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

by Anthology

  I didn't talk. They didn't like that. There was yelling and shaking, and Pointy Teeth threw a chair.

  Since I didn't talk, I still don't know how Heady found me, but she did. And she smiled down at Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles.

  "Adopted," she said, calmly. "Sy's my cousin, really, but his folks were in a horrible…" she sniffed and covered her eyes, and even I wanted to hug her and make her feel better for my parents who were dead, but who really she just invented on the spot.

  Bone Knuckles reached into a compartment on his chair and gave Heady a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes. They apologized. They said things about trouble and heartache even though my chest didn't hurt. They promised to track down whoever sold me skim codes, who was me but they were letting me go, because Heady and I walked out the door together.

  The next day they committed me. That was three years ago.

  ***

  "This is, really, the worst idea ever," Heady says. People keep walking where I put her, so I move her around. It's much more crowded outside than I remember. And stinky. I'm not a fan of that.

  "Then we should go back," Heady hisses, stooping down to try to pull me out of line for the jumper. "We can still go back."

  It took me a long time to get here. First Dr. Singh had to become Kaipo, and even though I liked his smile and all the other things, I had to remember about the next piece. He had to leave my node on, and even that was a tiny step.

  I had to remember to be careful this time. Had to remember talent wasn't skill. That if you go too fast, they catch you. Just fast enough. Find the pattern. Fall into it. I didn't want Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles to drag me away again three years later.

  When the orderlies thought I was sleeping, I skimmed. I started small because, Kaipo taught me you always do. You have to pick up bricks to build a wall to build a house to build a city. When you skip the normal steps, people notice.

  First, I asked the internal net nicely if I could sit quiet in my little corner. I watched the bits and bobs moving around. Made a map of my tiny piece of things while the code got used to me being there.

  The security systems are very territorial, which is good for a security system but was bad for me. I squeezed myself small and made my edges soft. You have to let them know you aren't mean or angry and won't try to make them let you places that belong to them. The security system hissed once or twice, and sniffed me over a few times, but eventually it stopped looking at me. I was part of its territory, so it didn't need to guard against me.

  I could move around, then, and smile nice at the video feeds. Video feeds aren't like security systems. They want you to look, as long as security isn't nearby. The feeds were fans of mine, because I didn't make them pick and choose. I let them show me everything, not just the fights and the screaming and the people when their clothes came off. The feeds said the orderlies kept making them show just that last bit and ignoring empty halls, which made the hall feeds sad and lonely. But I curled up with them and didn't yawn even once when they showed me the quiet between the night patrols.

  Once I learned the patterns, I had to talk to the lock timers. Locks aren't as prickly as security, but they are stubborn. They slide into place and they fall dead asleep and they don't want to move until morning. They like their routine. They don't like to change. It makes them wobbly inside, which I am totally not a fan of, so I understand. I puzzled over that until I bopped myself for forgetting I wasn't starting small again. Little bits, little bobs.

  Each night, I slipped just a little more into the timing algorithms for the locks. They batted at their noses a few times. Snorted, but not loud enough that security bothered to look, because it was busy slinking and hunting, and locks and me didn't move fast enough to catch its attention. Once a lock half rolled over, and I had to hum it back to sleep because it wasn't quite time yet.

  I needed a place to go when I was outside. I couldn't stay on Pycha Gol. I'm not sure if roids are the bricks or the houses, but I needed a new one. I threw a jangly bit to distract the security system, then I skimmed out into Pycho Gol's net to the jumper system to pick a route and a ship, so that when the locks opened, I wouldn't have to wait any longer.

  ***

  I picked this jumper after I accessed it. It's going to a roid where they fix things, not people. I think that's a good place for me. So I nudged here and there, and when the locks woke up early while the orderlies were busy watching people with no clothes, I picked up my bag and walked through the crowds and the stink to the line because now I have a ticket, linked up on my retinal scan. I lean down and don't blink at the flash.

  "We'll buzz in a little while," the jumper security guard says, strapping a little plastic bracelet to me. It fits almost like the ones at the hospital. He waves me on with his flipper-hands.

