Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  She grinned to herself, and then Hwarl decked her.

  Jadie’s vision flashed red for a moment, and she felt her dagger slipping out of her hands. She managed to stay conscious, however—she had learned how to take hits as part of her training—and instead grabbed at his arms. He pulled out of her grasp, then moved in close—like she wanted—and seized her around the neck with one large hand.

  Spray him! she urged her flowers, but seconds ticked by and nothing happened. There was an inertia in them; she had picked the flowers hours ago and they had already started to fade. She cursed in her mind as she gave it everything she had. Come on!

  “Victory number eight!” Hwarl roared to the crowd as he began choking Jadie. She choked, but even when she strained she couldn’t break away from his grasp. He grinned and hefted her into the air by her neck. “Just like I said!”

  Jadie continued pushing at the flowers. She could feel them sluggishly moving and starting to open, but her vision was starting to turn red again. She strained, fixing wonderful images in her head—of saving the nation, of returning to Westwick a hero, of the pile of gold she stood to win in the match—and used them to motivate her as she forced all her magical power into the flowers on her shoulders.

  The chrysanthemums opened all the way and sprayed Hwarl with pollen.

  He began coughing immediately, and his grip slackened enough for Jadie to wriggle out. She grabbed her other knife, the one hidden in a fold of her clothes, and moved in close to the hacking gnoll. Before he could do anything, she stepped behind him and slit his throat.

  Just like she was trained.

  As Hwarl collapsed, she realized what had happened. She had won. She, a member of the Thieves Guild for about two weeks, had taken on a trained gladiator and defeated him in combat.

  She was amazing.

  Jadie raised her dagger up to the crowd and joined in their cheers. This is the best mission ever, she told herself. And once I loot his room and get proof of this conspiracy? It’ll be even better.

  ***

  Hwarl’s room was a lot sparser than Jadie would have expected.

  She had returned to his chambers after the duel, stopping only to change out of her costume, and had then waited for a few minutes until Hwarl’s bodyguards came back to tell their companions that their employer was dead and they wouldn’t be getting paid. After a great deal of cursing, all the thugs left, and Jadie was able to break into his room without trouble. Once inside, she saw that it had only a few pieces of furniture, and indeed barely looked lived in. However, there was one large, ornate chest with a fancy lock near the weapons rack against the back wall, and that was what she wanted.

  “Let’s see,” she chirped as she set her pack down. It slammed to the ground hard despite her best efforts; all the gold she’d won at the Coliseum was weighing it down. She allowed herself one moment to picture herself back in the Sapphire Square, or maybe the famed Stately Lady in Viscosa itself, living in the lap of luxury as she watched the visiting nobles for her next big score. But then the moment passed and she told herself she had to get back to work. She could celebrate after she found the proof she needed.

  The lock was good, but Jadie was better, and it yielded after only a minute or two of work with one of her lockpicks. She snapped it open, then raised the trunk lid.

  Something big and thorny swept up at her.

  Jadie jumped back, but not fast enough, and the thorny vine was able to snap around one of her arms. Her eyes widened as the thorns poked at her sleeve. Don’t hurt me! she sent to it. I’m a friend!

  But the vine kept tightening. It wasn’t like bush branches, which liked to grow and could usually be persuaded to stretch a little and catch an unwary arm, or like flowers, which liked to spread their pollen and would generally do it if she just gave them a little push. Whatever this was, it wanted to rip and tear with its thorns, and Jadie couldn’t get it to stop. Her sleeve began to shred as thorns cut through it.

  STOP!! She pushed at the thorns with everything she had. Get off my arm! Now! But it kept tightening.

  The weapon rack was in reach. She reached as far as she could and grabbed one of the halberds with her other hand, then dragged it to her and pressed the shaft against this vine. You want to kill something? Kill this, she urged. See? Arm about as thick as mine. Come on, please, you’d much rather kill this one than me…

  After one more awful moment, she felt the thorns yielding to her magic. It unwound from her arm and wrapped around the halberd’s shaft. After a few minutes, she was free, and the halberd was almost covered in a small forest of thorns.

