C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 93

Carlie's Chapter 8 - Dear Tiger: I Don't Think I'm Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Simone begged Tiger to get off Deskeden and go somewhere safe. This week, Tiger reveals he has located both Simone's parents and one of Simone's classmates.Chapter 8 – Maybe More than Human
Dear S.S.You forgot to tell me any dreams, so I can’t check anything else out.Right now, I know you are right about Marrietta—at least a little bit. And I know what happened at Ambron’s, and I wish I had better news.Whatever was in the jars got into the air ducts. The computer should have noticed it, but it didn’t, and the whole building was infected. Whatever experiment the company was conducting, it got into the Academy, and they got a whole lot more test subjects than they anticipated.They sent everyone to different regions of the galaxy, and told their parents or families they were on super-secret assignments. I figured out they couldn’t hide them all, forever, and that’s when I discovered the second reason Deskeden has been indicted.They’re starting to send everyone who’s been infected either here, or back to Sharvin.I don’t’ know why they haven’t sent you.Your parents are away doing research, but they’re not here, or where you are. The company sent them back to Sharvin. I get to see their reports on the artefacts, which is good, because I can tell you that they’re both okay.The big news here is that my parents aren’t being drugged any more. I found out who was doing it, and analysed the goop on the instruments. The goop’s something that makes them think any task to do with the infected equipment is the most important thing they need to be doing. I didn’t know what to do about the person spreading it around, but that’s okay, because the company ordered him to stop using it.They let it wear off, and then they told everyone we were on an indicted world.And they told us why.It’s because of what happened on Sharvin, and at the Academy, and it’s because of what we found here.Your folks found some ruins on Sharvin, a lot like the ruins that we found here. EXACTLY, like the ruins that we found here, which is why there are now shipments between Deskeden and Sharvin, and why we now have communications with each other, but, officially, no-one else.Which brings me to the next piece of news: I’m not supposed to be able to contact you. I’m not even supposed to be able to communicate off-world. The intergal-interweb is linked to our satellites but only has a very narrow access. We can search it, but we get delays for any info not stored in-system.Any signals, or emails, or newscasts are blocked, but not so you’d notice. The company buffers them, and then decides what goes through, and what doesn’t. It’s like we have a really bad download speed. All the time. In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’ve hacked that.Doctor M. is safe. He can pull stuff around the buffers and past their detection programs. And he’s got this girlfriend, Shell Koravy, whose emails he reroutes, so she doesn’t get into the same trouble as Alby. Because I had to erase his email before they could trace it back to you. So, Hello, Miss Koravy. Do you want to dance with me?Don’t laugh, okay? It’s the best I could come up with at short notice, but now I can talk to you anytime I want because there are no blocks between my doctor account, and your Shell account, so we’re all good, okay?I’m not so sure about Alby. Last time I checked that account there were FedExplore tracers pasted all over it. In case you hadn’t worked it out: don’t use it, okay?Now, what else did I have to tell you?Oh, yes, Marrietta. Right. She is on Sharvin.The company have built an underground facility there, and that’s why you saw her in the dark. You must have dreamed her while the complex was on a night cycle—and this is a really big thing, Shell-SK. Really big.Firstly, because if you dreamed her at night on your world, then they would have been on a dark cycle on Sharvin. And, secondly, because Marrietta would have been ported in while it was dark, so there would have been no-one to welcome her, and they don’t have any light during the dark cycle inside the complex.That’s why Marrietta was so scared. She’d woken up in the complete dark, and she didn’t know where she was. I don’t know what they’re studying in that complex, but I think she has a reason to be afraid. I accessed her medical records, and I’m in the middle of cross-referencing her stuff with the records of four of your classmates.They all got transferred to Sharvin, and they all got transferred to the complex, but their blood work has markers in it, and I’m still trying to work out what it means.Your blood work has markers in it, too. Just so you know.And I’m just as stuck with that, as I am with theirs.All I can say is that it has something to do with gene-editing.You might be right when you say that you’re not human, but you’re also wrong. From what I’ve seen you’re all human, even if they’ve added something that makes you just a little bit more.Hang in there, okay?I’m doing my best to work it out, and I will.I promise.
Love
Tobias M.
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The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.

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Wednesday’s Verse—Calls the Waterfall

This week’s verse moves from a a science fiction piece of blank verse about someone in the vanguard of a world-wide evacuation to a verse that plays with repetition and rhyme spoken by a person listening to a waterfall. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2016.

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Calls the Waterfall
I stood upon a mountain talland watched the way the water called.I watched the way the water called;I listened to the waterfall.
The water fell, so clear and bright,reflecting gem drops in dawn light.Reflecting gem drops in dawn light,the water called, the water bright.
Bright it danced upon the dawn,as dawn’s bright colours lit its fall.As dawn’s bright colours lit its fall,I listened to the water call.
I listened to the water call,in the brightness of the dawn.Bright sun colours lit its fall,as I stood upon the mountain tall.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. books2read.com/u/mVLQZb books2read.com/u/bxgyLd

Tuesday’s Short—Fate in the Sun

This week’s short story takes us from the moon to a distant world where creatures come through interdimensional rifts to slaughter. Welcome to Fate in the Sun.


On Canon V, the colonists live underground—those that can, anyway. Those that are born unable, I help guide to the surface, and then I try to warn them of the creatures that come from beyond the rifts. Some listen. Most run away screaming. With the creatures coming more often, now, the last thing any of us expected was for corporate intervention. Now, we just have to work out if they’re offering a deal worth taking, or if we’d be better off in the caves.

