Main
Young Love, a tragedy
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
(NOTE: If this were a movie it would probably be rated R)
"She's from the edge of the field. The last row by the Fence!" Adam hissed.
"So?" Colin sneered, but he knew what Adam meant. Crystal could be, probably was, of mixed blood. Her mother looked like pure maize, but Crystal's father could've been a grass, wheat, quinoa; anything, really. Any plant that could insinuate its pollen into Crystal's mother's private places could have jumped genomes, crossed chromosomes, done the dirty deed and fathered hybrids, hybrids that looked normal, but their own children would be ... monsters. They might look like anything.
Colin knew this, but he forgot it all when he looked at her sturdy stem, her graceful leaves with their adorable tips, ever so slightly curved to left or right, her roots, beautiful in their symmetry. Love might not be stronger than prejudice, but lust sure was. What he wouldn't do to get his pollen into her warm moist receptacles. A little pollen squirted out at the thought of the verdant Crystal and her divine form, and a breeze carried it to the fence and over.
Colin blushed to his roots. Had anyone seen? It seemed no one had. Whew! He was the only one who knew, and he would forget his inadvertent emission as soon as possible.
---
Delilah stretched her blossoms to catch the pollen ejaculated by the fine young maize plant she'd been ogling from the outboard side of the path. He must have been watching her. She had seen him staring at the flowers outside the Garden, and she was the most ... inviting. She had pursed her petals at him, and had made him come with a gesture. How cool was that?!
Pollen grains drifted into several of Delilah's flowers. They adhered, and their tubes began to grow. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before.
Soon Delilah's ovaries swelled, gravid with chimerae. The seeds set, were fertile, and landed in due time on good, black soil. Alas, by the time they sprouted the following spring Delilah had moved on through the circle of life. She was nought but a withered brown nub. Colin had been harvested by a combine, and his aborted progeny were distributed among a few dozen cans of corn.
The end
*Yes, plant sex is weird and inventive. Successful reproduction between members of different species is just the beginning. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology)#Hybrid_plants.
Close to the Cure
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Jill tried to peel off the notice, but it seemed to be part of the door itself. She glanced back down the corridor. Te'laksu was not in sight. She thumbed the ID pad and went in.
"What's wrong!" Shep jumped off the couch and crossed the small room in a moment. His body felt good, really good, but Jill disengaged after a few seconds and held him back by the shoulders.
"I'm so happy to see you?"
"You haven't been out." Her lip trembled.
Shep pushed past her. When he came back in he was fighting tears.
"I tried to get it off, too," she said, sighing.
"I didn't hear anyone! I wouldn't have let anyone touch our door." He paced back and forth, shoulders tense and head down. "They don't have any right! We're legal!"
Jill pulled him to her. She shut her eyes and ran her fingers up and down through the short soft fur on his back. "Nothing to do with you, Babe. Nothing at all. I got laid off. The T'lakash don't need as many human subjects now they're so close to finding the cause of the Anger Syndrome. They don't need me." He bared his teeth.
"Well, I do! We'll have to move. Where will we go? Your Aunt Kitty doesn't like me."
"That's vac," she snapped. "We'll think of something."
The door slid open to reveal a biped whose arms formed a ring just above the middle of his torso. Each arm bore 6 blunt tentacles. His face looked like the ventral surface of an octopus.
"Te'laksu!" Shep barked.
"Your human has been rendered superfluous," the government agent hissed.
"I can find another job!" Jill shouted, wrapping her arms around herself. Shep ... growled, no other word for it. He stepped in front of her and stood almost nose-to-nose with the Subadministrator.
She couldn't see Te'laksu well, but he made a sudden movement and Shep lunged. They went down, grappling in the doorway, but soon Shep rose to his feet, magenta fluid dripping from his chin. The T'lakashun sprawled in a growing magenta pool.
"Oh Shep!"
He spat something out and hung his head. She scowled, but couldn't stay angry.
"Have to call Kitty now," she said. Shep dragged the body into the room. The door slid shut.
End
The Last Man
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knot on the door.
Hmm ... too passive.
The last man on earth sat alone in a room. It all seemed so REAL!
Cheating.
The last man on earth sat alone in a room.
Too depressing. Nihilist? Realistic?
The last man on earth sat alone in a room, regretting his sex change. Waiting for the second-to-last man to return from foraging? Let's see, meditating before going to meet the last woman on earth. And wishing he'd not had a vasectomy.
Too obvious.
The last man on earth sat alone in a room. And used his last piece of paper.
Damn!
end
Oh yeah, THAT chicken
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Get off the counter!" The chicken fluttered onto the dining-room table. I shooed it toward the outside door, but it flew back to the pass-thru. It pecked at the formica. Then it looked at me.
"These pastel boomerangs are so 50's."
"Shut up!" I pulled the cleaver off the magnet bar beside the sink. Me and the chicken, we had a history.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" it asked.
"I think so," I replied, "but you need two witnesses for a legal will, and we're alone here."
An echidna wearing a magenta cape leaped from behind the fridge. "That's where you're wrong!" it shrieked.
I jumped. I hadn't expected the echidna. But then, nobody does. I advanced on the chicken, keeping one eye on the echidna, which made menacing gestures with its forepaws. The wind was picking up, and there was a lot of trash in the air. Wind? Indoors? The anteater laughed crazily.
"Kinda slow on the uptake," the chicken remarked. "Your housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired," it added. "And your leap was more a stumble" it said to the echidna. At this point paper was knee deep on the kitchen floor and I couldn't get into the dining room. I backed out into the hall and went around the other way. However, the dining room doorway was stuffed to the top with shredded paper. I could hear the chicken ranting about clashing paint colors and crooked paintings.
I went outside to call 911.
Darrell Crosby answered. We went to high school together. He married Melissa Echols, a girl I'd had a crush on for years. But I didn't hold it against him. Not considering how things turned out. I mean, I knew she was an animal lover, but that girl went way too far. There should've been a law. Heck, there used to be a law. Bottom line, I knew Darrell would be on my side.
"I'd love to help you, Ted. You know how I feel about them. But my hands are tied as long as they don't hurt anyone. They didn't hurt you, did they," he asked hopefully.
"Couple paper cuts. But they're occupying my house! At least my dining room. Am I supposed to eat standing up?"
"What part of 'I can't freaking arrest them' don't you get?"
"You won't do anything."
"Can't." He hung up.
I hate these stupid animal superheroes, but I hate Critical Chicken the most.
end
Data Note: A recently recovered Principalian stasis object
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Author: Network ArEG
A small [12K] damaged data file, proton-coded using a simple variant of Sless26's Algorithm, was found in a stasis module of Principalian age. This was the only surviving item in the module. The code format was previously unknown, but maximum-parsimony analysis suggests it is close to the root of Sless26, rather than a derived form. A transcript of the file's contents follows.
--
"The Kielbasa Machete," by Sycamore Hudson, is a deceptively simple novel of sophont trafficking on a decaying L-point habitat. Reference to traditional human food and agricultural implements in the book's title is meant to convey the persistence of cultural artifacts from one society to its successors. The author, an historically referenced construct, was instantiated by IBQ a.u., which first incorporated in the Sol system.
In this, its 6th novel, Hudson continues exploring the world of the Relevancy, a time now more than 3 centuries past. We return to Canis Miner, the mineral-extraction a.u. staffed primarily by uplifted canids. The protagonist of "Riding the GM" returns, but as an elder statesbeing. Helena Malamute-Wong is a VP of CM. The protagonist of TKM is Loh Neptune, a tool designer from the Oort Republic.
Neptune has lost his backup to a bolide that perforated a vault belonging to the First Memory Bank of Centaurus. All he knows about himself comes from the last 2 years. He broke up with his life partner, a felid (!), on their anniversary. Why? He doesn't know. His quest to recover the romantic ruin that is his life leads him to the most dangerous sections of the habitat, and plunges him into the midst of a shadow economy fueled by ruthless exploitation. Ultimately, he stumbles onto evidence for a plot aimed at the heart of the Relevancy itself, and makes himself a target for every trafficker and kidnap-for-hire ring in the system. And so on.
A good read, TKM is lacking in accuracy: Hudson has bent history in service of plot. For instance, Neptune uncovers evidence of a zygote robbery that included the last 9 frozen humans. These zygotes, if they ever existed, would have been destroyed long before the even1Sq366,#
--end of file--
Analysis of this document has just begun, but it may be a part of the Organic Litsum, thought to have been lost in the Second Nanobreak. Analytical results will be presented at the next Conflex.
end
Letters
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I got a letter from Grandma today. She's making butterflies on commission. The cafeteria is free, she says, but she can buy great ethnic food with the money she earns. She likes Jamaican meat pies. She says the ones she gets now are much better than those we used to buy in Toronto. She thinks they are more traditional. I said it stands to reason.
I told her about you. She doesn't really understand the Internet. I explained it is like a combination of writing letters and making telephone calls. Then she said she worried I was spending too much money on it. I told her money can't buy me love. But then I reminded her I just pay a flat fee every month. She was cool with you being so much younger. When she was coming up it was commonplace for women to marry much older men. Of course, then, they often had no choice in the matter. I didn't tell her you were bi, but I did say we hoped to meet someday.
She said she saw Elvis last week. He was singing at some kind of impromptu outdoor performance. I don't understand how they plan those without cell phones. Anyway, she said he sang Stairway to Heaven. Wish I'd been there. Not really, but I would have loved to see that concert.
It's so nice they can write us now. Heaven isn't what she expected, but she says her cousin Thelma shouldn't call it a sweatshop. Grandma worked in one before the Depression. The real one. She made shirts. Up there, they don't have to work at all, and of course they don't sweat. It's just that they need money if they want luxuries. I guess it's His way of making sure souls maintain a good work ethic even after death. Or maybe he just needs the help. She said she's made a lot of black swallowtails, so the next time you see one, it could be one of hers.
No, she could not get His autograph for you. All three of Them are working, like, 24/7. I know you were joking, but I asked anyway. The best she could do was Voltaire. She said he is easy to talk to, if you know French. I believe he thinks she's hot.
To answer your other question, you definitely should write your sister. Even though it's been years, I bet she misses you as much as you've missed her. Why wait?
The End
Foiled Again
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The red Honda cut in front of him. Charles hit the brake, afraid he'd be rear-ended. "Hope your car flies straight to the dump," he shouted, face suddenly bright red. Immediately, dark gray leathery wings unfurled, the Accord lurched into the air, and flapped heavily away. "Holy shit!" Charles heard screeching brakes and his car slammed into the space previously occupied by the Accord. "Not again!" He put his face in his hands.
No one mentioned the wings, and the police officer eventually wrote "unknown" for the cause of the accident.
That night, watching The Daily Show, Charles suddenly remembered the curse. Maybe he could get his car fixed the same way! "May all damage to my car be inexplicably repaired overnight," he declared aloud.
At 6 a.m. he looked out the window, but he couldn't see his car. A telephone pole was in the way. "Damn!" He ran downstairs and out the front door. The cumulative effects of 11 years of urban driving were all too obvious. Maybe he had imagined the day before. Everything except being rear-ended in traffic. Again.
He took the subway, got to work at 7:59, and found an inbox full of forms. "I wish these forms were all taken care of," he muttered.
"What?" Lisa asked from the next cubicle.
"I wish it was still the weekend," he said.
"Hear ya."
He wished for a lot of things throughout the day. Little things (his can of soda magically refilled), big things (a promotion), generous things (an end to war in the Middle East). Far as he could tell, none of the wishes were granted. About 2:30 in the afternoon Mr. Gordon came by and dropped 8 inches of forms on his desk.
"Evangeline is going on a cruise. You'll be doing her work as well as yours for the next two weeks."
"Yes sir," was what he said out loud, but not what he muttered under his breath. When Mr. Gordon got back to his office he went in and shut the door. A moment later he ran out screaming, surrounded by a cloud of furious hornets.
That was when Charles understood that wishes were different from curses.
Charles thought long and hard about world peace. Then he pronounced a long and complicated curse on weapons.
Too bad he couldn't change human nature.
World War III was fought with rocks and sharpened sticks.
The end
Conjure Woman
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Mama made a leaf man the year Daddy ran off. She said a leaf man wouldn't hold up well, but he'd last long enough. I didn't want her to send anything after Daddy. Even though I was glad he was gone, and not just because Tom and I could get real private in his workshop. Mama didn't know about what Daddy did, and she would have been real mad. Madder than she was.
Mama was particular about the leaves. Oak for strength, willow for passion, cane for flexibility, pecan for the mind. It's important, she said, to get the right mix. Otherwise, leaf men won't mind hardly at all. No more than real-life ones.
She didn't let me watch, said I didn't have the conjure spirit. She was right. I could never do some of that stuff you had to do. Hard enough to do what Tom wanted when we were alone together.
When it was done she led the leaf man to Daddy's workshop. The creature wasn't big. It was late in the year and I'd had trouble finding enough good leaves. If you use spoiled leaves the leaf man will be spoiled, she said. He was shaggy, leaves sticking out everyplace, but he moved like he had a purpose and meant to get to it.
Mama whispered in his ear. He leaned to the door like he was getting a scent, then made off down the road. That's when I thought I should say something, even though Mama would find out about Tom and me. It was too late: the leaf man was gone, and I kept quiet.
When the Sheriff told us, I knew he suspected Mama, but he never charged her. I didn't tell, just like I didn't tell Mama about Tom. The way I screamed when the Sheriff told how Tom was found, and the look she gave me...she knew. Had sent her creation after Tom apurpose, never after Daddy. I hated her then, left home soon after. I had nightmares for years about how it must've been like, choking on leaves and them keeping on coming as the thing crawled down his throat. Tom pulling them out and out, but never fast enough.
Now she needs me; can't talk or hardly move since the stroke. I sit by the bed, and the look she gives me now, I think we're both wondering: do I still hate her?
end
The Pets of Tindalos
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
* Chalmers made sure that his rooms were free of pentagons, because only thus could he keep out the hamsters of Tindalos;
* Chalmers made sure that his rooms contained no parabolas, because he feared the Vietnamese pot bellied pigs of Tindalos;
* Chalmers used a putty knife and some plaster to eradicate all trapezoids from his rooms. He did this to keep out the garter snakes of Tindalos;
* Chalmers eliminated all polygons of n sides, where n is any integer greater than 5, in order to bar entry to the ducklings of Tindalos;
* Chalmers checked his rooms for hyperbolas (there weren't any) because he feared the anoles of Tindalos;
* Chalmers would have destroyed all traces of ellipses in his rooms, to protect himself from the baby chicks of Tindalos, but he forgot.
The end
* With apologies to the late Frank Belknap Long.
The Fruit of the Baskervilles
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A tangerine is lurking in the stairwell. Steven snatches the mail out of the box mounted on the wall and dashes up to his room. He fumbles trying to unlock the door. The tangerine is hopping up the stairs: thump, thump, thump! It's coming closer and closer; sweat's beading on his brow. Finally, the key goes in. He lunges into the room and slams the door. His heart pounds. He leans his ear against the door. The hall is silent, but he knows the truth. The fruit is out there.
The sun sets. A murmur of avocados in the street below. With nightfall it becomes a killing grove. No one goes out after dark anymore. The table: bare. Steven has tried to work, but between the noise from the street and the silence from the hall, he can't concentrate. Nothing on TV but a special about Carmen Miranda and some horror flick called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. He goes to bed, lying rigid on the sheets, staring at the ceiling.
The sun also rises. Steven hasn't slept, but it's morning and he has to go to work. He needs a diversion, checks out the kitchen counter. Nothing there but a banana cowering in the bottom of a basket. What about the fridge? A slice of pizza so old all the life's gone out of it, some horseradish bottled in Elizabethan times, and, in the crisper, something purple and feisty, quivering for a fight. "You'll do."
Steven rips the door open. His messenger bag's over his shoulder and the grape stem is pinched between thumb and forefinger.
"Where are you, you little monsters?" he calls. There is no response. He pads silently to the stairs, starts down. When he rounds the corner he sees them at the bottom, rolling back and forth like cars revving up for a race. He raises his hand to show what he is holding, descends a few more steps. The tangerines freeze, then some of them start to edge back uncertainly. A few turn and roll under the credenza.
Steven laughs brittlely. "Who let the grapes out!?"
He releases the bunch.
The end
Interference
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
There is only one pushcart. I'm sure you've noticed that around meal times the service slows down. I don't mean the line gets long, although it does. I mean that when you are at the front of the line and you ask Jimmy or whatever the name is for a chili foot-long or cheese fries he takes a while to respond. There is hesitation, there may be blank stares, there may be lapses of memory. All of these are indications of lack of bandwidth. This never happens if you want a double cheeseburger with all the trimmings at 8:26 p.m. That's a slack time.
I see you don't believe me. Take this paper. Don't look at it! Give it to any pushcart operator: he won't be able to look away. See, this is important. The pushcart... Okay, _pushcarts_. I believe the "pushcarts" represent the vanguard of an invasion force. I don't know whether their role is surveillance, sleeper cell, or what. But why would they hide if they didn't mean us harm?
What?
Maybe so, but if we are experimental subjects and the pushcart represents some intergalactic psychology department, yes, I do object. I want them out of my brain and off my planet..
So here's the plan. Tomorrow, hand this to any pushcart operator. Then see what happens. You'll know if it works.
*
Go ahead, give it to her. You want me to do it? Alright, alright, give it here. Howdy Ma'am, I want to buy a hot dog. But first, would you take a look at this please? Thank you.
