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Friday Flash Fics — “All Aboard”

Today’s prompt for Friday Flash Fics made me think once again of my superheroes (and super-villains) from the short story “Lesser Evil,” which I’ve revisited a couple of times before. After the events of “Lesser Evil” (which you can find in The Lavender Menace), I checked in on Psilence (the telepath) and Aleph (master of all forms of energy) a while later with “Terrible Waste.” Later, after political events in the US had left me frustrated yet again, I wrote “Ready,” where we got to spend some time with Cinder (the Canadian superhero with fire and flame powers) and Quantum (his time-traveling/quantum-reality slipstreaming boyfriend). This picks up the thread from those two pieces, and lets me introduce the Czech Republic born teleporter, Railroad.

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All Aboard

Jakub Láska felt something behind him.

He shivered in spite of his jacket, and considered his options. The sensation was far enough away that he had some time to think, or at least he hoped that was true. He paused long enough to pull out his phone, as though he’d just gotten a text or something. Then he opened the app for maps and waited for it to load. It zoomed across the world—he hadn’t opened the app in a while, he guessed—and then centered on where he was standing.

There was a subway station near enough. That would do. There’d be enough corners. He could find a spot. Worst case scenario, he’d hit a bathroom.

He started walking again. Having a destination made him feel better, as always, and he tried to feel behind him, reaching out with his mind in a way he didn’t always understand to see if he could find that same feeling of whatever-it-was…

There. A bit closer than before, too. It felt… slippery. Half-there, half-not. He had no idea what that meant, but it wasn’t something he wanted to find out for himself, either.

Certainly not while he was in the United States. That was the last place he needed to get caught these days. They’d all but gutted NAMDA, opened their own organization—The Metahuman Patriots, which wasn’t at all a disturbing name, fuck no—and there’d been enough rumors that Jakub had decided to check things out for himself.

The rumors hadn’t been the half of it. And he’d been within a stone’s throw of making it better, and then…

He realized he was clenching his fists, and slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Ahead of him, the subway entrance appeared, and he let out a small sigh of relief. The feeling behind him was catching up. Whoever it was, they were moving quicker now.

Getting out of the wind was nice, and though it was cold and dim down in the subway, Jakub didn’t mind. He eyed the various signs, looked at the entrances and machines, and grimaced. The bathrooms were on the other side of the gates. He needed to turn cash into a ticket. Did he have time?

It didn’t matter, he had to try. He didn’t want to do something in plain view—especially since all he had to work with for his own anonymity was his wool hat—but he’d likely have already been on camera as it was. At this point, anything other than a private stall was likely to get noticed, and so he’d gamble on it until he had no other choice.

The machines had a handy chart telling him how much he’d need to spend to get to various places, so he fed American currency into to slot. He had no idea where Lafayette was, but he didn’t care. Once he had enough, the machine printed the card, and he grabbed it and headed for the turnstile gates.

The sensation entered the room.

He didn’t want to look, but it was like the feeling had its own gravity. He couldn’t help himself. He managed to wait until he’d used the card to get to the other side of the turnstile, but then he turned.

There were two men. A redhead with a short beard, and a broader man, dark haired and brown skinned who was looking right at him. The dark-haired man was definitely the one sending off the strange feeling, and when their eyes met, the man nodded at him, and smiled.

Jakub paused, unsure. It didn’t seem like a hostile move, but then again, these days, who knew? The guy could be one of the Patriots. This could be a trap.

The dark-haired man said something quietly to his companion, and now the redhead was looking at Jakub too.

He looked familiar. Jakub frowned, about to go, but the redhead held up one finger, and his expression softened.

The message was clear enough. Please wait for us.

Jakub swallowed, but after a moment, he nodded.

The two men went to the same machine he’d gone to when they approached the gate with tickets in hand, Jakub took a couple of steps back, getting closer to the wall and—if need be—enough space to get out of there. But both of the men just used their tickets to get through the turnstiles, and then they approached him slowly. Both were smiling.

“Hi,” the redhead said, taking the lead.

Jakub nodded, but he didn’t relax. “Do I know you?”

“Not exactly. But I think I might know you. Or at least, I’ve read about you, I think.”

Jakub frowned. “You look familiar.”

The other man with the redhead grinned. “I told you the beard wouldn’t cut it, Jeff.”

“He wanted me to dye my hair,” the redhead—Jeff—said.

It finally clicked. Jakub blinked a few times, then looked at the two men again. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, not sure what else to say. The dissolution of NAMDA had been pretty clear about who was—and wasn’t—allowed in the US. Unless he was completely mistaken, the two men in front of him were both Canadian metahumans.

“That makes three of us.”

