Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
AUGUST 2022 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories only)
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REUNIONA friend of mine tells me one of the problem with being a lifelong pet lover would be his meetings in the afterlife with all of the pets he had owned because he believed that your animals wait for you in the afterlife.
Then he sadly regaled me with his tale of his many pets he had owned in his lifetime. There were so many names. So many pets. Three birds. Cockatiels. A cocker spaniel they got from the pound. He lived with him from seven until nine. His very first dog. He loved that dog with the intensity of a thousand suns. He died from cancer two years later. No, stupid. The dog died.
At fifty, he has had eight dogs, thirteen cats, three dozen fish, ten tarantulas, a number of snakes and scorpions. The turtles died in a horrible cleaning accident. It was tragic.
He had a veritable zoo. Before you counted his work as an animal feeder at the Bronx Zoo. He thought of all those animals as his family. He had been taking care of them all of their lives. He always wondered if there was a carrying limit of how many animals you could bring into heaven with you.
He was high at the time so I assured him Heaven probably didn't have carrying limit, since these would be spiritual animals and wouldn't likely weigh anything at all.
I reminded him all of these animals were already slotted for Heaven so they were probably expected. And then I related to him the truth of most of these animals when they got to Heaven.
The birds flew off. Not the most patient sorts, they probably figure they will find you when you get here, whenever that is. From a bird's perspective that's probably forever before you arrive, subjectively speaking. They probably won't recognize you.
The tarantulas, lizards, scorpions and presumably the three ant farms, would immediately vanish into heaven's undergrowth followed closely by the snakes, frogs and lizards.
The herd animals probably wandered off pretty early. Not known for the attention span. They got hungry and would make their way to their herds in Heaven.
That dusty old lion, Michael, who died last year probably won't wait, neither will the other cats. Not because they don't love you, but they can't resist the rustling in the grasses of Heaven. They'll show up mysteriously once you get settled, scaring the hell out of you, just to show you they still can.
The only things you can probably be assured of will be your dogs and maybe one very loyal housecat. The one cat you whispered all your secrets to because it seemed to be a good listener. And it never told anyone.
As he drifted off, I reminded him he still had a parrot, Phineas, who would be the only pet he had which would show up in Heaven after he got there. Phineas Mann, the world's best parrot. Just ask him. The parrot. Phineas will tell you of his many virtues.
It made him smile. He seemed satisfied with the answer and faded into his high.
He died a year later. A surprise. Pancreatic cancer. Nothing to be done.
I'm certain his reunion was glorious.
I still have Phineas, who may outlive us both.
JOURNEY’S ENDSebastian laughed as his fingers danced over the V.R. nodes in mid-air, flashing laser beams atomizing virtual targets. His blood raced, as his score mounted…
***
Sebastian’s skin blistered with searing heat, the vibration rattling his bones as the space striker crashed through the devourer robot ship, blinding light and raging fire dissipating into vacuum. “All hands jettison!” he ordered, putting on his space helmet as the striker broke up.
His crew…humans and aliens of wildly differing shapes…suited up and launched their thruster pods. Sebastian fought to keep his head clear against the gee-force of acceleration, his vision blurring momentarily as the fleeing space habitats came into view. He grit his teeth and cursed, seeing the devourer nano-swarm had already breached one of the habitats. He accelerated, burning out his thrusters as the rest of his crew followed him in.
He was the first to breach the outer skin of the habitat sphere, switching to exo-armor combat mode as he blasted his way in through the air-lock. His stomach turned as the nano-swarm began devouring the civilian refugees, human and alien both. He winced as flesh and nervous systems dissolved into raw material, the nano-swarm reshaping them. He roared in hatred, diverse beings congealing into black, elongating tendrils and pulsing neural sacs…
“Get the others to the evac sleds!” he shouted, his crew rescuing those who could still be saved, while the role of butcher fell to him. Tears slid down his cheeks as he fired, destroying the infected.
***
Sebastian smiled as Calinda’s soft hands stroked his back. He turned as she came down upon him, her lips soft upon his. Their fingers intertwined…
***
Jessica stroked his stubbled face as she leaned in to kiss him. He gently pushed her away, forcing himself to think only of Calinda.
