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Aeon Thirteen
by AEon Authors
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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Quintamid LLC
www.aeonmagazine.com

Copyright ©2008 by Quintamid LLC

First published in 2008, 2008

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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www.aeonmagazine.com

Editors

Marti McKenna

Bridget McKenna

Associate Editor

L. Blunt Jackson

Editorial Associate

Jak Koke

Editorial Assistant

Stacey Janssen

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Æon Thirteen is copyright © 2008, Quintamid LLC, all rights reserved. Individual columns, articles, and stories are copyright © the authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, without prior permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief passages quoted in reviews.

“Pearl,” by Jeffe Kennedy was briefly published, by mistake, on the Abyss & Apex website. Below is a statement from Abyss & Apex editor Wendy Delmater.

“This story was submitted to Abyss & Apex. Due to errors in communication stemming from email problems, and a mistake on the submissions log, Abyss & Apex published the story without authorization. Upon being notified of the problem by the writer, the story was removed. Abyss & Apex offers its sincerest apologies to the writer, and has revised its tracking system to prevent such an error from happening again. Abyss & Apex declines any credit as the originating publisher of the work."

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CONTENTS

Thirteen by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Thirteen All You Need is...

Pearl by Jeffe Kennedy

One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies by S. Hutson Blount

What Do We Pay the Moon? by Greg Beatty

The Dam by Daniel Marcus

Hit by Bruce McAllister

PARALLAX: Condominium and Collective, or, More—or Less—Than Human (with apologies to Theodore Sturgeon) by Dr. Rob Furey

Holiday by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

Little Moon, Too, Goes Round by David Dumitru

Swimming Back From Hell by Moonlight by Marissa K. Lingen

Misery Loves by Craig D. B. Patton

Our Authors

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Contents

Pearl ... Jeffe Kennedy

One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies ... S. Hutson Blount

The Dam ... Daniel Marcus

Hit ... Bruce McAllister

Little Moon, Too, Goes Round ... David Dumitru

Swimming Back From Hell by Moonlight ... Marissa K. Lingen

Misery Loves ... Craig D.B. Patton

poetry

What Do We Pay the Moon? ... Greg Beatty

Holiday ... Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

Departments

Signals ... Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Æternum ... The Æon Editors

Parallax ... Dr. Rob Furey

Our Authors

The Future

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Thirteen
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

My French science fiction publisher, Bragelonne, has just published a collection of short stories. Called Science-Fiction 2007, the collection is a loss leader designed to promote Bragelonne's new science fiction book line.

“The science fiction short story is dying in France,” my publisher told me over a very nice lunch last fall. “We are doing what we can to save it."

Including giving this quite lovely collection away for free. (French readers can order it at www.bragelonne.fr. In fact I'll put ordering information throughout except for books which y'all know you can find at www.amazon.com)

Things aren't that bad in the U.S. Publishers don't have to give short story anthologies away here to encourage interest in the SF short story. For all the doom and gloom I spout in this column about science fiction book publishing, I find that I cannot be gloomy about the science fiction short story—at least not in America.

In the past year, at least three new science fiction anthology series have started. Lou Anders’ Fast Forward, George Mann's The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, and Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse are all reviving a long-standing tradition in the SF field—the unthemed SF anthology series.

The unthemed SF anthology series had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s with Damon Knight's Orbit series and Terry Carr's Universe series. Other anthology series, like New Dimensions, kept the tradition going into the early 1980s. My husband Dean Wesley Smith and I revived the tradition in the late 1980s with Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine.

What these anthologies did was catch the field's attention, introduce new writers into the mix, and shake up existing science fiction—things that can't be done effectively at the novel length.

Themed SF anthologies have been around equally long, and are still going strong. From the Tekno Books anthologies, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and company in Wisconsin and published through Daw, to the annual themed anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois and a partner (this year's was with Jonathon Strahan, and called The New Space Opera), themed anthologies appeal to tastes ranging from hard science fiction to humorous SF.

And we can't forget the digest magazines whose demise has been predicted as long as I've been in the field. Asimov's (www.asimovs.com) has just celebrated its 30th anniversary. Analog (www.analogsf.com) is still going strong, and the field's longest running digest magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (www.sfsite.com/fsf), will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in 2009.

Add to these e-zines, like the one you're currently reading, or webzines like Baen's Universe (www.baensuniverse.com), and American science fiction short stories are in a kind of rennaissance.

And I'm only counting original SF stories, not reprints. From the various short story collections published through specialty press houses like Golden Gryphon (www.goldengryphon.com) to the once-experimental, now long-standing download site Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com) where the customer can purchase a single story, the short fiction market is thriving. And that doesn't count the truly experimental, like author podcasts, or brand new sites for MP3 players, like Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org).

While France might be struggling to keep the science fiction short story alive, other countries are doing as well as the United States. In Colombia, Hernan Ortiz and Viviana Trujillo just published a fantastic (and beautiful) multimedia SF collection called Agua/Cero: Una Antología de Proyecto Líquido. In addition to the anthology itself, Ortiz and Trujillo commissioned music to accompany the stories. Reading Agua/Cero is a complete sensory experience. (www.proyectoliquido.net).

Spain conducts an annual novella contest, open to writers in four languages—Spanish, Catalàn, English and French—through the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. The winning stories, which come from all over the world, are published in an original anthology each year called Premio UPC. (www.edicionesb.com)

Australia, which in addition to some of the best SF magazines such as Aurealis (www.aurealis.com.au), has a long tradition of original anthologies, many of which are now being published in the U.S. Canada's long-running On Spec magazine (www.onspec.ca) has discovered some of the best Canadian writers of the past twenty years, and has helped the entire country develop a strong SF tradition of its own—independent of the U.S. (which is sometimes hard for Canada to do).

And Great Britain, which has always had a thriving SF community, is the home of Interzone (www.ttapress.com), one of the best SF magazines, as well as a host of others—an entire rackfull of short fiction magazines, as I noted on my trip there last fall.

While the state of the science fiction novel is in flux, the SF short story is healthy and growing. Part of this is, I think, due to SF's short fiction roots. SF works extremely well in the short length. In many genres (romance comes to mind), the short story feels like a truncated novel. Even mystery short stories (one of my favorite forms) can go horribly wrong in the hands of an author who doesn't understand that the short form is different from the long form. (For someone who understands both short and long mystery fiction, pick up the work of Jeffrey Deaver (www.jeffreydeaver.com)

But SF short stories don't have to do just one thing such as present a crime and solve it like a mystery does, or show the development of an entire romantic relationship like a romance does. The SF short story can explore a strange new world or it can introduce an alien culture. The SF short story can be a character study or it can be plot-heavy. It can incorporate a mystery or a romance, or both. It can be any length, be set in any time period (present, past, or future), and be located anywhere from Earth to the Moon and beyond.

In France, the science fiction magazines lost their state funding and the anthologies didn't sell as well as anticipated. Bragelonne says its anthology is doing quite well—but it's not being sold. It's a giveaway, designed to introduce readers to the unfamiliar SF form.

If Bragelonne's experiment works, it won't just help their own publishing line. It'll revive the SF short story market in one of the few developed countries where it's not thriving.

But here in the United States, we're lucky to have such a strong SF short story market. Once I believed, like so many other people still do, that the short story was threatened. But I've heard about the demise of the science fiction short story for decades now, and yet there are more SF short stories being published in more venues and formats than ever before.

SF readers appreciate the freedom the short story brings to their favorite genre. I think the SF short story will survive—in one format or another—for decades to come.

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Thirteen
All You Need is...

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

—Sophocles

Sophocles lived to be ninety. Although we missed crossing paths with that worthy by a few years, and can't recount his history with any degree of accuracy, we're going to go out on a limb and say that's probably long enough to have encountered love a time or two and to have taken its measure. Many authors of apt aphorisms take a more jaded view, but that's not our view, and as we're not constrained to give them equal time, we won't.

What does a brand-new human being need more than love? Nothing, and that's a fact in our very personal book of facts. Thankfully most of them get a big heaping, pure, unconditional dose of it, at least in those early days before they learn to defy us. If we didn't love them the moment they made their appearance we might well abandon them to wolves the first time they wake up screeching at 3 a.m. But we do. So we don't. Of course things are simple at that point: love is made visible by feeding and cuddling and dry diapers. Later it gets complicated, and I think anyone who grows up into a reasonably okay human being should thank their clueless caretakers for giving it a go. That's about all we can do as parents, and we get it wrong at least as often as we get it right, but it's love that keeps us working at it.

And it's love that keeps us together, and love that finds a way, and all you need is love. And songwriters. And we grow up to find even more ways to love, and many, many more complications. Which valentine do you give the girl you really like? The least-sentimental one in the box, right? And if all that's left are the stupid goopy ones, and the only name left on your list is Brenda Sakmyster, who's six inches taller than you and broke your little toe when you did mixed dancing in gym class, and is the only girl in 6th grade with breasts, how can you go on? And how can you go on when you love and it's not returned? And how about when it is? Then we're really in trouble, ‘cause then we actually have to give it a go, and ... see above. I never said it would be easy. Just inescapable. Stop trying to escape. Stop it. Now.

So love is a major thing then, not just in February where we find ourselves at the moment, but in all times and places to all people. It's a huge, looming presence in life if you've got it, and perhaps even more so if you don't got it. Its presence or absence makes and breaks us. Its forms mold us from swaddling-clothes to winding-sheets, and if there has to be one influence that stands out in our lives above and beyond (and over and under and in-between) all others, we vote for Love.

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Our Æon Thirteen authors have also voted for it, and we say well done to them. We love it when people agree with us.

Jeffe Kennedy—whose first fiction sale this is—leads off this lovely Æon issue with a story of love all too human in “Pearl."

S. Hutson Blount delivers love and pepperoni in “One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies."

Daniel Marcus ("Echo Beach,” Æon Eight) shines a dark lantern on the abyss that is the absence of love and human charity in the town behind “The Dam."

Bruce McAllister ("The Passion: A Western,” Æon Seven) reveals a professional view of love human, divine, and otherwise in “Hit."

David Dumitru illuminates realities of post-human love in “Little Moon, Too, Goes Round."

Marissa K. Lingen ("Things We Sell to Tourists,” Æon Six, “Michael Banks, Home From the War,” Æon Nine), spins a tale of true love and true sacrifice in “Swimming Back From Hell by Moonlight."

And finally Craig D. B. Patton dishes up Love and Misery and their neighbors in “Misery Loves."

In addition you won't want to miss our regular columnists: Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dr. Rob Furey, who as always give us something wonderful to wonder about, and also a couple of lovely poems by a couple of award-winning poets making return visits to our pages: Greg Beatty and Marcie Lynn Tentchoff.

And while we're examining the wisdom of great philosophers, we can't resist passing along these words about the experience of love from Matt Groening:

"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."

Love,

Your Friendly Æon Editors

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Pearl
by Jeffe Kennedy

"'Pearl’ came to me literally in a dream. I've long been interested in what other people experience in different kinds of bodies than what I was born with. It was thrilling to dream of being an extraordinarily beautiful woman, the kind that wields power over people through her beauty, even if only for a little while. The dream primarily revolved around the final scene. Writing the story was finding what events led her there."

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THE DISCOVERY OF SCHNELL, the natural man, rang through our small world like an ancient gunpowder shot. The kind the books said made the ears ring and heart pound. So, yes, my heart thumped, pumping hot blood to my ears; my fingers trembled, weak and burning; and I definitely heard some kind of high whine when Casidy and Tomas first pulled Schnell out of the cubby, deep in the machine bowels.

We were on the routine maintenance checks assigned to the younger people, those of us no longer children, but who aren't full Techs. That day, we had descended to Level 137, which is the lowest that remains accessible. I understood even then, before Schnell taught me my own history, that there were levels built beneath that, but as far as any of us were concerned, our dungeon—Tomas and I favored the books with castles and prisoners in need of rescue—was the bottom of the world and anything below that might as well be mantle and magma. Actually, all of Obidion should be called the dungeon, since that's the ancient word for an underground holding facility for criminals, but that's a fine point.

Tomas and I always volunteered for lower level duty, ever since the day when we were ten and found the secret compartment off an old chamber. Tomas had been showing off for me, kicking the old metal walls to make bigger and bigger dents. With a soft whoomp, one dent became a hole and old air sifted out. Inside we found stories, more and better than any we had made up.

Walkways in Obidion wound on narrow footing between the arching walls of machinery. The maintenance consoles doubled as handholds, so we stalked along, hands outstretched on either side gliding along the gleaming metal rails, our feet narrowly planted one in front of another. If I looked up, I could see the intermittent walkways of other levels, lights ascending to an infinite perspective. There was something of a drop-off beneath us, but if I shone my wristlight down, it was clear that the metal banks curved together, seams that knit irrevocably. The bottom of the world. Or so we thought, until we heard a voice inexplicably below us.

“Faustus!” Tomas yelped. “Calling from the pit of hell..."

“Whoever that is,” Casidy said, not a volunteer for this level and not a fan of our games. She pushed past him, “Just some Tech who came down here to fix something and got stuck."

“But who?” I asked. “Anyone away from Core without assignment longer than two hours would set off the Recover Alarms up top—we've been down here longer than that."

“Well, no one has passed us, and no one lives down here,” Casidy said.

“Nobody but us chickens,” Tomas inserted, to be met with Casidy's blank glare.

“You should have read some of those old documents we found, Casidy,” I said. “Maybe you would've learned something."

“Those were interdicted texts in a sealed-off area,” Casidy began, her voice pitching higher, until another, louder shout interrupted her.

I lagged behind, my precognitive heart already beginning its symbolic pounding, while Tomas and Casidy scanned the walls and floor with their wristlights. They located the old hatch, and blood whistled in my ears. Tomas wanted to try kicking it in. Casidy overruled him and searched the Core database for the computer command to open it. And blue eyes blinked up from below.

They each grabbed an arm, helping him lever up and out of the narrow mouth. His gangling legs doubled up to his chest as his feet thunked up to the walkway. Once his purchase was secure, he flashed eggshell teeth and turned his hands over, changing the grip so that he clasped their hands, and with one pull stood beside them, raising locked fists up in triumph. There they stand in my mind still: pale, hygienic Casidy and rippling dark Tomas, flanking the red-haired giant, hands raised above their heads like children clinging to their father.

They were as stunned as I, though they had done more than stand and wonder. None of us had ever seen a new adult person before. And unencoded people existed only in stories.

The red man flared his chest, then exhaled.

“Pwah!” He dropped the captive's hands to run his own over their heads. “Thrilled to meet you, my friends—thought I'd be crawling through the ducts of this beast forever!” Placing his hands on his hips, he arched backwards, the crackling of his vertebrae rattling against the metal walls. “The name is Schnell,” he boomed, reclaiming Tomas’ hand in a pumping shake, then turning to clasp Casidy's translucent fingers, “And who is the shadow supervisor?"

“May I introduce My Lady Pearl?” Tomas gestured grandly to me. I smiled back at him, knowing how pleased he was to be able to use a fancy introduction he'd read.

“Pearl?” One long stride, perfectly balanced on the narrow walk, brought Schnell up to tower over me. “Like the kingdom of heaven, indeed."

“They actually named me that because I was born with a calceus encrustation on my skin, artifact of a malfunctioning utero-unit,” I curved my lips, inviting him to comment on the irony.

“Ironic that she turned out pretty, isn't it?” Casidy threw in. “They fixed that skin problem. Obviously.” You could count on Casidy to ruin any moment.

Schnell remained oblivious, however. I knew the look, open, almost boyish. The eyes go blank as they screen fantasies across my image before them. It takes a moment before a man's brain will jumpstart and he begins processing reality again.

“Welcome to Obidion!” Tomas announced expansively. He got the prize for coming up with the correct dialogue for this situation, though no one else was participating. Schnell picked up an ivory strand of my hair and let the length of it trickle back through his fingers.

"A merchantman, seeking goodly pearls, who when he found one pearl of great price,” he said, “went and sold all he had and bought it.” 1

“I don't know those words,” I answered.

“From an old, old book,” he said. I looked over at Tomas—he understood no more than I.

“You know of books? Are you ... natural?” Both Casidy and Tomas whirled on me, agonized shock on their faces—I don't know if it was for the question or for the fact that I spoke it aloud. It didn't matter, everyone would know already, would have been watching our transactions closely ever since the moment the computer code opened the hatch.

“I am only a man,” The blue of his eyes sparked with silver. “What are you?"

I answered crisply, as I had been taught from early childhood, “Prisoner B3-5-410."

“I like ‘Pearl’ better,” Schnell leaned closer. “Though you smell more of sweet than brine.” His breath along my cheek brought heat to follow it.

* * * *

I suppose his arrival was a sort of omen. It is obvious, in retrospect, that once one person pierced our machine bubble, that others would follow. We had lived alone so long that many of us had ceased to believe the Guards would ever return. My great-aunt had been alive during the Regular Session, but when she was barely into primary classes, Obidion had been declared Domesticated and shut down to maintenance level. Other than her, no one else even remembered what the Guards had looked like. We lived unobtrusively, as we had been bred, with Civilization safe from us. We had much to atone for.

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“My jewel!” I heard his voice, carried by the water. I had followed Schnell's progress with our Senior Techs on the vids, as most everyone did. We talked of nothing else. They had verified that he was completely unencoded. Down to the molecular level, he was outside of the system. He wasn't even Civilized. Exactly why he was here had not been broadcast.

Schnell's call had cut through the jumble of gossip. People reclining on the rocks about the pool sat up to watch him walk in, the duck cackle of their worries silenced so that only the splashing of the small waterfalls and the endless dripping of condensation from the glossy blue ceiling remained. The ST with Schnell nodded to him, walked to the edge and knifed into a dive that broke the suddenly stilled surface. Conversation resumed, a murmur on the edges, while glances flashed my way. Schnell squatted down near where I silently treaded water.

“I taste a liquor never brewed ... ” He dipped his fingers through the water, ” ... from tankards scooped in pearl." 2

“Poetry or song?” I asked, dipping my head back in the water to make it slick. His eyes clung to the curve of my breasts floating high. How does the princess entice her rescuer? Certainly all of us were in distress, but I wanted this. A chance for escape. A chance to live in the greater world. I was not afraid, like so many Prisoners here.

“Is there a difference?” His eyes gleamed as he looked over the pool. “Like a tropical lagoon of Earth. May I join you?"

“The pool is open to everyone,” I tossed my head at the fifteen or so other people lounging and swimming, some watching Schnell with polite hunger as they discussed him. Another group, Casidy in the center, regained momentum with one of our classmates jabbing a finger in our direction. Their anger and fear began echoing. Perhaps Schnell didn't hear them, for he seemed beyond their reach.

“That's not what I meant."

I smiled. Then laughed. And for a moment I could see myself winging through the stars with him. Beyond the reach of all of this. Free of Obidion. Free of the Recovery System.

He took my smile for what it was and peeled out of the synthsuit the STs had given him. People watched less politely now. There had been any number of speculations, rumors, and jokes as to whether his body would be deformed. Though everyone knew that we had evolved with embryos growing in utero, it seemed vaguely obscene now. Women also used to chew up food and spit it into infants’ mouths and people gave that up long before assisted reproduction was available.

His body, however, was as miraculous as his existence. Perfect—so much so that I averted my eyes, to still the heat in my throat. I felt as if the code built into each of my body cells somehow diminished me, compared to the sheer raw life of him. Had everyone been this way before the Civilization?

“You don't act much like a rebel,” he said conversationally, sliding into the pool.

“Excuse me?” I gasped.

“Rebel?” he repeated. “Isn't that why you're all imprisoned here?"

“That's an interdicted word...” I began.

“So execute me."

“You don't understand,” I floundered.

“The Guards are not here, Pearl.” He said gently. “The STs say you've been Domesticated for three generations. None of you have any idea what your ancestors rebelled against, ten generations ago.” A shadow darkened his eyes towards black. “The ability to even consider rebellion, or anything beyond these imprisoned half lives, has been bred out of most of you.” I knew then that he had heard Casidy and her friends, before they sidled out, almost fleeing, faces like fists. His emphasis on “most” echoed in my mind. I had always been special—perhaps I could be the bride of a hero.

He grinned, glanced down towards the end of the pool. “Race?"

I blinked a moment as he launched down the pool with powerful strokes. I followed, stretching every muscle, feeling the blood pumping down the length of my legs as I kicked hard and fast. Yet, I couldn't begin to keep up, much less close the distance. Rebel. I had read the word, but had never heard it pronounced. We'd all thought the Recovery System would react. What other words might be spoken?

Breathless with exertion and wonder, I swam up to Schnell where he rested beneath a vine-draped ledge. Impulsively, I grasped his shoulders, rather than the almost-rock.

“Is it true, then, what some say?” I panted. “The Guards have left us so long because the Confederated Union is free again?"

The logic, as Tomas explained it to me: Schnell was not from Obidion. The only way he could have come up through the dungeon was if the legendary spaceport on the Other Side was real. He could have docked and then hiked, crawled and cut his way through the labyrinth. This had been the base of operations for our ancestors before it became their—and later, our—prison. It would have taken days, but the old stories said that the base had been so good because every point was accessible on foot. The upshot was that Schnell had a spaceship. Only Guards and Executives had spaceships. Since Schnell was neither, he must either be an emissary of a free Confederated Union or ... what? I turned the word over in my mind. A rebel?