Fate in the Sun
Most of us live underground, away from the wind and the clouds—and the uncertainties of the sun. Most of us prefer it that way. But there are a few—a very few—who head towards the surface of their own free will. It’s the darkness, they say, the closeness of the tunnel walls, the ever-present struggle as they try to find the room to breathe.There are those who choose to go … and then there are those who are taken. They are taken because they cannot take themselves. They are the ones who reach the Narrows on the other side of The Great Break, and who drop to their knees. Some fall down weeping, some with a scream, and some curl in on themselves with a whimper. Others just stop, and stand, and stare; they are the ones who do not make a sound.We come across them, almost catatonic, and then it’s up to us—the ones who feel no terror in the deeps, or at the sight of day. I am one, and I, although I will not admit it, sometimes find a cliff ledge from which to watch the rising sun. I, also, will not speak of the pleasure it brings when I see that sun turning the sky from indigo to gold with every colour in between. There are days when those memories carry me through, the memories of those colours and the sun’s warmth on my skin.But I will not speak of it, for the caverns shelter us from a danger far worse than the sun, one that resides in our heads, and I fear that to speak of the sun-gifted pleasure would only encourage others to seek it, for to go to the surface is to put yourself in the path of demons. I suspect those interdimensional terrors are the reason our ancestors fled below ground, in the first place. It is why I pity those who must return, and, on the surface, remain.Sometimes when we find them, those who seek the surface are in no condition to survive it, and then the squad has to stay with them and help them find their feet. We take them a good day’s march from the caves, being careful to cover our tracks. It would do us no good if the demons found the gateway to our underground home.We set camp, and tend them, bringing them out of sedation, giving them food, giving them directions to the settlement. Sometimes, I am able to find one that I can warn, one that will not run screaming off the nearest cliff. For the surface-drawn can sometimes sense the other dimension, and instinctively fear what lives there. Of those that can sense it, very few don’t instinctively take flight, when it nears.This time, we’d camped two days out. I have to admit I didn’t feel comfortable with that, but I’d felt less comfortable at our usual site, and four of our five surface-seekers had come out of sedation early—and they’d come out screaming. They hadn’t stopped screaming, until we’d travelled half a night more, and they hadn’t settled completely until the second sunrise.By that point we were exhausted and had to stop.“No more stimulants,” Squad Leader Tanko said. “Second shift, take over.”And then he unpacked his sleeping bag, chose a patch of ground clear of stones and bushes, and bedded down. His confidence in his Second was well-founded. She had camp set and the seekers fed by full light. I stayed awake long enough for that, and then went to my rest. Second Katika acknowledged my departure with a nod of approval, and I wondered when she had been planning on darting me. I was glad she’d waited. I don’t react well to the sedative.This time, I fell asleep within seconds, and was woken some twelve hours later to eat. I spent supper, watching the sky change colour as the sun set. By then, most of the surface-seekers had recovered enough to feed themselves. In another twenty-four hours we could send them on their way.When I finished eating, I checked in with Tanko and Katika.“Go back to bed,” they said, and, for once, I obeyed.I woke in the grey light before dawn, when the air was still cool with night, and the sun was a trembling presence just below the horizon. I woke uneasy, but no-one else stirred, as I repacked my gear, and headed for a low hill overlooking the camp.The night before, I had watched the sun set from the rocky crest of that hill, and I intended to watch it rise from the other side. Taking a self-heating meal from my pack, I settled in for the show, and that is all that saved me.At first, I thought the warming air was a natural result of the coming sun, that the nausea I felt was a result of trying to eat so early in the day. It was with a sudden jolt of shock that I realised it was not.Setting the meal pack behind me, I turned and looked back at the camp, and all thought of food fled. A second sun had woken in the centre of the camp, but instead of the roses, lemons and gold I had come to appreciate, this light was a burning, ruddy orange—an interdimensional inferno.Forgetting the sunrise I’d come to admire, I crouched low behind my escarpment of rock, and watched as a tear opened in the fabric of my world, letting the orange light spread. I tried to shout a warning, but my breath caught in my throat, and my mouth grew dry.As I watched, one of the seekers woke, screaming in alarm. The rest of the camp woke, too, but they were still scrambling from their sleeping bags, when the first demon stepped clear of the rift.I was barely aware of the figures fleeing from the camp, as I studied the monster crossing into our world. Seven-feet tall, and narrow of build, it was encased in blood-red armour. Almost like an exoskeleton, the armour gleamed, refracting the light from two worlds.I was aware of the dawn, even as I watched the demons run down squad member and seeker alike, and carry them back to their own dimension. The attack lasted less than a quarter of an hour, from the moment the first seeker screamed to when Squad Leader Tanko was dragged through the rift by the last of the raiding demons.I was scarcely breathing, when the rift closed, and the orange light gave way to the golden touch of my own world’s sun. The numbness of complete surprise wrapped itself around me, and I could not think of what I wanted to do next. Stone rattled on stone, and I turned.One of the seekers was coming up the hill, approaching from the opposite side to that of the camp. He was staring at me, as though trying to make sure I was real. I looked from his anxious face, back to the camp, feeling the air return to normal, the first touch of the sun, cool compared to the searing breeze that had bled in through the rift.The seeker covered the last few metres of hillside, and crouched beside me. He peered over the escarpment to the empty camp below.“Are they gone?”“How did you know they had been?”“I felt them coming, and I hid.” He gestured with both hands. “The hill and the stream, I hoped…”He didn’t bother finishing the sentence. I knew what he had hoped—that the hill and stream would be enough to hide him from whatever means they had used to find the camp. I had hoped the escarpment would do the same.We crouched in silence, the morning sun driving the last of the night away. Our backs grew steadily warmer under its touch, as the hill’s shadow stretched over the camp.“Should we go and get the gear?” he asked, and I looked down at the pack he carried in one hand.“I didn’t want them to count, and realise one was missing.” He nodded at the pack resting beside me.“I don’t go anywhere without my gear.”“Not even to watch the sun?”And I remembered I had left both bedroll and equipment behind, when I’d watched the sunset the night before.“That was different,” I said, and he smiled.“You can sense them, too,” he murmured, and I knew he wasn’t talking about my pack and sleeping bag.“Yes.”“Nausea and unreasoning fear?”“A sense of unease rather than fear, but nausea, yes. Once they’ve arrived.”“But you’re not afraid of the underneath?”“No,” and it was true. Right now, I missed being in the caverns, feeling the friendly closeness of rocky walls.“They cannot go there,” the seeker said.“No.”“I wish I could.”There was nothing I could say to that. Just as the fear prevented some of my people from stepping into broad caverns, or out beneath an open sky, so it prevented others from living beneath the earth. It was just the way the gene pool fell, an unbalanced dealing of life’s cards.I contemplated fetching the rest of the gear, but the very thought of returning made me feel sick. Reminding myself we had to move, and that we did not know how long the journey would be, did not help. Nervousness seized my limbs, and my skin danced with fear.“We’ll leave it,” I said, and he breathed a sigh of relief.“Which way do we go?” he asked, and that was when I realised Tanko had carried a map.“We warn the settlement.”“Won’t we be too late?”“Not if they’re waiting for someone to come back.”“You’re that sure it’s a trap?”I wasn’t, but I was. I nodded all the same.“Let’s go,” I said, pulling what I remembered of the map to mind.And so we did. We walked until dusk, and then we kept walking. Both of us had stopped beside a likely camping place, and stared at it. I had sighed, and he had laid a hand on my arm.“We needn’t stop,” he said.“But I have no stims,” I said. “I’m not sure we can make it in one hit.”I stared at the campsite, and added, “Or get away if we did.”I did not want us to work ourselves to exhaustion to get to the township, and then collapse, only to wake under an orange sun. From the look on my companion’s face, he was feeling the same way.“Why don’t we push it until midnight, and see how we feel, then?”His words echoed my thoughts, and I nodded.“I’m Miranda,” I said, taking the first step away from the camp site.“And I’m Geordie.”I’d known his name, just as I knew the name of every seeker we rescued, but it was better for him to introduce himself—reaffirmed his identity, or so the psychs said. I just thought it was more natural. I didn’t know if Geordie could keep the pace, but I broke into a trot, settling into a pattern of jogging a hundred metres and walking until we caught our breath.“You guys travel like this all the time?” he asked.“Only on the way back home,” I replied. “Can’t do it with seekers in tow.”“Why not?” Even puffing, Geordie sounded mildly offended.“You’re usually unconscious.” And that was the end of that; we really didn’t have enough breath for talking.We arrived at the township just before dawn, jogged down the deserted main street. I kept going until I reached the headman’s house. It was deserted, perfectly preserved, not a speck of dust on the lintels, windows gleaming, beds made with hospital corners, but deserted. The kitchen cupboards were also bare.“Damn,” I said, the word emerging on barely a breath.Beside me, Geordie echoed the phrase.“Do you think the demons got them all?”“Maybe.”“We’d better get out of here.”“Yup.”And get we did, running as fast as we could, the warning nausea of an impending incursion roiling in our guts. We threw ourselves behind a hill, just as grey outlined the horizon. Rocks protruded from the ridgetop and, remembering the safety of the caves, I belly-crawled my way up to them. By wriggling carefully, I was able to peer around them to the town below. The nausea grew worse, the rift pending, but not yet open.“Do you think we’re far enough away?” Geordie whispered.He was lying beside me in the dirt, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps from the run around the edge of the low cliffs overlooking the town, and then up the steep hillside. Glancing east, we saw the edge of dawn pushing the grey further out into the sky. Looking down, we could see the soft, shadowed outlines of the country below. The rift came when the first touch of pink stained the sky.“I wonder how long they’ve been coming,” Geordie whispered, as orange light blazed in the centre of the main street.“Not long,” I whispered, watching the first demon emerge. “The town was perfectly normal last time we arrived.”“How long ago?” As Geordie spoke, another demon followed, and another.“Two months, by this world’s time.” I stopped, watching five more demons fan out to form a perimeter.“Well, it explains why the first campsite wasn’t safe.”I let that comment drift into silence, both of us watching as ten more of the interdimensional demons emerged to search the buildings, me remembering how Geordie had been one of the first to wake, and one of the last to stop whimpering in his sleep. He had been the reason we’d travelled for two days, instead of one.“How do you know?” I asked, and he looked at me, puzzled. “How do you know they are coming?”“I can hear them,” he said. “There’s some kind of ceremony they conduct to open up the pathway.” His face paled. “For gates like that one, they take at least five lives.”He swallowed, squeezed his eyes tight shut, opening them again to watch the activity below.“They torture them for hours, drawing power from the pain, the anguish… the very fear.”I glanced at him. His face was milk white, his dark hair contrasting with the pallor of his skin. His voice cracked, all the more heartbreaking for the way he suppressed the sound.“It’s the way they power their world. They know no other.”I looked at him, forgetting, for just a moment, the necessity of keeping any eye on the threat within the town.“How do you know?”He returned my stare, tears running down his face, unchecked.“I’ve seen inside their heads,” he said. “If they knew…”He shuddered, his body shaking all the way down to his toes, and I couldn’t blame him. For just a moment, I’d caught sight of the images haunting his mind, and I understood just how deeply he wished he could remain underground. I couldn’t bear it; I looked away, back to the town, just in time.“Oh shit.” Keeping my voice low, I laid a hand on Geordie’s shoulder. “You up for a run?”We only had to keep the demons off us long enough for their gate to run out of power. Once they had no hope of dragging us back through, they’d give up the chase. Or so I hoped. Geordie’s words ‘If they knew…’ haunted me.He looked down at the town, as well, and I was only just in time to stop him from leaping to his feet. I kept my hand on his pack as we scuttled backwards down the hill.“They don’t know we’re here, do they?” he asked, and I had to assure him that I didn’t think so.Even then, I was quick to pull him to his feet, and drag him along the gully floor and further into the hills. Don’t ask me why we kept running along the gully. I think it’s because we didn’t notice how much narrower it became. The hills around us were clothed in low scrubby trees, interspersed with thigh-high bushes and large, round balls of spiky grass. The dry creek bed was the easiest place to move in—and the one place we saw no webs.I wondered if spiders ate demons, and then decided I didn’t want to run into one that big. The gully wound around a bend, and the hillsides steepened into cliffs. I welcomed the sight of red stone shot through with overtones of purple, and wondered if these rocks would protect us from the demons, just as they protected our underground homes.The rocky creek bottom became treacherous with larger rocks replacing the pebbles, and we took to the creek bank, working our way between the spiky tussocks along an animal track. We slowed our pace, our breathing sounding harsh in the gully’s confines.I gestured towards where the cliffs drew closer together.“You okay to go through there?”Geordie looked at the gap, looked at the open sky above, and nodded.“That, I can manage.”I looked at the way his eyes measured the space between the cliffs, sought the sky, and had my doubts. I didn’t voice them, though. We’d be safer if he could convince himself to handle the gorge.“Do you think they’re still following us?” Geordie’s question came between gulping sips at his water flask.“Let’s keep going,” I suggested.It wasn’t avoidance, not exactly; I just didn’t want to admit I didn’t know.We kept going, moving through the shadows of a small gorge, and skirting deep pools of water, using shelfs of rock. The cliffs seemed endless, but it was hard to tell, and the sun only just brightened the western rim. We marked the passage of time by the way the sun extended its reach into the chasm, and pushed on.“You know we’ll have to stop soon,” Geordie said, when the light reached nearly five metres down the cliff wall.“I know.”“Well, this could do.”I remembered stories of flash flooding, of walls of water thundering down dry creek beds in spite of blue skies, and I kept walking.“It’s not safe,” I said, echoing the words of my survival instructor.Geordie shrugged, sighed, and stifled a yawn, but he kept up. We’d almost made it to the end of the chasm, when we heard voices. The words were unintelligible, but the tone was excited. They weren’t shouting, exactly, but they were relaying information. Geordie and I found hiding places amongst the boulders, and waited.For a while, it looked as though the voices were getting closer, but no-one entered the chasm. When the shooting started, it was way over our heads, and then we realised that whoever it was had maneuvered over the hills, while we were working our way through. Slowly, we emerged.“Still think we can’t stop?” Geordie asked, and there was challenge in his tone.“We’ll get out of here, and find a place on one of the hills,” I said. “These rivers flood.”“When there’s been no rain?”“What falls upstream can come down in an awful hurry.”I watched realisation dawn on Geordie’s face, and turned towards the chasm’s end.“Who do you think they were?” Geordie’s question stopped me cold.It was something else to which I didn’t know the answer. I shrugged.“Maybe we could ask them for help.”“And maybe they’ll use our gizzards for sausage casings,” I snapped, tiredness, and my temper, getting the better of me.The click and whine of a Glauzer 957 being armed, snapped loud and clear down the canyon, setting my teeth on edge. Geordie dived behind a rock, for all the good it would do him.“Now, that wasn’t very polite.”I turned my head towards the voice, squinting against the glare at the canyon’s end, and wondering if I’d have any time to unsling my own weapon. It wasn’t a Glauzer, but it had a better rate of fire. The voice came again.“Why don’t you raise your hands?”I turned my head, slightly, following the sound. Whoever it was, they were awful quiet, and fast. It took my eyes a little time to adjust to the shadows, and even then I might have missed him, if he hadn’t moved to bring the Glauzer up.“I said, raise your hands.”A perverse part of me wanted to argue that he’d only asked me why I didn’t, but it didn’t seem wise to provoke him, so I raised both hands.“Now, why don’t you ask your friend to step into the clear?”I swallowed, looked across at Geordie.“Come on,” I said. “Glauzer will punch right through that.”Geordie stood up, glaring at me, but lifting his hands over his head. When he was standing beside me, other shapes moved in the shadows along the canyon walls. Since when had there been caves? I blinked. And where had the power come from? For all the caves I could see glowed with the promise of light further in.“Don’t move.” The order came from a figure garbed in acacia green broken by earth red patches and grass-yellow streaks. The voice was female, but the head and face were covered by the suit.I looked at her, looked just beyond, and raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t even gonna twitch. They took my gear, in quick efficient movements, and then ran a scanner over my clothing, removing the extra bits and pieces I’d found came in handy in the caverns.“And what do you need all of this for, hey?”“Rescuing people like him from their fear of the dark.”She stilled, then stepped back.“We got another one,” she said, speaking into the mike clipped at her collarbone. “Looks like the interdimensionals were on a hunt after all.”“These two?”