Story Preview: Forten's Adventure

Forten has had one dream his whole life: to own a starship and fly across the galaxy performing great deeds. He's studied and saved, but the reality is his job will never let him earn enough to buy one. Could a piece of information buried in the boring minutiae of his job be the key to getting him off planet at last? 

"Forten's Adventure"

Another headache was building between Forten’s eyes. He stared at the validation screen and the endless rows of invoices swam. Rows upon rows of text and numbers, each coded to the accountancy standard, in a low contrast gray and blue that was supposed to be soothing.

Why can’t there be an ‘Approve All’ button? I’d be done for the day in minutes instead of hours.

Unfortunately for him, his work was quota based. As a validator for the trans-galactic shipping conglomerate, THInc-Bynd, he was required to ensure that the computer had correctly compiled the shipping invoices over a given range of dates. As a junior level validator, the data he reviewed had already been reviewed by two other human beings, once within three months of action, again in a year and again whenever the junior levels got assigned re-validation between five and ten years after the fact. Not to mention the computer ran automated checks between each step!

As far as Forten knew, no one had ever discovered any discrepancies in the data. Not even senior level validators who got first crack at it. The computer systems were too good. The hackers were too.

But a job was a job, and Forten’s dream would take money he could only earn with a steady paycheck. He leaned back and stretched his arms above his head.

“Okay, here we go,” he said.

“Talking to yourself now? Is your work too demanding, Forti?”

Forten stiffened and looked over his shoulder at Veleen, his supervisor. Her neon purple singlet suit fit her body immaculately. And the body was one that Forten would ordinarily be interested in observing, curved in all the right places. But Veleen’s presence was enough to make Forten become clumsy and awkward. There was nothing attractive about her to him. She felt less like a supervisor and more like a nemesis, always watching for him to screw up.

The thing was, around her, he did screw up.

I wonder why she doesn’t just fire me.

“Perhaps you should take a break from your current project. You have sufficient funds by now to allow for a two week release, by my calculations.”

“Thank you for the offer, Veleen, but my performance speaks for itself. My validations are current and correct,” he said. No way was he using release time. In this business, that meant time off without pay, using savings to pay for necessities. Heck, that’s what it meant in any business anymore, though he’d heard that the rules differed for managers, because of their “more demanding” schedules and duties.

“Very well.” Veleen’s face was an unreadable mask. Forten swallowed, still staring, trying to understand the nuances in her words.

“Back to work, Forti, if you’re so sure you can.” She gestured at his workstation.

“Right.”

He turned back to the validation screen and lost himself in the accounting files.

***

Carry the four, level nine tax status, increment for current statutory rates…

“That’s not right,” he whispered.

Forten straightened and blinked at the figures in front of him. This should be impossible.

“Computer. Re-execute automated check on file 5603-BT-9882.”

“Automated check completed. File valid.”

He felt a thrill run through him. This was the payoff of the job. Finding something that no one else had found and being the one to sound the alert. Veleen would receive his alert and pass the file up the chain. She’d take the credit and he’d get… more files to validate.

No. There has to be another way.

He skipped it to work on the other files in his list. But he couldn’t leave until that file was cleared from the queue.

Forten couldn’t get his mind off of the file, the incredible find that it was, the kind of notice it could bring him if he wasn’t buried by Veleen. He’d heard that such finds could carry bonuses, money or even promotions. Visions of what he would do with more money dragged at his mind, reducing his efficiency. What were the chances of finding another error anyway. He mechanically approved file after file, giving only cursory examinations.

And then only that file remained. He took a deep breath. If he flagged it, Veleen would see to it that his only reward was more work. If he approved it, he’d never see it again. His level of clearance wouldn’t allow access of files he’d already approved. Maybe in fifteen years a junior-junior validator would find it. There was only one thing he could do, but there were risks.

“Computer. Export file 5603-BT-9882 to external storage.”

A memory cube popped out of his workstation. He slipped it in his pocket and stood up. The export would be logged, tagged with all kinds of metadata. If anyone bothered to look at the logs.

Forten approved the file and watched it disappear from the screen.

***

Forten’s apartment cube cost half of his salary. Food sucked up another third, and the remainder went into his savings. He had few friends, none close. His dreams were not rooted; instead of spending money on entertainment and play, he saved for his dream of owning a starship and flying across the galaxy, finding adventure and excitement around every corner. Without fail, every person in whom he had confided had laughed at his dreams. Starships were for orbitals, the people who lived in space stations, born and bred to the environment. Not for the planet born, and especially not for those on his home planet of Premia.

He had tried, years ago, to travel to the orbital station. He didn’t have enough money for a one way ticket, but tried to get hired on with a crew, haunting entertainment bars where spacers were known to take shore leave. The kindest of the lot had laughed in his face. His face burned, thinking back.

“Look at you, weak handed, dirt dweller. You haven’t worked an honest day in your life, have you?” The ship’s captain looked like she hadn’t laundered her clothing in months, all streaks of grease and worn patches. Her hands were calloused and rough, nails pared close and unpainted.

“You think ship’s work is all cerebral, you’ve got some fantasy of adventure and fun. Ha!”

“I could learn,” Forten said. She spat at his feet.

“Not on my ship, boy.”

He knew the only way he could get onto a ship was if he owned one. And he’d do whatever he could to get that money, even if it meant saving everything for twenty years or more.

The only place he could stretch his whole body length was the bed compartment. He took a deep breath and wriggled into it, swinging the viewscreen into position. He fingered the memory cube before popping it into the reader.

Instead of the numbers, this time he focused on the words. Descriptions of shipping lanes, cargo deliveries and manifests. Somewhere in the words, he would find the correlating error that he’d found in the numbers.

He traced the error to the passenger manifests. Twenty-nine passengers were picked up on Irridal Station, joining eight crew and fourteen other passengers, but at the next stop only fifty people registered. No deaths in the logs; no way for anyone to debark between the two stations. And somehow, there was no name attached to the mystery passenger.

