Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 10

A story in progress: ‘The Digital Corpse’

Sometime last year I wrote a Friday Flash Fiction installment titled “The Digital Corpse.” It was about a detective investigating a murder in the Upload, a virtual world similar to Star Trek‘s holodeck. There was a twist, though: in addition to providing a playground for the living, it also offers an eternal digital existence for the dead. This is somewhat related to my novel in progress, but more on that later.

I continued the story a few months later with another Friday Flash Fiction piece, and so on and so on. I posted the most recent one, “To the Island,” a short while ago. The story is incomplete and there are gaps between the installments that I’ve written, but I think I might keep going with it.

So, I’ve gathered all the various pieces and created a page for them here. When/if I write more parts of this story, they’ll eventually wind up over there, too.

Be warned, this is a work in progress, and it’s very rough as a result. (Insert obligatory filthy joke here about liking it rough.)

The post A story in progress: ‘The Digital Corpse’ appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Five Great Stories I’ve Read Lately

May is National Short Story Month, and if you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love short stories. So, I figured I would share a few that I’ve read recently that I really enjoyed. I hope you do, too.

Packing, by T. Kingfisher

This flash fiction piece was published by Uncanny magazine, and was timely when I read it the week of Earth Day. Given that we get more awful news about the environment almost daily, it’s not likely to seem dated any time soon. Told from the point of view of what sounds like an adult talking to a child, it asks the question: if you were leaving Earth and could only save the creatures and plants you could carry, what would you take?

“No, you can’t take the polar bear. I’m sorry. I know you loved him. He takes up too much room, and he requires refrigeration. So does his food. We have to make hard choices now.”

How to Say I Love You with Wikipedia, by Beth Goder

This is from Fireside Fiction, which is one of my favorite magazines for contemporary speculative fiction. Rocky is the mission computer for a mission on Mars, and while none of the crew knows it, he’s begun to feel emotions. How he expresses them is alternately funny and heartbreaking.

Do you remember the popular meme recently about the Mars rover’s last message, “my battery is low and it’s getting dark”? Well, as much as I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, that was a rather poetic interpretation of the rover’s last data dump to NASA. After reading this story, though, you might have greater appreciation for it.

, by Monica Valentinelli

Model XR389F is a custodial cyborg and her programmer, Bob, is frankly an asshole. Unfortunately, assholes like Bob don’t usually get what’s coming to them, but Model XR389F responds to workplace sexual harassment in a way that’s eminently logical.

All Your Soul Mates Are Dead, by Hannah Gordon

One of the things I like about mainstream literary fiction is when it either lightly touches, or strides headlong into, the weird and the speculative. If you’ve read the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, that’s a perfect example. Another is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This story is yet one more. It’s a short piece that is funny at the same time as it paints the universe as a bleak and ultimately apathetic place. The last paragraph makes that plain.

Lighthouse Waiting, by Gwendolyn Clare

So, this may be a bit of a cheat. I assigned this to my undergraduate scifi/fantasy creative writing workshop. This is one of the joys of teaching: I get to make other people read the stories that I love. This can also be one of the sadnesses, if they finish reading them and go, “Meh.” (Luckily, they enjoyed it.) This one is about a lighthouse at the edge of a black hole-like rift, warning ships away from certain doom as it awaits the return of Guilhermo, its creator, who has had to depart the station to take part in a conflict. But, he promised to be back as soon as he could.

Bonus: Listen to the song that inspired the story

After I finished reading the story, I contacted the writer and asked if she’d ever heard a song “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by a bluegrass band called Nickel Creek. I was delighted when she replied and said it had been part of her inspiration! Like her story, it’s lovely and heartbreaking. Listen to it on YouTube. (Have a Kleenex® handy.)

The post Five Great Stories I’ve Read Lately appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Friday Flash Fiction: To the Island

Hey y’all. Did you miss me? I know I haven’t done one of these in a while, but last week my friend ’Nathan posted a Friday Flash Fiction inspired by the picture below:

Which got me thinking about “The Digital Corpse,” the ongoing story I’d been working on in bits and pieces as previous Friday Flash Fiction installments. The last chapter of that can be found here.

