by Larry Niven
“Please, Everett,” says the derby hat. “No more running.”
“Say! What gives?” Moo snatches the hat from Kozy’s head and gives it a smack with the back of his hand. “Now I gotta take lip from a lid?”
“We can get through this together,” says Molly, “if you’ll just come home.”
“That topper’s positively brimmin’ with yap, ain’t it?” says Kozy.
“Leave me alone!” I shout, just as I dive out of the scene.
“Now my cigar’s runnin’ at the mouth?” I hear Moo say as I leave. “What’s next? My racin’ form tellin’ me which horse to bet?”
Once again, the currents bear me onward. I’m closer still to our final destination and the consummation of all my efforts.
Leaping from the flow, I become a club in the hands of Allie Hoop the caveman. Molly becomes the collar around the neck of his pet dinosaur, Finny.
“Please give me a chance!” The sound of her voice makes Finny grunt and run into a tree.
“What the heck?” says Allie. “How come you sound like a girl all of a sudden, Finny?”
I leap away without a word, and she follows.
Next, I become the fireman’s hat on Smokin’ Stovepipe, and Molly’s the bell on his kooky one-man fire truck. I linger there for less time than it takes Smokin’ to utter his catchphrase, “Fwoooo.”
We’re closer now, almost there. I speed up even more.
At our next stop, I’m the clodhopper boots on Li’l Asner the hillbilly. Molly’s the pipe in his old Maw’s mouth.
Then, I’m the giant sandwich in Ragwood Rumstead’s hands, and she’s the polka-dotted bow tie at his throat.
Another hop, and I’m the TV wristwatch on Rick Tracer’s arm. She’s his lemon yellow trench coat.
Then, I’m the bald head on Daddy Bigbucks, and she’s Orphan Agnes’ curly orange hair.
“Please stop!” says Molly, giving Agnes quite a start. “Just stop running!”
“Bleepin’ blizzards!” yelps Orphan Agnes.
In spite of Molly’s pleas, I leap again just the same. Because finally, we’ve reached the end. My whole purpose in leading her on this chase through the Underfunnies.
I swoop through the currents and burst free at our last stop. This time, I appear as myself, not disguised as some comic strip prop. She does the same, returning to her familiar form in the silver spacesuit and bubble helmet.
Finally. Here we are. In a child’s darkened bedroom.
“What is this?” She stares at the black-haired boy on the bed between us. “Who is this?”
“His name is Little Nino,” I tell her. “And he’s a dreamer.”
Even as I say it, Little Nino stirs and sits up in bed. He rubs his eyes, and then he looks at me, and smiles.
“Oh!” he says. “You are here!”
Grinning, I tousle his hair. “Just like we talked about, Nino. Are you ready?”
He smiles and nods.
“What’s happening here?” Molly scowls. “What are you talking about, Everett?”
“Little Nino’s been having a crazy dream,” I tell her. “Haven’t you, Nino?”
“Why yes, I have.” Little Nino crawls down off the bed and pads across the room in his fuzzy white footie pajamas. “I have been dreaming about the music in my closet.”
As we watch, he opens the door of his closet. Beams of rainbow light stream out around him.
At the same time, a sweet piping song skirls forth—the sound of flutes and chimes and strings weaving in delicate harmony.
Little Nino smiles back at us. “Do you hear it?”
“Yes, we do,” I tell him. “Let’s have a closer listen, shall we?”
“That will be fine.” Without hesitation, Little Nino shuffles through the closet doorway, disappearing into the rainbow light.
“Come on.” I take Molly’s elbow. “I want to show you something.”
She frowns at me. “That song. I know it, don’t I?”
I just shrug and pull her toward the closet.
As soon as we cross the threshold, the doorway disappears behind us. Suddenly, we’re standing on a beach at night, facing a bonfire that burns in rainbow colors.
At first, we’re alone there with Little Nino. “I remember what comes next,” he says. “Would you like to see the rest of the dream?”
