Writers of the Future Volume 28: The Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

by L. Ron Hubbard

  He shouted her name a few times, his voice rattling the windows, but she did not respond. Maul walked into the room, pushing Master Gray in front of him with his pistol.

  “She’s not responding?” Maul whispered, keeping an eye on the windows. “Break down the doors and disarm her.”

  “Wait,” Ligish said. “Find me paper and a pencil.”

  Maul frowned, but used his spare hand to reach into his breast pocket. He withdrew sheets of legalese and then a pencil. “On the back,” he said, “don’t spoil the contract.” With a glance, Ligish summarized the contents. Everything that had belonged to Master Gray, including Anna and himself, now belonged to Maul. With God’s word, the contract was invalid, but it did not seem to matter to Maul. “Five minutes,” Maul said.

  Ligish scribbled a single question on the back of the first page. “What are the differences in the law between Dexter Trapezius and Dexter Glenohumeral?” He slid the page and the pencil under the door.

  A second later, she returned the pencil and paper with a number of references to the laws of Dexter Trapezius and Dexter Glenohumeral. He wrote back. “You’re incorrect. The laws across both principalities are the same.” The door’s lock clicked and Ligish turned the handle.

  “Oh, Liggy,” she said and hugged him. Tears ran down her face. The sounds of yells came closer.

  “Sign the contract,” Maul said, thrusting the last piece of paper toward Anna. She pushed the contract away.

  Signing the contract would not save Maul, but it would save Master Gray. “Sign it for me, Anna,” Ligish said. “Not for Maul, but for me and for your father.”

  She signed the last page and threw the paper to the floor.

  “Now you’re my possession,” Maul said. “And I can throw you away.”

  He raised his pistol. Ligish moved to shield Master Gray, but Maul aimed at Anna instead. Time stretched and stopped as the ghost-fist hit Anna in the forehead. It passed into her skull and solidified. Anna fell boneless to the ground. Ligish rushed to her side, no thought in his head, and howled. Every single window shattered and Maul clapped his hands over his ears.

  Behind Maul, a printing press golem lumbered through the doorway, taking masonry with it as it entered. “Golem, protect me,” Maul yelled. Ligish ignored him and cradled Anna. Her breathing was butterfly shallow and blood gushed from where the fist had hit.

  The printing press golem reached for Maul. He fired a number of shots deep into the printing press, the ghost-fists lodging in its rotary drum. The golem slowed and smoke rose from its insides, but it still managed to grab Maul’s arms, breaking his gun hand with an audible snap. He dropped the gun. Maul didn’t scream or flinch, but instead freed his arms from the golem and scrambled away.

  The printing golem’s legs had frozen. It waved its arms and spat curses at him. Maul moved toward the gun, but the entry of a dozen red-robed cathedral guards stopped his motion.

  Ligish returned his attention to Anna, urging her to keep breathing. Maul screamed and Ligish glanced up. The cathedral guards were forcing him into the rotary press. Ligish looked away. There was a long, drawn-out scream and then silence.

  Master Gray sat next to Ligish and took Anna’s hand. When he spoke, the words were nonsense, but his distress was palpable. Ligish closed his eyes and prayed to any one of the infinite number of Gods.

  Master Gray died a week later. Thousands of mourners lined the streets as the funeral procession traveled from the Holy Corpus Cathedral back to the house. Ligish suspected most had come to see him rather than the funeral, but it did not matter. It was still a comfort to see the crowds.

  Once he’d seen the coffin lowered into the garden soil, Ligish headed toward the ballroom. He opened the doors. As he’d requested, Bishop Calvaria stood by Anna’s bed. She’d not woken since she’d been shot and the doctors said she never would. There was nothing left inside her skull except for that which kept her heart pumping and lungs breathing.

  Calvaria held an open wooden box in his hand. Inside the box were hundreds of tiny scraps of paper. On one side of each scrap were symbols and on the other, a number.

  “These look like the commands given to a Golem’s soul,” Calvaria said.

  Ligish walked to the automicroscope and sat in the chair, fixing his gaze on the mirror so that he could see what Calvaria was about to do. “Each piece of paper is numbered. Use the tweezers on the work bench to feed them into my soul.”

  Ligish reached behind him and removed the locking pin. The back of his skull opened, revealing a desk and an empty chair. His soul no longer needed commands from a homunculus, though it would still accept them. There had been a surprising number of golems who kept their homunculi, preferring servitude to freedom.

  Since Master Gray had died, he’d spent all his time remembering what he’d read in the infinite book, scrutinizing Master Gray’s notes and revising ancient books on creating homunculi.

  “I’m making a new homunculus,” Ligish said. “One made from Anna. You once said a homunculus was an expression of its creator, like a poem or a sonnet, but since God’s word gave them freedom, this seems to be false. If unbound and free, homunculi are their creators in spirit and mind. I don’t know if my commands are correct, but if they are, I’ll make her homunculus autonomically.”

  “And either they or their creators have died,” Calvaria said. “Both cannot live at once. This is not certain.”

  Ligish spoke quietly. “Would you say Miss Anna is alive?”