“Shepherd and seeker.”Shepherd? That was not a term I’d heard used. Amongst my own people, I was called a guide. I waited, my arms weighing like lead. Beside me, Geordie shivered. Looked like the effects of the adrenaline were wearing off us both.“Look—” I began, but her comm unit crackled.“Bring ’em in.”“Move.” The soldier laid a hand on my arm and pulled me toward the nearest cave.As we drew closer, I could see it was some kind of doorway. We were three metres away when Geordie grabbed my other arm.“Miranda,” he said, and I could feel the fear in his voice.“Hey,” I said, coming to a stop, and bracing against the pull of her hand. “Hey!”Weapons came up around me, but the soldier turned. Her masked face moved as though looking from me to Geordie, and she nodded.“Knock him out.”Before I could protest, one of the soldiers closest to the seeker had hit him over the head with the stock of his rifle. He’d then slung the rifle, and picked up Geordie’s limp form and slung it over his shoulders. It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but it was effective.“Come on,” the female soldier said, and turned away.I followed. Her solution to Geordie’s fear had been brutal, swift, and efficient. I didn’t want to find out what her solution to resistance might be. I had been right; there were doorways in the cliffs—not caves—and the corridors beyond were lit. What I hadn’t expected were the bright, open spaces to which those corridors led.Stepping into the first, I looked around. It was a broad open bowl, surrounded by red-and-purple cliffs, and interspersed with pillars of the same rock. At the base of every rock, stood a small stone house, the same colour, and, in the centre of the valley, stood a cluster of administrative buildings. I looked up.The sky arced overhead, and I frowned.“What do you think?”The soldiers had stopped with me, and their leader had turned her head towards me. Just when I was thinking I would feel a lot better about things if I could see her face, she removed her mask.“Leila!” We had worked together, until she’d fallen for one of the seekers, and taken up residence in the town. “I was coming to warn you.”I felt my face fall, remembering the deserted township, thinking of how many lives we’d lost, delivered like sacrifices to a place that should have been safe.“I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”She smiled, reaching out to place a hand on my shoulder.“Well, that much is obvious. Anyway, we had some help.”“But, why didn’t you recognise me out there? Why—”“—the charade?” This voice was still new, and I turned to watch as the man with the Glauzer stepped into the open behind us.“Yes.”“Because the interdimensionals are growing more cunning every day. Last shepherd that looked like a friend really wasn’t.”“Fortunately, bringing him back through the canyon stuffed up the equipment he was using for camouflage, and we saw what he was before we opened the doors.”“They can do that?”“Yeah,” Leila said. “They can.”She gestured back at the man with the Glauzer.“This is Peachy. He’s our liaison.”I looked back at Peachy.“Liaison?”“Come on, Miranda! You knew we weren’t alone in the universe, right?”“Yeah, but I thought we’d been forgotten.”“Well, we haven’t been. The planet’s still under restrictions, but we’re reconnected.”“How long?”“Three or four months.”“You didn’t mention it, last time around.”“We were told not to.”I looked back at Peachy, the questions stark on my face.“Let’s discuss this inside, hey?” He gestured to Geordie’s limp form. “He’s not exactly light.”“Right.”Leila led, and I followed, tracking after her with Peachy at my back. It wasn’t something I was exactly comfortable about, but it would do. I wondered where he was from, who would bother coming, let alone staying, when they knew what dangers threatened the world.“They’re everywhere,” Peachy explained, when we’d settled Geordie into a bunk in one of the smaller houses. “And, as you’ve noticed, they’re getting better at finding their way around, more precise with their rifts. It’s almost like they can sense where we are.”I glanced nervously around the cabin, and he smiled.“Not here,” he said. “It’s the stone—which is why we’re here.”“We being?” I wanted to know.“CHASM,” he replied, and continued when he caught the puzzlement on my face. “Corporation Halcyon Armed Space Mining. C.H.A.S.M. for short. CHASM.”Mining. Well, that explained a lot.“And what do you want here?”Peachy gave me an impatient stare, and then looked askance of Leila.“You haven’t explained,” she said, “and we’ve literally been living under rocks for years.”He sighed, and started speaking as though he’d told the story all too many times before.“As I’ve said, the interdimensionals are getting better at making incursions into this dimension, so good, in fact, that they’re now able to get onto starships and space stations.”I’d heard of those. When the colony had moved itself underground, they’d taken their tech with them. It was the only reason we hadn’t gone back into the stone age, the only way we’d been able to make the caves habitable and build a civilisation beneath the ground. Ten years ago, and even I knew we’d been slowly slipping. With no contact with the outside universe, how could it have been otherwise… and then I remembered: Halcyon had been one of our sponsors.“So, you wanted to make good on your investment,” I said, ignoring his story.Peachy stopped, his mouth open as though he’d been about to continue. He closed it, glanced at Leila, swallowed, and looked at me.“The stones shield you from incursions.”“Even in the largest caves,” I confirmed.“We know of nothing else that can. This,” and, here, he paused to make a gesture that included the cabin, and the valley and tunnels beyond. “This is our research station. We’ve patented the mineral formula, and will be bringing in scientists and equipment to develop a way of synthesising it and, or, bonding it to metal. We need to know what it does, exactly, and exactly how it does it.”He stopped, watching my face.“And then you’re going to market it,” I said.I had lived my whole life with people developing products in the hope of one day re-establishing contact with the universe outside. I knew about product patenting, and marketing.“And you’ll need to contact and expand the colonies,” I added, “make mining and processing a priority, and so forth.”Peachy looked from me to Leila, and back again.“Miranda always was a quick study,” she said, “so you’d better tell her the rest.”The rest?“I take it there’s a catch,” I said.There always was.“It depends how you look at it,” Peachy began, and I glanced at Leila.Her shrug was not reassuring.“Canon V is a corporation asset,” he began, and I bit back the urge to argue.Canon schmannon. They’d left us on our own for ten years. They’d ignored our hails, and they hadn’t cared whether we lived or died—until they’d discovered we had this protective layer of rock, and they needed it. Well, well, well.Peachy seemed to be waiting for an outburst, or a tirade, but I hadn’t been made a guide because I ran my mouth. I waited for him to continue. Finally, with a sigh, he did.“And the colony was seeded with our funding.”Again, he waited, and, again, so did I. Again, he continued.“So, I believe we have a lot to offer each other.”And, again, he paused. This time, it was more difficult for me to keep my mouth shut.He believed we had a lot to offer each other? Yeah, right. More like, he was here because Halcyon—CHASM, my ass—Halcyon believed it could make a tidy profit. Come to think of it, if the interdimensionals were the threat this guy was claiming, the profits would be enormous.Peachy glanced at Leila.“I believe it’s time for us to contact the colony,” he said, and Leila gasped.That news had come as a surprise, but Peachy kept talking.“We need to move our operations up a level. Miranda, we’ll need a complete debrief…” he paused, as I swayed on my feet.Leila caught it, too.“Maybe when she’s rested,” she suggested.Her next question: ‘How far did you run?’ was something I heard through a growing fog, as I sat down on the floor. Twenty-four hours plus a bit, Geordie and I had spent on the move. Even I had my limits. I wasn’t much help as they got me into the bunk above Geordie’s, didn’t even hear them leave as I plunged into sleep. Felt like something had curled up and died in my mouth, when I woke thirty-six hours later.There had to have been sensors in the cabin, because Leila and Peachy were waiting when I stepped out of the shower. Lucky I was sharing the cabin with Geordie and had found a pair of coveralls in the closet at the end of the bunk. At least I was dressed when I answered the door.“Debrief?” I asked, not stopping as I opened the windows for when Geordie woke up, and then I worked my way around the kitchenette.I found a few new things. Coffee? I’d heard of it. It hadn’t been considered a colony essential, and the grown-ups had whined about it running out. Milk… Hadn’t had much of that either, but Leila had stocked in the usual shroom teas, which didn’t need it. I selected one of those, then took one of the big blue fungi out of the pantry and found a fry-pan.Peachy wrinkled his nose, and I ignored him, slicing the shroom into steaks, and pulling out the jar of tark fat that was in the fridge. It didn’t take too long to cook, and Geordie was up and in the bathroom before I was done, so I cooked him a couple of shroom steaks, as well. They were done by the time he was out, and looking a lot more awake.“So,” he said, settling down beside me on one side of the table, accepting the plate of shroom, and cup of tea I’d set there. “Where we at?”“Miranda was just going to debrief us,” Peachy told him, taking a seat opposite.It didn’t seem like he wanted to wait, so I filled him in, in between mouthfuls. Man didn’t want to give me time to eat, man was just going to have to put up with it. Geordie didn’t say a word, just ate his steaks, while I talked. I think he knew what was coming when I was done.“And you?” Peachy asked.I finished off my breakfast and cleared our plates, while Geordie spoke. By the time he was done, the dishes were clean again, and I’d made shroom tea all round. He picked up his cup, shortly after I’d sat down.“So, you can both sense when the interdimensionals are on their way,” Peachy said, and his change of topic startled me.I must have looked as surprised as I felt, because Leila laid a hand on Peachy’s wrist, and he stopped.“Let me take over,” she said, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what was coming next.I was right. I sat opposite Leila as she explained, and I wondered at how far and how fast she’d fallen in a few short months. And then I took a strong grip on my temper, and tried to make sure I’d heard right.“Let me get this straight,” I said, looking from Peachy to Leila, and deliberately avoiding Geordie’s eyes. “You want me, and Geordie, here, to have a baby.”They nodded, but I kept going, struggling to keep my voice calm, as I did so.“Because, you want some kind of early warning system on your ships, and you haven’t devised a computer alternative yet, and”—I raised a hand as they both opened their mouths to respond—“And because I’ve got the ability to deal with confined spaces, which Geordie hasn’t, but because we’re both sensitive, you want us to make a baby that might be stronger than either of us.”Now, I waited for their response. In the end, it was Peachy who replied.“Essentially, yes,” he said.“You can’t do a gene splice for the desired traits?” I asked.“We haven’t isolated the right genes, and that work will take months, if not years,” Peachy replied. “A baby might be faster.”“I take it you don’t just want one,” I said, and this time I did glance at Geordie.Poor guy. His head was bowed, his chin tucked, and his ears were so red, I figured there might be a real danger they might set his hair alight.“We don’t need to have sex,” he muttered. “They could artificially inseminate.”Dayumn. He found this as bad an idea as I did. Peachy looked from me to Geordie, and then spread his hands in appeal.“It’s only one child,” he said. “You don’t even have to raise it, or see each other afterwards.”At this, Leila cleared her throat, and Peachy rolled his eyes.“Fine! You might have to see each other, given how small the colony is, right now, but you needn’t establish a permanent relationship.”And that was when the pieces started to fit together.“We’re not contracted to you,” I said. “Not a single one of us. You raised part of the stake to get the colony started, but I bet you weren’t the only ones. And I’m betting you never consulted with your partners about what you’d found, or where, did you? What are they going to say if I ask them what they think?”“We bought them out.”Well, there went that idea. Peachy didn’t give me a chance to recover. He kept on.“They didn’t understand why we’d want the place given the level of interdimensional activity, and the loss of comms. They figured the colony was down. We gave them time to try and get in touch, and to investigate the world, but they couldn’t see where the profit was, so we dangled a few juicy territorial rights in front of them, and they jumped at the exchange.”My heart sank.“So, we’re on our own, then.”Peachy tried for a reassuring smile.“No, you’ve still got us.”“Uh, huh. How come the others didn’t get our signals, and you did?”“The others didn’t fly down to the settlement until after we’d moved it, and the rocks block comms signals, just as well as they block scans, or whatever it is the interdimensionals use to find your surface folk. After the first raid took out their primary expeditions, the other companies decided they didn’t need the hassle.”“They left us.” It was not a nice conclusion to arrive at, but someone had to say it.I figured I might as well extrapolate on it.“And then they sold us out.”Peachy gave me gentle smile.“Something like that.”“That doesn’t mean we’re your belongings,” I said. “Each and every one of us should have a contract.”“What makes you think they’d be worth the paper they were written on?”“Even Halcyon likes to appear above board,” I said, praying it was true, but not letting an ounce of doubt show in my voice, or face.“True,” he said, “and the breeding program would work a lot better with willing participants.”I grimaced. I hadn’t thought I was going to get out of this one, but at least they were coming to the table. From the look on Leila’s face, she hadn’t thought to fight. I sure as hell hoped she hadn’t signed anything, yet.“You’re set on the breeding program?” I asked, my throat tight.“Until we get the genetics sorted,” he said.“And the kids will be their own people?” I pressed. “Not company slaves.”“No more than anyone else,” he said, a sly smile playing about his lips, and then growing serious. “Fine! The children grow up free citizens. We set up communal care for those whose parents don’t feel they can do the parenting, and for those parents we call into service in space.”At this Geordie shifted uneasily beside me. I laid a hand on his thigh, and he stilled.“And no one goes into space without testing to make sure they can cope with ship life, right?”“Agreed.”“And Halcyon makes sure the industries they need operate from thisworld.”He opened his mouth to argue, but I ploughed on.“It’s got to be cheaper than shipping the ore off-world, right?”“Some of it,” he admitted, “but there’s also shipping the other materials in, that we’ve got to consider.”“The interdimensionals aren’t going to let you process it without interference, once they figure out what you’re doing,” I added, “and this world has the largest supply of rock for safeguarding your manufacturing and research facilities until you get the process right. Not to mention the ideas the colonists have been developing in the hopes of attracting investment to this world.”“They’ve what?”“The colonists. My parents. My teachers. Pretty much anyone who remembers what it was like to live on other worlds, who had hopes of building a future here. They’ve all got ideas for things to bring investors here—and Halcyon’s on the ground, first. We’re all going to need help to get started, and at least your labour force has saved you the cost of building accommodations in the more secure parts.”I stopped then. Partly because Peachy was staring at me as though I’d grown an extra head, and partly because I’d run out of things to say. Either way, now seemed like a good place to take a breath.“You’re not a lawyer, are you?” he asked.“I’ve studied some,” I said. “Results would have to be verified by the institutions that gave us the software, but, yeah, in between guiding, I studied law. Wanted to be useful to the businesses my folk wanted to build.”“So you’ve got a handle on IP law?”“A bit.”“Contractual law?”“Some.”“We’re still going to need you to contribute to the gene pool.”I risked a sideways glance at Geordie. From the look of it, he was pretending he wasn’t there.“Sure,” I said, and watched the tips of Geordie’s ears turn red again.From there, our conversation turned to contacting the main colony.“Get your base contracts in order, first,” I said, when Peachy brought it up, and he looked at me.“You want to come work for us?” he said. “We could always use a good lawyer.”I raised my eyebrows, and he glared at me.“Not the way you’re thinking,” he said. “Halcyon and CHASM too, for that matter, try to avoid the kinds of wrangling you’ve brought up.”Well, I just bet they did. Especially, when there was someone to wrangle with.“You want me to start a family earlier than I’ve planned,” I said. “That’s going to slow me down in finishing my qualifications, and put a kink in my ability to earn.”“We’ll pay you,” he said, and I grabbed that with both hands.“Everyone who participates in your genetics program gets paid?” I asked, and his face flushed.“Yes.”“And you’ll put me through the training I need as part of that?” I pressed, and he glared at me.“Fine.”“And there’ll be corporate child care and education facilities open to all?”“Open to employees.”“And their families.”“Fine! And their families.”In the end Peachy went away and drafted a contract. When he brought it back, we wrangled it some more, and there were more of us to wrangle, because word got round. We ended up shifting negotiations to the main meeting hall, and making a shuttle run for the colony leaders. While we didn’t have the company over a barrel, we knew enough they preferred to negotiate than risk bad feelings on the grounds of their newest, and most lucrative, project.I won’t say we all came away happy, but mostly happy wasn’t a bad outcome.I’m about a year into studying intergalactic law, working alongside CHASM’s lawyers to learn the trade from their point of view. With the credits I received for the work already done, I’ll be qualified in another four. The CHASM folk are happy with my progress. They think all that effort’s being done to protect their patents, and find ways to legally bind my people to Halcyon’s will, but I think ten years’ abandonment puts their claims at jeopardy, and I think a little compensation is in order, and I don’t mean a breeding bonus, either.Not that I’d ever tell them that. But, while, I’m grateful for their protection, and their rescue, I won’t let my people be made into slaves, just as I won’t let them fall into the hands of a bunch of interdimensionals who think humans have no more value than a piece of coal.We might be a hell of a lot safer than we were, but now is not the time to relax; now, is the time to fight, to make sure we leave a legacy that our children can live with, without wondering what the hell their parents were thinking. And, as for genetics, well, I’m sure I can find a legal precedent for that, too.Given time.And Geordie and me? Apart from it being no-one’s business, we’re doing just fine. And the twins are growing fast. 