  "Kaipo will get in a lot of trouble for this," Heady says.

  "He really cares for you," she adds. I look her in the eye, and she cocks her head to the side. If she were real, I think she might cup my cheek in her hand. The muscles at my jawbone ache.

  "I think I was bad for Kaipo," I say.

  "Sy, sweetie, that's not—"

  "I'm bad with people. For people."

  Heady's lips thin, but she doesn't say anything.

  "Kaipo's a doctor. He wanted me to get better. I'm totally better now, you heard," I say.

  "He'll hurt, Sy," Heady says. "It hurts when you leave people."

  "I know," I whisper, hanging my head. My eyes burn a little, and it's hard to focus.

  "Then you should stay," Heady says, kneeling down in front of me. She doesn't have real fingers, but my chin picks up when she puts her hand under it, anyway.

  "If you leave, I won't know where to find you when I come back," Heady says.

  "That's not true," I say.

  "You can't leave a trail," she says, standing in front of me, hands hovering near my shoulders because she can't touch them. Her eyes are wet. "If you did, they'd find you and put you somewhere else where they'd never let me in to—"

  "Not that part," I say. My chest is tight. "You're never coming back."

  Heady stands there, towering over me. I feel extra small right now.

  "Don't say that," she whispers. "I promised."

  "You lied," I say, walking around her, putting her at my back. I can't look at her, even if she's not really there.

  It's a long few minutes while I wait for them to buzz me. I try not to breathe too deep. Then I finally hear her say it. Soft, because I probably still don't want to hear it.

  "Yes."

  I sniffle, which is totally because the air's so dirty and stinky here. I'm not a fan. I look back at Heady and her big, wet eyes. I wish she really told me. Real Heady. I wish she trusted me. But she didn't, and now she's gone. One blink later, and the other Heady's gone, too, because I can't see her any more.

  I can't stay for Heady. I can't stay for Kaipo. But I can do this much for them. I can let go. Of the promise we both knew wasn't one. Of one last piece of reshaped code that shouldn't be there. Flatten it all out. No more bad patterns. Just me.

  The bracelet on my wrist buzzes. It's been a little while, I guess. Now it's time.

  Hide Behind(Short story)

  by Jason Kimble

  Originally published by The Sockdolager (issue 3)

  "It's never gonna fruit 'cause you stole it."

  Yuna flinched at the whip-crack of a voice. She heard Ruthie's frustrated sigh next to her. They both knew before turning around from the fruit-bare Seeder tree that Sheriff Lightle was paying a visit.

  "Seeder trees outside a grove are for everyone, Sheriff," Ruthie drawled, falling back into the old argument. "This one was plenty far away from the brush fence, and you know well as I, the whole point of Seeder trees is to help settlers survive frontier living. The tinpots want their trees spreading cross-country."

  "Natural-like, sure," the wiry man shot back, hooking his thumbs in his gunbelt and cocking one sharp hip to the side. He jabbed his n
ose at the tall tree behind the pair of women. "But you scoop it out of the ground and start grafting it willy-nilly, that ain't doing right by the Seeders."

  "Now, Chick—" Yuna started.

  "Charlie," Sheriff Lightle all but barked.

  "Charlie," Yuna corrected with a thin-lipped smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tiny bit of a nod Ruthie gave her. Quickest way to escape one sore point was to poke at another. "I know you didn't stop by just to roast the same old chestnut, did you?"

  "Shouldn't I make the tree puns?" Ruthie whispered. Yuna nudged her research partner with an elbow. Ruthie made a show of smoothing out her prairie skirt.

  Chick frowned. For a minute Yuna thought he'd push right on. He'd been sore with her since fainting in a briar patch the first time he’d seen a dead body. Seven years later he still hadn't forgiven Yuna for smirking at the scratches on his back and belly as she treated him. It probably hadn't helped when she told him the belly ache afterward was all in his head.

  Yuna thought he was about to keep going right into the threats to tear the tree out and burn it to stop it going bad. Of course, that would have meant he had to touch it, which was more than a little unlikely given his superstitions.

