A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 26

Need to Know (short fiction)

Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest

Peggy Truthstalker had been born with a full set of tusks and yellow eyes. Orc tradition marked her as a shaman, which wasn’t surprising considering her mother had been a shaman before her, and her grandfather before that. Communing with the spirits and reading omens was in her blood. There was no denying it.

And it was a pain in the ass.

While going through some paperwork, her pen started leaking. The blue droplets spilled across the page, telling the story of the dark future. John two offices down had an undiagnosed medical problem. The spirits didn’t tell her what it was. Just that it’d be fatal in a week.

There were advantages to knowing things. It had made her a fortune on Wall Street. The spirits didn’t understand the market. Who did? But they gave her an edge, and all they asked for in return was a little blood and to whisper secrets she wasn’t allowed to share.

Like John, who right now was dismissing that pain in his chest as a result of pushing himself too hard on the racquetball court.

Peggy had cultivated an indifference to the suffering of others. It came with her gifts. She saw a dozen tragedies unfolding every day, and she couldn’t interfere without risking the wrath of the capricious spirits that helped to pay her bills.

It was the orc way to not give a damn about death. People died. But it was a shitty, preventable death, and that pissed her off. She didn’t particularly care for John. He was an agreeable sort, but he was too free with the nicknames and he made orc jokes. Not to her face. But she knew he made them.

She knew.

Peggy gouged her long, sharp fingernails into the bottom of her desk, as she did when suitably annoyed. Her annoyance caused the spirits to chuckle.

John poked his head into her office. “Hey, Sport, some of us are going to the bar after work. Thought you might want to come along.”

She smiled at him, though the tight flesh of her pale face and her permanent scowl made the expression anything other than pleasant. “Yes, thanks, but I’ve got plans already.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just let us know, Pegg-O.” John winked at her. Poor, dead in a week John.

Peggy threw the leaking pen away and crumpled the paper. In its folds, she saw a car accident in Harriet’s future. Not fatal, but certainly inconvenient.
She tossed the paper away and closed her eyes.

After work, she walked by John and a gaggle of coworkers. A rattle in the air conditioner duct spoke of drunken groping between Wendy and Peter that would make things awkward for the office for at least a month.

“See you tomorrow, Peggy?” said John.

She mumbled something and was nearly to the elevator when the spirits shared another vision. John’s wife and kids weeping as they lowered him into the ground. Orcs didn’t mourn their dead. She found their pain laughable. Life was tough. Every orc knew that. Every human should too.

She turned and grabbed John.

“You need to go to the hospital tonight,” she said. “Don’t ask me why. Just do it.”

She walked away before he could say anything.

The spirits grumbled their disapproval. All the coffee mugs on the nearby desks fell off at once.

Screw ‘em. She didn’t serve the spirits. If they had a problem with it, they could all go to hell. There’d be a penalty, but John wouldn’t be the one to pay it. She’d angered the spirits before. They’d cut her off. Her numbers would go down for a week or two, but the spirits would come back. They didn’t have much choice. There weren’t a lot of shamans walking around these days that they could share their secrets with.

On the elevator, she saw an omen in the pattern of the button lights. John would live, but he’d be fired by the end of the month. His wife and kids would leave him. But that was life. It was always going to screw you one way or another.

She closed her eyes and hummed along with the muzak to tune out the cruel laughter of the spirits as the door closed.

Bathroom Break (short fiction)

 Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest

On the road of legends, Helen Nicolaides had to take a bathroom break. Gas station bathrooms were always a risk. They all promised clean facilities, but promises were easy. She was pleased to discover that this one was mostly clean, though it did have that strong antiseptic smell that didn’t quite cover the more unpleasant odors.

Helen reached for one of the three stalls. The lights flickered and a crooked woman in a pantsuit and curlers stood beside the sink. She hadn’t been there before.

“Choose wisely,” said the attendant.

Helen’s hand dropped to her side. “I just need to pee. I don’t have time for this.”

“Go ahead then.”

Helen reached for a stall door but hesitated. “So what is it then? What’s the catch here?”

“No catch,” said the attendant. “Behind one door, you’ll find a treasure beyond mortal imagining. Beyond another—”

“Treasure, in a public bathroom?”

The attendant shrugged. “I didn’t put it there. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”

Helen nodded.

“One stall: Treasure. Another stall: a nice clean toilet. Good soft toilet tissue. Scent of lavender. A little Kenny G playing. Quite a lovely place to take care of business.”

“And the third?” asked Helen.

“Death herself,” said the attendant with notable indifference.

“I just wanted to pee,” said Helen.

“And Zhong Kui just wanted an education. The call takes many forms. Now choose.”

“I’ll hold it.”

“Suit yourself. Next bathroom is seventy-three miles away.”

“Then I’ll find a bush on the side of the road.”

“Lot of dangerous things behinds those bushes out there,” said the attendant with a sly smile.

Helen hopped from hoof to hoof. She considered her choices. The Gods Above delighted in this nonsense. You couldn’t avoid their rules. She’d hate to die by a viper’s bite on her ass.