“How did you find me?” Jakub said. He couldn’t help asking.

“That was me,” the other man said. “I can feel certain… things.”

Jakub took a breath. “I can feel you, too. It’s like you’re there, but also not there?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Maybe we should go somewhere to talk?” Jeff said. “Somewhere a bit more private?”

Jakub nodded. “Follow me.”

He led the two men to the bathrooms. There was a man just washing his hands, so they waited for him to finish up. As soon as he was gone, Jakub held out one hand and flexed his mind.

The portal opened just beyond his fingertips. It grew from almost nothing to a circle the radius of a full-grown man in seconds. Beyond it, it looked like there was a small cabin.

“You have to go first,” Jakub said. “It will close behind me.”

Jeff and the other man exchanged glances, but they stepped through. Jakub followed. The portal snapped shut.

It was cold in the cabin. There was snow outside, whipping against the windows.

Jakub blushed. “I haven’t been here in a little while. Let me just…” He went to the fireplace.

“I got it,” Jeff said.

Jakub stepped back, waiting.

The redhead crouched by the logs in the fireplace and held out his left hand. His palm lit with flames, crackling for a moment before leaping from his hands onto the wood. In seconds, the fire was lit and burning. He rose, and closed his eyes for a moment. Pulses of heat washed out from him into the room.

In no time at all, the cabin was positively cozy.

“You are Cinder,” Jakub said. He was grinning.

“And I’m Quantum.” The dark-haired man offered a hand. “Or Colin, if you’d like.”

“Jakub.” Jakub shook. “Quantum. You were fairly new, I think? Before they changed NAMDA. You’re the one who can phase?”

“Among other things,” Colin smiled. “Hey, can I ask…did you pick the name Railroad, or did the media do that for you?”

“The papers,” Jakub admitted. “After I got those people out of Russia.”

“Told you,” Jeff said. “Pay up.”

Jakub watched, amused, as Colin dug out some brightly colored Canadian money and handed it to Jeff.

“Why were you looking for me?” Jakub asked.

They exchanged glances. Finally, Jeff spoke. “You tried to get those kids out of the Patriot Detention Facility last week.”

Jakub blinked. “I did, but I didn’t even have time to… How..?” Then he eyed Colin again. “Ah. You felt me.”

Colin nodded.

“I didn’t blow up the building,” Jakub said. “I would never do that. I don’t even know if the young metahumans made it out alive.” He swallowed, something between anger and sorrow threatening to choke his voice. “I’d intended to portal in, and portal out. But then everything started exploding…”

“That was thanks to someone we call Aleph. He’s… not a good guy,” Jeff said. “He and his partner have been trying to send a message to the Patriots.”

“And the prisoners?” Jakub said.

“We don’t know,” Colin said. “Psilence and Aleph might have gotten them out beforehand, but…” He shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“Psilence.” Jakub frowned. “He killed that politician? Or, he made that other man shoot him with the bow and arrow?”

Jeff clenched his jaw. “That’s right.”

Jakub eyed the two men for a long moment. “What is it you want from me?”

Jeff looked at Colin, but Colin didn’t seem to want to be the one to speak. Jakub wondered if that was out of deference to the redhead’s former role as the team leader or not. Either way, it was Cinder, the Canadian metahuman with mastery over heat and flame, who turned to Jakub Láska and said, “There are other Patriot detention centers. We’re hoping you could give us a hand with those.”

Jakub felt a swell of pride in his chest. Two superheroes—two actual superheroes—were asking him to help. He couldn’t help it. He grinned.

“All aboard,” he said.

Sunday Shorts—The Seafarer by Ashley Deng

[image error]This second story from Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) is just lovely. The prose is immersive, the characterization seemed effortless, the spec-fic element was engrossing, and the narrative itself, and where it went, alongside the historical context? So good.

We meet a pirate captain who is crossing back into our world through a barrier he at some point in the past crossed. The other side is a place of magic, and he has since learned that magic himself. But patrolling that barrier, to keep the evils of our world from spilling over and finding that other world, requires more than just magic, it requires keeping up with the technology of our world—and so this mission, to capture an enemy ship and take it back to guard the border.

Time passes differently beyond the barrier, so this pirate provides a lens of change throughout the story: how bad have the already bad things become here? We find out fairly quickly once their ship finds a target and discovers something different than what they’d hoped for. Here the story spins to an all-too-real place and time in history, and the pirate captain’s desire to have vengeance on those who treated his people as less-than-human hits a dilemma.

I’ll be looking forward to more from Ashley Deng, for sure. Especially if she chooses to revisit this world again.