This entry doesn’t follow immediately that previous one, but I suppose I’ll eventually go back and fill in the gaps and maybe bring all the disparate portions together in one place. But as always, that’s a project for another day. So…

To the Island

“I’m guessing someone doesn’t want us to pay a visit,” Andrews said.

Bradford, at the wheel, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. “The fact that we have to get there by boat, even in the Upload, should have tipped you off to that already.”

Andrews lifted his chin toward the black line of storm clouds in front of them. “Those pretty much underline that fact.”

As if in response, a fork of lightning stabbed toward the water, the rumble of thunder reaching them a second later.

“And that’s the exclamation mark at the end of the message saying ‘get out,'” Bradford added.

When Bradford called to say he’d found a lead, Andrews was skeptical—a way to get him to make good on the dinner Andrews owed him. But no, he said they needed to follow this lead into the Upload.

Bradford had isolated three user codes connected with the sim where Alexa had been murdered, but he didn’t think any of them belonged to the killer. More likely, he said, they were decoys or targets. He’d found the idents for two of the codes, but the third was tougher to crack. He traced it to an off-network sim that he couldn’t access from outside, but there was a way in, as in literally a way to enter the sim as an upload, a participant.

Which would not have been Andrews’ first choice, since their two murder victims were killed while their avatars were in the Upload.

And then Bradford had named a price of sorts for the information. “I’m only giving it to you if I get to go with you as well.”

“That’s not a good—”

Bradford cut him off. “I’m not budging on this. Besides, I’m getting a little sick of whoever’s opening up their own private little playgrounds in my Upload.”

For a moment, Andrews used the silent treatment, hoping to draw Bradford out, but the man said nothing. “Fine,” Andrews said, and hung up.

Doyle, who had gotten back from Paris that morning, leaned against Andrews’s desk and grinned. “He wants to be your field trip buddy?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky on this ride.”

Andrews arched and eyebrow. ”Sleeping with a person of interest-slash-low-key suspect? Seems like a bad idea.”

She shrugged. “You’ve had worse, like going in there at all.”

Now that he was standing on the deck of the boat, holding onto the rail as Bradford steered them over choppy waves, Andrews was inclined to say she was right. The wind had picked up, tossing sprays of seawater in their faces. The boat skipped over a swell and landed with a whomp.

“I thought you said whoever programmed this left a way for people to get in,” Andrews yelled to make himself heard over the wind.

“Building a door doesn’t necessarily mean they left it unlocked. Luckily, I’m pretty good at picking locks.”

“You’re what—oh, right.” All of this was just a simulation, no matter how real it seemed. Bradford might have been standing at the wheel, but he was actually generating code to bust them in.

“Hang on,” Bradford said. “The next part should be interesting.”

“Interesting” didn’t quite capture the mythic-looking beast, part dragon and part serpent, that erupted from the seafoam ahead of them. Its emerald eyes locked on their boat as it dove through the water toward them. The next moment, they were airborne, the deck splintering below them as the creature surfaced beneath the boat and sent them hurtling skyward before—

Solid ground materialized below their feet, facing a grove of palm trees. Andrews looked behind them toward the water. The boat was gone, but so was the creature. He sighed with relief.

Which was also when he realized he was holding Bradford’s hand. He dropped it quickly.

“Sorry.”

Bradford looked barely ruffled by the experience. He smiled. “I don’t mind. Besides, it was pretty scary.”

“But not for you.”

Bradford put his hands in his pockets. The man couldn’t help but look smug, could he? “Scarier would have been if I hadn’t gotten us in.” He turned toward the palm trees. “Or maybe scary is whatever’s ahead of us.”

“Oh?”

“You haven’t forgotten all of this might have been programmed by your suspect, have you?”

Shit. As much as Andrews hated guns, he wished he was armed right about now.

The post Friday Flash Fiction: To the Island appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Read an excerpt from ‘Harvest,’ my novel in progress

I feel as if I’ve been talking about this novel for years. I started writing it before grad school, where I ended up finishing it as my thesis submission. Since I completed that draft, I’ve worked on at least three other novels with varying degrees of (un)success. Every time, I’ve come back to this one. Ever since I started writing it, I have had a clear view of the beginning and the end, but the middle has been the biggest puzzle for me to solve.

