by Hugh Howey
“Your girlfriend has good taste then,” I joked, trying to sound aloof rather than jealous.
“She does. I didn’t really understand before but this is kind of all kinds of awesome. I feel invincible.” His mouth twisted into a smile, dimpling his cheeks.
“Well, remember you’re not really a superhero. You probably shouldn’t stand in front of any buses later on or anything.”
“I’ll try to remember.” He laughed. It was a cute little infectious giggle.
A laugh that I’d heard before.
Wait a second. What?
“Madden?” I asked, feeling like I was suddenly in the twilight zone. “Is that you?” He stared at me like I was crazy for a moment as confusion passed over him. I was right there with him.
In one swift movement, he pulled his mask off. “I wondered how long it would take.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I figured if this was so important to you, then I should check it out,” he offered by way of explanation. Wow. “And my girlfriend really wanted issue thirteen of her favorite comic book.”
“You’re such a freak,” I mumbled as I wrapped my arms around him.
Galactica Girl and Magna Man, together once again. It was what comic books were made of.
Jamie Campbell
discovered her love for writing when her school ‘What I did on the Weekend’ stories contained monsters and princesses – because what went on in her imagination was always more fun than boring reality. Primarily writing Young Adult Romances of all kinds, Jamie also delves into murder mysteries and ghost stories. Basically, whatever takes her fancy — she lets the characters decide. Living on the Gold Coast in sunny Queensland, Australia, Jamie is constantly bossed around by her dog, Sophie, who is a very hard taskmaster and lives largely on sugar.
Jamie Campbell’s Website
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Romance — Women’s Fiction — Young Adult
The Birds of Winter
Amelia Smith
Lori lay in bed, watching leaves drift down outside, brittle and brown. It was time. She pretended to be asleep as her mother climbed the attic ladder and sat down on the mattress beside her. She rested a warm, floury hand on Lori’s shoulder.
“The birds of winter are coming,” her mother said. “Time to pack for school.”
Lori shook off her feigned sleepiness and sat up. “But I won’t see you,” she complained.
“I know,” her mother sighed, “but we’ll all be safe, and that’s what’s important. Now get your things together. If you hurry, you and Cara can pick some apples before the train leaves. Up, now!”
A short while later, bags packed, Lori ran across the street to Cara’s house. Cara had been her best friend since they were toddlers. They’d been bunkmates every year at school, but this winter would be different. Cara was going to be in honors classes. Lori was just in regular classes.
“Are you really packed already?” Cara said as she arrived. “Wow.”
“My mom said we could go pick apples,” Lori said. She looked over her shoulder to make sure there weren’t any parents listening. “And I made something.”
Cara nodded. “Cool. I just have a few more things to pack. I’ll be quick!”
Cara was always quick, and neat, not to mention thin and popular. Lori slumped off to the kitchen where Cara’s parents were cleaning out the fridge. Her dad set a big dish of ice cream in front of Lori. “I’ll eat outside.”
“We don’t mind a drip or two,” Cara’s mom said.
“Thanks, but it’s just… I’m going to miss the sky,” Lori said.
Cara’s dad patted her on the back. “Don’t worry about school. We all know you’re just as smart as anyone.”
Lori blushed.
“It’s okay,” said Cara’s mom. “I always miss the sky, too.”
Lori slurped the summery strawberry ice cream which did drip, pink, onto the brick steps. She thought about school, six whole months of it. The caverns were bright and warm through the winter, with stale air, crowded dormitories. Cara’s parents could think what they wanted, she’d never be good at school. It was the tests. Lori broke a sweat just thinking about those little charcoal circles, the tap of the monitor’s heels on the floor, her classmates’ sniggering.
But she could make things. On the surface, that counted for something.
“Hey Lori!” Cara shouted from upstairs. “I’m done! I’ll race you!”
Lori dropped her empty bowl onto the kitchen table. They reached the first apple tree at exactly the same time. Cara grinned, barely winded, and reached for the first branch. She tossed the apples down and Lori stuffed them into bags.
“Let’s get some pie apples, too,” Lori said.
Cara frowned. “But they’re so far away. Will we have time?”
Lori looked back at the houses. “I have to show you these things I made.”
Cara climbed down. “Are they magic?” she asked.
“A bit,” Lori said.
From the top of the hill, they looked back at town. Trains waited in the station, noses pointed towards the tunnels into the caverns where all good people waited out the winter. Children and teachers went one way, to the schools, and adults went the other way, to the factories. Lori turned her back on it and faced Cara.
“Close your eyes,” she said. She slipped the cloak out of her backpack and put it on. “Now open them!”
Cara looked around. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here!” Lori laughed. She hadn’t tested the cloak on anyone yet, just the mirror in her bedroom.
“Where?” Cara felt her way forward. Lori dropped the cloak just before they collided.
“I made one for you, too,” she said, pulling the second cloak from her backpack.
Cara took it reverently. “Wow,” she said. “Just wow. Where did you get this material?”