  Calvaria opened his mouth and shut it again. Ligish gestured for the bishop to start. With painstaking care, Calvaria inserted the scraps of paper into his soul.

  Day faded into night as the sun sank in the West and God’s other hand raised the moon. He mixed Anna’s blood with rare chemicals and chanted strange phrases. When the sun had risen again, he’d created a tiny naked replica of Anna. He held her cupped in his hands and breathed a tiny plume of air into her lungs.

  The homunculus coughed and shuddered into life. Anna stopped breathing and the color drained from her face. Ligish handed Calvaria the homunculus. Calvaria placed the homunculus into Ligish’s skull, closed the doors and inserted the locking pin. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he heard Anna’s voice whisper in his ears.

  “Ligish? What happened?” she said, her voice confused.

  “Do you remember what I said to you?” he said. “My last words in your bedroom?”

  “No?” His hands flexed as Anna wrote commands, experimenting with the secret language known by all homunculi. She controlled his body now. It would be difficult operating one body between them, but they had her entire life to learn how to share and no one knew how long a free homunculus might live.

  “I’ll do whatever you ask for eternity,” he said. “I’ll always be your servant, no matter who my master is.” With that, he walked out from the house and flew into the air. He had an entire world to show her.

  My Name Is Angela

  written by

  Harry Lang

  illustrated by

  MAGO HUANG

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Harry Lang was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back when Eisenhower was president and no one had visited space. One of his earliest memories is watching John Glenn being strapped into a Mercury capsule on TV; he has lived in the future ever since. Generous doses of Star Trek, Ray Bradbury and the rest of the usual suspects sparked a lifelong interest in science fiction.

  Writing has long been part of a broad resume of artistic interests; decades of devoted effort have produced a truly impressive collection of rejections. It wasn’t until his first acceptance by the online publication Bewildering Stories that Harry realized he might not be crazy after all. “My Name Is Angela” is his first professional sale.

  When not actually writing or attending to the myriad necessities of life here on Eart
h, Harry enjoys teaching creative writing to small groups of home-schooled students.

  Harry graduated from Philadelphia College of Art with a BFA in painting in 1981. He is currently a review editor for Bewildering Stories. He lives in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania, with his brilliant wife and six brilliant kids and works as a technical designer for a gargantuan aerospace corporation.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  “I am lucky to exist in a world where magical things happen; it is a world of my own invention.” Mago Huang’s art is full of imagination and storytelling, and creating is the way she influences the world around her. In her junior year of high school, she won an honorable achievement award in the Nationwide Lucerne Art contest by painting a life-size musical cow. The finished artwork has been displayed in the Bellevue Art Museum and was in the city newspaper. By winning the contest, she gained the confidence to bring her art to the next level. She created little art pieces to donate to the families supported by the organization Voices of September 11th. She designed and painted with the intention of bringing art and hope into people’s lives. “I hope they know and feel that they and their struggles have not been forgotten,” she says.

  She attends California College of the Arts studying illustration. There she is improving her technical and creative thinking skills. Her dream is to illustrate children’s books and art magazines or create illustrations people will see in their daily lives. She works quietly, yet with each stroke of the brush or pencil, she creates harmony, peace and interest that might bring some change to a world that is always in a rush. “If everyone spends a little time looking at a piece of art, they too can imagine a magical world.”

  My Name Is Angela

  Where I’m From

  If I sit still for a long time and think in just the right way, I can see the numbers and colored letters hiding behind my name. The grandfathers are sure we can’t do this, but we can. Sometimes late at night, when I might really be asleep, I think of a ride in a truck. It’s sunny and there are rows of us, all wearing the same white gowns, and I hear the little whirly noise of a gate sliding into place behind us . . .

  I don’t think of the truck when I’m in school teaching their fourth graders. Or the numbers. I follow the well-worn groove of times tables and spelling, now and then reading stories or listening to oral reports. Last week there were two knife fights, but that too is a well-worn groove. I stopped them both and got yelled at by some of the mothers and their boyfriends. They saw the blood soaking through the bandage on my arm, but it made no difference. They are just like their children; if they weren’t different sizes, I could never tell them apart.

  Bruno says he can tell them apart but he lies about so many things I never know what to believe. His lying makes me tired so I don’t talk to him much. I have my radio and he has his TV. His shows are stupid and so is he. When I’m in the living room with him, he pretends to know who the people are and what they’re doing but late at night, before he comes to bed, I peek and see him shaking his head, mumbling as he clicks from channel to channel.

  A good thing about Bruno is that I never have to look up to him and he never has to look down at me. People look down at us all the time, without exception. It’s what we’re for. Of course, I hear pieces of discussions on the radio, usually when the music is boring and I turn the dial. Some are “for” us and some “against,” but I can’t tell their ideas apart any more than I can tell them apart. They’re like empty spaces, white silhouettes moving through the dimly colored background of the world, or fiery beings stretching blazing hands to conduct us like a lackluster symphony written by a mediocre composer. It’s because of the numbers behind my name. I think they control me and the ones for recognizing people are missing.

