A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 36

Everything You Want (short fiction)

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better hell I send you to than you have ever known.”

Sydney Carton broke free of the guillotine, snatched a sword from the nearest guard, and engaged in a fierce duel of blades.

The book had changed again. It kept doing that. She closed it and reread the banner on the cover.

Now with Smart Read TM

The book had sensors buried in it that read her face, gauged her interest, and altered the text accordingly. It saw she was sad and was trying to make her happy.

“Paul, I can’t get this damn thing to stop changing,” she said.

“Have you tried adjusting the settings?” he asked. “Here. Let me have a look.”

He showed her a series of sliders and switches on the last page and how, with a few clicks, she could set the book more to her liking. Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, Intrigue.

All choices were at her fingertips. All choices but one.

“I don’t want any settings,” she said. “I want it on neutral.”

“They don’t have that as an option.”

“I just want to read the book as written.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, the book wouldn’t keep changing. It knows what you’re feeling.”

“But it doesn’t know why. It thinks I’m sad and that’s a bad thing, but it’s supposed to be sad.”

“So tell it you want a sad story then.”

He didn’t get it. Even now, as he watched Casablanca, the TV could see he was distracted so it came up with an excuse for Ilsa Lund to be topless.
“Damn, Paul, how high do you have the nudity setting?”

“Not that high,” he said.

She opened the book. Sydney Carton was now dead. Charles Darnay was dying of tuberculosis and had only a few days to live anyway. Lucie Manette had, somehow, ended up lost in the wilderness and torn apart by wolves.

She threw the book away.

Rick and Ilsa were making out now. The movie was only giving Paul what he wanted, but Francis didn’t imagine Humphrey Bogart ever had abs like that.

Graves (short fiction)

Honesty was difficult with a gun to your head.

“Did you sleep with my wife?” asked Randy.

“No,” replied Harold.

“Did you?”

“No.”

Randy shouted. “Did you?”

“Goddamnit, no!” Harold shouted back. “How many times do I have to say it?”

Randy grabbed Harold’s collar and shook him. “As many times as it takes for me to believe you.”

The question was asked a few more times. Harold stuck to his answer. Randy didn’t want the truth. The pressure of the gun barrel against Harold’s skull and the shallow grave, dug by his own callused hands at gunpoint, reminded him that he didn’t want to die here.

Lots of guys had screwed Randy’s wife. Why couldn’t one of them be here instead of Harold?

“Did you sleep with my wife?”

Harold remained calm. He’d always had a knack for that. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

Harold took a boot to the back and fell over. His fingers dug in the loose brown earth. He saw the graves. A dozen. More. Mounds of dirt. Monuments to Randy’s rage and grief.

“Oh, shit, Randy. How many—”

“As many as it takes,” Randy replied.

Harold stood. “I’m not doing this. You want to shoot me? Go ahead. But don’t do it for her. Don’t do it because you think it’ll save your shitty marriage. How many guys do you have to bring out here before you realize it’s not about them? It’s about you and her. You can’t fix things this way.

“You want to blame someone. Blame her. Blame you. Don’t blame me. I’m just some guy you barely know who had an indiscretion years ago.”

Randy wiped the tears from his watering eyes. “I love her so much.”

“This isn’t love, buddy,” said Harold. “It’s a lot of things, but it’s not that.”

Randy lowered the gun. “Jesus, it’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty fucked up.”

Randy laughed. He rubbed his jaw. “Thanks, man. Of course, now that you know this, I can’t let you—”

He didn’t see the shovel coming at his head until it was too late. Harold caved in Randy’s skull with a few more good whacks to be certain.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that.”

He buried Randy in the grave, deleted Randy’s wife’s number from his phone, and drove home to his wife and kids.

The Many Flavors of Brain Candy

Every artist (or most, I hope) struggles with the question of whether artistic success is the same as artistic merit.  The easy answer is that they aren’t the same thing, and I think we all agree on that more or less.  We all have obscure artistic failures that we love and mainstream creations we hate.  We all understand that taste is subjective, even if we tend to place more value on our own tastes.  The answer is easy, but where it leads us isn’t so easy.

From a purely financial point of view, good art is relatively easy to produce.  It’s never that easy to create something people will like and be willing to give you money for.  Even the greatest artists in the world have their failures and disappointments.  But once you develop an audience, once you’ve convinced the audience to like you, and once you give them exactly what you promise them, it’s harder to fail than not.

