The Journal of Unlikely Architecture

A short announcement: Unlikely Story Issue #6, The Journal of Unlikely Architecture, is now live, with stories by Alma Alexander, Daniel Ausema, Kelly Simmons, Kelly Lagor, Matthew Timmins, Rose Lemberg, and Mark Rigney. We hope you’ll come take a gander.

Status

Hi,

It’s been a while. Things have been busy, and I haven’t had time to work on Kudzu, sadly. It’s not dead, it’s just resting. Mostly I have had too many things pressing in on various levels that have prevented me from pushing on with this novel. It’s about 2/3rds of the way through, and I have a good idea of where it needs to end up, and fair idea of things that have to happen on the way from here to there, but only a vague idea of the path that that entails. What I need is a couple weeks to immerse myself in just this novel to pull all the pieces together. That time isn’t now.

I’d like to tell you a little of what’s going on.

If you’re unaware, I publish and co-edit The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, an online magazine of fiction about or involving bugs in some interesting and non-trivial manner.

This month, the bugzine is molting, growing into something that remains true to itself, but more: bigger, better, and more diverse. The new zine is called Unlikely Story, which is an umbrella for the continued exploits of the bugzine, and also for other unlikely studies. Our first issue of Unlikely Story will be The Journal of Unlikely Architecture, which will come out before the end of the month. The next issue will be another bugzine issue, in November, and then The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography will be out in Jan/Feb of 2014.

Along with this comes a new website: http://www.unlikely-story.com. At this time we’re about 2-3 days away from being done the testing phase. And 1-1.5 weeks away from posting up The Journal of Unlikely Architecture.

Good news for writers and artists: along with the name change comes an increase in pay rates. Check out our submission guidelines at http://www.unlikely-story.com/submission-guidelines-2/.

Another languishing project is The Flesh Made Word – an anthology of erotica involving the act of writing, to be published by Circlet Press. There are some fantastic stories that have come in for this book, from some great writers, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you. And once I get the Architecture issue done and out, it’ll be time to concentrate on this.

Are there other stories in the works, y’know, written by me? Yes. “A Taste of Gold” is coming out this month in Big Pulp’s Apeshit issue, which you can pre-order through their indiegogo fundraiser. (63 hours to go – go help them out, and get yourself a fantastic book of monkey stories!)

In October I have a story slated for the debut issue (October) of Betwixt Magazine. I’m excited to be part of Ms. Crelin’s new venture; she’s a fantastic editor, and I have no doubt she’s putting together a treat.

There are also a few stories in the writing queue. Somewhere in between all this stuff, I’m hoping to get some work done on at least some of them.

So, Kudzu is not dead, but it’s taking a back seat to some other stuff that’s a bit more pressing. I hope to get back to it soon, and bring this grand adventure to it’s inevitable conclusion. In the meantime, come visit us at Unlikely Story, and check out the further adventures of yer humble author at http://www.kappamaki.com.

 

Kudzu, Book VII, Chapter 49

Kudzu, a Novel

Book VII: As Yet Untitled

Chapter 49

 

They spent the night in the back room of Calin’s Pub. Not the office, but the back room behind the semi-concealed door.

Sir Reginald remembered that Calin kept a card table and some chairs there for less-than-licit gaming on Friday nights. There were no cards there now, though, and no card table. Instead, there was a small, single bed with a lumpy mattress and a couple of dog beds, a refrigerator and small pantry of dry goods, and a locked gun cabinet.

One more place where his memories diverged from reality.

Calin let them in after closing up for the night. He left the key to the gun cabinet with Albert.

“Ah, now this brings back memories, eh, Reggie?” Albert said. He’d been saying that all night, growing more maudlin each time Calin refilled his glass. “I call the paisley bed.”

He took the larger of the two dog beds for himself. He circled it a few times and then settled in, curled in a ball. “Though it’s not the same without Mileva.” He draped his tail over his eyes.

Sir Reginald sighed, and laid his coat over the cold linoleum tiles. He rolled the other dog bed into a makeshift pillow, but it sprung open on him. He tried folding it instead, which worked slightly better.

“Should we give the old guy the bed?” Kevyn asked. She laughed and flopped back on the mattress.

“Get up,” Murphy said.

Other than a few whispered words exchanged with Calin, it was the first she’d spoken since changing out of the hideous orange prison uniform, and into a far more fetching combination of jeans and a black t-shirt. She’d gone into Calin’s office angry and confused, and come back out thoughtful and — if Sir Reginald wasn’t misreading her — upset. Distressed. She wouldn’t speak to anyone, just sat and drank. It was because of the note, he was sure. She hadn’t shown it to him, and he hadn’t pried, but if he was going to go back into the past at some point in the future to leave her a note, he’d need to find out what it said.

Unless he wasn’t the one who wrote it. Absurd. Who else could it have been?

“Get up,” Murphy repeated.

“What? You’re not serious, are you?”

“Yes.” Murphy grabbed Kevyn’s arm and pulled.

She was, Sir Reginald saw, quite strong for her size, and he was suddenly grateful that she hadn’t resisted the escape. Kevyn seemed just as surprised, as she found herself up on her feet and falling into Murphy’s arms.

Murphy shifted her to the side and caught up the blankets that draped the bed, tossing them at Sir Reginald.

“He needs them more,” Murphy said.

“Yeah, but this is all his fault,” Kevyn said. She clung unnecessarily to Murphy’s arm.

“Indubitably,” Sir Reginald said, as he clumsily folded the blankets into a makeshift mattress, or at least a layer of padding between himself and the floor. He was drunk enough that it was a challenge. “Ms. Vaughn has a point. It is all my fault.”

“Shut up and get settled,” Murphy said. “Lights out in one minute.”

Sir Reginald snorted a laugh as he lay down and pulled his coat over himself. “Ms. Murphy, should I ever find myself incarcerated, it would be a great pleasure to have you as my jailor.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange,” Murphy said. She killed the lights.

Sir Reginald cleared his throat. “Ms. Vaughn, you can stop giggling now.”

~

It was cold.

Kevyn shivered under the thin sheet, and momentarily cursed Sir Reginald for taking the blankets. But that wasn’t fair. Murphy was right: it would be colder, and far less comfortable, on the floor. And besides, unlike Sir Reginald, she had a beautiful woman to keep her warm.

She shifted, trying to bring more of her body into contact with the sleeping Murphy. For warmth.

~

Kevyn woke spooned up against Murphy’s back, her face nestled in the hollow of her neck, pillowed on soft hair.

She breathed the scent of Murphy’s hair and tried to get back to sleep. Murphy’s skin was soft and warm under her hand where… Her hand was under Murphy’s shirt; she could feel her ribs under her fingers, and the underside of Murphy’s left breast lay against the top of her thumb.

Kevyn’s left arm was squashed uncomfortably between them, half asleep. She shifted, raising her arm until it pillowed her head, bringing her body closer to Murphy’s, breasts pressed flat against shoulder blades, and her right hand… her right hand had shifted, of its own accord, to cup Murphy’s breast.

The crease of her palm was, quite suddenly, the most sensitive spot on her body. A newly discovered erogenous zone. Murphy’s nipple was electric against her skin. She moved her hand as slowly as she could, rolling the nipple gently under her hand.

No. This was wrong. Kevyn held her breath and slowly slid her hand off Murphy’s breast and down to her belly.

“What are you doing?” Murphy said, her voice a whisper.

Kevyn couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know,” she said, when she could.

“You should figure it out,” Murphy said.

Murphy shifted slightly. Had she pressed her hips back against Kevyn’s? Was it an invitation? Or just a coincidence as Murphy tried to get more comfortable on the lumpy, old mattress?

Under her hand, she could feel the soft thumpthump of Murphy’s heart, and her breathing, belly tense but not quite quivering.

