A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 23

A Day at the Beach (short fiction)

Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest

 

It wasn’t always easy dating the most perfect man in the world, but Helen had gotten used to it. It helped that Troy wasn’t quite as perfect as he appeared. Dating a person always showed their flaws. He left towels on the floor, for instance. He was an okay dancer. He didn’t eat broccoli, and when he was a kid, he’d throw a tantrum even at the mere thought of it. They were small things, but they added up. Troy might have been amazing, but Helen had been with him long enough to know he was human.

Troy’s sister, however, was a different story.

Imogen emerged from the ocean, and all eyes turned to her. She was beautiful, sleek put powerful, somewhere between a gymnast and a ballet dancer. Her long, black hair shimmered in the sunlight, and she strode across the beach with the confidence of a goddess.

Helen tried not to stare, but it was hard not to.

She’d never been fond of the beach. The sand always worked its way between her hooves, wound up in her fur. She didn’t have a conventional beach body. She couldn’t pull off a two piece like Imogen. She wasn’t the woman many looked at, which she’d long ago accepted, but was made more obvious when Imogen came over, set beside Helen on the towel, and rendered Helen, for all practical purposes, invisible.

“Aren’t you going for a swim?” asked Imogen, slipping on a pair of sunglasses.

“Maybe later,” said Helen, though she didn’t swim. Not this early in the day. She’d spend hours smelling like a wet dog. She wasn’t quite as self-conscious about that as she used to be, but she didn’t see a reason to pester people with that.

A beach ball bounced over to them. There were a hell of a lot of beach balls and Frisbees and friendly little dogs finding their way to their section of the beach, usually attached to handsome young men who would request “a little help” and invite Imogen (and Helen by necessity) for a friendly game of volleyball or to have some beers or just hang.

“A little help,” said a young man with ridiculous abs.

Helen tossed the ball at him and he didn’t hide his disappointment.

“Sorry about that,” said Imogen. “I know it gets annoying.”

“I can imagine,” replied Helen.

And she could. In a way, it wasn’t much different than her own problems. Most people never got past the horns and fur. Imogen’s horn and furs were a beautiful face and a fantastic ass. The nature of the attention was different, but it all came down to the same superficial reflex.

“Do you ever wish you were a little less . . . attractive?” asked Helen.

“No, not really,” replied Imogen. “There are hassles, but also, perks. I have never bought a drink at a bar. Ever. And if I want a guy, I can usually get him. I get treated better overall, which is maybe terrible to admit, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I took advantage of it now and then. Do you ever wish you were a little less . . . minotaur?”

“Sometimes.”

Helen adjusted her one piece. She had bigger boobs than Imogen at least, but that was because she had bigger everything.

“I’m sorry. That was rude,” said Imogen.

“No. It wasn’t. We don’t have to pretend like this isn’t something about me everyone notices. How could they not? And I’d be lying if I wouldn’t be tempted to look more like you.”

A football bounced over.

“Okay, maybe a little less like you.”

“I wouldn’t mind looking a little like you now and then,” said Imogen. “Especially the superstrength. I bet that’s pretty awesome.”

Helen picked up the ball and crushed it. She tossed the husk at some surfer dude, and she didn’t feel bad about it.

“Yes, the superstrength is pretty cool,” she said.

Troy appeared, handed her a cherry snowcone and sat next to her.

“So what are you two talking about?”

“Oh just girl stuff,” said Imogen.

Helen put her arm around Troy and allowed her tail to flop around contentedly.

“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “Girl stuff.”

An Imperfect World (short fiction)

The Automatic Detective

 

It was safe bet I’d been to more galas and grand social events than your average private detective / killer robot. When you were dating the Princess of Empire, as the social pages liked to call Lucia, you had to adapt beyond expected mission protocols. It wasn’t something I was made for, but I got by.

Tonight wasn’t about Lucia for once. It was the annual policeman’s charity ball, and while the flatfoots and I didn’t always get along, it never hurt to get on their good side. So Lucia wrote them a check for some tickets, and I found myself sitting in a room with some of Empire City’s finest alongside the cream of high society.

I checked my bowtie again.

“Stop that, Mack,” said Lucia. “It’s fine.”

I could bend steel, but somehow, the tux I wore felt constrictive.

Detective Sanchez, along with his wife Rosa, shared the table. The furball was the only cop in this town who always had my back. He was also the only guy at the table who looked more uncomfortable than me.

“Our guys,” said Rosa to Lucia. “I think they’d rather be out there risking their necks than enjoying a nice dinner with us.”

Sanchez fiddled with his cuffs. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he said with a slight scowl. It was hard to pull off, what with his little pink nose and whiskers, but he managed.

I might’ve been frowning myself, but there were benefits to not having a mouth.

“Maybe we should find two more amenable gentlemen,” said Lucia with a smile.

“Ah, baby, you knew I was a cop when you married me,” said Sanchez.

He had a point, but so did they. Lucia and Rosa were special ladies. Not because they conformed to the arbitrary standards of physical beauty of the moment. Those were always changing anyway.

In a perfect world, everything would be put together with care and finding a match would be as simple as filling out a punch card. But this wasn’t a perfect world. It was a planet full of biologicals, of the worst, most inefficient form of R&D via the mixing and remixing of genetic material. It was statistically unlikely to produce anything worthwhile, but after millions of years of good effort and ignoble failures, it’d managed to end up with Lucia. I might not have endorsed the system, but I sure as hell couldn’t fault the results.

I’d told Lucia that once, and she’d said I’d had the literary synthesizer of a poetry-generating computer.

I put my arm around Lucia. Rosa tugged playfully at Sanchez’s whiskers, and he smiled, despite himself. We’d defied the law of averages, and we knew it.