“Death is only behind one of these?”

The attendant nodded.

Helen bent down to peer under the stalls, but of course, they all looked empty from that angle. It couldn’t be that easy.

She opened a stall. A pale boney figure wrapped in black glanced up from her People magazine and scowled.

“Hey, ocupado here!”

“Sorry.” Helen closed the door.

“You chose poorly,” said the attendant.

Helen tried the other two stalls, but they refused to open.

“One choice to a customer,” said the attendant. “Better luck next time.”

Grumbling, Helen left, slamming the door on her way out.

“Why didn’t she just pee in the sink?” wondered Death from her stall. “It’s what I would’ve done.”

“Don’t be gross,” said the attendant.

The lights flickered, and she vanished, leaving Death to finish her business.

Loretta’s Place (short fiction)

Gil’s All Fright Diner

The diner was empty tonight. A fog rolled around outside, even though the dry desert air wasn’t cold enough for it. Loretta sat behind the counter, reading a copy of Vogue, waiting for customers.

It was a quiet night at Loretta’s Place, the kind of night when you could hear things crawling under the floorboards. Rats, you’d hope, but given Loretta’s devotion to keeping the place spotless, that was unlikely. More likely, those things were minor escaping horrors from the dimensions of madness, slipping through the cracks between realities. They didn’t often come to the surface, but she kept a hammer handy in those rare instances they did and a shotgun behind the counter for the more stubborn abominations.

“Are you open?” asked Clarence Bodekker, dressed in an ill-fitting tuxedo. His prom date, Felicia, wore a dress made by her mother, a fair seamstress but with an unhealthy love of frills and bows.

Loretta glanced up from her magazine and nodded. She hadn’t heard them enter. “Have a seat, kids. Anywhere you like.”

They took their regular corner booth. Loretta brought them over a pair of menus.

“What pie do you have tonight?” asked Clarence.

“Boysenberry,” she replied.

“My favorite,” he said.

“I thought as much.”

Felicia didn’t say anything. She’d always been a quiet one.

Loretta gave the kids some time to order. They sat at the table, awkwardly not talking. She remembered her own teenage years. She’d been anything but shy. On nights like this, she recalled losing her virginity to Stevie Hurst (as far as he knew) and how he’d proposed to her then and there. She’d blown him off, only to change her mind the day he got hit by that train.

The train had a bad habit of hitting people. Some said the crossing had been cursed, and most agreed it was probably true. But the train had finally derailed a few years back, and the route had been changed. Still, if you listened, on nights like this, you could hear its whistle. And something had demolished Stan Winthrop’s Studebaker parked on those tracks one moonless night, though no one could rightly say what.

“What’ll it be, kids?” asked Loretta.

“Two burgers, please,” said Clarence.

Felicia nodded. You could tell by looking her eyes that she knew. Not everyone did. Clarence didn’t know. Poor kid. Or maybe he was better off. Loretta couldn’t say.

Loretta returned with a burger a few minutes later. The kids were gone, leaving without so much as a tip. Not that she expected one. Ghosts didn’t carry around spare change. She hoped that they were on their way to their prom now, and maybe this time, they’d notice the train bearing down on them in time.

“Loretta!” said Stevie Hurst.

She hadn’t heard him enter.

“Hiya, Stevie,” she replied. “Aren’t you a dapper young man tonight?”

He said, “You’re going to marry me, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

She smiled. “Alright.”

He wrapped his arms around her ample frame. She’d put a few pounds over the years. Stevie never noticed. He kissed her neck, and she giggled, despite herself. A woman had needs, and when the night was quiet, when the sky was dark, when the fog rolled around, Stevie was around to meet hers.

She turned off the diner’s open sign as the ghost train’s whistle howled across the desert night.

Battle Plan (short fiction)

Cindy and Cragg

Saturnites were notoriously difficult for Terrans to read. It said something about Cindy and Cragg’s relationship that she could tell he was nervous. It wasn’t obvious, but he was frowning. He frowned a lot since his wide mouth was naturally bent in that direction. But there was a difference to his normal frown and his nervous frown.

She took his hand. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t feel up to it.”
Cragg shook his head. “A warrior doesn’t allow fear to rule the battlefield.”

She smiled. “I’m a grown woman with a divorce and a kid. How bad can it be, right?”

He smiled back at her. She liked the way his emerald eyes twinkled when he did.

The front door opened, and Cindy’s parents and her sister stood at the ready. They’d been prepared for this. Mom grinned with a little too much force.

“Why, you must be Cindy’s lucky fella,” said Mom, dialing up the folky charm to dangerous levels.

Cragg thrust a wine bottle at Cindy’s family like a shield. “These are for you.”

Mom took the bottle and handed it off to Sarah. “Why, isn’t that lovely?”

“Lovely,” agreed Sarah.

Mom elbowed Dad, who grunted. “Yes, lovely.”

