A Bad Business

I never expected to last this long, truth be told, but even so the imminence of my demising still took me by the bowels and squeezed me tight. I'd been soldiering almost fifteen years now, been through my fair share of tight spots and was hurt bad enough in '37 that the chirugeon wanted to put me down like an old horse. He didn't though, and I walked sure enough a few days later out of his butcher tent. Now it seemed like my luck had fair run out, and the end couldn't be too far away.

We'd been running for about two days, what remained of the Fifth Company and me, running and trying to make the Samael River. If we could ford it, we'd have a chance of finding some measure of safety in Hommlet proper, or at least make a go at holding the bride. No such luck. The Captain was a good man, refused to leave Jennings or Gilbert behind, wounded as they were. Good men both, but they were like to be the death of us, slowing us down as they were. Hard enough to make your way down these mountains without having to carry two stretchers. Still, none spoke up to gainsay the Captain. Could have been any of us on those stretchers, and what would we have said then?

Air cold and thin so that the orc's cries carried down shrilly to us through the mountain pass above. Must have been some thirty of them on our trail, enough to sweep a us away if they made a bold front of it, but for some reason they were holding back, shy like maidens to their marriage bed. Mayhaps they thought there were more of us then there really were, mayhaps they thought we'd more strength in our sword arms, or maybe they were just enjoying the chase like a cat will with a mouse. Either way, those shrill cries and jagged laughs dogged out steps, and when we were close to true collapsation and the Captain ordered we rest for a few hours, those very same laughs haunted our dreams, stupored as we were.

I'll give the young Captain this much, he knew how to pick a defensive spot. The little pocket he found in the rock was barely large enough to hold the fifteen of us, and could only be approached through a narrow cleft in the wall. Only one way in, and if the orcs tried to rush us that night they'd have had to come one at a time, and we'd have choked up that cleft till their bodies bottled it up like bleeding corks. Course, one way in meant one way out, and I think that was part of the Captain's decision making process. He'd sized us up, taken measure of our desperation, and then cooly made sure none of us would bolt when the attack came. Gave us no choice, really, and in doing so assured him that every last one of us one stand and fight.

Gorgeous night. Propped up against the rough rock, I couldn't help but stare at the stars. Something about them always draws my eye before a tough fight. Just when I'm about to get in the thick of it, they're always there, distant and cool and untroubled. Makes me think all sorts of nonsense, and it's those times when I get to thinking about how a farming life wouldn't have been all bad; get to thinking a barn and a field or two, some hogs and life with my hands in the earth instead of wrapped around a sword might have been mighty fine, after all. But inevitably I look away from the stars and remember the stench of hog shit steaming in the cold dawn, remember how painful the cold water from the well would chap my hands and the pains and aches that would get in my back and arse and never go away were, and such thoughts would pass.

Captain came over and sat down next to me. He'd ditched his fancy shield a few miles back, a big gleaming thing of heavy metal with a red dragon painted on its front. Beautiful and heavy and now dropped and gone. Smart lad.

"Another hour, I think, and then we'll move on," he said, though I knew he'd give us at least two more. "We stop for too long there will be no moving us."

"Aye," I said, and wished for thousandth time for my pipe. That had gone with my pack yesterday when I felt like I was like to keel over from exhaustion. "Be good to be on the move once more."

We didn't say anything for a spell, and then Jennings got to groaning and the Captain stared in his direction.

"They never describe these parts," he said, voice low, "At least, I never heard of Silbaris the Silver or Kurg Iron Hand having to decide whether to leave a wounded friend behind. All bravery and glory in the songs. Not like this."

I kept quiet. The Captain bit his lower lip for awhile, chewed on it, clearly thinking, and then looked over to me.

"What do you think, Jag?" His voice was quiet, and I knew what he was asking. I sighed.

"It's a bad business no matter how you cut it, Captain," I said. "There's no right or wrong here. Just a question of how practical you want to be."

"Practical," he said. His dark face was haggard. I'd thought him less than twenty when we first set out. Now he seemed as old as I was. "Now there's a word to haunt your thoughts."

Jennings groaned again, and subsided.

"We're about twelve hours from the river," he said. "We can cut that to six if we travel fast. The orcs will make a play for us just before we break the tree line. Which means we'll have to take the last mile or so on the run, or be dragged into a standing fight, and we can't win that."

I waited, giving him room to talk himself into it. Idealism always goes last with some, but if they're good, if they have the makings of a good leader, it will go just the same.

Another long pause, and then the Captain stood up. I'd like to say he looked wiser, stronger, something, but to me he just looked even more tired. As if a candle had been blown out from behind his eyes. He stood looking at nothing for a long time, and then, without another word to me, drew his knife and walked over to the wounded.

A bad business, no matter how you cut it.

The well of obsoletion

The story starts as an automaton repairman encounters paradigm shifts while in a tower. The overall narrative features nostalgia for a past that never was.

The tower was wavering and wobbling, shifting like a boiled noodle and most like that was because I’d been drinking and drinking until I got myself drunk. The walls wavered and seemed to shiver with frissons of excitement as I passed them, thick gray blocky stones made out of as they were. Doors had frames that just wouldn’t sit still. I’d of pounded sense into them if I hadn’t known that would be seen as crazy talk made flesh and bone. Bone that would break if I hit them hard enough. In the war with wood bone will lose, most times, unless you got kung fu training.

Which I don’t.

