A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 22

Love Song (short fiction)

“Will I see you again?” he asked.

“No.”

She should’ve lied, but it wasn’t in her nature.

“But I love you,” he said.

“You don’t love me. You love what you think I am.” She pulled away from him and looked out the window at the ocean lapping the beach below.

“That’s not true.”

“It is. Because it’s true for me too.” She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him. This had gone too far. It’d only been a fling, and she tried telling herself it still was. But she cared for him. She might have even loved him. She wasn’t sure because it was such a strange idea.

“You have a family,” she said. “Don’t you love them?”

“Yes.”

He said it quietly, as if ashamed of the fact. She wondered about love. It could be so beautiful and cruel at once. It played with human hearts and minds. He loved his family, and he might have loved her. But he couldn’t have both at once.

And she couldn’t have him.

It’d gone too far. She should’ve called it off. She should’ve stayed away. But it was love, or something like it, that kept her coming back to him. But it would only cause them pain and bring pain to everyone around them. The truth she kept coming back to was that love was pain, and she’d been better off without it. He’d been better off without her.

“Would you leave them behind for me?” she asked, knowing there was no right answer he could give her.

It was probably why he didn’t reply.

She turned to him, and he took her in his arms. He placed his head against her breast, and she sang a lullaby as he fell asleep. She sang softly into his ear, taking away his memory of everything. He had to forget. It was the only way he’d ever go back to the life she’d almost taken from him. She kissed him one last time and walked down to the shore.

She paused at the edge of the water and considered going back, but she couldn’t take him away. She couldn’t go with him, and he couldn’t follow her. She let her robe fall to the sand and walked into the water. She swam into the depths, and she didn’t look back.

She never set foot on shore again, but sometimes, she’d gaze at the beach house from far off in the horizon and she’d ponder going back. Even after centuries had passed, and he was certainly dead, she pondered.

Luna of Throx (short fiction)

Luna Gutierrez was in the middle of a meeting when time stopped. Everyone else in the room sat frozen. Henderson’s coffee mug teetered on the edge of the table, about to be knocked off by his careless elbow. Rogers was leaning back in his chair, teetering dangerously close to falling over. And all Chow’s folders were about to spill out of her arms and across the floor.

Tingles ran through Luna’s body as she was transported halfway across the universe in a flash. She’d grown accustomed to the unpleasantness of the journey. Hadn’t thrown up in years. Nonetheless, a bucket bearer stood by the transport machine in case she should need it. She waved him off.

The Empress of Throx, a tall, green warrior, saluted Luna. “Most Favored, I apologize for this sudden call, but—”

“What’s wrong?” asked Luna.

“The armies of Lord Wort stand amassed outside our city, and he refuses to speak to anyone but you.”

Several Throxians undressed Luna and outfitted her in her warrior attire. She loved the sword, wished she could carry it into corporate meetings now and then. And she’d like to see Bennett pull off a cape like this.

“We are prepared to fight by your side, Most Favored. Nothing would please me more than to die by your side.” The Empress took Luna’s hand. “Almost nothing.”

Luna caressed the Empress’s cheek. “Nobody dies today.” She adjusted her sword. “Well, maybe one person.”

She walked out of the city walls by herself. The legions were endless, spreading across the Red Plains to the horizon. The Throxians would sell their lives dearly, but this wasn’t a fight they could win.

Lord Wort, a towering creature of blue with great black tusks and yellow eyes, stood before Luna. His cruel laughter echoed in the utter silence. “This is the Most Favored? This puny thing conqured the Cthala Beast and slaughtered the Yellow Sail Pirates? You must be joking.”

“You talk while you’re sword remains silent,” replied Luna.

He scowled. “And you cannot win a fight with death, puny one.”

“Can we skip the taunts and just get onto the fight?” she asked. “I have a busy day ahead of me.”

Lord Wort bellowed and charged her. She vaulted high in the air and with one stroke, removed his head. His body moved blindly, swinging its sword without direction.

“Over here, you idiot!” screamed Wort, as if his body had ears to hear him. “Here! Here!”

His body tripped in the dirt. It felt around blindly for its weapon, and his legion chuckled.

Luna placed her sword between Wort’s eyes. “Do you yield?”

He grunted. “I yield. This day is yours, Most Favored, but know that I—”

“I’ve heard it before. You’ll return. You’ll have your revenge. Tell that to the Cthala Beast or the Yellow Sail Pirates or the War Barons of Tro. I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear all about it. But I’ve got more important things to deal with.” She kicked his head over to his body. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

She thought about telling him to quit while he was ahead, but it was a tired joke and there was little humor on this world.

Lord Wort, his head tuck under his arm, retreated from the Red Plains with his army. The Empress embraced Luna with one set of arms while her second ran down Luna’s back. “Most Favored, you save us again.”

They kissed, but Luna pushed the Empress away. “I need to get back. The time freeze doesn’t last forever.”

“As you wish, but you will return to us soon?”

“I have a free evening Thursday.”

The Empress bowed. “I shall prepare accordingly.”