Most of the time, the audience isn’t dissecting an artistic expression.  Most of the time, they audience is just looking for something they can enjoy.  The term Brain Candy gets thrown around a hell of a lot, but most media is exactly that.  Because the term has Candy as part of it, it’s usually applied to vapid, saccharine confections.  Uninspired romantic comedies, silly slapstick, etc.  But Brain Candy is ubiquitious.  It comes in hundreds of flavors.

For the mature viewer, it can be stories about the Holocaust with respected English actors reciting dramatic monologues.

For tearjerkers, it’s two people falling in love while one of them is dying.

For horror fans, it’s tales of indestructible serial killers and sadistic madmen who throw people in contrived deathtraps.

For Christian audiences, it’s tales of faith lost and regained.

And so on and so on.

The flavors vary.  The result is still the same.  Most art is not designed to challenge the audience.  Most art is designed to give the targeted audience exactly what it wants.  No surprises.  And that’s not a bad thing.  When I order a cheeseburger, I don’t want an experimental goat cheese and alpaca meat sandwich.  I want something very specific, and I’m cool with that.  We’re all cool with that.

But there’s also a question of value beyond merely entertaining us.  I don’t need every story I read to be one that challenges my perceptions of morality or attempts to make me see the world in a different light.  But just because something is entertaining, it doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.  Brain Candy versus Artistic Merit is a false argument, and one that gets made far too often.

Worse than that, it’s often unfair.  I don’t know if A Game of Thrones is great art or not.  It’s not my thing.  I’m okay with acknowledging that.  But, rarely, will it be called frivolous.  And maybe it isn’t.  But maybe it’s more candy, this one deliberately designed to shock us with its unpleasantness.  People open the bag every week and gobble it down, and sometimes, they bite into some horrible confection.  Then they sit around talking about how much better their candy is than other people’s candy because it isn’t always sweet.

Is it the unpleasantness that makes art great?  I’ve never believed that.  There is fantastic unpleasant art, but The Incredibles remains my favorite film of all time.  It’s not unpleasant.  It’s thrilling, touching, and beautiful.  It has robots and superheroes and absurd adventure, and I can devour it readily.  It doesn’t need to shock me to be a great story.

Yet I continue to struggle against this assumption.  I don’t want to kill off my characters just to show I’m serious, and I don’t want to trade on a brand loyalty either.  I honestly want the audience to be excited by the idea, by the discovery, by the chance to enjoy something and possibly provoke a thought or two.  I want to be a serious writer in that I want to be taken seriously.  I don’t want to write serious books to do it.  I used to think that was an ambitious goal.  I’m beginning to think it’s just stupid.

I’m not looking for sympathy.  Hard to feel sorry for a guy who has managed to make a living writing silly books for the last ten years.  Books, I’ll add, I’m very proud of and think are unique and rewarding experiences.  No one can say what makes great art or not, but I’d like to think I made some great art along the way now and then.  I’d like to think there is something worthwhile among all the robots, monsters, and weirdness.

Are my books candy?  Yes.

But the great thing about great art is that it can be candy and still be good for you.  I’d like to believe that about my stories too.

Thanks for listening, Action Force.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

 

Unseen Problems (short fiction)

Gil’s All Fright Diner

Cathy couldn’t get mad at the server for flirting with Earl. He wasn’t the most handsome or charismatic man, but his supernatural vampire magnetism could make up for that with susceptible people. He hadn’t asked for her attention, and Cathy believed that the server would’ve played it cooler if Cathy hadn’t been an invisible disembodied spirit.

“Like a slice of pie, honey?” asked the server to the table, but specifically, aimed at Earl. “On the house.”

“No, thanks.” Earl was trying to discourage her with his indifference, but she wasn’t taking the hint.
Duke sat across the table, quietly eating his eggs, keeping his head down.

“Just whistle if you need anything.” She winked and sashayed her hips as she walked away.

Napoleon growled at her. The restaurant had a No Dogs policy, but that didn’t extend to ghost dogs.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Cathy,” said Earl.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“Cathy . . . ”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just the way it is. Pardon me. I have to use the restroom.”