Waiting to see what Kevyn would do.

~

In the morning, Sir Reginald was gone. He’d left his coat behind, spread out over the folded blankets he’d been using as a mattress, as if he’d slipped out from under it without disturbing it.

The strange, old raccoon, Albert, was sitting at the bar, packing something that definitely didn’t smell like tobacco into a pipe, when Kevyn and Murphy found their way out of the back room.

“Your shirt’s on backward,” he said.

“It is?” Murphy glanced at the inside of her collar.

“No, no, the new girl. Kevyn.”

“Woman,” Kevyn said, but she blushed. As if someone with a raccoon’s nose couldn’t tell exactly what they’d done the night before, and again that morning, without needing to see their disheveled clothes or hair.

That is, if they hadn’t kept both Albert and Sir Reginald awake half the night. They’d tried to be as quiet as possible. Murphy didn’t remember making any noise, at least.

It was cute, Murphy decided. As a prison guard, she’d seen enough that it seemed just human nature: people in close spaces made do with the sort of privacy created by people looking the other way. She’d had the responsibility of having to judge consent before looking away, so she’d seen plenty.

Enough, apparently, that Kevyn hadn’t noticed her lack of experience. Or at least, hadn’t commented on it.

“Where’d Sir Reginald go?” Murphy asked.

Albert shrugged. “I stopped asking that question years ago.”

“Well, when will he be back, then?”

“That question, too.”

“The real question,” Kevyn said, “is what do we do now?”

Albert handed the pipe to her.

“My recommendation is that we get properly stoned.”

He passed her his lighter.

“Seriously?” she said. But she put the pipe to her lips and touched the flame to it. “Stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” she said, in a cloud of smoke.

She held the pipe out to Murphy.

Murphy shook her head. “They do random drug testing at…” Work? There was no work. She had no job, and didn’t have to get drug tested, not unless they got caught. And then she’d be on the other side of the bars, and it wouldn’t really matter. “Shit. Give me that.”

Albert giggled. “Now that’s the Murph I know and love.”

They passed the pipe around a couple times, until Murphy felt the edges of her brain go fuzzy. Time to stop. Fuzzy on the edges was just the right brainspace to focus on the center. On what was important.

“No more for me,” she said. She slid off her barstool and headed for the back room. She couldn’t resist running her fingers through Kevyn’s hair as she passed, and trailing them down the back of her neck.

Kevyn’s breath caught, and she moved as if to follow, but Murphy shook her head.

“Bathroom break,” she said.

She needed a place to be alone, and think.

Yesterday, I Will

Tags

short story

Once upon a time, I wrote a story for a writing contest. The theme was that every story had to have the same title; how we interpreted it was up to us. So I wrote a story. I sent it in. I never heard anything back. Some time later, I ran into one of the judges and asked him about it. “Oh, that one,” he said. “We couldn’t figure out how to read it. Sorry. Maybe if it came with reading instructions?”

Somewhere in the madness of getting a new car 2 weeks back, I managed to get tick-bit. Last week was a haze of flu-like symptoms, fevers, aching joints, and a headache that let me get pretty much nothing creative done.

So instead of Kudzu, you’ll get that contest story. I trust y’all are clever enough to figure out how to read it.

by Bernie Mojzes

Yesterday, I will be brave.

It was a suicide mission from the start. I knew that. We all knew that. But what other options were there? These are the times that try men’s souls, as they say. I’d met Sergeant Myers’ squad in the city. They were pinned down by warbot fire from two directions. One soldier was pressed into a doorway. The others were trapped behind two cars. I’d been doing what I could against the mechanistic monstrosities, with what little I had at my disposal. Saving the soldiers meant giving up every advantage I’d cobbled together since the invasion started, but I couldn’t just sit back and watch them die. I kamikazed my Hummer right into the cluster of warbots, jumping out at the last minute. The pavement ripped at my clothes and skinned my knees, but it was a small price to pay. I clutched my only other significant asset to my chest as I rolled. It would be needed in a minute. It worked like a dream. The warbots turned and fired at the Hummer, and the gas tank blew just as it plowed through them. Time to pin down the other side. I got to my knees and lifted the rocket launcher to my shoulder. This wouldn’t stop them, but it might hold them off long enough to get the squad to safety. One of the bots exploded. Two others spun crazily, damaged by the blast. The squad hefted their payload and we ran for their ship.

They were pulling out, leaving us behind. Not that there were many of us left. The warbots had seen to that. Alliance ships had come in, guns blazing, blasting the bots to pieces. But it was too little too late. There wasn’t much left to save, and what victories they’d had were sure to be short-lived. I ran as fast as I could and launched myself at the hatch of the nearest ship as it was lifting off. “Don’t leave me!” I begged. “Please don’t leave me behind!” A big guy with a shaved head pointed his blaster at my face, and I almost let go. But the warbots were swarming behind us. “Let go so we can take off,” he said. “Please!” I cried. “I don’t wanna die!” Another soldier pushed the first one aside and extended a massive hand. It engulfed my whole arm, and he pulled me into the ship like a sack of flour. The hatch shut and the shields went up. Something sizzled. It was the sound of the warbot’s weaponry disintegrating against the shields. “Get us out of here,” called the soldier who had pulled me in, “before they bring in the heavy artillery.” My stomach pitched queasily as we lifted and swerved. He turned to me. “You,” he said. “Keep quiet and stay out of the way, or I’ll personally drop you out of this boat.” I nodded and hugged myself. Below us, the bots were destroying everything. A second slower, and I’d have been one more statistic.

Yesterday, I will be cool. And collected.

Sergeant Myers was a brutally effective man. He’d lost half his men, including his commanding officer, retrieving the EMP bomb. Even so, once I’d sprung them from the trap, they maintained excellent discipline, and left a swath of burning and shattered warbots in their wake. When we got to the ship, Myers turned to me. “I know you can fire a gun,” he said, “but can you follow orders?” “Yes, sir,” I said. I even saluted. “Then you’re drafted. Get on and let’s get the hell out of here.” The assault on The Citadel was brutal. In the future, it will certainly be compared with the D-Day invasion, or the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the Battle of Thermopylae. We flung ourselves at The Citadel’s defenses, thousands of light airships, each with a squad of brave soldiers and an EMP bomb. We were Army, and Marines, and Navy, and Air Force. We were American and Russian and Chinese and Israeli and Syrian. For the first time in the history of the world, all of us working and fighting together. And one by one, airbots and anti-aircraft rockets took us out. And then it happened — the one thing nobody had expected. The one thing that nobody had even dreamed possible. The Citadel turned on its defensive grid: the plasma shield that DOD engineers had determined physically impossible a decade ago. I don’t know how many ships disintegrated immediately, or how many weren’t able to change course fast enough to avoid the plasma field. We were lucky. We were inside the thing when it went on. Just a little too close. It ripped our ship open and we dropped like a rock. I don’t know how she did it, but our pilot was able to get a little bit of control back before we hit the ground. If there’s anyone who deserves a medal, it’s Mladshiy Leytenant Tosha Federov. I wish I could thank her personally. But when I regained consciousness, there were only two of us left alive. And Sergeant Myers only lived long enough to explain how the EMP bomb worked, and what needed to be done.

