365 tomorrows

The Sears catalogue offers dozens of models of BlogBots, but it claims that its most popular is the X451, used to conduct remote interviews. During an average three years of service, the X451 BlogBot will recite hundreds of questions posted to its forum and transcribe the answers of over 50 interviewees. Some interviewees are celebrities, and some are politicians. Many are general surveys, where the BlogBot is positioned in a public space and repeats the same question to a given number of pedestrians.

Once, the legend goes, a kid asked his favorite site’s BlogBot to interview another BlogBot, this one belonging to a fiction site, and provided it with a single question: “Why do you do it?” A BlogBot’s programming is rudimentary by conventional standards, and it’s considered slightly less intelligent than the average car. When the question was posed to the fiction BlogBot, it nearly crashed, but its adaptive software saved it by processing the question as an incomplete answer rather than an inquiry.

People say science fiction is prophetic, but that isn’t entirely true. Science fiction isn’t about the future. It’s about the world we live in now, which is constant and constantly changing. The specifics change, from hovercars and ray guns to genetic engineering and cyberspace, but at the center of every science fiction story there’s something alive, something human. And that never changes.

The first answer was not an answer. The second BlogBot coolly repeated the words it had been given, and the BlogBot conducting the interview lapsed into a similar state. For several minutes, the room was filled with two voices as the BlogBots recited the question over and over. Each repetition was classified as a follow-up question, and in accordance with its programming, nothing could be converted to text until a final answer had been given.

Of course, it’s difficult to come up with ideas sometimes. You get discouraged, or feel like everything’s been done before. Often, it has. Sometimes the ideas are wonderful, and sometimes they’re less than wonderful. But you do it anyways, because that’s what writing is about.

It took the webmaster over an hour to realize that something was wrong, and it took three days to find the missing BlogBots. When they were recovered they were still locked in battle, though their words were now slurred by dying batteries. Not a single word had been converted to text. The question was never answered.

When readers try to thank me for writing, I never understand it. On their own, words are nothing but lead and ink and pixels. Telling a story is a circle: the writer writes, the reader reads, and worlds are created. I’m constantly thanking my readers. Sometimes, it’s just more obvious than others.

Information about the upcoming year of 365

It seems like it’s been forever since I stopped at an abnormally long traffic light in my hometown and wondered why the internet has daily blogs, daily webcomics, and no daily fiction. 365 days after our initial launch, it’s safe to say that’s no longer true. 365tomorrows is the first daily flash-fiction site to complete an entire year, and although we’ve given you hundreds of stories, there are thousands more waiting to be told. Some will be ours, some will be yours, but you will never go without your daily fix.

We are, however, making a few changes.

In year two, Steve Smith will be joining the 365tomorrows staff as a contributing writer. Steve’s a fantastic wordsmith and a beacon of ideas, so we’re certain that you’ll love his work as much as we do. He’ll be replacing Jared Axelrod, who’s leaving to pursue his own projects. The rest of us (J Loseth, JR Blackwell, B York, and myself) are sticking around, though you’ll be seeing less of our work as we use submission content to introduce you new writers.

In case you missed our newspost about submissions, you can find all the information you’ll need through the “submit” button on the navbar above. We’re still accepting them, so hurry up and write!

We’ve had an excellent but challenging year, and I’m constantly astounded by the amount of audience support we’ve received. It hasn’t always been easy (wardriving at midnight during power outages, typing stories into cellphones) but it’s been fun, and we’re ready to go another round.

Brody looked at the puppies frolicking in the flower garden and beyond them, to where a professional cuteologist, complete with a lab coat and kitten ears, was giving children rides on a friendly lion. Brody shuddered, shoving his hands into his trench coat. “I hate this place.”

Chinjin punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Christ Brody, how can you be cranky in Cute Land?”

“It’s just that everything here has a face. It’s creepy.”

Chinjin rolled her eyes. “Everything does not have a face.”

“No, seriously, everything has a face. Look, the clouds have faces, the rides have faces, even the food has faces. That kid over there is licking an ice-cream cone with a face!”

“Aw, I think it’s cute. Look at the way the ice cream’s nose scrunches up when the kid licks it.”

“Baby, he is killing that face, one lick at a time, it’s creepy.” Brody waved his arms around “This place is cute porn. Any minute now I will barf glitter.”

Chinjin turned away from him. Brody saw her wipe at her face with her hands.

Brody sighed. “I’m sorry babe. I didn’t mean -” He reached for her, but she pulled away.

“I’m fine.” She said, looking down at the rubber rainbow floor.

“Baby, you’re not fine, and I’m sorry.” He reached for her again, and she hugged him, pressing her cheek on his sloping shoulder. “I know you arranged this vacation for me and I really appreciate it. Cute Land just isn’t my thing. I’m sure we can find someplace in the Pleasure Dome to have a good time.” He looked up at a candy signpost, which was whistling merrily. “Look, that way is Gremlin Town; I bet we could have a lot of fun in Gremlin Town.”

Chinjin put her arms around his neck.“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and then later, maybe we can go down to the Love Lagoon.” He tickled her waist and she giggled. “All the animatronics there are fully functional, and no kids allowed.”

Chinjin grinned. “Now that does sound like fun.”

He squeezed her waist. “Off to Gremlin Town we go.”

The signpost winked.

We have given you so much.

We have, for your entire lifetime, watched over you and found you to be needing of our help. In the end, however, you became what you were designed to become. We never made you but we knew your purpose.

When you were born of cells we gave you dense matter with which to cease the life of your food. With this we taught you to take the covering of the dead and use them for warmth. In these times we taught you how the sky could combust and bring to you fire. With this fire we taught you how to sterilize the organisms whose life you extinguished to survive.

Time went by and we soon thought to bring you denser molecules from your world deep beneath the crust. We taught you how to use the fire from previous years to bend the dense molecules to make them sharp and deadly. We did not send you to kill others with these evolutions of weapons. You did that, because it was part of your purpose.

More time would pass in a blink of our existence and we could show you then how to float upon the sodium-chloride liquid of your globe. We taught you how the cycles of your atmosphere would move you across the liquid to find other masses of geography. It was you who conquered, however. It was you who decided to take and not share.

When the matter from these vessels deteriorated we began to teach you of chemicals. We sought to enlighten you through written text and allowed you to see inside yourselves through the science of your making and existence. You strayed from your paths, however, and began to make flammable powder from chemicals to harm your own species over land, over belief, over nothing.

As you began to progress much faster, we had to teach you more than we ever thought we should. Your purpose had been made clear by our lesson over atomic energies and quantum physics. The minds of men twisted the ideas to make devices capable of destructive awe. We watched as you created webs of bickering and gossip over waves of energy and light. Observing your transposed ideas of peace over a world rife with conflict we knew that in these times your purpose was made manifest to even you.

Later we showed you how to communicate instantly with one another. You used this to coordinate strikes and attacks. We showed you how to venture outside your atmosphere in search of something greater than yourselves. With that knowledge you conquered above other men to hold in greed what was never and will never be yours.

In the times to come we saw the façade peeled back to reveal your purpose even to yourselves. When shown condensed light for building and healing you turned it to weapons. When we showed you how to find other life forms within other atmospheres, you conquered and enslaved rather than make peace. As many of your species fell to others of their kind, we watched you strangle yourself. When we watched you, when we helped and showed you all that we could, we saw what your purpose truly was.

As the black voids of our existence draw us in and compact us into unknown pressurized masses, we look upon you and wonder why you were there for us to show so many ideas.

We have no weapons here, no quarrels and no animosity. Science is our purpose and it has no prejudice. On a cold desolate planet, you live the last of your days and here, at the end of all things, do we thank you for showing us what we might have become.

When I found her she was seated at the entrance to the 8th street NR station, looking like Huckleberry Finn in faded overalls with a wooden fishing pole resting over her shoulder. She’d been waiting for me, of course, because I was the one with the BB gun, and she damn well wasn’t going hunting on her own. Dawn was cocky, sure, but she wasn’t stupid. You never know what can happen down there.

“Ready?” she asked, grinning like a cartoon pumpkin. I nodded and she swung the fishing pole out to grab hold of the line, which was tied around the usual candle. Dawn lit both ends then bounced down the stairs, disappearing into the black subway entrance as if it were the mouth of a cave. I followed, the BB gun brushing against my hip.

As usual, the swarm of small fries dashed away from Dawn’s candle with a clatter of hundreds of claws against cement. These were three, maybe four inches…not the type we wasted ammo on. The quickest gutterbrats could catch them by tossing nets, but Dawn and I, we hunted serious game. She thrust the fishing pole into my hands as she hopped the turnstile, and my eyes followed the watery light over the familiar space. Hulking figures of old, dark ticket machines, and the plexiglass windows of the chamber that, for some reason, had never been looted. All trains cancelled, the whiteboard read in marker unaffected by the last decade.

