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

by Anthology

  Big tough Vaughn at the front door gives me a curt nod as I’m admitted inside.

  Marek’s waiting for me in the study. “Ah, Deseronto, good to see you.”

  “And you, sir.”

  “Lucio says you’ve been bringing in some great sequences.”

  I shrug. “It’s just beginner’s luck.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve always excelled…when you’ve put your mind to it.” His fingers drum against the desk. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. Trials for nationals are in a few months, and the charity circuit’s already started up.”

  “I don’t know if I’m—”

  “As your sponsor, I’m concerned you aren’t applying yourself.”

  “I’m not. And I’m not interested. Ari—”

  “Ah, yes. Ari.” His voice hangs in the air. I wonder if he’s practiced that. “An unfortunate accident, of course. But life moves on. You must too. Surely, you see that.”

  He waits with that impenetrable gaze, and I find myself nodding just so his eyes will slide away.

  “Good. The Oceanside Exhibition is on Saturday. Prepare yourself.” He looks down at his desk. A dismissal.

  “It’s too soon.”

  He crosses his arms and rests them on his desk, pretending to look thoughtful. “I think we’re rarely the best judge of our own limitations. Everyone needs a push now and then, a boost if you will, to reach their potential. Isn’t that why you and Ari came to me in the first place?”

  ***

  At work the next day, Jenny knocks on the door to my booth. “Jack, you gotta see this.”

  She pulls me over to her terminal and hits playback. “Un chien andalou,” she whispers as it starts up. “A collaboration between Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.” I think Ari may have mentioned it once but I never—

  “Shit!”

  “I know, right?” She hits rewind, and we’re transfixed as an eyeball gets cut by a razor, compelling even the second time through. “It’s not real, but damn,” she says, admiration saturating her voice.

  As the rest of the vid plays, more incomprehensible images flash by—pianos, ants, freaky-ass people. It reminds me of montage hacks I’ve seen, but I’m not seizing. Not yet.

  “Hey, you okay?” Jenny gives me a nudge with her shoulder.

  “Huh?” I blink as the credits roll. “Yeah, I’m…”

  “You sure? You’re breathing kinda funny.”

  She’s right. My heart’s knocking into my lungs, sputtering for air like I’ve just burst to the surface after being underwater too long. I take a deep pull and slowly breathe out. “I’m okay. But that was crazy.”

  In the hands of one of Marek’s professional editors, sequences culled from this film would be dangerous.

  The corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles. “Thought you’d like it. You seem to be drawn to the golden age of cinema.”

  That’s true enough. The older stuff tends to have longer shots and pans. Better for chaining compared to the quick blink-and-you-miss-it transitions the digital era is known for. Doesn’t mean digital sequences can’t be used. It’s just more labor intensive to collect them and then chain them effectively.

  Jenny pushes her hair behind her ear. “Hey, are you going to be in that tournament this weekend?”

  “The Oceanside Exhibition?” I shake my head. “No. I’m not racing.”

  “Oh. I thought I read somewhere you’re participating.”

  Marek. That bastard. I told him no, and he still thinks he can go over my head.

  I use my implant to scan the roster for the exhibition and, sure enough, I’m on it. A dozen posts come up, filled with speculation about what my appearance means. Hell no.

  I turn my attention back to Jenny. “Well, I’m not.”

  Her eyes drift to the scar on my forehead. Shit. Not her too. I get enough looks from the people on the street: There goes Jack Deseronto, the washed-up hover cross star. Will he regain glory or limp into exile? I really don’t care either way so long as it’s on my terms.

  “I get it,” she says, smiling again.

  No, she really doesn’t. “I gotta go.”

  I don’t wait for her answer. I skip out of the archives for the day and make my way to the maglevs. I flop down in a seat in the front-most car. Green and blue scenery ticks past like 16mm footage as the train picks up speed. My hands bunch into fists every time the train stops to admit more passengers. It’s only while we’re moving that I can think.