  Then something twitched behind his eyes, and his shoulders sagged.

  "Widow Stormalong was killed last night," he said, all the fire out of his voice.

  Yuna nearly jumped when she felt Ruthie's hand squeeze at her elbow. Neither one of them said a thing.

  Chick continued. "Thing is, the way she was opened up—" his gangly-fingered hand circled low in front of his stomach—"looked just like what happened to Henry Johannes." They all thought Johannes had been coyotes, but—

  "A coyote couldn't bite its way through giant flesh," Yuna said. Her neck ached as she tried to keep her voice steady.

  "No kind of coyote would get near enough to try," Ruthie added.

  "Which is why I'm here," the sheriff said. He looked skyward, running one hand over his head and sending some of his fine hairs standing up from the static. "I was wondering…well, Marcus, he knows how to put a body together, but…"

  Ruthie squeezed again at Yuna's elbow. Yuna gave her a weak smile to cut through the worry in her eyes. Marcus was an undertaker, not a doctor. There was only one of those in town.

  "I'll take a look," Yuna agreed, her voice nine times steadier than she actually felt.

  "I'm helping," Ruthie piped in. Then Yuna only felt seven times unsteadier.

  ***

  Henry Johannes had been the first victim they found, three days back. When she heard about it, though, Yuna felt worst for his poor wife, Wacéda.

  "She comes in after a hard week on the cattle trail, just wanting to sit down to those griddle cakes Henry made so well, and she finds him…" Yuna shuddered and didn't finish. She willed her fingers still while she re-corked the medicinals she and Ruthie had brought in from the garden.

  "I just saw him yesterday," Ruthie said. "Gave him some of the new rhubarb for a pie he was fixing to make." She shook her head and added, "Gentle soul, that one."

  Yuna raised her eyebrow and looked sidelong at Ruthie. "You sure you're talking about Henry Johannes?"

  Ruthie punched Yuna in the shoulder. "Hayashi Yuna, don't you even think about talking ill of the dead," she chided.

  "My pa used to tell me something from the old country: death don't change who you were. It just keeps folks from talking about it."

  Ruthie set her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and raised one black eyebrow. "That's no old saying from nowhere," she said.

  "But it's true," Yuna returned with a sideways smile. Ruthie's dark face split with a bright grin.

  "Point taken," she said, though the smile fell as quickly as it had come. "Henry was a bit of a grump, but not so you minded, really. He certainly didn't deserve what those coyotes did to him."

  "Still don't understand why they'd come in so close as that, anyhow," Yuna said.

  ***

  There was a time when Yuna would have been over the moon at the chance to autopsy a giant. That thrill of discovery was what brought Ruthie and Yuna together in the first place, and what had inspired them to try raising a Seeder tree to find out just what made it tick. Ruthie was a brilliant botanist. Yuna had a gift for medicine. The two of them could take that seedling and ferret out its secrets. Maybe folks like Sheriff Lightle got prickly about it, but even Chick knew there wasn't really anything wrong if it meant discovering something thrilling and new.

  But this wasn't university, and Widow Stormalong—Natalie—wasn't a tree. Wasn't just a body, even. She'd come by last week asking after herbs to help her sleep at night. Ruthie had to harvest a whole new batch of plants to get enough to do for Nat, given how much better giant bodies were at flushing toxins.

  Now Nat was gone, and that made two victims. Nat proved it couldn't just be coyotes or riled-up whimpuses whirling about. There was no joy in discovery now, but there also wasn't any more avoiding it. Not if they wanted to stop more people dying.

  When Yuna got inside, saw how low in the stomach the opening was—saw what was missing—she knew it could only be one thing.

  "Hidebehind?" Chick asked, incredulous when Yuna suggested it.

  "There were punctures on Nat's forearm, but nothing eaten up around there. Suggests toxin of one stripe or other. I thought for a minute it might be some kind of snake, but…" Yuna shook her head. "You know of anything else that eats only intestines on a kill?" Yuna asked.

  The color had bled from Chick's face. Even Ruthie's dark skin flushed a bit gray as it sunk in.