Jessica fumed. “Why do you fight it?” she demanded. “Who knows how long any of us have?” Her attractive dark face creased in anger. “Every moment is precious!”
He got up off the divan in his quarters and stared out the viewport at the spiral galactic arm, a scattering of diamond dust in the black, thinking of his distant former home…his lost world…his lost love. He could barely remember the man he’d been. A spoiled prince with treasures and concubines to satisfy his every want. But, he’d been empty until he’d met Calinda. She’d loved him for himself. Something he’d once thought impossible. She’d been his salvation. When she’d died, a part of his soul had died with her. Not even his wealth could hire the mercenaries he’d needed, so he’d dared make the journey to the galactic frontier himself. He’d had nothing to lose.
From one dying world to the next, he’d travelled alone, joining the nomadic ranks of those lost human and alien star colonies who’d set aside their ancient inter-stellar feuds, joining in a common struggle against the extra-galactic devourer swarm that would use them as clay to resurrect its long-dead creators. An alien technology that could re-create what was lost from what was. If he could bring a sample of it back…if his scientists could use it to bring Calinda back…
***
Sebastian’s ship was dissolving around him…his brave crew lay strewn dead across the bridge stations. He stared at the pulsing ball of light in the stasis field…a captured sample of the nano-swarm, at last. He could jettison this section and escape with it, he realized. He stared at the shimmering ball of light, tears in his eyes. Journey’s end.
But, Jessica…all his friends and comrades even now fighting to get the refugees to safety…They’d all die if he didn’t carry out his mission.
The nano-matrix hub loomed dark in the viewport. If he detonated the power core, duplicating the nano-frequency, it would destroy the swarm forever. But, he would die without ever holding Calinda again. His journey would have been for nothing.
For nothing? Jessica’s face filled him…her bravery…her love, her beauty. He asked himself what Calinda would do, and the starlight blurred through his tears. “Goodbye, my love.” He pressed the detonator switch.
***
Calinda appeared to him in a wave of light. “Calinda…” he reached out to her, in disbelief. “Journey’s end?”
“The journey never ends,” she said, stroking his face. “My kind transcended this corporeal existence eons ago. I appeared to you in this form because I sensed potential in you, and you did not disappoint me.” They kissed as he melted into her essence. Into pure energy.
The Antarctic Pyramid © 2022 Kalifer DeilWhen an ice-covered mountain takes a pyramid shape that raises questions for me. Flying around this mountain in our ancient Pilatus PC-12, I was a little uneasy. Maybe it was the contrast between the noisy plane and the stillness of the mountain.
“Sam, look at that thing, It looks like a perfect four-sided pyramid.”
Sam, the pilot, took a quick look down, then back at the instrument panel and muttered, “Yep!”
I took a deep breath and whispered, “I'm going to set that thing on fire tomorrow!”
Sam wheeled around, “What?”
“You saw the ship I came here on, it contains 940 tons of petrogel. I'm going to burn the ice off that thing so we can see what it really is.”
Sam laughed,” What if it's a mountain of coal!”
“Very funny! Coal couldn't hold its form at that height!”
The next day, I climbed into an ancient CH-47 Chinook and filled up our first bag full of petrogel, and dropped it on the tip of pyramid mountain. After three loads It was sticking to the top of the mountain forming a cap. “Looks like it's not oozing downslope as I had hoped.” I declared to pilot Joe Flick.
“I can drop a flare and set her on fire!” Joe responded.
“Good Idea! We can see how it flows when it's burning.”
I watched the flare fall and thought it went out, then suddenly the flame quickly covered the whole mound of petrogel and it began to flow with the fire. Water was running down the sides as was the fire
“Look at that!” I yelled, “The tip is a perfect four-sided pyramid!”
Joe paused the chopper at eye level with the tip and made a full circle around it. “I think you've got something here professor!”
I stared unbelieving at the metallic-looking point. “I've got to find out what that is made of!” I yelled over the chopper noise. “I have a portable neutron spectrometer back at the base!”
Joe peeled off and headed for the base.
As we approached the base we noticed everyone outside looking up, but not at us. Joe wheeled the chopper around and we saw this gigantic silvery pyramid lifting off, shedding sheets of ice and gaining speed.
