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

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Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors Page 218

by Anthology


  RECITATIVE

  (triumphant chant)

  WHITLOCK 2: My lady, if indeed a fiend will soon, by some preternatural power, darken your heart, allow me to use these last few moments of light to offer you my own.

  (WHITLOCK 2 kneels before LADY CADENCE.)

  JACQUENETTE: (chants) Oh, milady!

  LADY CADENCE: (chants) I accept.

  WHITLOCK 3: (speaks) What? But you said—that is, you will say—

  (The VRILLIANS march on-stage, as before, followed by the VILLAGERS and led by the singing VRIL.)

  SONG—VRIL

  VRIL:

  Vril, Vril, Vril!

  VRILLIANS:

  Vril!

  VRIL:

  We cry in voices—

  (He sees LADY CADENCE and shrieks in surprise.)

  VRIL: What is this? What strange admixture of desire, wonder, desire…

  WHITLOCK 3: (aside) Not again.

  VRIL: (frowning at WHITLOCK 2)… and what minion dares to obstruct the object of my attraction?

  WHITLOCK 3: Your pardon, sir. Allow me to introduce… myself. (He gestures to WHITLOCK 2.)

  VRIL: A duplicator! What foul sorcery is this?

  WHITLOCK 3: (aside) A 'duplicator'? A-ha!

  WHITLOCK 2: It's not a 'duplicator', you purple prince of preposterous—

  WHITLOCK 3: What perspicacity, Your Excellency! A 'duplicator' indeed! And imagine if my humble device were employed upon… yourself.

  WHITLOCK 2: (aside to WHITLOCK 3) What are you doing?

  RANDOM VRILLIAN: Our joy would be doubled!

  RANDOM VRILLIAN 2: Squared!

  VRIL: No, you cretins! Swayed by my duplicate's overpowering rhetoric and charisma, the multitude might prefer him!

  VRILLIANS: Never!

  VRIL: Silence! I cannot risk such a loss to all the worlds! Come, my Vrillians! Let us leave this dangerous orb at once!

  VILLAGER 1: (aside) O rapture!

  WHITLOCK 2: (to WHITLOCK 3) We're brilliant!

  WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE) Quick! I insist you go with him!

  VRIL: As do I.

  LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright! I have canonically and definitively requited your love!

  WHITLOCK 3: But only because I circumvented the truer passion you would have conceived for Vril under the correct conditions!

  VRIL: For instance, seeing me.

  LADY CADENCE: Spare me this torturous paroxysm of conscience! Do you love me or not?

  WHITLOCK 3: Of course! I already told you!

  WHITLOCK 2: No, I did!

  WHITLOCK 3: But how can you enter wedlock with a Whitlock when a Vrillian grips the key to your heart? You told me! You love him!

  OLD BEGGAR WOMAN: (in a younger voice) To be frank—I may have exaggerated my affection.

  (The OLD BEGGAR WOMAN throws off her shawl, revealing LADY CADENCE (henceforth, 'LADY CADENCE 2'). At the sight of a second LADY CADENCE, VRIL cries out and recoils, only to behold WHITLOCK 1 entering from L. of stage with his customary tardiness.)

  VRIL: Vrillians! To me! Already their vile duplicator vomits forth additional insidious spawn!

  SONG—VRIL

  (urgent)

  VRIL:

  I'll gather my Vrillians,

  And leave these civilians,

  Whose world makes me wince with concern.

  Within our own vessel

  We'll cosily nestle,

  To leave and to never return!

  (VRIL and the VRILLIANS exeunt with dispatch.)

  VILLAGERS: Huzzah!

  WHITLOCK 3: (to the CADENCES) But why have you both forsaken your brooding prince?

  LADY CADENCE 2: As it happens, O most insufferable Whitlock—

  LADY CADENCE 1: (to LADY CADENCE 2) My dear, before you begin, a wisp of that dreadful cloak still clings to your hair. (She brushes away the offending DETRITUS.)

  LADY CADENCE 2: Thank you, my dear. (They KISS each other's CHEEKS.)

  WHITLOCK 1: Lady Cadence, you're calling me 'Whitlock'.

  LADY CADENCE 2: My dear man, you have already professed your love multiple times, in both the past and the future. I believe I am entitled to your praenomen.

