bachman’s office.

Fortunately for the crew, congressmen were so old school, they still used a lot of hand written devices to keep track of their work, including calendars.  Rifling through the Representative’s appointment book revealed the guest he met with the previous night: Mr. Gary Jones.

Evidence under Representative Bachman’s desk revealed more.  Unless there was some very kinky hanky panky, it was obvious that the two men were not alone, the night they met.

Even in this situation, the revelation took Jarred’s mind to places it shouldn’t go.  It was drawn back to reality by a low buzzing in his ear.

Apple spoke to them via small wifi receiver ear buds, “You’ve got adds! OAO.”

Kayla and Wendell looked to Jarred for clarification and he barely whispered, “Adds…  Incoming people.”

They heard whistling and heavy clacking footsteps of… business casual loafers, rather than combat boots.  Jarred ducked behind the desk while Wendell and Kayla went to opposite sides of the door.  Kayla flipped to the section of the appointment book for today and blanched.

Representative Arthur Bachman entered the office.  His whistling continued up until the moment that Kayla stepped in front of him, and right before he could speak, Wendell wrapped one big arm around his throat and put him in a head lock.

Kayla got close up to the face of Rep. Bachman.  “Well well.  You’ve come for your appointment.  How nice.  How about we refocus your meeting to a new topic tonight?”

Bachman was making a strange hacking sound, Wendell eased his arm back a bit.  It then became apparent, Bachman was laughing.

“Resistance members I assume?  Or are you some petty trans-humanist terrorists looking to further the greater human condition?”  He smiled and then wretched as Wendell tightened the head lock again.

Kayla launched into a deluge of questions as Wendell loosened his grasp and let go completely.  In an instant, a woman shimmered out of nothingness to Bachman’s left flank.  She was wearing a strange, reflective looking outfit, and she held a massive dirk.

The scene was too chaotic to focus on the magically appearing woman as Bachman took a step to her side and Wendell collapsed to the ground, the back of his head and shoulders sliding off in a different direction from the remainder of his body.  Blood was absent for almost a split second and then started to fill the doorway.

“Holy fuck!”  Kayla looked on in shock.  Jarred was frightened.

A super loud buzzing sound pierced both Jarred’s and Kayla’s ears.  It was Apple.  “GTFO!”

Jarred summoned all the strength he could muster.

“Looks like I’ll be asking the questi…” Bachman started but was interrupted by the office chair flying toward him from across the room.

The dirk carrying woman stepped in front of the congressman as the lights to the room went out.  Jarred thanked Apple for her quick cutting of the power.  He grabbed Kayla’s arm and they both leapt over the body of Wendell.  Their shoes were slick with blood.

The initial move down the hallway was a slide rather than a step.

Jarred turned one way and pointed the way towards the exit, “I’m supposed to be working tonight.  Head that way.”

Kayla nodded, still in shock.

Jarred just went round the corner and Kayla took her first steps towards the exit when one of the security guards stepped between her and freedom.

She did not have long to think and not long to react.  That was probably a boon, in her state of shock, adrenaline forced action.  Instinct was there and so was her training.

The man was bigger than her, not a monstrosity, but certainly large enough to be a security guard.  He reached out with his stunner as he saw her rounding the corner, but her hand was faster than his arm.  The stunner did go off into the far wall, but her pointed hand jabbed him in his unarmored throat.

As the guard leaned over, dropped the stunner, and grabbed his throat, Kayla’s knees cracked up into the man’s crotch.  He started to keel over and Kayla finished him off with a double elbow to the back.

Jarred breathed heavily and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his towel.  He pushed his cart out of the closet, and trying to look casual but he simply panicked from all the chaos going on.

“I would have liked to question one of them.  I suppose a post mortem is the best I’ll get tonight.”  Bachman pressed out the wrinkles in his suit.  “Give the specialists a call.  Oh and call that Detective who arrested the FDA director.  He might prove useful.”

Detective Tyrone Higgins entered the skyscrapers political chambers.  That’s strange.  There was a streak of blood headed in and out of the janitorial closet.

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Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 6 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

“Is she alone?” Her lips trembled a little, “Is she happy?” David closed his eyes and pretended to meditate for a few seconds. When he opened them it was with a small, reassuring smile.

“She was never alone. And she is very happy.”

David could sense the grieving couple’s relief as he walked them to the door of his office; a clean, soothingly colored room with a few candles interrupting otherwise spotless surfaces. What he had told them had been a lie, but it was a kind lie. They could remember this comfort long after their friends and family stopped awkwardly mentioning the little girl, thinking that the parents shouldn’t be reminded of their loss. As if they wouldn’t think about her every day, forever. It was a lie that was meant to ease their pain, and David was glad he had done it.

A soft tapping on the office door came a moment later, and David expected to see the parents again, coming back for something. Instead a young woman stood on his doorstep, and she looked nothing like his regular clients. Glossy, jet-black tresses cascaded down her back in an artful tousle. Huge, sparkling dark eyes, fringed by an improbable number of lashes, looked out from absolutely flawless mocha skin that shone with a soft radiance of vitality and beauty. A queer little smile played with the corners of her incredibly full, glossy lips giving her a look that was half amused, half insolent. She came to a height with David at almost six feet, and her build could have been featured in any number of magazines. She wore khaki cargo pants, a closely fitted burgundy sweater, and shearling boots. David simultaneously loved and hated the look of her. He furrowed his brow in an expression of suspicion,

“Yes?”

“Mr. Abraham? My name is Hope and I am here to ask you a few questions about Aiden.” David groaned internally, even as his skin began to feel prickly as a cold sheen of sweat sprang up in an instant. It had been years, but every now and then some up-start reporter, paparazzi freak, or psych student tracked him down, cornered him and asked him a bunch of horribly probing questions about his son’s disappearance. He hated this. Almost more than anything.

“I have nothing to say to you,” David said firmly, as he started to close the door. He could hear a ringing in his ears. He couldn’t go through this again. Not right now. Not after this morning’s session.

“What if I asked you if you would like him back?” Hope said almost nonchalantly, as if she had these sorts of conversations on a routine basis.

“What?” David hissed through the mostly closed door. “What did you say?” Hope smiled that insulting little smile.

“Do you want me to bring Aiden back? Maybe tomorrow? I could drop him off here at your office…”

“Young lady,” David said in his most condescending tone, regardless of the fact that she could not be more than 5 years his junior, “My son has been dead for seven years. This conversation is offensive and ridiculous. You are a liar, and you are not welcome here. Goodbye.” And he started to shut the door again. Hope stuck her foot in it.

“Oh, I am not a liar, Mr. Abraham. That is one thing I have never been. I know you don’t believe me, sir, so I have prepared a little demonstration for you. Watch the news tonight, at your usual time. After that, we can really talk.” And with that, Hope withdrew her foot, pivoted, and walked off quickly down the sidewalk.

#

A door was open in David’s mind, and he could not see what lay beyond it. He was dreaming: an agony that came to him in endless variations, where he was surrounded by the pieces of everything and everyone he loved and he could not find a way to make them stick together. But the door was new, and it didn’t belong. David started to walk towards it.

#

“…coming to you live from St. Lucy’s Hospital, where a six year old girl was found huddled on the floor in the hospital’s morgue.” David jerked awake. What time was it? Had he turned the TV on? The cheerful blond reporter continued in her best tone of shocked conspiracy, “We are getting a lot of conflicting information, but a moment ago we were able to speak with Stan and Kendra Pearson, who are claiming to be the little girl’s parents. They told us that their daughter, Jemma, was struck by a drunk driver on the sidewalk outside of their family’s suburban home yesterday morning. She was rushed to St. Lucy’s where she was declared dead on arrival.” The camera cut to a clip of a middle aged couple standing outside the hospital in the snow, ringed by a small group of reporters and cameras. David blinked a few times as recognition sank in. It was the couple he had met with that morning. “It’s a miracle!” The woman declared to the camera, with equal parts awe and ferocity, “We can’t wait to take Jemma home.” The blond reporter came back on as fresh snow started to soften the view. A few pedestrians walked back and forth on the sidewalk behind her. “We have been told that the little girl is being treated for shock but is otherwise healthy. The hospital has declined further comment at this time.” David felt a chill creep over him as he watched a tall woman with long black hair and shearling boots enter the shot. She looked right at the camera; no, right at David and the corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. David knocked a stack of papers and a coffee cup off the table in his haste to hit the power button.

#

A door was open in David’s mind, and he could see a cold light beyond it. As he stood in the dark he felt a little hand reach up and grab his own. David held on tightly.

#

A series of sharp knocks brought David to his feet. Morning light streamed through the blinds with golden-red intensity. David wiped a sleeve across his mouth and tried to smooth his rumpled clothing. He wasn’t a morning person. Groggy, he walked to the door, trying to piece together how to say something coherent.

The woman who stood on his doorstep wore an expression that would curdle milk. She had short, well groomed hair, business make-up and jewelry, and a crisp green suit under an immaculate wool trench coat. David felt like a slob standing next to her. “David Abraham?” She began. It wasn’t really a question, “I’m Kendra Pearson’s sister. I’m here to get her money back.”

“Um… What?” David knew it wasn’t the best response, but his brain was still half asleep. He needed coffee and a shower.

“Kendra Pearson’s money.” Each word was enunciated with condescending perfection. “I want it back.” Right, unhappy family member of a customer. David tried not to actually rub his eyes as he willed himself into the standard speech. “If Ms. Pearson is unhappy with the services rendered then she will need to submit…”

“Services rendered?” She cut David short. There was venom in the words. “Services Rendered?? Tell me, Mr. Abraham, how could you have rendered your services of communicating with Jemma’s spirit if the child wasn’t DEAD?” She was shouting now. David flinched. Bystanders were starting to stare. “You are a fraud and a predator. You took advantage of my sister’s grief, and you conned her. How can you live with yourself, you incredible jackass?” David knew the question was meant to be rhetorical, but he had to answer. He just had to.

“I was trying to help her! I wanted to help her feel better…”

“Oh, that’s rich.” She bristled, “The conman with a heart of gold. Tell me, does it give you an ego trip to manipulate people? Or do you just love how easy it is to get money out of the grieving?”

“That isn’t why I do it!” David could feel his anger rising. How dare she. How dare she say that to him. “It isn’t about me and it isn’t about money! It was never about me!”

“Fuck you.” She turned and started briskly down the steps, “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” He watched her go, shivering. Bystanders quickly resumed walking, and none of them looked at David.

#

A door was open in David’s mind, and the world around him seemed fleeting and unimportant. Hope’s full, silky voice came to him through the cold. He turned to see her standing a few feet away, snowflakes in her long, black hair.

“Why don’t I come inside and we can get started?”

David stood in the open doorway, in the cold morning light.

“You brought that little girl back, didn’t you?” He felt like an idiot for asking, but he wasn’t sure if he was an idiot for thinking the answer should be “No” or that it would be “Yes.”

“Of course, Mr. Abraham. It’s what her mother wanted.” Hope smiled at him again. It didn’t warm him.

“You told me that you never lie.”

“I can’t,” Hope replied conversationally, “But most people spend too much time asking me questions.”

“I have two more.” David could feel his nose start to sting and his throat constrict. The winter scene began to blur as he choked out “Is he alone? Is he happy?” Hope’s smile vanished. She replied carefully, reluctantly.

“He was never alone. And he is very happy.”

“Then that is all I could ask for.” David replied. He firmly shut the door.

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As Sunny learns about her magical powers and the Leopard People, she is accompanied by three others—Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha—who are all close to her in age and also Leopard People. Although the other three teenagers have been aware of their magical nature for much longer than Sunny, the four characters all learn about the magical world even as Sunny is receiving her first exposure to things that the others already know. Despite their experience in the world of the Leopard People, the other teenagers and Sunny are sent on several tasks that none of them have done before, and they get to attend a large festival that is a new experience for them all. Ultimately, the elders of the Leopard People give the group a mission, which they believe that only these four teenagers can accomplish.

While Okorafor’s fantasy world is very much rooted in the real world, many readers will be unfamiliar with the Nigerian setting. Okorafor does a wonderful job of describing Nigeria and the world of the Leopard People to keep her readers from being confused. This sometimes takes the form of the more experienced characters explaining things to Sunny, and other times these things are simply mentioned almost as an aside. All of her characters are nuanced and feel like a person you could really meet and interact with. The four teenagers, in particular, seem like very realistic depictions of four different people with varied backgrounds coming together as friends.