I spent the next thirty-three minutes engaged in small talk with the rest of the table. I’d never envied biologicals, but I did sometimes wish I had to eat. It would’ve given me something to do. Instead, I sat there, scanning people eating overpriced food in very small portions and processed inane conversations about nothing important. Sometimes, I’d offer a comment, but I was a simple bot. I didn’t follow sports. I didn’t care about the weather. And the latest fashion news didn’t engage my interest.

Sanchez wasn’t much different. He wasn’t a bot, but he was a good cop and that occupied a lot of his time and processing power. Didn’t leave time for much else.

The band played a slow waltz, and Lucia took my hand. “C’mon, Mack. Time to cut a rug.”

I didn’t fight her. I wasn’t a good dancer, but Lucia didn’t care, so neither did I. Anything that made her smile was just fine by me.

A waiter approached Sanchez and handed him a phone. Rosa got a look on her face I’d scanned before. She didn’t need an anticipation protocol to know what was happening next.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be right there.” He hung up. “Sorry, doll, but we’ve got a madwoman with an unlicensed industrial strength deathray threatening to wreak—and I quote—glorious vengeance upon her enemies.”

She sighed. “Sure, Alfredo, sure. I understand.” She kissed him. “Just come home in one piece.”

He tossed his napkin on the table and jogged toward the exit.

I loosened my tie.

“Where do you think you’re going, Mister?” asked Lucia.

“You heard him. Deathray. Glorious vengeance.”

“Oh no. Not this time.” She adjusted my tie. “Sanchez can save the city just fine without you. I paid way too much money to be here by myself.”

“But—”

She reached up and put a finger on my faceplate. “No buts. You’re going to dance with your girlfriend, Pal, and you’re going to like it. Then maybe you’ll dance with Rosa if I’m not feeling too jealous about that.”

Rosa said, “You wouldn’t happen to know how to samba, would you?”

Lucia smiled at me, and I would’ve smiled too, if I’d been able. But she knew anyway. She always seemed to know.

“Whatever you say, Princess.”

“That’s my bot,” said Lucia as she led me to the dance floor.

Boulder (short fiction)

Cindy and Cragg

 

Cindy and Laura made it to the hospital without getting in a wreck. It was a miracle in itself, considering how recklessly Cindy drove through midday traffic. There were at least a half-dozen near misses, and probably more she hadn’t noticed in her haste.

They ran into emergency admittance, trying not to think the worst but thinking it anyway. The nurse at the desk directed them to the waiting area and said they’d be notified when there was news.

Cindy fidgeted in her uncomfortable plastic chair. She glanced at the admittance nurse. “I’m going to check again.”

Laura took Cindy’s hand. “Mom, stop.”

“I just want to know—”

“Mom . . . . ” Laura’s voice trailed off. She didn’t know what else to say.

Cindy took in a deep breath, closed her eyes. The antiseptic smell of the hospital nauseated her. She hated this place. It reminded her of the room she’d waited in when her grandmother had died. Her good grandmother. The one who baked cookies and called her “Pumpkin”.

“He’s not supposed to get hurt,” she said. “How can he get hurt?”

“He’s tough, Mom,” said Laura. “Not invincible.”

Cindy saw the towering Saturnite in her mind. She couldn’t imagine anything short of a bomb harming him.

“Why won’t they tell me he’s okay?” she asked. “I’m going to ask again.”

“Mom . . . ” Laura let go of Cindy’s hand. “Okay.”

Cindy asked. They still didn’t have any news for her. She sat back down. She hated this feeling.

“I just don’t want anything . . . I just . . . what’s the point in dating a rock man from outer space if shit like this can happen?”

“It’ll be okay, Mom.”

Laura was trying to be strong, but Cindy saw the tears forming in her daughter’s eyes. They’d both become fond of Cragg. More than fond. They loved the big lug.

“I’m sorry, honey.” Cindy hugged her daughter. “I know this is tough for you too. I’m supposed to be the mom.”

“You get to be Terran too, Mom.”

Cindy squeezed Laura tight. It was comforting to have something, someone, to hold onto. She couldn’t imagine going through this alone.

Going through what? she wondered. All they really knew was that Cragg was hurt, had been in some kind of accident. Why did she think the worst? Maybe it was human nature. Assume the end of the world that way when it wasn’t, no matter how bad it was, you could feel better about it.

“It’ll be okay, Mom,” said Laura, her voice breaking.

Cindy wiped away Laura’s tears. “No crying. Not yet. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

Laura nodded. “Yeah.”

A doctor came for them forty-one minutes later. Cindy knew because she counted every one as it dragged its way across the waiting area. They were taken to Cragg, who sat in a room by himself. He had some surgical epoxy across a gash in his stone face and his right arm, a fresh crater in the forearm, was in a sling. In his other hand, he held a small brown dog.

“He wouldn’t put it down,” said the doctor.

Cindy and Laura embraced Cragg. The dog yipped.

“He should be okay,” said the doctor. “We thought we might have to keep him for observation for that head injury, but scans came back okay.”

“You big idiot,” said Cindy. “Don’t they teach you not to walk in traffic on Saturn?”

“I saw this canine about to be struck by a bus,” replied Cragg.

“How’s the bus?” asked Laura.

“I didn’t take the time to find out,” said Cragg.

The dog hopped into Laura’s arms and started licking her face. “Cool. I always wanted a dog.”

“We’re not keeping him,” said Cindy.

“But, Mom, Cragg was nearly killed saving him.”

“I was only slightly injured,” said Cragg.