“Downtown this time?” Dawn asked. She took the pole back so that I could swing myself over the barrier, and when I landed, I nodded. We passed the pole again to jump down into the tracks, and the flame flickered, almost going out from the movement. The candle was vital to tunnelhunting. Aside from providing light, it warned us when we were coming up on a patch of dead air. When we stood still we could hear them in the distance, crawling through the tunnels. The big fish, trackrabbits the size of cats.

Dawn stopped, and the candle bobbed. This was the place. I hurled the Styrofoam containers onto the next track over and heard the snap and wet crash of half-rotten bait, then I backed beside her to wait. They heard it. They always did.

The first ones were small, a little smaller than a cat. In the flickering light of the candle they were emaciated grey shapes trailing bent tails, sometimes bulging with tumors. The water’s poison, down here. We wait patiently, Dawn dangling the candle a few feet ahead as I level the gun at the swarm of rats. The big ones come later, ambling on crooked legs. Those are the ones we want.

The shots are clean, like my shots always are, and the rest of the trackrabbits scatter like pigeons. When Dawn and I get over, three of them are laying on the tracks, and one of them’s still twitching. “Nice,” she says, and I nod in agreement. One’s almost the size of a dog…it’ll fetch good money topside.

Dawn grabs the smallest one by the fattest part of the tail and starts dragging, steadying the fishing pole by tucking it under her arm and holding it straight with her free hand. I grab the other two and we head back to the sunlight, pulling our spoils behind us.

Yvette stood at the brink of discovery in the next model-Z line. Countless researchers and developers could not dream of the level she had achieved, nor could the social allure of actual interaction hope to compete with the revolution she would create. One could never believe, however, that the love Yvette felt for her work was more than the love one feels for a pet.

“Prometheus 1, do you understand protocol?” she proudly asked the towering humanoid to her left. The metal had been warped to the shape of an athlete with the facial structure of disembodied holo-visage.

This being moved only when she spoke, and when it did move, it was mechanical and lifeless. It began to glow in joints and parts of its latex-coated face. Monotone perfection poured from every artificial crevice of the being, “Prometheus 1 comprehends protocol, Yvette. How may I serve you today my dear?”

“Oh no, Prometheus… not today. Today I serve you.” She opened the small white case settled atop a counter, removing from it a chip no larger than her thumb print. “Today, I will show you what it is to love, to cry, to live like we live. You will be free.”

“Prometheus 1 is astonished that you have completed your project, Yvette. Shall Prometheus 1 open the proper receptacle for you?” Only in her private lab would the sounds of her very first robot in production speak so dearly of its creator; soon to be his creator.

With a nod, the being shook slightly before a panel on the edge of its metallic ribs opened and exposed a series of boards and circuits of which there was only one opening to insert a new piece. Yvette could barely hold back her tears of joy as she carefully reached over to place the chip that would be installed into every bot in her production into her own joyous creation: Prometheus 1.

She held her breath to watch it click into place. The panel slowly slid back inside of the beings artificial frame. There were some normal sounds of processing followed by silence and in the meantime she held the face she created, stared into the eyes of her making and saw absolute love staring back. A whispered breath broke her silence as tears strolled down her cheeks.

“…Prometheus 1… speak. Tell me that you love me.”

With every ounce of emotion in the entire life of a human poured into moments of processed epiphany the being, now a he, completed his purpose on this world, “I… I love you, Yvette.”

Dreams fulfilled they soon crumbled. The sounds of processing now amounted to a single click and a sizzle as the circuits of the internal system simply went dead along with the rest of him. Every bot in the factory would experience the same malfunction and the company would plummet. In this moment, however, Yvette knew no care for money only to know that she had gone too far. The burden was meant for us to carry.

Inigo struggled against the duct tape, trying to work his hands loose. John Kennedy backhanded him.

“I told you to knock that off. You sit still till we’re done.”

Inigo felt fluid running down from his nose over the silver tape on his lips. Blood ran into his throat and Inigo tried not to choke. He concentrated on breathing though his one good nostril, determined not to let himself pass out

Three men wearing electronic hologram masks were loading trash bags into Inigos house. The masks were all of former presidents. Washington and the post sex-change Clinton were doing the heavy lifting while Kennedy stood next to Inigo, holding a laser pistol in his right hand. Inigo watched them carry a broken couch up the stairs in horror. A full couch would cost thousands of dollars to dispose of, even on the black market.

Kennedy ruffled Inigos long hair. “You’ve got lots of space, don’t you? You’re not gonna mind our little gifts.” Inigo felt like he was on fire, like his eyes were about to burst from his head. The waste, the broken electronics, the clothes, all this stuff would cost a fortune to get rid of. Trash didn’t go cheap, and each year the government charged more to take it away. He had inherited this house from his father, and had worked hard to keep it free from garbage. His garden and compost pile allowed him to keep waste to a minimum. These men were destroying years of hard conservation. Inigo silently vowed to rip them to shreds.

“Look at how mad he looks? Shit boys, he’s turned red he’s so mad.” Kennedy laughed. Washington and Clinton ignored them and kept moving bags into the house.

If he hadn’t been sleeping when they entered the house, this would have never happened. Ingio cursed his deep sleep. As a child, he had slept though earthquakes and hurricanes and now he had slept though a Clutter Mob breaking into his house. If he had been awake, he could have taken all three of them, even if Kennedy did have a laser pistol.

Ingio tried to calm his heartbeat. He didn’t want Eugene coming home, not now. The heart sensor had seemed so romantic when they bought it in Second Paris but now it felt like a liability. If Eugene felt Inigos racing heartbeat through the sensor, he might come home to see what was wrong. Eugene, the chemistry student, would faint in front of men like this. If Eugene knew that Inigo was in danger, his heart would be beating wildly. Even a mouse made Eugene startle. Inigo closed his dark eyes and concentrated. Distantly, he could feel Eugene’s calm, steady heartbeat. Eugene was safe, probably studying in a quiet library somewhere. Inigo said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity was watching over them.

“Hey, you asleep?” Kennedy smacked Inigos face.

A crack broke in the air and all the presidents jumped. There was a loud whirring sound and then all the lights went out. Inigo recognized the strange sound. It was an EMP pulse. Eugene had made a handheld EMP in one of his graduate classes, and had taken great joy in showing it off. Inigo blinked, and saw that the hologram masks had disappeared.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Said Kennedy, now a strange older man. “You saw our faces. Now you’ve gotta die.” The Ex-president pressed the laser pistol into Inigos forehead. Inigo resolved to die with his eyes open. Kennedy pulled the trigger.

“You morons.” Eugene stood, the outline of his long coat silhouetted in the doorway. “Your guns use electricity. They’re dead.” Eugene held his sword in front of him, the edge flashing in the low light. “This, however, is still plenty sharp.”

Kennedy launched himself at Eugene, holding the dead pistol like a club. Eugene sidestepped him and brought the sword down on the back of his knee. Kennedy roared as he fell. Clinton, now a burly blond, squealed and ran past Inigo out the back door.

Washington charged at Eugene, shoulders low, trying to knock him over like a linebacker. Eugene swiped his blade and Inigo saw the man fall forward choking. Inigo heard a car start. Kennedy limped towards the front door but Eugene was behind him, following like a vengeful spirit. Eugene punched the hilt of his sword into the back of Kennedy’s head. He fell forward against the door handle and hit the floor with a thud.

Eugene ran to Inigo and slowly pulled the duct tape from his lovers face. “The police are on their way. I called them as soon as I felt your heart go wild.” Eugene swept his hands over Inigos body. “Did they hurt you?”

“I’ll kill them. I’ll have vengeance.”

Eugene unwrapped the tape from Inigo’s wrists. “Inigo, don’t worry, they’ll pay. Legally. If we have to, we’ll find a way to get rid of this stuff together. It’s just a new challenge.”

Inigo wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “I worked so hard.”

“I know.”

Inigo looked over at Eugene, one eyebrow arched. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“I thought I knew everything about you, but here you somehow know how to swordfight like a master.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Eugene, how can you be a master swordsman, but be afraid of the food that gets caught in the kitchen sink?”

“I’m not really that great at sword fighting. I’m very rusty.” Eugene took a handkerchief out of his coat and handed it to Inigo. “I used to spar with the finest swordfighter in the world. But that was a long time ago.”

Ingio let Eugene help him to his feet. He leaned against his lover, his legs numb from being taped to the chair legs. “It was very sexy Eugene. It was a side of you I would very much like to get to know better.”

Eugene blushed. “Thank you.”