Friday Flash Fics — Muse, Unamused

Today’s Friday Flash Fic is a picture I took last week in San Francisco. There’s this door on a street that’s just freaking awesome (there’s another right beside it that’s totally done in the same design of the snake-locked-door from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, too). Anyway, it’s a pretty awesome door, and doors make me think of one character now: Cole, from Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. So, spoilers for that, since this takes place a few weeks after the events of the book.

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Muse, Unamused

Cole Tozer rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, pushed his bedroom door open, and stepped onto a sidewalk.

Crap.

He stared down at his bare feet, felt his ears pop, and allowed himself a count of three and a deep breath before looking back up again.

The sidewalk—and the entire street—was sloped at a pretty steep angle. Also, it was still light out, though the sun was low on the horizon when he finally spotted it at the bottom of the slope, out over the water.

Ocean? Lake?

He peered. It sure seemed to go on forever. Ocean, then. Which, given where the sun was…

West coast?

“I am not in Ottawa,” Cole said.

The thing about accidental teleportation that no one told you about was how it was really, really annoying. Also, how had he even done it? He’d been practicing walking through doors with a blank mind for weeks now, and Lexa had been drilling him every weekend. It was practically an unconscious habit now.

Unconscious…

Cole slid his hands into his pockets. That was another whole life adjustment since the whole teleportation thing had begun. He slept in sweatpants and t-shirts now. And, given the sidewalk under his bare feet, he was starting to consider socks, if not shoes.

Add it to the list.

He grinned, imaging his mother seeing him with shoes on in his bed. Not likely to fly.

Also, I am totally not freaking out, Cole thought. This is major progress.

Then he remembered he’d just teleported somewhere without thinking about anywhere, and the whole freaking out thing decided to give Cher a run for her money on the whole comeback thing.

What had happened?

He’d been asleep, and, okay, totally embarrassing to admit, but he’d been having a super-childish nightmare about a monster chasing him through endless doorways no matter how far he teleported—one did not need to page his therapist to understand the root of this particular dream, what with basically having lived through figuratively that a few weeks ago—but he hadn’t been concentrating on a place when he’d tried to go get some water, he’d been thinking about the dream.

Dreams weren’t a real place.

Cole sighed. Maybe this was a prodigy thing? Lexa kept calling him that: a prodigy. He was, apparently, a class-A teleporter. Only Lexa called them muses. He was a grade-A muse.

He was not, however, currently a-mused.

Cole grinned. He’d have to remember that one for later, for Malik. Malik liked puns. Or, he liked to make him stop making puns by kissing him. So, y’know, double-win.

Okay, either way, he should go home. Yes, it was weird he’d gone somewhere without really thinking about it, but he should go home. Maybe the door he’d come through was unlocked. He turned around.

“Ah,” Cole said. Now it all made sense.

It wasn’t a door exactly, more like a gate, but it had something in common with what Cole had been thinking about when he’d left his bedroom. His nightmare. Made from pieces of shiny and polished bronze or brass or tin or whatever, hundreds of pieces of metal welded together covered the front of the gated door and formed a giant dragon.

It was actually pretty kickass, if you stopped to admire it. The long neck actually had scales. There were super long braided horns of varying sizes on its head, and the dragon had a mane of darker, wickedly spiked twists of metal down its back.

It really did look like the dragon-worm-thing that had been chasing him in his nightmare.

It was also something he’d never seen before, he was sure of it. Stuff like giant dragon doors was the sort of thing that would stick, right?

Cole tried the gate. Locked. Of course.

He eyed he street up and down, shrugged, and chose down because he was tired and grumpy and surely somewhere along this street there would be a door that wasn’t locked and he could teleport his tired un-a-mused butt back home.

It wasn’t until he got to the bottom of the street that he found a café, and that was when he found out where he was.

San Francisco.

Okay. That was pretty cool, nightmare or not.

He eyed the sign in the door. No shirt, no shoes, no service.

“No problem,” Cole said, and opened the door.

Poof.

Sunday Shorts—Depot 256, by Lisa Allen-Agostini

[image error]When I read Queers Destroy Science Fiction, I found the overall tone to be somewhat depressing; often the “victory” (if there was one) was snatched from scraps, and flavoured with settling-for rather than triumphant (and part of it was maybe having listened to it at the wrong time of year, in the depths of cold, cold winter). A few stories in, Authors of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction is giving me a bit of that same vibe, and “Depot 256” is a brilliantly written example of what I mean about that.

Set in a future of Trinidad where things have gotten abysmal (ecologically, sociologically, you name it), it follows a young girl who is a cog in the wheel of the cocaine trade, who is on the edge of starving all the time, trying desperately to survive, and who encounters another child who is determined to make it out of this world. There’s a push-and-pull between the two girls, the bitterness of hope that seems (at least nearly) futile, and just the overall tone of the tale being clear: this is what happens when we devalue human life as nothing more than a source of cheap labour.