One of the things that sucked about being disembodied. She didn’t eat. She didn’t use the bathroom. She didn’t have any of the dozens of convenient excuses people used for finding private time. She wondered why she bothered offering justification. Mostly a habit from her living days. Earl and Duke were always cool about it.

She went to the bathroom. Cathy stood before the dirty mirror, casting no reflection. When the lighting was just right, when the metaphysics aligned perfectly, she could be seen in mirrors. It didn’t happen a lot. But when it did, it was another precious reminder that she existed, even if that existence was in the realm barely connected with the world of flesh and blood.

The bathroom door opened, and the server stepped inside. She used the mirror to start applying makeup.

“He’s not interested,” said Cathy.

The woman ignored Cathy. The living so often did.

Cathy held her hands out and made spooky noises. Sometimes, it worked. Most times, it didn’t. She was glad it didn’t. This woman wasn’t doing anything wrong.

The server dropped her lipstick in the sink at the sight of the ghost materializing in the mirror. She glanced over her shoulder and jumped at the knowledge that a specter was sharing the room.

“Oh, sorry. My bad.” The apology was useless. The server could see Cathy, not hear her.

“Oh, what the hell?” She jumped in the mirror and shouted “Boo!” A crack ran down the glass, and the light bulb burst. Whimpering, the server fled from the dark bathroom.

It wasn’t mature, but it did feel good.

Cathy rejoined Earl and Duke at the booth. Earl put his arm around her. She loved when he did that. Especially in public. It made him look like a nut, holding onto nothing, but it was an acknowledgement that she was more than just a phantom. She was here. She mattered.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Their spooked server walked hurriedly out of the restaurant. Cathy smiled, despite herself and leaned into Earl.

“Everything’s just fine.”

Dying Things (short fiction)

The Specialist

The cop grabbed my collar when I reached for the door handle. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m going down there.”

“Are you nuts? That thing–whatever the hell it is–it’s killed three people. Tore them to pieces. Almost killed my partner too. Just touched his arm and now it’s gangrene. Doctors say he’s going to lose it.”

It wasn’t gangrene. It was worse. If his partner was lucky, that would be all he’d lose. Sometimes, the infection spread faster than the docs could cut it away.

“We should lock the doors and burn this house to the ground,” said the cop.

“Fire won’t kill it,” I replied. “Nothing will.”

“Bury it under a hundred tons of concrete then. Just leave it the hell alone.”

“We could do that. Or you can let go of me, and I’ll handle the situation.
This kind of problem is my job.”

He released me. “You’re crazy, man.”

I most definitely was, but in my line of work, it helped to be crazy.
Ordinary people went about their ordinary lives, and it was my task to keep it that way.

“You want my gun?” he asked.

“Appreciate the gesture, but like I said, it won’t die.”

It was human nature to fear things like this. That was my real talent. Not magic powers. Not an ability to hit a bull’s eye at fifty paces. Not a great study of occult mysteries (though I knew more than most people would ever want to know). Just a level head and healthy touch of madness.

As soon as I was through the door, the cop slammed it shut and locked me in. The dim basement lighting cast shadows everywhere. The thing was probably hiding in one of them. Or it was behind the boiler. Or it was invisible, right in front of me.

I sat at the bottom of the stairs and waited for it to show itself. A couple of pieces of shredded cloth and meat not far away lay not too far away. All that was left of the thing’s victims. Contact between matter from radically different realities was nasty business. It was fifteen minutes before the shadow appeared in the corner of the room.

“Hello,” I said in words it could understand. It wasn’t a language as much as an attitude.

“You. Speak.” Its voice was like a spider crawling through my brain. “How?”

“Not important,” I replied. “What is important is that you have to go.”

The thing slithered forward. To describe it was impossible, so I won’t even try. “Where? How?”

“You must’ve fallen between worlds. It happens.”

“You. Stink.” It recoiled into the dark, where I couldn’t see it. “This. Stinks. This. Place. This. Foulness.” It stammered, struggling to find a word that it had never needed before.

“That’d be death,” I said. “We’re used to it here.”

“How?”

I shrugged. “It’s how we’re made. We’re dying, one day at a time, one moment at a time, but it’s a constant thing. So we learn to ignore it.”

“How?”

“You’d have to be one of us to understand.”

“Death? Things?”