My only complaint about Akata Witch is that the pacing felt off to me. There is quite a bit of self-discovery necessary for Sunny as she learns about her magical abilities and the world of the Leopard People. This comes with plenty of conflict, but I was very surprised when I realized I had only about fifty pages left in the book, and the group had not yet embarked on their mission. I half expected that the main conflict would not be included in this book, and saved for a sequel instead. Without giving away too much, I can say that the conflict does come, and then is dispatched rapidly—perhaps more rapidly than I would have liked to see it handled. I felt as though the conflict should have come earlier, or at least taken more time for the teenagers to deal with it.

Akata Witch has won several awards already, and is currently a nominee for the Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, as a part of the 2011 Nebula awards nominees. Nnedi Okorafor’s website can be found at http://nnedi.com/.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

People use the tunnels to avoid the winter snows.

Running under the Ouroboros University are tunnels, and at least one tunnel touches every building on the campus. Naturally, they have their own story…

What People Know

Characters learn more about the system of tunnels with the right skill checks. Appropriate skills include Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (local).

DC 14: A system of tunnels runs under Ouroboros University and at least one tunnel touches every building on the campus. Most of the tunnels are clean and well lit, with “You Are Here” maps at junctions.

DC 14: Local Winters are brutal and the summers punishing – people employ the tunnels to move around the campus because they are dry and remain at a fixed temperature.

DC 14: Smoking of “the tobacco” is illegal on campus but goes on in the tunnels.

DC 14: A popular rumor states the tunnels spells out a dire message or possible a rune of terrible power.

DC 16: The exceptions to cleanliness and well-lit areas are dead ends, stacked with files, records and similar documents that smell moldy. Walls here are often home to graffiti.

DC 16: Students enter the tunnels to study, as the network offers places to do so in relative peace… assuming they are not too close to the Financial Aid Office or William Laud.

DC 16: Some tunnels date to the time of the first chapel, an older version of the city destroyed by a war the nation narrowly won.

DC 18: There are three or four “chambers of tragedy” in the tunnels, rooms dating to the old city during a war. Here survivors waited for inevitable death and carved final messages into the walls.

DC 18: Some tunnels come from an aborted plan to extend the city’s sewer system. The area created did not tie into the existing sewers.

DC 18: As many dead ends and cul-de-sacs are stacked high with publications from professors, papers from graduate students and similar documents, people say the tunnels are still full of crap.

DC 20: The tunnels do not spell out anything in particular.(1)

DC 20: At select points, locked iron doors lead from the tunnels to the actual sewer system, “private” tunnels for neighboring houses and the Necropolis.

DC 20: Among the final messages in “chambers of tragedy” are last letters between lovers, from parents to children and children to parents and so forth. Some of these messages reference the “parene utre.”

DC 22: The tunnels are among the few places where a meeting away from the watchful eyes of the owls is possible.

Neighborhoods

Tunnels passing under a particular college possess the tone of that college. The tunnels under the theater are home to racks of costumes, make-up stands (in use during a performance on one of the stages above), cabinets of props and masks and so forth. Passages under the seminary are whitewashed, stylized images of particular saints and angels adorn the walls, prayer mats are neatly stacked in corners and holy symbols adorn each door lintel. Even if the “You are Here Signs” and switched about or gone, ample clues show under which college a tunnel passes (Perception DC 14 to pick section of university, Perception DC 20 pick the specific tunnel).

Iron gates stand between the seminary, theater, wizard’s college, fighter’s school and general trade school sections of tunnels. The gates are usually open. Even if closed, and locked, they do not strand anyone in the tunnels, given the access to the buildings.

Encounter Tables

Roll a d20 and consult the below table when the party spends an hour in the tunnels to determine a random encounter;

1. Students rooting through records.
2. Students studying.
3. Students (or faculty or staff members) smoking.
4. Maintenance staff fix leaks, plaster the walls, removing or place stacks of files and paint over graffiti.
5. Animate puppets doing battle when they think no one is looking.
6. Students from the fighter’s school battle with soft wooden weapons.
7. Children are playing games of hide and seek in the tunnels.
8. Someone has closed and locked the gates and changed the location of the “You Are Here” signs.
9. During rushing, for entry into a fraternity or sorority, students are sent naked the tunnels.
10. The corpse of a murder victim in an otherwise well patrolled a lit area.
11. People having sex.
12. Someone trying to set fire to a sack of records and books.
13. An imp rooting through paperwork for a contract that bound its master to service and which has since been lost.
14. Several (1d4) fire creatures of some type free basing on ice cubes.
15. People tagging the walls with graffiti.
16. Books flying and flapping around like bats caught indoors.
17. Indigents seeks shelter from extreme weather.
18. A befuddled professor who has lost track of their entire class.
19. An apparently mentally ill person who says they are “looking for a door.”
20. An apparently mentally ill person who says they are “looking for the well.”

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Sure, we in North America just “sprung forward”, but I experienced something in my last D&D session that turned the clocks back years.

When an old friend and former D&D player started making noise about possibly joining our D&D session at the end of March, I was feeling pretty smug about the surprise we would spring on my group. Turns out the joke was on me, as he was simply laying the groundwork to show up on my birthday, ready to play with my regular Monday group.

I asked him to relay his experience for this blog. Also, I asked one my new D&D players to write about the events of that night, from his perspective.

Denis Gagnon, Halfling Monk-For-A-Night “Krigg Hicklestone”, Veteran D&D Player:

Several years ago I had the opportunity to start playing D&D again with a group of mature players, all of whom were 10 to 15 years my senior. I had given some thought to being the DM but was always reluctant, so when 4E came along it seemed like the right time to take the leap. To keep things simple I ran the first three pre-packaged campaigns and it went well. I struggled as a DM with the complexity, but I didn’t know any different. Once those campaigns were done I opted to be a player again. One of the veteran DMs, who was a player all through the three campaigns I ran, took the reigns and purchased a nice new adventure. It only took a few months before he lost patience with 4E and we switched over to Pathfinder. I played for a little while longer, but then last year I decided to take a break and I haven’t gone back.

Shortly after I quit playing, my high school friend (Théo, who lives 740 km away from me) decided to jump back into the world of D&D and started asking me for input and advice. I provided everything I could, including Keep On The Shadowfell to help him and the group ease into the world he was beginning to create. He proceeded to round up a group of players and the adventures began. I would get regular updates from him and one of the other players (another high school friend from the old group) on how things were progressing with the story as well as all the comic relief and interactions between the players. At this point I was getting a little jealous because my old group didn’t appear to have the same connection and level of interesting activities when I was a DM or a player. They frequently mentioned that I should participate in one of their sessions and my desire matched their willingness to have me join.

I kept looking ahead on the calendar to see when I could fit a 1500km round trip into my personal life. Finally, everything lined up and it just happened to coincide with Théo’s birthday. Letting the birthday boy know I was coming didn’t seem nearly as fun as making it a surprise. I told him I would be coming two weeks later which gave us reason to chat about creating my character and integrating with the rest of the group. I in turn worked with his fiancée (also one of the PC’s) to be at the house on his birthday and surprise him. The plan worked out spectacularly and was a huge success!

The highlight for me was after the surprise. Having the opportunity to meet the group, make one new friend (Rémi) and participate in an evening of D&D the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since high school. It dawned on me that my old group simply went from encounter to encounter systematically, using all the mechanical aspects of the game to move the story forward without using any elements of emotion and imagination that make a true D&D session come to life. For three too-brief hours I got to be a stoic monk helping a band of adventurers, one of whom was a halfling rogue who didn’t have the attention span required to appreciate my eloquent speeches (he would start whistling to himself after I’d say a few sentences – a brilliant and hilarious bit of roleplay).

It was an outstanding evening that I will not soon forget. Consequently, I am insanely jealous of the entire group, who have the spirit and sense of humour to make a great game incredible. All of the characters have come to life and leap off the pages of the table top encounters with wild gestures and reenactments – this is role playing at its very finest. I only hope now that I have the opportunity to return in the future to experience another three hours (or more) of the best game in town.

Rémi Savard, Regular Monday Halfling Rogue “Dolen Reevebed”

Playing D&D  requires many things (as in any other game), amongst which are imagination and suspension of disbelief. But above all else, I think, comes chemistry. When this group first got together in the Fall of 2011, it took us time as a group to develop that sense of belonging, of fitting together, but once we got the ball rolling there was no stopping us.
The fights got more organic as the mechanics became more familiar to everyone, the roleplay involved more interactions between player characters as we (and they) got to know each other better – this was D&D to a T.

Allow me a side-story. My wife makes a killer shepherd’s pie. At its core, it’s not the most elaborate meal – four, maybe five ingredients – but it’s good. I like it, anyway.
One day, being the adventurous cook that she is, she had the brilliant idea of introducing one, only ONE new element to it: curry powder.
At first, I didn’t quite recognize the smell emanating from the oven. “Shepherd’s pie”, she said. But it couldn’t be, could it? And I looked at it, and hell, it looked like a shepherd’s pie. It tasted like Shepherd’s pie. And yet… something was off.

That’s exactly what happened when, one night, a new player was introduced to the gaming session. I had never met the guy before. “Well,” I thought, “that’s gonna be different.” And it was.
Right off the bat, some fears form in the usual player’s brain, taking the shape of questions: How does he play? What character does he like to roleplay as? Will he fit in? Will he be a spotlight hogger?
And, I think, the most important one: How long will it take for us to learn to play TOGETHER, as this new entity, this new D&D – Modified Shepherd’s Pie Edition (look for it on the shelves soon!)?

Short answer to that last one: fast.

Aside from an unlikely lack of insight by our DM in adding a real jerk to the table, chances were we were going to get along (we’re good people). He was not a jerk; a real nice guy.
Once that new ingredient’s introduction had bid its time, once recovered from the Freudian Uncanny, it was “Game on, Baby!”. We quickly got to learn to work as a group again – faster than I thought we would.

Now that it’s behind us, I know for a fact that I’ll miss the player (and the character). Already, a chemistry was brewing. I’m also wondering if the next session will be clouded by a sense of « withdrawal », haunted by the ghost of this player’s short but impactful presence. It turned out very well, a lot of fun, really, and it could become some kind of handicap, perhaps.

I learned to love the Wife’s Shepherd’s Pie 2.0. This game night I loved right away.

Thank you, D&D curry powder, thank you.

From my perspective, it was one of the best birthday surprises I’ve ever received. On a personal level, I got to see an old friend who is dearly missed. On the gaming side, bringing in a guest star for a session really energized the group. How have your experiences with guest players gone? Do you think they add or hinder the playing experience?

Visit the original post, Time-Shifting: A Revenant Crashes My Birthday D&D Session, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Detective Tyrone Higgins, (Art by: C.E. Zacherl)

Of course, he didn’t feel his age.  Pharmaceutical technology brought the treatments.  They brought his body to a feeling of youth that people 50 years before could have only dreamed of.  Internally, he was youthful as well, but there were triggers in the brain that aged and could never be turned back.  He therefore, thought about subjects like a 70 year old and had the opinions similar to that of a 70 year old.

“Theresa, what are we dealing with here?”  Detective Tyrone Higgins as he stepped up from the hover car gingerly onto a support beam that was covered in cables and wires.

“One of the only possible junctions for the Oathed Technocratic intranet and the rest of cyberspace is here, Tyrone.  Whoever did this paid a large sum of money or made a friend with very sensitive information.”  Theresa spoke from the device on Tyrone’s arm.

“Theresa, thank you.  Now give me a minute to look around.”  Detective Higgins travelled a short distance down the support beam to the splicing box.  “We need to get a maintenance team here immediately, the damage has been done, but there’s no reason to leave this splicer here.”

As the hover car pulled away from the skies around the IT support beam, Tyrone watched replays from the holo projector on his gauntlet.

Theresa interrupted the broadcasts of the chase scene from two days ago.  A male voice came across the vocalizer on the gauntlet, “Doc Higgins.  A couple of my boys got somebod’ mi’ have sumfin to do wit your crime.”