“Is that what the talkers say?” he asked me. I shrugged and looked down, unwilling to open a window into all the talk about him, especially the sort about pushing him out the airlock. My eyes snagged on a curious marking on his shoulder, almost white against nutty skin. I touched it with one finger and looked up to find him watching me gravely.

“A scar,” he answered. “From fighting.” He waited, watching as I had watched him once before, while the images dashed behind my eyes, of princes with swords, bombs and laser guns. Nobody fought. It didn't exist. But then, neither did he. I accepted this gift and told him so.

“What were you fighting for?” I asked, trying to look as if I'd said the word before.

He wrapped his free arm around my waist and pulled me close against his body. The raw scent of him filled my mind.

“Are you a virgin, Pearl?” he asked.

“Yes.” Oh yes.

“You've found no man here you wanted to be encoded for?"

“Maybe I was waiting for you.” I floated up a bit, slid down against him. This was my moment.

He said nothing, watching me with a slight turn on one side of his mouth. I felt a stirring deep inside that might have been a small uncoiling of shame. I lifted the finger that had touched his scar and smoothed his tightened lips. He kissed the tip, sending a spark to dissolve that coil in my gut. “Why do I suspect there's a price?” he asked.

I lowered my eyes, fit myself more tightly against him, lifted my lips to his. “Take me with you,” I breathed.

“And if I choose not to?"

I pushed away from his shoulders, wiped the water from my eyebrows, cheekbones. Watched him with wide eyes while he studied me.

It was perfect. I wanted him and I wanted what he could give. He wanted me and I would make sure he'd never regret that desire. But something in his face bothered me.

“Is everyone free then?” I asked again.

He pulled me back and kissed me in response.

* * * *

I told no one of our bargain, but they may have guessed once I scheduled the surgery. Part of the Domestication program involved breeding an impenetrable hymen into the women. Our vaginal canals were as sealed off as we had thought Level 137 was. This served several purposes the Regulations said. When a woman received the surgery, steps were taken to ensure that her genetic infertility—which also relieved us of the burdens of monthly bleeding—was complete. Apparently, there tended to be a kind of drift back towards fertility which could result in accidental natural births and thus monster children. Also, she would be tuned for her intended mate's encoding. If another male attempted to penetrate her, the Recovery Alarms would sound. This eliminated rape, competition for females, and the possibility of us producing an unencoded child.

Of course, people still amused themselves with other forms of sex-play but, as Tomas points out, what is forbidden, or rare, is desirable. Intercourse is a ritual with us that approaches Old Religion. And scheduling the surgery tantamount to posting the old Catholic church marriage banns. That last is Schnell's analogy of course—I've learned much from him.

According to Regulations, I had to wait three days between the request and the surgery. Which proved my undoing, and perhaps the saving of us all. So I hope.

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"The cabinet is formed of gold and pearl and crystal shining bright, and within it opens into a world and a little lovely moony night. 3 Such worlds I will show you, Pearl. And moons such as Blake never dreamed of.” Schnell poured the words into my hair as his hands roamed my body. My skin itched with tightness, as if all my blood pressed up beneath, swelling my body. I wound my fingers tighter in the red locks falling over his shoulders. As his hand trailed back up my thigh, up to cup my breast, the roaring in my ears surged. What had begun as a high whine down in the dungeon crested now and I felt something burgeon inside, almost to breaking. With a cry, I opened my legs and wrapped around him, trying to pull him down into me.

“Shh,” he whispered, his hands stilling. “I will only injure you that way.” I held tight.

“It's not like the alarms will sound,” I said. “You said it yourself—the Guards will never return. All these rules are nonsense. What can the Regulations matter now?"

He unwound my legs from his waist and lay back, cradling me against him.

"The ambassador of Russia and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin." 4

“Do you stay awake nights looking up “pearl” poetry?” I asked with poor temper. “I'm forever having to research those ancient words you use."

He chuckled and stroked my arm in chaste affection.

“Nothing is what it appears,” he offered. “Vermin—disease-causing organisms—may lurk in the loveliest settings. Where are you doing your research—in the Interdicted Files?"

I sighed and tried to still the desire of my body. The potted trees of my garden room threw odd shadows against his face. They grew adequately in the artificial light, but I longed for real trees—tall, hugely round ones. On a real world. Leaves that fell in autumn and degraded into soil. Not frail yellow shadows that I sucked up in a cleaner hose. Now that I could see myself leaving Obidion, I felt a desperate impatience to go, as if time were running out.

“It's not hard to break the codes. It's as if they didn't try very hard to keep us out."

“And why do you suppose that is?” Schnell asked.

“What do you mean?"

“Has anyone else tried, before you?"

“No,” I admitted, “but Tomas is reading them now, too. Everything he can find.” Schnell nodded, as if he knew already, his eyes distant, not seeing my trees or me.

“And the Casidys are not,” he said.

“Who are you anyway?” I muttered.

Schnell raised his eyebrows at me. “Why, I am a warrior,” he planted tiny kisses down my cheek. “Don't you know? And tonight, after the surgery,” his kisses descended to cover my breasts, “yours."

“My conquering hero?"

“If you like."

“When do we leave?” I burst out.

“Leave?” he pinned me down and began suckling a nipple. “When we're having so much fun?"

I groaned, swimming through red black heat.

“You know what I mean,” I got out.

“Who will you choose to be tuned to?” he asked, releasing me. He picked up a lock of my hair and twisted it into a ring around one finger.

“It doesn't matter, does it?” I said, running my hands down his great back, feeling the stray pulls and puckers of the various scars. It seemed other men felt plastic next to him. “Since you're unencoded, you could actually intercourse with any woman here."

“Alas, I seem to want only you.” His hands tightened on me and I smiled. “But you'll have to pick someone."

“Oh I don't know. Maybe Tomas. Once I'm gone they'll free up his code so he can access another woman, as if I died."

Schnell nodded thoughtfully.

“But won't they all be free soon, too?” I asked. “I know you won't say, but we all know it must be or you wouldn't be here. The Guards are gone forever, the Confederated Union dissolved. Is the encoding broken?"

He closed his eyes against my hair.

“I have to tell you about the universe outside,” he began. And stopped, gazing at me. “I wish I knew if you are part of this. If what I see is part of it all, or if you are..."

The Signal sounded just then. The Return Signal sounded. For a moment I couldn't grasp it. The Signal I'd only learned in school, that I'd never heard broadcast, nor had my mother, nor her mother, not yet born when my great-aunt was in primary school.

The Guards had returned.

But I know now what he was going to say to me. I think I knew then. He wondered if his wanting me—the wanting I created in him—was part of why he came to Obidion or if it was a fatal distraction.

* * * *

We were all drilled in what to do. There was no question of what action to take—the advantage of cellular training, I suppose. Every fiber of me vibrated to that signal. The Guards had Returned. The Guards had Returned. But Schnell—we all flashed on him as if he were part of our encoding after all—he would have to be hidden. Even those who had wished him dead and gone knew that, even those who suspected Schnell had somehow brought the Guards down upon us. We were all equally culpable. We would assemble for Prisoner Review. The Guards had Returned. Schnell must be hidden.

* * * *

I pulled out my Prisoner Uniform, never before worn, but stenciled with my numbers. I wondered if Schnell knew a poem with B3-5-410 in it. I managed to be dressed before the five STs scurried into my room. A full Council stood among my trees, already dressed in their flame orange Uniforms. They looked like teenage boys next to Schnell. I began to braid my hair as I listened to them babble, our most senior techs acting like children, asking Schnell what to do. Time had run out. The Guards had Returned.

“You have at least two hours to prepare,” he soothed them. “The Return Signal is activated by their ship proximity. It will take them at least that long to position, dock, and calibrate the air locks. Most important: Is what I came for ready?"

The Exec ST threw a look at me.

“Never mind her—too late for niceties,” Schnell snapped out.

“We've assembled the package, but we still have to finish some of the reprogramming...” the ST stammered. “It's been so long, and none of us have actually set the SED."

I finished winding my hair into the regulation braid, all the time remembering practicing it in school, complaining with Casidy how antiquated it was we had to learn it. The encoding ensured we all wore it long, and the boys short. It would be odd not to see all those loose tresses around the station. But I wouldn't see them, I reminded myself, I would be flown, out into the Universe. I hoped. Schnell shot out a hand to me and pulled me over, not pausing in his involved discussion of some machine I'd never heard of.

“Once you repolarize, then you can take it from there?” He eyed my tightly braided head with faint disgust. Almost as if he'd seen too much of it. “Okay then,” he said to their worried nods. “We're going to depend on the fact that Guards never deviate from protocol. They'll get their head count from the encoding computer and never match it against warm bodies. I'll stay out of direct sight. Tomorrow morning, they will conduct the Reinstatement Ceremony and assign work details for a complete inventory. The deep-level inventory crew will include one ST. Make sure he has the package and I'll slip in with the crew.” At their dubious looks, he laughed his booming laugh, that now seemed a thing that no longer belonged to us. “Don't worry, I will look unobtrusive. I've done it before."

“Why not just go down now and we'll meet you there tomorrow?” asked one ST.

Schnell looked at me.

“Pearl is coming with me. I must arrange a way to get her included on that crew, and to manipulate the computer so that we can be well away to the ship before her Recovery Alarm sounds."

Silence. Punctuated by the Return Signal hoots. They all looked at me, their faces full of envy, fear, and anger. I didn't know what to put on my face—the tremendous swirling relief I felt? Some bit of triumph? Regret for their fate, the awful fate I was escaping? I chose a bland, faintly surprised expression that had served me well in the past when men had propositioned me.

“Make sure she gets the surgery as scheduled tonight,” he ordered. “She's encoding for Tomas, so she'll spend the night there. The Guards won't interfere with that ritual."

With that they left, without a whisper to question his instructions. We did not look at each other; we already belonged to different worlds. I would not be sorry that I could go when they could not.

“Did you think I would forget? That I would leave you?” he asked me, sweeping his fingertips over my braids, hesitating momentarily so that I thought he might pull the braids out. "The hours I spend with thee, dear heart, are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, my rosary, my rosary." 5

I kissed him in reply.

* * * *

The assembly was harrowing and perfectly according to Regulation. We all knelt, tiered by rank and number, as the Guards marched in. Every hair rose on my exposed neck. One by one by one they filled the front, sides, and back of the Meeting Hall. The thumping of their boots cut through the susurrus of weeping, moans, and hushed hysteria around me. I couldn't look up “rosary"—didn't dare go near the files now. Every hour apart from me—until tomorrow. I had only to get through the next twelve hours. Count them every one apart, until I could be with Schnell, until we would walk through the bottom of the world to freedom.

“The Regular Session is convened,” came the announcement.

Every Guard stood in his place, hundreds of them, flags of the Confederated Union held by five guards to bracket a central position. The Guard General strode in to fill the slot.

He was large, big as Schnell, but corpulent, with crimson in his face. His black eyes gleamed like metal as he scanned the room, and he dictated some remarks I couldn't hear to an aide at his side. At my side, Casidy wept.

“They'll drain the pool, I know,” she whispered. “And all the plants there, they'll incinerate them."

“I know,” I said, quietly out the side of my mouth. “I had to destroy my trees. I thought I owed them death at friendly hands.” She turned her head, I could see her features twist in my peripheral vision.

“They'll find your trace in the files,” she hissed. “They'll punish you for what you and that ... that horrible man did."

Two prisoners down from Casidy, I could just see Tomas lean forward. I shook my head. We needed to shut her up now or she would bring attention to us all.

“You're right, Casidy,” I said. “We should never have looked at any of those papers. If only we had listened to you all along.” But as sincere as I tried to sound, she saw through me.

“To think I wanted to be you, to look like you.” Her voice sounded like ash. “But you're cold and awful and selfish. You'll just leave us all here to rot, won't you?” In my surprise, I almost turned to her. Up front, the guards began reshifting for the inspection. “Oh, yes, everyone knows how you tricked him into saying you'd go. And everyone hates you for it. But you wait, your beauty,” she spat the word, “will be your downfall."

The Guard General began to pace the rows, beginning with the five STs and moving down the ranks, pausing here and there to ask questions. I couldn't hear, and could only barely see when they entered my field of vision as I kept my eyes to regulation height. I wanted to draw no attention. Only twelve hours—maybe only eleven now.

Booted feet walked evenly down our row. Casidy trembled. The boots paused before me. I didn't look.

“Prisoner B3-5-410—eyes up.” A gruff voice commanded.

Obediently I raised my head. The massive Guard General towered over me

“Informal name?” he asked.

I considered lying. Considered where my rebellion would begin.

“Rose,” I said. I put on what I hoped was a dull, unappealing face.

“How charming—antiquated.” He turned to his aide. “Add this one to my concubines."

“Sir, Prisoner B3-5-410 is scheduled for surgery tonight to be mated to Prisoner B3-5-406."

The Guard General glanced at Tomas, flicking his fingers slightly in his direction, then stroked my face. “So tender—and a virgin, too.” Then he slapped me hard, running his fingers lightly over the flushed and stinging skin. I blinked back the tears. “Responsive as she is lovely. I have no doubt Prisoner B3-5-406 will be pleased to yield his right to me. Have yourself encoded for me tonight.” And he continued on.

I didn't dare look down the line to Tomas. After the assembly, as we climbed stiff-kneed to our feet, Casidy paused a moment. I thought of what Schnell would do, and then looked directly into her eyes, her hatred running off of me like oil.

“It's what you deserve,” she said, “except of course, you will escape that as well.” She tried to toss her thin blonde hair, forgetting the sculpted braids wouldn't move, and walked out. Tomas laid a hand on my shoulder.

“All will be well, my princess,” he said, as if we were still ten years old and reading interdicted papers in the dungeon. “Faustus will save you.” I felt a chill.

“But that's not how the story ended, is it?” I said, and then winked at him, to show I knew differently. My relief at having an escape dizzied me to all else.

* * * *

The surgery was fast and painless. The tech asked me for my formal request for encoding, though I could see he'd already punched in the Guard General's pattern. The Regulations say I get to choose, but of course I would not make any other choice. Any other man I chose would be executed, freeing me up for re-encoding.

Afterwards I headed to Tomas’ room, according to protocol. Tomorrow, once I had completed any unfinished duties, Tomas would formally yield his rights to the Guard General. And I had to agree to it, ask for it. This sort of thing was well-covered by the Regulations. And we all believed, or had believed, that it was as it should be. It was all our choice, just so long as we did exactly as the Guards told us to.

I walked down that hallway, one I had walked a thousand times before, only now a Guard stood every ten paces. A Senior Tech stopped me on the way. It was the one who had accompanied Schnell to the pool that day, a few days and forever ago.

“Prisoner B3-5-410, due to your promotion to Tech Aide three days ago,” and he looked at me solemnly, both of us knowing the ‘promotion’ had occurred only in cyberspace, “your presence is required in Core, to consult on your deep-level maintenance project. We regret interrupting your honeymoon night.” He nearly rolled his eyes at that.

“I understand,” I nodded. “Duty calls.” I wanted to run to meet Schnell, but I held to a Regulation walk. I had been counting—eight hours yet to go—but perhaps it would be now.

When I arrived, another ST informed me that one of the back panels was malfunctioning on the deep-level monitoring unit. The several Guards standing by looked through us. I was just another Tech Aide, doing my job. I squeezed behind through the crawl duct to find Schnell inside, his long-limbed body folded to fit the tight space. Both curled into balls, we huddled close, like the bears he had told me about, sleeping in caves of earth, not metal.

"Where the gorgeous East with richest hand showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat." he whispered. 6 “What name did you give him?"

“Rose,” I said into his ear. “So that I would remember your rosary and not your poems when he says my name."

I felt him scowl, suddenly angry, though just as quiet. “Don't even think it for a moment! That I would leave you here to be debased, tortured, and ultimately worn-out and killed by him. I've changed your status, retroactive to several days ago. He'll have to allow you on the deep-level team tomorrow, before he can take you. It's Regulation and you're already scheduled. He won't deviate from Regulation, that one."

“How do you know how do to that?” I asked. “Change the computers and how the Guards will and won't act?” Schnell dropped his forehead lightly against mine.

“What is the package?” I asked.

Schnell closed his eyes against my braid. Outside I could hear the normal exchange of commands and information.

“Why did you come here?” I asked. And then, “I need to know."

His voice whispered across my cheek and hair. “No one is free,” he said. “Everyone is in prison colonies, just as Obidion. Like you, they all believe their tale is unique, that they failed Civilization. The Guards go for so long because they have so many colonies to maintain. The Domestication Maintenance schedule is a lie. Everyone is encoded. Everyone imprisoned."

I nodded, knowing he could feel me in the dark. I had somehow known, deep in my—not my heart—my self.

“And the package?"

“You are unique in that,” he muttered. “Your ancestors were the first Prisoners. What no one knew—except a few of my ancestors—was that those rebels had developed a self-encoding device. It can be placed in the utero-units. It counterfeits the Regulation encoding. A person who grows in such a unit appears to be encoded, but can turn it off with a thought.” He clutched me tighter. “Do you see? The next generation will grow as if model Prisoners, then turn as one and defy the machines. Kill the Guards. I was born at great risk to make this happen. I've spent years getting here, finding mythical Obidion. You, and our children, will spread the SED through the known worlds. You will be a great help to me. I think I was fated to find you here as well."

“The next generation, though,” I said. “Not us—I didn't form in the modified units."

He shook his head. “That's part of why I came. You had the information we needed, here buried in your ‘dungeon.'” I felt his smile at my childhood joke. “Along with all those old texts people tried to save from the burnings. I simply showed your STs where to find it, how to install it. Even now the new babies are being installed into modified machines. I'll take a copy with me tomorrow—or rather, this morning."

I kissed him, careful not to make it seem like one of the last.

“But I am encoded,” I said.

He bristled. “Irrelevant,” he snapped. We both paused, listening that the outside sounds continued their normal drone. “I can hide you, find a way. I've given up my whole life to this quest—I deserve one gift. My Pearl. My Rosary."

“Was he happy?” I asked.

“Who?"

“The man who sold everything he had for that one pearl?"

“Didn't you know?” Schnell curled his fingers under my cheekbone, following the smooth curve to my lips. “It was the Kingdom of Heaven he gave everything for. I seek nothing less.” His mouth followed his fingers and he kissed me with all the longing any of us has for paradise.

* * * *

I had no choice but to betray him.

In none of the old stories did the rescued princess fall off the back of the horse and bring the ravening wolves down on her Prince. Schnell and I, we might have had a few days of Heaven, but they would have found me. Every cell of my body would have told them exactly where to find him—the man they didn't know existed. I would not be the one to turn the key in the lock on all the Universe. The treasure he would take from Obidion had to be the SED. Not me. Even a silly, vain girl could see that. Only a man in love could close his eyes to it.

I went to Tomas’ room and asked him to help me. And in the morning, at the Reinstatement Ceremony, Tomas delivered me naked and in chains to the Guard General. I could see the man beginning to show through Tomas’ face, as he refused to shed a tear. He handed the leash to the Guard General and spoke the formal words, gifting the beast with his erstwhile mate, virginity intact. In my turn, I begged to be released from all further maintenance duties, saying I could not wait and must become his concubine at once.

Schnell saw it all on the vids, while he waited for me to join him. The ST who went to meet him said Schnell made it back through the hatch. Had asked him to give me a message, then changed his mind and left without a word. I nourish the hope that he hates me enough to have no regrets. Enough hate to free him. To fight. That I become like only one of the many ivory scars on his warrior's back.

For myself, I like to think of him, sometimes try to imagine that it's his hands on my body. I count his rosary to the lashes.

Sometimes, when the Guard General is sated with blood and lust, I visit the utero-units, which Schnell reset that last night. I watch the embryos grow and imagine them winging through the stars.

* * * *

Notes:

1—Matthew 13:46 (return)

2—"No. 214,” Emily Dickinson (return)

3—"The Crystal Cabinet,” William Blake (return)

4—History of England, Vol. V, Ch. 23 Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (return)

5—"My Rosary,” Robert Cameron Rogers (return)

6—Paradise Lost, II, l. I John Milton (return)

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One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies
by S. Hutson Blount

"Originally, I had an idea for a comic strip featuring grumpy retired mythological figures. I found two problems with this: 1) it had been done before, and 2) I can't draw for squat. Cannibalizing the plans for the first few strips yielded the core of the story.

The Albanian-owned pizza place in North Dallas is loosely based on a real establishment I frequented. I don't know the family personally, and none of these characters are based on them. The pies are fit for divine consumption, however."

* * * *

I'M AN OLD MAN in this business. It's all kids now. My co-workers are ten years younger than me and not noticeably inclined to do any work. Delivering pizza isn't a good job, but it is a job. The mysterious relationship between effort and reward seems to have escaped the notice of the pimple-cream classes. This is the heart of how I wound up delivering a medium deep-dish with sausage and mushrooms to a major mythological figure.

