C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 95

Wednesday’s Verse—Children, Machines, Human

This week’s verse moves from fantasy to speculation in the form of a garland cinquain. It is taken from 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2014.

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Children, Machines, Human
Children.Small, determinedbundles of fire, well-kept,learning. Imaginations burn.They watch
They watch,absorbing all,both the good and the bad,monitoring their growing world.Learning.
Learningand adapting,adopting behaviours,fearlessly copying the grown.Wanting.
Wantingto know secrets,the hidden keys to life,wanting to succeed when they’re grown.Machines.
Machines,learning machines,computers in their headsprocessing experiences.Human.
Children,absorbing all,adopting behaviours,wanting to succeed when they’re grown.Human


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------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—Cloud Door

This week’s short story takes us from wolves escaping from the moon, to some humans escaping from some wolves, as Mack and Cutter try to get themselves out of yet another sticky situation. Welcome to Cloud Door.

So, we’ve done this job, and I’m checking our tails are clear, and I find they’re not—and then I find the only way to kick clear is to find the Cloud Door. Only trouble is the Cloud Door’s a legend, and Mack? Well, he’s not too fond of chasing legends. Fortunately, this one’s a no-brainer: we want to live, and that’s got to be enough to make anyone chase a legend, right?Cloud Door
They said the Cloud Door was a legend. They said, at best, it was merely a door hidden up on the heights of the mountains. They said… well, they said a lot of things. Mostly about my mental capacity, and mostly not very nice. I ignored them all.The Cloud Door was up there somewhere; I knew it.And it wasn’t a legend, although it had been forgotten and lost for so long that it had entered the realm of legends. And it wasn’t a door hidden in the heights of the mountain, either; the stories were very clear on that—the Cloud Door was a real door, and it was located somewhere in the clouds, more specifically, it was located in one particular mass of clouds that never dissipated, hidden and safe.Until now. Now, the Wolves were looking for it.And that was why I had to find it, first.The Cloud Door was in danger of being opened, and, because thatwas in danger of happening, we were in danger, too. I had to find that blasted door, and I had to find it fast. While the legends are quite clear that the things on the other side of the door are not all benign, they are also clear that the same can be said of the things on this side of the door, and that nothing is to be taken for granted.The door cannot be opened from one side alone. The handle must be turned, or the code entered, or the latch lifted, or whatever—the form depends on those using it—but both sides must use the opening mechanism at the same time, and with the same intent.So, when the bad things on the other side of the door, manage to communicate with the not-so-scrupulous things on this side of the door, and a price is named and a bargain struck, and when the intent is for the door to be opened to admit the things from the other side, the door can be opened… but only if it can be found.I intercepted the communications when I was doing a little bit of hacking on the dark and quiet. No, I never said I was one of the angels. Wherever did you get that idea? Honestly, a girl’s gotta make a living, and that gets harder when she refuses to sleep her way to the top… or to pay the rent, okay? And, no, you may not ask exactly when things got that rough, or how I worked it out.Let’s just say I found an alternative, and be done with it. We don’t even have to say I liked it, but it was better than most options, and more accessible than the others. I did I.T. The honest work got me by most days… and the other work, well, it got me through the rest. At least, doing it kept me more alive than saying no to doing it, and we’re not going to get into how I found myself in that position, either, got it?Right. So, I tell Mack we need to find the Cloud Door, and the first thing he does is put me under, and the bastard knows just how much I hate needles. I hit him, hard, when I come out of it, and we go our usual ten rounds on the mats—sheesh! You guys need to get your minds out of the gutter!Combat mats. In the gym. Full contact. Ten rounds. Repeat until we’re both standing at the end of the tenth. It’s a helluva way to work off some stress. Keeps the medics in practice, too.So, when I mention the Cloud Door, again, at the end of round ten, Mack just looks at me. He’s got both hands on his knees, same as me, and we’re both panting like a couple of locomotives from Androgenes 10. I’m getting better, because this is the end of our first set of ten, and I’m still standing. Mack must be rubbing off on me.Money’s changing hands among the crew and we’ll both go take our cuts later… or we’ll take a very precise piece out of their hides. Whatever works. The end of a bout is pretty rowdy as they sort things out. This time, though, I mention the Door, and it goes very, very quiet.So, when I glance around at the crew, I see all motion has stopped. Faces are half-turned towards us, and hands are frozen mid-exchange.“Cloud Door, eh?” Mack says, and slowly straightens out.He tops seven feet, and I’m a good head and a half shorter, so I step back as I mirror him and, around us, voices sizzle in low whispers, and more bargains are struck. Since when did the bouts between Mack and me become a regular form of entertainment? I survey the surrounding crew, and he does the same.“Caf?” he asks, coming to the same conclusion about too many ears, and I nod.The cafeteria is a lot more private than the mats. And the crew know not to follow us here. None of them want to spend an unspecified time in an airlock wondering if Mack is going to open the door to the stars.“You been hacking, again?” he asks, and all he’s really doing is asking for confirmation.There’s not much goes on around the ship he doesn’t know about.“Gotta keep my hand in,” I say. “And it’s on my own time, for my own interest.”“Why the Cloud Door?”“I came across a rumour, when I was checking to see our tails were clear.”“Which job?”It’s a good question, seeing as all our jobs are bound to net us enemies, and I check our tails for our targets’ reactions on all of ’em until I’m sure they’ve decided we’re not worth the bother.“Rennet’s World,” I say, and watch his face freeze.Normally, that would be real entertaining, except the Rennet’s World Wolves are among the worst of enemies to have out to teach you a lesson.“And?” His tone is cautious, as well it should be; the Rennet’s World job had been a very bad idea—and I had told him so, at the time.When I’d woken up after that conversation, I was in an alley outside the target premises with all the equipment I’d need to get inside, along with very strict instructions on what to do next. Yeah… Mack and I had had words about that one, too.“What rumour?” he asks, pulling me out of the memory, the look on his face saying he remembered it, too.“The one that says the Rennet’s World Wolves have got something extra special lined up for us, but that they need to find and open the Cloud Door to deliver it.”“Nice,” he says, as though I’d been making the whole thing up, just to convince him to go looking for the damned Door.“I can prove it.”That stops him, and he leans forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on the knuckles of his folded fingers.“Do tell.”I don’t tell. I stand up, and head for the door.“Computer,” I say, not stopping when I hit the walkway outside the caf, not stopping, either, when I hear his footsteps hurrying in my wake.“This had better be good,” he says, catching up, just as I get to the control room.He’s short of breath, and I figure the man is aging. I always had the edge on him in that department.“You need to go for rejuve?” I ask, teasing him as I signal Tenor to get out from behind the communications console.Tenor moves, eyeing me warily, even as he looks to Mack for confirmation.Mack nods, and Tenor gets right out of the comms space.“Take a break, Tens. Get yourself a coffee.”Tenor goes. No doubt he’s as surprised as I am at Mack’s suggestion of a coffee.“You better have a reason to be using this suite,” he says, as I settle myself into the seat.“It’s faster,” I tell him, “and the Wolves have good encryption.”“You’re going direct to the Wolves?” he asks, and his voice is full of alarm.It’s too late, though. I’ve plugged the thumb drive into the console before he can reach me, and already slipped through the first layer by the time he’s standing at my side. I can tell he wants to rip me off the seat and shut the whole shebang down, but he can’t. He has no way of knowing what’sgoing to trip a Wolf alarm, and he has to think quick, as I descend through layers two and three.“You want me outta here?” I ask, opening a file, and I hear him change his mind.“Ye… No… Wait a minute. What’s that?”“That? That’s just the contract they put out on the Shady Marie,” I say, knowing how much Mack loves his ship—almost as much as he loved the woman he named her for, and that was an awful lot. She’d been shady by name, and shady by nature, but she’d shone in Mack’s eyes.“Print it.”“Sure thing, boss.” I do as he says, and scroll to the next item.“That’s for me!” he says, so I print that, too, and the next one, before he can remark on it. Trust him to drop me in hakavela.“You, too, huh? But where in any of this do you come up with the Cloud Door?”I scroll down the contract on him, since it’s the one that he’ll pay most attention to.“Here,” and I highlight the relevant paragraph.“It’s a forward payment?”“Yuh. They take us out, in return for the Wolves letting them romp through the door.”“And how do the Wolves figure they’re going to make that one pay?”I shrug, but I’m suddenly busy with a dozen other things. Like I said, the Wolves have really good encryption, and that includes anti-intrusion software… if that’s what this is. Personally, I have my doubts. Their response is so slick, I’m sure it’s a live operator with a wet-wired implant.I make for the escape hatch, and find something entwined right over it. Time to dance.“You’re not up to this kind of game,” I hear Mack say, but it’s like he’s speaking through cotton wool.Of course, I’m not up to this kind of game, but I don’t see anyone else on his team ready to play, so that leaves me carrying the ball. I’m fortunate Tens gets back with his coffee, and he’s more protective of the comms system than a mother bear with cubs.He comes in hard and fast, jacking into the system with an implant I never knew he had. Guess he’s more than comms. Typical Mack. Keepin’ us all guessing. It’s like being grabbed by the scruff of the neck, and yanked backwards up a zip-line, Tenor’s that fast. Faster still, he shuts the door I’ve opened up, yanks the data stick out of the console, and gives me a sharp smack upside the head.“Get outta my seat,” he orders, and I wonder if he’s part-Wolf, himself.I get, and watch as he sets himself right down in the chair and starts bolstering the ship’s protections.“I hope you found what you were looking for,” he says, “because that’s the last time you get to use my console.”He shoots a glance at Mack, who spreads his arms, and shrugs apologetically.“You heard the man,” he says, as I start walking towards the door. “You wanta tell me what happened in there?”Tenor must still be mad because he doesn’t give me a chance to answer.“She almost got her ass fried, and lost half the ship’s controls to the Wolves’ anti-intrusion and counter-measures software.”“So they know we were there?” Mack wants to know.“You bet your bad ass they know we were there,” Tenor retorts, “and now I’ve gotta bolster the system, before they get in.”“They can get in?”“Only if they can find us,” Tenor says, after a few minutes of working the keyboard, “and I’ve just made that a whole lot harder.”I look at Mack, and shrug. What can I say? I nearly lost him control of his ship, trying to save his ass. I wonder if he’ll remember that. Have to say, I’m glad he remembers the print-outs on the way out. Pretty sure Tenor will have a fit, if he sees me near anything in the control room for the next shipboard month.I head down to the rec room, and Mack follows. I’m waiting for him to jerk me up short, and call it a day. Instead, he doesn’t speak until we’re sitting behind another console.