“Regardless, don’t Saturnites have some kind of honor code? Once you save someone’s life, you have to take care of them or something like that?”

“We have no such code. If this beast wasn’t capable enough to ensure its own survival, it should be disposed of.”

“And you jumped in front of a bus for it because . . . ?” asked Laura.

Cragg sighed. “Because I have been on Terra perhaps too long.”

“You bet your ass you have, big guy. And on Terra, you save a dog, you have to keep it.”

“That’s not a Terran tradition,” said Cindy.

“Well, it should be.”

Cragg reached out with his good arm and patted the dog on his head. He yipped, wagging his tail, and squirming in Laura’s arms.

“Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to keep the creature around. At least, until it is full grown and can defend itself.”

“It’s already full grown,” said Laura. “It’s a Yorkie.”

The dog licked Cragg’s thumb. “If Terrans insist on breeding such creatures, it would be cruel to leave it to its fate.”

“That’s two to one, Mom,” said Laura. “Come on. He doesn’t have anyone, and the last stray you took in worked out pretty well.”

Cindy thought about saying all the requisite parent things. Laura would have to take care of the dog, feed him, walk him, give him baths. But it was all wasted breath. Cindy would be the one to do it.

Cragg took the tiny dog in one hand and smiled. Not a little smile either. She was glad to see it, and hoped to see it a lot more in the future.

“Fine, but I get to name him,” said Cindy.

“Deal.” Laura grabbed the dog and walked out of the room before Cindy could change her mind.

Cindy ran her fingers along the cracks in Cragg’s injured arm. “The next time you think about jumping in front of a bus, remember that some of us strange Terrans have grown fond of you.”

Cragg bent down and kissed her. “I have always been fond of the name Boulder.”

She hugged him again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

His arm around her, they followed Laura and Boulder to the car.

Girly Icky Stuff (writing)

Writing is tricky, especially in terms of gender roles.

The latest outrage seems to be that Black Widow is somehow “ruined” because she has a romantic subplot with Bruce Banner in Age of Ultron.

This is, frankly, bullshit.

The problem so often people seem to get confused about is their inherent bias toward “male” versus “female” stories OR “default” versus “specialized”. This is especially true when it comes to female action hero characters.

That Black Widow takes part in a story that has romantic overtones doesn’t mean she’s been reduced to a “girl”. It means she’s a human who does more than just kick ass and look hot. It means she has emotional investments in the characters around her, and that, despite being a hypercompetent spy, she is actually capable of romantic feelings. Y’know, icky girl stuff.

This happens again and again. When Tony Stark has a romantic subplot with Pepper Pots, it isn’t viewed as ruining his character. When Thor loves Jane Foster, it’s just considered part of his life. But if Black Widow so much as considers romantic feelings toward mild Bruce Banner, it’s seen as damaging to her character. Basically, she doesn’t have the right to be human. She has to be tough. She has to be so anti-”girl” that she can play in the boy’s club.

And let’s be honest. There’s also a bit of prejudice against male stereotypes too. I don’t think people would have the same problem if Black Widow liked Captain America or Tony Stark, two traditional alpha males, because in that position Black Widow takes the back seat. But Bruce Banner is the mild-mannered alter ego. He’s “the wimp”, and that simply isn’t allowed.

But it’s bullshit. You don’t make women interesting by abandoning all things “girly” about them. You don’t deny the full experience of a human being to a character simply because people don’t like it when females have feelings in male-centered movies.

Seriously, some people have to grow up.

More importantly, we all need to acknowledge the full range of human experience and romance and relationships are part of that range. They could play it safe, have the Black Widow be a genderless robot who existed only to beat up bad guys and power off anything even remotely human about her. But where would that get us? What kind of character would she be?

Having a lady kiss a guy (or even another lady for that matter) doesn’t automatically undo anything about her character. It doesn’t make her a one-dimensional sex object. It doesn’t negate the complexity of her being. It just acknowledges that there’s a lot to being human and kissing and hugging and feelings and stuff are a part of that.

Creating a character with no romantic life is no more progress than creating one that is entirely romantic life. And while there are some definite sins in the MCU, having Black Widow be a person isn’t one of them. And if you think it is, then maybe you should consider how you’ve been conditioned to view all things “girly”, even in the context of an epic superhero universe.

Magpie (short fiction)

Life in Rockwood

 

Everyone who called Rockwood home knew it was a special place with its own unique problems. Marshall Kopp had known it before becoming sheriff, and he couldn’t rightly complain about it now that dealing with those problems was his job.

Becka Rodriguez pointed to the empty spot on her dresser. “It was right there, Marshall, when I went to sleep. Then I woke up, and it was gone.”

“Mmmhmm.” Kopp flipped open his notebook. “And how much would you say is missing?”

“Seventy-four cents,” said Becka. “I counted it before I went to bed.”

“Mmmhmm.” He scribbled out the number for his notes.

“I wouldn’t have bothered normally, but what with the rash of thefts we’ve had lately, I thought I’d best be safer than sorry.”

“Not safe enough to hide your change,” said Kopp.

“It’s my change. This is my home. I shouldn’t have to hide it if you did your job.”

“Anything else missing?”

She led him to her kitchen, where she opened her junk drawer. “All my stray string and buttons are gone too.”

“Approximate value?”

“I don’t know, Sheriff. But I was saving them for emergencies. Now what am I supposed to do if Jose loses a button?”

“You could always go down to the store and purchase a bag of a hundred for five dollars.”

“I ain’t made of money. Anyway, that ain’t the point, and you know it. We’re dealing with a crime wave here, and you don’t seem concerned.”

“Settle down, Becka,” he said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, but you got to realize, finding a thief who specializes in loose change and buttons ain’t as easy as you might think.”