I was working goalie at Sunshine the night of the lunar eclipse. “Goalie” is the driver we had to reserve to make emergency deliveries when the kids got lost, forgot, wrecked their riced-up econoboxes, or just plain decided to eat the pie themselves. Old Lady Januzaj had about zero tolerance for that shit. It didn't play back in Albania, and she wasn't about to bend the rules for any snot-nose American kids. The Old Lady had no great love for me, either—I think she caught me eyeballing her daughter Rina once. Rina's in community college, and Januzaj treats her like a treasure, and in imminent peril from every Y-chromosome on the planet. She doesn't seem to have much affection left over for her sons, or any other human being that I could tell, but she grudgingly allowed me to keep working for her since I actually did the job. In return, she kept me in rent money with a little left over for beer.

And so it came to pass that my long-suffering Mazda pickup shuddered to a halt in front of a dingy one-bedroom crackerbox in Lake Highlands. It was the sort of house they were building here in the Fifties, brick in hospital pastel colors and fake shutters attached to the outside of the windows. This one looked like it hadn't been kept up since fear of Sputnik had chased the original owner indoors. The corpse of what had been a boat poked out from the covered carport. Whoever Eric Aten was, he must run up a fortune in electric bills. It looked like Klieg lights were on in every room.

I banged on the door after the bell failed me. “Sunshine Pizza!” A little snow flurry of old varnish from the door floated down. It was early for junebugs, but they were in force here on the porch, doing their best to get into the house.

He got one more knock. “There's a pizza here for an Eric? It's thirteen twenty-two with tax."

More junebugs hammered on the barred windows, making gong noises on the window AC unit.

“I'm coming! Stop with the pounding!"

The voice sounded geriatric, which definitely bode ill. Retirees will haggle with you or try to use coupons from every other pizza chain.

The door opened, and I was blinded by the glare. Whatever the source was, it was in the entryway shining right into my eyes, and as bright as a magnesium flare. I squinted at it and looked sideways. “Thirteen twenty-two."

The voice came from about the level of my chest. “Robbers! If that Januzaj woman didn't know how to make such a sauce, I'd tell her what she could do with her.... What's wrong with you? Why's your face all pinched up like that?"

“Could you turn that light off, sir? Or down?"

“You? You're seeing a bright light over my head now?"

Jesus. The eclipses always bring out the freaks. “Yes."

The light dimmed. A lot of details swam into view as my retinas decided to end the strike. The light proved to be some kind of globe fixture over and not behind the old man.

From the neck down, he was a stooped old guy, skin like a tobacco leaf, in a not-terribly-flattering boxer-shorts and tank-top ensemble. Fuzzy slippers caught my attention for a fraction of a second before I noticed his face. I thought he was wearing a mask or headdress before I saw the eyes blink. Eyes the size of billiard balls, liquid black falcon's eyes. The plumage on the head was perfect, lustrous gold and brown, with a hooked beak vivid yellow against it. The beak opened slightly.

“That better? Here, keep the change, already.” The door closed.

I guess I must have handed him the pie, because my mylar blanket was empty. I looked at the wad of bills. He'd given me fourteen dollars.

* * * *

My apartment seemed like a much safer and saner place to be. I tried to remember what I knew about the onset of mental illness. Most of it revolved around chainsaws and screaming coeds, which I didn't really think applied in my case yet.

Maybe it really had been a mask, a really lifelike mask like those ones you saw for sale in Fangoria. The old guy was probably a retired special effects dude from when latex was state of the art. I'd caught just the slightest glimpse of the inside of the house; it had been full of all kinds of crap. In my mind, I had this guy's whole career plotted out, from glory days doing monster movies to an eventual decline and replacement by digital effects that had landed him in that dump of a house.

Everything was better now. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and applied it as brain coolant. The phone rang, submerged somewhere under a reef of chip bags and aluminum cans. I fished it out on the fourth ring.

“Yeah, hello? This is Murf. Yeah. Hey, Ol—uh, hey Mrs. Januzaj. Whoa, calm down! I did. I did! Oh, you are shitting me! I'll be right there, hang on."

Mr. Fangoria had claimed I'd shorted him a free soda. My memory was clear enough to know that I'd done no such thing. The Old Lady could look at the receipt and figure it out pretty quickly, but she maintained a policy not quite along the lines of “the customer is always right,” so much as, “the employees are always wrong.” I kept a couple of two-liters of everything around the apartment against exactly this kind of thing. Freakity J. McFreak there would get his free soda delivered, him and his seventy-eight cent tip.

The moths and junebugs were still going at it when I pulled up. I used the soda bottle as a club to knock on the door, and hoped he was thirsty. “Mister Aten, your soda's here."

I didn't get the spotlight-in-the-face treatment this time. The door just snapped open and there he was again, bird mask and all. The mask was a lot more realistic-looking than I had rationalized it over the last hour. It cocked sideways as a real bird might as he regarded me in the doorway. The hanging light fixture bobbed over his head, following his movement. As before, the beak parted just slightly, and didn't synch to the words he spoke.

“You, Mister Too Old To Be A Pizza-boy. You see something?"

“Look, here's your two-liter. I'm not on shift anymore."

“I never drink those carbonated things. Such gas they give me.” He leaned closer, and I watched how the thin white eyelid blinked up from the bottom. “You do see something, yes."

“Look, sir, it's a great mask. You beat the system and got your free drink. Yay for you! I'll just leave you to your obviously rich fantasy life.” I'd probably crossed the line on that one. My short line of credit with the Old Lady would be exhausted pretty quick if he called to complain. I felt like a shitheel as soon as I said it anyway. He was an old guy, and he'd invented a reason for someone to come to his house. He was lonely. You see it sometimes, old folks ordering pies they don't want just to bring somebody to their doors.

He didn't seem to notice. “Innmutef, that's what we used to call people like you. Priests. Able to sense the divine without the divine having to bite them in the keister. Or, what was the word?” He snapped his fingers, cast his falcon head around looking for answers on the doorway. “Sem, that was it. Come in already, kid. You're letting out the cold."

“I've gotta get back—"

“To work? You said you weren't working, I heard."

Damn. I carried his soda bottle inside. Fine, I'd put it in his fridge for him. The inside of the house was mercifully free of old-person funk. It smelled like the incense aisle at Pier One instead. I couldn't see any seams or wires on the back of the mask when he turned around. My carefully-constructed backstory for Eric Aten didn't seem to be panning out. The front room of the house didn't have any movie memorabilia. Instead, it was crammed full of the kind of faux-Egyptian dust collectors you see marked way up in mall stores. I saw a saucer of milk on the floor by the entry.

“You have cats?” I asked, trying to take the initiative and short-circuit a long conversation.

“Cobras,” he said, shuffling his slippers on the worn-slick rug. “Watch your feet. Don't step on them, they nip.” He made a pinching gesture.

“I'll do that.” The place was decorated in your basic Early Pack Rat. Every horizontal surface was occupied by figurines of every scale, usually in some kind of striding pose, some with an assortment of animal heads. I guessed that explained the mask. “So, you're a big Egypt fan."

“Since they fired me, not so much. I've been out of work since Rome was a big deal.” He sat, gradually, onto a battered recliner.

I took a seat on a folding chair that seemed to be temporarily vacant of either knickknacks or cobras. We stared at each other for several uncomfortable heartbeats.

“You still don't believe it's me,” he said finally.

“Look, mister, I'm really not sure about a whole lot of things right now."

The bird head—I couldn't think of it as a mask any more—turned to examine me with one eye, then the other, then both. “You kids today. You can go to the movies and see things stranger than three of me put together. Why would you have such trouble with this?"

“Because you're real!” Damn. I'd said it. I clamped a hand over my mouth before the world could notice.

“Good for you! I was right to trust you. You probably have questions now, yes?"

It was not one of my finer moments. I made a lot of noises, still with my hand over my mouth, that came out something like geeba geeba geeba.

“No, my real name isn't Eric Aten. That's a little joke between me and the Social Security. People used to call me Ra."

Geeba geeba.

“Yes, that Ra. I used to drive the sun around. It was good work while it lasted, but such troubles with the Longshoremen we had...."

I got my talker working again. “Why are you living here?"

“I immigrated in 1895. My great-great-granddaughter Nepthys was traveling overseas, cabled me I should leave the old country. And why not? What was I doing in Egypt? Selling dates, that's what. Such a lovely girl; that's her on top of the television."

I looked, honestly expecting someone there. He was pointing to one of the little statues. I couldn't tell which one out of the crowd he meant.

He kept puttering on. “The others, do they write? It's not like they have jobs..."

“No, I mean why here? In this house, in this town?"

He had no expression, but I could sense some impatience. “What's wrong with this town? It's warm most of the year. I went to Florida once, and oh, the humidity! I thought about going to Arizona, but at my age, I don't even like moving to the mailbox. I live better than the pharaohs did in their palaces, here. You probably do, too."

I had a pleasant feeling of freedom as my mouth surged ahead on cruise control. “You ever try Vegas? They've got some kind of Egyptian resort there, you'd probably fit right in."

“On my pension? I should be so lucky. I've seen pictures. The only interesting thing they've got there are girls running around with their gazoombies hanging out. For that, I've got cable."

“Don't people see you?"

His beak opened wider in irritation. “Don't be dense. I already explained that. Only priests can see me. Everyone else just sees a regular old man. Here, I got a driver's license."

He fished awkwardly in the seat cushion, produced a cheap, severely-overstressed trifold wallet and extracted a Texas Department of Public Safety ID for Eric Aten, age 98. The same falcon head stared out at me from the photo. It had expired two years ago.

“Terrible picture. Makes me look like an owl. What's your name, kid?"

“Brian Murphy, sir.” Sir? Lord? Majesty? I didn't remember ever hearing anything about forms of address for retired gods.

“'Murphy?’ Irish-Catholic?"

“Not for a while."

“You'll do. You ever thought about becoming a priest?"

“My folks were never that religious."

“You've got the eyes for it, Murphy. The rest follows."

I stood up, fighting a headrush that had nothing to do with changing position. “What exactly does a priest do?"

“For me? The job's easy. I don't get around to much of the divine heavy lifting anymore. I could use a hand around the place now and again, though. Maybe a pie from the Januzaj place once in a while, they've got that chunky garlic right on top, it's like nectar. But no anchovies.” He stood, wobbly. It took him a while. “I can see that look. That ‘What do I get out of it?’ look. I'm not all gone to seed just yet. I still got some of the old kibosh left in here. For you, a trial offer. What do you want?"

“What do I want from what?"

Ra waved his hands in the air, revival-minister style. “The powers of the universe I'm offering, and ‘from what?’ he says."

“Are we talking three wishes territory here?"

“Three? Don't push your luck."

I needed something implausible, but not something that might be irreversible. In the back of my mind I was also still hedging for the possibility that he was just an old guy in a funny hat. “I want a shot at asking Rina Januzaj out sometime."

“That's it? You're a man of simple needs. I wish I'd had more like you four thousand years ago. For this, I shouldn't have bothered standing up. That's for you, by the way."

My cell phone rang.

“Hello? Hey, Rina. That's okay, I'm just hanging out, you know. She did? That's not like your mother to leave the shop early. ‘Signs and portents?’ Is that some Old Country stuff, or ... Huh. Yeah, I can come in. Closing by yourself sucks. Be right there. Bye."

“You're welcome,” Ra said, taking tiny old-man steps back to his Barcalounger.

* * * *

Rina was twenty-one, the youngest of the Januzaj children. She showed up during the summer to help out. I had her figured for a psycho since she grew up with four older brothers and a mother who looked and acted like something created by Ray Harryhausen. In the rare instances when she and I had been in the kitchen together, she seemed to hold her own with her brothers.

I pitched the idea of maybe catching a movie together while we were both elbow-deep in cleaning out the grease traps, and set in that romantic environment I guess it sounded pretty good to her. It turned out that she liked schlocky monster movies too, and after the Retro-Horror Crypt Festival showing of Prisoner of the Zombie Mermaids, we stopped off for a beer. I bought the beers, because I'm just a top-shelf kind of guy, and because I couldn't afford to buy her dinner also. Rina had these intense brown eyes that you couldn't tell weren't black if you were too far away. Amazingly, I avoided hitting the Murphy Limit. (The Murphy Limit occurs after you ask a woman to talk about herself, and you realize that she isn't going to stop talking, and you wonder if you can successfully fake an epileptic seizure to get away.) She actually had cool things to say, and I kind of wondered if I might have made a mistake dropping out of college six years ago.

“Do you go to church a lot?” I asked, surprising us both.

Caught in mid-drink, she had to take a second to avoid snorking her Shiner. “Wow. Direct. We go to the Orthodox church over at God Corners."

I knew the place. North Dallas is rife with churches, and there's an Eastern Orthodox church on one corner of an intersection with Baptist and Methodist churches and a synagogue occupying the rest.

“Just curious,” I said. In retrospect, it wasn't one of my better nonchalant covers. “I'm having some God trouble. Have you ever thought about changing religions?"

She looked at me with what I hoped was an interested stare. Rina had apparently learned that X-ray squint from her Old Lady. “I think religion is something you have to find. You know, whatever you can get that works for you."

We talked about music, and other nothings, after I hastily changed the subject again. She didn't want to risk my driving her directly home and incur the displeasure of Mama Januzaj discovering that her princess daughter had been seen out on the moors with a commoner, and I concurred. I dropped her off at Sunshine Pizza, and received the one kiss that used to be traditional. She gave me another dose of those X-rays before getting in her car. I drove home with an uncomfortable erection that persisted until I thought about going to confession.

* * * *

“Bless me Father, it has been ... uh...” I did some emergency math. “...nine hundred and forty-seven weeks since my last confession.” My family hadn't had deep enough pockets to send me to St. Mark's Academy. I supposed I would have kept up a little longer if I'd been in Catholic school.

The on-duty confessor was one of the newer breed. He didn't give me any shit about not knowing all the proper secret handshakes of the ritual. “Father,” I went on, “I'm not going to tie you up with this. Confessing would take all day. I just need one little thing."

The priest was pretty understanding. If I'd been in his place I would have thrown my ass out on the spot. There wasn't anyone else in line for the booth, or even in the church from what I could see, so maybe he felt indulgent. There was the slightest pause, then, “What do you need, my son?"

My hands were shaking a little. “How can I tell if God's really working for me? What does He do every day?"

“God's plan works all around us,” the young guy replied immediately. “He has given us everything in Creation, including His Son. There are signs all around you."

I left All Saints’ after a couple more minutes of boilerplate lecture. I got the feeling that particular speech had been getting a workout lately, and I noticed by the end of it I was approaching the Murphy Limit. The sun was finally breaking through the clouds outside; it was going to be a hot day.

* * * *

Ra and I reached a compromise. After I told him what he could do with his vow of chastity, I agreed to shave my head. Rina thought it was “cute,” which I took at face value even though I suspect that most women use “cute” to describe aspects of men that would otherwise be called “humiliating."

I still deliver. I'm allowed to see Rina despite my outlandish baldness and open display of an ankh pendant. Old Lady Januzaj has chronic symptoms of shell-shock that might have resulted from losing a high-voltage shouting match. Rina looks great in the sunshine. I can sense those X-rays behind her aviator shades. The young priest at All Saints’ was right about the signs being there if you looked for them. Signs and portents, baby.

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What Do We Pay the Moon?
by Greg Beatty

Is it coincidence that Earth and moon,

Pluto and Charon are the twin pairs of Sol's family?

Jupiter's got a brood;

Saturn's got the rings.

Venus has the clouds;

Mercury stays close to mom.

But Earth and moon relate like hell and his ferryman.

Charon brings souls as the moon brings tides.

The dead gather on Pluto as the living huddle here.

No, not coincidence, but a pantheonic order of great balance.

The only question orbiting?

We know what we pay Charon.

What do we pay the moon?

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The Dam
by Daniel Marcus

"Not far from where I used to live in Western Massachusetts, there was a reservoir much like the one in this story, a project from the 30s to bring water to thirsty Boston, sacrificing the thriving, vibrant towns of the Swift River Valley. Every time I drove past those still blue waters, I thought of the houses, stores, and roads beneath, of the lives that had traversed that sumberged geography, and sometimes imagined myself down there in one of the houses, looking out a parlor window at the dappled surface above."

* * * *

IN ONE BEAKER, prepare a solution of seventy-six percent sulfuric acid, twenty-three percent nitric acid and one percent water. In another beaker, prepare a solution of fifty-seven percent nitric acid and forty-three percent sulfuric acid. Percentages are given by weight, not volume.

* * * *

I was standing on the causeway that runs across the top of the dam, looking out over the reservoir. It had been raining for days and the water was the color of milky tea.

“It's good,” a voice behind me said.

I whirled around, nearly jumping out of my skin.

“Jesus, Oscar, you scared the daylights out of me."

“It's good when it's like this,” he said, his eyes grey and empty as the sky. A small rivulet of drool escaped from the corner of his mouth.

“What's good?” I asked.

“The Dragon cannot live in water that is too pure,” he said.

He was looking through me, out across the water. Beneath his hat, dripping wet from the rain, I knew that there was a depressed concavity in his skull, as if someone had taken a tennis ball and pushed it deep into soft putty. The hair there grew thick and curly.

Beneath the muddy brown water, the towns slept.

* * * *

Ten grams of the first solution are poured into an empty beaker and placed in an ice bath.

* * * *

My house is at the end of the causeway, just off the road. It was originally the caretaker's house and it sends roots down into the guts of the dam, basement, sub-basement, sub-sub-basement, the water heavier in the air the deeper you descend until it beads on the walls in thick, fat drops. I have never been to the bottom.

Levers and wheels protrude from the walls next to the rickety metal stairway that threads the levels. It is always cold down there, and always, somewhere, there is the slow, steady sound of water dripping into water.

Sometimes I go down three levels, four levels, and turn one of the wheels at random. Pause. Cock my head to listen. It is there, just at the threshold of perception, the sound of great forces being set into motion.

* * * *

Add ten grams of toluene and stir for several minutes.

* * * *

Last night there was an incredible aurora display, gaudy neon curtains rippling across the sky in a cosmic breeze. It went on for hours. Last time it was this good was a couple of years ago. A scientist from back east stopped the night at the Broken Nail and a cluster of people gathered around him in the tavern, pumping him for news. But all he wanted to talk about was the aurora.

“Ionization in the upper atmosphere,” he said.

Later that night, Billy, who used to run the gas station, killed him for his radio. For months afterward, he wore the man's teeth on a necklace whenever he showed up in town, but somebody must have talked to him, because he stopped.

I asked him about it once. It was Saturday and the Farmer's Market was in town. Billy was holding a head of cabbage in one hand, lifting it to the light like it was Yorick's skull and he Hamlet.

“Where's your necklace, Billy?” I asked.

He looked at me.

“Ionization in the upper atmosphere,” he said, and wandered off, laughing.

* * * *

Remove the beaker from the ice bath and gently heat until it reaches fifty degrees Centigrade. Stir constantly.

* * * *

Four towns were erased when the reservoir was created as a CCC project back in the thirties. Prescott, Alice, Machinery, Thor. If I had any more children, I would name them thus.

Several people refused to move when the time came. An old woman living in the house her great-grandfather had built as a newly-freed slave fleeing Reconstruction. A young man whose wife had died in childbirth the previous year, his daughter stillborn. An idiot. The town drunk of Machinery. I wonder if the waters rose slowly, ushering them gently into the next world, or if they looked up suddenly to see a wall of blue steel and white foam rushing down upon them, higher than the trees, bearing the weight of Judgment.

I suspect the former. On nights when the sky is clear and the full moon hangs suspended in the sky like a cold, blue lamp, the juncture between air and water fades to nothing and the water itself becomes transparent. My boat glides along the silent surface and I look down upon the valley as if the water were a kind of amber, freezing time to stillness. Roads, hills, stores, houses. It is a time machine, this reservoir.

* * * *

Fifty additional grams are added from the first beaker and the mixture heated to fifty-five degrees Centigrade. This temperature is held for the next ten minutes. An oily liquid will begin to form on top of the acid.

* * * *

I sit in my house at the edge of the causeway and monitor the level of the water. For this service, the people of the town bring me food, woven items, firewood. From time to time, Oscar wanders up from his tarpaper shack behind the old train station and stands in the middle of the causeway, looking out across the water. Always across the water, never the other side. Never the town.

Last week, I saw him there from the window of my house, standing in his usual spot. I brought him a strip of jerky and an apple and stood next to him facing the opposite direction, down the curve of the dam and along the valley floor to the curls of smoke from town braiding into the grey sky.

* * * *

After ten or twelve minutes, the acid solution is returned to the ice bath and cooled to forty-five degrees Centigrade. The oily liquid will sink to the bottom of the beaker. The remaining acid solution should be drawn off using a syringe.

* * * *

The residents of the sunken valley populate my dreams.

A pair of schoolteachers, sisters, lovers, spinsters to the town of Prescott, holding each other and everything unspoken as the waters rose.

A man just outside Alice who murdered his wife for the insurance money. He made it look like an accident. It was so convincing, in fact, that years later he himself believed it.

A resident of Thor who made an occasional practice of driving to neighboring towns under the still of night and killing dogs with a crossbow. He rendered the flesh from their bones and carefully reconstructed their skeletons, like model airplanes, in his attic.