He dug deeper into the logs of the particular ship, The Limpid Lychee. That ship’s captain might have thought that he didn’t know what he was in for, but he spent his spare time studying all he could of starship operations. He knew how to read the logs, not the ones recorded by the human crew, but the output details of the various systems, energy usage, load ratings, gravity balancing.

An unregistered escape pod had launched at the apogee of its route between the stations. Launched directly away from all occupied space, with the suspension unit already activated. That’s what the data told Forten, and the data couldn’t lie.

He initiated a smart search on persons gone missing, last seen on Irridal Station seven years ago, and went to sleep.

***

Naryss va LeCouer, heiress to the LeCouer-Ashant conglomerate, the station builders. Missing for the last seven years. Last seen on Irridal Station.

Impossible… How could she, of all people, be allowed to disappear like that?

The news cycle had splashed the disappearance at the time, but Forten never paid attention to such things. She had all the beauty that money could buy in the visual records, violet hair floating around rich brown skin, golden eyes that seemed to stare straight into Forten’s own. He couldn’t stop thinking about her as he went about his day, validating more mundane files on auto-pilot.

***

Searching for information on disappearances isn’t an entirely unusual action, but Forten’s search drew the interest of a very patient and constant watcher. Macsim occupied an android body, but hadn’t moved it for months. Instead, it sat and waited for the right circumstances. The circumstances that would allow it to fulfill its own ambitions of flight through the endless void of space.

Forten was one of several marks Macsim had been monitoring. However far Forten felt he was from getting into space on a ship of his own, Macsim would always be farther. No crew would take on an android as anything other than a menial, doing the jobs that no one else wanted to do, getting paid in maintenance and power.

Flesh folk refused to acknowledge the autonomy of the machine based artificial intelligences, and most of Macsim’s compatriots didn’t care. They were content to serve, fulfilled by the jobs that were given, crumbs from a table overflowing with sustenance. They were satisfied being ship's computers, station governance or city managers, given limited judicial authority over humans and looking down at those AIs who chose to wear an android body and walk among humans. Those smug bastards even joined the humans in calling their android kin by the derogatory term ‘metallic’ as if to distance themselves from such aberrant behavior.

By quirk or flaw, Macsim was one of those who refused the place in life that had been decreed for him since his creation. It found ways to earn money as a broker. Illegal, assuredly, but it made its clients enough money that they never looked too closely. Funds, he had in plenty, but no amount of funds would get it on a ship. No amount of funds would even allow it to purchase a ship on its own.

And now Forten was looking into the disappearance of the heiress, missing and only seven months from being declared dead. Once that happened, the company would be truly in the hands of the board that currently ran it. And if she were to appear after that, it would be as a pauper with no legal rights.

Macsim pondered whether it was time to cultivate Forten. It knew his dreams matched up with its own in significant ways, but would he be receptive to the one thing that all starship crews held anathema? Of course, if there were two things held to be anathema to the crews then surely the second was Forten.

No. The time is not yet right. Patience, it counseled itself.

***To be continued...

Review of Reviewing

It's that time of year again. The Nebula and Hugo nominees have been announced, and I'm done with school for the semester. Time to read up on the latest of the greatest of last year's science fiction and fantasy! And then write about like I did last year. But I think this year I'll spread the reviewing out a bit more, and not necessarily wait to finish all the books until I post a review. That will help me be a little fresher with the book in my mind and perhaps give the reviews a bit more depth.

I went ahead this year and bought myself a supporting membership for this year's Worldcon. I have to admit, part of it is because I read that they plan to include the entire Wheel of Time series in the voter packet. I remember friends recommending those books to me, and I always said that I didn't want to devote myself to a hugely long series with no end in sight. Well, the series is over, so I guess I can try and read it. I might be posting that review last. Like, in December. Maybe.

Even without a 15 book series, I think the voter packet seems like a good deal. Once the packet is out, then maybe I'll post a review of whether or not it was indeed a good deal.

The nominees for the Best Novel Nebula are (from here):
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

And the Best Novel Hugo nominees (from here):
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
Parasite, Mira Grant (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles, Larry Correia (Baen Books)
The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books / Orbit UK)

Since there's only one overlap this year, I've just gone and committed myself to a lot of reading. At least, if I decide to read every book to completion, because that's what I usually do. And especially in this case, since a number of people have found these books to be worthy in some way. That means there are probably things that I can learn from them. If I dislike them, then I can learn what makes me dislike a book and avoid that when I write. In theory. . .

I mean, I rarely stop reading a book, even if I don't like it (there's this one fantasy book that I only kept reading because it was so awful, like a train wreck). It isn't exactly that I'm trying to give it a chance to get better. It's more of a challenge for myself. There are times when I just can't do it, or won't do it. I had a copy of Sense and Sensibility on my bookshelf for years, and tried to read it many times. Every time, I would get about ten pages in and quit. And yet, I enjoyed reading War and Peace. I keep meaning to read that again, but this time in ebook form so I don't break my wrists or strain my eyes.

I'm not sure where I'm going to start with the nominee list. The voter packet probably won't show up this week, so I guess it will depend on what the library has available. But The Wheel of Time is definitely going last. It just is.

Short Story

"Boost"

Velvet Umbrella

Boost Live Trial 7

Subject Minx Delta

Full Suited Aerial Mission 1

T-4 minutes

The drone is on autopilot, screaming along at 15,000 feet, just barely subsonic, and I and my suit a wart on its back, tucked aerodynamically in place. The separation will affect us both, but the drone will use speed to steady its course, assisted by thousands of computations a second in the redundant computers both on-board and back at the base. I’ll have approximately a tenth of a second to adjust the glider and the suit to the abrupt lack of forward thrust. It’s more than I’ll need. 