It was chaos. I didn’t understand what was happening. The sergeant barked orders. Everyone scurried to obey. They strapped a large, metal box down to the floor and prepared their weapons. I kept my head down and tried my best to be invisible. And then the shooting started. The ship bucked and spun, and things exploded all around us. On the screens I could see other ships like ours, all weaving to avoid rockets from the ground, and fire from the airbots. Something exploded very near us, and suddenly I was looking right out at the open air. I was covered in something hot and wet. Pieces of one of the soldiers hung from his harness. I didn’t want to know where the rest of him was. We dropped fast. I guess that’s what saved us. A loud electric hum filled the air, and then there were explosions. Hundreds of them. Through it all, we dropped like a rock. Anything that wasn’t tied down flew up in the air, and then was sucked out through the hole in the hull. I was certain we were going to die. But at the last minute the pilot managed to regain some control. I heard the engines roar, and everything became heavier than I could imagine. I couldn’t even swallow, I was so heavy. That’s probably what kept me from throwing up. And then there were trees whipping past us. I watched them through the hole in the side of the ship. A constant stream of curses in Russian and English came from the cockpit. The engines screamed, and the wind was louder than anything I’d ever heard. Then there were buildings whipping past us. The screaming got louder. And then I realized that the Sergeant had his pistol aimed at my face. “Shut up!” he was yelling. “Shut the hell up or I swear to God I’ll shoot you!” The screaming was me. I don’t know if he’d really have shot me. One of the wings touched something, and then we were spinning like a top. And that’s how we hit the ground. It’s a miracle we all lived.

Yesterday, I will be strong.

The EMP bomb was heavy, but built for mobility. Most of the weight was batteries, massively powerful and designed to discharge completely with devastating results. About the size of a large dog crate, it weighed maybe five hundred pounds, but it had six hydro-pneumatic wheels that kept the thing rolling smoothly and level even when going over uneven surfaces, like debris, or stairs. I wrestled the thing out of its harness and got it out of what was left of the ship. I took only a few steps with it before realizing that the thing was too unwieldy to handle alone. I was in enemy territory, all alone, surrounded by hostile warbots. I was well-armed — I had salvaged two pistols, a half-dozen grenades, and three blasters with explosive rocket-propelled ammo — but none of it would do me a damn bit of good if it wasn’t in my hand when the warbots attacked. It was a longest fifteen minutes of my life. I worked feverishly, scavenging seat harnesses, cable and pieces of metal. All the while listening for the inevitable mechanical whir of impending death. I used a headrest to brace against my hips, and when I was done, I was able to hold a blaster in my hands while pushing the bomb along. If I needed to steer it, I could pull on the cables that I’d attached to the front end, left or right. I could scarcely breathe as I made my way up Hagood Avenue toward the thing that had grown out of Summerall Field. Warbots could be anywhere, behind any abandoned car, inside any building, on any rooftop. They could come at me from any direction. I didn’t dare blink. In retrospect, carrying the gun at that point was pointless. I was in the open, indefensible. One shot and they’d swarm. That’s what they do. They swarm, and they kill everything that breathes. And now that the defense grid had been activated, I was the only person in the world who could do anything about it. The fate of the world was on my shoulders. With slippery palms, I made my way to the Hagood Gate.

Move, move, move! Sergeant Myers slapped us all out of our stupor. My head was still spinning as I stumbled out of the wreckage. I fell to my knees and lost the contents of my stomach. The sergeant kicked me. “Get the hell out of the way!” Two of the soldiers were dragging the big box out of the ship. It hissed when they put it down. The other soldier helped the pilot out of the cockpit. There was blood on her uniform and she gritted her teeth in pain. The sergeant frowned when he saw her. “Leave me,” the pilot said. “There is no time.” I saw that her left hand had been crushed, and her left ankle was bent at an odd angle. A lot of blood was spurting from a gash in her calf. The sergeant’s face was stony. “Taylor, you’re on triage.” The soldier who had first waved a gun at me nodded. Myers turned to me. “You, whatever your name is, you stay with Taylor and Federov, and when she’s able to move, you help her walk. Follow us and provide support. Elkins and Oh, you’re with me.” The three of them took the box and moved down the street at a jog. One of them pushed the box. The other two had their blasters drawn and were scanning for warbots. They headed toward the large building at the end of the road, and soon they vanished from sight. I waited to hear the sound of gunfire, but it never came. Taylor worked quickly. He cut the pilot’s pant leg off, then tied a bandage tightly above her knee, using a metal rod to tighten it until the blood stopped flowing. He put a bandage on the wound, and then apologized to the pilot. Then he straightened her foot. I threw up again. When I was done, Federov’s leg had been splinted, and she was up on her other foot, leaning heavily on Taylor. Her face was ashen. “C’mon, boy,” Taylor said. “Time to earn your keep.”

Yesterday, I will be fast.

There are only two ways into The Citadel. Electric fences and mines ring the former military college, and motion sensors tethered to automated gunnery towers dissuade casual intrusion. And that was before The Citadel declared war on its creators. The defenses are certainly stronger — and more deadly — now. The Hagood Gate stood closed, and lasers dotted my chest and head as I approached. One false move and I was dead. Lacking the force to overwhelm the Gate, I had very few options left. So I followed Sergeant Myers’ final orders. I emptied the Sergeant’s forms of ID from my pack and made sure every piece was in order. I fed Sergeant Myers’ military ID into the machine. Then, when I was prompted, I held his head up and pressed his open eye to the retinal scanner. I held my breath while it processed. The Gate opened. I hardly believed my luck. I’d been so shocked and appalled by Sergeant Myers’ order to take his head with me that I’d almost disobeyed. But I’d made a promise, back when I joined the squad. An oath. I would follow orders. No matter what. And it saved my life. “It’s a different system,” Sergeant Myers had said. “Complexity created a monster determined to destroy us, but that same complexity means that there’s systems that it isn’t fully aware of. I walked through the Hagood Gate as if I belonged there. I put Sergeant Myers’ head back in my pack, just in case, and headed toward The Citadel, rising like a pewter pyramid from the middle of campus. I made it there without incident. It was only once I was inside that things started getting difficult.

The pilot was heavier than she looked. She couldn’t put any weight at all on her left foot, and couldn’t even hold on to my shoulder to support herself. It took a little while to get a rhythm going, but once we did, we got so we could move at a moderate hobble. Taylor went ahead of us, scanning the buildings and bushes and cars. Nothing. Eventually, we reached the Hagood Gate. The Gate was closed, and all three of us stood, targeted, in its yawning maw. Taylor dug in his pocket and produced his military ID. “This had better work,” he muttered, as he fed it into gate. The screen asked for him to set his eye to the sensor. Then it authorized him. He fed it Federov’s ID, and mine, and told the Gate we had temporary visitation permits. It spat out day passes, and opened. We hurried through, before it could change its mind. We were close, now, and we had reason to believe that the rest of the team had made it this far as well. “We’d have found the bomb,” Taylor said. “The casing is nano proof.” We were halfway to The Citadel itself, rising like a pewter pyramid from the middle of campus, when we heard gunfire. It was muffled, as if it was coming from inside, but unmistakeable. “Hurry!” Taylor gestured impatiently. “We’ve got to help them.” Federov did her best, even though each fevered step brought tears to her eyes and a whimper to her lips. But she didn’t complain. “I can’t go any faster, goddamn it,” I said. Taylor turned to look at me. He opened his mouth to say something. And then he was hit. The nanoshot splattered on his hip and spread its pseudopods over him as it began to disassemble him. He didn’t scream. Not yet. Instead, he fired at the things that had killed him. I heard bullets penetrate metal. “Run,” Taylor said, agony etched into his face. “Now!” I let go of the pilot and ran.

Yesterday, I will be smart.

