"Carnosaur Weekend"
Copyright © 2014 by BEAT to a PULP
"The Zygma Gambit"
Copyright © 2014 by Garnett Elliott
First published in The Lizard's Ardent Uniform and Other Stories, June 2014
"The Worms of Terpsichore"
Copyright © 2010 by Garnett Elliott
First published online in the BEAT to a PULP webzine, August 2010
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.
The stories herein are works of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events portrayed in this collection are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover images from iStock, Shutterstock, and A.E. Cranmer; Design by dMix.
www.beattoapulp.com
For the second KNIGHTLY AND COLE adventures
from BEAT to a PULP books
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
The dirty work of policing the chronosphere continues … Continuity Inc. agent Kyler Knightly and his uncle, Damon Cole, travel back to Old Vegas, circa 2035, to nab a rogue scientist bent on turning pre-apocalypse America into his own personal demolition derby. It's monster trucks versus monster preppers in a nitro burning, high octane adventure reminiscent of Mad Max.
APOCALYPSE SOON includes a bonus Kyler and Cole team-up, "Babylon Heist," as well as the dystopian sci-fi short "Strontium Dreams," first appearing in the pages of acclaimed noir journal Plots With Guns.
* * *
PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF GARNETT ELLIOTT
"A tale by Garnet Elliott is always a good one … [he] never disappoints."
—Kevin Tipple, Book Reviewer at Kevin's Corner
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"When you read something written by Garnett Elliott, you can count on two things—fluid prose and a subtle attention to detail that combine to properly immerse the reader in the story."
—Alec Cizak, Pulp Modern editor
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"Elliott packs a lot of plot into this one, and he spins his yarn in fine, tough prose."
—James Reasoner, Author of Texas Wind on "Hell Up in Houston"
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CONTENTS
CARNOSAUR WEEKEND
THE ZYGMA GAMBIT
THE WORMS OF TERPSICHORE
About the Author
Also by Garnett Elliott
Other titles from BTAP
Connect with BEAT to a PULP
CARNOSAUR WEEKEND
They'd reached the fairway on the seventh hole when the leathery shape of a pterodactyl came winging down out of clear sky. Several players ditched their clubs and scrambled for cover, but Ketchum, a muscular young man in a white polo, swung the automatic shotgun from over his shoulder, sighted, and waited for the beast to swoop closer. It didn't. After banking into a long, lazy circle, the pterodactyl glided off. Teel crawled out from behind a golf cart. The CFO's pale features darkened when he noticed Anne Baxley watching him with a bemused expression. She hadn't bolted under the dinosaur's shadow.
"Can we continue playing?" the multi-trillion heiress said, "or do you need a minute to change your shorts?"
Laughter rippled from the assembled trade magnates, plutocrats, and government bigwigs. Teel straightened. Not only had the bitch stayed calm, but she was two under par. He turned to vent some of his rage at Ketchum. "How'd that thing get so close? I thought you had a drone up there."
The security officer nodded, touching the frame of his sunglasses. Tiny lines of data scrolled in the lenses' concavity. "Drone's tracking movement half a klick away. Multiple targets."
"Great. More dinosaurs. I thought we were going to get some golf in this morning."
"You want to play the nutless version of this game," Anne said, "go back to the present. Dinosaurs are the reason we're here. That, and the scenery."
She gestured past the little group, toward the towering conifers that bordered the rough. Giant ferns, tall as a house, swayed beneath the boughs. The breeze pushing through was so vitalized with oxygen it felt like stepping into the sealed environment of a New Vegas casino. Even the course's water hazards were filled with sparkling azure, reflecting a yellow-white sun in virgin skies full of ozone.
"Yeah, it's real pretty," Teel said. Stupid bitch.
The golf cart's electric motor whined to life. The players advanced, more alert than before, and topped the hill for the next hole.
This time, even Anne Baxley gasped.