The proprietor of the Mill End Store in Machinery who nursed elaborate masturbatory fantasies about raping and murdering young boys. As the years passed, the fantasies grew more and more baroque. He was active in the church community and ran the Christian Youth Fellowship's Helping Hand for Troubled Teens camp every summer.

I can feel them looking up at me as my boat glides slowly through the air.

* * * *

Fifty more grams of the first acid solution are added to the oily liquid while the temperature is slowly being raised to eighty-three degrees Centigrade. After this temperature is reached, it is maintained for a full half hour.

* * * *

Elly Foss gave birth to a two-headed baby last week. It cleaved together at the breastbone, both heads crying in unison when it came out. A single pair of arms waved feebly in the air. Her husband, Jack, took it by the legs and slammed it against the wall. He says it's no baby of his. Elly isn't saying much of anything. There's a lot of talk going around, as they have two normal children, both obviously Jack's since they exhibit the same pattern of delicate webbing between their toes that Jack has. Veins lace through the translucent skin like the architecture of a drunken spider.

* * * *

At the end of this period, the solution is allowed to cool to sixty degrees Centigrade and is held at this temperature for another full half hour. The acid is again drawn off, leaving once more the oily liquid at the bottom.

* * * *

In the reservoir lives a catfish the size of a man. Massive arms sprout from its body just beneath the gills and it uses them to move aside the debris that has been collected by the slow, Atlantean drift, to open the doors and enter the houses of Machinery and Prescott, of Alice and Thor. I close my eyes and I can see it floating next to a Colonial armoire in someone's master bedroom, reaching out a hand to touch the detailed filigree gone soft and pulpy in the cold depths, steadying itself in a sudden surge of current.

Last year, some fool from one of the hill towns came down and tried to catch it. He built a raft out of a garage door and four empty oil drums, bolted a stout, fiberglass pole onto the raft, and pushed himself off into the calm water.

He used kittens for bait. Through binoculars, I saw him impale their tiny bodies on curved hooks and drop them wriggling into the water. I imagined that I could hear their sharp cries.

Every now and then, he'd get a hit, the pole bending like a bow, pulling that end of the raft halfway into the water. Then it would stop and the raft would spring back and bob up and down like a cork.

A small crowd gathered on the causeway to watch his progress. He was doomed, already dead, and he didn't even know it.

But we did.

After a long stretch of quiet, the rocking of the raft from the last hit damped to an almost imperceptible bob and silence hanging over the lake like heat haze, our fish burst out of the water right in front of him. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, leaping into the air in a silver blur, the sun catching rainbow highlights off scales rippling like mercury. Before we had time to blink, it grabbed the man in its huge hands and pulled him into the water. The raft skidded off to the side, bobbing, bobbing. Eventually, it drifted to shore on the north side of the dam and got caught up in the branches of a fallen tree, half-submerged.

It's still there.

* * * *

Thirty grams of sulfuric acid are added while the oily liquid is heated to eighty degrees Centigrade. All temperature increases must be accomplished slowly and gently.

* * * *

Oscar was on the causeway before dawn, looking out across the water. I brought him a heel of dark bread and some cheese. He took the items from me without a word and pushed them into his mouth.

“It's mine,” he said, chewing vigorously on the wad of food. Crumbs clung to his lips.

“Excuse me?"

He closed his eyes and swallowed, then motioned to the canteen hanging from my shoulder. I gave it to him and he unscrewed the top and held it to his lips. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. When he was done, he wiped his lips on his sleeve.

“The baby is mine,” he said, handing me back the canteen.

I looked closely at him. Wind whistled up from the town side of the causeway, pushing between us, as if reminding me of what I had to do. I returned to the house. When I looked out at the causeway again, he was gone.

* * * *

Once the desired temperature is reached, thirty grams of the second acid solution are added. The temperature is raised from eighty degrees Centigrade to one hundred four degrees Centigrade and is held there for three hours.

* * * *

I dreamed that I was in a house on the outskirts of Machinery, sitting weightless in the living room. Tiny ceramic animals clustered together on the mantle. A grandfather clock wedged into a corner of the room emitted a muffled ticking.

I floated over to the window and looked out. There, just above the level of the treetops, a small boat gliding slowly past, a lone figure rowing.

* * * *

Lower the temperature of the mixture to one hundred degrees Centigrade and hold it there for thirty minutes.

* * * *

When I awoke the next morning, there was a basket of bread and jerky on my doorstep. Underneath the lean-to next to the shed in back, a half-cord of wood that hadn't been there the night before.

They flayed him alive and nailed him to a telephone pole in front of the burned-out shell of the First Presbyterian Church, just off the town commons.

I brought him some water. I set up a stepladder next to the pole and climbed with a pail and a ladle up to where he hung. He'd been there all day and most of the night before and he smelled pretty bad, blood and waste and something I couldn't identify, maybe his sorry old soul hovering nearby, waiting for an excuse to leave. An aura of flies surrounded him. His skin hung in strips; the muscles in his arms and legs were marbled with veins of yellow fat. An old scar sprawled across his shoulder, shiny runnels and bubbles like a sheet of melted plastic.

“Oscar,” I said. “Oscar. How about a drink?"

His eyes flickered open. Imprecation, accusation, a burning grace.

* * * *

The oil is removed from the acid and washed with boiling water. Stir constantly. The TNT will begin to precipitate out. Add cold water. Pellets will form.

* * * *

The Dragon cannot live in water that is too pure. I charged up a pair of car batteries from the generator beneath my house and wired them to a simple spring-release mechanism. Took the device to the foot of the dam. Looked up at the broad sweep of concrete filling the sky, colors bright like a postcard from someplace where the ocean is nearby. Set the timer and clambered up the side of the valley through the dense undergrowth, branches scratching at my face like flailing arms.

Just as I reached the top, I heard a sound like a door slamming shut on an empty room. I turned around. A billowing, grey mushroom hurtled into the sky and a network of cracks spread across the face of the dam. Water broke out in discrete gushing sprays, the cracks widening, then all at once it gave, collapsing in a churning froth of water, concrete, earth.

The causeway was gone; my house hung on the blunt edge of nothing. A wall of water pushed through the valley, covering everything. Behind the advancing front, the roiling foam was a deep, rich brown.

To my right, the waters receded. First, the tall steeples of churches were revealed, then the houses, finally the streets and roads. Prescott and Machinery, Alice and Thor. They glistened, pure in the sunlight.

* * * *

Note: The temperatures used in the preparation of TNT are exact. Do not rely on estimates or approximations. A good thermometer is essential.

* * * *

Author's note: I am grateful to William Powell's The Anarchist Cookbook for the TNT recipe.

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Hit
by Bruce McAllister

"If life is a ‘divine comedy,’ as many insist it is, who has the last laugh?"

* * * *

I'M GIVEN THE ASSIGNMENT by an angel—I mean that, an angel—one wearing a high-end Armani suit with an Ermenegildo Zegna tie. A loud red one. Why red? To project confidence? Hell, I don't know. I'm having lunch at Parlami's, a mediocre bistro on Melrose where I met my first ex, when in he walks with what looks like a musical instrument case—French horn or tiny tuba, I'm thinking—and sits down. We do the usual disbelief dialogue from the movies: He announces he's an angel. I say, “You're kidding.” He says, “No. Really.” I ask for proof. He says, “Look at my eyes,” and I do. His pupils are missing. “So?” I say. “That's easy with contacts.” So he makes the butter melt on the plate just by looking at it, and I say, “Any demon could do that.” He says, “Sure, but let's cut the bullshit, Anthony. God's got something He wants you to do, and if you'll take the job, He'll forgive everything.” I shrug and tell him, “Okay, okay. I believe. Now what?” Everyone wants to be forgiven, and it's already sounding like any other contract.

He reaches for the case, opens it right there (no one's watching—not even the two undercover narcs—the angel makes sure of that) and hands it to me. It's got a brand-new crossbow in it. Then he tells me what I need to do to be forgiven.

“God wants you to kill the oldest vampire."

“Why?” I ask and can see him fight to keep those pupilless eyes from rolling. Even angels feel boredom, contempt, things like that, I'm thinking, and that makes it all that more convincing.

“Because He can't do it."

“And why is that?” I'm getting braver. Maybe they do need me. I'm good—one of the three best repairmen west of Vegas, just like my sainted dad was—and maybe guys who say yes to things like this aren't all that common.

“Because the fellow—the oldest bloodsucker—is the son of ... well, you know..."

“No, I don't."

“Does ‘The Prince of Lies’ ring a bell?"

“Oh.” I'm quiet for a second. Then I get it. It's like the mob and the police back in my uncle's day in Jersey. You don't take out the don because then maybe they take out your chief.

I ask him if this is the reasoning.

The contempt drops a notch, but holds. “No, but close enough."

“And where do I do it?"

“The Vatican."

“The Holy City?"

“Yes."

“Big place, but doesn't have to be tricky.” I'd killed men with a wide range of appliance—the angel knew that—and suddenly this wasn't sounding any trickier. Crossbow. Composite frame, wooden arrows—darts—whatever they're called. One to the heart. I'd seen enough movies and TV.

“Well,” he says, “maybe. But most of the Jesuits there are vampires too."

“Oh."

“That's the bad news. The good news is they're pissed at him—the oldest vampire, I mean. They think he wants to turn mortal. He's taken up with some 28-year-old bambina who knows almost as many languages as he does—a Vatican interpreter—and they've got this place in Siena—Tuscany, no less—and he hasn't bitten her, and it's been making the Brothers, his great-great-great-grandchildren, nervous for about a month now. Handle it right and she just might help you even if they don't."

“You serious?"

“Yes."

“Why?"

“Because she wants to be one, too—she's very Euro-goth—you know the type—and he just won't bite her."

No, I don't know the type, but I say, “She's that vindictive?"

“What woman isn't?"

This sounds awfully sexist for an angel, but I don't argue. Maybe angels get dumped too.

“Does he really?” I ask.

“Does he really what?"

“Want to be mortal again."

“He never was mortal."

“He was born that way?"

The eyes—which suddenly have pupils now, majorly dark blue ones—are starting to roll again. “What do you think? Son of You-Know-Who—who's not exactly happy with the traditional wine and wafer thing, but likes the idea of blood and immortality."

“Makes sense,” I say, eyeing the narcs, who are eyeing two Fairfax High girls, “but why does God need someone to kill him if he wants to flip?"

He takes a breath. What an idiot, the pupils say."Remember when China tried to give Taiwan a pair of pandas?"

I'm impressed. This guy's up on earthly news. “No."

“Taiwan couldn't take them."

“Why not?"

He takes another breath and I hear him counting to ten.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I get it. If they took the pandas, they were in bed with China. They'd have to make nice with them. You accept cute cuddly creatures from someone and it looks like love, right?"

“Basically."

“If You-Know-Who's son flips—goes mortal—God has to accept him."

“Right."

“And that throws everything off. No balance. No order. Chaos and eventually, well, Hell?"

The angel nods, grateful, I can tell, that I'm no stupider than I am.

I think for a moment.

“How many arrows do I get?"

I think he'll laugh, but he doesn't.

“Three."

“Three?” I don't like the feeling suddenly. It's like some Bible story where the guy gets screwed so that God can make some point about fatherly love or other form of sacrifice. Nice for God's message. Bad for the guy.

“It's a holy number,” he adds.

“I get that,” I say, “but I don't think so. Not three."

“That's all you get."

“What makes you think three will do it—even if they're all heart shots?"

“You only need one."

The bad feeling jumps a notch.

“Why?"

He looks at me and blinks. Then nods. “Well, each has a point made from a piece of the Cross, Mr. Pagano. We were lucky to get even that much. It's hidden under three floors and four tons of tile in Jerusalem, you know."

“What is?"

“The Cross. You know which one."

I blink. “Right. That's the last thing he needs in the heart."

“Right."

“So all I've got to do is hit the right spot."

“Yes."

“Which means I need practice. How much time do I have?"

“A week."

I take a breath. “I'm assuming you—and He—know a few good crossbow schools, ones with weekly rates."

“We've got special tutors for that."

I'm afraid to ask. “And what do these tutors usually do?"

“Kill vampires."

“And you need me when you've got a team of them?"

“He'd spot them a mile away. They're his kids, you might say. He's been around 2000 years and he's had kids and his kids have had kids—in the way that they have them—you know, the biting and sucking thing—and they can sense each other a mile away. These kids—the ones working for us—are ones who've come over. Know what I mean?"

“And they weren't enough to throw off the—the ‘balance.’”

Now he laughs. “No, they're little fish. Know what I mean?"

I don't really, but I nod. He's beginning to sound like my other uncle—Gian Felice—the one from Teaneck, the one with adenoids. Know what I mean?

* * * *

I go home to my overpriced stucco shack in Sherman Oaks and to my girlfriend, who's got cheekbones like a runway model and lips that make men beg, but wears enough lipstick to stop a truck, and in any case is sick and tired of what I do for a living and probably has a right to be. I should know something besides killing people, even if they're people the police don't mind having dead and I'm as good at it as my father wanted me to be. It's too easy making excuses. Like a pool hustler who never leaves the back room. You start to think it's the whole world.

She can tell from my face that I've had one of those meetings. She shakes her head and says, “How much?"

“I'm doing it for free."

'No, Anthony, you're not."

“I am."

“Are you trying to get me to go to bed with your brother? He'd like that. Or Aaron, that guy at the gym? Or do you just want me to go live with my sister?"

She can be a real harpy.

“No,” I tell her, and mean it.

“You must really hate me."

“I don't hate you, Mandy. I wouldn't put up with your temper tantrums if I hated you.” The words are starting to hurt—the ones she's using and the ones I'm using. I do love her, I'm telling myself. I wouldn't live with her if I didn't love her, would I?

“And I live on what while you're away, Anthony?"

“I'll sell the XKE?"

“To who?"

“My cousin. He wants it. He's wanted it for years."

She looks at me for a moment and I see a flicker of—kindness. “You in trouble?"

“No."

“Then you're lying or you're crazy but anyway it comes down to the same thing: You don't love me. If you did, you'd take care of me. I'm moving out tomorrow, Anthony Pagano, and I'm taking the Jag."

“Please...."

“If you'll charge."

“I can't."

“You are in trouble."

“No."

How do you tell her you've got to kill a man who isn't really a man but wants to be one, and that if you do God will forgive you all the other killings?

She heads to the bedroom to start packing.

I get the case out, open it, touch the marblized surface of the thing, and hope to hell that God wants a horny assassin because I'm certainly not seeing any action this night or any other before I leave for Rome, and action does help steady my finger. Which Mandy knows. Which every woman I've ever been with knows.

When I get up the next morning, she's gone. The note on the bathroom mirror, in slashes of that lipstick of hers, says, “I hope you miss my body so bad you can't walk or shoot straight, Anthony."

* * * *

We do the instruction at a dead-grass firing range in Topanga Canyon. My tutor is a no-nonsense kid—maybe 20—with Chinese characters tattooed around his neck like a dog collar, naked eyebrows, pierced tongue, nose, lower lip. He's serious and strict, but seems happy enough for a vampire killer. He picks me up in his Tundra and on the way to the canyon, three manikins (that holy number) bouncing in the truck bed, he says, “Yeah, I like it—even if it's not what you'd think from a Buffy re-run or a John Carpenter flick—you know, like that one shot in Mexico. More like CSI—not the Bruckheimer, but the Discovery Channel. Same way that being an investigative journalist isn't as much fun as you think it'll be—at least that's what I hear. All those hours Googling the public record. In my line of work, it's the tracking and casing and light-weapons prep. But you know more about that than I do, Mr. Pagano. Wasn't your dad—"

“Sounds like you've been to college, Kurt,” I say.

“A year at a community college—that's it. But I'm a reader. Always have been."

How do you answer that? I've read maybe a dozen books in my life, all of them short and necessary, and I'm sitting with this kid who reads probably three fat ones a week. Not only is he more literate than I am, he's going to teach me how to kill—something I really thought I knew how to do.

“Don't worry,” he says. “You'll pick it up. Your—shall we say ‘previous training and experience'—should make up for your age, slower reflexes, you know."

What can I say? I've got fifteen years on him and we both know it. My reflexes are slower than his.

As we hit the Ventura Freeway, he tells me what I'm packing. “In the case beside you, Mr. Pagano, you've got a Horton Legend HD with a Talon Ultra-Light trigger, DP2 CamoTuff limbs, SpeedMax riser, alloy cams, Microflight arrow groove, and Dial-a-Range trajectory compensator—with LS MX aluminum arrows and Hunter Elite 3-arrow quivers. How does that make you feel?"

“Just wonderful,” I tell him.

The firing range is upscale and very hip. There are dozens of trophy wives and starlets wearing $300 Scala baseball caps, newsboy caps, and sun visors. There are almost as many very metro guys wearing $600 aviator shades and designer jungle cammies. And all of them are learning Personal Protection under the tutelage of guys who are about as savvy about what they're doing as the ordinary gym trainer. They're all trying their best to hit fancy bullseye, GAG, PMT and other tactical targets made for pros, but I'm looking like an even bigger idiot trying to hit, with my handfuls of little crossbow darts, the manikins the kid has lined up for me at 50 yards. The other shooters keep rubbernecking to get a look at us. The kid stares them down and they look away. If they only knew.

“Do the arrows made from the other material—” I begin. Do they—uh—act...?” I ask.

“Arrows with wood made from the Cross act the same,” the kid says, very professional. “We balance them the way we'd balance any arrow."

“When it hits—"

“When it hits a vampire, I'm sure it doesn't feel like ordinary wood. I've never taken one myself."

“Glad to hear it."

“Actually, someone did try an arrow once. Deer bow. Two inches off the mark. I've got a scar. Want to see it?"

“Not really. How would it feel to us?"

“You mean mortals?"

“Right."

“It would probably hurt like hell, and if you happened to die I doubt it would get you a free pass to Heaven."

“That's too bad."

“Isn't it."

When I've filled the manikins with ten quivers’ worth of arrows and my heart-shot rate is a sad 10%, we quit for the day. It's getting close to sunset, one of those gorgeous smoggy ones. The other shooters have hit the road in their Escalades, H3s, and Land Sharks and the kid is acting distracted.

“Date?"

“What?"

“You know. Two people. Dinner and a movie. Clubbing. Whatever."

“You could say that. But it's a threesome. Can't stand the guy—he's a Red-State crewcut ex-Delta-Forcer—but the girl, she's so hot she'll melt your belt buckle."

He can tell I'm not following.

“A job. It'll take the three of us about three hours. You know, holy number."

“Yeah, I know."

“Two Hollywood producers. Both vampires. They've got two very sexy, very cool low-budget vampire flicks—ones where the vampires win because, hey, if you're cool and sexy you should win, right?—in post-production, two more in production and three in development. These flicks will seduce too many teens to the Dark Side, He says, so He wants us to take out their makers. They'll be having late poolside dinner at Blue-on-Blue tonight. We'll be interrupting it."

“I see,” I say. I'm staring at him and he beats me to it.

“You want to know what we eat if we can't drink blood."

“Yes, I do."

“We eat what you eat. We don't need blood since we came over."

“Which means you don't—how to put it?—you don't perpetuate the species."

“Right."

“Which can't make the elders very happy."

“No, it can't."

* * * *

By the end of the sixth day my heart-shot rate is 80% and the kid's nodding, doing a dance move or two in his tight black jeans, and saying “You're the man, Anthony. You're the man.” I shouldn't admit it, but what he thinks does matter.

When I get there, courtesy of Alitalia (the angel won't pay for Luftansa), the city of Siena, in lovely Tuscany, country of my forefathers, is a mess. It's just after the horserace, the one where a dozen riders—each of them repping a neighborhood known for an animal (snail, dolphin, goose—you get the picture)—beat each other silly with little riding crops to impress their local Madonna. There's trash everywhere. I've got the crossbow in its case, and a kid on a Vespa tries to grab it as he sails by, but I'm ready. I know kids—I was one once—and I nail him with a kick to his knee. The Vespa skids and he flies into a fountain not far away. The fountain is a big sea shell—a scallop—which I know from reading my Fodor's must be this neighborhood's emblem for the race. He gets up crying, gives me the va-funcu with his arm and fist, and screams something in native Sienese—which isn't at all the Italian I grew up with but which I'm sure means, “I'm going to tell my dad and brothers, you asshole!"

The apartment is not in the Neighborhood of the Scallop, but in the Neighborhood of the Salmon, and the girl who answers the door is stunning. Tall. The kind of blonde who tans better than a commercial. Eyes like shattered glass, long legs, cute little dimple in her chin. I don't see how he can keep his teeth off her.

This is Euro-goth? I don't think so.

“So you're the one,” she says. Her English is perfect, just enough accent to make it sexy.

“Yeah. Anthony Pagano.” I stick out my hand. She doesn't take it.

“Giovanna,” she says. “Giovanna Musetti. And that's what you're going to do it with?” She gestures with her head at my case. She can't take her eyes off it.

“Yeah."

"Please don't do it," she says suddenly.

I don't know what to say.

“You're supposed to want him dead."

She looks at me like I'm crazy.

“Why would I want him dead?"

“Because you want him to bite you—because you want to be one too—and he—he won't oblige."

“Who told you that?"

“The—the angel who hired me."

“I know that angel. He was here. He interviewed me."

“You don't want him dead?"

“Of course not. I love him."

