TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 154 (March 2023)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: March 2023

SCIENCE FICTION

Crystalline
Daniel H. Wilson

One Pinch, Two Pinch
Beth Goder

Contracting Iris
Peter Watts

Four Years Minus Twelve Days
Samantha Murray

FANTASY

Every Little Change
Aimee Ogden

The Chosen Six
Oyedotun Damilola Muees

Our Exquisite Delights
Megan Chee

The Ministry of Saturn
Benjamin Peek

EXCERPTS

The Starless Crown
James Rollins

Arch-Conspirator
Veronica Roth

NONFICTION

Book Review: New Suns 2 edited by Nisi Shawl
Arley Sorg

Book Review: The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
Chris Kluwe

Book Review: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Aigner Loren Wilson

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Daniel H. Wilson

Oyedotun Damilola Muees

Peter Watts

Benjamin Peek

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions

Stay Connected

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

About the Lightspeed Team

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

© 2023 Lightspeed Magazine

Cover by Joeprachatree / Adobe Stock

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

Editorial: March 2023

John Joseph Adams | 221 words

Welcome to issue 154 of Lightspeed Magazine!

If you discovered a way to pull material from other versions of our world, what would you want to grab? Cash? Treasure? Board games? Well, we have an original science fiction story by Daniel H. Wilson—“Crystalline”—with just that situation. You’ll have to read it to find out what the characters go looking for!

We’re happy to have Peter Watts return with a new short story called “Contracting Iris.” If you like your SF with a side of unsettling epidemiology, this story will definitely tickle your fancy. We also have two terrific flash pieces: “One Pinch, Two Pinch” from Beth Goder and “Four Years Minus Twelve Days” by Samantha Murray.

Oyedotun Damilola Muees brings us a climate fantasy story (“The Chosen Six”) rich with original solutions for our planet’s biggest troubles. We also have a new short story from Benjamin Peek (“The Ministry of Saturn”), which features an organization specializing in the strange and supernatural. We also have a flash story (“Every Little Change”) from Aimee Ogden, and another (“Our Exquisite Delights”) from Megan Chee.

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

It’s another terrific issue, so thanks for checking it out!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and is the bestselling editor of more than thirty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent books include A People’s Future of the United States, Wastelands: The New Apocalypse, and the three volumes of The Dystopia Triptych. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist twelve times) and an eight-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed and is the publisher of its sister-magazines, Fantasy and Nightmare. For five years, he ran the John Joseph Adams Books novel imprint for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.

Crystalline

Daniel H. Wilson | 2911 words

“Who loves you?” I ask.

My daughter looks away. Doesn’t answer. I lean down and turn her to face me, resting my thumb in the dimple in her chin. It’s the same dimple her mother has. Or had.

“You love me, Daddy.”

“That’s right, so please listen closely,” I say. She’s only nine, but Anya’s eyes are flat and black and hard to read in the dim light of the cave. “Only you can make our family whole again.”

“But. Last time. I saw . . .”

“I know. I know what you saw,” I speak over her. “That was an accident, honey. Daddy thought of a bad thing. But you’re so much sweeter than Daddy. You’ll only think of good things.”

The wounds across the back of my thighs are still weeping pus. The thing we saw—it shouldn’t exist. Not in her world. Only in my nightmares.

My daughter is shaking now, teeth chattering. Silent tears forge grimy streams down her cheeks. She is trying so hard to make herself stop. She cups a tiny hand over her mouth, as if she can force the sobs back inside. Her eyes are locked on mine, while I patiently smile back.

“It’ll be okay,” I reassure her. “Daddy can’t go near the crystal. It does bad things when adults are near. But you can do it. Anya. Listen to me now. I need you to put your hand on the crystal and think of your mommy. Find the mommy who is the most like your mommy. Pull her from one of the other places.”

“How will I know?”

I glance around at the slick walls of the cavern. The remains of our campsite are scattered around us in shambles. Our bright red tent is collapsed like a deflated lung. Four ragged lines rend the advanced fabric.

I woke from a nightmare to the stench of rotten meat. The thing was perched on my chest, bristling with stiff hair and skittering on sharp legs—a vicious insect the size of a soccer ball. This time, I was ready with my hatchet. But I wasn’t prepared at all for its eyes. They were human eyes. It fucking had human eyes and when I killed it, they were crying real tears—

Beyond the sliced gaps of the tent, I see my daughter’s pink camouflage sleeping bag.

I push down the memories of last night and reach into the tent, pawing around until I feel soft fur. It’s her favorite stuffed animal. A gift for her first birthday. I bought it at the Frankfurt airport on my way home from a war zone. I named it Nestor, after the old Argonaut who gave such sage advice.

Being a child, Anya took to calling it “Nester.” And that naivety is what I’m counting on. A mind so young and full of fairy dust and sunshine. Dreaming about bunnies who nest.

No evil thoughts. Nothing to fear from the crystalline depths.

I firmly press the bunny against my daughter’s chest. Wrap her cold, clammy fingers around its soft neck. Both our hands are swollen and sore from the bone-numbing chill down here. We don’t have much time.

I lift the bunny up against her snot-streaked upper lip.

“Hold onto Nestor,” I say. “Smell him. He smells like Mommy, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“When you touch the crystal, close your eyes. And when you smell this smell, concentrate. Bring mommy back to us. Then we’ll be a family again. Okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Good. It’s time to go.”

Anya doesn’t move.

I wrap her up in a tight hug, feeling her delicate ribs under a torn, muddy jacket. The childish owl-shaped headlamp perched on her forehead spears two fingers of light into the cavern. Her breath plumes like car exhaust on a cold morning.

“Go,” I urge. “Now. Don’t make me count to three.”

It has to be this way, I tell myself. Anya is the only one of us who can do this.

Rainbow boots scuffing hard rock, she takes a few steps. And a few more. I cross my arms and watch my daughter’s faint form disappear into the darkness. She’s got the stuffed bunny in a chokehold under one elbow. As I lose sight of her, I can still hear her breath shuddering in and out.

• • • •

The whole thing was supposed to be a vacation. My work in private security takes me all over the world. Great money, exotic locations, but long stretches of time away from home. My wife Hannah wasn’t happy. Anya hardly recognized me.

Between jobs, I arranged a family camping trip.

We live in the Pacific Northwest, so naturally—it rained. I set us out walking through damp woods, stomping over glistening ferns in a cathedral of towering Douglas firs. We stopped for the night at a liminal elevation where mist enveloped the snaggled mossy branches just a hundred yards up the slope. Hannah told me the woods felt magical.

I laughed and shook my head, wet and miserable.

During the night, I woke to a far-off, titanic groaning as the damp earth shifted beneath us. Our tent moved a few inches. Nobody else stirred. And the next day, it was there—the yawning, mossy mouth of a cave. A thousand tons of wet, soft dirt had displaced, ripping a hole in the hillside before us. The opening was made of flat, bare rock. Like a welcome mat.

I pulled on my headlamp. I only meant to peek inside.

“Wow,” said Hannah. We stood together in the opening, smelling the earthy air seeping from the depths of the cavern. I strained my ears, thinking I could hear a whooshing from inside. But where I expected sound, only a dense silence pressed in, seeming to compress my thoughts into a sluggish stupor.

I took my wife and daughter by the hands and pulled them inside.

“We don’t have the right shoes for this,” said Hannah. “It could be unstable. Anya is too little.”

All the usual complaints stopped when we noticed the glimmer.

“Is that light in there?” she asked.

“Maybe there’s another opening?” I suggested.

“How? It goes straight into the hillside.”

Hannah frowned and refused to keep going. So, I picked up Anya and put her on my hip, walking toward the light. The glare of my headlamp threw tortured shadows from jagged rock walls. I noticed then that the cave floor was warped under our feet. As if it had been turned molten and then cooled. Odd.

“Mama?” my daughter called.

Shadows leapt as Hannah’s headlamp clicked on behind me. I heard her footsteps echoing as she rushed to catch up. But by then I was already too close to the thing. The pulling had already begun.

“Are these footprints?” I asked, setting my daughter down so I could kneel and inspect marks on the floor.

“Jesus, I hope not,” said Hannah. “What could make a print like that? And in solid rock?”

I splayed my fingers and pushed my palm against cool stone, my entire hand well within the outline of a paw-shaped indentation. There were seven digits, and deep gouges at the tip of each. Claw points.

The glow was brighter ahead, dimming and growing.

“I want to go back,” said Anya.

“Hush,” I said, turning to Hannah. “Turn out your light.”

“Honey—”

“Just do it!”

My shout echoed in dizzying reverberations. The light silently clicked out. I reached up and turned mine off as well.

Hannah’s eyes adjusted first. She made a sound like a hurt animal, murmuring in awe at the beauty of the thing. I saw her hips silhouetted by the crystalline phosphorescence, canted, one arm around our daughter’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch it,” she whispered. “It’s been here for millions of years. We don’t want to disturb it.”

The crystal was there, visible now under its own light.

It rose from the center of the room, forming a natural pedestal of its own. The structure was oddly symmetric, almost man-made. The top of it formed a pale, milky sphere. But not quite a true sphere.

I don’t remember walking closer.

As I leaned over it, I saw the crystal was made of so many facets. Each flat plane drew the eye in, resolving into reeling billions of smaller facets, all rising up and seeming to swirl together in my vision. It felt like falling into a fractal—some kind of natural locus point between all of everything.

So many facets. Like the glint of light from a wasp’s eye, I thought.

“Oh my god,” I breathed.

Inside the facets, I thought I saw something moving. Not my own reflection, but the vagaries of my imagination. I blinked my eyes clear and bore witness to an infinite number of reflections of my own face, blinking back.

Except none of them were me exactly.

Some of the faces were kind, others were cruel. Some were scarred, hideous, and others ethereally beautiful. I saw these men wrapped in bizarre technologies and deformities, horrors and dreams, wracked with disease and dripping with gold and gemstones. And somehow, I knew with absolute certainty that they were all me. We all of us were the exact same man, expressed through different worlds.

The crystal was a conduit. It was a nexus point for all the versions of our reality that had ever been. All those wondrous possibilities were lurking out there beyond a cloudy veil. And at that thought, a thrill of raw adrenaline raced through me. This could be the most valuable artifact ever discovered. My curiosity and fear collapsed together into a kind of giddy greed—a desperate need to secure this object, to make it mine and protect it from others.

Imagine, in those facets like a wasp’s eyes, existed every invention and technology ever created in the infinite possibilities of time and space—in the history of a billion worlds. It was like a treasure chest. I laid my hands on the smooth platinum column and leaned my body over it.

I could feel a dull pressure rising behind my eyes. A tickle in the back of my mind. And that’s how I made my first pull.

I couldn’t have known then, what I know now.

The crystal exists in all the worlds and must have since the beginning of time. It’s an old thing and tired. And it recognized me—all of me. The thing can see inside your head. It knows every molecule of what you are. Every decision you ever made or didn’t make. It knows everything that roots you to this reality.

But the thing it especially knows is what you fear.

It’s why I can’t go back. My mind has gone sour, somehow. Too many responsibilities have been laid on me. Too many worries. Even my wife—the most optimistic and patient woman I’ve ever met. Even a mother with her precious daughter standing at her side.

Even Hannah found the devil in the rock.

• • • •

“Anya? Are you in there? Everything okay?” I call.

The echoes of my voice bounce away into distorted reflections. I’m pretty sure I’m safe at this distance. But my eyes dart to the shadows anyway. It’s not impossible that I could pull something from here. Something with spidery legs and flaking scales and human eyes leaking tears from the suffering of whatever hell-world it came from.

I hear murmuring from deeper inside the cave. The high-pitched, bird-like sounds of my daughter. A lower, more guttural baritone.

“Anya!” I shout this time. “Who are you talking to?”

Silence radiates back from the darkness.

“Nobody, Daddy,” says the thin voice of a little girl. “The crystal is so pretty. I see so much inside of it.”

The heat of anger washes over me. She’s over there playing with it. As if the thing was just another toy.

“Hurry,” I say, putting on my dad-voice. “Don’t let daddy down. I’m counting on you. Mommy is counting on you.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she says.

I’m betting it’s only the children who don’t pull their fears. It’s the purity of their minds. All those bright expectations for a world of shit that’s bound to disappoint them. It hasn’t yet, but as an adult I know it will. Sometimes quickly, sometimes a little bit at a time for decades. It’s always a disappointment in the end.

But for now, Anya pulls dreams instead of nightmares.

“Anya?”

“Yes?”

“Think happy thoughts.”

• • • •

Wasp’s eye. Wasps. That must have been what caused it.

It wasn’t my fault. I just didn’t understand how it worked.

Suddenly, there was a flash of a color I couldn’t quite name. Maybe it was a putrid violet, a brain-marbled gray, an infinite black that was brighter than a solar flare. A wasp’s eye. And just like that—the wasp-that-wasn’t-a-wasp came out of that eye-searing abyss. Long, multi-jointed claws tentatively clicked against the stone floor, gaining confidence as a veined proboscis unfolded like a switchblade knife, twitching obscenely in anticipation of the blood it sensed coursing through our warm bodies.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I backed away from chitinous claws on rock. Before I could shout, it was on Hannah’s face, plunging itself into the soft flesh under her throat. She staggered, hands spasming, using her last moment to shove our daughter away to safety.

Hannah didn’t even cover her face or claw at the buzzing insect. Instead, she desperately saved the person she loved most in the world.

I turned to run and felt something heavy latch onto my thigh. Anya had wrapped her arms around the trunk of my leg. Shuffling away in numb horror, I couldn’t even feel her weight.

Later, I couldn’t help wondering what world the wasp-thing had come from. The way its legs fit perfectly into the divots of my wife’s collar bones was too convenient. It was as if it had been designed for that purpose. Like it was hand-made to decapitate human beings, quickly and efficiently, feeding on arterial blood to fuel its grisly task.

I felt a thrumming behind me and turned to see it perched on Hannah’s body, iridescent wings extended and fluttering as it prepared to take flight. And from below I heard Anya shout.

No, she screamed. No.

An orb of blinding light streaked from the crystal. And when my vision returned, both my wife and the wasp-thing were gone. Ash flakes danced through hot air that reeked of ozone. The crystal still glowed with primal power. The orb had been a weapon. A thunderbolt from another world.

Anya had pulled it. She’d killed the monster.

It occurred to me that my daughter was strong. She could be a powerful tool. All thanks to her sweet, childish mind. An adult has too many insecurities, too many worries to ever touch the crystal. The things we conjure from the void. Horrible things.

Only now did I understand my little girl was a golden key to limitless wealth, technology, and even people—anything I could dream of. But first, we would need one thing.

Mama.

• • • •

Anya tentatively emerges back into the cavern, taking small steps. There is a woman holding her hand. I feel my face flush warm with relief at the sight of her.

Hannah. My wife’s right arm is draped over little Anya’s shoulder almost by instinct. But this version of Hannah is cautious. She moves slowly. I see a strand of gray hair my own Hannah never had. But the swell of her chest looks the same. My eyes trace the contours of her wide hips and I smile until my lips crack.

“You did it, baby. You brought Mama home to me . . .”

And then I glimpse it in the darkness behind my daughter. Another figure, indistinct in shadow. A frown settles onto my face. Some of the worlds have fallen to plagues—diseases that turn people into walking corpses. In others, I glimpsed tortured wolf-people, surgically modified for savage blood sports.