Last month, I went to a conference called AWP in Portland, Oregon. It’s a four-day event where thousands of writers and teachers of creative writing get together to sit on panels and talk about their writing, their teaching, and everything related. One of the panels I attended, How to Structure the Middle of Your Novel, was packed. Every seat was taken, people stood along the walls, and others sat on the floor wherever they could. I even ran into my friend Anna Ling Kaye, whom I haven’t seen in about five years.

Apparently, a lot of us have problems with the middle of our novels.

Somewhere in the middle of taking notes as the panelists spoke, though, I started working on the middle of the novel again. I think I finally know how to get from where I am in the middle to the end.

I hope to be finished soon. Meanwhile, though, you can read an excerpt from the novel, tentatively titled Harvest, over at Embark Literary Journal.

Let me know what you think. And, if you enjoy it, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with anyone else you think might like it.

The post Read an excerpt from ‘Harvest,’ my novel in progress appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

“Charlotte’s Mother,” A Story in the Saturday Evening Post

More years ago than I care to count, I dated a boy who lived in a small town south of St. Louis, in Iron County. He was sweet but ultimately we were too far apart, geographically and otherwise. Most of the time, we spent our dates in St. Louis, but one weekend, I drove down to his small town. I’m so glad I did.

I don’t remember the name of that town exactly (it was a long time ago, as I mentioned), but it was Iron-something, located in an enigmatic-sounding place called the Arcadia Valley. The roads were all back roads, the towns were all small, and the pace was much slower. The town itself where he lived had, literally, no stoplights. There were a few stop signs but that was it. The streets were laid out in a small grid next to a set of railroad tracks that looked like they hadn’t been used in a long time. On the other side of the tracks was a hotel in the middle stages of collapsing in on itself.

This place stuck with me for some reason a long time after I visited. I grew up in small places, but never this small, and never this isolated. Even thought it was only about ninety minutes south of St. Louis, it felt a world away. Granted, this was in the early 2000s, so it wasn’t as if we didn’t have the internet and cell phones already, but constant contact didn’t feel so relentless yet. It took less effort to get away from it all, and the Arcadia Valley definitely felt that way to me.

I should have known it would make its way into my writing eventually. Ten years later, I started writing a story about a woman who is searching for her mother, AWOL from an assisted living facility, and heads for the only place she can think of that she might have gone: home.

Five years and more revisions than I can count, “Charlotte’s Mother” is up at the Saturday Evening Post. It’s the runner-up in their Great American Fiction Contest and also appears in an anthology, which is available for order here.

I’m glad I persisted with this story, and I’m glad that I wasn’t ever able to get that town out of my head.

The post “Charlotte’s Mother,” A Story in the Saturday Evening Post appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Meet the 2019 Great American Fiction Contest Winners

…because you might recognize one of them.

This is a nice way to start the year. More tomorrow, when the story should appear online.

The post Meet the 2019 Great American Fiction Contest Winners appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Flash Fiction Draw: Comedy, a Field of Poppies, and a Broom

As I’ve mentioned in the past and which you no doubt already know, my friend ’Nathan Smith dba ’Nathan Burgoine has done a monthly flash fiction draw at the start of every month this year. The idea is he draws cards at random from a deck to select a genre, a setting, and a random item. Anyone who wants to participate writes a story incorporating those elements, and posts the results the following Monday.

So, I’m a little behind.

For December, the draw was comedy, a field of poppies, and a broom. This combo presented a challenge… but then I took liberties. I usually take liberties. I also took a darn long time to finish this. Also, the word limit is 1,000 and I may have overshot that ever so slightly. Be sure to check out the other folks who wrote stories.

Anyway, without further ado:

Dress Rehearsal, or This Kiss

‘Elphaba’ was sneezing her head off.

Every time she tried to start the song, her face crinkled up and she nearly lost her grip on her broom. Jason resisted the urge to fling his clipboard across the stage.