The beautiful greens had been marred by a series of huge, three-toed footprints. Anne's ball had landed inside the impression of a heel sunk some five inches into the ground.
Heads swiveled to Ketchum.
"Allosaurus, I think." He knelt next to the nearest print and ran his finger along the edge. "Soil's fresh. Must've come through here recently, or the grounds 'bot—"
Thunder shook the surrounding forest.
Sixty yards away, a nightmare face thrust out from among the pine branches. Teel's first thought was: My God, it's a monster chicken. Feathers lined a scarlet head that was part reptilian, part avian, and all teeth. Eyes big as headlights fixed on the golfing party, and Teel could've sworn the thing grinned.
"Stay calm," Ketchum said. A fat drop of sweat descended from behind his sunglasses.
Forty feet of low-slung carnosaur burst into full view. The mottled patterns of crimson and black slashed along the creature's hide might've been beautiful to look at under different circumstances. Supple as a panther, it moved with its tail thrust out straight behind, massive head kept low. A two-ton meat machine, top of the food chain, and its human counterparts, every bit as predatory but nowhere near as large, had its full attention.
With a roar, the Allosaurus charged.
Teel felt his muscles go slack. He really would need to change his shorts if he ever got out of this.
"Two drones, next time," Ketchum said, reaching for the RPG in the back of the cart.
* * *
Kyler Knightly read the tri-fold again. "Unbelievable," was all he could say.
First off, the thing was printed on honest-to-God, cut-down-a-tree-and-make-pulp-out-of-it-paper, with photographs, not cheap holos, and no voice narration when you opened it. Reading the print from an unlit background took actual effort. Kyler found the process archaic, but somehow elegant at the same time. Like starting a campfire with flint and tinder.
Then there was the content of the pamphlet itself:
Why live just anywhere?
Ultra-modern homes starting at a spacious 1,000 square feet.
Enjoy the unsullied beauty of prehistoric earth. No breathing apparatus required!
Golf, swimming, and tennis amenities, against a breathtaking backdrop of megaflora and fauna.
"That last bit includes dinosaurs, doesn't it?" Kyler said, setting the pamphlet down.
Sennacherib II stirred in his tank before answering. Kyler had gotten used to the AI's appearance, though it still felt a little weird communicating through an organic interface. The cutting-edge models of artificial intelligence were now housed within flesh, in an effort to make them more empathic toward living creatures. And more vulnerable.
"Not only dinosaurs, but primitive mammals and some insect species," Sennacherib's chip-voice buzzed. His tentacles undulated against the aquarium walls like a nervous person drumming their fingers.
"Who's behind it?"
"Real estate developers. Big money, with influence all over the planet. Suburban sprawl's always been a problem, but now they're trying
to extend it into the distant past."
"Sounds expensive."
"The clientele is among the world's elite. It's a novelty factor, telling your ultra-rich friends you have a time share in the late cretaceous."
"And where'd they get a Zygma projector?"
"Unknown." Sennacherib's bulbous black eyes swiveled from where Kyler sat to the shaped charge secured to his tank. Any effort to upgrade his abilities, or spread his influence beyond the glass walls, and the charge would go off, reducing his octopus body to gel. "I should tell you, your uncle's already in deep cover on the case."
Which explains why I haven't heard from him in over a week, Kyler thought. "I'm your man. I've been making a habit of saving his ass."
"Good. We've got a point of contact in Buenos Aires, and I've booked you on a sub-orbital. Get us some specifics, and we'll put together the legal charges to shut the operation down. Before these developers can do irreparable damage to the past."
And, by extension, the present. Which had a vested interest in staying the way it was.
"Gotcha," Kyler said. He left the AI to ponder its mortality, alien eyes still staring at the explosives.
* * *
Kyler rode an ancient lift down to ground level. After the debacle with their previous AI, Ashurbanipal, funding sources had slashed Continuity Inc.'s budget. The entire operation had been moved from the Kerguelen micro-continent to a renovated theater in London's West End. Kyler and his uncle Damon Cole were among the small percentage of staff retained. The job of policing the time-lines, vital as ever, now fell to a select group with only a fraction of their previous resources.
