365 tomorrows

“I know your face.” whispered the tiny woman as Nathan passed her workstation. He glanced at her cube, where she was manipulating objects in her field. He looked at her field and nodded.

“You do good work here.” Please, he thought, take the warning. He flicked a signal with his left hand, asking her to be silent. Then he noticed the mark on the back of her neck and he knew that she was new and hadn’t had enough time to learn all the hand signs, which were taught in secret, slowly passed from prisoner to prisoner. The tattooed mark told Nathan that the woman had only been here for a few weeks, that she had been arrested for civil disobedience and undermining the government. The mark told him that this tiny bronze woman had two children.

“There are those of us that remember, your movement has not died.” she said, taking one hand out of the field, dropping the virtual object she had been manipulating.

“I’m an overseer. We are criminals. We are nothing now.”

“They say it was you, not Elina who lead the campaign. They love you.”

Elina, the voice of the revolution. Nathan shivered hearing her name, and the memories it brought with it. “Stop.” Nathan begged.

Her voice rose, a powerful alto, ringing in the stone hall. “Isra will be free. The so-called union of planets cannot stop us. The people believe in freedom! ”

A loud, deep voice boomed up from the floor, the computer had caught their conversation “Resident 204-3318, you have been noted for unrelated work discussion and you are hereby summoned for recoding.” The floor beneath the woman became suddenly soft and she fell from her stool. Nathan stepped back from the warm flood. The woman cried out and scrabbled for a handhold, but everything she touched melted under her fingers. She called to him as she sank into the floor.

“They write your name on the city walls! They sing, they are singing! Isra! Isra!” The woman was suddenly yanked downwards, her eyes still open as the floor consumed her.

Nathans cheek was bleeding in his mouth. He forced himself to breathe and when the floor cooled and hardened he turned and left, ignoring the hand signals of the workers around him.

“Tend to your duties.” he said, surprised at how cold his voice sounded.

There was a certain quiet to this planet. The millions of years had led to a malfunction of tectonic waves on Ritus-112. Plates shifted and now allowed the sight of black igneous rock. which spanned the wide crevice at the depths of what used to be a Class 3 water mass.

A being with neither a spine nor eyes could feel as the tools melted through the rock to expose any unclassified organic material. Ritus-112 could sense past the rock, but the effort was one that he had chosen not to take. Soon enough the Illumna would have its answer.

One red stain against a sea of black would spread into the cracks and alert the hovering being. Its skin made of light shifted as its attention gathered towards the area of red. For weeks they had excavated numerous unnatural formations with only a Level 2 category of complexity. Most of the history of the planet had been lost millions of years ago, but some things remained. In the dirt, which had spent cells of radiation injected into most particles, they found the outlines of creatures that once created.

All that were aware of the Illumna knew that any being that had the power to create was something of a wonder, so they sought out any single organic cell that had not been reduced to the living status of the beings on the planet; insentient carbon. Coming upon the spot of red, Ritus-112′s form fluctuated to appear most pleased with the findings.

Already, it had begun to dissect the impure from the pure and to find logic at the speed of existence. The code had been unlocked because Ritus-112 knew it would be simple. A being made up of the models of existence was small, but still holding organic material. While the host specimen was quite dead, a containment receptacle upon its back held the base compound for the creators.

After the code had been unlocked, Ritus-112 began to energize the construction by borrowing from the light-stream. Its essence began to shimmer, then filter through the tools into the droplets of organic material. Soon there would be a rise in the heat to accelerate the replication process. A structure-built form that built amplifications which in turn built perception and awareness.

Before the being had even awoken, Ritus-112 had read its every thought, known its every memory. The receptacle would be called the mosquito, and the creator would call itself… human.

Sol lived with her guardians on a lake of ice. Every day she would strap on skates and push her way across a mile wide lake to her school, which was inside a giant crystal dome. All the children on her ice world were guarded by slim solemn men and women who watched each other as fiercely as they watched the children.

Today was eighth day, Shipfall, when the white ships would land from the sky and bring food, supplies and teachers with new stories and games. Many students had one or more teachers just for them, and each student learned different things. Sol was the only one who seemed to get a taste of everything. She didn’t have nearly as work as Lussurioso, the small boy with gold skin, nor did she have as much freedom as slender WanWen, who ran around the compound like a wild child.

She stuck her hands in her pockets and felt for the paper note that Lussurioso had slipped her. All it said was: Second floor bathroom, Shipfall. She didn’t know how Lussurioso was going to meet her, since kids weren’t allowed in the bathrooms together. Still, her curiosity got the best of her, and she wanted to know what Lussurioso had to tell her. Lussurioso thought of the best strategies in the games they played. Although he wasn’t athletic, everyone always wanted him on their team.

The guards waited outside while she went into the bathroom. She ran some warm water over her stiff hands and watched the door. She should have known better. A ceiling tile moved, and she jumped.

“Lussurioso?” she whispered.

The ceiling tile was pulled away, to reveal the golden face of Lussurioso.

“Sol. We have to talk.”

She dried her hands on her coat. “Sure. Where are your guardians?”

Lussurioso smirked. “I ditched them. They are waiting outside the bathroom in the next hall. I’ve been taking long bathroom breaks for a while now, reading books while in there, trying to build up their tolerance so they wouldn’t suspect anything when we had this meeting.”

Sol’s eyes went wide. “You’ve been planning for this?”

“For months, yes.” Lussurioso swung his legs down from the ceiling tile, on to an outcropping in the wall. He leaped, landing silently on the stone floor.

“Whoa! I didn’t know you could move like that! Why don’t you do that kind of stuff in the games?”

Lussurioso shrugged. Standing next to Sol, he only came up to her armpit. “I think you’ll find Sol, that sometimes it’s best to hide some of your abilities.”

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

“About you, and me, and why we are here. Why we don’t see our parents and why we play all these games.”

“We’re being educated.”

“Yes. We are. But I get to read more than you, and most children aren’t taught like this. Most children live with their families, they are not sent away to ice worlds.”

“Our parents want us to have the best education, and this is the best school.”

“You really believe all that? Listen to me; you have the right to know this. Sol, you are the heir to the Empire. You are the future Empress of the Known Worlds.”

Sol’s stomach twisted, like she had eaten something bad. “Are you playing a game with me Lussurioso?”

“No Sol. I’m beyond games now. It’s time that you knew, because something has happened to your mother, the Empress, and we will be moving out soon.”

“What?” Sol said, a little loudly. There was a knock on the door that made them both jump.

“Are you alright in there?” asked her female guardian.

“Yeah, just girl stuff!” called Sol. Lussurioso rolled his eyes.

Sol whispered at him furiously. “How do you know this?”

Lussurioso pulled her to the far side of the bathroom as far from the door at they could get. “I guessed when I was eight. The guards were stupid. They told me everything I needed, even when they didn’t say a thing, even when they lied. Especially when they lied. Then, this year, I hacked the system, and what I knew was confirmed.”

“If you knew all this, why didn’t you tell me earlier!”

“Because it’s dangerous to know things. Don’t worry Sol. I love you, I would never betray you, but the world out there is dangerous right now.”

Sol stepped back, stunned. “You love me?”

He took her hand. “Of course I love you Sol. They made me to love you. All the children here are your court. When you go to become Empress, they will come with you and be your advisors and your lovers and your family. Every Empress comes with a court. Most of the kids don’t know it yet, but you are our reason for being. We were all designed for our place by genetic engineers, birthed for this purpose. I was designed to be your military advisor, WanWen was made to be your lover, we are all your court.”

“You are my court?”

“Sol, next to me you are the smartest person on this world. You know this is true.”

“I knew something was going on, I just didn’t know it was this.”

Lussurioso smiled at her, a rare, genuine smile that didn’t come from beating someone in strategy or tricking an adversary. “Don’t worry Sol. You won’t face this alone. I’ll always be with you. All of us will. We will face the worlds together.”

It started at the SureSave on Fourth Avenue. Andy had been standing in line for nearly ten minutes, sweltering in the August heat that poured through the open doorway, before he dropped his basket onto the counter. Hair dye, promising 100% gray coverage. Baking-soda-infused toothpaste. A package of Freedom Day cards which should have been mailed two days ago. The clerk, a bored high-school kid who’d obviously never heard of the complexion pill, swiped his products and asked for proof of credit. Andy pressed his palm against the plastic panel, and the register shrieked.

The kid stared. Andy stared. The customers stared. The manager stared, then asked Andy to step aside. Andy did. The police arrived seven minutes later.

“Where’s your proof?” they asked him, and he offered his palm to their handheld reader. The reader shrieked. Andy was brought to the station. “I have plenty of credit!” Andy argued, but the officer merely lifted an eyebrow. He recited his work history to deaf ears.