  When I get to Lucio’s, he waves me off. “Not today, my friend. You don’t look too good.”

  “I don’t feel too good.” My hands twitch at my side. If I turn my head too quickly, it’s like a chain of individual stills stitched together instead of a continuous pan. “Everything’s breaking down. I’ve taken the maglev out to the end of the line and back but it’s not working. I need—”

  “No, you really don’t. Trust me. I’ve been there.”

  I blink and try to follow Lucio’s face. One minute he’s behind the counter. The next his hand clasps my shoulder, and I jump.

  “Vid-boosting’s like looking into the sun. Too much, and you’ll go blind.” He tuts. “How did that new chain work out?” he asks, all businesslike once more.

  My nose wrinkles. “I had trouble getting over the soundtrack. Kept interfering with the boost.”

  “Keep trying.”

  I wave my hands at my head, a helpless gesture. They feel disconnected from my body. “But it’s not doing anything.”

  Lucio sucks in his cheeks. “I can’t give you another chain. Not if you’re not racing. Marek’s orders.”

  “But the boost…I need it. You know why.”

  A wave of pain passes over his face. He was Ari’s friend too. “If you’ve exhausted all your old chains…” He steps closer and peers into my eyes. “And clearly you have, there’s nothing I can do.”

  See, the mind can be tricked, but not for long—too many reruns, and the effect crashes. Game over. You can tweak the context, pushing the boundaries of flow, but even that will break down eventually.

  “But—”

  “Marek said no more freebies. And that means you, my friend.”

  A wave of blood-red darkness swamps my vision. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me and Ari,” I say. It comes out more like a snarl. “You were just a montage hack working piecemeal.” Custom jobs for cinéastes and movie freaks who loved the nostalgia or getting their brains scrambled—maybe both—along with more twisted fucks who could only get it up if there was enough visual stimuli to keep them going.

  “Jack, I’m sorry. The chains, what you’re doing isn’t healthy. You need—”

  I step toward him, and he flinches back. “What I need is a new one.” Tremors rip through my hands, and sweat dampens my palms.

  “Ari wouldn’t want this for you.”

  I shudder, buffeted by an invisible breeze. “Don’t talk to me about him.” My arm snaps out and connects with a display case. Glass shards dance everywhere. They tinkle onto the linoleum until the only sound is my ragged breathing.

  My eyes squeeze shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right, Jack.” Lucio sighs, sounding more tired than I’ve ever heard him. “Keep trying the last chain I gave you, tinny sound and all. Because if that doesn’t work, I won’t be able to help you.”

  ***

  Saturday morning I’m torn out of bed by someone trying to break down the door to my apartment. I really don’t need this, not with the headache threatening to implode my temples. But the knocking doesn’t stop.

  I shuffle to the door, ready to destroy whoever it is, but it’s Marek and he’s brought Vaughn.

  Marek smiles grimly. “I see you slept in.”

  Vaughn shoulders past me and starts rooting around in my closet for my racing gear.

  I turn back to Marek. “I already told you I’m not doing it.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You do what I tell you.”


  Vaughn escorts me to the car. My head still hurts, and Marek keeps going on about respect and honor. He gives me a hard look. “The house always wins.” I can’t tell if he’s actually delivering his lines like some hard-boiled goon or if I’m so far gone I can’t distinguish between the boosts and reality anymore.

  I decide it doesn’t matter when the car pulls up to the track bordering the ocean. Sweat drips down my spine. Bleachers already full are clustered at the bottom of the course.

  “Let’s not do this the hard way, Mr. Deseronto. Get out of the car like a good boy,” Marek says.

  I spy Keigo Atori’s fan bus in the parking lot. Digital projections of his face and a bunch of Japanese characters cavort along the vehicle’s exterior. I clench my hands in my lap. “Why can’t you just leave me out of it?”

  “Because that wouldn’t be very sporting.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Marek chuckles—like stones clacking together in his chest. “Then let me explain, Mr. Deseronto.” He waits until my eyes focus on him, then slides a black leather-bound book across the upholstery. “Do you know what this is?”