“Yes, we would.” I let go of Molly’s elbow and take her hand. “We would like that very much.”
Little Nino waves his arms, and figures descend from above, floating down one at a time from the starry sky. They are comic strip women, all of them, descending like wingless angels to land lightly on the wet sand around the rainbow bonfire.
There’s Potpie’s girlfriend, Olives … Ragwood’s wife, Blonder … Li’l Asner’s gal Dandelion Meg … Rick Tracer’s true love Bess Bluehart … Allie Hoop’s cavegirl Moolah … and so many more. Every woman you can think of from the funny pages, every one of them from the sublimely beautiful to the utterly ridiculous. Dozens of them, hundreds of them.
This is it. This is what I’ve been working for; this is why I summoned Molly.
Because this is where the impossible can happen. Here in a child’s dream in a flip-side place where things don’t happen the way they should.
Only here could I do what had to be done.
Hand in hand, Molly and I walk to the fire. We stand before the women, their faces and forms flickering in the dancing rainbow light.
“Oh!” Suddenly, Little Nino runs forward and gazes into the flames. “There is something inside!” Without hesitation, he plunges his arms into the fire.
When he pulls them back out again, unburned, there’s a bundle in his hands. Something wrapped in a comic strip blanket, all black ink and wooly cross-hatched texture.
Grinning, Little Nino turns and offers the bundle to Molly. “Please take this,” he says. “It is for you.”
“From all of us,” says Olives in her nasally voice. “Every last one of us.”
That’s exactly what it took—the combined power of several hundred female icons projected together. Merged with my own hopes and memories in one supreme act of will.
Not sex, but creation nonetheless. The ultimate surrogate motherhood.
Molly peels back the blanket, and a tiny face looks out at her. The face of a comic strip baby boy, eyes big and dark and shining.
This, then, is my secret son, a child conceived in the panelography. A child of pure hope and imagination—an homage to the son we lost.
And perhaps much more than that.
“Think of Henry,” I tell her. “Remember everything you can about him. Every detail.”
She looks at me with tears rolling down her face. “But that won’t … this isn’t …”
“Trust me.” I lift the helmet from her head and kiss her wet cheek. “Think of Henry.”
She casts her eyes up at me with a look of anguished disbelief. I brush the dark hair back behind her ears and shake my head.
“I can’t do it myself,” I say. “I need you. Your half of the memories. Your half of who he is.” I kiss her cheek again. “Please try.”
I watch as she cradles the squirming bundle in her arms. As she closes her eyes and frowns, reaching deep to dredge up those memories.
The comic strip women huddle close, caught up in the moment. I can practically see the pen-and-ink waves of hope ripple out from their exaggerated forms.
Maybe it’s the force of their collective willpower. Maybe it’s the power of the dream we’re in, a dream within a dreamlike realm where human disbelief is suspended. Where comic-strip life works in reverse, so harsh human reality can change direction, too.
Or maybe it’s just her memories and love for him. Our memories and love pouring into a vessel of India ink. Pulling him back from the vanishing point—pulling all three of us back.
Whatever the reason, a new strip debuts tonight, a full-color single-panel above the fold in the Sunday pull-out section. Here’s how we kick off t
he run:
A mob of famous comic strip women stands around a rainbow bonfire. At panel center, classic child character Little Nino stands on tiptoe, gazing at a swaddled babe in the arms of a woman in a skintight silver spacesuit.
Little Nino says, “Oh my! Look at his eyes! They’re not black anymore!”
The woman in the spacesuit weeps with joy. The square-jawed man beside her bends down to kiss the infant’s forehead.
We can see, in the firelight, that the baby’s eyes are the brightest blue that the four-color printing process will allow.
The caption at the bottom of the panel reads as follows: “Welcome back, Henry!”
Published in Galaxy’s Edge Issue 1
Copyright © 2013 by Robert T. Jeschonek. All rights reserved.