Luna’s assistants removed her warrior garb, returning it to chest of honor with due reverence, and put her back into her suit. She stepped into the machine and smiled at the Empress. “May the moons honor you.”

The Empress blushed as Luna disappeared in a flash. She materialized in the board room as time slowly caught up to her. Before it did, she pushed Henderson’s mug away from the edge, gave Rogers’s chair a stabilizing shove, and gathered up the falling files and put them on the table. Time resumed.

Her boss nodded approvingly. “Luna, you may have just saved the day again.”

She shrugged. “Somebody has to.”

The Wrathful Earth (short fiction)

Jensen and Martin studied the bubble pushing out in the cracked concrete. They’d had time to evacuate the area and prepare. It was usually like that in urban areas, where a random citizen was likely to stumble across a pod while it was incubating.

The countryside was where the big things grew. You didn’t get a full grown cyclops or dragon in the city. Not often. But in those places where humans didn’t often tread, there was plenty of time for horrible things to sprout. Efforts were made to stay on top of it after that leviathan had gone on a rampage in Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park, but it was impossible to head these things off before they all hatched.

This one was small, but small didn’t necessarily mean easy. Imps and gremlins were small and a pain in the ass. Pixies were small, but Jensen had seen a man torn to shreds by the tiny things.

The burst team moved into position with their jackhammers. With some luck, they’d crack it open and whatever beast was growing inside wouldn’t be finished. If they weren’t, a tactical team stood by.

Martin checked his assault rifle, took a drag on his cigarette. “Read the reports about that harpy nest they found in Boston? Shouldn’t happen. Northern Watch is getting careless.”

Jensen nodded as if she agreed, but there was a truth that went unsaid. These beasts kept coming, and the only thing they all had in common was that they seemed to hate humanity. And if they’d once been rare in the ancient world, they were now so commonplace it didn’t even make the news when a trio of krakens was seen off the coast of Africa. Human had already lost the seas. There was no telling how much more they’d lose.

Some said it was the planet itself striking out at humanity, and Jensen supposes there was some hope in that. If this was humanity’s punishment then maybe humanity could redeem itself. Jensen didn’t think so, but she didn’t think about it too much. She just went were she was told and killed monsters.

The burst team cracked the shell. For a few tense moments, everyone prepared for whatever hell might spill forth until the clear signal was given. The half-formed, scaly, three-headed dog lay aborted in its soup of black and red fluid. A hellhound had ravage a hundred people in Kyoto.

“Tag it for study,” said Martin as Jensen checked in with Command. An pod the size of a log cabin had been found just outside Las Vegas, and it was already cracking. Estimates put it at hatching within the hour.

If they hurried, they could be there in forty-five minutes.

Wasteland (short fiction)

She wasn’t useful anymore, so they dumped her in the wastelands with a handful of supplies.

The pilot pointed to the East. “Ten days walk, if you’re steady enough. Five days of food. There’s a watering hole three days walk, if you’re steady enough.”

He boarded his hovercraft and blasted across the desert, leaving her behind.

The trial was cruel, but so was the world. If she could make it back to the city on her own, she’d be allowed to reenter. She’d be a citizen for another three years. And then, they’d dump her back out here again.

Not many made the journey.

She’d done it three times. She would do it again.

They shorted her on supplies, took her farther out each time. They even tried to give her wrong directions, as if she didn’t know the city was South, not East. They tried to kill her without having to get their hands dirty, and one of these days, they would succeed. But not today.

She threw her bag over her shoulder and started walking.

Another Round (short fiction)

The dead man walked into the bar. Where he’d come from, I couldn’t say. There was always a fresh corpse to be found, usually from the hospital just down the street. Or the cemetery not far from there. Or the retirement home. People died all the time, and if you were looking for a body to borrow and not too picky, there was always something.

The jukebox played Mr. Sandman as tonight’s sole customer dragged himself across the empty room. He wasn’t covered in dirt, so he wasn’t from the cemetery. He wasn’t withered, so I doubted he was from the retirement home. I didn’t speculate further.

“Hello, Joe, how’re the wife and kids?” I asked as he sat at the stool.

His skin was that same pallid color it always was for the animated dead. He put his hat on the counter. “Good enough.” His voice was soft and distant, like the thing that was speaking through him was connected via a long, long tube leading up to his throat.

“The usual?” I said.

“Please,” he said.

I poured him a whisky, slid it across the bar. He reached for his wallet, but I stopped him.

“Your money’s no good here, Joe.”

He smiled. His slack flesh creased reluctantly, forming a grinning rictus. “You’re too good to me.” He glanced around the room. “Quiet night.”

“Bad economy,” I said.

He nodded, sipped his drink. He didn’t swallow, and it spilled out of his lips as he talked. “Those bums in Washington don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Amen.”

“Am I dead?” asked Joe.

I hadn’t known if the question was coming. It wasn’t always asked.

“You were never alive,” I replied.

“But I have a wife,” he said. “I have kids.”

“Do you? What are their names?”

He paused. “But you said I did.”