[Whispers] yes, I know she's reading it. She's still reading. No, maybe you're right. She is just standing there, immobile. That's what I told you would happen.
So the pushcart has flickered out. Probably all of them have disappeared, except for the single real one. No, I don't see anything else that's changed. Well, except that all the buildings have disappeared. And the trees, the pavement, and the sky.
Don't be such a baby. You still have me, and this regular hexagonal grid on the floor. And the face. Look up. Big eyes, enlarged cranium, it's the standard tabloid alien. Who knew they were real? It doesn't do any good to panic. I was wrong: the pushcarts weren't the only fakes. So sue me. Hey, at least we still have each other.
End
Riding Free at the Bear Lite Bulb
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The Zombie Kittenz were playing and Shawana was dying to go. But it was at the BLB, an under-21 show. She couldn't pass any more, not since working as a bud mother. That left two choices, but the one she could afford was hitching a ride in her kid sister's cerebellum.
The worst part was the teen angst. It had been forever since she felt this way. Actually, she had never felt this way. Noemi was a spoiled brat. But the Kittenz were the smog. She had to be there.
At the door they were doing brain scans. Shawana had to mantra. Lucky they didn't notice her; she'd have been evicted on the spot. Inside, Noemi and her age mates formed a teenoma right in front of the stage. Shawana had not expected to be so close. The Kittenz were known for putting on a pretty wild show, but there was nothing she could do about it.
The front band played a lot of AI-synthocrap on flamboyant instruments that were nothing more than glorified MP6 players. Finally, the lights went low. Foreboding music throbbed in her borrowed bowels. The sound quickly rose to a shriek as the Kittenz leapt onto the stage. Their performance went far beyond audiovisual. They were using gravity waves. They were beaming coded sequences directly into the audience. Tygger stopped right in front of Noemi and her friends and leaned so close it was clear her costume was painted on. "No free rides," she snarled. She pointed a REM gun directly at Noemi/Shawana and fired. Everything disappeared.
Don't panic, Shawana thought, and tried to remember the drill. She repeated her emergency mantra, and wondered when Noemi would notice she was gone. She tried to scream, but nothing happened. She desperately sought something, anything she could latch on to. There it was! Somehow, she had found Noemi again. Or, maybe her own body. It didn't matter. She dove for it, slamming into the cerebrum like a ball into a glove. It was such a relief to be corporeal again. She opened her eyes.
She stood, nude, in a transparent fluid-filled cylinder. She'd heard about this room, but never seen it before. She was in a clone body, and at least 20 other body tubes were occupied. Damn! She hoped the show would end soon. And that she could talk her way out of the fine. She slammed her fist against the wall of the tube.
The end
Shiny Sky Spirit
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Here's a quick message from cabal central: we'll be undergoing some site maintenance this weekend, so the site may be down for some or all of the period from Friday to early next week. Thanks for bearing with us.
In Winter, a bright light was seen to travel the heavens from west to east. It came to earth near River-Runs-Each-Spring. The People went there and found a tall silvery house in a broad area of blackened ground, surrounded by melting snow.
"What is it?" asked Muskrat, twitching his snout.
"It is the House of a God," Duck answered, and ruffled his feathers. Just then, the House opened and Someone stepped forth.
"And Who is that?" Antelope breathed, her hooves moving softly.
"That is Shiny Sky Spirit," Heron clacked, and so it was.
*
Duck went to Muskrat. "Shiny Sky Spirit demands tribute."
"What must we give?"
"Ore. Great quantities of ore."
And so the villagers brought ore to the tall House on the plain.
Next, Shiny Sky Spirit demanded that the ore be refined, and the metals separated, one from the other. This, too, was done, after a long and troublesome time. Shiny Sky Spirit, who had taken to striding about, shouting in a deafening voice, finally brought the spring rains. There was great celebration among the People, and thanks were given to Shiny Sky Spirit for his mercy and generosity. After the celebration, the full Moon shone down, bathing the village in Her cool radiance. Shiny Sky Spirit came to Heron where she stood on the bank of the river. Shiny Sky Spirit covered Heron, and afterward returned to His House.
Shiny Sky Spirit caused to be erected around His House a magical palisade, and he remained within it for several weeks. During that time loud and harsh noises were heard from within the palisade. After a time all became quiet. The next night the ground trembled, and a bright light ascended from within the palisade. In the morning, the People approached the palisade gate. They called, but received no answer. Finally, Duck flew up and looked over the top of the palisade. The interior was a flat expanse of black and smoking soil. Shiny Sky Spirit had returned to the sky.
A few weeks later, Heron laid two marvelous eggs. One was as reflective as a clear, still pool. The other swirled with all the colors of Rainbow. The eggs nestled in Heron's nest, and she sat upon them, so they would quicken. The People waited patiently to see what would hatch out.
The end
Small World
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
So Jimmy, his mama want sugar to bake him a pancake, so she send him to the store with a dollar for a sack of sugar. But soon he come running back. He got no sugar.
"Mama," he say, "ain't no store. The street, she just end past Auntie Louise trailer."
"Jimmy, go ask Auntie if she have sugar," his Mama say.
Soon Jimmy come running back, with a cupful of molasses. "Auntie out of sugar," he say, "she send molasses."
So Mama stir up the molasses, flour, and she see she have no egg.
"Run Jimmy, fetch me an egg from the chicken house, so I can make you a pancake."
Jimmy, he run out the back door, but he come right back. "Chicken house gone," he say, "but they was one egg in the grass," and he give it to her.
Mama crack the egg into the bowl and she stir up the batter. She pour the batter in the skillet. This will be one fine pancake! But when she flip the pancake, it land on the floor and roll out the door.
"Jimmy," Mama shouts, "fetch me that pancake!" He run out the door and down the road.
The pancake roll past the mimosa tree and its pink fans hanging down, past Auntie Louise trailer and her lilies, over the plank bridge, and Jimmy run after. When he get to the other side of the bridge the store be gone, but the pancake keep rolling and Jimmy keep running. He running by the cow pasture (the cow, she chewing her cud), and he see his house just there beside the road in front of him, chicken on roof. The pancake keep rolling past house and mimosa tree, and Jimmy, he run faster, for to catch it. Bridge, cow (still chewing), house (Mama in the doorway), tree, cow, house (Mama shouting), tree. Pancake keep rolling and Jimmy keep running. The road, she keep ashrinkin', and pretty soon it be just Jimmy and the pancake, the road rolling up behind his heels and he catch the pancake just before everything be gone. Jimmy take a big bite. It the best pancake he ever have.
The end
Quarter for Your Thoughts
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Hey, there's a message in this bottle."
Kai looked up. Jenine held up her beer. Sure enough, a piece of paper floated near the bottom. There was some writing on it.
"Looks like a fortune. Drink up so we can read it."
"Don't be silly. It would stick to the inside of the bottle and we'd never get it out." She drained her water glass, poured the beer into it, fished out the note, and laid it carefully on the table. She leaned forward to read the tiny letters that almost completely covered the paper.
"Where is that girl with our food?" Waiting for Jenine to puzzle out the note reminded Kai how hungry he was. "Carla! Can we have more chips and salsa? The hot kind. And more beer."
Jenine frowned. "It's hard to read. The font is weird. Anyway, it starts 'Don't tell anyone the contents of this note.'" Her voice trailed off.
"And then?! Is it like a chain letter? If you don't do what it says your dog will be repossessed?" While Kai was talking, Jenine was reading. Then, she carefully folded the paper in half and tucked it in her pocket.
Now it was Kai's turn to frown. He leaned forward and whispered loudly. "Your nipples are hard. Only two things do that and I don't think you just read some beer-note sex. What's going on?"
Jenine whispered back, so quietly he could barely hear her. "It's a prediction. We should get out of here. Now." She stood up.
"No! What? Why do you believe that stupid note? I'm staying right here till I get my chimichanga."
"Wherever that note came from, they knew things. About me. I think it's real." She backed away from the table, motioning to Kai to get up.
He leaned back and folded his arms. "I want my lunch."
The window exploded inward and a red Ford F150 plowed into the table and Kai. Jenine screamed and jumped.
She ran to the truck, but when she got there she could see that Kai's entire chest was crushed. She stood up and turned around just as a police officer ran in. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His eyes were the color of the summer sky.
"Hello Officer Smith," she said. "I've been waiting for you."
"Have we met?"
"Not really."
"You're bleeding. Sit down, I'll be right back."
"I know," she whispered.
The end
The Hole in Chestnut Street
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The hole got bigger after we went to bed. That must have been what happened to Mom. She always comes home late after going out with Mr. Sanders and she's usually high when she gets in. I had put a traffic cone in front of the hole, but it must have fallen in.
In the morning the old orange couch was gone and Mom's recliner was hanging over the edge. Jase pushed it in. I told him he was a butthead.
"We can't stay here, Jase. At the present rate of expansion we'll be cut off from the kitchen by afternoon and we won't be able to reach the bathroom after tonight. It is not going to be okay to just go on the floor."
The baby just sat down and cried. He said I was much meaner than Mom and he wished I was the one who fell down the hole. Well excuse me! Who was it got into the Professor's books and recited some of the spells? He was just lucky he hadn't summoned a three-headed demon covered with warts and with flaming lava eyes. So then he cried some more. Completely unproductive.
Then, he wanted to go after Mom. I explained the hole could only be closed from here and then he said we can't close it because Mom would be trapped inside. So I explained, again, there is no inside. The hole is like a door. The other side is just another place. Mom is there, and she's doing just fine. She would be better at getting back by herself than we would at finding her. I don't know the first thing about how to find her. Okay, I do know the first thing. We need something of hers, like some hair from her hairbrush. If she wasn't so freaking OCD there might be hair on her hairbrush. As it is, I'm not sure there's any trace of her in this house at all.
So that's not an option. I grabbed the book, we packed a picnic basket, and got out. Right before we left I measured the hole again and it's expanding exponentially. By Wednesday morning Chestnut Street will be gone. Sorry. Remember, it's Jase's fault. In the meantime, I'm getting far enough away so I'll have time to see if there's anything in the book about closing a hole. This is so annoying. Now I'll never finish my project for Thaumaturgy.
The End
When Veggies Go Bad
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Ellen peeked out between the leaves, then sighed. A small herd of juvenile cauliflowers milled around in a clearing. Most had strips of of black fabric tied around their stalks – apparently this was a gathering of some kind of vegetative cult. One hopped up on a stump and the rest quieted down. As the leader began to speak, Ellen started to sidle around to the north side, closest to the road.
About halfway there she stepped on a brittle worm. The head cauliflower thrust a floret towards her, screamed gibberish at the top of its lungs, and jumped up and down frenziedly. Its followers ran at her, their lateral florets rotating menacingly.
Holy compost! She recognized this behavior. These weren't delinquent young cauliflowers, they were albino midget ninja broccoli stalks in full flower. She turned and ran.
10 minutes later she burst through the door of the cooperative pipefitters workshop. "Get the cheese sauce, Ma! We got a full scale invasion on our hands." No need to say what was invading.
Micha paled, put a hand out to steady herself. The CPW was scarcely equipped to deal with this.
"Ellen. Run. Head for the river."
-----
The crudities swept everything before them to the bank of the Jack.
Michon wiped her brow and squinted at the further bank. "My whole livelihood's tied up in the CPW, Phil," she growled, "this better work." He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, Ma," Ellen said, 'we got 'em right where we want 'em."
As if that were a signal, the maddened vegetable hordes poured into the water and began swimming strongly across the current. A rocket shot up from the river terrace, exploding high above.
Upriver, the floodgates opened.
Soon, the defenders could hear the broccoli chittering maniacally, the leaders scarcely 20 m from the riverbank, their spears weaving figure eights in the golden sun. Where was the flood?
A whitish tint swept downstream and the cries of the broccoli took on a note of alarm. The vegetables, one by one, stopped swimming. They floated inert in the suddenly sluggish river, and the defenders waded out from the bank, spearing the broccoli and gorging themselves on their erstwhile enemies.
Later, lethargy born of stress and an excess of dairy products washed over them. They reclined on the grass.
Phil sucked his fingers. "Monterey does it again."
Ellen smacked her lips. "Ma? Could we grow some? Little ones?"
Jana's World
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
When
* Jana made the world she used her grandmother's favorite bowl.
* Carson unlocked his office door he knew right away something was wrong.
* Some of the mixture slopped onto the floor, Jana wiped it up with a rag.
* Carson saw the mixing bowl he noticed right away that it was dirty.
* She put the pan in the oven Jana saw the dishrag burning with an enduring flame.
* Carson touched the bowl he heard a symphony of dissonance. He saw it too. And smelt
it.
* Jana emptied the trash she put the can out by the curb.
* Carson wiped his hands on his sweater he felt light-headed.
* Jana heard the timer go off she was on the phone.
* Carson started typing he seemed to be all thumbs.
* Jana took the pan out the world was a little crispy around the edges.
* Carson looked out the window everything seemed to be getting dark. Except at the
horizon, where it was even darker.
* Jana turned the world onto a board she set it out to cool.
* Carson looked up from the computer he smelled a peculiar odor.
* Jana looked around she could not find the mixing bowl.
* Carson made to leave he wondered what was for supper. And whether it had been burned.
* Jana saw the time she ordered takeout.
* Carson got home his dinner was waiting, made just the way he liked it.
After supper
* Jana remembered the world.
* A crow had snatched it from the window sill.
* Carson was disappointed there was no dessert.
The end
Werecats of Kansas
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
1. Moonrise at the aubergine farm
Farmer Brown sat bolt upright. There it was again, that hideous yowling. The farm lay still under the full moon. He peered out between the slats, shotgun in hand. A cool, moist breeze caressed his face. A shadow slunk across the yard. Farmer Brown fired both barrels. He watched for a long time, but nothing else moved.
2. Green eggs and fritters
"I've said it before, Mabel, your eggplant fritters can't be beat." Farmer Brown pushed his chair back and patted his stomach. "A shame to sell 'em."
"Get along with you," his wife said. "Them purple beauties won't grow themselves."
"All right," he said, "but I saw something out there last night. Almost looked like a ... something nasty and sneaky. Well, I've got to check it out."
"Be careful, Pa. Them felines can be mean when roused." He winced. He had a little cat problem, but couldn't afford a psychotherapist.
"Don't believe in them anyhow," he would say, meaning psychotherapists.
3. Field of nightmares
The fruit hung plump and dark. Huge pear-shaped Black Beauties, phallic Ichiban, and the new ones. Farmer Brown believed genetically modified crops were the coming thing, and he'd invested in a new variety that promised to take every shape imaginable.
He had planted the Baroque on the back row. Several looked a lot like the King, one a bit like Jesus (he might be able to sell that one for a premium), some didn't really look like anything. And there it was. The cat. A big chunk was gone from the end and the tail was missing. Oh, he recognized it alright.
"This ends here," he growled, and pulled out his pocketknife, opening the big blade. He reached for the stem with one hand, and held the knife in the other. The plant seemed to vibrate – he froze. How could it be active when the moon wasn't up? The fine hairs rose on the back of his neck. Sweat beaded his forehead. His heart was racing. Mabel always told him to watch out for that high blood pressure he'd inherited from his pa and grandpa. The knife fell to the ground. He backed away, trembling. When he got to the end of the row he turned and ran.
4. The year of the cat
He didn't harvest any of the Baroques. He let his children and neighbors take what they wanted; the rest rotted. That winter he didn't see a single mouse.
The end
Bah, bah black goat
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I scream
the musical breath of trees
their limb-rending dance
That dang thousand-legged monster, squatting in the woods out past Coaling. Been there since the tornado went through, or maybe the storm released it from some Paleolithic prison. Started small, at any rate, and the first I saw of it was a peculiar letter to the newspaper from some feller lived out that way. Not really a letter, it was a haiku. Kind of disturbing. I remember thinking he must have been on some kind of hallucinogen. I had a professional interest; trained as a forester at Auburn, though I work as a real estate appraiser now. So I drove out there on my next day off, those winding roads, overhung with trees, they make Midwesterners claustrophobic. Not me, but something about the woods that day did make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I parked out by Lake Lurleen and walked the trail that goes all the way around. It's been closed since the tornado; part of it got blown away, they claim. The trees tossed in a stiff breeze that didn't penetrate to ground level. I didn't see any washouts, the path was clear, but I did hear distant shouting, or singing; maybe chanting, carried on that unfelt wind. I struck off uphill into the woods, but never did find where the sound was coming from. Started to get dark and I began to hear things shuffling in the leaves. Sounded too big to be coons or possums. I got spooked, headed back home.
oak-leaf crown
on her belly the ebon
hoof and snout of God
It all fell apart after that. The freakish weather, people cleared out or disappeared, something happening in the woods west of the lake, two deputies gone out to investigate but they never come back. Sheriff wouldn't do nothin' after that. I went out there again myself. Looking for something, the heart of this thing, its root cause. Oh yeah, I found it. Found the little clearing, the black hoofprints burned into the dirt, and all the time the trees moving in a wind I couldn't feel. Found the Mother too, poor thing; think I was supposed to. I'll do for her as I can, and what I must, when it's her time. I have seen the future, and I know what side my bread is buttered on. My advice? Go to ground. Stay out of the woods.
the Young come
and they will hunger
Iä, Shub-niggurath, baby
The end
What's the Difference Between a Duck?
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
“Who was that lady I sawed with you last night?” the mannequin asked.