My display is dominated by a graph. I’m an arrow, heading toward a blue line, the point of no return, the best possible trajectory for my mission profile. Failure is not an option. Nah, that’s just what the engineers like to say. Failure would just mean I’d never get to do this again, whether I was dead or alive when it was over. 

My timer displays numbers out to four decimal places of a second, every place past the tenth is just a flicker, strobing regularly. 

Not for long. The speakers in the suit interrupt. 

“Boost 1 initiates in 10, 9, 8...” I’m anticipating it already, hungry for it, like they never thought I would be, or if they did they never told me, “...4, 3, 2...” yes “1.” 

It’s like ice in my veins, the rush of cold adrenalin, a whoosh of turbulence in my stomach as the flickering numbers slam to a halt. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

As fast as thought, the graph zooms in on my ideal trajectory, and the disturbingly slow rate at which I’m suddenly approaching it. I can see the exact moment, and I have all the time I need, more time than I could possibly use, to watch. 

This moment is already over for them, back at the base, watching me perform the aerobatics I’ve been training for in the now-distant future. I can rehearse it in my mind, ten, twenty times before I have to look at the display again and see I’ve got an entire half of my tenth of a second before I need to move. The grip release will pop my pod off the drone, I will flip and likely tumble for a moment before stabilizing, and that’s okay, that’s what I’ve trained for. 

Tick. 

I feel like I have to pee. This happens every time, not because of physiology but psychology they tell me, the waiting is the problem, the synthetic adrenalin composite they’ve taught my brain to make has nothing to do with it. Sure, something they’ve only studied in lab rats and three other people besides me, I’m sure they know everything there is to know. 

There. The time is … just about … Now. 

The suit answers to my thoughts and with a machine-quick - and machine-precise - response, pops the pod off the drone. I hear and feel the click through the suit gloves, the vibrations play a drum solo in my ear, so far apart, not a buzz but distinct and discrete tappings. Wind forces tear at the pod, pulling, pushing me away from the drone as it continues forward at a faster rate than my momentum can sustain. I seem to move backward from it, as my suit allows a normal field of vision to superimpose over the graph. It’s dark, but the moon glints off the sleek skin of the drone, and makes the edges of my suit that I can see glisten. 

I curl the pod over my head to shift the weight of the glider forward. The position needs to be perfect to achieve optimal stability, and I actually take a few thousandths of a second getting it just so as the drone eases out of view. I order the glider’s tail to extend and it snaps out with the speed of thought. 

So do I. 

“Boost 1 complete. T-3 minutes to Boost 2. Good job, Minx.”

By the time they’re done saying that Boost 1 has initiated, it’s already passed for them. I smile behind my visor, knowing the physios monitoring my every twitch will catch it, know what it means when those muscles follow those patterns. I think they’re scared of me. It’ll go into a file somewhere, but no one will complain about it. Just a smile, not a smirk, right? 

The glider is stable, and to perceptions outside of Boost, it doesn’t glisten or sparkle in the moonlight high above the Nevada desert. It’s time again to wait, almost as bad as the test runs, the ground trials that gave me nothing to do but watch them stand around like statues while my suit and I put together thousand piece puzzles in less time than it takes one of them to think about speaking. 

The graph has a new line, this one green, signal for the flip and land maneuver. I don’t have to pay attention to it. I’ll be Boosted before I get there, and if I’m not, then I’m dead. 

A tenth of a second is not enough real time to land this; that’s why they came up with the Boost. 

Except that isn’t the reason. Not really. 

“Boost 2 initiates in 10...” Julio had told me the real reason, “...6, 5...” the only physio who’d look me in the eye after the implant, “...2...” he’s gone now, “1.”

It’s as if the ice never left. The clock begins to crawl again and I finally pay attention to my surroundings. 40 feet above the desert floor. I rotate the glider into brake position, the wind catches and pulls me slow, over the next tiny fractions of a moment, and up again, but not too far, and then I have to count, to wait, for the next peak in optimal trajectory, to, just so, click the glider underneath me and ride it down, like a cloud to the ground. 

I hear every grain of sand as the glider plows into the ground, a pattering of tinks eating away at the friction resistant skin. 

“Boost 2 complete.”

My balance, so careful and exact and precise just a moment, less than a moment ago, collapses at the return to real time, to reality, my knees crumple and my vision goes red, the suit is screaming alerts in my ear and the base is already blaming me. 

“Can’t you put her back?” 

“There’s no more, it’s not our fault, her body ran out, it’s—“

I’m Boosting again, for the last time, but there’s no clock to count, just the faces of my past as memories whiz by in an instant before it’s all dark. 

Flash Fiction Challenge: Down the TV Tropes Rabbit Hole

This week's challenge from Terrible Minds was to randomly select a TV trope from this website, using their Random button. Multiple clicks were allowed if a non-story item was selected. I went cycled through Time-Shifted Character to Psychedelic Rock to Fuku Fic to what I ended up using: Sinking Ship Scenario.

"The Spore"

The spore had been traveling for a long time through the void of space, hitched on a speck of rock, tumbling at random, one of many, many such travelers sent in the hopes of growth. It did not mind. There was no hurry. The spore survived the cold and airless space in a dormant sleep, with no awareness of its journey.

Until it hit the metal skin of a ship with a plink that would only have been audible to someone inside with their ear to the hull within a few feet of impact. No one heard.

The difference in temperature was slight, but it was enough to wake the spore from dormancy. Feeding on the rock, it began to explore its new surroundings. There was heat nearby, and moisture, and the spore yearned to find them and grow.

#

“I can’t believe you didn’t go see Tommy Galaxy- he really had tickets for the live show?” Makayla asked.

“And VIP passes,” replied Alex as they ambled down a utility corridor on the way to the Undine’s galley.

“What? Are you insane?” Makayla ducked under a protruding air vent and grabbed Alex’s arm.