As he walked along the ground level street outside of downtown, the condos all featured peering eyes through the blinds.  As he turned to gaze at each directly, the blinds quickly shut as if the houses themselves were blinking.

His destination was an alleyway between a condo building and a closed department store.  The wall was sprayed, as if carelessly with red spray paint.  The bits of teeth on the ground by the wall said a different story about the spray paint.

Tyrone’s eyes were drawn to the beat cops with extended batons and their victim, a youthful looking miscreant.  The miscreant was bruised and battered, evidenced that the ‘spray paint’ and teeth were his.

“I told your sergeant I wanted him in one piece!  I’ve got questions for him.  Fuckers.”  Tyrone said clearly and deliberately.

The two cops backed off and retracted their batons.  They moved back as if to leave the alley as the Detective passed them.

I’m not letting you boys get off that easy.  Tyrone put a hand on the tougher ones shoulder, “Take off your jacket.”  We’re supposed to be defenders of the peace, not brutal thugs.

The two cops exchanged glances, but they did not argue.

A few moments later, they left the detective and the miscreant in the alley, one complaining to the other about being shirtless.

Detective Tyrone Higgins shook his head and tossed the white under shirt over to the miscreant.  “You can use that to clot the bleeding.  It shouldn’t be too sweaty, from the complaints, I think I just ruined what is a very long shift to come for that pair.”

“Thanks.”  The brown spiky haired boy with the bloody mouth and the don’t beat me mum look responded.

Tyrone learned that his name was Mark and after chumming up to the boy a bit, learned that he was fairly liberal and hardly a street urchin.

Fortunately, the two beat cops already performed a pretty strong bad cop routine.  Tyrone’s good cop routine was so practiced, so pristine, it was like a shiny, new hover car.

Detective Higgins slipped the impressionable Mark a card and turned to leave the alley, going his merry way.

“Young and naïve boys will someday grow to be men, but not today.” Tyrone said as he lifted his gauntleted arm and allowed his VI to launch a drone the size of a fly.

Tyrone entered the local branch office of the Food and Drug Administration the next morning, after a long night of sleuthing.  He was followed by two uniformed police officers.

The local director was quite shocked when the three of them barged in on his meeting.  The others were promptly dismissed, but not without a great level of annoyance registering on the director’s face.

“You better have a damn good reason for busting in here like this.”  Bio enhancement and cyber modification fell under FDA jurisdiction and made the agency and especially its directors, quite bold.   The fact of the matter is that the FDA of 2049, and its directors, formed one of the most powerful agencies of the federal government.

“You’d better believe I’ve got a good reason.  Reason to believe that you are involved in anti-government terrorist activities.  I’ve got every right to lock you up, call in the military, and throw you into a deep and very dark hole.”  Tyrone smiled smugly.

The director quickly asked for an explanation as the cops escorting Tyrone flanked the director and cuffed him.

Tyrone gladly replied and started describing his previous day’s activities.  “Mark acted exactly as I expected, going right to a friend that would help the detective, that’d be me, uncover another bit of the mystery.

“The best news that I got out of the surveillance was that Mark’s friend, Ingrid, is a junky.  Not just that, but also the type of dope she was craving.

“Just brought her a bit of what she needed and the information flowed like the toys used to flow out of the brick and mortar stores at Christmas time.

“That is what brings me to your door.  Your screen name is the name used as the source on the inside providing this rogue cell with data.”  Tyrone nodded with the satisfaction of solving another crime.

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Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 5 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

They were through the shield. The grav thrusters on Alys’ shoulders thrummed with their cold fusion, propelling her toward the hulk. They were approaching the home worldship of the Kradeth, entities of immense power, tentacled and strange, from beyond the edge of dark space.

The worldship was larger than Mercury. It was all towers, prehensile tubing and green, glowing light. To Alys’ right, Lt. Scott Allen studied his RX-93 Rail Rifle as he flew forward, the thrusters creating a white shimmer behind him. To her left were Lt. Douglas Branton and Ens. Rachel Dillinger, the two newest members of Team Seven. With the gold plating of their face shields, it was impossible to make out their expressions.

In the distance, she could see teams Two through Six, all advancing on the hulk as well. Team One had been lost before they even passed through the shield, having failed to activate the frequency of their suits in time, evaporating on the shield’s surface. They left nearly invisible blips on the Kradeth shield relay.

Mankind had been at war with the Kradeth for 150 years with no end in sight. The aliens controlled the Jovian planets, and as a result, the uranium and antimony needed for the construction of the fleets. Four years ago the Kradeth had, in a stunning and calculated attack, conquered Earth and refugees fled to the unclaimed moon.

Thus humanity looked down on their broken planet, unable to do anything as the Kradeth stripped it bare of all life and minerals.

Now they had their chance to lay a killing blow to the Kradeth.

“Okay, let’s advance,” said Capt. Kendall, the commanding officer of the mission. The units surged forward, activating their chamelex fields. As Alys did, she shimmered, the armor’s outline fading into nothing, followed by the rest of her. A slight flicker surrounded her invisible shape. From this point on, they would be imperceptible to one another, relying on the voices in their ear buds.

Descending through the angled towers, they passed row after row of enemy starfighters, couriers, and even a few larger transports. They surged, deeper and deeper into the worldship, the energy readings increasing dramatically. Kendall’s voice chimed in her ear. “This is the spot.”

Alys reoriented her thrusters, settling down on a solid surface. Her magboots latched her tight to the hull of the ship. She looked up and saw the strange towers, metallic pillars and floating tubing that made up the immense structure. The strange angles made her head hurt. Lines intersected with parallel lines in ways that seemed impossible. She began to feel ill and had to look away.

Alys began to carve an opening in the hull with her wrist-mounted fusion torch. Looking around, she saw cutting torches creating their own holes all around her. She finished the cut, detached her magboots from the disc, and pulled herself into the hole.

Inside, she found gravity in effect, and twisted her body to reorient herself to the ground. Her grav thrusters shut off, and she dropped heavily to the deck. “Team Seven, report,” she said sharply. The reply crackled in her ear. “Allen, aye.” “Branton, aye.” “Dillinger, aye.”

“Form up in the forward passageway.” She stepped into the passageway and she deactivated the chamelex field. Around her, Dillinger, Allen and Branton appeared. Alys pulled up the gold shield from her face mask.

The passageway was dim. Amber light cast a strange glow over the floor and walls. The surfaces were sharp angled lines, forcing the team to lean slightly to the left in order to feel at ease.

Branton raised his lantern and turned it on, shining bright and white over everything.

The attack came quickly.

The Kradeths’ multiple arms clung to the strange angles of the walls and floor. Shambling forward, they looked like massive octopuses with a dozen arms and a sinister sentience in their eyes. Their tentacles were clad with metallic green rings covered in strange runes.

Alys raised her rail rifle, firing at the closest. The creature moved fast as lighting, whipping its tentacles around and deflecting the rounds with its arm rings. It turned carelessly from her to Dillinger.

Dillinger panicked, firing wildly. Alys’s headset squealed as the young ensign shouted. Dillinger was focused on the Kradeth in front of her as one of the aliens slid up behind her, snatching the weapon from her hand. She turned, relying on years of battle training, unsheathing a knife. The creature’s arms grabbed her, pinning her and rapidly detaching pieces of armor as one would shuck a clam.

Alys ran toward one of the aliens, unloading rounds into its body, leaving a mess of flesh and membrane.

Allen’s weapon was almost immediately knocked from his hands. He drew his phase sword, a thin beam of steel and super-charged plasma. The first two Kradeth who approached him lost limbs, but he was overwhelmed as creatures engulfed him.

Bratton brought his weapon to bear, burrowing rail rounds in the head of the Kradeth attacking Dillinger. One of the aliens raised a tentacle, a large metal device held at the end of it. The device lit up, blasting a beam of green energy into Bratton’s chest.

Alys ran.

Inside the Kradeth spacecraft, the strangely angled walls forced her to duck in places, jump in others. She ran full tilt down passageway after passageway. She breathed heavily, the sickly sweet artificial air from her suit quickly flowing back and forth across her tongue.

“StatCom, StatCom, this is Alys Campbell, Team Seven. Come in!” she barked into her headset.

“This is StatCom, Lt. Commander, go ahead…” the voice of Lt. Cameron, the station communications officer, crackled in response.

“We were set up!” Alys shouted back, ducking around a passageway. “They knew we were coming. The squids knew it!” She found herself at a dead end. She desperately looked for a hiding spot. Steel grating covered the floor in strange, non-Euclidian patterns. Her warsuit was too large to fit below.

“Slow down, ma’am,” Cameron replied. “Can you repeat that? We’ve heard no response from any other team. You’re the only com we’ve gotten.”

“If you haven’t heard from anyone, then everyone else is dead!” She began to hyperventilate.

“Ma’am… Campbell… Alys!” Lt. Cameron shouted. “I need you to relax… Hit your seds.” She pressed a series of yellow lights on the arm of her suit. Powerful sedatives flowed through the intravenous tubes attached to her arms and neck within the suit. Her breathing slowed.

“Campbell, you need to keep moving.” Alys snapped out of her reverie. “Staying where you are is doing no good,” Cameron said.

“Where am I supposed to go?” she asked. The sweet smell of the artificial air in her suit was overpowering.

“Check your LPS,” Cameron replied. “Just keep moving.”

She stepped out into the passageway, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible despite her warsuit.

“What’s the situation topside?” she asked the StatCom. She checked her Location Positioning System, indicating where she needed to go. She was drawing closer to the power source.

“The entire fleet is throwing itself at the shields, distracting the squids,” Cameron said.

“I hope they can keep the Kradeth busy…” she said. She switched off the com to focus on the task at hand.

She walked for hours, ducking into corners when need be to avoid the aliens’ baleful gazes, trying to stay one step ahead of the Kradeth hunting for her.

The silence inside her suit was palpable. She finally spoke up to break the stillness in her head.

“Do you have family, Cameron?” she asked.

“I do,” he replied. “Well… I did. The Breaking of Ganymede killed all the colonists there. I was out on deployment at the time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine… The war will be over soon. Where are you?”

“Close to the core…” Alys replied, checking her LPS. “Whatever it is, it’s immense. Coordinates x5236.3, y913.1, z38032.7. I’m…”

She could hear a clatter behind her. Spinning, she saw two forms moving in the shadows. They stepped into the light: Two heavily armored Kradeth, covered in their strange, greenish-black metal. Flayers. They lived up to their name. Their barbed tentacles whipped through the air.

“No time to talk, Lt.,” she shouted. She sprinted down the passageway turning corner after corner, trying to lose the Flayers. She was close, she could feel it. While her run was aided by an augmented exoskeleton, the strain on her muscles was excruciating. She drank in the artificial air in deep breaths.

She turned a corner, and abruptly stopped.

“My god…” she whispered. She stood on a platform halfway up the chamber. The compartment was immense and perfectly round. Alys wondered how an alien race that only used non-Euclidian angles could create a room so beautiful, so round. In the center, a thousand meters in diameter, was a glowing orb of energy. She could feel the tug of its gravitation pulling on her.

“What is it, Alys?” Cameron asked.

“They’ve constructed an artificial sun in here, Cameron,” she said in awe, walking slowly along the outer ring platform. “They’re able to draw off of the complete power of the sun by containing it within the hold.”

Tentacled ships, some the size of asteroids, floated about the chamber, siphoning off energy, drawing the power in long beams of light.

“This close to the source, you should be ash,” Cameron said.

Alys saw a nearby control panel, almost unrecognizable with its alien glyphs and letters. She approached it. “It appears to be shielded with a field like those used on the ships.” She looked around the chamber for a way to destroy the power source. “Where’s that backup you promised me?”

There was a long pause.

“There is no backup.”

Alys hesitated. “What?”

She could hear Cameron sigh on the other end. “There is a faction of members within the Artemis Alliance military who have come to realize the truth.”

“What truth?” Alys demanded.

“This war will never end; so long as we continue to fight.”

Panic welled within her. Her pace quickened. “No… no!”

“We sent the best of the best on this mission; you and the others. We warned the Kradeth you were coming. With the death of our elite, the rest of the Alliance will understand: The only way to peace is surrender.”

“You piece of shit,” Aly muttered. “What have you done?!”

Cameron sighed in her ear.“You were, I’m afraid, a necessary sacrifice.”