“I can’t feel your heartbeat anymore.” Inigo rubbed his hands on his chest. “It feels empty.”

“The EMP pulse must have knocked the transmitter out.” Eugene pressed Inigos hands over his heart. “But it’s here, and will always be here for you.” They kissed, hand overlapping their hearts.

“So Jeynce and Carr are getting married in three months.”

Ernest was projecting on the top of the decorative bridge, tossing tiny sticks into the flowing water. They’d chosen an ancient Japanese theme for this afternoon, and he hoped that Ilyah found it relaxing, because Ernest was bored by the tranquility.

“Wow. That’s a surprise.” Ilyah’s eyebrows rose and she swung her leg over the shimmering water idly trying to discern the repeat cycle of the scenery projection. “They’re pretty young. But if that’s what they’re going to do, why wait so long?” She batted at a low-hanging branch with her toe. “Cold feet?”

“Nah.” Ernest shook his head. “They’re followers of Dra’nar, remember? They’re doing it the old-fashioned way. Embodied,” he clarified.

Ilyah’s expression registered mild distaste. “How odd,” she commented, a liberal to the last. “It’s hard to believe anyone still holds with those old customs.”

Ernest shrugged. “To each their own,” he said, and Ilyah nodded with practiced political correctness. “Still,” he added, “I’m actually surprised they could find an open space large enough to hold it that wasn’t under radiation lockdown.”

“The guests are expected to embody, too?” Ilyah was aghast. “Old customs are one thing, but to impose them on everyone else… that’s just rude.”

“Of course not,” Ernest told her with a sigh. “But for that big an occasion, the projections will be programmed for no impact, so they have to have room for everyone to stand.”

“Still seems sort of vulgar in the modern age,” Ilyah mused. Ernest said nothing. He knew better than to argue with his wife.

At last, Ilyah sighed and stood, stretching with a little yawn. “Well, I’m going to log and make something to eat,” she informed Ernest. “Want to meet in the house program at seven?”

Ernest nodded, and when Ilyah bent down, he brushed the lips of his wife’s projection with his own. Ilyah smiled and shimmered, disappearing from the scene. With a sigh of relief, Ernest touched the controls and switched to something more palatable. Something with feeling. The tranquil garden was replaced by a dark slummy city street, an exact replica of the one above ground in every respect save the radiation. Ernest’s mouth twitched. No matter how much she professed to be a modern woman, his wife really was an old-fashioned girl.

“She likes the rain,” Ms. Jones explained to her neighbor when the woman called in a panic, yelling that Xue had spent the last six hours sprawled across the top of the house ‘looking like a half-drowned corpse.’ She scowled at the shrill, busybody voice, but saved her choice words for the sound of the dial tone after Mrs. Hatter had been disconnected. The social workers had warned her that the transition would be difficult for Xue, but no one could have cautioned her about the Hatters.

The entire country had seen the news reports of the commune raid, but it had been reduced to late night talk show jokes in a matter of days, and within two weeks, it was forgotten. The commune leaders were sent to jail, which Ms. Jones’ pastor described as a light punishment for the crime of playing God.

In the first few weeks, Ms. Jones had become aware of the whispers that stopped when she drew near to the groups of ladies assembled to collect their biological children from the church’s after-school care program. She’d learned to ignore them, eyes forward as she swept through the handful of women to the corner where Xue played by herself. After she gathered the abnormally small child into her arms she always made it a point to walk past the other mothers with her posture straight, her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrow. It had taken Ms. Jones less than a month to become fiercely proud of her foster daughter. The condescending glances only strengthened her conviction.

Such a pity, the ladies gossiped. The girl’s barely human. Can you imagine? And with no husband to help. She should have just gotten a pet.

After Ms. Jones replaced the phone on its cradle, she left through the front door and walked to the sidewalk, shielding her eyes from the downpour and scanning the roof for Xue. Sure enough, the girl was stretched across the mottled shingles. Ms. Jones didn’t bother calling her name. She strode to the ladder and climbed eleven feet before stepping over the edge of the ranch house roof.

“Xue?” Ms. Jones said softly. The girl shuddered, sending droplets of rain in every direction. “Don’t you think it’s time to come inside, honey?”

Xue turned, her dark, unblinking eyes meeting Ms. Jones’ blue ones. Her nose twitched, but she offered no response to the question.

“It’s cold out here,” she said. “You must be freezing.”

“I’m not cold.”

Ms. Jones shrugged as she took a seat beside her foster daughter. “I am,” she said.

“That’s because you don’t have fur.”

Ms. Jones had no argument. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched the clouds scrolling over the horizon.

“No one’s making you stay out here,” Xue said. Her voice was cool, sullen, and seemed old for her eleven years.

Again. Ms. Jones shrugged. “It’ll stop raining eventually,” she said.

“Whatever.”

“And the colder I get, the better the hot chocolate will taste when I go back inside.”

Xue’s whiskers trembled. “You have hot chocolate?” she asked.

“And marshmallows,” Ms. Jones said.

The girl considered this for a long minute. “Maybe in a little bit.”

“No hurry.” Ms. Jones brushed away the lines that rain had traced through the thin fur of her daughter’s forehead. “It’ll be there whenever you’re ready.”

Jupiter pulled on her wrist, dragging her behind the shed. It was right after evening prayer, and the sky was turning bright orange and deep purple. He kissed her like he had seen his parents do, putting his tongue in her mouth, wiggling it around. She backed away from him, giggling.

“Can I do it?” he said, holding out his hands, palms up in front of her.

“I don’t know.” she said.

“Please Katie? Don’t you like me?”

“I like you.” Katie pulled his hands down onto her tiny breasts and he massaged them though her wool dress. It felt warm when he touched her like that; so different from when she touched herself.

Jupiter smelled like boy sweat and river water. He fumbled with the buttons at her waist. She let him unbutton her, and he slid his hands up on her slender ribs, on her small breasts. His fingers found her nipples, and he pressed her against the shed, grinding his hips on her thigh. He squeezed her nipples tight between his fingers, and she clenched her teeth, letting out a sharp whistle of breath. Jupiter mistook this for encouragement, and he twisted them, hard, and she cried out. Just a little, but she cried out, and then Jupiter’s uncle came running round the corner with a lantern.

Jupiter got six lashes, but they were going to exile her. They didn’t need girls around that would tempt good boys to the devil. They lashed Jupiter outside of the courthouse, in front of the terrible small cell where they put her. As they lashed him, the people in the village came by to throw rotting fruit at her between the bars, and call her horrible names. Her brother came by and called her a slut and spat on her. Her mother and father watched her from far away. Her aunt came by and said that her parents were happy, because now the village would let them have another child, one that wasn’t a slut and a whore and one that would be a god fearing child who would be with them when they all went to heaven.

At night, the guards came by with knives, and they showed her what would happen to her after exile. They would shoot her up into the blue sky, past the blue out into the black, and then the metal men would take her out of the pod, and she would be their whore. They showed her what they would do, thrusting with the knives into the air. The robots were made of knives, they said, and they would cut her from the inside out. That’s what they did with girls.

Once, someone had been exiled who had been possessed by evil spirits. When they sent the pod up in the air, it burst into flames partway up, exploding like fireworks, bits of plastic and flesh raining down from the sky. Katie prayed all night that she would explode, that God would hear her, even though she was a whore, and that he would kill her rather than let her die with the robot men.

In the morning, the same men took her out of the prison and bundled her into the pod. As they closed the door, Katie saw her mother in the crowd, crying. They had always held each other when they were feeling low, and Katie wanted nothing else than to have her head in her mothers lap, her mothers fingers in her hair. Katie cried out for her mother, and the door sealed shut.

The pod rocked so hard that Katie threw up and knocked her head against the cushioned sides. The pod was so small, she couldn’t move inside it, and the sides became terribly hot, and then suddenly so cold that frost formed on the inside walls.

Then, after a long time, the pod stopped. There was a hiss and then the door to the pod slowly swung open. Kneeling on the other side of the pod was a bald woman in what look liked tight blue underclothes. The woman reached out to Katie.

“It’s alright.” said the woman. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

Katie cringed. “Are you a robot?” she asked, her fingers pressing into her thin arms.

“That’s complicated sweetheart. I’ve got a cybernetic net over my brain and there are a few cameras in my body, but I’m mostly meat, so no, I’m not a robot.”

“Are the men out there robots?”

“No robot men on this ship little one, though there are robots in the universe, but they aren’t likely to hurt you.”

Katie shivered. The bald woman sat back on her haunches.