“So,” he says, “tell me about this Door.”“Well, it’s on Scaradame. That bit of the legend never changes. And it’s located in the middle of a perpetual storm cloud. Can’t be locked, but it can be unlocked if parties on both sides of the door want it open for the same reason.”“So, what you’re tellin’ me is that we have to change someone’s mind.”“Yeah.” I’m not so sure I like his tone of voice, but he’s up and out of his seat like a shot, heading for the control room at a dead run. I run after him. Curiosity might have killed a few cats, but the Rennet’s World Wolves have killed a whole lot more. I’m not comforted when he asks Tenor to dial them up.At least Tenor seems as unhappy about this idea as I am.Damn those Wolves move fast. Seems they’ve had a ship tracking us since I got brought back on board. Wish I knew how they’d managed that. From the look on Mack’s face, I can see he’s wishing the same thing.“We are not worth a universe of life,” Mack says, as soon as the Wolf ship answers the hail.“Then come and face our justice.”I’m about to leave the control room, when Mack snakes out a hand, and jerks me over to his side. Since I already know he’s that quick, and as unscrupulous as the stars, I should have known better than to have been standing that close to him in the first place.“How about services?” he asks, and the Wolf’s ears prick, before it can hide its interest.Mack takes that as a positive sign, and keeps talking. By the end of the conversation, we’re in debt for a couple of retrieval jobs for which I’ll thank him later, and the wolves have torn up the contracts. For them, at least, the Cloud Door holds no more interest—if they keep their end of the bargain.I’m not the only one in the control room who breathes a sigh of relief when their ship peels off, and both Tenor and the navigator give the all clear.“Right, let’s go find your damned Door,” Mack says, as soon as we’re sure the wolves’ve left, and the comms system is dead; he’s not riskin’ them overhearing this part of the conversation.I stare at him, and I must look pretty funny, with my mouth hanging open, because he gives me one of his rare, Mack smiles. He’s pleased with himself, he surely is, and, as I winch my jaw back off the ground, I remind myself that when Mack is lookin’ that pleased someone else sure a shit ain’t gonna be happy. And usually, that someone is me.We head to the control room. I ignore the greasy glare I’m getting’ from Tens. His darned console is safe… well, at least until the next time I need it. Mack doesn’t even give him a glance; he beelines straight for the navigator.“Find me a perpetual cloud mass on Scaradame,” he says, and Jude gets right on it.She’s the best nav we have. All brains in a pretty as package you don’t wantta mess with. Seems her momma told her bad things happen to girls out in space, and Jude made sure she could handle pretty much most of it. I am NOT messin’ with her.I watch Mack, watchin’ Jude, and he’s lookin’ at her in the same way he looks at Tenor, or Case, or the Miller twins who operate our guns—like she’s a pro. Only person Mack ever looks at differently is me, and that’s because he hasn’t worked out I’m sick of runnin’. When he does, that look will change.“I’ve got you three,” she says, and Mack slides over to stand beside her. “Here, here, and here. What are you looking for?”It’s a brave question, especially given Mack doesn’t like questions, but Jude needs the information, and she’s trustin’ Mack to understand that.“Some kind of door,” he says, and she smiles, arching her eyebrows, but not saying a word.“What?” Mack says, but Jude is making a few adjustments and she shushes him.Now, it’s Mack’s turn for raised eyebrows. No-one has ever shushed him before, not in all the time we’ve been travelling, not once, and not ever in his own control room. Jude didn’t even think twice. Her brow is furrowed, as she tweaks this or that, and Case, our pilot, is turning in her chair.“What are you doing to my ship?” she asks, and Mack looks up at her.Why he’s surprised I don’t know. Case has always referred to the ship as hers, same way a rider might say the same of their dragon, or their horse, like the ship’s a beast that belongs to no-one else. If she’s with the crew from engineering, she might refer to it as ‘ours’, but only with them. She doesn’t even seem to notice the effect her words have had on Mack. It’s like he doesn’t matter.“Just tell me what you see,” Jude says, and her words are soft as breathing, she’s so deep in what she’s doing.Mack just rocks back on his heels and glances over at me. ‘See what you’ve done?’ is what his face says, so I just shrug. I ain’t done nothin’.This is nothin’ to do with me. We’re only lookin’ for the Cloud Door because Mack wants to rain on someone’s very big and nasty parade. He might have made a deal with the Wolves, but he’s goin’ to make doubly sure their deal with the Door dwellers doesn’t work out.Jude uses a couple of different scans, after Case has done enough jockeying to be sure the Wolves aren’t secretly lurking to check what we’re doing next, and I find myself a corner of the control room, where I hope to be forgotten.“Got it,” she says, and Mack’s over beside her so fast, it’s a wonder he hasn’t wrenched something.“There,” she adds, pointing something out on her screen, and, before he can ask, she’s put it up on the main display so everyone can see.“That’s a door?” I ask, and they all look at me, until I wish I hadn’t spoken. “What?”“Well, you said we should find it,” Mack points out.“Yeah? And you said you had a plan, after we made it so we didn’t need to find it after all.”“And you’re the expert at opening things that are better left closed,” he snarls back.My bad feeling about this, just got a whole ton worse.“What do you need?” I ask, knowing I’m going to regret opening my mouth. Damn, and after I’ve saved all our hides, too.What Mack needs is for me to go down to the Door, jemmy the lock and toss a grenade through it… or for me to go down to the Door, and make it so it can’t be opened ever again… or for me to go down to the Door and play a recording of a conversation that sounds like the Wolves going back on their deal so that the dudes on the other side get really pissed off. I decide to do a combination of all three. The first part’s the easiest.The Door, by the way, really is located in the middle of a perpetual cloud mass, and it’s not hard to figure out that the Door is the reason the cloud mass just never goes away. It’s really old tech, but it’s so cutting edge that we just haven’t gotten to it, yet. Cycles of civilisation, and all that. You get the picture.Step One: Piss off the interdimensional bad asses so they reneg on their bargain with the Wolves.This is easy as running the recording Mack made using the voice print of the Wolves we’ve just spoken to. Tenor had recorded the lot and it didn’t take us long to put together something that simulates the commander and his 2 IC’s voices just nicely.I use the same equipment I’d use to hear through an augmented door to see what I can hear on the other side, and then I broadcast through a couple of the frequencies Jude suggests. Hopefully, that’s stirred them up enough to never barter with the Wolves, again.The responding broadcast Jude picks up confirms it, and, while Mack’s feeding them a few more lines, and making demands sure to break any working relationship, I move on to Step Two.Which is: Open the Door and toss in a grenade.This involves me going up to the Door and imagining I want to open it and let the thing on the other side through, just as badly as it wants to get through. That’s the easy part, because, now the bad dudes on the other side of the Door really want to get through, just so’s they can hunt down the Wolves, and then lay waste to the galaxy. It’s also the hard part, because I have to toss through the grenade, and close the Door before the things on the other side shove it all the way open, and get through into our space. And all without blowing myself up.The door-opening part works just fine, and I only let one of the critters through before the grenade goes off, and those closest are no longer interested in following. Of course, even though I get the Door slammed closed, that leaves me with one helluva pissed off interdimensional critter on the same side of the Door as I am—and that’s where it gets interesting.“Mack!” I yell. “Can’t seal it, with this thing ripping off my arm!”I swear I hear Tenor snicker.“What do you want me to do about it?”I resist the urge to use an expletive that suggests something else. No way I want Mack thinking I want to jump into the sack. Especially not now. Man, this thing’s claws are sharp.On the upside, it can’t get the Door back open, when there’s no one on the other side wanting the same thing. On the downside, now that it realises it’s essentially trapped out here with me, it wants to throw me off the cloud.“Not funny, Mack!” I shout, slamming my back against the Door, and then sliding out of the way of another claw strike. If this thing had come equipped with a blaster, I’d be charcoal on the glassteel surface, by now.Tenor snorts. I swear Mack won’t be the only one I face on the mats when I get back on board… and that reminds me…I take a step to the right, and then another, and the critter follows me ’round. Now, neither of us are facing the Door, or standing with our backs to it. Because standing with my back to open space and an I-don’t-want-to-think-of-how-many-thousands-of-feet drop is so much better.I pull the six-inch synth-steel blade from sheath at my waist, and beckon the monster to come get me. Part of me regrets that I don’t know a gesture considered more impolite, but what I’m using does the trick. The beastie’s eyes narrow, and it lunges forward. I drop low, beneath the grasp of its arms, and then I come up, driving the dagger in deep, and using its momentum, and my upward push to hurl the thing over my shoulder.It goes out into nothing, as planned, and I nearly follow it—NOT as planned— as a wave of dizziness sweeps over me. I push sideways, and press up, hard, against the Door, praying it doesn’t open both ways. I stay there for a while, just breathing with my eyes shut, as I try to imagine myself inside the ship with four solid walls around me. It takes a good few minutes before I register Mack talking in my ear.“… you got that Door sealed yet? Respond, over. Repeat. Have you got the Door sealed?”Right, Step Three, which does not involve falling off a mountain… or, in this case, a cloud.“Almost done, Mack,” I say, and swivel ’round so I can look up at the door.Sealed, huh? Well, seein’ as I don’t feel like standing on my own two, and trying to weld the thing closed, I figure the best way is jam the locking mechanism and fry the circuitry that runs the mechanism to open it. So, some kind of EMP and heat device it is.Judging from the mood Mack is in, I’m going to need a contingency plan to avoid going over the edge. I don’t know what kind of tech made this place up, but I’m about to bring it down… and that’s when the next option hits me.“Down, hey?” I mutter, and stretch out on my belly.I figure that even this thing won’t make the fall, and that the kind of jury-rigged destruction I have in mind will kill pretty much any kind of tech that’s ever been thought of. I pull out the rest of my kit and take a good long look, and then I start to chuckle.“Down,” I say, and I sound mischievous as heck.Next thing, I know Mack’s shouting in my ear, which is very distracting, and I don’t want this thing to go off early.“Down,” I mutter, turning the ear-piece off.I leave the mike on, though. Mack’s gonna need to hear me, if I’m to get outta this alive.Step Three is a doozy.And Mack? He lets me fall a fair way before he catches me—the bastard.I land in the teleport bay, still screaming, and then I’m on my feet and cussing a blue streak. Mack doesn’t know what hits him, when I make it to the control room, but Tenor has a dart gun hidden under his console.And he’s lightning fast.I’m out before I hit the floor. 