“Just making conversation,” I said. “I could’ve asked about your dog or your job. Anything, really. And you would’ve played along. You’re name isn’t even Joe. I suppose the body you’re in could have been named Joe, and it might have a wife and kids. But that’s the body, not you.”

Joe stared at himself in the bar mirror. “Then who am I?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d tell you if I did, and I know a lot of things people were never meant to know.”

“Am I ghost?”

I shook my head. “No. As far as I can tell, you’re something else. Something here, bound to this patch of land, and every forty-one days, you wake up, grab a body, and come in for a drink. It’s just what you do. One thing I do know, you aren’t a ghost. There’s no such thing. Not as people label it.”

I poured him another drink.

“I’ve been handling this sort of thing for a while now. Maybe too long. One thing I’ve never met: a dead person who wasn’t something else. Once in a while, a person might die and not pass on right away. But once they’re gone, they’re gone. Death is a one-way trip. There’s no coming back and, frankly, I doubt there’s anything to come back.”

“What about the soul?” he asked.

I laughed. “Don’t ask me. All I know is that something like . . . well . . . you doesn’t prove much beyond that. And I don’t even know what you are.”

Joe frowned. “And when I go back to sleep will I remember any of this?”

“You never do.”

He drummed his fingers on the bar. He contemplated the same thing most of us end up contemplating. Joe existed now, but Joe would stop existing, like everything and everyone else, and what would be left behind? I’d asked the thing in Joe the question once or twice, and it never had any answer better than mine.

He took a final drink, put on his hat, and then shuffled out the door.

“Catch you next time, Joe,” I said.

He grumbled, waved as the door closed behind him.

I wiped down the bar before pouring myself a stiff drink. Then I sat in the empty bar, with the stench of the dead, and listened to Leslie Gore singing about her party while not thinking about much of anything.

Gray (short fiction)

We looked to the skies, every day, and waited for the ships to arrive. We prayed to never see them, but they would come. It was inevitable.

The scoutship came to land not far from our village, though to call it a village was generous. It was little more than ramshackle shelters and a few dozen huddled survivors trying not to die on this barely livable world.

I was chosen to greet the pilot. Someone had to, and I was the closest thing we had to a leader. She was a tall woman, wearing light armor. It wasn’t suited for battle, but our old enemies no longer feared us. There was no reason they should. I approached her in the clearing, and she looked me over. Once, I had been a proud soldier. Now, I didn’t know what I was.

“You found us,” I said.

“I found you,” she said.

“Can’t you leave us alone? We’re no harm to you anymore.”

“I have my orders,” she replied.

Her orders were simple. To find us. To lead the exterminators to this hollow world. To chase the remnants of our once great empire across the stars and destroy every last one of us.

History was gray. Usually. But this was our own fault. We’d started the war with her kind for no other reason than we thought we could conquer them. They’d done no wrong to us, but we saw them as beneath us. We underestimated them, and after a long, hard war, we’d fallen before our prey.

It wasn’t enough for them to defeat us. They needed to kill us all. Was it vengeance that drove them? Was it hatred? Was it simply the violence that threatened to devour us all? Or was it necessity? I didn’t know, but they wouldn’t rest until we were gone. Every last one of us.

“You don’t have to tell them we’re here,” I said.

“It’s not up to me. The ship records everything.”

There was something in her voice. Regret perhaps. Indifference. Both in equal measures.

“Do you even care?” I asked.

“It’s not up to me,” she replied again.

“That wasn’t the question. Does your conscience weigh you down, knowing you’ll cause us all to die?”

“Does yours?”

She didn’t quantify my sins. She didn’t know I’d led the slaughter of a dozen colonies. She didn’t know how many of her people I had ordered killed. How many I’d killed myself. Orders. Indifference. Malice? In my youth, I called it necessary. I saw myself as a cog in a machine. No more responsible for all those deaths than a guided missile or a neutron bomb. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

She didn’t know my sins, but she knew they were there.

I said, “Most of us are civilians.”

“They don’t care.”

I didn’t ask who they were. I doubted she even knew.

She boarded her ship and soared away. A moment later, a rocket sailed from a hidden position in the forest and blasted her from the sky. She came crashing down, and I hated myself and us. It had to be done. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it was delaying the inevitable. Her ship might have sent out its signal, and the exterminators were soon to be scrambled. If not, another ship might find us. The next one would be more cautious. Or the next one. Or we’d eventually run out of rockets. We didn’t have many. She didn’t deserve to die, but neither did we. In a just universe, we could’ve coexisted. But the universe wasn’t just.

It was only gray.

Age of Ultron (movies)

After a lot of thought and plenty of eavesdropping on the conversation about Age of Ultron, I’ve decided to add my own thoughtful analysis to the discussion because this is the internet and I am a public figure (technically) who is renowned for my love of the superhero genre. Also, I have opinions and am more than willing to share them, but this makes me no different than your average schmuck on the internet. Still, as a fame-ish person who has been a fan of these characters and worlds for longer than I’ve actually been writing, hopefully, I can offer some unique insight.