So I ignored it all with glorious superiority which I don’t know if the walls and doors noticed. I made my way into the tower, which is a vertical progression, not a horizontal one, but I had to ascend to get to where the work was waiting for me. Some droid or robot or automaton that needed fixing. The owner had probably failed to plug it in. Or turn it on. Waste of my time, as almost all of these things were. If I could bury one of my leadrouters into an eye socket every time I was drawn out here for no reason I’d have a lot less leadrouters. So I guess it’s good I don’t.

Sometimes I think about turning these robots into maniacal suicidal doodads. Just amp up their kill factors till they can’t see straight, till they see snakes and bugs everywhere and go a chopping till their paychecks get cut. I could do it without much bother, just find myself a nice fine tough robot and get it all ramped up and let it loose, but hell, it’s an idea that appeals as long as you keep it abstract. You go implementing ideas like that, you’ll just make a mess everywhere. And then people would be yelling and getting all excited and demanding answers and these days I just want to be let alone because, really, is that too much to ask? You’d think it was.

Didn’t always used to be like this. Some time ago it was better, golden age years, halcyon times, you know? You could roll up with a gleaming set of spanners and reap all the respect you wanted, offered up, proffered up like you were some passing God, some bastard child of James Dean and Pan, harvesting adulation wherever it was you went. Back when the droids and robots and servitors and metalheads were all brand spanking new, the new wave, the ultimate in revolutionary home décor, the flim flam of the ne plus ultra. And we were their high priests, their ablutors. Magic time.

Not any more. These days I don’t even shave when I wake up, don’t comb my hair, can barely bother to rub the grit out of my eyes. I just roll out of bed and figure out where I’m heading next. Sucks when you become obsolete, when you don’t have a skill set to roll you into the next wave of ultimate home décor or robot apparel. I guess I could adapt, learn a new trade, but I don’t have the inclination. School ain’t for me, not any more, and hell, I like them old rusting metaljunkers and ambulatory system droids. They’re mute and sorrowful like an old dog, too tired to get up, gazing up at you with that same mute adoration that just gets the more painful to regard the closer the damn beast gets to needing to be put down.

Sometimes I sit down before one of them old robots and just stare them in the face. They don’t have much as far as faces go, just enough to orient a body when you’re dealing with them, but in that very simplicity I find a poignancy that I don’t think would be there if there were finely articulated features. Just bland, innocuous contours and hints of eyes, nose, mouth. Those eyes. Dead rings of burned out LCD’s around the camera lenses. I just sit down before them, knees popping like old wood getting snapped, and stare them in the face. Wish they could speak, sometimes. Not because I would want them to jabber at me, but it would make the silence more companionable if I knew they had the ability but were choosing to just sit quiet. Sit quiet like I do.

Never mind. I’m just an ornery old man. Grease and oil stuck so deep into my skin and calluses that my hands look permanently bruised. Got a wealth of knowledge on systems outmoded, outdated, prehistoric, gone and vanished down the obsoletion well. Some point along the way I went from being an automaton repairman to a custodian of history, a guardian of forgotten lore.

One of these days I’ll program a robot to do something foolish. Something that’ll make a mess. Maybe I’ll have him turn on me, take me down, end it all. Fitting, that, disassembled by the very things I’ve spent my life constructing. Maybe some day soon. Till then, I’ll just keep working. Day by day. Starting with this droid, here in this tower. Look at his dumb face. Dumb as a load of bricks. Poor idiot. More like me than the people I see around. We’re dying breeds, both.

Swordsmiths and sniffer cats

The story challenges the boundaries of stories. Romance blossoms between a daring smuggler and a swordsmith, while difficulties they encounter include a dystopia and a mechanical cat.

The sky was toxic orange, overcast and glowed like a banked fire despite the late hour. Light pollution was ubiquitous, universally accepted, and no longer remarked upon. The only place darkness reigned was beneath the covers and within closed closets. The moon had become a thing of legend, and the stars were rumored to have long ago died out. Yuri wiped the back of his sleeve across his nose, and then, hitching his backpack, stepped out from the doorway into the umber lit evening.

His first run. The trick was not to fall into a regular walking pattern. If your face was lowered, the cameras would focus on your gait, and seek to match it to your file. By placing a small pebble in one of your shoes, you could confound their sensors, and force them to rely on your fake ID signal. Tonight Yuri was masquerading as Thomas Efrit, a Level 5 citizen. The ruse wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, but should be enough to fool the camera systems. Fool them for a few hours, perhaps, but that was all he needed.

Yuri threaded his way through the busy streets, keeping his head down, gait uneven. He crossed through Blackfriars, and then reached the area where the Thames ran below ground. The bridges were now architectural curiosities, arching up over the smooth, industrial ground that had been laid down decades ago below and about them. Yuri hustled under London Bridge, out the other side, and then crossed over into the East Side.

Fifteen minutes later, heart pounding, he reached the right building. There were less cameras here, but still his nonchalance was feigned when he knocked on the door, pressing his palm momentarily against the smart surface so that it could read his fake ID, the information laced into his subcutaneous layer earlier that evening by his home made chemistry kit. The door glowed subtly about his palm, and he dropped his arm to his side. The die were cast. Time to see what came up.

Two minutes passed before the door cracked open. The longest two minutes of the day thus far. Without a backwards glance Yuri slipped through the door and into the hallway beyond, the interior of the building constructed on the antiquated models of long ago. A woman was standing before him, her dark hair pulled back into a rough pony tail, her mouth set in a frown.

“Who are you?”

“Yuri,” he said, ducking his head quickly. “Matteo couldn’t come. He’s been Detained.” The woman’s frown grew deeper, and then she took his palm and before he could react she jabbed a syringe into the flesh of his hand and drew it back out just as quickly.