  WHITLOCK 1: (stunned) Take it. With my compliments.

  WHITLOCK 3: When did I profess my love in the future? You professed your love for that alien potentate!

  LADY CADENCE 2: How you do harp on that minor misunderstanding! The correct question is not when in the future but in which future.

  WHITLOCK 1: Which future?

  WHITLOCK 3: I confess, Lady Cadence, I share my confusion. Perhaps you could use an analogy from Geometry?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Once and for all, I loathe Geometry.

  (All three WHITLOCKS gasp.)

  LADY CADENCE 1: Quite.

  JACQUENETTE: (aside) But the mathematics are such the delight!

  LADY CADENCE 2: However, one could conceive us each as traversing an independent, though often intersecting, 'vector' of chronology.

  ALL WHITLOCKS: Ahh!

  LADY CADENCE 2: Do you recall when Vril's minions dragged you to prison?

  WHITLOCKS 1 and 2, LADY CADENCE 1, and JACQUENETTE: Prison?

  WHITLOCK 3: Indeed.

  LADY CADENCE 2: Your original vector led not to release at my hands, but to a final appearance at the Court of Vril.

  WHITLOCK 3: His Court?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Due to redecorations of his star vessel, necessitated by our impending nuptials, he had temporarily established his Court in my parlour, to the great detriment of my ancestral carpet.

  JACQUENETTE: Ah, no!

  LADY CADENCE 2: When he gave you one last chance to grovel, you instead professed your love for me.

  WHITLOCK 3: I have no memory of this.

  LADY CADENCE 2: I shall never forget it! It was most affecting. A woman could scarcely ask for a more romantic declaration. Of course, you were promptly disintegrated, which somewhat lessened my elation.

  WHITLOCK 3: How unfortunate!

  LADY CADENCE 2: That night, seeking some appropriate and tasteful memento of your person, I slipped out to your workshop. There, I discovered your device. With it, I returned to the past, intersected your vector several hours before your execution, and released you from your cell.

  WHITLOCK 3: Of course! In the prison, you spoke of my machine! But why the pretence of such a monstrous affection?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Since I had precluded your future declaration in the face of death, I felt that a certain… urgency… might encourage a similar declaration in your cell. Alas, I miscalculated, and I fled in confusion. But on consideration, I resolved that, if I could not win your open affection, I could at least return to this temporal juncture and ensure the departure of those odious Vrillians.

  (WHITLOCK 3 takes the hands of LADY CADENCE 2.)

  WHITLOCK 3: Oh, Your Ladyship.

  LADY CADENCE 2: (softly) Cadence.

  LADY CADENCE 1: Yes?

  (WHITLOCK 3 bends to kiss LADY CADENCE 2. WHITLOCK 2 kisses LADY CADENCE 1.)

  WHITLOCK 1: And what of me?

  JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright—

  WHITLOCK 1: Not a chance.

  (The VILLAGERS lock ARMS around the COUPLES and sing.)

  FINALE

  (with finality)

  VILLAGERS:

  Osculation confirms that these Loves must be True!

  With relief, we'll avert this device's début—

  WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE 2) But if no one invents the Punctuality Machine in the future, we won't be together now!

  WHITLOCK 2: You're already together now! If a full repetition of events is required, what of your disintegration?

  WHITLOCK 3: You were the one disintegrated—

  (Both CADENCES kiss their WHITLOCKS quiet.)

  WHITLOCK 1: (aside) Ah! What man of honour can but rejoice, to see his lady doubly belovèd? And by suitors so superb!

  (With a happy SHRUG, he joins the CIRCLE of spinning VILLAGERS as they finish the SONG.)

/>   VILLAGERS:

  For cantankerous chaos will always ensue

  When attempting a tempting temporal redo!

  FINIS

  Stephen S. Power

  http://stephenspower.com/

  Stripped to Zero(Short story)

  by Stephen S. Power

  First published in Nature, volume 524, page 130, 2015 by Nature Publishing Group

  I don't know why we bother waiting on the stoop. After an hour I grab Tommy’s Caillou backpack and reach for his hand. He tucks it against his chest. It kills me, but I can’t blame him. I’d call his mother if Karen would carry a phone. Or answer if she did.

  Tommy follows me inside and says, “Do I still get chips for being good?”