First thing: We all have to admit that Age of Ultron would have a hard time being as awesome and groundbreaking as the original Avengers. The first Avengers film is a moment in cinematic history and when a diverse cast of characters shared the big screen in a world-shattering adventure, there really hadn’t been anything like it before in the world of movies. Comic book superheroes had been teaming up for ages in their original medium, but a film that did it was something most comic book fans never thought they’d see. And then there’s that famous shot (still iconic) where the camera pans around the team as they stand united against an alien threat ready to destroy the world. It’s a moment, like the death star blowing up, like Mrs. Bates skeleton sitting in that rocking chair, that became instantly defining.

Age understands this. It doesn’t try to duplicate the awe of that moment and instead, has the iconic group shot within minutes of the film’s beginning. It’s a cool image, but by now, we’ve had years to grow accustomed to this idea. Having all these superheroes working together is expected. It won’t fill us with glee in the way it once did. Like a long-term relationship, our fevered anticipation of next seeing that special someone is now replaced with comfortable familiarity. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is unavoidable.

The other factor, beyond the quality of the film itself, is that people are waiting for the first official “Marvel failure”. They’ve been waiting for it for years. They predicted it with Guardians of the Galaxy and gosh, were they ever wrong. And they’re predicting it with Ant-Man because, ostensibly, it’s a movie about a guy named Ant-Man, but really it’s because for a noteworthy percentage of people, there’s always something satisfying about watching someone successful fall on their face. It’s human nature.

And then there’s the anti-superhero film faction who just don’t care for the genre. Their reasons vary, some more legitimate than others, and superhero film fatigue is understandable at this point. It doesn’t change the fact that superhero movies and TV shows aren’t going anywhere soon.

The meta text of cultural expectations has a lot in invested in the success and/or failure of Age, and it’s almost impossible to judge the film on its own merits. We have warring factions of nostalgia, fatigue, pretense (on both sides), feminism, masculinism, and just about everything else. It might seem odd that a movie about a killer robot fighting a team of superheroes would draw such discussion, but here we are.

So let’s break it down shall we?

AS A STORY, Age of Ultron is skillfully executed for the most part. It has the traditional problem ensemble superhero comics have always had. It’s not easy to juggle a diverse cast of characters with their own storylines and identities while creating a larger framework for them to participate in as a group. It’s harder still when it’s a movie. Avengers did a solid job of this overall, but it was about half-an-hour longer than Age. Apparently, Age was intended to run somewhere along three hours, but was chopped down to two.

That shows. Things are rushed. The secondary characters get the worst of this. Ultron gets to chew the scenery a bit, but his motivations are vaguely defined as Evil Robot Who Wants to Kill People. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver work okay, but their sudden change of heart and acceptance into the team skirts believability and is more of a function of necessity than any earned story points. It doesn’t end with those characters though, even Captain America and Iron Man get to do little more than be broad versions of themselves who show up for a little patter. And Vision . . .

Well, Vision just shows up and beats up a few bad guys and gives a few pretty speeches.

The action scenes are inventive and dynamic. Whether its Captain America and Black Widow fighting Ultron on a moving truck or Iron Man throwing down with the Hulk, there’s a lot to recommend here. But the final showdown is mostly just nameless robots being punched down by our heroes. There is a moment that promises more when Ultron faces down the heroes, only to be quickly and summarily defeated. Yes, the shot where Thor, Vision, and Iron Man triple blast Ultron is cool, but it highlights how underpowered Ultron feels. Sure, he has dozens of spare bodies around, but the well-established Conservation of Ninjitsu tells us that the more ninjas you’re fighting, the less powerful they are individually. I’d have much preferred one very powerful Ultron versus dozens of weak minions.

Overall, as a story, Age is functional, but it isn’t flawless. And I can’t help but feel that another twenty minutes to an hour would’ve helped clear up those problems. And that’s not something I say very often.

Also, many of the beats are just too familiar. It was a wonderful moment when Hulk smashed Loki mid-villain bluster. It isn’t quite so wonderful when Hulk does something very similar to Ultron. And our heroes fighting off waves of goons, while visually appealing, is a bit too much like the first movie to really wow.

AS CULTURAL REFLECTION, the film carries a lot of weight, not all of it gracefully. Like in the comic books, everyone has their favorite character, and everyone is going to feel short changed in one way or another. As a fan of the Vision, I would’ve loved for him to be more prominent. As a fan of Ultron, I would’ve loved for him to be my “Loki”, that standout character that everyone ends up loving. But, let’s be honest, that has as much to do with Tom Hiddleston’s looks as it does with anything else. And not many people, aside from myself, are going to find a robot as visually appealing.

Undoubtedly, the most burdened character is Black Widow. As the only female member of the team, she is torn in a hundred different directions. I felt the movie handled her very well, but that’s my perspective. What about the others?

There are those who complain she has been demoted to “Team Mother”. I have a hard time with that criticism. She isn’t the Mom. She’s support. She isn’t a heavy hitter. She can’t go toe-to-toe with Ultron. Like Hawkeye, she’s there to back up the more powerful characters yet nobody calls Hawkeye “Fatherly”. Probably because Cap fills that role more obviously. The unspoken assumption, especially here in the U.S.A., is that the guy who throws the punch is the hero and that everyone else is unimportant.