Its terror was palpable. Its pity was overwhelming. It saw us as meat with delusions of grandeur. Rotting from the day we were born in a world falling apart around us. For something eternal, there could be no greater horror than this world.

“Home?” It pleaded. “Must. Home.”

I smiled, even knowing it couldn’t understand the expression. It must have found the flesh and blood monstrosity sitting before it as nothing short of repellent.

“That’s something I can help you with.”

The hole wasn’t hard to find when you knew how to look. The thing could’ve done it on its own if it hadn’t been so terrified. All I did was calm it down so that it could. The thing didn’t pause to thank me as it returned whence it came. I didn’t take it personally.

If the tear hadn’t closed up after it, I might’ve been tempted to follow, even knowing the world beyond would destroy me moments after I walked through. But a world without dying things walking around like it was perfectly ordinary . . .

It might’ve been worth it to glimpse it for just a moment.

The Faceless King (short fiction)

Demon with 10,000 Fists short fiction

The shaman was the kind of guy people spent their whole lives pretending they didn’t see until they managed to make it so that they didn’t. Some people didn’t want to deal with the guilt. Others had more pressing concerns than one more homeless man among many. And some folks were just too determined to ignore anything they didn’t like seeing. The reasons were different, but the result was the same. Nobody saw the guy.

Nobody but Richard.

It’d started out simple enough. While walking past the guy, Richard had dropped some spare change in the beggar’s cup. It’d been less an act of generosity, more about not wanting to shove more coins in his pockets.

“Thanks,” said the beggar in his rough, worn voice.

“Uh hmm,” replied Richard.

The homeless man grabbed Richard’s sleeve. Not hard enough to stop him, but Richard stopped anyway. A few feet away, a potted plant came crashing down a few steps from where Richard would’ve been had he kept walking.

“Lucky break there,” said the homeless man as he sauntered away.

Richard didn’t think much of it. The next day, the hairy, dirty man stood in the same spot, shaking his cup. Richard dropped a couple of quarters in the cup as way of saying thanks for the fortunate save.

The old man’s mustache twitched. “Wouldn’t get on a bus today,” he said before vanishing in the throngs of morning pedestrians.
Richard didn’t take his bus. He felt ridiculous watching it drive away. He played through the conversation with his supervisor in his head. “Sorry I’m late. Just following some advice from a crazy old man.”

He didn’t know if the old man was crazy. Or old. It was impossible to tell under all the grime, and the wrinkles could’ve been the price of a hard life rather than age. Crazy was an unfair assumption.

The bus had been in an accident. Another bus had plowed into its side, and while Richard didn’t have a regular spot he sat in, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened if he had been on it.

After that, he started getting up early specifically to speak with the old man. He’d offer the beggar a few coins, sometimes a dollar or two. The shaman of the streets didn’t always say something. Most days, he took the money and walked away.

But the days he did say something . . .

“Nice day to walk through the park.” Richard ran into a woman he’d met at a party. They’d hit it off, but he’d never gotten her number. Now, they were dating.

“Looks like rain.” Richard bought an umbrella. It didn’t rain, but it started a conversation with the head of the company while riding the elevator that probably had something to do with getting fast tracked toward a promotion.

“Everybody’s workin’ themselves to death.” Richard used a personal day. He stayed home with his girlfriend, playing video games and making love. Nobody in the office even cared.

Richard had never had a spiritual advisor before, but that haggard, old man was a link to something bigger. Richard didn’t understand it. He didn’t need to. He accepted it as truth, and if all the old guy wanted was a dollar a day to share that wisdom, Richard was happy to pay it.

One day, after he’d paid his tribute and the old man hadn’t said anything, Richard was walking away when he heard someone hassling the old man.

“Why don’t you get a job?” asked a guy in a button upped business suit.

The old man chewed on the remains of a half-eaten sandwich he’d fished out of a garbage can. He said nothing. Just stared at the suit.

“Are you crazy or just too lazy?”  The old man turned, and the suit grabbed the shaman by the shoulder. “Hey, man, I’m talking to you.”
Nobody else wanted to get involved. They kept their heads down and kept walking.

“Cool it,” said Richard. “He’s not doing any harm to anyone.”

The suit snarled at Richard. Then the old man. “God damn leech.” He batted the old man’s can out of his hand. The coins spilled across the sidewalk.