“Just a precaution,” she said, smiling humorlessly at him. She ignored him then, shaking the syringe several times before raising it to look at the LCD that ran along its side. Yuri eyed the hollow of her throat, noted the sweat the was cooling on her skin. He tried not to look at the swell of her breasts beneath her black sweater, barely succeeded.

“Yuri Kolchenko,” she confirmed, lowering the syringe. “Your first run?”

“Yes,” he said, decided on the spot to abandon all pretense, the lies he had prepared to impress her. He knew, somehow, that she wouldn’t have bought them. “But I’m not worried.”

“You should be,” she said, turning and leading him further into the house. “But perhaps in this case ignorance is bliss. Come on.”

“What’s your name?” he asked, tripping after her and then following her through a door and down a flight of stairs into the darkness below.

“Vic,” she said without looking over her shoulder. “You can call me Vic.”

“Vic,” he said, testing it out. “Nice to meet you, Vic.”

She didn’t respond, instead stepping out into a large basement which lit up as she walked into it. Yuri gave his customary look around for a camera lens, didn’t see any. Didn’t mean they weren’t there, though.

A forge dominated the low ceilinged room, and made of the air a hot, blasted thing. Deep crimsons smoldered in the heart of the pressure furnace, and the wall was hung with hammers, tongs, and other more obscure tools. No swords were in evidence though.

Vic strode over to a bank of monitors and crossed her arms as she stared at each in turn. Wandering over, Yuri saw that they covered different streets around her building. Avenues of approach.

“You’ve hacked into the cam network?” he asked, impressed.

“Hmm,” said Vic. “You sure you weren’t followed?”

“Followed?” Yuri felt a surge of adrenaline and mild panic at the very idea. “No, I don’t think so. The fake ID is good, top quality, stolen just thirty seconds before I began using it. And I kept my biometrics hidden. No reason I should have been—“

“Then what’s that?” asked Vic, stabbing a finger at one of the screens where a small shape was walking sinuously on four legs down the center of the street.

“That’s a… that’s a cat?” Yuri felt his heart plunge into his shoes.

“A sniffer cat,” confirmed Vic, voice grim. “If it finds us, if it keeps to your trail…”

“Shit,” said Yuri, bunching his hands into fists. “Shit shit shit. What do we do?”

Vic turned to him, and instead of looking angry she seemed tiredly amused. “If there was a sniffer cat out there, than there was little you could have done to avoid it. What do we do? I’m going to have a stiff drink. If it finds us, we’ll try to take it down, and then we run.”

“Run…” said Yuri. His first job and a sniffer cat had picked up his trail. That was impossibly bad luck. He watched Vic move over to a shelf where she opened a bottle and poured two fingers of a liquid the color of cigars into a tumbler. And then into a second.

“Come on, kid. You’re going to need this if things get hairy.”

Yuri walked over and took up the glass. “What is this?”

“Irish whiskey.”

“But that’s…” said Yuri, and then trailed off when he realized how stupid he must sound.

“Illegality doesn’t bother me much,” said Vic, her smile reappearing. “You sure you ready for this kind of work?”

“Yes! I mean, I think so. I don’t know.” He felt his face burn, and Vic laughed, and her face became strikingly attractive. She had a wide smile, bright white teeth. She clicked her tumbler against his, and they both drank. Warmth and fire and smoke washed down his gullet, and he tried not to cough.

Vic had turned to the screen. The sniffer cat had moved into another camera’s view, and was now pacing back and forth before her door, seemingly uncertain. She set her tumbler down and leaned over to open a steamer trunk. Reaching down, she pulled out a cloth wrapped object, long and heavy, and handed it to him.

Yuri took it and unwrapped the oiled cloth. The blade was brilliant in his hands, like a shard of lightning. Light and pliant, it seemed to thrum through the flesh of his hands, resonate in his bones.

“Easy,” said Vic, catching the look on his face. “You just watch my back with that.”

“No,” said Yuri, and wrapped the cloth back around the blade. “I’ve got another idea.”

“Oh?” asked Vic, clearly dubious.

“I’m going back out. I’ll cross a street over, let it catch sight of me. I’ve not been out of its sight for more than a couple of minutes thus far. I’ll draw it away. Send someone else to come pick up the swords next time.” Vic was eyeing him appraisingly. “There’s no need to expose your operation,” he said, feeling both doomed, excited, and numb all in one.

“You realize what will happen if it decides to move in on you,” she said, voice level.

“I don’t care. I knew this was serious when I volunteered.” He raised his chin. The whiskey was burning in his stomach. Made him feel like running, like kissing Vic on her generous lips.

She simply looked at him, and that was all the permission he needed. Turning, he strode toward the stairs, and turned as he gained the first and looked over his shoulder at her. “Nice meeting you, Vic,” he said.

“Don’t do this, Yuri,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“True. But who knows. I might get lucky.”

“Ha,” she said, and her eyes gleamed. Perhaps she was feeling the burn of the whiskey again. “You come by another night, and we'll discuss the odds of that.”

Yuri blinked, and it took him a moment to understand what she meant. Then his face burned all over again, and she laughed at the sight of him. “Wish me luck,” he mumbled, managed to flash a grin at her, part disbelief, part panic at the prospect of hitting the streets again, and began to make his way back up.

“Luck,” he heard Vic say below, and then he was heading out the back door, and back into the street. He lowered his face automatically, fixed the hitch into his gait, and began to stride down the street. He’d hang a left past the sniffer cat at the next junction. The sky was a dull lambent orange above him, and the crowds had thinned out. Time to play at cat and mouse, but all he could think of was Vic down below. New motivation, he reflected with a rueful grin, to make it through the night.