Mom took Cindy’s hand. “Come in, come in. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Once inside, the door shut with a grim finality. There was no escape for at least another fifteen minutes. Laura had a standing order to fake an emergency call as a failsafe should things go awry. Until then, only their wits and the thin veneer of civilization was all they could rely on.

“Why don’t you boys go into the living room while we set the table?” said Mom.

“Why do we have to set the table?” asked Sarah. “This isn’t the fifties, Mom. The menfolk can do something.”

“It would be my honor to set the table,” said Cragg.

“Oh, shush. Go on now. It’s just an excuse for a little girl talk.” Mom pushed the males toward the living room, and they trudged away like obedient children. Cindy and Cragg had one fleeting moment of eye contact where they silently wished each other good luck. Dating Cragg had changed her outlook at life. She saw even the most ordinary of events as a mission, an engagement with its own rules and victory conditions.

On Saturn, this would have been easy. Cragg would challenge Dad to a fight. They’d beat the hell out of each other until one relented. Boundaries defined. Respect earned. Terran custom was more difficult.

Everything was ready in the kitchen, but Mom puttered around as if there were more to do, stalling for time. “So he seems . . . nice.”

Mom never said anything mean about anyone. She said less nice things, and everyone knew what she meant.

“Do you guys . . . y’know?” asked Sarah.

“Sarah,” chided Mom, but of course, she’d invited Sarah to dinner exactly because she would ask the questions Mom wouldn’t.

“Hey, I just wondered what it would be like. Like is it cuddling with a big pile of boulders or something?”

Cindy glanced to her phone as if it might save her. Maybe Laura would have a real emergency. But Cindy wasn’t that lucky.

“Yes, we have sex,” said Cindy.

“Oh, Cindy,” said Mom, as if Cindy had spat out the worst vulgarity.

“Like . . . do you get on top or what?” asked Sarah. “I read somewhere that you’d probably need a harness or something for safety reasons.”

Cindy sighed. “You’re making it sound weird.”

“Your boyfriend is a rock monster from outer space,” said Sarah. “It doesn’t sound weird. It is weird.”

“He’s not a monster,” replied Cindy. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make him uncomfortable.”

Sarah reached for an olive, but Mom smacked her hand. “We’d never dream of it, dear. If you think he’s safe to have around our granddaughter, who are we to question your judgment?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Why, nothing dear. He seems perfectly stable to me.”

“The war has been over for years, Mom.”

“Oh, and I’m sure he holds no grudge for what Warlord Mollusk did to his planet. Why would he?” Mom grabbed a stack of plates and left the room.

“What did you expect?” Sarah leaned closer. “So . . . like . . . how big is it? I bet it’s pretty big, right?”

Groaning, Cindy grabbed a handful of silverware and went to the dining room. Mom hummed as she set things in order. Cragg and Dad were in the living room, not saying anything. Dad sat in his recliner, watching a football game. Cragg was too heavy to sit in regular furniture, so he stood to one side, staring straight ahead. Terran sports were too sanitized for his tastes.

“He’s not very talkative, is he?” said Mom.

“Neither is Dad,” said Cindy.

“We do like the strong, silent type, don’t we?”

Sarah laughed from the kitchen. “She’s got’cha there.”

Cindy studied her boyfriend, a mound of stone with a slab of a face and an affinity for silence. Dad might have been a flesh-and-blood Terran, but he wasn’t much different. Even his flat top haircut resembled the sheer flatness of Cragg’s head.

“Son of a bitch,” mumbled Cindy under her breath.

“What was that, dear?” asked Mom.

“Nothing.”

They gathered around the table. Cragg sat in a reinforced chair that her parents had been nice enough to purchase. Dad and Cragg sat across from each other, and the resemblance was stronger with each passing moment.

Sarah kept smiling.

“Would you like to say the honorific to our glorious former Warlord Mollusk, Cragg?” asked Mom.

Cindy said, “Mom, that’s a bit insensitive.”

“I would be honored,” said Cragg.

The family held hands.

“A warrior is measured not only by the glory of their victories, but the humiliations of their defeats. We Saturnites are a proud people, and we were humbled by our foe. His methods, dishonorable as they might have been, tested us and we were found wanting. But in such tests, strength shall be found. We shall have our revenge. Emperor Mollusk shall fall, and but until that day, we honor Mollusk for making us stronger before we execute him and conquer his world. Hail, Mollusk.”

“Hail, Mollusk,” said everyone else.

“I do hope you like gravel and agate,” said Mom as she scooped it onto Cragg’s plate. “I had to look up the recipe online. I hope I made it right.”

Cindy rubbed her hand across Cragg’s gray, slate cheek and he smiled. It wasn’t obvious, but it was there. She couldn’t ask for better backup on this mission.

Her phone rang, offering her its escape route. She didn’t answer it. They had this.

“So, Cragg,” said Sarah, “Do you ever worry you’ll crush Cindy when you’re . . . uh . . . y’know?”

“Oh, Sarah,” said Mom, though she did lean forward to hear the answer.

Cragg shoveled a mouthful of gravel and agate salad into his mouth as Cindy put her hand on his.

