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

by Anthology

  Pico scrambled to his feet and charged toward the shearing shed. Peregrine and Simone gave chase. The rancher reached the door but was brought to a standstill as the Judge set his rambling house ablaze.

  The dragon circled the ranch, spouting flames. The straw bales blazed. The chasers’ empty barracks went up in a blast of hellfire.

  “Where’s my payment?”

  Sheep stampeded across a field, bleating their terror, as the Judge landed in their midst and roared. “Shall I start with these?”

  “Simone! Peregrine!”

  They turned at the shout. Isabeau, fighting her half-crazed pony, rode to their sides. She dismounted and released the terrified animal to run for his life. Eyes rolling and tail streaking out behind him, the horse charged back the way he’d come.

  The Judge’s head whipped around and she locked her gaze on the Hightower sisters. “Or will it be two for the price of one, Peregrine?”

  “Run!” Peregrine shoved Isabeau and Simone toward the boulders.

  The Judge lunged at him, but he stood his ground as the women reached cover. Black, choking smoke curled around him as the dragon stopped inches from his body. She opened her jaws and exhaled a gout of blistering, fetid heat. But she didn’t burn Peregrine though the acrid stench of his own singed hair stung his nose.

  “Where’s the murderer you promised me?”

  Peregrine shook his head. “I have suspects, but I need more time to prove guilt. I won’t condemn any man or woman for a crime they didn’t commit.”

  Simone shouted, “Give her Pico! He murdered the Sheriff.”

  Peregrine looked over his shoulder and his voice was strong as he said, “Not without a fair trial, Simone Hightower. I’m not gonna do to anyone what was done to me.”

  “He’s behind the murders, Peregrine,” Isabeau shouted. “Mitchell confessed his part and turned state’s evidence against Pico, Bobby, and Matikai.”

  The Judge hissed. “Bring this man to me. I will try him.”

  Peregrine shook his head. “We need a complete investigation. Then you can have him.”

  The Judge’s head pulled back and up as she reared high above him. “Bring me the man, now, or I’ll destroy Bonesteel and turn the woman you love into a pile of ash and bones.”

  He really had made a deal with the devil. Peregrine’s shoulders hunched. He had little love for Bonesteel, but there were innocent people among its citizens. He couldn’t condemn them for a man he knew to be a cold-blooded killer. And he’d never let the beast have Isabeau.

  “No.” Peregrine gazed steadily at death’s face. “I believe in the law. We had a bargain it’s true. But Pico Connelly is due a trial by his peers, not you, Judge. So take my life now, and our score will be settled. If you’re meant to have others, they’ll come to you by a court of law.”

  The Judge stared at him, black smoke curling from her nostrils.

  Peregrine held his breath.

  A wooden door banged somewhere on the ranch.

  Sheep bleated.

  “Fine.” The Judge reached out a clawed forefoot, her dagger talons poised to strike. But instead of tearing Peregrine to pieces, she ripped the roof from the shearing shed and threw it into the trees.

  Peregrine stumbled toward the safety of the boulders as wood and debris clattered all around him.

  Pico screamed and kicked open the sagging shed door. He tried to dodge her, but the Judge’s foot came down once more and pinned the man to the ground.

  “No! Please! I’m innocent! It was Bobby and Matikai! I’m begging you!”

  “What’s your story, Pico Connelly? Be truthful. I will know if you lie.”

  Pico stiffened and stared at the dragon. Tears dampened his face. A stain spread across his trousers as he pissed himself. “I’m innocent,” he sobbed. “I’ve been set up. Matikai and Bobby Mack are the killers. And Peregrine stole that pony. That’s all I know. I swear it. I swear.” But there was another story snaking through Pico’s head, one of betrayal and greed, one that showed his hand manipulating the course.

  Isabeau and Simone clung to each other and shrank back from the scene. “What’s happening, Peregrine?” Isabeau asked.

  He blinked. They couldn’t hear the Judge. Was it strange that he could? “She’s asking to hear his story. She knows if you’re lying. She gets inside your head and reads your thoughts.”

  “Merciful gods,” Simone muttered.

