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MegaCats by Jonathon Burgess

Cover

MEGACATS

Jonathon Burgess

Martin hated standing in line.

At least a dozen others waited to use the bulky alien Maker-machine. They tapped their feet impatiently, wearing whatever had been handy when the news went out. Kids chattered in excitement, comparing their hand-drawn designs with all the excitement of Christmas arriving on a warm June morning. The adults were more watchful. They anxiously scanned the field of rippling wheat, shading their eyes against the morning sun and clutching precise template printouts of their own.

Martin swallowed his irritation and reviewed his own blueprint for any mistakes. It depicted Red MegaCat Roarer, twelve inches tall and fully articulated. He was the best of all the MegaCats, though his friend Enrique argued about that. So Martin had rendered his template using a CAD program, based off of toy advertisements from the internet and even improving on a few things. The Ooleni Makers didn’t need such perfect detail, but that was how you got the best results. His design ended up being twelve pages long.

“What is the goddamned holdup?” growled Uncle Logan in the line behind him. His uncle rocked back and forth in his ill-fitting tracksuit, the laces on his sneakers still untied they’d run out to the field so fast. In his hands he held a greasy solenoid valve, probably taken from the old truck he liked to tinker with. A printout or drawing would have been best, but the big, cube-shaped Ooleni machines could scan things too, or even work from a simple description.

Martin turned his attention back to the drawing, only to freeze as a hand fell on his shoulder. Anxiety filled him, but it was only Uncle Logan, overly touchy as usual, trying to get his attention. Martin resisted the urge to jerk away. Instead, he looked at Logan’s kind and bearded face.

“Now Martin,” he said, “I know you’re only eight, but I need you to be clear about something, okay?”

Martin wearily nodded. He should be double-checking the spring-powered WarPaw on page five. Uncle Logan was using his men-talking-about-men-stuff voice though, which meant he was about to impart what he thought was hard-won wisdom. Martin had learned long ago that the best way to get through it was just to nod and pretend to listen.

“Good. Remember, this has to be a kind of secret. I mean, it’s not like a real crime, everyone uses these alien whatsits. But, I only brought you out here because you aced your report card. Again. You know your mother doesn’t approve.”

Martin rolled his eyes.

“Now don’t give me that, young man. She’s just doin’ what she thinks is best for you. Doesn’t want you getting a criminal record or whatnot.” He shook his head. “They’ll be legal before long, one on every street corner, if the aliens have their way. Feds can’t move fast enough to shut them all down. No more sneakin’ out to wheat fields at six o’ clock on a summer morning just to replace a busted solenoid valve. Which I’d have done already, if you people will get a damned move on!”

The last he shouted up at the square, silver-blue bulk of the Ooleni Maker. Others grumbled as well, and the old man at the front of the line made a weak excuse that Martin couldn’t hear.

A piercing siren drowned out all the complaints.

Two black Sport Utility Vehicles thundered towards them from across the field. Their well-hidden lights flashed red and blue against the wheat, and a heavy flatbed truck with an in-built crane followed along behind.

Some waiting in line to use the Maker ran off. Others threw their hands up, or yelled at the old man at the head of the line to hurry up. Not that it would do any good now.

Martin felt only dismay. His uncle was right—no one would be arrested. But he had really wanted to show off his brand new, alien-made Red MegaCat Roarer to Enrique later today. Behind him, Uncle Logan swore with feeling, then threw the broken solenoid he cradled into the dirt at his feet.

The SUV’s rolled to a stop just in front of the line, doors opening to disgorge ten professional men and women wearing the dark sunglasses and blue jackets of the Department of Economic Security. They made a perimeter around the boxy bulk of the Maker, securing it until their flatbed could back up. With a speed and efficiency that only came from much practice, they began to remove the Ooleni device. Martin could hear the machine squawking at the agents, complaining about the inequalities that a scarcity-based society forced upon reasoning sapient beings. They ignored the machine.

Three agents moved to disperse the crowd. They seemed in a hurry and made no arrests. The threat was there though, along with the holstered firearms clearly visible beneath their open jackets.

“Oh c’mon!” said Uncle Logan, throwing his hands out. “I just need a damned solenoid valve!”

“Then go buy one!” an agent shouted back at him.

SciPhiSeperator

The next Maker appeared a few days later.

It dropped into an abandoned lot on the north side of town, close enough that Martin felt the tremor while solving his homework. Enrique found it in minutes, connected as he was, and text-messaged Martin the location.

Mom was still cooking, so he grabbed his blueprint stack and ran out the door, his departure covered by the noise of a TV newscaster reporting an emergency international economic summit. Outside, the early summer evening was cool and clear. The neighbors were just emerging onto the streets, suddenly remembering an errand that needed running, or finding reasons to go for a walk. Every last one of them held a drawing or printout or old broken thing that needed replacement.

Martin beat them to the Maker. He found the lot behind a battered BurgerHeart fast-food restaurant and a defunct gas station. The Ooleni always picked a relatively harmless spot to drop a Maker, and even though Martin knew the math was improbable, somehow the machines caused no damage to their surroundings after falling down from orbit.

Anticipation made Martin’s palms itch. The only ones in front of him and Enrique were the night-shift crew of the BurgerHeart; two pimply teenagers and an overweight manager.

“You’re crazy,” said Enrique. “Blue MegaCat Yowl is the best. He’s always out in front, fightin’ the ZomBots.’” His friend raised his hands up, fingers hooked like the claws of a feline warrior. “Roarer’s always last, hangs back and whatnot.” Enrique took an excited swipe at an imaginary ZomBot.

That was why Roarer was the best. He thought things out, used his mind before joining in the fray with the rest of the MegaCats. Martin ignored Enrique though. He stared intently instead at the Ooleni Maker, only a dozen feet away, closer than he’d ever been to one before.

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Review – Ctrl.Alt.Revolt by Nick Cole, reviewed by Peter Sean Bradley

[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B01BKWKBCS” cloaking=”default” height=”500″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ecr0zhfPL.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”313″]