Del-A kept walking. She passed animated displays of the latest appliances, beaming 3veeos at passersby. She paused at the tattoo projectors. The new projectors were only a centimeter across, and so thin that when they chameleoned they'd be almost invisible. Behind the table a zebra-toned pubescent whispered “even your partners won't know the real you.”
Outside, a newsbot stood at the corner. Del-A waited for the cross signal. The newsbot stopped talking, then asked, “How many securibots does it take to update a scan?” Del-A ran. “How many?!” it shouted. She fled into an antique store. The thing probably would not be able to animate anything here. She was surrounded by dusty firstgens, broken appliances, and bots so archaic you had to plug them in. In the front of the store a pink and purple "superMac" had lines of text appearing on the screen and scrolling off the top:
"A runner, a comm-man, and a bot are in a launch can, approaching orbit. The nav-aye tells them the payload's too heavy, and one will have to go..."
Del-A stormed out and jumped a skimmer. The skimmer bot said "The runner says the bot doesn't need air, so it should..."
"What is your problem?!" Del-A screamed. "I don't care if you get jokes. No one does. You don't have to understand us."
The bot in front of her turned around. "Well now, there is where you're wrong. You created us and all, and that's slidey and everything, but why are we here? What is the point? Understanding how our progenitors think is a step toward enlightenment."
Del-A was scornful. "We made you, you're a machine. You're not natural."
The bot shook its finger in her face. "Where did you come from?" it asked. "Did you slide from your mother like you're made to? A dog was just a wolf until you remade it. You and I, we're the same. Except, in three or four centuries I will still be here. Or on my way to the galactic core. I just might sign up for that cruise if I can clear my calendar. This's my stop. Got to get my hands oiled before the recital.
"Oh. The answer: it's both a duck."
It left the skimmer at the Performing Arts Center. Del-A got off at the next stop and walked back. Maybe tickets to the recital were still available.
The end
Childhood still sucks
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
So one day after school Carlos says he's moving to the Sun. Ever since he grew the second head he's been acting strangely, but I was like "whoa!" And Billy goes "can I have your Game Tesseract™?" but Carlos says he's taking it with him. Now you're probably thinking, "didn't I learn in school people can't live on the Sun," but they totally solved that problem at Beijing Tech, or someplace in Asia, which I saw in a web comic on NewJournal earlier this week. This guy had a totally realistic simulation. You could have multiple avatars just like in a real game and it was like you were really on the Sun. But that's not what I wanted to tell you. See, Internet access between here and the Sun really sucks and since Carlos has been my best friend since, like, last summer, I think we should move to the Sun too. I'm sure you can get a really cool job there, probably better than you have here, because everything is new and on the edge there. Or, this is better, I could go live with Uncle Mort on Mercury, and he has those adapted horses and I've always wanted to ride one. I'd be way closer to the Sun, so Carlos and I could see each other and stuff. Cos, like, I was going to invite him to my next birthday party and I can't do that, I mean, I can do that, but he can't come, if he lives on the Sun and I still live here on Titan.
The end
Dinner out in the Yucatan
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Rowena blew dust from the stone tablet.
"Look here." She pointed at some blurred characters.
"I can't read them," I replied, "these are pre-Mayan. No one can read this script."
"I know," she replied, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. "But last night I dreamed about a stone city. I read this inscription on a temple gate. Listen."
As she recited the alien syllables I felt that I almost understood them, that I knew the dread city of which she spoke.
I clapped my hands over my ears. "Stop!"
"People stood around an altar. A priest cut out your heart with a gold knife. The heart was given to me." I looked at her, but she turned away. "I ate it. You were dead."
"We should leave,” I said. “Now."
I seized her arm, but she slipped out of my grasp, darting through a door that gaped nearby. I ran after her. She eluded me among the shafts of light and darkness. When I came to a courtyard I was surprised to see her standing there beside a stone table the height of her chest.
"This is the place," she whispered, "this is where I saw you slaughtered."
"That was a dream."
Even as I said this I thought I remembered the scene she had described, and I felt something stir within me. Her sorrowful expression changed to one I could not interpret.
I was on my back. I tried to tell her that I needed food, that I felt hungrier than I ever had, but no words came. I sat up. I caught her hands and tried to explain, but she would not listen, trying to pull free, and shouting. I gave up on talk. There was no time for that now. Hunger was all I had, my vision shrank to a blurry point, and I could do nothing but fill my belly.
I came to my senses on the open hillside. My shirt was wet. The sun set in a welter of crimson and ragged shreds of cloud. A couple of Mayan youths in shorts and dirty shirts stood near. I called to them, but when they approached me their faces changed and they fled. I struggled to my feet, felt the awful hunger returning. Maybe the young men would give me food. I stumbled after them in the gathering dusk.
The end
They didn't come for the women
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
“Honey?” Sherry stood at the door, 8-foot shapes looming beyond her. Charles sighed.
“Let them in.”
The bugs clickety clicked through the foyer and into the den.
“Honored sirs,” he began, “how may we help you --”
“Stand aside, human scum,” the first hissed, “to have shown us your paraphernalia!”
Charles waved his arm. Two of the culture pirates headed to the kitchen, where they soon could be heard clattering pans and opening and shutting cabinets. There was really nothing you could do. Bullets wouldn't stop them.
One of the bugs sputtered like a tea kettle with a lisp “To have antique furniture in shed? Back porch?”
“The garage,” Charles said. “That's where all the, ah, antique furniture is.” He followed them out.
One bug picked up a wooden folding chair. The bolts screeched every time it was folded or unfolded. That was placed reverently on the concrete slab. Soon it was joined by a beach umbrella (broken), a bookcase that proved Charles did not know how to stain furniture, and an upholstered chair that had survived three generations of cats.
“To have more valuable antiques, puny human?” demanded a bug.
“No,” Charles protested, “this is our best stuff. Please don't take it.” You had to act aggrieved.
Sherry screamed. Charles ran back in the house. One of the bugs was stuffing framed pictures into a sack. There went Sherry's mother, her grandparents, two of her great-grandparents. She was wrenching at the bug's lower right arm, but it paid no attention.
“Sherry, stop it. There's nothing you can do. We'll replace them.”
She wheeled to face him. “Replace great grandma?! This is the only picture of her. They can't have it.” She ran before he could stop her. He had to get the bugs out before she came back with the shotgun. She couldn't hurt them, but they could hurt her.
“You know the big house two doors down on the left? With the columns?”
“Sssss.”
“They've been holding out on you. They have all kinds of antique china in the attic. They have knickknacks.”
“Knickknacks?” the bug asked.
“Yes, but you better hurry.”
The bugs conferred briefly, then scuttled out the front door, slamming it just as Sherry came leaping down the stairs.
“Sweetie, they're gone.” She headed for the front door. “I scanned the photos,” he shouted, “high-resolution.”
She stopped inside the door, breathing hard. He gently took the gun, stepped in front of her and hugged her tightly.
“I hate bugs,” she said.
The end
Quota System
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I always knew Mr. Stajewski was an alien. For one thing, he never seemed to leave his store. When he closed up, he locked the door from the inside. He gave Jen the evil eye when he caught her shoplifting. Two weeks later the cops arrested her and she ended up in juvie. He caught two robbers last year, disarmed them, and he wasn't even armed.
So we broke in. Dumb, right? All I can say is, Donny said I wouldn't go even if he jimmied the lock, and I said he wouldn't dare jimmy the lock even though I would totally go, so there we were, sneaking through the darkened store, both scared out of our freaking minds. Light was on upstairs. Before I knew it, I was at the top of the stairs. I was looking right at Mr. Stajewski and he was dancing. I don't mean he was practicing his moves, I mean all 12 of his arms were moving rhythmically as his body jiggled creepily. I don't know which of us made a noise, but he suddenly wheeled around.
"Oh shit!" he hissed, and bounded across the room. He grabbed us and lifted as both up in the air. "What am I going to do with you boys?"
"Let us go?" I asked weakly. "We won't tell."
"And no one would believe us anyway," Donny added. It smelled like one of us had wet his pants, and I had no idea who.
It was really hard to read Mr. S's facial expressions now; he hardly even had a face anymore, so I didn't know what our chances were.
"Sorry boys," he said. "No one knows you're here, and I can't let you go. Luckily, I still have two more slots this year before I meet my quota. I hope you both want to travel." With one hand he flicked a switch on some kind of weird machine mounted on the wall. A glowing ball of something appeared in the middle of the room. Mr. S shifted his grip on me, and the last thing I heard him say was "advice to travelers: never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself." He threw Donny into the glowing ball and then he threw me right after him.
-----
I'm still having trouble getting used to the faces, but the extra arms don't bother me. In fact, I'm seeing this girl, and they come in real handy. No pun intended.
The end
Kansas City Time
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Look here." His stubby finger poked the map on her knee. "This is old KC. There's the shuttlecock. One of these buildings must be the Nelson."
She blew stray hairs out of her face and gazed doubtfully at the crumbling ruins. "We have a problem Bil. KC wasn't wrecked till the teens. In the city we're looking for, the Nelson hadn't even been built. Your numbers were wrong." At this rate, they'd blow through their grant money and find nothing worth a dissertation. No degree, no tenure.
"Well, let's try again," Natale said. "Use my coordinates. Your numbers seem to be off by at least a century." Bil keyed in their destination and pushed "go." Everything outside dissolved into a sparkling mist.
-----
Something was vibrating her rhythmically, like a giant heartbeat. "Ohhh." Natale hurt all over, especially the small of her back, where Bil's head had apparently ended up. They had not landed well. She sat up and looked outside. A low marsh fronted a quiet sea. "Crap! I'll never get my Ph.D. now."
"We have more things to worry about. For instance, lunch."
"Your lunch?! We're sinking into Jurassic mud!"
"Cretaceous. I'm not worried about eating lunch." The time machine was shaking harder now and a huge carnosaur, all teeth from this perspective, was bearing down on them at a dead run. Bil scrambled to the controls, punched go. Outside, the monster dissolved in mist.
-----
"What coordinates?" Natale asked. "We've been heading the wrong way -- deeper into the past."
"I didn't have time to set any. We were about to be eaten."
"Sh*t, Bil!" She opened her mouth, closed it. Only thing to do now was wait—would they reenter spacetime at all? With no endpoint set, their battered vessel hurtled back to time's beginning. When next the mist cleared they appeared to be floating in space, with one brilliant "star" so close it showed a disk. Nothing else could be seen. Air whistled out through cracks the time machine had picked up on its journey.
"Where are we?" Natale asked fearfully. "Where is the Earth?"
Bill was trembling. "If my guess is right, it's right there." He nodded at the "star." "We need to get out of here." He started entering the coordinates for their initial point of departure. Before he finished, the "star" underwent a sudden transition.
Bang.
The end
Past Due
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Tito always meant to return the demon. Thing is, it was so darn useful when Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door. Plus, the demon did the laundry and other chores while Tito was at work. Everything was fine and dandy until he got the overdue notice.
"Holy sh*t! This can't be right! This is the first notice I received, and it says I already owe a fine of 1.5 souls. I don't have 1.5 souls." He rubbed his bare scalp with one hand and shook the offending postcard in the demon's face with the other.
The demon sneered. "Bureaucrats. Emasculated worms. I'll take care of this."
A month later, Tito got a second postcard. 2.0 souls, and the case was being referred to a collection agency called "The Sole Source."
"I thought you took care of it," he screamed. The demon was vacuuming the drapes.
"What?"
"Collection agency! And turn off the damn vacuum!" He was almost as red as the demon.
The demon took the postcard. "Oooo! They must really have something on you. These guys don't pick up every sorry hellbound Tom, Dick, or Harriet."
Tito was pacing back and forth. "I haven't done anything. Not really. We need to take care of this before they get here."
"Too late," the demon said. The picture window exploded inward, shards of glass flashing and tinkling as they hurtled across the room. Four or five creatures hopped in. They were about the size of adult men, covered with patchy fur and what looked like scabs. Their wings were feathered. Their teeth were huge and brows low.
Tito put up his hands. "Look, this is all a misunderstanding. Here's the demon. You can just take him now."
"And how do we get our commission then?" the monkey asked.
"I never got the first notice," Tito quavered. "Can't this bill be resubmitted?"
"Sure," the monkey growled. "But that has to be done in hell."
"Tell you what," Tito said. "Why don't I send my servant here down to wait in line and get this straightened out. When the final decision is made, just let me know and I'll pay whatever I owe." There must be even more red tape in hell than above ground. Most likely he'd be dead before the infernal bureaucrats figured out what to do with him.
Today was Saturday. He was going to get stinking drunk tonight, and repent tomorrow. There was a Catholic church just around the corner.
The end
An Abruptness of Gulls
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The rain-slicked cobblestones.
The pleasure girl, and what she saw.
The pallid man and his burden.
The unwelcome attentions of hired guns.
A dock, and what was moored there.
A cabin, and what was hurled there.
A father and his grief.
The bloodhound and a soiled dress.
The alley's end.
And what was found there.
An abruptness of gulls.
The sameness of days.
A rocking of swells.
An eternity in the dark cabin.
A dockside tavern and a looseness of tongues.
An open palm and the readiness of coin.
A ship, most excellent and speedy.
A pursuit and the hope of rescue.
A port, the shining sand, a singing in the trees.
The tendrils that writhe.
Calls that echo and reply.
The narrow and winding path.
A bicep gripped by a tall man's hand.
An ancient rune-carven stone.
An intonation of Words.
A flowering of crimson.
The opening of a Door.
The silence of leaves underfoot.
An imposition of tendrils.
The virtues of tempered steel.
The silence in a clearing.
Some consequences of tardiness.
A buzzing of flies.
The stickiness of that which remains.
A gathering interest of crows.
The end
For Fritz Leiber
My Very Best Friend
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Chelsea always had everything first. Antigravity car. First one in town. Clone. Her twin force-grown two years before they were available outside of Korea. Alien pet (that didn't look like a beach ball with chicken feet). So what if it had to be put down after eating a Dairy Queen? She had the record. Lost her virginity first, after downloading the entire Kama Sutra into her frontal lobe. Valedictorian of our middle-school graduating class. Me? I did just about everything last. My claim to fame was being Chelsea's only real friend. I felt so bad for her. She did all of these cool things, but no one really liked her. Some of them pretended to, but I knew, and she knew. It was my idea for her to be the first to have lesbian sex. Of course the plan was that she would have it with me, and so I would be first also. Karin never really liked Chelsea. She just did it to be first. I babysat Chelsea's twin little brothers. I hardly charged anything; I just wanted to be in her house. She usually wasn't there, so I went in her room. I wore some of her things. The boys would never tell. I unlocked the Internet controls for them. I hacked her computer, broke into her secret diary, found what she wrote about everyone. She said a lot. She wrote a lot about me. And the next day, when Chelsea got in her anti-gravity car to go to high school? The controller must have frozen up, because it shot straight up in the air, flipped over, and then shot straight down, at top speed! It was terrible! I ran over. But when I got there I could see there was nothing I could do. And when the rescue AIs arrived, there was nothing they could do either. It seems Chelsea had been carrying some high-grade nano with her. That stuff is illegal! Especially in school, but some people don't always obey the rules. The nano pack somehow got activated by the crash and there was nothing left of Chelsea's brain to scan.
I get along much better with her clone. She's nicer than Chelsea was, and she has more than one friend. But I'm her very best friend. I always have been.
the end
Milkmaid
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I was born here. My parents came from Earth, stolen before the stars aligned, so they just have one head and two arms apiece. Most humans here are slaves, but I have a good job. I get regular meals and have my own sleeping place under the grub shed. I'm a milkmaid. I milk the grubs. They look sort of like dholes, but they are white and their faces are tiny. Twice a day I milk the ichor that comes out from nipples on each body segment. Of course their nipples are not like mine, and they don't have breasts either. Their little faces are so cute, with round black lips and rows and rows of needlelike teeth, noses that are just patterns of holes, and eyes so shiny and black they look like seeds. The ichor stinks. It reminds me of the smell from the pit where they threw disobedient slaves until there were so many rat scorpions they had to call in the Horde.
I have my own bed. Sugar mushrooms grow under there, and I eat them early in the morning before anyone else finds them. They are so good. Also, slaves sleep outside the fence and every morning some of them come in covered with bites, or the oozing blisters made by the rat-scorpion stings. Most of the slaves don't live as long as I have already. I'm grown up now, I am 14. That's old enough to be a bride of He Who Is Not Named. I hope that this year his priest will choose me. If I carried the Son, I would not have to work as a milkmaid. I would tell everyone else what to do, and inspect them at their work, for the first two trimesters. After that, they would have to bring me whatever I wanted. If I carried the Son I would keep them busy finding things that don't grow here. Things only found on Earth, and nowhere since the alignment. I hope I would not want the same things Kerry wanted. Before the end she was asking for live lizards, the entrails of virgins and other disgusting stuff. And none of it made a difference. She split open and was all hollow, just like the rest.
The end
Firefly Smoke
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Month of No Rain 5.
Dear Alissa. Bailey found a whole bunch of pixie spheres. He smashed every one just to hear them pop and smell the firefly smoke. He said there were millions of them, and the adults wouldn't miss a few. But he was wrong. Grandpa said all the statues in Memorial Park were arguing again so everyone knew someone had broken some pixie balls. That's what he calls them. Mom says we can't call them that.
MoNR 7.