The thing is my size. Another monstrosity. And now I’ll have to kill it.

“Anya. Come over here right now.”

A flicker of sadness darts across her brow. Her lower lip trembles. And my daughter turns to look up at her mother, unsure.

“Hurry, now,” I insist. “Daddy will protect you.”

I spread my arms for my baby girl. Clench my teeth in what I hope is a reassuring smile. Motion for her to come forward.

Anya fixes a cold stare on me.

“There he is, Daddy,” she says, to the shadows. “That’s the man who hurt me and Mama.”

“What?” I ask. “Who are you talking—”

Cold pinpricks of gooseflesh erupt along the backs of my arms and over my shoulders. The figure behind my daughter is wearing the same coat as me. Holding the same hatchet. And his face is like looking into a mirror.

It’s another expression of me. From a world I’ll never know.

The man steps past my daughter, hatchet blade gleaming. When he bares his teeth at me, I see the scarlet ridge of a scar snaking down his cheek. I wonder what horrible things he has done in whatever world he came from.

I wonder what horrible things he’ll do in ours.

“Don’t worry, honey,” the man says with my voice, leveling those familiar eyes on me as he raises the hatchet. “Daddy will take care of the bad man.”

©2023 by Daniel H. Wilson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis, as well as Guardian Angels & Other Monsters, The Clockwork Dynasty, and Amped. He earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Masters degrees in Machine Learning and Robotics. His latest novel is an authorized stand-alone sequel to Michael Crichton’s classic The Andromeda Strain, called The Andromeda Evolution. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

One Pinch, Two Pinch

Beth Goder | 1263 words

The Countess pinches space-stuff between her fingers, touching the cold curve that dips luxuriously around Jupiter. She imagines two marbles rolling across the fabric of space, skirting the indentations that gravity produces. This visualization helps her to pinch space precisely.

One pinch, two pinch.

She counts, pummeled by space dust, wishing she had never fallen into that black hole.

• • • •

One million years ago, give or take any number of years, the Countess baked a blueberry pie. The blueberries were tart, the sugar blocked in perfect crystals. Flour dusted the air. Sunlight shone through the kitchen window.

There was nothing extraordinary about that day, which is perhaps why she decided to keep this memory folded against her mind throughout the millennia. This is who she used to be—a woman who baked pies. A woman who lived on a planet, always under the influence of gravity, but rarely conscious of it.

Or maybe it wasn’t so long ago. Time got very weird after she fell into that black hole.

• • • •

The Count appears in a glory of light. He brushes off his cloak, swears a bit as the gunky blackness of space sticks to his fingers, and straightens his beard hairs.

“Is it done?” he asks.

The Countess laughs because nothing is ever done. Or maybe everything that ever will be done already has been. It’s hard to keep it straight.

“I’m still pulling it all into place,” she says. Her dress of star-spun silver swirls around her.

A spaceship nears Jupiter, ready to shoot around for the gravity assist.

The Countess twists space.

One pinch, two pinch.

• • • •

The Countess has never been fond of history. What is history but a series of memories lodged in dead brains? What does it matter how many galactic wars were fought? Who cares about the civilizations that rose and fell, and rose again?

Even her own history is a mask of contradictions, lost affinities, and half-memories. She knows that once, in a past that has been smoothed over like a marble rolling across infinity, she was incapable of moving through time like a hand through water.

Perhaps to have an appreciation for history, it is necessary to have a linear view of time. This happened then. That happens now.

Perhaps to have a reverence for the past, you have to believe the past is dead.

When did time start happening all at once? She wishes she had never fallen into that black hole.

One thing she knows: She must stop the ship that is currently (always, continually, in the past, forever, at one particular moment) orbiting Jupiter.

• • • •

The Count has become a little strange over the millennia. He trims each beard hair individually. He drapes the folds of his cloak just so. He is very particular about his toenails. The Countess doesn’t mind. She still loves him, even when he recites bad poetry. (His poems have not improved over the millennia.)

While the Count waits for the Countess to finish up with the manipulation of space and time, he recites the poem about the bees. “One buzz, two buzz,” he says in a practiced theatrical voice.

“I’ve almost got it,” says the Countess.

“Circling in their lazy fuzz,” says the Count.

The Countess doesn’t want to hurt the inhabitants of the ship, two people cocooned within the metal hull, deliciously oblivious to the gloopy qualities of time. She only wants to stop them from going where they are inevitably going.

A fold of space puckers up, and the Countess knows who is coming, because each singular event has happened and is happening and is always constantly present, but still she can’t suppress a groan.

The Duke and Duchess appear in a flurry of colored cloths with a sound like millions of bat wings flapping.

“I hate this corner of space,” says the Duchess.

“Dreadful, dear, I agree,” says the Duke.

“Countess, must you insist on this course of action?” The Duchess places her hand lightly in front of the Countess. Her turquoise dress is exquisitely tailored, layered in skirts that seem to stretch out forever.

The Countess remembers when she fell into that black hole, how the Duchess reached out that same hand and welcomed her to this court of strange nobility. Through the millennia, they have come to know every intimacy of each other. They have been friends and enemies and something in between, twisted together through the long years like melted glass, shaped by each other, coming apart again. It was the Duchess alone who first witnessed the Countess pinching space. “You have a gift,” the Duchess had said.

“I am committed,” says the Countess. “This time, it will all happen differently.”

The Duke and Duchess laugh as if she’s said the most hilarious thing.

“One buzz, two buzz. This is what the bee does,” says the Count, but the Countess waves him to silence.

When the Countess moves to pinch space between her fingers, all mirth drains from the Duchess’s face. The Duchess tenses, tiger-like, her skirts whirling around her.

“So we proceed,” says the Duke.

A battle between nobility is never very interesting, because they all know what will happen, but they continue for the sake of propriety. Weapons are drawn. Light bends around them. Thrust, parry, dodge, roll.

The Duchess stabs the Count with a dagger pulsing like the molten center of a star.

The Count crumples, shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Oh, well,” then dies, sprawled upon his fabulous cloak.

The Countess swirls space-stuff around the Duchess, pinching her into a ball, imploding her until her skirts and her molten dagger and her face framed by her intricately coiffed hair are the size of a marble.

Beyond them, the ship rounds Jupiter, its occupants oblivious.

“I don’t know why you keep trying,” says the Duke. “If you succeed, it creates an obvious paradox.”

“What do you know of paradoxes? Of time?” murmurs the Countess.

“Nothing will ever change,” says the Duke.

Before the Duke can reach her, the Countess finds her way through time. It’s not so hard when she can see the way it curves.

One pinch, two pinch.

• • • •

In the kitchen, the Countess makes a blueberry pie. She measures a cup of flour, watches how the flour settles under its own weight.

Her husband comes up behind her and kisses her ear.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

When she turns, she can almost see the outline of a cloak, the shadow of a meticulously trimmed beard. She remembers that their survey ship is leaving tomorrow. That “tomorrow” used to have meaning, back in this part of her life where time flowed evenly onward. She wishes she had never fallen into that black hole.

“There are so many possibilities of what we could find,” he says.

They will make a gravity assist around Jupiter before hurling past the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud to whatever is beyond.

She wants to tell him to stay, that they should both stay, but perhaps the Duke is right when he says that change is impossible. She is trapped in the past that is always the present that is always the future. History is a myth she used to believe in. The future, a long expanse that curls right round to where it began.

“I don’t want to go,” she tells him, anyway. “Let’s stay.”

She won’t wait to hear his answer. There is somewhere else she needs to be. One more try.

A blueberry rolls across the counter like a marble.

One pinch, two pinch.

©2023 by Beth Goder.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beth Goder works as an archivist, processing the papers of economists, scientists, and other interesting folks. Her fiction has appeared in venues such as Escape Pod, Analog, Clarkesworld, Nature, and Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy. You can find her online at bethgoder.com.

Contracting Iris

Peter Watts | 10285 words

Iris is deep in an empty ocean, gray-green twilight fading to black everywhere she looks—and she can breathe. She’s a thousand feet above the ground, climbing a fractal cliff suffused with flickering veins of electricity—and she cannot.

Iris is flat on her back at home in bed, and her right hand is moving.

She lies there, staring straight up, not looking. Dim lozenges of light reach in through the window and play across the ceiling: motionless streetlamps, flickering logos, headlights and dronelights just passing through.

Her hand continues to move under the covers. The tremors have been ramping up for over a year now, but this is no mere meatquake. It feels purposeful. As if she were deliberately moving.

Except she isn’t.

Iris unfastens her gaze from the ceiling, lets it slide down the far wall (the closet there gapes like a mouth), forces it sideways. The sheet drapes across her body like a dark snowdrift; off to the right it moves, shifting around the hand. She doesn’t throw back the covers. She doesn’t need to. She can feel each finger curl and straighten in turn, as though someone were trying out a new German Shepherd: Sit, boy. Stay. Heel.

She clenches her fist. The fingers resist; an electric tingle flickers down her arm from shoulder to fingertips. You could experience something like mild electric shocks in your limbs, loss of motor control—

There’s no loss of control here. There’s plenty of control. Just not hers.

She clenches so hard her nails bite into her palms. The tingling stops. Iris forms a fist, rock-steady, every digit utterly obedient to her will.

The sleepwalking. The dreams that aren’t dreams. The messed-up circadian cycles, the—

—funeral—

—the lights in the sky. All connected. She can’t deny it any more.

Oh sweet Jesus. She doesn’t know if she’s praying or cursing.

What in God’s name is happening to me?

• • • •

Dr. Kassam is unavailable.

Dr. Kassam is unavailable.

Dr. Kassam is always unavailable, because Dr. Kassam is real.

Telehealth connects instantly, though. A middle-aged Hindian woman wearing a white coat and a gauntlet offers up a welcoming smile: “Hello, Ms. Carradine. I’m Dr. Tripathi. What seems to be the problem?”

“I’m, um—excuse me, are you human?” Iris asks without much hope.

“You know what?” Dr. Tripathi leans toward the pickup, conspiratorial. “I’m better.”

Iris wouldn’t mind, normally. Normally she’d prefer an AI; she feeds them, she knows them, she’s comfortable with them. But she knows their limits. Neural nets are innocent.

And people are blind and stupid. What makes you think you’d be better off?

The Tripathi’s smart enough to read the silence, at least. “I can queue you for a human consult if you’d prefer. You should know the current wait time is over five hours, though.”

It’s no surprise. Another bug’s been taking a bite out of Europe lately—some new variant of Alaskapox, gone abroad to learn new tricks—and it’s already jumped back across the pond. People are talking lockdown by the end of the month.

“I’ve been feeling—under the weather for a while,” Iris says, treading carefully. “Aching muscles. No energy. Every now and then I get pins and needles in my shoulders and down my back. I can’t sleep at night; I can’t stay awake during the day. I’ve started sleepwalking. I never did that before. And I—move, sometimes. Without meaning to. Like, like—” Careful, now. You don’t want to look like a cra—

“—Alien Hand Syndrome.”

—zy person.

Well, it was the closest thing she could find online.

“I see that you’re living with multiple sclerosis,” the Tripathi notes without missing a beat. Just code, of course. No judgment to pass.

“Yeah, but—I mean, I know what the shakes feel like. This is . . . something else . . .”

“Have you been traveling over the past two months? Or perhaps entertained friends from out of town?” Going down the standard checklist.

Friends. Iris has to smile at that. “No.”

“Have you been hiking in fresh clearcuts, or come into contact with any wildlife?”

“No, nothing like that. I just—I stay at home, mostly.”

“Can you remember the first time you noticed the unusual symptoms?”

“Um . . .”

Maybe a week ago, lying in bed: her foot extending, slowly, en pointe; relaxing. Extending. Relaxing. At the time she thought it might just be some new sort of slow tremor, except that it stopped the moment she willed it to. Usually the shakes take their own sweet time; your muscles tic and twitch for as long as they like no matter how much willpower you bring to bear. This time her foot quieted almost the moment she became aware of it. As though caught in headlights. As though it didn’t want to be noticed.

Of course, at the time she wrote it off as pure stupid imagination. There’s no way she’s going to admit to any of that now.

Besides. She knows that’s not when it started.

Iris takes a breath, judges it steady. “Can’t you maybe just run some general tests? Like, a remote physical? See if anything turns up?”

“Certainly, if you like.” The Tripathi taps its gauntlet, pretends to read something there (Iris finds the gesture vaguely irritating, another stupid affectation that never quite pulls the Uncanny out of the Valley). “I see your headset is equipped with an interferometry option. May I use it to help with your checkup?”

“Yes, of course.” VR headsets with biomedical plug-ins: just another sign of the times. Not to mention it saves Brain Wash the expense of providing health care to their freelancers.

“Please close your eyes.”

The comforting darkness beneath Iris’ lids flares orange after a moment; capillary networks fracture the light into a demonic stained glass window as tiny lasers sweep across her eyelids.

“These involuntary movements you describe,” Tripathi says from the void. “Do they tend to happen when you’re just waking up or falling asleep?”

“I . . . yes, I think so.”

“And when you say under the weather: do you mean in a way different from a hangover?”

“Excuse me?” Iris opens her eyes. The lasers extinguish, too fast even for an afterimage; the Tripathi reappears in their place.

“I ask because your CDT and albumin levels are consistent with habitual alcohol use.” The simulated face remains guileless.

She can’t deny it. She wants to point out that she barely drank at all before last year, but she’s afraid of looking defensive.

“This is different,” Iris says at last.

“Okay then.” The Tripathi nods; her voice assumes a let’s wrap this up tone. “Your blood chemistry isn’t showing anything that can’t be explained by the effects of heavy drinking. Your cardiac and blood pressure are within normal bounds; you’re slightly anemic, but again, that’s consistent with alcohol abuse. There’s nothing to suggest Alien Hand Syndrome: no record of damage to your corpus callosum in your medical history, and your eye saccades are completely normal. You’re a little overstimulated, but that could be anything from fear to caffeine to lusty thoughts.”

Iris wonders if she’s supposed to laugh at that. She wonders if the Tripathi will feign discomfort if she doesn’t.

She wonders what idiot wrote the dialog trees.

“Of course, I’m limited in what I can tell from here. Your procalcitonin levels are elevated, which suggests you might have a mild bacterial infection, but direct pathogen detection is beyond the capabilities of your headset. We could do a more thorough workup with a blood sample. There’s a pharmacy just a few minutes’ walk from your current location, at Woodland and East Broadway. If you choose to follow up on that, be sure to do it within forty-eight hours or your case ticket will expire.” The simulacrum serves up an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. We’re experiencing a high volume of consultations at the moment.”

“So, you’re . . . you’re saying you don’t know?”

“That’s correct. But it’s almost certainly nothing to worry about.”

“I’d like to speak to a human, if that’s okay.”

“I’m truly sorry, Ms Carradine, but we’re experiencing a high volume of consultations at the moment and our human staff are all dealing with patients whose symptoms are more severe than yours. If I called them away, someone could die.”

“Please. There’s something wrong: this isn’t alcohol, it isn’t MS . . .”

“Multiple sclerosis progresses differently for each patient,” the Tripathi reminds her. “The specific symptoms can vary a great deal.”

“Not that much.”