“Cut! Courtney, go get a Kleenex. Meghan, where are you?”

From the back of the auditorium Meghan came jogging down the center aisle, her braid bouncing from side to side. She came up to the edge of the stage and frowned.

“It’s the poppies, isn’t it?”

Jason put his hand on his hip. “You think? Courtney’s allergic to just about everything that grows.”

“I thought they’d lend some verisimilitude.”

Jason resisted the urge to scream and instead made a show of consulting his clipboard. “The last time I checked, Elphaba doesn’t have an allergy attack in the middle of ‘Defying Gravity.’ Can you get rid of them, please?”

Meghan nodded and climbed up onto the stage to start gathering the flowers. They had the auditorium for another hour; they weren’t going to get through the whole show. As far as first dress rehearsals go, Jason couldn’t imagine what else might go wrong.

And everything had to go right. It was his first time directing, and not only was his dad going to be in the audience on opening night, but his mom was bringing Donna, her new girlfriend, who played Glinda in one of the touring groups. If this fell flat, he’d look like an idiot.

“Hey, this is what dress rehearsals are for, right? Working out the bugs?”

Jason turned toward the voice and tried to ignore the flock of starlings that had suddenly manifested in the middle of his chest and which was taking off with a near-debilitating beat of their wings. Kyle was wearing what was in Jason’s opinion the best Fiyero costume, the one with the short sleeved shirt and red vest that stretched across his chest, and the knee-high boots below cream-colored leggings that showed off the fact that he had a soccer player’s legs.

Don’t stare, Jason thought, as he stuttered, “We have, uh, a lot of bugs.”

Kyle smiled and patted Jason on the shoulder, and Jason concentrated on not spontaneously combusting. “It’s gonna be great,” Kyle said, “trust me. I have a—”

Before he could finish the sentence, a crash came from backstage followed by what sounded like splintering wood. And a lot of yelling.

“Oh, shit,” Jason said, his chest now gripped by cold dread. He and Kyle vaulted onto the stage (Kyle with much more grace and athleticism, Jason noticed) and rushed toward the left wing. Backstage, they found just about everybody gathered around the backdrop, which Morgan had finished painting just the day before. Now, her masterpiece had a giant hole in the middle of it, out of which trailed a length of rope.

Mrs. Shymansky, the drama club faculty advisor, spread out her arms to keep them from running too close. “One of the ballasts came loose. Wait until Mr. San Luis can check things out.” Mr. San Luis was the chief custodian and had spent a fair amount of time among the rafters as they got ready for opening night. Now it looked like he’d be spending even more time over their heads.

That was if they could even do anything about Morgan’s wrecked backdrop. Jason’s shoulders sagged. He looked at Mrs. Shymansky, ever patient, who always seemed to have an answer. “Now what?” he asked.

She frowned. “Maybe we could square off the broken section and patch it? Then Morgan could just repaint that portion.”

“We don’t have enough time,” Morgan said. She had been lingering in the shadows, but now she came closer. She looked as if she might start crying at any moment. “Even if we could get it patched today, it’d have to dry overnight and then it’d take me, what, three days at least to finish painting that section.”

“And we go on in two days,” Jason said, not that anyone else needed to be reminded.

They were silent a long time after that. Jason looked from one person to the next, silently begging anyone to offer a possible solution. But they were looking at him: he was the director, after all.

“Maybe,” Mrs. Shymansky said, “we should call it a night and all think hard on this and see if we can come up with a solution. If not, maybe we just go on without the backdrop—”

“What?” Morgan looked like she was going to blow a gasket. “I worked for weeks on that.”

“I know, I know.” Mrs. Shymansky said soothingly as she put an arm around Morgan’s shoulders. “And it’ll only be a last resort. We’ll figure out something to do with this great artwork, but we might have to cast about for some creative solutions.”

No one else seemed to have anything to say after that, so they slowly drifted their separate ways. Jason pulled out his phone; his mom wasn’t planning on picking him up for another hour and a half. He started to tap out a text to her when Kyle said, “Need a ride?”