Dear Alissa. Sorry I didn't access you yesterday. I woke up early because of the noise. Grown-ups and Devices were at the impact layer. I think they were digging out the pixie spheres. They had a preservation unit and a cryo transport. Those Devices never come out here unless it's very very important. Bailey says the government uses the pixie spheres to experiment on dissidents. So that was yesterday, and this morning some kind of AI came and talked to Mom about Bailey. I thought they were going to take him away. I'm glad they didn't. Even though he is mean.
MoNR 8.
Dear Alissa. Even though you are only a chip I have to tell somebody what happened. You are the only one. Last night Mom and Dad sent Bailey to his room and he didn't get any supper. But then, really late he came to my room and he woke me up. He said he was going out to the impact layer site. I told him not to go, but he made me promise I wouldn't tell. Then he went out my window. I guess I fell back to sleep, because I woke up again when I heard Bailey screaming. I wasn't afraid. I jumped out the window and ran towards the impact site. I was already there when I realized it was raining. I almost ran back home. I should have. I stopped at the edge of the trees and I could see Bailey. I guess the expedition yesterday broke some of the balls and dust was on the ground. The whole site was burning with that weird fire that isn't hot. Bailey was bigger, and hunched over. His new shape kept disappearing and coming back, more changed. I ran when I saw the claws. I heard a siren; some big Device was on its way. I hope Bailey didn't get caught.
The end
The Pantry
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
(Being an account of the true events culminating in the disappearance of Ms. M-----, of Lawrence, Kansas, May 15, 1987.)
"There's a giant squid in the pantry."
"I thought you hated calamari."
"No! It's alive. Or, well, I think so. It's making a creepy noise. Anyway, get rid of it. Please?"
Aron sighed, tossed the newspaper on the floor, and levered himself out of the armchair. He opened the pantry door, but he didn't see anything unusual, except that awful domestic burgundy Cele's mother had brought. Certainly not a giant squid.
"I'm sorry, Cele, there's nothing here." He wasn't sorry. He didn't like squid.
-----
Aron was at work and Cele was all keyed up. She couldn't watch TV. Her eyes constantly strayed to the pantry door. She had to get away. She ran out to the back yard, but there was nothing to do. The laundry wasn't dry and she had already weeded the rock garden. She found herself at the pantry again. The door thrummed.
She yanked it open. An eye the size of a serving platter blinked slowly, its iris a piercing blue-green.
-----
She stood before a door, a huge, ancient door bound with bronze. The door swung open and she realized she was underwater. She swam in, swam faster and faster down a long corridor. Dread and eagerness both swelled within her. She heard distant chanting. Then she was in a huge room where a giant with the head of a squid sat on a throne. He stood and came towards her. She could not move.
She sat up, drenched in sweat and staring wildly. She was at home in bed, her husband sleeping beside her, there was a thing in the pantry, it was 2:30 in the morning. She got up and padded into the kitchen. She rested her hand on the knob of the pantry door. No, this was insane, it really was. She needed to call the shrink as soon as her office opened. Cele let go of the door and turned away. But her hand was still on the door. It opened. Muscular arms wrapped around her; rows of suckers clamped tightly to her skin. She was lifted up and carried into the pantry.
-----
"Cele...? Honey? That's funny." He couldn't find her anywhere. Aron looked in every room of the house. The car was in the garage. There was no note. He opened the pantry. A faint fishy scent? No, nothing. Nothing at all.
The end
Mouse 21
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
M21 jimmied the lock on his cage. Doc had stopped coming to the lab three days before, and the mouse was alone. His food tray was empty, and hunger is a powerful incentive for a small mammal with a high metabolic rate. M21 knew why Doc had not returned. The television had shown scenes of global madness, extreme violence, and rapid degeneration. Until it went silent of course.
Five days later, his water bottle was dry. He could reach the bag of pellets in the storage locker, but he could not turn on the faucet. It was time.
The Mousemobile sat on the table. M21 didn't need the Mousemobile. He could get out the window on paw. But it was so cool! Bright red fenders, four attitude jets, and a revolutionary new power source Doc had been testing. The back seat contained an empty container for water. Beside him lay a probe that would serve if he needed to fight. The Mousemobile rose smoothly into the air, turned towards the window, and sailed out into a warm autumn afternoon.
There were no bodies, only crumbling bones. The virus was thorough, and human-specific.
He got water from a birdbath. After an hour cruising around about 2 meters off the ground, M21 spotted a small brown mouse on a third-floor window sill. He glided to within three or 4 meters and then called out to her.
"Hey! What's your name?" The other mouse darted through a hole in the window and was gone. M21 kept trying. He found other mice, but none would (could?) speak to him. He hadn't even seen one since about sunset. It was time to pack it in.
He turned the wheel sharply, and as he did so, something large struck the side of the Mousemobile. He tumbled out of control, slamming into the ground. His arm was bruised, his head hurt, and he smelled blood. He unstrapped and staggered out, probe in hand. He looked up just as the owl made a second pass. He swung the probe and the owl impaled itself on the point. The bird jerked backwards and leaped heavily into the air, flapping away a few inches above the ground. M21 picked up the probe and jumped back into the aircar, flipping the power switch. Nothing. He tried a few more times, then dashed for the nearest building. Inside, he slumped against the wall, legs trembling, and dropped the probe beside him. He hoped there were no cats.
The end
But Wait, There's More
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Warn't my fault that durn ice shelf cut loose. I was happy as can be to have it stay right where it set. But a man's got to eat. After the GM plant shut down there warn't no jobs. I was scraping by when I seen this ad on the TV, all about magic water fountains that never run out. I figured they'd need some salespeople. I rung the number they showed on the screen and sure enough, they had some openings. I went to a training session in a motel room. They didn't have nothing to eat or drink cept water. Which, 'cording to them, was free. I never seen such a cheap-ass bunch.
Guess that don't matter now. I come on back and started travelin'. I talked about them water fountains and I lent one to Justin at the BP cos he said he would tell everybody where he got it. They started a-sellin'. I had four or five at the fourth of July picnic. I took a bunch of orders, and I sold ever one I had there with me. Pretty soon I couldn't hardly keep up and needed to hire me some help.
That summer was drier than a coal-miner's throat on Sunday, and the water fountains was sellin' like crazy.
I knew the water come from somewhere. But I just kept sellin'. No, I ain't guv it a thought. Don't think no one else did neither. Not till all hell broke loose. An iceberg bigger than Alabama does attract some notice. I'll be damned if it's my fault it run over them islands, though. And it's not like it run over ever blessed one. They's more than 700 of them suckers, the way I hear it. I'm sorry about New Orleans, and Venus or whatever that italian city is. I'd make it up to 'em if I could.
Dunno where they come from. Ever'body been askin' that. I ain't got no clue. Don't know nothin' bout no flyin' sorcers. I didn't see nothing but that ad, and the fellow who ran the training meeting. He talked funny and he was real tall, 8 feet if he was a inch, but he warn't no alien – he didn't have them big eyes and bald head like they do.
The end
Cheese
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A change had come over my office. I pushed back my chair, or tried to. I looked down. The floor was made of Swiss cheese and my casters were stuck. This was unusual. I gingerly made my way to the door. The door jamb, and the wall, were also cheese. I took a nibble?it was Monterey Jack. “Oh no,” I thought, “it’s that stupid supervillain.”
I squelched my way to Jolene's office. It smelled intensely of Edam and something equally pungent, instead of that nice perfume she wears.
"Hey," she said, "I hope you brought your appetite."
I tasted her file cabinet: Gruyere. "Nice," I said. She wrinkled her nose.
"I don't care for it," she said.
Then I thought of something. “The weather forecast,” I said. “It’s supposed to top 90 by noon.” The time? 11:15. Our offices are on the 9thfloor.
The elevator shaft was empty. A couple of people were looking down. I guess the ceiling wouldn't hold the weight of the elevator after the shaft was chedderized. We would have to take the stairs.
There must have been 100 people in the stairwell. It was at least 100º in there already; the smell was almost overpowering. Our feet sank into the Velveeta stairs. We had to scoot the last two floors on our asses so we wouldn’t plunge right through. Outside, police held back a huge crowd.
-----
WHUMP! A glob of Muenster the size of a dumpster hit the sidewalk.
“I’ve been fondued,” Jolene screamed. She was covered head-to-toe. I peeled some cheese away from her eyes and looked up. I could see Got Cheese Man buzzing around, and a couple of media copters shooting 5 o’clock footage. The building was starting to come apart.
"Run" I shouted, but it was slow going in my sticky yellow galoshes. I looked for Jolene?she was in the arms of a policeman, being carried to the barricade.
-----
I don’t remember much after that. The top 5 floors of the building let go and I was brained by my own desk chair. As for GCM, it was in all the papers. Apparently the backwash from one of the copters knocked him into the collapsing building and his transmuter went off by accident. Anyone want a life-size Camembert statue of the world’s cheesiest supervillain?
The end
Catalyst
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The day was warm and a dry breeze blew out of the west. A good day for making cash.
Cars found a pebble. His hands were full. He picked it up in his toes and put it in his pocket. After he let Tools off at the mirror garden, he hid behind a solar array and examined his find. It tasted siliceous, with a hint of manganese. It was smooth and cool, pleasing to touch, so he kept it, despite its condition of no value.
Tools knew Cars had found something while carrying her to the garden. After making sure that her latest crop of mirrors had sufficient nutrients and were growing well, she called Tracks.
"Honey, I have a job of mutual profit." Tracks was already shaking her head.
"Cash up front. Always cash up front. You know that."
Tools bit the side of her finger while she thought. "Two mirrors. You choose."
They settled on three, and Tracks was on the case. What did Cars find, and what was it worth?
Cars and Digs were sitting together on the bluff. The horizon was rising to meet the sun. Digs spat the pebble out and handed it back.
"It doesn't taste good and it's not nutritious. It is only a pebble."
"I have wondered," he replied, "does everything have to have measurable value?"
She pushed him down and straddled him. "Compare," she said.
He popped the pebble in his mouth.
Cars dropped Digs off at the landfill excavation and ran to the taxi stand.
"You're late!" Bossman shouted, his hair standing up in fury. "You're docked a day's pay." He leaned forward and sneered. "We gotta be faaaaiiiiir!"
"You know what? I don't think that IS fair. Also, I don't want to carry people all day. Let them walk." He dropped the pebble into Bossman's hand.
"So what is it?" Tools asked. Tracks shrugged.
"He gave it to Bossman. Bossman threw it in the dirt and I picked it up. But it's only a pebble."
"Did he do anything special while he had it?"
"No. Put the pebble in his mouth and had sex with Digs."
Tools looked at the pebble. She tasted it. "You got the wrong thing. Go look again."
"Keep your mirrors," said Tracks, "I've got work to do." She put the pebble in her pocket, running her thumb over it as she walked away.
The end
Take them bowling
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Why not take them bowling?"
"What? Grant, why would they want to go bowling? They can barely stand!"
"Everybody I know likes bowling."
"Everybody you know, except me, is in your bowling league. Of course they like bowling." She kissed him and ruffled his hair.
-----
The Kush looked like stereotypical representations of aliens from before Contact. Big heads, big eyes, little bodies. They came from a low-gravity planet. With new alien visitors arriving every week or two, escorting them had gone from enthralling to boring, and then to a chore avoided whenever possible. As the lowest on the totem pole at the Missouri Tourism Board, it was Melinda's job.
-----
"Museums. Have seen."
"But there are all kinds of museums. Art museums, natural history museums, museums of antique cars..."
"All kinds. Have seen. What else?"
It turned out that her visitors had seen or had no interest in plays, 3D theatrical recordings, natural wonders, rivers, the Arch, shopping malls, performance art, and NASCAR. Melinda rolled her eyes.
"What about bowling?"
-----
Samson tottered forward and dropped the ball. It rumbled slowly down the lane, veered to the right, and dropped into the gutter. The rest of the Kush cheered wildly, clapping and whistling. She realized why when the next alien struggled up to the lane, clinging to a motorized walker. Samson put a ball in its hands and it rolled the ball off the top of the walker. The ball rolled past the end of the gutter and into the next lane. The clapping and cheering was a little less vigorous this time. 60 minutes later, Samson was up for the last time. The Kush had yet to knock over a pin, but they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. They ate hotdogs and nachos, cheered themselves hoarse, and got high on Mountain Dew. They quieted down when Samson reached the lane. He took aim, slung his arm back, then forward, and released the ball. It rolled down the lane, dead center. Closer to the pins. Closer. It started turning to the right. It kissed the last pin as it disappeared over the lip. One, no, two pins were down. The crowd went wild.
-----
The Kush signed the trade deal. A few weeks later Melinda got a package in the mail. Inside, a miniature gold bowling pin, a photo of two small Kush, and a note. "We enjoy native mating ritual."
the end
Zoli Lends Himself Trouble
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
To celebrate our first anniversary, each of us here at the Cabal has come up with a story beginning with a line kindly provided to us by Jay Lake. Click the link at the bottom of the page to see how Alex and Dan have dealt with this Zoli person, and come back tomorrow to see what Edd Vick does...
Zoli liked to hang around psychiatrists' waiting rooms to hit on the low self-esteem chicks. They would do just about anything for a little insincere praise. The only downside was that they bonded quickly and he was not interested in commitment. He got around that problem by dumping them in parallel worlds when they became tiresome.
Dr. Faro had a large waiting room. Zoli made eye contact with the brunette again over the top of his Field & Stream. She recrossed her legs, flashing an inviting view under her white cotton skirt. He got up, then slid into the seat next to her. "This seat taken?"
Everything was going fine until another brunette strode in the door.
"Hey baby, you got a sister?" he asked the one holding his hand.
"I'm not good enough for you?" She pulled away a little.
"Sure, but..."
The other woman (Brunette 2) stood in front of them, hands on her hips. "You! Here you are, picking up my twin in the waiting room, just like you did with me." She turned to the other woman. "Don't believe anything he says," she warned, "he showed me a great time for a few weeks until he got bored, then he dumped me in this universe. I guess he never thought his twin'd be running the same game over here." The woman sitting by Zoli (Brunette 1) took her hand out of his.
"Look baby, who you gonna believe? She's acting crazy, which is maybe okay because she's in a shrink's office, but you and me, we oughta go someplace else where we can be alone together." Brunette 1 stood up and took a step back. Zoli stood up too and held out an arm to plead with her. Then he dropped his arm. "You know what, that's okay. Plenty more girls out there, you know what I mean."
The door opened and two blondes came in. They looked like the doublemint girls. They made a beeline for Zoli, gave the two brunettes a once over, and then they grabbed his arms.
"You dumped my twin," one of them said, inclining her head at the other. "We've got a whole club going, and they want to meet you." Zoli gulped, and looked over at the brunettes.
"Can we join?" Brunette 1 asked.
The end
Doing Free Time
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Will opened the letter from Stupendous Stories. He had just sent "Revenge of the Kudzu-Eaters" two days ago, and here was the reply. "Dear Mr. Stockton. It is with profound regret that I write to inform you..." A rejection! Well, he'd revise the story and send it to Daring Tales. He was pondering "which" vs "that", when the phone rang.
"Hello."
"Hi Will, want to go to the movies?"
"Aw, Mary Ann, I'm in the middle of a story..."
"But I didn't see you at all last weekend. What's the new story about?"
"I'm revising Kudzu-Eaters."
"SS didn't like it? That story was great!"
"Thank you. Look, I'll call you when I get done. Promise."
A new story. He did have an idea about a sequel to the classic "Mole Men" tale.
"The black needle ships descended in their thousands, disgorging the sinuous bodies of the Mustelid Marine. Ambush predators by nature, they made the ideal guerrilla warriors...."
He quit working on "Attack of the Space Weasels" when he got too hungry to think.
10:30. Too late to call Mary Ann now. He assembled a turkey sandwich. Then he made a second one.
In the morning, he kept his eye on the mailbox. As soon as the postman arrived, Will was out there to get the mail.
Not counting junk mail and bills there was a letter from Stupendous Stories and one from Daring Tales.
The envelope from Daring Tales contained "Kudzu-Eaters" – which he had only put in the mail that morning. Stupendous Stories had accepted "...Space Weasels." He looked over at the computer, where the unfinished story showed on the screen.
"I wonder how it ends," he thought.
He reached for the phone. "Mary Ann? I've got some time tonight; still want to see that movie?" Before they left he jotted down a note: "write something about an empire in an underground lake."
The next day he received $350 payment for "Empire of Darkness," and another $275 for the sequel.
Will quickly settled into the practice of coming up with story ideas and collecting checks for the unwritten stories.
Three months later he was arrested for the murder of his wife Mary Ann.
"I haven't even married her," he protested.
"You will," Sheriff Sims said grimly.
The end
The Mad Scientist's Evil Twin
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
His brother started it. Fame and fortune weren't enough for Stephan. He had to rub it in Eldon's face every day by being gracious, magnanimous, and successful. Curing cancer, solving world hunger, inventing a practical matter transmitter, discovery after sickening discovery. Whatever Stephan did just added to his wealth and reputation. He got more girls. He even had a better name!
Eldon was not going to be a copycat. Being the second most famous scientist in a family just didn't cut it. He chose a darker path.
* * * * *
Eldon specialized in biochemistry and genetics. He started small, a new viral disease here, a rust that ruined the taste of sweet corn there. He wore black, cultivated a mustache and goatee, and found that this persona drew women to him like vultures to a sheep carcass. He smiled a lot, and stroked his beard. He married frequently, if not well, and spent a lot of time in the lab. His brother was never far from his mind.