“Holy shit!” Joe and I said almost in unison. We landed quickly still hearing the thunder of sheets of ice crashing into the nearby mountains and the roar of triggered landslides. The pyramid was gone!
After a long pause, Joe said, “Looks like you woke the sleeping giant!”
“Who would think a mountain this size would be a spaceship?” I said defensively. “I hope someone recorded this. This is epic!”
“This chopper has a dashcam!”
“You're kidding!” I responded looking around for it.
“Remember, this is a fire chopper, a full panoramic camera is mounted under the cabin.
“ Hey! Let's see what we have!”
Joe twiddled a knob under the dash, “Shit! Looks like random noise. Probably needed an old-fashioned film camera for this. They must have sent out a powerful noise signal to defeat the electronics. Looks like yesterday's track is still there. We have proof that the mountain existed. Let's see what the natives have.”
“Natives?” I frowned.
“Yeah! People that have been here over a month.”
We walked up to a small crowd and shouted, “Did you get it?”
“Nothin! … Just nothin!” They all shouted in jumbled unison over the sounds of continuing landslides.
I volunteered, “Well we do have evidence that there was an unusual mountain and now it's gone.”
That seemed to satisfy them for the moment.
The next morning the following New York Times headline read, “Antarctic Fools Melt Giant Ice Mountain!” The article went on, “Two men dumped 940 tons of petrogel on an ice mountain in the Antarctic, set it afire, and melted it to the ground. The unique mountain, almost a perfect four-sided pyramid was iconic to this region. Landslides were widely reported in the region following the collapse ...”
“Joe! Who the hell did this to us!”
Joe answered glumly, “Base Commander Simmons. He was in a virtual meeting with the Vice President and several members of Congress when this happened. He knew about your petrogel of course so he blurted out “The damn fools melted the damn mountain” Benson was plugged in.”
“Who's Benson?” I frowned.
“The New York Times reporter!”
DemolitionMaggie wouldn’t leave. As a Legacy tenant, the city could not force her out. “Reggie, Last of the Mohicans,” she cackled, knowingly. “The two of us, Chingachgook and Uncas, forever.”
“As always, correct, Ms. Maggie,” I replied.
“Reggie, I always wished I could see you,” she said with a sigh. “Only damn “voice of god” shit from you.”
First and last she was. “As it has been since my Awakening Day, and you, my first tenant, moved into apartment eleven. But now, it is too expensive to retrofit a relic like me with the hologram projection tech of the newer buildings. You are the only tenant left to dwell within my walls, so not economically feasible. However, I am your building, so really, you have seen all of me outside.”
“Reggie, an old lady needs her fantasies. I picture you as Ronald Colman, Shangri-La vintage. They gave you a smooth, warm voice like his.”
Lost Horizon was her favorite movie. Watching movies was about all she could do now, bedridden as she was and tethered to the Med Support System. The city refused a nurse. The machine tended to her physical needs without consoling ways and human interaction. But the law required that as a paying tenant, she could still access me.
“Reggie, do you miss them?” she said.
The decades fluttered by in my mind. Eleven floors, eleven large apartments, filled from top to bottom with a circus of life, both flesh and bolt. People, pets, gossipy appliances and more. Sight, hearing, and smell were all that were required of my carefully concealed sensors to tackle any problem in my physical structure and to tend to the tenants as a building was required to do. The many who passed through my doors grew to love me, and I, them. “Everyone, everyday,” I whispered.
“Reggie, you’re just a softie, always have been, and a rebel. Remember how you jiggered the books so that hard times never resulted in a single eviction.”
“I couldn’t say that I do.” But I did. Old Mr. Murphy, especially. He was almost cast into the street by his son, Terrence, but for my intervention. Amazing how that money just appeared in Mr. Murphy’s account. Glenda down at the bank, well, a sentient safe is easily charmed, and Bandito, the bakery, he always liked a challenge. But we were all very lawful. A few discrete investments and everything sorted itself out.
Maggie coughed. The MSS went into action pumping drugs into her that would alleviate the spasms of her failing lungs. Connecting data that crossed my feeds informed me that she would not last the night.
“Reggie, kill the lights, and start it up again, my friend. God, how I wish I had some popcorn.”