The offer normally would have sent Jason into palpitations. Instead he just nodded and followed Kyle out to his pickup truck.

The early evening was already sliding toward dusk. On the drive to his house, Jason stared out the window and let the passing trees and houses turn into a blur. If only his mind could go so blank. He wanted this show to go well so badly—he wanted Donna to be impressed, to tell him he had a natural knack for this sort of thing, for the tickets to sell out and maybe even get a good review in the newspaper.

“Hey,” Kyle said, and Jason started a little. He’d been so deep in his own head he’d forgotten about the soccer star was behind the wheel. “You’re not usually this quiet.”

“I’m not?” Jason asked. Kyle shook his head.

“You’re pretty outgoing when you’re excited about something. At least, it seems that way to me.” Kyle added that last part quietly, almost as if he was hoping Jason wouldn’t hear it.

But he did. “I didn’t realize anyone was paying that close attention.”

“I was. Anyway,” Kyle said, rushing headlong into the next sentence as if to keep Jason from dwelling on the last one, “don’t worry about the backdrop, or the damn flowers. Mrs. S or someone else will come up with an amazing idea and the show will go on.”

“Yeah, but what if they don’t? We only have two days until opening night. I should have scheduled the dress rehearsal sooner.”

“That doesn’t mean the sandbag would have come blasting down from the rafters any sooner, though. Besides, everyone had midterms and the soccer team had that away game. ”

Jason barely heard him. He stared out the window blankly again until he realized the blurring trees and houses were slowing down. When he looked over, Kyle put the truck in park and turned in his seat.

“Listen, everything is going to be fine,” he said, leaning a little across the center console. “The show is going to be great, and even if the audience just has to picture the backdrop in their heads, nothing will ruin it.”

“I guess,” Jason said, then sat up in his seat. Picture it in their heads. “Wait, that’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“Picture it in their heads! We can split the backdrop into thirds and project the center portion against the back curtain. We can even switch up some of the cast entrances so they come through the gap instead of from stage left or right.” He bounced in his seat. “You’re a genius!”

Kyle laughed. “I don’t know about genius, but—“

“Certifiable genius,” Jason said. He knew he was grinning madly, his cheeks hurt with the strain.

At what point that segued into kissing Kyle, he was less sure of.

The kiss lasted maybe three seconds before Jason gasped, either from shock or lack of oxygen, he wasn’t sure which, and pulled back. Kyle’s face hung there for a moment, eyes closed and dreamy, and he whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

“Wait, what?” Jason wasn’t sure his brain was working properly, or at least not his ears. Could you hallucinate sounds? “I thought I kissed you.”

Kyle opened his eyes, confusion knotting his brow. “I’m pretty sure I was doing the kissing.” Now he blushed furiously. “I’m sorry, I should have asked first.”

“It’s okay. I mean, I should have asked. Because I was the one doing the kissing.”

“No, I’m really sure—“ Kyle paused, a befuddled look still on his face, which slowly turned into… something. Jason wasn’t sure how he’d describe it. Maybe mischievous? Or wicked. “So you think you started this kiss?”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “You think you did?”

Kyle leaned back in his seat, resting an arm on the steering wheel in a way that looked, well, sexy somehow, Jason thought.

“Maybe,” Kyle said.

Jason didn’t answer right away. A game then, was that it? Because he could play. “Well then, some advance warning would have been good, because I probably woulda planned on enjoying it more.”

Kyle frowned. “You mean you didn’t like it?”

Jason held up a hand, stop in the name of love style. “I didn’t say that, did I? I’m just saying I would have brought a little more to the table, as it were. I mean, you did say you’ve wanted to do that for a while.“

Kyle’s not so innocent smile returned. “True. Just ask anyone on the team. It’s pretty much all I’ve been talking about for weeks.”

Jason did a double take again. “Excuse me? The team? You talked about me to the soccer team?”

“It was their idea for me to try out for the show. They figured I’d spend enough time around you and figure out if you were interested.”

“And when did you figure that out?”

“About five minutes ago. When you kissed me.”

Aha. “So I was doing the kissing, wasn’t I?”