An Innocent Demon (short fiction)

Wren and Hess

Hess eyed the suspect. His frills went rigid. “I don’t trust her.”

“She’s a demon,” replied Wren. “Of course you don’t trust her.”
The demon, tall and thick, like an over-muscled barbarian queen from the icy Norths, sat in the summoning circle that contained her. Her long horns curled outward, but aside from those, her orange complexion, and that her face resembled a skull, she might’ve passed for human.

Wren and Hess turned their back on the demon. Wren knelt beside the warlock’s corpse. His face was frozen in a grim rictus of terror while his body was a contortion of splayed, twisted limbs. She closed his eyes and mouth, only to have the expression snap back into place.

“Summoner’s shock,” said Hess.

“I didn’t do it,” said the demon.

“Didn’t say you did,” said Wren without turning to face the demon.

“But you were thinking it. Don’t deny it.”

“We’ll be with you in a moment,” said Hess.

The demon paced the confines of the magic circle that contained her. “Never fails. Blame the demon. Case closed.”

Wren said nothing, wondering how difficult it would be for the undertakers to get the knotted warlock into a coffin. They’d probably have to saw off a limb or two.

“He was like that when I got here,” said the demon. “I didn’t kill him. Couldn’t kill him if I wanted to.”

Wren approached the circle. The demon towered over her.

“You’re a suspect. Everyone is until we get more information, but this looks like just another case of an overzealous magus exceeding his limits. They gaze into the abyss, thinking to see power and only find things they were never meant to know. Things they can’t fathom. Killed by the very mysteries they sought to unravel.”

“So you believe me then?” asked the demon. “I’m innocent.”

“Do I believe you’re innocent?” said Wren with a smile. “No, but do I believe you killed this man? No, I don’t think so.”

“Then can I be released?”

“Most warlocks don’t have the strength of will and physical fortitude to bring forth demons. Most give up on anything beyond an imp or two. But sometimes, they end up with something more and if the effort kills them, we wind up with a demon on this side of the abyss with no master. With no master, you have no obligation to fulfill. With no obligation, you have no way of completing your task and returning home.”

The demon scowled. “Well, that’s shitty news. I’m stuck here?”

“Most probably,” replied Wren.

The demon held the warlock’s soul, forfeit upon her arrival, in her hand. The smoky, gray bauble hardly seemed worth the trip. And definitely not worth being trapped in this place. There was a pleasant scent of sulfur in the air, but it was a bit humid for her liking.

“So what now?”

Hess said, “Do you have any useful skills?”

“I can debone a hellghast with one hand. Two hellghasts at once with the right tools.”

“We don’t get many hellghasts around here,” said Hess.

“Shame,” said the demon. “They make good eating.”

They’d find a job for her. There were ways for a demon to make a living in this city. Most of them legal. Some of them quasi-legal, but nothing the city guard fretted over. She would most likely end up a constable, where a demon’s disposition and abilities were often most useful. Neither Wren nor Hess considered what that said about their job.

A green imp sauntered past the guards posted at the door.

“My, you’re a tall glass of blood, aren’t you?” said the imp. “I trust you haven’t attempted to coerce any confession from my client, Gendarme Wren.”

“You know me better than that, Gouger.”

The imp nodded, adjusted his spectacles. “Indeed, I do. A pair of honest constables are as rare as an innocent demon these days.”

He chuckled as Wren and Hess left him to council the newest demon to call the city home.

The Rise and Fall of Almost Everything (commentary)

I grew up reading comic books. Mostly superhero comics books. Yes, there’s a distinction. Superheroes are a genre. Comic books are a medium. The average person doesn’t care about that, but it’s actually important. One of the reasons I find the Best Animated Feature Oscar to be so silly is that you might as well have a category for Best Movie Filmed with Handheld Camera or Best Movie Shot through an Oversaturated Color-Filter category while you’re at it.

For most of my childhood, my young adulthood, and even my early thirties, I was a comic book fan. I expanded my love of the medium beyond superheroes, though I’ll admit that the superhero genre remains my favorite. But I don’t buy many comics of any genres these days for many reasons. And those reasons aren’t going away anytime soon. In fact, they’re spreading to other media such as TV, films, and books. And the results are shaping up to be exactly the same as they were with the comic book industry.

Yes, I’ve seen this all before, where it starts, and where it ends, and it isn’t a pretty picture. Allow me to share my experience with comic books and the parallel going along with other media.

When I was a young man, I loved comic books for their flexibility. They could tell epic adventures spanning years or simple tales stretching only an issue or two. Two of my favorite characters were The Punisher and The Silver Surfer. It’s hard to imagine two characters more different. One is a street-level vigilante who obsessively hunts down criminals to ruthlessly execute them. One is The Sentinel of the Spaceways, who flies through the cosmos, unleashing incredible cosmic powers, and feeling a bit mopey while he’s at it.