“True, but bereavement also manifests in many ways. I understand you’ve lost someone close to you recently.”

And she would kick your pompous pixellated ass back to beta if she were still alive. If you were real. Of course it can access data on next-of-kin. Probably even trawl the local obits, for that matter. It still feels like a violation.

“The fact that you experience these sensations of involuntary movement around the edges of sleep suggests that they might be what we call hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations. The semiconscious state is a tricky thing. People experience sleep paralysis, so-called night terrors, and—”

“You’re not listening to me.” Of course it’s not listening you’re arguing with a flowchart you stupid bitch but she can’t seem to shut herself up: “My hands and feet move; it’s not tremors and it’s not hallucinations and I was fine before I got infected by that fucking rain, that . . .”

She realizes how she must sound, even to a flowchart. She falls silent.

The Tripathi takes a moment to figure out how to respond to her outburst. Iris has to admit she’s curious about that herself.

“I can see this is really troubling you,” it says at last. “People in your situation often benefit from the company of a therapeutic tulpa. I can authorize one if you like. Or I could recommend a human therapist if you prefer, although there may be a waiting list.”

Right. Blow it off, then.

Just like a real doctor.

• • • •

That fucking rain. The lights in the sky.

That’s when it started.

They used to stop at Porteau Cove on the way to Whistler, back when day trips were still a thing. (Back when Mom was still a thing.) Later especially, when Mom didn’t have the strength to hike the trails at Shannon Falls or the stamina for Capilano, there was always Porteau: boat ramp, cobblestone beaches, picnic tables. Accessible restrooms. Grass and trees and slopes gentle enough to manage even when the chemo’s killed off half your bone marrow.

Afterward, it was the only place Iris could stand to be.

She remembers pushing past the scattered faces after the service, eyes down, ears closed to empty condolences from well-meaning strangers. She remembers hailing the Ryde out on Broadway and telling it where to go. She doesn’t remember stops on the way but she must have made at least one because when she rolled out of the vehicle the sun was down and the bottle of Jameson was in her hand, already half-empty.

She remembers the rain, a midnight deluge that came out of nowhere like the wrath of God. The sky on fire, thunderheads flickering with some kind of sheet lightning only not quite: all gold and green and in-between. Not just weather up there. Nothing she’d ever seen before, anyway. At the time Iris thought it might be some toxic molecule from a waste lagoon, floating all the way up to the stratosphere to poison the very electricity. She remembers thinking, very clearly: We fuck over everything we touch, and throwing up.

Fat raindrops splashing against her upturned face, burning her eyes. Her voice raised against the storm, belting out—

“Stinging in the raiiin, just stinnnnging in the raaiiinnn—”

—as she blinked away the acid and wiped the vomit from her mouth with the back of her hand. The lip of the bottle she forgot she was holding, hitting her upper lip. A small explosion of pain. The sound of breaking glass.

Look at you, kid. You have no idea how strong you are. You don’t need anyone. Not even me.

You’ll see.

Blindness.

The sickly cloudlight dimmed, the rain tapered off, and she assumed the storm was moving on even as the wind picked up. But the darkness kept deepening, somehow; even the lights over the restrooms way across the parking lot seemed fainter, as if someone had swapped out their brilliant LEDs with old twenty-Watt incandescents. She staggered toward that dimming beacon; the rising wind knocked her twice to the asphalt. She was on hands and knees by the time she made it inside, just as some dark angular shadow-thing—a Nazgul, or a picnic table—reared up on two legs and crashed backward against the cinderblock wall.

Inside, it was so dark she assumed the lights were off. She sat on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up to her face as the wind howled. Eventually the darkness stopped spinning long enough for her to raise her eyes—and she saw that the lights were shining after all. They were just very, very dim.

She swayed to her feet, made it to the nearest sink, stared hard into the mirror. She could barely see herself. She fumbled the phone from her pocket, brought up the flashlight, shone it right up against the glass. Leaned forward until her face emerged from shadow.

Her pupils were pinpoints. She could barely make them out.

This wasn’t on any list of symptoms she’d ever read. MS was supposed to be all shakes and slurred speech and memory loss and even that was supposed to take a while. Decades even, Dr. Kassam had said. You could live thirty, forty years, easily. A lot can happen in that time . . .

“Wow,” Iris had managed, with a bravado she’d never felt in her whole life: “I could outlast western civilization . . .”

Standing on her own two feet. Little Miss Independence, laughing in the face of death.

Not laughing now.

Her hand wavered in front of her, barely more than a silhouette. Was that a tremor, or were her eyes screwing up? Was it the alcohol or the MS? Was she dying or just drunk?

Why not both?

Bye, Mom. Sorry I wasn’t there when you left.

And then: Who am I kidding. At this rate, we’ll be back together in no time.

• • • •

The ’pox is coming. Toronto and New York have just locked down; only a matter of time before the West Coast goes under.

Yasar pings Iris ten minutes after the news breaks. “Hang out before they lock us up? Could be our last chance between now and the old folks home . . .”

She doesn’t really want to. She’s not great around people at the best of times, and seeing anyone is the last thing she wants right now. Plus a little of Yaz goes a long way.

He means well, though. He got her the Brain Wash gig, at a time when gigs are increasingly hard to come by. Plus, the reason he’s hard to take is because he has this twisted brain that might actually help her get a grip on things. Yasar’s almost a scientist. Got a Master’s in Genetics before the deep-learning algos took over that field along with everything else.

So “Sure,” she says, and tracks his phone to some new drink’n’drug that sprang up from the ashes of the last one: dim lighting, curves and arches, a low-ceilinged blue grotto that somehow conveys a sense of closeness even though the tables are spaced farther than aerosols. Yasar’s reading something through his omnipresent smartspecs as she reaches the table. He glances up; the specs go dark.

“It lives.” Yaz raises his beer as she sits down across from him.

“Barely.” She taps the table, scrolls down the drinks menu in lieu of eye contact.

“You look—I mean, you getting enough sleep?”

“Yeah, I—my sleep cycles are a little off, that’s all. Going through a night owl phase, for some reason.”

“Nyle was asking about you the other day.”

Nyle from Brain Wash. Shit. Iris orders a Cane Toad.

“He’s worried about you.” Meaning, of course, Why haven’t you cleaned up that database yet. Iris changes her mind and orders two.

“I owe him a deliverable, yeah. I’ve just been dealing with some stuff lately.”

“Right. Your mom.” Out of the top of her eye she sees Yaz’s hand slide tentatively across the table toward hers, hesitate, withdraw. “Everyone understands.” Which is the only reason you’ve still got a job.

Yasar tries again. “You doing okay?”

He doesn’t know about the MS. Nobody does. What’s the point? She’s still perfectly functional—well, mostly—and it’s not like there’s anything anyone can do. He almost caught her blacking out once or twice a few months back, but she’d been drinking so he just wrote it off as the wages of sin.

“Iris?”

I feel it growing, she wants to say. All through me. I’m terrified that if I close my eyes it’ll grow across my lids and stitch them together. I can feel it eating me from the inside out, I have these dreams that I’m out for groceries and I trip on the sidewalk and I break open like an old wasps’ nest and all that spills out is dry black dust . . .

She meets his eyes and forces a smile. “You like to play with, well, offbeat scenarios, right?” Which is another way of saying he likes to spin bullshit stories, the stupider the better, delivered with such gravitas and authority that otherwise smart people will end up believing that yes, sperm whales really do practice metallurgy by dropping manganese nodules into hydrothermal vents. (At least he had her falling for it, along with the whole tutorial group she met him in. Most everyone else hated his guts after that—smartass Science asshole, slumming it over in Humanities to boost his GPA, making fools of the poor dumb artsies. Iris was the only one who’d even talk to him for the rest of the elective.)

“I guess,” he says now.

“So suppose there’s some kind of microbe or something that lives in the clouds. Comes down in raindrops.”

He nods. “Aeroplankton.”

“What?”

“I don’t have to suppose,” he tells her. “There’re all sorts of cloud bugs. Bacteria, fungi, viruses. Pollen and spores and who knows what else. They actually help it rain; ice crystals nucleate around ‘em. You could almost say they run the weather.”

This is why she’s here.

“Aeroplankton,” she murmurs, trying out the word. “Can any of them infect people? Like, maybe get in through the eyes or something?”

“Plague clouds?” Yaz snorts, shakes his head. “Why the fuck not? These days, probably only a matter of time.”

“Yeah, but are there any?” She’s looked, of course, but she doesn’t know any of the tech talk; she doesn’t even really know what to look for. “Anyone report anything like that?”

He awakens his specs; his eyes jiggle with the telltale motion of someone sacc’ing an online database. “Eh. Not much. A few human pathogens show up at trace levels now and then, but they’re airborne anyway so it’d be really amazing if they didn’t. But it also looks like nobody’s really studied it, so who knows?” The specs dim. “Why are we doing this again?”

“I think maybe I caught something.”

“Uh huh.”

“After—a while ago I went up to Porteau Cove and there was this, this really weird rain squall. The clouds were glowing, and the rain burned my eyes, and my pupils shrank down so much I was almost blind for about three hours. Barely see my phone to call for a Ryde.”

“Acid rain. Not really a problem since before we were born, but go on.”

Her Toads arrive. Iris downs the first in two gulps and barely feels it. “So ever since, things have been—weird. Strange dreams, sleepwalking, insomnia. Pins and needles down my back and arms. And I . . . move, sometimes. Without meaning to.”

“You mean like Parkinson’s?”

“No.” She slams that door fast. “Not tremors. More—deliberate.”

He gives her a look. “Alien hand syndrome?”

Iris sighs. “Fine. Let’s go with that.”

“Okay. Well.” Yaz nods. “First thing, we put your bugs in the Shadow Biosphere. That accounts for why no one’s reported ‘em before.”

“The what?”

“They say there could be a whole other microbiome all around us, totally invisible to our detection methods because it’s based on a different biochemical template. Maybe its amino acids are right-handed instead of left-handed. Maybe it doesn’t even have amino acids.”

“Huh.” Iris starts on her second Toad.

“Okay, so. Alien Hand implies intelligence. A single cell is just proteins and acids and chemotaxis, not smart at all. So we’re talking some kind of microbial network in the clouds. How do they talk to each other? Chemical signals wouldn’t work. Say each droplet’s a node with a teensy electrical charge; maybe when the droplets bump into each other . . .”

“Yeah, but I’m talking about an infection—”

Yaz raises a hand. “We’ll get to that. Gotta lay the groundwork first, figure out how they work in their natural habitat before we branch out. Huh.” He looks at her, eyes shining. “If they do communicate via microelectrical discharges, I bet they could control lightning. They could literally rain fire from the heavens—”

Finally, she gets it. “You asshole.”

Yaz recoils as if slapped.

“I don’t want your usual bullshit, Yaz. I don’t want to hear about penguins melting tunnels under the ice with their body heat or endangered tree-dwelling octopuses in the Olympia rainforest.” Her vision starts to wobble. “I’m telling you because I’m scared, because who the fuck else am I going to . . . because . . .” The tears break, run down her cheeks. “Oh, what’s the fucking point . . .”

Yaz sits silently for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” he says at last.

“Fine. Forget it.”

“I didn’t think you were serious. I mean, alien spores in your eyes and taking over your body—I just assumed—”

“I said forget it.” She wipes her eyes, takes a breath. “I overreacted. I don’t know why—I mean, that’s just what you do . . .”

“Sorry,” he says again, looking miserable.

Iris reaches for her Cane Toad but the glass has somehow emptied itself while she wasn’t looking. Hold it together, Carradine. “So you don’t believe me.”

“I believe, I mean . . .” Yasar glances left and right, as though seeking an exit. “I believe you’re really experiencing symptoms.”

“Just not that they come from sky germs.”

He spreads his hands. “I mean, it’s the rain, Iris. It wouldn’t just be you. We’d be in the middle of a whole new outbreak.”

“I think it was a microburst. Super localized. And I was way out in the boons.”

“Porteau’s just a few kliks south of Britannia Beach. That’s a thousand people right there. And there’s the highway: how many people are gonna be riding—”

“How many people are gonna be outside in a rainstorm in the middle of the fucking night!”

“Okay, okay.” He leans back in his chair, hands raised. “Point.”

“And what about the alien-hand stuff?”

“I don’t know. How often does it happen?” His chair tips forward again. “Hasn’t happened here, has it? While we’ve been talking?”

“No, I just . . . It only happens when I’m alone. So far. When I’m—not looking. I’ll be asleep, and I’ll wake up and it’ll be . . .”

Yaz studiously says nothing.

“I know how it sounds, Yaz. Don’t you think I know how it sounds? But what: do you think I’m lying?”

He shakes his head.

“You think I’m delusional?”

“No. But if these movements start when you’re asleep—”

“I’m not dreaming it, Yaz.”

“You said you were sleepwalking, though.”

“Not those times.”

“Okay. Well, assuming it’s not some kind of hallucination, I dunno. Maybe your efference copy is broken.”

“My what?”

“It’s like, when your nervous system sends a command to move your arm, it sends a copy to the rest of the brain. Sort of a memo, so when the brain feels the arm move it says Oh yeah, I did that. Says so right here. Efference copy confirms agency.”

“And when the copy’s broken . . .”

“You still move your arm but your brain thinks something else did.” Yaz shakes his head. “Look, I’m just blowing smoke out my ass here. I don’t know anything. Whatever this is, you should see a doctor.”

“I tried,” she says. “Couldn’t get past the bot.”

He snorts. “That’s the Age of Triage for you. You’re either at death’s door or the back of the line.”

“Pretty much.”

“Maybe it’s just a matter of phrasing. Tell ‘em you’ve got some new undiscovered pathogen. That should get their attention.”

“I tried that. AI blew me off. My symptom set didn’t fit anything in the database so it decided I was fucked in the head. Offered to set me up with a Tulpa.”

Yaz winces. “Can’t see what it’s not looking for.”

“Like your shadow biosphere.” Iris takes a breath. “They told Mom she was okay, too.”

Yaz looks at her.

“Back when she was in remission,” she says. “She kept telling me it hadn’t gone away. She could feel it in her, just—waiting. And the doctors, even the real ones—they blew her off. They had their degrees, they’d done their tests: she was just this hysterical old woman with an overactive imagination. But she knew what she felt, and sure enough, a few months later . . .” She closes her eyes. “But of course by then it was too late.”

Yaz doesn’t say anything for a bit. Then: “That is really fucked up.”

“That’s how I feel,” she whispers.

• • • •

Iris feeds neural nets for a living. And as Yasar has so subtly reminded her, if she wants to stay alive long enough to die from something other than homelessness, she’d better pick up that ol’ dinner bell.

So she takes as much fear and depression as she can hold in both hands: visions of sickly auras flickering in the stratosphere, body parts agitating for independence, frayed and sparking motor nerves. A disease that no one understands and another that no one believes in. She forces it all into some basement in her head, leans back hard against the door and locks it with a shot of Jameson. She waits until she can almost ignore the things scratching and whining on the other side.

She sinks into her beanbag, dons her headset and unpacks the gig: a massive database of human faces, rife with noise and bias to be purged before any AI can be let anywhere near it. Someone’s building a mood-recognition app for the emotionally disturbed. All these faces, once scrubbed clean, will play a vital role in psych wards from coast to coast.