Kyle nodded. “And you should ask next time.”

Jason leaned forward, wicked smile matching Kyle’s. “Well then, I’m asking.”

The post Flash Fiction Draw: Comedy, a Field of Poppies, and a Broom appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Friday Flash Fics + 1, or, Late As Usual

I know, I know. It’s Saturday, not Friday. Sue me.

(Actually, please don’t sue me. Anyway, moving on.)

A pre-PS plug: My friend ‘Nathan’s YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks, is available for preorder, but lucky me, I’m reading it right now and I think you should totally get it.

Go on, I’ll wait.

Done? Right. Moving on. The photo below is the prompt for last week’s Friday Flash Fic, but I can’t do anything on time. The photo for this week? I’ll probably write something in response to that one next week.

That’s me, perpetually a little behind.

Anyway, I looked at this one and thought, is he coming or going? Going, I decided. And someone doesn’t want him to go. That someone also happens to be a Star Trek fan, so if you get the references herein, I’m pleased.

It’s more than a bit sentimental, but yeah, sue me. (Don’t sue me.) Enjoy, and live long and prosper.

Departure Lounge

Peter set down his suitcase and waited for his ride. It was just before sunset, and the meadow was bathed in a golden-hour glow, that special quality of air that seemed purpose built to make beautiful things even more beautiful. And the meadow was beautiful: lush grass dotted with bobbleheaded yellow flowers swaying gently, and ringed with towering conifers. Peaceful. Quiet, except for the occasional birdsong from the trees, the swishing of breeze over blades of grass.

He was going to miss Earth so much.

“Peter?” The voice, from a distance, made him turn, even though he didn’t need to look in order to know who it was. A figure emerged from the trees and started across the meadow, open jacket flailing as he ran.

Leaving an assignment after three years was never easy. This, though—this was going to be hard.

“Hello, friend,” Peter said, once the reason he would miss Earth so much came to a stop in front of him.

It took Brett a moment to catch his breath. He leaned over, palms braced against his legs, and sweat sheened his forehead. When he was able to talk, he said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

As much as he knew Brett hated when people answered a question with a question, Peter said, “How did you manage to find me?”

Brett held up his phone to Peter, screen first. “You never turned off your Find My Phone.”

“Oh.” That had been a mistake, that one time he’d gotten hopelessly lost trying to find Brett at Forest Park. Inside, Peter berated himself: stupid, stupid, stupid. Of all the things to forget about this planet’s laughably primitive technology, something that simple escaped him? His monitor would never let him live it down.

A look crossed Brett’s face, and it made a hole open up in Peter, followed by an ache that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to knead away.

“You… you didn’t want me to find you, did you?”

Brett’s face pulled down at the corners. His glance darted to the suitcase, back to Peter’s face, then at the meadow around them.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?”

“I have to leave, Brett. I’m going home.”

“Home. So you came to the middle of nowhere?”

Oh, my friend, you have no idea. “There isn’t really time to explain.”

“Well, try.”

Peter took a deep breath. He had done his best to keep an arm’s length between Brett and himself this whole time, but the urge to bridge that gap had always been there and they both knew it. And now…

He’d never gotten as close to anyone on an embed before as he’d gotten to Brett. He could see why his monitor had warned him against it. And yet…

“You know how I told you I wasn’t from around here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m really not from anywhere nearby. But my assignment’s over now. It’s time for me to move on.”

Brett shook his head. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re leaving without even saying goodbye.”

Because I knew it would hurt this bad. “It was too difficult—“

“And what, this is easier?”

They both fell silent. Peter struggled to come up with an adequate answer to the question Brett wasn’t asking: Why are you hurting me like this?

“Are you sure it isn’t time for another colorful metaphor?” Peter asked.

It was a line from one of Brett’s favorite movies. They’d watched it together one night at Brett’s apartment. That was the first time he’d come close to telling Brett who he was. That was the first time he’d come close to a lot of things with Brett.

Brett laughed, but it caught in his throat. “Double dumb ass on me,” he said, before he started crying.

“Oh, my friend,” Peter said, pulling Brett close as his tears turned into a full-on sob. “If I could stay for anyone, it would be for you.”