Richard bent down and helped the shaman pick up his money.

“Pathetic.” The suit strode away in disgust. He only made it a few steps before tripping on a crack in the sidewalk and banging his head against a lamppost. He struggled to regain his balance, but the crowd pushed him around. He slipped on the edge of the sidewalk and fell into traffic. Richard turned away, but he heard the thunk of wheels rolling over the guy.

“Taxis in this town can be murder,” said the old man as he dumped his handful of change into his pocket and shuffled off.

The next day, Richard slipped the shaman an extra five bucks. Just to be on the safe side.

The Soft Prejudice of Genre

Labels don’t always mean what they think we mean.  In the world of fiction, there are a plenty of labels to go around.  Most of those labels serve only to divide and prejudice the audience, and it’s time we stopped looking at them as some indicator of innate quality.  Labels work best when they are applied to concrete qualities, but it’s human nature to take those concrete qualities and apply abstract assumptions to them.  It’s nothing new, and we do it all the time.  It’s a convenient shorthand, but convenient is all it is.  It isn’t always true, and often, it leads us to the wrong conclusions.

I am a fantasy writer.  I’m confident with that definition because all my stories have important fantastic elements to them.  I’m a humorous writer.  Again, whether I want the label or not, I can’t deny that there’s a healthy dose of intentional humor in nearly everything I write.  Those are simple labels.  They get the job done.  But they tell you nothing about the quality of the stories.  They only tell you what elements you can expect to be incorporated into them.  You might like those elements.  You might not.  It’s a handy jumping off point to gauge your interest, but it isn’t an indicator of the quality of the writing itself.  There’s a sort of soft bigotry at work in all of us.  It’s soft in this context because it doesn’t do much damage, but the results are still the same.  By forming assumptions, we cut ourselves off from experiences.  We sort everything into neat little categories, and we decide the value of those categories arbitrarily.  It’s like meeting the love of your life and missing out on the chance to know them because of the color of their eyes or the style of their haircut.

I write fantasy.  I write humor.  I love robots and space aliens and minotaurs.  It’s very easy to see if a story has those elements in it.  It’s just a checklist.  It doesn’t mean I like every story (or even most stories) with those elements in them.  I grew up immersed in the superhero genre, and I’m still fond of it.  But there’s a lot of superhero stuff I just don’t care for.  There are many classic superhero stories I find downright overrated.  Seriously, if someone tries to tell me how awesome The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, or Watchmen is, I’m happy to discuss it, but I am not going to agree.

I love robots.  I have no interest in the newest Transformers movie.

I love kaiju flicks.  I found the most recent Godzilla to be an empty exercise in plot zombies (i.e. characters who exist only to do what the story needs them to do without any other sense of purpose).

That’s okay.  I can say these things are bad (subjective).  It doesn’t diminish the genre.  It doesn’t mean that all robot movies stink or all kaiju flicks are stupid.  That’s my biggest pet peeve with the defense of these stories.  I hate when someone defends the snoozefest that was the newest Godzilla by suggesting that the kaiju genre is synonymous with “bad movie”, and since Godzilla wasn’t terrible, it is more than one could reasonably ask for from a kaiju flick.  That’s the soft prejudice of low expectations.  Worse, it diminishes an entire genre which is full of great stories, terrible stories, and a whole lot of unexceptional stories as well.  It suggests that genre indicates quality when all that the kaiju label means is that at some point a giant monster is going to appear.

Perhaps its because I’ve always loved the less respected genres, but I object to this notion.  I get angry about the latest Godzilla flick not because it’s a bad kaiju movie.  It’s just a bad movie that happens to be of the kaiju genre.  Yet for most people, even people who call themselves fans, the idea seems to be that kaiju stories are innately stupid.  So many people, both artist and audience, seem to embrace this notion as truth that it’s practically invisible.

I’m also sensitive about it because this is the stuff I’ve chosen to write.  These are my influences, and I think they’re worthy influences.  I don’t think having a robot or a vampire in my story means I’m writing slight, inconsequential stuff.  I don’t think pointing out absurdity makes me a silly writer.  I don’t think humor or fantasy equal fluff.  I’m not slumming it.  I’m not writing these things because I’m not good enough to write in other, better genres.  Genre isn’t a measure of quality.