Iris suppresses a yawn and scans the metadata for any obvious red flags in location or acquisition time. You can’t nurse those insatiable little sponges on any old data; they tried that already, and whole generations of bots grew up thinking All Blacks Look Alike. You have to curate, lest you expose delicate AI sensitivities to bias and skew and heteroscedasticity. You have to weed out patterns that say more about the collector than the data. And so Iris has become a node in another kind of net: a diffuse affiliation of meatbots, thousands strong, recruited from around the world in rigorously random strata, each redundantly sifting the same data for signs of contamination in the hope that their own biases will come out in the wash once everyone’s results are mooshed back together.

She’s willing to overlook any minor flaws that might exist in this reasoning. There’s really only one other ground-level job that people can still do better than nets, and she’s already waited enough tables for a lifetime.

This gig seems unexpectedly knotty for such brain-dead work. It only takes a few hours to purge the usual melanistic and contrast biases, but somehow her filters have introduced a new glitch into the mix: suddenly the Pocket Watson she uses for testing can’t recognize children. Maybe something about the aspect ratio of juvenile faces. Maybe big eyes and snub noses fuck up the weighting algos or something.

It might be easier to figure out if the things in the basement weren’t still scratching at the door.

And now, of course, her foot is spazzing out. Electric tetanus seizes her right leg; the knee jumps like a hyperactive six-year-old. She plants her foot hard against the floor and pushes down with both hands. It’s okay, it’s okay. No big deal; you’ve probably got years yet. This is nothing. You hop around more than this when you need to pee.

Gradually, the tremor subsides. She stands, tests the mutinous leg, stamps it a couple of times.

Back at the start she’d go a month without an episode. Now she’s lucky to make it a week. And yet it’s not anger or despair or even fear for her own mortality that she feels in this moment. What she feels, absurdly, is relief.

This time it’s only the sclerosis.

• • • •

The tulpa has no body. The tulpa has no face. The tulpa is a disembodied voice in her headset, without form and void. A deliberate omission, apparently: a holdover from the age of psychotherapy. You’re not supposed to gaze upon your confessor.

Iris clears her throat. “I miss my mom.”

“Of course,” the tulpa says kindly. “The grieving process takes time.”

No shit, Sigmund. “She wouldn’t want me to.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’d want me to get on with things. Take care of myself.”

“I’m sure your mother wouldn’t want you to stop missing her after just a few short weeks. She’d know that—”

“You’re just brimming with profound insights about what my mom would know, aren’t you?”

“I have some general insights into human behaviour that might apply to your—”

“I want to talk about her. I don’t want you to cosplay her.”

“And yet you named me Abby.”

Huh. Sometimes these deep-learning nets sneak up on you. Say things that almost sound like there’s a soul behind them.

“Had to name you something. You wouldn’t let me past the startup screen.”

“Studies have shown that people relate better to software with human names.”

That’s more like it. “This is bullshit. I’m talking to a platitude generator.”

“You said you wanted to talk about your mom, but you seem more interested in discussing my shortcomings. It’s possible I’m not what you need right now, and you obviously know my limitations. It raises the question of why you booted me up.”

“Because you’re there. Because studies have shown that even talking to a goddamned pillow is better than nothing. Because some other chunk of code wouldn’t let me past the gate to see a real person and there’s no one else, so . . .”

“When you say there’s no one else—”

“See, that’s what I mean. No one else is one of those things you’ve assigned some huge weight to, so the moment it comes out of my mouth you home in like a shark on a blood trail. But it doesn’t matter to me, and it didn’t matter to mom, and you don’t know either of us so your weighting algo has its head up its ass.”

“I take it your mother encouraged you to be independent.”

“My mother encouraged me to be me. Just because you prefer your own company doesn’t mean you’re a freak.”

“She sounds like a strong woman.”

“Strong doesn’t even start to . . .” Fuck. I’m actually talking to the damn thing.

“She raised you on her own. That can’t have been easy.”

“You’re invoking the Poor Single Mom subroutine now?”

“I’m sorry; I should have expressed myself more clearly. She raised you on her own. That can’t have been easy.”

Iris blinks. “Touché.”

“She was strong,” she admits after a moment. “And she thought I was too, and I let her believe that. I owed her that much.”

“What did you owe her?”

“You know. Her own space. Not—wasting her time with my bullshit when she had so much to deal with.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“The MS, for one thing.”

“You didn’t tell her you’d been diagnosed?”

“Are you kidding? The woman can barely move, what the cancer hasn’t killed the chemo mostly has, and I’m going to whinge about a few shakes and short-circuits?” God I wish she was here. I wish she was here.

She’d have believed me.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. When it came right down to it, I wasn’t in her league.”

“How do you mean?”

“Near the end, she was—it was like someone plugged an IV into a pile of sticks and threw a sheet over it. Oh, she still acted the same, even when she went to the hospital, even when she knew she’d never leave. She still collected cool links for me and laughed at my jokes. But when she laughed, she opened her mouth and her lips kind of drew back, and it was—it was like there was just this skeleton behind, waiting to come out. I was so terrified that’s how I’d remember her, you know? I wouldn’t remember the hardbody cyclist or the woman who helped me take the Tusk when I was, like, ten. All I’d remember was this gasping skeleton with the eye sockets, and I didn’t want that, so I just . . . stopped going . . .”

“That must have been tough,” Abby says gently.

“It wasn’t tough: it was the easy choice. The coward’s choice.”

Iris puts her head in her hands.

“I wish she’d died thinking I was like her,” she whispers. “I wish she’d died before I broke.”

“Iris. I know you’re f—”

“This is bullshit,” she snaps, and kills the connection.

• • • •

Hey Iris,

Sorry for being a dick the other day. I started poking around and this paper popped up over on bioRxiv—not peer-reviewed and no real profile yet, and honestly the whole episode is pretty shady (no way would it pass ethics review). I don’t think you’ll be seeing it in Neuroepidemiology any time soon.

But you might be on to something. Ping me if you need help with the technobabble,

Y.

She flumps back into the beanbag and opens the file. Potentially Novel Opportunistic Infection of the Central Nervous System in an Immunocompromised Subject. Patient R, medical history unknown, presenting with erratic behavioral symptoms following vehicular impact at three a.m. Sedated and transferred to a portable MRI on-site at—

Wait a second: this guy just happened to get run over next to an MRI? In the middle of the night? Who wrote this thing?

Nobody, according to the author field. Literally: the paper is credited to Noah Buddie.

They hit him. Iris scans up and down the file, puts two and two together. Chaser ambulance: had to be. Nothing else packs a portable MRI. A couple of paramedics cruising the night shift, probably—judging by the very presence of this paper—chauffering some resident or intern riding along for the XP. Driving on manual (has anyone ever got into a vehicle with a human-operator option and not jumped at the chance?), so probably driving badly. Some homeless rubby stumbles into the headlights and whump.

Buddie(Buddies, more accurately) describe Patient R as agitated and incoherent: eyes bloodshot, pupils severely contracted—

!

—subject to sporadic involuntary muscle twitches but not apparently inebriated. 400mg ketamine administered IM. Once sedated, patient subjected to a low-rez fast full-body MRI. No broken bones or other serious injuries resulting from collision, but the scan does detect an accumulation of metabolically active masses along the spinal cord, lumbar and brachial plexii, and vagus nerve. Subsequent high-resolution scan also shows plaques consistent with extensive demyelination of the nerves. One of R’s few coherent statements prior to sedation referenced the loss of his job in a slaughterhouse when the meat industry collapsed—evidence enough, apparently, to implicate something called progressive inflammatory neuropathy as the cause of the demyelination artifacts.

The active masses along the main cables are a whole other issue, though. “Unprecedented in the literature”, apparently. Noah Buddie speculate about massive bacterial proliferation along the damaged axons; to Iris, the false-color images evoke the sense of a whole new nervous system, limned in sapphire, intertwining with the old one. Not just along the peripheral wiring, either; R’s whole brain seems aglow with the stuff. The authors suggest the brain might be the very headwaters of the pathology, in fact. The eyes in particular: Buddie hark back to those contracted irises, wonder if they might suggest infection via corneal diffusion. A reaction, perhaps. Provoked contraction of the actinomyosin complex, a tiny harbinger of the spasms and convulsions that sent R staggering into the road in the first place.

The authors would have very much liked to explore that further, but the sedation was wearing off; an additional 400mg ketamine was administered while the MRI was recalibrated for a deeper dive into the brain. That scan was never completed, however, since R woke up again two minutes into the procedure and started flailing around in the bore.

Wait a second—he threw off 400mg of ketamine after two minutes? He should have been out for ten, fifteen minimum, especially after a double dose . . .

Iris blinks. How does she know that? She frowns, and thinks, and remembers overhearing an ancient snippet of conversation between a couple of oncology residents while waiting for her mom to finish chemo. Weird she’d recall that now, though. She doesn’t remember it registering consciously even at the time.

Unresponsive to soothing voices and reassuring words, R is set free in a state of “extreme agitation” and flees into the night, his role in the advance of Science ended before its time. The anonymous medics seem sad about that much, at least:

“We present these findings, incomplete as they are, because they appear inconsistent with any known pathogen and may therefore represent a novel epidemiological threat. Mortality rate, R₀, symptomatic progression—whether or not this is even a pathogen in the conventional sense—remain unknown. However, given the accelerating rate at which new zoonotics are infecting human populations, it is only prudent to report what facts we have.”

Their lack of insight hasn’t stopped them from planting their flag on the little fucker. They’ve given it a name, inspired by its hypothesized mode of infection. It mixes with your tears, after all. It enters through the cornea, infects the windows of your soul.

They’ve called it Iris.

• • • •

Iris tracks the paper back to BioRxiv—maybe it’s gained some traction, maybe others are weighing in to argue or corroborate—and can’t find it. She checks the WayBack Machine for all BioRxiv pages archived over the past forty-eight hours: nothing but chaff.

Maybe some moderator didn’t relish the idea of hosting a paper based on data extracted without consent from an injured party. Maybe the authors thought better of their altruism, realized belatedly how easy it might be to track them down even if they had hidden behind a pseudonym. Maybe Yaz made it all up just to fuck with her. It’s kind of his thing.

Iris doesn’t really believe that, though. Yaz can be a jerk but he’d never be intentionally cruel. Besides, he’s lazy. He spins his yarns on the spur of the moment, spontaneously riffing off some offhand remark and piling on the absurdities. Hoaxing an entire paper from scratch would be way too much work.

Maybe Iris—the other Iris—just doesn’t want to be found.

There. She’s said it. If only to herself.

Because she knows she’s infected with something. Even the doctors tell her that much. Something inside is eating away at her nervous system, incrementally stealing her balance and her independence and probably, someday, even her very breath. Iris knows what it’s like to be infected, just like her mother did.

But what kind of infection takes its hosts for joyrides while the brain sleeps? What kind of infection doesn’t degrade control of the body but impossibly, terrifyingly, wrests it away?

What kind of microbe thinks?

She goes searching, and is surprised: a lot of them, actually.

She reads up on computational networks in bacterial biofilms. She watches videos of slime molds solving Traveling-Salesman problems and beating grad students at maze-running; of fungi modeling optimal mass-transit networks in London and Tokyo. She reads papers about quorum sensing, nanowires, cellular morphogenesis. It’s almost impossible to understand at first: all subscripts and integrals and acyclic-di-gmp-regulated adhesin. The only reason she doesn’t cave and call Yasar is because that’s exactly what he wants her to do. So she pushes on. She learns about ion channels older than the eukaryotes themselves, bioelectric gradients enabling communication not just within species but between them. Signalling systems that turn trillions of bacilli into their own kind of deep-learning network. The technobabble falls away in chunks as she reads, the meanings behind laid bare and in perfect focus. When she started she had to skip over every second word; just a few hours later, amazingly, she can make sense of it all.

She ponders origins. Is Iris some late-breaking mutation, natural selection in action? Did we make it, somehow? Did someone build it, or is it just some run-of-the-mill bacterium broken and remade by all the hormone disrupters pumped into the sky?

Is it even from here?

Another rabbit hole opens up before her. Radioresistant bacteria still thrive on the naked lunar surface, generations after the Surveyor mission left them there. Unkillable Deinococcus, with its projected million-year lifespan, lives on the skins of space stations and in the hearts of nuclear reactors. Bacteria brought back from the seabed wake up after a hundred million years.

Life here may have been seeded from some wet verdant Mars of aeons past, ricocheted to Earth during a game of cosmic billiards. Everything that lives on Earth could be a Martian. Someone in Astronomical Journal Letters runs the numbers and shits all over those local spit-swapping baby steps: microbes can cross whole galaxies, they claim, encased in the rubble of meteorites and impact ejecta.

Maybe I’m a pod person. Maybe I’m infested with some brainworm from Alpha Centauri.

She should be terrified. She should be revolted. And she is, a little; but she’s something else, too. She’s a little bit exultant.

Maybe I’m turning into Supergirl.

• • • •

Her eyes stare back from the bathroom mirror. Her pupils seem just the slightest bit cloudy. Or maybe it’s her imagination; maybe all these insights and wild guesses have primed her to see things that aren’t there. She reaches for the wall, never taking her eyes from her reflection. Flips off the light switch.

Two points of pale blue light stare back from the darkness. Iris thinks of the red-eye you used to see in old photos, back before cameras got smart: light reflecting off blood-soaked retinas.

This isn’t blood. It’s no mere reflection, either: this is, what’s the word . . .

Bioluminescence.

You were just a speck in my eye, not so long ago. Proteins and acids and chemotaxis. What was it like, getting here from there? Was it gradual? Did you just segue from reflex to instinct, from feeling to thought? Was it like flipping a switch? Are you scared, are you hungry? Are you even awake, or just some kind of mindless LAN?

She whispers: “What do you want from me?”

Mosaics flicker across her visual field, complex, mathematically precise. They dissolve in an instant, degrade down to amorphous floaters swarming her retinas. Out past it all, the points in the mirror shine like tiny will-o’the-wisps.

“Iris? That you?”

Phosphene kaleidoscopes, there and gone.

Was that an answer? Is this a dialog?

It’s in me, she reminds herself. It—interfaces, somehow. Maybe I don’t even have to talk out loud.

HELLO IRIS I’M IRIS CAN YOU HEAR ME

There might be something there but maybe it’s just afterimages. Imagination.

HELLO? IRIS?

“Fuck it,” she mutters, and reaches for the light switch.

Something tingles in her arm. Just above her elbow, something stiffens and resists.

“Okay, then.” She forces herself to relax. “What do you want to do?”

• • • •

She’s never run at night before. She barely runs during the day; it’s easy to aspire to three times a week when the Co-op fills your headset with mountain trails and empty beachside boardwalks. Not so easy when the streets outside your cramped one-bedroom swarm with drones and delivery bots and people who deliberately teem cheek-to-jowl, showing off bare faces and broad-spectrum antiviral tattoos like some kind of mating display. She tried a couple of times and it was like trying to run a marathon in a mosh pit.

Now, though . . .

The streets are beautiful, and empty: dark and bright neon (or whatever they’re using instead now, in their half-assed incremental pursuit of carbon neutrality). It’s been raining. The pavement’s slick and black and full of bright zigzag reflections, electric abstracts with the horizontal hold gone to shit. Iris smells asphalt and ozone. Kaleidoscope puddles shatter beneath her feet.