This is what we shall call nonsense.

It’s dismissive of the contributions she makes to the team. It’s dismissive of support characters in general. And it’s dismissive of the idea of a character being strong without them having to be the physically strongest. Black Widow is shown, repeatedly, to be a valued member of the team. She’s never looked down upon. She’s never seen as dead weight. She accomplishes essential mission points, and she does so while surrounded by powerhouses. She’s capable, smart, and clearly belongs here.

“But she gets kidnapped…” No. She gets captured, while setting back Ultron’s plans. And she uses that opportunity to give the team vital info. Sure, Bruce Banner breaks her out of her cell, but that’s what being on a team means. Someone always has your back.

“But she calls herself a monster because she can’t have kids…” No. She calls herself a monster. She also notes she can’t have kids. Those are two entirely different points. In the previous Avengers it was established that she wasn’t always a good guy and as a spy and an assassin, she’d done some bad things. And, yes, she was sterilized. The editing on this is a bit weak, but to suggest that the character thinks being infertile means she’s a bad person is to completely ignore the entire history of the character in favor of the most patently uncharacteristic (both of the character and the movies) interpretation.

“But she’s all girly and falls in love and stuff…” Yes. But having a romantic subplot doesn’t automatically reduce Black Widow to a one-note character. She’s a person. She’s allowed to be more than just a butt-kicking robot. Her romance with Bruce Banner is a bit informed, but it’s not unimaginable. It could have easily happened off camera between the first film and the second. A lot of these complaints are also about whether or not she would fall in love with someone like Bruce Banner, and to that, I say get over it.

Yes, we all have our fantasy pairings, but life is complicated. People don’t always end up with whom we expect. The obvious pairing would’ve been Hawkeye and Black Widow, but the movie quietly and efficiently subverts that expectation. And good for it that it does. Widow and the Hulk have never been a pairing in the comic books, but the movie sets it up well enough. Just because some will prefer her with some other pairing doesn’t make this one illegitimate.

Granted, this is classic Joss Whedon “Relationships as Conflict”. She’s a superspy. He’s a rage monster. They can’t be together. It’s tiresome to a degree, and I’m sick and tired of relationships being seen as nothing more than a source of conflict. But it does make sense for these two characters.

“But she doesn’t have any toys or her own movie yet…” And here we have the most common legitimate criticism of Marvel’s handling of Black Widow. She should have toys. She should have had her own movie. Heck, the Hulk got two movies. Meanwhile, Black Widow (and Hawkeye) wait quietly in the wings. That’s just not right. The problem of “Girl Superheroes” and their perceived relevance and commercial viability is a very real one. (Just as the lack of diversity in all areas is.) This needs to be corrected, and it needs to be corrected sooner than later.

On Joss Whedon: The complaints that Joss Whedon isn’t a feminist because he made choices with a character that some might disagree with or a crude joke made by Tony Stark are startling in their myopia. It’s as if the years of work Whedon has built creating interesting female characters no longer count, as if it was all erased because of one movie.  It’s insulting to Whedon’s body of work, and while he’s not the flawless god creator he’s often made out to be (who is?), to say that Black Widow is a huge step back for feminism is bullshit.

On the Marvel Movies: Everything that’s happening with the Marvel movies, every cultural hiccup, every internet blow up, has happened to comic book superheroes before. As a long-time aficionado of superheroes and their shared universe methods, I’ve watched this dance a hundred times. Age is probably the first movie though to fall dangerously close to creating a story more interested in setting up the next story than being interesting itself. This is why I’ve never been able to get into Agents of SHIELD. The show’s main purpose seems to be to support and set up the movies, and if it isn’t strong enough on its own, why should I care?

Age has a lot of this going on. Iron Man and Captain America’s personality conflict is foreshadowed, but not pursued because that’s for another movie. The Hulk leaves the team, setting up his inevitable return in the next film. And the Vision and the Infinity Gem are there to be used further down the line. Even Ultron comes across as a filler villain, someone to menace the team while we wait for a more dangerous villain to show up. The mid-credit teaser pretty much says this with the appearance of Thanos who has been a teaser villain for several films now, even if he hasn’t actually done anything.

This sort of continuity driven storytelling is rife with pitfalls, and it’s honestly why I stopped reading mainstream superhero comics years ago. It is also why eventually I’ll probably stop going to these movies. But for now, it isn’t a gamebreaker in Age.

On My Inner Nerd: Not many people are talking about Scarlet Witch and how the movie completely reworks her powers. This is actually one of the most troubling aspects of the film for me. The Marvel movies have done remarkably well by sticking true to the original material, but Scarlet Witch is the first character who is actually nearly completely reworked for convenience’s sake. And that’s not a good sign either.

Final Thoughts: Age of Ultron is a good movie, not a great one. Its position at the center of a cultural zeitgeist means that it is doomed to be be disappointing to many. Everyone will have their pet peeves, their expectations, their own interpretation. In the end, it’s a good superhero flick with some flaws, but it gets the job done. It’s biggest sin is that we are no longer in a place to be wowed by this sort of spectacle. It’s a victim of its own success and our own indifference. Could it have been better? Most definitely, but it’s still pretty good.