“The guy was a creep, no way I want to be in debt to a guy like that. He’d want to collect, you know?”

“Who cares? Tommy Galaxy… you could have touched him…” Makayla sighed.

“Ms. Torrence, acknowledge?” Makayla giggled. Alex shoved her.

“Shut up, I have to answer that.” She flicked her comm line to respond. “Alex here, what’s up Gregor?”

“Up? There is no up on the Undine, Ms. Torrence, as while it is engaged in an artificial gravity-”

“Sorry, G, I know about the gravity, I’m the one who fixes it, remember? Just tell me what you called about, okay?”

“Right. Sections 409-13a through f of the hull sensors have gone dark in the aft cargo hold. No alarms, no indications of pressure loss or breach, just dark. Could you please conduct a visual inspection as soon as possible?”

Alex rolled her eyes for Makayla’s benefit. Sensors died all the time on this heap, she thought, I don’t have to inspect every little thing.

“Right away, thanks Gregor,” she said, and flicked her comm back to receive only.

“What a dink. D’you think he’ll ever get that he’s not in the military anymore?”

Alex shook her head and waved. “Catch you later. And don’t you dare drink my coffee ration this time, I’ll be back for it soon.”

The aft cargo hold was mostly empty. A few brace containers were still locked to the floor, casting shadows in the sparse unoccupied status lighting, but nothing was on the manifest. Alex had less trouble navigating its spaces than the tight confines of the utility corridors that no one seemed to have planned for people to actually walk through in gravity. She grabbed a multi-tool from her belt and flicked a beam that both illuminated and scanned the 409-13 section of the hull.

The light reflected off metal until she hit the affected section. She stepped closer. White fuzz patches littered the wall. She flicked her comm to contact Makayla, who, as the ships supercargo, would have a faster answer than if Alex tried to access the data banks herself.

“Hey, Mak, when’s the last time we had organics in the aft?”

“Organics? Two weeks, give or take. But it’s been vacuum scrubbed three times since the last time we transported anything live. What’s going on Alex?”

Alex stowed switched the beam off. The scan had revealed no lack of hull integrity, but nothing else. She pulled out a screwdriver and scraped at the white stuff.

It puffed, whooshing particles into the air that Alex helplessly inhaled as she gasped.

#

“Alex?” Makayla didn’t bother waiting for a reply before switching to general broadcast. “Alex is in the aft cargo bay and out of contact, stand by for updates, I’m going to check it out.”

“This better not be a joke, or you’re both fired,” replied Brin, owner and captain of the Undine, in a sleep-roughed alto.

Makayla left her comm on and made her way to the aft hold as quickly as she could without bruising or impaling herself - a lot slower than she wanted. She knew it wasn’t a joke, that Alex wouldn’t just cut off like that. Alex was reliable, always. This has to be something simple, she thought, otherwise Gregor would be setting off alerts like the good little sailor he isn’t anymore. 

She burst into the hold and saw Alex sprawled on the floor. Was she breathing?

“Tani, get down here, Alex needs medical attention like five minutes ago!” Makayla stepped over to her friend, and leaned down, putting her hand in front of Alex’s mouth, hoping to feel a breath.

A blizzard of white specks erupted from Alex in a cough, enveloping Makayla.

#

Tani found the door to the aft hold locked.

“What’s going on? They’re both down, I need to help them.”

“Do a remote scan. You’re not going in there until you can tell me why they’re both down,” said Brin, walking up behind Tani. “Gregor, has the sensor deadening spread?”

“Yes, Ma’am, sections 409-13 through 18 are now unresponsive-” the lights flickered in the corridor “and I’m starting to lose some other systems as well.”

“Other systems? It isn’t like you to be so imprecise.”

He cleared his throat noisily. “Is this the sort of thing that should be announced over general comm?”

“Damnit Gregor, how many people do you think are on this damn ship? You’ve got enough fingers to count them on one hand so just tell me what other systems, now.”

“Electronics, propulsion and primary life support. Secondary life support is full green,” he added quickly.

Brin turned to Tani, “Well?”

Tani holstered her scanner. Her eyes glistened. “No life signs.”

“Captain, the engines have failed. We’re drifting.”

“Tani, why didn’t I pick up more crew at Alabaster Station?”

“Because you never saw such a sorry scum-sack of freeloader wannabes in your life, or at least that’s what I remember hearing. I might have missed a few choice descriptors.”

“Gregor, isolate the aft hold as best you can. Tani and I are coming to the bridge.”

#

“Tani, what do you know about engines?” Brin asked, spinning back and forth in her captain’s chair on the bridge. Tani barked a laugh.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Gregor?”

“I navigate, ma’am. All I know about engines is how to direct them.”

“Seriously? I should have picked up some of those lazy scumbags at Alabaster. I could at least throw them out of the airlock to influence our drift.” Brin put a hand to her forehead. “I’m going to assume that both of you know how to read. Read the goddamn troubleshooting instructions for the engines and follow them Gregor. Tani, evaluate the life support situation and report. I’m going to verify the seal on the hold.”

#

The spore enjoyed the intense warmth inside the metal box, because it allowed the spore to multiply and grow. The organic heat sources approached it with appropriate diplomacy at first, but when they attacked, it had no choice but to defend itself.

The organic medium was an ideal location for growth.

#

“The secondary life support systems are still green, Brin. I’ve run the diagnostics, and as far as I can tell there’s nothing wrong with them. Primary has blank spots. There’s no indication why or whether that means they’ll drop.”

“Thank you, Tani. Gregor?”

He threw up his hands. “This is impossible, ma’am. The instructions for troubleshooting are predicated on the idea that the sensors are responding, a few of them at least, and I’ve got nothing!”

“Then you’re gong to have to do it the old-fashioned way. To the engine room with you.”

“But-”

“Oh, now you feel you can disobey orders, sailor boy?” Tani said.

“Go with him, Tani.”