Genre exists for a reason.  It’s a tool to help guide us.  But, too often, it also limits us.  It bars us from experiencing stories that could genuinely mean something to us.  Maybe my stories will be too silly for some.  Maybe the themes I explore and the characters I create will be impossible for some people to enjoy.  That’s okay, expected.  But it’s a real shame if the only thing keeping someone from enjoying them is what section of the bookstore those books are shelved in, and it’s a small tragedy when a dull movie like Godzilla or Skyfall succeed because they apologize for their genre rather than being interesting stories in themselves.  (Not that everyone who likes those stories likes them for those reasons.  Taste is subjective in the end.)

The tyranny of genre is that it holds us back.  Don’t let it.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write

LEE

 

 

 

Looking Back (short fiction)

John had found the door to the underworld. It’d taken a decade of research, a lot of wrong turns, enough failures to make a sane man give up. But he’d found it, and he’d entered with a list of names in his pocket and the knowledge that while he was free to leave any time he wanted, he would never find it again once he did.
On his way out, he ran into Cerberus. The three-headed behemoth snorted fire and stared at John with burning, red eyes.

“Leaving so soon?” the legendary hellhound asked. “But you only just got here.”

“I found what I was looking for,” said John.

Cerberus glanced over John’s shoulder. “Leaving alone, then?”

John laughed. “You don’t honestly expect me to fall for that?”

“Worth a shot.” Cerberus’s right head yawned. “My, that’s a great many souls coming with you. Are you certain you haven’t forgotten any?”

John held up his list. “Nope. I have them all.”

“I’m surprised they let you leave with so many. They usually limit one to a customer.”

“I think they assumed I wouldn’t make it out without breaking the rule.”

“None have so far,” said Cerberus. “There’s a first time for everything. Though I must ask, how have you managed it?”

“It’s not that hard.”

The great hellhound guffawed, shooting flames in the air. “Is there no doubt in your heart? Is there no fear that the gods of the dead have lied to you? Do you not yearn to glance at the faces of your loved ones so badly that you cannot resist a quick, backward glance? Why, I think it’s safe to say the gods would probably not even notice.”

“I do yearn. More than you can know. My wife, my son, my brother, friends and family. I’ve lost too many people over the years. Everyone. I would do anything to get them back.”

Cerberus snorted. “You have more self-control than any mortal I’ve ever heard of.”

“Not really. I would’ve looked behind me halfway up the path if these souls had been any of those people. But these people are strangers. I don’t know them. I only know their names, given to me by other strangers.”

Cerberus’s brow furrowed. “Then why did you brave this journey?”

“Because I don’t care about these people,” said John. “But somebody out there does, and in the end, that has to be enough.”

The hellhound stepped aside and bowed his head. “Leave then, mortal, with the blessings of the gods of the living and the dead.”

John exited with his charges. He walked past the waiting people. People he didn’t know. People he very purposely avoided getting to know because it was the only way this would work. Behind him, he could hear the joyful reunions of losses undone and tragedies unmade. He kept walking until the sounds faded away.

He never looked back.

Rogue (short fiction)

Sanchez had seen his share of supervillain lairs. It came with the job. There was one constant when it came to evil geniuses. The more elaborate the lair, the less dangerous the villain. The villains who built elaborate dome headquarters with their logo stamped all over it (and branding was something villains seemed to take very seriously) were inevitably pushovers compared to the science criminals who rented a nondescript warehouse. Megalith’s base of operations was of the warehouse variety, and it meant trouble.

Ideally, the High Science Crime Unit took care of these situations quietly. The secret to catching an evil genius without much fuss was to deprive them of their chance to show off. If they couldn’t throw the switch of their hard-built doomsday devices, they’d surrender without much of a fuss.

But someone—Sanchez didn’t know who but he’d sure as hell find out—had called out a squad of black-and-whites, and they’d surrounded the building. Their blinking lights reflected off the warehouse walls. Inside, Megalith was either hastily finishing up whatever criminal science he was creating or he was just waiting for the most dramatic moment to strike.

It put Sanchez’s fur on edge and a twitch in his ears.

“Has he done anything yet?” he asked a patrolman.

“Not yet, sir.”

Sanchez sighed. Another bad sign. A ranting science criminal was a distracted science criminal.