* * * *

I sit down on the sofa. They've got a nice place. Maybe they enjoy the horseraces. Even if they don't, the tourists aren't so bad off-season according to Fodor's. And maybe when you're the oldest vampire, you don't have to obey the no-daylight rule. Maybe you get to walk around in the day—in a nice, clean, modern medieval city—maybe one you knew when you were only a thousand years old and it was being built and a lot trashier—and feel pretty mortal and normal. Who knows?

“Why did my employer get it wrong?"

She's got the same look the angel did. “The angel didn't get it wrong, Mr. Pagano. He lied."

“Why?” I'm thinking: Angels are allowed to do that? Lie? Sure, if God wants them to.

“Why?” I ask again.

“I don't know. That's one of the things I love about Frank—"

“Your man's name is Frank?"

“It is now. That's what he's gone by for the last hundred years, he says, and I believe him. That's one of the things I love."

“What?"

“That he doesn't lie. That he doesn't need to. He's seen it all. He's had all the power you could want and he doesn't want it anymore. He's bitten so many people he lost count after a century, and he doesn't want to do it anymore. He's tired of living the lie any vampire has to live. He's very human in his heart, Mr. Pagano—in his soul—so human you wouldn't believe it—and he's tired of doing his father's bidding, the darkness, the blasphemy, all of that. I don't think he was ever really into it, but he had to do it. He was his father's son, so he had to do it. Carry on the tradition—the business. Do you know what that's like?"

“Yes. I do."

I'm starting to like her, of course—really like her. She's great eye candy, but it isn't just that. The more she talks, the more I like what's inside. She understands—she understands the mortal human heart.

“But I'm supposed to kill him,” I say.

“Why?"

“Because of—because of ‘balance.’”

“What?"

“That's what my employer said. Even though Frank wants to flip, and you'd think that would be a plus, it wouldn't be. It would throw things off."

“You really believe that, Anthony?"

Now we're on first-name basis, and I don't mind.

I don't say a thing for a second.

“I don't know."

“It sounds wrong, doesn't it."

“Yeah, it does."

We sit silent for a while. I'm looking at her hard, too interested, so I make myself look away.

“Do I make you self-conscious?” she asks gently.

That turns me red. “It's not you. It's me. You look awfully good. It's just me."

“That's sweet.” Now she's doing the looking away, cheeks a little red, and when she looks backs, she says, “Any idea why God would really want him killed?"

“None whatsoever."

“But you've still got to do it."

“There was this promise."

“I know."

“You do?"

“Sure. If you do it, He'll forgive everything. They offered me that too if I helped you."

“And you said no?"

“Yes."

She loves this guy—this vampire—this son of You-Know-Who—so much she'll turn down an offer like that? Now I'm really looking at her. She's not just beautiful, she's got coglioni. She'll stand up to God for love.

I'm thinking these things and also wondering whether the angel lied about her because maybe she stiffed him. Because he's the vindictive one.

“There's nothing I can say to stop you?” she's asking. She doesn't say “nothing I can do.” She says “nothing I can say,” and that's all the difference in the world.

“Wish there were, but there isn't. Where is he?"

“You know."

“Yeah, I guess I do. He's in the Vatican somewhere trying to convince those Jesuit vampires that it's okay if he turns."

“That's where he said he was going when he left a week ago, so I'm sure it's true. Like I said, he—"

“Never lies. I know."

I get up.

“I'm sorry."

“Me too."

* * * *

I'm depressed when I get to Rome and not because the city is big and noisy and feels like LA. (My dad's people were from Calabria and they never had a good thing to say about Romani, so I'm biased.) It's because—well, just because. But when I reach the Vatican, I feel a lot better. Now this—this is beautiful. St. Peter's. The church, the square, marble everywhere, sunlight blinding you like the flashight of God. Even the silly little Fiats going round and round the circle like they're trapped and can't get off are nice.

He's not going to be in the basilica, I know. That's where the Pope is—that new strict guy, Benedict—and it's visiting day, dispensations, blessings, the rest. I don't even try to go through the main Vatican doorway on the opposite side. Too many tourists there, too. Instead I go to a side entrance, Via Gerini, where there's no one. Construction cones, sidewalk repair, a big door with carvings on it. Why this entrance, I don't know. Just a hunch.

I know God can open any door for me that He wants to, so if my hunch is right why isn't the door opening? Maybe there'll be a mark on the right door—you know, a shadow that looks like the face of Our Lady, or the number 333, something—but before I can check the door for a sign, something starts flapping above my head and scares the shit out of me. I think it's a bat at first—that would make sense—but it's just a pigeon. No, a dove. Doves are smaller and pigeons aren't this white.

I know my employer thinks I'm slow, but a white dove?

The idiot bird keeps flapping two feet from my head and now I see it—a twig of something in its beak. I don't want to know.

The bird flies off, stops, hovers, and waits. I'm supposed to follow, so I do.

The door it's stopped at is the third one down from mine, of course. No face of Our Lady on it, but when I step up to it, it of course clicks and swings open.

We go through the next doorway, and the next, and the next, seven doorways in all—from a library to a little museum, then another library, then an office, then an archive with messy files, then a bigger museum. Some of the rooms are empty—of people, I mean—and some aren't, and when they're not, the people, some in suits and dresses and some in clerical outfits—give me a look like, “Well, he certainly seems to know where he's going with his musical instrument. Perhaps they're having chamber music with espresso for gli ufficiali. And of course that can't really be a pure white dove with an olive twig in its beak flapping in front of him, so everything's just fine. Buon giorno, Signore."

When the bird stops for good, hovering madly, it's a really big door and it doesn't open right off. But I know this is it—that my guy is on the other side. Whatever he's doing, he's there and I'd better get ready. He's a vampire. Maybe he's confused—maybe he doesn't want to be one any longer—but he's still got, according to the angel, superhuman strength and super-senses and the rest.

When the door opens—without the slightest sound, I note—I'm looking down this spiral staircase into a gorgeous little chapel. Sunlight is coming through the stained glass windows, so there's got to be a courtyard or something just outside, and the frescoes on the ceiling look like real Michelangelos. Big muscles. Those steroid bodies.

The bird has flown to the ceiling and is perched on a balustrade, waiting for the big event, but that's not how I know the guy I'm looking down at is Frank. It isn't even that he's got that distinguished-gentleman look that old vampires have in the movies. It's what he's doing that tells me.

He's kneeling in front of the altar, in front of this big golden crucifix with an especially bloody Jesus, and he's very uncomfortable doing it. Even at this distance I can tell he's shaking. He's got his hands out in prayer and can barely keep them together. He's jerking like he's being electrocuted. He's got his eyes on the crucifix, and when he speaks, it's loud and his voice jerks too. It sounds confessional—the tone is right—but it's not English and it's not Italian. It may not even be Latin, and why should it be? He's been around a long time and probably knows the original.

I'm thinking the stained-glass light is playing tricks on me, but it's not. There really is a blue light moving around his hands, his face, his pants legs—blue fire—and this, I see now, it's what's making him jerk.

He's got to be in pain. I mean, here in a chapel—in front of an altar—sunlight coming through the windows—making about the biggest confession any guy has ever made. Painful as hell, but he's doing it, and suddenly I know why she loves him. Hell, anyone would.

Without knowing it I've unpacked my crossbow and have it up and ready. This is what God wants, so I probably get some help doing it. I'm shaking too, but go ahead and aim the thing. I need forgiveness, too, you know, I want to tell him. You can't bank your immortal soul, no, but you do get to spend it a lot longer.

I put my finger on the trigger, but don't pull it yet. I want to keep thinking.

No, I don't. I don't want to keep thinking at all.

I lower the crossbow and the moment I do I hear a sound from the back of the chapel where the main door's got to be, and I crane my neck to see.

It's the main door all right. Heads are peeking in. They're wearing black and I think to myself: Curious priests. That's all. But the door opens up more and three of them—that holy number—step in real quiet. They're wearing funny Jesuit collars—the ones the angel mentioned—and they don't look curious. They look like they know exactly what they're doing, and they look very unhappy.

Vampires have this sixth sense, I know. One of them looks up at me suddenly, smiles this funny smile, and I see sharp little teeth.

He says something to the other two and heads toward me. When he's halfway up the staircase I shoot him. I must have my heart in it because the arrow nearly goes through him, but that's not what really bothers him. It's the wood. There's an explosion of sparks, the same blue fire, and a hole opens up in his chest, grows, and in no time at all he's just not there anymore.

Frank has turned around to look, but he's dazed, all that confessing, hands in prayer position and shaking wildly, and he obviously doesn't get what's happening. The other two Jesuits are heading up the stairs now, and I nail them with my last two arrows.

The dove has dropped like a stone from its perch and is flapping hysterically in front of me, like Wrong vampires! Wrong vampires! I'm tired of its flapping, so I brush it away, turn and leave, and if it takes me (which it will) a whole day to get out of the Vatican without that dove to lead me and make doors open magically, okay. When you're really depressed, it's hard to give a shit about anything.

* * * *

Two days later I'm back at Parlami's. I haven't showered. I look like hell. I've still got the case with me. God knows why.

I've had two martinis and when I look up, there he is. I'm not surprised, but I sigh anyway. I'm not looking forward to this.

“So you didn't do it,” he says.

“You know I didn't, asshole."

“Yes, I do. Word does get out when the spiritual configuration of the universe doesn't shift the way He'd like it to."

I want to hit his baby-smooth face, his perfect nose and collagen lips, but I don't have the energy.

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“You really don't know?"

“No."

He shakes his head. Same look of contempt.

“I guess you wouldn't."

He takes a deep breath.

“Well, the Jesuits did it for you. They killed him last night."

“What?"

“They've got crossbows too. Where do you think we got the idea?"

“Same wood?"

“Of course. They handle it with special gloves."

“Why?"

“Why kill him? Same line of thought. If he flips, things get thrown off balance. Order is important for them, too, you know. Mortals are the same way, you may have noticed. You all need order. Throw things off and you go crazy. That's why you'll put up with despots—even choose them over more benign and loving leaders—just so you don't have to worry. Disorder makes for a lot of worry, Anthony."

“You already knew it?"

“Knew what?"

“That I wouldn't do it and the Jesuits would instead."

“Yes."

“Then why send me?"

Again the look, the sigh. “Ah. Think hard."

I do, and, miracle of miracles, I see it.

“Giovanna is free now,” I say.

“Yes. Frank, bless his immortal soul—which God has indeed agreed to do—is gone in flesh."

“So He wants me to hook up with her?"

The angel nods. “Of course."

“Why?"

“Because she'll love you—really love you, innocent that you are—just the way she loved him."

“That's it?"

“Not exactly.... Because she'll love you, you'll have to stop. You'll have to stop killing people, Anthony. It's just not right."

“No, I won't."

“Yes, you will."

“Don't think so."

“But you will—because, whether you know it yet or not, you love her, too."

What do you say to that?

The angel's gotten up, straightened his red Zegna, picked up the case, and is ready to leave.

“By the way,” he adds, “He says He forgives you anyway."

I nod, tired as hell. “I figured that."

“You're catching on."

“About time,” I say.

“He said that too."

“And the whole ‘balance’ thing—"

“What do you think?"

Pure bullshit is what I'm thinking.

“You got it,” he says, reading my mind because angels can do that.

Twenty-four hours later I'm back in Siena, shaved and showered, and she doesn't seem surprised to see me. She's been grieving—that's obvious. Red eyes. Perfect hair tussled, a mess. She's been debriefed by the angel—that I can tell—and I don't know whether she's got a problem with The Plan or not, or even whether there is a Plan. The angel may have been lying about that too. But when she says quietly, “Hello, Anthony,” and gives me a shy smile, I know—and my heart starts flapping like that idiot bird.

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PARALLAX: Condominium and Collective, or, More—or Less—Than Human (with apologies to Theodore Sturgeon)
by Dr. Rob Furey

Until the early sixties collectives or “superorganisms"—vast and dispersed entities working so tightly in concert so as to appear as one—were imagined by the world of behavioral sciences as vast, interacting collections of dependent individuals under a central control system. All members were subject to selection at the level of the superorganism; individual interests were subsumed by the good of the many.

Superorganisms in this sense are something with which you have a high familiarity, such an everyday awareness that you would sweep bits of these amazing entities from your picnic blanket without a thought. Ants, bees, wasps, termites: all the coordinated insect armies of specialized individuals exhibiting specialized functions and problem solving abilities. (Again, all without a central nervous system, by the way. But that is for another day.) But as fascinating as they might be, sometimes they&rsdquo;re just competing for your egg salad and need to be dealt with.

The hierarchy of control for the units in the larger entities like these is well understood, and still plays a role in how we view certain behaviors today. But while the concept of superorganisms was used to explain the behavior of social insects, it is useful still when discussing, or at least analogizing, how complex organisms function. Think about how your body works: your immediate orders are sent by your brain along lines of electrical potential. A central nervous system allows rapid responses to environmental stimuli, in turn allowing you to maximize as best you can the resources around you.

Other parts of your body, under different types of control, also communicate with each other although over relatively longer times. Hormones alter the environment inside your body and prepare you for seasonal changes, sex, combat, sex, stress, and sex, among other things.

Communication can leap between individuals. Humans can chat, of course, but some say we also exude pheromones, which signal others of our internal state. Pheromones can also affect the internal state of others. If you find someone sexy, and you squeeze out enough pheromones, they will know it before you say a word. And might even squeeze a few back at you.

Superorganisms were constructed through these instruments of communication and individual control mechanisms. Ants, bees and termites live in potentially huge colonies where the vast majority sacrifices their individual potential for the good of the colony and the reproductive success of a queen or small number of breeders. This was an attractive idea for researchers studying these animals a generation ago. Modern evolutionary biologists have set the record straight, however. Individuals are still the unit of selection for evolutionary processes, and Occam&rsdquo;s razor has sliced away the trappings of collective organisms, leaving us with the equally amazing eusocial insects.

Eusocial-insects-as-superorganisms was a very cool idea and brought some evolutionary thinking outside the box. And I hastily state here that Darwin&rsdquo;s box proved robust and correct, the superorganism in the sense herein became a science fiction trope. But if we can step outside a lexiconographical box and resurrect the term superorganism, we can apply it to a more profound understanding of obligate symbiosis and co-evolutionary tracts that in some cases have grown so tightly entangled they have become indistinguishable as separate entities to casual observation.

But even if we turn our attention to the individual as the unit of natural selection, we find something interesting and previously unexpected. Co-evolution has built symbiotic organisms often with profound depths of interdependence. Leaf cutter ants and their fungal crop, the Portuguese man-o-war, and lichens all live interdependent lives with obligate symbionts. These organisms are so deeply intertwined they cannot live one without the other.

Built into all of us eukaryotes (everyone that&rsdquo;s not bacteria) there live symbiotic creatures that carry their own DNA with them and segue to new hosts during reproduction. Lost in time, a process of integration began eons ago and can be seen in the very structure of our cells. The leap from prokaryotes (simple bacteria) to us, the eukaryotic branch of the Tree, began a profound partnership where we harbor aliens enveloped within the protection of our cellular membranes. We treasure them so much that we maintain their lineage through our reproductive cell lines. Mitochondria that power our cellular machinery have their own genetic identity, a legacy to their own once independent lifestyle with origins lost to deep time. Mitochondria pass from one generation to the next hitch-hiking along matriarchal lines through fertilized eggs, maintaining their own genetic continuity. Now we are inseparable in every way.

But more than that, our bodies maintain an environment suitable for many more symbiotic critters to live along with us. Mites live in eyelash roots—up to 25 at the base of each human eyelash. These creatures live nowhere else and are found ubiquitously. They survive by consuming dead skin cells and oily secretions in the follicles and usually do no harm.

Over 500 species of bacteria live within our bodies, an enormous store of genetic information, not to mention biomass. About 100 trillion of the cells that we carry about every day, feed and clothe are not human. Our bodies are made up of several trillion cells of human origin, which means that we are far outnumbered even inside ourselves. We are, in effect, condominiums comprised of different species: human, bacterial and fungal, with viral bodies thrown in as well. There are more alien cells within the boundaries of our shell than human ones by an order of magnitude—a factor of 10. That which makes us, which makes possible the emergent property of self-awareness, is more than human.

Nothing is wasted. Every empty niche is filled with some creature or other. Our bodies are hosts to legions of things. These bacteria that live within us are generally harmless and even strive to protect us. For example, our immune systems work in conjunction with bacteria to protect against infection from alien microbes and rogue infusorians. Even our gut pH levels are maintained by their numbers. It&rsdquo;s obviously in their interest to keep us healthy to keep themselves alive for as long as possible; if indeed you can really say “us” and “them” and be sure to have made any real distinction.

People often say that there is more to us than we can know. Well, there are more of us than we can know as well, in the form of intracellular symbiotic organisms, communities of alien bacteria and eyelash beasts. But don&rsdquo;t worry. They like you as much as they like themselves. And really, since they outnumber us and out-mass us, you might say we're just along for the ride.

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Holiday
by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

I think I'll go to Paris:

the romance of “La tour Eiffel,"

the Arc de Triomphe standing tall as monument to human ways, near make me weep when set against this backdrop of bright alien stone.

How sweet to buy Parisian gowns to shop for perfume, shoes and jewels in Champs-Élysées's upscale stores, where tourists from the Outer Web do not yet flock, and Dreamers from the Otherlands have yet to go.

I'd linger long near Notre Dame, undress the gargoyles with my eyes, to see reflections at their hearts, and then I'd pray to glimpse at last one hunchbacked form, more fair than any off world man, to win my heart.

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Little Moon, Too, Goes Round
by David Dumitru

"While I'm not always sure where the characters who inhabit my stories originate, when KC Moss came to visit me, I liked her immediately and asked her to stay for a while. KC, I think, is a kind of distillation of the traits I find most endearing, and unfortunately most rare, in Homo sapiens sapiens: reflective to the point of distraction, carried along, not unwillingly, by eddying currents of random curiosity, and self-aware in a way in which the self operates as a small part of a great, thrumming tide of consciousness"

* * * *

KC MOSS PROPPED HER SHOVEL against the gate and scanned the horizon beyond the fence. A dust devil skipped for a moment across the prairie and then vanished, gone to nothing almost before she could pin a word on it. She bent and reached into the hole she'd been digging. Having lived most of her sixteen years on a farm a good deal past the end of the road where nowhere stops and turns around again, KC knew a thing or two about digging holes. Things died and the dead things got themselves eaten and whatever was left over started smelling pretty bad pretty quick, so it was important to get the leftovers in the ground lickety-split. On the other hand, all that digging wasn't so bad once you got used to it. You never knew what you might find. KC lifted a skull out of the hole and turned it in her hand.

She brought it to her nose and sniffed. It had a wet smell, like a potato just out of the ground—which it was, she reminded herself, just out of the ground. She sniffed again. There was another smell, too. She thought it was the smell of things someone might be looking for. She looked deep into the eye sockets. She was reminded a little of Eddie Johnson, not because it looked like him, which, now that she thought about it, it kind of did, but because Eddie Johnson had played Hamlet in the inter-district drama club last year. He was seventeen and thin as a whistle and he thought he was a hottie. He wanted everyone to call him Edward, but KC still called him Eddie, even to his face. People said he was going with a girl in the next district, but that was just a rumor.

KC held the skull at arm's length. She struck a pose and spoke in a deep, theatrical voice. “Alas, dear Yorkie, I knew thee swell.” Or was it Warwick? And was that actually from the play? She didn't know. She settled on Yorwick and let it go.

She heard a bell ring three times and then three times again. Supper. She finished burying the half-eaten billy-rat she'd found behind the barn earlier in the day, and with Yorwick in one hand and her shovel in the other she started back to the house.

On the way, she stopped to wade for a moment in a stream that cut deep into the soil to expose boulders veined with granite and shelves of limestone that overhung shallow pools and the crumbling walls of old safety bunkers that had turned out not to be so safe. Here and there were jumbles of bones from the wars and the sometimes comical remains of genetic mishaps from the pan-speciation that followed the breakout. The soil here was rich with the damp, earthy scents of lives-having-been-lived. KC had another sniff of Yorwick and sampled the air in comparison. Most of the hominid specimens she dug up from time to time came from hereabouts.

At the house, KC's grandmother was sitting on the porch peeling a basket of small, perfectly round potatoes. She wore a white denim shirt and blue jeans and she raised a leather-gloved hand in greeting. KC leaned her shovel against the porch rail and sat down. She cradled Yorwick in her lap and watched her grandmother work. She looked at the basket of potatoes and then at her grandmother.

“I thought I heard the supper bell,” she said.

“You did,” her grandmother answered. “But nobody's going to be eating until someone cleans these spuds and gets ‘em in the oven.” She smiled and took off her gloves and kissed KC on the forehead the way she did no matter if it had been ten minutes or ten hours since she'd seen her last.

KC put Yorwick down on the porch and took up the potatoes. She kicked at the bottom corner of the screen door so that it slapped against the frame and then popped open again. On her way into the house she said, “You shouldn't go over there by yourself,” echoing a phrase she'd heard her grandmother utter a hundred-and-many times herself. It was generally safe in the potato fields, and the potatoes were good value, each one providing exactly seven grams of high-yield protein and two-hundred milligrams of omega 3 antioxidants. But it was better to go picking in pairs so that one of you could keep watch. The little tubers could be sneaky and the bite was painful occasioning amputation and a prolonged and unpleasant limb-regeneration process. KC's comment went unanswered as she'd had known it would.