And maybe that’s the problem: People wanted the impossible, and nobody agreed just on what type of impossible they wanted. So relax. Enjoy. It’s a fun movie. A smart movie. A decent follow up to Avengers. And isn’t that good enough?

It was for me.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

First Day (short fiction)

Jago Jones

 

Jago was too old to go back to school, but the Secret Masters hadn’t given her many choices. After a few aptitude tests and some paperwork, she was approved for The Academy, where the best and the brightest in the unique skills required to rule the world went. Then she was drugged and transported to a hidden location.

She awoke in her dorm room to the a steady thunk of her new roomie throwing knives at a target on the wall. Jago sat up, rubbed her temple.

“Slight headache, huh?” asked her roommate, a dark, young woman in a Che Guevara T-shirt. Winding black cloth wrapped around her face, covering everything but her light brown eyes. “The stuff they use doesn’t usually have any side effects. Probably your age.”

She tossed a knife without looking at the target and still hit it near the center.

Jago went to the window and found it locked.

“Security,” said her roommate. “For our protection. So what are you here for? I’m on an assassination scholarship.”

“Weapons,” replied Jago.

“Cool. I’m Whisper. Whisper Pernicious.”

“Jago Jones. What kind of name is Whisper Pernicious?”

“What kind of name is Jago Jones? We all have names like that here. Except for Tim Guzman. Honestly, what kind of Secret Master name is Tim Guzman?”

Jago laughed. “What’s with the mask?”

Whisper shrugged. “Family tradition.”

Jago stared out the window. The campus sprawled out, looking like a very normal college aside from the armed guards and one kid accompanied by a very large robot. She spotted some mountains in the distance, but she didn’t recognize them and she doubted she would.

Whisper spoke up from over Jago’s shoulder. Jago hadn’t heard Whisper move, hadn’t sensed her presence until she’d spoken. “I thought there’d be more albinos myself. That’s probably totally unfair to albinos though, who are mostly just regular people, right?”

“Right.”

The door opened, and a tall, striking pale woman with dark black eyes entered carrying a clipboard. The eyes said she wasn’t a true albino, but with nearly colorless skin and long, white hair, she was close. She smiled. Her teeth were filed into points.

“Jones, Pernicious, I’m your student advisor and enforcer. My name is Ms. Eburnean. Do not challenge me, and we will get along fine. Displease me, and I can have you removed at my slightest displeasure. Is that understood?”

They nodded.

“Good. We’re having new student orientation in an hour. Don’t be late. Afterward, there will be a mixer for student and faculty. I recommend you attend this as well. Your future might very well depend on it.”

She checked something on her form and nodded to them. “Welcome to The Academy, ladies.”

They waited a few moments after she’d stepped into the hall before daring to speak.

“They say Eburnean once axed a student just for ending a sentence with a preposition,” said Whisper. “I think she still has the axe hanging up in her office.”

She jumped onto her bed. Somehow, the squeaky mattress didn’t make a sound. She threw a knife into the target and groaned. “Still a millimeter to the right.”

Someone had already unpacked her stuff. Jago found her knives in a drawer and handed one to Whisper. “Try this.”

Whisper threw, and the blade sank dead center. “Nice. Where’d you get it?”

“Made it. I mostly work high tech, but old school is a hobby.” She pulled out a katana from under her bed and used it to slice off a section of the bedpost in one, quick slice.

“Sweet,” said Whisper, who Jago could sense smiling under her mask. “I think you and I will get along just fine, Jones.”

Jago smiled. “I think so too, Pernicious.”

The Edge of Flames (short fiction)

Wren and Hess

 

Hess, like all lizardfolk, had little use for gods. It was assumed by his race that their goddess had laid the eggs from which the first of his kind hatched and then wandered away to leave them to fend for themselves. She would return one day to devour those souls that met with her disapproval, but there wasn’t much to be done about it, so they didn’t bother with worship.

Wren had even less use for gods, but her family felt some comfort when she offered a bit of tribute to the goddess of justice and the god of guardians. She found something unpleasant about believing either deity was more concerned with the size of their temples than in actually doing their job, but if gods truly were the same as mortals, just infinitely more powerful, it wouldn’t have surprised her.

The city itself supported many gods by necessity. The god of disease kept plaque away when the overwhelmed sanitation system backed up. The goddess of vermin kept the rats from eating everything. The god of prosperity ensured that a healthy economy. But most importantly, the god of fire kept the whole place from burning to the ground.
This had already happened twice before. Huge swaths of the city had been reduced to blackened ruins, and it was a safe bet that one errant flame in the wrong batch of dry hay would set the city afire. But since appeasing the god of fire with the grandest temple in the District of Heavens, things had been more contained. The goddess of vermin, in her jealousy, had allowed the rats to breed a little more and the god of disease occasionally allowed a bad cold through, but it was better than watching the merciless, hungry flames devour everything.