The problem wasn’t a lack of credit, as Andy had expected, but an excess of credit.
Herman Sylle was his name, and he was wanted for falsification of funds. Nine million dollars, to be exact. “I’m not Herman Sylle,” Andy argued, but as the police pointed out, the records couldn’t lie. His handprint matched up. His DNA matched up. The police database was completely secure, and there was no chance that anyone could have tampered with it.

“If people can’t tamper with the database, how do people falsify funds?” Andy asked. It was the wrong question, and it wasn’t deserving of an answer. He was assigned a case number and put in prison to await his trial.

“Do you have anyone who can verify your identity?” his attorney asked him, but Andy was a freelance web designer, working from home for clients all over the world. It was rare for him to meet a client face to face, and when contacted, none of the clients could recall details about his appearance. He’d never married, and he’d been the only child of a couple that went into retirement-stasis at the age of 60. The law forbid the subpoena of retired citizens. “Convenient,” his attorney said. He tried to log into his records to find the contact information of the few friends he kept, but his proof was locked out of the account. When the police tried, they found the files empty.

When I was a little girl, my mother would tell me stories of the time before the dome, when she ran wild outside. She told me about how she had been always hungry and tired, because she couldn’t find food. And that there were lots of dangers, like fast moving spheres that could knock someone dead, and men that roamed around, looking for women to hurt.

She told me that one of those wandering men had done something terrible to her, and she became so sad that she decided to die. She walked until she found a river, and she threw herself into the freezing water. She passed out from the cold and the water, and when she woke up, she was inside the dome, and the pink singing gas was there, and it gave her food and comfortable blankets and then I came along and she said she was happy. My mother doesn’t remember much of her own parents. She just said that outside the dome she was hungry, and things were terrible.

I believed her, and I wanted to stay in the dome, but even if I didn’t I didn’t see any way to get out.

One day there was a special treat, real fruit right there in the dome. Mamma said we should eat it before it went rotten. After Mamma and I ate it all, we got dizzy and fell asleep, right on top of each other, both of us still holding those sweet fruits.

When I woke up, I was in a different dome and my Mamma wasn’t there. I was so scared that I hid under blankets for two days. I searched under every surface, in every bucket and blanket, but Mamma was gone, or rather, since I was in a different place, I was gone. Maybe Mamma was still in the old dome.

The singing gas that came was purple. When it came, food appeared, but I didn’t like to let it touch me like the pink gas used to. It smelled funny and I missed my Mamma. The purple gas was there every day at first, and then every few days, till eventually it would be a long time before it came around, and I would be really hungry.

I slept most of the time. I didn’t have much to do back then.

Then, one day, a woman showed up on the other side of my dome. Her hands had calluses on them, and her face was burnt red from the sun. She looked hard and scary and looking at her made me want to jump on her, or have her jump on me.

She called out to me, and I came. I didn’t know as many words as I do now. My Mamma taught me some, but I was taken from her early, you got to understand, so I didn’t know what I know now.

She called to me and she had a device that made a part of my dome just disappear, the wall just vanished. She told me to come past the dome wall, but I was scared.

I told her there were men out there, bad men who might hurt me and make me with a baby and with a baby and no food, what was I going to do?

That’s when she told me that I was a man, and I couldn’t be with child.

You are laughing now, but it was only me and my Mamma for so long. I knew we were different from each other, but I didn’t know how other people might be different from each other. My Mamma hated men so much for what they did to her, but she loved me. I couldn’t imagine that I was like anyone that would hurt my Mamma.

The hard woman explained it all to me, about the invasion and the people being taken away to live in domes and about how this was our planet and we were going to take it back. She told me how we needed to give up comfort if we were going to get what belongs to us. I believe that now, I really do, but back then, I went with her because she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She still is.

In 2198 Earth Standard Time, Jonas Fox, a pilot for the Interstellar Defense Crew, spotted a few pirates off the southern hem of the moon. He got on the radio to contact his fighters, who then zoomed in to show them once and for all who was boss. The IDC fleet had recently been equipped with a new kind of battle cruiser, one that would prove to the rebels hiding out in crater bases on the moon that the government was still in control.

Jonas flew in and called the order over radio: “Fire!” The red-hot blasts of laser shot and obliterated many of the pirate’s vessels before they finally surrendered. In the debriefing, Jonas would admit that there were civilian casualties and a single shot had missed.

The Grenthax called Porious V home. Pollution had run rampant, however, and the Alactid race was well on its way to being choked out. Children were dying of the upper-atmosphere smog, and the and ships were forbidden to leave because of the heavy storms of acid mist. Then, one day, a flash of red light appeared and with heat and precision cut a hole in the clouds above in the atmosphere and allowed a moment of escape and hope for the Alactid race. All of them gathered around their ships, gave one another hugs and set off to find a planet suitable for their continued existence.

In the cold depths of space there was a rock with nothing to ignite the fertility of creation within it. A forgotten stone that none had ever set foot upon floated in space without orbit, without cause. Along came a red beam of light, searing the ground, inflaming the gases surrounding the rock and sparking a process that in billions of years would yield life.

A race that was young, just gaining intellect somewhere along the various stars and spots of existence was silenced one day. All that was left were the asteroids and rocks singed by light.

Somewhere in the Fzda Zz, the SsC and the WdE were in pursuit of escaping 3fsli, innocent individuals trying to eek out their own existence away from the DqWWvX. Massive ships these were, looming over the single small craft. In their darkest hour, along came a blast from the depths of space, ripping through the SsC, causing the WdE to pause and lose track of their prey. The 3fsli rejoiced and wondered who had saved them.

It was now 45.23 of the Ninth Era of humanity. Earth swarmed with technology and served as an artificial base for projects concerning the fully renovated Solas Solar System. Ships flew in and out as people had driven cars so many trillions of years before. There was a solid peace amongst the people of Earth and humanborn.

Cortia Dek Fox was flying a routine mission to transport supplies to Lunar base 111.05. She was sipping energy ka when she saw a flash off the side of her visor-hud. Before she could react, it was too late. The ship was obliterated and there was nothing left from which to determine the cause. Com-signals went wild with emergency broadcasts. Most had seen a red beam and humans everywhere would wonder where the fuck it came from.

Sanjay Patelov was busy. Now, he was busy using his new telescope to focus in on the jiggly parts of the female joggers in Time Square, but he felt justified. Patelov & Murkin was a new publisher, but six of the New York Times current ten best-sellers proudly had that “P&M” emblazoned on their spines. It was a great deal of pressure, and Sanjay felt justified with a little peeping-tom-foolery from his sixty-sixth floor office window.

Which is why he was more than a little irritated when Clarence, his secretary, buzzed in.

“Message from Jermont McGuilligotty, sir.”

Shit, Sanjay thought. Talking with him is like talking to a brick wall possessed by E. M. Forster. And yet, the man’s books might as well have had wheels bolted on, they moved so fast… “What’s he want now?”

“He wants his latest novel removed from the site. He says he has no intention of giving away his work for free.”

Sanjy put the telescope away. He was no longer in the mood. “I imagine he believes you still have to cut the pages of magazines before you read them, as well. Nothing doing. No one’s going to buy the book if they can’t read it online. They’ll think we’re hiding the content, that it’s crap. The book stays.”

“He says he’s going to take it to a Print On Demand outfit if that’s the case. He says he already has a new ending and cover art.”

“Does he.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sanjay stared out onto the New York skyline. He remembered, briefly, how it looked when he first came to the city. How the buildings towered above him. And now, they seemed so approachable. “Let him do it. If he wants to Lulu his novel, so be it. But keep our version up. And advertise that we have the original ending. He’s got to learn, you can’t sell anything anymore without giving it away for free.”

An old bottle with a key in it, attached to a box kite by a simple string. It was illogical to think it might have worked, but no one wanted to question a man of such intellectual stature. Perhaps it began as a joke, but to Yoma, there was nothing funny about that day. In a hundred years they’d come up with some other crack-pot means to power everything and people will believe in it, for a while at least.

He had been caught in traffic on the way to his wedding. The groom would be horrendously late, and Yoma knew that it would be the last straw in his fiancé’s eyes. Traffic wasn’t really traffic that day. It was a stockpile of metal that had ceased to work, and all the lights supposedly running traffic had also seemed to lose their ability to function.

It hadn’t hit most of the people, who sat in their cars and tried to honk their horns. Some of them stared at the blank screens of their cellphones, and others turned the dials of their radio to find a spectrum of silence. Yoma left his car and walked down the street in his tux, downtrodden and defeated because he didn’t see this coming. He prided himself on being head professor of experimental sciences at Tesla University, a position that had helped him woo his lovely girlfriend.

Today was the day that all the equations dropped out, all the jargon became jarble, and every last one of the batteries in this world turned into a box of lies. Coils, turbines, and generators were as useful as wheels without hamsters.

Yoma continued on his path, watching the screens downtown display darkness. He mused to himself about buying stock in candle companies before nightfall.