“Well, if you don’t stop this soon, I don’t know what we’ll do. It’s so a body doesn’t feel safe in their own bed anymore, what with thieving sorts wandering around unchecked in the night. Starts out with change. Ends up with murdering and who-knows-what?” She clutched her chest as if contemplating what the cannibal serial killer in training might be planning on doing.

All across town, people were reporting stolen bits and junk. Nothing big. Nothing valuable. Just a few coins here. Some keys, never used for any further crimes. Beads and shoelaces and a couple of balls of yarn. It was tempting to think of it as mass hysteria. People lost things all the time, and now they had a convenient boogie man to blame it on. And in any other town, Kopp would’ve taken the reports and not thought much more about it.

But this was Rockwood, where the weird could be harmless and the harmless could be weird. Once, a herd of cattle had died, reduced to skeletons in less than an hour. It’d only been the avatar of Famine passing through town, who was more than happy to pay a fine and be on his way. Once, the Beauregard Children had taken to piling stones in funny little towers and ended up almost summoning a slumbering Babylonian death god in their backyard. Kopp took it all in stride.

He was nearly finished taking Becka Rodriguez’s report when another call came in. Romie’s gravelly voice came over the radio clipped to his belt. “Marshall, the Carters say someone stole their son’s marbles.”

“Roger that, Romie.”

“Should I call in Dwayne?”

Rockwood was a sleepy little town, and a single sheriff was usually enough to deal with its problems. Dwayne wasn’t a full-time deputy. Just someone to call when things got busy.

“No, I’ll handle it.”

“Roger. I’ll let them know you’re on your way.”

“I’m telling you, Sheriff,” said Becka. “Unspeakable things are coming. Mark my words.”

Kopp nodded. He didn’t believe the worst. He never did. It’d drive him crazy if he took every little strange incident as a sign of the end of the world. His base philosophy was that as long as nobody was dead or missing, then things couldn’t be that bad.

***

Bernie and Selma Johnstone were dead. They sat on their old sofa, next to each other. He still clutched a beer in his hand, and her needlepoint in progress sat on her lap. There wasn’t a mark on either of them, and it looked like natural causes had taken them. It wasn’t that they were dead that made Kopp nervous. They were both pretty old, and both had had more than their share of health problems. Bernie’s ticker had been on borrowed time for years now, and nobody expected Selma to make it more than a year or two after her last bought with pneumonia.

But people didn’t usually die side-by-side like that. It was too much of a coincidence, and nobody in Rockwood cared much for coincidences, Kopp in particular.
Glenda Sampson had found their bodies. She liked to check on them. She knew the Johnstone’s better than most.

“Anything missing?” asked Kopp.

“Not that I noticed.” Glenda’s eyebrows raised as she whispered, for no apparent reason. “You don’t think this has anything to do with the crime wave, do you, Sheriff?”

Kopp pulled the brim of his Stetson lower. There weren’t many secrets in Rockwood. “Crime wave is a bit much, Glenda.”

“Do you think they were poisoned? Hexed maybe?”

“Now, Glenda, I never said anything of the sort. Don’t go running wild with that imagination of yours.”

“Heaven forbid.”

But calls would be made. Gossip would spread. By the end of the day, everyone would assume that witchcraft or voodoo or that poor Quaker family on the outskirts of town had used their evil powers to kill the Johnstones. There wasn’t anything Kopp could do about that.

She excused herself to start the gears turning, and he searched the house. He wasn’t sure what he would find or what he was looking for. The kinds of things that went missing lately weren’t obvious. The keys weren’t hanging on the hook by the door, but they could simply be misplaced. There wasn’t any loose change lurking in the couch cushions, but that didn’t mean anything. Even at her ripe old age, Selma had been a dedicated housekeeper. He’d almost given up when he found Bernie’s prized nearly-complete state quarters collection. Bernie had had some old grudge against New Hampshire, but the forty-nine other coins were all missing from the case.
Kopp called Romie, told her to bring in the coroner.

“So are we officially calling this a crime wave then?” she asked.

“Not yet, but maybe you should call Dwayne and tell him to be on standby. Just in case.”

***

The window opened, and the thief slipped in quietly. She tiptoed toward the pile of shiny coins, buttons, and colorful yarn sitting, unsecured, on the dining room table. She stuffed the valuables into a fanny pack.

Sheriff Kopp switched on the lights. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, his weapon undrawn. In the light, the thief’s black and white feathers covered her face as well as poking out from the edge of her sleeves. She had a small black beak too.

She eyed the window she’d come through.

“No point in that, Mags,” he said.

Her beak bent in a frown. “How did you know it was me?”

“I didn’t know who it was. I just set the bait and waited. How I recognized you, even in that form, you’re the only one I know who wears a Caltech T-shirt around here.”

She groaned. “Ah, shit. That was stupid of me. Am I under arrest now?”

“Sit down. Want something to drink? A beer? Got some orange juice too.”

Maggie Peterson sat at the table and had a beer. She poked it with her beak and drank deeply.

“So what are you? Some kind of lycanthrope?” he asked.

“Something like that,” she said. “More of a spirit host. Family thing. Too complicated to get into.”

“So why the change?”

“Just something I do when I’m under stress. What with the divorce lately, I’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“Sorry to hear about you and Bill,” said Kopp.

“Thanks. It’s for the best, really. But the magpie spirit in me, it doesn’t like being alone. Acts out then. I can usually keep it satisfied with spare change I find in the street and the occasional piece of stolen candy.”

“And the Johnstones?”