  The Judge lifted her foot off Pico. “Rise to face my judgment.”

  Pico blinked, a weak smile on his face. He stood on shaking legs. “You see? You see my innocence, Judge?”

  The dragon’s snout came down until it was right in front of Pico. He coughed, and then reached out as if to touch her. But just before his fingers reached her shimmering scales she arched her head up and over him so that she was gazing straight down her snout at him.

  “No. I find you guilty.”

  Pico screamed as the Judge exhaled a plume of fire and set the man ablaze.

  Peregrine’s guts twisted. “Don’t watch,” he said as the sisters shrieked.

  Pico staggered forward, his arms flailing.

  The Judge’s snout shot downward and she snapped her front teeth around his flaming skull. She jerked her head up and back, tossing his headless body in the air like a cat toying with a mouse. Then the Judge caught Pico’s corpse in her jaws and swallowed him.

  A rumbling purr vibrated the ground, and the Judge said, “Very satisfying.” She eyed Peregrine and added, “Our agreement is complete. Justice has been served. But there are others, Peregrine Long. The woman named Matikai and the man called Bobby Mack. They took two lives.”

  He nodded. “So I heard.”

  The dragon cocked her head. “Did you?”

  “Yep. Every word.”

  She lowered her head to take him in. “How unusual. And did you see his thoughts? The truth behind his lies?”

  Peregrine’s jaw dropped. He nodded again, slowly, and whispered, “I did, Judge.” He glanced at Isabeau and Simone then turned back to the great purple dragon. “What does that mean?”

  “You are a dragonsage.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. I have gone many decades without one.”

  Simone touched Peregrine’s shoulder. Her hair had come loose of its braids and her face was tear-stained. “I want to face judgment, Peregrine.”

  Isabeau grabbed her sister’s arm. “What? No!”

  But Simone shook her off and stepped toward the Judge. “I done Peregrine wrong, Judge. I was one of the group who strung him up in your hollow.” She crossed one arm over her chest and added, “Truthfully, I was the most insistent on his guilt.”

  Once again, the Judge’s snout came down until it nearly touched Simone’s body, and the woman stiffened and stared. “Indeed, you are guilty. But you speak honestly, Simone Hightower.”

  Isabeau trembled as she clutched Peregrine’s arm. She opened her mouth, but remained silent when he shook his head.

  “I’ll accept your punishment, Judge,” Simone said.

  The dragon nodded. “Turn away.”

  Simone faced away from death. She chewed her lower lip, but kept her head high, accepting her fate.

  The Judge slashed two curving talons across Simone’s back, and the woman shrieked and fell to her knees. Her duster and shirt were bloody tatters. Great gashes revealed muscle and bone, diagonal wounds from shoulder to hip that would heal but leave terrible scars.

  “You will wear your guilt upon your body until the day you die, Simone Hightower.” The Judge studied the fallen woman and Isabeau, who’d gone to her sister’s aid. “But you have been spared by your honesty.” The dragon crouched and considered Peregrine for a long moment. “Dragonsage, you will find the others who wronged you and committed these crimes. Bring them to me, so that they may be judged.”

  “Why do you care about the feuds of my kind, Judge?”

  “Because unchecked feuds become war, and war feeds the Shadowns’ be
ast. Five dragons exist—five powers—and only we hold back the monster that seethes and plots against your kind and mine.” She tipped her snout toward Simone and added, “You will take Simone Hightower when she is well enough to travel. She will assist you in your search.” Then the Judge coiled her muscles, unfurled her wings, and sprang into the air.

  Isabeau and Peregrine covered Simone as dust and debris engulfed them with each powerful down-stroke of the Judge’s pinions. The dragon cleared the tree line and swooped over the terrorized herd of sheep. She seized one in each claw, and then winged up to her promontory, snapped her wings tight to her body, and plunged into the darkness of her lair.

  “I’ll hitch a team,” Isabeau said and ran to the only standing building on the property, the carriage house.

  Simone gasped as Peregrine lifted her into his arms.

