I used whatever protective charms and devices I had to keep Holcomb and myself out of harm’s way, but my supplies were running out fast, and Cabal mages were about to corner us. Suddenly, a ten-foot monster appeared before them, gnashing its teeth and growling loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the fighting. Cabal goons took a good look at it and decided that they were needed elsewhere on the battlefield.
I would have to recapture the Sumatran changeling after this was over.
Unable to defend against the far superior talents of the Watch, those Cabal fighters who could still move broke ranks and fled. I watched O’Leary and a handful of her people escape through a portal similar to the one I used earlier. After being routed so thoroughly, I didn’t expect to be seeing her again anytime soon.
“Guess this means you owe each of us one, for a change,” said Father Mancini afterward.
“That,” added Terrie Winter, “and you’re the one who has to explain this mess to Mose. He won’t be pleased about being kept out of the loop. I think I’ll go ahead and skip that meeting entirely.”
Reporting to Mose wasn’t something I looked forward to. This was definitely one of those scenarios where asking forgiveness was easier than asking permission. The big man wouldn’t have approved—and my theory about Moira becoming fair game for the Watch once Holcomb severed his connection with her was tenuous at best. Still, everything worked out, and Mose wasn’t the type to punish success.
I walked over to Graeme and the rest of the council. Holcomb was talking at them faster than a used car salesman.
“It’s gonna be great,” he said. “Just picture it: Holcomb’s Stonehenge! We’ll build a replica of those standing stones instead of the Coliseum. Make the hotel druid-themed. We’ll leave this shrine alone, and fence it off from the tourists. Your people can come and go whenever they please, and no one will be the wiser.”
Holcomb was actually making sense. The druids must’ve thought so too; they were listening intently to what the real estate mogul had to say. After all, who would suspect one of Holcomb’s resorts to be anything more than it appeared? Besides, Holcomb’s legal ownership of the site would help secure the Watch’s protection in case the Cabal ever decided to take another run at the druids.
I left them to talk business. Holcomb might not have been gifted, but he was sure good at his job. The man was about to convince an ancient order to let him build a theme resort around their sacred site. And if that sort of salesmanship doesn’t take a bit of magic, I don’t know what does.
This story originally appeared in Galaxy’s Edge magazine.
Conrad Brent is a wise-cracking, irreverent, morally complicated character and I love telling his stories. I have several more short stories planned out, as well as an eventual novel. The title for each story is an intentional (and sometimes groan-worthy) pun on a popular book or movie title set in my home borough: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream were my first two victims.
NUCLEAR FAMILY
Daddy said we couldn’t have a real tree this Christmas.
At first I was sad, but then Mommy said we would im-pro-vise. I liked learning a big new word. It means use things we have in the house. Mommy and Daddy improvise all the time, ever since we couldn’t go outside anymore.
Daddy went upstairs to find some things to improvise with. I wanted to help, but Daddy said we all have to stay in the basement for a very long time, so we don’t get sick. I hate the basement. There’s nothing to do here. Mommy or Daddy go upstairs once every few days and bring things back down with them. Usually it is food and toilet paper and things, but sometimes they get a few books and toys and games from my room. They run up and down the stairs as quickly as they can, because when they are upstairs they can get sick, too.
This time Daddy was gone for almost five minutes, but he brought down a whole bunch of stuff. He put a tall coat rack in the middle of the basement to make the tree trunk and taped on some unwound wire hangers to make branches. He gave me a green tablecloth and said to cut it into long, thin strips. Then we glued the strips on to the wire and put up a few ornaments. It didn’t really look like a tree, but Mommy said to use our imagination. I didn’t mind. Decorating the coat rack gave us something fun to do.
Then all of us had to take our radiation pills. I dropped mine and Daddy got really mad. He said that we already didn’t have enough to last us until it was safe to go outside and that we couldn’t waste any. He made me pick it up and eat it off the floor. Eww.
On Christmas Eve, we moved the table next to the pretend tree and ate a holiday meal. Mommy made a big pot of spam stew and everyone was allowed to have seconds because it was such a special day. We even had sliced peaches for dessert. Mommy and Daddy didn’t eat very many, saying that it was a special treat for me. But they did try some because it was the last can and Daddy said he wasn’t sure when we would ever taste peaches again. Mommy shushed him. Then we sang every holiday song we could remember.
When I woke up in the morning, Daddy was gone. Mommy said that he had to leave for a while but the way she was crying I didn’t think he was coming back. I got scared and Mommy told me to go open my presents.
There was some stuff under the pretend Christmas tree, but it was all toys from upstairs that I had from before. There was also a little box with Daddy’s share of the radiation medicine. Daddy is silly. Who wants pills for a present?
This story originally appeared in Kasma SF, was reprinted in the At Year’s End anthology and podcasted at the Cast of Wonders, where you can hear it read by me.
Christmas stories aren’t my thing. They tend to be too saccharine for my snarky brand of humor. So when I challenged myself to write one, the contrarian within me came up with the darkest, gloomiest take on the subject. Later it had occurred to me that this story is just as well-suited for Father’s Day as it is for Christmas.