Intersection
by Gio Clairval
People in uniform extract me from a warped carcass of steel. They speak to me but I just hear wobbling noises.
The image of a woman’s face fills my mind. Blue-grey eyes. A full mouth. Lovely. I know her well. I also know that I love her. She’s my wife.
But she loves Lester.
The idiot was driving, and he didn’t stop at the intersection. My wife was in the car with us.
There she is, standing near the ambulance. She seems okay.
Lester is out cold. It’s a blessing, because I don’t hear his blabbering. He talks all the time. All he can do is talk.
Maybe he’s dead. If not, I must help him to die.
Now the world becomes dark and peaceful.
* * *
I’m reclining on a bed. Tubes stick out of my nostrils and another tickles my nether regions. Nothing down the throat. A monitor winks green.
I try to get out of bed but I can’t. I do a roll call of my limbs: Nothing stirs. A tear rolls out of my left eye.
I’m not giving up.
It takes some time before my left hand obeys and moves up to my head, finding bandages. I must look like the Invisible Man. This thought makes me chuckle.
A stab of pain in my chest cuts my laughter short.
The image of my wife comes back to soothe me, but my thoughts remain troubled.
Why does she love Lester and not me?
I hate Lester almost as much as I love my wife.
It’s him or me.
* * *
I can walk around a bit.
All I do is brood over this thing—that Lester believes he’s better than me, and that’s why he must be in charge.
I don’t see why he should be in charge. I think Lester simply speaks better than I ever will.
Speaking is overrated. A man can be silent, and loving, too. Lester is only interested in being the one who decides.
Lester knows nothing about the little things that make a life worth living. Or the big things. Take the music of the stars. All right. Nobody can hear the music of the stars, but I’m sure that, if he could hear it, he would not feel it in his bones as I would. Music doesn’t move him. At a gig, when the bass plays the rhythm of the heart through the amplifiers, the only thing that vibrates in Lester is the bottom of his trousers legs.
He’s not better than me. After he was born, Mother Nature had to give it a second try and that’s why she made me—because the first time everything went wrong.
* * *
Instead of hearing jumbled words, I understand what people say.
Lester has finally come to, and my wife’s here to visit. He doesn’t recognize her until she writes something in a notebook and shows it to him. Lester mumbles: “Lee-ah.”
She has a newspaper, too.
“G-give,” he manages.
I catch sight of the page. There’s a shot of the accident. And a photo of my wife and me in the sidebar.
He points to my face in the picture: “Wh-o?” and starts yelling.
Damn! He thinks that my wife is cheating on him. With me.
I don’t get it. I’m her husband, and she’s cheating on me with him. I know she likes him more than me.
Now he’s raising a hand to hit her.
I can’t let it happen and I grab his hand and push it down, but it shoots up to punch my eye.
The nurse walks in with an ice bag and Leah takes it and puts it on my eye and consoles me and kisses me, and I almost want that cretinous ape to hit me again.
* * *
Today is the day I kill Lester.
We’re home from the hospital. Lester can speak, but not well. Otherwise he’d be numbing me with words.
Now he keeps spreading his newspaper like a bedsheet, opening his arms so wide I can’t see my favorite TV series. He’s reading to show off, because I still can’t. All I can see are wiggles on the paper.
It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead soon, and dead people don’t read newspapers.
Leah is at work so we have a nurse to look after us. She has nice legs and a sweet smile. She’s actually brought roses and I help putting them in a vase. I sniff the scent, but it’s like my left nostril is stuffed up.
As soon as the nurse goes to the bathroom, I drag Lester toward the window. He doesn’t want to move, but I’m stronger.
I push him against the windowsill until he’s half out.
The nurse comes a-running. “Mr. Brown! What are you doing?”
I’m winning the war.
“Stop me!” Lester cries. “I can’t help it.”