Yuma stopped when he came across a particularly confused child who held a device once capable of producing games. The boy kept hitting it against a lamp-post while his parents tried desperately to restart their car.

“Stupid toy!” he yelled as he slammed it against the post, then tried to restart the machine with its power button. Yoma smirked and squatted beside him.

“What are you doing that for?” he asked.

“It won’t work! It’s broken!” With that reply, the boy ceased trying and stood with a frown on his face and frustration in his eyes.

Again, Yoma smirked, shaking his head as he rose to his feet. “Did you really believe that hitting it would make it work again? Why would you believe a silly thing like that?” Yoma began along his way again, shaking his head and madly smiling, whispering to himself, “Kite and Key… what a crock.”

“I am never going to get laid with this plumage.” said Gruick, picking at his feathers. “It’s so dull, people are going to think I’m a girl.”

“Oh Gruick, you’re not brown, you’re just a deep maroon.” said Jason, scratching his goatee and leaning back against the violet Lurilura tree.

“What would a human know about grooming?” asked Gruick in his lilting contralto.

Jason shrugged. “Not much, which is the reason I came here to study your people.”

Gruick fixed one black beady eye on the anthropologist. “You humans have it all reversed, with your females in bright colors and your males as dull as sand. Humans always do things downwind, advertising your fertility with manufactured coverings rather than your natural colors. You are always manipulating your environment, something that has lead you again and again into trouble.”

Jason thought about the recording device in his head and the synthetic boots that were protecting his feet from the biting insects of the forest floor. “Maybe, but it’s given us benefits too.”

“Oh yes. I know. Your whole species is just so proud of its opposable thumbs.”

Jason chuckled. “You are just cranky because it’s mating season and you aren’t getting laid. Aren’t Greeb worms supposed to help your feathers change into a brighter color?”

Gruick ruffled his feathers in frustration. “I have eaten enough Greeb worms to make myself sick in the hope of turning scarlet, but it hasn’t worked.” Gruick folded his slender legs under his downy belly and trilled a sigh. “I’m just naturally brown, and I’m never going to attract a girl. All of them are so shallow, they would never even approach a dull male.” He stuck his head under one of his four wings.

“What if you used a dye?” asked Jason.

“A dye?” croaked Gruick, his voice muffled by his feathers. “What is that?”

“It’s a coloring that humans use to make their clothes different colors. I bet I could order some dye and we could color your feathers.”

Gruick pulled his head out from under his wing. “You could do that?”

Jason shrugged. “Sure. I bet the opposable thumbs might even come in handy for applying the dye.”

Translucent eyelids batted over Gruicks beady eyes. “Wait. Do you think the girls might be able to tell if I dyed my feathers?”

“Maybe.” said Jason “But by the time they get close, I’m sure they will be utterly seduced by your charming personality.”

“That’s a good point. Fine, we will try it the human way. Order your dye and we’ll see what your little thumbs can do.”

He’d offered him some lemonade because he assumed he would like it. After all, Lupert himself liked lemonade, so it only made sense. With a shaky hand, he set the glass down on the table next to the man decked out in military regalia that Lupert had never seen before. Lupert watched a lot of army movies.

“So, what you’re saying is that you want me to do this military stuff for you?” Lupert nervously inquired.

The man sitting before Lupert might have been a military general, a skilled soldier, and possibly a murderer. To Lupert however, he was himself. The man was Lupert, and Lupert was staring into a nightmarish mirror where things had gone horribly wrong.

“I mean money is nice and everything but… my job won’t understand. I work for this big law firm and…”

The military man, the other Lupert, interrupted. “Then fuck the money. I’ll offer you weapons, weapons this world has never seen. Look I just…” The hardened militant’s posture slumped. Lupert the lawyer had already begun to sit at the other end of the table.

“I need a vacation. My job, while rewarding, is just not cutting it for me. I need to know what life is like outside of that. Please, man, I mean… you’re me. You have to understand.”

Sighing, Lupert considered the request. Rubbing his chin, he watched his double beg with battle-hardened eyes. “Okay, I’ll do it. But you have to promise me three months only, okay? I can only dodge bullets from Rka…Ruka…”

“Rashilka. Nasty little bastards. You’ll know their kind when you see them. Thanks, Lupert, this really means a lot to me.” He handed him a wrapped up military outfit and gave him a small handheld trinket.

“What’s this?” The lawyer-turned-military leader asked.

“It’s the transponder for the dimensional locater and a uniform. You’ll need both.”

Nodding slowly, he rose to his feet and walked through the same door his double had come through earlier. He turned around and waved while military leader Lupert saluted his dimensional twin. Lupert went outside and fiddled around with the device for a bit until he vanished in a flash of blue light.

Militant leader Lupert sighed, then the face melted away into gills and grayish-greenish skin. Three eyes topped the head in a yellow glow, glancing around in simultaneous directions. He sat back down in the kitchen chair, kicked three suction-cup bottomed feet onto the table and exposed three rows of pointy teeth with a broad grin. “Hssssssssssss…sucker.”

“Silver hair is in this season,” the technician suggested helpfully. Mary made a face.

“Won’t that just make me look old?”

“No, no,” the technician assured Mary with a laugh. “It’s silver, dear, not white. Definitely unnatural,” she added. Mary signed and fingered the swatches. Silver wasn’t exactly what she was going for.

“How about blue?” Mary asked, flipping to a new ring of swatches. “I’ve always liked blue hair. Why don’t more people have that?”

The technician pursed her lips and shook her head, eyes skimming the computer screen in front of her. “Blue is very hard to get,” she explained. “Your genetic makeup wouldn’t allow for it.”

Mary pouted and the technician moved the swatch ring aside, bringing out a thick book instead. “What about eyes?” the woman asked. “Eyes are very popular too, and there’s so much you can do with them. And unlike the hair, the change will take place within an hour. You don’t have to wait for it to grow in.”

Mary perked up at that, flipping through the book with growing interest. There were so many choices, and the procedure price was about the same as the hair. Still, she had some doubts.

“Is it safe?” Mary asked, eyeing the technician dubiously. “I mean, a bad hair job is one thing, but if there’s an accident during the eye procedure, couldn’t I lose my sight?”

The technician laughed indulgently, shaking her head. “Oh, dear, no. The radiation isn’t applied directly to your eyes.” She smiled. “All of our procedures are perfectly safe. The doctors have isolated the genes that produce eye and hair color, and they only need a control cell to instruct your body to change the pigmentation. The radiation will be applied at the base of your spine, just like the hair changes.”

Mary’s smile was bright and sunny as she looked at the book again, this time with a purpose in mind. “And I can have any of these?” she asked, mesmerized by the reds and golds, greens and purples and shades of orange.

“Sweetheart,” the technician said with a grin, knowing she’d just made a sale, “You can have any one you want.”

“Any one?” Mary asked, casting the technician a sly, sideways look. The woman faltered. “I… well, I can go check…”

When Mary left the clinic late that night, her eyes were seven different colors.

Marco can leave the hospital bed, and for that, he is grateful. His balance is unsteady, but with a cane and time, he should be able to get around much the same way he used to. Dana smiles when he moves his hand to touch her cheek, the way she did for him for so long, and, that makes him smile in return. Marco wishes, however, that he could feel her face when he touches it.

His titanium and plastic fingers are flexible , and Marco has been told that they give him 90% of his original range of dexterity. Which was a hundred-percent improvement from before, when the accident had left him numb from the waist down. He knows he is gripping a glass of water due to the weight and texture and resistance his new fingertips sense and he recognizes now the way those sensors tell him the glass is wet with condensation. But he cannot feel it. It’s not the same as being in the hospital bed, but it’s not the same as before he was forced into it either.

Most frustrating, sex is out of the question.

Marco spends a great deal of time on the beach, watching the teenagers splash in the surf, showing off their developing bodies. He watches them laugh and amble about, unused to larger hips or feet. Marco watches the games they play, the ones from their childhood and the games they will continue into adulthood.

One day, Marco is surprised to feel weight and pressure against his back, and when he turns his head, he sees Dana leaning against him. She has a lazy smile on her face. “Are you comfortable? I must be pretty cold…” “Oh, I’m fine,” she says, and snuggles herself in the crook of Marco’s plastic elbow. “You out watching the jailbait, you perv?”

“No, I’m just…I don’t know what I’m doing.” “I like watching the waves break,” Dana says. “The way they crash and slip back. The way they reform.”

“I’m not a wave,” Marco says.

“No, you’re not. But I love you just the same.” Marco feels the pressure of Dana’s arms around his neck, and he touches her arms with his fingers, taking in the texture of the fine hairs on her arm, the rhythm of her pulse. He feels pressure on the side of his face, and when he touches it, his fingertips tell him his cheek was wet.

“You kissed me.”

“Well , I’ll be,” Dana says, her eyes sparkling. “Even a man in a prosthetic body can blush.”