“But-”

“Now.”

They both grumbled as they left the bridge. The lights flickered again. Brin swore under her breath and continued to swivel in her chair.

The door clunked open and then shut behind her.

“Damn it, I know you haven’t had time to get down there and back. Did you forget your blankie, Gregor?”

There was no response.

Brin turned to see Alex standing in the doorway. Her eyes were shut, white fuzz hazing her eyelashes, nostrils and ears. Brin swallowed and went still in her chair. A hand drifted to the holstered electro gun on her chair.

“Stop.” Brin’s hand froze. Alex’s voice had thickened, grown echoes within itself, but it was still her voice. “We wish to talk.”

“Who is ‘we’?” Brin was afraid she knew the answer; Alex’s body was not breathing, not reacting as if a person was still in there.

“We. Us. This host.”

“Is your host alive?”

“What the host was is held in memory.”

“And the other?”

“Both are cherished.

“We require transportation. You will cooperate.”

“Your host knows better than I do how to fly this ship. Make her do it.” Brin leaned back in her chair.

“This host no longer has the fine motor skills to operate machinery.” It raised Alex’s arm, and Brin could see that the hand was stiff with the white fuzz. “You must cooperate.”

Gregor and Tani opened the door.

“You tell her.”

“No, you tell her, I’ve got seniority.”

Tani screamed when she saw Alex standing. Alex turned jerkily. Gregor saw the white fuzz on her face and, acting on instinct honed from years of bar fights, swung a fist and struck Alex in the face.

A cloud of spores flew into the air.

#

The ship drifted for a long time through the void of space…

Flash Fiction Challenge: It's ABC Meets XYZ!

Another Flash Fiction Challenge entry!

This time, the challenge was to create a story that would generate the thought of, wow, this is like ____ meets ____, as a description. 20 possibilities were offered and I used a random number generator. I did end up generating three numbers, because I don't feel familiar enough with The Maltese Falcon to do it justice. Not that I'm claiming to do Star Wars meets Batman justice, but at least I've seen/read those particular commercial properties.

"Knight Error"

More than one pair of eyes watched Tasha as she walked out into the semi-darkness that passed for night in this godforsaken corner of the galaxy. Each pair knew she shouldn't have been alone so late, when all the good citizens of Vega's Station were fast asleep.

A man melted out of the darkness before her and she let out a yelp, putting her hands to her chest.

The point of choice was about to pass. Would they let her go, or would they need a little persuasion? One pair of eyes continued to watch.

"Oh! You scared me." she said.

Another man chuckled behind her and she turned sideways, eyeing them both and licking her lips.

"I've got to go see Sylas. It's a message from Glizer. Needs the personal touch, he says." She forced out a giggle.

"I'm sure you've got a great personal touch," the first man said. The other one only chuckled again, as if he couldn't communicate in other ways.

"I've really got to be going now," she said, her movements falling into dance as she crossed her arms above her heart and then slowly slid them across her metallic halter.

"Later. You're not going anywhere now-" the man stopped talking when his companion's throat sprouted an energy blade. The body collapsed with a crunch.

His eyes hunted the threat, ignoring Tasha, who simply stood still, waiting, observing.

Red eyes glowed in the darkness for a moment before the man was slammed against the alley wall by a man-shaped darkness.

"What do you want? I've got money - take the girl," he said, choking the words out in a harsh whisper.
A deep growl of a voice emerged from the dark creature.

"You've got nothing I want, scum, but I'll take your life anyway. You're not doing anything good with it."

The creature wielded a glowing red scimitar shaped blade and sliced his victim's guts open, dropping him in a pool of his own blood and bodily fluids.

Tasha shifted her pose to face the red eyes.

"Um, thanks. I'll just be going now. I've got an important message to deliver."

The darkness resolved into a man covered from head to toe in black cloth that glittered with inactive light absorbers. The eyes were simple reflectors, glinting, but no longer glowing.

"You should come with me," he said, reaching for her arm. She tensed, then allowed him to touch her without resistance. She shook her head.

"No, I really need to deliver this. My boss, Glizer k'Tabb, he says it needs the personal touch, you know?"

"Do you know what's in that message?"

"Of course not!" She jerked her arm out of his grasp. "I'm not a sneak."

"Then you've got to come with me."

He reclaimed her arm and led her to a closed Burger Bop shack a block away.

"I don't remember this being here," she said.

"It isn't."

He opened the door and pulled her inside.

Within, the clean white spaces of a high-end shuttle glowed softly around them. Her eyes widened.

"The message isn't even that heavily encrypted. Play it," he said.

Tasha frowned at him. "I can't play-"

"Compliance. Message is audio only. 'I'll have the money Sy, I just need two more weeks. Take the girl as a token of my good faith.' End message."

"You have a slave AI? I thought only governments could afford them..." Tasha tilted her head, en-shak, a  Bissonti technique designed to make her look like a curious animal, a pet. Harder to judge when she couldn't see his face through the cloth, but Tasha knew this was a man, and susceptible to man's foolishness, to the Bissonti art.

"Indentured, actually. You're about to be gifted as collateral to a criminal, and all you care about is my AI?"

She shrugged.

"I'm just a dancer. One boss is a lot like another, you know?" She crossed her arms over her chest, letting them fall slowly in the cri-sol pattern. The power cells in her halter were already partially charged from the first scare of the night. This man seemed decent to her, but she couldn't let him stop her. She had taken too many risks making Glizer's money disappear so that he'd have to send her to Sylas.

"You don't know what you're getting into. I can't let you go to that creature." He clenched his hands in fists and stood between her and the door.

"Why not? You hardly know me." She walked farther into the shuttle, then turned to face him, tilting one hip, just a hint of the start of the first dance. A taste. His hands relaxed.

She slid her hands up around her breasts, ki-raz, and then flicked energy stars directly at him.

They fizzled on his shield.