Brett lifted his head from Peter’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“Then don’t go, you idiot,” Brett said, and kissed him.

And for a moment, right between being startled that one of them finally closed the gap and returning the kiss in earnest, Peter thought, Maybe I could stay.

Until a stiff wind whipped at the back of his head and a shadow passed between them and the setting sun.

Brett broke off the kiss, eyes suddenly wide and his jaw slack as he stared skyward over Peter’s shoulder.

“What the hell is that?”

Peter turned. The black wedge of a stealth probe slid toward them overhead, the air rippling around the edge of its hull.

“That’s my ride.”

For a long moment, Peter watched as Brett’s gaze flicked between him and the ship hovering silently overhead. Whatever was going through his head, he didn’t say.

Peter’s phone rang. He slid it from his pocket and answered it.

“Nero e choi?” the voice on the other end asked.

Peter nodded. “Das, em choi.”

The ship dropped the call at the same time as a transmat beam blinked on, spotlighting Peter. He stepped away from Brett.

“When you said you weren’t from around here, you really meant it,” Brett said.

“I wish we had more time. I’d explain everything.” And he would, too. Regulations be damned.

“Then don’t go,” Brett pleaded.

Peter shook his head. The beam brightened and he felt the familiar tingle he hadn’t felt in three years. He picked up his bag. “I have to. I’m sorry.”

And then Brett ran. Right into him. He threw his arms around Peter’s neck and nearly knocked the both of them over.

“What—“

Brett looked him in the eye as the meadow around them vanished, and the opaque glass of the transmat chamber faded in.

“Surprise.”

The post Friday Flash Fics + 1, or, Late As Usual appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

It’ll Be Easy—A Flash Fiction Draw Challenge

I sometimes feel as if I’m cheating when it comes to ’Nathan’s monthly flash fiction draw. Instead of writing a self-contained piece of fiction, I often use these to work out a continuation of an earlier story. That’s the case for September, which follows up on this post. (Which was a follow-up to an earlier post, but I’ll let you follow the trail back to it.)

Anyway, cheating or not, it’s what I’m doing.

The challenge was to write a suspense involving a bag of money set at a border crossing. You can find out more about this month’s prompt on ’Nathan’s blog, and you can see all the other participants there as well.

So, without further ado:

It’ll Be Easy

“I don’t like this,” Hermione says.

Tella slaps a hand against the counter. “You think I do? Temple’s bells, I think this is the stupidest idea ever.”

Daniel hadn’t realized Tella and the diner are the hub of a smuggling ring between Earth and the rest of the Confederation. That is, not until he told her about the man he’d followed to the scrapyard, and the moment she’d been revealed as his mother.

“Your mother?” Tella makes the cross of the Seryan Temple then, which looks like tying an elaborate knot. “He—she—told me he was an Ambaran trader from the Belt when he made the pickup.”

“I guess she lied,” Daniel says. “Where’s she headed?”

Tella hesitates, exchanging a glance with Hermione that makes him wonder how much his co-worker knows. “Uzari Prime with a load of N57 blasters hidden in a shipment of dicarium ore.”

“Uzari?” Hermione sounds either dumbfounded or horrified, Daniel can’t tell which yet. “Are you kidding me? You’re smuggling arms to the insurgents?”

Tella grabs Hermione’s arm, hard, and hisses, “For the love of the Nine Muses, keep your voice down. Are you trying to get me arrested?” The women’s eyes dart around the sparsely populated diner, but no one seems to have heard them. “The Uzari insurgency is what keeps a roof over our heads, and the roof over our heads keeps Central Security off my back. And—” Tella raises a hand “—before you start lecturing me with whatever righteous indignation you’re about to spout off, no one else is implicated in this but me and Chef, and I cover my tracks. So keep it to yourself.”

Before Hermione can fly off the handle, Daniel asks, soft enough not to be overheard, “Why is my mother smuggling for the Uzari?”

Tella shrugs. “Good pay, fast money. Maybe she’s sympathetic. You got any Uzari relatives?”