It’s a brutal story, but it’s of a sort that science fiction does so damn well: it shines a light right back at the present day and leaves the reader—hopefully—a bit shaken and uncomfortable with a truth being told in a fiction.

Sunday Shorts—Tip of the Tongue by Felicia Davin

[image error]Back to Queers Destroy Science Fiction again this week, and I skipped a story where the narration made it almost impossible to follow (no fault to the author there), and I’m back with “Tip of the Tongue” by Felicia Davin.

As dystopias go, this one struck me down to the bone. It takes place in a city (country?) where, overnight, through the release of nanotech, most of the citizens have their literacy erased from their brains. The following morning, all the books and writing tools (digital or otherwise) are stripped from them, and life begins again without the written word of any kind.

There are two points to this story that really struck me. One was how this awful state began by first taking any representational art away from its people (statues, say, or paintings) as dishonest representation, and how it seemed like there wasn’t enough resistance to that, so when the same is done to the written word, it’s too late.

The second point was how resistance often starts at that point: the “we were too late,” point, and there’s a casual—and darkly funny—line tossed by a character about how they’ll get some things sorted out once they’ve rebuilt society from the ground up that I appreciated.

Characterization was so solid, and like with the Chu story, the queerness is folded into the tale in an effortless way. The avenue of hope in this particular setting—a children’s book once treasured by the main character—was just shy of being enough for me. I wanted just a wee bit more from the final moments (which end within a hair’s breadth of confirming real hope), but I loved getting there, and it’s just my usual mood these days for wanting clearly hopeful endings rather than kernels of potential.

Friday Flash Fics — “La Dame Rouge de France Triomphante”

Today’s Friday Flash Fics picture made me go in a spec-fic direction that I’d considered once or twice before, but apparently needed an image to work with to ground a character. She became Claire, and the story unfolded from her.

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La Dame Rouge de France Triomphante

Le Musée de l’Unicité lay tucked within sight of the triple-peaked hill of Mt Royal, but left much to be desired from the outside. This was a conscious choice, of course, design as function. Few even realized they’d passed the building when they had done so every day of their adult lives on their way to and from the various businesses of one of the more important capital cities in the provinces that made up New France.

The windows were tall and narrow, and the glass old enough to cast everything inside in a permanent shade, impermeable even during the brightest days.

From the inside, the view was kinder, but the situation no less dire to the five who lived among the treasures of the Musée.

Claire woke to the sound of the Kauai O’o birds singing in the arboretum, as she did most mornings, and lay as still as she could for as long as she could, listening. It wasn’t a pretense she could manage for long. The lights in the room brightened slowly, shifting through patterns of deep reds to oranges to yellows—a false sunrise for a woman who hadn’t stood beneath the sun’s rays since…

Claire forced herself not to consider the mathematics, and rose, stretching. People would be watching—people were always watching—and she knew even the slightest facial expression might reveal more than she wished.

Her salle de bains was as richly decorated as her living space, and though the actual shower and toilet offered a hint of privacy, she knew from experience both areas were strictly timed, so she relieved herself and then stepped into the shower, slipping the nightgown from her shoulders and sliding it into the small slot where it would be taken away. Did they launder the nightdresses daily, or did they simply replace them?

In darker moments, part of her wondered if they were sold. It was the sort of thing le Musée would do to raise funds, she imagined.

She showered, luxuriating in the hot water and gleaning every possible moment of joy she could manage from this short time, and all too soon the pressure pulsed to let her know she had but a minute left. She rinsed off, dried herself with the towel hung on the rack inside the stall—it too went into the small slot thereafter—then pulled on the underclothes and robe she pulled from the opposing slot.

Styling her hair, applying her make-up, and dressing were habits of managing her time, as was the slow walk to the closet. It wasn’t as though she had choices inside. It was always the same for Claire. The red dress over the white frilled shirt, the red chapeau with the beadwork and lace, and the red gloves. It had been the height of fashion where and when Claire had been discovered to possess that most important quality of le Musée, and it was, she supposed, her uniform.

She eyed the bookcase once she was dressed, considering if she might have time for a few pages more from one of the books she’d brought up from the library—one of the few true pleasures of her life in le Musée was the library—but a glance at the grandfather clock disabused her of the notion. She moved to the heavy oak door of her living space, resting a single gloved hand on the doorknob, and waited.

The click of timed lock happened the moment the clock began to strike seven, and Claire, la Dame Rouge de France Triomphante, was released to have breakfast with the others.