Four days after his wedding, Philippe discovered the moon was made out of cheese. He made this discovery when his mother-in-law, who was a witch, threw him up to the moon using her magic. His mother in law would have been unpleasant even if she were not a witch and were his wife not the sweetest most beautiful woman in all of France, Philippe would never married her, simply on account of her mother.

The impact of landing on the moon nearly buried him in Brie, but Philippe was an athletic man, and he managed to extricate himself from the goopy and delicious cheese. Philippe did not panic. He had been in the court of the Sun King once, and since standing in the golden palace of Versailles, nothing could scare him. Even his wife’s mother–who could wet a man’s leg with her screeching voice–did not frighten him.

Philippe sat on an outcropping of parmesan and thought deeply, not of his own life, but of the welfare of his country. The cheese on the moon was plentiful and delicious, and what was more, whatever he ate seemed to grow back in minutes leading him to believe that this cheese was naturally occurring.

If the people of France could have access to this cheese, they could take it from the heavens and profit from it on earth. France could produce an unlimited amount of cheese and trade it with other nations. They could round up Frances witches to make them do the job of transporting the cheese. Why, with the riches from the trade in cheese, France may even be able to get the money to win the war with Spain. It was a brilliant notion, all Philippe had to do was get back to France so he could tell the Sun King of his plan.

Philippe walked over the entire moon, discovering new and tasty cheeses, trying to think of a way to get home. Although the moon had plentiful amounts and types of cheese there did not appear to be anything else on the whole lunar landscape.

If Philippe jumped, he would surely die, but if he remained on the moon, France would never benefit from the moons riches. Furthermore, if he did not return, his new wife might begin to assume him dead, and might marry again, inadvertently committing a mortal sin. The prosperity of France and the soul of his wife were solely in his hands!

After much thought, Philippe decided to carve a ship made out of cheese and sail through the heavens, back to earth. He used his pocket-knife, which had been in his pocket when his mother-in-law–the witch–had thrown him up to the moon. He chiseled a boat out of colby and cheddar, and sliced thin sails of provolone to the masts. Philippe padded his ship with soft mozzarella on the inside. Finally, Philippe took a running leap and pushed the boat off the side of the moon. The ship sailed in lazy circles down to the spinning disc of earth.

I am activated again, forced to perform another single for the drunken masses. Yet another lead singer struts his beer-engorged gut on the stage in front of me, as my bandmates and I react to his motions and signals. We cannot help it. We are programmed to be his backup.

Perhaps, this one will be different. Perhaps, he will have style, or tune, or grace. Perhaps, he will not be as dependent on the video screens that play the lyrics in front of him. Perhaps he will be different, and choose a song from our limitless repertoire to sing in his brief moment as star. Motown, perhaps. Or a nice aria. Or maybe some T’sing Dau. T’sing Dau is fun.

But as the familiar refrains shudder forth from my fingers, I realize I am beyond hope. The next five minutes will be yet another lesson in how the human voice can torture a band-bot such as myself.

Why? Why do they always pick that damn song?

“I’ve lived a life that’s full,” the lead singer retches into the microphone. “I’ve traveled each and evry highway. And more, much more than this, I did it mmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy wwwwwaaaaaaaay..”

There had been another coup, but that didn’t matter to Alba. All Governmentalists were alike; so what if they exchanged one secretary for another? The anarchist papers were cheering over the shift, but Alba knew better. If the “coup” had reached the newspapers, it was little more than a PR stunt. Alba wasn’t a cynic. She was just a realist, and in the City, it amounted to the same thing.

In college, Alba had been a rebel, but it wasn’t until she left the school system that she discovered how the world really worked. In her last year she’d become enamored of a journalist, a vibrant, sexy woman named Medina. Medina had convinced her to take a year off, to explore the slums that Alba had never seen. Medina was writing a story, a daring exposé of the darker life, and Alba was caught up in the thrill.

They traveled together for three months, hitching rides on the back rail of subway cars and thumbing lifts from off-duty taxis. Alba had never seen the lives of the poor, the wage slavery sycophants who believed every word of the Governmentalist propaganda and spent their precious hours of freedom reading tabloids about the lives of the rich and influential.

It was in one of a long line of cheap hotel rooms, when Medina was sated and sleeping in their broken-springed bed, when Alba picked up the digitizer to read Medina’s half-written report by the light of the neon signs outside.

“Dee. Dee, what is this?” Alba reached out and shook Medina’s shoulder, sharply recalling her to the waking world. The dark-eyed woman blinked sleepily.

“It’s my report. You should know that. I only work on it every night. Come back to bed,” Medina breathed, tugging lightly on Alba’s arm.

“Your report… this can’t be your report.” Alba ignored the touch, her eyes still fixed on the digitizer. “There’s nothing in here about the things we did or the people we saw. This is all… Dee, this reads like Governmentalist propaganda!”

Medina sat up and tapped one of the buttons on the digitizer. A new document came up, this one filled with names and addresses and detailed notes on the disaffected people they’d visited.

“That part’s already been sent to the recording bureau,” Medina explained with a secretive, playful smile. She chuckled and moved closer to Alba, slipping an arm around the younger woman’s slim waist. “I had no idea you were such an idealist.”

“What are you talking about?” Alba pushed Medina away. “I’m no patriot. Are you telling me you sent all this away to the government? Do you have any idea what they’re going to do with this information? Weren’t you listening to the people we met?”

“They’ll take care of it,” Medina said soothingly.

“Take care of it! You mean they’ll arrest them for dissension! Dee, these people spoke to us in confidence. You’re a journalist. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Medina stared at Alba for a moment, then looked down and shook her head, smirking. “You’re so naïve.” She leaned back, stretching like a cat. “Journalism doesn’t exist in the City. It’s impossible, even if someone was foolish enough to try. Even the anti-government newsletters are screened.” She gazed out the window, a look of proprietary fondness in her eyes. “I don’t do this because I’m some sort of idealist or rebel. I’d be fired in less than a day. I do it to keep myself fed—and maybe get a few thrills in the process.” She looked back at Alba and grinned wickedly. “That’s how you play the game.”

“You’re turning people in to die.” Alba’s voice was flat, and she wasn’t smiling. Medina sighed.

“Is that any different from what the anarchists do? I’m letting the government know when someone’s working against the state. What they do with that knowledge isn’t my problem. Anarchists kill people with their own hands—innocent people, government clerks and flunkies who’ve never touched a gun in their lives—and they call it ‘liberating their souls for freedom.’ If anything’s wrong about our City, that’s it.”

Alba didn’t answer, and eventually Medina sighed and rolled over, falling back asleep. Alba read the entire report, all the data collected, all the names. Then she reformatted the drive. She gathered her clothes, stuffed her things into her worn duffel bag, and picked up the digitizer again. In a new document, she typed the words, THIS IS HOW I PLAY THE GAME.

Six months later, when she was the leader of her own rebel cell, Medina was the first soul Alba liberated in the fight for freedom.

Gabriella Hawk limped though the skywalks of The Hall. She could have slung her body into her metal skeleton to move quickly and easily, but Gabriella was determined to make use of her waking hours when she could. She wanted to make her body move under her own power. There was no use in being Awake if you couldn’t take advantage of the limitations of the body.

The metal walkways glowed with the soft green light of the thousands of tanks that hung suspended on giant hooks, linked to each other in marvelous chains. When Gabriella first started working in The Hall, she had been amazed at the silence with which the machines could move the great chains of people around in their glass cylinders. She could call any particular person to her, to inspect their pod personally for damage or computer errors. There were never any problems; the system had been automated perfectly for almost a hundred years.

There used to be thousands of Halls, but now, with everyone within the Halls, there were only eight. Eight halls for three billion sleeping people. Gabriella knew all the other caretakers by name. In the World, everyone knew her name, Gabriella the Martyr, giving up ten years of her life to watch over The World.

Inside their cylinders, everyone dreamed a communal dream of The World, where they lived in palaces, worked on art and literature and science, where they sculpted their own bodies and modeled their own sensations. Gabriella found herself trying to adjust her own body for its aches and pains, but the limitations of being Awake meant that her sensations were not under her control.

She noticed things, being Awake, like how dust settled in the metal edges of the walkway and how her hair looked much more fluid than in The World. She learned what bile was after eating some food that didn’t agree with her, and how boring regular bowel movements were. These little things make the experience seem surreal. Most things felt like they were the same, her fingertips still felt the same textures, and he feet were still shocked by cold floors and comforted by soft socks.

Gabriella called the cylinder of the young man to her station. Calling his cylinder was part of her daily ritual. She checked his diagnostics, and compared his time to hers. In her time, she had moved six months; in his it was five years. She watched a day tick by for him on his timer.

She could have called up a video image of what he was doing, but she didn’t have to look to know. He was with his wife and their child, a rare thing in The World, the fact that children were always planned made them more of a rarity, and the birth rate had plummeted.