The doorway to The Citadel was open. I didn’t hesitate. But I was cautious. I watched for traps, for hidden doors, and for ambush. It wasn’t long in coming. Three warbots blocked the path to the core datacenter. They fired as soon as the EMP bomb came into view. Two of the shots hit the wall. One hit the EMP casing and slid harmlessly off, neutralized by the casing’s antibots. I tossed a grenade around the corner, and when the echoes faded, there was silence. All three warbots had been destroyed. That was when the real fun started. They gathered in front of me. When one blaster emptied, I grabbed another from the makeshift holster I’d built into the harness. I dodged the nanoshot, and returned fire. And one by one they fell. I used the EMP’s casing as cover, and returned fire. And one by one they fell. I pushed my way down one hallway after another. Down one staircase after another. Deeper into the heart of The Citadel. And still the warbots came. And still they fell. I ran out of grenades. I emptied all the blasters. I held them off with a pistol while I reloaded the blasters, and then kept going. And then Sergeant Myers saved my life one last time. Warbots had snuck up behind me. The nanoshot hit me in the back and started to spread its corrosive tendrils. But it hit my pack, the one that I carried because Sergeant Myers ordered me to, and I was able to shrug out of it before the goo reached me. By the time I dispatched my attackers, Sergeant Myers’ head was gone, reduced to its component molecules. After that, there was no more time to play it safe. The warbots were ahead of me, and they were behind me. I had no choice but to run, spraying bullets in front of me, and praying I didn’t miss. And then, suddenly, almost anticlimactically, I was there.

The doorway to The Citadel was open. I didn’t hesitate. Ahead of me was the sound of gunfire. Behind me the warbots were swarming. Taylor had stopped screaming. I could imagine the shapeless lump of his body lying on the pavement as the nanobots took him apart. I’d seen it back home enough times. It was like a super-accelerated cancer. It was like dropping someone in a vat of bleach. Federov was still screaming. Some things you never get used to, no matter how many times you hear them. I followed the sounds of gunfire, down the hall, down an escalator that was pointlessly still running, and further. I came across shattered warbots, smoking ruins of machines that twitched on the floor. Nano-goo was everywhere. There was nano-goo on the walls, and some on the floors. I was very careful not to touch any of it. Still I ran, and I prayed that Myers had been thorough as he pushed his way through the Citadel’s defenses. Then the shooting stopped. I stopped short, waiting. Listening. Nothing. No shots. But also no screams. I risked a shout. “Myers? You there?” “Yeah. Follow the wreckage and you’ll find us. You sound close enough. We’ll wait for you.” I found them in less than five minutes. “Where’s Taylor and Federov?” Myers grabbed me by the shirt and shook me. “Damn it, where are they?” “It’s not my fault,” I said. Myers cursed at me and threw me to the floor. And then the nanoshot hit him, right in the face. In a second, it had wrapped its tendrils around his head. He couldn’t even scream. I grabbed the gun he dropped in front of me and started firing down the hall along with the others. When the warbots were finished, we could look at Myers again. He writhed on the floor soundlessly, until one of the soldiers put a bullet in his head. “You led them here,” she said. “You killed him.”

Yesterday, I will be a hero.

This was it. The core datacenter. The mind of the The Citadel. The heart of the doomsday device that was destroying life on Earth. It was loud. The air thrummed with electricity. With power. The war song of a hundred thousand processors, singing the death of billions. The dream of armageddon, spelled out in lights that blinked across a hundred surfaces, across monitors that drew graphs and charts that no human would ever see: the mapping of the destruction of the world. I pushed the EMP bomb into the datacenter and started to pull the casing off. Another group of warbots struck. Nano-goo slid harmlessly off the casing. I fired back and took out both warbots. After that, it was just a matter of remembering the arming process. It took a couple of tries. It seemed like an eternity had passed since Sergeant Myers whispered the instructions with his dying breath, and I prayed that I remembered all the steps, but finally, it was set up. This was it. Warbots were rolling down the hallway toward me. My gun was empty. I was out of ammo. I got hit in the leg. I’d wanted to say something poetic, something inspired. Something for the history books. Something that future generations could look back on, and remember why our future can only come from cooperation, not conflict. But the nanobots started eating my flesh, and I screamed the first thing that came to mind. “Die, you evil, fucking, bastard! Die!” I pushed the button.

As the ranking officer, Private First Class Tammy Elkins took the lead. She ordered me to push the box, while Oh watched the rear. I wrestled with the box. I didn’t want to. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide, but Elkins aimed her gun at my head. “You killed Myers,” she said. “The only reason you’re still alive right now is that you might be useful.” There were a few more firefights, all of which we won. None of us got hit. And then we were there. We pushed the box into the datacenter. Elkins and Oh pulled the casing off the bomb and started setting it up. I took the opportunity to slip back out of the datacenter. I’d seen a good hiding place just down the hall, and I took advantage of it. And when the warbots rolled down the hall, I pressed harder into my nook. Elkins and Oh were soldiers. Trained professionals. They would hear the warbots coming. The best I could do was try to keep out of the crossfire. But the datacenter was loud. And when I heard the screaming start, I moved. It wasn’t bravery that got me moving, or anger, or a sense of vengeance. It was fear. I was alone, and the people who were my only chance of living were turning into molten puddles on the floor. I emptied Myers’ gun at the warbots in the datacenter. They smoked and burst and fell over. I could hear more warbots coming down the hall. Coming for me. I ran into the datacenter. Nanoshot whizzed past my head. The bomb was there. Armed. All I had to do was push a button. Nano-goo wrapped around my knee. My pants leg dissolved, and the pain began. I pushed the button.

The thump pushed through my body and left me breathless and tingling.

The lights went out. The sounds of machinery stopped. The nanobots dripped harmlessly down my leg. Deep in the heart of The Citadel, there was, for the first time in my life, true silence, and true darkness.

The Electro-Magnetic Pulse disrupts power. It fries processors. It scrambles circuits. It wipes hard drives, erases backup tapes. It destroys data. It kills computers.

It devours the past.

They say that it doesn’t affect people. But that’s not true.

It changes everything.

Alas, no Kudzu today. But instead…

Well, there’s no kudzu today. Sorry. It’s been one of those weeks. You see, my car committed suicide.

It started with a check engine light. I drive a Scion XB – basically, a purple toaster on wheels. Drove, that is. The check engine light turned out to be a “emissions evaporation leak(small)” – which means it’s a pinhole somewhere in the parts of the car that exists between the gas cap and the engine and out to the exhaust pipe.

I was debating on whether to get that fixed or start looking for a new car sometime before inspection was due in November when it rained in my car. Yes, the windows were up. Yes, everything was closed. And yet it rained. Boxes of books were ruined. The floor became wet, and stayed wet, and with temperatures at a humid 80+ degrees, it wasn’t long before my car smelled like a locker room.

The following day, one of my tires went flat.

Fuck it, I said, I’m not putting a new tire on this car. I had until the donut spare tire died to find a new car.

While I was driving from dealer to dealer, the transmission started to fail.

So, with all the driving around and such, I had neither time nor brainspace to write. So there is no Kudzu today. But there is this:

Oh. And one more thing. Not all of last week was wasted. Some of you may have noticed that Sir Reginald sponsors a certain Journal of Unlikely Entomology, which is now in its third year of publication. Well, we’re increasing our pay rates and broadening our horizons, with Unlikely Story and the The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography. Good things to come and all that. 🙂

See you next week, when we return to our fateful characters as they muddle through the ossuary of doom.

 

The Balticon Diversion

Greetings from Balticon, where I’ve been running about madly these last few days. On Thursday we published Issue 5 of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, containing seven fantastic stories from seven fantastic authors, accompanied with seven fantastic artworks by seven fantastic artists. The only thing missing is the seven brides. And the seven brothers.

The convention has been busy. We had a book launch for A Bard in the Hand, an anthology containing a story called Embarrassing Relations, which I co-wrote with Bob Norwicke.

On Friday night I was rooked into a panel called “Erotica a la Carte: Iron Chef Erotica.” The basic idea is that 3 authors are given a secret ingredient and given exactly 15 minutes to write smut. We then read the results out loud and were judged.

It took 2 martinis to get me in front of an audience writing smut.

And then, damn it, I won. Now I have to do it again, competing against the winners from Farpoint and MarsCon. Tonight.