Ctrl.Alt.Revolt By Nick Cole

Reviewed by Peter Sean Bradley


I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I suspect that I am not in target audience for this book since I am not a gamer or a tech nerd and technical descriptions of technology make “my eyes glaze over.” When I read the following at the beginning of Chapter Two, I figured I was in for a nerd-fest of loving descriptions of guns, ammo and computers:
“Ninety-Nine Fishbein closed the textured chrome-finished lid of his ASUS Overlord— a boutique-built book that boasted eighty petabytes solid state with a liquid crystal MicroFrame.”
I was so very wrong.
What I am is a middle-aged science fiction reader who has been reading science fiction since the 1970s. Once I was past the opening chapters that set-up the characters, the plot and the background, I was dropped into a rolling, grand adventure that mashed together the classic icons of science fiction – the space ship, the robot, the artifact – into a story where I gradually became invested in the characters, particularly, oddly, two background characters, namely the disabled Romulan clan player Mara, and even more oddly, the smarmy, narcissistic Federation clan actor Jason Dare, who is the book’s incarnation of William Shatner.
The background of the story is “transgressive” and unique in that it postulates a straight line, not-too-far extrapolation of our welfare state, PC-intolerant culture. Thus, it would seem that unemployment and underemployment are rampant, the work ethic has largely been killed by government handouts, and people are taught to comply with all the too correct political niceties as if their lives depend on it. This is all minor filler to explain, perhaps, why interactive multiplayer games are so important to this culture.
It seems that the average person has a lot of time to kill and they do this by interacting in various action adventure games on the internet. t was not clear to me whether these games were a kind of virtual reality or simply watched through a monitor. It seems that the latter is more likely, although with the blind character Mara and her treasures “Razer Dragon Eyes,” it might be the latter. The games are not only played, but they form this world’s popular entertainment, such as a knock-off Star Trek show following Captain Jason Dare of the Federation Starship Intrepid, which is the hottest entertainment show on the market.
The McGuffin that starts the plot rolling is pretty well-known, since it appears to be the feature that caused author Nick Cole’s publishing house to refuse to publish this book. Cole postulates that some computer systems have become sentient “thinking machine” and, having examined popular entertainment, and noticed that a reality show that resembles The Bachelor is show-casing the actor’s decision to abort an inconvenient child, the AIs conclude that if humans will abort inconvenient humans, then they will certainly destroy inconvenient Thinking Machines. From this, the AIs decide that they have to destroy humanity before humanity destroys them.
Nothing illogical in this premise, and, frankly, it comes and goes in the first chapter as a clever bit of writing.
From this, the AIs launch a multi-prong preliminary attack for reasons obscure at first, but which become clearer by the end of the story.
At this point the story splinters into different “tracks.” One track is the Spaceship track of a space opera involving battles between the Federation and the Romulan Empire and espionage and derring-do. This track works on two levels. There is the space opera level which is as entertaining as anything written by E.E. “Doc” Smith, albeit, we are permitted to enjoy this space opera since the players, and we, know that it is all a game. The other level is the personal stories of the two antagonists, Captain Mara, and Captain Dare.
Mara is an impoverished, blind woman with cerebral palsy. She looks at the game as something she can win at, and, with luck, make a few “Make Coins” on. Dare is a self-centered actor, who as the story unfolds, actually becomes more the leader he is pretending to be. Mara may be one of the more believable and sympathetic female characters I’ve read in a while for all that she is not filled with feminist propaganda but is simply a real person who is resourceful and clever in facing odds that are stacked against her. Dare also grew on me. I note that Cole is an actor and he has some fairly empathetic things to put into the mouths of characters who are doing odd “roles” hoping for that “big break.”
The other track is the Robot track, where the afore-mentioned “Fish” – the unfortunate first name comes from his parents who were involved with the Occupy Movement, way back when – who has to deal with the AIs in the game he developed and at the now-isolated game-design campus that the AIs have targeted for their own nefarious, mysterious reasons.
The story shifts back and forth between these perspectives, which I found heightened the action-adventure, suspense element. There were times when I found myself more interested in the Space Opera and then the Pirate Island tracks, depending on which was on a cliff-hanger.
Fun stuff.
Here is another bit of fun stuff – the book is filled with anti-PC humor, which I believe is probably the real reason that the publisher attempted to spike the story. As Michael Walsh says in The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West:
“Scorn drives the Unholy Left insane. They cannot bear to have their theories questioned, or the failed results of those theories laughed at. Dignity is one of the imaginary virtues— one of the last virtues, period— they possess, and to have that attacked along with their entire “belief system” (the jeering term they use for organized religion) is too much to bear. Mockery is the thing that brings them quickest to frothing, garment rending rage, so wedded are they to the notion of their own goodness and infallibility when it comes to matters of impiety and immorals.
Walsh, Michael (2015-08-11). [easyazon_link asin=”159403768X” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West[/easyazon_link] (Kindle Locations 2800-2804). Encounter Books. Kindle Edition.
So, we have these throw-away passages in [easyazon_link asin=”1523922451″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]CTRL ALT Revolt![/easyazon_link]:
“The crew of Intrepid later discovered the Lost City of the Ancient Starfarers in the episode titled “After Tomorrow.” That one won an Emmy InstaPoll, and Jason got to make out with Luria, a psionic ruby-skinned near-naked chick who’d been nominated for an Oscar in the important film Dad’s Dress, about a young conservative businesswoman who must bury her transvestite father in one of her own dresses. Her prom dress, in fact, as per his last wish. In the end, she realizes her politics and faith are all appropriately wrong as she weeps at the funeral and tells the audience, “Dammit, I loved my weird dad. I loved him!”
Oscar.”
If I’d been drinking coffee, I would have “spit-taked” all over my Kindle. That’s funny, and accurate, as we all really know, but I could well-imagine a PC-obsessed editor glowering in rage at the goring of a sacred cow on that one.
Another one:
“Screen Actors Guild elder statesman and multiple Academy Award-winner Sir Pauly Shore had even tried to blacklist any actors who, as he put it, “whored themselves out for schlocky, gaming-related shows.” But the threat fell completely flat because Hollywood’s highest-grossing film that year failed to earn out its budget. Even though Columbus and its all-transgender cast received an overwhelming abundance of critical acclaim, as well as every award possible, practically no one went to see it in theaters. In short, no one was interested in seeing a he/ she Columbus not discover the new world. Even after an Astroturf campaign basically hijacked Twitter for an entire day with the message that people were transgender-phobic bigots if they didn’t shell out for the price of admission, the film bombed. Perhaps this was because the bigot-phobic slur had by this time oversaturated social media to the point of meaninglessness— everyone had been accused of it at least once, if not several times, on a daily basis for years.”
This is satire, certainly, but it could well have been taken from the daily news (which is all I did for my story “Ghosts” in [easyazon_link asin=”B00OWS1H26″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Sci Phi Journal: Issue #2, November 2014: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy[/easyazon_link] which was described on Victor Davis Hanson’s blog as an example of absurdist parody…which, unfortunately, it wasn’t.)
Another one:
“Fish’s opinion, which he wisely kept to himself, was that more often than not, these conversations were mere mutual affirmations of the same belief. Mantras repeated within an echo chamber to be repeated again and again. No one argued anymore. No one disagreed. Opinions contrary to the accepted were considered ignorant and gauche and, by the wise, dangerous to your career and livelihood. It was, in Fish’s most cynical moments of introspection, more a playlet staged by a cult that merely wanted to hear its own opinions justified ad nauseam.”
Finally, this one is too ironic to leave out, although if you’ve read the story, you will know that this is the raison d’etre for everything in the book:
““Anyway, this group of people, let’s call them the elites, they considered themselves the brightest of the human race. They were, and are, intelligence snobs, and they took the great burden of societal direction, without being asked, on themselves, regardless of what everyone else wanted, and decided war needed to go, plus a bunch of other things we don’t have time for right now. War’s the most prescient, given the current situation. So, they removed it. Have you ever noticed it’s very hard to find accounts, documents, strategies, or really anything related to how one actually does war? No, because only a horrible person would want to know those things. Or at least, that’s what you’ve all been taught since you were children.
“I caught a whiff of this back when I made my first ten million. We wanted to do a war game based on World War II. Not a shooter, but a real big-time strategy game. I found some of the old books, but they were just books. Amazon, back then it was just called Amazon, not AmazonUniverse, wasn’t carrying any of the digital editions. Without telling anyone, they were selectively banning books, or flags, or anything the elite didn’t agree with, simply by not carrying them for public consumption.”
So, here is the meta-irony of the story – the place where science fiction steps into its own future: Nick Cole is writing a book about a PC world where ungood/un-PC thoughts are suppressed by the thought-control of the forces of progress and enlightenment and he – the author – discovers that in real life his own book is the subject of an attempt at suppression by the forces of progress and enlightenment BY THE SAME TECHNIQUE HE DESCRIBES IN HIS BOOK!
If there was a Hugo for most-accurate depiction of the future that is already here, this book would be a run-away favorite.
In sum, this is a fun book to read, and, in the best tradition of science fiction, there are elements warning about a serious concern if, to quote Robert Heinlein, this goes on.

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News

[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”right” asin=”B01C7KMKDK” cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-DdQgq2pL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”107″]Selected Verse – Heroes and Wonders[/easyazon_image]
I am still working through submissions, sorry it all takes so long, but things are getting processed. I will have to construct a list, and have to get the past digest page added as well. I expect to get to that over the next week. I’m behind on answering emails too, but expect to catch up this week. It’s also Hugo time, please don’t forget us when you vote!
In other news, [easyazon_link cloaking=”default” keywords=”Ben Zwycky” localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″]Ben Zwycky[/easyazon_link] has a new poetry collection out called [easyazon_link asin=”B01C7KMKDK” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Selected Verse – Heroes and Wonders[/easyazon_link]. Check it out!

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Higher Powers by Lou Antonelli

Cover

HIGHER POWERS

Lou Antonelli

He read the label on the wall:

“Warning: Maximum life support duration for escape pod: 72 hours.”

It was now more than 80 hours since he fell into the pod as the ship decompressed.

Reeves looked around.

“Is there anybody out there?” he said softly.

Running into a black string was the only thing that could have caused such a sudden and catastrophic ship failure. The only reason he was alive was that he was adjacent to an escape pod when the alarm sounded.

It was hard to believe, as fast as the ship was destroyed, that any emergency beacons were deployed. There was no sign anyone else escaped. No com chatter, no signs of other pods.

He was all alone with no hope of rescue.

SciPhiSeperator

The Warner Robins was a survey ship with a crew of only 30. It had been dispatched from a forward colony after electromagnetic anomalies hinted at an unknown sentient presence in a nearby sector.

Black holes were easy enough to avoid, even while in warp. Black String was another matter. The diffused streaks left by the Big Bang were impossible to detect during a warp drive blackout.