She went inside. It was quiet in the house. She dropped the skinned potatoes in the sink and watched them squirm as she turned on the water. She listened for a moment to the purling of the water and the rustling of a worried cabbage in its bin in the fridge. Through the screen door she saw the last squint of the sun above the horizon and heard her grandmother humming the melody of a nursery rhyme called Little Moon, Too, which told the story of some people who had traded their fortunes for berths on a satellite colony in order get away from the wars, and how they'd named the satellite Atlas after a book they'd all read. They'd promised to come back and save the world when the wars were over and the gene-splicing organisms had gone back into the labs where they belonged.

KC joined in at the end of the song, singing just loud enough to hear herself over the gurgles and gasps of the spuds as she plucked them from the sink and dropped them in a bowl of vinegar.

"Atlas shrugged," she sang,

"Atlas died

Up up in space

Where nobody cries

Round and round

Round and round

Round and round forever

She left the potatoes soaking in the bowl to make sure they were dead, and went back out on the porch. A pinprick of light slid in a languid arc across the sky just above the horizon. Out of habit born of childhood games, KC lifted her shoulders in a shrug and made a wish upon Little Moon Too.

Nobody knew what killed the Looners, but it was interesting to imagine them up there with their simulated gravity offline; desiccated bodies floating around, bumping into tables and portholes and things, and then spinning slowly off to bump into something else, like party balloons only not so shiny.

KC's grandmother picked Yorwick up from where KC had left him. She ran a finger along where the sagittal suture was supposed to be, at the crown of the skull, the cute little wandering crack where the parietal bones would have met if the skull was that of a pre-extinction human. But the suture wasn't there.

KC leaned in closer. She should have noticed it first thing. It meant that Yorwick had been hatched, not born. He hadn't had to squeeze his head into the world through a dark and narrow birth canal, partially collapsing it like the old-world humans.

“You found this where?” her grandmother asked.

“By the fence,” KC said. “But I thought it must have come from the creek."

Her grandmother nodded once. “Might have. You can't tell sometimes."

“But how?” KC asked. “How can something that's dead move around like that?"

“Oh, I don't know,” her grandmother mused. “Some things aren't quite as dead as they appear to be, now are they?"

“Is it a sapiens postremus, do you think?” KC asked.

Her grandmother turned Yorwick over and peered into his vacant brainpan. “I think it's a prime. Restless bones. Trouble. The others'll be coming soon.” She stood and brushed little bits of still-squirming potato skin from her jeans. “We'd better get ready. You get word to the doctor."

“Word to the doctor,” KC echoed, “Yes, you're right.” In truth, she had no idea whether her grandmother's implied wisdom was right or wrong or wholly irrelevant. Any way it came out, it gave her an excuse to get off the farm. She started off across the yard at a run. “I should probably tell Eddie's grandmother, too, don't you think?” she shouted as she crossed the shock-line and joined the road. She thought she heard her own grandmother say something that might have sounded like No, but there was already too much distance between them to be irrevocably sure.

* * * *

It was nearly dark by the time KC got to Eddie's house and knocked on the door. The house was big, and situated in the middle of a gathering of buildings that KC's grandmother called a town. She'd explained that a town was a place where people used to live in herds, like toothcows, only not always trying to eat each other, the key word being always.

Eddie's grandmother answered the door. She was wearing a long, black dress with a frilly white collar that looked like it was choking her, like lady's lace, the delicate fungus that grew up the side of the barn in the springtime and then crawled off into the fields to hunt in the summer.

"Edward.... “ That's how she said it, all drawn out and dramatic ... Edward ... was “occupied elsewhere.” The door closed, leaving KC standing there staring at it.

“Sheesh,” said KC to the door. She promised herself that the next time she saw Edward she'd tell him that he ought to ask for a new grandmother, one with at least a little personality. Maybe she would mention it to the doctor.

An hour later, she approached to the doctor's house, perched atop Laboratory Hill, which was in fact just a mild, unruly episode in the otherwise catatonic flatness of the prairie. The night had settled in the fields and on the trees, chasing the shadows and the things that usually hid in them out into the world-at-large. The darkness was softened by Big Moon's rising up and spilling buckets of creamy white light down from the sky. All around, things were busy hunting, rooting in the weepgrass, and foraging in the canopies of the longfinger trees, just out of sight. KC sidestepped a duck-billed rip-mole prowling around in front of the doctor's house and rang the doorbell. She waited. Little Moon, Too twinkled in its graveyard orbit between Big Moon and the horizon, and KC shrugged for luck.

She rang again and called out, and the door at last swung open. The doctor peered out at her, broke after a moment into an uncertain smile, and stepped back from the threshold to let her in.

She told him about Yorwick and how her grandmother had sent her over.

The doctor's caterpillar eyebrows came together in a V. What little chin he had jutted out in a thoughtful manner. He nodded once, a little sideways, the way that doctors do, like he believed her but then maybe not.

“I haven't seen you in some time, KC,” he said. “How are you two getting along out there? Is there anything you need?"

KC shook her head. “Everything's...” she started. She stopped cold. She craned her neck and peered past him through a set of paned glass doors into a little parlor off the entryway.

“Eddie?"

Eddie Johnson was sitting in a large, wing-backed chair in a corner, just visible from where KC was standing. She pushed past the doctor and stood looking into the room, gaping in spite of her efforts at self control.

The doctor came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. Gently, he steered her into a chair across the room from Eddie. “I'm sorry, KC,” he said. “I should have said something earlier."

KC sat. She stared. Eddie stared back. Or into space, who could tell? His lips were thin, a pale shade of blue, turned up in a sleepy kind of smile. His clothes hung on the thinness of his frame as if it were them supporting him instead of the other way round. His hands lay limp on his thighs and the fingers seemed to KC strangely emaciated, gnarled and knobby where the joints bulged beneath the listless gray gauze of his flesh. The eyes were hollow chasms. And yet there was a spark in there somewhere, a faint presence, like moonlight on a fragment of bone at the bottom of a hole.

“So it's true,” KC said. She perched, tense and fully aware on the edge of her seat, her senses probing through the house for the creak of a floorboard or the sibilant rasp of pent up breath. “Where is she?” She could not believe that she was about to lose her temper like this, and over Eddie no less—or rather, what was left of Eddie. On the other hand, she had a lot of time invested in Eddie, daydreaming time and night-dreaming time both.

The doctor attempted a confounded look at first, but eventually issued a sputtering sigh of resignation.

“Look at him,” KC demanded. Dangerously close to shedding a tear and showing the doctor just how mature she wasn't, she added, “He mated, didn't he? He's going prime."

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes."

“Is she here?"

“No.” The doctor shook his head. “She's not here.” He pulled a chair close and sat, fingering his lapels, his round, jowly face going red. “I'm sorry, KC. I didn't know until just...."

KC opened her mouth but for once the words didn't come. Adults, she steamed, do they ever know what's going on? Is there something about getting old that makes you stupid?

The doctor sat back in his chair and tapped his chin and scratched his head like it hurt to think that hard. “I don't know how it happened.” He dug in the pocket of his corduroy jacket and pulled out a little white box. He fiddled with some keys on the side of it and handed it to KC. “Look for yourself,” he said. “He hasn't been out of the district."

“Maybe he hacked his chip,” KC scoffed, and was immediately sorry.

“You know that's not possible,” the doctor answered, scolding only a little. “Males possess neither the intelligence nor the initiative for anything of the sort."

“Maybe your locator's broken.” She flipped the box diffidently into his lap.

He picked it up and scrolled through a menu and handed it back again. “You see? You went to Eddie's before you came here. The locator's functioning."

KC closed her eyes, wishing she could vanish from the planet before they opened again. It didn't work. She went on the offensive. “You promised."

It was almost true. Although he hadn't actually guaranteed Eddie to her, he'd never said anything about inter-district, self-initiated breeding, either. And then it hit her. Inter-district. The inter-district drama club. Hamlet. Ophelia. The cast party. That bloody hussy.

While she'd been thinking it through, the doctor had been rambling on about something in his weird, hypnotic, biobotic doctor voice. “...evolution is a messy business, KC. Even directed evolution. Even in reverse. There are always mutations, deviations, little impromptu experiments going on. Of course, we'll run some tests, set up a control, take samples ... baseline DNA...” Blah blah blah, KC lost the thread. “...habitat pressure, maybe...."

Finally, he stopped for a breath. KC could tell from the way he winced that she was looking at him like he was crazy. Habitat pressure. Right. There were only a few hundred free range hominids on the entire planet. The doctors kept tweaking the DNA and the DNA kept tweaking back. It could be thousands of years before there was a self-sustaining, breeding population that even remotely resembled Homo sapiens sapiens.

He started up again. “Patience, KC. You must have patience. You don't have the perspective that I have...."

No kidding, she thought. Perspective. Patience. She was sixteen. He was four hundred and something. He was on his fourth body with a new one gestating in a vat in the greenhouse out the back. She thought maybe he could use a dose of perspective with a capital P right up his....

* * * *

The following night KC and her grandmother and the doctor stood along the fence near the gate looking out at the prairie. KC kicked absently at the dirt and her foot hit something hard and brittle. She looked down and saw a convex disk embedded in the ground. She recognized Yorwick, dug him the rest of the way out, and held him in her hand.

“How did he get here?” she wondered aloud.

“I don't know,” her grandmother said. “But it couldn't have been easy for him. He must be quite keen to see this."

The doctor chuckled and lit his pipe. A cool breeze slipped through the weepgrass, making it sound even sadder than usual, and moonlight hung in the air like a mist of tiny glass beads. There was movement behind them and they turned to see Eddie coming through the fields, leaning hard on his grandmother's shoulder so that she was as good as carrying him. With them came another; a skinny, pallid, wasted creature with long, lanky dark hair. Her. She carried a bundle in her arms, blue-black and lustrous in the soft light. An egg. The stranger struggled a little with the weight of the egg, her attention given completely over to it, and nearly stumbled in a badgerweed hole. KC pictured the egg slipping down into the burrow and the yolk being sucked out like a milkshake through a straw. She heard something growling the in night air, a vicious sound, like a bone being slowly and deliberately crushed in the jaws of some malevolent beast. It took her a moment to realize that the sound was coming from her own throat.

“KC,” her grandmother cautioned. “You'll behave yourself and you'll start doing it right this minute."

KC pasted a smile on her face but it kept falling off, so she turned her back and looked out across the fence and over the dark stillness of the plains. Something moved, and it wasn't a dust devil.

“Um,” she said, “Is that them?"

Off in the distance, somewhere between the fence and the vague hem of the horizon there was a stirring, like a mouth in the darkness, opening to speak, only instead of words or voice, what issued forth was light. Faint at first, no more than a hint of a glimmer, it grew to a definite shimmer and then to a luminous, pulsating sphere that had no defined surface or boundary. It glowed blue, no, yellow, no, green. Now a brilliant red, like the feel of the sun on your skin on a hot day, and now a whirling, mesmerizing violet. It came across the prairie like a kind of purposeful wind, gliding, buffeting slightly from side to side. As it closed in, knots of color within the sphere separated out into individuals, a dozen, two dozen, more. Limbs, long and slender, came into view and became legs, four for each creature, not much more than spindles of bone with plump, round bodies suspended in the center like a spider's, like chatterbugs, skimming the surface of the ocean, quivering with bloodlust as they feed on shell mice coming up for air.

KC shaded her eyes against the light. She'd never seen a prime before; a post-reproductive, post-hominid male, let alone an entire pod.

The doctor nudged her shoulder, smiling. “Bio...” he started.

“Luminescence. Bioluminescence. I know,” KC cut in. She looked at Eddie. He was still leaning against his grandmother. Miss Oaf-eelia, as KC had christened the interloper, stood next to him, oblivious, cooing vacuously at the egg like the mate-thieving harlot she was.

The animals came closer and KC saw the heads. Human-like, only not quite. Like Yorwick. They were large, half-again KC's height, and covered all over in a velvety sheath, everywhere apart from the heads. It was the velvet that emitted the undulating glow, KC saw. One of them came close to the fence and she felt a need—a sudden, irresistible compulsion—to reach across and stroke its leg.

KC's grandmother grabbed her arm with a dexterity KC had forgotten the old surrogate possessed. “You want to die?” she scolded.

“That's how they hunt,” the doctor said. “They lure their prey. The luminescence comes from parasites on the exoskeleton. They're toxic to the touch. That's why the primes stay on their side and you stay over here. If they came over, they'd wipe you all out and we'd have to start the whole project all over again."

“Open the gate.” It was Eddie's grandmother. She stood erect and imposing in her long black dress with the high white collar, but her voice trembled just a little, just enough to notice. “It's time."

She brought Eddie closer, gave him a gentle shove. Spent and sagging, he approached the fence. The males pressed in a crush around the gate as KC's grandmother muscled it open on its rusted hinges. Eddie went through. His grandmother looked at the doctor, shook her head in shame and started through herself.

“Not you,” the doctor said. “It wasn't your fault.” He pulled her back to safety.

It took the animals only seconds to strip away what little flesh Eddie had left on his arms and legs. They swarmed, scraping at him with scissored claws at the ends of their forelegs. The luminous parasites swarmed too, pools of variegated light moving with a single mind, secreting an acid that dissolved skin and muscle but left the bones and the new body sac suspended in the middle. Eddie screamed once, a sound like an entire field of screech beans going off at the same time.

And then it was done. Eddie was no longer Eddie. The thing he'd become, Eddie-prime in the doctor's lexicon, flexed his new appendages, rolled his bony new head, and started off with the others, already on their way to wherever it was the primes went. All but one.

“That's your father,” KC's grandmother said. KC wriggled her fingers in a tentative wave but the big prime ignored her. Her grandmother took Yorwick from her and handed him to the doctor, who handed him over the fence. The prime took the skull and sniffed at it, then went off with the rest.

KC watched them go until the light they shed had faded to a dim glow on the horizon. When she turned around, the doctor and her grandmother were gone, walking arm in arm through the knee-high weep grass back to the house. Eddie's grandmother followed at a short distance. Egg-girl stayed behind, looking every bit the promiscuous zombie-hag she was but trying to look all sorry about it just the same.

“I didn't know he was yours,” she said with her head down and her eyes looking up all misty and plaintive into KC's. “It just happened."

“It's nothing,” KC lied. She thought it was probably one of those good lies she'd read about. Eggie held the egg out and KC stroked the smooth, cool shell.

“The doctor'll find me another mate,” she said. A better one, she almost said, but bit down on her lip before the words plunged out into time and couldn't be taken back.. She looked up and saw Little Moon, Too flickering across the sky. She shrugged for good luck. Next year the drama club was doing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Joaquin LeMarc, from district ten, was a shoein for the part of Lysander. KC went back to the house to start practicing for the auditions.

[Back to Table of Contents]

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[Back to Table of Contents]

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* * * *

Swimming Back From Hell by Moonlight
by Marissa K. Lingen

"I am a firm believer in stepping off the path. Sometimes it's the only way to make it back in one piece, or in as many pieces as required."

* * * *

WHAT WILL YOU LOSE IF YOU LOOK BACK?

I didn't want to ask myself. Asking was almost a way of looking. When the gods promise you that your love will be behind you, if only you don't look back, you know that you can't look.

But the road out of hell is long, so I had plenty of time to think. What will you lose? It had not seemed like such a long road on the way down, and I thought I knew what I had to lose, and I thought it was nothing, not any more.

* * * *

Nobody said we were the perfect couple, because we didn't have the kind of friends who are given to that kind of idiotic pronouncement. But Jon and I were happy, truly and deeply happy. We'd each dated a few people before, nothing that worked out, nothing serious. Neither of us came from great heartbreak. We were just waiting, passing time. We met when my best friend married his best friend. It wasn't love at first sight. I don't believe in love at first sight. But it was something special.

All of our photos together look glossy and professional. My dark hair spills over his fair hands. We stand tall together in rays of sunlight. We are untouchable in those photos.

We were going to have gorgeous children together, and grow old and preferably cantankerous. We were going to drink gallons of herbal tea with clover honey and see dozens of old movies together. We knew how it would be.

Three months before the wedding, Jon went to bed in his brother's spare room and never woke up.

They said it was a heart defect, undetectable. Later they admitted that this is what they say when a healthy twenty-eight-year-old man dies in his sleep and they can't figure out why. It was as sudden as a snakebite, and as random, and as final.

I had just finished the illustrations to a big project, a glossy high-concept retelling of the story of Demeter and Persephone. One of the biggest names in children's books had done the text. It might have been the best project I'd ever done. I had nothing to do but think of Jon until the author finished the next text in the series. I knew it would be the story of Midas, so I could have made some informed guesses, started some concept sketches. I could have called and asked her. I didn't want to.

My next door neighbor Kelly said her family had a place on the Oregon coast, and I could stay there if I wanted. I wasn't sure why she offered—we hadn't been close, I didn't think—but I said yes without thinking much about it. My parents thought they might go with me. I told them I wanted to be alone.

I think my mother thought I might do something drastic, but in the end they didn't have much choice but to let me go and pray for the best.

I'd never been to Oregon before. The tiny rental car managed the hills with nary a quiver, but I took a wrong turn and had to feel my way along the coastal highway, the names of unfamiliar towns flashing past me. Mists surrounded the car, and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees after I had gone over the last set of hills to the sea. I stopped in one of the seaside towns to pay too much for groceries.

When I found my way back to the right road, I passed suburban developments of beach homes, rows upon rows of identical, cheerfully nautical crackerboxes. I began to fear the worst, but Kelly's family property was away from the neighborhoods and their prying neighbors. It stood on a cliff, alone except for the trees. I pulled the car into the carport and unloaded my things undisturbed by friendliness.

I had friends in Chicago. I didn't need friends to follow me and ask their friendly questions and make their friendly faces. Why are you here? Because my life is over. What have you lost? My love.

Myself, it seemed.

I brought books to read, movies to watch, recipes to try. I made myself tea every morning in a pudgy little red teapot, and then I sat and drank the tea and stared at the table. Sometimes I remembered to eat something, but never from the new recipes. Sometimes I turned my chair around so I was staring out the window at the ocean. It didn't seem to matter. Ocean, table, wall, teapot. Whatever. I stared at things until they made no sense—which didn't take long—and then kept staring.

The back corner of my brain that made sure I occasionally got food and sleep recognized that this was not healthy behavior. I laced up my hiking boots, grabbed a nubbly sweater, and headed out the door for a hike. I put the sweater on immediately. Even hiking, I didn't warm up.

I stayed away from the edge of the cliff, wandering through the trees parallel to it. I had gone down the hill and up and down again when I saw the chipped grey mouth of a cave.

In the right kinds of story, I wouldn't have known where the cave led. I wouldn't have gone down into it knowing. But if you ever come upon a cave that is the mouth of hell, you may trust me that you will know. I squared my shoulders and walked down to hell with my eyes open.

It was not the hell I expected.

The three-headed dog didn't even raise one of his heads, and the ferryman lolled with his feet in the river, smoking a cigarette. I had not expected hell to be Greek, but more than that I had not expected it to be so tired.

“Living woman, what do you want?” asked the ferryman.

“I have come for my love,” I said.

He looked me over carefully. He swung his feet out of the river and stepped into his boat.

“Aren't you going to—"

“Tragic lovers, what can you do? They get in the boat, or they don't.” He watched me.

“You just wait?"

He smiled carefully. “What else do I have to do?"

When I got to the boat, he offered his arm. I took it; I wasn't used to getting in little boats without tipping them, and a swim in the Styx was not my goal. Charon coughed politely.

“Yes?"

“There is the matter of the fee...."

I dug in my jeans for my wallet and managed to produce a dime and a Canadian quarter someone had passed off in my change at the grocery store. He frowned at me. “Is this the best—"

“We use paper money for the big stuff now,” I said.

“I know, but—"

“One coin for each eye. I know the rules."

Charon shook his head and pushed the boat off. He uttered long-suffering sighs all the way across the river. Cerberus raised one of his heads and howled, just once; the other two heads snarled at the first, and it subsided. I clutched the edge of the boat and tried not to look out into the water.

“I have lost twelve passengers,” he said. “Over the last aeons. Twelve."

“I don't want to be number thirteen,” I said.

He nodded. “Remember that. Don't sell your life more cheaply than a two-coin ride."

“I haven't forgotten why I'm here."

“I don't think you really understand where you are.” The boat crunched on the far shore, on shells or gravel, I hoped. I carefully didn't look down to see as I stepped out of the boat.

I had always thought that hell would feature panoramas, sweeping visions of torment and regret. The dim light allowed me visions of very little at all.

“Go on, then,” said Charon, and gave me a gentle push.

“Where do I go?"

Charon snorted. “Just go. You'll know when you get there."

The dim figures came clear one at a time as I walked through hell. There was Sisyphus, and his boulder was bigger than I had imagined; there was Tantalus, shivering and dripping and crouching down again and again. The others were nameless to me, the woman whose child cried just out of her reach, the man who ran after a train, nearly catching it only to have it slip from his grasp. All wanting, all needing, none of them getting anywhere.