This will require 3 martinis.

Which I shall now endeavor to accomplish.

There will be no Kudzu chapter this week. Tomorrow I’ll post up a different story for your reading pleasure, and we’ll return to our fearful, neurotic adventurers next week.

 

Kudzu, Chapter 45

Tags

book 6, kudzu, novel

Kudzu, a Novel

Chapter 45

 

Eric Tharp had been daydreaming when he heard the voices. Or maybe really dreaming. The chamber in which he floated was so vast, so lush, it really was like something out of dream. Where the outside of the kudzu had been sprinkled with shiny black-and-silver leaves that simultaneously sparkled and sucked light, the inside was dotted with the opposite — softly luminescent leaves that filled the chamber with a pulsing, green glow. Over the hours, the lights had become hypnotic. Combine that with the fact that he’d started rationing his oxygen, and things were getting kind of trippy.

Which probably wasn’t a good sign.

But it was better than thinking about what an utter failure he’d been. He’d killed them all. First Ash and Slim, then Michael and Colleen, who had surely asphyxiated by now. And then he’d run in abject terror from whatever the fuck thing Jaworsky’s hand had become, dooming everyone else in the process.

Including himself. Without the ship, he was as good as dead.

Maybe it would be best to just take his helmet off now. Get it over with.

Because his hallucinations were haunting him.

“That’s just not right,” Slim’s ghost was saying. “That’s some creepy shit, there.”

Michael’s ghost replied, “I keep feeling like I should know what the word means, like I’ve heard it before, or read it somewhere.”

“Probably better that way,” Slim’s ghost said.

“Colleen doesn’t know what it means, either.”

“An ossuary—”

Another voice broke into Tharp’s hallucination, cutting off Slim’s ghost, a voice he’d never heard before.

“Well, don’t go spoiling the surprise for them, dearie.”

Ossuary? Tharp had been to the ossuary outside of Prague, back when he was a student, traveling for the summer. A church built of human bones. He’d had nightmares about that place for years, finding himself in it, and all the skulls had his friends and family’s faces superimposed on them. He’d never been able to watch zombie movie without imagining a real person, full of hopes and dreams and love and heartbreak, behind each decomposing face.

“Slim? Michael? Am I dreaming this?”

“Tharp?” Michael said. “Goddamn, it’s good to hear your voice.”

Tharp heard a woman’s voice in the distance. Away from the microphone. Colleen’s voice.

“Hah, that’s a first.”

“For the record, Captain, I’m glad to to hear from you, too.” Slim’s voice came high and fast in raccoony excitement.

“I don’t understand,” Tharp said. “How is this possible? There’s no way your oxygen would hold out this long.”

“Are you kidding me?” the unfamiliar voice said. “What do you think the point of growing kudzu in space was? It’s a plant. It produces oxygen. That’s what plants do.”

Tharp’s brain stuttered, trying to grasp what was happening. He felt like he should respond, but what do you say to that?

“What about the others?” Slim asked. “Amelia? Jaworsky? Talk to me.”

Tharp bit his lip. He tasted blood. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. This was a conversation he couldn’t have. This time, there was no hesitation. He pulled his helmet off in a quick movement. If luck was with him, he was in a vacuum, and would die a quick death without ever having to face the consequences of his cowardice.

Luck wasn’t with him, and he gasped, lightheaded in the heady, rich air.

~

“So here’s the plan,” Amelia said, half her body still inside the wall. “These little guys are mechanical, yeah, but they’re not really put together in any rational sense. They’re not built, not motorized, per se. They’re mobile and self-propelling and all that, but there’s nothing I can think of that allows for fiber optics to move independently. Fiber is just a thin strip of glass in a plastic sheath. No moving parts.”

“Tell that to these fuckers,” Susan said. “I can’t get them to stop staring at me.”

“Yeah, so something else is going on there, and I haven’t got a clue what it is. But. They’re able to generate a magnetic field that lets them stick to metal surfaces. Which means—”

“An electricity source. Brilliant. So there’s a battery in there.”

“Or a tiny generator. Either one works for our purposes.”

Susan looked at the creatures she was holding. They were… hand sized. “Not to rain on your parade,” she said, “but there’s no way these things have enough power to open that door.”

Amelia extracted herself from the wall.

“Don’t need it to open the door. That’s what you’re for.”

She returned several tools to her belt pouch and rummaged for something else.

“This will do,” she said, extracting a heavy wrench. “All I need is enough power to reset the locking codes. Then we can manually override the door. Give me a hand, here.”

“Um. My hands are kinda full right now.”

Amelia’s laughter was halfway between a bark and a chitter. “No, I mean give me one of those hands.”

The Jaworsky-hand struggled as Amelia braced it on its side against the wall. She swung the wrench hard against the base of the thumb. Susan winced at the sharp crack. Her own thumb ached in sympathetic pain.

Amelia shucked the hand quickly, leveraging it open with a screwdriver and popping the back of the hand off. The hand went into spasms. Amelia poked at its innards.

The other one, the one Susan was still holding, started struggling frantically, eyestalks thrashing. It clicked its fingers together, until Susan used her free hand to hold them still.

“Yeah, this should work,” Amelia said.

She extracted some pre-stripped wires from her pack, jabbing them one by one into the guts of the hand, and then twisting them tight.

She repeated the process with the second hand, though it struggled more strenuously than the first. Its fiber-stalk eyes searched wildly into the darkness behind them, as if it was waiting — hoping — for something. For rescue? Susan shined her light out into the darkness, but the other hands were all keeping well away from them. It took Amelia three strikes with the wrench this time, with all the squirming the hand was doing, to crack it open.

Once the two hands were gutted and wired together, Amelia crawled back into the access panel with two of the wires.

“Moment of truth,” she said.

There was a spark, and a sizzle. Both hands jerked, and then became immobile. Something inside the wall clicked.

“Holy shit,” Amelia said. “That actually worked. I can’t believe that actually fucking worked!”

“So now what?” Susan asked.

“What are the hands doing?” Amelia asked, as she extracted herself from the wall.

“Nothing. I think they’re dead.”

“No, I mean the others.”

“Just…” Susan frowned. “Nothing. They’re just watching us.”

“Eh. It could be worse. Let’s get this door open.” Amelia handed Susan a massive flathead screwdriver. “This is probably more useful than plastic piping.”

Susan fit the head into the seam of the door and tried to twist. Nothing. She couldn’t get it deep enough to get it to catch. Amelia handed her the wrench, which she used as a hammer. Was it…? Yes, it was open, just a crack. A soft, green glow shone through it.

There was a sound, coming from all around them. The click of thousands of little fingers on metal. Susan swung her light in a wide arc, but no, the hands were still keeping their distance.

She pushed the screwdriver deeper and levered the door open further. Amelia jammed the PVC tubing in the gap and pulled at it. Susan gripped the edge of the door, got her foot into the gap, and strained against it.

Slowly, it slid open, until the gap was wide enough to fit Jaworsky through. Susan’s muscles screamed at her, and she let her body sag in relief.

It was done. They were free. On the other side of the door was a vast, green forest that had once been the Beagle’s docking bay. Beyond that, the kudzu opened into a wide cavern. Luminous leaves were scattered throughout the darker foliage, creating the eerie, pulsing glow that streamed through the open door.

Fascinating, Susan thought.

“Oh, fuck,” Amelia said.

“What?”

Susan followed the cone of Amelia’s headlamp. Back into the depths of the ship.

Dark shapes moved toward them. Hundreds. Thousands. They flowed like a sea, scuttling across the walls and launching themselves through the air, converging from all sides until the sheer mass of them obscured all vision.

Bingo

Tags

bingo, short story

by Bernie Mojzes

There was a farmer.