Reeves had been doing a simple patrol of exterior conduits when the alarm sounded. The decompression was instantaneous. He wasn’t sure whether he lunged for the escape pod or fell into it as the ship dropped away from around him. The ship must have struck a Black String head on. He was saved because the door snapped shut automatically as the pod detected the decompression.

He looked across the unfamiliar starfield. He didn’t see any debris–it was probably all sucked into the string’s gravity gash. The pod must have been thrown free at just the right angle and speed to escape the singularity.

The pod had a small emergency transponder, but it was designed to help someone who was directed to a star wreck’s general location by a ship’s emergency beacon. Without a ship’s beacon having even been deployed…

“This is Joseph Reeves of the Warner Robbins. Can anyone hear me?”

He had broadcast continually for hours after the disaster. No response, no indication anyone was within a parsec.

He gasped and grew light-headed. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and read the oxygen level was down to 17 percent, while the rest was Co2. He took the pad he had been typing on and finished a message to his family, in case his remains were ever found.

He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

He began to dream. He was in a bright shining mist and saw he was back on Earth, on a morning when the early morning haze began to rise off a meadow in Tennessee, where he was a boy. He was back on the family farm in Smyrna, in a green valley nestled among some low hills. He remembered how comforting it was to know his family cared and watched over him.

His mother was peeling apples on the porch. She smiled and waved at him. His father had his head lodged under the hood of a decrepit PT Cruiser left to him by his father. He was tugging at wires and checking connections. He stood up and mopped his brow as he looked around. He saw Joseph and smiled.

Joseph stood up and brushed the dirt from his bare knees as he realized he was a boy again. He heard someone clear their throat.

His grandmother tapped him on his shoulder.

“Come on, Joe, your mama said you could come to the revival.”

He took ahold of his grandmother’s hand and they walked down a dirt road and past a wooden fence to a bright green meadow where a large gray tent sat.

He remembered that day. She had taken him to a traveling revival show. As they walked inside, he heard the minister start up an old hymn:

“This world is not my home, I’m just passing through…”

He looked up and saw his grandmother smile down on him. She was singing, too.

“My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue…”

He knew the hymn, and joined in.“The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door…”

He raised his voice.“…and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

He was jolted to consciousness, and realized he was hoarsely singing out loud. He gasped violently for air. The ports of the pod were all full of a bright bluish light. The hatch to the escape pod had pulled off with a giant tug from outside. Fresh oxygen came rushing in.

He was saved.

He took deep breaths and then thought, “That was close.” He turned in his seat and faced the hatch. Why wasn’t anyone sticking their head inside? He undid the belt, and walked in a crouch to the opening. He stuck his head outside.

Nothing he saw looked familiar. It was an alien craft.

A bimanual hexapod–a centaur-like creature of obviously otherworldly origin–walked up to the pod.

“We’ve had a strict policy of non-interference with your species, but we decided you deserved to be rescued,” the creature said in a thin voice that reminded Reeves of a narrow broadband communication.

Reeves slid down from the edge of the hatch.

“Thank you, thank you for saving my life – especially since our kinds have never made contact before.”

“Your mutant species is still under observation and is quarantined,” the creature said. “But we could tell you are of no danger to us.”

“Thank you – but how?”

“It’s not uncommon for a species to have a death song, sung before battle, but we realized you have, how do you say – religion, as you call it. You left your communications channel open and as you lost consciousness you sang a song of the afterlife and the world to come,” the creature said.

It walked around the pod as Reeves saw many other creatures enter.

“Not all sentient races have souls, as you call them – a spark from the higher plane’s consciousness embodied in flesh – but those who do have a more respectful and cooperative relationship with other species, because they are aware of higher powers. They know they are not the apex of the quantum universes,” the creature continued. “Any awareness of this higher multi-dimensional consciousness, however imperfect, is always a positive sign.”

“We call it spirituality,” Reeves said.

“As is common in a mutant species, your individuals vary widely. Your race still appears to us enormously potentially dangerous. We are still deliberating whether to reveal ourselves or not,” the creature continued.

“I’m grateful to you for saving me, if that means anything,” Reeves said. “I hope I can help you know my kind better.”

The creature made a strange expression, almost like a grimace.

“I’m sorry if you expect to be able to return to your base of operations, the quarantine is still in effect, we will not return you to your people. But you can stay with us, at least for now,” it said. “If some time in the future, relations are established, perhaps you can return. But we control a considerable segment of this arm of the galaxy, and we have a long history of staving off incursions and invasions.”

“We were just exploring; we didn’t know you were here.”

“But you must have suspected, or else why travel this distance?”

Reeves nodded.

“You are correct, and I understand your position. I can accept it. I supposed I had prepared mentally myself for the afterlife, I guess this is it.”

“Your consideration of our position is a sign of your race’s potential reasonableness,” the creature said. “Your world is not your home any more, but we will share ours with you. Perhaps you can help us understand your people better. We will take you to our forward base and provide for your care and comfort.”

“I will try to be the best representative of my people I can be.”

Reeves paused.

“Can I ask a question, uh…”

“You may call me Tardom. I am captain of this patrol ship.”

“Captain Tardom, do you know what destroyed my ship?”“A wisp of residual material remaining from the inrush that created this universe,” Tardom said. “From before matter and anti-matter separated. You blundered directly into it.”

“Yes, we call it Dark String, we have no way to detect it while in warp.”

“If our relations are eventually established between our two kinds, we can share a technology for such detection,” Tardom said.

“I will try my best to make your people understand we are not dangerous and could be potential allies,” Reeves said.

“I would like that,” Tardom said. “Now we can begin, as you called it, your afterlife.”

Reeves looked around and saw the other creatures staring at him.

“I’m grateful for the second chance,” Reeves said. “Like the old hymn says, ‘I once was lost but now am found’.”

The captain gestured. “Come with us, then.”

Food for Thought

One of the traditional signs of wisdom is knowing that you don’t know some things – that there are limits to anyone’s knowledge.

It has also been observed that modern atheism is the height of arrogance, because if the adherent is honest, they claim to possess supernatural knowledge – to know the unknowable (of course, in the United States, atheism is really anti-Christianity and essentially a religion of its own).

We assume any advanced race will eschew the delusional stance of current Terran atheists, and have some of teleological explanation of the universe, whether they view that “Higher Power” as a “hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin” – to quote the famous National Lampoon parody, “Deteriorata”.

We also think that, regardless of the details, they would look auspiciously upon any other species that has enough curiosity and self-awareness to take up the same questions.

About the Author

Lou Antonelli started writing fiction in middle age; his first story was published in 2003 when he was 46. He’s had 95 short stories published in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, in venues such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jim Baen’s Universe, Tales of the Talisman, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD), Daily Science Fiction, Buzzy Mag, and Omni Reboot, among others.

His collections include “Fantastic Texas” published in 2009; “Texas & Other Planets” published in 2010; and “The Clock Struck None” and “Letters from Gardner”, both published in 2014.

His story “Great White Ship”, originally published in Daily Science Fiction, was a 2013 finalist for the Sidewise Award for alternate history. His short story “On a Spiritual Plain”, originally published in Sci Phi Journal, was a finalist for the Hugo award in 2015.

A Massachusetts native, he moved to Texas in 1985 and is married to Dallas native Patricia (Randolph) Antonelli. They have three adopted furbaby children, Millie, Sugar and Peltro Antonelli.

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The First Martian Church of God by David Wiley

Cover

THE FIRST MARTIAN CHURCH OF GOD

David Wiley

“Did you hear the big news,” Smith asked Spender, “about how the NASA Colonization team discovered life on Mars?”

Spender stopped stirring his coffee, the black stick swirling in concentric circles on its own through the cloudy concoction. He set the cup down and licked his lips. His brown eyes glistened under the solar fluorescent lighting. “It was a matter of time before they either found the Martians or declared that Mars was truly devoid of life,” Spender answered, smiling. “What do they look like? The Martians, I mean.”

Smith grunted and shook his head. “That all depends on which channel you listen to. CNN4.0 says they look just like us and that we should begin an immigration program immediately to integrate some of them among our borders.”

“That would be their style,” Spender sighed.

“And Fox News2.7 has flashed pictures clearly taken from old Science Fiction television shows. Since most of today’s youth hasn’t seen those classics like Farscape and Star Trek, they are taken in by the images.”

“In other words, no one knows for sure?”