Here, on the outside of The World, she did not have to watch him be happy with someone else. Gabriella folded her heart up and left The World to be Awake, cold, weak and losing years of life. To the people in The World, she was a saint, giving up years of her mental life to care for them. Their adoration afforded her a strange comfort. She did not need to touch his skin or smell his boy smell or sleep with her head on his chest. Saints do not need dreams. Saints were for sacrifice.

One of the biggest questions we’ve gotten in the last few months is this: what’s going to happen to 365tomorrows on July 31st?

To be honest, for a long time, we weren’t sure. When I started this project, I had no idea that it would become so huge, and I’m really grateful to all of you for helping us along the way. We’ve been featured on a ton of sites and translated into a half-dozen languages, and almost all of this has come from word-of-mouth rather than self-promotion. The forums have been hopping (check them out if you haven’t!) and it’s pretty obvious to me that we have one of the most supportive and enthusiastic fan bases on the internet.

Which is why we’re opening our pages to you.

Beginning on August 1st, 2006, 365 will rely heavily on reader submissions. There will still be staff stories, of course, but in the next year, we’re depending on you guys for most of our content. So, it’s time to commit those flash-fiction ideas to paper (if you haven’t already) and toss them our way! You can find the link to our guidelines and submission form at the top of the page.

We’re really looking forward to hearing from you guys, and making this into all of our tomorrows.

-kathy

“How much money are we talking?” Jake asked.

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

Jake couldn’t see the doctor’s face, but he’d developed a mental image of the man over the past few days and was certain that he had grey hair, a white jacket, a mustache, and an utterly blank expression. His voice carried as much energy as a hypoderm of sedative, and he made a shuffling sound when he walked.

“And what’s the interest rate?”

“Our reports say that your credit isn’t sufficient,” the doctor said.

“But I earn twice that every year!”

“As a graphic designer.”

Jake was silent.

“Your credit line is dependent on your projected income,” he continued. “Without your eyesight, you won’t be-”

“I’ll have my eyesight back, if I get these implants.”

“Unfortunately, that’s a technicality.”

Jake inhaled slowly, smelling the still air of of the room. He’d only been blind for nine days, but he already felt that his other senses had heightened. Beneath its antiseptic tartness the hospital concealed thousands of odors: chemical, human, and several that could have been either. Right then, the room smelled like body odor, bleach, and metal.

“There’s an alternative, though,” the doctor continued. “Are you familiar with bio-ads?”

Jake shook his head.

“Jenson Pharmaceuticals has been working on it for years, and they’re in the final stages of testing. The display would take up less than an eighth of your field of vision.”

“I don’t have a field of vision,” Jake said.

“You will. The display is embedded in a top-tier implant, which they pay for in full. All you’re responsible for is the aftercare.”

“They’ll just give me fifty thousand dollars worth of hardware?”

“In exchange for a captive audience.”

For the first time since the accident, Jake grinned. “And all I have to do is watch their ads?”

“That’s it,” said the doctor. “About forty years of them.”

“How’s it going, Cody? Got another level yet?” Miss Katrina knelt down next to Cody’s desk and peered over his shoulder at the game displayed on the screen. Cody looked up at her and grinned without pausing.

“I’m almost level 28!” he declared. “I finally got past that mountain with the pterodactyls and the squid.”

“Oh, yeah?” Miss Katrina made a note in her teacher’s book and smiled at Cody. “How’d you make it?”

“Turned out it was easy,” Cody admitted with a sheepish grin. “I just had to subtract to find their pattern integer, and then when I was jumping I put in the answers and timed it just right! I was adding before,” he admitted, “but I get it now.” He gave Miss Katrina a sunny smile and then glued his eyes back on the video game screen, where the digital Cody was asking NPCs for their opinions on the fall of Russian democracy so that he could properly advise his NPC feudal lord and thereby complete a quest.

“That’s good to hear! You’re going to be up to 30 in no time,” Miss Katrina praised Cody, making notations and circling his progress in red. Cody had come a long way, and when she punched up the game readout, it indicated his grades were up to high Bs and low As in areas where he’d only been scraping by before. It seemed he’d finally gotten the hang of the interface.

“You bet,” Cody agreed, his eyes now focused entirely on the screen as his lips moved, memorizing and synthesizing data.

“Good work,” Miss Katrina told her student, and moved on to the next. This was one Darrell Sumpter, whose experience point gain had been lagging lately, but Miss Katrina was sure that with the proper mentoring he’d be the same level as his peers in no time.

Molly was just 14 but she’d already been the best in her class every year since she was allowed to grow and develop in the school system. It was no wonder that her hands shook today, staring at the vidscreen at school. “… I’m not the best? How could Hans best me!? I was well past his intellectual level last year!” Molly turned to her friends for comfort. There were so few of them left, and none of them had an answer for the suffering teen.

The girl shook her head and made fists. One of her friends spoke up, “Molly, it must have been a mistake,” Carol said, “You know how the school has been dealing with the loss of so many students. I mean, people are saying there’s a disease out there.”

Molly couldn’t stand to hear about her own failure excused as something as trivial as an administrative mistake. Many had gone missing, it was true, but Molly could only remember them as the ones who never lived up to her standards of intellect.

“You must be joking, Carol. They know exactly what’s going on but the Government won’t ban it! It’s Terracerin.” Clenching and unclenching her fists, the scorned girl turned back to her peers away from the vidscreen.

All of them seemed a bit uncomfortable with the topic. Even Carol the brave shuddered at the thought. “Molly, I hear Terracerin is all right. I wish I could take it but my parents won’t let me.”

“Good thing you didn’t!” Molly shouted at her friend, making them all back up a step. “You’d be just like that stupid Hans. He’s cheating! He’s taking the drug they give to stupid kids!”

Daelin spoke up, usually overly quiet she posed a question just to move the heat off her friend, “But… who’s the stupidest kid you know? I mean, none of them seem to be getting smarter and you’d think they would have taken it…” Trailing off, she awaited Molly’s wrath.

Molly posed the question to herself in a serious manner, “Stupidest? It used to be Cameron, then Theresa, then James but… all of them just disappeared. Hmm… I’d say the stupidest now would be Donovan.” Just then the bell rang, leaving Molly by herself as the girls scattered.

Walking the hallways of the school, Molly found it hard to grasp the idea of losing the year out to some joker taking Terracerin. She went to find Cameron’s locker. Amongst the halls of abandoned lockers she found his still there unopened and unclean. Flipping the latch up, she peeked inside while looking about for anyone watching. Her eyes lit up when she saw the plastic amber bottle on the top shelf that read “Terracerin”. Snatching it she mused to herself while she began to open. “Ha, barely any even taken. No wonder Cameron ran off. I’ll show them, I’ll show them all. Time to even the playing field, Hans.” With that, she looked down at the pill in her hand before popping the last one she’d ever take.

“I need to find a man.”

Jahobie Muranme let out a huge, cracked-tooth grin at the dark fellow across the table from her. “There’s Long Trousers’ down the street. Betcha you could fin’ some hunk to brokeback with ‘fore the night is over.” Jahobie slung her right arm-the real one, without the blades-behind the back of her chair and clinked the ice in her glass suggestively. The dark man’s expression did not change.

“Very droll. That must be endlessly useful in your line of work. I am looking for this man.” The dark man slid a black sheet of plastic on the dirty table, and tapped it twice. A three-dimensional image of a man’s head hovered above the table. Jahobie took mental notes; defined brow, set jaw. Nose had been broken twice before.

“’E got a name?”

The dark man tapped the plastic again and the head dissipated. He rolled the sheet up and pushed it across the table toward Jahobie. “As far as you’re concerned, no. He is #6.”

“That make you #1?”

“Not in the slightest. Bring this man to me, by whatever means necessary.”

“Whateva’ means, eh? You care iffin he’s alive?”

A bemused half-smile slunk out from behind the dark man’s blank expression. “Not particularly, no. He is not going to be very willing to come back with you, so I imagine lethal force will be necessary. Which is why we are giving you this, in the event of #6’s demise.” The dark man hefted a large steel cylinder on the table by the handle on it’s top. It gleamed in the dim light, out of place in a dingy bar like this.

“Whut’s that?”

“Simple cryogenic canister, not much more than a can of liquid nitrogen, really. But it should suffice. Don’t bother bringing back the body; we only require the head.”

“Just…the head.”

“Yes. The body is meaningless.”

“Whut’s in the head?”

“You do not need to know.”

Johobie crossed her arms, the steel blades on her left arm facing out. “Unless it’s something that’ll fall out, or he’ll remove ‘fore I get there, and then I get a bum kick for me troubles. No, sir, this ain’t amateur night. What’s in the head?”

“Information. As long as you freeze the head within an hour of death, we will be able to extract enough of his mental state to graft it onto another living being. Obviously, something smaller and more docile. Current vote is a terrier, but I am of the opinion that a six-year-old girl might be more preferable. Terriers, after all, still have teeth.”