“I swear to you, Marshall, that was an accident. One magpie is bad luck. Guess when I broke into their place I pushed them over the edge. I knew it was a risk, but those coins . . . just couldn’t help myself. Am I under arrest?”

Kopp put his boots up on the table and leaned back. “Not like you intended any harm.”

“No, you should lock me up,” she said. “Throw away the goddamn key. I can’t stop. It’ll just get worse. I knew this was a trap. I knew it. And I still couldn’t stop myself.”

“You’ve lived in Rockwood for years,” said Kopp. “Don’t recall ever having this problem before.”

“I’ve always been in a relationship,” she replied.

“Is that why you’ve always dated that string of losers?”

“I wouldn’t say losers.”

Kopp smiled.

“I can’t afford to be picky,” she said.

“Funny. I always did wonder why you married Billy. Always assumed it was because he got you pregnant.”

“That was sort of on purpose,” she admitted. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s a good father at least.”

“Yeah.” Kopp tipped back his beer. “I’ll give him that. But you two never were a good fit.”

“Am I under arrest?” she asked.

Kopp leaned forward. “That all depends.”

“On what?”

“You want to go to a movie on Saturday?”

Maggie said, “Are you asking me out? My divorce isn’t even final yet.”

“Way I see it,” said Kopp, “you’re just a victim of circumstance. My job is to help you deal with those circumstances. Now, I could lock you up, but it ain’t right to put a bird in a cage when there are other options. We’ll find a way around this, one way or another. But I always liked you, Mags.”

“Even knowing this about me?”

“Hell, Mags, we all got our secrets. I’m not saying it’ll be anything permanent, but it’ll take the pressure of you for a while until a better guy comes along.”

She took his hand. The feathers disappeared. Her face became human again.

“I always liked you too, Marshall.”

He smiled at her.

“I know, Mags.”

Linda and Brynn Save and / or Destroy the Universe (short fiction)

The Martians probably weren’t from Mars, but they might as well have been. They were short and green, wearing bright red spacesuits complete with glass domes covering their extra large heads.

“Pardon us,” said the shortest of the very short aliens. “Could we borrow a cup of gadolinite?”

“Sorry. Fresh out,” said Linda. “We might have some Thulium we can spare.”

The two Martians chuckled.

“Geology humor,” said Linda to Brynn.

“Delightful,” replied Brynn without smiling.

“I am Xtor the Wise, and this is my mated mission partner, Xtar the Wise,” said one of the Martians. “May we come in?”

“This isn’t about Space Jesus, is it?” asked Linda.

“Fear not.” Said Xtar. “We are followers of the Church of Overmind Nog, and the Overmind deems humanity as beneath absorption.”

Xtor added, “Also, we left our conversion parasites at home, and human brains are deadly poisonous to the poor things.”

Linda let the Martians in. They had a seat on the sofa, and Brynn served some tea and cookies. The Martians couldn’t eat through their helmet, but they hold the cups and saucers in their long, delicate fingers. Just to be polite.

“What’s in the box?” asked Linda.

The plain brown package, big enough to hold a bowling ball, sat on the floor beside Xtar.

“A gift from the greater galactic civilations,” said Xtar.

“What’s in it?”

“A device beyond human comprehension. The most advanced technological achievement in the known universe. To some, a weapon of unlimited destruction. To others, a tool of peace to rival in a new golden age. And still others, nothing important at all.”

Brynn picked up the box. “May I?”

“By all means,” said Xtar.

Brynn undid the twine tying it shut and opened the box. Inside, there was only a small silver box, not much bigger than a remote control. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Your primitive intellect cannot understand it,” said Xtor.

Brynn flipped open a panel. “Is this the on button here?”

Xtar set her teacup down and held out her hand. “Yes, please, don’t press that unless you want to destroy and / or save and / or do nothing important to the universe.”

Brynn closed the panel, gave the device to Xtar.

“If it’s so dangerous and / or wonderful and / or unremarkable, why do you want to leave it with us?” asked Linda.

“The whole of intergalactic civilization couldn’t decide what, if anything, should be done with the device. It might be too dangerous to activate, and there are concerns that even destroying it would be a problem. No one trusts it in their own control, nor do they trust it in the control of anyone else. In the end, we held a secret ballot across the universe, and you two won.”

“I voted for Sarlok the Beneficial,” said Xtor. “No offense.”

“I told you you were wasting your vote with a write in.” said Xtar.

“How the hell did we win that?” asked Linda.

“Who knows? It was a secret ballot.” Xtar put the device back into its box and handed it to Brynn. “For whatever reason, it’s yours.”

“What are we supposed to do with it?” asked Brynn.

“Don’t ask us,” said Xtar. “It’s not our responsibility, thank Nog.”
The Martians left.

Brynn and Linda sat on the couch, studying the box.

“I say we push it,” said Brynn.

Linda picked up the box and put it in the hall closet, in the back, behind their old scrapbooking supplies and coats they didn’t wear anymore but couldn’t make themselves throw out because they might be handy to have some day.

“You know you want to push it,” said Brynn.

“We can always destroy and / or save the universe tomorrow,” said Linda.

“Promise?”

“We’ll see.”

Linda closed the closet door, and they finished lunch.

Exchange (short fiction)

Demon with 10,000 Fists

 

Most Players were assholes. That was just the truth. Maybe it was the Game that made them that way or maybe it was the nature of being a Player, of having a talent beyond obsession. Maybe it was the Mojo. Once you understood how little anything else mattered, it was easy to forget about everything.

Clockwork was different. He wasn’t a major Player. He wasn’t even a troubleshooter, like me. He was a guy who could build anything and was mostly content sitting in his workshop, designing stuff. Cold fusion cells, spider-robots, pocket teleporters, self-tying shoelaces. If you could imagine it, he’d probably already built it.