  I shake my head and immediately regret it at the answering throb in my temples.

  “This is the ledger where I keep track of the hover cross circuit. You and Ari made me a lot of money. At first. But then…” He holds up his hands. “Well, I had to diversify a bit.”

  A sickening suspicion pushes past my brain fog. “Keigo? You gave him chains too?”

  At Marek’s nod, my eyes slam shut.

  “What do you want me to say? You boys had been doing so well I couldn’t make money betting on you anymore. Keigo kept things interesting, kept the odds ever changing.”

  “Did Ari know?”

  Marek pauses, his reptilian gaze unreadable. “I wanted you both focused on racing.”

  The chauffeur opens the door, and I’m hit with the tang of the ocean. Fans’ voices drown out the constant roil of the waves. It’s funny. I’ve lived here for the last two years, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been this close to the sea.

  “You don’t want to miss post time, Mr. Deseronto,” Marek says.

  “Am I supposed to win or lose?”

  “I just need you to race.” He gives me that look again. “You need this too.”

  I snort but I get out of the car. “Fine. But I’m not doing any interviews afterwards.”

  Marek just inclines his head, and the chauffer closes the door, shuttering my view of the old man.

  ***

  At the gate, my implant isolates me from the noise of the crowd. I start up the chain with the crap sound Lucio gave me. I mop my face one last time and try not to look at the white caps colliding with the cliff face that hugs the course.

  My breathing slows to match the tempo of the music. Then it increases in intensity so slowly I almost don’t notice it. The images change too. Cuts are quicker, more violent, moving. And I need to move with them.

  The boost is coming. Along with the countdown. But if I concentrate, I can hear the crowd when Keigo’s name and mine are announced, the spatter of water as the waves hit rock below us. Lucio was right. I haven’t lost myself. Not completely.

  I’m ready when the buzzer sounds. Kicking off, into the air, my body screaming with remembrance as the next vid sequence shudders to life. A lion taking down an antelope. Horses dragging a thundering stagecoach past my eyes. Gunfire cracking through my ears as cowboys and indians chase my bike through the first curve.

  Someone’s drafting off me. Keigo.

  Cameras flash in the periphery of the track as we ricochet past. I lean into my bike, silently coaxing more speed out of it. I have the holeshot as the course straightens into the first set of jumps. I am an eagle soaring with a trout clutched between my talons. I am a missile detonating shockwaves through the earth. A surfer shredding waves…

  The waves press in on me, licking the track below my bike. I can’t…

  “I made you; I can destroy you.” Marek.

  —flash—

  Ari smiles as we ready our bikes.

  —flash—

  “Don’t look into the sun, my friend.”

  —flash—

  My stomach is somewhere up near my ears as I lead the pack into the steep downhill, right before the—

  —flash—

  “Prepare yourself,” Marek says. “Prepare—”

  It’s too fast. The music, too loud. The vid-chain…it’s…am I being hacked?

  The bike shudders under my hands as I launch over the moguls. It shoots up into the air as it repulses the first jump. Then slows as gravity takes hold and we fly toward the next one. At least two guys are battling it out behind me.

  Static and bizarre images blast past my eyes. It’s too much.

  Did Keigo do this? No. Lucio knew. He knew and—

  “If this doesn’t work, I won’t be able to help you.”

  Fuck. I take the next curve too hard, nearly skid into the bastard coming up behind me before I straighten out. Keigo’s in front now. I tighten my grip on the handlebars.

  I am a speeding train. I am the woman tied to the tracks. I am the person who escapes the exploding building just in time. I—

  I’m supposed to lose. Lose it just like Ari did. Offsetting the odds in Marek’s betting book.

  Cymbals crash as I take the next jump. Keigo’s in range. I can take him. I can—

  All that’s left are the serpentine twists and turns to the finish line. And I’m gaining but…

  —flash—

  “I own you.”

  No. I’m Jack Deseronto, and I race on my own terms.