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Fate in the Sun is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/4DoZee.

You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
 

Carlie’s Chapter 7—Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Tobias confirmed that what was happening wasn't good. This week, we find Simone is not reassured.Chapter 7 –NOT Reassuring!

Dear Tobes
Thanks for your letter. If that was your way of being reassuring, it didn’t work. You, Mister, need to work on your bedside manner!Tell me how your folks are doing, and more about Kiara and Del. They sound like nice kids.I’m not in a bubble any more. The docs say I’m not infectious. They also say mum and dad are away doing research, but they won’t tell me where. Keep an eye out for them on Deskeden, because I’m having one of your bad feelings.I think you might be right; I think I’m becoming psi.This is not good news, even if it is the reason I now have a room of my own.I can hear them, Tiges. I hear them when they walk past. I know when they’re thinking about me. Worse. I know what they’re thinking about me—and I really don’t want them to dissect my brain to ‘study the physiological changes’. Nuh uh. No way!I need to work out an exit strategy—and I think you do, too.We need to get away from the company, and we need to find somewhere safe.You’ll do that for me, won’t you Tiges? Get off Deskeden, and get to somewhere safe?I’ll try to do the same. After that, we can see about finding each other, but only when we’re secure. We can’t look out for each other, until we’ve looked after ourselves.So. They moved me from the bubble, and put me in this room. It’s small, but not a prison cell. I have my own bed and san unit, and my own computer centre. They’ve told me what I have to study so I can graduate, but they also said I should tell them if there’s something else I’d like to try.I’m not your kind of genius, Tiger. I’m good with computers and programs, but there are other things I just can’t seem to wrap my head around. That’s okay, though, right?You know how I said I wasn’t sure if I was human or not? Yeah. Still not sure. I really wish I knew what was in those jars.

Take care of yourself, Toby Tiger.

Shel-Simone.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
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Wednesday’s Verse—The Vanguard’s Regret

This week’s verse moves from a fantasy terza rima about mermaids to a science fiction piece of blank verse about someone in the vanguard of a world-wide evacuation. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2016.

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The Vanguard's Regret
And so I watched the starship climb awayinto the sky, and thought how much betterit would be, if I had climbed aboard, andnow did fly away with those who thereindid find sanctuary within its strong hulluntil, at last, the ship could reach a home,and they, kept safe and sound, and fast asleep,did wake to a new world, new hopes, new dreams,but with me, with me, instead of wakingall alone, with no-one but each other, hoping I come home.
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Tuesday’s Short—Earth & Lunar Dreaming

This week’s short story takes us from a near-future apocalypse, and back to the moon, where one shapeshifter must help another. Welcome to Earth & Lunar Dreaming.