  The grandfathers are sure we don’t understand about the numbers, but we do. When I go to the regional office for routine checkups, they always test to see if I know about the numbers, but they’re so sure I don’t, they never pay attention. The grandfathers are different from other people, more defined and identifiable. I trust them, but I don’t know why. Maybe some of the numbers make me trust them.

  One Saturday morning it was raining when I woke up. Bruno was snoring as usual and the side of his face was covered with a big bandage. I was confused, but then I remembered. Last night he wanted sex. I told him no. This was odd because I really did feel like that, but I didn’t like him deciding all the time. I thought it should be my turn to decide and I decided no.

  He didn’t like that. He followed me around, getting in the way while I did the dishes and the ironing. Sometimes he was loud and scary; mostly he was whiny and pitiful. He was really on my nerves!

  Finally, I made another decision. I told him, “No!” one last time and hit him with the hot iron as hard as I could. He crashed to the floor and didn’t move.

  I got ready for bed as he lay there moaning. When I got out of the shower, he was sitting up, whimpering and trying not to touch his swollen face. His left eye had disappeared.

  A few minutes later, he staggered to his feet. He went to the clinic and I went to sleep.

  I remembered all that as I sat listening to the rain and smelling the fresh air seeping into the drafty old apartment. It was such a peaceful feeling, like the rain was making its own clean, cool world just for me. In a way it was like the quiet truck ride in my dream, with no numbers, no knife fights, nobody “for” and “against.”

  It was like music that had to come from some place greater than the messy, tangled world. Could there be such a place?

  I think that’s when I decided to go to the Soul Man.

  Only a Little Soul

  Everybody knows about the Soul Man, just like everybody knows about things like drugs and where to buy stolen goods. The difference is that decent people don’t buy drugs or stolen goods, but any of us can go to the Soul Man if we have money and aren’t afraid of the law. Some go because they want the rest of us to look up to them the way all the made people have to look up to the born people. I never cared about that. In fact, I almost didn’t go because I didn’t want to look down on Bruno or make him look up to me. But every time I almost changed my mind, I would remember the cool, clean rain and the sunny truck ride through the gate. Even though nobody in the truck said a word, I knew we all had the same new, happy feeling, like a place had been made just for us and we were on our way to fit into that place and do things that only we could do.

  Of course, I only know that as a dream. I don’t really remember, do I? My earliest memory is the grandfather at the regional office saying, “Open your eyes.” Nobody else was with me. There was no sun and no white robe, just my first set of drab clothes draped across a chair, waiting for me to put them on. They smelled like mothballs. I knew they’d been worn before.

  What the Soul Man did was against the law, so he had to move around to stay ahead of the police. The hardest part about finding him was asking people. We are not outgoing; other than Bruno and one or two of the custodians at school, I really didn’t know anybody to ask. Sometimes I saw people on the el or walking down the street and I could tell by looking at their eyes that they had changed, but you can’t just stop a stranger and ask! You can’t just say, “Where is the illegal Soul Man?” It was discouraging.

  I began to feel lonely because when you need to know something important and have no one to ask, you really are alone. I couldn’t talk to Bruno, because I didn’t want him to know. My plan was to try it and if it turned out to be good maybe I could get him to try it too. In the meantime, I knew I couldn’t trust him. He might pretend to know where the Soul Man was and then laugh at me if I went where he said and found nothing.

  I was thinking hard about this problem one afternoon. I had just finished reading A Wrinkle in Time to my kids and was waiting for them to get out their math homework when one of them came up to my desk.

  “It’s Jamal, Miss Angela.”

  I t
hink Jamal was in one of the knife fights, but it wasn’t his fault. I would have recognized him if not for my preoccupation. He always gave me a hug at the end of the day.

  “Yes, Jamal? Would you like to use the bathroom?”

  “No, ma’am. Mr. Sam asked me to give you this.” He handed me a note. It said, “I know a Man.”

  “Thank you, Jamal.”

  “Are you okay, Miss Angela?”

  “Yes, I am, Jamal. Thank you for asking.”

  When school was over for the day, I went down the gray painted steps at the end of the hall and through the doors with the Fallout Shelter sign. Before Sam started working at the school, the steps were greasy and the paint was almost all peeled off. The handrail was rusty, but now it was a nice glossy green. Everything Sam did was neat and clean. That’s why he was such a good custodian.

  The door to the janitor’s room was open and I could see the clean white mops hanging on the wall. There was a smell of orange cleaner but not too much. The janitor’s room at our apartment usually had a nasty sour smell with strong pine cleaner fighting to cover it up.

  Sam was at a workbench fixing a vacuum cleaner. A bright white light shone on tools laid in neat rows; pieces of the sweeper were arranged on a sheet of newspaper.

  Sam was my age, of course, but he wore glasses and looked like an older person. “We’re all suitable to our calling,” I thought, remembering the line from A Christmas Carol. “We’re well matched . . .”

  “You can tell when somebody has been to the Soul Man,” he said without looking up from his work, “but I can tell when somebody wants to go.” He put down the glasses he didn’t need (none of us do) and turned to look at me with unremarkable brown eyes. “We’re different for a reason, Angela. Don’t go to the Soul Man.”

  “I want to,” was all I could think to say.