“I altered some stuff from the store. It’s kind of simple, really.”
Cara shook her head. “You are way, way ahead of me. I don’t care what they say in school.”
It didn’t matter what Cara thought.
“These are great,” Cara said as she tried hers on. The fabric refracted the light, bouncing back images of trees and grass. Because she knew what was really there, Lori could see chinks in the illusion, but still, it was pretty good.
“They’ll be great at school,” Cara went on. “We’ll be able to do whatever we want after curfew!”
“Yeah, I was thinking that,” Lori said, although she hadn’t been. Over the mountains, dark snow clouds gathered. Lori pulled her cloak on again, disappearing into the landscape.
“I wonder what winter’s really like,” she said.
Cara took a moment to reply. “Cold. They all say it’s cold. I already feel cold most of the time.”
“I don’t,” Lori said.
“And the birds. They say the birds come and eat everything that moves.”
“If they can see it,” Lori said.
Cara ripped her cloak off. “You’re not thinking of… of missing the train? You can’t do that to me! You’re my best friend!”
“I was,” Lori said. “I still am, here, but this year, Vinnia’s going to be your bunkmate, we won’t have classes together, and… and I just hate it down there. I can’t tell you how much I hate it. I can’t breathe!”
“Oh, Lori!” Cara said, pulling her into an invisible embrace.
“You could stay up here, too,” Lori sniffed.
“You know I can’t.”
“We could find the outlaws.”
Lori just shook her head. The station clock chimed eleven. They had one more hour.
“Walk me to the train,” Cara pleaded. “School will be fine, it really will.”
“Okay,” Lori said.
Somewhere behind those dark clouds, the birds of winter waited for her.
Amelia Smith
lives in a house in the woods with her h
usband, two children, a cat, and assorted neighborhood animals. She writes fiction and non-fiction in a variety of genres, from short articles to epic fantasies. You can find out more at her website.
Amelia Smith’s Website
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Science Fiction — Young Adult
Perfect Blue Sunset
H.S. St.Ours
It was a perfect blue sunset.
At first I thought there’d be too much dust, but the devils settled down and the red sky cleared wide, and I watched the late afternoon show unfold, just for me.
The sun arced low in the west, and slowly the bright pink sky deepened through russet into rose.
Then violet.
Then blue.
I always loved blue. Blues are calming, did you know that?
A halo of azure half the sky wide surrounded Sol as she chased, and then caught up with, the far horizon. Dark shades of ultramarine, rich as velvet, pursued.
It was thrilling and lasted for minutes.
It was difficult to control my breath.
“Stay alive ’til the soup thickens, daughter, and you’ll see the colors reverse,” D once told me. “Just like on dear old Earth.”
I’ve never been to Earth, but I’ve seen sims. Their backward sunsets did look beautiful, boiling all red and orange like a fiery end of worlds. Not at all the cold blue coming of night we have on Mars.
Maybe he was right. Maybe someday our air would be thick enough to refract sunlight into colors like those on Earth, but then we’d lose this. It was important to remember.
The remains of the day shrunk into a flattening arc, pressed ever smaller against the horizon as black-dark settled in. It was the slow closing of a giant sleepy eye, all ready for bed at last. Just like in the song my implant sang to put me to sleep, so many years ago, Father Ares had pulled his starry blanket over young Sol, and tucked her in until morning.
I felt the swirl of the chill night air right through the heated skin of my outerwear.
At least the breeze’ll keep the frost from settling a while, I tried to convince myself. But damnation it’s cold.
Then I saw the flash. On the horizon straight ahead.
A thin sliver of blue light at first, Phobos had begun his rise precisely where the sun had set, as if the vanquished Sol had changed her mind and decided to return to rule the night.
He looked huge this close to the horizon, but once he rose, Phobos would appear smaller and his blue mask would fade to silver. Then he’d scoot all the way across the Diamond Sky in just hours, setting in the far southeast.
I looked up, searching for his little brother Deimos, wincing against the pain in my broken leg.
He should be visible by now, I thought.
There he was. A high bright star who wouldn’t set for another day. Surrounding him, steady staring points of light in every size and color imaginable washed across the dome of heaven.
To my left, the great Milky Way herself blazed into the side of the southern horizon like a frozen lightning bolt. The combined light of her billions of distant suns cast shadows of their own across the rocky plain, right up to the glow of the melted armored vehicle fifteen meters behind me. The one with my dead crew inside, their flesh charred to the bone.
The stars make you think, don’t they? Well, they make me think. There’s something about who we are. Something important. I feel it. I know it. We’re more than just body. More than just spirit. There’s a string connecting us with…
Well, I’m not sure.
I saw glimmers of it sometimes, out of the corner of my eye. Not reincarnation really. The feeling was more like déjà vu. But squared. Cubed.
“He won’t get back in time, you know.”
My voice surprised me.
It rattled my helmet and echoed through my mic. I heard it in my ear bones, too, where my imp usually talked to me.
You spoke it! I thought, scolding.