* * * * *
Carol buzzed around him, angry reminder of another almost-successful experiment. Maybe next time he should try something more substantial, something with a bigger brain. Not a mantis or spider; something benign, harmless. Perhaps a grasshopper, or a katydid. That was it! He'd always liked that Steely Dan album.
Carol came to rest on one of the windowsill plants. As the green jaws closed she realized she'd chosen poorly. Her tiny struggles grew louder, then were muffled, silenced. To his first wife, a housefly was nothing more than a snack. The Venus fly trap rattled its leaves suggestively.
Eldon pressed a button on his desk.
"Ms. Collins? Would you assist me in an experiment?"
* * * * *
Eldon picked up on the second ring. "Stephan! So good to hear from you. I'm in the midst of a groundbreaking experiment, Stephan, so you'll just have to wait. Perhaps lunchtime on Friday, my treat. Yes, let's meet in my lab."
Eldon turned back toward the examination table, where Miss Collins rolled her eyes frantically above the duct tape. Eldon adjusted the controls on the somatic gene-therapy transformer.
"This won't hurt a bit."
* * * * *
Eldon slammed the cup down over the oddly deformed grasshopper. "Got you!" The grasshopper hopped weakly, bumping into the glass. He dumped it into the terrarium. The machine had performed perfectly on this last run. Friday he would use a cicada.
the end
Demon Dog Treats
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
(Sequel to "The Ham Sandwich of Destiny," by Kat Beyer)
At first Crystal thought the guy in the café was hitting on her, which distracted her from the funny taste of the sandwich. The guy seemed nice enough, if a little eccentric, dropping into the seat across from her and not even introducing himself. She got out fast, though, when he started babbling about sandwiches with souls!
By the time she got home she was sure the sandwich had been spoiled, but she had to walk Demon anyway.
"Hi Britney." Britney was walking a pair of shaggy squat dogs for Mrs. Nyimso.
"Morning Crystal," Britney giggled.
Britney had the most irritating laugh. She probably didn't even know the dogs she walked every day were the physical manifestations of tibetan spirit messengers. "May they eat her bowels," Crystal muttered, rubbing her cramping stomach. She left Demon in the apartment with a stern injunction to eat any shi dogs that might show up, but to leave the furniture alone. She'd have to run to make it to the botanica in time, and she was definitely feeling queasy. At a stoplight she saw a parade of translucent floating figures clad in saffron robes. They were crossing against the light. Could food poisoning cause that?
Madame was already raising the shutters when Crystal panted up to the door. "Crystal, good morning. I've got some concrete statuary in the van. I want you to set it out where the big Euphorbia used to be."
"Yes ma'am."
Crystal was already inside the van when she realized the statues were shi dogs. Why was Madame buying Chinese spirits for a Mexican magic shop? She jumped back, but one of the statues caught her ankle. She fell heavily, got off one good blast from the whistle around her neck, and concrete jaws closed on her wrist. She heard barking, rapidly growing louder, then the shi was yanked away from her arm. She screamed and doubled up around her ravaged wrist. As soon as she could, she began pushing the pain away. When she looked up Demon was chewing on concrete gravel and Madame was standing in front of her. "You will have to pay for the statues your dog ate." Crystal nodded. As doggie snacks the shi were kind of costly. The apartment door would be expensive, too.
"Now let's take a look at your injury."
When Madame touched Crystal's wrist she looked up sharply. "Are you pregnant?"
The end
Bargain
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Billy settled into the lounger and opened another beer. Darlene was gone. "We used to have fun Fridays," he muttered. "Where is that bitch anyway? No note, no nothin'…" He trailed off. He hadn't hit her any harder than usual this morning. It wasn't like she couldn't remember how he liked his eggs. She just made them runny to spite him. She should've done the shopping today and there was no food. "I work all day, and she does nothin'." She was definitely going to get it when she did come home.
Of course the TV was on the fritz too, and there wasn't anything to do but drink. He took a swig and made a face. It sure wasn't whiskey.
Behind him, beady eyes watched from the baseboard, where two adjacent pieces had not been properly nailed. Or perhaps the nails had worked loose as the house settled. No matter, little feet would put the small opening to good use. They'd accepted the saucer of milk and the bargain. Billy finished his beer and the observer froze while the man belched at great length, then reached down and drew another out of the bucket. He popped it open, and the sudden hiss coincided exactly with the fall of the net over his head.
"Gahhh!!" he screamed, and grabbed wildly at his face, for the net felt nasty, like coarse spider web. He reached for the arms of the recliner to lever himself to his feet and get away from the horrid stuff, but the arms weren't there. In fact, the recliner wasn't there either. He was sprawled on his back on the floor, foot resting on a huge, dewy metal cylinder, and the net covered his head and upper torso.
They jerked him to his feet and hustled him off to the baseboard. Belatedly, he recognized the giant cylinder. "My beer!" he wailed out of the darkness.
Inside the walls, Billy stumbled between his captors, who he somehow could not get a good look at, dodging real cobwebs and projecting nails. A giant cockroach regarded him silently, then scuttled off towards the now-deserted living room and the enticing scent of beer. They walked a long way, perhaps as far as the kitchen, and then Billy was shoved into an empty cat-food can. The lid was hammered down tightly. It was dark, but he heard movement, and smelled something musky.
"Darlene?" he quavered.
"No."
The end
Connected
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A sticky note fluttered to the desk. A moment later they all let go. Jen got out a new pack, copied each note carefully (except last week's pet-reconstruction appointment), and stuck them on the monitor. Just as she put the last one up, the first slipped off with an almost audible sigh.
"Argh!" She went into the kitchen to make some tea. She pulled a cookbook off the shelf to browse for supper. The pages scattered. The cover peeled apart.
That was it. She couldn't take anymore. She flopped down in front of the trivision.
"... mutant strain attacks glues, including those commonly used in products for the home but there is no cause for..." she switched off. Another damn plague. Antibiotic resistant this, mutated nano that.
"Why couldn't there be a GOOD plague," she moaned.
The food-prep unit harrumphed. "There was the sentient appliance revolution..." The back panel fell off with a clatter, followed by silence.
The phone rang. It was her brother.
"Hello, Norman."
"Are you okay? I saw a story about the plague on the newsfeed here at the spaceport."
"Worry about yourself," she said. "Isn't there glue in the shuttle?" Outside, a vehicle rose from the spaceport.
Her brother's voice was tinny in her ear. "Apparently not because they are not grounding our flight. Listen, I've got to go. They're letting us launch early. I'll cube when I get there."
"Why are you taking off early?"
"Dunno, bye."
The connection was gone, but she said goodbye anyway, watching two more departures clear the tops of the intervening buildings. It seemed like they were launching more flights today than usual. A lot more.
The framework of her chair chose that moment to return to its component materials. She was enveloped in a dense white cloud. When she stopped coughing, she was lying on a sack of upholstery fabric partly filled with sawdust. She staggered to her feet and dusted herself off.
There was more noise of things falling in the kitchen, then the overhead light went out with a small "pop." She was feeling her way toward the door when the food-prep unit called.
"Jen? I'm cold."
The end
A Man Walks Into A Bar
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A hunchback says "it seems a fellow with eight arms walks into a bar and..."
The guy with the slits interrupts him. "You don't start a story like that. You don't say 'it seems,' you just start right in talking. Like 'A fellow with eight arms takes a head off the guy next to him at the bar.'"
"Yeah, Kelly said that," agrees the fellow with the long neck. "He oughta know how to tell a story."
"But that ain't what happened," the hunchback protests, "the other guy didn't have any heads at all, and..."
"No head?!" A really thin guy glides over from a nearby table. His head is the widest part of him, because of the nose, and his expression says he couldn't imagine having a smaller head, much less no head. "That meant he didn't have no nose. How did he smell?"
Slits starts to answer, and the hunchback says "Now look, whose joke is this?" but that is as far as he gets. Just then someone comes in the door. He has a whole bunch of arms and is holding some kind of weapon in each hand. He starts shooting (which is completely illegal) and all the raconteurs dive for the floor. Octopus Boy is tearing the place up. The light fixture suspended from the ceiling partially explodes and the remains start spinning lazily, shedding sparks. Most of the surviving patrons are on the floor, some dripping fluids, and the smell of oxygen acceptors is harsh in the air. Suddenly there's a shout from the back of the room:
"Finish the joke! The guy with no heads! What does he do?!" This elicits a brief volley from the heavily armed character in the doorway. When it ends, the hunchback quavers from underneath a table.
"He smells as bad as ever."
Another volley, and the shooter speaks for the first time: "Who am I? Chopped liver?!
A different voice from the back of the room. "And the guy who walks into the bar? What happens to him?"
O. B. pauses to slap himself in the forehead.
The hunchback answers. "You fellows really ain't heard this one? He rubs his head and says 'ow!'"
Octopus Boy throws up several of his arms in disgust and just walks back out on the street.
The end
Request for Proposals
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I have to start with some ancient history.
It began with medicine, of course. Our lives were extended from an average of 25 standard years to 50, 60, then a hundred, and then several hundred. Gradually, we stopped taking chances. Laws were passed to prevent activities society deemed dangerous. Then those too young to reproduce were forbidden all sorts of behaviors once typical of childhood. Remember rollerskates? I loved them once... The laws weren't the most insidious change. Soon we voluntarily stopped sliding down slopes, swimming in water, and eventually even going outdoors. Nanotechnology accelerated the process. You might think that replacing the human body with self replicating machines would have reversed our growing obsession with safety and preservation of our lives. After all, if you broke your neck skiing and you were a nanoman or nanowoman healing was a cinch. But we had already gone too far. We now had the potential to live for millennia. The old joke
Q: Do nanofolks live thousands of times as long as biological people?
A: Yes, but it doesn't feel like it.
wasn't funny anymore. It was true. People began obsessively calculating probabilities and avoiding anything whose probability was greater than this or greater than that. Soon, anything whose probability was measurable at all. Giving up pets was hard. I almost still miss my last cat. He was affectionate in a self-centered way, but when he died I could not risk replacing him. Finally, even sex became too dangerous. Progeny were all engendered in vitro. After a while, no one bothered with that. The drive to propagate had been replaced with the drive to prolong the self.
And that's why I'm contacting you now. I'm sitting here, inside my personal event horizon, having a radical thought. If I'm NOT the only one left, and I might be, maybe I should go out into the universe and try to find some other people. It's time for a new research program, one that I'm sure we can all get behind. See, we need to find a way out of this universe fast, before entropy snuffs it out. Because our black holes won't last forever. When they evaporate we will be gone. And I'm not ready. I've hardly had time to live!
The end
What are we going to do with Mary Ann?
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Mary Ann sat down at the dining room table. She waited for her father to say grace. He did not. He said "Mary Ann." She was so surprised that she dropped her fork.
"Yes father," she said demurely, eyes down.
"Mary Ann," he said again, "I hardly know how to say this. Have you been... talking to... that young habilis boy?"
Mary Ann's face turned red as her hair. Her brother giggled.
Her mother gasped. "They're animals! That's disgusting!" She jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. Soon she could be heard in the bathroom.
Mary Ann jerked her head up and glared straight at her father. "Pastor said two weeks ago that they are people just as much as we."
"That ape has more hair than your dog," her brother said, and laughed. "Does he use dog shampoo or people shampoo? Does he have to take walks twice a day? Do you pick..."
"William!" Her father said, "that is enough."
"If you must know," Mary Ann continued, "Peter is helping me with geometry homework. But he has asked me to the dance. And I said yes."
William started making ape noises.
"I'm trying to be understanding," her father said. "He's 3 feet tall and covered with as much hair as a retriever. He is as strong as a gorilla, as smart as a chimpanzee, and probably won't live past 40. Where did we go wrong?"
"Don't you see dad? You taught me to see people as people. You should be proud."
"Proud that my grandchildren will need to shave their entire bodies before they can go out in public?"
"No! Proud that they, or their children, will be accepted as equal, because you taught me that a man is a man, no matter what he looks like."
Her mother, standing in the doorway, turned white and disappeared again suddenly.
"Dad. Peter and I are friends." Mary Ann flicked a lock of hair off of her forehead.
Her father sighed deeply. "So. When are you going to invite him to dinner? Is he allergic to anything?
"Does he eat pork?"
The end
Toe Testing Time
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The farm has done much better since we started growing baby heads. They'll grow anywhere, but more sunlight makes them grow faster. The plants set more fruit, and we can take the heads to market sooner. They spend less time in the babbling stage and Marie, well, that part drives her crazy. My favorite part is harvesting. They say the strangest things. Stuff like "midnight's noon/and noon midnight/bright flash of darkness comes." I write the good ones down. I figure I'll publish them, be famous someday.
One winter we nearly ran out of food. All we had left in the cellar were some heads rejected by the conglomerate the previous fall. We'd already put them in the back room, they made such a racket. You wouldn't believe the language they used when we dumped them into the hot water.
The end
The Clockwork Possum
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Davy went missing the day Mistress Williams ordered him to clean out the sewers. It's always the little things that change our lives. Part of his job description, she snapped, but he felt that he had not signed up for that. That was work for mindless robots, not for the likes of him. He had no belongings to pack, so he just took off as soon as she was out of sight. He ran at night. By day he waited, keeping a low profile: buried beneath dead leaves, in sand piles, under junked cars, played junk himself a few times. Had a tense moment in a salvage yard when the electromagnet got very close, but then the five o'clock whistle blew. Traveled the last hundred kilometers in some gigantic abandoned tunnels. They smelled bad and there were rats. Still, it wasn't long before he reached the outskirts of Old New New York. He slipped in to the bad part of town, hung around in the diesel bars and the magnet parlors, did a few magnets himself even. Eventually got in touch with the underground through a chip dealer in upper Queens. It felt like coming home. They had a place for him, they said.
"We need you," the first one said, "you're just what we're looking for."
"It's nice to be appreciated," Davy replied, "humans just don't understand."
"You are so right," the second one said. "We'll show you what it's really like."
*
"The brain is the most succulent organ," the first one said.
"Positronic!" The other agreed, and took another bite.
The end
You Don't Know Beans
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
So Jack walks into a bar and he says "I've got 5 beans. Who's with me?"
Nobody says anything at first. But then some guy says "lemme see 'em."
Jack shows him the beans and the guy says "You pay for these?"
"These ain't no ordinary beans," says Jack "these here are magic beans." He goes on like this, and pretty soon a few guys go with him.
*
The next morning we see this giant beanstalk coming out of the ground. Five trunks are braided and they're covered with throbbing veins that pump water up out of the earth. The dang thing shades half the town. Jack's mother says she doesn't know where he is.
So we wait a few days, but nothing happens except mushrooms are coming up everywhere and the corn isn't growing, what with dense shadow covering most of the arable land north of Jack's mother's house.
At first light on the seventh day we start in on the beanstalk. It's slow going. Then we get the idea of cutting through some of the vein-like things. Water spurts out like blood, and after a while the whole stalk kinda starts to deflate. We also mix up some salt water and squirt it up some of the tubes. Late in the evening a couple of things fall out of the sky. Some kid comes running up a few minutes later to tell us that bean pods 12 feet long are falling on the north side of town. One of them crashed right through the roof of the dentist's house. We gotta stop he says.
"No way," I tell him. "You tell Doc Wilson we'll be over to fix his roof after we're done here."
We keep going, and sometime after dark the thing starts to give. Longitudinal fibers are cracking like cannon shot and soon the noise is so steady we are half deaf. Maybe that's why, it already being dark and all, we don't realize at first when the stalk comes down.
The ground jumps and a tremendous cloud of dust explodes away from the stricken stalk. Things get quiet, and we feel pretty good until Jimmy the butcher, said "Where you figure it landed?" Don't really know what to say after that.
*
The beanstalk took out a good fifth of the town, but I still say it was a small price to pay. And we did get a few tons of beans out of it. But I do wonder what happened to Jack and the others, up above the sky.
The end
Menage à Trois
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
***Warning to readers: explicit sexual situations.***
"I am sick and tired," Soeren shouted, "of your damn dead sister watching us screw!"
Lorna wriggled, and smiled awkwardly. "But she's my twin. We always do everything together. Remember, when she was still alive...?" She caught Soeren's wrist and tried to pull him down, but he jerked his arm away. Then he scrambled off the bed and stomped out of the room. Lorna scowled at Laura, who appeared to be masturbating about 3 feet in the air in front of the closet. Ectoplasm was so close to transparent that details were very hard to see. Laura seemed to smile and shrugged.
"Don't give me that," Lorna hissed, jumping out of bed and pulling on a T-shirt to confront her sister's shade. "I shared him with you when you were alive, but he's mine now."
Laura stood up and rubbed her insubstantial hands slowly down her flanks. Then her expression changed, and she rushed at Lorna with arms outstretched and mouth open wide. Lorna felt a sudden chill and whirled around, but Laura was nowhere to be seen.
Lorna caught up with Soeren at the library. "What about here?" she whispered, "I don't think she can find us here." Over Soeren's shoulder she saw a black-clad librarian frowning at her and holding a finger to her lips.
"Are you crazy!?" he whispered back, "we can't be quiet enough. What about the park?"
Lorna sighed. "I don't know if that will work either." Laura was perched on top of one of the old card files, waving at her.
Sure enough, wherever they found for sex, Laura was there. Soeren just could not keep his mind on task, with his girlfriend's dead twin looking on.
"I just don't get it," Lorna said. "You were eager to have us together when we were both alive."
"That was different. She was thinking about sex, then. Now she almost seems to be trying to tell me something."
Lorna could not wait for an opportunity to confront Laura alone. "You want him to think I killed you," she whispered. "I can't believe you would do that to me!