The Punisher’s first ongoing title was little more than a series of 80′s action movies. Storylines rarely ran more than three issues, and in that time, he would kill all the bad guys before heading off to a new adventure with little concern or investment in continuity. The Silver Surfer had longer ongoing arcs involving their own convoluted, unique mythology. You could jump right into a Punisher story without much effort, but diving into the middle of a Silver Surfer tale (especially without a knowledge of the established cosmic canon of the Marvel Universe) was a lot harder. Yet that was entirely the point.

This was one company publishing two very different characters. They weren’t meant to have crossover appeal. It was assumed that someone reading a Punisher title was interested in different things than a Silver Surfer title and that was a good thing. It meant that they weren’t competing with each other directly. Each character occupied their own unique slot in both their fictional universe and also, among the customer base.

And then the 90′s came along and ruined everything. Comic books became a million dollar industry. Image Comics turned artist / writers into stars and sold an Extreme! version of what comic books that everyone assumed comics SHOULD be. And with so much money flooding the industry, who could blame the companies and creators for getting confused.

Now, I’m not going to say that comics weren’t always a business. Just look at all those classic weird covers where Superman or Batman is doing something weird just to grab the reader’s curiosity and encourage them to buy the title. Gimmicks were nothing new in the 90′s, but they rose to new levels and haven’t really gone down since.

Continuity became king. Once superheroes had lived in loose, shared universes. The Punisher and Silver Surfer technically existed in the same world, but they weren’t likely to ever meet. Sometimes, Batman might visit Metropolis, but for the most part, every character and their adventures were self-contained. And then a generation of writers obsessed with creating a truly interconnected universe and marketers who saw the advantage of having Character X’s title be completely connected to Character Y’s title (thus encouraging customers to buy two titles to get the whole story) took over. Superhero universes became a giant, mixed up stew. It became nearly impossible to like only a small portion of them. It was eventually an all or nothing experience.

While I have an overall positive impression of the Marvel Cinematic Universe experience, it’s in its birthing stages. Right now, it’s entirely possible to skip a movie and not be confused about what’s going on. I skipped Thor 2: The Dark World, for instance, because I love Thor’s adventures but am so deeply invested in them that the movie was bound to disappoint me. I haven’t watched more than a few episodes of Agents of Shield, and it hasn’t created any obstacles to watching the Marvel movies. In both cases, a concerted effort has been made to create a solid continuity without forcing anyone to submit to that continuity.

Those days will end eventually, for the exact same reason they ended in superhero comic books. One day, a creator with too much ambition and a marketer confronted with flattened profits will meet and decide the best way to solve this problem will be to make the latest Rom: Space Knight film essential to the next Man-Thing movie. It will be expected that the audience is willing to invest in the complicated history of Devil Dinosaur to enjoy the Howard the Duck trilogy to the fullest. (Hey, they’re my examples. I’ll use what I want.)

Films will no longer be seen as finished products, but as products to advertise other products in the future. The Tomb of Dracula movie will exist solely to launch The Legion of Monsters arc that will only exist to further the Legion of Monsters vs. Shuma-Gorath 3 part epic. (Again, my examples.)

And it won’t end with superhero films. Right now, a group of executives are trying to figure out how to transform everything from Ghostbusters to Teen Wolf into a blockbuster franchise, a self-reinforcing marketing machine that pulls in customers via gimmick and habit. These will be the Special Foil Covers and Epic Crossover Events of the industry, and they will bring about an even more pronounced absence of creativity and variety. And it’ll work for a while until the whole thing collapses under its own weight.

The comic book industry has never fully recovered from its most successful era. There are still interesting comic books being produced, but both Marvel and DC, the big guys on the block, have never been able to move away from the blockbuster, continuity obsessive mentality. Both companies acknowledge a problem of continuity lockout (when potential readers simply cannot follow a story for lack of knowledge of previous stories), an over-reliance on gimmicky crossovers, and a disjointed lack of direction. Neither company has made any real effort to fix those problems aside from occasionally rebooting their universes, only to almost immediately drown them in the same problems they were trying to fix.

And isn’t the same thing already happening in superhero movies? Days of Future Past is a movie that mostly exists to fix the problems of previous X-Men films. Spider-Man looks like he might get a third reboot soon as new creators decide to wash their hands of the train wreck of previous ones. And Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (a title that really should’ve gone through some focus groups) is a group of desperate creators jamming so many characters and ideas into a single film in hopes of launching their own cinematic universe cash cow, you have to wonder why Plastic Man and Martian Manhunter aren’t included as well. Maybe they are. Haven’t heard the latest updates.

It’s about profits. Let’s not fool ourselves. But the desire to be financially successful and creatively rewarding need not be in conflict. They will though. And sooner than later, I think. And there’s really not much to do but enjoy the ride and brace ourselves for the coming crash. Hopefully, it won’t happen before I get to write Devil Dinosaur: The Movie. But only time will tell.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

 

Jago Jones and the Secret Masters

There were two intruders in Jago’s apartment. She could push a button and fill the entire place with knockout gas or something more permanent. Instead, she went inside to see what they were up to.