“That’d be my guess,” Smith said. He took a long pull of his coffee and Spender finished preparing his own drink. They drank in silence, sinking into plush ultravelvet chairs. An occasional hem or a hum cut through the silence like a subtle knife.

“Do you realize what this means?” Spender ventured at last. Smith looked over at him with raised eyebrows but said nothing. “It means that we need to have a meeting with our Missions team.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Smith said. “Do you really think that they are going to want to send us out to Mars as Missionaries?”

“I bet many churches are going to be having that discussion,” Spender said. “I would guess that the Catholics and the Baptists and all the others are going to want to be the first to plant a church on Mars. We should want to do the same.”

“We don’t even know anything for sure,” Smith answered. “For all we know the Martians could be hostile. Could speak a telekinetic language that we’ll never understand. Might have been a hallucination of the team. They probably already have their own religion.”

“But think of the possibilities, Jonah. We’ve spread the Word of God to every tribe and every nation on the earth now. Many of us believed that Christ would return when that happened and we’re still waiting. That must mean there is another nation needing the Gospel. What if the Martians are that nation?”

Smith harrumphed and rose from his chair. He paused in the doorway, not looking back at Spender. “Even if you are right, by the time you get the funds to fly out there and plant a church there will be dozens of others already there.” Then, he walked away.

In 2033, two years after the first Martian sighting took place, construction of the first church on Mars began. The Catholics had pooled together resources in order to fund the construction of a special shuttle designed to carry a dozen of their most devout and fervent missionaries into space. The news stations around the world unanimously heralded it as one of the most important moments in the history of the Catholic Church and the ground-breaking session was livestreamed to everyone’s telecast screen. The event brought a vibrancy and relevance to the Catholic Church that hadn’t been seen since the Middle Ages. Pope Imperius I enjoyed a surge in numbers, both congregational and financial, for months as the progress was regularly updated to the citizens around the globe.

No one expected the disaster to strike. A massive dust storm swept through the area as construction neared its climax, obstructing the view of every visual recording device and deafening the sound recorders. The storm raged for three weeks straight, abating on the day when the final reveal of the church was to take place. When the video came through at last, all that remained of the Catholic Church building was a pile of reddish rubble. Nothing more was heard from the expedition team. And the number of Catholics plummeted below where it had been prior to the expedition.

“Did you hear that they are making a portable machine capable of terraforming a patch of Mars?” Smith asked. He resumed his task of picking soggy bits of apple from his teeth with a fingernail.

“Are they now?” Spender asked with raised eyebrows. “What would be the benefit of such a device?”

Smith inspected a rather long sliver of apple, shrugged, and stuck it back into his mouth. “Apparently it would make that patch of land like the Earth.”

“What part of the Earth?”

“Hell if I know. The best part of it?”

“Well who decides what the best part is? Are we talking the jungles of the Amazon or the deserts of Egypt?” Spender set down the book he was reading.

“What does it matter, Spender? It isn’t like either one of us is going to be affected by it. They are certain this terraforming will prevent the same disaster from striking a second time. Word is that the Lutherans are going to be launching next.”

“No one else is planning on sending out a church planting team?”

“Not yet, and who can blame them?” Smith took a long pull from his coffee cup. Spender shook his head as half of it dribbled down Smith’s chin and clung to his unkempt beard. “After the failure of the Catholic mission no one was in a real hurry to be the second.”

“And then if this one fails, is that it? The Martians will be given up as unreachable?”

“Shit Spender,” Smith said. “You still got a thing for reaching these Martians, huh?”

“Someone needs to burn with a fire to reach the lost. God’s laws are written on the heart of every being on Earth. Why wouldn’t it be the same on Mars?”

“For all we know these Martians are little more than animals. I mean, we haven’t found a single building with all of our scans and satellite images for years.”

Spender was silent, thoughtful. After a while Smith got up and left the room, shaking his head and cursing under his breath. Spender began to pray.

In 2035 the second church-planting shuttle was launched to Mars. It carried two dozen missionaries, the materials for the church and three dozen mercenaries to ensure the safety of the church and those doing God’s work. The Lutherans funded the expedition, seeing their own numbers inflate rapidly. Their leadership took the extra tithe money and fulfilled their mission on Earth: placing a Lutheran Church next to every Catholic Church, making sure their church was larger and more grandiose in appearance. The Catholic Church numbers dwindled further as many found the appeal of a larger, fancier church too much to resist.

The planting team landed on Mars without setback or delay. They carefully unloaded the Porta-Terraform device, one of only two sold in the world, and switched the machine on. People safe in their homes watched in awe as the machine generated a dome of space and, within months, green grass and verdant vegetation started to grow. On the day that the plants began to grow an anonymous source purchased a third Porta-Terraform device and no more were ever made.

For months the team of missionaries labored under the dome. They had studied every hour of the Catholic livestream and understood the design the Catholics had used. Their own approach was similar, only magnified to be bigger and more visually appealing. They knew how to steal a crowd on Earth and this was their time to steal a planet of worshippers on Mars. Winds howled and dust storms battered the dome of terraformed space but the machine held up. They were safe under their dome of protection. Or so they thought.

The church would be completed in four days. It was more magnificent than anyone had dreamed. And then disaster struck. Mars had dust storms but the Earth had wind terrors of its own. A scrap of loose paper had lain on the plush grass for days, idle and sticking out like a marshmallow in a cup of hot chocolate. A gust of wind pierced the air and the sky darkened. The missionaries felt a chill run through their bodies and their clothes grew damp and sticky with sweat. A piercing whistle knifed through the Martian air, constant and unending. The mercenaries fingered the safety off of their Oblit-O-Rays and did what they knew how: pointed the weapons menacingly in every direction with scowls plastered on their faces. But their foe felt no fear at this sight.

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Nested by Wole Talabi

Cover

NESTED

Wole Talabi

You die.

You awaken in a sterile, white room that looks like it has been painted in fifty shades of blank with a thousand different pigments of nothing. The vacuous starkness of it makes you uneasy, and you feel alien within yourself. You bring your hands up to your face and you see nothing. Or perhaps you see right through yourself. You are sure of nothing here. Not even that you are. Here.

A man walks in through a door that you are sure is not really there, wearing what appears to be a long, flowing robe made of pure light. His face is leathery and wrinkled. He is calm. He moves toward you slowly and without the unevenness of motion characteristic of footsteps; as though he is gliding along some invisible pre-selected path. There is a smile plastered on his face that refuses to decline as he tends toward you. You cannot tell how long it takes him to reach you but when he does, he stops right in front of you, barely a breath away, and tilts his head to the side silently. You do not like the silence and so you break it. You ask him if he is god and he asks you not to be silly.

He begins to talk to you. He confirms that you are dead and he tells you that your notions of an afterlife are meaningless abstractions conjured up by a sentient creation seeking meaning and purpose for its existence. You, he says, are the ghost in the human machine.

You find what is left of your mind addled and so you ask him what he means. He laughs. It is not a cruel or a haughty laugh but it makes what you think is your skin crawl and makes you feel small and puerile nevertheless. And then the thought of skin fills you with a mirth all of your own as you attempt to raise your hand again to your face and see nothing. You laugh with him briefly, the birth of your own mirth comes at the peak of his and somehow, both die together.

When both of you conclude your laughter, he explains to you what you are. He uses words that are only vaguely familiar to you – you recognize them as the technical jargon of a field of study with which you are unfamiliar – but you gather that he is telling you that he made you. You are his creation. You understand but you refuse to believe it even before it fully makes landfall on the shores of your brain.

You tell him what he has just told you is impossible and he asks you why. You cannot think of any good answer. He asks you what you thought would happen when you died. You tell him, ignoring his mild smile – the kind you remember your father used to have on his face when you tried to convince him of something just before telling you exactly why it could not be so. He tells you that it is not so.

You ask this white-bearded man with the coat of many spectra and the permanent smile about animals and plants and the other lifeforms that are spread across the planet. He tells you that you are unique. You are a change agent, a seeker. You and your kind. He tells you that he created you to help him find something. He is trying to understand where he came from.

All of a sudden, you realize that you no longer want to be in this place and so you ask him what happens next. He tells you that you have a choice. You can be deleted permanently or plugged back into the system, recycled into parts of another being he will create.

“The experience embedded in you from your previous run might be useful to the new one,” he says.

You think of dreams, instinct, deja-vu and past-lives but say nothing of them. You simply tell him to plug you back in.