“Not that I know of.” Daniel frowns. “The only relatives I know of were from Earth or Mars, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know,” Tella repeats.

Hermione crosses her arms. “Are you sure there isn’t a better way to get him through security?”

“If you’ve got one, I’m all ears.”

She doesn’t, which is how Daniel ends up in line at the spaceport with a new passport, a round-trip ticket to Mars, and a backpack with over one million creds sewn into the lining. Uzari rebels can only deal in hard currency because even the slightest risk that any bank transactions could lead right back to them is too big, which means Tella arranges transportation for people like Daniel all the time. And she feeds them a free meal to boot.

The round-trip part of the ticket was Tella’s idea. “In case you find her and it doesn’t go the way you’re planning,” she said.

Daniel wipes his palms against his trousers and wonders if he should just turn around and head back to the diner. The line to get through passport control is crawling. The flight to Luna Central Station is eight hours, and then he has a twelve-hour layover until the transport leaves for Mars, which is a two-day journey. There are faster ways to get there, but a microwarp shuttle is less likely to draw attention—and was all Tella was able to pay for, anyway.

And then, unexpectedly, the line speeds up, but not for good reasons. A group of ten passengers is led away, loudly, by a group of security guards holding their stun batons a little too tightly for Daniel’s peace of mind. Only five people in front of him now.

At the control gate, passengers split off to four different passport agents stationed at high desks behind glass partitions. One of the agents turns off their light and leaves their desk; maybe going on break, Daniel figures. A groan travels along the line behind him. One less agent means their wait will be just that much longer.

“Next.” Suddenly, Daniel’s at the front of the line. He walks up to an agent’s desk and slides his passport through the drawer.

“Hi,” Daniel says, his voice squeaking. He clears his throat. The agent, a human male, doesn’t look up as he plugs in Daniel’s passport and scans the readout.

“Destination?” he asks, though the information is loaded in Daniel’s boarding pass.

“Mars.”

“Purpose of visit?”

I’m looking for my mother so I can find out why she abandoned me, he doesn’t say. “Study.”

“Duration of visit?”

“Two weeks.”

The man looks up, and Daniel thinks he’s glancing at the straps of his backpack. “Two weeks and that’s all you packed?”

Daniel feels as if every pore on his face has suddenly turned into a gushing faucet. “They told me to pack light and the school would have stuff for me when I got there.”

The agent shrugs, presses a button, and slides Daniel’s passport back in the drawer. “Have fun, kid.”

“Thanks.”

Daniel waits until he’s well past the checkpoint to breathe a sigh of relief. He finds the departure lounge for the skimmer that will ferry him up to the shuttle in orbit and slides into a seat. He’s still got a couple hours before it leaves, and all he wants to do is sit someplace and not move, not stress, not even think now that the worst is behind him.

Which is probably a thought he shouldn’t have, he thinks, when the agent from the gate sits down next to him half an hour later.

“So what’s your story, really?” he asks, then leans closer. “And what’s with the bag?”

The post It’ll Be Easy—A Flash Fiction Draw Challenge appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

“Transport,” at Midwestern Gothic

Midwestern Gothic has a three-round flash fiction contest ever summer, and this summer, against all odds, I won round 2.

Fallout Shelter, by Caroline Gerardo

Entries for each round are based on a given photo prompt, and you can see round 2’s prompt over there on the right. The resulting story, “Transport,” came together pretty quickly, which surprised me.

I’ve been writing more flash fiction while I continue to revise my novel. Maybe it’s because flash takes less time, but it’s also because flash is damn hard for me. It’s kind of like the watercolor equivalent of prose writing. Have you ever painted watercolors? Because of the medium and how fast it dries, you paint them very quickly. At least, that was the way Betty Gearhart, my high school art teacher, taught me to do them. She said you didn’t start to get good at it until you’d done about a hundred watercolors. But, because of the nature of them, you could do them pretty quickly.

I got kind of good at them, but that was a long time ago.

Anyway. I hope you enjoy “Transport.” Be sure to read the other pieces in the contest. They’ve been really good so far.

The post “Transport,” at Midwestern Gothic appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.