The Masque of the Red Death

Your story is a romance between an efficient assistant and an undercover law enforcement agent. The lovers experience a pandemic and a partnership of equals while in a decaying palazzo. One of them is motivated to protect one person (regardless of who else gets hurt in the process).

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. Bodies piled up like cords of wood, stiff and crimson of visage, faces startled by how sudden and gruesome death had been when it came for them. Cities became mass charnel houses, and bone orchards everywhere were inundated with cadavers. The skies grew dark with cyclones of ravens and crows, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence was drowned.

Rakehell and agent to the crown Honoré de March had been assigned by the failing King to travel deep into the countryside and locate Prince Prospero’s castellated retreat, his grand palazzo, his fabulous abbey. The King’s young seer, Miranda, had foreseen the Prince’s death at midnight two weeks hence, and de March had been ordered to save his life, come hell or high tide. So it was with grim determination that the pair headed North into the deep woods, traveling under the dark canopies until they reached the massive curtain wall that circled the abbey and guarded the Prince and his cohorts from the plague that raged across the county so.

Under cover of night they scaled the massive walls, and like moths falling from the night sky dropped to the ground undetected and melted into the festive throngs. At first de March was taken aback by the displays of gaucherie and decadence, by the lack of taste and decorum. Knights and ladies, courtiers and pages, all cavorted and danced, whirled and whorled under the night sky and within the halls, nude and partially dressed, slathered in grotesque costumes and sporting lascivious masks. Silks and velvet, minks and chains, spilt wine and spoiled food. The palazzo reeked with hedonistic abandon.

Miranda, barely twenty years old, flame haired and fiercely freckled, followed de March like a hesitant shadow, a candle flame in danger of being puffed out by the wind. She watched wide eyed as a circle of men and women cheered on a man as he mortified his flesh, wide eyed and lost. She stared with horror as a man turned kitchen instruments upon his partner, and averted her gaze when she saw a woman blank eyed being used by a line of petitioners.

de March shepherded her into a quiet space, a place where the music couldn’t reach them, as remote and secluded as they could get.

“Miranda,” he said, shaking her to get her attention. “Wake up, snap out of it.”

“They court death,” she said. “They court death, defy it.

“More fool them. Are you alright? Will you be able to retain your wits?

“I’ve seen much with my Second Sight, seen much on the roads and paths that have brought us here. But this, it is something else. Something worse than a corpse abandoned in a cross road, or a pile of bodies left to rot. This is solicitation. This is the will to life inverted.

“Well, I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but come on now, focus. When is it coming? When does Death come for Prince Prospero?

“Tonight,” said Miranda, pulling out a sheaf of tarot cards. She knelt down, cast them into a cross, and then referenced the cards revealed against a couple of slender tomes. “Yes, tonight,” she said, certainty in her voice. “Everybody dies tonight. The jig is up. Less than an hour, perhaps.

“An hour? Crap,” said de March. “Fine, fine.

“Prince Prospero is going to die. You’re going to die. I’m going to die.

“Your small talk is awful,” said de March absently, and then turned from her. “Ready?

“No, I’m afraid not,” said Miranda, sinking to her side. “I shall await death here.

“Fine, fine,” said de March striding off. It would probably be easier without her at his side,
muttering her dark aspirations anyway. Back into the throng he plunged, at home in this riotous element, spinning between dancers, lifting his knees in plange et fort when the music called for it, taking glasses of wine when proffered to him and tossing them, glass and all, over his shoulder. He waved aside an offer to partake in sausage rolls, and bowed out of a game of bridge. Finally he came to the colored suites, the green and white and orange suites, lit from without by the candelabra placed outside the windows that looked in.

There—Prince Prospero. The Prince cut a fine figure. Broad shouldered, confident, his handsome face was ablaze with delight and life. How could Miranda call this man anything but alive? de March glanced about, sought out Death. Nowhere to be seen. A clock somewhere began to strike midnight, the tones so disjointed and jarring that the music stilled, revellers ceased their dancing, and all gazed at each other with apprehension and doubt.

A hand gripped his, cold and slight. Looking down, de March saw Miranda. Her face was pale, the bones in her skull prominent. de March gave a start—she looked dead already.

“The time has come for the unmasqueing,” she said, and pulled him down so that their lips met. She pressed her cool lips against his own in a chaste kiss, and then stepped back. Surprised, unsure of himself, de March watched as she wrapped her cloak about herself, and straightened, seeming to grow taller. de March staggered back. Miranda’s face was growing increasingly ghastly, twisted and warped, wholly unlike herself. Her features grew contorted, and blood seeped out from her skin, milked from her flesh so that it soaked her robes and brow.

The clock finished chiming midnight, and the crowds turned to each other, relieved, only to see Miranda standing amidst them, tall and gaunt and altogether horrible. They drew back, began to murmur to each other.

"Who dares?" Prince Prospero demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!"

People surged forward and then stopped just shy of Miranda. She was staring with her ghoul eyes at where the Prince stood. de March drew forth his flintlock, and tried to cock it. His fingers fumbled. His breath was stilled within his chest. Miranda began to surge forwards, the crowd falling back like parted waters. From the blue room she went to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet. None stopped her, only de March faltered after her, gun raised, trying to pull the trigger.

Prince Prospero then drew a dagger, his face contorted with rage. Into the black and final room he plunged, intent on Miranda, dagger held up high. A premonition hit de March, and he knew that should that blade pierce Miranda’s cloaks, then would the Prince’s death be terrible indeed, lasting a month for each day he had spent in seclusion here in the palazzo. Gun raised, he changed his aim, and pulled the trigger.