*

“Good morning,” Abanoub said, nodding as Claire sat. He was always the most polite and deferential to her, but then, he had been the second brought to le Musée, and she and he had learned much of their circumstances together. Samuel merely offered her a tight smile, Zhou Li Xiu’s gaze remained fixed on her plate, and Amar had yet to arrive.

“Good morning, everyone,” Claire said, when Amar stepped through the door a moment later. He apologized for being last to the table—as he always did—and then sat in his position.

The sense of the air changing was the only clue they’d been isolated. There was nothing to see, of course, since anything that might lower the quality of the viewing would never do for le Musée’s clientele, but Claire knew the field was in place on an instinctual level, much the way the O’o birds knew to sing at dawn even when the sun wasn’t visible in a cold and cloudy Quebec sky. She was just as caged this very moment, though her bars were invisible and made of walls of hardened air around her chair and portion of the table.

She buttered a scone, and poured herself a cup of tea.

“You slept well?” Amar said to her. The lilt of his accent—Greek—had been such a pleasure to discover when she’d first met him. His clothes, too, seemed so very different to her. He’d been the third, after Abanoub, and it had been the three of them together for a long time before Zhou Li Xiu and Samuel’s arrival. She’d wondered if the two men would be the last two faces she’d ever see in the flesh.

Now she wondered if that count would remain at four.

“I did,” she said. “And you? Are you to delight us with another dream?”

Amar laughed, his handsome face filling with delight. “Unfortunately no dream last night that I can recall. It seems the latest book doesn’t inspire much of dreams. At least, not like its predecessor did.”

“I’m enjoying it,” she said. “On your recommendation, though I’ll admit the science leaves me most mystified.”

“I’ll try it next, then?” Zhou Li Xiu said, breaking her usual quiet.

“Of course,” Claire said. “I’ll let you know when I’ve finished.”

“What book are you reading now?” Abanoub asked. His taameya was half gone. He always ate so quickly.

“It is another discourse on physics,” Amar said. “But it’s by no means as entertainingly written as the last.”

“I think I preferred it when we were reading capers,” Samuel said, raising his coffee. “But I’ll not break the rules of our little book club because you’ve all decided to make me feel intellectually inferior.”

They shared a merry toast to that, and the conversation shifted to poetry and music for the rest of the meal.

It was, as always, a successful breakfast. It cheered Claire to no end when she saw the same pleased looks in the eyes of the others as they said their farewells until lunch, and went their separate ways. Claire’s schedule had her in the arboretum for the morning, so she slipped back to her chambers first, and found the book in question.

She liked the author quite a bit. Whoever this Stephen Hawking was, in whatever world he came from, he truly had a gift for explaining what should really be unexplainable, and Amar’s bookmarks—little braided strings he wove himself—were a delight to uncover among the pages.

So many of the books in their shared library had those strings now. Their book club—something she knew le Musée had capitalized upon among the clientele—was the thing she treasured most.

The O’o birds began to sing, and Claire opened her book to read. She found a string, and smiled. Six knots, three braids, three knots, two braids… the pattern of the string placeholder was, as always, beautiful.

Her eyes returned to the page.

*

At dinner, once Amar’s customary apology had been accepted by all graciously, Claire asked them all how their days had been, and Zhou Li Xiu described the painting she’d been working on, while Samuel tried to explain something musical he called “Acid Jazz” to little success. Abanoub had exercised—none of them particularly enjoyed having their turn in the gymnasium except Samuel, but Abanoub at least put a kind spin on it when he spoke of his time there when it was his turn—and Amar espoused on the joys of returning correspondence for le Musée’s clientele.

“I think my French is almost passable,” he said, which drew a round of laughter, since Amar’s French was anything but. The letters he wrote would be properly translated, of course, though they’d be no less an item of collection for their terrible grammar and bare level of comprehensibility.

Claire shifted in her chair, raised a hand to wipe her eye from the tears her laughter had birthed, and knocked her dessert fork to the floor.

“Oh, je m’excuse,” she said, sliding from her chair to crouch carefully down, napkin in hand. She picked up the fork, regained her seat, and took a moment to wipe the tines on her napkin before flicking the napkin loose again and covering her lap with it once more.

She saw Amar regarding her, and dipped her chin, allowing a faint blush to spread across her cheeks. The clientele would love that moment between them.

Her eyes still downcast, she looked to where she had knelt on the floor. The air where it met the wood flickered. It was barely noticeable, but it was there. Grains of salt, spilled from her napkin, skittered along the ground, charged by the curtain of hard air around her, as though animate in and of themselves.

Claire raised her gaze and smiled at Amar.

He raised his glass, and the table toasted.