When werewolf, Chitin’s, nightly solitude is interrupted by a small child seeking his help, he does not suspect that her plea will touch his dreams for the world of his ancestors. He is determined to refuse her, but she is just as determined to gain his protection, and leaves him little choice but to help—at least at the start.Earth & Lunar Dreaming
The halls of the moon were bustling with people—usually, but Chitin chose to roam the ones that everyone else avoided. He liked the relative quiet and the dimmed lighting, and he knew he had nothing to fear. In human form, he was too big for most to attack, and he was yet to meet anyone who would stand and face him when he became a wolf.Of course, if he became a wolf, it was usually so he could run and hide, vanishing through a grate into the walls of Lunar One to emerge dressed as a workman through a maintenance hatch elsewhere. He was not the only one to frequent the tunnels--or the only one to have claimed a corner in the disused warren that had once housed the refugees of Earth.That had been many moons ago, and Chitin curled his lip at the unintended pun. Many, many moons. His people had a home on one of the outer worlds, now, a place with forests to roam in, one for which their claim had been honoured. But Chitin did not feel as though he belonged there. He did not feel as though he belonged anywhere… except maybe here, in the dimly lit halls of a half-forgotten legacy.It was late, and he had come to the dome to stare out at the stars, to drink in the view of a slowly recovering world.One day, he thought, I will go and visit, but every night he searched the Earth’s surface, and the places he most wanted to go still glowed. Tonight, he looked, again, and saw the same, although he imagined one small corner had grown in healthy darkness, and the thought made him smile.At this rate, I will be covered in silver before I can stand beneath those skies and look up at where I am now, he thought, sadness rippling over him like a stream.A small sound caught his ears. If he were in wolf form, his ears would have twitched, and he’d have tilted his head to catch the sound all the better. As it was, he tilted his head and turned his face just enough that he could catch sight of her from the corner of his eye. He knew that, as soon as she knew he’d seen her, she’d bolt.He also knew she was nothing to fear. The she-child had been stalking him for the last five days, and he had stalked her back, just enough to ensure she posed no threat to him.“She’s probably come off one of the cargoes,” Nev Shinto had said, when Chitin asked. “Been a few stowaways last few weeks. Probably escaped from an orphanage or traders. I don’t ask, and I don’t tell. You know me.”Don’t ask. Don’t tell, that was Nev’s mantra, and Chitin wasn’t going to complain. He benefited from it as much as the next wall walker. He had held up a credit stick with a distinctive red-and-gold star on one side, and watched Nev’s eyes light up.“Where does she doss?” he asked—Nev might believe in don’t ask, don’t tell, but he could still be bought; Chitin kept that in mind every time he dealt with the man.The sound came again, pulling Chitin out of the memory. This time he could not suppress the growl rumbling from his chest. It was met with a frightened squeak and a hurried scuffle, but not the pittering patter of running footsteps, like before.“What do you want?” he said, his voice projecting in a rough bark.More sounds of movement, and this time he did turn his head. The she-child had broken cover, and now approached him, wary caution in her every line. Her light-brown hair stuck out at odd angles from her head, as though some inexpert hand had wielded clippers to save the trouble of brushing it. In the light refracted from outside the dome, Chitin could see it was touched with striations of fawn and gold.As he watched, she palmed the fringe away from her eyes, and came another few steps closer. She reminded him of a kitten, one of those from a cargo ship, all fear and defiance. The sight touched the wolf inside him, and he had to resist the urge to chase.From the scent rising off her skin, she was terrified, yet she came toward him, her face stark white, and her small jaw set with determination.“What do you want?” he repeated, trying to keep his voice gentle.She froze, poised for flight, and Chitin sighed.“I’m not going to eat you, you know,” and he lowered himself to the ground, curling his legs beneath him, watching her watch him, keeping an eye and an ear on the far corners of the room, and making sure the planet never left his sight.To give her credit, she did not run, although she was ready to. When he was settled, he was still as tall as she was, but her terror had diminished to fear, and she came towards him, one slow step at a time. When she paused, three metres away, Chitin tucked his hands under his legs and looked at her.In the half-light of the dome, he could see she wasn’t quite as human as she appeared. Her hair had small tufts of black through the tawny yellow-brown, and her eyes were a strange blend of yellow-green tinged by the lightest shade of blue.“What are you?” he asked, and she drew herself up to her full three and a half feet of height.She reminded him so much of a cat fluffing out its fur, that he had to suppress a smile, so he ducked his head to hide the curve of his lips. Her reply wiped all amusement from his mind.“I am a little girl,” she said, and added, “A little humangirl.”He wanted to refute that claim, but thought better of it. Something in the desperate way she made that statement made him see its importance to her. Thinking quickly, he changed the subject.“And what is a little human girl doing, following me around?”“I want to hire you.”This time Chitin didn’t bother to suppress the bark of laughter.“And what makes you think you have anything I would want?”He had made her angry, he could see, but she raised her chin and glared at him.“Because I stole it from your lair, and hid it where you will not be able to find it.”That stopped the laughter in its tracks.“You what?”“I took the notebook and your auto-cam,” she said, holding herself very still, “and I hid them where you cannot fit.”Now, he wasn’t in the mood to laugh at all.“Go and get them and give. them. back,” he said, the softness of his voice denoting anger.“No.”“You have no idea what you are playing with.”Again, that defiant tilt of the chin, and this time a small smirk of satisfaction.“I am being chased by a cat,” she said, “and you are a very big dog.”“I’m a what?” Chitin was on his feet before he could remind himself to sit still, but this time the little girl stood her ground.“You are a dog. I have seen you.” She hesitated, looking up at him, her eyes as big as saucers.“A very big dog,” she added, and then, as though trying to placate him, “with beautiful fur.”Chitin felt his cheeks grow warm, and knew he was blushing.“Well, I still want my stuff back,” he said, his anger at being mistaken for a dog subsiding.“And I want you to make the cat go away.”Chitin sighed. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to humour her. He crouched down in front of her, and looked into her eyes. He was very aware of Earth hanging in the darkness outside the dome, of the way the dawn fringed the world in yellow light, but with an effort, he kept his eyes on her face.“What does this cat look like?”“He looks like you.”“But I’m a wolf.”She frowned at that. Chitin watched her process ‘wolf’ and give an internal shrug. Wolf, dog, he supposed it all meant the same to her—he would still have to deal with the cat to get his stuff back.“Well, he’s a cat, but he looks like a person.”“Then how do you know he’s a cat?”That pulled her up short, and she stared at him. For a moment, he thought she might tell him, but then she said, “I just do,” in the way of all children who don’t want to explain. Her voice dared him to say otherwise.“So, what does he look like as a human?”“Well, he has scary yellow eyes that sometimes look orange, and skin like mine, a black beard, and reddish-brown hair.”“Reddish brown?”“Like… like a fox,” she said.Reddish-brown hair, black beard, green eyes, and skin the colour of ivory touched with gold… Chitin had a very bad feeling he knew what kind of cat this might be.“Is he a very big man?” he asked, dreading the answer.Again, he was met by a very solemn stare as she considered the question.“He’s not as tall as you,” she finally said, “but he is wider.”“Wide as in fat, or wide as in muscly?”“Muscly,” she said, nodding as though checking an internal picture.Keeping his gaze on her face, Chitin decided to test a theory.“What does he smell like?”“Like a cat,” she said, and then closed her mouth with an almost audible snap.Chitin watched as she narrowed her eyes, anger making them seem almost yellow. Oh, crap.“And how do you know he’s chasing you?”“Because he’s here,” she whispered, and the shadows around the door shifted, the cat moving like liquid lightning as it pounced.The girl moved faster. One minute, she was standing in front of Chitin, and the next she had leapt over his head and used his shoulder as a pivot to twist and come down behind him. Chitin didn’t waste time wondering how she had managed it; he gauged the cat’s landing point and moved to meet him five feet before it.He flowed under the leap, grabbing the man by his shoulders, turning him in the air, and dropping him hard onto the floor. He heard the pained whuff as the air left the cat’s lungs, and released his grip, placing his foot firmly on the man’s chest.“Who are you?” he said, watching as the stranger looked up at him.The man’s orange-yellow eyes flicked away from Chitin’s face, seeking out the child.“She is under my protection,” Chitin said, not bothering to disguise the growl that followed his warning.The man gave a chuffing laugh.“Little minx,” he said. “She won’t let me near enough to explain.”He moved his arm, and Chitin bounced his weight on the man’s chest. The man stopped moving.“My I.D.,” he said, “is in my pocket.”He noticed Chitin’s gaze take in the black cargo pants he was wearing.“The second pocket on the outside.”“And I’m sure it’ll match whatever story you’ve got to tell me.”“I am not going to hurt her.”“Uh huh.”“Jeez. Call Odyssey, then. They won’t lie.”“What do they want her for?” Chitin heard movement behind him. “Don’t go anywhere.”The child stopped, and then she flung herself at the man on the floor, slapping his face.“Bad kitty!” she screamed. “Bad, bad kitty!”“Hey!” but to give him credit, all the cat did was give Chitin a look that asked for help, before turning his face away from the blows.“You are a bad kitty.”Chitin reached down and picked the child up by the scruff of her neck.She gave a screech of frustration, and then hung limply from his grasp.“You do know what she is, don’t you?” the man asked, and Chitin took his boot off his chest.“She’s under my protection,” Chitin said. “You can’t take her, unless she agrees to go.”The cat got cautiously to his feet, taking care to move clear of Chitin as he did so. Moving slowly, he walked over to one of the abandoned tables and sat.“I can explain.”The girl twisted in Chitin’s grasp, and the wolf pulled her into his chest, looping a forearm around her waist. She looked up at him, her eyes a gleaming golden green.“He is a bad kitty,” she said.“Let’s hear what he has to say,” Chitin suggested, and felt her push carefully against his arm. When she found she couldn’t wriggle loose, she looked up at him with frightened eyes.“Don’t let him take me away.”“Not unless you say you want to go,” Chitin said.“And you’ll come with me?”Chitin glanced over at the cat who was watching the exchange with undisguised interest. The man nodded, orange eyes gleaming, ticking something off on an internal list.“I’ll come with you.”“Promise?”Chitin hesitated, and felt her try to kick free.“I promise,” he said, as her struggles became more desperate. “I promise I will go with you, if you decide to go. I promise. I promise. I promise.”When she stopped struggling, he settled himself on the opposite side of the table.“So, are you?” he said.The man frowned, and pushed back his chair, but he remained seated.“I am not bad kitty,” he said.His statement was met by silence from the child in Chitin’s arms, and he sighed.“All right. I am a weretiger, just like he is a werewolf, but I am not here to hurt you.”The girl made a small sound that might have meant curiosity. Chitin waited, ready to move if the tiger tried to snatch the child, or harm them. Looking across the table at them, the cat leant his elbows on its surface and rested his chin in his hands.“Rafferty,” he said, and Chitin was out of his seat and heading for the door. “No, not you, her. It all started with Rafferty. We got the ring.”Chitin kept moving, the child not struggling, as he carried her away from the cat.“Dammit! I’m trying to save you.”Chitin kept walking, turning through the door, and heading left into the warren of rooms.“I know a place,” the child whispered. “You would fit if you were a dog.”“Wolf.” The correction was automatic.“Wolf. You are smaller than he is.”“Have you seen him as a tiger?”She was silent.“All right. Tell me when to change.”“Left,” she said, tugging at his jacket as though being in his arms gave her any influence. He turned, anyway.“Left.”He turned left, and then right, and then, when they found themselves in a long-abandoned room with an empty bedframe, “Down.”Chitin got down, and she scrambled out of his arms, kicking the door closed behind them before ducking beneath the small, three-foot square desk top. He heard a muffled thump and scraping, and then she whispered.“Only the wolf will fit.”Only the wolf will… fantastic, but Chitin did as she told him, and followed her into a crawl space where even in wolf form he had to shuffle along on his elbows and belly.How much further? he wanted to ask, but she kept moving, quick and quiet, for what seemed an age. All he could do was follow, and hope the access shaft opened out soon. When it finally did, it was into a cavity he hadn’t guessed existed. His notebook-sized computer and auto-cam were stacked neatly on a slab of plascrete that had been set on two smaller pieces of debris to form a shelf.Chitin slid out of the access shaft and dropped a foot to the floor. Once out of the shaft, he stretched his legs and shook the kinks out of his coat, but he did not shift back to human form; the chamber was too small for that. He stretched again, sliding his forelegs out to touch one wall, and arching his back so that his rump almost touched the other. His tail brushed the ceiling.The girl lifted a metal grill into place over the shaft, and then went and sat on a small, neatly made bed on the other side of the shelf.