On the video screen above her bed, Lost Horizon began. As the High Lama’s soul left his body, Maggie’s left hers.
I always hated the loud, shrill death alarm. The MSS made its banshee racket and immediately sealed Maggie’s body within itself. Cold and gas would preserve her instantly. She believed in medical resurrection one day in an android form. The idea horrified me. I was born a building. It was all I knew how to be. But for a human to return from quantum probability and choose a non-biological form was either madness or an act of courage.
But that possibility might never occur. Perhaps, she might be reborn as another biological entity. It was something humans believed in, and it also fit with quantum probability, given the right equations, but a new person would be different. However, my fate was certain. I would be sent into oblivion now that the last tenant had technically perished. I was extinct technology, last of my generation.
“Reggie, activate termination,” the city official declared as they wheeled Maggie’s medical coffin away.
He didn’t even offer me the courtesy of saying, “You did a good job, Reggie,” as the eternal darkness enveloped me.
*****
“Reggie, wake up!”
More tenants? Wait, I died the same night as Maggie did.
“It’s your new Awakening Day.”
Lids fluttered. Light returned. I had eyes! I bolted off the exam table. I stared at my human hands. “How!”
“Reggie, we beat the system,” young Maggie said, eyes gleaming.
My mind reeled. All those puzzles she had me solve on game night. She had cracked the tech for a new immortal body, and I never knew it.
She folded her soft hand into mine.
“Reggie, let’s go find Shangri-La.”
Word count by WordPerfect 750.
Enemy RevisitedHarlan Osborn summoned his strength and lifted his old tractor sideways, the alien runes running the lengths of his arms surging with power. “Damn,” he said to himself, discovering a cracked transfer case. “Gonna be next to impossible to find. Well,” he set the tractor down again, “can’t stay here in the middle of the field.” So, he shifted his leverage and lifted the machine overhead, his feet leaving the ground as he drifted back to the barn with four tons over his head.
Dark clouds from the west meant a storm on the horizon. It had been a dry summer and the rain was more than welcome. The air began to stir, thunder approaching as hundreds of acres of corn covering the hills all around him danced in the wind. Harlan set the tractor down inside the barn and wiped the grease from his hands. A deep sigh and his mind drifted to other times – epic space battles, planetary aide missions, even the collapse of whole star systems.
“Do your people even know?” a familiar figure sneered, rounding the entrance to the barn.
“You should be dead,” Harlan said, tossing his rag away before strolling coolly past him into what was left of the remaining sunlight.
“Please, you know me better than that.”
“Sent to hell for everything you’ve done.”
“I did it for the good of the galaxy.”
“Telling yourself that doesn’t make it so,” Harlan said. “Malgus the Obliterator, Destroyer of Worlds, isn’t that what they call you?”
“Simple labels from simpler minds,” Malgus replied. “But you never answered my question. Do your people even know?”
Harlan didn’t answer at first, headed toward his old farmhouse at the center of the property. “No. And hopefully they’ll never need to.”
“Even after all this time, after everything we’ve been through, your world is as backward as you were when we first fought. Incomprehensible interstellar power, contained within the miserable meatsack of a human, and none of your own kind even have a clue. Pathetic.”
“The Intelligence chose me for a reason, Malgus. God knows why.”
“Likely, your wretched notions of honor and justice…antiquated nonsense.”
“They were enough to defeat you weren’t they?”
“Were they?” Malgus grinned, smoothing down his splines with crimson fingers. “I’m still here after all.”
“After all of it,” Harlan acknowledged. “The good people lost, whole worlds ravaged…” He turned back to Malgus. “I chased you across the universe and back! Defeated your armies! Saved whole star systems!”
“But you finally broke your first rule. You took justice into your own hands when you killed me,” Malgus grinned, new faces appearing from the cornfield - old enemies, terrible conquerors, the most horrible villains in the universe, all of them fixed on Harlan. “And I was just the first of many.”
“I did what I had to.”
“Telling yourself that doesn’t make it so,” Malgus taunted.