Screams. Prince Prospero fell, shot through the back. Summoning their courage, a throng of revellers threw themselves into the black velvet room, and clawed at Miranda, only to draw back once more as her vestments collapsed untenanted to the ground. Already people were swaying, moaning, clawing at their necks as blood sprang fresh and bright from their faces.

de March stumbled away, fled the crowds. People were screaming, raw and terrified. Down hallways and passages he ran, till finally he came across the nook in which he had last seen Miranda examine her cards. And there she lay, curled into a question mark, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. de March collapsed beside her, sat back against the wall. Pain was in his joints, his skin was on fire. There wasn’t much time left to him. His mission had been a failure, destined to be such from its incipience. Reaching down,he pulled Miranda’s slight form towards him, pulled her into his arms. Her eyes remained closed.

Not much time left now. The screams were horrendous. He would not cry out, no matter the pain. Lifting Miranda, he gazed at her fine boned face, at her pale, bloodless lips. She had kissed him, before the last. He didn’t know what it meant, but leaning his head, he kissed her of his own will, returned her kiss. Her eyes opened and they were scarlet, livid and solid red. Her lips smiled against his, and she bit down on his tongue.

Argentinean Steakhouse

The protagonist of this story is a recovering junkie who has a scar on their face. On the way to the story's conclusion the protagonist encounters a Canadian. This person has an armored draisine. Plot elements include learning to use new weapons and rivals seeking someone's favor, and at least one character is motivated because they've always wanted to open a really good restaurant.

It had all gone wrong. I must have been halfway up through Minnesota by the time I ran out of gas. Every pump and station that I’d passed on those final hundred miles or so had already been drained dry by previous pilgrims. One by one I’d discarded my reserve oil canisters, pouring them into the engine of my car, till finally the gas needle has sunk below red and my engine had coughed, sputtered, and rolled to a halt on the empty shoulder of I95.

I’d known this moment would have come, thought it was going to back in Ohio when I’d hit that lonely stretch of highway and had to hightail it on foot for two days before reaching a gas station with reserves. Still, it was hard to give up the car. The progress was going to be mighty slow from here on out, even on the bike, and I’d have to ditch most of my stuff.

Getting out of the car, I surveyed the gray, ashen skies. It was daytime, or so I reckoned, evinced by a lightening of the permanent cloud cover. A wind scoured the rusted hulks that lined the lanes of the highways, and I shrugged deeper into my jacket. Maybe another couple of hundred miles till the border, and then up further beyond the fall out zone. Safety. Maybe.

I unstrapped the bike and got out my hiking backpack. It was going to be exhausting work pedaling with all that gear on my back, but there was nothing for it. I was already weak from going cold turkey on the Warren Cocktails. Shaky. But there'd been no way to take them with me, given their shelf life. I balled my hands into fists, and walked to the back of the car.

I opened the trunk and surveyed my collection of stainless steel pans, my wide array of butcher knives, the Bain Marie’s and strainers, ladles and basting pots, frying pans and can openers. Things I’d gathered along the way for when I finally made it to my destination. Looked like I was going to have to scavenge a whole new set of items when I arrived.

I began cycling north. At first the bike weaved and wavered as if I was drunk, but I soon found my style, and the miles began to unroll beneath my wheels. The highway headed north, always north, leaving the disaster area that was the everything within hundreds of miles of Washington DC and pretty much the whole of continental North America behind. I’d heard stories of people living out beyond the Rockies, sheltered and safe along the California coastline. Heard that much of Mexico was doing fine, though the islands had all turned into blights amidst the silty ocean. Not for me, though. I wanted north, up to Canada, maybe as far as the Arctic Circle if I had to. Pure air. Fresh and cold. That’s what I wanted.

About evening, as the shadows grew, if not longer, than more pervasively dark, I slowed down. Sweat was dripping from my nose and chin, and I felt weak, fain about to pass out. I near fell off the bike when I stopped, and unhitched my pack and let it crash to the ground. Nothing to see for miles but bare, dead trees, abandoned cars and drifts of ash. Maybe I had the radiation sickness. Maybe Doc Haddow had been wrong, and not enough years had gone by. I hunkered down and pressed my thumbs into my eyes and tried to not think about home.

The Warren, we’d taken to calling it. Twelve layers of subterranean bomb shelter just south of DC, right where the blast hit. Twelve layers so deep in the ground it had been safe for those who’d entered and locked the pressurized doors and taken the elevators down, down, down into the darkness. Bedrooms and recreational areas, a few biodomes and plenty of communications equipment. Built to house over 8,000 people by President Clinton back in 2020, but only some 2,500 had managed to get in before the bomb went off.

The wind was picking up, and I was beginning to shiver, the sweat turning to ice down my spine. I should be setting up the tent, getting my sleeping bag out, preparing for the plunge in temperature that always accompanied nightfall. But instead I simply hugged my knees and thought of what people would be doing back home on Level 4 in the Warren. The traditions that had set up these past fifteen years. The routines that made life bearable.

I was only six when I’d gone below. I’d not seen the sky nor sun now earth now the horizon except in movies and simulations. Maybe that’s what had caused me to buck and run. That and the desire to find fresh food. Fresh produce to cook with. Something beside the algae and carefully managed farm meat that was cultivated so assiduously on Level 7. God, watching those movies where people sat down and ate and ate and ate. Enough to drive a man mad.