“You’ll need to become human again, if you want to talk,” she said, but Chitin just gave her a happy, full-jawed yawn, and lay down on the floor.“Fine. Have it your way. I need to sleep anyway.”Chitin closed his eyes, and buried his nose under the tip of his tail. Of one thing he was sure, the tiger would definitely not fit down the tunnel, and this chamber was probably not on any of the schematics. It would be one of those anomalies that only an expert could detect, and he doubted that even an expert would be able to get into it without making a lot of noise.He woke to the smell of a self-heating meal set inches from his nose. The child was sitting on her bed, looking at him expectantly.“It’s beef,” she said, when she saw him open his eyes.Chitin looked at her and yawned, and then he stretched and yawned again. Self-heat or not, the food smelled good, so he ate, and then sat in the corner and stared at the child. There were too many questions he wanted answered for him to stay a wolf, and he didn’t want to become human, again, until he had more room to move.He nudged the mesh grill with his nose, and glanced back at the girl expectantly. When she didn’t move, he nudged the grill, again, and then looked back at her with a grumbling whine.“Do you think it’s safe to leave?”He gave a soft wuff, and she got up.“You going to tell me what you’re doing?”Chitin nudged the notebook and the auto-cam, and looked at her.“You want to use the net?”Chitin gave another quiet wuff.“Do we still need to hide?”Wuff, wuff.“Okay, then. I think I know a place. It’s not as safe as here, but there’s room to run away, ’kay?”Chitin wagged his tail, and the child took down the grill, and led the way into the maintenance shaft. This time, they came out somewhere in the business district, a level up from Nev’s, near a loading dock.“Lots of exits,” the child explained, as Chitin slid into his human body once more.“Thank you,” Chitin said, and settled himself on an upturned box. “What’s your name?”“I remember Tallie,” the child said, shyness softening her tone.“Do you like it?”“I… It’s okay, I guess.”“Good. I need to make a call. You trust me?”“I let you out, didn’t I?”Chitin regarded her for a long moment. He didn’t want to think of the meaning behind that. It was just… not something he wanted to contemplate.“I’m calling Odyssey,” he said.“To check on the kitty?”“Yup.”“’Kay.”Chitin placed the call, making sure Tallie was out of the camera shot, and making sure his backdrop was the slab-sided wall of the dock. He even tried not to look past the screen, to give no indication Tallie was within range.“You took your time.” The woman on the other end was blonde, and had the heart-shaped face of an angel. She’d fool most people, but Chitin had caught a glimpse of her eyes before she turned her attention fully to the screen. He didn’t want her hunting him, ever. Here was to hoping she never would.“What do you want with the child?”“She’s one of a dozen taken by Rafferty.” Chitin closed the notebook and stood up.“We have to go,” he said, and then registered the voice coming from the earbud he’d forgotten to disconnect.“… but we took him down four weeks ago.”Chitin stopped mid-stride, turned around, and settled back onto the crate. The woman was visibly annoyed, when he opened the laptop once more.“It’s what Matt was trying to tell you, yesterday. That child is safe. We’re only trying to return her to where she came from.”He ignored the movement that was Tallie creeping closer to the back of the notebook, resisted the urge to look at her.“And what if she doesn’t want to go?”“She has to go back to her parents.”Chitin kept his gaze steady, ignoring Tallie’s movement at his feet.“What if she doesn’t want to go?”The woman stared at him.“Wolfman, I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”Chitin waited no longer. He snapped the laptop cover closed, and stood up, turning to leave it, and the earbuds, on the crate.“Run,” he said, to Tallie, and she asked no questions, merely sprinting away from the loading dock, before turning sharply into a narrow gap he would have missed. It was a squeeze even for his lanky frame, and Chitin gave in to the need to move quickly, and shifted back into a wolf.Tallie glanced back when she didn’t hear him following, smiling when she saw the wolf.“Come on, boy,” she said, and fled.When they were several blocks distant, Tallie slipped through a partly ajar gate, and around a large potted fern.“Right,” she said, as Chitin came to a halt beside her. “Do you need to make another call?”Wuff.“Don’t change back until I introduce you, then,” she instructed, and Chitin cocked his head in question.“Trust me,” the girl whispered.Chitin whined softly, and she laid a hand on his head.“Come on. We can borrow Stella’s comm.”Chitin shook her hand off his head, but let her lead him through the gate, which opened onto the courtyard space. As he moved, he took the time to look around, noting the profusion of ferns, orchids and flowers. Fruit trees were espaliered against every wall, and a waterfall cascaded down behind them in a recycled flow. Tallie noticed his interest.“You and Stel have a lot in common,” she whispered, and Chitin glared at her.Those files were supposed to be private! Robbed of his voice, he growled.“I was bored. You were sleeping. Come on.”Stella turned out to be a dark-haired woman in her late thirties. She looked from Tallie to Chitin and said, “Is this your dad, then?”Taking his cue, Chitin shifted back to his workman’s disguise, and held out his hand.“Not exactly,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”“This is Wolfman, and he needs to use your phone,” Tallie said. “He likes your garden, by the way.”Chitin felt his face heat with embarrassment, and Stella laughed, her brown eyes dancing with amusement.“Well, if you’re looking after her, that’s good enough for me,” Stella said. “I was starting to wonder if she had a home to go to.”From the look on Tallie’s face, that was news.“I need to call Odyssey,” he said. “Do you have a secure line?”Stella stopped smiling.“Why do you ask?”“Some of those flowers out there,” he said, “are very hard to come by without a permit, and…” He hesitated; there was no polite way to say what he was thinking. Stella finished his sentence for him.“…I don’t look like I could afford that many?”She smiled when he nodded, but it was fleeting and her next look was stern.“This is for Tallie?”“Yes.”“Then of course I have a secure line. This way.”Chitin ignored the way Tallie was looking from one to the other of them, and let Stella take him through the living room and into a shielded communications centre built between the back wall of the shower, and the pumping station for the water feature.“I’ll stay,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”“You know what Odyssey is?”Stella nodded.“Okay, then. The risk is yours.”The blonde woman was waiting when he called back. She glanced down at her console, and then past it to another part of the room.“We’ll trace this eventually,” was all she said. “Where’s the girl?”“You found my computer?”The woman hesitated, and then nodded.“I will not surrender the child, if she does not want to go.” At his words, Tallie came around to stand beside him.“I have no parents,” she said.“We know. We were going to return you to the home.”“Were not,” Tallie blurted, and Chitin looked at Stella in surprise. The woman on the screen looked just as startled.Stella tapped her temple, and pointed to Tallie. Chitin raised his eyebrows, and glanced down at the child and the screen. The exchange had not gone unnoticed.“You should tell whoever is with you, that we’ll eventually find them, so they might as well come into shot.”Chitin looked at Stella, and shook his head.“I don’t think so. This call is a favour.” He changed the subject. “What do you want with my girl?”“Yours?”“I am her protection,” Chitin said. “We have an arrangement.”“We were going to raise her ourselves.”Chitin glanced down at Tallie, who nodded. The woman sighed.“And now you see why.”“Well, she’s mine. You can’t have her, unless she wants to go.”“May I speak with her?”Chitin glanced down at Tallie, who nodded, so he stepped back, and let her take the seat. As a recruiting spiel, it was good, augmented with all the right sights and sounds and promises an abandoned child could want. When she was finished, Tallie looked at Stella, and then at Chitin. He shrugged, keeping his expression as blank as he could.“It’s a good offer,” he said. “I can’t match it.”Tallie looked at Stella, but Stella shook her head.“No,” Tallie said, when she looked back at the screen, and then she stood up, and hugged his arm.To say the Odyssey agent was surprised was an understatement, and she looked unimpressed when she turned her attention to Chitin.“You are sworn to protect her, are you?”Chitin nodded.“And to raise her?”Again, Chitin nodded, although he was sure he could hear Tallie calling him a liar.“And you would do all within your power to retrieve her.” That last was a statement of fact.Chitin nodded once more. He had sworn to protect the child, and that made Tallie part of his pack.“You background checks were… interesting, and given what you are, I’m authorised to make you her legal guardian. Nev will have the paperwork. The offer is open for the next standard lunar hour.”The communications set beeped, and Stella reached down, and pulled the plug.“They breached the first layer on their trace,” she said.Chitin looked at her.“There are ten layers. Nine is never enough.” When he kept staring at her, she explained. “As you guessed, plants are not my first profession.”Chitin stared at her for three more steady heartbeats, and then crouched down, disengaging Tallie’s arm, and turning her to face him.“I’ve just said I’ll adopt you,” he said. “Is that okay?”Tallie nodded, and he looked up at Stella.“Want to help me raise a cub?” he asked, and Tallie burst into tears.Without thinking, Chitin reached out, and pulled her into his arms.“What’s wrong?” he asked, brushing Tallie’s hair out of her eyes. “What’s wrong?”“I… I’m not a cub!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m a little girl. I’m a little humangirl.”Chitin placed a hand on each of her shoulders, and looked into her face. Once again, he noted her hair, and the odd shading of her eyes.“You’re not, you know,” he said, and didn’t let go when she tried to twist away. “Look into my head. Just look. And you’ll know.”Tallie just held out her arms, and Chitin pulled her close, holding her as she cried. When she stopped, she pulled back enough to look him in the eye.“I really want to be a little, human girl,” she said, and Chitin felt his heart start to break, but she leant forward, and placed her head against his, and then rubbed her face against his cheek in a very cat-like gesture.For a moment her form wavered, and then it solidified, and then wavered again. Chitin caught a glimpse of a black-tufted tail, felt bones almost shift, and then she remained firmly in the form he knew. Drawing a deep breath, she stepped out of his arms, and looked him in the eye.“I know what I am,” she said, “and you can look after me.” She looked at Stella. “And you can look after me, too.”“I…” Stella looked at Chitin, and then at Tallie, and her voice firmed. “Yes.”Chitin glanced around, and Stella looked down at the timepiece on her wrist.“If we hurry, we can make it. I’ll need to sign as well.”“I’m coming, too,” Tallie said, and walked out the door, before either of them could say no.Odyssey was waiting when they walked through the back door of Nev’s shop, and into his office. The blonde woman was sitting behind Nev’s desk, and Matt, was stationed by the door leading out into the shopfront.“My name is Emilia Delight,” the woman said. “I am authorised to approve the adoption of one Talienta Shift by one Chitin Laremo del Shestar.”She glanced over at Stella, and raised an eyebrow.“I thought that security layer looked familiar. How are you involved?”“I believe I am the other half of the adoption partnership.”The smile that touched Delight’s lips was so fleeting, Chitin thought he’d imagined it, but she pushed aside any personal amusement, and took them through the paperwork with a businesslike manner, adding Stella’s name where it was needed, and initialling as they went. When they were done, Delight turned to Tallie.“You keep them in line, little cub. And no more psi tricks until you’ve had some training.”“Training?” Both Chitin and Stella laid one arm across Tallie’s shoulders, and Chitin swore he wouldn’t ask Stella where she’d obtained her Tekkan 92, if she did him the same courtesy.Delight laughed, and turned to the tiger.“Happy now?”Matt gave a coughing grunt of assent.“Better give him the title then. I like what’s in that notebook.”Delight indicated another sheaf of papers on the desk.“We understand raising a child is difficult, and we’ve seen your ideas for the dome.”Chitin felt himself go crimson.“You hacked my computer!” he sputtered, outrage warring with fear of condemnation. Stella laid a hand on his arm to calm him, while Tallie looked from one to the other in sudden fierce joy.“Yes!” she said, and Delight looked at her with a frown.“Young lady,” she said, her glare getting deeper, when Tallie grinned, unrepentantly, back. “If you do not keep your grubby little paws out of my head, I will put a psychic lock on you that only deactivates in a classroom.“Mr. Del Shestar, these are the title deeds to the dome, and a small portion of the warren, and here,” she said, adding more paperwork to the pile, “are permits for a number of species you’ve named in your report.”She turned her attention to Stella.“You’ll find the paperwork you need for your garden in your office,” she said, and it was Stella’s turn to look impressed.“That was quick.”“We are Odyssey,” Emilia told her. “Once we had you on the feed, it wasn’t hard to do the rest. You should know that.”And, shortly afterwards, they were gone.That evening, Chitin, Stella and Tallie stood under the abandoned expanse of the dome, looking out at the recovering Earth. Not one of them said a word, but their hearts were full of hope, their spirits fuelled by the dreams dancing in their heads, and the strangest feeling that they had finally made it home. 