He passed the main stage on his way to the lobby. Two technicians were scrambling to finish the set, a mockup of President Kennedy's office during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The massive quartz eye of a Zygma projector hulked in the wings. Powered by a fission pile that took up the theater's entire basement, the projector made time-traveling jaunts possible, though only a convoluted mind like Sennacherib's could fully grasp the paradoxical physics involved.
Bolts automatically snapped back from the front doors as Kyler approached. A chip-voice informed him of the current respiratory conditions: yellow, which meant he could forego a mask. This part of London was domed.
Outside, an overcast sky tried to glower through panels of soot-stained Plexiglas. The air felt like warm grease. Kyler dodged a group of young punks dressed in the current Teddy Boy resurgence, all frock coats and horned rim glasses. He thought he'd cleared the lot when a dirty hand fell on his sleeve.
"'Scuse me," came a cultivated voice. "No muss, but you're the first person I've ever seen come out of that building."
Kyler tensed to throw a punch, and relaxed just as quickly. The young man wearing the ragged cravat offered no threat. He was pointing past Kyler, toward the Continuity Inc. headquarters. The ground floor windows were all boarded. Cheap holo-stickers promised "Opening Soon under New Management."
"So when's she opening?" the man said. "I'm a Shakespearean actor myself, two productions to my credit, and I understudied the role of Lucius in the West Bank's Titus—"
"Soon, like the sticker says." Kyler waved off the rest of the résumé and hurried to Gatwick tube station.
* * *
Sennacherib, the penny-pinching bastard, had booked him in coach. Kyler's "seat" was a folding ergo stool that barely fit his pelvis. He had to lean past a row of passengers to look out the window. After the sub-orbital nosed down through layers of smog, he could see Buenos Aires's mocha-colored waters churning to his left.
First-class passengers were seen off with a bottle of Dom from a breathtaking Peruvian flight attendant. All Kyler got was a voice wishing him goodbye in seven languages as he deplaned.
The airport's shopping concourse had a men's clothing store, and he used his Continuity Inc. credit card to purchase the most expensive suit available, a three-piece done in purple serge. Screw you, Sennacherib. Slipping on a new pair of Smart Bans with Spanish translation software, he felt ready for Latin America.
The cabs lined along the curb were all armor-plated. He chose one at random and spoke with the scarred hack before sliding into the back seat. Sleek buildings gave way to the tumbledown shacks of the villa miseria, prompting the cabbie to step on it. Over calypso music, he told Kyler about his involvement in the Second Narco War as a minesweeper. Kyler tipped him extra when the cab coasted to a stop outside the Plaza de Mayo.
He found his contact, Fimbres, leaning against the fountain, a rakish fifty-something in a linen suit and long sideburns. They ordered café con leches from a nearby shop.
"You've got a ferry leaving in forty minutes." Fimbres pushed a plastic ticket across the table. "Your name's Russell Sharps, you were very, very successful in an arms deal a year back, and you've been shopping for a weekend getaway for your mistress. Already looked into an orbital con-apt and found it boring. Got that?"
"Got it."
"Here's your focus object." He handed Kyler a small fossil. Fern, it looked like. "That cost half a million SMU, so don't lose it."
"Any security?"
"Heavy, but you won't see them and they shouldn't bother you."
Kyler got up to leave.
"Señor Knightly?"
"Yes?"
"You're new money, remember? Try to act like it."
* * *
He saw what Fimbres meant after boarding the ferry, a bright blue catamaran. The grinning hostess checked his ticket, handed him a martini, and led the way to an observation deck with a dozen idle rich, all glancing down their noses at the pedestrian traffic headed for Uruguay.
"My name's Janet," said a platinum blonde in a white sheath-dress. "My net worth's 2.2 billion SMU. What's yours?"