She follows no set route; turns right or left as the mood takes her. She runs along copper-lit city canyons, passes the library, dekes left on Homer. Now she’s on the Burrard Street Bridge; now she’s leaving Kitsilano behind. The bright night darkens by infinitesimal degrees until the skyscrapers and the halogens are miles behind her. She crosses some deserted street, trades asphalt for dirt (Sasamat Trail, says a passing sign she should not by rights be able to read) and plunges into woodland.

She stops. Looks around. The swaying silhouettes of cedars and maples crowd out the sky, black against black.

The light isn’t entirely gone, though. Iris is glowing again.

She’d never have seen it in daylight. Even bright city night was enough to wash it out. But here, in the unlit outskirts of this tame forest, she sees a faint luminous tracery branching beneath the skin of her arms. Blood vessels coursing with St. Elmo’s Fire. Motor nerves etched in starlight.

She remembers some long-forgotten documentary from childhood: deep-sea fish light up like this, with swirls and lines and dots that flash in the darkness. Glowing bacteria in pockets arrayed across the skin, fed by capillaries that could stretch wide or squeeze tight. Open those gates and the bacteria flare like LEDs; close them and they go dark. It’s an oxygen thing.

She remembers as though she saw it yesterday.

Under her skin, the light show is fading. It’s beautiful, Iris thinks, then catches herself. It’s an infection. I’m sick.

She doesn’t feel sick. She feels better than she has since—well, since before she was diagnosed.

Wouldn’t that be something. A disease that cures diseases.

She starts back the way she came. She emerges from the forest and finds herself running again, forces herself to slow to a walk. Maybe this thing is spurring her to exercise because all that fast-pumping, oxygenated blood helps it grow faster. Maybe she shouldn’t be feeding it any more than she has to.

But it’s so hard to keep focus. The moment her mind wanders the body starts up again: a trot then a jog then a run, until she jolts back to the here and now and puts on the brakes.

She wants to run.

No. It does.

She keeps to a fast walk. It takes conscious effort.

It’s all through you. It used to be weak and scared, it used to wait until you weren’t looking. Remember when it had to fight you for control? But it’s so much stronger now. It’s wired in so deep it doesn’t have to fight against your will any more.

It is your will.

Iris looks down at her hand. Clenches it. Opens it. It feels like her will to her.

Because it doesn’t care. Try doing something to threaten it.

Offhand, she doesn’t even know what that might be.

It’s erasing you. You think you’re smarter, you think your memory’s better, you think you don’t need the bottle any more but none of that is you. It’s taking everything that makes you what you are and overwriting it with something—

Better.

Because really, what is she? A spastic drunk on her way to palliative care at best, more likely a cardboard box behind a dumpster. No family, no prospects, passing through a world so fucked-up it’s even money whether she dies before it does. Would losing that really be so bad?

You’re not even all that scared, are you? Any rational person would be terrified. Why aren’t you terrified, Iris?

It is strange, she concedes as she breaks into a trot. And it’s not just fear; she feels—less all around, somehow. Less than she used to. It takes her a moment or two to figure out what’s missing.

The grief is gone.

• • • •

Iris beats the sun home. She rings for the elevator, changes her mind, takes the stairs instead. Somewhere around the fourth floor she’s struck by sudden inspiration: other than children, what else has big eyes and snub noses? She piles into her apartment without closing the door behind her and finds herself trawling Japanese databases for manga and anime (she’d hit Disney’s archives too for good measure, but she knows better; those fuckers never let anything fall out of copyright).

She strat-randos a few thousand faces and injects them into the database. Pocket Watson’s performance degrades an immediate and profound 35%, but that’s okay; it was probably overfitted anyway. It’ll get its groove back with a little more practice, and when it does, the kids will be seen and heard. Two hours maybe—three at the most—and her psych-ward database will be ready for prime time.

Only then does she notice that Yaz has pinged her again. Wants to know what she thinks about that BioRxiv paper. Hopes she’s doing okay. Hopes she’s not mad at him or anything.

She’s not. She’s just got other things in her mind.

• • • •

Brain Wash rewards her with another gig: thirty years’ worth of humpback whale vocalizations, destined for some deep-learning interspecies communication project. Rent for the month, if she can get it done within the week.

It takes her two days.

They send her a half-terabyte of migration vectors for climate refugees the world over, and an epidemiological map of zoonotic outbreaks laid across the same grid. She doesn’t even remember doing that one: just wakes up in the kitchen one night and it’s ready to go.

Iris redeems Iris. It takes some getting used to. All new relationships do.

Yasar leaves a couple more messages. She lets them lie.

A rain squall passes through town, and suddenly—in a city where rain is usually just part of the background—everyone is talking about it. The pictures are all over social media: an ichorous sky, ominous cumulonimbus aglow with radioactive light. Morning hosts replay the video and interview experts who shrug and speculate about microaurorae and crown flashes.

Apparently many of the witnesses suffer mild soreness, redness of the eyes. No one can explain that either, but no one has to: this is obviously just another bit of karma from Mother Nature, like plummeting sperm counts and killer hurricanes. We’ve been pumping corrosive shit into the air since the Industrial Revolution; did anyone think our last-minute half-assed environmental policies could magically undo two centuries of indifferent devastation?

No mention of extreme reactions, though. Nobody talking about pupils reduced to pinpoints, or people going blind. Maybe Iris got swept up in some kind of beta release. Maybe something figured out how to tone down the side effects the second time around.

Maybe you’re just special, she thinks, and grunts softly in surprise.

She’s still not used to thinking of herself that way.

• • • •

She barely hears the beep: it fades like the memory of a dream on waking, except it’s not a memory. It’s happening right now. She thinks about ignoring it. Her eyes slide sideways until the callerID scrolls into view, a blob of bright color on a dark background. She focuses.

Yasar again. The man never gives up.

“Hi,” she says at last.

“Thank God.” His voice sounds strange; tension in the higher registers. She can almost see the waveforms coming off the pad like some kind of moiré aura; like she’s, what’s the word . . .

Synaesthethesiac, something tells her.

Right.

“Iris? You there?”

She mmmmms. “What’s up, Yaz?”

“I’ve been, you know—worried. You haven’t been answering, and it looks like—well, you probably know already but there’s other people like you out there now. BCH knows about it but they say they’ve got their hands full with E-13 and the Pox and it’s not contagious and no mortalities so everyone’s, I mean, I’d say they were dropping the ball but that would mean they’d picked it up in the first place. And then you weren’t answering, so . . .”

“It’s okay, Yaz. I’m okay.”

“You didn’t sound okay before. You were scared shitless.”

“I’m better now. I’m good. Better than good.”

“Yeah, but Ris—that could be a bad sign. I think whatever this thing is, it might fuck with your brain. Make you like it . . .”

Yasar yammers on. His voice is faint and far away. He says there are parasites that grow in insects and cats and people. They reprogram their hosts to love and protect them, inspire them to self-sacrifice. That’s how they complete their life cycle: infected rats jump into the mouths of cats, afflicted crabs nurture and love the larvae devouring their insides.

Iris feels muscles tightening in her face and thinks: I’m smiling. It’s like she’s never done that before. “Okay, Yaz. If I feel the urge to jump into a shark’s mouth I’ll let you know.”

“Not funny, Iris. This thing . . . should I come over?”

Suddenly the buzz is gone. Suddenly the world is hi-def crystal.

“What? No.”

“Didn’t you hear me? This thing could be rewiring you. Chemically. Right down in the neurons.”

“So what?”

“Are you stoned? Didn’t you—”

“Is it killing people? Has it killed anyone? I mean, we don’t go six months without digging up some brand-new real disease from the jungle or the permafrost and you’re worried about something that doesn’t do anything except—”

“Except what? What is it doing to you?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m coming over.”

“I’m in bed, Yaz.”

“At four in the afternoon.”

“I’m fine. I promise I’m fine. It’s been a long day, that’s all. I just want to take a nap.”

“I want to see you for myself. If there’s no prob—”

“Show up here and I call the police.”

Yasar falls silent.

Iris feels something dimly akin to shock herself. The words were out before she even thought about saying them.

“I’m okay. Really. I’ll call you later.” She hangs up.

Parasite. She can’t quite wash away the distaste, the offense that lingers in the wake of that word. Yasar and his half-baked biology degree. He doesn’t have a clue. Iris and her mom streamed their own share of Nature Nostalgia over the years; she remembers a little biology herself, now. Iris isn’t a parasite: it’s a symbiont. Like the algae that live in the tissues of coral, or the mitochondria that power every one of her own cells. Like the microflora in her gut, without which she couldn’t even digest her own food. It’s not a disease: it’s a partner.

It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

• • • •

She runs almost every night now, in the rain. She’s no longer alone; the streets are full of night owls, insomniacs and somnabulists, restless and driven to pound the pavement, run the laps, count the kliks. Maybe some of them are doctors or politicians. Maybe some are responsible for pandemic response policy.

All of them have such bright eyes.

That’s why we come out at night, she realizes. So we can see each other.

Iris is wide awake now, and so is Iris. One feels the other looking out through her eyes; revels in the energy flooding her muscles and the soundscapes washing across her ears, in the miraculous intricacy of every surface she lays eyes on. It’s as if she’s seeing everything for the first time. And yet there’s no chaos in this complexity; there is only pattern. Fractals and Penrose tiles and glorious autorecursive Escher architecture. Everything fits.

No longer the exclusive domain of myelin-deficient early adopters, Iris is making itself known to a wider audience. Not everyone welcomes the change. Out past the veil of her own enlightenment, Iris has grown vaguely aware of news reports and online updates, talk of some new infection that no one seems to have seen before. Not a virus or a bacterium. Not a fungus. Not exactly, although it appears to share attributes with all three. An impossibly small 700 Angstroms. Largely invisible to the human immune system. Doesn’t show up on the standard tests.

Iris isn’t surprised. The standard tests and the human immune system have much in common; they see only what they know to look for.

Some are trying to raise the alarm. As though this was something that needed to be fought: a patch for multiple sclerosis, an upgrade for the mind. A thread of joy, suffusing every waking moment. And people want to cure it.

Not for much longer, though.

Iris is slowing, now. She looks around for the reason (not fatigue, surely; she feels like she could run forever), and after a moment it rounds the corner ahead of her, decelerating in turn. She has never seen him before, but she knows him by the light in his eyes.

No time to waste on the unborn, on those diffuse networks still mindlessly putting down roots through blind instinct and Turing morphogenesis. No time for mere potential. The next generation will mature and flourish in its own time. Tonight, Iris is only for the woke.

She and the stranger stand face to face for a moment; lean together; kiss. Their tongues move of some other accord. Sparks tingle in the mouth; enlightenment sparks in the brain. Suddenly Iris knows things she never learned. The taste of raw euphausiids. What monkeypox feels like. How to build a box kite. The exact number of Indigenous children murdered in Canadian residential schools. Oh, and this just in: sometime in the past hour, Vancouver has declared martial law.

As if it mattered.

• • • •

It should be harder than this to leave town. Lockdown’s in full force: checkpoints and barricades run rampant from North Van to Horseshoe Bay. But they’re so easy to circumvent. A culvert under the Trans-Canada; a cop who looks at Iris, sees his estranged daughter, and looks the other way; an abandoned car sleeping by the side of the road, its autopilot shut down when the authorities noticed someone breaking quarantine. One Iris or the other steps over each barrier in turn, mere puddles en route to Porteau Cove.

Of course.

It’s deep twilight now, here between the mountains and the sea. A ragged moraine of driftwood winds along the high tide line. An incline of polished cobbles extends to the water; they shift and slide beneath her feet as she descends. Slippery brown algae, stranded by the receding tide, glistens darkly in the half-light.

Another part of her waits down in the shallows. She could see it all the way from the treeline, even in the deepening dark, because it is alight. Bright waves of gold and green slide hypnotically along its surface; luciferin meshes ripple on that skin like sunlight dappling a shallow seabed. It moves forward as Iris nears, pulls itself so close to shore that its boneless bulk rises above the waterline. An eye rotates into view: round, unblinking, big as a hubcap. A multitude of arms spread in welcome.

She’s dimly aware of other people along the shoreline, silhouettes moving to their own assigned rendezvous. She pays them no mind. Her attention is focused forward, on an expanse of pale flesh pulsing with dark stars that bloom and contract and build mosaics echoing what she sees behind her own eyelids, when she closes them.

The rain touched the ocean before it ever made landfall, after all. And what’s so special about people, anyway? Why would anyone build a database consisting entirely of humans? It would bias your whole worldview. You’d start thinking human perspectives were the only ones that mattered.

Neural nets are innocent.

This one, at least, knows enough to diversify. Iris wades into the shallows, and it takes her into its arms. She feels a distant prickling as myriad horned suckers anchor in her flesh, but it doesn’t really hurt. Together they move offshore, into deeper water. Together they descend into bright darkness.

Iris knows that a part of her is drowning. But that’s okay.

The rest will go on forever.

— Based on the Stoneburner song “Contracting Iris” by Steven Archer.

©2023 by Peter Watts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Watts is a former marine biologist, flesh-eating-disease survivor, and convicted felon (long story) whose novels—despite an unhealthy focus on space vampires—have become required texts for university courses ranging from Philosophy to Neuropsychology. His work is available in 24 languages, has appeared in 33 best-of-year anthologies, and been nominated for 59 awards. His (somewhat shorter) list of 22 actual wins includes the Hugo, the Shirley Jackson, and the Seiun. He seems to be especially popular in countries with a history of Soviet occupation. He lives in Toronto with fantasy author Caitlin Sweet, five cats, a pugilistic rabbit, a Plecostomus the size of a school bus, a bearded dragon, and a gang of tough raccoons who shake him down for kibble on the porch every summer.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

Four Years Minus Twelve Days

Samantha Murray | 748 words

You knew from the beginning. You knew because the world knew about the intricate and fascinating life-cycle of the Svarrs, and it had been documented and discussed everywhere throughout the media endlessly. And you knew because Vo made sure you understood, before you married them.

Four years is the bonding-period you get with a Svarr. Not quite four years, to be exact. Four years minus twelve days. After those four years Vo would shrink inward on themself like a neutron star shedding its outer layers, becoming smaller, denser, brighter, before emerging in their new form.

“I will not remember you,” Vo told you. And then, to make sure you realized the import of what they were saying: “I will not want to. I will not care.” All the emotions and memories would be shed too, as the Svarr shed their skin and their old self.

“I know,” you said, then. “I understand.”

You’d fallen for Vo, caught by their gravity, tumbling inward toward them. It had seemed so impossible, so exquisite that they might care for you that you would have bargained with the universe for just one more month of being with them. Just don’t let this end yet. Let me have this. Just one more month, just one more.

And this was four years. You got to have them for four years. It felt like a long time. It felt like forever. It felt like enough.

(It wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough, and you could have known this all along if you had let yourself.)

You are hardly the first to wed a Svarr, although you are the only one out of the people that you know. A woman approaches you at the market one time as you and Vo stack your basket full of delicacies and giggle over the root vegetables. “How long?” she asks, showing you the Svarr-wedding rune on her wrist, faded and blurred now, a contrast to the dark definition of yours.