He had this dog that tended to drink to excess. They named him Binge-O.

It was all good fun at the start. You know, social drinking, at parties and such. People noticed that Binge-O liked beer and started feeding him drinks. After a while he’d start nosing around, finishing off the dregs of lost or abandoned drinks. It was all downhill from there.

For a long time Binge-O was the life of the party. He’d help around the farm during the day, and in the evenings he’d trot down into town and hang out at the bar, where people kept him well supplied with drinks and beer-nuts all night. Sometimes he’d stagger home ‘round three in the morning. Sometimes we’d find him sleeping it off under a car or tractor, or in someone’s sheep pen.

He had a thing for sheep.

But then, he was a sheepdog, after all.

He started drinking at home. None of us really knew the extent of it, back then. He was good at hiding things. He’d stashed bottles of vodka all over the farm, buried like bones. He turned mean. He was still well-liked in town, and a lot of fun to drink with, but after a certain point something inside him would shift, something would turn ugly, and he’d get angry. People knew to keep away from him when he got like that. He’d snarl and they’d back off.

Time came when Binge-O wasn’t welcome at the bar anymore. He’d bitten a patron the night before, and when he trotted up just before nightfall they wouldn’t let him in. He barked and scratched at the door. He tried to slip in when he thought nobody was looking. He whined. It was sad, but old Tony said, “I ain’t having that damned mutt chewin’ on my customers.” He swatted at Binge-O with a broom.

I don’t think any of us realized how far gone he was. I don’t know if anyone could have helped him, in the long run, but maybe if we’d tried, things wouldn’t have ended the way they did.

They found him the next morning in the hen house. He’d killed them all, snapping their necks and mangling their bodies, before taking his own life. He lay on his side, shotgun still held between all four legs, covered in blood and feathers.

The town is still in shock.

And none of us can look his puppies in the eye. We were all complicit in this thing.

We’re all guilty.

The Path That Few Have Trod

Tags

short story, Sweeney Todd

We’re taking a between-chapter break in the Kudzu story this week. Instead, I’d like to share a different tale. An earlier version of this story appeared in 2010 in Trail of Indiscretion magazine.

by Bernie Mojzes

My name is Sweeney Todd. Horatio Sweeney Todd, my birth certificate reads; my parents, aficionados of ancient musical productions, thought the name choice funny. They called it Intellectual Humor.

I call it Irony.

For the Sweeney Todd of legend and I have very little in common. I have never been to prison. Nor have I been to Australia. I am not haunted by the apparent death of my wife (I’ve never even had a wife, nor much use for one), nor am I consumed with a need for revenge. Really, I’m quite jovial, if a bit arrogant. I do, perhaps, eat a bit too enthusiastically, and some have said that I exercise far too rarely. However, I have no patience for such things, and wear my prodigious belly with pride. Also, I do not pull teeth. Messy business, that, and best left to others.

Apart from the name, I have only one thing in common with the Sweeney Todd of legend: I am a barber.

Until last week, of course. Hence the Irony.

I should like it to be known that none of this was my idea. I feel that it is important to stress this point. It was Jennifer Cappaccio (who no doubt is at this very moment crafting a similar exposition) that began the process of making the suggestion, late on a Wednesday night, well into our third bottle of wine, a 2012 De Loach Pinot Noir, if I remember correctly.

“He’s going to provoke a war,” she told me.

He was Harvey Smith, as anyone who is bothering to read this sordid little tale already knows.

Harvey is an astounding man. Quiet and unassuming, but with an infectious grin and a persistent good humor, he has won the admiration and even friendship of both his political allies and enemies, of the American people as a whole, and even of a-political elitists — such as myself — who typically look down with contempt at those who seek their fortunes in the political arena. Unlike those with the audacity to call themselves his colleagues, he is an artistic master of the soft science of politics, and a master scientist of the art of politics. With a few statements here, a few demonstrations of intent there, Harvey Smith could manipulate the politicians into manipulating the masses into approving just about anything he wanted. It was quite elegant, really, a beautifully choreographed ballet danced upon the political landscape.

All this, and he’s just a heck of a nice guy, too.

Regardless, politics bores me. Talk to me rather of an exquisite wine, or of the fabulous new chef at Bistro Bis, or, well, just about anything else. Politics is a sure-fire cure for insomnia. Subtle as a brick, nay, as a cinder block, these political hackeries and devices. I have no patience for such clumsiness, and yet even I begrudgingly concede Harvey’s talents.

This does not mean I have any interest in discussing them.

For example, America was shocked last year when President Teller abruptly fired his closest advisor — this being the aforementioned Harvey Smith — on a trumped up ethics charge. Shocked!

Yawn.

I only mention this because it bears directly upon this tale: barely a week before his ignoble sacking, a Time Magazine poll showed that Americans would have voted Harvey into office that very evening if there had been a handy election. President Teller’s unwarranted jealousy came as a surprise to everyone, even Harvey, who, when interviewed about the results of the poll, said, “I’m not the sort of person who would do well as President. I’ll leave that to the people who want it, and just stick to doing what I do best.”

Eight months later Teller’s presidency was in ruins and, tail between his legs, Teller was begging Harvey Smith back from Tennessee to try to salvage what could be salvaged. I say all this in demonstration of the theory that one can, in fact, learn whilst asleep and/or extremely drunk, which is invariably my state when Jennifer begins these dialogues, in which I am forced to act as Interlocutor to her Socrates.

“He’s a politician,” I responded, waving my arm magnanimously. “They all start wars. That’s what they do.” Jennifer started to say something, but I spoke over her. “Find some pathetic strip of land and save it from some pathetic little dictator that we were perfectly fine with last month. That’s the way it works. It’s a rather effective and time-proven solution, I believe. There’s even a phrase about it. Something about wagging one’s dog.”

“Not start. Provoke.”

“Attack? Us? What pathetic little country would dare attack us? And if they did, would we even notice?” I refilled her glass and mine, then lifted it in toast. “To the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.”

She just stared at her wine. “No,” she said softly. “Not Grand Fenwick. China.”

“That’s absurd,” I declared. “You must have misheard.”

But I knew she hadn’t. Jennifer Cappaccio is the proprietor of the fine eatery that sits adjacent to my humble shop. She also caters gala events, and whenever politicians are involved, she makes it a point to put on a uniform and get out there to serve the guests herself. She’s not above getting her hands dirty when the situation calls for it. “People talk when they feel no one is around,” she says, “and catering staff don’t exist.”

The lovely Ms. Cappaccio shook her head. “This presidency is so damaged that there’s no way to salvage it. It’s so damaged that the whole party is losing. They already lost the House. In the next election, they’ll lose the White House and the Senate both. It’s accepted wisdom that we don’t come out too well in a war with China. So the plan is to goad China into an attack, to manipulate things to time the attack after the next election, and leave the opposition to fail in the face of the Chinese assault. Then, when all looks lost, they retake the government overwhelmingly with a promise of a successful resolution to the conflict.”

Please note that I am paraphrasing with wild abandon in the name of brevity, and because three bottles of exquisite wine do little to promote conversations of a succinct or scintillating nature.

“What is the point of promises that have no hope of fulfillment?” I asked.

“Ah, see, that’s the thing. They believe they can win.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “How do they propose to achieve this magnificent feat?”

“Nukes.” She drained her glass. I believe I blinked at her, then waved off her attempt to continue.

“Absurd,” I declared. “Absolute hogwash. I love you dearly, but you have gone completely off your rocker. No, I’ll not listen to another word.” And with that, I kissed her hand and bid her adieu.

~

The elections went as Jennifer predicted.

The following day, President Teller, in a televised speech, gave the first of his insults to the Chinese people. It was clever and subtle, designed to be highly insulting to Chinese culture, but appear innocuous to those who scarcely had enough culture to know how to spell the word. I recognized Harvey’s hand in it immediately, but chose to ignore it.