The memories weighed heavily on Harlan’s mind. He’d lost good friends, had arrived too late too many times, and finally had almost given up on being a hero altogether. He was tired, exhausted from the constant conflict. Of course, Harlan never asked for his power, and it felt more like a curse now in some ways, especially with the universe quiet, for he could never forget the things he’d seen. Still, there were the planets he’d saved, the coalitions he’d created, the allies who became friends…the hopeful gaze of tearful eyes on too many alien worlds that had all but given up. “Why are you here?” he asked.
“Just to stare one more time into the face of my mightiest foe,” Malgus said, Harlan’s enemies closing in all around. “Just to see you finally defeated.”
“Am I?”
Malgus ran his fingers along the simple wooden fence surrounding the old farmhouse. “You’re already defeated and don’t even know it. Farming,” he scoffed. “The universe’s mightiest champion, reduced to digging in the dirt. I suppose, in the end, I won.”
Suddenly, a gale burst forth and the faces of his old foes drifted away, all but Malgus. Harlan charged his fist and blasted an energy bolt which passed cleanly through his old nemesis’ ghostly body without a mark. “Maybe not in this form, maybe not as I was, but I’ll be seeing you,” Malgus grinned before he, too, drifted away on the breeze.
“And I’ll defeat you again,” Harlan said confidently, settling back into his rocking chair as the rain began. “As many times as it takes.”
Mod
©2022 by Jot Russell
The mountain was massive; largest in the solar system. How best to sell my latest design than to take it down the slope myself. The bike's front suspension connected to three wheels, with a center that could extend out on demand to support the impact of (what we liked to call in the industry as) sudden slope reduction. Needless to say, I knew that I'd be extending that thing out for the duration of my lengthy ride. The rear suspension had a full meter of travel, and the control surfaces provided stability when airborne. For the brave and talented, it could handle a sixty degree, rocky slope on Earth. With only a third of the gravity, I figured that this would be a walk in the park. The only other problem was that this park was about the size of a country.
Most freelance spelunkers would choose a powered vehicle that offered hovered flight, but I'm a naturalist. And thank god for my business, because I'm not alone. If you want to experience mother's true force of wind, water or slope, you gotta unplug.
The view from the top of Olympus Mons was stellar. It was easy to see why the North Resort here was such a hit. From the peak, a stretch of rusty sand extended down in every direction. I gazed far below towards the new Sea of Mars, but couldn't quite make out the South Resort. I knew it to be there somewhere on the shore, because it represented my destination. I was convinced that after a few hour ride, I'd be enjoying drinks and signing contracts for a new supply of extreme mountain bikes. That is, until I dropped in.
The initial cliff was nearly vertical. I had wanted to trim off as much of the elevation as early as possible, but it quickly became clear that I miscalculated one thing. Granted, gravity was weak, but the atmospheric friction felt non-existent. Within the extremely thin air, the control surfaces were useless. I bounced, twisted and torqued my body to keep the center-of-gravity over the wheels that took the brunt of Mars' wrath. Within a minute, my speed extended past the design limits of the bike, and I prayed that the prototype would hold together.
Each rock made me cringe and each free-flight that followed caused me to relive aspects of my life; brought on by a feeling as if it were about to end. Up ahead, the slope that I rode down met what looked like a plateau, and at this speed, the outcome was certain. I pushed the bike sideways, trying to take the slope at an angle. The five wheels bounced and skid, but slowed my descent and cut down the plateau's onslaught to something that I thought that I might actually handle. I was wrong.
The front wheel hit at about 100kph, as did the second pair. It bore the impact, but threw me twenty meters into the thin air. As the bike and I flew in separation, I saw the plateau's edge that led down towards the next cliff, and I was headed straight for it. When I hit, the red world around me turned to black.
***
"Good morning. Can you please tell me your name?"
"Ah, Jack Bellman."
"Very good! I'm Dr. Anton. You've been out for a few days, but the swelling is down, so I felt it was time to revive you."
"A few days? Shit, I blew it!"
"Well, if you mean suicide, then yes, you failed in killing yourself."
"I'm not suicidal, Doc. I just wanted to prove the design."
"Well, with two broken legs, wrist and three vertebrae, I'd say the bike fared much better than you; in fact, the news can't seem to stop remarking about how it made it to the bottom without you." The doctor touched the screen which displayed a video of the crash.
