by Eric Juneau
GODS ON A HILL
By G. J. Brown
OUT OF EVERY TEN PEOPLE WHO’D LIVED IN NEW ANGELES BEFORE THE WAR, one was now dead and three were gone. At least, that’s what they said on the news. But I figured it was worse here in the valley. Four out of five houses around ours had already burned down by the time Lada and I had packed whatever we could fit into the battered harvester I’d bought with two months’ pay.
The Franciscan Army was coming, and our army, well, they’d already turned tail and run. The only ones left were dumbstruck kids with barely any ammo to call their own. They scurried about like rats, holding kevlar helmets tight with each mortar round that cracked the rocks around the valley. I didn’t have a hat to cover my head with, so I covered Lada’s with my hands and left mine bare to a sky now filled with dust and smoke.
I heard a pop, then saw one of the soldier boys fall to his knees, eyes bugged out and blood creeping out the side of his mouth.
“He’s hurt,” Lada said, but the soldier boy was dead before she’d even finished saying it.
¤
I hadn’t believed it could happen, not here. When the trouble started, it had just seemed so remote. The match, the riots, the Colonial police beating fans in the streets—those were problems for city-folk, not us. But before long it was all anyone could talk about.
The day after the news broke I’d gone down to the depot, looking to buy parts for the new harvester. Wasn’t urgent, but I guess I just needed something to take my mind off things. Half the town was there when I arrived.
Petra Rodriguez saw me and waved me over. She was a short, stocky woman with an honest face and the kind of muscles you got from working with your hands. She was rock-solid valley, through-and-through, not the kind to be scared by just anything.
“This ain’t good,” she’d said. But I hadn’t wanted to hear it.
“Nothing to worry about,” I’d said with a smile. “Probably gonna blow over like usual.”
Only, it wasn’t like before, not this time. The city-folk were angry, frustrated—the Franciscans blaming us Angelinos, us blaming them back, and everybody blaming the Colonial Federation. Lada took to biting her nails.
I remember this one night—hot and sticky the way valley nights get in the summertime, bugs swarming so tight you’d inhale them if you weren’t careful. Lada and I were at home, the holoscreen broadcasting the latest from Angeles City. Colonial police brought everything short of live ammo—tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and dogs—and still the protesters kept coming.
Lada lit a stick and took a puff. She looked scared. “This is big. Like, really big.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” I said, hoping it was true.
“How do you figure?”
“No one’s happy with how things are, Lada—not us and not them. Maybe getting it out in the open could lead to something better, for everyone.”
“Like hell it will,” she said and passed the stick to me.
“Think about it, Ty. All these people, these people right here—” Lada pointed at a small group of armed, bearded men on the screen. “Do they look like they want something better, for everyone?”
The stick dangled between my fingertips, burning off quickly. I’d forgotten it was there.
“Goddamn Colonials.” It was all I could think of to say.
“Yeah,” she said. “But for how long?”
¤
Lada’s words were hard to wrap my head around, but every night new images filtered in from the cities: of protesters looting the armories and soldiers ripping Colonial insignia off their jackets; of flags burnt and “foreigners” beaten in the streets; of rich and powerful folks packing up and heading for the spaceports.
Around that time the Earth folks arrived—real important types with suits, briefcases, and all that. They came on a Colonial Federation Peacekeeper, a big hulking dreadnought that looked like a gray smear on the clear sky. Damned ship had enough firepower to blast the whole colony to kingdom come, so I thought, well, there you have it. But those Earth folks, they just wanted to help us help ourselves, as they said it. Problem was, no one gave a rat’s ass about all that anymore.
The Earth folks went back up to their ships. One of them gave a talk that was broadcast all over the colony. He was a thin-faced man in a blue suit, all stern and serious looking. He went on about trust-building frameworks and this and that. Then he wagged his finger and said they’d be watching from up top, whatever that meant.
¤
Wasn’t long after we heard talk of fighting down in the gulch. That was only a day’s drive away. Even then, I couldn’t believe it would come here, not to the valley. We knew Franciscans—the Hansons, the Kims. They weren’t killers; they were good folks, valley-folks just like us. They were our neighbors, and we didn’t treat them differently from anyone else.
All that began to change when the first refugees arrived from the gulch, dirty, hungry and crowded on harvesters, extractors—whatever had a working motor. One group told us how Franciscan soldiers surrounded their village and then bombed the hell out of it; of how snipers nested in the hills took pot shots at old ladies and kids waiting in line for clean water; and of how our boys had hightailed it at the first sign of trouble. They’d told the gulch-folk not to worry; the army would be back, in force this time.
The gulch-folk had known that for the lie it was, so they’d done the sensible thing and got the hell out. No one wanted to think about the ones who stayed.
We didn’t have proper housing for the gulch-folk, so we all pitched in with blankets and set them up in the depot. I tried to be sympathetic, but some of the men had looks about them that didn’t sit right with me. Couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but then it struck me: these were the born survivors, the kind who do whatever it takes to live another day. Sure enough they got to talking; not long after, people started looking at the Hansons and Kims differently.