*

Claire, la Dame Rouge de France Triomphante, rested her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. She missed her home. From what she’d seen, this place, this Montreal, was in some ways similar, but she knew it was not hers. No, Claire remembered her world. The accents, the scents, the flags—most especially the flags—and her dim view through the narrow windows of Le Musée had shown her flags that would never have flown in her world.

This place may have had a New France, but from the little she’d gleaned during her turns in the correspondence rooms answering highly redacted letters from clientele, this New France was but one of three countries on the continent. The other two did not bend the knee to France—something she could barely have imagined when she’d first arrived at Le Musée. La France était le monde, le monde était la France.

But not this world.

Her arrival. Eyes closed, breathing as evenly as she could, Claire allowed herself the briefest moment of incandescent rage. One moment she’d been walking in the market, the next she’d been here, doubled over, barely able to breathe, gasping and faint. There had been two men in the strange glass and mirrored room with her. They’d given her a glass of water, soothed her until she could breathe, and then helped her to an overstuffed chair. Their clothing and accents were odd to her ears—French, yes, but with a patois she couldn’t quite place.

“Where am I?” She was afraid. “Who are you?”

“In all the worlds,” they told her. “In every world there is, there is but one Claire Beaulieu.”

“Pardon?”

“You are unique,” one of the men had declared.

“You are a treasure,” the other agreed.

She didn’t understand then. Certainly not the notion of quantum refraction, or of piercing realities and plucking things that belonged to whole other worlds and bringing them over to this one. But she did grow to understand what they meant by uniqueness. In every world, in every history, in every way all the ways and all the times that possibly were unfolded? There was only one path that created her. The Claire Beaulieu who lived in one of the worlds where France ruled the globe existed only in her particular world. There was no other version of her, no Claire Beaulieu who had two daughters instead of two sons, say, or who was a doctor instead of a teacher. There was only her.

Unique. A treasure.

And treasures like her were to be kept in Le Musée de l’Unicité.

*

Eyes closed, breathing evenly, she worked the problem. How does an artifact liberate itself?

It begins with salt, of all things.

It is hard not to smile, but Claire has practice in schooling her features. She has been her for two years now, after all. She has learned the games le Musée is willing—and unwilling—to play. She must appear content, but curious. The combination is a fine line to walk.

Abanoub was a scientist on his world. His arrival was their first real chance, but even so, the knowledge Abanoub brought was nothing like the knowledge used to bring them here. Claire was willing to learn whatever she might need to learn, but how, when they didn’t even know the right questions to pose?

The library, of course. Not that they knew what they should possibly search for, but it was a place to begin. After all, the books in Le Musée de L’Unicité were the rarest of all. Books written by the most brilliant writers in all the worlds, copies that existed in a handful of realities at best, or in some truly valuable cases only one.

It was Samuel who suggested they start a book club, and it took two of his choices—what Claire had considered silly fictions at first—to realize the theme presented in both narratives was one of escape. And Zhou Li Xiu’s paintings, brilliant abstracts divided into fields of colour and form one might never consider anything but beautiful if one didn’t have the right key. Keys Amar, a mathematician, braided in string and left in the books they all passed to each other.

They gave each other lessons in language, shared amusement at each other’s mistranslations of Greek or Mandarin, English or French, and took note of the “wrong” words in the right patterns. They discuss their “dreams.” They speak inside speech. They shared books with surprising knowledge about particles, then mentioned foods they enjoyed, and took turns gazing at Zhou Li Xiu’s latest painting, where—if you knew how to look and where to look—it was clear that something as small as crystals of salt were passing through a painted curtain.

Salt. Salt could confound the fields that kept them on their schedules, kept them in their chairs for meals, kept them in their rooms at night.

It was only the first obstacle. It was barely even a first step.

But that night, eyes closed, Claire allowed the barest smile to touch her lips, and slept and dreamed of France.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Update on the Availability of Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks — They’re Arriving!

[image error]This is a much happier post to write about Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. A while back, I mentioned that there was a problem getting the books out to e-tailers and retailers, especially in Canada. Well, good news.

They’ve arrived! This is a shot of them arriving in a local brick-and-mortar up here in Canada, and I’ve heard from a few readers that their orders have shipped or arrived, including places where the previous orders had previously been canceled for lack of stock.

It was always available at Bakka Phoenix Books (Toronto) and Murder By the Book (Houston), too, if you’re local to either location, they’re still in stock.

Indigo.ca is now showing the book as orderable, too.

So, huzzahs all around. Thank you for your patience, you’re all amazing to have been so great about this, and—most importantly—Cole is now poofing into bookstores as we speak.