  I follow the thread of Lucio’s music. I fight through the noise, the scrambled images, until it’s just me and the course. I take the turns one at a time. I forgot there’s beauty in just being one with my bike.

  I cut under Keigo for the inside line and come out on top in the last curve.

  Voices are screaming, cameras flash, the finish line’s up ahead, up ahead, and after that, the sea.

  The sea and simmering oblivion.

  I’m not slowing down. All that momentum I built up in the descent, all that velocity, is what launches me over the crowd, over the wall of rock, until there’s nothing left for the hover bike to push against.

  It falls away from me. And I’m…oh god.

  I remember Ari colliding with the racetrack headfirst with a gut-punching crunch. The crowd screams but the boost is still going. I am the cop taking down a crook. I am the jockey clinging to the back of my horse as we clear the finish line. I—

  I won, and there’s nothing Marek can do about it. Not anymore.

  Wind slaps against my face. Lights spiral past my eyes.

  I’ve always wondered…

  And it’s beautiful.

  Natalia Theodoridou

  http://www.natalia-theodoridou.com

  The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul(Short story)

  by Natalia Theodoridou

  Originally published by Clarkesworld Magazine, February 2014

  a=38. This is the first holy number.

  Stand still. Still. In the water. Barely breathing, spear in hand. One with the hand.

  A light brush against my right calf. The cold and glistening touch of human skin that is not human. Yet, it's something. Now strike. Strike.

  ***

  Theo had been standing in the sea for hours—his bright green jacket tied high around his waist, the water up to his crotch. Daylight was running out. The fish was just under the point of his spear when he caught a glimpse of a beast walking towards him. Animalis Primus. The water was already lapping at its first knees.

  He struck, skewering the middle of the fish through and through. It was large and cumbersome—enough for a couple of days. It fought as he pulled it out of the water. He looked at it, its smooth skin, its pink, human-like flesh. These fish were the closest thing to a human being he'd seen since he crashed on Oceanus.
>
  Theo's vision blurred for a moment, and he almost lost his balance. The fish kept fighting, flapping against the spear.

  It gasped for air.

  He drove his knife through its head and started wading ashore.

  Animalis Primus was taking slow, persistent steps into the water. Its stomach bottles were already starting to fill up, its feet were tangled in seaweed. Soon, it would drown.

  Theo put the fish in the net on his back and sheathed his spear to free both his hands. He would need all of his strength to get the beast back on the beach. Its hollow skeleton was light when dry, but wet, and with the sea swelling at dusk—it could take them both down.

  When he got close enough, Theo placed his hands against the hips of the advancing beast to stop its motion, then grabbed it firmly by its horizontal spine to start pushing it in the other direction. The beast moved, reluctantly at first, then faster as its second knees emerged from the water and met less resistance. Finally its feet gained traction against the sand, and soon Theo was lying on his back, panting, the fish on one side, the beast on the other, dripping on the beach and motionless. But he was losing the light. In a few moments, it would be night and he would have to find his way back in the dark.

  He struggled to his feet and stood next to the beast.

  "What were you doing, mate?" he asked it. "You would have drowned if I hadn't caught you, you know that?"

  He knelt by the beast's stomach and examined the bottles. They were meant to store pressurized air—now they were full of water. Theo shook his head. "We need to empty all these, dry them. It will take some time." He looked for the tubing that was supposed to steer the animal in the opposite direction when it came in contact with water. It was nowhere to be found.

  "All right," he said. "We'll get you fixed soon. Now let's go home for the night, ja?"

  He threw the net and fish over his shoulder and started pushing Animalis Primus towards the fuselage.

  ***

  b=41,5. This is the second holy number.

  Every night, remember to count all the things that do not belong here. So you don't forget. Come on, I'll help you.

  Humans don't belong here. Remember how you couldn't even eat the fish at first, because they reminded you too much of people, with their sleek skin, their soft, scaleless flesh? Not any more, though, ja? I told you, you would get over it. In time.