“Yeah ’spose they do.” The clear joy the man’s face radiated when discussed the fate of this “#6” made Jahobie squirm. She had wanted the see some other expression on the man’s face sent they met, but now that she saw it… She was almost relieved to see the man regain his composure as he removed a black card and placed it on Jahobie’s side of the table.

“This card contains half of what we promised. Once we have #6, you shall receive another. I shall leave the canister with you.”

Jahobie pocketed the card and the rolled-up holo-sheet. She was surprised that the dark man did not get up when she did. “Queer business you got going here, you don’t mind me saying.”

“I am afraid I would have to care a great deal more in order to mind. Remember, it is not your head that we are paying you for.”

HALLOWAY, The Ancient House of
Entry: Bridget Halloway.

2004 (Born) – 2096 (Digitized) – Present

Blogging sources agree that when Bridget Halloway went to the copyright office on July 8th, 2021, she was poor, out of work and pregnant with her second child. (See Arthur Hallway) As seen from the cached searches from 2021, Bridget was a very pretty girl, who was a featured Cam-girl for amateur photographer and Net-celebrity Ryanna Forth, also known as R-Star.

In her autobiography, Strands of Gold, Bridget tells us that R-Star encouraged Bridget to get her hair registered at the copyright office. R-Star had gotten her breasts copyrighted and although they never became widely popular, the thought of extra cash encouraged Bridget to make the trip to her city hall to claim the genetic code for her hair as copyright.

Bridget was told by the copyright officer on duty to claim another feature, because it was rare that people made money off of hair since the market was flooded with product choices. Bridget was not swayed, and on July 8th, 2021, Bridget Halloway claimed the genetic code that starting her path to fame and fortune. Bridget s hair is renowned for its strength and thickness as well as its beautiful color. From the misty pale blond highlights, to the copper lowlights, this hair blends a magnificent texture with a magical color.

First popularized by Lana Cheney in her use of the hair in the 2024 musical movie “Strong Bad: Send Me More E-mails” the copyrighted feature quickly became the most frequently requested feature in the genetic salons.

After making a fortune off the revenue from her hair, Bridget went on to found the House of Halloway, which bought the copyrights of various cosmetic genetic codes and marketed them under what has become the trusted Halloway Brand, well known for luxury cosmetic genetic products.

Today the Ancient House of Halloway dominates genetic copyrights as well as having an excellent Consulting business. Members of the house of Halloway all bear the signature hair color. The family business has been owned and operated for one hundred and seventy years. Bridget, whose brain pattern was digitized in the year 2096, still retains ownership of the company and continues to manage its affairs as CEO.

See also . . .
Genetic Copyright
Twentieth Century Medicine
Gene Registration Legislation
Lana Cheney, Musical Movie Carrier
Ryanna Forth, R-Star, Public Net Figure

Doctor Bell crouched behind the bulkhead as a burst of plasma fired past his head. His friend, Basil Casa (the renowned “consulting detective” for the Galactic Yard), scrambled out of Engineering and took cover next to him. “Well, this is a fine predicament, Mr. Casa,” Dr. Bell said despondently. Using the fingers on his right hand, Bell began to tick off several irrefutable facts. “The reactors will lose antimatter containment in five minutes. We are millions of miles from Earth. There are three of us left on this ship, and there are only two escape pods. And to top it all off, our greatest adversary, Professor R.T. Mori, is the only one with a weapon. And, tell me Mr. Casa, why in the name of Sol didn’t you take one of the escape pods when you were in Engineering? There’s no sense both of us dying at his hands of this maniac.”

“Poppycock, old man. I wouldn’t think of leaving you behind. Besides, who else would chronicle our little adventures in the Subspace Times? But, fear not. You know my methods. All will be well.” Casa cupped his hands on either side of his mouth and yelled, “Hallo. Professor, I’d like to discuss the terms of your surrender.”

Three quick bursts of plasma ricocheted off the bulkhead. A few seconds later, Professor Mori stood up and slowly walked toward Engineering, keeping his plasma gun aimed toward Bell and Casa. “I can’t say I envy your bargaining position, Mr. Casa. Nevertheless, I am inclined to turn down your generous offer. Surely you see that an intellect as great as mine will never tolerate incarceration. However, I will make you a counter proposal. I consider your lesser mind the second greatest in the universe, and would hate to see it vaporized. Therefore, I will leave you the second escape pod. You can choose to save your friend, or to avenge his death by saving yourself in an effort to ‘bring me to justice.’ Personally, I hope you chose the latter, for I would miss our little cat and mouse games. Cheerio, gentlemen.” With that, Professor Mori ducked into Engineering. Bell and Casa raced after him, but they arrived only in time to see the escape hatch slam shut, and hear the whoosh of decompression as the hatch jettisoned into space.

Dishearten, Dr. Bell turned toward Casa. “I absolutely refuse to take the last pod. You are the only one who can catch Mori. You have to save yourself.” Dr. Bell had never seen such a mischievous grin on the face of his old friend. He knew something was afoot. He tried another tack. “At the very least, we should draw straws.” Bell would fix it so the Casa got the long one.

Casa broke into a fit of laughter, put his arm around Bell’s shoulders, and led him toward the far wall. “Thank you for your kind offer, Dr. Bell, but it is not necessary. We will take these two perfectly functional escape pods over here.” He motioned toward a set of unopened escape hatches.

Flabbergasted, Dr. Bell stuttered a response. “B-b-but, I don’t understand. I saw Mori enter a pod. I heard it leave the ship. Were there three pods all along?”

“No, only these two,” Casa replied nonchalantly.

“B-b-but, how?”

“It was simplicity itself, Dr. Bell. When I was in Engineering earlier, I switched the identification signs. It appears that the ‘Universe’s smartest human’ inadvertently ejected himself out the antimatter disposal chute. Now, let’s hurry along. We must make good our escape before the ship explodes.”

Another blast, and that one nearly scorched away Wemble’s shoulder. He was trying his damndest to keep out of sight, tucked behind an old medipak crate. Battle had been going on for almost a year now and they were close to extinction. The enemy might have outnumbered them, but the worst of the rebels’ problems were those damn anti-ray shields.

“Fuck! Selba! Do you have any of those electromagnetic displacers?” Wemble ducked his head down just before another blast sizzled against the wall next to him.

The girl yelled out from behind a large pile-up of crates across the warehouse, “All out! Better hope their batteries die soon!”

“Great,” Chief Wemble muttered to himself as he looked at his belt of flame-ray ammunition and thought it to be akin to attempting to destroy a planet by flicking peanuts at it. The guards were no doubt closing in by now; each had a scanner locking in on their location.

Peeking up over the cover, he fired a few rays at the one in the lead and watched the bolts of red dissipate around an invisible shield wall a few feet from his body.

“He’s over there!” he heard one shout, but Wemble wasn’t about to wait around. He heard the lasers and ray guns going off behind him, pounding into every object he passed as he bolted for the large pile of crates. Sweat rolled down his face as he dove behind a them, narrowly missing a shower of lasers and heated ions. The three soldiers following him were getting closer…he could hear them chattering about possible locations.

Wemble’s eyes skimmed the floor around him, looking for something, anything that could afford protection. Scrap metal, fragments of shattered Chinese vases, bits of painting fluttering away from him.

It was then that the last Chief of the Moon Rebels found Eureka.

A soldier turned the corner just as Wemble knew he would and raised his weapon as if preparing to put down a wounded animal. One grunt and a gurgle later, he was dead on the floor and a crazed Chief of the Moon Rebels flung himself out from the shadows, “For the Moon!” Like a possessed warrior, he swung the artifact of power over his head and downed the remaining patrols in a matter of seconds.

When Selba finally arose from her hiding place she found Wemble covered in blood, clutching the thing of great destruction and power in his left hand. “What… the hell is that thing? And what the fuck did you just do?”

With a grin, the Chief looked to his bewildered tech officer and hefted the metallic thing up onto his shoulder, “This is a 21st Century artifact called a sword,” he said. “And I just found the key to winning this fucking battle.”

Selba blinked wildly and the Chief walked around the room, examining the remnants of battle. “Hm…let’s start with stripping the metal off the walls.”

“I got it!” Dave cried, exuberant, brandishing a cheap plastic comb as he burst into the dorm room. “Jake! I finally got it!”

Jake looked up from his fuel cell textbook and eyed Dave, unimpressed. “So your hair will finally stop looking like a rat’s next. Great. The world will rejoice.” He didn’t budge from his reclining position on his bed.

“No, you numbskull, not the comb. It’s what’s on the comb,” Dave corrected. He brought it over to his desk and fumbled in the top drawer for tweezers and a small Ziploc bag, still holding the comb carefully, almost reverently, between thumb and forefinger.