One of the intruders sat on her sofa. He was a stout man, thoroughly unremarkable aside from his pale green skin and dark red eyes. The second wasn’t a man at all, but a yeti woman in a white suit. Fluffy white fur poked out of her sleeves and around her collar.

“Good evening, Miss Jones,” said the man, sounding winded just from opening his mouth.

“Evening.” Jago ran her fingers along her watchband, where a dozen secret buttons were waiting for her to push them.

“We’ve disabled your gas system,” the man wheezed. “You are no doubt wondering why we are here? First, I must apologize. We don’t make mistakes often, but despite ourselves, things fall through the cracks. Your paperwork got lost behind a filing cabinet, wasn’t discovered until a week ago. Can you ever forgive us?”

“Sure.” She debated whether the laser hidden in her lamp or the electrical system in the couch would be more effective. “Forgive you for what?”

“You, Miss Jones, are a unique individual. Our scans of your brain indicate great potential.”

“You’ve scanned my brain?”

“We’ve scanned everyone’s brains, precisely to avoid this type of mistake. Still, it happens. Unusual for someone to go this long before being approached. Some of us thought it might be better to simply do away with you rather than deal with the unknown variables you present.”

Jago pushed a button. The laser exploded harmlessly.

“We’ve disabled that as well,” said the man. “It’s impressive work for someone with no formal training. A very good sign. Make a note of it, Miss Carlyle.”

The yeti took a notebook out of her jacket and wrote something down.

“Allow me to introduce myself, Miss Jones. I am Sylas Sylo, headmaster of the Academy. What Academy? Why the only Academy that matters, where we take people such as yourself and prepare them to rule the world.”

“You mean, like James Bond villain stuff?”

He laughed. More accurately, he wheezed with mild amusement. “We are not the bad guys, Miss Jones. We are simply the Secret Masters of the world who ensure that everything runs smoothly.”

“It doesn’t appear to be running that smoothly,” she replied.

“Progress, not perfection. Although perfection will happen soon enough. It’s just that the ordinary people, despite themselves, remain unpredictable, fickle creatures. Easily distracted. Easily ruled, yet sometimes unready or unaccepting of the Utopian ideals we seek to give them.”

“I’m thirty,” she said. “Little old for a career change.”

“We’re aware, but you are too dangerous to allow to live without proper supervision. The Master Plan is difficult enough without a wild card such as yourself getting involved.”

“So back to school or death? Those are my two options.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Her front door was kicked open as a team in high tech S.W.A.T. gear burst into the room. They trained their weird sci fi rifles at Sylo and Miss Carlyle. “Doctor Sylo, you are under arrest for crimes against humanity.”

“Oh dear,” said Sylo with a slight frown on his round face.

Miss Carlyle raised her hands.

Jago pushed a button and the S.W.A.T. team fell down, convulsing. It was easy to induce a seizer with the proper ultrasonic frequencies. She was unaffected by virtue of the earplugs she wore. She was only mildly surprised that Sylo and his bodyguard were prepared as well.

“Secret Masters, you said?” Jago asked. “All right, I’m intrigued.”

Sylo smiled. “Somehow, I knew you would be.”

Old Time Religion (short fiction)

Beatrix had never been religious, not even in that “I’m spiritual” way that some people liked to say. “I’m spiritual” came across as a cheat to her. Like claiming to be a great cook because you made a grilled cheese sandwich once in a while. Doing yoga or sitting beside a waterfall or believing in some cosmic force that liked to look down upon the world and smile like a distant aunt you saw briefly on certain holidays had never struck her as anything other than patting oneself on the back, satisfied you’d done enough to avoid being labeled an amoral, untrustworthy atheist.

Beatrix didn’t play that game. She was an atheist, and she’d seen no reason to be anything else.

Josh, on the other hand, was deeply religious. Somehow, they made it work.

“Honey, have you seen my robe?” he asked as he prepared for his Wednesday night services. He’d only recently been promoted to Cupbearer. The new responsibilities put him on edge.

“In the closet.” She put her bookmark in the romance paperback she was reading on bed. “In the back.”

“I don’t see it,” he said. “Oh god, if I show up without it, they’ll probably demand some bloodletting as penance. I can’t do that. We gave blood at that Red Cross thing already.”

“It’s in the back.”

“Well, I’m not seeing it. Shit. I’m going to be lightheaded on the drive home. Oh, wait. Found it.”

She smiled.

“Oh, shit. Where’s my dagger? And where’s the cup? Oh, god, did I already lose the cup? Steve lost the cup. Had to spear out one of his eyes.”

Beatrix pointed to the dresser, where the cup and dagger sat. “Relax. Although you’d look sexy with an eye patch.”

He was too stressed to laugh. “Very funny.” He folded his robe over his arm, tucked the dagger into his belt and the cup between his elbow and body. “Don’t wait up. I have a feeling Master Zane is going to launch into one of his long sermons. Says the apocalypse is just around the corner.”

“Hasn’t he said that before?”

Josh shrugged. “He’s bound to be right one of these times.”