“Thirty-eight years ago the people on our planet launched me into space, just like you were launched. They though they were sending me to slave traders, because that is what their grandparents did. But things have changed here in space, and slave trade is outlawed in this sector. I set up an organization to collect the girls, and it’s mostly girls, that our people exile. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I have to tell you, there are bigger things than on that planet down there, and some of them are wonderful and some of them are scary, but not one person coming off our home world hasn’t been able to handle it. You can’t go back, and you can’t stay in the pod. Why don’t you come out and we can get you something to eat.” The bald woman held out her arms, palms upward.

Katie reached her hands out of the pod. “I’m Katie.”

“We’re sorry, but the tissue damage is irreparable. It’s spreading. You’ll start to feel the pain in a few days, then, nothing at all.” The silence in the room gave way to a gentle sigh from Russ, whose eyes looked up at the Doc with longing.

“Doc, what’s my time?” he barely choked out.

“Honestly, Russell you have about a week, maybe two.”

Russ’ girlfriend just looked up, concerned, but Russ didn’t seem phased by the time he came to ask about the only alternative safe enough to use this day and age. “Can they prep the machine before that? I mean they’ll be able to clock me in, right Doc?”

Checking his clipboard, the doctor made a few hums and clicks as if he were prescribing medicine for a cold. A sense of nonchalance hung about him before his brows rose, “Well, we do have an opening in about five days. Early morning, though. That won’t be a problem for you will it?”

“Five days?” The patient nodded as he mulled it over before looking to the corner seat where his girlfriend was. “Honey, we got anything going on Saturday morning?”

“Uhm… you got that job interview in the afternoon.” Her words showed the most concern out of anyone in the room.

“Shit, you’re right. Wait, I can probably make it back before then, right?” Hopeful eyes glanced to the doctor who already started to yawn at the whole situation.

“Yeah, Russell, I think everything will be okay. Now I wrote down what probably caused the long-term effects, and the guys at the machine lab will be able to tell you some ways to fix it all up.” The Doc checked his watch as he handed him a note card. “Russell, I have other patients today, so just give me a call last week and let me know things are fine and I’ll bill you for this in a couple of days.”

Smirking as he glanced over the card, Russ shook his head, “Right, right… but Doc, c’mon! I can understand the smoking but… caffeine? Alcohol? This is going to be tough convincing me to quit this.”

Shrugging, the doctor opened the door to exit, “Hey, I don’t make the laws of time, I just tell you what you got to fix to live, Russell. See you around.”

“Are you sure?”

Lena bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. Very sure.” Her voice was quiet but strong. She needed this.

The counselor nodded, looking down at her clipboard as she checked off items. “All right. I’ve noted your reasoning. The records will be sealed, of course, after the procedure is finished; if you look them up you’ll know you had something performed, but of course you won’t remember what. That would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it?” She gave Lena a lukewarm smile which Lena didn’t return. She didn’t feel much like smiling. The counselor looked back at her sheet. “You passed the psych screening, so now we just need you to isolate the memories you’d like us to modify. Make sure you take your time and get your story straight. I’ll give you the forms.”

Lena took the binder from the counselor with pale, cold hands. A part of her was aghast at the idea of changing her own memories–it felt like self-mutilation. She knew her parents could never find out what she’d done, however, and there was no way to lie to them with her memories intact. They’d use the serum on her, and if she remembered her wrongdoing, Lena would be forced to capitulate.

With a firm and steady hand, Lena wrote her directives and specifics into the binder, recording what would be her new memory of the last six months. “Here,” she said in only a matter of minutes. “I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” the counselor asked. “That didn’t take long. Make certain you’ve written down everything we need to change.”

“It’s only one thing,” Lena said softly. “It was a miscarriage. That’s all. That’s the only thing I want different.”

The counselor regarded Lena for a moment, then nodded slowly. “All right.” She took the binder and stood, beckoning Lena towards the operating room. “Right this way.”

Sunset Lake made Mike nervous, which was something that hadn’t happened since he came home from the war. Sunset Lake was a nice place; lots of natural light, pretty gardens and a big dining room with stretched white tablecloths. Still, all the old people made Mike feel uneasy. Cosmetically, they all looked like teenagers, but they were rotting inside. The cosmetics industry was far ahead of internal medicine. Everyone looked young in their graves.

Mike was happy to be in Melody’s office. Melody was the head nurse of Sunset Lake, and she actually looked all of her forty some years

“You’re a veteran,” said Melody, looking at the computer pad that was displaying Mikes’ resume. Melody was stocky, with large arms and an ample bosom. She had layers of silver chains under her blue smock.

“Yes. Ma’am.” said Mike.

“Well, I don’t want you to worry. I had a cousin that was in the war. Noatter what most people think, I blame the government for what happened, not our boys in space.”

“It’s good to hear that Ma’am’” said Mike, but really, it wasn’t. Mike never expected a homecoming parade, he just wanted to forget the whole thing, scrub that part of his life off his record, so people would stop talking to him about it.

Melody sat down, and leaned across her desk. “Mike, I like your resume and you seem very honest. I’d like you to help me protect our guests.”

“Ma’am, I’m glad for the offer. I just want to know what kind of threats you think your guests are facing. It’s a nice neighborhood here, do you really get a lot of thefts?”

“Thefts aren’t the problem Mike. Most of the people here don’t bring too many personal possessions, and most of their children keep anything that is of value. I need you to protect the people in this facility.”

“Are they in danger? Do they fight?”

“No Mike, most of them, it takes all their effort just to walk.” She crossed her arms tight around her body. “When I first started working here, I noticed some young men hanging around the building. At first, I thought they were children or grandchildren of some of the patients here, but when any of my employees would ask for ID, they would always have “Left it at home” and they would beat it. After one of my staff caught a boy in with Mrs. Lansing, touching her on her breast, we instituted an ID scan on entry to the facility and I set nurses to watch the women’s dorms very carefully. I always had someone in eyesight of all the doorways of every room, and there were random spot-checks.

I blame myself for what happened. I was sexist. I just didn’t imagine. . . Mr. Walsing started telling me that his legs were hurting, and he told me to get his Sword. He said ninjas were attacking him at night. Mr. Walsing has never handled a sword in his life. He was an investment banker before he retired. He just kept asking for a sword, to keep away the nightmares. I had them do a medical exam on him today, and I found out that he has been physically abused. They’ve hacked our system and were coming in here and since they couldn’t get to the women. . .” She stopped speaking for a moment and looked out the window, blinking her eyes.

“That’s terrible.” said Mike, feeling awkward.

They were silent the rest of the way to Mr. Walsings room. When they entered, Mike saw a slender purple haired teenager sleeping on the bed. His smooth pale skin was blanketed with soft sunlight streaming through the light yellow curtains of his room.

Melody lowered her voice. “Mr. Walsing was an engineer. He’s got these beautiful holos of the ships he designed in flight. Maybe you even rode in a few of them. These boys came in here and they hurt him. I don’t know what I am going to say to his family.”

“What about the police?”

Melody shook her head. “We can’t afford them. In this neighborhood, their rates are too high and if we default on a payment, it could be worse for us than the kids.”

Mr. Walsing’s black lashed fluttered and his eyes opened. They were a wet green color, like a forest after it’s rained. “Whose there?” he asked softly, squinting at the doorway.

Mike walked closer, so Mr. Walsing could see his face. “Good afternoon Mr. Walsing. My name is Mike. I am your sword. I am here to keep the nightmares away.”

There was a time when food could be remembered; a time when you could lick your lips and recall the sweet sting of dehydrated packaged delights. Too bad those days don’t exist anymore. Days like that leave you when the thirst takes over.

Travel has just about stopped by now. No one comes off-planet because there is no source of sustenance to be had. I am smarter than that. Perhaps there were fewer of them, but the lack of competition made it easier to capture what you needed.

Watching, I remind myself that I cannot afford the luxuries of stress or frustration. Those things could cause a leak, and I won’t have it. The temperature in my craft is well below what it should be. They say the thirst holds itself at bay for longer when it’s frigid. My breath attests to the fact that I have taken this rumor to heart.

As my cold eyes watch the dead space I know that whatever is left of my soul is out there beyond my reach. The cold, hollow truth lay bare before me while I stand vigilant near the radar. There is nothing left inside, above the saturation percentage. I can measure it by the time that passes between when I swallow and when the glands ache as they thirst for more.

Well above the dying planet I can witness the small blots of what isn’t land. Sometimes I muse to myself how they still exist or why I haven’t drawn closer. They would kill me if they saw me, but in the end they would do exactly as I have done. They would do the same, because there is no other way. Clouds will not gather over a dusty rock and let redemption fall down from the gray mass.

A beep, and my eyes stop wandering. They are now fixed upon the red screen, watching the tiny dot edge closer like an insect to a web. My God, I can feel it rising within me, wanting me to feast. I must wait, however. I must prepare.