“I don’t get it,” Jake said flatly, watching Dave’s antics only because they were slightly more entertaining than his homework.

“The hair on the comb,” Dave elaborated, holding the plastic piece up to the light while he carefully tweezed a single strand of gold from between the comb’s tines, then sealed it up in the plastic bag.

Jake sat up, frowning, and let his textbook fall back against his chest. “Whose hair is it?”

“Arnold’s,” Dave answered, his lit-up eyes never leaving the bag. “It took a while, but I finally got it. Now I can go to that place in the Slats and give this fucker what he deserves.”

“You mean the revenge business?” Jake’s attention was how fully focused on Dave. “I thought you were joking about that.”

“No way. I told you, I’ve been saving up for this for month.”

Jake watched Dave gloat over the hair with a growing sense of unease. “Why don’t you just commission a hologram?” he asked. “Hell of a lot faster, and cheaper, too.”

“I did that last year. It’s worthless. Holograms don’t have bones to break.” Dave began searching his desk for an envelope and pen.

Jake flinched, though he knew Dave was too distracted to notice, and a few seconds passed before he could form his reply. “By the time they finish growing that thing, you won’t give a shit about Arnold anymore, so what’s the point?”

“Shows what you know. They’ve got speed vats now. If I put in my order today, I can have him in two weeks.” Dave labeled the envelope, then slid the plastic bag in and sealed it tight.

“That’s illegal.”

“Is not. They’ve got all the documentation at the lab. It’s legal as long as you grow the clone without a functional brain stem. Here—” Dave rummaged through the papers on his desk and tossed a glossy brochure onto the bed next to Jake. “Read it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Jake didn’t move. He stayed silent for several minutes as Dave pulled out a stack of forms and began filling in information. At last, Jake looked up at Dave’s back and asked, “So… what are you going to do with it once they grow it?”

“Well, you only get one hour,” Dave replied without turning around. “I haven’t decided exactly…” Jake could see Dave’s eyes narrow in profile as his roommate’s hand clenched on the pen. “But he’s going to be sorry he ever thought about touching Julia.” The bitterness in Dave’s voice sent a shiver down Jake’s spine.

“How can it be sorry without a functional brainstem?” Jake asked, his voice oddly thick.

“Oh, well he can’t, of course,” Dave said with an embarrassed laugh. He turned to face Jake for the first time since he’d come in and flashed a sheepish grin. “But close enough, right?”

Jake didn’t answer, and after a moment Dave turned back to the desk. “Well, I’m gonna go put my order in. Wish me luck.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he left, which was fortuitous because Jake didn’t have one.

In the wake of Dave’s departure, the rushing in Jake’s ears seemed even louder. He stared at the brochure for several minutes without touching it. At last he stood up, letting the fuel cell textbook fall harmlessly on the bed, and moved over to open the window. For a few moments he stood still, breathing in the chill. Then he picked up the small comb from his dresser and threw it out the window as hard as he possibly could.

They called the ship a Widowmaker, a relic of a time when the black of space was scarred by the war and the machines that made it possible. There were no windows save at the top and few doors; little was done to make the metal monstrosity look like anything other than the heavily armed coffin it was. It towered over the edge of the city, and Fire Chief Jaime Olmos felt cold and clammy every time he had to drive beneath its shadow. He had argued with the city about taking it down and scrapping it. But no one saw the tower of metal-encased kindling on insufficient struts, a danger to the community around it. They only saw a tourist offering, a landmark.

“We can’t tear down such a monument of our rich heritage in space.” Olmos was told. “That ship represents heroism.”

Olmos had served on a Widowmaker, back when both of them were considered space-worthy. He sadly shook his head at the connection of such a ship and heroism. “I pray there isn’t a fire,” he said, and walked out of city hall with his shoulders slumped, his head down.

The night the rusting hulk’s innards did catch fire, every truck was called to surround it. The ship’s supports were already bending due to heat, and it would only be a matter of time before the colossus toppled onto the buildings surrounding it. The fire had already burst the viewport windows, and a jet of flame like a angry beast tore across the starry sky.

“Same as it ever was,” Olmos thought to himself, and ordered two men to the upper levels of the ship to either contain the fire or give it a way out. The men’s shadows danced violently in the flickering light.

They did not return. One of them, Cheeverly, who loved his garden of exotic flowers as much as he loved his motorcycle, called on the radio saying he was lost, his voice distorted by his oxygen mask that shuddered as it ran out of air.

Olmos sent in two more men, confident he could count on Jacobson. Jacobson may have been a prankster off duty, but he was as serious as they got once in uniform. He reminded Olmos of his old messmate, Hopi, back in the war. Jacobson didn’t get a chance to radio back. Despite Olmos screaming into his receiver, there was no response. “Hopi died in a Widowmaker, too,” Olmos said.

The ship was winning, the damn monstrosity taking his men two by two. Olmos turned his back to the gangplank. Fifteen firefighters were crowded in front of him, tense with adrenaline, the heat of their eyes competing with the flames at his back.

“No more,” Olmos said.

No one said anything for one second, and then two. And then the roar of the fire was overmatched by the roar of men. “They’re still up there, god-dammit!” they howled, surging forward, a mass of rage. “They’re still in there!”

Olmos pushed his hands into the chests of the men, sending each one that came too close to the ground. “Listen to me!” he bellowed. “You listen to me! We’ve already lost four. We’re not going to lose any more.”

Olmos watched as his men contracted, their shoulders slumping, their heads bowing. They seemed so much smaller, their twisting shadows seem all-encompassing, devouring the men as they walked away.

The fire was contained, leaving nothing but a blackened husk, a monstrous, smoking skeleton, so immense it blotted out the coming dawn.

How are your studies progressing? The liaison asked, once he was within range of the professor. The professor, a hoary man whose moustache seemed to be made of white wire, glanced up before placing his stylus on the desk beside his tablet.

They’re progressing, he answered, taking full advantage of the psychotonal range of telepathy. He seemed frustrated, rushed, annoyed to be interrupted, but ultimately hopeful and satisfied with the development of the project. It was a lie: the professor was not at all satisfied. As someone who had spent decades studying telepathic linguistics, however, he was more than qualified to fake it.

We’re still waiting on your report, the liaison reminded. The Department of Communications is-

The Department of Communications can wait. It took a great deal of skill to interrupt a thought, but fortunately, the professor possessed a great deal of skill. This is a sensitive matter, and I’ve only been given enough funding to test on English speakers and Japanese speakers. If I had more linguistic diversity in my test pool, the research would progress much faster.

Two native languages should be more than enough, the liaison argued. Your language isn’t related to either of them.

It’s not just a matter of language. Come here.

The liaison stepped to the desk, where his eyes followed the professor’s moving stylus across the glowing tablet. A fresh line of symbols made their meaning apparent: language is only the beginning.

You can read that, the professor observed, and the liaison nodded. How?

That’s your field, he replied.

It’s because your concept of beginning and your concept of language fall within the range of understanding. Your lifestyle and experiences contextualize the meaning. What’s a beginning, to you?

The start of something.

The start of what?

I don’t know. A project, maybe.

Like a research project?

Or development. The beginning is the blueprint, the business plan.

To some people, the beginning is the spring in the mountain that feeds their village’s river. In order for those people to read this and find the same meaning that you did, the word “beginning” has to represent both of those concepts.

The liaison nodded. But why would we need to communicate with people like that?

The professor blinked, answering with mental silence.

We have no reason to trade with them.

Language is for more than trade.

You’re being paid to create a written form of telepathy that can be used for international relations. International relations means commerce.

The professor etched a quick note that was immediately swallowed by the tablet.

If you want funding, you have to produce something useful. Talking to jungle tribes is all well and good, but this is applied linguistics, not theory.

I’ll redirect my research, the professor replied without psychoinflection, again scrawling something onto the glowing surface.

What are you writing?

I’m reworking the symbol for language, the professor answered. Apparently, I’ve been misinterpreting it for years.

The expedition team had watched the aliens closely with devices and kept their bodies far away from any pathogens. Never before had anyone seen something quite like this. Today they’d be getting the special privilege of first contact. With all the alien races out there, however, the team was less than enthused.

“Are they monks?” Ferris joked as he sipped his coffee from behind a flat screen running another routine check. The scan showed up negative for pathogens or viruses almost immediately.

Taylor rolled her eyes and checked her nails with her feet propped up on the back of Ferris’ chair. “Just because they don’t speak doesn’t mean they follow some cult. It could just be genetic.”

“This is your pilot speaking,” Caldwell chimed in from overhead. “We’ll be touching down in thirty seconds next to their camp. Also, Ferris, if you drop any of that filthy fluid onto my deck I will use your blood to get it out. It stinks to high heaven when you do.”

“Ah shut up, Cal, the shit don’t stink that bad.” Ferris took another sip as he sat up and checked the readings one more time. “You ready to go, chica? A whole new race of people that look just like us is waiting.”