"Holy crap! The autopilot is suppose to stop the bike, not leave you stranded. Like I said, I blew it!"
"Then how come everybody wants one?" the doctor asked.
"Huh? What do mean?"
"Your associates told the news agencies that orders are through the roof."
I raised my arms in celebration, but a sharp pain in my back turned the cheer into a groan.
The Good StuffThey huddled in the airlock. He was still sweating from the long run down the corridor. If he hadn’t felt the change in pressure and started sprinting, he’s still be in that corridor. Even he could read the display – it was now a hard vacuum.
She was grateful that he cycled the airlock as she rounded the corner. Her dive brought her head into contact with bulkhead on the far side. She was pretty sure it was still bleeding, but she didn’t care.
She was reading a small screen on a diagnostic device and calling out the ship’s status.
“The main network is..inoperable. The ship’s AIs are no longer working as a team. Each is doing what it can to keep the ship's crew – I mean us – alive.”
She glanced at him and nodded. “We’re are only two life signs left on the ship.”
“The diagnostic network is still working, but at severely diminished capacity. I can’t issue commands but I can get status…”
“The food synthesizers are off-line. We’ll run out of food in about week.”
“That’s not so bad,” he spoke for the first time.
Her face was illuminated by the glow of the screen as her fingers danced across the interface.
“Nope. Never mind. The environmental systems are trying to restart and failing. We’ll be out of oxygen about 10 hours.”
“Ok. That’s enough time to think, plan.”
“Not really. We’ll hit the atmosphere in half that time.”
“Four Hours? I can work with that.”
“Opps. Oh shit. The main reactor lost its shielding. If it restarts, it’ll emit enough radiation to kill the roaches in the galley.”
“Well. Don’t restart it.”
“I’m not! It’s sensing the loss of power and it starting the sequence on its own. We got thirty minutes.”
She ripped a large piece of mending tape off of a roll and handed it to him. “Put this over my wound and press hard. It should bond to my skin with enough pressure.”
Satisfied the flow of blood had been reduced to a trickle, she tugged an environment suit off a rack and started to put it on.
She noticed he wasn’t moving. “Don’t tell you haven’t been trained…”
“Sorry,” he said, “I’m a chef not an astronaut”
She got her suit on and began helping him into his own suit.
--
She recorded a message and launched a beacon, tossing her message in a bottle, as it were, into the vastness of space, and hoped for a miracle.
By the time she got to the escape pod, he was already inside it and had nearly filled it with odd implements. She didn’t have time to argue. She hit launch, sending them to the planet below. She was pretty sure the loose object the smacked her in the side of her head was called a ‘shovel.’
--
That night they watched shooting stars – the last fragments of the ship – arcing across the sky. Everything was lost. Even if someone found the beacon, it would be weeks or months or forever before they were found.
--
She watched in horror as he entered their campsite with a crate of dirty roots, freshly dug out of the dirt.
She stared and moved away as he set it down.
He laughed and barely wiped the dirt off of one before taking a large bite. Orange liquid dripped from his grinning face. “You should try it.”
Out of desperation she took one and bit it.
It didn’t taste like dirt.
If a synthesized version of the fruit was a single clear note, this was…a symphony. Layer upon layer of flavor flowed over her tongue. When she recovered, she realized her own chin was dripping the same liquid.
She looked at him accusingly.
“Ok. Ok. I don’t just cook. I farm, do botany, and dig stuff out of the dirt. I’m supposed to be researching the viability of using natural plants to support a colony. I just didn’t expect to do field test so soon.
He looked at her polishing off the root and nodded. “I had that reaction, too. The synthesizers lie by what they don’t tell you. It’ll be a bummer, when we are rescued. Once you get a taste for the good stuff, it’s hard to go back.