“Get ready to send in the autos,” ordered Sanchez.

The autos probably wouldn’t handle the situation. They rarely did. But they’d hopefully give the cops who couldn’t be repaired so easily a heads up of what to expect.

A hologram of Megalith’s giant head materialized over the police hovercraft. He laughed maniacally.

“Here we go,” said Sanchez, drawing his raygun.

“Fools! Fools! Do you think you can stop me? I shall be master of this world and this city shall be the first to fall!”

Sanchez gave the order, and the autos rushed forward. Hulking robots smashed their way out of Megalith’s lair. They made short work of the autos, crushing them without even slowing down. The cops fired everything they had at Megalith’s robot minions. It scratched up their paint jobs and not much else. The cops weren’t armed for this. Tactical teams were two minutes away. Might as well be two hours, thought Sanchez as he watched a robot pound a skimmer to scrap with a single blow.
Sanchez yanked a rookie back as a robotic brute batted aside the vehicle they were hiding behind.

“Get the hell out of here, kid! I’ll cover you.”

The rookie didn’t run. He was brave. But stupid. No reason for both of them to die pointlessly. They unloaded everything they had at the rampaging auto before them as it raised its fists to squash them.

But it didn’t. It stood there, frozen. Might have been a hiccup in its electronic brain.

“Now, my glorious mechanical army,” said Megalith’s holographic head, “destroy them!”

The auto before Sanchez didn’t move, but one of its brethren pushed past it to execute the order.

The immobile auto activated again. It grabbed the second robot and with a single punch, knocked its head off. Silently, it turned away and bashed in another of Megalith’s auto soldiers.

“What are you doing?” said Megalith. “Stop that!”

The malfunctioning rogue smashed another pair of robots.

“I said stop! Stop it! Stop it!”

The remaining autos turned their attention away from the police to the rogue. They piled on it. The battle was brief. They had numbers, but it was clear the rogue had more advanced tactical programming and better armor. It reduced the loyal robots to so much twitching scrap metal in short order.
It entered the warehouse, and there was a heck of a racket from inside. Several explosions that shook the district. The warehouse rocked but remained standing. Barely. The rogue stepped out, carrying Megalith. It dropped him at Sanchez’s feet and deactivated.

“Do you think this will stop me?” said Megalith. “I am the rightful master—”

“Yeah, yeah. Take him away, fellas.” Sanchez had heard it all before. There were plenty of guys eager to take over the world. So far, none of them had come close.

The cleanup crews went to work.

Sanchez puffed on a cigarette as he studied the immobile rogue robot, towering silently.

There was something in its opticals. A glint. A glitch. Something more.

“What the hell are we going to do with you, Mack?” asked Sanchez.

The Color of Madness (short fiction)

“Stop messing with your blindfold,” I told him.

“How do you know?”

“I know because you’re always messing with it.”

“That’s because I hate it.”

This wasn’t news to me. He’d hated it since first putting it on

The color yellow was driving people crazy. About one in 10,000 would become dangerous. A man in France had poisoned an office building because of the color. A woman had chopped her family up with an axe. There were thousands of such terrible reports, but after the first few months, all the dangerous cases were found.

Now, people were far more likely to be pushed into catatonia. They’d be discovered, staring at something yellow. There was always something yellow. Flowers. Birds. Paint swatches that were smuggled in the underground by people who found something satisfying about holding onto something forbidden.

It’d all started a few weeks before the accident that cost me my sight. An accident I’d first seen as a tragedy. Then good fortune. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Now, I thought it was just a thing.

“Stop messing with it,” I said.

“It makes my face itch, Mom.”

“I know. But you have to wear it. For your own good.”

“How much longer?”

“Not much longer,” I said.

“And after, can we go visit Dad?”

I imagined the look of hope in his smile. He still believed his father would come back to us. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want to rob him of that hope. But his father was one of those people who couldn’t wear his blindfold. Not wouldn’t.

Couldn’t.

It’d taken him away from us, and nothing I’d done or said had been enough to lure him away from the color. He wasn’t coming back.
The nurse came in. It was a minor procedure, really. They’d done it enough at this point. For people like my son, who had always taken after his father.

“I don’t want to do this, Mom,” he said.

I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I know, son. I know.”

They led him to the preparation room, and I sat there, waiting for my son to join me in the darkness.