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Cloud Door is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/bQZGLd.

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 2—Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Simone was somewhere new, and under close supervision. This week, we get to see Tiger's reply.Chapter 2 – I'll Be Here

Dear Simone
Just to let you know I got your letter, and I really hope you are okay.I got to read a lot of it, including the bit where you said not to worry about it if there were black bits. I have to tell you, it’s really hard not to worry about the black bits; they always seem to appear just when your words are getting interesting. I hope the next letter doesn’t have as many.I’m not sure what the delay was in sending your last letter. The black bits covered that bit up. I guess it’s because you got sick. I really hope they let you out of your bubble, soon. It must really suck to not be able to hug your mum and dad without plastic in between. And the whole not being able to talk thing. That sucks, too.Those black bits in your letter are really annoying. I missed the whole sentence that came before when you told me some people were stupid and then grew up to run companies, and then the next bit. I think it was a whole paragraph. It was just before you asked me if I would help you.Of course I will help you. You are my best friend, even if we don’t get to see each other very much. I miss you heaps.And heaps, and heaps, and heaps.I really want to come and visit. Do you think they’ll let me see you?Are you well enough?Or should I wait until you get better?And don’t worry about how boring the class stuff is.YOU GET TO DO XENOBIOLOGY!!!!!!!And be nice to your doctors. They probably don’t like prodding you, just as much as you don’t like being prodded. Just answer their questions; it makes them go away quicker. And take care of yourself!I have almost finished the next round of courses, and I’m helping mum and dad with their work out on Deskeden.THERE ARE FOSSILS!!!!I am so excited! If you couldn’t tell.Anyway, I will send you pictures, as soon as I’m allowed. And then I will try to get permission to see you. Who knows? Maybe they will have let you out of your bubble by then.I really hope so. And I hope it’s soon.

Thinking of you

Tiger

P.S. I will ALWAYS be around for you. All you have to do is say so. If you need me there, just call.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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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Friday’s Flash—When Pixies Dance the Storm Dance

Last week we had a a piece of science fiction set in the oceans of our home world. This week, it’s an urban fantasy look at the war on drugs, and the illicit trade in fantasy creatures from the February 22nd entry in 365 Days of Flash Fiction .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------When Pixies Dance the Storm Dance
The pixies danced in the stormlight. They danced with steps that shook with anger, making the leaves tremble and curl at their passing. They danced until their passage burnt a circle in the grass, and then they stopped and raised their hands to the sky. The dust runners didn’t stand a chance, but at least the local chieftain thought enough of me to warn the strike force away from the warehouse.We couldn’t stop them, but we could bear witness. What the dust runners had done to the rest of their clan, deserved something of what they wreaked, and the pixies could not let the remnants of those unicorns run through the city unchecked. What the dustrunners had done had turned those once-great beasts into abominations.I watched as storm clouds boiled out of an interdimensional gate forced open above the dustrunners’ hideout. I saw the maelstrom of lightning that burnt the warehouse to the ground and blackened the earth six-feet deep. We found nothing more than ash, when we investigated. Forensics said it would take more time that it was worth to analyse the ash and verify just exactly what had been exterminated in that apocalyptic strike.The question became moot when the pixies came and took every skerrick of ash from the site, transporting it to the Otherworld for reasons they refused to divulge. Not everything, they said, was safe for humans to know.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two flash fiction collections at the links below, until the covers are updated. The third collection will be released later this year.
books2read.com/u/bap506 books2read.com/u/3J21B3

Wednesday’s Verse—Dragons in Mourning

This week’s verse moves from science fiction to fantasy, and comes in an experimental 'quinku' form. 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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Dragons in Mourning

Dragons risewings beating thunderdrums on drums
Dragons risescales reflecting lightsunrise comes
Dragons riseflaming as they soarchallenging
Dragons risemessage loud and clearavenging
Dragons risecircling o’er and neara flame-wreathed bier


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------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—Bid the Moon Goodbye

This week’s short storytakes us from a summer camp set on a world far, far away to the moon, which is meant to be a refuge from the now-ravaged Earth. Welcome to Bid the Moon Goodbye.
 