“Eight months,” you blurt, unwilling and yet somehow drawn into answering her.

“So new,” she says, but you are already turning away, taking Vo with you, safe in your bubble of happiness, in your love and your silliness and your joy. And you forget all about her.

Except you don’t, really. You think of her years later, of the starkness and hunger to her face and the bright mixture of pity and jealousy in her eyes.

“What will it be like in your next phase?” you ask Vo then. Really you mean what will it be like, without me?

“I cannot imagine it,” Vo says.

“Try,” you say, like a pain-seeking missile, trying to push, trying to sabotage, trying to hurt.

But Vo enfolds you in their arms and looks into your eyes only, not to the future. “I cannot.”

And you realize, hurtling through your very last year together, that you’d never truly believed it, so you couldn’t really have accepted it, could you? That you’ve internalized the themes from books and movies where love finds a way. That somehow it will be different for you and Vo, despite everything you’ve been told. Despite the fact that future-Vo is outside the light cone of everything that happens now, and they will not be impacted or influenced by any of it.

You are by turns moody and snappy and disgruntled, and you find yourself bitterly resenting those twelve fewer days, because everybody always talks about four years, so it feels like you should be entitled to that, at least.

And then, suddenly and yet not suddenly at all, your time is up. Vo collapses inward, becoming more compact, a small bright mass in the corner of your living room. “I love you,” you say, hoping that the words are sucked inward too, that they make it.

It takes a week, and you camp out on the sofa beside Vo, your hair greasy and unbrushed, eating cornflakes out of a cup when you remember to eat at all.

When Vo breaks out of their shell they are more defined somehow, brighter, shining. More alien.

You could still love them like this you realize, the knowledge blooming in your heart. They are not the Vo you knew but they are so beautiful.

“Vo,” you say, your lips parched, your mouth dry.

Vo doesn’t turn at your voice, stays looking out of your bay window, eyes fixed on the horizon. And when they leave, they do not look back.

©2023 by Samantha Murray.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Samantha Murray’s fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Fantasy Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Escape Pod, among other places. Samantha is a two-time Aurealis Award winner, and her work has been translated into Chinese and Vietnamese. You can find her on Twitter @SamanthaNMurray. Samantha lives in Western Australia in a household of unruly boys.

Every Little Change

Aimee Ogden | 1024 words

On the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday, Francesca awakes to the sound of a blip in the apartment kitchen.

It’s 9:30 on a Saturday; good thing she has no responsibilities to drag her out of bed any earlier. No kids, no pets; not even any creative writing essays to grade. She putters around finding her slippers and pulling her tangled hair into a ponytail so that Jason has time to make a pot of coffee. Not that he drinks—or eats—anymore. But he’ll pretend, for her sake.

“Happy birthday.” He doesn’t turn or look up from the stove, where bacon whispers in the pan. She can see the faint crackle of energy beneath his skin, even through his aggressively normal t-shirt and jeans. It’s not as if people don’t recognize him as Quantum without the suit, but he never wears it around her. “Big plans for today?”

She tells him about dinner at Elena and Mae’s at eight, hiking by the lake this afternoon, maybe stopping at Minnie Moo’s for a burger on the way there or back. He listens without a flicker of movement beyond the angle of his wrist to turn the bacon. She doesn’t remember when he stopped blinking. “Do you mind if I come with you?” he asks.

This man can slide back and forth through time, can rewrite the world with his slightest action. She doesn’t understand why he cares about hikes or dinners or, well . . . her. “Of course.” She doesn’t ask where he’s been or how long he’d been there. The last time she asked, he told her he hadn’t seen her for six years. For her, it had only been a day. No wonder he’s so distant. “Wear your real hiking boots,” she says. “It’ll be muddy after all that rain.”

• • • •

He’s there when she gets home from work one day late in November, after a particularly brutal school board meeting in which funding was cut across every department. Her job is safe, but the junior math teacher, fresh out of college, won’t be back next year. It’s such a small, stupid thing, and it doesn’t make any sense for her to be mad at him about it. His job is to prevent nuclear war, or assassinations, or—or something else important that she doesn’t even know about, because he already stopped it from happening. (She’s mad at him anyway.)

He’s standing by the counter when she enters, looking at nothing. At his feet, Trixie works busily at a knuckle of rawhide. “I took her for a walk,” he says to the wall. “I knew you’d be tired tonight.”

“Thanks.” Trixie offers Francesca her belly, but instead she takes her time peeling off her coat, her sweaty shoes, her uncomfortable stockings. She tries to peel the anger away, too, but it sticks tight. “Could’ve spent your time a little more productively, though. I would rather have enough cash in the district’s budget to keep me from having to pick up a section of Algebra II next year.”

He’s as still as ever, but a spark of blue static flickers in one of his eyes. “I’m doing my best.”

“Yeah?” She gets between him and the wall, daring him to look at her. “Maybe your best should be better.”

“You don’t remember Cassie.”

The non sequitur steals some of her momentum. It’s not a question, but she answers anyway. “. . . No? Are you trying to tell me you’re having an affair?”

“She was born on Valentine’s Day last year,” he says, his usual monotone flatter than ever, not even trying to infuse some affect into the words. “Her favorite color is orange. She begged you for a cat, even though she’s allergic. You compromised on a lizard. She wanted to be an artist until she took biology in her sophomore year; she ended up designing artificial lungs. Her wife’s name is Margaret—not Maggie. They had two girls and got mad every year when you went overboard on Christmas gifts.”

“That’s not—” Francesca insists. “Jason, we don’t—we never had kids.”

Instead of arguing, he blips into . . . into wherever the hell he blips to. Francesca sits on the kitchen floor, and Trixie brings her a shoe, which she helplessly accepts.

• • • •

She remembers the winter day, almost two years ago now, when he blipped into the garage before she left for school. “You don’t need me to drive you,” he’d said blankly, and no, there was no blizzard forecast, no reason she shouldn’t be behind the wheel, so he’d blipped away again and she hadn’t seen him for two months. He’d been there again on Valentine’s Day when she’d gotten home, and he’d made a lovely dinner and bought flowers. Daisies, her favorites, not the red roses he’d always brought her when they were first dating. Before the accident that made him Quantum. Before they’d grown old together.

• • • •

He stays away for a while again this time, and she lets him, but the silence stretches so painfully thin that even Trixie’s merry chirping from her birdcage isn’t enough to fill it all. Finally Francesca sends him an email, a timestamped invitation: please come back. As soon as she presses Send, he’s standing in front of her. “Every little change changes so much more,” he says. “I’m trying to make things better. But if you’re not in the world, I’m afraid I’ll forget why I should save it. And I’m scared that I’ve lost you anyway.”

“I am too,” she confesses, and now neither of them can remember how to look at one another. The silence is back, and no less stressful for being shared. But Francesca can make small changes, too. “I’m going to put on a pot of coffee,” she says. “Do you want to stay for a cup and tell me about her?”

He looks across her, through her, seeing things that never were, not in her version of the world. But there’s a shade of a smile there, and it reminds her of a man who used to buy her roses.

©2023 by Aimee Ogden.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters” was a 2021 Nebula Award finalist, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. She also co-edits Translunar Travelers Lounge, a magazine of fun and optimistic speculative fiction. Her third novella, “Emergent Properties,” comes out in July 2023.

The Chosen Six

Oyedotun Damilola Muees | 4654 words

Dear Maryam,

I had a dream last night. I’m guess it was our ancestors talking to me. Getting a clear view of them was tough—the only thing I saw was an amorphous image. I heard their voices, though, telling me to come for breakfast. I envisaged roasted beef marinated in a sauce with green vegetables as toppings, just the way Mama prepares it. Soon there was an aroma levitating like a UFO, calling out to me, enchanting me to its stronghold. I woke up wishing you were here.

A note was seated on the table in my room. It read: Good morning. I believe you slept well. Please make your way to the dining room where breakfast will be served. Anne. I slumped back on the bed, which was big, not like the squidge we managed in our camp. I ran my hands over the cotton duvet. My stomach rumbling, I hurriedly took my bath, and made my way out to the dining room.

A mélange of meals sprawled on the rectangular table. Maryam, even my organs back-flipped for joy. I took venison alongside ofada rice, and stew crowded with locust beans, ponmo, and shrimps. I was about to eat when I saw the drab face of the boy who was coughing yesterday. He wasn’t eating, or at least making any attempt to eat.

“Why are you not eating?” I asked.

“I am a veggie,” he said, his monkey pet picking food from his plate

“There is salad for your kind.”

He reluctantly served himself. I didn’t know what to make of his expression. This place had so much pleasure, enough to drive your gloominess down into an abyss. Perhaps he cared too much for animals to see them eaten. After we were done feasting, the boys and girls who yesterday helped us with our bags gave each of us an envelope, then left abruptly. Curious, we tore them open, and then read the contents. Its day two of your arrival. We are a community who believes in togetherness. Communicate with one another. Know each other’s roots. Be friends.

We were six in number—a balanced figure to divide ourselves into and chat. The veggie boy was left out of the group, the rest scared he might infect them with his cough. I stood up and went over to him. His cough wasn’t going to keep me from knowing him.

“My name is Tolu. I come from a village called Okuta. It’s far north of this place, neighbored by tall trees and fresh crops.”

I waited for him to speak, tell me about himself. He just folded his hands, wearing a scowl. His monkey held a peeled banana, climbed on his lap, tugged at his shirt, and then looked at me askew.

“Fine, I will speak,” he said to his monkey.

Qudus was his name, a native of the Maasai tribe. A lover of animals. He expressed his displeasure over the state of affairs here. Papylon had plenty of supplies to feed climate refugees, yet, they remained secluded, selecting only a few of us from different villages and camps. I shared in his discontentment. This place could hold all the people from all our village, taking us away from the constant flooding ravaging our homes. We stared at the rest of the group, who were chatting and laughing. Tomorrow, I decided to meet Anne, asking her to explain our mission here.

You should also know that I am sending you these voice messages from the contact-center. They have devices that can reach thousands of miles. I hope the communication lines at the camp are still intact.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

Do you remember how we snuggle, me relaxing my face on your chest while we talk about how we will leave this camp when the time is right? I know you remember vividly, and you are probably smiling about it. Me, too. We had envisioned the future together: you and I on a cruise to Hawaii, sunbathing on the beach, drinking coconut juice, swimming in the bouncing silver waters that invite us to bask in comfort. I suggested we would climb into a hot air-balloon, sight-seeing the lush trimmed gardens where horned animals chase each other, and birds gamboling in the untainted air as they navigate along with the serene breeze. Mama had snickered at us. She had been standing there listening to us paint our own world. She said it was “specious.” The world was too fucked up to have such a dream come true. We knew this, but we held on to a thread of hope, however frail it was.

Now I think of the day when I saw the view from the aircraft, and I wish we had both been chosen when the Saviors came to our village. Maryam, the view from there was akin to what we painted. I saw a greater kudu feeding on green grasses, a gregarious zebra walking freely without fear of being hunted by predators, and harmless birds that were not constantly watching their backs. One would think these creatures were not affected by the scourge. The peace of mind that thrilled them seemed like the feeling I got when I boarded this aircraft. Believe me when I say I wish the gods had chosen you instead of me.

Somebody had coughed behind me. I ignored him, still feeding my view on the scenery that embossed my heart with delight. He coughed again, this time a guttural one.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

He simply nodded, a piece of cloth covering his mouth.

“I suggest you fold that cloth over so you don’t get more germs,” I added.

He nodded again, saluting me with a thumbs up. The little monkey perched on his shoulder made a funny sound at me. It couldn’t come closer because of the chain around its neck, held by this boy. I pulled out a fresh handkerchief knitted by Mama and gave it to him. The remaining four people onboard ignored us, holding on to their bags. One of them was reading, the other was fiddling with his wrist watch, another was holding a compass. The last placed his head back on the headrest, eyes closed. I think he was meditating.

“Sit tight, we are descending to our destination,” the pilot said.

We clutched to the seatbelts, muttering a prayer for our safe landing—it was obvious that many of us were first-time aircraft travelers. When we alighted, we were flabbergasted by the astronomical size of this settlement, or maybe it was just me. How many people live here? How come the climate disasters hadn’t swept to this community? Was this the heaven I dreamt about? Maryam, all of these thoughts left me dumbfounded, left me in a reverie.

We were handed over to an old man who bore a semblance with Pa Francis, the codger. To my left was a wind turbine, rotating its blades as though happy to see us. Fresh water from rocks flowed down a fountain with a fringe to keep it from overflowing. Tall flowery trees with healthy petals towered above us as we passed by it. I picked a fallen leaf, and sniffed it to refresh my nose. People were working inside a greenhouse. The smiles on their faces showed their happiness in their work. We were handed over to a woman dressed in an immaculate white pantsuit. A sprinkle of smiles dotted all over her face upon sighting us. That must be the person who runs this place, I thought.

“Welcome to Papylon,” she said. “We are honored to have you all here. My name is Anne Pelumi-Thomas. But you can simply call me Anne. I’ll be your host throughout your stay here, so feel free to inform me if you need anything.”

She ushered us into our rooms, while some well-dressed girls and boys took our bags from us. The sick boy coughed again, three times in a row. Anne told him to come with her, the rest of us kept moving.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

There was rainfall yesterday. Kids and teenagers came out to play in the downpour, jumping and smiling as they got drenched. I watched them from the window of my room, the slanting strokes of the rain hitting my windowpane, calling me out to play. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Hurtful memories of the flood and acid rain in our village still gives me goose bumps. I hope to outgrow that fear soon.

How possible was it that Papylon had rainfall free of the toxicity that caused skin irritation, crops free from dioxins, plants healthy and not attacked by pests? I sat on my bed, Arabian style, thinking. A plausible answer came to mind while I was speaking to Anne.

Later in the day Anne sent for us. Seven of us sat in a meeting room. Paintings of bearded men, animals, cerulean seas decorated the walls. Each of us was served compote.

“Do you know why the six of you were chosen?” Anne asked, looking at each of us for a response after sipping tea from her cup. It felt like a rhetorical question until she pointed to one of us.

“Ikey, I know you are from a hamlet where your people are predominantly fishermen. I hear your ancestors have their souls in dolphins who come out at the full moon to deliver messages to the chief priest.”

Ikey only responded to the truth about his people being fishermen. He allowed Anne’s other claims to get swept away by the singing bird outside.

She went on to the others. Qudus the veggie: their ancestors used to kill lions until a pact was made. Now they live in harmony with animals—this explains his distaste when he saw the venison. Michael, the man whose progenitors could be traced to the Iron Age. Their kind had a knack for electrical inventions, and innovating machines. Kingsley, a member of a community famous for being scholars. His people have vast knowledge of science, economics, and arts. I totally believed this, he read all the way here. Ramon originates from a tribe whose leader received messages from the sky god about the administration of his community. Each child from his community has innate knowledge in organizing people, animals, and things. All eyes turned to me, waiting for Anne to speak about my tribe.

“You are one of the most important pieces on this board,” Anne said, sipping some more. “Your people are blessed with the gift of giving the environment a facelift. The trees and gardens from your village thrive more than other communities. I can’t say for sure if it’s the sand, the air, or your soils are naturally blessed. But I am glad you are here.”