One on board? Two on board? It doesn’t matter now. I’ve locked onto them and I prepare the grappler. If not for the emptiness, I could hear their screams. Their horror at being pulled in while the oxygen ceases to flow in their vessel. It must be maddening.

On one side of the device, I observe a gallon-sized capsule stained a dark brown. This is my sin. On the other side, I can see a flask with a dusty, cloudy, but ultimately empty interior. It smells of metal, and it tastes of hydrogen. This is my salvation.

I hear the grappler pulling home, and I hear it lock in before the ship becomes silent again. It’s silent as the inside of their pod. They need not worry anymore. What is left of them will be my salvation. What is left of them will slake my thirst. I power up the machine and I wait for the doors to open into their vessel. Ounce by ounce, pint by pint, the future is on its way.

My brothers made me lay on my stomach, my bare back exposed to their brushes. We are a family of artists; my brothers make a fine design. My father, his fingers stained with ink, watched them work, his face warped in a scowl.

“She may not come.” warned my father. “She is the weakest of her sisters.”

“She is the smallest of giants.” I said, “She will come.” I haven’t had any contact with her for a year, but I believe she will keep her promise. I will not die. She is a warrior, she will come.

“You can still back out.” said my father, sudden concern on his face. “It is your right. You are not yet sealed into a contract.”

“Father.” I said. “I have prepared our hearth. I am in love with her. From the moment we met, my contract to the Gods was already written.”

My father has never liked warriors, and never liked the violence of their binding ritual. I tucked her letters in a pocket underneath my lavish robes.

“What are those?” my brother asks.

“I wrote her letters, every day.”

“You were not allowed to contact her.” he says, thinking he has found a loophole in the ceremony, imagining he can break the ritual before it began.

I shook my head. “They were never sent, they waited for her, like I did.”

My brothers tied me to a pole on top of a giant mound of burning sand. In some places in this dessert, pools of sand turn to glass in the terrible heat.

“These knots could be broken.” whispered my oldest brother. “If you run away, we will find you.” I shake my head. He does not understand.

In the distance I saw the giant lizard pulling at its electric chain. As soon as my brothers board the airship, the chain dissipates. I am not afraid. She is probably hiding. She is an intelligent warrior.

The lizard ran toward me. It was bigger than I thought. My brothers watched from above. I smiled at them. They were worried that even if my lover does come, she will fail. She has not yet made a name for herself in her clan but I know her strength.

The lizard crawled up the mound where I was tied when my lover jumped into my vision. She was caked in mud and she moved like a blur across the sand. I watched her as she shot a golden beam of light from a silver gun in her hand. It strikes the creatures side, a non-lethal blow. The Lizard roared. She drew her sword and it crackled with blue electricity as she leapt towards the monster.

She managed to deal a blow to its leg. It turned swiftly and knocked her to the ground. She lay very still then, and the creature hovered over her, snarling. The creature reared its head and I screamed, my blood burning inside of me.

Her eyes opened, and she moved quickly, slicing at its throat, its orange blood coating her as she rolled out from under its falling body. She dealt the killing blow, her electric sword shaking the giant lizard’s body. She turned and ran towards me. A year has changed her, she has become hardened from her time in space. I weep and she is wiped the blood from her face.

“Embrace me.” I cried. She hesitated.

“I am so dirty.” She said, shame on her face. It was her first words to me in a year.

I slipped out of the lightly tied knots, reaching for her. “Embrace me, and see if I care.”

From the airships above, our families tossed flowers onto the sandy mound, and we were one at last.

The bud blossomed into her ear, its hairlike tendrils snaking towards her eardrum where they fanned out into electric petals, sensors cool against her hot skin. The soft thud reminded Meredith of being submerged, and in a way, she was: holding her breath against the summer rush hour stench of body odor and urine as the subway undertow pulled her beneath the island. The bud measured her heart rate, body temperature, slight changes in her pH. It understood her mood, and it provided a soundtrack to match. Slow, quiet. A Monday evening mix.

Meredith was well into the third track when her hardware buzzed against her thigh. She shifted her weight to detach it, and pressed the backlight button to better make out the words. Josh.

u ok?

im fine, she messaged back. y?

Three thousand miles away, on the west coast, the boy Meredith had met on her favorite band’s forum frowned at the letters on his own messenger. She couldn’t lie to him any more than she could lie to her bud. Josh syndicated all of his friends’ iTracks, and the downtempo music broadcast her mood better than any facial expression could.

im reading ur itrack, he typed. sounds sad.

just a mellow monday, Meredith replied.

want company?

Meredith answered with an indifferent emoticon, but Josh understood. He positioned his analogue headset over his ears and smiled at its weight, at the cold feeling of leather-covered foam beside his cheekbones. He clicked the link on her iTrack feed and jumped in mid-song, then settled back into his armchair, closing his eyes and concentrating on the gentle, melancholy notes.

Separated by an ocean of land, Meredith leaned into the hard cradle of an orange subway chair as her world, too, faded to music. Around her, dozens of bodies shifted to their own rhythms, composing their iTracks over the steady, low hum of the train.

“I knew the Chief went to Japan, I just didn’t know he picked up a new wife,” Bedford said. Bedford removed her welding mask and wiped the sweat from her face with an oily rag. She adjusted herself in the crook of the mecha’s kneecap, letting her repair work cool.

“Pretty too,” Armijo said. He slipped his arms out of his coveralls and tied them around his waist, his chest shiny from accumulated sweat. He tossed a Bedford up a cold soda. “She’s a 400 model.”

“A model, huh?” Bedford said. She cracked open her drink and took a long swig. “One of them toothpick bitches? I’ll never understand the Chief. I mean, havin’ us paint the hangar baby blue and wearin’ all those Hawaiian shirts, thems is one thing. But some spoiled brat paid to walk down a runway? Gimmie one of these hunks of junk over that any day.” She patted the giant robot’s knee-pistons affectionately.

Kruse scooted over on the Mule, the brakes squealing. “Funny thing is, so would the Chief, apparently. Give a fella one of them cans. She’s a 400 model, Beds. She’s a robot.”

Bedford took another drink, scratched at her armpit, then slurped another. “Chief married a mecha?”

“Well, sorta,” Armijo said. He leaned an elbow on the Mule’s handlebars, and shoved his grimy left hand into a similarly filthy pocket. “An android. Looks human. You wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know.”

“Looks human, hell!” Kruse spat. “You tellin’ me I can work on the damn things all day, and I don’t know a robot when I see one?”

“Just tellin’ you what I seen,” Armijo said. “My brother’s got a catalogue–”

Kruse spat again. “You seen her? The Chief’s wife? Iffin’ you can call her that.” An oily rag smacked Kruse in the face. Both he and Armijo turned to Bedford, her tiny fists clenched.

“Listen at you!” she called down. “Ev’ry day I hear you agree with the Chief’s decisions, now all of a sudden you can’t accept a one of ‘em? So he got himself a robot wife? What’s the problem? I didn’t hear you complain when we got the Mule.”

“That’s different,” said Kruse. “The Mule ain’t a wife–”

“Might as well be, the way you coddle it,” Armijo said. Kruze gave him a shove.

“All I’m sayin’ is, I wouldn’t hold to my son marryin’ one.”

“Chief ain’t your son,” Bedford said. “He’s the Chief.” Bedford looked up at the robot she was working on, and then past it at the bright-blue ceiling of the hangar. The Chief spent near a week off hours on the highest scaffold they had, painting white, fluffy clouds. Looking up at the painted sky made her smile.

“It ain’t normal, is all,” Kruse said.

“Mayhaps,” Bedford said, lowering her welding mask to return to work. “But neither is the Chief.”

Palkas’ autograph line had finally dwindled to nothing. They’d capped the line two hours ago and now, at last, the final gawkers and fans were being escorted out of the building. With a sigh and a stretch, Palkas stood and worked the kinks out of his neck. Signing autographs, while less taxing than his day job, didn’t seem to make him stiffen up the same way.

The bouncers were outside, as were his escorts, and Palkas took a moment to look around the room, taking in the posters and 8×10 glossies, all depicting his grinning face. There was the Morkark asteroid field, the one they’d claimed was too dangerous for any one-man ship to successfully navigate. There was the Ressi sun flare, said to be unskimmable. There was his latest triumph, the planet Argus VII, whose heavy gravity and atmosphere had prevented even well-suited humanoids from reconnoitering its surface for seventy years. To other men this would have seemed like a list of impossibilities, but to Palkas it read like a resume. They were all behind him now. He had conquered the unconquerable.

“Mr. Palkas? Sir?”