Hold on. What is he talking about? He can’t help doing what? I’m the one trying to push him.
The nurse pulls us back and makes us sit on the couch.
I’ll find a way to off him. I will.
“What’s wrong with me?” he asks.
“You had a mini stroke and your car jumped lanes.”
“A stroke …”
“A mini stroke. The symptoms last less than a day.”
“But I still don’t recognize my wife, and my own face! Is it another stroke?”
“It’s something else.” She pats Lester on the shoulder.
She tells him about some bundle of nerves, called corpus callosum. This thing’s like a bridge connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. And it was sectioned in the accident. “Your right hemisphere is out of control.”
This throws me for a loop. I’m lost. Lost. What is going on? What is she talking about? I refuse to believe her medical gibberish.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Brown,” she says. “It will take time, but, with some training, you’ll learn to control your right brain.”
What is she saying? That he’s going to keep me under? I have an arm, a leg, a nostril in enemy territory, and our best eye. I’m awake now, and I’m not going to sleep ever again.
Published in Galaxy’s Edge Issue 6
Copyright © 2013 by Gio Clairval. All rights reserved.
No Place for a Hero
by James Aquilone
Bernard Kowalski destroyed the Verrazano Bridge during the Friday rush.
But there are three important things to keep in mind: It was unintentional, no one died, and he caught the bank robbers he was chasing. It was a classic superhero feat. They should have given him a ticker-tape parade.
Instead he got thirty years in prison.
In his closing argument, the prosecutor called Bernie a “living, breathing weapon of mass destruction.” She also called him an “irresponsible, reckless vigilante” and a “fame-seeking psychopath.” Never once did she mention the word “hero.” Bernie easily could have flicked a paperclip through her throat and decapitated her right on the spot. But he was a superhero and superheroes don’t kill.
They held him on Rikers Island while they built a special long-term prison for him on Guantánamo Bay. He saved them the trouble. He busted out with one well-placed punch to the four-foot-thick cement wall and eventually settled on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean.
A superhero, Bernie lamented, has no place in the real world.
* * *
Bernie watched the sun sink into the ocean as he squeezed another yam
into a coconut shell.
He had super strength. He could throw a garbage truck a mile. He could run so fast he was just a blur. He could blow down buildings with his ultra-breath. He could fly. And what did it get him, the world’s first and only superhero? All the yams he could eat and his very own tropical prison.
No one bothered with him except for some neighboring islanders who would leave him food and gifts. They thought he was an angry deity. The yams were offerings. On special occasions they left roasted pig. He was happy for the food. It wasn’t like he could fly over to Paris and grab some baguettes—not without causing an international incident.
He was thinking how Superman never got hauled into court in the comics when he spotted the helicopter. At first he figured it was sightseers. They occasionally flew over the island to take a peek at the superhuman, snap a few photos. He usually waved at them. Sometimes they’d wave back, sometimes they’d give him the finger.
He used his telescopic vision and saw that it was a Marine copter. In all the time he’d been on the island, no authorities had ever tried to contact him or haul him back to the U.S. Was this an assault? Were they stupid enough to try to finish him off now?
He scanned the sky, but there was only the one helicopter. If this was an attack, then the copter had to be equipped with a WMD.
He could hurl a palm tree at it or blow it down with his ultra-breath. But he continued squeezing yams. After two years on the island, the only way he could eat the tubers was by slurping them up like milkshakes.
The helicopter landed down the beach. He watched a man in a military uniform jump out. Alone, he headed toward the superhuman. Bernie relaxed.
The man said, “Bernard Kowalski?”
“No,” he said. “I’m Batman.” Military man didn’t laugh.
“I am General William Duncan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Bernie picked up a yam, squeezed it so hard it exploded in his hand. “Care for a yam?”
“I’m not going to pussyfoot around, Kowalski. Your government needs you, maybe even the world.”
“My government? You mean the one that arrested me for being a superhero?”