  "They're only supposed to eat but once every half-dozen years or so, ain't they?" Chick asked with a nervous laugh. "Now this one's gone and eaten not only twice, but took a giant-sized helping, besides?"

  Yuna felt her own gaze turn cold with Chick's pun. Ruthie filled the silence.

  "What little we know about them's twisted up in campfire stories, anyway, so who knows how big their bellies are?" Ruthie countered. "You said you found Nat under that Black Walnut tree she kept. Wacéda found Henry under their Pecan. That's how they stalk, isn't it? From behind trees. I mean, they're called a hidebehind for a reason."

  ***

  "That tree she found him under?" Ruthie had said, the day they first heard about Henry, "Wacéda bought that tree from me when they got hitched." Her voice was hollow. She glanced toward the garden and grove out back of Yuna's house. Which was also their office.

  "They got hitched!" came a voice from out back. It sounded more than a bit like Ruthie's.

  "Oh, don't tell me that jackalope is back in the garden!" Yuna said. She grabbed up a broom and headed outside.

  "Could be worse," Ruthie called over the stomping of Yuna's boots. "Remember when that batch of splints came through? Smashed up half the grove."

  "Hard to forget," Yuna groaned. "Powerful tough to break those noggins," she recalled.

  "Break those noggins!" came the sound of Yuna's own voice.

  "I think it's over here," Ruthie called.

  "I think it's over here," Ruthie called again from a slightly different direction, though she hadn't actually moved.

  "I think it's over here," now, a third time and direction.

  Yuna sighed.

  "You need whiskey," called out a new voice. Yuna turned to see Wacéda looking on from the edge of the grove.

  ***

  "I need a drink," Chick muttered, dragging Yuna back to the present. He looked back and forth from Yuna to Ruthie. He opened his mouth to say something more, but only shook his head.

  "I…thank you kindly, ladies," he finally said. "Let me take you both home. Nobody ought to be going anywhere alone right about now."

  Yuna looked to Ruthie and raised an eyebrow. Ruthie gave back a shallow shrug. Chick hadn't been chivalrous in a long while. At least, not when he wasn't by begging after slippery elm and peppermint oil for his heartburn. But with some critter around so fast that no one ever saw it until it
jumped out and cut you open for supper, maybe now was a good time to bury a hatchet.

  Yuna's place was closest. Ruthie waited in the wagon while Chick walked her to the door. He grabbed Yuna's elbow just before she opened it.

  "Doc Hayashi, those trees Mrs. Eagleton mentioned," Chick said.

  "What about 'em?"

  "They both came from Mrs. Eagleton, didn't they?"

  "Yes," Yuna answered, not sure why the sheriff hadn't asked Ruthie herself.

  "And were they grafted with that Seeder tree?"

  Yuna frowned. "No."

  "You sure?"

  Yuna sighed heavily. "Ruthie and I keep excellent records," she finally answered. "We have a log of every single graft. None of them have gone wandering, and why does any of this—?"

  "You're the scientist, Doc," he said. "You tell me: seem like a strange coincidence to you that the two trees that drew a hidebehind came from your grove?"

  "Don't be dim, Chick," Yuna shot back.

  It was the sheriff's turn to frown.

  "Charlie," Yuna corrected before he untied the mad knot in his tongue. She twisted out of his grip and waved him back toward the wagon. "Just…get Ruthie home. I'm sure Abe's worried sick about now."

  ***

  Yuna stared out into the grove as the sun set, the sound of Chick's wagon swallowed by the wind through the leaves as he took Ruthie home.

  Yuna watched the leaves on the Seeder tree turn mustard, then glow fire-red as the light shot through them on its way to rest. Everybody knew there was something special in Seeder trees. Tinpots, for all you rarely saw them, were looking out for folk. Fruit made a body feel refreshed even with just a bite. There was plenty of evidence it helped folks heal powerful quick. Bark even acted as a repellent to some of the nastier critters that roamed the wilds. It seemed a perfect plan back in the day to find out just how the tinpots did it. That kind of thing could help a lot of folks. And maybe make a name for the ladies who figured it out.