A face peeked from behind one of the entry doors and Palkas looked up, surprised. The security personnel were supposed to be keeping people out, not letting them in–but this was a young man, couldn’t be more than twenty, and Palkas certainly didn’t feel concerned for his personal safety. “Yes? What is it, son?”

The kid moved into the room, smiling nervously. He seemed a little star-struck. “Ah, I know I’m late–sorry about that–but I was wondering, um, if I could have your autograph? It’s for my sister,” he added quickly. “She’s your biggest fan.”

Palkas sighed. The bouncers definitely should have picked this one up before he got this far, but what the hell. The room was quiet, and he couldn’t head back to the hotel until the security men got back, anyway. “Sure,” he said, taking out a pen and pulling over the poster that the kid proffered. When given the name in a trembling voice, he signed in flowing script. “Here you are. Hope she enjoys it.”

“Thank you, sir. I know she will, sir.” The kid was beside himself. He gazed at all the posters with starry-eyed awe. “It’s amazing that one man could do what you’ve done, Mr. Palkas. All of the amazing feats that you’ve accomplished… there’s nothing left in this galaxy that man hasn’t been able to do. It’s a real treat to meet you. A real treat.”

Palkas smiled indulgently. He liked this kid. “No problem, son. The pleasure’s mine.”

The kid nodded and bobbed his head, moving towards the door. When he got there, he stopped and turned. “Just one more question, please? Mr. Palkas?”

Well, he had time, Palkas reasoned. One question was no big deal. “Sure, kid. What’s on your mind?”

“What are you going to do now?”

For the ninth time today, Dyson glanced up from sweeping the facilities floors. He knew it was the ninth, because he’d been watching his bank account shrink with every confused teen who walked by, every school field trip who waltzed in and every curious observer who thought he could lend a hand. Who wouldn’t keep count?

“S’cuse me, sir? Where cans I finds the bathrooms?” It was a little boy this time, probably lost. He’d have to take care of that as well. He decided to delay the inevitable for a bit.

“Why, where are your mom and dad, little one?” He smiled underneath the rim of his cap as he leaned upon the broom and watched the blue-eyed boy. The banter wasn’t necessary, but he figured he might kill two birds with one stone.

“I uhm… I can’t wemember…”

Of course he couldn’t. The boy reminded him of his grandson, however, so he sighed and gave an answer. “Bathrooms are two halls down, past the dinosaur sections and on the left.”

Picking up his broom, he moved over to the front desk and watched Shirley smile brilliantly at a group of students standing around her. She must have been rich, the way she spouted out the information like it was nothing. “In fifteen minutes, we will have our native peoples exhibit, and at 2:30 you will be breaking for lunchtime!”

He waited till she had finished her speech to the group and took in a deep breath as she turned to him. “In all my years, I ain’t never seen anyone remember stuff like you do. How do you do it, Shirley? Don’t you miss all the money from your account?”

Leaning forward, she got a very serious look on her face, “Well, if you really have to know…” When she slid a small pad of paper from under the desk, Dyson stared blankly at her as if she’d pulled a gun.

“Shirley!” he started in a hushed whisper. “If the Memory Monitors catch you with that, it’s five to ten at the very least!”

She waved him off with a nonchalant gesture, “Dyson, Dyson… don’t worry about it. I have it all under control. Besides… The Native Americans we teach about in this museum didn’t have to pay for their keepsakes. They drew pictures and told stories. We can’t be expected to work in a place like this and not learn that.”

Still watching her like a cautious hawk, Dyson muttered, “They didn’t have to pay? You… wrote that down to remember it, didn’t you?”

“What can I say? Some things should be remembered for free.” She leaned back in a way that almost made it seem like she would put her feet on the desk.

The 365 Tomorrows Store has undergone a complete makeover and a heart transplant, switching providers in order to bring you more wonderful and varied offerings. There are shirts of all styles sporting the 365 Tomorrows banner art, as well as coffee mugs, postage stamps, carry bags and more. The store also has had a cosmetic facelift, and is bolted nicely into place, allowing you to shop without ever leaving the warm comfort of 365.

Check out the new store, and let us know what you think.

The restaurant still sold wine from when the meteor struck. The very year. Abigail said she could taste ash in every sip, though that didn’t stop her from drinking. I swirled my glass, looking for bits that might be floating about in the cold liquid, fragments of catastrophe sealed by glass and cork.

Abigail had ordered some human cheese for the both of us, to snack on while we decided on our orders. The waiter swore that the milk was all given voluntarily, but even his definitive nature couldn’t dispel images of captive women chained in the back. His assertion that the cheese was made on the premises didn’t help much.

“You’re so morbid,” Abigail said when I told her about the captives in my head. She dipped her slender fingers in her wine and flicked droplets at my face.

“You’re the one who chose this place.”

Abigail pouted. “I took you out to cheer you up.”

Fine place for it, I thought. I didn’t say it, though. Instead, I mentioned Oshiwara Gainsberg’s new film, Big Black Mariah, an animated fable about the legendary boarding-house owner here in Boston. Abigail turned up her lip in a sneer.

“God,” she said. “It’s about the meteor, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see how.”

“Wake up! Everything is about the meteor these days. This woman, she’s a force of nature, right? Nothing, no one, can stand against her? But she only harms the guilty? Propaganda!” Abigail threw her arms wide on that last word, flashing jazz-hands.

I thought of the still-frame I had seen on the feed, Mariah towering over the innocent and guilty alike, her ink-black dress the only thing separating the two. I remembered the sun was behind her, forced the ne’er-do-wells to shiver in her shadow. I shrugged. “It’s just the way things are now. It’s part of the human condition.”

Abigail grumbled and blew bubbles into her wine. “Whatever. People need to get over it.” Abigail wrapped her sweater tighter around her shoulders, as if she was cold. As the restaurant grew darker in the fading evening, Abigail took a big swig of her wine, and said again that she could taste ash in it.

It was only then that it hit me. Abigail had a girlfriend named Ashe, who was among those the meteor claimed.

I would have said something, if the waiter hadn’t returned with our cheese.

“Pure Mother’s cheese,” the waiter said. “A hundred years ago, such a thing would have been looked upon as immoral, or even illegal. Times have sure changed, eh?” He waited anxiously for us to try a piece.

The cheese was surprisingly sweet, a good compliment to the smoky wine. It felt very warm in my mouth, and I noticed it caused a faint smile on Abigail’s lips. I imagine a similar expression was on my own face.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is just what we needed.”

Today is an unofficial public holiday. Those people that can take a day off work do so, those that can’t call in sick. Today is The Burn. I don’t know who started the tradition (some people say that it was a group of Canadian activists, other claim that it was a collation of South African students) but it spread so fast that it doesn’t even matter where it came from.

It’s celebrated differently all over the world. In the old European Union, I hear they Burn effigies of dead celebrities like Elvis and Brad Pitt. The Europeans blame the Chinese for what happened, the Chinese blame the Indians and the Indians blame the Americans. Americans don’t burn any effigies; Americans break into cemeteries and steal corpses.

In North America they mostly just spit on graves stones, or sometimes even an open hole but in the Southwest, man, they do all sorts of shit. They steal bodies out of graveyards in poor neighborhoods and have giant tailgate parties where people shit on the corpses. A buddy of mine told me he went to a party in new Texas where people took drugs to induce vomiting so they can make a public display of puking on their ancestors. Of course, I’ve seen those corpses, and I don’t see why you would need to take drugs to puke, just smelling them usually does it on it’s own.

Near the equator, I heard that in some places they cook and eat the corpses. I can’t imagine what that old meat might smell like, smoking on a bonfire. Of course, that’s just a rumor, you hear all sorts of shit happening at the equator, the heat makes everybody crazy.

I was thinking about it though, waxing philosophical, you might say, and I think our ancestors got the better end of the deal. I wouldn’t want anyone to puke on me, of course, but they are dead and they don’t know what’s being done to them. I’ve seen the old movies, the flat screen pictures. They had lives without boils, without flaking red skin and the scarring, the flooding and the power failures, the plastic suits and stinking air. They had more metal and plastic than they knew what to do with. They had plenty, and they ate it up.

I get the boils, every day, a new one. I wear the suit, but I still get the boils.

You better believe I’ll be out there today. There’s a grave me and my boys got our eye on. The dead could have done something back in their time, but now it’s too late. They left us here on a world that’s broiling us. The Burn is the least we can do.

Jergan loved ships. Ever since he was a little mite he’d loved them, watched them, lusted over them–it was only natural that he become a pilot. He’d been a dock worker for years as a teenager, hauling and stacking crates, recalibrating spanners, and bugging any captains he could get a word with to take him into their crew. It never happened, of course. Everyone knew Jergan around the loading docks, knew that he cared more about the ships than about their cargo or crew. That was bad for business. Jergan was patient, though, and when he turned twenty-two he had finally made enough money to purchase his own ship.