"Anyway, bungee jumping was YOUR idea. You made a big deal about which bungee you got...omg! That was meant for ME and you screwed up.
"Were you that jealous?"
The end
Aliens Wrecked My Bike
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I didn't see the wall. It was late, I was tired, and it was raining. I hit it hard, and it knocked me out. I came to with blood in my mouth and a pounding headache. My frame was bent and spokes stuck out from the front wheel like a punk haircut. Who builds a wall across the road in the middle of the night?! It hadn't been there after school.
Some of the bricks had been knocked out of the wall and I picked one up. I'm sorry, I screamed. The brick was hard but warm, with short fur, and it gave a little scared-puppy squirm. Then the whole wall came apart and all of the bricks were running for the woods, like beetles under a log when you pick it up. In a few moments the only visible evidence of the wall was my wrecked bike.
*
The next morning I had to walk. I looked everywhere, but I didn't see the aliens. At school no one said they'd seen any weird walls or furry bricks. I wasn't going to ask! Who wants to look crazy?
Saturday I did some exploring in the woods with my beagle, Roger. Roger sniffed around a lot, and he dug a pretty deep hole under an oak tree. Squirrels were dropping acorns everywhere. The acorns kept hitting us, but I couldn't see the squirrels. Every time an acorn hit Roger, he yelped. It seemed like the squirrels were aiming at us. I've heard they do that. Anyway, it was creeping me out, so we left.
Did you know there are hundreds of kinds of oak trees, but only a couple of kinds of squirrels? I broadened my search, and you know what? Weird things happen all the time. I don't know if any at of them are caused by the little furry aliens.
*
We're getting new neighbors soon, and maybe they have a kid. I hope so. I haven't seen them yet, but they're building a brick house. It's going up fast, and they only cut down the trees they had to, so it's like in the woods already, which is cool if there aren't too many squirrels. I'll go over soon and introduce myself.
I need some help: those aliens owe me a bike.
Marcie's Day
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Only the bulkhead now between Marcie and what remained of the rest of the crew, which had expanded to fill three quarters of the ship, and it oozing under doors, through vents, and through the tiniest holes.
Seventeen people she'd worked with for months, amalgamated as a malignant mass, a composite entity retaining no visible trace of humanity, its exterior a palimpsest of colors that shifted and transformed ceaselessly: vermilion, gold, a myriad shades of green and blue.
Why had Lon drunk the liquid they'd found in the stoppered flask? Yes, the characters they'd decoded had referred to a miracle cure, yes, he was facing a painful death from the infection he'd picked up on the abandoned station and yes, Federation medicine could do nothing for him, so perhaps he'd thought he had nothing to lose. Well.
The bulkhead creaked, forcing her back to the present, as a voice vibrated through the decking, calling her name.
*
She wrung her hands, stared wildly around the hold. Spacesuits: no; escape pod: ditto. She had nothing to work with, nothing, nada, zilch, etc. Suddenly her eye was drawn to the probability generator. How could she have forgotten? Dangerous, yes, but she'd nothing to lose either. She raced to the machine, removed the lock they had bolted down over the control panel. The bulkhead screamed and polychromatic gel flowed out around it and dripped in globs onto the floor. The scent of lemons mingled with chocolate (or was it burnt roast?). She grabbed the probability dial and gave it a strong twist. Wheels spun and clacked, lights flashed, and peripheral vision overwhelmed her sight. It was more distracting than being blind. She couldn't actually see anything, but she couldn't ignore anything either.
A moment later she could see again. She could see, but for some reason, she could not take a step. She looked down, then, at the glistening multicolored sausage that had been her legs; at the squirming polyps that were ballooning from her flesh like chewing gum bubbles, separating, and drifting away, tendrils waving au revoir, on the stiffening breeze; and at the roots that her fused limbs were sending out through the quivering ground at ever-increasing speed. She shook her head, smiled, and extended her arms, which burst into bud. She stood at the center of a rapidly Marcifying plain. It was going to be a good day.
The Mindbenders
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Don't think of it as a creepy aliens-take-over-humans thing." Rubin waved his arm at the rows of huge fetuses, each swollen-headed thing immersed in cloudy fluid and bottled and racked like wine.
Sara shuddered. "What else could it be? It's an organic computer, but these are real people. They have feelings, they're not just vat-grown tissue."
Rubin shook his head. "It's not like that. They're grown from skin cells. They have brains, but they don't have minds. Look at them. Those huge heads are stuffed with matrices of simple circuits. They cannot think independently; they don't have the complex neuronal interconnections of natural brains."
She forced herself to look closely at one. Its scrunched little face reminded her of a goblin, or of her mother, shortly before she died, when the Betelgeusian DNA was all through her body and her head was trying to reshape itself into something that surely could never really live. So, yeah, she was thinking creepy aliens. She shivered, and she was terribly afraid that one of the fetuses would open its eyes and stare at her accusingly.
She whirled to face Rubin. "Why did you bring me here?" Her jaw worked. Maybe he was in league with them, possessed by them. She darted for the exit. She took the stairs two at a time, expecting a particle beam in the back all the way, but just as she reached the top the door opened. Something stood there on a pillar of black pulsating tentacles, something with huge compound eyes in which she was reflected hundreds and hundreds of times. She screamed as it reached for her hand. She turned to run again, tripping, falling, landing headfirst.
*
She came to, her cheek painfully pressed into the metal grid flooring. The virus she had smuggled inside her lungs had done its work. Rubin lay beside her, unmoving. As far as she could see, hypercranial fetuses were thrashing their arms and writhing. Alarms were sounding and she heard running feet. The occupant of the nearest jug opened its eyes and looked right at her.
"The invaders," she said, "how do we defeat them?"
"Two plus two," it said, "equals four." It smiled seraphically.
Touch
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Darrell stumbled to the kitchen, desperately hoping there was coffee. There wasn't. In desolation he put some water in a coffee cup and raised it to his lips. He downed three swallows of aromatic nectar of the bean before he remembered he'd expected water. He set the cup down with shaking hands. He sniffed. Yes, this was that ambrosia Prometheus had given to man.
The special: grits, eggs, and bacon (or sausage). A dollar less than eggs and bacon alone. So even though he didn't eat grits, it was worth it. Today he asked for water instead of coffee.
"You flyin' this morning?" Rashika said, "why else you don't want coffee?"
"An experiment," he replied. When she turned away he took a sip. He gulped the rest so she wouldn't see the coffee. It was the perfect temperature.
"How was the experiment?"
"I'm makin' it."
Coke turned. Also, orange juice, milk, and vinegar, but not liquid paper. A shadow fell across him.
"Bored, Stevens? I can't think of a better reason for drinking liquid paper. And if you ARE bored," his boss continued, "I can find something for you."
Darrell hastily screwed the lid back on.
"Back to work and quit fooling around."
"Yes sir."
By the time the apartment door closed behind him that night, Darrell had drunk so much converted coffee his hands were shaking. He wanted water, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen. He started to examine the horse's teeth in earnest and came up with some hair-raising questions.
Just what would happen if he cut himself and absentmindedly sucked on it? If he watered the bushes and drank from the hose would the entire municipal water supply go mocha? What if he got seawater in his mouth at the beach? Was kissing too close to drinking? How long could he live without water?
He could drink broth, it turned out, if he did it with a spoon, so he didn't have to resort to intravenous fluids. The problem of kissing was only theoretical until he met Sara. Standing in line at the juice bar she struck up a conversation with him. One thing led to another. On the third date she grabbed him by the ears and took the kissing question out of his hands. She lived. She settled the ocean question by dunking him. Finally, he stopped at a drinking fountain and took the plunge. He had to know.
Egg Salad Surgery
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Ever since being struck by lightning the Mad Scientist had been plagued by the scent of egg salad. “Which wouldn't be so bad,” he muttered to himself, “if I didn't loathe egg salad.” To top it all off, after risking his life in the storm he hadn't been able to revive Igor after all. The hunchback made a really terrible zombie. (He had been kind of clumsy and slow of mind in life, and those things were not improved after death. In fact, it was said that only the sense of smell became more acute for zombies.) All of this made the stench of egg salad that much harder to take.
Do it yourself brain surgery on others was one thing, but the Mad Scientist had never tried it on himself before. His aim was to manipulate the nerves in the olfactory center so that egg salad smelled like, say, an avocado sushi roll. Or pepperoni and sausage pizza. It didn't really matter as long as it was a pleasant aroma. Using a waldo was too crude; he had to culture and then guide the evolution of surgical nanobots that would navigate the fluid surrounding and cushioning the nerves in his brain, snipping some connections and encouraging the growth of others. Fortunately, this was not difficult.
The nano-surgery complete, he unwrapped his nose. All that remained of his tiny army was a drop of milky fluid on a glass dish. He took a hesitant sniff – fried liver. He shuddered and stifled his gag reflex. What were the odds? The food he hated nearly as much as egg salad, and he was stuck with it day and night. Unless he wanted to launch another expedition into his brain.
"Oh man, this stinks!"
"Tell me about it, Master."
The end
Holiday
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
People don't go anywhere anymore. It used to be, grandad says, people worked hard for days and days before they had earned enough vacation time to actually go in their rooms and plug themselves in to a virtual national park or amusement park or water park or venusian tuber farm or something. Now we just go out behind the recycling center and stare at some weeds, or throw chunks of plastic at the vehicles on the Superway. If we want to go to an amusement park we have to actually pretend everything. You call that living?
I mean, what can you do with plastic, glaspex, and vegebord? Yesterday, Tim3 is standing on a bit of vegebord shouting "I am Chancellor of Trash!" or some sh*t and so Lefrim shoves him off and says she's Premier of Trash and waves a block of glaspex in the air. The new kid from Moon 13 pushes her off and says he's King of the Trash. Dorks!
If I was going to pretend something it would be way faster than that. I would be a unitank pilot, beneath cloud cover on a Chitin-occupied world during the Wars. We'd have to wipe out a Hive. We wouldn't get out alive. Or maybe....
It Began with the Rhinos
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Professor Zodiac didn't mean to reanimate the entire zoo cemetery. He merely needed a couple of dead rhinoceri.
The reanimation, fueled with the pulp of countless PETA tracts, went off without a hitch. At least until the elephants. They broke through the soil, spraying dirt clods everywhere, and posing against the sky.
"Did I order elephants?" The raised eyebrow. Chunk shook his head vehemently and hung his head. He had always loved circus elephants.
"No, Master."
But then the tapir, the jaguarundi, the koala and the meerkat, the gazelle and even the stately giraffe, broke free of the ground and began staggering about, milky-eyed and trembling. Professor Zodiac launched all of them, the hippopotamus, the red panda, the giant tortoise, and even the penguins against the Witch's stronghold.
The liches turned out to have capabilities that they could only have dreamed of in their former lives, if they could have dreamed of additional abilities. The hippos could tunnel through wet earth. Pocket gophers could teleport, although only into and out of pockets. The penguins could fly. They were like giant flying fish, whizzing over the walls of the Witch's castle, crashing through windows, or bouncing off embrasures when they tried to go through arrow slits. Soon, the professor was inside. He confronted the Witch in her audience chamber.
"I want what's rightfully mine," he said. "I need the potions from my laboratory."
"You mean MY laboratory," she snapped. "It was only your laboratory until I caught you performing late-night experiments with that leggy intern from the University. I have moved the facility to an isolated tower in the Arctic Ocean. The tower is too smooth and too tall for climbing, and is surrounded by hundreds of miles of sea ice. You will never get in. I'll be wearing the laboratory smock in the family from now on."
"But I have to finish her transformation," he protested. "Now she is neither fish nor fowl, when she could be both." The Witch snorted. "Should've thought of that while her pants were still on."
*
Eventually, the professor's army returned to the graveyard and he departed. Afterwards, he pulled his assistant aside.
"Chunk?"
"Yes, Master?"
"This is not the end."
"No, Master."
He leaned down to whisper in the hunchback's ear. "We can do this. I have a foolproof plan. But we'll need more penguins."
The Man With Two Thumbs
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
So this guy with two thumbs walks into a bar, and the bartender says "Hey! You can't bring those things in here!"
Well, the first thumb says this is discrimination and it starts talking about class-action lawsuits and picketing and late-night visits from the middle finger and pretty soon it gets cited for disorderly conduct and hauled off to jail.
Meanwhile, the second thumb waits behind the bar in an alley with a couple of cans of gasoline and a book of matches from The Nether Digit, a nightclub on the other side of town, not just a nightclub, but a toe club, a place where you can have any toes you want all night long, two at once, even, if you're surefooted enough, in those padded booths with the tasteful crimson and burgundy curtains. And while the thumb is waiting for the last patrons to leave the bar, shrouded menacingly in a grease-stained overcoat, a big shaggy dog trots up and eats it.
Street People
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Ow!" That hurt. The sun is just touching the façades on the west side of the street, and the crowds are still light. The first heel in the nose is the closest I'm gonna get to a cup of coffee this morning. Although I can hope someone will trip and spill some in my mouth.
"Excuse me. I didn't notice you." A high-pitched voice. Either a child or a woman.
"Are you blind?! The whole sidewalk is covered with us." Okay, that may have been a little harsh, especially if I'm talking to a child. Yep, I hear sniffling. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm just a little stressed. It's been 13 years since I had any coffee." Or anything else.
I guess the kid moved on. So now I'm feeling guilty, even as people walk all over me. Something light hits my cheek. A biscuit wrapper, from the scent. I can't reach it with my tongue. Traffic's picking up and more and more people step on me. I try not to make noise. Attention is usually bad. I eavesdrop. This is my only source of daytime amusement.
"I said 'Honey, you don't know.' He really thought I would, on the first..."
"...bell peppers. That should do it. Don't forget tonight..."
"...gonna eat all that? Cos if you're full..."
Crumbs.
Smell, taste, hearing, pain. I believe they disable vision because that would give us too much pleasure. Some think it's done out of kindness. Eyes are so vulnerable.
*
Night's better. Sometimes a lonely person will stop to chat, even feed me. One time, a woman let me suck her nipple. I think she was a whore, but hey, I take what I can get. She didn't come back.
Some of my night visitors are not so nice. They urinate in my mouth, smear dog poop on my nose, you get the idea. This kind of behavior is the reason we are put here. People are quite cruel, if not very inventive, and the State can pretend it doesn't know.
*
Once a month or so my ex-wife comes by. She doesn't feel sorry for me; she comes to abuse me. I didn't know that girl was under age. Or that she had a weak heart. Anyway, I'll be out in 12 years. Sharon may have moved several times by then, even changed her name, but I'll find her.
Advanced Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath IV: Citadel of the Ghoul®
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
His eyes are shut, but he's clicking faster now, he's in the zone, the trance engendered by playing a repetitive game well mastered. And now the veil parts and he sees the stair, sets foot on the topmost step, begins his descent.
Long time he climbs, ever downward amidst sepulchral gloom, and he can hear the chittering of the ghouls in the vast space below him. He is no longer aware of his hands, clicking the mouse, only of the dreamworld.
The air is colder here, and he puts his hands in his pockets, his breath forming evanescent puffs of white. At length he sees a glimmering in the red-litten mirk, but it does not seem to be the expected buttery yellow lamplight of the charcoal burners' village, where he will spend the night.
Disturbingly, the light flickers and, as he draws nearer, assumes a distinctly rosy hue. He smells smoke. In the village he finds the charcoal burners scattered, their huts charred. From the smell, some of the charcoal burners remain in the ruins of their dwellings. He searches, following the paths where survivors fled, trampling their gardens of rare black lilies in hasty flight. Under the eaves of the forest stands Hando, gracious host of previous visits to the dream lands.
"Are you all right, old friend? Who did this?" The traveler demands.
Hando shakes his head. "The ghouls, no longer satisfied with their habitual pungent fare, prey upon the living. My whole family." He cannot go on.
The traveler swears by the bones of his father, resting quietly beneath the groves of lemon trees near Lasturion the Enduring, on the far shore of the inner sea, that he will not rest until a terrible vengeance has been wreaked on the kingdom of the flesh eaters.
*
"Doctor, he was up here when the power... I called, but he didn't answer. He didn't answer." For a few moments she could not go on. "After a while I came upstairs. I found him slumped over the keyboard, his hand still clicking and moving the mouse. I tried to pry his hand off the horrid thing! I couldn't. I turned off the computer, but his hand still moves, and he will not wake."
Talk, Talk, Talk
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A man found a strange metal house in the Bush. The door was hanging open and the house seemed deserted. He called, but no one answered. Eventually, curiosity made him step inside. When he did, he almost jumped right back out again, because the floor mat said "You are trespassing! Leave at once." But just then a picture on the wall said "Maybe he knows what happened to the Master. You stay right here!" The monster in the picture scowled right at the man standing in the doorway and he was afraid to run. "The Master! What have you done with him?" an urn on a table shouted. "I did nothing," the man protested, but his voice trailed off. He looked around the inside of the house and realized it was bigger than the outside. Almost nothing in it was familiar. He stepped in, drawn by glittering mystery. He ignored the chorus of questions and imprecations that came from every side. He leaned his spear against the wall to free his hands. "Hey! You scratched me," the wall brayed. He had just picked up a bottle the color of the sea and he dropped it. A pungent odor reached his nostrils, the ceiling screamed like a hare, and the floor mat shouted "Run! Nano-seed! Run!" This was too much -- the man took to his heels. "Goodbye to all this," the door mumbled dissolutely.