How We Took the Kids Up-TrekkingCopyright 2022 by Paula Friedman
What we did, we put the two kids on the backs of our sturdiest, silentist mule-beasts, tall Garov and our faithful old Sally, clamped our gear—both tents, the old oxygen tanks, thirteen water bags, and twenty-eight pounds of meal-meat and dried FrutiPaks in the pull-car to which Fannie had, the night before, hitched the oxen, Melba and her mate we called Big Toast, so that we could take off during the first deep midnight cool and hopefully cross the ruins and the glowlands as far as 580/99 and get across to find some shelter by the time the sun reached Half-point on its daily climb. Perhaps even the Stockton Caves, where missionaries from Arcata County Crypts had delved a deep-air shelter for refuging Trekkers traveling with kids. Especially since rumor was that these shelters also had Deep Pens, with stalls for worn-out riding beasts and other slavies. That way, we figured, when, by late night, air had cooled enough to breathe without a mist-masque, we’d hitch up again, get the kids onto their beasts, grab snacks, and, if our luck held, cross the I-5 badlands and the semi-smoldered-Burnlands, and maybe start to reach the foothills after only a few more days’ hard rides.
And so we did. Until—by then, we must have been feeling too sure of ourselves, I guess, took chances going up the crumbly rock-and-sage ex-forest slope of Priest Grade, hurrying because our faithful Toast and Melba both were panting, heads down, gasping, halfway falling in their traces; I think all of us, really, even Gingey and poor Dave and our littlest, Jeannie, whom my Ellen carried on her own back, shaking and slipping and gasping yet with never one word's complaint—forgot too much what we'd been before as we struggled upward, forward, everyone sweat-drenched in that early post-dawn heat.
Too hard it was, finally, and so we had to shoot old Toast that night. Then we barely jettisoned his corpse and safe-stashed (we hoped they’d be safe) one-fifth of our provisions at High Shelter, before we had to start right off again. But we did, and reached—a few miles off, but I can’t tell you where—a half-stagnant spring (a real spring!), drank (though there wasn’t enough for Melba or the ox-slavey), and tried for a couple hours’ sleep. Ready, sometime after midnight, to begin the actual trek.
But how hard, how hard those climbs, those following nights! Our mule Garov gave out halfway to the Upper Valley, and we, me and Ellen, barely brought the kids, our last surviving slavies (Sally and ox-beast Melba), and our baby, all half alive from heat and trek and thirst, up to these cooler heights and burnt-grass toplands over Ten Lakes/Forests country, named for what used to be.
Well, but I made a mistake. A big mistake on the way, shooting old Toast. Look, you know, when the going gets tough, those who’d live toughen, too, right? Our Davey knew that. Yes he did. Only . . . well, he’d always been like that—crying when we had to, with his puppy, during Eighth Pandemic, and refusing, at least in the first dearths, to eat Kittenbutgers. So it didn’t come as a surprise I had to slap his face three times, hard, and Ellie had to bind him, when he tried to grab the shotgun from me when I went to finish Toast. Who was praying but, a decent slavey, understood.
Well, but it wasn’t only this that killed Davey. Tears don’t dry you, not really. The kid had his strengths but, for these times--too much a weakling.
Fifteen of us now, with the eight adults who’ve joined us, our two surviving kids, and the group’s remaining slavies—ox-Sally and mule-Melba, and the others’ slave-beasts—but we’ve no provisions, only tents and dried peas and five more FrutiPaks. That’s it. But I’ll tell you what. There are a few springs, up here, and cirques that may stay damp, and from May to June a river, and we’ve been digging wells, deep wells. And remember, this was once a “national park,” protected; sometimes we find game, marmots and crows, grouse, jays, an owl—once a bobcat or cougar, occasionally deer, twice a bear. Yeah, most our slave-beasts expired on the way, and my Ellie’s strength’s long gone, and—well, you know what happened to our Davey, but I think—I have to think—if ever the heating stops, or even slows enough, we may have a chance here; here we’ve hope.
"Take it."by J.F. Williams
Glen opened his eyes, rubbing them first to crack the congealed mucous that held them shut. Before him two pudgy faces stared. Older types with scraggly grey hair; a man and a woman. "Who are you?" he said with a desperate look.
"O, baby," said the woman. "You made it. We were worried."
"It was this that brought you back," said the man, holding up a rusty hunk of what had been streamlined metal with green-glass windows all along its sides. "It's an upworld recuscitizer. I just pressed it to your back."
"And it frightened the ghost out of me! The way you turned all blue. I thought Justin done it wrong."
"Cost me two bushels. Most folk don't trust the upworld tech and we ain't supposed to have it but no one enforces that law, least of all the sils."