The next insult came three days later, and when the Chinese demanded an apology, President Teller instead ordered some manner of boat or ship to the area, ostensibly to provide support for people trying to do research on the Giant Sea Ferret, or some sort of creature that surely belongs more properly on a coat or lining my mittens. Whatever the excuse, it apparently irritated the Chinese government, who claimed that this put both Hong Kong and Shanghai within short-range missile range.

That evening, Jennifer invited me to dinner.

~

I fear I would be a terrible bore if I spent this time speaking merely of politics and intrigue. Instead, I should like to speak of something infinitely more interesting: art, and economics.

We are a dying breed, we hair stylists and barbers, we artisans of the blade. Who needs a barber when a coating of Fizz-Z will keep your face smooth all day? Who needs an artist’s sure hand when Do-Bots have become a household appliance? Simply enter your favorite celebrity’s image, and the Do-Bot emulates their hair on your head, with mathematical precision. Regardless of the consequences.

I fear and loathe award ceremonies.

Last year, over seventy percent of women in this country wore Nita LaCour’s hair the day after the Golden Globes. I was, of course, honored. Honored and appalled.

But I digress.

We artists have no use-value in society at large, and thus our services have become invaluable. We are a luxury. A means by which the rich and powerful express their wealth and power, and through that expression, reinforce their position.

My clients seek me out not because they need a haircut and a shave.

They seek me out because they need my haircut and shave.

 This is a responsibility I take with utmost seriousness, and bring to each client the very best I can offer, with the finest tools available. Unlike much of my competition, I do not use computer-enhanced razors or other hair-styling tools. My tools are simple: a comb, a sharp pair of scissors, a well-honed straight-razor, and a steady hand.

These tools have never failed me.

~

“I’m bringing the wine tonight,” I informed Jennifer.

The wine was, first, an exquisite Montello e Colli Asolani Rosso, followed by a rather delightful Clos du Chêne Vert. I also brought a bottle of Château de Jacques and a Chianti that I can’t remember, but we didn’t drink those. Jennifer’s contribution was a number of hors d’oeuvres, most spectacularly a dish of Kobe beef, sparingly seared, then thinly sliced and wrapped around a bit of asparagus.

I waited until we’d successfully consumed the Rosso and the food before I got down to business. It is never good to allow business to interfere with the consumption of great food.

“So,” I said, “how do they plan on winning a war with China?”

“Harvey is friends with the president of a company that has developed a prototype anti-missile device. The plan — which is already underway — is to deploy them in secret. Not by the government, but by friends of Harvey’s. The government wouldn’t even know.”

“If the government doesn’t know, how are they to use them?”

“That’s the point — they wouldn’t, not until Teller is reinstalled as president. Then the command would go out to all the devices to neutralize the enemy’s nuclear arsenal.”

“I see.” I refilled her glass. Mine sat, half-full. I refilled it as well, then reached for the next bottle, the fantastic Clos du Chêne Vert, which I opened and set aside to breathe.

“So,” she continued, “as soon as the Chinese nukes were useless, we’d launch ours. Of course, the devices would be easily captured and reverse engineered. So our attack would have to be devastating. It would need to leave no opportunity for reprisal.”

“So they’re talking about destroying all of China?”

Jennifer nodded. “Two billion dead, in East Asia alone. But that’s not all of it.” Her glass was empty again. I filled it for her, and she tasted it. “Very nice,” she approved. “Since this is a trick that can only be used once, they plan on hitting all the nuclear powers at the same time. Russia, Pakistan, India, Iran, North Korea. I’m not sure whether they’re planning on including France and Britain. There was some debate. Teller has never been fond of the French.”

“That is… inelegant.”

I looked at the bottle of wine, whose grapes are grown exclusively in Loire Valley of western France. I wondered whether the wine would taste the same if it glowed. I highly doubted it.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

Jennifer’s face darkened. “I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, but I’m going to host a dinner honoring Mr. Harvey Smith. I’ve already begun lining up guests and speakers. I’m hoping that you’d be willing to help make the Guest of Honor presentable for the occasion.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“A haircut,” she said, with a bitter smile. “And a shave.”

~

I cannot praise Jennifer Cappaccio’s efforts more highly. She spared no expense. Every course was exquisite, and she served only the very best wines from her cellar. “Tonight,” she told me, “will be nothing but the very best. No point in saving it for later, after all.” I thought she seemed a bit pale.

There were speeches, of course, even in the absence of the Guest of Honor, who had left a message that he was running late, but would be joining us in time for the main course. Speeches and entertainment. A string quartet played Shubert during the meal, and between courses a bluegrass band flown in from Tennessee fingerpicked their way through some of the more abominable music I’ve had to sit through since I last had a Gilbert and Sullivan show inflicted on me.

There was a fish course, served with a respectable white wine of a vintage that I must admit, to my shame, I do not remember. I really am not a fan of white wines, you see. President Teller himself gave a speech, praising the man that not so long ago he’d banished from the kingdom. The President spoke in grandiose terms, and the reporters dutifully recorded it all, cameras flashing. I believe that the speech was broadcast live.

Busboys cleared our dishes and the emptied glasses of white wine, set out new wine glasses. The wine waiter brought out carafes of a deep red wine, poured a bit for our Hostess, who tasted and approved, and then the wine was poured for all.

Our esteemed Hostess raised her glass as the main course was served.

“To Harvey Smith,” she said, “who has served our country well. It is our hope that we may serve him with the respect he deserves.”

The Guest of Honor was well received. My complements to the chef.

Kudzu, Chapter 39

Kudzu, a Novel

Chapter 39

It was early afternoon, and Calin was cleaning up after the last of the lunch crowd had wandered away. He looked up from washing dishes as Sir Reginald and his entourage walked into the dimly lit pub.

“Reggie,” he said, by way of greeting, wiping his hands on a towel before reaching for Sir Reginald’s favored whiskey. “Kevyn. Murphy. And, Ho! Albert, is that you hiding behind fair Kevyn’s legs? I didn’t think I’d be seeing much of you ’round here.”

“I didn’t think so either. Wasn’t my choice.”

“You know him?” Sir Reginald asked.

“You know me?” Murphy said. “What kind of sick…” She trailed off, pressed her thumbs against her mouth.

Calin sighed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of when one of you I’m talking to?”

“Which one,” Kevyn corrected.

Calin shook his head.

“There’s a change of clothes for you in the back, Murph,” he said. “Bottom left desk drawer. And a note.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Come on.” Kevyn put an arm around Murphy’s shoulders. “It’s back this way. So are the bathrooms.”

Albert hovered by the door, foot tapping nervously. He looked ready to bolt.

Calin came around the bar and crouched to something closer to raccoon height.

“Albie, lad, it was a war. People take gambles, and there’s no guarantees. I don’t blame you for what happened. Whatever I said at the time, it wasn’t your fault.”

Albert opened his mouth; Sir Reginald interrupted.

“Okay,” Sir Reginald said, “now I’m confused. You were in the war?”

Calin narrowed his eyes. He rapped his knuckles against his shin. It sounded like hard plastic. “How’d you think I got this?”

Sir Reginald looked away, and muttered something under his breath that Calin couldn’t hear. That worried him.

And Calin rarely worried.

“C’mon, Albert,” he said. “You still a Hendricks man? A nice, dry martini’s just what you need.”

Calin dragged a BeastBench™ barstool out of a storage closet and pulled it up to the bar. Albert climbed onto it and manipulated the controls to raise the seat to bar level.

“You keep them locked away,” Albert said.

“I keep them,” Calin said. He poured Albert’s drink and set it in front of the grizzled raccoon. He tapped his own glass of whiskey against Albert’s martini. “To old friends.”

