by Simon Clark
Are you there? Watching me die? I’m looking at my analytic here, and I’m not getting any surges. No one has Starred me. This is disappointing, I have to say. Heartbreaking really. So I guess I’ll just jump anyway since no one gives a shit. I’ll die unwatched. You can always see the replays.
Watch me. Watch me!
Please, watch me!
- X –
I’m still here. Talking to my moth. It’s dark. I’ve been walking for hours, with the drone following me, but I can’t imagine anyone is watching. I’m close to home now but I don’t want to go home. I’m alone and lonely and I know I’ll lose my contract after that stunt.
But do you know what? It feels good to be alive. I’m glad I didn’t jump. I’m glad I didn’t kill all those people. I’m just glad generally. It’s a warm night but there’s a breeze. I like the breeze in my hair. I like seeing the stars above, I know the names of some of them. I like being alive. Isn’t that silly? I’ve never made anything of myself, I’ve not got a career, I’ve never had sex, but I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been.
What? What the fuck was that?
Ah, this is so strange. A ping. I just had a ping! Someone’s Starred me. Who would do a thing like that? Who would enjoy watching a sad lonely teenager being happy because he’s not dead? Who?
It’s you, clearly. Are you still watching? You, the only person who has ever given a damn whether I live or die. I don’t know your name or where you live but thanks. Thank you. Whoever you are. Thank you.
I’m going home now. I’m not going to talk to the drone anymore. Don’t take it personally, you stupid little electronic thing. But I’m done with you.
Maybe I’ll be happy in the morning too.
B E E E P - E N D T R A N S M I S S I O N B i o g r a p h i e s Chris Amies was born in South London and now lives in Birmingham. He is the author of one published novel, "Dead Ground," whose sequel "Sea of Stone" is due out shortly, and also of a book on Hammersmith & Fulham pubs and twenty or so stories in a variety of anthologies and magazines.
Simon Clark is the author of Blood Crazy, Secrets of the The Dead, The Night of the Triffids and many other novels and short stories involving strangeness, adventure and danger, too. The Night of the Triffids has just been released as a fullcast audio drama from Big Finish, starring Sam Troughton and Nicola Bryant. Simon is also the author of the Victorian crime-thriller Inspector Abberline and the Gods of Rome. Please call in from time-to-time at his website nailedbytheheart.com
Janet Edwards is the author of a trilogy from Harper Voyager. Earth Girl (2012), Earth Star (2013) and Earth Flight (2014). As a child, Janet read everything she could get her hands on, including a huge amount of science fiction and fantasy. She studied Maths at Oxford, and went on to suffer years of writing unbearably complicated technical documents before deciding to write something that was fun for a change. She has a husband, a son, a lot of books, and an aversion to housework. You can find out more at her website, www.janetedwards.com
Philip Palmer likes to think of himself as a glamorous hyphenate: Writer-writertoolazytogetaproperjob-writer. He has written screenplays, radio dramas, TV dramas and novels. His TV credits include the BBC 1 film The Many Lives of Albert Walker and numerous episodes of The Bill. For radio his plays include The King’s Coiner, The Faerie Queene, and Red and Blue. As a writer of SF novels he is responsible for considerable galactic carnage as recounted in Debatable Space, Red Claw, Version 43, Hellship, and Artemis. He is founder of Afan Films and teaches creative writing part-time at Goldsmiths College.
Joining Games Workshop at the age of nineteen, Gav Thorpe was a staff writer and games developer on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universe for fourteen years, and has also written novels for the same for the past fifteen years and more. His most popular works include The Sundering trilogy, The Path of the Eldar, works from the Horus Heresy series including Deliverance Lost, the audio dramas Raven’s Flight and Honour to the Dead, and the New York times best-selling novella The Lion. He is also published by Angry Robot books where you can find his epic swords-and-sandals fantasy saga gathered in the omnibus collection entitled Empire of the Blood. Gav has also worked on, and is currently working on, numerous tabletop and video games, including as a designer, writer and world creation consultant. He lives near Nottingham with his partner Kez and baby boy Sammy.
Simon Kurt Unsworth was born in Manchester in 1972 and has not yet given up searching for evidence that the world was awash with mysterious signs and portents that day. He recently moved to an old farmhouse in Cumbria where it has rained almost every day since his arrival, and somewhere in the midst of the mud and the damp and the sheep he writes whatever comes into his head. He has three collections of stories available, Strange Gateways, Lost Places and Quiet Houses. His novel The Devil’s Detective is due out in the US and UK in March 2015, from Doubleday and Del Ray UK respectively.
About the Editor Alex Davis is editor and publisher for Boo Books, a small press based in Derby with a view to publishing local talent alongside national and international names. He has edited three Boo Books titles to date – QUAD Writes, Breaking the Rules and After the Fall. His anthologies for other publishers include No Monsters Allowed (Doghorn Publishing), X7 and Worms (Knightwatch Press). As well as this, he works as a proofreader, copy-editor, event organiser and creative writing tutor.