A rhythmic creaking caught my attention. I ignored, thinking it the wind at first, but it kept growing louder. I was so cold by then, so stiff from the biking that I didn’t rise, just listened, mesmerized, until the creaking began to die away. Suddenly, not wishing to be left alone in the dark, I rose to my feet, grabbed my back and went crashing off the shoulder of the highway into the brittle bushes that snapped and broke before me, chasing the sound down.

Down a ditch and up the other side, through sparse undergrowth and then I hit railroad tracks, nearly tripped on the rubble and the bright lines of metal. Looking up and down the line, I saw something dark moving away from me, heading north along the rails, and with a cry I gave it chase, feet pounding on the rocks, each step jarring my bones and causing my head to pound.

It was a machine of some kind, a platform stuck right on the rails, a massive and ornate bicycle set in its center on which a fellow was pedaling with methodical intensity. He didn’t even look over his shoulder as I came close, running alongside. I unhitched my bag and swung it onto the platform, but a bright flare of electric blue light sizzled into place when my bag flew through the air, and sent it bouncing back into the darkness.

Blind panic seized me, a fierce desire to not be alone. I’d not been alone these past fifteen years, not ever, and these last few months of traveling by myself had near unmanned me, more than I knew. This was the first person I’d seen in weeks, and I wasn’t about to let them get away.

“Back off,” they yelled at me, as I kept pace alongside the platform, “You’ll fry and you’ll die if you jump on board.”

“Let me on!” I yelled.

“Hell no,” called the man, “You think I’m crazy?”

“I’m going to jump!”

“Don’t you do it,” he yelled, sounding angry now, “Don’t you be a fool.”

I began to swerve in, trying to build up speed for the leap. I didn’t care if it fried me. I wasn’t going to be able to make it far enough up north on that bike anyways. I didn’t have the strength.

The man yelled something as I jumped, and I landed on the platform, legs dragging behind me on the rocks. I began to slip off, but hands seized me by the back of the jacket and hauled me on board.

“What kind of idiot tries to commit suicide on my draisine?” he demanded, sounding furious. I blinked and rolled onto my back, looked up at the darkened face above me.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, “I just didn’t want—I couldn’t—“

“Alright, easy there, catch your breath,” he said gruffly. The platform was losing speed now that he was no longer pedaling. Rough hands patted me down, and took the knife blade from my hip. It was my prized butcher’s knife, honed to a paper thin edge, and never before used.

“What are you doing out here in the dark by yourself, anyways?” asked the man, putting the knife in his pocket and moving over to sit on the seat of his bicycle.

“I’m heading north,” I said, pushing myself up into a seated position. “Heading for Canada, or further, if I have to.”

“Canada, hey? Why you going there?”

I felt delirious. The sweat was burning on my skin, drawn from me by the run. What I wouldn't do for a Warren Cocktail, all spice and fizz and full of life. I lay back and stared up the at the dark clouds, the seared sky. I’d only ever seen moon and stars in films, read about them in books. I took them on faith. “Restaurant,” I said. “Want to open a restaurant. Argentinean Steakhouse. Angus beef. Filet Mignon.” I said the words which were like talismans to me. “Prime cut. Tenderloin.”

“You’re one crazy man, hey?” said the stranger. “Hang on, then. Let’s see if we can’t get you a little closer to your goal.”

I heard him get back on the bicycle. Begin to pedal, and with a groan the platform began to shift forward. I thought of Susie and Martin 1 and Martin 2 below the earth, back in the Warren. Thought of all the rock above their heads, and thought of the clouds above mine. I couldn’t see the moon or skies, but I knew, on some basic, primal level, that I was just a little bit closer to them now than I’d ever been.

A love story

The narrative features funny banter. Romance blossoms between a frustrated brain in a jar and a credulous person, while difficulties they encounter include showing off and falling from grace.

It was October, and leaves were giving up the ghost and preparing for their first and final fall. Along the beach people sat wearing sweaters on blankets, hugging their knees and watching the gray waters crash and ebb away. A pier extended battered and old out into the water, and its length was covered with tents and stalls. The remnants of a fair, the remnants of carnival.

Already the posters about town were beginning to curl and bloat, the ink announcing ‘Mr. Mysterioso’s Magical Marvels’ running and thinning. Everybody in the town had been and gone several times, thrown ping pong balls into cups, watched the clowns leap and tumble, gaped at the sword swallowing girl and the castrati who’s voice could shatter eyeglasses in the crowd. Only Meg hadn’t yet been, waiting and biding her time till she could have the carnival to herself. Only then, as evening turned to dusk, and the final stragglers had walked away, did she approach the pier.

The sky to the west was blazing into velvety reds and crimsons, and a cold wind was blowing in off the ocean, whistling between the stalls and causing the awnings to flap. Meg had been out on the pier many a time, when it was empty; it was her favorite spot to come and sit and puzzle things out, replay the events of the day and try to understand why people laughed when they did, and why they sometimes just stared and turned away. But now it was all changed, made somber and magnificent and mysterious and magical by the fair. She paused shyly like a bride at the door to the church, and then, with a quick breath, moved forward.

The stalls had been closed down, and nobody was about. No clowns walked the length of the broad pier, nobody hawked wares or sliced oranges. Padlocks were in evidence everywhere, and already several trucks had been pulled up to where the pier debouched onto the boardwalk, ready to be loaded up the next morning. But that was fine with Meg. She preferred the company of her thoughts and imagination to real people anyway, and as the shadows lengthened and grew thicker she peopled the pier with all the wondrous folk who might have worked the carnival, dancing and leaping and beckoning her further in.