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Earth & Lunar Dreaming is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/bxgvZe.

You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?

Carlie’s Chapter 6—Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Simone gave tiger some advice. This week, Tiger shows her that he can do just as much with a computer as she can.Chapter 6 –Stuff is Happening, and it isn't Good

Dear Shell,
Yeah. I mean you, Simone—you’re not the only one who can turn your friends into someone else.Oh, and it’s me, okay?Tiger. Except, right now, I’m pretending to be Tobias Morrison, some corporate psi specialist. And, yes, I made him up. He’s me—and I like him better than Alby Waffle, okay? Alby Waffle is in big trouble, when I get hold of him, just so you know. Jokes, right?Anyway, between the two of us, we’ve got this classified information thing covered.And you bet your britches Tobias is hard to get a hold of. He never seems to be in his office when the company comes calling, and the nurses haven’t seen him… ever. He’s a real pain to get your hands on, but the company puts up with this, because he always answers his email, and he’s an expert on psis.I took a crash course.Did you know I was some sort of genius?Yeah, I hacked my company records. I’ve been doing university courses since I was eight. Mum and dad just didn’t tell me, and because I don’t talk about what I’m doing with the other kids, here, I didn’t figure it out. So, not so much a genius, then, right?So, the last course my parents enrolled me in had to do with DNA extraction, and insertion techniques. Apparently I’m pioneering the technology the company needs in order to recreate the monsters that used to roam here.It’s very cool stuff, and I love it, but I think that’s one of the reasons this world’s been indicted.Not because of me; I’m not that important. I’m pretty sure the company could lay its hands on some other molecularly capable manipulator to get these dinos up and running. I think they’re just using me, so I’ll be too busy to worry about the scheduled supply ship not touching down.See, I was the only one to notice. Everyone else down here is so buried in their research that they didn’t even remember the supply ship was due. It was a small expedition, okay? Everyone has two or three hats to wear.Well, anyone with a scientific angle is gone. If the other kids and I hadn’t taken over the domestics, this lot would have starved to death. And, up until a week ago, I was the only one who was comms qualified. I’ve fixed that, now, and, when I leave, there’ll be at least two others who know how to operate the array—and this might be important, Shell, because I don’t think things are as good as the adults think they are, and it worries me.To answer your question: No, my parents haven’t received anything to tell them that the world’s been indicted—and the supply ship didn’t let on, either. All it told us was how to set up a drop point for the supplies, and that it would be back in three months’ time with pre-fabricated labs and buildings.They also asked us to approve a site they’d chosen between the ruins and the fossil sites, and then told us to stay well clear of it when they landed. Told us not to bother our parents with it, too. Like they know just how busy our parents are, and are hoping they’ll stay that way when they bring the buildings dirt-side.How would they know that?I’m going to check the food stocks and the equipment to see if there’s anything that might cause our folks to become as task-driven as they have.Kiara and Del are worried. They say their parents are acting strangely, because they’ve stopped talking with them at the end of each day. They say they had this family tradition where they would all sit down around the table after dinner, and talk about what happened in the day, and check in on each other and make sure they were all fine.Kiara had her junior exit exams this week, and her parents didn’t even ask her if she was ready, or how she went. She says they just came home, ate, wrote reports, and slept. She says if she hadn’t shoved a breakfast bar into their hands this morning they’d have gone out to the dig without eating.I’ve been wearing surgical gloves in the lab ever since I found something slimy on one of the pieces of equipment. I’m not sure if it’s native, or if someone’s fiddling with things. Either way, I remember what you said about that guy, and I’m not taking any chances. I’ve hidden a couple of boxes of gloves away from the lab, so I can be sure they’re not contaminated when I put them on.I’m starting to think that guy who sent the stuff to you didn’t belong to another company. I think he worked for FedExplore like our folks; I just haven’t worked out why FedExplore would want to do something like that to its own people.And I can’t find the guy. You said they caught him, right? But I can’t find anything about him. Not even in the classified files I’ve dug up on Sharvin. That’s a worry.So, anyway, tell me more about the dreams.I have a theory, but I need to check something out, okay?And be careful.Stuff is happening, and it isn’t good.

Tobias (Tiger) M.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
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Wednesday’s Verse—Hunters of the Deep

This week’s verse moves from an urban fantasy rhyme about trolls and bridges to a fantasy terza rima about mermaids. It is taken from Another 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry to be released later in the year, once both collection and cover are complete.

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Hunters of the Deep
In deepest seas the mermaids swim with joycresting waves, and surfing spray, ’neath night skymermaids sing their songs and with hearts do toy
seeking all men who sail the great ships by,the mermaids look for sails and voice their song,luring all those who hear their haunting cry
Sung both loud and sweet and the whole night longtheir enchantment entwines both soul and heartIt takes the mind and will of good and strong
Until from the tall decks they do departplunging from the deck to the mermaids’ ployans’ring the call of song-spun lust and heart
Soon caught in mermaids’ arms are sailors bouyedand carried swiftly deep for mermaids’ joy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. books2read.com/u/mVLQZb books2read.com/u/bxgyLd

Tuesday’s Short—Ducky

This week’s short story takes us from a far-flung future of human exploration and alien encounters to one of quiet apocalypse. Welcome to Ducky.

Three characters, a dead duck, and a plague-devastated city. What more could you ask for?
Ducky

Brian

In Australia, the bird flu pandemic took twenty years to really hit its stride, and when it did, we almost kept it under control. Fast quarantine action contained the thousand or so flare-ups caused by the internationally exposed. Suspect birdlife was rounded up and eliminated from populated areas, and the residents knew what to look for, and what to guard against.And then it all went to hell. Someone brought a duck in.Two someones. My ex-wife. My daughter.

Sharon

What a trip! Through the up-north islands, across to Indo, round the archipelago and back. Ducky and Casey loved it and, best of all… no customs! We slipped right by them. It was a great way to celebrate the anniversary of our divorce.

Brian

Sharon said she was sorry, and that there was no harm done: Ducky was fine, and Casey was happy. Healthy, too, she pointed out. Healthy and happy, two things we actually work together for—Casey’s health and happiness.As for Ducky, well, Ducky had been with us since before the divorce. And Ducky had caused a hundred arguments before this, so that was the same as well.And then Ducky got sick, but my wife didn’t know. Casey’s pretty smart for an eight-year-old. “Oh no, mama, he’s not sneezing; he’s just got some fluff stuck to his beak, see?” and “That isn’t a runny nose, mama. He’s jus’ been sticking his beak in puddles. You know he likes that.”

Casey

Mama! Daddy! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to.

Brian

By the time Sharon realised what was going on, Ducky was lying, brittle-still in his bed box with ants running in and out of his beak, and Casey was hosting a fever that meant the air conditioner had to run in the middle of winter. Sharon was giving her an ice bath when the ambulance got there.Too late, of course. And too late for Casey and Ducky’s friends, as well. Too late for their families, and their families’ friends. Too late. Too late for the schools and the suburbs, and the passengers who had shared their buses, their trains, their hospitality, and their planes. Too late for the streets, and the suburbs, and all the rest of us.By that stage, there were no more international flights, so at least, we’re not to blame for the rest of the world.

Sharon

I’ve made mistakes, before. Brian was one, but nowhere near as big as this one. This one I made when my daughter wept. For duck. “He’s not sick,” she cried. Her tears formed streams, rivers, the Amazon or Zambezi. Down the twin continents of her cheeks, they tracked. I touched the ridgeline between them, and I let those rivers convince me. I did not destroy it. I did not enact quarantine. And I watched her die. My daughter. She is buried with the duck.

Brian

I tried to talk to Sharon, but she was always at Casey’s bedside, in the children’s ward, and then she wasn’t. She’d gone, flitted out of the hospital, and into the burning daylit darkness, walking out on me a second time. This time, there weren’t any outraged creditors, just the husk of our daughter’s body. I called Mike, and he put a team together.We went looking, in her quarters, three hours later. Like the rest of the neighbourhood, it was classed as a Level Four Biohazard. We wore the full silver suits, and had our own oxygen supply. Suddenly, I was glad to be one of the chosen, glad of the panic-jab inoculation that meant I wouldn’t get sick, that I’d be one of those who watched the world die. Otherwise, this headache might be attributed to something other than stress. Don’t worry. I had it checked. So far, I’m clear.Sharon had left a mountain of books, papers, her poetry, what I used to term her ‘useless scribblings’ I figured I’d have them all scanned and entered in a decade or two. The house was a shell without her, Casey or that blasted duck. Before, whenever I’d come to visit, there’d be a whoop of joy and little Casey racing to meet me, duck in tow.I can feel the mask misting up, and my heart is just one big ache. I try for a diversion. No good getting emotional in here. I can’t exactly lift the hood to blow my nose or wipe my eyes. And I don’t fancy having snot creeping along my upper lip for the next six hours.Glancing around, I pick up the first thing I see—a notebook, Sharon’s latest, as it turns out. The one where she’d discovered haiku. The first three-lined verse swims into focus as my breathing steadies, Casey and her pet temporarily vanquished.
infectious poemsa raging fever of linesseven, five seven
And that had been before she discovered the three-five-three pattern. I close the book, and vow not to look at anything else until I’ve scanned it into the computer, and don’t need to have my head encased in plastic. I know I’ve had the shots, but departmental policy is: Why tempt fate?The verse haunts me, but not like the images I see every day. Once, we were a city of the first world. I don’t mean the first world that was discovered after this one, I mean the First World. You know, the world of television and technology, satellite dishes and info-tech as a taken-for-granted part of schooling. We were part of the space race, our astronauts and physicists always in demand, even if they had to make their careers overseas before coming home to retire away from the rest of the rat-race First Worlds. And do you know what ended if for us?One little girl’s love for her duck.Love overcomes all, so they say. Love defeats everything. Well, this time it defeated quarantine laws and common sense. This time, it might even have defeated the twenty-first century and dumped us right back, set us on our asses in a quasi-techno-middle-age amalgam of what life might have been if the Great Library hadn’t burned, and Michael Angelo’s mathematics hadn’t been lost. Long live the greatness of Love.I stop writing now. At a loss. I try to catch my boss’s eye across the desk partition. He comes over.“What is it, Brian?”The words catch in my throat.“I don’t know if I can do this, Mike. I don’t know how to start. It’s just so huge, and, and here’s Sharon, right in the middle of it and… and… Casey.”There’s a reef of silence, its shoal-like edges ripping at my throat. I wait to see if Michael can sail us out of this one, but he sets a hazardous course.“It has to be done,” he says. “We know what brought us down, this time. Journals like yours, and Sharon’s, and Casey’s, will help stop it happening again. Make people aware.” He grimaces, as he reads over my shoulder. “And you’ve put it well. One little girl’s love for her duck.”

Sharon

And her mother. Don’t forget her stupid cow of a mother. It wasn’t truly a little girl’s love for her duck. It was a mother’s love. A mother is responsible for not facing down her little girl’s tears, and insisting that she knew best.Oh, yes, Brian. Didn’t I tell you? I can still tap your computer. Sometimes I can still tap your mind. Up there, the satellites don’t stop orbiting just because it’s all gone to Hell down here. Hell, I doubt they even care. And some of those internet servers are in nuclear-powered cities. One day, though, one day there’s going to be a dozen private tempests. A sudden scattering of fiery blooms unfurling below those eyes in space, like pustules erupting so that the Earth’s skin is left clean. Blemished, but clean. Here and there, cities will die, and servers will crash, just like the plant technicians died and crashed. And the water stopped flowing in paths it didn’t choose, and the grass grew cracks into fissures, and your world—your whole goddamned world—is going to come tumbling down around your ears.So, I hope you remember to print my verses, my ‘useless scribblings’. I hope you remember to use acid-free paper, too—you should know what that is. The paper I used to make my scrapbooks. That sort of paper. You’d better, you bastard.

Casey

They’re fighting again. Why are they always fighting? Mama wasn’t gonna win, anyway. There are a zillion places on the boat I coulda hidden Ducky. And one of Ducky’s friends was gonna switch place, and pretend, so we could leave him behind, instead. So, don’t. You. Be. Cross. With Mama!