One night I saw two gulch-men sitting on a rock just outside the Hanson place. They looked like stray dogs ready to fight over just about any scrap of meat. The one on the right had a knife, which he kept sharpening on the side of the rock. His buddy wasn’t armed, not so I could see, but I didn’t much like the look in his eyes.
“What’s new, fellas?”
The one on the left answered: “Not much, valley-man.” The other one kept working on his knife.
“You got business here?” I asked.
“No business. Just thinking about how life goes.”
He nodded in the direction of the Hanson place. “Curious how us Angelinos get stuck livin’ twenty to a room, while they’re all cozy in that big house.”
I stiffened. “They’re valley-folk, same as me. You got a problem with that, we best talk about it. So let me ask again, nice and slow so even a gulch-man gets it. Do you have a problem?
The two men rose. The chatty one put his hands up, a big placating smile on his face. His eyes, though, told a different story.
“Relax, friend. Just having a conversation, is all.”
“That better be all it is. Don’t want to see you two around here again.”
He let out a snort. “Whatever you say, valley-man.”
The next morning I found John Hanson’s body laid out on our porch. It was a bloody mess: there must have been at least thirty stab wounds. The killers had stapled a note to his chest. Problem solved, it said.
That was it for me. I loaded my gun and told Lada to start packing.
¤
When it finally came, it came so hard no one was ready for it. The depot got tanked first, taking most of the gulch-folk with it. Then they started hitting the farms. Wasn’t more than an hour before our little cul-de-sac had been laid to waste. Petra Rodriguez got her family out just in time, but the Hansons weren’t so lucky. They must have figured, after John’s murder, that they had more to fear from us than the Franciscans, but mortars and artillery don’t play favorites. That’s when Lada and I ran out to the harves
ter.
Lada hesitated. “Ty, where will we go?”
“I don’t know. As far as we got fuel for.”
“The coast,” she said. “I want to see the coast again.”
“Sure, baby. I’d like that too.”
A mortar exploded over the Rodriguez farm. The blast shook the ground we stood on and made my ears ring like a tin can. I had to get her inside.
“We gotta go, baby.”
A pop. Then another. Lada just stood there with this goofy grin on her face.
“Get in the car,” I said, but she wouldn’t move.
“Get in the goddam car!” I screamed.
Blood ran thick down Lada’s cheek as she grasped me, staining my shirt, my lucky white shirt.
I held her in my arms, as tight as I ever held anything.
Somewhere up above the fire and the smoke and the dust, they were sitting all cozy in that Peacekeeper, its guns trained but never triggered. Watching, like gods on a hill.
G. J. Brown is an itinerant science fiction and fantasy writer currently based in Los Angeles. His writing has also appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine.
THE ANNIVERSARY GIFT
By Gary Cuba
DAVE SPIED THE HUGE WOODEN CRATE sitting smack-dab in front of the garage door the moment he pulled into his driveway. Yes! Maria’s wedding anniversary gift had finally been delivered. He punched the air in front of his face in triumph.
She was going to love it!
He pulled his car up, got out and inspected the crate excitedly. Maria appeared out of thin air—as she so often did.
“It was delivered this morning,” she said. “A couple of Asian guys in a big black unmarked step-van. The paperwork was all in Chinese or something, but I saw your name printed at the top, so I signed for it. Did I do right?”
“Cool! Did they look Korean?”
“Couldn’t say. I asked them to move it into the garage, but they didn’t seem to understand English. What the heck is this thing, Dave?”
“It’s my anniversary gift to you, Sweetie! And you’re gonna love me forever when you see it.”
Maria cocked her head and stared at him. “Dave, our wedding anniversary was three months ago.”
“Well, the thing is, it took a little longer to ship than I expected. I guess you thought I’d forgotten. But I never do, do I?”
“No, I’ve got to give you that, Pumpkin. Although, to be honest, there have been a few times in the past when I’d wished you’d forgotten…”
Dave huffed. Okay, so he’d screwed up on the anniversary gifts once or twice before. Maybe three times. Four at most. Maria didn’t like surprises very much—but goshdarn it, this time it was special!
“Honey, this time it’s special! Extra-califragellistically so. Lemme get some tools and my handtruck and we’ll show this puppy its new home.”
Dave heard Maria muttering to herself as he went into the garage: “But he never said what the heck it is...”
¤
What it was, was an AtomMaster™ fission-powered cooktop unit, straight from the exotic highlands of North Korea—the home of superior nuclear technology. Dave beamed.
Maria studied the massive metal unit that lay on her kitchen floor. “But...but, why North Korea? Why nuclear? Dave, my old cooktop was still perfectly usable. I didn’t need more than three operating burners anyway.”
Dave was still puffing from hauling the unit inside. Heavy sucker it was, for sure. That meant solid engineering and no skimping of materials.
“Nothing is too good for my Sweetie. This thing will last forever. No need to complain any more about your old cooktop. Besides, we need to support North Korea as they make their first tentative steps toward joining the global economy. Don’t you agree? It’s our civic duty as planetary citizens.”