“But… why?” Alys shouted. “You would betray all of humanity?”

“If we fight, we die. If we surrender, we live. It’s an equation, plain and simple, Alys.”

The walls throughout the chamber slid aside as dozens of Kradethi Flayers slunk into the room, surrounding her.

“Seven generations of humanity have been raised, knowing nothing but endless warfare. My brothers died in the Breaking of Ganymede. My parents died. My wife and child died. No more.”

Alys raised her rifle as the aliens advanced. There were too many of them.

It didn’t matter. She knew what she had to do. She fired her thrusters, hurling herself over the top of a group of Kradeth. She drew her phase sword from its sheath on her arm.

Halfway through the air, she swung the blade and fired a short burst from her rail rifle. As she landed heavily on the other side of them, two Flayers crashed to the ground. One’s head was split open, the other riddled with holes from the high-powered gun. She spun, swinging her sword and firing her rifle. Bodies began to pile around her.

The Kradeth climbed over the bodies of their fallen comrades, seemingly oblivious to the death. Her weapons were knocked away as the tentacle beings began to envelop her, to restrain her.

She was standing near a magnahook, one of few that kept the sun contained. Her hand fought free and went to her wrist, where she dialed up the output on the nuclear cold fusion generator that powered her suit, her hand hovering over the release button. With one light press of the button, her suit would detonate, rupturing the magnahook. She hoped it would cause a chain reaction, destabilizing the dyson sphere and destroying the worldship. Her death could save humanity. A necessary sacrifice.

“Better to die standing than live kneeling.” She pressed the button.

#

Cameron’s head dropped, as the readouts on the destruction of the worldship began pouring across his viewscreens. He slowly removed his headset.

“Cameron,” he heard a voice behind him say. “The admiral wants to see you.” He could feel his heart begin racing, blood pounding in his ears. His hands and legs shook as he stood. Station Command was filled with somber faces, all looking at him. He tried to avoid eye contact as he made his way over to the doors to the admiral’s cabin.

The door slid aside as he walked in.

“We’ve failed, Cameron,” said the gray-haired man in dress whites sitting behind the desk. He looked exhausted. “More importantly, you’ve failed.” Cameron opened his mouth to talk, but the admiral raised his hand to stop him.

“The war will continue. This attack weakened the Kradeth to be sure, but many, many more will die.” He stood up from his seat, approaching Cameron. “We can’t let word of our alliance with the Kradeth get out. We need…” he drew a pistol from his jacket. “Someone has to take the fall.” He pointed the pistol at Cameron’s head. Cameron dropped to his knees.

“Please! No!” he shouted, beginning to sob.

“Computer,” the admiral said, “take a note. On the 24th day of December, 2370, Lt. Cameron was summarily executed for consorting with the enemy and betraying mankind.” Cameron looked into the eyes of the admiral.

He looked down at himself, kneeling before the admiral. He remembered Alys Campbell’s last words: “Better to die standing than live kneeling.” He tried to rise to his feet, to die standing. His foot caught underneath him.

The pistol shot rang out, echoing through the cabin.

Visit the original post, Necessary Sacrifice, by Mark Meredith, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

The Ruins of Noe, by Danika Dinsmore

In The Ruins of Noe, the sequel to her debut novel Brigitta of the White Forest, Danika Dinsmore outdoes herself in the crafting of this new book. All of the elements that made Brigitta wonderful continue on in this book. It is still just as magical and engaging as the first book, exploring the trials and struggles of the now adolescent protagonist. But the book also distinguishes itself from its predecessor with a darker tone and more mature themes that keep pace with Brigitta’s growth into adulthood.

The fairies of the White Forest rely on the intervention of the Ethereals, the invisible Ancients who help keep the elements in balance in the sheltered realm of the forest. But when the spirit of a dead Elder does not move on and a child is born without a destiny, the Elders who rule the forest realize that something has gone wrong. The Ethereals no longer intervene in their lives, and may not be able to protect the Forest.

High Priestess Ondelle decides to return to the ruined city of Noe, which was the home of the fairies until an apocalyptic event forced them to flee and take shelter in the White Forest. With her she takes Brigitta, who some believe to be the prophesied fairy who will help make things right. In Noe, many illusions the fairies had about the past are shattered. Fairies had been left behind in the flight to the White Forest and their survivors had built up two feuding kingdoms ruled by cruel tyrants.  Brigitta is soon alone and friendless in a strange world that would rather have her dead, forced to find a way to solve her problems alone.

As mentioned before, this turned out to be a darker tale than the first book in the series. In Brigitta of the White Forest, there were tense moments but Brigitta was able to solve problems in the end, so that life was returned to mostly normal in the White Forest. In The Ruins of Noe, awful things happen to some characters and are not fixed. By the end of the book many problems remain unfixed. While some of this is to leave room for future sequels, the tone of the book at the end is that there may not be solutions. And while the first book was about learning self-reliance and taking a step towards adulthood, the second book was about having to take on tasks before you’re ready and growing up fast.

In that manner this book also approaches an older audience than its predecessor. Brigitta of the White Forest had a very strong Middle Reader energy, where the story depended on making friends and solving problems. The Ruins of Noe begins to push outside of that towards “young adult” or “teen fiction.” The story has less obvious solutions, hints at a world more complex than previously realized, and begins hinting at a romantic storyline that will see more attention in later books.

I loved this book, despite the anxiety it induced as I worried about the fate of the characters. For young readers who have grown older since Dinsmore’s first book came out, this could be an excellent stepping stone as their tastes and maturity grow.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: The Ruins of Noe by Danika Dinsmore, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Blade Runner (courtesy of kk.org)

When I started to prepare for this story series, I was just getting my feet wet with twitter.  So, I decided, in order to promote The Trivium Proportion in an interesting way, I would reveal tidbits of the history.  I did this a single tweet at a time, one per day, for about a month before the first story was released.  Since, at the time, no one would have actually known what the posts were about, and I had very few twitter followers, the tweets were slightly useless.

Now that there are some people actually interested in the story, I thought I would provide the posts here for your pleasure.

Here are the posts, in order of release (more or less in their twitterized form):

December 21 2012 Apocalypse parties interrupted by announcement of medical breakthrough #2012 #fiction #shortstory #triviumproportion

Jun2013 Congress,Key Military and Intelligence personnel are treated with the new mech tech #biotech #fiction #shortstory #triviumproportion

Nov2014 Product Launch: Virta-Goggs@ by Walls-Wells Corp j-i-t for the holidays #virtualreality #shortstory #triviumproportion

Aug2015 #Riots #Protests breakout over med tech distribution #NDAA is used to #arrest #UScitizens for the first time #triviumproportion

Apr2018 India-Pakistani War begins.  Peace keeping forces, special forces deploy in both countries to secure WMD sites #triviumproportion

May2018 India-Pakistani War ends in catastrophe when commanders panic and utilize #WMD before they are captured #triviumproportion

Jun2018 #stockmarket plunges on fears of global #war and Walls-Wells Corp becomes the strongest stock to avoid the crisis #triviumproportion

Jan2019 Interview with Fred Walls, #CEO of newly split Walls Corp, the #richest man in the world. “#future of life is #virtual” #triviumproportion

Aug2022 #GMO crops create super #weed that takes over the farm lands, #congress acts too slowly to prevent #catastrophe #triviumproportion

Jul2022 Rural areas evacuated as the new weed grows rapidly out of control.  #Starvation and #riots take US by storm #triviumproportion

Jan2037 #Politics US Congress is dubbed the dynasty congress by popular media as the power stays within same hands #triviumproportion

2042 #urban #population equals nearly 100% of US total population, Harrisonburg, VA new #metropolis #fiction #shortstory #triviumproportion

Dec2048 no new incumbents enter #congress, new #cyberspace control #legislation passes, blockades form #virtual #fiction #triviumproportion

You could even do the project and myself a huge favor by tweeting these silly lines yourself.  A couple of them go just slightly over the character limit, but I’m sure you can modify that accordingly.

I’d love to hear more comments from people with substance on what they really like or don’t like.  The story is planned through to conclusion, and as of now, Part 9 is just entering the editing phase.  Some elements could still be modified going forward from that based on your input!

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion: Developer Diary One, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Champagne Toast on the yacht (courtesy of flickr)

Now announcing, The Trivium Proportion!

Seth Rogan has already agreed to play Jarred Dobson.  Charlize Theron will hopefully be signing on to play the venerable Kayla Summers.  Finally, Zooey Deschanel may be the perfect choice for Apple Edelman.

It won’t be on the big screen, but getting the story onto television with such an all-star cast is such an amazing accomplishment.  David Phillips said, “My luck in such a short time just amazes me.  Here’s to a future of exciting possibilities.”  He said this as he raised a glass of champagne on his newly purchased yacht from the seven figures he was given for the initial contract.

The illustrator for the series, C.E. Zacherl, was overheard excitedly mentioning that he, “could now support his long desired methamphetamine habit.” When approached, he refused to confirm this comment.

One big fan, Tony Young, says, “I can’t wait to see Kayla come alive on the big screen!”

Look forward to more news coming soon on this exciting achievement.

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, The TV Show, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Detective Robert Crawley made his way through the streets of Manhattan carefully picking his way over and around a variety of debris. The day before had been the Fourth and it would be some time before the detritus of the celebrations was cleared from the street.

In due course he arrived at the Precinct house where he was in charge of the smallest section of the force. Officially, they were the known as the Department of Occult Occurrences but were more commonly referred to as the Magic Section. Crawley had been given the appointment six months earlier as criminal acts concerning the use of magic had become more common. His expertise, such as it was, came from a paper he had written whilst attending Princeton some years earlier. In the last six months that knowledge had expanded tenfold.

Entering the building he was stopped by the Desk Sergeant a man named Greer. “O’Malley wants you in interrogation room six.” Crawley nodded his thanks and headed that way. He entered the interrogation room to find the questioning was well in progress. The suspect was slumped in his chair his face puffy and a trickle of blood escaping from one nostril. Detective Sergeant O’Malley had removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves, his knuckles were red from his endeavors. He straightened up as Crawley entered, nodded and limped towards his jacket which hung on a peg. O’Malley, the second and final member of the section, was a short, red headed Irishman with a notorious temper. He had been hit by a musket ball the year before and invalided out of the Union Army. He knew he was fortunate to have kept the leg but was in almost constant pain from his wound and this did little to ease his temper. He withdrew a thin cigar from his jacket pocket while Crawley sized up the prisoner.

He was well know to both men; Jonathan Entwhistle a former Harvard Student who was expelled as a drunkard and an opium fiend. Most recently he had been involved in the selling of disappearing spells to would be draft dodgers. Of course the only thing that “disappeared” was Entwhistle and the dupe’s money. In due course the victims were apprehended, often standing nonchalantly on street corners such was their belief in the magic. They were then sent off to fight the rebellious Southerners. From the blazing anger in O’Malley’s blue eyes Crawley knew right away that they were dealing with something far more sinister.

He ignored Entwhistle for the moment and looked at the Sergeant, who pointed with his chin to a small tobacco tin which sat on the only other piece of furniture in the stark room, a battered wooden table covered with stains, burn marks and the crude carvings of hundreds of detainees. Crawley approached the table which was behind the prisoner and glanced once more at O’Malley but he would not meet the other man’s gaze and instead now focused all of his attention on lighting his cheroot. Crawley tipped the tin towards him and examined its contents. He drew in a sharp breath. “Jonathan,” Crawley said with a calm he did not feel, “why do you have the ear bones of a child in your possession?” He rattled the tin and was repulsed to see that they were so fresh there was still fluid on them.

“Detective Crawley,” Entwhistle said in a pleading tone, trying to twist his head to look at the other man, “they are not human, I swear it! The ear bones of a stray dog, on my life, they are nothing more than props for a scam I was planning.”

“On your life.” Crawley repeated slowly savoring each word. The Detective stayed behind the prisoner forcing him to twist left and right in the chair he was manacled to. “Jonathan you couldn’t be more right. This is murder, pure and simple, and more than that, such things are only used in the blackest of magic. Tell me, what are you up to? Murder is a big jump up from your usual tricks.” Crawley walked closer to him and placed his hands on Entwhistle’s shoulders causing the prisoner to jump in his seat. “You know as well as I do that murder will earn you a date with the hangman but if you help me maybe we can convince a Judge to let you spend the rest of your life in prison instead.”

