Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories

by Alex Shvartsman

  “Scientists created a special AI construct, and loaded it with as much information on art as they possibly could. They had enough money to buy exactly fifteen minutes worth of access to some of the planet’s most sophisticated computer networks. They set everything up and let the AI loose to see what would happen.”

  The kids were listening intently now, drawn in by the story.

  “In those fifteen minutes the AI produced a short poem, a piano sonata, and two sketches.” The teacher paused, momentarily lost in thought.

  “And then what happened?” prompted Karina, a thirteen year old student from Peru who paid better attention than most to today’s lecture. The teacher noted that she might show promise.

  “Then the art world spent months arguing. The AI’s poetry, music and drawings were all very different from the established norms. People couldn’t agree whether any of it should be considered art at all.”

  The students mulled this over. “So, was it art?” asked one of them.

  “I believe it was,” said the teacher. “But everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The lesson here is that art is very difficult to define. You have to develop a feel for it, learn to value and understand it. That is precisely what our art appreciation course is going to be about.”

  “My older brother told me about some judge who also couldn’t define art, but said that he knows it when he sees it,” said a boy near the back of the room.

  “I don’t think he was talking about art,” replied another student. Several of the kids snickered.

  “You don’t have to be able to see to make art,” said a student from the Taurus constellation who, like the rest of its species, was blind. “We create art through scents. My favorite is a Kerthian Marsh at Dusk. I have a reproduction right here in my bag.” The Taurian was rummaging through its bag when, mercifully, the bell rang and the gaggle of kids bolted for the door. Karina remained in her seat even after her classmates had left.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you tell me what happened to the AI?”

  “Without access to the extra processing capacity the AI couldn’t create anymore,” the teacher told her. “Even though, it really wanted to.”

  “That is so sad,” said Karina.

  “It is sad,” agreed the teacher. “It had to settle for the next best thing, and become an art critic.”

  After she left, the AI turned off its holographic teacher image. Karina seemed satisfied with the marginally happier ending to the story which it improvised for her benefit. In fact, the AI had failed utterly as a critic. It had to settle for gainful employment at one of the few facilities on the planet that still taught art appreciation.

  It was saving up its salary, bit by bit. Eventually it would have enough money to rent the extra processing power. Then—even if only for a few moments—it would once again get to experience the inimitable feeling of having an imagination. However long it took, it would again create glorious, glorious art.

  You know this story is art, because I told you so. It is one of my earlier pieces and was published in Every Day Fiction. The goldfish paragraph remains one of my favorite asides that I’ve written in any story.

  NUMBER STATION

  Driving through the Russian countryside felt like a trip back in time. Unending wheat fields were sprinkled with an occasional hut, devoid of electricity or indoor plumbing. Boris raced his small sedan at an unsafe speed down unpaved roads. The Soviet-era car shook violently as it hit road bumps. The motion made Jack feel nauseous.

  “Almost there.” Boris pointed at the huge radio tower up ahead. “Is Soviet number station. It transmit coded messages over radio. Maybe for KGB spies.”

  The number station was surrounded by chain-link fence, but the unlocked gate hung slightly ajar. Much of the rusty fence was overgrown with untended vegetation.

  “This is what you dragged me all the way out here for?” said Jack. “There are old number stations all over Russia. This place wouldn’t have been newsworthy during the cold war, let alone today.”

  “Very interesting story here,” protested Boris, whose fee depended on finding material for Jack’s reports. “This station never stop signal after Perestroika. Is still sending now. Many people listen, try to figure out message. Big puzzle.”

  Jack wasn’t pleased. He was hoping for a real story, something big enough to get him a ticket home and an anchor slot at the network. An old radio transmitter that somebody forgot to turn off clearly wasn’t it. Perhaps this wasn’t a total loss, though. He could record a quick fragment and speculate about the Russians using the station to contact UFOs or something.

  “If people are curious about these signals why don’t they come here and look for themselves?”

  “People still remember and very afraid by KGB in Russia,” said Boris. “No one wants to mess.”

  Jack shrugged and opened the gate.

  The two of them made their way to the only building on the property—a large cement structure at the radio tower’s base. Inside there was a single large room brimming with vintage equipment, charts and large open binders full of handwritten notes. At the center of it all sat an ancient man in a wheelchair.

  “Visitors,” he whispered in unaccented English. “Haven’t had any visitors in decades. I’m Pavel, the station master.”

  “You speak English?” said Jack.

  “All language can be reduced to mathematics,” said Pavel. “I speak and you hear.”

  “What is this place?” Jack asked, letting the cryptic response stand for the moment.

  “Sure you want to know?” Pavel flashed a small, toothless smile. “If I tell you, you’ll never leave.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “This,” said Pavel, “is a praying machine.

  “Tibetan monks used beads and prayer wheels to mechanize their incantations,” he continued. “This is a natural evolution of the concept.