The stuff would run for a while once it left his shop, but after a few hours to a few days, it’d break. That drawback worked in his favor since he was the only one with the talent to maintain his wondrous doodads. It paid his rent, and it earned him Mojo, that precious nebulous commodity that ruled the Game.

A robotic butler, a bunch of gears hooked up to an old Colecovision, greeted me at the door. “Hello. You. Are. Expected.”

The automaton lurched into the back. I found Clockwork toiling at his workbench.

“Your. Guest. Sir.”

Clockwork looked up from the mass of wires he was fiddling with. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I owe you one,” I said.

I didn’t like having debts. You never knew when someone was going to call them in. Better to get it out of the way.

“They took her,” he said.

He didn’t have to say more than that. There was only one person on this world that Clockwork valued as much as his precious gizmos. His daughter. Family was a dangerous thing in the Game. Most of us wrote off family and friends. They were something to be used against us. Worse, it wasn’t always easy to care about Chumps. Once you realized how inconsequential they were, they seemed more like a distraction than anything else.

Clockwork was the exception. He adored his daughter. Everybody knew that. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to use that against him.

“Who took her?” I asked.

“Bullet’s men.”

It was not the name I wanted to hear.

“What’s she want in return?” I said.

“Something I shouldn’t give her. Something I will have to give her unless you can get Patrice back.”

That was bad news. Clockwork had once built a Furby that would disintegrate everything in a room if you said the wrong word to it and then he’d sold it at auction. He wasn’t the kind of guy to worry too much about what he put out in the world.

But he was worried now.

“I need you to get her back,” he said.

“If Bullet’s involved . . . ”

“You owe me.”

“I’m not sure I can . . . ”

“You owe me.” He turned toward his device and started snipping wires. “And you like the Chumps, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say like.”

“You don’t like seeing them taken advantage of, right?”

There were those who viewed the Chumps as irrelevant to the Game, just something to get in the way, but I figured they had to count for something. It wasn’t always easy to believe, but if I was fighting for a better world (and that’s what I tried to tell myself), they had to be part of that. Even if they weren’t, I didn’t see any reason for them to get hurt if it could be avoided.

“You could always not give it to Bullet,” I said.

“You owe me,” he said, without looking up from his work.

“I can’t make any promises.”

“I don’t need promises. I need her back. Do that—I don’t care how—and we’re even.”

***

All the Players had their own set of rules. Profit earned her Mojo by making money. I earned mine by punching and kicking anything that got in my way. Clockwork built stuff. It was a cycle. The more Mojo you had, the more you spent, the more you earned. Thermodynamics didn’t give a damn about Mojo.

The basic philosophy of the Game was simple. Players did what they were good at, becoming more powerful the longer they did it. Eventually, someone would be so good at what they did, they’d become a god. It hadn’t happened yet, though some were close. The Major Players fought their shadow war, and troubleshooters like myself worked for our piece of the pie.

Bullet wasn’t a Major. Like me, she worked the streets, using her talents to solve problems. And her talent was killing people. I might have beaten the shit out of people now and then, but most of them deserved it. They usually got to walk away after it was all said and done. Not so with Bullet.

And she was more powerful than me. Not by much, but by enough.

I stood in that empty pool hall, a suitcase in hand, staring at Bullet and her goons. Her goons didn’t matter. I could take them out without breaking a sweat. She held a gun at her side. I was faster than most bullets. But not hers.

“Hello, Shaolin,” she said. “I told Clockwork to come alone.”

I set the case on a table. “He sent me as insurance.”

Bullet cracked a smile, no doubt imagining me with a bullet between my eyes.

“Where’s the girl?” I asked.

Bullet nodded to a thug in a three piece suit, who brought a young girl from the back. She was a delicate, little thing with long, black curls and doe eyes.

“You okay, Patrice?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied.

I opened the case, exposing the shiny automatic pistol inside. It was more than a gun. It was Clockwork’s mechanical precision. In the wrong hands, it could do a lot of damage.

“It’ll just break in a day or two,” I said. “You know that, right?”

“I only need it for a few hours,” said Bullet.

One of her goons reached for the case. I twisted his hand back in a paralyzing lock that left him whimpering on the floor.

“The girl first,” I said.

“That’s not how this is going to work.”

I was surprised Bullet hadn’t shot me already. Maybe she wasn’t as confident as she pretended. The Game’s scoreboard wasn’t sharp. It changed a lot. Maybe I’d moved up a slot since we’d last met. Maybe she’d moved down.

Her thugs advanced on me. I smashed one’s throat with a snapping kick, shattered the ribs of a second with a single punch, and broke a kneecap with strike. Some of the smarter guys pulled their guns. I tossed a billiard ball. It ricocheted off their skulls and while they were recovering, I used a pool cue to take them out.

It was all a distraction, but it worked. It was only reflex and luck (and Mojo) that caused me to jump behind a pool table as a shot rang out. Too slow. The slug dug into my shoulder, stinging like hell.

Bullet fired a few more shots, not even trying to kill me, just pinning me down. One round ricocheted improbably and buried itself in my side. That’s how deadly she was. Even just firing blindly, she tended to wound something.

I felt a charge in the atmosphere as she picked up Clockwork’s gun. There wasn’t any point in fighting now. That borrowed Mojo put her out of my league.

I stood, holding my side, feeling the blood staining me shirt. “You got what you wanted. Now give me the girl.”

Bullet chuckled. She aimed at my head and pulled the trigger. The goon next to me died as his head burst open in a bright red explosion. She fired again, and another of her men died, taking one to the chest.