When Jervis’s son has a melt-down at school, and takes on partial wolf form, it’s just a normal family crisis, but when the nurse warns that anti-Lupine activists have the family’s name on a hit-list, Jervis needs to get them off the moon—and fast. The only question is how—and the only way to find an answer is to find a helpful spacer in the best pizza bar on Lunar One… and then hope there’s a ship with room for three.
Bid the Moon Goodbye
Hagel ran his toy truck back and forth along the floor. He made no sound, but his small brow was furrowed in concentration, and his knuckles white where they could be seen through the fur. Jervis watched him, frowning and wondering what to do. The cub was upset, but he couldn’t stay half-changed forever.“He’s conflicted,” the school nurse said. “One minute he’s fine, spelling and counting and playing with the blocks, and the next he’s… Well, he’s like this.”“Can you leave us alone, for a moment?” Jervis asked.“Well, his mother hasn’t arrived yet.”And she will have as big a piece of you as I will, Jervis thought, if you keep me from my cub.He said nothing. He would not beg, or plead, or threaten. Hagel was his cub, and he loved him dearly, but the humans still had trouble coping with werewolves. Jervis had been hoping to keep his, Keelie’s and Hagel’s heritage a secret, and quietly book them passage to Morrow’s World. Unfortunately Hagel hadn’t been able to cope, and they hadn’t known, until it was too late.“She’ll be here, soon,” the nurse said, “so I’m sure it’ll be okay.”She left, closing the door behind her, with a reassuring smile, and Jervis breathed a soft sigh of relief.“Hagel,” he said, letting the wolf shape his words, as he partially shifted form.“Daddy!” the little boy shouted, and hurled himself across the room into Jervis’s arms, wrapping his arms around Jervis’s neck, and burying his face in the fur Jervis had allowed to sprout from his chest. Jervis wrapped his arms around the child and hugged him close.He was still hugging him, when Nurse Mackenzie returned with Keelie.His wife took one look at the two of them, and turned to the nurse.“If you could leave us, for a moment, please,” she said, and crouched down beside her two men.“Look at you, two,” she said, and wrapped them in her arms. “Giving away our secrets, like there’s no tomorrow.”Hagel lifted his head.“Secrets, mummy?”“Yes, sweetheart, secrets. Don’t you know the humans find it hard to cope with the lupine?”“Lupine?”“Us, Hagel. We’re lupine.”“Not human?” Hagel said, his large blue eyes filling with tears.Jervis felt his heart tear with sadness. This, he thought. This is what they’d been trying to spare their son. When he was older, he’d be better able to understand, but not at six. Life was so hard when you were six.“No,” Keelie said, and let the tiniest piece of her wolf show.The sight of it made Hagel laugh.“Mummy’s wolf is peeking at me,” he giggled, and Keelie laughed in return.“And that is all the humans should ever see,” she told him. “Even daddyknows that.”Taking the hint, Jervis changed back to human, and then let his wolf creep into his eyes. The sight made Hagel laugh even harder, and he covered his eyes with his hands.“Boo!” he shouted, suddenly pulling his hands away and pushing his face close to Jervis’s.Jervis laughed, too, and then let Hagel watch him put the laughter away.“Hmmm,” he said, tilting his head this way and that, as though inspecting his son very closely. “I see a problem.”Hagel’s eyes widened, and he looked down at himself. Jervis gave him a minute to work it out. Hagel might be only six, but he was pretty bright.“Oh,” Hagel said, and grimaced.Jervis watched as the fur disappeared from his wrists and ankles, and saw the child’s muzzled face shrink to human form. He watched as Hagel’s claws became human fingers once again, and as his ears lost their pointed tips to a more rounded outline.“Oh, way to go,” he said, when Hagel looked to him for approval. “What do you think, mummy?”Keelie picked up the game. She shuffled back, and repeated Jervis’s head-tilting inspection.“Hmmm,” she said, when Hagel was watching her with wide-eyed anticipation. “It’s not bad, but I think you’ve forgotten something.”Her voice held a teasing note that belied the worry Jervis saw lurking in her eyes, and he made a note to talk to her later. Something had happened to bring that level of fear to her expression, but it also explained why she’d been asking about the chances of an earlier flight, too. He wondered what it was.Hagel pulled him away from his concerns, as the little boy and Jervis watched as his son stood up and looked down at himself. Jervis watched as Hagel held his hands and arms out in front of himself and studied them carefully. When he was done with that, the boy reached up and touched his ears. Finding they had changed, too, Hagel touched his nose, and ran his fingers through his hair. When he found they were human, too, he turned, looking over his shoulder at his tail.“Oh!” he exclaimed, seeing the offending appendage poking up out the top of his school trousers.Once again, he stood still and screwed up his face, and the tail disappeared shortly, thereafter.“All good?” he asked, looking at his mum and dad.Jervis levered himself up off the floor, and held out a hand to his wife. She took it, without needing it, and stood, before stooping down to plant a kiss on Hagel’s forehead.“Perfect,” she said, and the child’s face broke into a pleased grin.He looked past his mum to catch Jervis’s eye and raised his eyebrows in question. Jervis gave him a thumbs up with his free hand, and Hagel smiled. Linking hands, with Hagel between them, Keelie and Jervis headed for the door. The nurse looked up from her monitor as they came out, and her face broke into a smile.“Oh, very good!” she said. “It’s nice to see you happy, again, Hagel.”Jervis was pretty sure she meant it was nice to Hagel humanagain, but he didn’t try to correct her. Instead, he said, “If it’s okay with the school, we thought we’d take him home for the rest of the day.”The nurse nodded.“Of course, Mr. Zymes.”“It’s just to make sure he’s settled for tomorrow,” Jervis assured her, although he wasn’t sure of that, at all. He wouldn’t be sure of what it was until he got home and talked to Keelie… and maybe had a chat with Hagel about what had got him so wound up at school.“That’s fine, Mr. Zymes. You give him all the time he needs.”And wasn’t that the strangest thing for a school nurse to say. Usually, they were very reluctant to give their charges any time off, at all, but Nurse Mackenzie’s words were an invitation for him to say he needed more.“I’ll see how he goes,” Jervis said, before deciding to take a risk on her, and reaching across the desk for the nurse’s post-it pad and pen.Is there something I should know? he wrote, keeping the words covered with one hand, and blocking the camera with his body. He turned the pad around, so Nurse Mackenzie could see it.She frowned, her expression flowing from instant denial to worry to professional concern, although Jervis was pretty sure that last one was for the camera’s benefit.“Oh, I nearly forgot,” she said, reaching for the sticky notes and pulling them below counter level. “You’ll need to call the school if you decide to keep him home, tomorrow. Let me write the number for you.”She wrote quickly, frowning slightly as she chose the few words she could fit onto the paper. When she was done, she tore the top quarter inch of pages off the pad and passed them across to Jervis.“Now, don’t forget, will you?” she asked, as Jervis glanced at the paper, before tucking it into his jacket pocket.Anti-lupine group plans attack. Find a way to go, soon. & Good Luck!It was a struggle to keep his face straight, but Jervis managed it, reaching across the counter to offer his hand. As she shook it, he said, “Thank you, nurse. We appreciate your help.”He thought he caught the glimmer of quickly suppressed tears, as he turned away.“It was nothing, Mr. Zymes. Just doing my job,” she called after them.Jervis gave her a half wave, but he did not look back, and he forced himself to keep his walk casual. He was aware of the anxious look that Keelie gave him, but he didn’t return it. Instead, he addressed his son.“What do you say, Hages? You feel up to a day of school, tomorrow?”At mention of school, Hagel’s face fell.“Aww, dad. Do I have to?” he whined, and Jervis pressed his lips together in a firm line.“We’ll see how you feel, tomorrow, son, but you should be fine.”He was aware of the sharp glance Keelie threw in his direction, and he looked over at her, forcing a smile to his lips.“What do you say, mummy? Should we buy a pizza on the way home?”“Pizza!” Hagel said, and Keelie’s frown deepened, before she mirrored the smile on Jervis’s face.Anyone watching them would have known those smiles for what they were—a baring of teeth, two parents signalling they were in agreement over the protection of their cub. Keelie might not know what he was up to, but Jervis knew she trusted him, and would follow his lead. Good enough. If there was an attack planned, they had to try to make it aboard a ship tonight. Any ship. Even a freighter would do—and the best pizza on Lunar One was served right beside the spacers’ lounge.Jervis waited until they had left the school precinct before picking up the pace. He wanted to discuss things with Keelie before they hit the pizza place, and a quick detour through the hydroponics dome wouldn’t be out of character for a family of wolves dealing with a bit of schoolyard trauma. Hagel was beside himself with glee.“Pizza and the park!” he exclaimed, as Jervis led them through the airlock entrance leading to the tree zone.Even Keelie relaxed as they stepped out into the shadows of a stand of pines.“Morrow pines,” she murmured, taking a deep breath, and savouring the scent of the trees.“It’s the closest they could get to the ones on Earth,” Jervis said, and then wished he hadn’t.He missed the great trees of home. Even though Australia wasn’t where his people had originated, there had been pines… and eucalypts. He’d loved those, too. Jervis sighed, and looked up at the trees, and then he looked through the treetops and the clear plas-steel canopy of the dome. Far beyond it hung the browned and blackened planet that had once been his home.Keelie followed his gaze, and then Hagel looked up, too.“I miss it,” their son said, and Jervis heard tears in his voice—and thatreminded him that they didn’t have too much time to find a haven, if they had any at all.“This way,” he said, drawing his little family away from the well-worn path leading to the other side of the dome, and out into the busy starport of Lunar One.Keelie looked swiftly around, twitching an ear, in a most un-humanlike manner, and flaring her nostrils to pick up the scent of anything hidden.“Hurry,” she said, sweeping Hagel from the ground and stepping quickly into the stand of rhododendrons and camellias on the other side of the pines.Jervis followed quickly on her heels, ducking down beside her just as the inner door to the airlock hissed open. He stared at his mate, wide-eyed, and noticed that she had her finger to her lips. He glanced quickly at Hagel, and noticed that he needn’t have worried. The pup was following his mother’s cue, and had covered his mouth with both hands, his bright eyes flicking back and forth catching the expression on each of his parents’ faces.They all crouched behind the screen of bushes, listening carefully.“And you’re sure they came in here?” a woman’s voice asked.“Yup. Nurse said they were heading home, but I know the wolves; something traumatic happens to one of their family, and they head straight to the dome.”Jervis saw Keelie’s top lip curl, but, before he could react, Hagel had lifted a hand and slapped it over his mother’s mouth. If they weren’t so obviously being hunted, Jervis might have found the look on Keelie’s face funny.“And you’re sure they came this way, because….”“Apart from the fact they’re wolves?”“Yeah, cos I only have your word for that.”“Fine. The kid yelled out ‘Pizza!’ like he was going to get a treat after the way he behaved, today, and this is the quickest way from the school to the Lounge.”“What makes you think they’d head to the lounge? They’ve already booked their passage. Won’t be going for a week. Plenty of time for us to nail ’em.”Jervis wrapped his arms around Hagel, smothering the cub’s frightened whimper in the depths of his jacket and his hug. The bushes around them rustled, and Keelie gave him an accusing stare.“What was that?” the woman, again.“Probably nothing. You know the nature lovers stuck a whole lot of birds and shit in here to keep the biosystem running.”“I still thought I heard something.” The woman sounded like she was coming closer.Jervis saw Keelie tense, a she-wolf preparing to defend her cub. He felt Hagel grow stiff in his arms, resisting his hold, but not yet struggling, and he waited. Something small burst through the leaves away from them, its warbling chitter echoing in its wake as it scolded them.