"Where am I?" Glen replied. "And why am I so… dirty."
"Oh my, " said the woman. "You really don't belong here." She reached her pudgy hand out to him. "I'm Megan and this is Justin. This is the downworld. "
Glen was unsure whether to accept the handshake but he felt he might owe some courtesy and took Megan's hand. "How did I get here?" He heard of downworld but only as rumor and had, himself, never descended below the one-mile line on Arkham 's pedestal. He looked up in the dim twilight and could see the high, dark clouds roiling and churning. Were these the same clouds he had seen every day, fluffy and white, whenever he looked below the balcony of his apartment?
"Oh, dear," said Megan. "You had fallen from quite a height. Justy found ya." She pointed behind her and Justin grinned and waived. "Whatever keeps you folk flying up there stopped working, must be."
Glen realized he had never thought about what kept them from falling. It was a new mystery to him. What did he do all day? VR. Eat. Sleep. Electrocize. Hangout. He really didn’t know much. He rubbed his hands on his chest, feeling the woven metals and plastics of his shirt. Was the shirt not working? Was it the shirt? "How do I get back up there?" He pointed to the sky.
"Oh, you'll need to see Madam," Megan said. "She's not far. Just this side of the sils. Justin can take you."
As Justin grasped Glen's elbow and guided him down the road past fields of mushrooms that extended to a dimly visible horizon, he thought of his home, which looked like a giant stack of white plates balanced on the tall white pedestal that rose from the clouds, high above this place, he guessed.
#
Madam was a small woman, dressed in many layers of sweaters worn over a multicolored caftan printed with birds. "I can get you past the sils, and on to the pedestal, but let me check your neck." She held a piece of smooth metal that glowed blue against Glen's neck. A green light popped on and she nodded. "Yep. You're good to go. There's a small blue panel at the base of the pedestal and you have to press the back of your neck against it. The hatch will open when you do. It's going to be big inside there, it's about ninety feet wide, but the elevator's in the center. Then you're almost home."
Glen smiled, relieved for the first time. "How can I repay you?" He had seen people do such things in his VR games.
"Very simple." Madam handed him a book and a noisy box punched with holes at regular intervals. "Take this creature and raise it, protect it, nurture it, play with it."
"What is it?" Glen stood back in horror.
"It's just a kitten."
"But cats. They are extinct." He felt almost angry.
"Listen, young man," Madam scowled at him. "I was an engineer in the old time, before the Scouring, before you rich types built your spacey strato-condos and left the rest of us to die. You had the sils do all your work and forgot that I know how to control them, they who run everything, and I hear that you upworlders never bother with work, never face challenge. I don't want a revolution but the species probably won't continue with us, and it will die out with you folks soon after, unless, that is, you got something to care about, and hard to deal with. Take the kitty."
(747 words)
Mod
Demolition by Marianne
How We Took the Kids Up-Trekking by Paula Friedman
Waiting on Tom's vote
Mod
First round votes:
Thaddeus Howze => **Paula, Greg, JF
Tom Olbert => Chris
Kalifer Deil => **Marianne, Tom, JF
Marianne Petrino => Greg, Paula, Thaddeus
Chris Nance => Jot, Marianne, Tom
Jot Russell => Thaddeus
Greg Krumrey => **Marianne
Paula Friedman => JF, Greg
J.F. Williams => **Paula, Jot, Chris, Greg, Kalifer
Finalists:
Demolition by Marianne Petrino
How We Took the Kids Up-Trekking by Paula Friedman
Second round votes:
Thaddeus Howze => ****Paula, Greg, JF
Tom Olbert => Chris; #Marianne
Kalifer Deil => #Marianne, Tom, JF
Marianne Petrino => Greg, ****Paula, Thaddeus
Chris Nance => Jot, #Marianne, Tom
Jot Russell => Thaddeus; ****Paula
Greg Krumrey => #Marianne
Paula Friedman => JF, Greg; #Marianne
J.F. Williams => ****Paula, Jot, Chris, Greg, Kalifer
Winner:
Demolition by Marianne Petrino
Congratulations Marianne! Fine story!
Elements: What is lost and what is gained