Now it seemed like he might have to go back to hauling crates. Only a light-year from Borsen, Jergan’s baby had developed a shimmy, and halfway into the outer atmosphere sans attitude control, he was beginning to accept that it might be a lost cause. “I knew it would happen sometime,” Jergen said to his placidly plummeting ship, “But Borsa? Sweetheart, I thought I taught you class.” The ship wasn’t answering. Jergan went through the repair procedures a final time, but there was nothing to be done. The ship seemed determined to go to her death.

Jergan stood in the central cabin, one hand on the bulkhead. He’d raised this ship from a junkyard brat into a respectable salvage vehicle, but here she was, resigned to a fiery end. The atmosphere was beginning to redden outside the windows, and Jergan knew she wouldn’t last much longer. This was the moment all the captains had dreaded. This was the time when he’d have to choose.

“Well, babe, it’s been fun,” he said, moving to the hatch and fitting himself with an oxygen helmet. “You’re a beauty. I woulda loved you to the end. But I’m not gonna go down with you.” With a final pat, he moved through the hatch into the escape pod and jettisoned. Watching the ship explode as it careened into the atmosphere brought a pang to Jergan’s heart.

When he finally dragged himself into a port in Borsa, Jergan’s very first stop was the bar. He’d only gotten halfway through his third beer, however, when a tap on the shoulder brought him around. A man with hard eyes was peering down at him.

“Yeah?” Jergan slurred. “Whaddaya want?”

“You’re Jergan,” the man said. “Ship-lover who couldn’t get a job in Delwas, right? Went down over the Crater today?”

Jergan grunted and slumped over his beer. “Kinda busy right now, man,” he muttered. “Wanna take a hike?”

“Wanna take a hike, captain.”

Jergan turned his head and eyed the man in confusion.

“Captain Hennesey,” the man clarified. “It seems you’re out of work, and we’re a man short.”

Jergan blinked. “But… Delwas. I thought you said…”

Hennesey waved a dismissive hand. “If you want work, you’re hired,” he said simply. He glanced at Jergan’s beer and smirked, just a little. “We could use a pragmatist like you.”

“You just need to get your priorities in order,” Pern said as he plunked the ripe wikifruit onto the table. Courtney watched with dismay, her eyes wide as she watched the young man end drive a long knife through the product of her months of gardening. “Food is all fine and good, but we already have food. We’ve got over a hundred rations to get through before the supply ship comes. This,” he said, indicating the smooth, pink outer shell of the fruit, “is for something better than eating.”

“The only thing better than eating is breathing,” Courtney said, reciting one of the three principles that had been drilled into her during pioneer orientation. Pern laughed.

“You haven’t been here for long, have you?” he asked. He moved the blade around the thick stem of the wikifruit until a circle the side of his palm could be lifted from the foot-long purple shape. Pern reached for the next instrument, a long-necked spoon, which he stabbed deep into the fruit’s body.

“I…” Courtney began, but her shock quickly overcame her dedication to the pioneer ideals. Pern looked up to her with a warm smile, then twisted the spoon and lifted a clump of soggy pink from the inside of the wikifruit before dumping it into a bowl. He repeated the motion several times, and the rose-colored heap grew larger and larger until it seemed that so much mass could not have been contained within the now-hollowed fruit. Pern ripped the corner from a bag of sugar with his teeth, then poured it into the bowl in an avalanche of white.

“Get me the riser,” he told her. Courtney stared at the fruit, her horrified expression similar to the one she’d worn when she heard about the great wagon incident. She had no choice but to obey, though, and he knew it. When she returned with one of the small packets she used to bake bread, he tore the top away and emptied the paper envelope over the white and pink heap. Pern stirred the pile with his spoon until the wikifruit meat was a squishy, sugar-embedded glob. He lifted a spoonful, offering it to Courtney. “Wanna taste?” he asked.

“You monster!” she whimpered. He shrugged, and shoveled the bowl’s contents back into the purple rind.

“You’ll thank me in a month or two,” he told her with a knowing smile as he sealed the wikifruit with the circle he’d first carved away. “Everyone always does.”

There was frost on the window. It was supposed to be summer, but since the last conflict began, every season had been extended. A fleet of enemy carriers lay still in orbit just outside of normal battalion fire, visible through the large viewscreen window, but they did not move. General Dana Blain looked out over the debris of thousands of warships as it floating up above the atmosphere in the night sky, watching as some succumbed to the gravity of the planet and became shooting stars in reentry.

Her blue eyes stared into the stars as her hands found each other behind her back. “Ensign, I need a status report of the orbit.”

Red lights flashed for days, and the people felt it all over the globe. Ensign Webber punched in the codes and looked upon the glowing screen as he read the statistics to the General. “General, the report from the Scientific Data Association reads us at an orbit increase of twelve days, sixteen hours, forty-three minutes and fifteen seconds.” The ensign paused while a droplet of sweat moved down his temple. “That’s…”

“An increase of almost double over last time. Yes, I know.” General Blain walked over to the console and punched in a few numbers to see for herself. Her expression was blank and disaffected, as it had been since the third conflict of the war.

A screen to the right of the panoramic view blinked on, displaying the features of a man nearly as stoic as the General. “General Blain, this is Senator Ruger! Peace negotiations are beginning with the Dek’a. You are to cease military advancement immediately. This planet cannot take another blast. Do you-”

He hadn’t finished before the General’s finger flicked over the console button and cut off power to the screen. Everyone in the room turned to her, their faces glazed with astonishment. “Ready the cannon, Ensign Webber,” she said as the eyes of every person in the room focused on her with undisguised astonishment.

“But-” the ensign protested with what the last remnants of his confidence.

“Do it!” As she snapped, she fixed him with a glare more potent than any weapon’s force. Ensign Webber nodded. It wouldn’t be long before they would hear the rumble of the weapon rising to the surface. The cannon was the most deadly weapon in their arsenal.

A science expert’s voice finally broke through the silence. “General, another blast from the cannon will push us out of orbit,” she said quietly

While the scientist stood in defiance, the General waved a hand to have her escorted off the bridge. In that same moment, she watched the planet, her planet, shine its weapon of destruction towards the helpless fleet of carriers. It was that stone cold look that now filled her being and pushed fear like a drug onto her crew.

“This is for John,” whispered the woman, as she avenged one man with the motion to fire.

I remember your touch, your taste, the way your mouth curled slightly when you said my name. Everything about you that made me happy, I’ve copied and cached. I can call it up with a thought, or a few key strokes if it’s unusual. The odd high note your voice lilted into when you laughed at my joke when we ate at the Nyala, the way you tied my boot lace, the odd jiggle-dance you did when no one was around but me and that blind street musician. Everything I ever liked about you is now recorded and filed. I keep hard copies in that safe you gave me.

So don’t bother coming around anymore, okay? Please. You’re just embarrassing yourself.

And you’re ruining my memories.

Robert made the same mistake every Spartan makes. He thought he was ready.

A thousand miles away they were stretching Michael out on the wall. He was naked and bleeding. They took out the tool that Michael recognized from his training and he switched his router on with a thought. Suddenly, the cold of the wall became distant, like a memory. He could feel cotton beneath him, skin on his forearm.

“I’m patched in to Lieutenant Michael.” said Robert, testing his restraints. “The rebels are about to begin.”

“I’m here,” said Dr. Wyatt, squeezing Robert’s muscular arm. Dr. Wyatt was an experienced doctor in physiology and psychology. This was her third substation session. Robert watched her lined face as if it was a mirror to his own.

They used the tool, and Michael watched as his body spasmed. He could see it happening, but it seemed unreal. All that blood made the scene look like a campy horror movie. They were asking him questions, but their voices were distant.

“Can you hear me?” asked Dr. Wyatt, holding Roberts screaming face as he strained against the padded restraints.

Michael saw his leg hanging like a loose sock, part of it no longer attached to him. He was making noise, very loud, and he wished he could turn the channel and watch something else.

Dr. Wyatt held Roberts eyes open. “Say it! Tell them the message!” she yelled. Robert screamed and forced his mouth around the words. A thousand miles away, Michael spoke with Roberts voice, spilling his lies to the rebel armada.

Michael felt his body dying. He transferred, his pattern floating into waiting receptors, thousands of miles away. He woke up on cotton sheets.

“There will be a little itching at first,” said Dr. Wyatt, leaning over him. “It’s the new body, it will take some adjustment.”

“Where is Robert?” asked Michael. Dr. Wyatt pointed across the room, where Robert was sleeping.

“You Spartans.” said Dr. Wyatt. “Do you think of nothing but your partners?”

“Nothing else.” Michael stood, wavering on his feet.