I smelled pomegranate juice.

I followed my nose until I stumbled on a rock, looked up, and found myself in the presence of gods.

Persephone was not as I had drawn her, nor had she ever been. I had drawn a corn princess, as pink and golden as an Iowa homecoming queen. But her hair was as black as my own, where it was not touched with silver. She would nurture olives and grapes, and maybe even the little juicy marionberries that grew in the valleys on the way to the shore.

Hades was shorter than I'd expected, stocky and dark, with a mustache and thick eyebrows. I was distracted from looking at him when something skittered over my booted foot. I looked down. Mice lined the path, some grey and some brown. They seemed profoundly indifferent to the king of the underworld. They shared their space with him but went on their mousely way. They didn't seem to notice whether they were dead or alive: they had mouse business that was nothing to do with either. I couldn't afford that indifference.

“Living mortal, why are you here?” asked Hades.

“You know why,” I said. “You've taken my love, and I want him back."

“I've taken nothing and no one,” said Hades. Persephone's eyebrows shot up, and he amended it hastily: “Not for thousands of years. I am not Death. I merely guard the dead. I'm sure you can see the difference."

“So you're his accomplice,” I said. But antagonizing the Lord of Hell was not likely to get me Jon back. “It doesn't matter. You have him, whether you took him or not."

Hades inclined his head in acknowledgement.

I faltered, not sure where to go from there. “Could I—I mean—I want to see him."

Persephone said, “I doubt that very much."

I glared at her. “I didn't say I'd enjoy it. I said I want to see him. And I do."

Hades nodded. “And so you shall. Follow me."

Stepping carefully around the mice, we made our way to a foggy little alcove not far from the thrones of Hades. I blinked into the fog expectantly. Hades waved his hand, and the mists parted to show me Jon.

He looked cold, but he didn't seem to notice it. He was reaching for something, and it always seemed to slip from his grasp. His face was a permanent mask of anguish.

“What is he trying to get?” I asked. Persephone looked at me gravely, and then I understood. “Me,” I whispered. “He's trying to hold me.” She nodded.

The tears ran silently down my cheeks. After a long moment, I turned away.

“What will you do, little one?” asked Hades. His voice was so tender, I almost thought he liked me. Maybe he did.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Orpheus played for us. He played his grief on his lyre, and all the dead wept in mingled joy and sorrow to hear it. I wept. My queen wept.” Persephone inclined her head and gave me something that tried to be a smile but was not. “What will you do?"

I had nothing else left. “I will draw you a story."

I didn't have the urge to draw. I hadn't really gotten inspired since Jon died. I didn't want to work. But what else was there? The king of hell could not be bribed like the ferryman, with lint-specked coins from my pocket. The stories didn't work that way. I had to drag something out of myself, or Jon would have to stay down here in the cold. There was no point in protesting that it was unfair. No one had ever obliged the gods to be fair.

“Orpheus convinced me with his lute and his voice, right here on the spot,” said Hades.

“I'm not Orpheus, and I'm not going to be able to do anything worthwhile in five seconds with you hanging your head over my shoulder."

He regarded me in silence for a moment, then inclined his head. “There are desks enough in hell. One of them can be cleared for you."

“And not enchanted into an infinite loop,” I said.

Hades smiled. “Of course not. I swear you will be able to complete your task unmolested."

He showed me to a grey cubicle in the middle of a grey cubicle farm. The office chair was padded in the wrong places and cold enough to make my bones ache. It took me awhile—I had no sense of how long—to tune out the grey presences flittering back and forth outside my cubicle, but I couldn't help them. They weren't part of the deal.

But once I regained my focus, I realized I had no idea what to draw. Orpheus had wailed out his anguish. I took the stick of charcoal and the top sheet and tried to sketch mine. I wound up with a rough self-portrait, head bowed and shoulders slumped. It was all right, maybe even good. Not great. I took up the next piece of paper. Nothing.

A mouse skittered over my foot. I jumped. It didn't, so I reached down slowly and picked it up, smudging its fur with the carbon on my hands. I lifted it to the level of my eyes, half-expecting it to bite me or lose control of its bladder at any moment. It didn't. Instead, it nestled into the curve of my hand, staring me down with little black eyes. It was cold. I couldn't blame it. Its brothers and I were the only warm things in hell, except perhaps Persephone, and she did not look eager to cuddle up to mice.

I let it sit in my lap while I did the second sketch. It watched my charcoal move. Not another self-portrait; that series would get old fast. The mouse's jittery movement reminded me of the way squirrels would jump out of the way of Jon's spaniel and chatter angrily at him from the higher branches of the backyard oak trees. So I drew the squirrel, high in the right corner of the page, and as I filled in, I could see Betsy, her spaniel head averted, not a spare moment left for the squirrel in her search for her lost master.

From there, it was—not easy, I couldn't say that. But the holes he had left, the gaps in our life together, were clear enough. I had been over them in my head so many times in the days past that I could transfer them to the page with almost no intervention between anguish and paper. When I finished, I handed them to Hades, a messy and irregular stack. I was too wearied to hold my breath and worry while he leafed through them.

“All right,” he said finally. “Yes, all right. You may have your love."

I sat down suddenly on the floor of hell. It felt like the clammy floors in my high school's basement, where the pipes trickled out a leak. It felt real, and I did not. “I can have Jon back."

“Yes. But the rules—” Hades smiled sadly. “You know the rules, I'm afraid. You must walk out of hell with him behind you, and if you look back, you will lose him forever. You must not look back. Do you understand?"

“I understand."

“And do you agree?"

I took a deep breath. “I agree."

Hades and Persephone escorted me back over the river. Charon shook his head at me but said nothing, and I looked up the stone path. It looked all right. It looked like something I could do.

Two hours later, or three, or ten, I knew why Orpheus had looked.

The stone was cold under my feet, though with only a hint of the chill of hell. The dark was empty and a little breezy. I heard Jon's feet behind me, the right stride, the right cadence, the right weight. Surely Hades couldn't fake that? Certainly he wouldn't?

But I was not to look back, so I couldn't be sure, and looking forward seemed less and less useful with each moment. The road turned in irregular, unpredictable switchbacks. The light at the end of the path was no nearer than it ever had been, and it had been hours, maybe days, since I'd eaten or slept. Since I'd looked at Jon's face, even in death. But I couldn't think of that.

What love can survive without a few reassurances, little rituals, gestures that mean, “yes, I still love you"?

What will I lose if I look back?

Jon, I told myself. Jon. But another question was chasing the first one around my head: What will I lose if I do not?

In every fairy tale, the hero is told not to step off the path, and he must do it, or the tale can't continue. Why should mine be any different?

I had plenty of time to think as I trudged up the path, and I thought about what I'd seen on my way in; or more to the point, who I'd seen. Tantalus. Sisyphus. The promise of relief was fleeting.

The gods are liars.

Orpheus may have been impulsive. It's hard to tell from the stories. I was not. I took hundreds of steps, maybe thousands, while I thought about it. The gods lie when they promise good things to humans, but when they offer punishment, they always tell the truth. I had no guarantees that Jon was behind me or that the road would ever end. But I knew that if I turned around to look, he would be gone. That was a guarantee from the gods.

Carefully not turning my head, I edged over to the right side of the path and knelt, feeling outwards. There was nothing, just the cool, stale underground air. Lying on the path to feel down the full length of my arm, I could still find nothing. It gave me vertigo, and I had to sit in the middle of the path for awhile before I could summon the courage to feel the left side.

My hand hit water less then six inches below the left side of the path.

The choice seemed clear to me. I could swim in the ocean, but who knew what was off the other side of the cliff. I would swim, and if I swam until I drowned, it would be no worse than walking the same path endlessly, and it might be better.

Hades told me not to look back. He didn't tell me not to turn back. I screwed my eyes shut tight and turned, reaching out my arms. Something stumbled into me—a live body, a man's body, a familiar body. Jon. But just as I was letting out a sob of relief, he wiggled and shifted in my arms, and it wasn't Jon any more. He felt more solid, cooler ... scaled. I was holding onto a giant serpent.

I stifled a scream and almost let my eyes fly open, almost dropped him. But I have heard the songs and read the stories: I know the ballad of Tam Lin, and I could hold my love close until he turned into my own true love again. He tried to strangle me as a snake. He snarled hot carnivorous feline breath into my face and raked me with tiger claws. He beat me with swan wings. I held him, confident in my love.

Last he turned into a burning brand, and it was the hardest of all, fighting the urge to drop the fire. But I knew I was doing the right thing; I knew I would get my love back.

He didn't turn into a man again. I held him, feeling my flesh crack, and he didn't turn. I knew that it would kill me soon if I didn't do something about it. Holding tight to the burning brand, I jumped into the sea.

It smoldered, stopped burning. The water assaulted my burns. Still the thing did not turn into my Jon, or into any man at all. I fought it. I think it was dying again. I couldn't be sure. I didn't even know what it was any more. It burned and did not burn; it gouged me and twisted and stayed perfectly still. The ocean slapped my head. I swallowed salt water more than once. My left ear was full of salt water, and a tide tugged at my legs.

Kelly had warned me about riptides. I couldn't hang on to the fizzling thing that had been my love, not if I was going to make it back to shore alive.

I didn't look back. I found my way around that one. But I had to let go. Sobbing, I unclasped my hands and kicked backwards. There was a silence on the water. I looked up, treading frantically, and saw the half moon.

It could be that the tide was going out, that it would carry me far out to sea, that I would die. But I didn't have the energy left to fight it, and it could just as easily happen that the tide was coming in. I kept myself afloat as best I could. I kicked fitfully, enough to stay above water. I was floating away from the setting moon. I had a chance to make it home. I kicked harder. After an hour or an eternity, I could see the cliffs of the coast, the outlines of evergreens in the moonlight. The tide that washed me onto the rocks bruised me neck to heels, but also saved my life.

I clung to the rock hollows that would soon be tidepools. I let the tide wash out, and I clung to the shore. No beachcombers came for me. It was a professor and her husband who saw me with my nose an inch away from a purple starfish, who exclaimed in horror at my cuts and bruises, who took me home to their beach cottage, where the professor helped me clean all my wounds but one, and the husband made coffee. They asked where I was staying. They asked who had done this to me.

I didn't know what to tell them. I said I didn't remember. They didn't believe me, but I was a tourist. There wasn't much they could do but wrap me in a spare bathrobe and pour coffee into me. They took me back to Kelly's place. I turned on NPR and found out it had been days since I'd left. There were frantic messages on the machine from my parents, Kelly, other friends.

I put fresh water in the kettle, but before I could put it on the stove, I sank to the floor and cried and cried and cried. It felt like hours later when I got up, but the Rachmaninoff concerto on the radio couldn't have lasted that long. I made tea. I called my mother. I felt every muscle as I moved. I was conscious of being in a body, of being a body.

Even when I got chilled, it was so much warmer up here.

I didn't itch to sketch anything. I didn't miss my paints. I felt like myself again, but too much like myself, as though I had filled up to the corners and had no room left for anything. I went out with friends, smiled faintly on cue and traded anecdotes when my friends started to look worried around the edges. I spent a long weekend with my parents making blueberry jam and talking about things entirely unrelated to Jon or my future. I did the least I could do. It was also the most I could do.

Eventually, it was time to work on the illustrations for the next book in the series. I assured them I could behave like a professional. I assured them that my private life did not have to affect my work.

I got stuck on the very first page.

I had forgotten it, but Midas's golden touch was a gift from Dionysus. I had to show Midas talking to the god, and I could not do it. The rest of the scene was fleshed out—Silenus the tutor, Midas's garden, Midas himself—but I left a huge blank where Dionysus was supposed to be.

It was maddening.

Finally, frustrated by my lack of progress, I went to the library and read what happened to Orpheus. He was ripped apart by the Maenads. They tore him limb from limb. Typical. Maybe not drawing Dionysus was a good idea after all. On my way out of the library, I heard a male voice say, “Excuse me.” I turned.

It was one of the librarians, bearded and stocky and bespectacled. He smiled at me diffidently. “You're the illustrator, right? You did that talk last spring."

“Yeah, that's me,” I said.

“The kids loved that. My son is still talking about it."

I glanced down at his left hand involuntarily. No ring. That didn't mean anything these days.

“He really took to heart what you said about pictures telling stories. He's been sending his mom pictures about his day now. I think it's really good for their relationship."

“How old is your son?” I asked.

“He's four."

I smiled. “That's a good age. Three-year-olds get distracted, and five-year-olds think they already know how the story goes."

He laughed. “I used to think I knew how the story went, too.” He ambled back to the reference desk. I watched him go.

My Dionysus could be Persephone's brother, dark and glinting. I face him down now as I finish the details. I'm not afraid of him any more. My way isn't Orpheus's way. It isn't Janet's way, either. I can live with that. I'm not sure I could have lived with anything else.

The librarian's name is Alec, and his son is Noah. He has kind hands, and when he gets exasperated with Noah, he chews on his lower lip and repeats, “Okay, look, buddy. No, now, buddy, look."

He will not tear me limb from limb.

With or without him, I think I can finish the long road back.

(for Andrew and Leah)

[Back to Table of Contents]

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[Back to Table of Contents]

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Misery Loves
by Craig D. B. Patton

"Fantasy stories are meant to surprise us—both those who write them and those who read them. Some take us to richly detailed alternate worlds. Others speak directly to the strangeness and mystery that lurks around the edges and just beneath the surface of everyday life. All have the freedom to be outlandish for the sake of exploring some facet of the human condition. This story surprised me first by ambushing me, the first lines popping into my head from wherever they had been before. I had an immediate image of what Misery looked and sounded like. The fun, and the surprise, came from going along with her as she sought help from her unusual neighbors. I hope you enjoy tagging along with Misery as much as I did."

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MISERY DIDN'T LOVE COMPANY. She despised it. People bustling up to her crooked, rotted door? Crowding into her gloomy, dust-filled living room and perching on the torn sofa cushions? Inquiring whether the rusted kettle was on and whether she might have anything besides that dreadfully stale Earl Grey?

Horrid. All of it.

Misery wanted only solitude in the shadowy confines of her sagging house so that she could focus wholly and deeply on just how alone she was. Observe the spiders building fantastic webs in her unused shower. Meditate on the mottled shades of light coming through the dingy, cracked windows.

But life has a way of pushing us out of our shells, like a parent nudging a child into a roomful of barely known relatives. In Misery's case, life (in the form of a massive thunderstorm) caused the roof to cave in one night.

She rather liked it at first. Investigating what had made such a loud, rending noise, she stood in her attic looking up through the jagged hole that had formerly been a third of the ceiling. Snapped beams were jutting skyward like broken ribs. Moss-covered shingles were flapping in the wind. Rain was soaking the jumbled piles of boxes that contained memories she did not care to remember. Bits of wood and shingle were everywhere. It was spectacularly awful. Added a whole new dimension of dreariness, really. She wondered why she had not thought to do it herself long ago.

Her opinion changed in the morning. Sunlight was pouring through the hole. Bright, warm, unconditionally pleasant sunlight. It made the attic unbearable. She slammed the door shut and was appalled to see that light was streaming out from under and around the door. It was leaking into her house, brightening everything in its path.

Utterly unacceptable. The roof had to be fixed. Immediately.

This posed a question: Who knew how to fix a roof? She considered a few options. Not Humor, who had no sensible qualities or talents whatsoever. Not Joy, who was always so self-absorbed in her own sheer life-is-wonderfulness and whose mere smile made Misery cringe. Not Anger, who was more likely to further damage the roof. No, as she thought about it, Misery realized that the answer was not an obvious one. She was unaccustomed to thinking about the positive qualities of others. She needed to speak with someone who could help her. Someone with a different perspective and clear opinions. She would go and see Honesty.

“You look awful, my dear,” said Honesty.

Misery snorted, swept a clump of tangled hair the color of sewage out of her eyes, and waited. “Are you going to invite me in?” she asked, when Honesty did not.

“Of course. Of course. Sorry,” said Honesty, stepping back with a swish of snow-white skirt and motioning Misery in with a perfectly-proportioned arm. “I was trying to decide what your skin color reminds me of. The belly of a flounder I think, though that has perhaps a bit more yellow, a warmer hue."

“I wouldn't know,” said Misery.

“Of course not, my dear. You really should get out more often."

Misery took off her cloak and held it out to Honesty, who stared at it and wrinkled her nose.

“Are those ... live moths? Or is it part of the pattern?"

Misery shook the cloak, startling several moths into flight.

“I see,” said Honesty. “You know, you could bring that to Kindness to mend. She's quite good at that sort of thing."

“I like it the way it is."

Honesty's hands fluttered like doves. “Of course you do. Silly of me to even suggest it. Let's sit down, shall we?"

They sat in Honesty's immaculate, uncluttered living room. She poured two cups of Darjeeling from her crystal-clear glass tea pot and handed one to Misery. “Now, what brings you to my door? You've never visited anyone but the twins before, to my knowledge, though none of us can fathom why you go there."

Misery sipped the tea and scowled. It had sugar. “I like Pain and Suffering. They understand me."

“I would think Loneliness would as well, but you don't visit him,” Honesty said.

Misery did not care to explain why. “I need help,” she said instead. “The storm last night damaged my roof. I need it fixed."

“You poor dear,” Honesty said. “But why come to me? I don't have much talent for that sort of thing."

“I want your opinion on who I should ask."

“Ah!” Honesty said. “Well. Not Humor, obviously."

“Obviously."

Honesty sat in silence for a few moments. “Generosity could do it, but..."

“Yes?"

“Well, she might not restrict herself to fixing your roof. She works quickly and you could wind up with an entirely new roof, your windows replaced, a fresh coat of paint on the walls—"

Misery shuddered. “I don't want any of that."

“You should ask Love,” Honesty said.

“Love?” It was not the answer Misery wanted. Love lived in an elaborate estate with no wall around it and no locks on the doors. She had heard that there were always a dozen or more visitors there, for Love enjoyed nothing more than sharing himself and his opulence with others. Misery had seen him only once, at a distance. Low on food, she had gone dumpster diving. When she came out from the alley her eyes were drawn to a cluster of figures on the hillside above the town. Love was standing there, face bathed in crimson light, watching the sunset with one arm around Happiness and the other around Contentment. Ask Love? He was like some distant, mythical god. Too oblivious to the painful realities of life. Too ... strange.

Honesty smiled. “You wanted my opinion, dear. You have it. If you want your problem solved, ask him."

So it was that Misery found herself standing at the open, gilded gates of Love's estate. It was midday and she wore the hood of her cloak up and clutched an opened, black umbrella in an effort to ward off the sun. Misery gaped at the pearl white sand of the driveway, the vibrant green lawns, the overflowing beds of roses with far too many blooms and far too few thorns, and the enormous fountain with statues of swans jetting water skyward. It was painfully beautiful. Hurt just to look at, really, which restored her enough to press on.

After a short hike, she reached the soaring portico, which was larger than her own house. Free of the more direct sunlight, she lowered her umbrella but kept the hood of her cloak up. Misery rang the doorbell. A cascade of tones, bells and songbirds in the higher registers accompanied by wood blocks and whale song in the lower, resounded from inside.

“The door's always open,” a voice like a perfectly tuned cello said behind her.

Misery turned around.

Love was as tall and otherworldly as she had feared. The top three buttons of his sky-blue shirt were open, revealing the considerable muscles of his chest. His arms were like pistons. His legs like tree trunks. The blonde waves of his hair were swept back, descending to his shoulders. Love's blue eyes twinkled as he offered Misery a gentle smile.

“I assumed you were inside,” Misery said, simply to say something while she attempted to locate her wits.

“It's too nice a day to be indoors, Misery."

“Hmm,” she said, wondering exactly how daft Love would turn out to be.

“Shall we go for a walk?” Love asked. “You've never been here before."

Misery shook her head. “It's too bright out here."

“Inside then.” He opened the door for her, motioning her in with a sweep of his other arm. “Please."

The entry hall had a rose marble floor. Twin grand staircases with golden handrails swept up to either side, tracing the outline of a heart as they ascended to a balcony above. A huge crystal chandelier glittered overhead in the sunlight streaming through vaulted skylights. Everywhere she looked, Misery was confronted by extravagant beauty. She began to think that a walk on the grounds might be preferable.

“I think I know just the place for us to sit,” Love said. “Follow me, please."

He led her in silence through a labyrinth of halls to a shadowy staircase at the rear of the house. “Just down here,” he said, offering her another of his endless supply of smiles.

The staircase descended two flights to a heavy oak door reinforced with iron strips. He opened it, flipped a light switch, and they walked in.

Misery blinked.

“My wine cellar,” Love said.

She resisted the urge to snap at him about how obvious that was. Before them, a walkway led into the infinite distance. On either side, racks of wine rose fifteen feet to the ceiling, the tops of the bottles peeking out shyly at their visitors in the dim light.

“Here,” Love said, pulling two wooden chairs up next to an upended barrel. “Is this all right? We could try behind the racks if you want it darker. There may even be some cobwebs back there."

Misery stared at him, still feeling like she did not have her feet quite under her. “This will be fine.” She sat in the chair he offered her.

“Now,” said Love, once he had settled in the chair opposite her. “Can I get you anything? Plenty of wine, obviously."