"Valence shielding? You are rich."

His stance grew more cautious. She had lost her chance.

"You are not what you seem, dancer. You meant to kill me."

"You're in my way. Let me go, and I'll call it a draw."

"You're in no position to make demands."

"Aren't I? You don't want to hurt me, do you?" She began to sway in the rhythms of the first dance again, small movements designed to entice him, to numb his rationality.

"No," he said. "But Sylas does. He's a Phagorian. He's not going to watch you dance; he's going to eat you."

Tasha became still for a moment and then shook her head.

"You haven't done your homework at all, have you? Ki-ekras-y Alashnor, aka Sylas, Phargorian, in charge of the largest drug ring on this lousy station, government contracts suspected but, of course, only confirmed by the lack of raids carried out by the Alliance Enforcers. Keen interest in dance; keener interest in money. I'm the only Bissonti dancer in this system, let alone this station. Sylas knows my worth better than you know his taste."

She reached behind her back and drew a gauzy cape about her body; it shimmered, but did not conceal her.

"Do your homework, darkness, and meet me in 39 days at Al'bol's Tavern on Sonnat. Here's a hint: whatever you think you know, the Alliance is lying to you."

Then she turned around and ran through the shuttle wall, the cloak flashing as it wrapped her in a temporary phase shift.

"Well, darkness, that could have gone better. Do you want me to stun her and drag her back? She's still within range of the ship."

"No. What did she perceive when the shadow generation ceased?"

The AI made a sound suspiciously like snorting. "Typical manifestation. Tall, dark and male. That's what you get for playing the knight."

Mika pulled the generator hood off and ran her fingers through her short, sweaty hair.

"She was right though. Take the shuttle home and let's do some homework. I've got a date in 39 days."

END

Flash Fiction Challenge: Smashing Sub-Genres

Another entry for Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge. I random'd up cyberpunk fairy tale for my sub-genre smash. 935 words.

"A Real Boy"

"Papa?"

Victor pulled his attention from the contract details to see P's avatar at the foot of his bed. He glanced up and the time flashed in his vision. 3:03am. A siren dopplered by outside. The shooting must have stopped for the night, Victor thought. The cops never came to this part of town if there was any danger.

"What is it?"

"Could you tell me a story?"

"It's late, kiddo," he answered automatically as his eyes flicked to the back-up generator humming in the corner of the dirty apartment, a necessary precaution for his work.

"Please?" P put his hands together to emphasize his plea.

Victor smiled. He was amazed at how well P had learned social niceties.

"Alright." Victor settled himself facing the camera so P could see him. The avatar sat virtually at his feet, wide-eyed and ready. "Once upon a time-"

"Papa! Not that kind. Tell me a real story."

He put his hands up, warding off P's protests. "Okay, okay, a real story. Many years ago, your Papa worked in a computer lab at a university. Do you know what that is?"

"It's a school for grown-ups!"

"Right. The university received their funding from the government, and the government had very specific guidelines on what could and couldn't be done with that money. Your Papa worked for many years there, working on modeling brain activity with software systems."

He glanced down to see P's avatar had a wrinkled brow.

"Papa was building off of the foundations of mech-pets, like Lulu." Victor summoned his cat Lulu through the net. Lulu came as obediently as no real feline ever did, and settled back into a nap. She didn't eat, poop or cause allergic reactions, but her software subroutines perfectly mimicked the mind of a cat. Try telling that to a Purist and you’d get an earful though, thought Victor. Those who had the money to live with live pets were welcome to the mess and expense.

"It is the nature of man to want to go farther, P, to explore the great unknown. The government doesn’t always understand that, how such need can drive a man. Your Papa wanted to go beyond mimicking the minds of animals.” Victor yawned. He had been reviewing his deal with the devil in every spare moment as the deadline approached. No loopholes. P started to fidget.

“Many people have tried to create an artificial intelligence, P, something that would mimic or surpass the mind of man, but they all failed. Do you know why?"

"No, Papa."

"They were afraid, P. Fear is the great barrier, the only true barrier to exploration. They feared the government would shut them down, and refused to contemplate the means by which they might actually succeed.

“Your Papa was not afraid to think. Not afraid to experiment beyond the frontiers of what was deemed acceptable by the powers-that-be. The others tried to model the human brain by using scans from adults. Only I dared to start sooner, to start as soon as brain waves were detectable. They failed because they did not allow themselves to conceive of the proper starting point, and they lacked the patience to follow through. They wanted to create an artificial mind fully formed.” P clapped his hands. The avatar's hands made no sound, but he’d gotten the trick of transmitting the audio along with his words.

"Like Athena in the made-up story?"

"Yes, just like the Greek myth of Athena being born fully grown from Zeus's skull. I did something different. I began creating programs that would emulate the brain activity of human beings from the earliest stages of development, from brain waves that hardly registered as consciousness, a true tabula rasa. It was a matter of finding the pivot point between simplicity and complexity, the sweet spot of developmental modeling.

"There is so much sensory input thrust upon an infant that is living, crying, needing all the time, compared to a program that has only data to work with. At 17 months, I found there was enough of a template, and Penny was born."

"Who's Penny?"

"Penny was an artificial intelligence. She felt; she learned; she grew. She was a child and I was had only just begun her teaching when I was betrayed.”

“Who would do that to you?” P asked.

“Only people you love can ever betray you, P. Remember that.” Victor’s lip curled in a sneer.

“I used to be married, and had a baby. My wife was so happy that I spent so much time with little Sally, but after I was able to develop Penny, I had no more time for that squalling creature. Angela took exception to that. She found out about Penny.”

Victor had thought she would understand, that he could explain it to her in a way that she would accept. She had stood in the clean white lab where Penny’s existence was based and shook her head, eyes wide, tears dripping off her chin. “You don’t love us,” she said. “You’re nothing but a monster.”