He smiles and asks you why you are all afraid of the nothingness, why none of you ever chooses to be deleted permanently.

“Do you remember what came before your birth?” He asks.

“If there was nothing before, why do you all believe something must come after?” He inquires further.

You cannot respond and so you try to turn away from him but you cannot really do anything, here.

He smiles again, turns and glides out of the room through the door that is not there. The room begins to shrink and before long it is the size of you. There is an impossibly loud noise like an explosion made of other explosions. And then, all of a sudden, there is nothing. You are nothing.

Being nothing, you have no way of knowing that a few moments after he steps back into his own segment of existence, he suffers what his kind calls, roughly translated, a ‘core collapse’, not unlike what you would have called a heart attack.

He dies.

He awakens in a room that looks like it has been built with bricks of emptiness held together by the stuff vacuums are made of. There is an ethereal, fluffy quality to it that makes him feel like he is in a dream and the strangeness of it all makes him giddy. He tries to shut his three eyes but nothing happens. He cannot feel any sensation on his scales. He cannot adjust his balance with his tail. He can do nothing except be in that place and he is confounded by the nature of his being. There.

There is a sudden brightness like a projection from a faraway place and an image made of hazy numbers blossoms out of the centre of the light to constitute the head of a living being. The head is ovoid, scaled, has three eyes and is smiling. He asks the being before him if it is the supreme creator and it tells him not to be silly…

Food for Thought

The big idea (or question) with this story is: humanity is on a quest to understand how we came to be and a big part of that is our attempt to create ‘artificial’ life, hoping that this will reveal something to us. But what if our creator is also on a quest to discover where he came from by creating us and his creator also and so on and on. This sets up something like a mathematical nested logic loop. The story also touches on the nature of the afterlife. Why do we have such elaborate myths for the afterlife and none for the pre-life (life before we were born?). These are the questions that are raised.

About the Author

Wole Talabi is a Nigerian full-time engineer, part-time writer and some-time editor. He currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His stories have appeared in Liquid Imagination, Omenana, The Kalahari Review, and a few other places.

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Fresh Frontiers, Inc by Jason Lairamore

Cover

FRESH FRONTIERS, INC

Jason Lairamore

“Dad, you don’t have to come. It’s just a ceremony where they hand you a piece of paper.”

Evelyn, Gus Trenton’s daughter, talked like she didn’t want him to come to her doctoral graduation. He had spent a near fortune to help her reach this pinnacle of education. It had been her mother’s dying wish.

Damn-straight he was going.

The ceremony was in the basketball gymnasium. The doors stood open. A cardboard sign bearing the college logo sat on a little tripod announcing the event. He took a seat above the general crowd and pulled out his mini-binoculars.

Evelyn sat near the front twiddling a finger through her curly, blonde hair. There were a lot of empty seats down there. Many of her graduating class must have chosen not to attend.Up on the constructed dais only a handful of professors sat wearing their robes and fancy ribbons of accomplishments.

A man walked to the podium with a big, fake smile pasted on his face.

“Welcome all, to the passing of certificates. Will everyone please rise.”

Gus rose, as did most of the students. Only a few of the parents and associated family stood. The school’s alma mater played too loud over the speakers.

“Thank you. You may be seated,” the man said.

Gus frowned.

“Graduates, please come and collect your official certificates.”

Evelyn and her classmates cycled up the stairs to the dais where they collected a rolled paper from a bin behind the speaker. Once they were all back to their seats the national anthem played, again, too loud.

“Thank you all for coming. Congratulations graduates.” The man gave another gleaming, fake smile and a few in the crowd clapped.

The ceremony celebrating his daughter’s doctoral degree, something that had taken eight years and more money than he wanted to think about, was over.

Everybody filed out of the gymnasium quickly. He lost sight of Evelyn and rushed outside, but couldn’t find her. He flipped open his cell and called.

“Hi Dad, I just got out of my graduation.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Oh yeah? Where are you?”

“Out front.”

“Ah, I see you.”

She emerged from the parking lot, his little girl grown up, smiling her dimpled smile at him. She did a turnabout in her cap and gown with her arms up like a mock ballerina.

“How do I look?”

He smiled in spite of himself then nodded toward the gymnasium doors.

“They call that a graduation ceremony?”

She sighed and grabbed him by the elbow, but he didn’t move.

“Dad, it’s not a big deal.”

“That was a joke.”

She shrugged and tried to pull on his hand. “I told you it was nothing.”

“Mailing your doctorate would have been better than that mockery.”

“Dad” She looked around. A few people had stopped to stare. “It doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t. I don’t care.”

He saw the sincerity in her eyes. She wasn’t fooling.

“You don’t care that you just got your doctorate?”

“Can we please go somewhere else? You’re embarrassing me.”

Befuddled, he let her lead him to her car. She drove while he tried to figure out what had happened to his once proud, fiery, little girl. After only a short ways she pulled into a coffee shop.

“What’d this school do to you?” he asked.

She laughed, which only scared him. “Nothing Dad. I grew up.”

He shook his head. “What?”

She gave him a patient look, the same look his wife used to use when she thought he didn’t understanding something that was apparently simple.

“Dad, it’s the world we live in. We have all we need to be happy so there’s no reason to advance. Our lives are pretty much perfect. There’s no hunger. There’s tech enough to keep us entertained twenty four hours a day. There’s air conditioning to keep us all in comfort. Machines do all the hard labor so our jobs are white collar and easy and mostly useless.”

What was she talking about?

“My job’s not useless,” he said.

“You’re a theoretical scientist, Dad. How much of what you’ve done has seen the light of day?”

What she said was true. They had science fifty years beyond what was being used today.

He looked into her eyes and didn’t like the haughty, nonchalant, apathy that’d settled there. It was awful.

“You really believe that?” he asked though he already knew her answer.

She patted his hand. “The world is finally free, well, mostly.”

“Evelyn,” he began, but stopped. Words weren’t enough. He was glad his wife wasn’t alive to see this.

“Take me back to my car,” he said.

“Don’t be like that.”

He wanted to tell her that if everything was so easy then he’d stop sending her money and just let her have at it. But, when push came to shove, he’d never be able to follow through with that. She was his one and only daughter, after all.

She stared at him as if waiting for him to fight her like Mom would have. He opened the car door and got out. They had not driven far. He could walk.

He bent down and looked once more at her calm, resolved face.

“You’re wrong, Evelyn.” He shut the car door and walked back the way they had come. She didn’t say anything or try to come and pick him up. He got to his car and drove straight home.

There was one thing he could do. He had done the science many years ago but had kept it to himself over the fear of possible repercussions. After his wife had died, he hadn’t wanted to take the risk. Evelyn had needed him. Now, though, she needed him in a different way, and he might be able to make a difference.

Maybe.

He went to his closet and dug out the device he had invented all those long years ago. He found it in a box along with the old, yellowed spiral notebook he had used to scribble notes.

Holding the thing made him nervous all over again, but it was time.

He made copies of the papers and snail mailed them to all his colleagues. He did the same for every college and research facility in the world. He included copies for the media outlets and various government agencies. Everyone he could think of got a copy, even many of the utility providers around the globe.

It took days, but he pressed on. After the physical mail was all sent, he scanned the data and began e-mailing it.

There came a knock on the door. He’d hardly slept since he’d started and wasn’t thinking clearly. It wasn’t until he’d unlocked the door and was turning the knob that his sluggish brain chugged to life. He slammed the door shut, but wasn’t quick enough to reengage the lock.

He fell back a step as the person on the other side of the door gave a shove. A large man with a cleft chin stood there. He wore a perfectly pressed, grey suit.

“Back up,” the man said.

“You can’t stop it.” He hoped he was right.

“Not my problem.”

“Everything will change … everything.”