“I'm fine."

“You're sure?"

Misery thought she detected a trace of disappointment in his eyes. “I am."

“Very well.” He settled back. “So, then. To whom or what do I owe thanks for your visit today?"

“To Honesty and to last night's storm,” Misery said.

Love brightened, which actually increased the ambient light level of the room. “Ah! Honesty! How is the old dear?"

“She's fine. She sends you her greetings and well wishes.” Misery was relieved to have dispensed with that obligation. The words had been like nettles trapped against her skin.

“Good. Good.” Love settled down and the room returned to its original shadowy state. “And the storm, you say? How so?"

Misery described her problem.

“How awful for you,” Love said, shaking his head. “How can I help?"

She swallowed in distaste at the honeyed tone of his words, the concern radiating from his eyes. “I need someone to repair the roof. Honesty recommended you. Will you consider it?"

Love smiled. “I have no need to consider it. I'll help you, of course. Shall we go look at it together now?"

They departed for Misery's house after Love went and filled a tool belt with a tape measure and a few other things he said he would need. He also insisted on making a quick stop in his kitchen “to pack a snack” since it was almost lunch.

“Sandwich?” Love asked, holding up a picnic basket the size of a sea chest. “I have tuna fish, peanut butter and jelly, hummus with tomato and cheese—"

“Nothing,” Misery said. She kept her eyes focused on the road ahead, only wanting to be home, to have this over with.

“Later, perhaps.” Love rummaged in the basket and withdrew an eighteen-inch sub bursting with deli meats. He began to eat it.

“What do you like to eat? When you eat,” Love asked after he had consumed several bites and they had walked a while in silence.

“I'm sorry?” Misery said, drifting back from remembering she had still not dried any of her laundry. It would be gloriously, depressingly mildewed by now.

“I was wondering what you like to eat."

Misery arched an eyebrow. “The same thing as most people. Cereal and toast in the morning. Sandwiches at lunch—"

Love smiled. “I meant what's your favorite food?"

“Oh.” Misery considered the matter. “I rather like cold cereal, I suppose."

“Flakes? Shredded grains? Crunchy nougats?"

“Oatmeal."

A furrow appeared in Love's brow. “Cold ... oatmeal?"

Misery scowled. “What's wrong with that?"

The furrow vanished. Love shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing of course. It's all personal preference..."

Misery stopped walking and faced him. “But?"

Love shifted from foot to foot. “Well. I mean, Misery, it's just that most people prefer their oatmeal ... you know, warm, if not piping hot."

She smirked. “Most people you know, anyway."

He looked startled. “What do you mean?"

Misery started walking again. “I mean it's not as though you really know everyone, Love."

He caught up to her. “I know everyone,” he said. “We all know everyone."

She snorted. “You know everyone's name. That's not the same thing."

“I know that you live alone. I know that you're unhappy all of the time. I know...” He brightened. “I know that you like cold oatmeal."

Misery laughed, a series of hacks that sounded like a neglected engine failing to sputter to life. “Who do you think you are? Empathy?"

“No,” Love said, suddenly solemn. “My sister is the most amazing person I know. I would never compare myself to her."

“Well, good. At least you have some sense."

Love grabbed her by the elbow. “Hang on. I'm out here to help you and all you've done so far is ignore or insult me. What have I ever done to you?"

Misery glared at his hand. He withdrew it as though scalded. “Nothing,” she said.

He shook his head in confusion. “Then why are you behaving so—"

“Miserably?"

Love blinked and then laughed. “Oh! I see."

Misery shook her head and they started walking again. “There's a lot you just don't understand, isn't there?"

“About what?” asked Love.

“About the world,” Misery said. “You think everything is all rainbows, flowers, ripe peaches...” She looked as though she had swallowed a mouthful of curdled milk. “Sleeping kittens."

Love made a face that might have become a scowl on someone else. “I know it's not. There's you, Woe, Loneliness, Depression, Anger, the twins; but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy life a little more than you do."

“Actually,” said Misery, “It's exactly what it means."

“Really. Why?"

“Because,” she said, clenching her grimy fists, broken nails biting into her calloused palms. “Life isn't all about Happiness,” Misery rolled her eyes, “despite what she says. Life's just not that simple. Life's messy. Life's imperfect. Life's ... complicated."

“And you think I'm just some simpleton living in a palace.” Love sounded almost hurt.

“Well?” said Misery.

He shook his head. “Well, Misery, then I'm not the only one who doesn't understand everything."

She glanced at him. “Really. What's so complicated about your life?"

“Did you happen to notice the scaffolding on the East Wing?” he asked.

Misery shook her head.

Love smiled. “Well, I can't imagine you see much out from under that cloak and umbrella. Hatred set fire to my house last week. I'm doing repairs."

She looked at him. “He set fire to it?"

“Yes ... for the third time this month,” Love said. “Before that he was throwing rocks through my windows. Before that he poisoned my gardens. It's been going on for years."

Misery imagined living under such a siege. It would be awful, but too scary to properly enjoy ... and all that work. “That's terrible. I had no idea."

He shrugged. “If you spent more time out among us you might discover things are more ... complicated than you know."

“What are you going to do?"

“Do?” The almost-furrow was back. “The only thing I can do—go on with my life. I'm not about to install a security system or hire others to control access to the grounds. I don't know how to live like that."

Misery scowled. “But then he'll just keep at it."

“Most likely,” Love nodded. “But perhaps he'll tire of it eventually if I don't give in.” He smiled. “Or at least come to one of my parties without spray painting slurs in the bathrooms."

They walked the road in silence for a time after that, speaking only to greet others that they passed. With two exceptions, everyone stared openly at the odd couple, wondering why Love and Misery were traveling together. Courtesy had no such thoughts or, if she did, concealed them. Shame withdrew behind a crumbled section of rock wall, waving them away and ignoring Love's jovial greeting. Eventually, they arrived at Misery's house.

Love blinked, taking in the broken brick walkway strewn with trash, the weed-infested yard, the overgrown hedges, and the empty birdfeeder hanging from a listing, rusted pole. Beyond, Misery's house slumped, the walls covered in mismatched wooden shingles, the roof bowed enough to be a giant's saddle.

“Home Sweet Home,” he said.

Misery led him inside with some hesitation. She did not want a running commentary on her house. No chit-chattish platitudes. No remarks about how “lived in” it looked. No—

“Do you have any tea?” Love asked.

She cringed. “I have Earl Grey.... I've been told it's not very good."

Love smiled, amused. “I'm sure it will be fine."

Misery went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. “Why don't I show you the roof while that's heating?” She wanted him gone as soon as possible, before he took it into his head to invite himself into the living room to visit. Before he—

“Good idea,” he said. “The sooner I see it, the sooner I can be off to get what I'll need."

She blinked. “Right, then. Follow me."

They went upstairs.

“Well, if you wanted a skylight, this would certainly be an opportunity to add one,” Love said from inside the attic. “But you're not interested in a skylight, I assume."

“No,” Misery said from out in the hall where she had retreated into the deepest shadow available. “I want it covered. Completely."

“Alright. Well, I'll just take a few measurements. Make some notes."

A low moan started below them in the house, a sound so despairing and lost that it would drive children into the arms of their parents.

“Is that your kettle?” Love asked.

“Yes. I'll get your tea while you work."

When she returned she found Love perched atop a stack of broken furniture, stretching his measuring tape across the top of the hole.

“Tea,” she said, edging through the sunlight and shielding herself behind a soggy column of boxes.

“Thanks,” he said. “Almost done."

Misery surveyed the attic while she waited. The additional light made it easier to see the cobwebs and their owners. She watched a few spiders crawling along, making their own repairs.

“There,” Love said. Misery heard the furniture scrape and creak as he descended the stack. He appeared around the boxes a moment later. “Good news. The beams to either side seem strong and aren't badly bent. You'll do with a patch rather than a tear off. I can get it done in a day.” He glanced at the tea, as though noticing it for the first time. “Ah."

The cracked cup sat in a pool of tea that had leaked into the saucer. She held it out. “Here."

“Thanks, again.” He took it and drank some.

She waited for the inevitable, but Love finished the tea without a word.

“Well,” he said, carefully handing the cup and saucer back to her so that the tea in the saucer did not spill. “I'll go and get what I'll need. Is eight o'clock tomorrow morning too early to start?"

Misery made a face, as though tasting something sour. “I'm never out of bed before nine-thirty."

“You could just let me in and then go back to bed,” Love said. “I just need to get in. If I don't start until after nine-thirty I might not be able to finish tomorrow. I'm sure you want this over with as quickly as possible."

She imagined stumbling to the door, half-asleep, to let this walking ray of sunshine in. Not appealing. But, as he said, she did want this over with. A mumble escaped her.

“I'm sorry?” Love said.

“I said ‘I suppose'."

Love nodded. “Good. That's settled. I can find my way out. See you in the morning."

He walked out of the attic, leaving her in the shadows. She stood there listening to his receding footsteps on the stairs and then in the rooms below. The front door opened and shut.

Misery noticed she was sad that he had gone. But it was a new form of sad. One that included a cold pit that had opened in her, draining away her energy to go about her normal life now that she was free to do so. It was unsettling. Distracting. And it persisted for the remainder of the day. She was not sure what to make of it.

The next morning she woke to the sound of rapping on her window. It jolted her out of a dream in which she was sitting alone in a frigid rain on a beach. She was naked, shivering in the cold, hair matted in clumps to her face and shoulders. Seagulls wheeled and cried. One had just deposited a warm, mushy load of droppings on her head. It was all exquisitely depressing. She glared at the source of the sound that had interrupted the dream.

Love smiled and waved outside. He was wearing denim carpenter pants and a white linen shirt. He pointed in the direction of the front door.

The irritation faded at the sight of him. Misery looked at her clock. 11:43. But, being broken, it always read 11:43, so it was entirely possible it was actually eight-thirty. She rubbed her eyes in a feeble attempt to clear her head and made her way to the front door.

“Good morning. I'm sorry I startled you,” Love said. “Your doorbell doesn't seem to work and I had already knocked several times. Here, these are for you."

He held out a gigantic bouquet of dead roses.

She stared at them.

“They're from my garden,” he explained, still holding them out. “I usually compost the dead blooms but I thought you might appreciate them."

Several petals fluttered to the ground. They did look dreary. “Thank you,” she said. Misery stepped back and allowed Love to enter.

“You can retreat back to bed if you'd like, Misery,” he said. “I can just get to work."

“Thank you.” They seemed to be the only words in her vocabulary at the moment.

He smiled and, carrying an enormous toolbox, slipped past her and headed for the stairs.

Misery watched him go. When he had vanished she shifted her gaze to the small shrub of dead roses she was holding. They were wonderful—in a way that would only appeal to her. Love understood her. It was a disorienting thought. He had listened to her. It was so thoughtful. It made her feel warm, like the sunlight shining through the door. It made her feel—

Something deep in her soul scuffled and scratched. That wasn't right. No one gave her roses. No one gave her anything. And that was as it should be. She was an ugly duckling that actually was what it was and not some lost cygnet in a nursery tale. No one was going to change that. No one could. Misery threw the roses into the yard and slammed the door.

She went back to bed, and NOT because he had suggested it. Pulling the torn shreds of her comforter over her head, Misery attempted to bury herself and find her way back to sleep.

Time passed and sleep eluded her. Instead, she listened to Love bump up and down the staircase carrying loads of whatever it was that one needed to fix a roof. Wood, she supposed. Nails. Shingles.

There was a great crash followed by a second, lesser bang, the tinkle of breaking glass, and then a scraping rattle that ended with a final thump. Misery sat bolt upright.

“Oh, dear,” said Love, his voice muffled by the distance.

She went to look. A metal ladder lay at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. Looking up, she saw that one of the steps near the top was now broken and that two of her paintings had been knocked down. Broken glass lay on the stairs.

“I'm very sorry,” said Love, stooping to pick up one of the paintings. “I stumbled at the top here and dropped the ladder. I could try and replace these, if you prefer.” He held it up so she could see the cracked frame, the shards of glass. “Or is this an improvement?"

“I know what you're doing,” Misery said.

“Oh?"

“Yes. You're trying to get me to love you."

Love did not react. “I thought I was just being nice."

Misery smirked. “Come on Love, I'm not Gullible. The flowers. The fawning over what I want or need. This—” she waved her hand at the scene, “this blatant attempt to make my house more of a disaster."

A smile crept onto Love's face. “Is it working?"

“No!” She stamped her foot. “I don't love you. I never will love you. Why can't you just let me be who I am?"

Love started down the steps toward her. “Because I want more for you. A better life for you."

“I'm not something that needs to be fixed,” Misery said.

“I didn't say that,” Love said, stopping two steps up and sitting so they were closer to eye level.

“It's what you meant. It's how you approach the whole world,” she said, waving her arms. “All of your little niceties, all the endless smiles, all the fancy parties. You're just trying to get everyone to be like you."

“Would that really be so bad, Misery?” he asked.

“It's wrong,” Misery said. “It's ... unnatural. We all have a place in this world. You think we should all abandon ourselves and just learn to be like you. But we'd lose ourselves. I wouldn't be Misery anymore."

He stared at her for several seconds. “Are you sure you're not related to Wisdom?” he finally asked.

“Distantly. At best."

Love chuckled. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You're right, you asked me here to fix your roof. Not you."

Misery nodded, swept a stray hair into her eyes. “Good.” She looked again at the mess on the stairs. “But you can leave the stairs like that."

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Our Authors

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Greg Beatty ("What Do We Pay the Moon?") and his wife live in Bellingham, Washington. Greg has a BA from University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Iowa, both in English, and attended Clarion West 2000. His work has appeared in 3SF, Absolute Magnitude, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov's, Fortean Bureau, HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, Paradox, SCI FICTION, Shadowed Realms, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, and The New York Review of Science Fiction, among other venues. In 2005 Greg won the Rhysling Award in the short poem category.

Æon has also published Greg's poems in issues Six, Seven, Eight,, and Eleven.

Visit Greg on the Web at home.earthlink.net/~gbeatty/

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S. Hutson Blount ("One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies") has had the usual odd employment history common to those engaging in the disreputable business of fiction. Though possessing no higher education, he pretends that his Navy technical training counts as college. He was spotted in Seattle in the summer of 2005 associating with more talented graduates of his Clarion West class. When he's not thinking up more ways to tell lies to people for money, he masquerades as a devoted husband. Another example of his “work” can be found in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

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David Dumitru ("Little Moon, Too, Goes Round") fancies himself an emerging literary voice. It's a good thing, then, that we don't let him do the writing. It's us, his characters, who write the stories. Sure, he does the typing and takes all the credit, but it's us who write the stories. There's KC Moss, here in Aeon, and Andy Monahans in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. There's a boy named Oak in All Hallows Magazine, and Frankie, an Australian girl from the Never Never, in ByLine, to name but the most recent escapees. We'd like to thank the editors at Aeon for publishing “Little Moon, Too Goes Round” and letting David think once again that he's contributed some little smidge to the advancement of the human experience.

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Dr. Rob Furey ("parallax") worked on his phD in Gabon, West Africa, on social spiders. He has returned to his study site several times for his own research, with students and once as a forest guide for a natural history film crew from the UK. He has faced down cobras, retreated from army ants, and slept on open wooden platforms in African swamps. Later he went to French Amazonia to work on another social spider species. Not only did he spend time with the spiders, but he watched a gunfight between gold prospectors and French army troops while he ate a meal of roasted tapir. Since then Rob has returned to the tropics several times, usually with students. He spent time as a student himself attending Clarion West. He has published a couple of stories in anthologies since then in addition to articles for dusty tomes on arcane spider behavior. He is currently part of the charter faculty at Harrisburg University, the first new private university in Pennsylvania in over 100 years.

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Jeffe Kennedy ("Pearl") took the crooked road to writing, stopping off at neurobiology, religious studies and environmental consulting before her creative writing began appearing in places like Redbook, Mountain Living, Wyoming Wildlife and Under the Sun. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow (2001) and received first place from Pronghorn Press for their Dry Ground (2002) collection. She is also a Wyoming Arts Council roster artist and recipient of the 2005 Doubleday Award and 2007 Fellowship for Poetry. Jeffe has contributed to several anthologies, Drive: Women's True Stories of the Open Road. (2002), Hard Ground (2003), Bombshells (2007) and an upcoming anthology on gleaning. Her first collection, Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel was published by University of New Mexico Press in 2004. She is currently at work on a speculative fiction novel about a neuroscientist who walks out on her jerk boyfriend, only to fall through a gate at Devils Tower, to become a sorceress in another land. Jeffe lives in Wyoming, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, and a fish pathologist.

Visit her online at www.jeffekennedy.com/.

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Marissa K. Lingen ("Swimming Back From Hell by Moonlight") has been published in Baen's Universe, Analog, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, and other venues. She has just finished writing a young adult novel that had an unplanned and unfortunate outbreak of accidentally magical puffins in the early chapters; she didn't mean to. She lives in the Minneapolis area with two large men and one small dog.

Marissa's story “Things We Sell to Tourists” appeared in Æon Six, and “Michael Banks, Home From the War” in Æon Nine.

Marissa can be found on the Web at marissalingen.com/

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photo by Tom Wyse

Daniel Marcus ("The Dam") has published short stories in many literary and genre venues and was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He has taught in the creative writing programs at the U.C. Berkeley Extension and Gotham Writers’ Workshop and is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. His first short story collection, Binding Energy, is forthcoming from Elastic Press in Spring 2008. He can be found on the web at www.danielmarcus.com/.

Daniel's story “Echo Beach” apeared in Aeon Eight.

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Bruce McAllister ("Hit") began publishing F&SF in another lifetime. His first story, written at 16, appeared in l963 in Fred Pohl's IF magazine and Judith Merrill's “Year's Best.” Since then, seventy stories, two novels Humanity Prime and Dream Baby), twenty years teaching creative writing in university, and most recently, when not writing, coaching and consulting for new and established fiction and screenplay writers. He was out of the F&SF field for over a decade—the reasons too bizarre to synopsize—and is very happy to be back. Stories most recently in Aeon, Asimov's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and SciFiction.

Website: www.mcallistercoaching.com

Bruce's story “The Passion: A Western” appeared in Æon Seven.

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Craig D. B. Patton ("Misery Loves") has published stories in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Pocket Books), Book of Dead Things (Twilight Tales), Hell in the Heartland (Annihilation Press), Dred Tales, and Horrorfind. Additional stories are forthcoming in All Hallows and Until Someone Loses an Eye (Twisted Publishing). He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two young sons who insist that he read dozens of stories to them every day. He happily complies.

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Kristine Kathryn Rusch ("Signals")'s novels (science fiction, fantasy, mystery/crime, and romance) have been published in 14 countries in 13 different languages. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won Hugo awards for both editing and fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in six Year's Best collections. She has also been the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel, the Ellery Queen Reader's Choice Award, the Science Fiction Age Reader's Choice Award, and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and been nominated for the Locus, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards, and the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award.

From 1991-1996 Kris was the editor of the prestigious Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Before that, she and Dean Wesley Smith started and ran pulphouse publishing, a science fiction and mystery press in Eugene, Oregon. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast.

Visit Kris's website at www.kristinekathrynrusch.com/.

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Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ("Holiday") is an Aurora Award winning poet/author who lives with her family and other odd creatures in a small town on Canada's west coast. Her stories and poetry have appeared in On Spec, Weird Tales, Aoife's Kiss, Dreams and Nightmares, and Talebones, as well as in various anthologies and online publications.

Marcie's poems have also appeared in Æon Six, Eight, and Eleven.

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In Æon Fourteen six new and returning Æon authors, some poets, and a couple of provocative columnists will take you to places—some not so far from home—that may just widen the edges of your map of reality.

Lavie Tidhar will make his third appearance in Æon with a quintessentially American story featuring some nearly-familiar American faces. Be ready to take what shelter you can from a “Hard Rain at the Fortean Cafe."

Sarah Edwards will return to the world of “The Butterfly Man,” (Æon Twelve) to allow us to wander “Wild Among Hares."

Jay Lake, whose ninth Æon appearance this is, will sit us down and spin up a yarn about a boy who finds a “Sweet Rocket."

Ryan Neal Myers ("The Underthing,” Æon Eleven) will drop us off at a truckstop of the mind in “The Diesel Mnemonic."

Davin Ireland will make his Æon debut with a story about love and hope at the end of the world in “The March Wind."

And Mikal Trimm will enchant us with an extraordinary story about the ordinary girl who wears “The Diadem."

Add to that some excellent speculative poetry and thoughtful contributions from our regular columnists, Dr. Rob Furey and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. With a lineup like this one to look forward to, we know we'll be seeing you in the future!

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Our Advertisers

Phrases of the Moon by Greg Beatty

The Blood of Father Time, by Alan M. Clark, Stephen C. Merritt, and Lorelei Shannon

Electric Story

Fairwood press

The Internet Review of Science Fiction

Binding Energy by Daniel Marcus

The Girl Who Loved Animals by Bruce McAllister

"Soul Collector” by Craig D.B. Patton, appearing in The Book of Dead Things

Repo Man by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Talebones Magazine

Thriller Doctor

Wheatland press/polyphony

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Visit www.aeonmagazine.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.