  “Sure," I say, turning, "if you can beat me. Go!"

  We race across the lobby and down a hall to the 24Shop, a small room lined with video displays. I let him dart in just ahead of me, and the shop says, "Good morning, Tommy."

  “How does she always know my name, Daddy?”

  I shrug. To a four-year-old, even the most mundane technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  The shop has a woman’s voice, soft and warm. I imagine her kneeling when she asks him, “What would you like, Tommy?”

  He looks from screen to screen. Dancing chips. Splashing sodas. Cookies, ice cream and comfort foods. The shop says, “How about corn flakes with milk?” A bowl of cereal appears.

  “No, chips,” he says.

  “It’s much too early. Oatmeal with cinnamon?” Steaming oatmeal appears.

  “No, chips! Daddy…”

  Stupid nutrition protocols. “He can have a snack.”

  The shop says nothing. Instead, images flow down a screen like a slot machine before settling on a MoonPie.

  “Yes!”

  “And a coke?”

  “Why not?” I say.

  A red light blinks above the bill slot. Standing behind Tommy, I nod, and the light turns green. A MoonPie tumbles into one tray, a can of RC into another.

  “What do you want, Henry?”

  Tommy takes my hand. "Nothing,” I say. “I'm good."

  Upstairs, Tommy turns on the TV and tears into his food. He's promptly shown commercials for MoonPies and RC. This he thinks nothing of.

  I head for my reading room and find Karen sitting on the toilet tank. The mirror’s unplugged and draped with towels.

  I close the door. "What are you doing in here? How did you even get in?"

  "I spoofed a pass card."

  "I’d get you a real card."

  "Worse than phones." She glances through the high, small window.

  “He waited an hour for you."

  "I know. I watched."

  "From the shadows? Jesus. He can’t remember most of your shit, but it's starting to stick.”

  “It’s not shit.”

  I hold up my hands. “Look. He misses you. Come on out. I'll tell him you—"

  "Don't make excuses for me. And I'm not going near that TV. This toilet’s bad enough. Probably reporting my weight.” She lifts her boots off the lid.

  “Fine. I’ll call him.”

  “No.”

  “Then why get his hopes up? Why…this?”

  “I wanted to see him, but I needed to speak with you.”

  She slides down and stands close. She seems taller. And thinner. Probably the boots.

  “I’m leaving,” she says. "For good. I won’t be coded anymore. I won’t be tagged. It’s killing me.”

  “So you’ll kill him instead.”

  “He’s another tag, Henry.”

  "He's a little boy."

  "No. We’re just data sets here. Why can’t you see that? Is that all you want him to be?"

  Now I get it. “You’re not taking him.”

  “We could live clean. Stripped to zero. Anonymous. This place I’m going—"

  “I’ll get him to his room,” I say and grip the door knob. “Slither out, and the TV won’t see you either.”

  I don’t worry about her snatching Tommy. It’d be easier for her disappear if no one wanted to find her, and I would.

  “Then tell him,” she says, “when he’s old enough, that I'm not crazy.”

  “He’ll never be that old.”

  My watch screen flares. Tommy knocks. "Daddy, I don't feel well."

  I look at Karen. She’s already ducking behind the black shower curtain.

  I open the door. Tommy’s face is pale, sweaty and smeared with MoonPie. With a whir, the toilet lifts its lid.

  “Quickly.” We kneel together on the mat, and Tommy spews brown black vomit.

  I hear my mother say, “You just had to let him eat all that junk, didn’t you?”

  The toilet expresses a milky foam that bonds with the vomit, then it vacuums both away. I wipe Tommy’s mouth with a tissue as the scent of vanilla fills the room.

  "Smells like Mommy," he says.

  “Yea.” I loved her vanilla perfume, which is why she stopped wearing it. Afterwards she seemed invisible. "I could set the vents to vanilla too."

  "No, I want Mommy."

  "I know." I rub his back.

  "Why didn’t she come?” Tommy slams the toilet lid down. "Where is she?"

  I take his wrists and turn him so I can look him in the eyes. "Do you love her?"

  He nods.

  "Then she's always nearby."

  "Like in the shower?"

  “Ha! Exactly. Come on. Let's get a new shirt on you."