  “I think I still hate you, Long,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You’d better get over that, Hightower. The Judge has tasked you and me with bringing Matikai and Bobby to face judgment.”

  Simone groaned. “Where’s a chair when I need to kick one?”

  Peregrine took in the obliterated rancho. “Not even a stool for as far as my eyes can see.”

  He returned Simone’s weak smile as Isabeau led a team of black draft horses from the stable, hitched to a cart.

  Peregrine gazed up at the blue sky. The sun was well past zenith, and soon he’d be leaving Bonesteel. Again. He moved toward the approaching cart.

  It was a fine day to be alive.

  Ivan Popov

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3083468

  The Keresztury TVirs(Short story)

  by Ivan Popov

  Translated from the Bulgarian by Vladimir Poleganov, Ivan Popov, and Kalin M. Nenov

  Originally published in Sci Phi Journal #5, May 2015.

  Andrew Keresztury. World TVir History. 4th edition

  Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Istanbul-Islamabad-Singapore

  The title of this book is slightly misleading. Or rather, the word "history" is misleading, bringing expectations of abstract moralizing and technical ignorance. However, the author—the TVirologist Andrew Keresztury—is an outright "techie"—one of the greatest experts in the field. That’s why his book is in fact a thorough technical overview, disguised as a history out of decorum.

  The disguise succeeded in confusing even the publishers, as the first edition was included in the Critique of Postmodernism series, and the blurb compared the book to Douglas Rushkoff's Media Virus! As a matter of fact, World TVir History saw the light of day only due to its publishers' confusion. TVirs are a rather delicate subject, and various secret services have made various aspects of their technical details top secret over time. Had it been classified as technical literature, the competent authorities would have stopped Keresztury's work long before it reached the bookstores. In this particular situation, however, the first edition of TVir History remained on the bookshelves for twenty-three days’ before it was brought to the attention of the intelligence services and its entire print run was seized. The authorities went as far as tracing customers who bought copies from online bookstores and forcing them to return their purchases. In fact, this part of the book's history is no less intriguing and edifying than the story of the TViruses it tells. Nevertheless, let us focus on the contents of the work itself.

  Keresztury begins his presentation directly with the question "Who is to blame?" and gives a fitting answer: everyone, or—tantamount to this—no one. There are, as the virologist calls them, certain objective causes: the obsession with digitization and protocol standardization, the developers' penchant for creating systems with a great number of extraordinarily powerful undocumented functions. To top it all, we have had incredibly "lousy" operating systems since Microsoft, overblown beyond all measure, which when released in firmware, require chips with an immense capacity. Moreover, any smart programmer can insert almost anything into the "small" amount of unused memory on the chips.

  And this "anything", according to Keresztury, has evolved greatly over time.

  Historical sources cite the Ukrainian city of Odessa as the motherland of TVirs; the names of the first TVirmakers are well known: the hardware developers Leonid Kunitz and Miron Craciunescu (the latter is Moldavian). Kunitz and Craciunescu discovered by accident undocumented functions in digital TV sets, which allowed commands to be sent to the set via the cable along with the TV signal. More specifically, they were commands for upgrading—as well as tampering with—the firmware OS behind the back of the TV set’s owner. Besides, it turned out that these functions had been an implicit standard, adopted by all manufacturers. So Kunitz and Craciunescu invented the mixer: a device placed on the cable before the TV set, convolving the appropriate commands into the signal (initially, this used to be a computer program, not a separate hardware device). The first virus they wrote was quite simple and mischievous: its functions included shaking and inverting the screen image, creating "snow"; it assigned these functions to certain button combinations from the remote control.

  After spending considerable time experimenting with their own TV sets, the budding TVirmakers plugged a remote control mixer into the TV cable running along a block of flats and started terrorizing all the viewers in the neighborhood by inverting the picture during key scenes of the popular soap operas of the time. The viewers, naturally, showered the local cable operator with complaints. It did not take the technicians long to find the mixer, but instead of unplugging it, they played a Byzantine trick: they removed the battery and hid nearby, waiting for the TVirmakers to show up and fix the device, and then caught them with the help of some private security men. The unwitting Ukrainian court passed a surprisingly light sentence on Kunitz and Craciunescu: 10 days in custody for hooliganism using technical devices. However, the news about those "technical devices" spread like wildfire. The cable operators in Odessa started a full-blown war: they all installed mixers on their competitors' cables and inverted the picture using the Kunitz virus. They soon concluded a truce, but someone—perhaps even Kunitz or Craciunescu—released the virus code on the Internet, making it accessible to every hacker in both Eastern and Western Europe.