“See?” the man said, crowing over being right. “Just birds and shit. They didn’t have any reason to stop. We’ll probably lose them in the Lounge if we don’t get a move on.”The woman wasn’t convinced… or she didn’t want to concede defeat.“Why the Lounge?” she asked, and her partner laughed as though she should have known.“Cos the pizza place, there, is the best in all Lunar One—and all the spacers go there. It’s the best place to find someone to take you off this rock.”“Fine! Lead the way.”Jervis, Keelie and Hagel stayed silent and still, as they listened to the pair move off towards the exit to the Space Lounge. They waited a little longer, as a group of teens came through the airlock to shortcut their way to the pizza place, and then they slunk as far away from the path as possible. When they found the dome wall, they stopped by the narrow moat of running water that flowed around the inner lining of the dome.“We have to leave,” Jervis said, and Keelie rolled her eyes at him, as if to say she already knew that. He ignored it and continued. “Is there anyone we can call to pack up our gear?”“I don’t know,” Keelie said. “I wouldn’t want to send any of our friends into danger. You never know if they’ll be waiting.”She didn’t have to say who ‘they’ were; they both knew the anti-lupine faction of humans was starting its move. Hagel whimpered again, and slunk further along the wall. He was making for the spaceport, his body language shouting their need to escape louder than words.Taking the cub’s lead, Keelie and Jervis followed.“Where are we going?” Keelie asked, but all Jervis could do was shrug.Something in Hagel’s movements told him the boy had a specific destination in mind, but he didn’t know where, or what, or even who. They had often come to the dome, and Jervis had always let the boy play with the other cubs, while he and Keelie stayed and talked with the other lupine parents. There was no danger in the dome, but they’d kept a close ear on their cubs’ whereabouts nonetheless. Nothing had ever gone wrong, and Hagel hadn’t stayed away any longer than the rest.At least, he hadn’t stayed away any longer than any of the rest that they’d noticed. Jervis was a little surprised when the boy shifted to wolf form, and looked expectantly over his shoulder. When Keelie and Jervis just looked at him, Hagel gave an impatient ‘yip’ and bounced back a few steps towards them.As they watched, he shimmered back into human form, took two steps back the way he’d been heading, and changed back into a wolf cub—a wolf cub that looked back at them and gave an impatient yip, fluffy tail waving as it danced on the spot. Keelie looked at Jervis, and shrugged, and then she shifted into the silver-grey form of a she-wolf, and bounded after their son. Jervis hurried after them, becoming a slightly bigger and darker wolf, as he followed their example.When they had travelled nearly the full length of the dome, Hagel skidded to a swift stop, and turned back at them. He lowered his head, flattened his ears, lowered his tail, and growled. From a wolf cub to its parents it was an amazing display of insubordination. Jervis tamped down the urge to grab his cub by the scruff of the neck and shake him into submission.Instead, he stopped. He lowered his head and flicked his ears forward, waving his tail slowly from side to side. Beside him, Keelie did the same. As soon as he was satisfied his parents would wait, Hagel gave another bounce, accompanied by a series of very soft whining whuffs, as he turned to face the direction he’d been heading in.And to their surprise a voice—a very human voice—answered.“Careful, cub. There are things afoot.” The voice was low and male, and not anyone Jervis recognised from his work on the station.Hagel responded with a soft whine, and the voice spoke, again.“Stay behind the seat, and we’ll talk,” it said, and Hagel slid forward, belly to the earth, his hindquarters and tail disappearing in another wolf-to-human shift.As soon as he wasn’t looking, any more, Jervis and Keelie crept forward, bellies flat to the earth and paws as silent as the breeze. Any sound they might have made was covered by the soft sound of the human’s voice.“Did you tell your parents?”“No time.”The voice sighed.“We launch, tonight. Do you think you could get them to come?”“When?” Hagel asked, and Jervis almost fell over in surprise.When had his son learned to be this cautious?“I was hoping you could bring them, now.” the man said. “The port’s getting busy, and we’d have a good chance of sneaking them past customs. That might not be possible in another hour.”“Why?”“The wolf-haters are stirring up a crowd. They heard about what’s been happening in school, so your family is on their list.”“But we haven’t packed.” Hagel’s voice was close to a whimper.The man sighed again.“What did I tell you, son? There might not be time to pack. We’ve got enough to spare.”“But my Teddy…”“I’ll see what I can do about Teddy, but I might not be able to bring him until next trip, okay?” There was quiet exasperation in the tone, but Jervis could tell he was trying to be patient. “Now, why don’t you go and get your mum and dad, so they can get you out of here, before it’s too la…” He stopped.When he spoke again, his voice held an admiring tone.“Why you little devil!” he said. “You brought them, and you never said a word.”Jervis and Keelie waited, listening as the man stood up, and moved into the bushes. He glanced at them as he went past, and nodded, stopping in front of a tree and turning so his back was to them and the path, before hooking his thumbs in his trouser pockets. From the back, it would look like he was relieving himself, and most people would avoid making comment.“I can get you aboard Charlotte’s Doll,” he said. “Captain and most of the crew are sympathetic. Has anyone seen you in wolf form?”“No,” Hagel said, coming to crouch between his parents, a small boy in school uniform, out of sight of passers-by.“Would you…” The man paused, ran one hand through his hair, remembered to keep the other hand in that suggestive position near his hips. “Ah, thisis embarrassing.”Jervis made a whining growl of enquiry.“Fine! Howdyou feel about wearing a leash?” He turned away from the tree, pretending to tuck his shirt into his trousers.Jervis felt a growl rumbling in his throat, and then Hagel’s hand rested, soft and gently, on his muzzle.“He said he was embarrassed,” the boy told him, then turned expectantly to the man. “Did you bring any?”Jervis watched as the man blushed deep red, and pulled three collars and leashes out of his pocket.“How’d you know we’d come?” Hagel asked, voicing the question in Jervis’s head.The man crouched down in front of them, and laid the leashes on the ground.“I didn’t,” he said. “I… I’ve been carrying them with me ever since you stole my sandwich, just in case you had to escape, and I had to pretend you were a real wolf. They’ve seen me with one or two in my time. Another couple won’t be a surprise. Most can’t tell you apart when you’re in wolf form, so I use the pretense to walk as many of you aboard as I can.”“Luna?” Hagel asked, his voice hopeful, and Jervis suddenly knew why his son had been so out of sorts.Two days ago, Luna, and her family, had said they were thinking of making the trip to Morrow’s World, and then they’d been gone. Even Jervis had been surprised at the suddenness of their departure—and their secrecy about it. He’d been trying to find out which ship they’d left on, ever since. He hadn’t realised just how badly Hagel would react to her leaving.The man smiled.“Waiting aboard, with every finger and toe crossed I could find you in time.” He hesitated, the smile fading. “So, do you mind wearing a leash, until I can get you aboard?”Jervis took a risk, and shifted back to human form.“Prove I can trust you,” he said, and the man reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out a small piece of paper. “Luna’s dad… Rory, he said you’d have to see this.”Jervis took the paper, opened it, and took in the exquisitely drawn symbol on the paper—the mark he and Rory had agreed on if they needed to meet and couldn’t ask.“You know this only works for me?” he said, and the man nodded, pushing it back when Jervis tried to return it.“You keep it,” he said, and looked nervously back towards the path. “We have to go. Are you willing?”Jervis shifted back into wolf form, and sniffed the collars and leashes. They were simple, and smelled of wolf, of many wolves, in fact, Rory amongst them. He nudged the bundle, whining, the message clear. Beside him, Hagel took his cue, and became a wolf cub, once more.The man slipped the leashes over their heads.“Gotcha!” he exclaimed, straightening up, and Jervis stiffened, preparing to fight. “Been looking for you for an hour. You’re not supposed to run off like that!”What was he playing at? Jervis wondered, but then another voice made the answer very clear.“Those yours, mister?”Looking up, Jervis saw their new acquaintance look out to the path.“Course they’re mine!” he said. “Been looking for them for an hour. Thought I’d take ‘em for a quick walk while the patrol was eating its pizza. Ungrateful mutts ran off on me!”Jervis thought he sounded sufficiently sulky and angry that any domesticated wolf might be apologetic—especially if they considered him master. He gave a nervous whine and nuzzled the man’s fingers, relieved when the man snatched his hand away.“Oh no, you don’t! You’re in disgrace, mister!”The people on the path laughed.“You’d better get ’em back aboard, then,” one called out. “It’s time for the next shift.”“Oh. Thank you,” their acquaintance called, and then pulled on their leashes.“Act sulky,” he said. “I’ve just cut your walk short. Except for you, pup. You’re a puppy. Nothing gets you down, okay?”Hagel gave a boisterous yip, and Jervis snarled at him, but their new ‘keeper’ jerked on the leash, and he pretended to obey, pointedly ignoring the cub as they were led back to the footpath. From there, the man took them through a door marked crews only, and into a corridor leading to the loading bay.“There you are, Joss! Thought we’d have to leave you behind.” The woman who greeted them caught sight of Jervis, Keelie and Hagel. “You and your dogs. They’re going to get you killed one day.”“They’re wolves,” the man protested, and the woman rolled her eyes.“I don’t care what they are! You’re needed in the loading bay, and I don’t want them underfoot. Get them aboard, and get back to work, before I mark you late!”“Sure thing, boss,” the man called back, and hurried the three wolves onto the shuttle.“Almost there,” he said. “Just stay like that until we dock with the Doll. A couple of hours, okay?”He loosened the leashes so they could get out of them if they needed to.“Just in case,” he said, and then took a small key ring from his pocket.Placing it in front of Jervis’s muzzle, he explained, “There are blasters in that box, if you need ’em. Just don’t shoot me by mistake.”That, if nothing else, made Jervis relax. No sane man told prisoners where the blasters were, or gave them the keys—and no captor made sure his prisoners could escape. He curled up under one of the flight couches, Keelie by his side. Hagel nestled between them, and they waited.Joss spared them a quick glance, as he turned back to the shuttle door.“Be good,” he said, and Jervis was sure that was for the benefit for anyone who could hear. “I’ll be back as soon as the loading’s done.”The man was as good as his word, and they made it to Charlotte’s Doll two hours later. Joss turned to them just before the shuttle docked.“You’d better change back, now,” he said. “You’re coming on board as refugees. That way the captain can protect you, if he needs to. Got it?”And he slipped the leashes from around their necks, and stepped back. Jervis changed first, and was rewarded by a nod from Joss’s boss. When Keelie stood up beside him, and Hagel changed to take her hand, the woman smiled.“Good work, Joss,” she said. “That’s another family for Morrow.”She stopped, looking suddenly worried.“Morrow is all right, isn’t it?” she asked, and Jervis made himself smile; it was brief and sad, but it was all he could manage He stepped forward and held out his hand.“Thank you,” he said. “From the bottom of our hearts. Thank you.”“Always a pleasure,” the woman replied, but from the almost haunted look in her eyes, Jervis knew she was wishing she could do more.He laid a hand on her shoulder as he passed by her to the door.“You can only do what you can,” he said, “and we will always be grateful that someone tried.”There was no time for more, and Jervis hoped it would be enough, as he, Keelie and Hagel followed Joss out into the Charlotte’s shuttle bay. Joss led them to the ship’s observation deck to wait, while the crew sorted out where they would be staying. When he’d left, the three of them watched the moon gradually vanish into the distant night, and they mourned what they had lost—a planet, a moon, and the right to say goodbye.Together, he, Keelie and Hagel made wolf song echo through the Charlotte’sdecks—and they were not alone. 