 

Sunday Shorts—Excerpts from the Personal Journal of Dr. V. Frankenstein, MD, Department of Pathology, Our Lady of Mercy Hospital by Alex Acks

[image error]I do love a re-telling, and this one, by Alex Acks, takes Victor Frankenstein and nudges the tale forward to take place during the 1960’s through to the 1980’s. Conceptually, this changes a few key pieces: the involvement of funding, the NIH, and academic politics, but where this story from We Shall Be Monsters really kicks off is in the direction it goes with Dr. Frankstein’s journey of understanding what he has done.

Approached by a hooded figure (the identity of which he knows all too well), Frankenstein is tasked with creating life, but in a different way: he is to create a child. Over the course of the journal entries—each growing a bit more feverish and disturbing—the doctor does indeed succeed, but it’s what comes after, once he has handed the child creation over to the person who has funded his experiments that things take a different turn.

This is a Frankenstein just as disconnected from much of humanity as he is in the original, but here there is a singular love he has for his creation in at least an intellectual sense, and it’s this foundation the story places the turning point, and Acks takes it to a place I really enjoyed going, even if there was misery and abuse along the way.

 

Friday Flash Fics — “To the Blues”

Today’s Friday Flash Fics made me think of Christian (or Ian) and Dawn where they left off at the end of “There & Then” in Of Echoes Born. So, spoiler warnings for that story in particular, as this picks up when they go to the prom that Dawn decided was definitely going to happen, despite everything they’d been through.

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To the Blues

A riot of colour greeted them as soon as they were through the doors to the gym. Too many shades, too many patterns, and too many people to sort it all out, but there were definite threads of commonality. Amused yellows, disgusted greens, annoyed reds, angry reds, embarrassed reds…

It was as though Christian and Dawn were crossing against the light and rapidly running out of time.

“This is fun,” he said.

Dawn squeezed his hand. “Don’t tell me.”

“Don’t worry. We are surrounded by an ocean of blue,” he said, and smiled at her. She’d been helping him with this for weeks. Blues seemed to generally be nice colours. Friendliness or kindness, or something like that. It was more complicated of course, but so far all the associations he’d figured out for blues were good.

Dawn snorted. “Liar.”

“You’re sure about this?” he said.

“Absolutely.”

They went in.

*

She looked amazing. Pretty in peach—it wasn’t pink, she’d adamant about that—Dawn’s dress was simpler than many of the other girls, but Christian couldn’t help but think she wore it better. He was biased, of course, but still. Her hair was done up in a series of loops and ringlets and held together by… he didn’t know, magic, probably… and small pearl earrings glinted by the lights of the gym.

“Would you like some punch?” Christian said. This would be fun. She wanted this so much—needed it—and he was here to make it happen. They only had days left in this nowhere town and if Dawn Solati could walk into prom with her head held high with pretty much the entire student body staring at her, so could he.

“We can go together,” she said.

They headed toward the bowl. Christian did his best of filter out the worst of the auras and for the most part even succeeded. Progress. They scored a cup of punch each and stepped to the side.

“To the prom, the end of school, and getting the hell out of here,” Christian said, raising his plastic cup.

Dawn tapped her cup to his. “To the blue.”

“Who’s blue?”

All the hair on the back of Christian’s neck stood up. He turned, trying to catch an even breath, and took a gulp of his drink when his mouth went completely dry.

Bao Nguyen rocked a suit. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was incredibly unfair. He was there with Theresa Brown. She was holding his arm and smiling, and—Christian couldn’t help it, he looked—there was a soft blue-green whirling around her like cotton candy in a machine. Theresa was nervous. Bao, on the other hand, had a pale purpley-red thing going on that Christian hadn’t seen before, which could have meant homicidal tendencies for all he knew.

“Hi,” Dawn said. “Blue is more a state of mind.” She shrugged, like she hadn’t just said something super weird and somehow it came off cool.

Christian would never understand how she did that.

“Are we having fun yet?” Bao said, and as jokes went, it wasn’t a complete failure. Some of Theresa’s aquamarine nervousness was showing up in him, now, too.

Are they nervous about us, Christian thought, or nervous to be seen with us?

“I’d have less fun at home,” he heard himself say, and much like Bao’s sad excuse for a joke, it didn’t land entirely flat. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Bao though.

Theresa smiled at him. “Right?”

She ran on the track team, too, Christian remembered. Which meant she’d know Bao and Dawn. He couldn’t remember if they’d ever really spoken before.

“The punch is not terrible,” he said, holding up his cup. “So there’s that, too.”

Every time one of them spoke some of the worry broke away and drifted off out of Christian’s line of sight. Beneath it, a more relaxed pale yellow seeped in. He knew the colour of relief, and was glad to see it.

“So how long have you two..?” Dawn raised an eyebrow.