“You really shouldn’t do that right away,” said Wyatt. “Your body needs time to adjust. Besides, you’re a half inch taller now, it will take some getting used to.”

Michael shot her an annoyed glance, and stumbled across the room, to sit on the bed of his partner. “Robert.”

“He’s out. He’s been out three days.” said Dr. Wyatt, brushing silver hair back behind her ear.

Michael tried to wrap his head around the idea that what had happened a moment ago was actually a three day old memory. He swayed on his feet. “Why is he still out?”

“There is only so much the mind can take. He felt what happened to you.”

Michael touched Robert’s pale face. “Don’t be a wimp.” he said. “Walk it off.”

Robert cracked one eye open. “Can’t a man get any sleep around here?” he said, his voice hoarse. Michael laughed, feeling high and crazy all at once.

“The doctor doesn’t seem to think that you were awake.”

“What do doctors know?” said Robert. “I woke up as soon as I heard your voice. We are Spartans, no matter where you are, I will always hear you.”

Rage. It was burning, fiery, coursing, singing like a hurricane through wind-bent trees and thundering like a tsunami. He felt his teeth clench and grind, his eyes widen, his nails cutting two crescents of half-moon wounds into his palms. His thoughts cascaded together, mind like an avalanche. He couldn’t see straight. Everything seemed covered in a veil of red. Until now he’d thought that was just a cliché. Anger consumed him, roaring through him, and Harry rode it until it finally died away. When the tide ebbed he was left gasping, fists clenching and unclenching within the protective restraints, grasping for more.

“How was that one?” Leroy asked, his voice hushed and mouth grinning as he leaned in over Harry. “Good shit? You were tripping balls, man.”

Harry only had the strength to nod. “That’s the stuff,” he said when he had enough breath. “Grade-A. We can get a half-mil a pop, easy. God damn.” He craned his neck forward to wipe his forehead on the top of his sleeve, wriggling in the safety chair. “What’s next?”

“You’ll like this one,” Leroy said, already loading up the needle. “You can’t get this shit anymore. It’s been bred out, treated before we even know we have it by all that shit the government pumps into the water. This’ll sell for sure.”

“Well what is it?” Harry asked, squirming in the chair, trying to read the label on the bottle.

Leroy smirked. “Sadness.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open and he leaned back, arm twitching with anticipation as Leroy shot him up. He let his eyes roll back into his head as he waited for the drug take effect. It happened all at once; the chemicals reached the nerve endings in the brain, and suddenly the world dropped away, replaced by a gaping void of hopelessness and despair. Harry experienced a true and complete sensation of worthlessness.

He had never known such bliss.

The girl was only on at night, like all of the girls on Bleeker. Her hair was a different color every couple of weeks, because it was so easy to change, but her eyes were always the same. They dressed her up in costumes depending on the season. In December, it was a red velvet miniskirt with white trim. A pilgrim hat in November. In July, small triangles of red, white and blue stretched over artificial breasts with perpetually hard nipples, inviting New Yorkers to celebrate their freedom. When there was no holiday on the horizon, they dressed her depending on their mood. She performed best with her golden wig and the Marilyn dress, standing on the subway grate with a glazed-over smile as she waited for the train to pass beneath her. Once, they dressed her as a mime, complete with white makeup smeared over rubbery skin. The makeup wore off after two jobs, and they couldn’t be bothered to keep touching it up. She’d done well, though. She was excellent at talking with her body.

When men spoke to her, she listened dumbly, nodding at carefully calculated intervals. Usually, they didn’t speak at all. Their business was done in a large loft, where curtains of sheets strung from twine sliced the space into private rooms. Hers was at the end of a white cotton hallway, and was two feet larger than the mattress of the futon. Although they washed the cover twice a week, it always seemed yellow beside the fluttering wall.

Once, after the job, the client asked her about her eyes. “Are they real?” he said with a slight Midwestern drawl. “They look like they’re glass or something.” Although she was capable of speech, the girl rarely answered questions. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice as dense as the well-packed mattress. When he left, he gave her a generous tip, though her service had been distant and uncomfortably rhythmic. “You should have those things looked at,” he suggested, and the hallway billowed as he walked away.

“So what about Communists? Can we film Communists?” Ted asked as he tapped the pen against the side of the clipboard. He looked up at his boss, who stood next to the whiteboard.

“Communists? Yes!” Greg squiggled the word ‘communist’ on the board with his black marker and turned back around. “Anyone else?”

Suzanne raised her hand and adjusted her glasses as she spoke up, “What about the Civil War? The south will want to see what happens. We could make a Confederacy week or something.”

Ted rolled his eyes at the idea as Greg wrote it down on the board with visible excitement. “Okay, people,” Greg said. “We could only get six of these on the budget, so we have to make them count. So far we have suggestions of everything from nuclear apocalypse to Nazi occupation. Good, good.”

He capped the marker and spun to face them with a broad smile on his face. Turning to Ted, he motioned, “Ted, what do our viewers want currently?”

“Well, the fall season of Alternate Reality kicks off with a special on the pioneers themselves. All we have to do is skip our crew over to the reality they’re changing and have them film it. The whole season should be done before the first episode airs.”

Before Ted could get proud, Suzanne spoke up, pushing back her red hair in a cocky manner as she addressed the group. “Hm. Well, the polls say that recent events would do much better in the ratings. Oil-less society, no minorities, catastrophic events…these are the things our viewers actually want to see. I say we start with these simple ones in a sort of… live debut?”

“Brilliant, Suzanne!” Greg said as he marked something on his palm computer and cleared his throat. “Suzanne, you’ll take head of the project for the introductory episodes. Make sure we pick out some supreme actors. Citizens. Whatever. We need to make sure the audience is captivated.”

Ted grumbled something as he glared at Suzanne and began to gather his stuff. Greg left the room, late for a meeting with the big wigs, and left the two producers together. Ted rolled his eyes as he slipped the laptop in the bag. “Nice going, ass-kisser,” he said with a cold glare.

The red-haired executive just shrugged. “Honestly, do you think people care about the process? They just want to see what happens when Nazis win World War 2. Please, Ted. No one gives a fuck about the techies.”

The scorned producer flipped her off before leaving to prepare for the next season.

Boromir was off his medication. He was tired of forgetting who he really was.

He had to be careful about the pills. The thick armed nurse at work would watch him swallow them and then stand in front of him as he opened his mouth and waggled his tongue. The nurse would frown at him, her face wrinkling up as she peered into his mouth, and then she would shove him back into the arms of the guards, who would escort him back to his room. Actually, more often, they would drag him back to his cell, his feet fumbling for traction on the plastic tile.

It would take the pills about two minutes to start to break down into his system. If he clenched his throat and heaved, he could throw up the pills when he got to his cell. He hid the pills under a bit of loose plastic tile under his bed, crushing them into a fine powder.

The pills were evil. The pills made him forget that he was a Prince, it made him forget his mission and his people, made him forget how the humans had kidnapped him. The pills gave the humans have power over him. They would tell him his name was Bill or Barry and if he took enough pills, Boromir would believe them.

He had to time everything just right, because an orderly came in to look at him every half hour and the purple pill was supposed to make him sleep.

Boromir had a lot to do.

When he was thrown into his padded room, he would immediately pick himself up and start writing with his finger on the wall. The writing was invisible to everyone else, but without the red and yellow pills, it was messages, communication with his people on the outside. If he concentrated while he wrote, he could send the writing out to them, and they could scroll messages back to him. The messages sometimes looked like shadows on the wall, but Boromir knew better, he knew they were from his people. They were trying to find his location and they were developing a plan to get him out. All he had to do was stay off his meds and keep transmitting to them.

When the day came of their arrival, something terrible happened. Instead of taking Boromir back to his room, where he was going to meet his people, they took him to a holding place and told him they were cleaning his room today.

Moments later, several orderlies came in with a big syringe. They had found his stash of medication and they were going to dope him up, directing into his blood stream. Boromir screamed, and struggled, but the orderlies held him tightly.

If they doped him, he wouldn’t be able to contact his people and they wouldn’t be able to find him. Right now he looked like any other human. How would they tell he was their Prince if he was unconscious. He called out with all his strength as the needle pierced the vein in the crook of his elbow.

There was a crash and the doctor and orderlies were thrown to the floor, but somehow, Boromir remained standing. A glow suffused the room, and three ghostly figures flowed through the walls, turning to him. His people were here at last, but he could feel himself falling, the medication taking over.

“It is me! Your Prince!” he cried, and his people hovered around him, columns of white light.

He reached out for them, and touched the light. It burned his flesh, but it didn’t feel bad, it felt like he was taking off the clothing he hated. His eyes were flooded with light and he ascended, returning home.