Dave peeled off a plastic bag affixed to the unit. He pulled an instruction guide from inside it, printed on what had to be the thinnest tissue paper he’d ever held.
“Heh! One presumes their command of English will get better over time as their marketing prowess improves. Listen to this...”
We extremely thank you for purchasing one (1) AtomMaster™ fission-powered cooktop unit! This most excellent product enjoys bountiful fruits of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s very fine nuclear technology programme and is be made especially available under blessings and gratitude of our Glorious Leader in accordance with UN Trade Resolution DPRK/541/B. Please read completely manual before installing and using your most fine and excellent AtomMaster™ product.
“Maria, did you realize you now possess bountiful fruits? Even more than you did before. And here’s a picture of their ‘Glorious Leader,’ along with a shot of the AtomMaster factory with their employees out in front of it. Kind of a dour lot, I’d say. The factory looks a little like a crematorium. Well, no need to read the rest of this. I can figure it all out on my own.”
Dave tossed the manual over to Maria, went into the pantry to cut off the circuit breaker to their old cooktop, and then popped the unit out of the countertop with a hefty shove from underneath. He undid the electrical connections and moved the cooktop aside while Maria studied the manual.
“I wonder where the electrical taps are on this new unit,” Dave said. “I ain’t seeing them.”
“Dave, I know you never like to read directions. But I really think you need to in this case. Listen to this, under Safety & Installation.”
No electrical connections are be required. This feature brings additional AtomMaster™ product safety relief to consumer while saving many unnecessary pages of instruction manual.
“Wunderbar! Less to worry about. Give me a hand and let’s lift this rascal into place on the counter. You get on that side. Oompah, oompah, gal.”
Maria kept reading the manual. “Hold on a minute. There’s some info here on this…”
Use very careful care when go to lift new unit into counter cutout owing to great weight since because of lead shielding on sides and bottom. Recommend is using four strong men or eight strong women of general well health to lift into place, cautious being of inadvertent finger removal when final dropping of unit into cutout is be made.
“Jeez Mareez,” Dave said. “It’s not like we’re lifting a Neutron Star or something. Look, we two robust, well-fed Americans have got to be as strong as any four malnourished North Koreans. Let’s just do this, Maria!”
“It sounds too heavy, Dave. Why don’t you call over some neighbors to help?”
“What, fat Norman from next door? Or Ed, the old guy who’s working on an imminent heart attack? Maria, all the exercise they ever get is lifting cans of beer to their lips. We can manage this ourselves. Come on, suck it up, get on that side and think ‘Superwoman’ for a short moment.”
Maria bent over and she and Dave hoisted the unit. She grunted when they neared the countertop.
“Don’t wussy out on me now, Sweetheart. One more oomph and we’ve got it.”
The massive cooktop cleared the counter. Dave leaned his whole body against it and slid it forward into the cutout. It seated with a deafening thud. The countertop sagged, but held. Yes! Nothing that good old American-quality particleboard couldn’t support.
Maria rubbed her shoulder and glared at him.
Dave caressed the cooktop. “It’s so cool! Look at the knobs on the frontside. It’s just like a Foosball table.” He pulled and twisted the knobs. “Score!”
Maria picked the manual back up off the counter. “Dave, wait a minute. It says right here . . .”
Keep all cooktop control rods fully inserted until unit is be installed and ready for usage by current household food preparer.
“Ah, okay. Just playing around.” He pushed the rods into their seated position. Or tried to. One stuck half-out. “What’s it say about this, Maria?”
His wife leafed through the manual and found the relevant section.
Control rods to be pushed back in full when cooking done. Note: If full insertion c
annot so be accomplished for any reason, recommend is to evacuate household until such insertion accomplishment may be made. Note: Replacement control rods are be available (see to Spare Parts section). Shipping time approximate only six months after order being received in AtomMaster™’s very most efficient central business office in Pyongyang.
Dave leaned his body against the stuck rod and felt it grind home. “Ah. Okay, minor momentary problem, is all. Lemme see what else is required to get this jewel percolating. It looks like there’s a couple of long hoses here.”
Maria quoted from the Installation section of the manual:
Unit be requiring connection to inlet and drain water line using hoses provided at no consumer cost whichsoever. Constant fresh water flow must be exist at all times constantly. If seeing disruption to water flow in RotoFlow™ indicator on cooktop, recommend is to evacuate household until water flow restoration accomplishment may be made.
“Dave, this is getting just way too scary and too complicated. Can’t we stop here and rethink this whole deal?”
“Ah, ye of lesser faith. Observe!” Dave withdrew a hand tool from his back pocket and held it aloft. “Witness the epitome of human technology: a locking pliers. Our entire civilized world revolves around this exquisitely crafted item. Which I will now employ to demonstrate how we stand head and shoulders above the lesser species. Like apes and monkeys and such. We can tap into the water line to the sink. It will only take me a minute…”
It took an hour and twenty minutes, but Dave was happy enough to get the connections completed. He told Maria he’d reroute the hose line invisibly underneath the cabinets later, when he got time. For now it seemed more important to get the cooktop stoking.
“Done and done. What next, dear Goddess of the Instruction Manual?”