She stopped before a small candycane tent, and gazed up a the sign over the entrance. “Mr. Mysterioso’s Miraculous Mind” it read. The wind cut past her, blowing her thick brown hair into her face, and she took a moment to pull the strands from her lips and eyelashes. Then she ducked her chin and stepped into the tent, half expecting for somebody to yell at her. Nobody did.

The inside of the tent was dark like the inside of a closet full of winter sweaters. Faint light crept in from under the edges of the tent, but that was all. Shapes loomed up around her, pedestals and boxes, vague dark shadows against blacker shapes. It smelt of chemicals and incense, and made her nose wrinkle. Meg paused and listened, and but for a faint bubbling sound, it was completely silent. She was alone.

“Hello,” somebody said, and Meg let out a cry and stepped back. “Can I help you?”

“I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come inside,” she said, looking around for the speaker. “I thought it was empty. The tent, that is.”

“If you thought it was empty,” asked the voice, “Why did you come inside?”

“Because I wanted to see what was in here,” she said, looking down at her feet. “I didn’t want to steal nothing, honest.”

“Well, no harm done,” said the voice. “And nature does abhor a vacuum. Have you come to ask your one question?”

“My one question?” asked Meg. “But I’ve got lots of questions. Why just one?”

“Well, the policy, as proscribed by Mr. Mysterioso, is one question per patron.”

“Oh,” said Meg, “I didn’t know. I can ask you a question?”

“But of course,” said the voice, warm and solicitous. “To answer is my sole desire.”

“Oh, okay,” said Meg, thinking hard. What to ask? So much of the world confused her. Where to start? She could ask why people laughed when she asked her questions. Or why people tended to laugh even harder when she didn’t understand their answers. Or maybe she could ask why seagulls seemed so vicious. Or what it felt like to be a fish.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve got so many questions I can’t pick one. What would you ask?”

“What would I ask?” asked the voice, surprise and pleased. “Nobody has ever asked me that before. Let us see. Tell me about yourself, and I’ll suggest a question.”

“Well, there’s not much to tell. My name’s Meg Carroway, and I live here in town, see. I’m fifteen, but people tell me I’m not too quick for my age. I like the sorts of stuff others don’t, mostly, and the stuff the like I don’t like much at all. Like—football games, or yelling, or drinking and saying things that don’t make much sense.” Meg ran out of steam, and suddenly felt self conscious and embarrassed. “Not much to tell, really.”

“I see. Well. Hrmm.” Meg got the impression that the person would have coughed if they could have. If they were less polite, perhaps. Moving forward, she peered around the gloom, trying to spot him. He sounded nice. “Well, I don’t know either,” the voice finally said. “I’m usually quite good at this. But after all these years I’ve grown used to talking about how to make money, or make somebody fall in love with you. Hrrm.”

“You know how to make people fall in love with each other?” asked Meg, impressed.

“Well, kind of. I can give very sensible advice that usually works,” said the voice, proud.

“Like what?”

“Like, what advice?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it all depends, see. Usually it involves giving flowers and telling the person you like them.”

Meg laughed. “Really? That’s your advice? Seems a bit simple to me.”

“Well, simple sometimes is best,” said the voice.

“True,” said Meg, reflecting. “I guess you’re right there. I like things simple too.” They fell into a companionable silence. “You must be in love with somebody, then,” said Meg, “Given that you have this good advice.”

“Well, no, not exactly,” said the voice. “It’s a bit hard for me.”

“To fall in love?”

“Well, I fall in love quite easily. But it’s hard for others to fall in love with me.?

“Why’s that?”

“Because I have no body.”

“Nobody to love?”

“No, no body.”

“Well, I’ve got nobody either.”

“That’s not true, I can see you standing right there.”

“Well, yes, but I’m alone all the same.”

“Alone in your body?”

“Alone in my body? What? No, I mean I’m alone in general.”

“But in your body. I mean, you have a body.”

“Of course I have a body. Don’t you?”

“No,” said the voice, impatience crackling in it, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I have no body.”

“Oh,” said Meg, unsure as what to say to that. “Like, you don’t have a body? You’re…. a ghost?”

“No, not a ghost, don’t be silly. I’m a brain in a vat.”

“A what?”

“Brain. Floating in a special compound saline solution designed by Mr. Mysterioso. Didn’t you see the sign above the door?”

“I didn’t understand it.”

“Well, I suppose it’s not absolutely intuitive.”

“I don’t know what you mean, but I don’t think you should let not having a body ruin things for you.”

The voice laughed, a rich and bitter purl of laughter that filled the tent. With a start, Meg realized it had grown quite dark. “Don’t let my lack of body get in the way of finding love? You should take my place, dear miss. Your advice is priceless.”

“Well, no need to laugh at me,” said Meg, face burning. “Everybody’s always laughing at me. I’ll be going, now. Thank you for you time.”

“No, wait,” said the voice, “I’m sorry, I’ve no right to laugh, I’m sorry.”

Meg paused by the doorway. “Are you really just a brain floating in a vat?”

“I might be,” said the voice quietly.

“I never know when people are telling the truth or joking with me,” said Meg, in a comparable tone.

“You could turn on the light and see,” said the voice.

“I could,” said Meg, and stood still. She could hear the wind whistling outside, and knew that soon she’d have to be getting home. She was late already, and would be scolded by her parents. She should be leaving. Getting home. Back to her house, her life, getting ready for school the next day. Instead, she stepped back into the tent. “I could, but maybe I won’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter, really.”

“No?” asked the voice.

“Maybe. I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just stay awhile longer. Would you mind?”