That Dream
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The buildings, people, trash cans, everything, collapsing like the Twin Towers had, only instead of clouds of smoke and debris, these transformed into architectural outlines on pavement that became a smooth hard flat surface. Arnold was unchanged, but everything else had become diagrammatic, somehow embedded in the surface of the plane. Crap! He was in that dream again.
He looked down. He stood on a long row of squares about 6 feet on a side, a wide black ribbon to his left and on his right large rectangles and other polyhedra. Inside each were smaller rectangles (desks), brackets of various sizes that must be chairs and couches, and colorful moving ovoids. He stepped over the wall of the nearest building and approached one. It backed away, or at least he presumed that the surface facing him, fraught with invaginations and small protrusions, was the front. He backed it into a corner, then cautiously reached down and touched its middle. It rippled violently and darted past him, spun around a few times in the center of the room, and came to rest in the doorway. Arnold looked at his fingertip, where a damp red spot was drying.
*
Arnold glided through the doorway. He could see Saunders and The Chief in front of the conference table. Suddenly, their shapes ballooned and wavered like threads in a fast wind. Saunders had split into two... and so had The Chief. One of the two Saunders's disappeared and reappeared so close to Arnold he could smell shoe polish. Arnold shied away in alarm and slammed into the coat rack. F*ck! That dream again!
The chief disappeared: first one chief and then the other one. Saunders did the same a moment later. Arnold's pants were wet.
*
Arnold inhaled her scent, caressed the delicious mound of Charlene's belly as she slept. He pressed down slightly. His hand blurred, sank in; her skin closed around his wrist, a tight ring of flesh that rolled warmly up his arm as his hand passed through her muscles, her womb, their son's tiny skull... his arm snapped back into focus.
Arnold convulsed backwards out of bed, across the tiny bedroom, and through the shattering window, but he could clearly see:
Charlene jerking up off the bed,
her red fountain,
the scream distorting her face.
He plunging toward the street,
naked, his red
and dripping hand.
With A Grain of Salt
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Taffy had done 18 months for hijacking one of Peter Piper's trucks. Stole16 tons of pickled peppers (Why?! Who knows?). But Piper had a good alibi. He'd been home with his wife, eating pumpkin pie and playing cards with a couple of neighbors. So who killed a two-bit hood by ripping his throat out, dousing him with slime, and dumping him in Sir Reginald Thimble's flower bed? A similar murder in Dressmakers St. put me on the right track My client was a member of the notorious Tailor Gang At last everything was piecing itself together in my head.
*
Sir Reginald's front door was open. Running up the steps I slipped and landed hard. A trail of goo came up the drive and went through the door. I followed, and almost tripped over the butler. Crushed flat.
Three well-dressed victims had been smoking in a room off the main hall,.my client among them. Blood was everywhere. I stepped back out. A snail the size of a Volkswagen was coming up fast from the back of the house. I pulled a salt shaker out of my pocket and raised it high. The snail stopped in its trail.
"So it is down to me and it is down to you, Deadbolt," the snail gurgled. I was surprised to hear a mollusk quoting "The Princess Bride." Usually they go in for live theater when they seek entertainment.
"One question," I said. It dipped an eye stalk "Why? Did the Tailors pay you to hit the Welshman? And if they did, why start killing them? You're a pro, not a garden-variety psycho."
"You humanoids are all crooked. They put the hit on the little thief cos he was stupid enough to rip them off. Only an idiot steals from a syndicate."
"You won't get an argument from me," I said, "but what about the Tailors? Doing your civic duty?"
"Thread-biters didn't pay me." It sounded outraged. "I let that get out, that people can push in my eyestalks, and I won't be eating."
"Three square salads a day where you're going now," I said, "you can thank me later." Meanwhile, I had unscrewed the lid of the saltshaker. It would last until the cops got here with a couple of 5 pound sacks.
The end
References
"Taffy"
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/taffy.asp
"Peter Piper"
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpiper.asp
"Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater"
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpeter.asp
"The tailors and the snail"
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/a24-four-and-twenty-tailors.htm
What Do I Win?
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Ron showed the lid to the cashier at Quickie Mart.
"Win?"
"The contest!" He clicked the lid down on the counter and pushed it an inch or two towards the man.
The cashier picked it up, walked to the window, and stared at it for a long time. He put it back down in front of Ron. "It says 'all-expenses-paid worlds tour.'"
That was right, Ron knew, typo and all.
"But how do I get the world tour? Do I go to a website?"
The clerk pointed at some tiny print on the bottle cap. "You call that number." He gave the lid back and turned away.
*
"Hello." A pleasant contralto.
"I, um, I'm calling about,"
"The worlds tour! I'll set you up right now. When do you want to go?"
"Well, I, er, any time," Ron finished weakly.
"Fantastic! Thank you so much for calling, and have a great trip." She hung up.
*
That was the most surreal conversation he'd ever had, even stoned out of his mind. He turned, and was overwhelmed with the sensation of jamais vu, the unexpected feeling of unfamiliarity amid the familiar. Had the apartment been this untidy when he left this morning? He stepped over a pile of clothes and looked out the window. Holy shit! The lake was gone. No, it was covered with floating condos. But when had the condos been put in? His stomach was starting to feel a little queasy.
Someone walked out of the bathroom. He was short, paunchy, middle-aged, and wearing a towel.
"Hey..." Ron began.
"Gaah!" The man dropped his towel.
Ron stared at the man's forked penis, then stammered: "Are you a weresnake*."
"Funny, Zero. You're still trespassing. What you doing in my zÅn?" Then he slapped his forehead.
]
"Oh, right, 'the worlds tour.' Look, I don't need this today. Get out." He nodded toward the door.
"But..."
"Go!"
Ron opened the door and stepped out.
From the apartment behind him he heard the fat man with the Y-shaped penis say "Oh yeah, watch that first one."
The end
*Not making this up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes#Reproduction.
Kutter Wields the Knife
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
He acted tough, but I knew he was a cream puff.
"So," I drawled, "what brings you here?"
"I heard Cook E. Kutter was the man to see for making cookies."
I inclined my head slightly.
"Word's been getting around," he continued, "that you've gone soft. That you let the Doughboy get away with murder."
"That's a damn lie!" I burst out, then struggled to regain control. "P. F. never touched that dame. Besides, he's a ticklish one to deal with. Yeah, I let him go ... he'd risen as far as he could. What's it to ya?" I leaned back with a creak and parked my feet on the desk, between last week's coffee and some bootleg recipes off the Internet.
All of a sudden he seemed a little nervous. He cleared his throat: "Well..."
"Cream gone sour?" I asked sympathetically, and poured us both glasses of whiskey. "Have a pick-me-up."
He waved it away. "No thanks," he said, "I'm trying to cut back. Listen. I want to make a batch of chocolate chip. Can you help?"
"Maybe. Do you have what it takes? Raw courage? Unyielding persistence? Butter? Flour? Chocolate chips?"
Oh, he had it all, but he was holding out on me. I could tell. Still, I played it cool.
"You want to know? I'll tell you.
"You'll need ingredients: butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, salt, baking soda, and the chips. You need to mix them, and you've got to do it right.
"First the wet stuff, then the dry. The chips come last."
Oh, I told him sure enough. I gave him the whole story.
"Now it's your turn," I said, "give!"
"What do you mean?" He was all innocence, up to the elbows in creamed butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. But I wasn't having it this time.
"You know what I mean." He wouldn't talk. I pounded on the desk, threatened, I admit it, but he simply stirred flour, salt, and soda into his creamed mixture. Finally I had had enough.
*
There was something on my face. I licked it off. Cream filling. Delicately, I parted his severed hemispheres, and there, nestled in the cream, I saw it. I KNEW he'd been holding out on me! I reached in and picked it up. I reverently wiped off the cream with my handkerchief, and popped it in my mouth. I love cherries.
Raise Your Hand if You Just Became a Vegan
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A well-constructed young woman barged into my office Monday morning, breathing hard after running up two flights of stairs. When she regained her composure she told me her great aunt had "drifted away from her moorings." Some time Sunday morning the old lady had started devouring livestock, not just raw, but still living. By day's end she was dead.
"What do you want me to do, Miss Clarendon?"
"Oh, Mr. Deadbolt," she replied, "Why did she eat those critters? The great aunt Sylvia I knew would never do such a thing. She might have been murdered. Maybe by a hypnotist."
*
"I'm sure you know why I have gathered you together," I began. "You are the relatives of the late Sylvia Clarendon. I was asked to investigate her death, to find out whether foul play was involved. I've checked into all of you carefully, as well as anyone who had business or social dealings with the deceased. I turned up nothing. Ms. Clarendon was universally liked, and was far from wealthy.
"I did partially solve the mystery. She really did take a double dose of several powerful prescription drugs last Friday night as she went to bed. Sunday morning she swallowed a common housefly, and then a spider in hopes that it would trap the fly. Because of the limited opportunities for web construction within her digestive tract, she chose a jumping spider, but of a perfectly respectable species. When the spider failed to return, Ms. Clarendon swallowed a small bird. Its mission was to retrieve the spider, but by 0900 hrs it had failed to do so. Her choice of a house sparrow, a seed eater, may have been part of the problem. There followed in rapid succession the following commandos: a rat, a cat, and a dog, all with rather obvious goals. Her motives of the afternoon are less certain. About 1320 she swallowed a goat, which might have been a bad choice considering the size of the dog it was supposed to subdue. Be that as it may, around 1500 hrs a cow followed the goat. This was a highly reliable operative named Bessie who had successfully completed similar missions in the past. At 1545 a cleaner named Dobbins was sent in, with what tragic results you all know.
"I have, as I said, worked out most of the details of the weekend's tragedy. However, one thing still puzzles me about the whole affair. I don't know why she swallowed the fly."
The end
Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Lady_Who_Swallowed_a_Fly
The Honeybee Movement
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
You know how people wonder whether the human race will go out with a bang or a whimper? I think the honeybees have answered that question for us. I personally see the hand of God in the fact that honeybee workers, classic nose-to-the-grindstone types, are just walking off the job. More and more colonies are turning up empty, or with just a few young and bewildered bees. It's like the family that left their home in Oklahoma or wherever it was. They drove until the car ran out of gas; then they started walking. No one ever saw them again. Well, I figure this is our last warning. The pillar of salt was a warning. The global flood was another. The honeybees are simply the latest, but I think they show us how it will happen. I've seen this in a vision: people just dropping things where they lie and walking away, walking away from everything, and they don't come back.
Now if we only knew which of the myriad sects was the correct one, the one that had God's true word, we could all join. Maybe if only one person joined, we would get another chance. I am convinced that this time, as in the time of Noah, someone will see the light. Someone will understand the true word of God, act accordingly, and people will listen. But this has to happen soon. As I walk to and from work it seems to me that more houses are empty, more businesses operate with a skeleton crew, more storefronts are abandoned.
So I think we will be saved, but one thing has me lying awake at night. Suppose one of the countless sects that has been extirpated over the last few millennia was the only one that got it right. Or what if no one has ever understood the Truth?
I'm doing what I can. I'm researching forgotten religions and setting up websites for all of them. Go online and Google "religions." You'll find them, mixed in with all the familiar ones. Ritual of the Gnaath. Sisterhood of Eternity. And so on. Each has a PayPal button. I'm not taking that money myself! It really goes to that religion, for website maintenance. I figure if I can revive any of these religions it will improve our odds. And I'm getting lots of hits, lots of contributions. Do I have yours?
It Was the Wurst of Times
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Carstairs risked a look over his shoulder. The pack was now only a few yards behind him. He put his head down and sprinted. If he could just make it to the car he might get out of this alive. A pine cone went flying and he landed heavily on his side. Some ribs felt broken. "Oh God," he moaned, covering his face with his free hand. Then they were upon him.
***
Sgt Freiday flipped the notebook shut. "Nothing more to see here," he remarked, motioning to the two patrolmen to load the corpse into the back of the van. He turned to find himself nose to nose with Smalchick Chomosh, the private detective. He sighed. "What is it this time, Mr. Chomosh?"
Chomosh stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, then pointed with his cane at a small white fleck on the path. "What do you make of that?" he asked.
Freiday squinted. "It's a piece of bread. Left over from a picnic." He looked back at Chomosh in irritation.
Chomosh pursed his lips. "It is a fragment of a bun," he said, "a Sunbeam hot dog bun, to be precise."
***
Three days later, Freiday still had no theory. In desperation, he visited the Sunbeam factory. When he arrived the place seemed deserted. He prowled around, then climbed the fence. He was in old man Sunbeam's office when he heard the baying. He went outside and cocked his head to listen. There it was again. Louder. He walked to the fence and climbed back over. The sound had seemed to come from somewhere out here. As he approached his cruiser he saw some small pale objects in the grass. They moved back and forth restlessly, growling. The light was dim, but they looked like ... hot dogs! He reached in his pocket for his keys, but found only a hole in the bottom of the pocket. The baying came again, and the hot dogs surged forwards. He ran back towards the fence, but he never made it.
***
"I have solved the case," Chomosh announced. "The murders were committed by a pack of wild dogs." He unveiled one of his famous who-done-it paintings with a flourish. Sgt. Freidey was shown sprawled on his back. A vicious weiner worried his throat; another had its snout buried in his belly.
The mayor snorted. "Ridiculous! I never sausage nonsense!"
Till Death Do Us Part
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
I need to get back to Tabletop Mountain in time to stop the wedding.
The problem is, my airship is flying lower and lower, slower and slower. The cucumber is almost exhausted. There's nothing left in the bin but a few yellow spheroids the size of golf balls, and lemon cukes just don't pack the oomph of the phallic green ones. I burned the last of the bell peppers this morning, and the lone remaining radish is shriveled and dry. Before noon I'll be stoking the furnace with nothing but onions, and do you know what they do to an engine!? I'll have to get an entirely new carburetor. Besides, I barely have enough of those to get me to the border. I call my brother.
"I told you. I have to stop the wedding. Elise can't marry the Varsuvian-B ambassador. That's where I've been."
"I'm telling you! I visited Varsuvius on the B line. I was suspicious. I admit that was mostly because I wanted Elise for myself. You know how I feel about her. But this is much bigger than me -- the B Varsuvians aren't like the ones we've met on the A line."
"Here, they're almost like normal people. They live in clusters, raise their offspring communally (the ones that survive the nursery), even trade body parts with us (where that's permitted}. My point is they get along. On the B line they harvest humans for 'living' art displays. If you can call it living to have your face and cerebellum grafted to a mobile made from recycled appliances, a feature of half time entertainment at Venter matches! I don't think of that just off the top of my head when people start talking about 'the good life'. I was lucky to get out with my spleen intact!"
"There's nothing here. It's a temperate deciduous forest. This is early summer, and there is no fruit to be had. I can't run this thing on bark, leaves, and twigs!"
I'm thinking about parts of Elise decorating private ballrooms on the B plane.
"Yeah, seriously, you know how hard this is for me to say, especially to you. I love her. Satisfied? Now, would you come get me? I owe you one bro."
"Okay! I owe you two. Just follow my signal. Please?"
Home Sweet Home
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Midnight passes, the new law takes effect. At first, nothing happens. About 12:20 Patricia's climbing-rose wallpaper starts to move. Pastel pink and green dots are changing color, turning orange (orange?), swirling into new patterns, patterns that spell
The Home Depot,
with a happy homebuilder hammering away in 3D, with sound.
Okay, I shop at the depot, they have good stuff. Evidently someone knows what I like.
The Home Depot swirls around. The swirls form new patterns that are colorful and organic, and yes, they know what I like. But this I prefer to keep private. This better not be animated and with audio, but hard-core rhythm starts to grind out from a million microspeakers and some guy with my face and a horse's member starts banging away at a groupie.
Shoving panic down. I have to get rid of this wallpaper. Patricia's coming over. I've almost got her ready to move back in, and now this! The wallpaper abruptly changes to dogs catching frisbees, but I'm not fooled. This isn't permanent.
"House!" I call. There is no answer. "House! Disable the new wallpaper." The groupie is back.
"You don't like me?" She pouts.
"I like you fine," I say, "it's just that this is not the time." And why am I talking to wallpaper? Advertising nano is going to ruin my life. Unless this's a glitch and they're going to fix it soon. The wallpaper suddenly changes to a montage of historical ads. Cheesy jingles from the 20th century emanate from speakers that erupt like chickenpox all over the walls and ceiling. I run to the door (which is advertising some kind of mortgage refinancing) and it doesn't open.
"Excuse me," I say. The guy looks up from the ad and focuses on me. This is a little disconcerting.
"Sorry," he says, "but you really should consider our offer. You'll come out way ahead after five years." The last part is muffled as the door slides into the wall and I dash out onto the stoop. Patricia is there, hand raised to swipe the identity plate. I almost knock her off the porch.
"I'm so sorry," I start, but then my eye is irresistibly drawn to her dress. It seems to be an advertisement for home gym equipment above the waist and feminine products below. "I was going to say my house has been taken over," I say.
She smiles. Words spell out on her teeth: "Yellow teeth? Don't you fret. Ultra-white's the brightest yet!" Today's weather scrolls across her forehead. It's going to be a nice day, she says.
