It’s the Beer Talking

by Ken Brady

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.
And now, on to Ken’s story.

Johnny knew it was a bad sign when the jukebot switched to country music without his keying in so much as a chit. It rolled past his table, turned a suspicious cam on him for the briefest moment, then cut off its trance-punk-disco mix in the middle of a three-chord flourish. Did he really look that desperate?

He took another swig of beer when a voice whispered in his head that, yes, he looked like he’d slept in his clothes again, like he’d just been dumped by his longtime GF for a multitude of clichés, like he’d lost his job to a young tool just out of college working for half the salary. All this was true, and that made the bot’s choice of Vince Gill whining about his lost lover all the more depressing.

The voice said, “Order another beer,” so he did. The waitbot brought a pitcher.

Halfway through the next beer, she sat down. Retrogal, hair all big and splayed out, just how he liked it. Jeans that looked like they were made from real cotton, so tight they seemed painted on rather than worn. George Jones, long-dead but somehow still relevant, warbled from the bot about Corvettes and two-dollar pistols.

“Hi,” she said. The waitbot put a glass in front of her and Johnny filled it. “I just love this beer,” she said. “Don’t you?”

“Speaks to me,” Johnny said. His words were slurred. “Tells me stuff.”

She finished half the glass in one go, then nodded like that was the most profound thing anyone had ever said to her. Of course, Johnny reminded himself, this was a bar, and it might well have been.

“Feeling lost,” he said.

“She dumped you, huh?”

“That’s not the half of it,” he said. “Wait, how did you…”

“Beer talking,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. He tried to say something else, but failed.

“I can help you get it back,” she said.

“Get it back?”

“What you lost,” she said.

He thought about that long and hard, as only someone drunk on nano-enhanced beer could do. He thought all the way through Kenny Chesney talking about not knowing what he’d do if he lost it.

She smiled at him and put on some lipstick that glowed like electrified maraschinos.

That settled it. Johnny downed his Nanoweizen, poured another glass from the pitcher, and ordered a round for the house.

Smart beer, dumb retrogal, the promise of redemption. Maybe not a solution, but a damn fine distraction. What the hell.

When “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” started playing, he knew he’d made the right choice.

He’d take her home, open up a bottle of Patrón, and turn on some rock and roll.

The hangover would be worth it.

Haggling in the Wasteland

by Rudi Dornemann

Sitting in the shade and relative cool of his yurt, the vulture keeper realized he had company. Someone was walking back and forth in the blaze of light and heat outside. The keeper hadn’t heard a camel, and anyone crossing the waste on foot–well, they’d be crawling by now, if they were still moving at all. Which left only one possibility.

“If you’re here to haunt,” said the keeper, “save yourself the aggravation. I’ve got wards. Ground ’round here’s full of quartz, so they’ll hold.”

“I’m just,” said a voice like a sigh, “here to talk.”

“Don’t particularly want to talk,” said the vulture keeper. He went back to tuning his zither.

“You have something of mine,” said the ghost. “Or you will, when your flock returns.”

The keeper strummed and made his answer into a little tune. “Whatever they bring back, it’s something of mine.”

“It’s a particularly valuable stone,” said the ghost.

The keeper worked a troublesome string. “That’s what I deal in: carbuncles (twang), snake stones (twang) — any brain stone my vultures find (twang) and you wizards will buy.” (twa-ng-ng-ng)

“I need you to deliver it to my heir-apprentice,” said the ghost, “in the hidden city of Ar-Zellekan.”

“I’m semi-retired. Only go as far as the caravanserai. Don’t go to cities, even ones I can find.” The keeper had tuned the last of the strings. “Give up and move on, little wisp. Like the priests say: rise up as rain and come down again in the Afterworld.”

“My enemies will pay the merchants ten times its worth to kill you and take it.”

The keeper stopped his strumming. “That seems…” he said, “unnecessarily harsh.”

“The stone will bond with you by the time you reach the settlements,” said the ghost. “They won’t be able to use it with you alive.”

“My retirement’s getting shorter either way, although…” the keeper reached into his pocket for a zither pick, “this isn’t my first retirement.”

“Oh?”

The keeper strummed a complicated tune.

“You were a wizard, weren’t you?”

“Wizard-king. Nearly wizard-emperor,” said the keeper. “Had the skill; lacked the power.” He stilled the zither’s strings. “Guess that won’t be a problem much longer. Just hope your heir knows some good war-spells.”

“He’s a pacifist,” said the ghost, “like all our people. Perhaps I’ve exaggerated the stone’s power.”

“A hidden city would make a fine capital,” said the keeper.

“The stone’s strong, but not that strong,” said the ghost. “Nothing special. Nevermind.” He blew away with the next breeze.

“Good,” said the keeper, and returned to his zithering.