He kissed her and was out the door. It was five minutes later that she noticed he’d left the box behind.

She didn’t know a lot about his faith, but she’d picked up a few things. The box was important, but forgetting it wasn’t a punishable offense. Not this time of year. Most of the time, the box was quiet. Sometimes, the thing within would move around a little.

Beatrix had never looked in the box. It was against the rules. Once, a curious maid, despite being told not to, had opened it. Or so they assumed because they found her empty, bloodied clothes in a pile after hearing her strangled screams from the other room.

It was against the commandments to hide the box or put a lock on it. They sometimes fought about that. They didn’t have kids yet, but it was bound to be a problem then.

The box rattled around. Sighing, she put a thick dictionary atop it that she kept around for just such occasions before going downstairs to read in peace.

Action Force Mailbag (03/06/15)

Time to open the A. Lee Martinez Action Force Mailbag again. As always, if you have a question or comment, you can reach me on Twitter (@ALeeMartinez), Facebook (alee.martinez.37), or via e-mail at Hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com. Drop a line. Always happy to hear from fans and almost-fans and people who would like to be fans but aren’t quite sure yet.

 

@Krankor asks:

“What are your thoughts on audiobook versions of your novels? I enjoyed “reading” all of them that format, but is it cheating?”

No, it’s not “cheating”. We have this weird thing where we consider reading to be a “smart” activity, and we equate “smart” with “difficult”. If it’s easy, it must not be that smart, and if it’s not smart, it must be dumb. It’s a chain of logic that never made much sense to me. Probably because it’s nonsense.

To begin with, reading does not make one smart. Much as it pains me to say that, it’s true. If you read because you think it demonstrates your intelligence, you’re doing it wrong. There are certainly many intelligent books out there, but even reading one of these doesn’t necessarily indicate you are smart. I always think of Kevin Cline’s character in A Fish Called Wanda. One of his defining characteristics is that he considers himself intelligent because he reads philosophy books, but he doesn’t truly understand them.

Audiobook versions of written stories are often more convenient and accessible for people, and while it’s not technically reading to listen to an audiobook, it still takes effort. Maybe someone has trouble getting into reading off the page. Maybe they just don’t have time. Whatever the reason, they’re still absorbing the book, its themes, its characters, its ideas. Audiobooks aren’t even really a huge format shift. Those are still the author’s words you’re hearing. A voice actor can modify the interpretation, but unless they go completely off script, you’re still hearing what the author wrote.

As a writer, I love expanding my audience, and audiobooks are one of the ways to do it. So feel free to “read” however works best for you. It beats the alternative, especially for my revenue stream, and it allows you to enjoy my genius. It’s what we call a win/win.

 

Scott Weston on Facebook asks:

“If you could take two of your books and do a cross over of the two with characters of both interacting with each other, what would you pick and why?”

This isn’t something I think about much. I’ve created many characters and many worlds, but I do consider them all self-contained. I don’t usually contemplate crossovers because short of the weak “Universes collide” justification, it really doesn’t work. Even my more traditional fantasy worlds don’t quite fit together from novel to novel because I’ll happily redefine what a troll or an orc is from book-to-book.

But since you asked, some characters would certainly fit together more easily than others.

Every character from Chasing the Moon, by virtue of it taking place in a broken and wildly divergent reality, could easily slip into another story or have another character appear in their setting. A hole in space opens up and out steps Mack Megaton. Thematically, however, it really wouldn’t work the same. Chasing the Moon is all about characters being swept along by an incomprehensible universe. Even the cosmic monsters of the story are mostly clueless. An action hero like Mack or a supergenius like Emperor Mollusk would clash with those ideas.

I have had one crossover, in fact, in a short story I self-published in my Robots versus Slime Monsters collection, and it is in the Chasing the Moon shared universe story, Pizza Madness. Not to spoil the story, but Frush’ee’aghov the Lesser from Gil’s All Fright Diner makes an important appearance in a confrontation with Vom the Hungering and Zap. Frush goes unbilled though and not many people seem to catch it. But as an interdimensional horror himself, he fits just fine with the Moon universe.

Mack Megaton (The Automatic Detective) and Emperor Mollusk (Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain) are both inspired by my love of pulp sci fi, so a crossover might work, even though Detective takes place in an alternate past and Mollusk in an alternate present. But they both live in worlds of incredible superscience, so it wouldn’t be hard to engineer a crossover.

Strangely, I think Nessy the housekeeping kobold (Too Many Curses) and Helen the modern day minotaur (Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest) might be a fun story to write as they’re two characters very close to my heart, but again, there would have to be some weird explanation for how they met.

As it happens, I’ve always wanted to write something with space vampires! And an invasion of interdimensional space vampires would be justification for just about anything, really. And if I was going that road, why limit myself? Why not combine all the characters into one giant multidimensional, inter-reality war? Emperor Mollusk as the leader. Mack Megaton, Duke the werewolf, Vom the Hungering, and Helen the minotaur as the muscle. Nessy the kobold as logistics and support. Lucky and Quick facing off against the savage space vampire gods! It all culminates in a final showdown to end all showdowns. Universes will explode! Life as we know it will never be the same!