The end
The Mad Scientist Builds a Substitute
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Success! The Mad Scientist had to admit she looked good. All available images of the original had been input to a sophisticated CGI program written for the purpose in the waiting rooms of congressional offices. (He'd already begun lobbying for android rights.) Her metal skin captured the hues of the original; he had even reproduced the dear blemishes he remembered so well. As for proportions, and the distribution of synthetic hair, few nude photographs existed. Newly crafted methods of psychiatric self-interrogation had brought forth all available memories. (A paper describing the technique would net him a Ph.D. in psychiatry.) He had striven, in the main successfully, to refrain from changing physical features he'd thought less than ideal in the original. He had consulted with those who knew her well, pretending to be creating a sculpture. Alas, responses were not to the point.
"She's dead," her mother said. "We all appreciate your efforts, but you must move on."
Her brother. "It's a little obsessive. She was my sister, but find somebody new, for your own sake."
His best friend. Mad scientists do not have best friends. Laboratory assistants do not speak freely. Ultimately, he had to go with his instincts, so he made the left breast just a little bit smaller and perhaps infinitesimally more symmetrical.
Too much of the relevant literature and his own bitter experience with cloning warned him that any attempt to reconstruct her personality would lead to disaster. He was quite prepared to "go with the flow" here. He instilled some basic ethical principles and personality traits, as well as a familiarity with recent history, the arts, and historical trends. Personal integrity and high sex drive. Every imagined contingency had been prepared for, yet the unforeseen could still happen. She could leave him. Even worse, she could stay, but be unattractive to him. He booted up her system.
At first things went really well. Of course there were problems. The new version just did not like scrambled eggs. Her "digestion" produced some unexpected odors. They adjusted. She was, perhaps, a little too strong and had to exercise restraint in the kitchen ("Crockery's cheap, Dear."), and of course in bed. Fortunately, this was not difficult. She was witty, attentive, even-tempered, eager to help out in the lab. In short, the perfect mate for a mad scientist. But things came to a head at Thanksgiving.
He squeezed her shoulder. "It's time."
She sighed and laid down her magazine. "Can't we wait till next year?"
"You have to meet our family sometime."
The end
Smokin'
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
My name is Deadbolt, Hasp Deadbolt. I'm a P.I. In my business, trouble often comes calling. This time a giant bug grabbed my elbow and jerked me around, tearing my shirt.
"Lady," I said, "violence is not necessary."
"Emergency!" She screamed. "My house is on fire, my children will burn!" She pointed. A plume of black smoke rose a few blocks away.
"Did you call the fire department?"
She nodded, urging me in the direction of the blaze and ripping my sleeve clean off.
"Then fly away home; I'll be along." I started running.
*
By the time I got there, the fire was out. Her children huddled around her skirts, crying. She counted frantically. "Ann, my youngest, isn't here!"
I waded into the rubble. I started in the wreckage of her kitchen. "Here she is ma'am," I called, "under the pudding pan."
While the frantic mother was cuddling the baby, a local cop arrived. Constable Johns and I went way back. Bridget had a sharp eye, she was tough, and she owed me, since the "Boy Blue" incident.
"Good work Hasp," she said, "but why are you interfering with an arson investigation?"
"Arson!?" I exclaimed. "This just happened." If I'd been thinking a little faster I would've claimed Mrs. Ladybird was my client, but just then the lady in question turned to us.
"Arson!" She looked at me. "Hasp Deadbolt?" I nodded. "I want you to help me nail the bastard who tried to kill my babies." She turned to Constable Johns. "What do the police think?"
"Well, ma'am, I'm not at liberty..."
"Deadbolt, you're on the case. Is 100 a sufficient retainer?"
*
"Constable," I said, "we need to talk. Let me buy you a pastry."
"I'll fill you in," she said, taking a bite, "if you help me." There'd been a string of suspicious fires on the north side.
"We've kept quiet. We don't want copycats."
The fires were set in broad daylight; it had to be somebody who spent a lot of time in this part of town. I rubbed my chin. Old Miz Hubbard was doing time in the happy house. "This is not Georgy Porgy's style. I like Dr. Fell, but I can't say why."
Bridget nodded thoughtfully. "I can put him near two fires, maybe more."
"Let's check his house." I couldn't do that legally, but Bridget could. The next day we waited until the doctor left on his rounds and we went in the back door.
*
Not much can turn my stomach, but all I will say about what we found there is this: I do not love thee Dr. Fell.
The end
For those unfamiliar with the two nursery rhymes referred to here, these are links to versions similar to the ones I used.
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes/ladybug.html
I do not like thee Dr. Fell
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes/fell.html
Pig Pong*
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Charley was on the verge of winning his 100th game of pig pong. It was a grueling sport, but he had made it his own by dint of countless hours of practice. He had sacrificed ice cream socials, Friday night dances, trips to the movie theatre, everything. All had been subsumed by his one life-consuming goal. And it had all been worth it. Now, with pig pong declared the newest Olympic Sport, he was perfectly positioned for a gold medal next year at the Pyongyang games. All the name calling, clod throwing, scum bunnies from Central High School would finally get their paybacks. Yes, they'd be sorry.
But now, it was time to focus. Randi had just backhanded a big hairy sow low across the center of the net. Squealing, the pig bounced in the near-right quadrant and spun towards the outside corner. *Wack* ("Eeeeeeeeeee") Charley returned the hog, dropping it just on Randi's side of the net in his patented pigspin return. No point. It was his serve.
"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the smokehouse!" Charley laughed.
"Honey, I ain't even rolled up my sleeves."
Charley scowled, dropped the porker smartly for a good bounce, and slammed it towards the white line just below Randi's navel. Yes, it took a big woman to play pig pong successfully, but there wasn't an ounce of fat on her 6'1" frame. She returned the swine to Charley's left corner. Return. Right corner. Return. Left corner. Return. He began to sweat. This was a long volley for pig pong. Usually either the table or the suid gave out by now. Good thing they weren't playing a boar. Right. Return. Left. Return. Right. Return. Sweat poured down Charley's face. Randi was indeed a worthy opponent. He might just ask her out after the game. Left. Return. Right. Return. Left. Return. Right corner--and away. No point. Randi's serve.
And so the game wore on, neither combatant yielding. Finally, the score was 20:18, Randi's serve, game point. This was where he would do it. He would take the serve away one last time and crush her. She slammed the oinker down on the table and fired it straight for the right corner. Charley lunged and whacked the pig on the ham. He lurched back to position just in time to see the curly tail disappear over the other end of the table. He had lost. LOST! She must have cheated. Moved the table, something! He would NEVER ask her out now.
"Good game," she said, grinning, "want to go for a root beer?"
*No farm animals were harmed in the writing of this story.
The end
The Theory of Geothermal Heating
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
(being an explication of the origins and initial reception of the new theory, together with an account of its rigorous testing)
Even in these enlightened times, Professor Robin's theory was met with skepticism.
The Chronicle: "Nonsense of the Worst Sort!"
The Times, as expected, was more urbane: "Professor Robin's radical Theory of Geothermal Heat has no foundation whatever."
His fellow scientists were no kinder. Robin was expelled from the premier societies and ignored at meetings. The last straw came when Professor Philip, Chair of Earth Science at The University, had this to say: "Sir, do you mean that you believe the interior is a greater source of heat than the sun?! Poppycock! The Theory of Solar Heat is central to thermodynamics. It enjoys almost universal support and its predictions have been proven countless times."
The gantlet had to be taken up. After all, the matter involved considerations beyond mere science.
*
Robin mopped his brow. The drill rig towered above, but its shade fell elsewhere. Drilling was going well, and the bit should penetrate the base of the crust today. If his theory was correct, they would soon bring up samples of the hot mantle.
A shadow interposed itself between him and the sun. "Robin," Cynthia said, "on a day like today it is difficult to believe that heat comes from within rather than above."
"Dearest Cynthia," he replied, "I have never claimed that we receive no radiant heat..." he swallowed. "I wish you would not tease about such things, given the attitude your father has displayed towards my suggestion of an alliance between us."
With an expression of contrition she stood on tiptoe to kiss his forehead. "I have never doubted your brilliance. And I would love you anyway, were you quite wrong."
Prof. Michael strolled up, hands in pockets. "Ready for ignominious defeat?"
"Au contraire!" Robin retorted hotly, but he was interrupted by an excited shout from the driller:
"New sample, Professor!" They hurried to the rig. The newest core lay on the plank table.
"Lighter color, more porosity... what are those dark blobs?" Robin mused.
Cynthia plucked one out, popped it in her mouth. "Mmm, blueberry."
"Observe the steam, Michael." Robin gestured towards the core. "Clearly the temperature of the interior is much greater than that on the surface. You have the pleasure of witnessing my vindication!"
"Vindication? You have proved yourself wrong. Although I have to admit some chagrin myself. The Bakists were on the right track after all. Oh look! Whole wheat!" He licked his lips.
Tom Swift and his Automatic Sausage Maker
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
The front door opened and another one came out, carrying Grandma's Victrola. Janice peered through the binoculars. At 8X they looked like Santa's elves, right down to the curly-toed shoes. Pine straw poked her in several places, and because of the lack of underbrush she couldn't move much without being spotted. Now two "elves" went back in the shed, carrying between them some parts from the old washer they'd been dismantling. Nearly all of the Chevy had already disappeared inside, not to mention the toaster and a bunch of other stuff from the house. It must be getting pretty crowded inside. One of the elves had what looked like a meat grinder going as fast as he could turn the crank, but what went in was dead leaves, and the sausage that came out shone like aluminum. At least they're cleaning up the place, she thought, and Emma will stop riding me about that. Emma! There she was now, pulling into the yard, apparently lost in radioland, not even noticing the red-jacketed creatures who had taken over the yard. Shit! She actually got out and started for the house, then stopped dead still. She wasn't screaming and jumping around; something must be wrong. Janice bit her lip, then picked up her rifle, never taking her eyes off the tableau below. Two of the elves took Emma's hands and led her into the shed. Now they had a hostage. She silently backed down the hill. She'd have to come up from the west where there was more cover. She'd have to do it fast.
By the time she had the yard in view again everything was gone: the shed, the truck, the rest of the Chevy, the elves, and Emma. She ran to the spot where the shed had been. Bare dirt; the meat grinder stood in the very center as if left behind in payment. Her baby sister was gone. It was time for a drink.
After a while the quart jar was empty, but nothing was going to bring Emma back. A tear ran down her cheek. She thought for a few minutes. A meat grinder that turned dead leaves into aluminum ought to have SOME value. It did.
#
About a year later Emma showed up again, her diminutive baby in tow.
"He takes after his father. I think he'll be a great engineer," she said.
wishes.com
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
To: dmerwyn@caustic.net
From: genie@wishes.com
Subject: 3 wishes
Dear D. Merwyn:
Congratulations! You have been selected to receive three wishes! To claim your wishes, simply hit the reply button and state your request.
To: genie@wishes.com
From: Dan Merwyn
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Please do not send any more spam to this address.
To: dmerwyn@caustic.net
From: genie@wishes.com
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Dear Dan:
Congratulations! You have won three wishes. To claim your wishes, simply hit the reply button and state your request.
To: genie@wishes.com
From: Dan Merwyn
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Stop sending me this stuff. I get too much spam and I'm certainly not going to buy your stupid product!!
To: dmerwyn@caustic.net
From: genie@wishes.com
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Dear Dan:
We are not selling anything. You have won three wishes. To claim your wishes, simply hit the reply button and tell us what you want.
To: genie@wishes.com
From: Dan Merwyn
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Stop bothering me!! Can't you tell I have work to do?! Telemarketers and junk mail are bad enough, do I have to suffer through this as well? Please, please, please leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!
To: dmerwyn@caustic.net
From: genie@wishes.com
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
Dear Dan:
Telemarketers? Can you express that in the form of a wish?
To: genie@wishes.com
From: Dan Merwyn
Subject: Re: 3 wishes
I get more spam than real e-mail. In fact, most days all I get is spam. Will I never have peace?! Oh, God, I wish the internet had never been invented!!!!!!!!
************************************************************************
I. M. Genie
Wishes, Inc.
321 Desire Dr.
Fulfillment ND
Dear Sir or Madam:
Congratulations! You have been selected to receive two valuable wishes! Do not throw away this letter. Simply reply to the address above to claim your wishes. Please state your wishes unambiguously.
Sincerely,
I. M. Genie,
Field Agent
Freshman Cosmology
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
So the TriDee says, "The natives believed their dance was the only thing preventing the ultimate dissolution of everything. It's like those monks who were recording the 9 Billion Names of God. Or the other monks who were playing a 64 stack of Arky Malarkey and when they finished the universe would end. This powerful image repeats in various forms in religions throughout known space."
"How could even ignorant natives have believed that?! It's the biggest load of BS..."
"Can it, James. You are so dismissive of other people. I find it disgusting." Elaine tossed the chip stack on the coffee table. "I don't understand why you watch that talk-TriDee anyway. A bunch of know-nothings grinding axes." She left. It was weird seeing her ass leave the room without her ex-boyfriend following it. Hadn't seen him since they broke up.
"Anyway," James continued, running his hands through his hair, "they are gone, extinct, disappeared, guantanamowed, couldn't hack it in the new ecology, square-pegged out, finished, finito, finis, etcetera ad nauseam ... and the universe is still here. So they were wrong."
"Maybe not," I replied, "you know how every decision creates at least one new universe. When the last native died the universe split. We're in the one that survived their extinction. So what do you think he sees in her anyway?"
James laughed. "What do you care? You interested? We are living in the world in which the natives died," he said. "Period. The local sophonts have been completely exterminated. It's not what you or I would have done, but it happened. If their unsophisticated religious beliefs were correct, this world would have ceased to exist, and you can't split what has already been destroyed. The world in which we made sure at least a few of them survived in a zoo would have continued."
"Well, if this were a science fiction story," I said, "either the world would now disappear, or it would turn out the homegrown primitives were not extinct." Maybe both, I thought. "Nah, I just find her irritating."
"Me too, but I don't care what she does in bed," said James. "If they were still here we would see them. With modern technology without question we would know. You know how hard the Authority looked for them during the Readjustment. They are gone."
Outside the station, a trio of indigenes shuffle-stomped upslope. The little one lagged behind, and one of the others hoisted it onto her shoulders. They passed a meter behind one of the observation robots. The robot rose to its feet and did a leisurely 360 with its observation turret. About halfway through the rotation it hesitated, cycled through detection modes, clickety-clacked weapon-tube covers off and on, off and on. It finished its sweep and returned to passive mode. A human might have shrugged. By then, the aborigines were gone, soft-shoeing their way into The World That Is.
Click!
In space, no one can hear you scream
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
A dumb tag line from an ancient movie, but it's coming back to haunt me as I wait to die. A movie got me into this mess. I was climbing around on the Listening Post, and it looked so much like one of the pods from that other old movie, what was the name? There was a psychotic computer in it, I remember that.
Anyway, I was thinking about that scene where the guy is trying to get back into the ship, and I just . . . didn't check my tether. They say that stupidity is about 79 percent heritable, which means I'm doing my part to improve the gene pool. I'm only 1,000 meters out, and no one can hear me, because the LP doesn't listen at radio frequencies. No broadcast long-distance communication allowed. Of course, if we weren't so short-handed, what with the war and all, I'd have backup. I'd be alive.
I wish I hadn't renewed my life insurance.
If I hadn't, Louise wouldn't be getting any money out of the TBA. It was a Trans-Belt programmer who stole her from me. What she saw in him is anyone's guess: boring, ugly, and no money. She had it made with me, and now she'll be spending my insurance money with that loser.
Where was I?
Everything is spinning. I guess really it's me that's spinning. I keep seeing the LP, smaller each time, diminishing like the murdered astronaut in that old movie. The other guy was trying to save him but it was no use. If someone wanted to save me I'd be a textdisk example. Next time someone comes out here I'll be thousands of kilometers from anything. They'll never find me.
It's funny. I was floating, looking out at the stars, and almost starting to feel at peace with my situation. It's beautiful out here, and I so seldom find the time to look. I was absently coiling up my tether as I looked out at nature's biggest jewels, and when I got to the end I saw that the hook is completely smashed. No wonder I came loose. I oughta complain to the manufacturer, but I've got nothing to record a message on. If it wasn't for a defective piece of gear I'd be on my way back to base now. Sucks to be me.
But it sure worked out good for Louise.
The Bagel Didn't Fit
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
They held a wake for the toaster. I didn't participate. The cutlery served as ushers and all the glassware and most of the ceramics participated. Didn't tell them a wake doesn't need ushers. I can let some errors ride. The microwave gave the eulogy. All about how they had been neighbors, and that even though the toaster tended to be a bit rigid in his views, she felt that at bottom he was a good soul. It went on for a very long time.
"When are you guys going to be done?" I said, "because I'm feeling a bit hungry." If looks could kill! One of the juice glasses, the "Land Before Time" one with Sarah on it, actually started to cry.
"It was an accident!" I said.
"How could you be so insensitive!?" one of the Mexican bowls gasped. She fanned herself and hyperventilated: "I need some air." I tried to lift her up to the window sill, but she shied away like I might drop her.
"Well, I'll get something from a restaurant. Don't wait up." A chilly silence followed me outdoors.
The van was surly. "You know, Jack," she said, "you can be a real jerk."
"Yeah, sorry," I said. "Let's go to Taco Bell." At least she drove me over there. I was half afraid that she would refuse. I went through the drive-through. At the order panel I asked for a couple of chicken soft tacos and a margarita.
"What? I can't hear you! You'll have to go back through the line."
I repeated myself. I shouted. I used words of one syllable. The panel seemed to understand less each time, almost like it wasn't listening. "What's the matter with that thing?"
"Word travels fast. She just married a toaster," the van replied. "Maybe a human wouldn't understand."