  Jadie took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then let out a whoop as joy overtook her. Made it! Even Hwarl’s best trap couldn’t stop me! She grinned and dashed back to the chest. If the weapons were there, that was evidence she could arrange for the guards to obtain.

  But the weapons weren’t there. The chest was empty.

  Jadie felt like something in her was deflating, but she shook her head. “No way. I’m not leaving without some loot, not after all that. Besides, Hwarl wouldn’t have his room guarded unless something was here. I just need to find it.”

  She searched every inch of the room, just as the Thieves Guild had taught her. She checked for loose floorboards, pulled apart the bedding and furniture, and tapped every brick in the walls to search for hollow spaces. And, after almost an hour of searching, she found one. A single brick reverberated oddly when she hit it, a flast-sounding echo that indicated an empty space behind it. Jadie took her dagger and pried the brick out, then set it aside while she looked through the hole. Inside were several papers.

  Jadie took the first one and began to read. “Hwarl. Inform us of the arms and armaments of the Raleigh soldiers, and their approximate troop strength in Atalatha. Also, describe any mages of note in Atalatha or Raleigh.”

  The next one read, “Hwarl. Describe the other Coliseum warriors. Determine if they could be bribed or threatened into working with us.”

  And then, “Hwarl. Tell us the key political figures in the city. Which of them are the most critical?”

  So Hwarl wasn’t a smuggler, then. He was a spy. Jadie could understand that; as a gladiator, the gnoll would meet the people his bosses seemed to want to know about—warriors who trained with him, merchants who bet on him, nobles who watched the games. But then why, Jadie wondered, had he tried to sell weapons? Was he branching out?

  When she reached the last letter, things became clearer. “Hwarl. Take this dagger and sell it at the Sapphire Square in three days; there are men there who wish to attack the Duke and will pay well for it. Tell them you have a hundred more just like it to sell at the same price. Once they collect the money, we’ll send you the weapons and you’ll make the exchange.” A list of passwords followed to help Hwarl identify the people he was supposed to sell to.

  It made no sense for the deal to take place as written, of course. There were more private places where a gladiator could meet with some people to sell weapons if he chose. The only reason for doing it at the Sapphire Square was…

  “They wanted him to be caught,” murmured Jadie.

  Hwarl’s superiors had tricked him into revealing himself in a public place so that he could be overheard. And someone had also tipped off the Thieves Guild with the false rumor that Lady Trefaer would be at the same location with a famous jewel they wanted. Assuming the thief were at all competent, she’d overhear the deal…and would feel obligated to stop it as part of the Guild’s deal with Raleigh. The only way to do that would be to kill Hwarl. Then just set a trap for the thief to tie up the last loose end, and that would be it. Hwarl would be dead and nobody would be able to trace it back to the instigators.

  That only left one question—why kill Hwarl? He seemed to be a good spy; the letters, at least, never complained that he was sending insufficient or inaccurate information. Did they just not need him anymore?

  Wait, Jadie thought. The treaty. Ambassadors and merchants are going to Wa
rus to cement the alliance with one of the largest gnoll tribes. What if the conspiracy includes some of the people on those teams? That would probably be preferable, having a spy that isn’t at risk of dying in the Coliseum every day. And they could write back and forth using sealed diplomatic correspondences, protected by Raleigh’s own soldiers. Not to mention, they might even be able to use the death of a gnoll as a bargaining chip to get a better political position. One of theirs just got killed in Atalatha, maybe they say they’ll abandon the talks unless they’re paid off…

  Jadie blushed. She’d been used, manipulated into getting rid of a gnoll for the conspirators. In fact, the Thieves Guild as a whole had been used. It was embarrassing, and certainly not how one would want their very first mission to go.