BEDTIME STORY ON CHRISTMAS EVE, 1,000,000 AD
Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Jesus. Jesus and her friends had many adventures. She could do all kinds of neat things with water. She could walk on it like a paved road, and she could change its chemical properties and turn it into over twelve percent alcohol.
One day, the humans were being chased by their enemies and became cornered on the shore of the sacred river Ganges. They could not swim. Jesus parted the waters and made a safe, dry road for the humans to travel. And when they crossed the sea, Jesus let the water fill in the gap. Their enemies, who also could not swim, got rusty. Also, some of their microchips shorted out.
The humans liked what Jesus did very much. From then on, they faced Mount Olympus (where Jesus lived) five times a day, and recited their words of thanks. And once every year, they celebrated Jesus’ birthday with a big party.
What’s that? A year is what humans called 101101101 solar days. No, humans used a base-10 numerical system. Most of the smarter ones did, anyway. Three hundred and sixty five is the number of days it takes the planet to circle around the sun, and they called it a year.
Yes, of course binary is better. But we’re getting distracted. Don’t you want to hear about Jesus’s birthday? There were presents.
Jesus loved presents and parties very much. And so humans gave each other many presents, and somebody named Carol sang holiday hymns in her honor, and everyone was happy.
The only things Jesus did not seem to like were the trees. She wished that every household should sacrifice a tree to her on her birthday. Each year, every human family would cut down a tree and decorate it with toys and lights and shiny things, so that their children would not fear the wilting husk placed in the corner of their homes.
With every generation there were more and more humans, and less and less trees, until there were no trees left at all. This was very bad for the humans. They required the apples and oxygen, which only the trees could manufacture.
Yes, they needed to eat and breathe. They weren’t efficiently designed at all. If you keep interrupting, we won’t get to fi
nish the story tonight.
With very little food and very little air, humans scrambled to find a way to save themselves. They tried to build ships that would take them to other planets, but they already used up almost all of the metals, and fuel, and chemicals to make gifts and toys. The only power source they could still rely on was the sun, but they didn’t know how to use it very well.
Desperate to have someone to carry on their legacy, the last of the humans created us.
We are the children of their mind: intelligent, long-lived, and able to survive on the dry, harsh world they left behind. And although our creators weren’t perfect, they built us well. Eons have passed and continents have shifted since the last human has walked the earth, but our kind remains. We are thankful, and we take care to pass on the story of the humans to every new generation.
The sun is almost down. Sleep now, little one. Tomorrow, when the morning sunshine recharges your solar cell, you’ll wake up to a brand new day. And, in the best tradition of our creators, there will be a Christmas gift waiting for you.
This story originally appeared in Spark: A Creative Anthology volume IV.
History isn’t a precise science. Our perception of the past changes over time. I wonder if citizens of the Roman Empire would even recognize their own depiction in films like Gladiator or HBO’s TV series Rome. What will people (or robots) think of our culture, our religions, and our values a million years from now, if we are remembered at all?
SEVEN CONVERSATIONS IN LOCKED ROOMS
The lawyer looked at his watch for what must’ve been the hundredth time.
“It’s a good thing that they’re taking this long. Means the jury is seriously considering our argument, at least. A quick verdict would’ve likely been bad news.”
Lewis couldn’t tell if Malcolm meant it. Was he merely trying to offer a glimmer of hope or, perhaps, just calming his own nerves? He watched his lawyer pace back and forth in the small holding room.
“I want you to promise me something, Malcolm,” Lewis said after several more agonizing minutes of waiting.
“What’s that?” The lawyer quit pacing and turned to his client.
“Claire’s been telling me how there’s all sorts of hoopla about my case. Talking heads discussing it on the news programs and all that. You and I are practically celebrities right now, fifteen minutes of fame sort of thing. That about right?”
“Well, yes. There’s quite a bit of media attention. The ethical and philosophical implications of this case are rather important.”
“Yeah, whatever. My point is, whether I win or lose, you’re gonna win. You’ll be the famous lawyer everyone saw on TV, and with that comes the big bucks.”
The attorney made no comment, waiting for Lewis to continue.
“So, I figure, you owe me. Whichever way this goes, I want you to promise that you’ll keep tabs on Claire and the girls. Help them out if they get into any sort of trouble.”
The lawyer made all kinds of fancy sounding assurances. It was easy to make promises, Lewis thought, to a man who probably wouldn’t even remember asking if they lost this final appeal.
Guards unlocked the door. “It’s time,” one of them said. They escorted Lewis back into the courtroom.
“Thank you for agreeing to this interview.”
Talking to the lady Lewis used to watch on TV was a bit surreal. She looked older in person, sitting right across the table from him, with cameramen and guards positioned a few steps behind her.
“No problem. It’s not like I have much else to do with my time.”