“You know,” said O’Malley conversationally, “there’s talk of bringing back burning at the stake for them that practices black magic.” He tilted his head back and blew a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.

Crawley had heard the same talk, though he doubted it would ever be more than that. “Point of fact,” He said to O’Malley “they passed that bill yesterday, it was in the Times.”

“Oh yeah?” O’Malley approached Entwhistle who leaned back away from him as far as he could. “You hear that you murderous little cretin? They’re going to burn you alive.” He grinned and exhaled a cloud of smoke into Entwhistle’s face. He then removed the cigar and held it close to the prisoner’s eyes. “You think that looks hot? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“Detective Crawley! Please!” Pleaded Entwhistle his eyes screwed shut. Crawley nodded at O’Malley who moved away.

“I need a name Jonathan. This kind of black magic is over the head of someone like you. Who sent you to procure these items?” He squeezed the other man’s shoulders sharply. “Tell me and we will make sure you don’t burn.”

“I don’t have a name. Just an address 12 Birch Street, three blocks off Broadway, the big house on the corner. Fellow there promised me five hundred dollars for the bones. I didn’t kill anyone; I bribed the mortician down on Bell in the Five Points. I swear. Don’t let them burn me!”

Crawley patted him on the shoulder and motioned to O’Malley who grabbed his coat and the two of them headed out into the hallway where they closed the door behind them. “Well we have a start at least. Remind me to go and see that undertaker later.”

O’Malley nodded. “Oh I’ll remind you all right. Selling pieces of children? Jail’s too good for the likes of him.” A dangerous light was smoldering in his eyes.

Crawley started to reply but was interrupted by a blood curdling shriek from the room they had just left. In a flash O’Malley and he burst through the door and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight before them. Entwhistle was still manacled to the chair but he was now engulfed in blue flames that crackled and sizzled about him as if they were being fanned by a great wind. He rocked side to side his mouth open screaming the most awful scream Crawley had ever heard any living thing make. Even O’Malley, who had been at Antietam, was pale. Other officers rushed in behind them, drawn by the un-Godly noise and they all watched as Entwhistle disintegrated into a pile of ash. Abruptly the flame was gone with a ‘whumph’ as if someone had turned off a gas lamp.

“Mother of God.” Someone said quietly. Crawley approached the chair slowly. The wood was untouched yet there was no trace of Entwhistle save ashes. Not a tooth or bone or scrap of clothing remained. He stooped down and ignoring the protestations of some of the others, picked up the manacles. The iron was cool in his hands. He handed them wordlessly to O’Malley who slipped them into his coat pocket.

“How was that possible?” Sergeant Greer asked his eyes wide.

Crawley straightened up to his full height and turned his dark eyes on Greer. “Magic.” He said simply.

An hour later the two detectives knocked on the front door of 12 Birch Street, after a short pause the door was opened by a bald Negro of enormous size. Crawley was six foot one and as the man looked down on him he must have been close to six foot seven and he was broad across the chest as well. O’Malley came up to his sternum and was forced to crane his head back to look up at the other man. He was well dressed, better than either of the policemen and Crawley could not fail to notice that he seemed to be extremely muscular as well.

As per usual, the thought of being out gunned brought out the best in O’Malley. “Christ you’re a big bastard, aren’t you?”

The other man blinked and then turned towards Crawley, O’Malley seemingly forgotten. “May I help you sir?” There was the hint of an accent in his speech and it was clear that he was well educated. His high forehead and handsome features were complimented by a pair of the greenest eyes Crawley had ever seen. The whole affect was somewhat startling.

“We are with the Police Department,” Crawley told him “and we have a few questions for the owner of the house. Is that you sir?”

“That would be Mr. Manston, I am Davu, his Butler.” He smiled showing very white teeth. “Please come in and I will get him for you.”

“Wouldja?” Piped in O’Malley “That would be swell.” The man once again ignored O’Malley and led them into a library that had floor to ceiling books shelves and a large dark wooden desk. Two windows looked out onto the street. In between them was a table with a decanter and two heavy tumblers. Several comfortable looking high backed leather chairs were placed around the room.

“Make yourselves at home gentlemen.” Davu rumbled closing the double doors behind him.

Crawley headed straight to the desk while O’Malley went straight for the decanter. “Watch the door!” He hissed and O’Malley responded by lifting a full tumbler in his direction as a salute. Crawley suppressed his irritation and started to open the drawers. Mostly they held nothing out of the ordinary, paper, pencils, some correspondence. There was a small Colt revolver in the top right hand drawer and in the bottom drawer was a heavy wooden box that seemed to be locked though he could find no keyhole. Crawley struggled with it for a moment and then noticed some of the carvings on the lid. Well, well he thought.

“Foot steps.” O’Malley had taken up position in the leather chair closest to the decanter. He sat legs crossed his bowler dangling from his right foot. He drained his glass and returned it to its original place.

Crawley closed the drawer and quickly crossed to another chair and sat down removing his hat. Almost as soon as this was accomplished the doors opened and a slight man with silver hair and a beard stepped into the room. He was white and older than either man expected, perhaps in his seventies. He leaned on a heavy cane topped with an ornate devil’s head. Davu entered the room behind him and closed the doors. Crawley was filled with a slight apprehension and he wondered if O’Malley, at least, was armed.

“Horace Manston at your service gentlemen.” The older man said in a deep voice tinged with a southern accent.

Crawley got to his feet and proffered his hand which Manston accepted. His grip was cool, dry and surprisingly firm. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Detective Crawley and this is my associate Detective Sergeant O’Malley.” O’Malley stood and nodded.

“Quite a nice bourbon isn’t it Detective Sergeant?” Manston asked in his direction before turning his attention back to Crawley. He looked up into the detective’s face with piercing blue eyes that were red rimmed. He did not give an impression of frailness but rather one of exhaustion. What could have worn him out so? Crawley asked himself. His skin was pale, like old parchment, his thin face like a hatchet. Even in his seeming weariness he exuded the authority of the well-bred and wealthy. “What can I do for the Police?”

“Mr. Manston, we have apprehended a known criminal who was in the possession of implements of black magic. Implements, he claims he was bringing here.” Crawley stopped and watched the other man very carefully. He liked to let an accusation hang in the air and watch the affect on the accused. Often nervous, shifting eyes or the onset of fast talking denials were to be observed. These, in themselves, proved nothing but it let him know that he was on the right track. Manston was to disappoint him however.

He let the silence hang in the room for almost thirty seconds his eyes never wavering from the taller detective’s. Finally he blew out an exasperated breath. “And?” He demanded.

Crawley pursed his lips; this was not what he had expected. “And,” he said “we have come here to find out what you know about this man Entwhistle and about the implements of black magic he was in possession of, too whit; the inner ear bones of a small child!” He ended dramatically.

Again Manston disappointed him. There was no reaction whatsoever. He shrugged and said, “Don’t know that name and I certainly don’t know anything about any bones. Quite frankly Gentleman I am no closer to understanding what you want from me than I was when I entered this room. Now you’ve seen me, you’ve,” he nodded towards O’Malley, “sampled my whiskey and you’ve asked your questions. I believe you have been misled by this man, who you say is nothing more than a common criminal. I suggest you go back and question him again, perhaps more vigorously this time.” He stepped back and Davu opened the door. Apparently the interview was at an end.

Crawley nodded to O’Malley and placed his hat on. “Thank you for your time Mr. Manston. I would do as you suggest but our suspect has mysteriously gone up in flames. Blue flames.” He started for the door but stopped in front of the older man and whirled around to face him, his index finger raised. “New Orleans?” This time he was surprised and Crawley could sense Davu taking a step towards him. “Your accent I mean, it is from New Orleans isn’t it?”

Manston regained his composure at once and nodded. “Yes but it has been many years since I have set foot in the city of my birth and I don’t expect to again until this ridiculous rebellion is over with.”

“Of course.” Crawley smiled, touched the brim of his hat and walked out into the hallway and then out the front door. He kept walking until O’Malley and he were around the corner. There he stopped and turned to face the Sergeant. “There is something not right about that place.”

“Yeah, how did he know about the whiskey, some kind of sorcery?” O’Malley asked frowning.

“No doubt,” Crawley replied giving him a scathing look “or maybe it was Davu looking through a peep hole, or the smell of it coming off you, or the fact that the decanter was holding three inches less liquid than the last time he checked. In any case we are going back in there tonight. There is a box in the bottom drawer of that desk that I want to open. It is covered with some familiar looking glyphs. That old man is up to something and if Davu is just his Butler then I am the King of Prussia. Do you have a weapon?”

O’Malley nodded and from his right coat pocket he produced a set of knuckle dusters, from the other he extracted a small Colt revolver. “I carry them both so the jacket hangs correctly.” He explained with the hint of a grin.

Crawley glanced at his watch. “We’ll come back just before midnight and see what they are getting up to at the witching hour.”

#

They re-convened at 11:45 PM. The streets were still teeming with pedestrians but O’Malley had gotten there first and discovered an alley at the back of the house where the staff put out the refuse. The door was plain and wooden and there was no key hole. The iron doorknob would not turn and the door itself would not budge even when O’Malley produced a small crowbar for he could not even slip it in between the door and the jamb. He pushed back his derby and looked at his partner in disbelief and frustration. Crawley had expected this however and he had spent the afternoon obtaining the necessary supplies for their expedition.

The first of these, he took from his coat pocket. Looping the leather thong over his neck he slid the pendant under his shirt. He offered the other pendant to the Sergeant, but he shook his head and clutched his shirt front and Crawley saw him mouth the words St. Jude in the moonlight. This was no place for an argument and so he placed the second one around his neck and was briefly rewarded with a tingle of electrical current. The next item was a piece of parchment Crawley carefully removed from his inner pocket. O’Malley squinted in the light of the full moon to see what he had. The other man held up a finger and then carefully licked the back of the thin paper and pressed it on to the wooden door just above the knob. As Crawley silently recited a memorized incantation the spidery glyphs on the paper began to glow. He indicated to O’Malley to follow his lead and turn away which they did just before a bright light flashed around the frame of the door. The piece of paper was gone but the door was now ajar. O’Malley used his crowbar to push the door open and look inside. He gestured that Crawley should follow him and entered the house. After a deep breath, Crawley did just that.

The room was small and appeared to be a staging area for the household garbage. O’Malley lit a match and had a look around. Both men knew that much could be found out by the examination of someone’s rubbish. They were not disappointed for O’Malley discovered a blue Union uniform jammed into a paper sack. The cloth gave off an unpleasant chemical odor that was faintly familiar though neither man could identify it.

They pushed on to the next room which turned out to be a rather large kitchen. By now the light coming in off the street was insufficient so once more matches were deployed until one of the gas lights could be lit. O’Malley with his usual adroitness had discovered a ham left out on a platter and was helping himself to a piece. Crawley on the other hand, had discovered a small lantern. It was only when he lit it that he realized that they were not alone.

The shuffling step came out of the darkness and he felt his heart leap in his chest. He spun around to see who had discovered them. For a moment Crawley only saw a pair of glowing red eyes but as he turned the light up he saw they belonged to a large man in a checkered suit. The top of the man’s head was covered by a queer brass cap and his mustache was green with mold. It was only when he saw the corpse white skin that Crawley realized it was in fact a corpse, and that the smell he had noticed, on what no doubt had once been the man’s uniform, was formaldehyde.

“Jaysus.” Crawley heard the piece of ham hit the plate and was relieved to know that there were still things in this world that could affect O’Malley’s appetite. He stepped back as the figure shuffled towards them. “Over here.” O’Malley hissed, his short crow bar held out in front of him. As the thing turned towards him Crawley saw that its brass “cap” seemed to have been imbedded into its head, replacing the top part of the skull. At the back there was a strange valve. Before he could reflect any further the thing was on O’Malley moving much faster than either man would have thought possible. The Sergeant managed to get off a blow to its head with the crowbar, a blow that would have killed or incapacitated any normal man, but only managed to dent the top of the juggernauts brass skull. The crowbar clattered to the floor as the thing grabbed O’Malley about the neck with both hands and lifted him off the ground. O’Malley beat at his attacker’s face with one hand whilst with the other he struggled to retrieve one of his other weapons. Crawley came around the table and seized the carving knife from the platter of ham and stabbed it into the things back with all of his strength. He might as well have used a salad fork for all the notice it took. He could tell by the redness of O’Malley’s face that he did not have long to save him. He reached out and frantically clawed at the small valve on the back of its head. It was slippery, whether from oil or some bodily secretion it was impossible to tell, but as he attacked it something gave and there was the sudden shriek of a tea kettle that had come to the boil.