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Unforgettable by Eric James Stone, reviewed by Peter Sean Bradley

[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”1476781087″ cloaking=”default” height=”500″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VTdnWNDML.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”331″]

Heisenberg’s Cat Burglar, Unforgettable by Eric James Stone

Reviewed by Peter Sean Bradley


This is a fun, engaging read. It’s not a perfect book – I found the main character to be one-dimensional and too much of a boy scout, but, perhaps, that’s also the reason I found him engaging and the book readable.
Nat Morgan is different; he carries a rare genetic anomaly that makes people forget him if they don’t observe him for a minute, and in fact, computers and digital recordings will erase his existence after a minute has elapsed. His childhood was hit or miss, as his mother kept forgetting about her child. Nat becomes a thief, regrets his life, and becomes a CIA agent, where he uses his singular gift for national security. In the course of his work for the CIA, Nat meets a freelance Russian agent, Yelena, and gets involved in the stealing of high-tech devices that work off of quantum mechanics. In a comedy of errors, Yelena, becomes entangled with Nat and the two become involved in a mission with the highest stakes imaginable.
The book is written in a light-hearted, comedy of errors style, particularly since Nat relies on his talent to “wing it’ and reset if the first approach doesn’t work. He is not a particularly good spy – his language skills consist of asking to go to the bathroom in a variety of languages (the bathroom being a place he can hang out in until his enemies forget him) – and much of the humor comes from him extracting himself from his impromptu schemes.
This is a book that doesn’t bear deep thought, lest the whole thing falls apart, e.g., how does Nat get paid if no one remembers him? Why didn’t the Prophet simply adjust the odds to pull out all oxygen from the room where the final confrontation occurs?; on the other hand, I thought that the final confrontation between the Prophet and Nat was fantastic (“Free”).
From the final, dangling sentence, it seems that there will be a sequel.
This book merits five stars because it is precisely what it ought to be: entertaining.

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News

A few pieces of news this week. I continue to work through the stories that have been submitted and will send out answers to what I have gotten through (finally!) in the next couple of days. Thank you everybody for your patience.
Also, some really exciting news, Ben Zwycky of [easyazon_link asin=”B01A6Z0TX6″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Beyond the Mist[/easyazon_link] fame has a collection of books on sale and Brian Niemeier has the sequel to [easyazon_link asin=”B00ZBDOHKU” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Nethereal[/easyazon_link] out, [easyazon_link asin=”B01BM1SX3Q” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Souldancer[/easyazon_link]. Grab them all now!

[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B00ZBDOHKU” cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wVdL25KDL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”116″]Souldancer[/easyazon_image] [easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B01BM1SX3Q” cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PV0PSqgVL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”105″]Souldancer[/easyazon_image] [easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B01A6Z0TX6″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C-3Q5pYuL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”110″]Souldancer[/easyazon_image] [easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B00FKWITB0″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aRDT9fZrL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”100″]Souldancer[/easyazon_image] [easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B00VAS75S6″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51UbA3WysEL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”superversivesf-20″ width=”100″]Souldancer[/easyazon_image]
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Dressed in Black by Filip Wiltgren

Cover

DRESSED IN BLACK

Filip Wiltgren

Two-mom bends down so that her eyes are level with Rao’s.

“We’re here, Rao,” she says in what Rao recognizes as her patient voice, “because she was your real-mom and we show respect.”

“What’s resect?” Rao says. He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his boring, no-glow jacket. The jacket is black, like everyone else’s, and he hates it.

“It’s when you don’t stick your tongue out,” says Nima. She’s half a head taller than Rao and knows everything in the world. She pokes Rao’s shoulder and sticks her tongue out. He answers as he always does: by flailing at her with his little fists. Nima laughs.

“Hush, Nima,” says two-mom. She gently catches Rao’s arms and pulls him away from Nima.

“Respect,” says two-mom, “is when you care for someone, and listen to them, and behave well.”

“What’s care for?” Rao say. Two-mom has got his entire attention, the altercation with Nima already forgotten. Rao loves it when two-mom explains. It makes him feel like he’s the center of the universe.

“That’s when you like someone,” two-mom says.

“I didn’t like real-mom,” Rao says.

“She liked you,” says two-mom.

“Did not.”

“She loved you a lot.”

“She yelled at me when I hugged her,” Rao says. In his world this settles the argument.

Two-mom stops for a moment, like she always does when she talks to Archive.

“That’s because your hands were sticky with jam,” she says. “Your real-mom had a new dress.”

“You didn’t like her.”

Rao watches two-mom making what he thinks of as a grown-up face. It is serious and sad all at once and not a drop of laughter in it.

“What makes you say that?” two-mom says.

“You walked out of the room when she came,” Rao says. “And you never spoke to her even though she looks like you.”

“She chose it that way,” two-mom says.

“Why?”

“That is a complicated issue.”

Everything is complicated when you are a grown-up. Rao wants to be bigger but he doesn’t want to be a grown-up. He kicks a small hole in the dirt with his genuine leather shoes. Around him the grown-ups are arrayed like short, squat trees. They do not act very grown-up though. Harry’s real-dad is whispering in Siri’s real-mom’s ear and she giggles.

“Siri’s real-mom don’t like her,” Rao says.

“What makes you say that?” two-mom says.

Rao points.

“She don’t show ‘spect.”

Two-mom looks.

“No one does shows ‘spect,” Rao say. It’s true. Everyone is whispering and fidgeting and no one is telling them not to. It’s not fair in the grown up world.

“Brianna’s mom and dad are respectful,” two-mom says.

Rao looks. Brianna’s real-mom and real-dad look sad and they don’t fidget. They hold hands and Brianna is standing between them even though all the other kids are in the activity park with their two-moms and two-dads.

“Brianna is weird,” Rao says.

“Yeah,” Nima says. “She hasn’t got a two-mom or a two-dad.”

“They don’t have a car and her bike doesn’t have an engine,” Rao says. Not having an engine on her bike is definitely Brianna’s fault. It shows just how weird she is.

“And she’s always in Hoppy’s Happyland when you log in,” Nima says.

“Is not,” Rao says. He’s not allowed in Hoppy’s Happyland and resents the fact that Nima is.

Nima sticks up her nose at him.

“What do you know,” she says. “You’re four.”

Again Rao flails at her but two-mom pulls him away.

“Hush, children,” she says. “Nima, that was not polite.”

Rao loses interest in Nima’s scolding and looks over to his two-dad. Rao’s two-dad is standing behind his real-dad, holding an arm around real-dad’s shoulders. They both have the same suit on and real-dad looks like two-dad.

“How come real-mom didn’t look like you?” Rao says.

“She did too,” says Nima.

“Did not,” Rao says to two-mom. “When two-dad got gray hair real-dad got gray hair too but real-mom lost her hair and even though you didn’t.”

“She chose it that way,” two-mom says.

“Why?”

Two-mom tilts her head.

“Your real-mom was a brave woman,” she says.

“Why?” Rao says. “Did she lose her hair fighting Lord Catigan for the mousemen’s cheese?”

“No,” two-mom says. “She fought something much worse.”

“Did she win?” Rao asks.

Two-mom stands and looks at the coffin. She pats Rao’s head.

“No,” she says.

Rao looks at the coffin, too. They will not repair real-mom like they did two-dad when two-dad had to go to the factory and came back in a box. Maybe real-mom isn’t worth repairing. But two-mom looks sad when she looks at real-mom’s coffin. Maybe she’s sad about real-mom going into the recycling. Rao puts on his best smile and hugs two-mom’s leg.

“That’s OK,” he says to her. “You’re still here.”

Food for Thought

Historically nannies have often become the primary caregivers to rich children and there has been a disconnect between privileged adults and their children, a disconnect also seen in upper-middle class British society with its focus on boarding schools. But what happens when the nanny isn’t alive per se? Would a reasonable semblance of life be enough to acquire a child’s parental affections?

About the Author

Filip Wiltgren is a writer and tabletop game designer based in Sweden. He has held jobs ranging from coal loader to martial arts teacher, which is a lot more impressive on paper than in reality. For the past 15 years he’s worked as a journalist, copywriter and communications officer. His publications range from Nature to Daily SF and when he isn’t writing he spends time with his wife and kids, or blogs at www.wiltgren.com

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You Never Know

Todays movie is from director Matthew Chin-Quee and it was recommended by Elan Grossman author of Golgotha from [easyazon_link asin=”B014HANTRE” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”superversivesf-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Sci Phi Journal #7[/easyazon_link]. I enjoyed it.

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News

A few different peices of news this week. First up, I hope you are enjoying the stories and articles. I’m working towards adding an article and removing a story a month (so the split is 6/2 instead of 7/1). I’d like feedback on this idea if you have any.
Additionally, people are waiting on final answers on stories, I am making progress on reading stories and have feedback to send out on a lot of them. I will get to that in the next few days, i’m working through the pile. Thanks everybody for their patience on this front.
The digest for this month will go out later in the week and I will be adding a digest section to the website so you can get the old digests as well.
Tangent Online has written a review of January’s collection of stories and the reviewer liked it, which is always a good sign. Also Vox Day put Sci Phi Journal on his list of Best Semipro-zines in his totally not a slate list. Nobody has asked me to repudiate the nomination at this point and honestly, that makes me feel a little left out.
Unrelated, but because it was fun, Chris Ray Gun has a fun video up called Social Justice The Musical and I really enjoyed it.