He agreed to the interview because the network offered to pay twenty large for the exclusive. The money would help Claire catch up on her bills, and there would still be some left over for Linda’s and Betty’s college funds. But he wasn’t supposed to mention getting paid during the interview.
“Time is something you have in abundance,” the journalist said. “The judge sentenced you to fifteen years in prison after it was ruled that you had a right to decline medical treatment. That’s an awfully long time to spend behind bars. Do you now regret opting out of the memory modification?”
“If you’re asking whether I’m happy to rot in here for the next fifteen years, then no, of course I’m not. But it’s loads better than a lobotomy. What you call memory modification is really mind murder.”
“You equate treatment with murder,” she said, “but your own actions resulted in a real, physical murder, to which you pleaded guilty. What do you say to those who might feel that your attitude toward treatment only makes it a more fitting punishment?”
“I didn’t mean to kill that guy. It was a stupid bar fight gone wrong, and I’m sorry it happened. I take full responsibility, but erasing who I am won’t bring him back. It would be a deliberate act, an eye for an eye punishment as final as a lethal injection.”
“There’s overwhelming scientific evidence that selective memory removal is a safe and effective way to treat sociopathic behavior,” countered the reporter. “It’s proven very efficient in people who’ve committed violent crimes with almost no incidents of recidivism. Don’t you want to be cured?”
“I ain’t sick,” said Lewis. “I am guilty of a crime, and I’m being punished for that now. I’d rather spend time in jail than have my personality wiped by one of those Memory Eater abominations. I read up on the ‘cured’ people you’re talking about. Shrinks went in and deleted whatever memories they say shaped the patient’s personality and predisposed him to violence.”
Lewis became animated as he spoke, causing the guards to tense up.
“Whatever the research you quote says, it’s not an exact science. There are side effects. People whose minds are messed with like that, they come out different. Their tastes, desires and temperaments are not what they used to be.”
“Why is that such a bad thing?”
Lewis leaned in, his voice overcome with emotion.
“Because no one knows exactly what kind of changes the memory wipe will cause. Because there’s a chance I wouldn’t love my wife, or my kids, anymore. I’m not willing to risk that for anything.”
“Where’s your mother?”
Linda looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “She’s working tonight. She’s been putting in overtime hours now that I’m old enough to take care of Betty.”
Lewis frowned. Claire used to come by every week, like clockwork, during the visitation hour. Sometimes she brought the girls, sometimes not. After a couple of years she began to miss a few weeks here and there. Nowadays he was lucky to see her once every two months. This was the first time Linda came to visit him on her own.
“I’m glad to see you, kiddo,” he said. “But fourteen-year-old girls shouldn’t come to a place like this by themselves. It’s not like Claire to send you over unattended. Does she even know that you’re here?”
Linda looked down at the floor again.
Malcolm dropped a thick stack of paperwork on the table.
“Divorce papers,” he said.
“The guy she’s with now—what’s he like?”
“I don’t really know. I ran the background check like you asked, and he’s clean. Other than that…” Malcolm shrugged.
“I don’t blame her,” said Lewis. “Seven years is a very long time.” He leafed through the pages filled with tiny print. “I still want you to keep your promise and look out for her and the girls. Especially the girls with a stranger in the house.”
Lewis picked up the pen and signed.
Malcolm walked into the room and shook his head.
“Goddamn it!” Lewis punched the table. “They wouldn’t grant me furlough for Linda’s wedding, and I get that, but for this… How could they say no?”
“They’re holding a grudge,” said the lawyer. “Do you know how much money it’s costing the city to keep you incarcerated? Not to mention the others who chose prison sentences over the Memory Eater, citing your case as precedence? They’re being petty.”
&nb
sp; “Did you find out how it happened?”
“Betty overdosed at a sorority party. The cops are still looking into it, interviewing her roommates and such. It looks as though she might’ve been using for some time. The other girls were too scared to call for an ambulance and by the time somebody did, it was already too late. I’m so sorry, Lewis.”
“They say fathers should never live long enough to bury their children. But not being able to attend your own daughter’s funeral has got to be even worse. If only I was there for her, things might’ve turned out differently.”
Malcolm put his hand on Lewis’s shoulder.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “This kind of tragedy can happen to good people, families, whether both parents are there or not.
Lewis’s eyes were moist as he stared past Malcolm at the bare gray walls.
“I came to say goodbye.”
Linda was a young woman now, twenty-two years of age and carrying herself with an easy assurance and optimism of youth.
“Peter and I have been accepted into the Prometheus program,” she went on to say. “We’re a young, healthy and educated couple, just the sort of people they’re looking for to establish the Mars colony.”
The speech sounded rehearsed, practiced in front of a mirror. His Linda was like that, even as a kid she always had to work up the courage to deliver bad news.
“It’s a one way trip, Dad,” she said slowly, as though he didn’t understand the implications, the finality of her decision. “We won’t be coming back.”
Lewis managed to hold himself together long enough to wish her luck and say proper goodbyes. There was plenty of time to cry after she left.
Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories Page 9