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Bid the Moon Goodbye is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/mvYGA8

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 1—Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore

LAST WEEK, Simone opened her package, and Book 1 ended. This week, we begin Book 2 and discover where Simone ended up.Chapter 1 – Bubble Bound
Dear Tiger

So, they let me send my last letter—all properly decontaminated and all—and I guess you might be worried.It was really dumb of me to keep those jars. Mum and dad said there was this guy who sent a whole bunch of stuff out in other people’s names. Some dude from another corporation.He didn’t make it.But I did. But… and you hafta know, Tiges, that I’m not the same person I used to be.It’s really hard to say this, ’cos you might not like me, anymore, but, well, they’re still trying to work out if I’m even human, any more.I’m living in a bubble, so, this letter is outside the bubble, and I get to use a keyboard, which sits in with me, while the rest of the computer stays on the other side of the plastic wall. I can’t use speech recognition any more—well, at least, not yet, because I kinda can’t talk at the moment.I know, you’re probably asking, ‘What about the birthday card?’. I mean, how could that be in the box, when the box was sent out by another guy. Turns out, he kinda hacked into the FedExplore computer systems, as well. He figured sending people’s kids presents was the best way ever to really mess with the company and its employees—and he made the packages look official so they’d go through the check-points faster.I’m not sure why he did that, because it’s not the bestest ever recruiting method. I mean, why would anyone want to go work for your company, if you contaminate their kids? Yeah, well, some people are just stupid, I guess—and then they grow up and get to run companies.Well, not any more. FedExplore got together with Odyssey, and the two of them are going to take that sucker, down. And I’m going to help them.Will you help me?Anyway, this whole being in a bubble thing, sucks the big time, except I don’t have to go to school any more. Which means I don’t have to put up with Marrietta and all her meanness, which is kinda good, but kinda bad, at the same time. I mean, I was just starting to talk to the other kids, and they were just starting to talk to me, and, now, I don’t get to do that.In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m not even on Terra any more, although I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you that. Oh, and you have to know, Tiger, that there might be black bits in my letter. Bits you can’t read, And you shouldn’t worry about them. That’s just the company’s way of protecting me.Personally, I think they could have done that a whole lot better. That way, things wouldn’t have gotten to this stage. I might still be stuck in Melbourne, and having to put up with Marrietta, but I wouldn’t be here… in a room with walls made of super-strong plastic wrap, and only able to hug my parents using arm gloves moulded into the plastic.It’s stupid. And I hate it! And I wonder how long it’s going to take before I go crazy in here.And there goes the bell.Even in a plastic box, with no other classmates, I still have to go to school.They give me heaps of stuff to do, too. I mean, I don’t just get the ordinary school stuff, but now they’re giving me some kind of course in xenobiology. Maybe they’re hoping it will help me work out what’s going on inside me. I guess I’ll know by what questions they ask me, the next time the doctors come around.That’s always fun—NOT!I’m so sick of being poked and prodded that it’s not funny.Oops. Screen just flickered.I guess that’s the computer’s way of telling me, I need to switch over to class stuff, now.

You take care,

and, thanks for being around,

Simone.
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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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Friday’s Flash—The Del Marina Betrayal

Last week we had a very short piece of military science fiction. This week, it's a piece of science fiction much closer to the oceans of our home world, and it forms the February 8th entry in 365 Days of Flash Fiction .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------The Del Marina Betrayal
In the laboratories of Santos del Marina we saw many things: sea cows that gave milk humans could drink, leafy dragons that breathed a storm of sharp, poisonous shards, puffer fish able to propel spiral shell-boats, and sea jellies the colour of rainbows, which tasted like strawberries and peaches. We didn’t see what Santos was doing to the whales, and we really shoulda seen through his quiet smile and calm façade.Twenty-eight days after he’d started, the first whale dared approach us for help—the only one who didn’t think we already knew of Santos’s mischief and condoned it. At first we recoiled, and then we struck. We visited the del Marina laboratory unannounced and went through it from top to bottom, missing not a single room.At first, Santos protested his innocence, and then he tried to flee. The killer whales waiting outside did not have our sense of mercy.He was torn apart for the accompanying great whites to feed on. Usually solitary, the sharks had gathered, angry. We found out why when we hit the lowest layer. It took months of careful rehabilitation and reintegration, but we cleaned out the labs, earning a deeper friendship with the whales, and the first tentative steps of an alliance with the cold-water sharks.So tentative and fragile was that relationship, we assigned our best man to the site—Carmina del Marina. It was a decision we were later to be proud of.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------You can find the first two flash fiction collections at the links below, until the covers are updated. The third collection will be released later this year.


books2read.com/u/bap506 books2read.com/u/3J21B3

Wednesday’s Verse—Will You?

This week’s verse moves from fantasy to something maybe a bit more suited to a futuristic Valentine's Day Eve. 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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Will You?

Didja wanna go out wiv me?Didja? Didja?Do ya wanna come see a movie?Do ya?Will ya walk wiv me awhile?Just a little way.Maybe just a little mile?And will ya smile?
Well, will you?
I’ve come a very long way since then,since when we ran in bare feet,from shadow to shadow down the burning summer street.I’ve been to university, seen the stars,served my planet, helped stop wars,and all that time, my mind turned backto those times when I’d wait to walk with youall the way to school,and back again,to spend a little time with you,where you wouldn’t be hassled by parents, or teased by friends,and I thought that, maybe,just before I went away,you liked to see me by the gate,that you never left your door unless you saw me there,pretending to see if there was any mail,when the postman hadn’t been,or looking like I had to tie my shoe.
I know. I tried all kinds of different times,and you always came rushing out,if I started down the path alone,and you were late on any day that I delayed.
So will you?
Go out with me, tonight?And tell me I wasn’t dreaming,in those younger times,that I wasn’t wrong,and that you waited, just for me,because that coincidental path to school,was the only time our friends and parents let us be?
Will you?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------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—Banquet at Magic Mountain

This week’s short story takes us from a colonial world where the colonists are coming to grip with thewildlife to a camp set on a planet far, far away. Welcome to Banquet at Magic Mountain.