  The second generation of TVirs brought along more complicated "user" functions, mainly to do with sound manipulation. At first, they were restricted to changes in the voice timbre and other similar effects; from a technical point of view, this was no easy feat, because the sound was digitally encoded and the manipulation algorithms were rather compact. The center of this new generation of TV infection was thought to be Romania. There is a story of one Traian Radulescu who caused his aunt to have a heart attack by making the delicate and beautiful actress in a movie declare her love in a hoarse drunkard's bass. Later, though, these effects became extremely popular, and cable operators themselves started installing them on TV sets at their clients' request. It turned out that people liked it: pressing buttons on their remotes and changing the actors' voices, the timbre of musical instruments and so on—replacing them with the weirdest substitutes.

  Shortly afterwards came the first TViruses capable of inserting new lines into film dialogue. On the eve of the regional elections, a group calling itself the Maznev/Razmaznev TVir Crew unleashed a virus which, during the pauses, inserted various insults with a random timbre, aimed at one of the candidates: "Nevertheless, Artuchki is a swine!", "But we must keep in mind that Artuchki is a swine!", "The fact that Artuchki is a swine is indisputable," and so on. The name of that group featured the abbreviation "TVir" for the first time. (Keresztury makes no mention of the denigrated candidate's reaction.)

  Over the next few years this type of virus evolved considerably and became a favorite weapon of radical political organizations across America and Europe. They were widely used by antiglobalists and neofascists, to mention but two examples. Besides the now conventional medium of remote control mixers plugged into cable networks, propaganda TVirs also spread via infected pirated DVDs. (Th
e undocumented commands can infect a TV not only through the cable input but also through a random digital video recording.) These PropaTVirs caused the police serious trouble, and draconian measures were introduced, decreeing sanctions not only for the propagators but also for those who willingly installed broadcast-changing code in their TV sets. During one of its campaigns, Interpol arrested the members of the Maznev/Razmaznev group, but several weeks later the convicts managed to escape custody under mysterious circumstances and vanished into thin air. It was a good fifteen years later that a member of the group was discovered, accidentally shot during a police operation against the "white plastic" mafia in Germany.

  Among the so-called active-sound TVirs, Keresztury includes certain minimalist, obscure ersatz versions, which do not have the line insert and voice change functions. For example, if the virus identifies the president's name in the signal, it emits noise in the channel and briefly deteriorates the picture quality. This behavior of the signal makes viewers angry, and their anger gradually projects onto the person mentioned—analogous to Pavlov's dog conditioning. It is interesting to note that these simpler active-sound versions appear later than their more complex predecessors. They have been used not so much by the radical fractions, but by election offices that would release the virus against their own candidate and subsequently charge their opponents with unlawful subliminal attacks.

  Image-manipulating viruses appeared a good ten years after the sound-manipulating ones. According to Keresztury, this was due to the more complex and extensive program code required for image analysis. Once the TVOSs evolved sufficiently and the TV processors became fast enough, such viruses cropped up in the wild. As always, sheer hooliganism led the way—with "the mustache painter" (which, along with the entire algorithm for facial recognition, fits in a tight 36 kilobytes!). Later, the "sentence eraser" appeared, designed as a weapon against advertising. Next came Bayraktar1: a tiny figure, waving a red flag with a crossed hammer and crescent, which would jump out in a corner of the screen at those very instants when the video stream was at its dynamic peak. (Thereby mercilessly distracting the viewer's attention.) Bayraktar spawned a whole new brood of animated pests that switched on to torment the viewer on all kinds of occasions. Usually they formed part of an advertising campaign or counter-campaign.