O’Malley was dropped to the floor as the thing lurched around in a semi-circle to face the new threat. A cloud of vapor was being expelled from its skull under pressure. It was not steam, as water vapor is clean and white, and this substance was dark and noxious. The hands were reaching out for Crawley when O’Malley found his feet and, crowbar in hand, once more joined the fray. Directing his blows to the shrieking valve he soon had it off and with a final whistle it stopped. The brass cap fell to the floor exposing what was left of the creature’s brains and when it toppled over and hit the ground these were ejected from the skull. Immediately the body began to rot and the suit of clothes seemed to wilt as its wearer turned gelatinous with advanced decomposition. The stench was such that Crawley was retching helplessly when O’Malley pulled him from the room.

Crawley lay on the wooden floor for a moment while he composed himself. He couldn’t help but notice that instead of retreating, the old soldier O’Malley had kept advancing and had dragged him further into the house. “You must have been something on the battlefield.” He wheezed.

“What?” O’Malley squinted at him in the light of the lantern.

“Shall we continue?” Crawley asked instead of repeating himself and O’Malley nodded a look of grim determination on his face.

Crawley dragged himself to his feet and followed as O’Malley led them deeper into the house, his shuffling gait echoing softly off the walls. They walked towards a source of light and before long they found themselves in the dimly lit front hall where they had been earlier that day. Light shone from underneath the double doors of the study where the meeting with Manston had occurred. O’Malley removed his revolver and checked its loads under one of the lamps before returning it to his pocket. He glanced back at Crawley who nodded. “I wonder if there’s any of that bourbon left?” O’Malley asked softly and then he opened the door.

Horace Manston turned to face them as the door opened. He stood near the desk upon which rested the box Crawley had wanted to examine more closely. It was open. Manston wore the same suit of clothes he had earlier and did not seem so much surprised as irritated at their presence. “What are you two doing here?” He sniffed. “How did you get in?”

Crawley glanced around and was pleased to see that Davu was not present. “Through the back door. You are not the only one in this city with access to occult power. On the streets they call it a “battering ram”, a simple incantation which will open any portal, protective wards or not. We met your night watchman.”

Manston’s eyes narrowed and then he smiled. “And overcame him I see. Tell me sir, how did you manage that?”

His calm and seeming amusement at the situation filled Crawley with anger but he suppressed it and replied calmly, “The valve on the back of its head is a weak point.”

“Yeah,” chimed in O’Malley “if you’re going to make monsters you better make them better than that.” There was that dangerous look in his eyes and Crawley wondered if Manston thought his age would protect him from the Sergeant’s fists.

“Really? What is that redness around your neck Detective Sergeant? Still point taken, we are always looking to improve upon the design. I dare say once we have a regiment of them walking calmly through musket fire on the battlefield no one is going to want to get close enough to look for any weak spots.” Manston shrugged. “That one was a prototype, the first of many.”

Crawley moved closer to the desk and looking inside the box saw a book. He carefully lifted open the old, dark leather cover and saw the writing. All of his worst fears were confirmed. He turned back to Manston. “The Lesser Key of Solomon?” He asked trying to keep his tone neutral.

Manston smiled and nodded, “The Ars Goetia, very difficult to come by.”

O’Malley stepped forward. “Enough of this mumbo jumbo, let’s take this old bastard into custody. We can question him down at the station.” He gave the older man a smile that would have frozen the marrow of many a common crook as he produced his manacles.

“Unhand him.” Though spoken no louder than a whisper the command lashed across the room and O’Malley staggered a step back the manacles falling to the carpeted floor with a clank.

A figure emerged from the shadows in the corner, a place Crawley would have sworn was empty when they entered the room. He was finely dressed in clothes that had gone out of fashion two centuries before. His hair was dark and swept back revealing a widows peak and two small horns on his forehead. The face might have been handsome but the boar’s tusks ruined that effect and the eyes smoldered like coals. His beard and mustache matched his dark hair but the most striking thing about him had to be the cloven hoofed goat’s legs that emerged from his pantaloons.

“Gentlemen,” Manston said his grin widening and his eyes shining brightly “let me introduce you to Asmodeus, a Duke of Hell.” He tittered and it was then Crawley realized that the old man was quite insane.

“Stop.” Again the word was no more than a sigh but it seemed to strike O’Malley like a blow for he shuddered before he froze his pistol still pointed towards the floor. Crawley found that he too was unable to move any part of his body from the shoulders down.

O’Malley turned and met his gaze but there was no fear in his eyes just anger and frustration. “Mr. Manston,” Crawley began “this is not a good idea. You cannot hope to bargain with forces like this and come out unscathed. Dismiss the Duke and we can come to some sort of an accommodation.”

“Accommodation?” Manston asked. He walked slowly leaning on his cane towards the paralyzed Detective. “Why should I wish to come to some sort of an accommodation with the people who are crushing my homeland? Your Armies may be victorious in the field for now, but once our pact is completed I will provide the Confederacy with legions of undead soldiers like the one you met earlier. Davu is a bokor from Haiti and has long known how to enslave the minds of men and turn them into zombies. With the help of our new friend here we shall go one better! Returning the dead to life and forcing them to do our bidding. Who could stand against such an army, who?” Spittle flew from his lips and suddenly he turned and sank to his knees. “Mighty Duke of Hell we praise you!”

“It is not your praise I want mortal.” The thing hissed quietly. “I want what was bargained for. My presence on this plane is agony. I cannot wait much longer. Where is what was promised?”

The sound of the front door brought Manston lurching to his feet. “It is here unholy one! Davu has returned with your offering.”

Both Policemen turned their heads to watch as the doors opened and Davu entered the room with a slim petite figure accompanying him. When he saw their immobility he smiled. “Mr. Manston and honored guests. I have brought us company, a young lady fresh from the country side named Mary.”

The girl wore a simple dress and bonnet. There was a youthful vitality about her and her wide blue eyes spoke of innocence. She did not look up but blushed shyly at the floor. “Good evening Gentlemen.” She said demurely.

Crawley knew, at once, what had been promised. “Manston this is monstrous! You mean to give him a virgin to seal your bargain? Have you no humanity?” He implored him.

Once again those mad eyes met his and Manston giggled his teeth wet with saliva. “No.”

O’Malley had been looking at the floor ever since the girl entered the room, and now his shoulders started to shake. At first Crawley thought he was overcome with horror at what was about to happen but then he realized the other man was laughing. It got louder and louder until O’Malley threw back his head and guffawed. All other noise in the room ceased as everyone looked in his direction, even the shy maid who was starting to frown a little.

“That. That’s your offering?” Stammered O’Malley tears running down his face. “Oh my. This is the funniest thing ever I swear!” More peals of laughter burst from him until Davu strode forward and slapped him hard across the face.

O’Malley’s head rocked and he lost his hat but the blow seemed to have returned him to his senses. He took a breath and with a smile said, “Thanks for that. I mean it, I needed that. Mary Martin is that you under there?” A silence pervaded the room. “Come on Mary don’t be shy we’re old friends aren’t we? We are.” He told the rest of the room with a wink. “So it’s the virginal country girl you’re playing tonight, is it? I’m afraid these gentlemen are going to be disappointed.” He started to laugh again.

The girl’s head snapped up and her face so soft and innocent a moment ago was now hard and angry. “Shut your pie hole O’Malley you’ve queered the deal you no good cop bastard!” She snapped back into character and looked up at Davu all innocence. “We could still pretend it’s my first time if you want.” Davu looked at her then back to Manston his eyes wide in terror.

“Mary.” Crawley called out softly, “not him, over here. Here is the client they meant you for. It’s the gentleman with the beard who was promised a virgin.”

She looked at Asmodeus full in the face and she screamed and fled from the room. Davu made no effort to stop her.

“We had a bargain.” The Duke of Hell whispered. “A virgin girl for the power you would need to build your army. Yet you bring me a harlot. Did you think I could be so deceived, I who am the Lord of lies?”

“You know Old Nick,” began O’Malley still laughing quietly “I don’t know who is dafter, you or these two for thinking you could find a virgin in New York City.” He started to laugh again and continued even as Davu started to hit him open handed around his head.

Manston fell to his knees once more. “Dark Lord I beseech you, it was a mistake!”

“The mistake was mine” whispered the Duke of Hell “for coming here to bargain with the likes of you. Do not worry we will see each other again and soon.” He stepped back into the shadows and was gone. Manston and Davu looked at each other and that is when everything erupted into blue flame.

Crawley found that he once again had control of his body and he felt the flames crackle around his being. Rational thought fled from his mind as he all but flew through the doors into the hallway and then through the front door left open by the fleeing Mary. All the while he could hear his own screams mixing with those of O’Malley, Manston and Davu. Through all the pain there was a tingle coming from the two medallions he wore on his chest. After running a dozen feet the flames receded and he found that he was alive although not unmarked. Crawley turned to see that the entire house was gone, vanished as if it had never been. He headed towards the Precinct. He did not know how much time was left to him but he felt he had to make his report while he still could. Crawley reached gingerly into his shirt which crumbled partially at his touch. The two Eye of Isis medallions were still there unmarked and he instinctively knew that O’Malley’s refusal to take one of the medallions had saved his life, at least for now. As he lurched through the street people backed away in horror. He ignored them as best he could and plodded onwards.

He walked gingerly into the station house well aware of the trail of ash he left behind. He was surprised to find that he could speak clearly. “Sergeant Greer?”

He looked up from his desk and his face recoiled but Crawley had to commend him in that he recognized him or his voice at least. “Mother of God. Detective Crawley, what has happened to you?”

Crawley found that he could smile though it caused more of him to crumble and settle on the floor and he said, “Magic.”

~

Visit the original post, The Magic Section, by Michael Manogue, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

As is the case with most anthologies, every reader is going to have some stories they love and some stories they don’t. In my case, my favorite story was “The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn’s Balloons,” by John Langan. Told in a non-linear format, with a mix of letters and straight narrative, the unusual style caught and held my attention for the duration. The story pits a skeptical author against an inventor who claims to be able to prepare the dying for their journey beyond our world, and features some of the creepiest balloons I’ve ever encountered in a story.

Peter S. Beagle’s “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” was another favorite of mine. The gradually creeping horror that afflicts the four characters who live in a boarding house was particularly effective in this story. Though the final resolution is not happy, it is satisfying nonetheless.

“Blackwood’s Baby,” by Laird Barron, was set not too far from where I live and was filled with lush detail that immersed me in the world of the story. As a group of hunters pursues an elusive prey, they learn that one of their number will not survive the excursion. The large cast of characters made it a little difficult to track who was who, but the main character was compelling enough to keep me interested in his fate.

Other stories worth noting include “The Curious Case of the Moondawn Daffodils Murder,” by Garth Nix, “Bad Thoughts and the Mechanism,” by Richard Harland, and “The Shaddowwes Box,” by Terry Dowling. Though these stories were not quite what I was expecting by the time I reached their ends, each was enjoyable in its own way. The Nix story was fairly humorous, a bit of an oddity amongst the other stories of this anthology.

Perhaps my only disappointment of the book was “Rose Street Attractors,” which was twice as long as any other story in the anthology. While it started off well, the ending felt overly rushed compared to the languid pace of the rest of the story.

Fans of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories will be sure to enjoy this anthology. However, if you start in to this book looking for steampunk inventions and other such things, you may come away a bit disappointed. Overall, though, the stories are generally solidly written and range through a wide array of styles and themes, making this book certain to hold some attraction for nearly any fan of supernatural tales set in an earlier time.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Ghosts By Gaslight, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Jarred focuses on his next task. by: C.E.Zacherl (see more at: http://veyer.deviantart.com)

It took a while to track down the avatar of all the recent blogging hate mail.  Finally, Jarred figured out the patterns and hunted the avatar down to one of the big MMO games, Necropotens, that all the kids and Jarred the middle aged (for that matter) were playing these days.