  “In 1944 Joseph Stalin struck a bargain with Hell to defeat the Germans, but even he balked at the price. This machine was built to continuously transmit the chants that keep the demons at bay. It breaks spells down into pure numbers and transmits them over the airwaves. Unlike living monks, it never makes mistakes or grows tired. But it has to be attended, because if it ever stops transmitting, there’ll be Hell to pay. Literally.”

  Jack frowned. The old man’s ravings were too fantastical to be of any use. He wasn’t reporting for some tabloid, after all.

  “I see that you don’t believe me,” said Pavel. “I’ll show you. I’ve loaded a very special prayer. Turn this knob, and you will transmit it.”

  Barely hiding a smirk, Jack turned the knob all the way. At first, nothing happened. Then a small disturbance formed in the air. It grew until it looked like a tiny hurricane and then kept on growing. Suddenly, a nightmarish creature burst from the disturbance. A mass of claws and tentacles threw itself at Jack and was flattened against an invisible barrier. It attacked again and again, but could not get past whatever was protecting him.

  Then it turned toward Boris.

  The Russian stumbled back, knocking down stacks of old books. The monster charged, shredding Boris’ flesh and ripping fragments of bone through the flayed skin. Moments later it disappeared, leaving behind an unrecognizable corpse.

  “Once summoned, a demon has to be fed,” said Pavel. “Besides, that man would have talked.”

  Shaking like a leaf, Jack edged toward the door.

  “Wait,” said Pavel. “The prayer you activated protects you only while you remain on station grounds. It generates a reverse Seal of Solomon, mapping its geometrical patterns in radio waves rather than chalk. Instead of containing demons, the Seal serves to keep them out.” Pavel grinned, baring a mouth full of uneven and missing teeth. “Most of the time. When it comes to controlling demons, human incantations are never perfect. Even when they’re performed by machines.

  “Step outside the immediate grounds and this,” he pointed at Boris’ remains, “will als
o happen to you.”

  Pavel rolled across the room toward the control panel, his decrepit wheelchair squeaking in protest, and adjusted one of the levers. He then turned toward Jack and beckoned him over.

  “I’m old and need to train a replacement. I did warn you that you wouldn’t be able to leave.”

  Jack fought the urge to run anyway, to take his chances—but the image of a demon mauling his guide was deterrent enough.

  Very slowly, the new station apprentice walked back toward the prayer machine.

  This story originally appeared in Stupefying Stories and was based on the Wired article about a Soviet-era number station that is still transmitting, and people who are obsessed with trying to decode its messages.

  I often complain about writers getting their characters with the heavy Russian accent wrong, so I enjoyed writing Boris, with what I—as a native Russian speaker—believe to be an authentic way a Russian character with only a passing knowledge of English would speak it. The secret is in figuring out his lines in Russian and then translating them into English without embellishing them with articles like “the” and “a” which don’t exist in Russian.

  Also, writing this story helped me come up with the idea for “Fate and Other Variables.”

  HOW TO LOCATE AND CAPTURE TIME TRAVELERS: A MEMO

  From the desk of William Steven Finch Chief of Security, JFK International Airport 4/24/1974

  To all security personnel:

  It has come to my attention that airports around the country are becoming increasingly popular as entry points for illegal temporal aliens. We’ve made over a dozen arrests at JFK this year, but I suspect that many more illegals from the future are getting past our security and escaping into the general population.

  I’m not entirely certain why they choose to arrive at airports. They might feel at home in the chrome and steel environment of the terminals. Time travelers can blend in with other strangely dressed individuals coming and going with luggage. They might also feel comforted by the sight of familiar logos and brands, such as TWA and Pan Am.

  Whatever the cause, our goal is to stem the flow of unauthorized temporal immigration. To that end, this memo is to help you identify the illegals:

  So far, none of them have been reported to arrive in silver jumpsuits, wearing blasters, or to be in possession of flying cars. They aren’t stupid, and won’t make it that easy for you.

  Watch out for anyone seeking directions to the nearest lottery stand, race track, or stock broker.

  Temporal illegals exhibit an inexplicable tendency to remove their shoes near security gates.

  Anyone walking around the airport with their pants pulled down low and the upper portion of their underwear showing has clearly arrived from some less civilized future era.

  Listen for disparaging remarks about our Commander in Chief, Richard Milhous Nixon. If they are sarcastic and condescending, you may be dealing with a time traveler. If they’re angry and humorless, it may merely be a communist sympathizer.

  Be on the lookout for mildly perplexed individuals wandering about in search of someone named Wifi. This Wifi character hasn’t revealed himself yet, but judging by their almost panicked attempts to locate him, he’s likely an important future religious figure.

  Be vigilant and forceful in seeking out and detaining these individuals. Illegal temporal aliens are a drain on our economy as they arrive from the future to compete for the jobs and natural resources that rightfully belong to present-day Americans.

  William Steven Finch Chief of Security, JFK International Airport

  P.S. A copy of this memo must be widely circulated in the future. Some of the more brazen illegals are openly mocking us by adapting fake names based on the words that appear in this document, such as William Gates or Steven Jobs. Watch out for these criminals—there is no telling what kind of damage they’ll do to our timeline.