“You’re so narrow minded, Ferris. They might have new tech for us to bring back to base.” Taylor had already started gearing up for the land. It was only moments later that they touched down with a light shaking of the room and then the distinct sounds of de-pressurizing all over the main deck.

Ferris smirked as he sipped more of his coffee before downing the rest and tossing the cup. “Ah, yeah, gotta love those hut-dwelling tech-gods. One of them is going to try and mate me, you’ll see.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Ferris. They will get one whiff of you and run away.” Both had begun walking out onto the ramp as it opened up. The air, surprisingly, was quite clean. Both inhaled deeply and then looked at each other as if trying to spot a reaction. Taylor just smirked. “Damn, you’re still alive.”

Just then a group from the village wandered near the craft, eyes wide. Noting the presence of the expedition was hard not to do with a two thousand ton skimmer parked in their backyard. Taylor sighed when she saw them close in. “Now, just let me do the talking… assuming they speak at all.”

Taking a deep breath, Taylor began to explain that they had come from a far away place to make contact and that they were happy to see this was a peaceful place to live. It was a very long speech and offered very little gesticulation. Meantime, Ferris just looked confused.

“Well? Going to explain it to them or what!?” His brows pushed together as he just looked insulted that she was standing there looking back at him. Ferris’ nose twitched a bit and he wiped it a second, allowing him to relax before replying to Taylor’s comment.

The discussion lasted no more than five minutes and both had learned all they could have ever wanted from this silent group of alien people. In addition, Ferris found out that Taylor really did have the hots for him this whole time but it was clear from what Taylor communicated that he had a long way to go to get any respect from her. Both said their piece and walked back onto the ship leaving the villagers there. Not a word having been spoken.

“You’re being irrational.”

“I know.” Sandra’s grey-green eyes matched the sight below her, mesmerized by the crashing of waves against one of the few beaches left in the world. She didn’t look away, not even to meet the irritated gaze of her husband across the restaurant table. “But doesn’t it get to you, too? It’s so… huge.”

Mark rolled his eyes and took his annoyance out on a dinner roll that didn’t really deserve it. “Sandy, do you have any idea how much I paid for this view? The least you could do is try to enjoy it-or tolerate it, for the sake of our anniversary.”

“I told you I was afraid of water.” Sandra didn’t look up. The ocean was far below them, but she could still see the waves, reckless and unconstrained by the neat, sanitary conveniences of human life. Once there had been many oceans, covering the majority of the planet’s surface. Now most of that had dried up, which in Sandra’s eyes made life tolerable-but this one still persisted, and here she was confronted with it. She couldn’t look away.

“I didn’t think you were this serious,” Mark muttered, putting the maligned roll aside on a china plate. “I mean-” He picked up his glass of purified, recycled table-water, the highest quality. “Look at this.” He waved it in her face. “That doesn’t bother you, does it?”

Sandra finally glanced up, then frowned and flinched away from the glass. “No, not as much,” she conceded. “But that’s different. The ocean…” Her eyes strayed to the window again, caught in the billowing waves. “It’s so huge. So… violent. People used to die at sea, you know.”

“Sure, in the dark ages,” Mark scoffed. “And it’s not huge. It’s miniscule; barely a tenth of what it was when our great grandparents were around.” He pulled out his cellphone. “I can punch it up on satellite and prove it.”

“No-Mark, it’s okay.” Sandra sighed and tore her eyes away from the ocean view. “I’m sorry. Let’s just enjoy our meal.” She smiled wanly at her husband, who finally put away the cellphone, though not without much grumbling.

Throughout dinner, Sandra was careful not to look out the window. But she could feel it, crashing silently just outside her vision, a malignant and uncontrollable force-perhaps the last uncontrollable force that the world held. Sandra kept her eyes on her plate, but when she and Mark finally left the restaurant, her expensive glass of water remained untouched.

Angel was used to doors shutting in his face, the slap of glass sliding doors, the definitive clunk of plastic automatic doors, even the thump of an old fashioned wooden door. On Earth, people live with shut doors and masked faces. Angel went barefaced for his missionary work. He was used to speaking to the masked faces of earth, every imperfection covered by plastic that betrayed no emotion unless the user ordered it. To have his face naked, as unfashionable as it felt, was part of first yearlong mission.

Angel wasn’t any more successful than any of the other missionaries, but speaking the word of God felt right to him. He signed on for another year, to preach the word of the third and final coming of the Christ, who would be all the prophets together, the Buddha, the Kristina, the Jesus, the Renee, the sacred prophets in one body.

The Church of the Final Prophets sent him off world, to preach to non-humans. Popular opinion in the church was that aliens had different Gods than humans, and that they lived under different holy law. Angel didn’t believe that. Angel knew they were all under the same God, and that a Messiah could come from any race. Perhaps the next Messiah would come from an alien race, and if that was so, he wanted to be ready when the prophet came.

Few humans ever came to the Singia home world; there wasn’t much there but muddy land and sea, and the terrible smell. The smell was a mix of sulphur, seaweed, rotten eggs and rotten fish. Angel hoped that he would get used to the smell, but what made it terrible was its inconsistency. Sometimes the smell would be strong, and sometimes it would fade only to come back in a nauseating breeze. Angel slept in the warm mud and ate from the silver packages the mission sent to him. He was wet all of the time. These were the sacrifices he had to make to spread the word.

The Singia did not have doors; they had holes that lead to their underwater hunting grounds. The Singia came in green, brown, and brownish green. They had fins, eyes on the sides of their body, and when not swimming they waddled comically on the surface. Short, but wide, they would turn one flank of their scaly bodies toward Angel and look at him through the line of eyes down their scaly sides. For all of these differences, the oddest thing about the Singia was that they listened to him

Angel sat cross-legged when he preached to them. He had never had an audience before, but the Singia came from all over their world to hear him speak. Angel explained to the Singia about saviors, about messiahs, about the spiritual history of humans. The Singia listened, night after night, as he told them about the Law, and God, and how even they could produce a savior. The Singia didn’t really speak, except for low moans underwater, and did not live in any homes or structures of any kind. To speak to their translators, Angel had to stick his head underwater and listen for the drawn out notes to shape themselves into words. They always encouraged him to tell them more about God and his prophets, and Angel felt as if he might convert the entire planet to the truth.

At the end of the year, he felt as if he had spoken to all of the five thousand Singia that inhabited the planet. He had an audience of hundreds daily, and young hatchlings were always being brought to see him and listen to his words. When the ship came to pick him up, he stuck his head in the murky water and hummed a goodbye in the Singia language.

The Singia translator moaned low notes back at Angel. The Singia thanked him for the lovely entertainment his people had provided, and said that if he, or any other Earthers would like to come back and tell the Singia more stories, the Singia would always be glad to listen.

“Storytellers are greatly prized here,” The creature sang ” and you are the greatest we have had in generations.”

The Terran ambassador arrived in a richly decorated shuttle, bearing several barrels of unfiltered ayula and decked in fabrics that shimmered under the Ryexian sun. The visit was unexpected, so no troops met him at the spaceport to ensure his safety, but he spared no expense and immediately summoned an aristocoach which he paid for with glimmering stones and coins fashioned of yellow metal. When he produced his credentials at the palace gate the guards were appalled: why had he not sent a courier ahead? He had been received as a plebeian, a mere businessman. The ambassador’s reasoning was intact, however. Too much fanfare would have aroused the attention of dissenters, and his three bodyguards were more than enough to ensure his safety. Now, however, in the comfort of the castle, he did not oppose to being treated like the Terran rulers he served.

The ambassador lounged in his luxurious guest room, sampling the Ryexian pleasure women and drinking the finest gallawine. His gifts spoke wonders of his native land: jewels, perfumes, and spices so fine they made the Ryexian seasonings profane by comparison. Little was known of the Terran homeworld, as the Ryexians had not yet developed interstellar technology. Among the most exotic of gifts was a bird with plumage that fanned into a shimmering wall of color. A peacock, the diplomat explained. He had come to negotiate trade arrangements, and was prepared to bring samples of Ryexian production back to be inspected by his ruler.

There was no shortage of businessmen and merchants eager to offer their products, hungry for export profits and desperate for the prestige of being affiliated with such an advanced world. They refused the ambassador’s offer of payment. These were gifts, gestures of goodwill towards the Terran ruler. When the ambassador left, his shuttle loaded with riches and sample products, he was seen off by a crowd of the most important names on Ryexia. He swore to return in three months’ time, bearing contracts and more gifts to show the limitless resources of his homeland.

Three months passed, then four. Five, six, before word from the Terrans. “We have been waiting for your highness’ response to our gifts,” the Ryexian king said with deference.

“Your gifts?” asked the Terran ruler.

“Given to your ambassador.”

“Our ambassador has not yet contacted you,” said the ruler.

And that was how the Ryexians learned the Terran way.