I shouldn’t have wasted my breath. First rule was, you don’t waste your breath on Mars. Fear set in. I panicked and began to breathe faster. Then I remembered my training. I took a short breath and held it for a long while, then blew it out slowly. Evenly. I tasted metal in my nose and throat.
O tank’s done, I thought. It’ll be just the air in your suit now, and that won’t last long.
Then I heard M speak. “The blackest night ends in a blue dawn, dear.”
I didn’t know if it was my imp playing back her voice, or a shred of ancient memory, but M would roll out this old line whenever someone got sick or a shift doubled. I smiled thinking of her, and I wished I was with my M and D now. A child again, safe underground.
But I couldn’t worry about that now. My brain itched and I was sleepy. I knew it was wrong, but I closed my eyes.
Only for a minute.
White light brightened around me. Clouds, fluffy and white, raced overhead through a steely blue sky. An oasis invited me in.
Am I delirious? Is this hypoxia?
Natural palms and ferns rustled, their deep green leaves whispering in the sweet-smelling breeze. A wide pond teemed with squawking water birds.
I’ll just take a nap here in the warm grass. It’ll all be better after a little sleep.
So I closed my eyes and smiled.
And thought of home.
H.S. St.Ours
lives and writes in Maryland, and is the author of the Water Worlds sci-fi adventure series.
H.S. St.Ours’ Website
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Science Fiction — Romance
Justice For Rogue Incubators
Melisse Aires
No one else could do it. The Hanlon Navigator had the ability, but he was still Waking and was too confused to make the hard decisions. It was enough that he agreed to her course change. She would handle this duty on her own.
The others were all much newer models, specialized to handle one exact system. They either couldn’t log into Ship’s systems or the data made no sense when they did log on. They were newer models but like her they were still obsolete, sold for their biologics, not their old cyber enhancements. And she was older than all of them, by at least a century. But she’d had huge capabilities at one time and still had the networking capability to run something the size of this ship. She’d once managed the Yuan Province Transportation Hub on Chin Chin.
The others were resting in the staterooms, perhaps investigating the different forms of entertainment on board. Tech Ahn and Security were learning to knit, sitting in a lounge with their huge bellies and cyber enhancements, learning to make booties. Dr. Denson was locked in his suite until they had use of him.
None of the others needed the stress of this task.
Sys reached the hold. A security function alerted her, someone was coming down the lift from the level above. She locked on the elevator. The Hanlon Navigator! Would he try to stop her? Was he secretly loyal to the ship’s owners? But he had agreed to change course, to take them to the planet won from a warlord. Vast continents, empty of humans. A perfect place for them. By the time they were found—if they ever were discovered—more than likely their children would be grown; they would be a small community of simple farmers.
There was no way he could know what her purpose was down here. He could read ships’ systems, not minds. Sys took a deep breath to calm herself as the Hanlon Navigator appeared.
Like her, he was older and had probably gone through numerous Rejuvs. He was fit and strong, no ship would neglect the health of their navigator. His hair had started to grow back since they took over and placed the owners into stasis. It was a sandy brown with a bit of silver at the temples. The plates on his back, thighs and rib cage were similar to her own data storage and software plates.
“Jax,” he said. “That was my name before. I took my first appliance at age fourteen on Mars Beijing.”
“What year?” She wondered how close they were in age an
d tech.
“2334.”
“Then I am near to you in chronological age. I got my first appliance on Terran Paris, in 2330. I was twelve. Deca Corps Transport Management.”
“Caprice Star Systems, navigation.”
She smiled. “I know of them. And now I am a rogue incubator on a stolen ship.”
“And I am the rogue navigator of a stolen ship. And we are conscious.”
“We are no longer slaves.” She turned toward the hold, seeing in the distance the portal to the void. “You should go, Jax, make a journal entry of your name. You might remember more.”
“I think I will do so.” He turned to go. “They have beacons, you know.”
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Beacons to alert passing ships. So it is not murder, Sys. They have a chance for life.”
She was silent for a moment, then nodded. “My human name was Ivy.”
“I will call you Ivy.”
“Thank you, Jax.”
“We deserve the chance to live as freemen.”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak. They had a chance.
Jax left, and Ivy set about launching the seventeen life pods into the void. The masters might survive; Ivy, her cyborg sisters and the babies in their wombs might die in the days ahead.
The babe fluttered in her belly. Ivy slid her hands over her slight bulging middle.
The seventeen pods were already vanishing in the darkness. She closed the viewer. The former owners were trapped and unconscious, wrapped up in cold, hard technology, helpless, while she and her sisters were awake and full of life and hope. In possession of a fine ship with a course laid out for a warlord’s paradise.
Justice.
Melisse Aires
Take a shy, Catholic school girl bookworm from Montana. Hand her a stack of her much older brother’s sci-fi and fantasy novels, James Bond books and horror comics. Later, introduce Barbara Cartland and the world of romance fiction. Get her a teaching job or two in authentic, one room Montana schools, à la Laura Ingels Wilder.