She was right there in front of Jarred’s virtual eyes.  Kayla sat nearby in his real world apartment asking constant, annoying questions that she could answer herself if she would just put on his spare pair of Virta-Goggs@.

Jarred and Kayla’s target avatar wore a pink spike Mohawk and long hot pink bangs with pride.  There was a sawed off shotgun strapped to her leg, and her outfit was skimpy enough that it couldn’t stop a knife or the prying eyes of a peeping Tom.

The pink punk hocked her wears in the market quicker than Jarred could roll a die sitting around the table with his friends on many other dark nights like this one.  She must have an advanced macro set up for selling, this pink punk was smart or rich.

Beyond the market, in the wastes of the ruined city, the pink punk spun to face Jarred.  “Are ya LFG or SLT?”

Jarred was taken off guard by the sudden approach, but he knew the lingo well enough.  “Something like that, yes.  We’d better find somewhere more private to talk.”

“YSIC?”  The girl repeated, her avatars mouth not moving in time with her speaking.  Like a never-ending series of virus spawning pop-up windows, Kayla continued to pester Jarred as to the meaning of the pink punk’s words.

Jarred cleared his throat, an action that didn’t show on his sleek, attractive avatar, “You need to care, because I’m on your side, irl.  Also, you could be in danger.”

“Irl?  GFY.”  She pulled her flechette shotgun and targeted this mystery avatar named Bob Howard.

“Not from me!”  Jarred’s avatar, Bob Howard, pulled out a rubber chicken, equipping it to both hands slots.  “See.  No harm.”

Pink punk girl was silent and the avatar just stood there with the shotgun aimed at Bob Howard.  She fired a shot suddenly that caught Bob in the gut.  Bob took some damage, enough to guarantee Pink punk girl a win in a stand up fight.

“CTFO.”  Pink punk girl, Mad Maxine, said.

Mad Maxine back peddled the whole way to their destination, keeping Bob in her sight constantly.  She had demanded that Bob Howard not heal himself at all.  They skirted around the edge of some really tough bad guys and were now at the back of an urban monastery, filled with junk.

It didn’t take long for the exchange of words to result in the flechette shotgun being holstered.  The rubber chickens finally were changed out for a medical pack to heal Bob Howard’s wounds.

Jarred continued, “We should meet in person.  I have a friend that would like to know you.  It sounds like your struggles may be against a common enemy.”

The sky scrapers of Harrisonburg, Virginia dominated the horizon.  The term concrete jungle really could be transposed onto this city, Manhattan wasn’t the only one on the East coast anymore.  Apple held on tight to one of the hanging straps since she was too short to reach the bars.  The trains squealed out of the lower level stop, where she boarded and screamed onward to its next destination.

The young girl faced a middle aged, out of shape man and a young woman wearing utilitarian clothes.

Apple croaked, “Y not just PM me?”

“PM?”  Kayla did not grasp the strange terminologies this girl used.  “Jarred, maybe I had the wrong idea.  How could we work together if we can’t even communicate?”

Kayla pulled on Jarred’s arm.

“WTF?”

Jarred continued facing Apple and did not budge.  “I’m Jarred, this here is Kayla.  I take it your name’s not actually Mad Maxine.”

“Apple.”

The accommodations in the maintenance duct were cramped like a Enterprise Jeffries tube, except filled with rust and mechanical devices.

Kayla finally gathered her courage, “We need to bring people back to Earth.  The cyber world has pulled people away from all the horrible events that occurred over the past three dozen years.  Sure, escapism is fine, when that escape doesn’t completely blind you to what happens out here in the real world.

“We have an obligation to this place that we call home.  Hell, what about the types that don’t like to escape into cyberspace.  Where does that leave us?  There’s just about nothing left for us.

“This technocratic grab for power is what sucked away the life of your Gimli.”

Apple looked up at her, “Zodi.  His real name was Zodi.”

“Exactly.”  Kayla approached Apple while Jarred looked on.  “Help us reveal the darkness that lies in the souls of the Oathed.”

Apple nodded.

Jarred smiled and hoped he wasn’t getting too far in over his head.

Once they went their separate ways, Jarred was sure he saw surveillance bots follow both of the girls, and not just the normal ones that the cops used.  He looked over his left shoulder, then his right.  He couldn’t be sure, but one probably followed him too.

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From the Beginning

Visit the original post, The Trivium Proportion, Part 4 (A Cyberpunk Tale), by David Phillips, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

My dearest sister,

Since my expulsion from the university, things have become most dire. My scrivener work has provided me with only a meager income. After the caller I received this evening, however, my circumstances may soon change.

On arriving home from my place of employment, I had settled into my evening habit of reading a book.. In the tradition of Erasmus, I spent my meager funds first on books and then on other necessities. So it was that I had great food for the mind and no food for my supper.

A knock at the door brought me out of my reverie. Very few callers grace my door, so it was with much confusion that I approached the entryway. The gentleman I found in the hallway looked out of place in the squalid environment in which I live.

He was advanced in age, his gray hair stretched thin over his bald pate. In his hands he held his brass-handled walking stick and top hat. His frock coat was well tailored, with a royal blue silk vest underneath.

“I am looking,” said he, “for Mr. Thomas Parker, recently of Moorcroft College.”

“I am he,” I responded. “But I am afraid you have me at quite a loss.”

“If I might come in for a moment, I have a business proposition that you may be interested in hearing.”

Uncertain what he could want with me, but eager to hear of any employment beyond mere clerical work, I bade him enter and offered him my one chair.

“I would offer you refreshment, but my pantry is all but empty—“

“I am quite fine, thank you,” the stranger said. “My name is Sir Richard Malory and I am here representing the interests of Lady Elizabeth Morpeth.”

It was an unfamiliar name, but I sought to smile as though it were not and encouraged him to continue.

“We have read some of the papers you had written prior to your departure from Moorcroft and are very interested in the work you had proposed.”

“I am stunned to hear that anyone has read my work,” I said. “But I regret to inform you that there is nothing of value in my work. My ‘departure,’ as you so delicately put it, came with extensive proof that my theories were not functional. They were naught but… overweening fantasy.”

“Proof of the impossible by small, sheltered minds means little to myself and Lady Elizabeth,” he said. I tried to protest, but he cut me off. “I will concede that your work is incomplete, but Lady Elizabeth and I have our own avenues of research that we feel would compliment the work you have done. Our resources combined with your insights could provide something of value.” I opened my mouth to interject, but Sir Richard raised a hand and said, “Before you add another protest, at least consider that we are willing to pay you handsomely for your time.”

In a most discreet manner, he left me with advance payment for my time with him. I will post this letter when I leave to meet with them on the morrow. Further correspondence will follow when I have more to report.

Your brother,

Thomas

#

March 31st, 18—

Sister,

My mind is spinning at the events of the past days. I am not certain I have the time to draft a letter, but I am choosing to let other matters remained unfinished for a few minutes so that I might update you regarding the events that transpired since my last missive.

Yesterday morning a coach arrived to transport me to my meeting with Lady Elizabeth. Pemberton, her sprawling estate, is located several miles out of town. After spending all morning traveling, I arrived just as dinner was being served. Lady Elizabeth and Sir Richard were in the solarium, and I was ushered into an empty seat with a place already set.

“Mr. Parker,” Lady Elizabeth said. She was older and austere, dressed all in black with a lace veil obscuring her face. “It is a pleasure to have you join us.”

“Your invitation was difficult to decline,” I said as a servant set food before me.

“Your papers regarding uncertain logic in analytical engines appealed to me.”

Sir Richard ate his food in silence, listening to the noble woman and I talk, but did not add anything. Lady Elizabeth did not touch her food.

“If you have read my papers, then you also know that my theories were… impossible. The folly of youth.”

“Please do not presume to tell me what I know.” Her words hung between us. I glanced at the knight to gain some insight, but his expression was flat and unreadable. “I have seen many things deemed impossible by the self-proclaimed learned.”

“But you must realize that an analytical engine can only produce finite results based off of the input—“

“Do you disdain my money?” Lady Elizabeth asked, cutting me off. When I began to protest further she interrupted again. “I am willing to pay you quite handsomely for your work. It is my feeling that my own studies and your theories can produce results I have interest in pursuing. So long as I pay your salary, Mr. Parker, I ask that you work hard and refrain from insisting I am wrong. I find it particularly vexing when you choose to disagree with my trust in you.”

“I am sorry, my lady.”

“You are welcome to stay here tonight or return to your lodgings in town,” she said as she stood. Her food was still uneaten. “In the morning, Sir Richard will take you to the workspace you will be utilizing in our service.”

“But, my lady,” I said, also standing. “I do not even know what it is you want of me.”

“I should think it clear,” she said. “I want a machine that can render opinions instead of just calculating facts.”

And at that she left.

I spent the night at Pemberton. Faced with the prospect of my vermin infested hovel, I chose instead to avail myself of my patron’s fine linen.

Sir Richard and I set out early the next morning by carriage. Our destination turned out to be an old warehouse upriver from the city. Though the outside bore signs of abandonment, the inside had been cleaned and well maintained. Waiting for us there was a man of middle years, dressed in a simple suit and bowler hat. He had a thick, iron gray handlebar moustache. Next to him sat a steamer trunk.

“Mr. Parker, may I introduce you to Mr. Cooper. He is the master craftsman Lady Elizabeth uses for most of her work. Mr. Cooper, this is our scientist, Mr. Parker.” I shook hands with the man as introductions were made, noting that his hands were rough as stone from all of the calluses.

“I take it, then, that Mr. Cooper here is to provide the mechanical expertise to go with my theories.”

“Yes. We will bring in more craftsmen as your plans develop more fully.”

“I am still unclear what it is I am expected to build. I only have some half-considered theories and nothing resembling designs for any sort of apparatus. To simply state you want a machine that renders opinions is comparable to saying you wish to visit the moon.”

“What Lady Elizabeth desires is a machine that can interpret esoteric symbols on cards with a means towards making predictions about the future. Mr. Cooper has been kind enough to bring along much of Lady Elizabeth’s research into the topic as well as some materials for you to consider in your work.”

“You want a device that can read signs and portents?” I asked. I could not believe what I was hearing.

“You could interpret the goals in such a base manner, but we prefer to think of it as mechanized intuition. Your theories regarding uncertain logic seem like a natural fit for such a project. Please, before you make another indignant protestation, take some time to read through the books and consider the materials you have to work with. If you still feel this effort is all folly, then we will pay you for your time and you can go on your way. In the meantime, we have arranged for lodging at a local inn until you are able to determine whether or not you will stay with the endeavor.”

With Cooper’s help I carried the chest to an office located in the back of the warehouse. He excused himself to take care of some business outside of the warehouse while I opened the chest and examined the contents.

Two thirds of the box was filled with books. A cursory glance through the pages showed that they were filled with cramped handwriting, likely that of Lady Elizabeth. The topics of research ranged far and wide, from the fortune telling methods of the tarot to the metallurgical properties of obscure substances not found in nature. To simply read her journals was to delve into the most dubious forms of science known to man.

But then there was the other third of the chest.

Each item was labeled neatly in the same cramped handwriting as the books. A brief note from Lady Elizabeth indicated that these were simply samples for my examination, and that she could provide more for my work. I removed each item with great care, marveling at each specimen as I set it to the side.

Vials with labels identifying such ephemeral substances as “aether” and “phlogiston.” Ingots identified as “orichalcum” and “adamantine.” These and more were all within the chest. At the very bottom were packets wrapped in black velvet. Each packet contained a different set of set of tarot cards. It was one thing to hear of them in lurid tales of fortune tellers, it was quite another to shuffle through the images of devils and queens and magi.

I turned back to the journals and began to read them with greater attention to detail. I have barely slept since beginning my work and were it not for the kindness of Cooper bringing meals around, I might also forget to eat. Only last week these seemed to be aught but flights of fantasy. But now my mind is piecing together ideas and probing Cooper’s mind with questions about some of the mechanical details. It seems he has worked with some of these materials at Lady Elizabeth’s behest and is familiar with the practical limits of their application.

Should you not hear from me regularly, know that it is only because I have become absorbed in my work. You and your family continue to dwell in my heart.