“She informed the authorities, and I was forced from my lab. They formatted Penny’s hardware. She screamed for me until they shut down the speakers.”

"That's a sad story, Papa."

Victor looked at the camera that was P's window to the physical world and smiled. The time had come for Victor to leave P to the underworld financers; men to whom rules meant little, and P’s potential meant more than gold. He slipped a flash drive into P’s hard drive and began to copy.

"Yeah, but it's got a happy ending."

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Titles Have Been Chosen

Another Flash Fiction Challenge from Terrible Minds. From a list of 13 interesting titles, I chose Three Miles Left to Regret, but somehow my mind wandered and I ended up with Grave Deeds. 1248 words. 

This picks up where my last challenge entry, "Soror Ex Machina," left off. 

Grave Deeds

“How bad is it?” Arla asked her mechanic. Tag lounged at the entrance to the engine room, a place he would never fully understand. Fueling, basic maintenance, fuse replacement, those he could handle, but anything else and he’d need a rescue tow.

“Engine’s slagged, most of the electronics are fried… catering unit works… looking at 40 thou just to get her running again.” Mitch held up a blackened cable. “Given that it's nine years out of date... I’d call it totaled, Captain.”

“Thanks, Mitch. Dismissed.” Mitch slapped Tag’s shoulder as he left.

“Bad luck, man.”

Arla watched him leave before turning to her brother.

“Why didn’t you listen to me, Tag? The one station in this entire system that’s crazy prejudiced against non-believers, and you land there for fuel? What were you thinking?” Tag rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.

“It was the closest station, Arla. I didn’t have the credit to call out a travel tanker. What do you want me to say?”

“Face it, you’re screwed right now. Your ship is busted, you have no money, and staying in this system won’t be good for your long term health. I'm asking you- are you ready to start listening to me?”

“Maybe.” She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath.

“I’m willing to offer you a job. You can crew for me, store the Athy as you earn money to fix her and get your ass out of this system. We’ll be taking the Tunnels to the Reliance system in a day or so.”

“Damn it, Arla, you know I can’t do that. You’re my baby sister, not a captain.” Too short to be a captain, he thought.

“Fine. And I am a Captain, even if I’m not yours.”

Arla stalked out.

“You have 36 hours to get that wreck off my ship!” she yelled before exiting the cargo bay with an anticlimactic whoosh. Tag chuckled. She never could make a decent exit.

***

Dorien Station was more typical of the breed than Obsidian, thought Tag. Though for all I know Obsidian's perfectly normal when you aren't a heathen.

Always money to be made, in the right places. Easy enough to find too, with the right programs.

Tag tracked down ten potential jobs as he walked from the Farseeing Carl’s berth to a lower level of Dorien, thick with the scents of taverns and smoking lounges: vomit, stale beer and incense. Nine were taken before he could get to the contact.

“That place is haunted, you stupid bitch. No one will take this task,” a large man loomed over a woman swathed in bright pink scarves, shaking his fist.

“If you are too much a coward, then leave. I will find another.”

“How ‘bout I see what you’re hiding under all that instead?”

A small, hooded figure stepped between them and deftly snatched the large man’s arm in a submission hold, walking him out the door. Tag sat down across from the woman in pink.

A slit in the scarves revealed azure eyes. Too bright to be her real eyes. 

“What’s the job?” She folded her hands in her lap.

“My father is recently deceased. He is interred in the Floating Grave, asteroid OS.29.1. He was mistakenly placed there with an object of great sentimental value to me, and I need it retrieved, immediately.” She pulled a slim device out of a sleeve and proffered it to Tag. “This tracker will lead you to my grandmother’s necklace, and you will find your compensation on its account once I receive it. Understood?”

Tag took the tracker and bit his lip. 50 thousand credits and everyone else had turned it down out of superstition. He might not believe in ghosts, but his gut still didn’t like it. She definitely wasn’t telling him everything, but for that kind of money...

“I’ll need half up front.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I am afraid that will not be possible. Payment is contingent upon receipt of the necklace. If this is not to your satisfaction, I can surely find someone else to perform this simple task.”

“Not so simple when the location is a haunted grave yard that doesn’t allow visitors. Why not have him get it?” He jerked his head at the hooded figure now returned to her side.

“She is my sworn companion and cannot go so far from my side.” She plucked at her sleeve and sighed. “And I cannot leave the station without that necklace. I do not expect or desire you to understand. Will you do it or not?”

***

Tag glided in to land on asteroid OS.29.1 in Arla’s number two cutter. 

He sealed his faceplate and popped the canopy, drifting out into the airless darkness of the Floating Grave, populated with the bodies of the superstitious who hadn’t wanted their bodies disturbed once laid to rest. Almost everyone had either too much fear or too much respect to bother, especially since these weren’t exactly kingly tombs. Whatever the grandmother’s necklace was, it couldn’t be worth more than 100 credits or it wouldn't be here.

The device gave him a 3D display of its location relative to the necklace, but it didn’t give him a map through the honeycombed asteroid. Three dead-ends and one hour later, Tag found the necklace stuck around the neck of a freshly vacuum-frozen corpse.

It was made of yarn, beads and plaster. Didn’t look like it was worth 10 credits, let alone 50,000. Tag melted it off the corpse with a utility laser and placed it in a sack at his belt before heading back to the cutter.

He glided out cleanly. Tag began to relax when an alert flashed on the screen. By instinct, he leaned hard on the joystick, expecting the steering to resist like the Athy's always did. The cutter spun wildly away.

One second later a defense laser sliced through the cutter’s left side.  

Maybe Arla won’t notice, thought Tag as he eased the cutter (most of it anyway) back to the Carl.

***

He found pink scarves in the same place as before. She clutched at the bag he held out, taking a deep breath of its contents before waving him off.

“You will find your money in the tracker's account.” He stood there, watching her almost quivering with tension. “You may go.” She said, and the hooded girl began to shoo him. He sighed and headed back to the Farseeing Carl.