And now the fire god’s temple was nothing but ash and charred wood. It shouldn’t have been possible, and the Tower had dispatched a task force to get to the bottom of it. Wren and Hess were part of it, but their job so far involved keeping the gawkers at bay.

“Step back, please,” said Hess to the crowd.

“Tower business,” said Wren.

They stood side-by-side with other mid-level constables while inspectors, magi, and alchemists did their job among the ashes.

“Join the Constabulary,” muttered Wren. “Be the thin line between law and chaos.”

“Crowd control is a valued part of law enforcement,” said Hess, but he was as annoyed as she was. There were more important jobs for them to be doing now. They had their own patrols to walk, their own cases to deal with. If the god of justice gave a damn about this city, he still needed help from a good constable now and then.

“What happened?” asked a round elf.

“Nothing to see here, citizen,” said Hess, although the scorched ruins of the fire god’s temple was very definitely something to see.

“Move along now,” said Wren. “So mortal or god?” she asked Hess.

He stroked the quills under his chin. “If it was a mortal, they’d have to have tremendous power. If it was a god . . . . ”

The city had enough problems without a holy war breaking out. For the most part, the gods and their representatives enjoyed a truce and tolerance, but like all truces, it was only as strong as the honor of its participants and like most tolerances, it was more about practicality than acceptance.

“How would you even arrest a god?” wondered Hess.

“Very carefully,” said Wren.

Chief Inspector Scoria, a dwarf in a long blue coat that trailed behind him on the ground, approached them. “The Lord Priest of the temple has requested an escort to the Tower. You two will take care of that.”

Wren and Hess saluted, happy to be doing something more useful than telling people to ignore what was definitely not worth ignoring.

They rode a Tower carriage to the Lord Priest’s house, built on the high ground, above the muck and the filth. It was good business appeasing the gods, and at least most acknowledged it. The irony as they passed the poverty god’s priest’s three story manor went uncommented upon.

The fire Lord Priest’s house was the largest in the neighborhood, and it was strange that he requested an escort when he had a small force of highly trained personal guard stationed around the place. But it was most likely the prestige of having the Tower at his beck and call that appealed to him.

They were met by a pair of guards in the foyer. “His Lordship will be right with you.” They left Wren and Hess alone in the room, closing the massive doors with a heavy clunk. It wasn’t surprising that they were kept waiting. It was the Lord Priest’s reminder that he was more important than them and the office they represented.

Hess turned his head. His tongue darted out.

“What is it?” asked Wren. Hess only flicked when he smelled something particularly interesting.

“Not sure.” He tasted the air several more times. “Something . . . familiar.”

“Familiar, how?”

“Ash. Smoke. Something else.”

“He does serve the fire god,” said Wren.

Hess pulled back a tapestry to reveal a door. No surprise there, but he pressed his snout into it. “Something’s in there. Something suspicious.”

Wren raised her leg to kick in the door.

He stepped in front of her. “We should wait for Tower permission.”

“You know we’ll never get it.”

“If we knock down that door . . . . ”

“Then we’re doing our job.” She pushed him aside and kicked it open with a swift kick. The lock wasn’t strong. The Lord Priest assumed, rightly, not many would have the foolhardy conviction to break it down.

They followed the spiral staircase down into a basement laboratory. The stench of burning wood and ash grew stronger. A brazier burned in the center of a magic circle. It didn’t strike them as especially suspicious for a priest of fire.

“You realize you just cost us our jobs,” said Hess.

“You’re the one who said you smelled something suspicious. I was just following your lead. At least, that’s what I’ll tell the Tower when the review comes up.”

“Thanks.”

The fire in the brazier burned brighter. “Who’s there? You’re not him.”

“We’re not,” said Wren. “Who are you?”

“I am the god of fire, and if you release me, I shall reward you in ways beyond mortal imaginings.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said a voice from above. The Lord Priest, a tall, lean figure in silk robes, wearing copious amounts of gold and silver, descended the staircase with several guards. “It is only my wards that keep the god in check.”

The flames flared. “Liar. You betrayed me, tricked me into this trap.”

“A necessary deception,” said the Lord Priest. “Mortals shouldn’t be beholden to the pernicious whims of gods. We offer our sacrifices, our temples, our worship, and all you offer in return is to leave us alone. And if it suits you, you can destroy us at any time. Even without the interference of the gods, we dance on the edge of flames. Surely, as officers of peace, you understand why a more secure arrangement would be desired.”

“And it’s better that you hold the power than a god?” asked Wren.

“Of course. All I want is to protect this city and some small reward for my work. I’m not without flaws, but at least I am a mortal. My needs, simple. My failings, minor.”

“You’re dripping in gold,” said Wren.

“Is a little gold too much to ask for keeping things safe?”

“We had a deal,” said the god of fire. “You can’t go back on a deal.”

“The terms of the deal have changed, for the good of all of us,” said the Lord Priest. “If the god of fire is released, he will no doubt burn this city to the ground in his wrath.”

“I will not.”

The Lord Priest smiled. “Of course he would say that.”

“If the god is under your control, how did the temple burn?” asked Hess.