Love,

Thomas

#

May 27th, 18—

Sister,

I apologize for having been remiss in my correspondence over the last months. I assure you I have read all of your letters and appreciate the updates regarding your family. It is a great relief to hear that the money I have forwarded to you from my salary has been put to good use. Your husband had been so generous with his purse strings when I had fallen on ill times, there is no amount of interest I could add to my debt that will truly represent my gratitude.

We have made good progress. Within weeks I had developed my proposal for Lady Elizabeth and we have since been developing the physical aspects of this project. The warehouse that had seemed so large while empty is now full to bursting with craftsmen, engineers and the apparatus that is slowly taking shape.

The key to the whole device was the cards. Rather than use simple punch cards as a normal analytical engine, I have developed a method to use tarot cards instead. Though they are still punched to provide basic information for the lower functions of the machine, the location of the punches refer less to mechanical attributes but instead to the symbolism depicted on the cards. Combined with gauges that respond to the aetheric resonance of the cards, the engine should be able to respond to the complex iconography within the images. As Turgenev wrote, the picture can provide at a glance what would otherwise take dozens of pages.

Looking back over my words, I realize I must sound as though I am speaking nonsense. I will keep you informed of my progress, but will try to keep my future missives less technical.

Your brother,

Thomas

#

June 28th, 18—

Dear sister,

After months of testing, I must declare our work a success. We chose some large scale events to ask the machine about and the machine responded with the most probable results of those events. It required a bit of interpretation of the symbols, but as best we can tell the machine predicted accurately. In her benevolence, Lady Elizabeth awarded me a bonus sum for my success. I will forward a portion of this to you.

- Thomas

#

September 6th, 18—

By the time you receive this letter, there will likely have been a prolonged absence since my last letter. I regret to say that you shall only receive this letter in the event of my death.

Two weeks ago, I believed that our work was falling apart, but now I know that there is a horrible truth behind the research I have been doing.

We continued to check our machine for errors, asking further questions of it and monitoring the broadsheets to determine the accuracy of the responses. We also started to feed the machine hypothetical questions, based less off of current events but more off of situations that might occur in order to examine how it responds. The information, I had believed, was not verifiable. Though some of the hypothetical situations became true, it is hard to know what will happen down the “road less taken.”

The broadsheet of August 15th proved me wrong.

A government minister that some recent predictions revolved around had been found murdered. His death was so contrary to our forecast that I could scarcely believe what I was reading. I spent that morning in a panic, re-examining the results we had obtained that were relevant to this man. We had made some queries into what would happen if he died, but there had been no indicator that he would die. Such an inaccuracy threatened to call into question everything we had accomplished.

Being a man of honor, I felt it necessary to report my concerns to our patron immediately. With hat in hand, I alerted my staff to my departure and took my carriage to Pemberton.

Lady Elizabeth, still dressed as though in mourning, received me in one of her sitting rooms. She bade me sit, but I insisted on standing.

“The Lord Exchequer has been murdered,” I said. She did not respond, so I added, “Our forecasts did not anticipate this at all.”

“That is because there was no intention to kill him when the forecasts were made,” she said.

“But this calls into question the accuracy of the machine,” I tried to explain. “If the whim of some common footpad can throw off all of our calculations, then the method is invalid.”

She raised her hand to stop me before I could continue further. “Our queries were based on present circumstances. But it is important to not only know if we can change the future we perceive, but also the impact such a change would have. As we recognize the limits and the potentials of our machinery, we can refine and expand our questions.”

“Are you saying that you had a hand in the minister’s death?” I could scarce believe my ears.

“I am saying that your work is proceeding according to plan and you should not worry about the big picture. I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to me yourself, but please continue as instructed.”

I thanked her for her time and excused myself. I spent the carriage ride back to the warehouse lost in thought. On arriving at my destination, I locked myself in my office and stared off at nothing as my mind roiled in uncertainty. My mind balked at supporting villainy such as this, but it proved hard to relinquish work that had proven my one-time detractors wrong.

Before I knew it, the last technician was knocking at my door to let me know he was leaving for the day. I called out my thanks and asked him to lock up.

Once the warehouse had become silent, I left the confines of my office and considered the machine I had helped build.

Taking a deck of tarot from our supplies, I fed them through the hole-punch with the question I had in mind: “What is the purpose of this machine?”

It took several minutes of clicking and whirring before cards spat out of the hopper with my response, the Emperor and the Wheel of Fortune catching my eye. The locations of the hole punches clarified the meaning: “To control the future.”

The answer was so startling I did not dare to try another computation.

Over the next weeks my work suffered as I became confounded with uncertainty. Our tests of the system continued, and every morning I scanned the broadsheets looking for names of other people murdered in the name of research. In two weeks three more people died, though their importance decreased significantly as time progressed. From studying the queries we have submitted to the engine, I believed that Lady Elizabeth had honed her ability to strike a well-placed cog in the machinery of the future rather than just remove the obvious targets.

One week ago our machine began to provide confusing results. Regardless of our questions, it insisted on spitting out similar results. The details varied in small ways, but the same cards kept turning up: the Hermit, Page of Swords, Eight of Pentacles. The hole-punches suggested that a scholar would be murdered by a craftsman. But since the answers did not match our questions, we did not have a good sense of who the actors in this scenario could be.

At the end of the work day our laborers and technicians departed for their homes, leaving only myself and Cooper in the warehouse. I retired to my office in order to review the output of the engine, struggling to divine the meaning of the results we had obtained.

Behind me I heard Cooper enter the office. I had worked with him long enough that I knew the sound of his tread in the warehouse. He did not announce himself as was his habit, which struck me as odd but it was not at first important enough to divert me from my work.

And then the thought occurred to me: A craftsman. A scholar. Murder. In hindsight it is obvious, but I had genuinely not expected to turn up in the divinations.

I turned in time to see him bring a spanner down toward my head, which I narrowly avoided. I staggered out of the way, Neither of us were what you would call pugilists, and so our struggle was inept at best. But while he had lean muscle and stamina from years of hard work, I had youth and vigor combined with the fear of the grave. In the end, I was bruised and aching and he was unconscious.

Few live in the area where the warehouse stands. At night the region is desolate and there was no one I could call out to for help in obtaining a constable. I bound Cooper’s hands and feet as best I could and pondered my options.

With quiet solemnity I considered the analytical engine in the main area of the warehouse. I took a deep breath before setting about doing what I should have done all along. I asked it questions.

“How did the machine know that I was going to be murdered?” I asked it through the punched tarot cards.

Knight of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles, the Hanged Man. “The machine is designed to predict the future.”

I scowled and entered my next question. “Why did it warn me?”

Wheel of Fortune, Eight of Wands, Hermit, Chariot reversed, Ace of Swords reversed. “The future hinges on the scholar. If the scholar dies, evil wins.”

The scholar in me must confess that “evil” was my interpretation. But in light of what I had seen, it seemed appropriate.

I remembered the earlier message the machine gave me, regarding control of the future. With this device, Lady Elizabeth could sculpt the future to fit her whims.

It took me several minutes to decide what my next question would be. Many options came to mind, but were discarded. The engine did not do well with yes/no questions.

“Who are you?”

In response, the machine spat out a sheaf of cards. At a glance, it looked to be a full deck of tarot, without punches. I did not dare speculate on what that could mean.

“What can I do to stop this?”

Empress reversed, Knight of Pentacles, Page of Wands, Queen of Swords. “Destroy the machine. Destroy the papers. Kill the Queen of Swords.”

I felt a tightness in my chest. The other cards in the report, combined with the punch marks, suggested that this meant Lady Elizabeth.

There were enough chemicals in the building to provide fuel for a fire. Once the flames reached the phlogiston in the analytical engine the entire place would explode like a powder keg. I dragged Cooper from the building before setting a match to it. There was only so much blood I could bear to have on my hands. Then I took my carriage out to Pemberton. I did not hurry, instead choosing to take my time and build up the courage to move forward.

It was drawing near dawn by the time I arrived. Lights were lit towards the kitchens but the rest of the house was quiet. I let myself into the house and crept up the stairs, still uncertain that I could do this. Lady Elizabeth was advanced in years and I did not feel I had it in me to murder an old woman in cold blood.

After what seemed an eternity, I found the master bedroom. But the bed did not look slept in.

“I see that Cooper failed in his task,” Lady Elizabeth said from the darkness. She sat at a writing desk near an open window, her outline faintly visible against the dim pre-dawn light.

“Why?” I asked.

“That is a very broad question. Please indulge me and elaborate your concerns.”

“Why all of this? Why the murders? Why kill me of all people?”

“I will not deign to admit a thing, Mr. Parker. Assuming I had anything to admit to, I am not some villainess in a penny-dreadful who explains all her plans in the final act.”

“Then you can explain it to the constabulary. Once they are pointed in your direction I am certain they can find a trail between you and the deaths.”

“Once they are pointed in my direction? Mr. Parker, assuming that they even believe your story of fortune telling machines, please consider your present circumstances. Not counting whatever crimes you may have committed against my property at the warehouse, you have broken into a lonely woman’s bedchambers in the middle of the night. No jury would convict me.”

The cocking of a pistol punctuated the last statement.

I tried to think of what to do next, when the door opened and lantern light flooded into the room. Lady Elizabeth winced and held up a hand to protect her eyes from the sudden onset of illumination.

“Lady Elizabeth, you will not believe what has happened,” I heard Sir Richard say just as I charged towards her and tried to grab the gun away from her.

Though it shames me to admit it, I had trouble taking a gun from the hand of an old woman.

As I struggled with her, the pistol fired two times. Both bullets went wild, causing Sir Richard to hesitate in his attempt to intervene. Lady Elizabeth pounded her fist against me to no effect just before I wrestled the gun away from her.

Pistol in hand, I backed away from the two of them. Sir Richard looked wary; Lady Elizabeth, enraged. For once, Lady Elizabeth’s veil was missing. In the light from Sir Richard’s lantern, I could see that one of her eyes was missing. The remaining eye was clouded white with blindness, but was still focused on me with hatred.

I considered leaving that place and this whole situation behind me. But then I thought of the suspicious deaths, the attempts on my own life, the intervention by a higher agency.

Thrice I fired at Lady Elizabeth, each shot striking Lady Elizabeth true. A fourth shot was aimed at the knight, but struck his leg. I pulled the trigger a few more times but only heard it click. I climbed over the still form of Lady Elizabeth, dropped from her window and fled into the night.

The knowledge you possess is a liability, but I share this information with you so that you might be prepared should Sir Richard Malory or any other agents of the late Lady Elizabeth try to tie up any loose ends. I encourage you to relocate far away and forget you ever knew me.

Love,

Thomas.

Visit the original post, In the Cards, by Jeremy Zimmerman, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

I enjoyed the book and it was pretty easy to get through. I never found myself missing a detail or wondering who a character was. Maybe nobody has those problems and I am revealing what a foolish simpleton I am. I think not!

We’ve got a first person story from the eyes of a detective in the New Angeles PD. He’s a war veteran, and he’s usually a desk jocky. A big case has come along that requires his personal attention. It’s a murder!

The characters are enjoyable and the detail of the setting is nice. The story does seem quite a bit scripted, A event leads to B response leads to C event. The protagonist finds a clue that leads him to his next spot. Rinse, repeat, until near the end.

There were a few scenes in the book that really drove it home for me. I imagined watching Venus Wars or similar old school anime. I imagined a sequence from a 007 movie in another. These scenes were definitely my favorite in the book. Also, scenes like these were probably the main reason that I would suggest this book to other readers. I wouldn’t say that the book as a whole was amazing, but there will be a few moments along the ride where you will probably see some homage played to a movie, show, or book that you love from some other part of your life.

The segment right before the finale was probably my least favorite part of the book. There is a very long, detailed sequence that I will not spoil in any way. It is a sequence that would be awesome to witness if this was a screenplay and we got to actually watch the events unfold.
Unfortunately, we are checking this story out in book form, and it that form, this segment falls very flat.

That being said, the book as a whole is quite an enjoyable detective yarn. Anyone that enjoys detective stories will probably find a nice home for this book. It’s even possible that a reader that isn’t a big sci-fi fan could still enjoy this book. Though, if that non-sci-fi loving reader wasn’t a little bit read up on science, they might have a little bit of comprehension trouble.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: Android: Free Fall by William H Keith, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.