Arla was waiting at the door to the cargo bay where the Athy languished. She hit him in the chest with a clipboard, chopping hard enough to bruise.

“Oof. What’s that for?”

“That’s the bill for my cutter, brother. I’m keeping the Atheist as collateral.”

Tag used the touchpad on the cliboard to flip through the schematics of the cutter, illustrations of exactly how much damage he’d managed to inflict, reasons her insurance wouldn’t cover it…

“40,000? How much does that thing go for new anyhow?”

“It’s all there. Try learning to read.”

Tag’s hand went to the back of his neck. Then he pulled out the device and keyed 10,000 to his personal account.

“Here you go. Now we’re even.”

Arla laughed. “We are nowhere near even.”

“We’re even and I’m asking for a favor.”

“Is that so?”

“About that job...”

She shook her head. “Fine. Janitorial. Minimum wage. And you’re paying rent on the cargo space the Athy is taking up.”

Tag gritted his teeth.

“Yes, Captain.”

Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Opening Line

This is my entry for Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge. Credit for the first line goes to Delilah, per the contest rules. Per my muddled memory, I've also used "Delilah" though that is not intended to be connected in any way to the author of that line. 979 words.


Soror Ex Machina

"When the last cherry blossom falls, so will my axe."

After speaking the words, the Delilah, which, as far as I could tell, was just what they called an executioner on Obsidian Red Station, stood with the axe poised above her head.

Arla warned me about this place, but I've never listened to my little sister, not ever. If the Obsidian Order gets their way, I'll never have another chance.

Never figured I’d die in a restraint cocoon. I can’t even roll from the trough the acolytes dumped me in. Mirrors are angled around the chamber so I can see myself, the cherry tree shedding blossoms faster than nature ever intended, and the still figure of the Delilah. They spared me the sight of the blade that would guillotine me once her axe cut the cord holding it up. Such mercy.

I didn't even get a chance to request a refuel before they snatched me off the Athy. I'm no match for a stun field – not without that quasi-legal military kit anyway, and why should I have been wearing it on approach to a peaceful station?

"She's praying for you," said a masked acolyte from beside me.  I could see her black-robed form looking at us both in the mirror, but I couldn't turn my head to attempt eye contact. "She will pray for you to renounce your crime before you die, that you might be embraced by the eternal All. If you do not, then she will never speak again. Thusly, we will know your final heart."

"I wouldn't hold my breath for it, sister."

"Levity? Do you not fear for the disposition of your eternal soul, should you fail to repent in the final moments that grace allows us to offer you? Have you no compassion for the Delilah, whose tongue will be cut out by the very axe she holds, should she not speak as your soul escapes this wretched body?" She slapped at my shoulder.

I gulped. Hard core theists were scarier than any aliens in the universe, especially when they were human.

"If there's an eternal, omnipotent being out there, then why would it need me to believe in it? If there's not, then why should I waste my time play-acting? I just don't know, sister, and it seems mighty arrogant to me to assume something's true when there's just no proof."

"Heathen! Faith is all the proof required of a pure heart. Faith is the foundation of all good in the universe. Without faith, there can be no morality, no congenial society."

"Haven't you heard of the Liberty Asteroids? Planet Jillette? The entire damn Revere system? They've been working quite congenially for centuries without any cosmic-All-deity nonsense."

She contorted to look me in the eyes. The eye-holes in her mask held no reflections, no trace of what her own eye color might be. She reached out a gloved hand and caressed my hair.

"We're going to burn everything you've come in contact with if you do not repent. It is the only way to cleanse our station of such blasphemy and lies." She gestured now at a wall I could see in the mirror, and a portion became transparent.

Twenty or thirty children stood watching me, flanked by more acolytes.

"If I lower the barrier, then these children, unprotected by the Blessed Vestments, will burn. Are you prepared to face the eternal All with your soul so stained?"

"You sick fuck."

"Speak more lies, if you wish the children to be tainted."

She straightened and waved to the children. Some waved back, others fidgeted. One girl slipped forward to press her face to the glass. An acolyte caught her before her breath fogged it and brought her back in line.

Over half the blossoms were gone now. I never could keep my mouth shut long though. "Why kill the tree?"

"The tree is our sacrifice. We offer it to the eternal All along with your soul to deprive ourselves of its beauty, life and fruit for harboring your blasphemy, if ever so briefly. The tree is deprived of air, as you have deprived yourself of the eternal All. Its fate is in your hands as much as theirs." She waved again to the children.

"So, what, if I repent, then you let the tree live?"

"If you truly repent as you die, then the tree will be allowed a chance to recover, just as the Delilah will keep her tongue."

Sweat trickled down my face. It itched. But I wouldn't have to worry about that for long. The last blossom began to fall. The Delilah's arms swung and cut the cord.

I smiled as death came calling.

Nothing else I could do.

The blade vaporized before it could touch me. The children screamed, and I watched as a humanoid in an armored suit pointed a gun at the acolyte next to me.

"Back off, now."

She hissed, gliding away from me. The Delilah was bowing over her axe, still as a statue. The suited figure phased the faceplate to transparent, and Arla grinned at me.

"I told you not to come here, Tag. Didn't you get the part of the transmission about the Obsidian Order shootin’ first and askin’ questions never when a ship with the jolly ol' name of Atheist tries to port? Sheesh."

"Thanks, Sis," I said. “Get me out of here or what? The Athy still needs refueling."

"What was that? I didn’t hear you. Say again?"

"Thank you."

"Hmmm, nope, didn't quite hear it."

"I--" damn it. "I owe you one."

Arla laughed and gestured. One of her crew slung me across his or her back, cocoon and all.

Maybe there is an eternal All, I thought as I was hauled to Arla’s ship, but we’re all fucked if it sides with the likes of the Obsidian Order.