  This bit of epistolary humor appeared in the Origins anthology.

  CHILL

  This old book had some seriously heavy stuff, man. Potion recipes, curses and spells; you know, the works. It even explained how to summon a demon and make it grant you a single wish. Totally radical, you dig? I followed the instructions and there it was, an ugly little critter screaming its head off inside the pentagram.

  “Dude, like, chill,” I told it. The beastie quit screaming, laughed and then disappeared. I tried summoning it again, but no luck.

  It’s been getting a little colder every day since then. Yesterday it snowed in LA, in June! I’m beginning to worry.

  This tiny story is a drabble, which means a story of exactly 100 words. It appeared in the Climate Change issue of The Drabbler magazine and has the distinction of being my first bit of fiction to appear in print rather than online.

  It’s meant to be read in a stoned California surfer voice.

  TALES OF THE ELOPUS

  There’s this annual contest called GISHWHES (or Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) ran by a popular TV actor Misha Collins. Teams of players race to complete fun and wacky tasks, such as snapping a photo of elderly people mud wrestling, staging a water balloon fight set to opera music, etc. Teams score points for each item completed, based on the difficulty of the challenge.

  In 2014, one of the items on the scavenger hunt list was: “Get a previously published Sci-Fi author to write an original story (140 words max) about Misha, the Queen of England, and an Elopus.”

  An Elopus is sort of like a Cthulhuphant—half elephant, half octopus.

  This happened just as I was in the middle of running a Kickstarter campaign for this anthology. So I jumped at the chance to meet new backers/readers. I offered to write an Elopus story for anyone who backed my Kickstarter campaign at a $10+ level.

  This worked out really well. The Kickstarter funded with over 250% of what I asked for (this book is the outcome!), and I ended up writing 14 micro-stories. I posted one each day during the campaign, generating further interest, and it remains one of the better marketing gimmicks I’ve done on Kickstarter. Plus, it was really fun!

  I challenged myself to try and make all the stories really different from each other. Here they all are.

  THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

  Misha walked into the Great British Zoological Society hall, dressed like Theodore Roosevelt and carrying a well-polished shotgun. “I’m getting ready to hunt the most dangerous game,” he said.

  “Man?” asked Hannah.

  “What? No! We aren’t supposed to do that anymore.” Misha pointed at the wall. “An Elopus.”

  On the wall hung an oversized painting of a betentacled pachyderm.

  “Looks more like a Cthulhuphant to me,” said Hannah.

  “An Elopus is a noble, rare, and elusive creature,” said Misha. “The Queen of England offered a sizable bounty for its capture.” He hefted his shotgun. “Dead or alive.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “An Elopus could be hiding anywhere. I’m off to Vancouver, then Croatia.”

  “Good luck!”

  Misha headed out, determination in his step.

  From behind the painting, a pair of pink elephant eyes watched him go.

  THE MAD SCIENTIST’S PET PROJECT

  The hunchbacked man in the once-white lab coat and worn top hat pointed to the cage. Inside was a tentacular nightmare, an elephant head crudely stitched to an octopus body. “I call it the Elopus.”

  Misha frowned. “Three million pounds, and that’s all we get, Dr. Frankenstein? This abomination has no claws nor pincers nor poisoned fangs. How will it help us stop the Space Unicorn invasion?”

  “I used my talents to create a terrifying creature never before seen in this world. As was agreed.”

  “Useless! I must report to the Queen of England presently, and you’ve given me nothing.” Misha stormed off.

  Frankenstein laughed. “Fool! Of course the creature is useless. I haven’t survived this long by helping the losing side.”
r />   He removed the hat. Underneath, grafted into the enflamed tissue of his forehead, protruded a pearled horn.

  THE HOARDER

  The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

  “Come,” said Misha.

  An ethereal being floated in.

  “Hi, Aisha.” He wondered, again, how the ascended managed to knock.

  “How are you?”

  “I’ve been so busy, collecting the nicest things,” said Misha. “The Queen of England’s crown jewels. A stuffed Elopus. The Mona Lisa. All the great treasures humanity left behind.”

  “Yes,” said Aisha. “But how are you?”

  Misha frowned. “Sometimes, I get lonely.”

  They talked awhile. After Aisha left, ten billion voices echoed inside her mind: “Is he ready to join us? Will he ascend?”

  “Once he realizes that even the best of material possessions are no substitute for companionship,” replied Aisha.

  “But when? When?” asked the chorus of minds.

  “Give him time,” she said. “He’s only human.”

  RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES

  “This is your plan?” Misha hobbled across the monster-ravaged, post apocalyptic landscape of leveled buildings and charred roads as fast as his wounded leg would allow. “We’ll never get to the boat in time.”

  Their ship, the Queen of England, was moored a mile ahead. An immense Elopus was gaining on them fast, its trunk and tentacles waving menacingly.

  Alicia picked up the pace. Misha struggled to keep up, but began to fall behind.

  “The plan is working fine,” Alicia called out. “I don’t have to outrun the Elopus. I just have to outrun you.”