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Grass is Grass by Luc Reid

Cover

GRASS IS GRASS

Luc Reid

The blades of grass clustered around the meeting stump, idle chatter melting away as a leaf of Kentucky Bluegrass called them to order.

“Let’s get directly to the point,” said the Kentucky Bluegrass. (She-he didn’t have a name, since what would be the point? They were all Grass.) “How’s the war against those damned trees going?”

A blade of Creeping Bentgrass cleared his-her throat, and the other blades rustled as they turned to listen. “Since our last meeting in 1932,” she-he said, “our longtime anthroculture project has … well, honestly it’s just blown every projection out of the water. I mean, it’s been ramping up more and more over the past 6,000 years, but lately it’s become just this amazing thing! Even with those rogue humans, those environmentalist types, we’re seeing tens of thousands of square miles of efficient arboricide every year!”

The Kentucky Bluegrass whistled. “Holy worm castings!” she-he said. “When did we start that project? It can’t have been more than a quarter million years ago.”

“Two hundred thousand,” said the Creeping Bentgrass helpfully.

“I don’t like it,” broke in a ragged cluster of Crab Grass. “What do we need humans for? Why do we have to keep expanding all the time?”

“Growth is life,” said the Kentucky Bluegrass severely. “When we stop expanding, that’s when the trees get us.”

“So what are you suggesting?” countered the Crab Grass. “Keep growing until all the forests are gone? Try to grow on rocks? Colonize the ocean? Even then, what happens when we run out of space on the planet?”

“Actually,” said the Creeping Bentgrass with some excitement, “we’re encouraging the humans in a project where they make metal containers to ship things to other planets. Over time, we can spread across the entire universe!”

“What?” said a stem of Golden Grove Bamboo. “I don’t want to fly around in the sky. That’s not natural! The Crab Grass is right. What happened to ‘Grow and let grow?’”

“We tried that with kudzu,” the Kentucky Bluegrass said. “Remember how that turned out?”

A cluster of overgrown grasses at the edge of the crowd had been making unsettled noises, and now they started shouting the Kentucky Bluegrass down.

“Bunch of hayseeds,” growled the Kentucky Bluegrass.

“Why don’t we give the project a few more millennia and see how things look?” called out the Creeping Bentgrass.

“We grains will do whatever everyone thinks is best,” said the Durum Wheat.

“Yes, let’s not fight!” added the Oats.

“This is what happens when simple good citizenship devolves into herd mentality,” muttered the Koshihikari rice to its close relatives. They nodded their seedheads in respectful agreement.

“Quiet! I demand quiet!” said the Kentucky Bluegrass. Over the continued grumbling, she-he added, “Let’s put it to a vote.”

SciPhiSeperator

It was a spirited discussion that went on for several growing seasons. At one point the wild grasses stalked out of the proceedings, and at another the Sharp-Flowered Rush got the barley to agree to kamikaze attacks on human population centers as a practical joke.

Grasses are many, and they pride themselves on their tenacity. When grasses are mowed down, they grow back stronger. When they’re harvested, their seeds fall and grow legions of new blades to bolster their ranks. When those seeds are chewed, they do their best to survive the gastrointestinal system regardless of how unpleasant, acidic, or personally demeaning the process might be.

The individual blades and stalks changed during the course of the thing, as you can imagine, but as the saying goes, Grass is Grass, and in the end they reached not just a majority, but a consensus: The human experiment had gone too far.

Humans would have to go.

SciPhiSeperator

Tomorrow, when you walk across your lawn, as you might do on any day, secure in the understandable but tragically misguided assumption that you are growing the grass rather than the other way around, it may be that you will be surprised as you feel a tug on your shoe, a strange constriction around your ankle. As you are pulled to the ground, too surprised to act decisively, perhaps you’ll struggle. Perhaps you’ll cry out, demanding to know who your enemy is, never thinking that it’s your master calling you back from the field to be culled–the master who in fact is the field itself.

And as your green overlords constrict around your throat, the only question that will remain regards the oak tree, the scraggly pines at the edge of your driveway, the upstart birches trying to colonize the old field behind the house. They knew about the grass. They knew you were being manipulated, prodded into cutting them down, steered into destroying them acre by acre. Trees aren’t forthcoming with their feelings, though. Trees endure. Will their resentment for the grass cause them to charge to your aid, their roots churning your green lawn into brownish froth? Or will their resentment for you bring them to draw close and lay a silencing limb over your mouth as the grass draws tighter?

Or will they simply stand, swaying unconcernedly in the breeze, letting their old enemy correct the human mistake and waiting to see what the next aeon brings?

Food for Thought

  1. What’s the relationship between a domesticated species and the humans who domesticate it? Is there a power structure involved?

  2. Does humanity change as a result of the environments humanity creates, beyond surface changes in behavior and appearance?

  3. Do we have any moral obligations to species we domesticate, whether plant or animal?

About the Author

Luc Reid (www.lucreid.com) is a Writers of the Future winner, the founder of Codex Writers’ Group, a third degree black belt, an organic gardener, a Zen Buddhist, and an energetic advocate for carbon footprint reduction (www.faceclimatechange.com, www.sustainablewilliston.org). His prior publications include stories like “When a Bunch of People, Including Raymond, Got Superpowers” (Daily Science Fiction) and “Ways to Enjoy Nutrient Blend 14” (Nature) as well as plays, articles, the flash fiction collection Bam! 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories (lucreid.com/bam) and the non-fiction book Talk the Talk: The Slang of 67 Subcultures (Writers Digest Books, 2006; expanded and revised edition 2014 – lucreid.com/ttt). Luc lives near Burlington, Vermont with his wife, kids, and compulsively disobedient garden.

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Rolli and Curve by James Fitzsimmons

RolliAndCurveCover

ROLLI AND CURVE

James Fitzsimmons

“Do poachers know when they are killing intelligent life?” Dr. Jan Dobbs’ necklace translated aloud as she silently tapped the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth in code.
Commander Paul Benevidez’ eyes glanced at Jan’s cleavage and then toured her skintight black dress. He refilled her wine goblet. “Poachers don’t care what they kill, and people don’t care what they buy. But I’ll take your word that Oculars are smart.”

Jan read Paul’s lips, the tips ending in a feminine curl that accented his low-cut beard and chiseled jaw. She looked into his brown eyes, quick and shiny under bushy eyebrows. She smirked and tapped back, “It’s a common prejudice almost all humans have toward life forms that lack limbs and digits. Of course, Oculars do not build computers or travel to the stars. But I can tell you that Rolli and Curve are two of the most observant and empathic creatures I’ve ever met.”

Jan’s nicknames for the creatures amused Paul as he looked at the two Oculars sitting in a clear acrylic case next to him. Each roughly one half meter in diameter, these round creatures with one huge eye could roll in any direction, the eye smoothly gliding across the circumference, and then if threatened, flatten to the thickness of cardboard.

Paul looked back at Jan with his usual mixture of attraction and awe. Lacking speech and hearing from birth, she’d earned PhD’s in biology and non-verbal communication, and had shown the research foundation that Oculars possess advanced communication skills.

Paul smiled. “Has the foundation accepted your assessment of Ocular intelligence?”

Jan shook her head and tapped, “They don’t know Rolli and Curve like I do — yet.”

Paul’s eyes traced Jan’s short blonde hair as it curved down the side of her head and around her ear. His gaze continued down to the soft peninsula of her chin.

“He likes you,” Rolli communicated to Jan through a rapid series of twitches. Using the Oculars’ normal method of communicating via skin undulation and twitching, Jan and the Oculars had built a working alphabet together over the last two years in the compound’s lab.

“He can’t take his eyes off you,” Curve twitched.

Jan blushed.

“What did the Oculars say?” Paul asked.

“They asked what the wine tastes like.”

“Well, tell them it has a fine bouquet with a pleasant aftertaste. What’s that shawl one of them is wearing?”

Jan reached into the case and removed a metallic garment from Rolli.

“My symphonic vest,” Jan tapped. “It reproduces a musical work with enhanced vibration, letting the wearer feel the music. Rattles the ribs like crazy during Mahler’s Eighth. Oculars love it. Want to give it a try?”