Brian

“Shit!” The cry is out before I can stifle it. Someone drops a coffee cup, and there’s another muffled blasphemy in echo, as a hand tremor sends someone else’s cursive wild. Michael is beside me, hovering, and the whole office is staring. I wipe a hand across my eyes.The computer’s crashed. I glance across at Aisha, but her terminal is still working fine. Her brown eyes fill with puzzlement as she notices my blank screen. I turn away, just as Michael stoops down and hits the big silver button that should switch the whole thing on again.God, I miss Casey.

Sharon

Casey, my little girl’s name. Better than Lupita from that movie, Man on Fire. Better than Lupita, because it’s closer to Creasy, Creasy, Creasy Bear. My Casey. Why couldn’t her duck have been a teddy? Not a piece of lingerie, but a bear, a cuddly soft-toy protector, like a real bear looking after its cubs, but with no need for ferocity, because all it had to be was itself—a child’s toy, and not an anatine harbour for a world-killing, planet-killing duck-chook-bird disease.And I didn’t mean ‘better than’ Lupita in a bad way. Heaven knows that little girl went through enough. I wasn’t being racist. Not the way I said it. I mean, what mother doesn’t think her little girl’s name is better than the name of any other little girl? It’s not racist—more motherist, or childist, or namist, or just plain maternally biased.I loved Casey and her duck, not Lupita with her Creasy bear and poor, drunk Creasy bodyguard.He died, the Creasy bodyguard, Not the Creasy in Quinnell’s book, but the Creasy in Man on Fire, which was supposed to be based on the book. What a disappointment. The book Creasy ends up with a whole series, but the movie Creasy… Well, it’s hard to have a series if you’re dead.Sometimes, I wonder if that’s what this Ducky pandemic is all about. Finishing a series. No more sequels. No more empires. All finished. Like the writer didn’t want to keep going, and had to end the story somehow.And it’s not fair. The Creasy bodyguard didn’t have to die. Good old Pita had shown him how to live. He’d killed off all the bad guys, traded one life for another. He didn’t need to trade himself; he’d already traded the brother. Well, I guess that’s why he was a bodyguard and not a mathematician.By the way, it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that we should allbe dead, now. So, how do they, those boys and girls in Brian’s office, still keep going?What’s their secret? Why aren’t they sick? They’ve been the closest I’ve seen to Ducky and Casey and all the others. What I’d like to know is why they’re still alive.

Casey

And you, mama? What about you? You aren’t sick yet. Haven’t you noticed? I got sick, and Ducky got sick, but you never, and Daddy never. Daddy’s got a secret AND IT’S NOT FAIR!

Brian

This time the whole office has blacked out. The emergency generators don’t kick in, but that’s because it’s a localised shut down. Just this floor is affected, and I can’t tell you why.

Sharon

“I’m leavin’ on a jet plaane. Can’t say when I’ll be back again.”That sounds horrible—but it’s not like there’s anyone to hear.Hear! Hear! Get it?Oh, never mind. I’m tired of the echoes, echoes, echoes anyway. Empty buildings, empty homes, emptied lives. I had to leave.The nurses were getting sick—not so you’d notice, but one day I’d catch red-rimmed eyes turning from plastic-shielded Casey to me without my mask—it fell off when I fell off. Just closed my eyes and fell off the world, for a while. One day, red-rimmed eyes would peer suspiciously, the next there’d be another nurse—clear-eyes, but wary and very, very insistent that I put. the. mask. back. on.How many times did I fall asleep? Wipe my face while unconscious, and tear the damned thing away from my nose and lips? Let my sainted breath mingle with the hospital’s air conditioning? How many?Not many. Casey’s days were not many after the fever set her body alight. My transgressions were the same. Not many.

Brian

Another nurse dead. That’s all of them. All the nurses that looked after Casey, but it’s strange. Not one of them got sick from looking after any of the others. There’s a connection there. It’s flickering at the edge of my mind, like something only glimpsed from the corner of my eye.The headache’s getting worse. Mike keeps telling me I have to sleep, but I feel like there’s no time.Oh, God. My mind feels like it’s going to explode!
Casey

Daddy’s sick! Mama! Daddy’s sick!Why’s Daddy sick, Mama? He shouldn’t be sick. He’s got a, gotta, gotta secret

Sharon

My hands. My hands shake. Shimmer and shake.I have hidden from Brian, the world, the empty skyscrapers, the voiceless stars. I have stolen a car and keep looking for some semblance of the law.I stop when the traffic lights turn red, even though I’m the only car on the road. The city, the city keeps going even when the people have stopped. They’ve stopped, and I want to weep.

Brian

Something is terribly wrong. It’s this headache. It’s not like a stress headache. I’ve taken to wearing a mask. If the lab has missed something, maybe the rest of the office will survive. God, I hope the lab hasn’t missed anything. I hope I wasn’t infectious before I realised. I’ll call the lab. Have everybody here tested, just in case. This isn’t right. I’ve been vaccinated. I was wearing a suit… Where’s the lab number?

Casey

The boat, Mama! Let’s go on the boat. You always, always, always loved the boat. Me and Ducky love the boat, too.

Brian

The headache. It’s always there. I’m working in an isolation bubble, now. For how much longer, I don’t know. The lab tech who tested my stuff, he’s gone down with the flu. They’ve been going over everything he’s done in the last week. Thought he was under the weather, because his girlfriend died—she was one of the nurses who looked after… oh shit!

Sharon

All those nurses. Mrs. Healy from the school. That little old lady from the bus—I thought I was helping!The traffic lights are so alive. Never stopping. Like the neon flashes that helped me pick out this motel. We honeymooned here. It was a big adventure. Brian and me.Who could know?

Casey

Mama? Why’s Daddy crying?

Brian

I’ve ordered retests on all the samples taken from the nurses, the teachers from Casey’s school… the kids… the bodies from the buses. This thing spreads like wildfire, but has no symptoms for almost two weeks after infection. I’ve ordered comparisons with samples taken from the flare-ups we managed to contain.I’ve ordered tests on Ducky, too. And Casey.

Sharon

Oh, Brian, I’m so sorry. They’ve moved you, but I know where your terminal is. I couldn’t stand to be caged in plastic like that. No, I’d run away. Far away. Fly like a bird. Set sail and never come to land again, if that was my only option.

Brian

I have to find Sharon!

Sharon

The map. A labeller of places. Listing roads to nowhere, and roads to everywhere, and places, places, places as they used to was, and never will be again. A land of non-existence, labelling remnants of a mighty civilisation. Labelling the cottage. Our retreat.Usually, we retreat to survive, but I always hated the open spaces. So stifling. An imprisonment. seclusion from humanity, connected by an artery of road to the city. We were surrounded by land. Bound. Tied down. Free only to observe the vagaries of the wind. Never free to fly. At least, on the ocean it seems like flying.They’ll be looking for me, now. The results from the labs were adamant. Adamant!How could I be the one?I leave the map in the motel room.

Casey

Daddy? Daddy? What are you doing?You can’t go and get mama; she doesn’t like the plastic tent. You can’t!Stop!The red light means STOP!Mama stopped. Why don’t you?I. SAID. STOP!

Brian

Shit! the whole light array just came down. Exploded and came down. Beautiful synchrony, but what a hell of a time. The road’s blocked, and she’s got a head start already—thanks to the map.We’ll have to go around, and pray it doesn’t happen again.Hell’s bells! Must be some kind of surge. The poles are cracking apart with the force of it.No, Mike. I don’t know why “all the weird shit” happens to me. Look at that! There are poles all over the place.

Casey

Yay, Mama! The moon’s up and there’s no one around. I told you I’d keep Daddy busy, didn’t I?Go! Ducky and I love this. We love the boat and the water and the wind in the sail. Nothing bad can happen when we’re on the boat.

Sharon

Look at that! Just behind the warehouses. Must be an electrical surge, but if I close my eyes a little , it blurs and I can see fireworks. A send off! All it needs is Brian, well-wishing us from the jetty, and Casey on the bow!

Brian

She’s gone. Sharon’s gone. The most dangerous creature to exist since Typhoid Mary, and we missed her. We let her slip right past us. Holiday cottage! I should have known better.She had a laptop on the boat. She had everything she needed. Supplies, freedom, a total lack of surveillance, and she’s gone. Put to sea under a full moon. No running lights, just a functioning echo-sounder and map of the bay and she’s gone. We’ve got planes up, and a few helos that somehow managed to stay in service. I’ve organised a leaflet drop for every coastal community that’s ever been mapped, and given orders for anything else to be dropped as well. So they should be well-warned. Gods’ I hope we can find her before she makes landfall. Gods’ I hope she doesn’t spread it further.I’m tired, now. The fever is taking its course. The nurses have tried to set it up so that the treatment will keep running, even if they do not. The theory is that, if I survive, I can help treat the others. But I remember the statistics, and know how thin the rope, the hope…I have shelves full of books on biological warfare and infectious disease. Experts and defectors. Scientists from the old Soviet Union, and technicians from China, retirees from America’s CDC, historians… Most put out one book; some put out two. And then there were the medical and technical manuals…I glance at the shelves, notice the Alibek book, and think how, once upon a time, you could sail the Aral Sea. How, once, the fish in its depths supported a whole industry of canneries.I remember Sharon, and think of how another island of disease has been set afloat. This time, on the oceans of the world. 


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Ducky is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/mda0d4.

You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
 

Carlie’s Chapter 5—Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Things were starting to look a bit bad for Tiger. This week, Simone gives him some advice.Chapter 5 – Go Dark, Keep Safe
 
Dear Tiger.
I hear you… or read you… or whatever.We are in trouble sooo deep!You’re right.I tried to look up Deskeden, and it really isn’t in the company records, and then I tried to look up Sharvin. Well, I already knew that wasn’t there, but it was still not fun finding out by just how much.And then I was told not to use ‘those search terms’ again, like I’d done something wrong, like I’d tried to break into a classified database, or something. Turns out that that is exactly what I’m about to do next. I’ve found several classified databases, in fact.And each one looks as interesting as all the rest.Thing is, I also found the news flash that says that Deskeden is an indicted world, that the colonists already there are there for the rest of their lives, and that the same goes for the scientific team. Families were given the option of joining their relatives on-world, or only ever seeing them via comms.There are no words for just how messed up that is.Thing is, no one said why. They did the broadcast, and I dug into the email server and found the offers of resettlement, but I don’t know why. You, my good friend, are stuck. I don’t even know why you don’t know. Haven’t they told your folks, yet?Anyway, whatever you’ve got in place to kick free, Tiges, I reckon you’ve got to do it soon.I’m going to do some digging, and see what info I can get to you, but I’m not sure exactly how much I can do from in here. I really hope they let me out soon. It’s getting really hard to do anything in their systems without them finding out.Oh, and that whole psi thing?Well, I don’t want you to disappear, okay? So I did a few things to keep you safe. I don’t want to get out of here, and then find the company has killed you just to keep me a secret. That would truly suck.Let’s just say I made them believe you didn’t like me, anymore, and that you refused to write to me, anymore. Right down to you bouncing my emails, including the ones they sent to test things out.I like you, Tiger, and I miss you, but you might need to go real dark, real soon.And I just want you to know that you shouldn’t worry about that.Whatever you do, no matter how dark you have to go, I will find you.
Okay?


Just keep safe.

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The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site.
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