“No, Meg, I wouldn’t mind at all. That would be quite nice. I was getting ready for another lonely night. Some company would be nice.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Meg. She sat down on the wooden floor, the boards of the pier rough against her bum. “I don’t feel like asking any questions though. Do you know any stories?”

“I know a few,” said the voice. “What kind would you like to hear?”

“A love story,” said Meg, and closed her eyes. It was warmer behind her eyelids. “Tell me a love story, please.”

“Very well,” said the voice, and began to recount a tale of a land far away from a time long ago. Meg remained still, and listened, and outside the cold wind blew and the awnings flapped, and the gray ocean crashed and ebbed on the shore.

Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed

The plot starts because of a misunderstanding about eldritch inscriptions. The protagonist, a tormented but brilliant general who has brass buttons, ends up in a tinsmith's with a caring mentor.

Higher Marshall Five Star Klock paused before the Cliffs of Agate and Doom, and stared down at the tablet in his hand. He frowned at it, scritched at the stubble along the length of his jaw, and then back up at the cliffs. They reared up like curtains descending from Heaven, a beach of black stones about their base. Higher Marshall Five Star Klock was standing on this beach, the ocean booming and booming behind him, washing up to his heels.

Turning, he stared out at where his galleon rode the waves, anchored and waiting. He frowned again, and sighed. There was supposed to be an entrance into the lost and forgotten tomb of Higher Most Up Up Seven Star Lopidi in the cliff face. There was supposed to be a stairway cut into the cliff leading up to it, and the Ultimate Weapon contained within. Higher Marshall Five Star Klock squinted up at the agate cliffs. Nothing.

Scratching his nose, he turned the tablet in his hand upside down. The runes cut into the stone could be read differently if so held, though their meaning became increasingly abstruse. He’d been certain this was the correct interpretation. Had staked two years of research and traveling across the Oceans of Frib to reach this lonely shore. The Great War that Never Ended would be unrecognizable by this point. Positions would have changed. Territories shifted, new commanders appointed. Uniforms with different colors, maybe, new and more fashionable cuts.

He’d have to go back to it empty handed. Higher Marshall Five Star Klock had been standing on the beach for two long and lonely hours, unwilling to admit his mistake. But there was nothing for it. Everybody on the galleon was most definitely well aware of his failure. Had probably been watching him through their telescopes, sniggering into their knitting as they waited. The most illustrious and successful Higher Marshall Five Star in recent memory, and here he stood like a putz.

In a sudden fit of anger he turned and chucked the three thousand year old tablet into the waves. It felt good for about a minute, and then he sighed once more and waded out into the water to retrieve it.

A year passed. Higher Marshall Four Star Klock was back in the Third Home City of Illumpti, recently demoted following a protracted investigation into his misappropriation of funds and failure. He’d had to trade in his big hat for a slightly smaller one, and the lack of weight on his head irked him. Walking through the streets, he fiddled at his new uniform. Two weeks and he’d have to go back to the Front, or one of them, to oversee the planning of the implementation of the incipience of strategizing over how to think about the next step in declaring an attack. Bollocks.

What he hated, more than the small hat, were the large brass buttons down the front of his navy blue jacket. Each bore the face of a Higher Uppity Up Up Ten Star Senex, each of whom had just spent the past three months denigrating him. He picked and plucked at them and then, in a sudden bout of rebellion, ducked into a tinsmith shop, determined to have them replaced, consequences be damned.

The shop was low ceilinged, dusky and dark, gloomy and dim, poorly lit, hard to see in. Tin cups hung from the ceiling and tinkled like wind chimes. The whole place smelled suspiciously of pickle juice. Suddenly leery, Higher Marshall Four Star Klock paused, considered stepping back out. But a familiar form arrested his escape. It was Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. His old mentor, the most revered man in the world, the originator of war, its most dexterous practicator. The old man was bent over an old tin plate, examining an etching on its reverse side.

“Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku,” said Higher Marshall Four Star Klock, drawing himself to attention as he did so. Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku turned around, peered through the gloom, the dim interior of the store, and his craggy old face split into a warm smile.

“Well, well, well,” said Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. “If it isn’t my young protégé, Higher Marshall Five Star Klock.”

Higher Marshall Four Star Klock felt his face color. “Actually, sir, I have been demoted to Four Star rank.”

“Oh?” asked Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. “I am sorry to hear that. Your fault?”

“Yes sir,” said Klock. “I failed to find the Ultimate Weapon. Two years and precious resources wasted on my account.”

“Ah well,” said Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. “There’s always another day in which to fight and win glory. Tell me, what do you think of this plate? Winsome?”

Higher Marshall Four Star Klock peered at it. “Yes sir. Very winsome.”

“Oh good,” said Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. “I do so like things that win. I’ll buy it. Come over for dinner when you regain your rank?”

“Of course, sir,” said Klock. “It would be an honor. Unless death finds me first.”

“With your shield or on it,” said Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku. “Right? Am I right? Eh? On your shield or on it? Get it?”

“Of course sir. Very good, sir. Well, congratulations on the plate. I’m off to war then, I suppose.”

“Right-oh! Bon chance, and better luck finding the Ultimate Weapon next time.”

“Thank you, sir. Most kind. Most, most kind. To me, that is.”

“Kabosh it. Not a tittle or a thing to be considerated. You’ll do fine! Now, off with you. Go do some warmongering.”

“Ok. Ciao.”

Higher Upper Xmax Up Up Upped Cubed Galaxy Star Jibooku smiled vaguely, raised a hand in parting, and turned around to continue examine the plate. Higher Marshall Four Star Klock stepped back out into the sunshine, buttons forgotten, and trained his eyes on the closest horizon, and smiled.