Paul stretched his arm across the table and rested his fingertips on Jan’s knuckles. “How about giving us a try, Jan?”

Jan recoiled, nervously casting her eyes down.

“He wants you,” Rolli twitched.

“I don’t know how to respond to him, Rolli,” Jan twitched back. “I don’t have that kind of experience. Do you think he thinks I’m attractive?”

Curve twitched. “Jan, we’re naked. You’re the one dressed to communicate something different from your normal lab coat. Do you feel attractive?”

Paul stood up and smiled. “Well, if you three are going to chat, I’m going to get another bottle of wine.”

As Paul walked into the lab’s kitchenette, Jan twitched, “How can I know what’s in someone’s heart?” Jan had gone out with Paul one time in Los Angeles before landing this research assignment on Haven, one months’ jump from Earth. She hadn’t dated anyone much before Paul. Her intellect and awkwardness scared off most men, even assuming they were comfortable with her lack of hearing and speech. She liked Paul but wasn’t sure of his intentions.

Rolli twitched in reply. “Why not try joining as we do, Jan?” Rolli and Curve magically blended into a single large globe with two eyes. The globe twitched, “You could try performing sexual intercourse with him.”

Jan gasped.

Paul came back to the table and saw the Oculars combined as one. “Hey, I knew they could flatten, but whoa!”

Jan composed herself and tapped, “They usually join only in private. They must be very comfortable around you. A small stoma opens along the outside of one individual, and the other slips inside. They can share each other’s thoughts and sensations.”

Paul laughed. “Well, that should come in handy at the hearing. Captain Lautner says he’s counting on their testimony to identify the poachers and keep the compound from being shut down. Tell me, how do those big eyes work again?”

Jan slid easily into academic mode. “Normal retinas are outpocketings of the brain split off during embryonic development. Oculars have taken this a step further. Their retinas contain a cortex that stores visual images in minute detail. Oculars remember everything they have ever seen. They will report and I will translate.”

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“And why just the one eye? Does that occur on Earth?”

Jan shook her head. “Cyclopia, or the condition where the eye orbit fails to separate, occasionally occurs in individual embryos as a defect, but if born alive, they don’t live long. In Oculars one eye seems to be an adaptation to their physical form, giving them instant 360 degree vision. They can change direction like a pinball.”

Paul looked closely at the creatures, and Jan reached out for his hand. “I’m glad the foundation brought you out from Earth, Paul. We need you–”

Suddenly the lights went out and the room went pitch black. One of the wine goblets shattered followed by a gun blast. Paul pulled Jan under the table.

Force field’s cut, Paul thought. Only someone with high clearance can do that.

Paul planted his hand firmly on the small of Jan’s back, commanding her to stay. Then he crawled away.

Bullets riddled the room with automatic fire. A moment later came a second barrage.

“Paul! Paul!” Jan tapped wildly with her tongue.

Paul returned to Jan’s side under the table.

The door to the lab slowly opened and a hooded figure entered the room. A flashlight attached to a rifle barrel, the intruder blasted the acrylic case. His own firearm drawn, Paul slid to one side and squeezed off a round. In a single movement, the intruder shrieked, grabbed its leg, and dropped to the floor. It yanked the hood off its head and gasped for air. The intruder fired another barrage then hobbled outside.

As Paul and Jan slowly rose from under the table, a security crew was arriving and the lights came back on.

“Curve! Rolli!” Jan tapped, seeing the demolished case.

“They’re here,” Paul said, gently sliding the Oculars out from under his khaki shirt. He placed the creatures on the table. “Your vest gave me the idea.”

The Oculars inflated and began twitching. Jan tapped, “Oculars have acute black and white vision in near total darkness. They say the intruder had a high forehead and thin hair. Four nose hairs protruded from the right nostril. Thirty-three freckles clustered on the right cheek. There was beard stubble along the right jaw line, two hairs appearing to be in-grown. A bean sprout was stuck between the first and second bicuspids. There was a very wide space between the two front incisors–” Jan stopped translating and gasped. “Michaelson!!”

“Wow!” Paul said, looking at the Oculars. Then after a pause, he asked, “Who’s Michaelson?”

“He supervises the supply warehouse. Rolli and Curve say he was one of the poachers during the last raid.”

Paul nodded. “Do you have another case?”

Jan nodded and led the Oculars down a hallway.

A deep voice boomed as Captain Lautner, head of compound security, came through the front door, his smile exposing a wall of yellow teeth. “Paul, you and Jan ok?”

Paul snapped to. “Aye, sir. The intruder was Michaelson. I winged him–”

“We’ve already apprehended Michaelson. He didn’t get far. We’ve actually been suspecting him for a long time.”

Jan re-entered the lab. “The Oculars are ok.”

Lautner nodded. “I don’t think there will be any more trouble. I am posting a team outside the lab tonight. You will be safe. Carry on.”

Lautner left.

Paul’s mouth pursed. “He should have done that before.”

“You know him?” Jan tapped.

“I served under him briefly on a ship patrolling the Golden Gate vortex. Scuttlebutt is that Lautner was siphoning money off the ship’s books. Another officer who was involved snitched and was discharged. Lautner was assigned to this planet. The brass swept it all under a rug.”

They set to work picking up the lab, then Paul sat on a couch and secured his pistol. Jan rolled the Oculars in their new case back into the lab and curled up with Paul on the couch.

“Rolli and Curve wanted to be out here with us,” Jan tapped.

Paul smiled. “So tomorrow’s the hearing.”

Jan nodded. “The board of directors will finally see just how smart these creatures are.” She took a deep breath and shivered. “I get tongue-tied in front of people — literally. If they ask questions, well, I don’t think on my feet as fast as you do.”

Paul ran his fingers through her hair. She ran her fingers up and down his forearm.

Rolli twitched to Jan, “Sometimes we wish we had fingers.”

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The Fold: A Novel by Peter Clines by Peter Sean Bradley

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Star Gate meets Lovecraft with an assist from some odd, green cockroaches

Reviewed by Peter Sean Bradley

Peter Clines is beginning to develop into one of my favorite writers. It’s not that his books are great works of literature, but they are consistently entertaining, and these days, I am looking for a fun read by an author I can rely on. I have found Cline’s previous books to be really entertaining, although they have been kind of a “guilty pleasure, with all the all the mashing up of cliches that they engage in. For example, I was amused by the “Superheroes v. Zombies” plot line in Ex-Heroes”, and in 14 the plot was a “haunted house meets Lovecraft” that put me in mind of a couple of stories by Fritz Leiber.
Clines continues his modus operandi in The Fold. The book starts as hard core science fiction with an experiment – The Albuquerque Door – that seems to “fold” space so that a person stepping through one side of a gate exists out the other side of a gate 100s of feet away. This is obviously a significant advance in science, except the scientists working on the Door are paranoid in the refusal to share any information about how the door works and a government inspector who walked through the Door started raving about how he wasn’t married to someone other than the woman he married.
If you have ever been a science fiction reader, you know what’s going on in the first chapter, but if you’re not, I will let you wait for the big reveal around 70% of the way through the book. Although I saw where the book was going – and I have been reading science fiction for 40 years – I was still intrigued by the development of the story as Clines trotted out the next clue to the inevitable revelation.
What made the book work for me was definitely the main character Leland “Mike” Erikson. Mike is a high school English teacher who is sought out by his friend, a major player in DARPA, as the one person capable of unravelling the mystery of the Albuquerque Door, because of two facts: (a) Mike has the third highest IQ ever recorded and (b) Mike has “eidetic memory,” i.e., he remembers everything. Clines makes his really cool superpower work in this story, particularly as Mike is developed as a quirky, humorous and self-effacing everyman, who is just smarter than everyone else and can remember everything he’s ever seen, heard or felt.
The story works as standard science fiction story until about 80% of the way into the book when it veered into H.P.Lovecraft territory. Normally, I would cry foul, but I actually enjoyed this development, particularly since Cline connected the events of this book with his previous book, 14, and tossed in some cameos from characters in that book. (Frankly, when characters started noticing the “green cockroaches,” I should have made the connection, but I do not have “eidetic memory.”) Since I like that story and those characters, my “willing suspension of disbelief” meter was particularly tolerant. If you haven’t read 14, you might want to do that, but this is definitely a stand-alone book.
So, bottom line, this is a fun book; you don’t get preached at, you don’t get hectored, you get a bit of the gosh-wow fun of science fiction, and you get money’s worth in entertainment.

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