“Useless Chumps.” She pointed her gun straight up and fired twice more, killing two more of her guys. She couldn’t miss. Not with her talent. Not with that gun. It didn’t matter if her target was in the same room or across town. All she had to do was pull that goddamn trigger. Even having that power for only a few hours, a day, she could kill almost anyone. And the more she killed, the more powerful she became.

“I never did like you, Shaolin,” she said.

“Who likes anyone in this Game?” I replied. “Initiate zeta protocol.”

“Strange last words,” said Bullet.

Before she could pull that trigger, little doe eyed Patrice leapt across the room like a gazelle and landed on Bullet’s back. Bullet fired into the air. Her concentration was off, and I felt a round whiz past my ear. Another slice across my cheek. A shot zipped around the room and blew off Patrice’s arm. She fell off Bullet, who fired two more rounds into the girl’s chest. Sparks flew.

I pushed through the pain and vaulted onto the pool table. A sweep of my leg knocked Clockwork’s gun out of Bullet’s hand. She went for her other gun. I flipped over her, barely ahead of the sweep of her firing. She might have been more powerful than me, but she was best at a distance. Up close, things changed.

I twisted her gun hand. She didn’t drop the weapon, but I heard fingers break. She screamed. I elbowed her in the face. Then I broke her arms. Every goddamn finger. Every bone. Until the limbs were little more than useless meat wrapped hanging limply at her side.

She slumped against the table. She still didn’t drop her gun, but it wasn’t much threat now.

I limped over to Clockwork’s gun and pushed the hidden button he’d shown me. It fell apart into a collection of useless parts.

Bullet scowled. “You better kill me, Shaolin. Otherwise, I’ll be coming for you.”

I agreed, but I wasn’t in great shape myself. It was only Mojo that kept either of us on our feet, and it was too precious to waste on a finished fight.

I helped Patrice up. Up close, her plastic skin wasn’t very convincing. You’d have known something was wrong with her even if you couldn’t see the mechanical bits exposed via her wounds.

“I’m broken,” she said.

“We’ll get you home. Your dad will fix you right up.”

She blinked. I could hear the tiny motors at work. “Are you repairable?”

I laughed, and the bullet in my side scraped away at something sensitive and vital. Bullet might have killed me already. Time would tell.

“I’ve had worse.”

I leaned on Patrice, and the little robot girl carried me out the front door.

Bethany and the Drowned Woman (short fiction)

Too Many Curses

 

In a castle filled with curses, the Drowned Woman lurked in the deep end of a spa pool, waiting for something, anything, to stray too close to her grasp. She’d been waiting a long time.

Once, a rat had fallen into the water and had been unable to escape. It had drowned before she gotten hold of it. She had to settle for its floating corpse, which she pretended to drag into the depths. It just wasn’t the same.

A supernatural chill filled the spa as Bethany the banshee materialized. The Drowned Woman surfaced, getting as close as the chains around her wrists would allow. She couldn’t drown a ghost, but Bethany’s appearance had other implications.

“Hello,” said the Drowned Woman.

Bethany, in her tattered dress, sat beside the pool and dipped her hands in the water. Though her hands were clean, they turned the water red with blood. “Any luck of late?” asked Bethany.

“No. Everyone knows enough to stay away. This was much easier when I was haunting that river. Dragged so many down, I lost count. More if I’m counting animals.” She smiled. “Once caught two horses at once. Seized them by the manes and pulled them right under.”

Bethany said, “It’s talk like that that keeps visitors away.”

“It’s what I do. I don’t see why I should be ashamed of it. Dragons hoard. Warriors battle. I drown.”

“Why is that again?”

“Why do you go around portending tragedies? It’s what you do.”

“I was hoping for a tale of woe where a young bride is swept into a river on her wedding day and in her sorrow, she strikes out blindly at the living.”

The Drowned Woman laughed. “That would be a great story. But, no, nothing like that. I fell into the water. I drowned. I didn’t quite die. Don’t know why. Then I started drowning others.”

“But why?”

“Boredom. Having a hobby helps pass the time, and there’s not many choices when you’re trapped underwater. But why are you here? Something sad is about to happen, isn’t it? Something tragic?”

“You could say that.”

A mouse emerged from a crack in the wall. It scampered up to the edge of the pool. The Drowned Woman’s wrinkled, claw-like hands clenched in anticipation. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

The mouse fell into the water with a squeal. It struggled against the edge. The Drowned Woman pulled at her chains, but the rodent remained just out of reach. Its tail slipped through her grasp as it swam to the other end of the pool.

Bethany reached down and pulled the struggling mouse from the water. She set it down on the stone, where it scampered away.

“You bitch,” said the Drowned Woman. “It was just a mouse.”

“Just a mouse to you,” said Bethany. “But a chance to avert one tragedy for me. I don’t get a lot of those.”

“I thought that was against the rules.”

“A minor tragedy averted for a mouse,” said Bethany with a smile. “Another created for you. It all evens out in the end.”

The banshee wailed, “Better luck next tiiiimmme!” as she faded away, leaving the Drowned Woman to sulk in the soggy depths.

On the Mantle (short fiction)

Wren and Hess

 

Archibald Ghastly hadn’t been a lich long. Most of his pale flesh clung to his bones. Little bits of skin flaked off, floating in the air. He smelled bad, but all new liches did. It took about a year for the smell of rot to fade, replaced by a musty scent of slight decay that never quite went away, even when they were nothing but dry, white bones.

Wren and Hess kept their distance as they took the report.

“Could you describe your phylactery, sir?” asked Hess.

Ghastly held out his hands. “It’s an egg-shaped jar about this big. Last time I saw it, it was on my mantle.” He gestured to the empty spot above his fireplace. “Right there.”