I hate camp. Every year yada yada yada. The only bright point is Luka, the Wild Man of Camp Mellinjo, an orphan and a stray grown up. When he bolts out of camp with the cook on his tail, I take off to see if I can save him, yet again—and that’s when I discover Camp Mellinjo isn’t what it seems, and neither is Luka. But seriously, guys, would my parents really sell me out?Banquet at Magic Mountain
“Luka! If you don’t bring that thing right back here, I’m going to scramble your soul and feed it to the Harmonies.” Cook’s voice echoed around the camp—again.None of us paid the threat any mind. Firstly, because the cook made it every morning and, secondly, because we were all pretty sure the cook hadn’t worked out a way of stealing people’s souls, yet. Which just goes to show what we knew.We figured Luka had caught the cook about to prepare another one of his ‘rescues’ for lunch, or supper, or something similar, and that he’d taken the critter and run. Everyone knew Luka hid them in the forest. Unfortunately, so did the cook.And, as for the Harmonies, well, they were old legends. We figured someone had made them up, sort of based them on the harpies or sirens of Earth’s Greek myths, and then given them super-powers, the powers of the gods, if you liked. Well, we didn’t. This world was creepy enough without having to drag in the creepiness from our home world.Come camping on Magloster, world of devastating beauty. Come explore its magical moons, or dive into its oceans. Interested in mountain climbing and pot-holing? You can do both at once on Magloster.One day, I was going to find the mad Scotsman who had bought an entire world, and turned it into a series of theme parks, wilderness lodges, camps, and adventure tours of every type, and I was going to feed him to the luminescent sharks that swam through the planet’s night skies, because those things were no less carnivorous than the ones that swam our Earthen oceans.Yeah, Magloster had it coming to him, and the guy that made up the Harmonies. Well, he had it coming, too.Anyway, what’s that got to do with Luka?Nothing, so, Luka was a camp fixture. He was wild and an orphan, and no one had managed to get him back on a space craft so they could take him elsewhere. He’d been running wild for so long, they’d just booked him into the camp permanently, and let him go where he pleased.I really liked Luka. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never have discovered half the critters roaming wild in the woods near Camp Mellinjo, or been guaranteed of learning so many unique ways of cussing someone out, or discovered that the mad Scotsman wasn’t mad, and was probably just as much a myth as the Harmonies were.Because Magloster wasn’t just a world of paradise, it was a world linked right into Hell, and Magloster had come to an agreement that kept his descendants safe, at the expense of the rest of us. You see, Magloster needed the shuttle and cruiser traffic generated by the tourist industry to hide the flights scheduled for his own private businesses. The man was a slave-taker of the greatest magnitude, and his wilderness adventure paradise hid places for the depraved to feed the darkest wishes of their souls.Magloster’s Island was a dichotomy in and of itself. My parents sent me there each and every spring, and had done so since I was twelve.“Twelve’s old enough,” my dad had said, and my mother had agreed.“Old enough for what?”“Old enough to go camping and hiking on Magloster’s World.”I had been excited by the idea. Magloster’s World, where every little rich kid spent their holidays. I had friends who went there, and an older sister who’d been seven times, and now I was going, too. The excitement didn’t last. When I was seventeen, I argued I was old enough to choose my own destination, but my parents had insisted on one last trip, so I’d agreed.And that brought me back to Luka. He was still running from the cook, but he was nearly twenty-two, too old for his antics to be ignored, and way too old for anyone to pay for his stay. And, yet, he was still here, and still creating havoc.I took off after him with the intention of talking cook out of stringing him up, this time. If I was very lucky, I’d be able to get cook to feed him, too, since he’d been banned from the dining room. I was already up and dressed and ready to go, having been booked into a little expedition that would take us to the underground pools of Mount Tarpes.Glancing at my communicator, I saw I had a bit of time before the skim-bus left, maybe even enough to catch Luka and get back. Maybe…I almost didn’t go after him, because the tour was something new, something only the oldest campers were offered, and because this was my last chance to take it, because, Luka or not, I wasn’t coming back. Loyalty and hope won out, however, and I sprinted into the tree line, taking my daypack with me.I caught sight of Luka’s disappearing back and raced after him. Behind me, I heard the cook turn the corner of the building.“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! Where d’you think you’re going?”And what business was that of his, anyway? I ignored the question, feeling safer as soon as the green-lit forest closed around me. The cook didn’t come in after us, but Luka kept running. I followed the sound of his passage through the bushes and trees, determined to catch up with him to see what he’d liberated this time.“Luka!” I called. “Hey! Luka! Wait up!”He finally stopped beneath the overhang of a small cliff. Water tumbled down it, not three feet away, but Luka ignored it. He turned to face me, a picnic basket in his hands.“Good. You came.” He looked behind me, as though expecting more to have followed. “Did anyone else?”“No, they got on the bus.”He looked disappointed, and then alarmed.“But, don’t they understand that they’re all gonna die?”I felt my excitement at finding him, fade.“What do you mean, Luka?”He gave me a look, one that held all kinds of pity.“It’s not a special tour,” he explained. “No one, who goes on that tour, ever comes back.”“What do you mean?”“I mean they don’t come back.”“But what about their parents? Their family?”“They get to keep their other kids, and their fortunes.” He said it as though it was a well-known fact, but his words made me feel light-headed.You see, Luka had never led me astray, before, but I didn’t want to believe him, now. I mean, my parents loved me. They’d never betray me. Luka had to be pulling my leg, no matter how serious he was about everything else. There was a first time for everything, right?I still felt dizzy, though. I walked over to one of the rocky outcrops sticking out of the ground at the base of the cliff, and sat down. Luka watched me, puzzlement on his face. He didn’t say anything, just watched and waited, and I wondered just how many times he’d given someone the news he’d given me, and what reaction he’d got.“Say it again,” I ordered, when I had settled.“Just like that?” he asked.“Say. It. Again.”“Fine.” He shrugged.I guessed he was going for nonchalant, but his words came out so fast I got the idea he wasn’t as au fait with it as he was making out.“No one, who goes on the special tour, ever comes back from it, and their parents don’t care, because they get to keep their wealth and their other kids.”He closed his mouth after the last word, and waited, his brown eyes assessing me.“What happens to the ones who go?” I asked, and saw surprise flicker across his face.It made me wonder, again, how many times he’d given his warning, and what reaction he usually got. I watched him open his mouth to answer, and then tilt his head.“We have to move,” he said. “They’re coming,” and he didn’t wait for me to agree, but hurried back into the trees, and started climbing the steep ground that led to the top of the waterfall.“Hurry!” he urged, when I didn’t immediately move. “It’s you they’re after. They don’t want to be one short on the delivery.”Delivery?“What happens if… hey!” I shouted, because he didn’t stop, and I had to slide down off the rock and run to catch up with him. I bounded into the trees, and was in time to see him disappear between two tall boulders.It was only a fleeting glimpse, and I didn’t want to lose him. Luka was being more mysterious than usual, but this time he seemed willing to tell me what was going on, and I really wanted to know. I also wanted to know why he’d chosen to stay here, year after year, and if he’d gotten good grades at school, or missed out completely, and, well, and if he had a girlfriend. My sister had been closer than she’d known, when she’d said the only reason I liked spring camp so much was because I got to see the ‘wild boy’.‘Wild man’, now, I corrected myself, pushing past the boulders and hurrying after Luka’s hard-to-see form as it jogged through bushes and trees. It was hard to keep up, because he only slowed to clamber over boulders, as he climbed the steep slope. He’d reallyfilled out in the year I’d been away.He stepped around another outcrop of rock and disappeared. I scurried after him, but, when I rounded the rock, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and there was no path to follow. Spotting a dense thicket with what looked like a crawl space under the branches, I wriggled underneath, ending up in a cathedral of green—but there was still no sign of Luka.The thicket was really a small tree with snarled and matted branches growing out and then drooping down to the ground. From what I could see, some of those branches were growing into the ground itself, and I wondered if this was how the tree spread its young. There was no time to check, though.I could hear the soft whirr of engines, the ones belonging to single seaters, which you rode like a bike, the ones that are more like a seat over a column housing an engine with a console seated in handlebars like the ones you find on a skim-cycle. I got off my hands and knees, and into a crouch, and moved around the tree.I couldn’t see Luka, but I could hear what sounded like footsteps moving ahead of me, further into the thicket. I wondered if I would find another tree trunk further in—bigger, the parent of this one. There was only one way to find out. I kept following the sound of Luka’s steps.The leafy branches rose above my head, and then meshed with more branches, and the ceiling lifted so that I could stand. I still could not see Luka, but I was sure I could hear him. I could also hear the faint whirring that told me the single seaters were getting closer.They really were ideal for this terrain, and I had used them a lot on previous visits. Jet packs you could sit on, is how I’d described them to my parents, but they had been adamant I couldn’t have one of my own. Apparently, walking to school was better for me.The tree cave continued on, and I realised that it had not been created by one or even two generations of trees, but more. How many more? I wondered, as I entered yet another area where the branch-meshed ceiling became tall enough that I had to tilt my head to see it. This one, though, ended in a wide trunk set hard up against a rocky wall, but there was still no sign of Luka.