With all Anne said, we were still in the dark, oblivious of what we were doing here. She took us out, showed us around. The blades of the wind turbine emitted croaking sounds, one could see that it needed to be fixed. The bulbs in the hallways were flickering. Soon the power supply would be unstable. Michael said the gearbox and the generator need to be checked. The colorful plants in the cloche had shed their leaves. Some of their buds were already wilting. I noticed the bark of the trees, shriveled and frail for lack of nutrients. At the pond, catfishes fed on each other, injuring the weak. She told us about a leopard who attacked a rabbit pen, stealing four of them.

Maryam, it saddens me to tell you that beneath all the luxury in Papylon, they suffer just like us. The aftermath of the climate conditions that tore our homes apart had found another way to wreak havoc in their homes. Their machines are failing. Their animals are acting unruly. They are not being fed like they used to. Papylon needs our help the same way we need theirs.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

We were merged in a group of twos. Our first assignment was to find expedient ways to solve the ongoing challenges before they escalated. This morning there was no milk because it had gone sour. A glitch in the generator inside the wind turbine powering the entire building made the lights go out, leaving us with only the backup solar-powered generator. It was a matter of time before the backup generator also developed a fault, too, hence the need to repair the wind turbine. Michael was tending to that.

I was paired with Ikey. We had so much to talk about. He was a garrulous young man, telling me about how he and his brothers raced on the fins of sharks. No one suffered drowning because they were allies with these creatures and the sea denizens. Their happy home vanished when a sea horse was found floating, dead. Other sea creatures soon followed suit. A black substance like crude oil spread on top of the lake. The black oil smeared all the bodies of water, killing their primary livelihood. As if the oil spillage hadn’t caused enough damage, the drought came, accompanied by sandstorms. They migrated, currently residing with an ally community they used to sell fishes to.

“I miss my home,” Ikey said.

His words made me think about you, Maryam. We passed through the thicket. Many of the trees there were living their last if I don’t do something to reinvigorate them.

“My mother used to call your people the sand tribe. She said you control the soil and everything beneath it. Some of my people believed it was your tribe that sent the sandstorms to us,” Ikey said.

He was quick to assure me of his disapproval of that assertion. I could also say the same about his people. We said they caused the destruction of our homes through the flood that ravaged it, extirpating our healthy trees from their roots, and destroying the villages’ garden. The time for altercation wasn’t now. I had no plans to open sealed wounds, at least not under these conditions.

We went to a lake, both of us stood at the edge of the flowing water. Ikey made an esoteric sound, calling out to the water creatures. None of them answered—they must have migrated. He stepped into the water, ripples tripling as he slapped his feet hard on the surface, perturbing its peace. He made another sound, this time louder, with his hands bracketed around his mouth. I envied his ken of the aquatic. But I dared not go with him in the lake. He was about to leave when a call returned to him. Excited, he rushed back in, making a reply sound. A dolphin calf sneaked its snout out of the water, swimming towards him. They communicated until the calf swam away.

“What did it say?” I asked.

He sighed, saying the dolphins’ family were being hunted by humans. He wished to gather all the dolphins, care for them. I cheered him up, praised him for his daedal way of calling them out. If he could summon a dolphin, then he could summon other creatures. But first, we needed to create enough space so as to avoid overcrowding.

Maryam, I think of you and Mama each night before sleep takes me away. I pray that the rainfall ceases. But its refusal to fall will cause harm to another community. Except for the xerophytes, drought will harm us all. Instead I changed my prayer to the gods, telling them to give us rain at intervals. I hope the massive flooding will be reduced to flash floods.

On our walk back I stood in front of a coconut tree, placed my palm on its roots. Its phloem was sick. This may be a result of the heat wave which I was also feeling. Ikey stood aside, watching me. I brought out a pouch trussed with raffia. It contained some otjize. Another pouch had red sand given to me by my mama before I embarked on this trip. I applied a modicum of the otjize and red sand on the root—this was the part where this tree should kick back to life with fresh produce. But nothing happened.

“Are you sure you said the incantation well?” Ikey asked.

I returned my focus to the tree. The mixture was well applied. I had to be sparing in its application. I don’t think Anne would fly me back thousands of miles to get another mixture, besides, the village oracle wouldn’t release it for another settlement’s use. My heart pounded with anxiety. I touched the bark, placed my ear to its cries. Rain began to fall. Ikey called out to me, saying we should leave. I froze, legs unable to move as though caught in a trench. The throbbing sound of the rain on the ground brought back painful memories. I thought I saw runoff near a waymark. Or maybe I was absentminded. The last thing I remember was Ikey pulling me away while a tree fell towards my direction.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

I hope you received the last message I sent you. You didn’t send a message like you do every night. A reply from you now would do me a whole lot of good. The ache in my head that was gradually bulging out beyond its corner has attenuated. Save for Ikey who pulled me away, you would have gotten a message that a descendant of the tree gods had passed away.

Anne came to my room in the wee hours, asking how I was faring. The look on my face when Ikey told her I couldn’t revive the trees made her ask me if all was well. I was equally bewildered, bringing a tree back to life from its deteriorated state had never been a challenge. Our ancestors frolicked with the trees upon their arrival in the beginning of creation. The trees provided them with food, blessed the air with serenity, and offered them protection when foes came.

“The fate of this place lies on you,” Anne said. “Even if seeds are protected from the harsh weather, grown in a secluded place, feeding on the faint sunlight and manure they can get, what happens when the flood comes?” She stood up, watching children chasing after each other. “With your help the trees can be saved, many of them. They can stand firm enough to keep the flooding away, feed us and the animals who are killing each other.”

Maryam, it’s been so long since I felt this weak. Despondency filled me, reminding me of my inability to bring normalcy to the weather. Anne asked why I looked so unhappy. She offered to help. With tears in my eyes, I told her, Maryam, all of it. I had to so I could be free.

• • • •

The scourge started with the foulbrood disease. The bee hives were affected, shortening our supplies for trade. Papa thought it was a minor occurrence until the heavy rainfall went on for days. It brought shoals of salmon and tilapia to our lands, gasping for breath. The flood had taken a hegemony over our lands, forced us to stay indoors. On the night Papa and five men headed outside towards the overflowing river, the men said he slipped and fell when the angry water swept him off the ground. That was the last we saw of him. We moved, taking few supplies until we arrived at the camp where I met you.

• • • •

Anne hugged me, handing me a handkerchief to wipe my tears.

“Now that you have unburdened yourself,” Anne said, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Walking through the passages, I sighted Qudus and Michael. The latter wore goggles, soldering a part of a circuit board. Moving ahead, we got to a lift which took us downwards, past many floors. I never thought Papylon had so many secret layers. After what seemed like a ten-minute stroll along an illuminated walkway, she halted in front of a room with a mahogany door. The fluorescent bulb above us was unflinchingly bright. Inside the room was a man seated on a rocking chair, a respirator over his nose. He was reading a book. The room was vast enough to accommodate many. Portraits and sculptures and rococo furniture embellished the space.

“Meet Mr. Bright Adekunle. The man behind all you see,” Anne said, holding his hand.

Mr. Bright was happy to meet me, as I was happy to meet him. He was a comical man, telling me how the lion cubs roamed this settlement without anyone getting scared of them.

“You know,” Mr. Bright said, coughing. When he was stable, he continued. “I want to bring as many people as I can to Papylon. We are so blessed here. The food, water, air, everything you can find here is safe. The influx of people into this area has depleted our supplies. I know you want your people to come here. Your friends whom were chosen alongside you demand their people come here, too.”

He coughed, held his chest. I watched the rhythm of his chest rising and falling. I suggested Anne find spicy herbal roots, and make a mixture in boiling water. This mixture should be poured in a bottle, airtight, shaken, and served to him three times daily. Mama made this herbal drug for me each time I consumed too man palm kernel nuts that clog my chest. Mr. Bright was led back to his bed.

“Why is he kept away from the others?” I asked while we were returning back.

“He doesn’t want people to see him in such a state. He would rather the people go on about their lives, instead of worrying about him.”

I had to garner my sleeping chi. Maryam if I want you and mama and the rest of the village to become a member of this settlement, the dead soil must come back to life.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

I am not sure if you remember what happened on the third day we met. Mrs. Jibola, that cantankerous woman, had theatrically denounced Stanley and Olumide when she saw them kissing. At that point the feeling budding inside of me for you was upended, knowing that the village wouldn’t permit two ladies falling in love with each other. Today I watched two men, hands clasped in each other’s. It was at this point I knew Papylon was where we were meant to be. But first there was something I had to do. There would be no home for us if we do not have enough supplies to go around.

The nick in my face from the day Ikey pushed me was fast healing. I went back to that spot. The memories tugged my heart. The flood had caused a gorge in the ground, dead leaves turning from their original color in the heat. A stagnant water with flies hovering all over it was a few meters from where I stood.

All I had with me was a tiny bit of our native sand. I chose not to wake Ikey. He had suggested we create an aqueduct to feed the dying plants—the space meant for growing new plants with seeds preserved with artificial lights had been overrun by animals from the menagerie. I noticed a growing dandelion, its yellow petals smeared with mud. I had to start with this, attempting to make it grow bigger. It’s times like this I wish you were here. In that soothing voice you will say; keep calm, breathe, focus, you would say. You were my personal healer in times when adversity stands as a stumbling block.

I thought about you all through the process. The dandelion was still firm, protected from the violent flood. After sprinkling the materials from my pouch around the plant I shut my eyes. A chug rang in my ear, the factory was alive and running. I touched the marshy ground, packed a handful of wet sand. Mama’s voice came into a flash: The plants would be in sync with you if only you open your heart to them.

Series of my first day here breezed by me in a slide: the food, people, environment, and you. Soon all of these sweet-sour memories were engulfed by a turbulent storm. Eyes still closed, I switched into another scene. Here I was in a garden feeding my eyes on the waving, healthy plants. You were there too, plucking strawberries from their plants. The birds perched, tweeting in their melodious voices. The animals were not left out, either. A little boy was feeding a cub. I must have been so submerged in these happy moments that it took the snap of a twig to bring me back to the present.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Ikey said. “I can see you have gotten your mojo back.”

He beckoned me to look ahead. The dwarfed dandelion had increased in size and length, nourished. Excitement saturated my heart upon seeing this metamorphosis. I packed a handful of sand at the feet of the erect dandelion, and then spread it around. Malnourished plants returned back to their healthy status, springing back to life—fresh and gay.

“There’s something you must see,” Ikey said, taking the lead.

We got to the lake. Dolphins filled the waters, playing. He encouraged me to put out my hand. One of the dolphins came to me, rubbing its snout on my palm. We made progress today, Maryam. In a little while I’d see you again.

• • • •

Dear Maryam,

This will be the last time I’ll be sending you a message. It is with great pleasure in my heart that I inform you about the progress six of us have made this far. The catfishes in the pond have doubled in size, and they no longer feed on each other. I visited the gardens this morning. My face was streaked with happiness upon seeing the greenness of the cucumber and okra, redness of the pepper on the stalk, and freshness of the pumpkin leaves. Even the coconut had so much water stored in it.

Michael fixed the wind turbine. He modified a new panel from the old one to boost its efficiency. The eerie sounds from the blades have stopped, too. The engines are back, grinding and working at optimum capacity. Ramon was given a new post, special assistant to Mr. Bright on matters on managerial affairs. His foresight into food storage, education, and other spheres of Papylon was highly recommended by The Council. Kingsley made a mural on the paradisiacal setting of what Papylon would be like in the coming years. Qudus was now in charge of the animals. A zoo is currently in construction. The number of animals in his care are massive. Ikey tends to the water, ensuring its purity. I saw a whale in the ocean that was once only a stagnant expanse of water hyacinths and lettuce. My best guess, the oil spillage had stopped. The sea has become a place that reminds me of us. I know how you like nature.

Mr. Bright had fully recuperated. The herbal mixture did magic in his body system. He wants me to teach the elderly how to prepare this concoction. Anne asked if I can make this medicine into a tablet. Mr. Bright pleaded with us to extend our stay. The people of Papylon have a lot to learn from us. I agreed, and made a request which he granted instantly.

Get ready, Maryam. I have appointed you as my new assistant. You can also come along with another. Please bring a good quantity of our native sand. I anticipate your arrival.

I hope you had your own share of the basketful of food and fruits I sent to the camp. Tell Mama I am well, and she should be proud of her daughter.

©2023 by Oyedotun Damilola Muees.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Oyedotun Damilola Muees is a Nigerian contemporary and speculative fiction writer and an associate member of SFWA and ASFS. He was a winner of the 2022 PEN Robert J. Dau Prize for Emerging Writers, and a winner in the First Annual Utopia Awards in the short story category. His areas of interest are queerness, environment, history, war, tradition, myths, folklore, and pop-culture. You can find his works (published and forthcoming) in Clarkesworld, Our Move Next, Solarpunk, Reckoning, Kalahari Review, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction anthology (Tor.com Books), Science Fiction World, and other places. When he is not solving customers’ issues in his daily job, you can find him watching animations, horror and thriller series, and surfing beach and sword pictures on Pinterest. You can connect with him on Twitter, @dhamlex99.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

Our Exquisite Delights

Megan Chee | 1267 words

Almost everyone has, at some point in their lives, encountered a door that was not there before.

A little girl sits up in bed, staring at the two identical closets in her bedroom. She feels certain there had been only one when she fell asleep.

A salaryman on the subway blinks through his pre-coffee daze. The train is still in motion, but the doors have opened to an empty subway station he’s never seen before. The other passengers, eyes glued to their phones, don’t seem to notice.

A woman hurrying home does a double take as she sees her tenth-floor apartment door in the peeling brick wall at the end of a dark alley.

They are faced with a choice: to walk away, or to walk through.

When they arrive at the place on the other side of that door, some stay only for hours, and wake as though from a dream. Some stay for days, and return dazed to their ordinary lives; they will vaguely tell their friends and colleagues that they were on a trip somewhere, and no-one will ask questions. Some stay for years, and some stay forever.

Behind the doors, you see, are rooms. And each room is filled with exquisite delights.

• • • •

The Room of Indulgence sometimes appears as a banquet hall, candlelit tables groaning beneath the weight of an abundant feast. Sometimes an idyllic orchard, trees laden with plump fruit. Sometimes a fine restaurant, with chandeliers and champagne and beautiful women in red cocktail dresses.

In the Room of Indulgence, everything is delicious, even things that would not be edible in the ordinary world. A crystal decanter, a sapphire engagement ring, a smooth pebble. Isn’t there a primal part of you that wants to put everything in your mouth? Here, everything gives way between teeth, everything can be chewed and swallowed: silverware (crispy and savory, with a sharp bitter aftertaste), glass (hard candy with a citrus tang), wood (chewy and fibrous and salty), and of course, flesh and bone.

Haven’t you ever wondered what a person tastes like?

Nothing stays eaten after you’ve left the room. Jewelry re-appears, flesh re-grows. Nothing can be destroyed here. There is no price except for what is willingly given.

Gluttons linger here for years (or decades, or centuries, or forever), stuffing themselves with everything in sight. There are no limits. One does not even need to breathe, so one need never stop eating. Lovers come here too, sometimes. They lie in the shade beneath the trees and kiss each other’s skin, sticky from sugar and fruit, and then bite, and chew, and swallow. It is a very intimate thing, to make someone else into a part of you.