  I pick Tommy up and bring him to his room. While he paws through a drawer, I hear her footstep outside. I smell the vanilla again, my stomach twists, and, despite everything, I want her to rush in and grab us both. So when the front door clicks, I’m horribly relieved, like someone watching his terminal partner finally die.

  Tommy pulls out his Batman t-shirt. I bend him into it. We go to the living room and flop down in a heap before the TV. The first commercial is for vanilla air fresheners.

  It's on every channel.

  Wire Paladin(Short story)

  by Stephen S. Power

  First publishing in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

  At first the emails from SearchBot were merely aggravating. Although Joan marked them as spam, they still appeared in her inbox three times a day, then five. She created a rule to delete them on receipt. They nonetheless appeared, and their frequency increased. Like killing the ringer whenever VA B calls because answering only encourages the weasels, Joan gritted her teeth and deleted. Then the subject lines started getting personal.

  JOAN HALL SEARCHBOT HAS RESULTS FOR YOU became JOAN HALL CORNELL 2000 and JOAN HALL AGE 37. Joan figured the spammers, after so many deletions, were trying to attract her attention by adding information from whatever databases they’d gotten her email from. That would explain how they knew her actual alma mater and age, not the ones she told people.

  When the subject lines included OPEN NOW and VITAL, Joan googled SearchBot to see if others had had the same problem. Oddly, SearchBot seemed to be a reputable commercial tool one step up from Google News. According to various forums, collectors used it find objects their owners mentioned online, but hadn’t put up for sale. It enabled companies to suss out information about their competitors. For many it helped fill in genealogies. Although spammers use web robots to harvest email addresses, SB Tech’s site claimed they didn’t market by mass email.

  So who was sending her the spam? Why did deleting one make another appear? And while she supposed the spammers could use SearchBot to find out her cat’s name and add it to a subject line, how did SearchBot know her only phone was a burner?

  After a week Joan was considering cancelling her email account when a subject line said ELLIE PLEASE. Joan went cold. She nearly vomited. She had to open this email, viruses be damned. Joan stood up in a fighting stance and tapped .

  ***

  Outside her house in a rental car, Klinsmen watched Ellie stand up and tap her tablet. Five stars, SearchBot. He was glad he’
d paid for the premium service. A week ago SearchBot gave up “Joan Hall”; three days ago, her address. He never would’ve found her with that name, although he knew immediately where it had come from: the mother who’d disowned her and the first school she’d been expelled from. To hear her tell it.

  SearchBot couldn’t distinguish truth from lies. It only dealt in data and how it was related. He envied SearchBot. You could avoid a lot of bullshit with that attitude.

  As a bonus, SearchBot didn’t have to question people who might then alert her. Nor did it require travel expenses. He can’t imagine how much those would have built up during the past six years.

  Klinsmen looked around the street: modest, quiet, comfortable. Neat yards. No kids. She probably had a couple old guys vying to be her handyman. And her job as a restaurant manager would let her stretch the money she stole from him a long way; longer, if the restaurant owners haven’t caught on to what she’s probably stealing from them. Smart moves, but he’d given her so much more than this.

  Sure, he understood her need for freedom. He’d been nearly locked up half a dozen times. What he couldn’t grasp was her belief that he should fund her freedom without recompense.

  Klinsmen checked his gun, buttoned his jacket over it and opened the door. He had people for this sort of thing, but he wanted to speak with Ellie first. He was a reasonable man. He knew he couldn’t get much of his money back, nor did he need it. Frankly, he’d rather have her back. He loved her smarts. They’d made a good team. Maybe they could work things out.

  Klinsmen grabbed the bouquet he’d bought at the airport and headed for Ellie’s door.

  ***

  SearchBot’s email contained two images, the results of a derived search, whatever that was, but Gmail blocked them. Did she want to see? In for a penny, she thought and revealed a Google Maps screen cap of her house and an AP photo of Noah Klinsmen after a recent acquittal.

  As Joan tried to breathe, another email arrived from SearchBot. The subject line read: NOW. The mail contained a shortened URL. She clicked it. Up came her neighbor’s website.

  Mr. Better was a sweet old man who hated only three things: dogs, dog poop and people whose dogs pooped on his lawn. He’d put a webcam in his front window to publicly shame them. At the moment, its livestream showed Noah carrying a bouquet up her walk.

 

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