“Is anything else missing?”

“No, nothing.”

“Nothing?” asked Wren.

“No,” he said.

“And you say there are no signs of forced entry?”

“Well, no.”

“So a master thief broke into your home and took your phylactery and that’s it?” she said.

“What are you saying?”

“We’re just covering everything,” said Hess. “For the report. You understand.”

“It’s my most valued possession,” said Ghastly. “Of course, it’s the first thing any thief would go for.”

“Is it?” said Wren.

“I don’t believe I like your tone, Constable.”

“No offense, sir, but your soul, while of great value to you, might not be worth much on the street.”

“Blackmail then,” he said. “Or some radical anti-undead fringe that wants to use it to destroy me.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Wren, “but if they wanted to destroy you, all they’d have to do was smash it on the ground. So why not do it immediately?”

“I don’t know,” said Ghastly. “I’m not a criminal mastermind. I don’t think like them.”

“So now we’re talking about a mastermind,” said Wren, despite herself.

“I know what you’re suggesting.” Ghastly’s eyes had already fallen out, but he still had enough eyebrows left to glower. “I’m not an idiot. I think I’d know where my most precious possession was.”

“You did keep it on the mantle,” she said. “Anyone could’ve moved it. Perhaps your wife has it?”

“Oh, I get it. You’re one of those living sympathizers they warned me about.”

Wren gritted her teeth and forced an insincere smile. “I’m just suggesting that after having your soul removed, you might want to consider putting it somewhere more secure.”

“Is that an accusation? I’m the victim here.” Ghastly sighed and exhaled a cloud of gray dust and whatever powdered organs still within his withered torso. “I shouldn’t have to hide it.”

“Take it easy, sir,” said Hess. “This is our job. We will get your phylactery back for you.”

“You’d better,” said Ghastly. “Why do I pay taxes if this is the kind of treatment I get?”

Hess took the report, and Wren went out for some air. Undeath had been a legally recognized state of being for the better part of two decades in the city. The transition hadn’t been easy. A lot of innocent vampires had been staked. A lot of perfectly dead corpses had been burned and mutilated by frightened mobs. Wren, despite herself, could sympathize. But she was a good constable. She resented Ghastly’s accusations, but if she’d misplaced her soul, she might not be in the best mood either.

Hess joined her on the street a while later. “On the mantle, can you believe that?”

A carriage pulled up to the house and a round woman stepped out, carrying an egg-shaped jar.

“Excuse me, miss,” asked Hess, “but where did you get that?”

“It’s my husband’s,” she said. “I just had it cleaned. As a surprise. Is there a problem, constables?”

“No problem, Mrs. Ghastly,” said Hess as they stepped aside to let her pass.

Hess tore the report in half and stuck it in his pocket. “On the damned mantle.”

Diablo’s Cactus (short fiction)

Sophia Alonzo’s father had left her four acres of land, a rundown mobile home, and two hundred dollars. The two hundred dollars had long since been spent, and the mobile home had burned down under questionable circumstance. But she still had the land, though it was dry and cracked and smelled kind of weird. It wasn’t good for much, aside from raising the dead now and then.

Jody, Sophia’s boyfriend, handed her another beer as they watched old Mrs. Knutson dig up her husband under the moonlight. She was a tough old bird, but the land was hard. Progress was slow.

“Are you sure you can’t help?” she asked.

“Now, Mrs. Knutson,” said Jody. “We told you before we started. For five hundred, we’ll bury him for you. But the living have to dig up their own. That’s in the rules.”

She wiped the sweat from her withered gray head and grumbled. The spade bit into the earth, and the earth bit back as she wrestled with the shovel. Diablo Cactus stood silent watch over the whole affair. There was nothing special about the old saguaro aside from the fact if you buried dead people beside it under the right circumstances, they could come back.

Sophia and Jody sat in folding chairs. She checked the safety on the shotgun resting in her lap. She was always afraid the damned thing would go off by accident.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Fifty / fifty?”

“Mr. Knutson was a mean son of a bitch,” replied Jody. “I’d say seventy / thirty.”

Coming back from the dead was hard on a soul. People who did were never quite the same, and everybody came back worse. They’d debated whether a person’s previous life had any effect on their resurrected one, whether a person’s soul influenced how they came back, or if it was mostly random. Sophia thought the soul had to count for something. Jody thought there was no such thing, and even if there was, it’d probably left the body during the three days it lay in the ground.

Both of them agreed it was always a bad idea to raise the dead, but five hundred bucks was five hundred bucks.

It took Mrs. Knutson the better part of the night to unearth her husband from the shallow grave. When the last bit of dirt was shoveled away, Mr. Knutson opened his eyes and sat up.

“Step back, Mrs. Knutson.” Jody gently pushed the old woman aside as Sophia stepped forward, shotgun at the ready.

“Alright, Mr. Knutson, I’m going to need you to answer this question before I let you out of that grave.” Jody pulled an index card from his pocket.

“When’s your anniversary?”

“Seventh of October,” replied Mr. Knutson in a dry, cracked voice.

Jody nodded to Sophia who lowered her weapon.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sir.”

Mrs. Knutson wrested the shotgun from Sophia and blew a hole in her husband’s chest. He fell over dead again. Something inhuman howled as wisps of glowing smoke slipped from his mouth.

“That wasn’t Lars,” she said.

“But he got the question right,” said Sophia.

Mrs. Knutson waddled to a folding chair. “Thirty-nine years of marriage, the old bastard never once remembered it. Not once.”

“Fourth time’s the charm, right?” said Jody as he grabbed the shovel and started burying the corpse again.