Albert wiped a tear from his eye. “To old friends.”

Calin set out appropriate drinks for Kevyn and Murphy — beer and white wine, respectively — then brought Sir Reginald his customary rye whiskey.

“What’s the problem, Reg,” he asked, keeping his voice low so Albert wouldn’t be able to hear over the jukebox.

Sir Reginald hesitated. “That leg of yours,” he said. “When I last saw you, what, three days ago? Four? Whenever it was, you had both your own legs.”

Calin raised his eyebrows. “Twelve years now I’ve had this. Twelve normal years. It’s not something I hid from you. You should know me well enough to know that.”

“I know, Calin. But I don’t remember it. Something’s gone weird. Or weirder. It worries me.”

~

“This is what you call information gathering?” Kevyn asked.

Sir Reginald raised his glass to the old flatscreen mounted on the wall. “To the six o’clock news, the font of all knowledge.” He was slurring his speech.

A commercial for… Kevyn wasn’t sure what. It was one of those weirdly nonsensical ads, the one with the hypochondriac penguin. The ad played out silently on the screen; Calin had turned down the sound.

“For a species that’s afraid of talking animals,” Albert grumbled, “you all sure do like to pretend you’re not afraid of us.”

Albert was well into his third martini, and his grumble carried more loudly than he’d wanted. Kevyn saw him tense, anticipating backlash.

There had been some second glances at Albert as the bar started to fill, but nobody had made an issue of his raccoonness. Didn’t mean he could rub it in their faces, right?But Calin’s Pub had always been a mixed bar, in every way, with a very regular clientele. Just because the war made it impractical for non-human people to patronize didn’t mean people forgot who they were, and subsequently the next generations of patrons — people like Kevyn — were those who shared that sentiment.

Still, it was enough to attract attention. One man gestured with his beer mug.

“Hey,” he said. Kevyn tried to call his name up from memory, and failed.

“Hey, raccoon. What the fuck’s your name?”

Albert turned his BeastBench to face the man, and rose up to his full height. His lips curled, not quite a snarl. Not yet. “Albert,” he said, through clenched teeth.

“Albert, you a man who speaks the fucking truth.” He raised his mug, and his voice. “To Albert, who speaks the fucking truth!”

The cheer reverberated through the pub, and Calin was so busy refilling glasses that he almost failed to turn up the sound when the commercials ended.

~

“Welcome back to UBC News, with Kathleen Nin and Roberto Manning. Now, as you probably know, after a daring burglary attempt on an abandoned Gastenbourg University building revealed a functional telescope, UBC News has been working with University officials to arrange for exclusive access. In just a few minutes, we will be bringing you the first live feed of images from space in fifteen years.”

“As you know, Bob, the only high-resolution images we have had from space for the past fifteen years have been those released by the government. In the chaotic months after the Kudzupocalypse, the government assumed possession of all known surviving observatories. Exactly how the Gastenbourg observatory escaped notice is still under investigation, but University lawyers have rejected claims that the McAdams-Caine Emergency Protocols extend beyond the emergency.”

“Only makes sense, Kathy. So what should we expect to see?”

“Well, Bob, right now scientists have confirmed government reports that the mystery spacecraft has disappeared.”

“Now how does something that big just up and disappear, Kathy?”

“It’s not magic, at least according to the scientists. Dr. Michelle Smith will be with us later tonight to talk about the spacecraft, and where it is. Right now she’s working with our film crew to get the live feed going, which seems to have run into some snags.”

“While we wait for the feed, let’s give our viewers a sneak preview of what to expect.”

“Well, it’s very exciting. After five years of radio silence from the Greenmoon, the kudzu ball orbiting the Earth, our reporters have confirmed the presence of at least two new residents. We’ll be trying to get a good look at them, while they are still visible.”

“And we have our feed, Kathy. Let’s see what’s going on.”

~

The bar quieted as the image of the Greenmoon filled the screen. In the center of the image was the old ORBISTAT station, still visible on the fringe of the kudzu. ORBISTAT was notable for its excessively large observation sphere — an unnecessary luxury, apparently, for all but the French.

As they watched, the screen shifted, jagged movements, triangulating on the sphere, and when the image settled, it was larger, but out of focus.

“I could do a better job of driving that thing,” Kevyn said.

“Indubitably,” said Sir Reginald.

Something could be seen in the middle. Possibly people. The focus improved. A little.

From the speakers: “Let’s see if we can get a closer look, Bob.”

The screen went black, and then ORBISTAT’s glass sphere filled the screen.

Definitely people. There were two of them. And…

“Now that’s not something you see on network T.V. every day, Kathy.”

The bar broke out into a cheer.

~

When the broadcast resumed, there were bars of brown cardboard, ragged and hastily cut, being held over parts of the image. There was no mistaking what was going on. A naked woman with short/shorn hair was lying face down, pressed against the glass. She wore the scars of some serious burns on the left side of her body. A man with dreadlocks moved on top of her. One piece of cardboard blocked the view of the woman’s breasts. The other covered the thatch of her pubic hair, and the long rod that thrust between her splayed legs.

There were boos from the bar.

“Fuck censorship!” someone shouted.

The woman was saying something. It was unclear whether the man was replying; his face was buried in the curve of her neck, obscured from view.

“Welcome back to UBC news, and thanks to Jill Uberth, whose quick thinking got us back on the air. Well, Bob, so much for the idea that this broadcast would answer all our questions. It seems like it’s only creating new ones.”

“Like, ‘What do you think she’s saying, Kathy?'”

There was a hitch in Kathy Nin’s voice, as if she was distracted, and hadn’t immediately heard the question. She recovered well.

“Probably something that’s never been said to you, Bob. But we don’t have to guess. Jimea Gonzalez is here to help us out. Jimea close captions our regular broadcasts, and she’ll be giving us a transcript of what’s being said.”

~

Michael.

Michael, look at it. Isn’t it beautiful?

There are still people down there. Lights. Civilization. We really did it. We made it home.

~

“Our research team just sent a note that the Beagle, the spacecraft seen near the Greenmoon this week, disappeared sixty-five years ago. Looks like they made it back alive.”

“That… That’s heartbreaking, Bob. To come so far, for so long, only to end up on a satellite that’s going crash to the Earth in less than a year. Wait. She’s saying something else.”

~

Michael. Michael, don’t cum inside me.

~

Kathy Nin’s voice laughed nervously from the television’s speakers, before turning to alarm.

“Jesus Fuck!”

The image on the screen shook violently and disappeared, replaced by a twisting roil of kudzu. In the instant before they were thrust out of view, the bodies of the two Beagle survivors were visible being tossed around the room.

The image began zooming out.

“Someone tell us what happened. Someone fucking get Gastenbourg on the line—”

“We’ve got Dr. Michelle Smith of Gastenbourg University on the phone. Can you hear us, Dr. Smith? Can you tell us what happened?”

“Yes, yes I’m here.” The scientist’s voice sounded ragged. “It appears that something has struck the kudzu satellite, the Greenmoon. Something with significant mass.”

“Can you tell us what it was, Doctor?”

“Of course not,” the voice snapped. “You’ve seen everything we saw.” A little calmer: “We can’t say anything for sure at this time, but my first guess would be the ship, the OPEV Beagle. Which is bad news for everybody trapped up there.”

“Why is that, doctor?”

The exhalation coming across the phone line made it clear what Dr. Smith thought of anyone who needed to ask that question.

“The Greenmoon is crashing into the Earth. Anything that pushes it, even slightly, further into Earth’s gravity well accelerates the timeframe dramatically.”

“How dramatically?”

“I don’t think we’ll know for a week or two, but… well, it could be six months, or as little as one. Either way, it’s not long enough to mobilize a rescue. All these people are as good as dead.”

End of Book V