“Luka!” I called, but in a loud whisper, just in case he was right, and the sound of single seaters had been ‘them’ coming after me, and not him, just as he’d said. “Luka!”“Sshh.” The sound whispered back at me from the dark, and I hurried towards it.“Luka!”“I said, sshh!” and a hand snaked out of the dark and covered my mouth.It smothered my squeal of surprise, and I closed my mouth, glaring at the pale oval that was Luka’s face.“We’re nearly there,” he said, leaning in, his mouth so close to my ear I could feel his breath.What did he mean by that? I wondered, but I followed him, when he let me go. Something in his demeanour had changed between the time he’d disappeared, and the time he’d grabbed me out of the dark. Something in his story about the disappearing campers was sounding hollow.Every year, the camp ran the tours. Every year. Twenty or more campers were on every trip, and I was pretty sure not all of them had disappeared. I wracked my brains, trying to think of someone, anyone, I’d heard of who might have gone on that trip, and come back.Certainly not my sister; she’d been furious with our parents for not letting her. A cousin, perhaps? The older sibling of a friend? I thought long and hard, as I followed Luka down the tunnel.“Almost there,” I heard him say, but it didn’t sound like he was reassuring me, more like he was telling someone else we were on our way.I kicked my toe on a rock, and he looked back.“You all right?”“I’m fine,” I said. “Just tripped on a rock.”He stared at me, and then turned abruptly about.“Well, hurry up, then, or we’ll be late.”Late?“Late for what?” I wanted to know.“For the picnic,” he said, hefting the basket, and walking away from me.“I’ll be there,” I called, but I really wasn’t so sure.I mean, why would I be interested in a picnic, when he’d said my life was danger? Why would he even think I’d care about that? I crouched down, feeling suddenly foolish about following a man I barely knew into a cave. I closed my hand around one of the rocks that had been swept to one side of the path, and I stood up, careful to keep the hand holding the rock tucked slightly behind me.The tunnel ended in a small hollow bathed in sunlight. Towering plinovarcs arched overhead, and late season wild flowers bloomed around the edges. If it hadn’t been for the small shuttle waiting in the hollow’s centre, the scene would have been idyllic.“Hurry!” Luka called, when I hesitated, two steps outside the cave door. “It’s our only way out of here.”The big M on the side of the shuttle marked it as the multi-billionaire’s property, made me wonder how Luka had gotten a hold of it.“Come on, Hela.”Hela—the secret name he’d given me, on my fifth trip out, when he’d twined a hela flower in my hair and said it matched the colour of my eyes.“Yeah, Hela. Come on!” said a voice behind me. “Wouldn’t want you to be late for the tour.”I gasped and ran forward. I could be imagining things, but that voice had sounded mean, and Luka, for all my doubts, did not. I heard someone land heavily behind me, felt a hand scrape along my backpack, and kept running.Glancing quickly towards the shuttle, Luka raised his hand in the air and rotated it above his head, and then he turned towards me. I heard the motor kick up a notch, felt the warm breath of its engines, and knew I only had to delay a little before it left without me.But left me with what? I kept running towards Luka, but glanced over my shoulder. What I saw made me feel foolish with relief. What I saw almost made me stop. Ryan was one of the camp counsellors, one of the friendliest guys at the camp, his words always helping one or the other of us out of a personal crisis, or guiding us in any big decision we faced.Most of the time, his advice was pretty solid, but, occasionally, it was seriously misinformed. Only once had it almost meant disaster for my father—but he’d had financial advisors able to stop me, before I went too far. Shares in Princess Brides, indeed. How was I to have known they were based in the Hells Dark system? I’d been thirteen!The look on Ryan’s face, right now, though, wasn’t the one I was used to seeing there. Instead of the kind and understanding expression he usually wore, even when giving me outlandishly ill-informed advice, he wore a look I’d seen dramatized on too many cartoon evil-doers.He reached for me, again, his hand snagging in the pack’s webbing, and pulling me up short. I caught the look on Luka’s face, and then saw the weapon he’d dragged out of one of the many pockets on his pants. I didn’t even have time to scream as he fired. All I could do was drop.The movement dragged Ryan right into the weapon’s firing line, and the pull on my pack was gone. It was soon replaced, however, by a sudden, heavy weight, as Ryan landed on top of me. That freaked me out more than I cared to admit, and I kicked and shrieked my way free of him, scrambling to my feet and running straight towards Luka.He raised the pistol skyward, so I was no longer charging down its muzzle, and stretched an arm towards me. I ducked under it; the shuttle was already starting to lift from the ground, and we had no time to lose. I beat Luka aboard by a couple of strides, and then helped pull him in after me. As soon as he was clear, the doors slid shut and the shuttle shot up out of the clearing.Luka slammed himself into a seat and dragged a harness over his shoulders. I copied his movements, but slower and with less surety. He was glaring at me as he pulled a helmet off the back of his chair and slipped it over his head. Well, two could play at that game!I glanced up, and saw the helmet above me, then pulled it over my head.“What was that about?” Luka was so angry, he was almost shouting.“What?”“That stopping in the clearing. We almost got caught!”“The big ‘M’ on the shuttle,” I said. “I suddenly wondered if youwere the bad guy.”Someone else laughed, choking it short, as though they hadn’t meant to intrude.“Yeah? Well, you’re the last one I’ll be able to help,” Luka said. “You pretty much blew my cover.”“Your cover?” That was funny. “What? The wild man of Camp Mellinjo?”This time, I did not laugh alone.“Shut up, Alain! You’re not helping.”“Well, she has a point.” Oh, I liked that voice, all silk and chocolate and tickle-your-soul. When did I get to meet Alain? I wondered.“So, you’re not selling me out?”“Nope, that’s what’ll happen to your girlfriends.”“What? All of them?”“All of them.”“But, why? Why can’t you do anything to stop it?”“Because I’m under cover. I only get out anyone who chases after me when the cook starts shouting.”“Well, if you’re cover is blown…” I left it hanging, waited in the silence while they worked it out.Alain got it first.“Hell, yeah!” he said, and the shuttle veered so sharply to the right, I was glad we were strapped in.Luka, of course, had to start shouting. Stars teeth and meteors! When did he get to be so practical and all by-the-book-bullshit?“Pretty sure, most of them are out there chasing me,” I shouted. “Those skim-cycles are going to have trouble catching up, aren’t they?”“No! I mean, yes!”Alain whooped in sheer hell-raising delight, and the shuttle started to descend—fast.Luka reached for one of the rifles hanging over the back of the seat, as we touched down.“Get a move on, champ!” Alain shouted, and Luka was out of the cabin, heading for the tour bus, rifle trained on the driver. The girls inside shrieked in terror, and I said something my parents would have grounded me for, before leaping out after him.“Surprise!” I shrilled, waving like the most spoiled Valley Girl ever read about in our History class. “This is the Runaway Shoppers’ Tour. Who’s coming with me?”They stopped screaming, even with Luka menacing the driver and warning him not to move. And then the driver revved the bus’s engine, and Luka put a couple of rounds right through the front. The girls started screaming again, and Alain started talking, real fast, in our head pieces.“Get ‘em going or we’ll have to leave ‘em behind…”I looked at the terrified faces in the bus, and scampered back to the shuttle. Luka kept the rifle trained on the driver, but he was getting twitchy.“You got one chance Valley Girl,” he said, and I grabbed the picnic basket out of the cabin.Turning back, I waved it over my head in the most light-hearted way I could manage, followed by the silliest, most air-headed giggle I could think of.“They even threw in a picnic—on the Magic Mountain!” I squealed, bouncing up and down.They stopped screaming and looked at me. Magic Mountain was one of the most luxurious star-liners I could think of. I’d always wanted to travel on it. When the girls didn’t move, I let the hand holding the picnic basket fall, and stamped my foot in a pretence of ill-tempered disappointment. I put an extra bit of Valley Girl whine into what I said next.“Come on, you guys! If we get ten we get fifty percent discounts at the jewellery store, and they throw in a free Shaloutin!”That was it. Gileta loved Shaloutin’s stuff, would have walked over hot coals and past a debutante’s ball to get anything by the galaxy-famous designer. She was out of the bus, and heading for the heli-skim at a sprint.“Last one in donates six shares to everyone!” she squealed, and that got the rest of them moving.I sprinted for the heli-skim, too. No way did I want to be mown down. It was hard not to laugh, though, with Alain’s soft “Good girl,” sounding in my ear.“You are unbelievable,” Luka grumbled, backing towards the skim as the last girl sprinted past.I moved with him, not stopping even when he put one round into the driver. Fortunately, the girls were out of sight, and his shot didn’t raise a single scream,. We buckled in as Alain did another one of his extreme-G manoeuvres.“We gonna make the rendezvous?” Luka asked, as the cockpit was filled with girlish squeals of delight and terror.“They said they’ll meet us in the air,” Alain called back, and Luka groaned.He glared at me, after making sure the girl nearest him was buckled in.“You are all kinds of trouble,” he said, his voice as close to a growl as I’ve heard a human sound.I grinned back, hefting the picnic basket with one hand.“So,” I said, “D’you think we’ll make the Magic Mountain before it hits the warp point?” 


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Banquet at Magic Mountain is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: books2read.com/u/mV7Xqr.

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?