Bao and Theresa looked at each other and they both laughed at the same time.

“No,” Theresa said. “We’re here as friends.”

Christian stared down at his cup. He didn’t want to see any of the colours happening between Bao and Dawn at that particular revelation. When he was sure there’d be nothing to notice, he finished his punch and put the plastic cup on the little table beside the punch bowl where the empties were gathering in little stacks.

Theresa and Dawn chatted about which universities they’d applied to, and what programs. Christian smiled, relaxing in increments. Then he noticed Bao was watching him, and Christian tried a small smile.

Bao nodded.

Okay. He had no idea what that meant, but it’d do.

The song changed, and Dawn turned her head. “Okay. Now we dance?”

Christian pointed to the dance floor. “After you.”

The four of them hit the floor, and danced.

*

Hours later, Christian and Bao waited outside the girls’ room while Dawn and Theresa did whatever girls did together in a bathroom. Christian held Dawn’s flowers, which were drooping a bit now. She’d taken them from the table they’d sat in. She wanted to press them.

She wanted this memory, he realized, and he wondered if he felt the same way.

“You okay?” Bao said.

Christian looked at him, unsure.

“Your eyes. For a while there, they were…” Bao waved a hand in front of his own eyes. Bao had gorgeous eyes. Super dark brown.

Christian swallowed. “Burst blood vessels. It’s fine. Though it was gross.” And that hadn’t been the half of it. And they hadn’t been speaking since then.

Some kids passed them by. Christian tensed, waiting for it, and sure enough, after they passed, the cloud of colours around them shifted, and there were whispers.

“I’m sorry about your grandmother,” Bao said.

Christian let go of a breath. “Thanks.”

Bao shifted on his feet. It had been better when they were all dancing. Moving and laughing and keeping the topic light had made for a passable evening, really. In fact, a few times, for a few songs, Christian had been having fun. He could forget how he and Bao had left things, forget that the whole school knew about what had happened with Dawn—and that somehow Christian Simon (of all people!) had had something to do with her stepfather getting caught—and just… dance. Even the colours had mostly melted away, and the ones he had seen?

They’d been blues.

“I got in for law enforcement,” Bao said, out of nowhere.

Christian couldn’t help but smile. “You’ll be great.”

“Thanks,” Bao said. Then he took a breath. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it.

Christian waited.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom, too,” Bao said.

Christian nodded. “Okay.”

Bao turned to go, but at the door, he paused. “Just so you know… I didn’t say anything. To anyone. I… Well. I didn’t. I promise. And I won’t.”

The colours flared up around them, the world coming alive with emotions. Dark bruised puffs of blacks, deep undulating reds, sharp purple shards, twisting oranges…

Too much. Christian closed his eyes. He remembered the moment, remembered yelling at Bao.

“I don’t even like her that way, Bao. I don’t like girls that way. Okay? Do you get it now?”

“Thank you,” he managed, then he waited to hear the sound of the bathroom door before opening his eyes again.

Christian slid down the locker until he was sitting on the floor in the hallway. It wouldn’t be long now. Weeks he could count off in days. He’d be out of here. He’d be in Ottawa. He’d been accepted at university there.

He looked at Dawn’s flowers.

A peach dress. Not-terrible punch. Dancing.

He fingered the pink rose on his lapel. He could put some of the petals in his grandmother’s Bible.

He’d take it—and the memory of this night—with him to Ottawa.

“To the blues,” he said, and raised Dawn’s flowers in a toast.

 

Sunday Shorts—Treasured Island by Ginn Hale

[image error]I’ve never been a pirate person, but after reading Catherine Lundoff’s introduction to Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space), I realized a good deal of why: so much of the pirates of fiction (and nonfiction) that I’d been shown were out of my wheelhouse. Handsome, white, straight guys doing their tales of derring-do and winning the blushing maiden and meh. Not for me. But Lundoff has delved deeper into history than I ever will, and with this collection is all about telling different tales than the ones we most often see.

Case in point? The opener, Ginn Hale’s “Treasured Island.” Set in a world full of wandering islands (huge creatures with whole ecosystems on their backs, and jellyfish-like tendrils under the waves), the story begins with an accidental mutiny from a tired pirate who has seen the shine wear off an already dark and tarnished life. His people, though, are said to be able to curse those who do them wrong, so instead of killing him, his pirate captain tosses him overboard within reach of one of the island behemoths, and he survives there, among the trees and creatures and earth that’s formed on the back of the giant seafaring creature.

What follows is a lovely story of vengeance, compassion, and—just maybe—a worthy redemption or two. The world-building is lovely, the characterization is spot-on, and the voice was a tongue-in-cheek fun welcome to the anthology.