Y’know what? That actually sounds pretty awesome. I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but as a collection of inter-connected short stories, each portraying the larger tale from the perspective of the established A. Lee Martinez cast of characters, it might actually work. Something to think about, at least.

Weird War of the Space Vampires isn’t beyond the realm of possibility at some point in the future, though it’ll be a while in the making if I do ever start it.

Stay tuned, folks.

 

Frank McCullough on Facebook asks:

“Will you ever make a sequel to monster?? That book is amazing and seemed like it could use a sequel. Just to expand the characters.”

Honestly, probably not.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

First, the entire universe of Monster undergoes a radical transformation by the end of the book. Since the book is five years old, and nothing is really secret on the internet, I’ll go ahead and say that by the end, Magic (with a capital M) makes a pretty big comeback to what is more or less our universe. This means that much of what makes Monster familiar would start to fade. Everyone would be using magic and much of the world would be unrecognizable. That’s not a tremendous obstacle. I’m known for making the weird accessible.

The second reason is the bigger problem. I’m just not sure either Monster or Judy demand to be expanded. Monster, by virtue of his character flaw, is a jerk incapable of personal growth. Judy is an entirely different person by the end of the book. A good person, sure, but not one that is necessarily very interesting to spend time with. There are the minor characters, but even they seem more interesting in small bits than larger roles.

Then again, I don’t think that far ahead. I did just come up with the idea for Weird War of the Space Vampires literally half-a-page ago, and until just then, I wasn’t especially enthused about doing a crossover with any of my characters. So maybe the world and characters of Monster will get a revisit someday. But not anytime soon.

 

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

 

A Keeper of Worlds (short fiction)

 Wanted: Keeper. No Experience Necessary. Flexible Hours. Good Pay.

Red had called the ad out of curiosity. Also, he didn’t have many other options. Bills were piling up. His unemployment was up. Desperate circumstances. It didn’t hurt to call.

They took his name and gave him an appointment for an interview. They didn’t ask anything other than that. It was obviously some sort of scam, but he didn’t have choices. He put on his only suit and went, resume in hand, with very low expectations.

The building was unremarkable from the outside. More unremarkable on the inside. Bare gray walls. A lobby without chairs. A small office to one side. Two doors that he didn’t go through.

The woman giving the interview was the same who had made his appointment. He recognized her voice. She didn’t introduce herself, took his resume, dropped it on the plain brown desk without reading it. “We’d like you to start as soon as possible.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”

“The sooner the better,” she said. “Is today too inconvenient for you?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“Good.” She shook his hand. “Shall I show you the worlds then?”

“Worlds, ma’am?”

“The worlds you’ll be keeping,” she said. “You’ll be in charge of everything on the third floor.”

She led him to the elevator without explanation, and he didn’t ask questions. He assumed it would make sense if he gave it some time. And he was right.

The third floor was full of worlds, great stretches of miniature lands and oceans encased in glass display cases. One was nothing but water. Another, an endless desert. The others were anything and everything in-between. His first thought was that they were elaborate dioramas, but then he noticed the things moving throughout them. Tiny little creatures. Little more than specks.

“These are yours.” The woman pointed to the control panel beside the ocean world. There were surprisingly few buttons for controlling something so complicated as a world. “You’ll find your operation manual in your desk. I suggest you read it. Up to you, of course.”

She paused before a case where a bunch of the creatures were gathered together in some sort of strange chattering mass. “Not another war. They were only left alone for a few hours. I know this is your job, but do you mind if I make an adjustment?”

He shook his head.

She twisted a knob, pushed a few buttons, and a clap of thunder shook the world. The creatures scattered in all directions.

“That’s better. Of course, if you should elect to encourage them to kill one another, that’s your prerogative. Your predecessor seemed to favor pitting the poor things against each other, with predictable results.”

She nodded toward a case filled with scorched landscape and smoking ruins of miniature cities. In the rubble of a ruined world, there were still traces of movement, tiny beings struggling to survive in a broken land.

“I can’t do this,” said Red.

“Of course you can. It’s really not that hard.”

“What if I fuck it up?”

She smiled, and it was the closest she ever came to laughing. “You will. That’s part of the experiment.”

“What experiment?”

“The only experiment that matters,” she replied. “They will make mistakes. So will you. And we will read your reports and hopefully, learn something useful along the way.”

He didn’t ask who We was. He didn’t want to know.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to on the Floor Seven. We still haven’t cracked that heat death problem in Universes. Really should have maintenance take a look at that.”

She left. Red stood in the hall of his worlds. He shouldn’t be God. He hadn’t even made it through college.

He studied the ruined world, and its dying inhabitants. Maybe he could fix it, give them a second chance. He found the manual in his desk, sent them some rain and a little sunlight with the few pushes of a buttons. He didn’t know if it made their lives any better, but he hoped it might.