"I'm, ah, not sure," Kyler said.
A frown flicked at the corners of Janet's mouth, like maybe she'd wasted precious seconds talking to him. She looked all of twenty-two. But somewhere beneath that dress, Kyler felt certain, there were scars from multiple organ transplants, and injection sites for anagathics. Her left temple had a slight bulge, the telltale of a cerebral prosthetic. Probably for dementia; they still hadn't found a way around that.
The catamaran's engine roared, lifting the craft on inflatable skirts. Muddy water swirled into foam. The ferry shot out of port toward the Rio de Plata.
Kyler drained his martini and signaled for another. Six months after being promoted to Field Agent, and he still wasn't comfortable with all the socializing required. As a Dreamer, he'd been more or less a pampered lab rat, relying on his passive psychic talents. But a new assignment meant new obligations. Gritting his teeth, he slipped among the dilettantes to make small talk.
The sun shone through a hole in the smog, eliciting a chorus of "ahhh's." Kyler surveyed the little group as he circulated. All were expertly tanned, dressed, and coiffed; a couple displayed the perfect facial symmetry of gene modification, and one man, with shoulders threatening to burst his tuxedo, had been the obvious recipient of muscle grafts. London-pale and skinny by comparison, Kyler felt like the Poor Cousin.
No one else offered to compare their net worth. The catamaran hove in close to shore, passing a shantytown built over the water, and made a sharp turn down a tributary. Fifty foot polycrete walls topped with machine gun turrets kept the river private.
"Attention please," rang a voice from hidden speakers. "In five minutes we will be arriving at the transfer point. Please have your focus objects out and ready. An attendant will be by shortly to assist with presentation."
Kyler dug out his fern fossil; the other guests all had something similar. The catamaran took a bend in the river and a gate appeared ahead. After the craft passed through, the terrain on either bank changed. Tall ferns grew in the shadows of decidedly un-tropical pines. Some of the plant life flickered as Kyler watched. Holos.
The catamaran churned to a stop. Two hostesses in string bikinis appeared and made sure the bits of fossil were prominently clipped in place. Kyler hear
d a whirring above. He looked up to see a mechanical arm extending over the riverbank, gripping the familiar bulk of a Zygma projector. Stray sunlight winked from the faceted lens. The projector lowered and angled down until it was pointing straight at the observation deck.
"If you would please remain still as possible," a hostess said, her hands clasped in front of her. "That camera is going to take a special 'picture' to send you on your way. Please don't look directly into the lens. There may be a moment's discomfort during the transfer, but it will pass quickly."
The well-heeled folk muttered. "Is this completely safe?" asked Janet, ready to frown again.
"One hundred percent," said the hostess.
Kyler almost laughed, but checked himself. There was nothing safe about the process of Zygma travel. If the operators screwed up the calculations, some of these socialites would find their perfect faces rearranged on arrival.
"Everyone ready? Good. Hold still now …"
The hostesses scampered off the observation deck. Overhead, the Zygma projector began to hum with a rush of power. The lens spun, casting shards of light in dazzling kaleidoscope patterns. Kyler, already a veteran of a half-dozen jaunts through time and space, felt a twinge as his stomach protested. But only for a moment …
* * *
… and he was breathing fresh air. So fresh he wanted to bounce with the surge of oxygen. His Smart Bans polarized a couple shades darker to account for the unobscured sunlight, though a glance at the purpling sky showed they'd arrived near evening. The observation deck had arrived as well. Or rather, they'd materialized atop an exact copy, down to the wood-grain patterns in the floorboards. The rest of the catamaran was gone.
Even the most jaded among the party sucked in an appreciative breath. Massive pines hemmed on three sides; behind the platform flowed a river roughly the dimensions of the one they'd left, but running with clear cerulean. The temperature felt like a perfect seventy-five degrees.
Carnosaur Weekend (Kyler Knightly and Damon Cole Book 1) Page 1