  But, after a moment, she let herself smile. She’d still dealt with Hwarl, who was an enemy and needed to be taken out. She had proof of the conspiracy which she could show her superiors back in Westwick. She’d successfully robbed several wealthy nobles and merchants, justifying her position as a member of the Thieves Guild. And, thanks to her wagering in the Coliseum, she’d made a lot of money, enough that she couldn’t help but beam when she thought of all those gold coins clinking in her pack. On the balance, things had worked out quite well.

  Plus, if she played her cards right, her superiors might assign her the task of rooting out the rest of the conspiracy. After all, she’d already cleaned up one end of it, and had a pretty good idea of where to look for the other traitors. Taking them down would help fulfill Westwick’s deal with Victor Raleigh—and it would be fun besides. One brilliant thief against the evil forces that would topple her nation if they could. Now that was an adventure.

  Jadie stuffed the letters into her pack and left Hwarl’s apartment, unable to stop herself from whistling. It had been a successful mission, and she was hopeful that she’d have many more. After all, she was Jadie “Thorn” Rivers, who would be known one day as one of the greatest thieves ever. Whatever obstacles came her way, she knew she could handle them.

  D.K. Cassidy

  http://www.dkcassidy.com/

  Room 42(Short story)

  by D.K. Cassidy

  Originally published by Windrift Bay Limited, in The Immortality Chronicles, Created by Samuel Peralta, Edited by Carol Davis.

  At forty-two minutes past midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on April 15, 2154, The Event happened.

  There was no pulse of light, no explosion, no cause anyone could name. But at that moment, immortality became a reality.

  From that point on, no one aged. Growth ceased. Human cells froze in time.

  The clocks kept running…but time stood still.

  ***

  Dr. Vivian Toujours opened the door to her lab with an ancient brass key. She wasn’t aware of anyone else using such anachronistic technology, but it gave her pleasure to hear the key scraping in the keyhole. The distinctive click as she turned the lock. She’d replaced the retina reader decades ago by reworking the security system to accept her preferred method of opening the lab door.

  The lights came on automatically as she walked over to the coffee machine. Not a fan of solitude, she’d programmed the machine to respond to the user via voice prompts.

  “Coffee with cream this morning, Keri.”

  The tall silver machine lit up. “Good morning, Vivian. What size do you require?”

  “Large, extra strong. How was your weekend, Keri?”

  “Large, extra strong, with cream. Producing your order. My weekend was uneventful. No new developments to report.”

  I need to add more personality to this machine. Maybe someone in the A.I. Department can give me some advice. Then again, it was just a coffee machine.

  “I’m about to find out if my latest trial is successful. What do you think of that?”

  “I remain ever hopeful for you, Vivian. Your coffee is ready as ordered.”

  Reaching for the floating screen, she swiped her hand in front of the transparent monitor to open her files. Drug trial number 1440 appeared as a beaker icon. Another quirk of hers. She liked using interesting icons instead of the standard ones installed in the software. When she pointed at the beaker and swiped in a clockwise arc, the latest test results appeared.

  “All indications point toward a negative result. Advise further testing on the mortality serum.”

  Feeling defeated, but not admitting it to herself, she opened the file containing her ideas for further testing. There were still two hundred experiments to run, which was a comfort to her. Until she’d gone through each of them, Vivian could pretend to be on the verge of a solution. Immortals had long ago mastered the skill of avoiding reality.

  Sitting at her desk, Vivian swiped through medical journals on her tablet. Although she wanted to be the first to discover a mortality serum, she knew she had to accept that she wasn’t the only scientist working on a cure. Reading the work of her competition helped her gain insights on their methods of solving the problem.

  Dr. Vivian Toujours had been working on a cure for the disaster for eighty-five years. Her focus was to solve the puzzle of non-growth and sterility. She wanted her daughter to have the chance to experience a full life. Tenacity was her mantra. Science, her mentor. Jenna, her raison d’être.

  “Shit,” she muttered in frustration. If she didn’t get some positive results soon, someone else would beat her to it. Then her ass would be out the door.