“An accident. His power can’t be completely contained, and he lashed out.”

“Three of your own priests died in that fire,” said Wren.

“An unfortunate sacrifice. They will be honored.”

“Easy to say when you don’t have to make the sacrifice.”

The Lord Priest glared. “I sense you aren’t going to be reasonable about this.”

“You sense right,” said Wren. “You’re under arrest for . . . well . . . I’m not sure what the crime is yet, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out once we get you to the Tower.” She drew her flintlock as the priest’s personal guard step forward.

“You couldn’t let it go, could you?” Hess drew his sword.

She smiled. “You know me, partner.”

“A pity,” said the Lord Priest. “Destroy them, my faithful servant.”

The god of fire roared up as a long, snaking serpent of red and white flame. “I’m sorry, but I have no choice.”

He struck and would’ve surely incinerated Wren and Hess in an instant if not something else. The glowing golden figure held the serpent in her steel gauntlets. The goddess of justice looked different than her idols. She wrestled with the god of fire.

“Kill them, you idiots,” ordered the Lord Priest.

His guard stepped forward, and Hess moved to meet them.

Wren whirled and fired, blasting a leg out from the brazier. It fell over. Its coals spilled across the floor and a handful rolled out of the magic circle keeping the god in check.

“No!” yelled the Lord Priest.

“Yes!” yelled the god of fire as he stopped fighting the goddess of justice. He exhaled white hot flame that burned the flesh off the guards, leaving only blackened bones behind. The Lord Priest turned to run, but the serpent swallowed him whole. When Wren looked closely, she could see the silhouette of the priest in the serpent’s belly, and if she listened, she could hear his screams echoing.

The fire god turned toward Wren and Hess and bowed before vanishing. The goddess of justice saluted them. They saluted back as she disappeared in a flash of light.

The moment they stepped out of the manor, it burst aflame.

“Maybe it would’ve been better to keep him locked away,” said Hess. “Gods can be unreliable.”

“So we don’t rely on them,” she replied. “And maybe the Lord Priest had a point, but it doesn’t make it right.”

“And if the city goes up in flames?”

“We do our jobs, Partner. Like always. And hope to hell the gods do theirs.”

They rode away as the Lord Priest’s manor collapsed into a heap of burning rubble.

Moving In (short fiction)

Divine Misfortune

 

 

Lucky, raccoon god of fortune, gave Janet a tour of his new fully furnished condominium.

“Holy crap,” she said. “How much square footage is this?”

Lucky grinned. “Pretty nice, right? And you haven’t even seen the bathroom. Or the kitchen.”

“You don’t cook.”

He shrugged. “I could cook. If I wanted to.”

“Sure you could, baby.” She tweaked his ear.

He showed her the rest of the place. It culminated with the bedroom with a king-sized bed, walk-in closet, and a killer view of the city below. It wasn’t Olympus, but a minor god could do worse.

“Some guy needed some good fortune and didn’t need the place,” said Lucky. “Thought he’d hand it over to me as tribute for a tax write off. So what do you think?”

“I think it’ll be amazing. It’s even closer to my job, cut down on my commute.”

Lucky’s smile dropped.

“We’ll have to redecorate a little,” she said. “That painting in the dining room will have to go. And a new rug in the living room would probably be nice. But I think we’ll be very happy here.”

“About that . . . . ” he said.

“Oh no. No, Lucky.” She folded her arms. “No way are you talking your way out of this. You said as soon as you had a place big enough, we’d move in together.”

“It’s really not that big.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been dating for three years now. Three years.”

“I just don’t see why we need to rush into things.”

“It’s not rushing. Some of us are mortal. I can’t wait around forever.”

“Yeah, but . . . . ”

“I cannot believe we have to have this conversation again. I know the deal, Lucky. I know how this works. Long after I’m dead and gone, you’ll be off with some new lady. But in the sixty or seventy years I have left, I expect some commitment.”

Lucky smiled, employing his full godly charms. He could get away with pretty much anything. So far, he’d managed to avoid meeting her parents and gotten her to overlook that time she’d caught him flirting with nymphs. But she had to draw a line somewhere.

“I’m kidding,” he said. “Of course, you can move in. Surprise!”

“Uh huh.” She knelt down and kissed his furry forehead. “That’s what I thought.”

He glanced toward the bed. “So do you want to break the place in?”

“In a minute. This reminds me. I was talking to Mom and Dad the other day—”

“Oh, shoot, look at the time.” Lucky glanced at his wrist, though he didn’t wear a watch. “I forgot about this thing I’m supposed to do. Nothing important. God stuff. Good talk, baby. We’ll pick this up later.”

He encased himself in a glowing bubble and passed through the window. He paused to mouth the words “Love ya, babe” and wink at her.

That wink got him out of trouble way too often.

She winked back and blew him a kiss before he vanished into the distance.

There were special challenges to dating a god, even a minor god like Lucky, but with Italian tile and a refrigerator the size of a Cadillac, she was willing to overlook a lot.

She sat on her brand new bed in her brand new condo and enjoyed the glorious view of the city below.