  ***

  Jenna Toujours was staring at her favorite game, Picture You, the progressive aging software her mother designed for her seventy-five years ago. Thrilled it still worked, she pulled up an estimate of her appearance at twenty-eight. Then thirty-eight. Then sixty-eight.

  Her changing face fascinated Jenna. She stared at herself at the current pre-Event age of her mother, then her grandmother. She looked like them, but she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that. Tired of the game already, she shut it down.

  She bent down to pet her dog, Tujin, a Model 2442. He licked her fingers. His synthetic fur, curly and golden, felt soft to Jenna. He barked when she stopped scratching his head, and she reached down again to continue scratching. After five minutes, Tujin walked away and settled into his bed.

  Debating whether the comfort feature on Tujin should be set for fewer minutes, Jenna watched her dog settle into sleep mode. She let herself believe this was her treasured pet from before The Event. Thoughts of her current reality were suppressed by years of practice.

  Jenna looked through the thousands of books in her eReader, trying to choose one to fit her mood. The classics, those written before The Event, she’d already memorized. That wasn’t intentional, but after reading something several hundred times it was unavoidable. Books that held her attention before now seemed too childish. Her tastes matured over the years.

  Deleting her childhood books seemed like a good idea. She’d have no children of her own to read to, and her favorite fairy tales would always remain in her memory. Jenna selected the treasures of literature from prior decades and pressed the delete button. But instead of feeling relief, sadness flooded her.

  She turned to the mirror next to her computer, gazing mournfully at the eight-year-old face staring back.

  ***

  A few months after the clocks stopped, people began to notice there were no births. Not a single one. When they were questioned about this, scientists around the world had no explanation.

  Pundits proclaimed that zero population growth was a good outcome of the mysterious immortality plague. If no one ever died, the Earth would run out of room and resources in just a few generations.

  Ten years after The Event, world leaders stopped trying to figure out what had happened. Theories ranged from an electromagnetic pulse from the sun to a stealth alien attack to germ warfare to an act of God. The only consensus was the need to find a cure.

  Think tanks on every continent raced to be the one to cure the curse of immortality. Of agelessness. There hadn’t been a competition this int
ense since the space race of the twentieth century. National pride swelled.

  Every country wanted to be the one to create a mortality serum. They wanted to be the first to figure out why aging and growth stopped. Why had the population become sterile?

  If they couldn’t determine the cause of this plague, they wanted to end the side effects. Funding no longer needed for other projects was redirected to research. Leaders around the world could finally agree on something, but no one noticed that.

  The world longed to hear a baby cry.

  ***

  It was lunch hour and the residents of the Eternal Sunshine Care Facility were watching their favorite soap opera, As the Universe Turns, now in its 115th year of broadcasting. A majority of the elderly living there suffered from some form of dementia, and they enjoyed each episode over and over. The recycled plots droned on, every possible storyline already played out decades ago.

  The familiar music of the soap opera filled the room of rapt viewers. Some spontaneously applauded, others simply stared at the television screen, oblivious. Two of the ladies cackled and mumbled to one another. The staff walked around, arranging the residents into a semicircle around the large screen.

  Attached to each wheelchair was a lidded container with a straw, filled with a smoothie of synthesized ingredients, enhanced with bright colors. The meal processors were set to produce based on the day of the week. Purple Promise today. Turquoise Delight tomorrow.

  Mrs. Janice Doggerel possessed a clear mind, but a broken body. Her aide, a bored eternal teenager, told her it was time to join the other residents. Not for the first time, she wished telepathy existed. She didn’t want to join the other residents and desperately desired to convey that message to her aide. When her attendant wheeled her in front of the common room television, she silently screamed.

  Mrs. Doggerel’s daily wish to die went unanswered.

  ***

  Menial labor had been performed by androids for decades, freeing up time for people to pursue whatever interested them. The typical 4-hour workday allowed for more leisure time than at any other period in history. Instead of causing unrest, this abundance of free time lulled the majority of the population into compliance.