• • • •

The Room of the Jigsaw People sometimes appears as a suburban town bathed in permanent twilight. Sometimes a quiet seaside village frozen beneath unchanging stars. Sometimes an empty museum.

It is no easy task to build a jigsaw person to the specifications you desire. It takes patience, and skill. It is an art form. Guests who are looking for nothing but comfort and easy entertainment will not linger long in this room—but there are some who relish the challenge.

First, you must find the parts you want. The Room of the Jigsaw People is full of parts, scattered like Easter eggs: silky hair draped over a hedge, a slender arm dangling from a tree, glassy eyes bobbing in a pond.

You must be quick and ruthless to get the best parts. You are not the only guest who covets that pretty, smiling head resting in the hollow of the old oak tree.

Once you have all the parts you need, you put them together. Arms click into torsos, eyes pop into sockets. And there it is: a jigsaw person, perfect and yours.

Your dream lover.

Your imaginary best friend.

Your daughter, frozen forever at the sweet age of six.

Or even: your worst enemy, turned sniveling and subservient, begging for your forgiveness.

There was one guest, we remember, who built a kingdom of jigsaw people. He lived in a mansion, and thousands of jigsaw people stood to attention along the corridors. They came to life when he walked past, and turned stiff and lifeless once the door swung shut behind him. He was a strange sort of king. He doted on his jigsaw people like they were his children; he could also be unspeakably cruel; but in the end he was happy, and that is all that matters to us.

As for how the jigsaw people felt, if they felt anything at all—we do not know. It is no concern of ours.

• • • •

The Room of Memory sometimes appears as a carnival maze of mirrors. Sometimes an apartment, with mirrors of various shapes and sizes on the walls. Sometimes a forest glade full of glittering silver ponds.

Here, you can browse your own memories, watching as moments from your past flicker across reflective surfaces. If you choose, you can enter the memory, forcing your way through sticky glass until you emerge in the body of your past self.

Here, you can satisfy that nagging, itching curiosity, that question always at the back of your mind in any situation: what if?

What if you had leaned forward and kissed her, that moonlit night on the bleachers?

What if you had jumped into the lake with everyone else, instead of hanging back, shaking your head foolishly while your friends all laughed?

What if you had hit her, when she told you what she had really been doing on those long business trips? What if you had backhanded her so hard her head snapped sideways with a crunch, instead of sitting on the bed and burying your face in your hands like the weakling you always were?

What if you took her throat in your hands and squeezed and squeezed, and kept squeezing long after she stopped struggling and her face turned purple?

After a few minutes, the memory loops, replays like nothing had ever happened. Infinite permutations of life.

It doesn’t count, the guests always say when they emerge from the mirror. It wasn’t real. As though this is some kind of simulation; some kind of elaborate playact.

It is real, of course. Even though the memory will start over, even though she will not remember the way she screamed and begged, in that moment it is very real. She experiences everything, the way her vision blackens at the edges, the way her lungs burn. The terror, and above all, the confusion. How could he do this to me? she wonders as her life bleeds away. He was always such a good man.

• • • •

It is always sad to see a guest depart, drawn inexplicably back to the white-and-gray mundanity of their ordinary lives. But we do not stop them, no matter how much we ache to. No matter how tempting it is to put our arms around them and hold them close. It is a temptation that is ever harder to resist. The more we grow, you see, the lonelier we are. It is so hard for us to understand why any guest would ever wish to leave us.

As for the guests who do not wish to leave, we give them a home here. We embrace them. There is no age, no decay. They wander the rooms endlessly, and gradually they become less of themselves and more of us; until eventually they become part of this strange and wonderful place.

After all, there is no price except for what is willingly given.

©2023 by Megan Chee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Megan Chee has lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, and is currently based in Singapore. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Nature Futures, Cast of Wonders, and other venues. You can find her online at meganchee.carrd.co or @meganflchee.

The Ministry of Saturn

Benjamin Peek | 6005 words

Stalwart ebook readers might have noticed this story sneak into our January issue as an additional story above our usual number due to a little mix up on our end. It was supposed to actually publish in this issue, and because we want to make sure all of our stories get the same amount of time in the spotlight in our web version, we’re running it here where it was supposed to run. (With the author’s permission.) In any case, we hope you enjoy! —eds.

1.

The town was not called Byzantium. The Ministry named it during the first meeting. “It’s not a colony,” Thomas James would have said if he could, but the office was hot and bright, the sun in the windows, in his eyes. He felt like he was surrounded by faceless figures even though there were only two other people in the room.

The town they were talking about was located between worlds. The entrance was in the remains of Ooldea, out on the edge of The Nullarbor Plain. The rip between worlds, the entrance to something that shouldn’t exist, was marked by a blue painted door. The door was strangely new. It’d been installed inside the remains of an old shack that had been built in 1914. The people who’d lived in Ooldea had been forced out by the government, before being allowed to return, until The Tea and Sugar train stopped running at the end of the century. When you walked through Ooldea now it was empty and the sky above smooth and flat. It looked like it’d been scraped clean with a knife.

James was the only one from The Ministry who went inside the building with the blue door. He didn’t want to, but he wasn’t given a choice. He wore light body armour beneath a white hazard suit and he carried an oxygen tank on his back. He had a mask to wear, a full faced, frightening thing linked both to his suit and his tank, but that he’d not yet fixed into place.

Despite this, James was easy to forget. When you first saw him, your gaze swept over him as if he were a stranger passing you on a street, one who was neither attractive enough or ugly enough to catch your attention. If you were asked, if someone found you later and asked, that is, you would say that James was white and that his hair was brown. At least, you would say that at first. A few hours later you might say that his hair was black. Or that his skin was olive. Or, perhaps even brown.

Inside the shack, James went through his equipment one more time, then fixed his mask in place. He’d been through thirteen rips and if he could, he would never go into another. The first thing he felt upon entering, the first sensation that ran through his body, was of being torn apart and sewn back together. It was an awful feeling. But, like all explorers of the unknown, he worried more about his equipment than himself. The last door he’d opened had led to a flat land full of poisonous air. He’d been sick for weeks when he returned and thought himself lucky to survive it. If his equipment had failed, or had been destroyed . . .

He stepped through the door before he talked himself out of it. There was no point in resisting. He would be forced through the rip one way or another. This time, however, he felt nothing. It was such a different experience from any he’d had before that he thought he was still in the empty house, that he had passed through the doorway and was standing in the wrecked kitchen that overlooked half a dozen buildings in Ooldea.

He was standing in a narrow lane.

Around him, a series of square buildings rose up, the windows lit at uneven intervals. Beyond the buildings, there was a dark sky, free from stars and moons.

James left the alley. He’d not gone far down the road before he came upon a woman. She was middleaged and black and wore a dress of yellow and red. She did not wear a mask, or protective gear of any kind. She stopped when James raised his hand in greeting. If she was frightened by his general appearance, she gave no sign of it.

James worried that she couldn’t understand him. He spoke eight languages fluently, could greet people in thirteen, but the woman didn’t respond to anything he said no matter how he said it. He tried everything but it wasn’t until he said a name that she responded. When he said the name she smiled politely and pointed up the road.

The buildings became more elaborate and ornate the further he went. In a small square, he found a crowd of people outside three restaurants and a bar. They were a mixture of race and age. He was sure that they came from his world. He tried to greet them in the languages he knew but like the woman before they said nothing until he repeated the name. Like the woman, the people in the square responded by directing him farther along the road.

The road took him to the edge of the town. There a vast, dark ocean ran out to the horizon. Close to the edge were a series of old docks and houseboats.

James searched four boats but it wasn’t until the fifth that he found someone. On the fifth, a single, solitary man sat on the back deck reading a book of poetry. He was of mixed heritage, part Indigenous, part white European, a man somewhere in his late fifties, or early sixties. He had a beard of silver and gray. His hair, likewise coloured, was thick and verging on being unruly. He wore an old pair of black jeans and a faded eighties arcade t-shirt.

“Excuse me,” James said in English. “But are you Mr. Matthew Layne?”

He did not look up from his book. “And who would you be?”

“My name is Thomas James. I’ve been sent here by The Ministry of Saturn.”

“You don’t need the mask.” He closed his book. “Or the tank. The air here is fine to breathe.”

James hesitated before he took the mask off.

“You’re not human,” Layne said, “but you come from humans, don’t you?”

“I am a homunculus. I was made according to the ancient ritual that was first described by Paracelsus.”

“Were you born in the womb of a horse, or in a jar of rotting flesh?”

No one had asked James that before. “In a jar, of sorts,” he said, caught off guard. “It was much larger than the one Paracelsus described in his work. The parts that were used to make me were chosen more selectively and sewn together before the process began.”

“Paracelsus was a genius part of the time and mad the rest.” Layne pushed himself up. “What does The Ministry want with me, Mr. James?”

“I work with Dr. Munn. He has been sent by The Ministry of Saturn to meet you personally.”

“Yes, but what about?”

“The town you live in.”

“My home, you mean. Does he want to take it from me? Or is he the explorer who comes first to find the land that is already known?”

“I am afraid I am only a messenger.”

“A loyal one?”

James said nothing.

Layne smiled. “What have you been told to do if I refuse your invitation?”

“I’ve been told to leave you in peace. But Mr. Layne, you must understand that if The Ministry has found you, others will soon enough. Others on our world. Others on other worlds. You’re being offered a chance to get ahead of those threats. Your reputation suggests that you’re a passable magician, but you’ll need friends once the doors to other worlds open.”

“A passable magician?”

“I meant no offence.”

“I didn’t take any. These days, I don’t consider myself a magician at all. I’m a poet.”

“I’m afraid I am not a student of the arts.”

“Few people are. Tell me, Mr. James, do you trust the Ministry of Saturn?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“Did it hurt to say that?”

James began to protest, to pretend ignorance, but the words died in his throat. Layne was watching him carefully, more carefully than he’d been aware. For the first time since James had opened the blue door he felt a sliver of fear run through him. He wasn’t in danger. At least, he wasn’t right now, he knew. No. It was the fact that he was sure that Layne had not only seen through his lie, but through the spells that had been placed on him, the ones that hid his appearance, that kept him not just hidden, but in his place.

“Why don’t you tell Dr. Munn to come and speak to me himself,” the man who claimed to be a poet said. “Why don’t you go back and tell the man who has bound you to himself with such awful spells that I’ve invited him to my home.”

2.

Dr. Munn, Dr. Peter Munn, wanted to say no, but James knew he could not afford to.

Munn was waiting for him in Ooldea. He had been there earlier, had been there when James opened the blue door, but he’d waited until James had gone through the door before he left his air-conditioned SUV. Since then, he’d erected a gazebo outside the shack. He’d laid out a table there, a welcome for Layne if James had returned with him. There was cold roast chicken, bread, a pair of salads, and some wine and beer. The overall impression, James thought, was that of a bad office picnic, one that no one wanted to attend but for the flies.

He gave his report while he stood in front of the table. “How did he react when you said you were from The Ministry?” Munn asked from the other side. “Was he angry?”

“No,” James said.

“He didn’t sound angry?”

“No, sir.”

Munn was a slim, pale British man who wore a neat and expensive suit that had wilted in the heat. “I’m trusting you here, Thomas.”

James didn’t reply.

“You were there when the director spoke about Layne. You heard what he said, just like I did. He said he was angry. He was a drifter. He said it wasn’t uncommon for Layne to be in a place he wasn’t supposed to be. According to the director, he has a history of clashing with The Ministry’s authority. You can see it in the reports he filed. There’s an undercurrent of anger through each.”

“I can only tell you what I saw, sir. I can only tell you what he said.”

“Yes, I know.” Munn waved his hand at the table, disturbing the flies for but a second. “What did you make of the town itself?” he asked. “The people in it?”

“I’m not sure it’s real.”

“But you were there.”

“The space is real,” James said. “But the rest of it? I think it was Layne.”

“He’s not meant to have that kind of power.”

A part of James wanted to say, he could see through your spells, but the compulsion wasn’t strong and so he didn’t. Occasionally, he found that freedom within himself. “I don’t know that I can explain it,” he said instead. “It’s just intuition. My intuition.”

“The Ministry cannot afford to be on the wrong side of this, Thomas.”

“I know.”

“Byzantium represents so much to us. It is an opportunity we cannot let go.”

Peter Munn believed in The Ministry of Saturn. He had joined the organisation twenty years ago as a field agent. Back then, The Ministry had been something of a legend, an organisation dedicated to the unknown that was funded not just by private donations, but by the Australian Government. It existed in the government’s back channels, in its unofficial black books, a dream that the British Empire had never been able to fulfil. In its ninety odd years of existence The Ministry had become part of the machinery that existed behind wars and conflicts throughout the world.

In the last decade, however, things had changed. The political winds shifted. Black book projects lost bilateral support. Austerity measures were introduced. Defence ministers had less and less time for the strange, esoteric reports that The Ministry filed. The military campaigned to consume both public and private budgets. In such an environment it wasn’t much of a surprise when The Ministry’s funding was cut, or when its staff was siphoned off to other departments, or when it became a home for outcasts, conspiracy theorists and burnt-out spies who wanted only to wiretap celebrities and play videogames.

There were rumours that The Ministry would leave the public sphere, that a private entity had made an offer. A substantial offer. The story James had heard was that similar offers had been made to organisations in Germany, India, America, and more. James thought he and Munn should leave. Munn, however, refused. He was convinced that the director would take an offer and retire. He was convinced that he was in the best place to take over his role, to guide The Ministry to a newly funded glory.

“I’m going to have to go to Byzantium, aren’t I?” Munn said. “I will have to meet with Layne.”

“What will you do if he doesn’t want to give you the town?”

“The Ministry needs Byzantium. If I have to, I will take it from Layne, though I will not enjoy breaking a fellow magician.”

“He calls himself a poet now.”

“Even better.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No one cares when poets die, Thomas, not even poets themselves.”

3.

Munn replaced the chicken and the salads beneath the gazebo with pistols and knives and a series of small charms that had a dubious heritage. He cleaned them, organised them, decided what would be best, and put the remainder away. “One day,” he said to James, who had watched the whole process silently, “you’ll understand the danger that a mortal like myself is in during these situations.”

Yet it was James, not Munn, who was the first to return through the rip, the first to brave it without a suit or mask. He had a moment of panic after he opened the blue door. The world around him went from light to dark, like he was caught within an eclipse. His body shifted, the distinct parts of himself moved in a way that they shouldn’t and he thought he had come undone. He was surprised when, on the other side of the door, he was whole.

It took him a moment to realise that he wasn’t in the alley, but the town square. Both he and Munn were standing there across from Matthew Layne.

“Dr. Munn.” Layne wore a black suit with a black shirt. He had slicked back his hair and combed his beard with his fingers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope your journey here was a pleasant one?”

“It was different.” Munn offered his hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

They shook and continued to talk, pleasantries mostly. It allowed James to walk around the square. There was a stillness to it that was oddly disquieting. He felt that earlier he’d walked onto a movie set during filming, only to be asked back after shooting had finished. Now that he’d returned he felt that the empty sound stage was still part of the film, that it was part of a world being created.

“Do you have a name for this town?” Munn’s question drew James’ attention back to him. “I must admit I can think of half a dozen.”

“I call it Ooldea,” Layne said.

“After the town where the door is?”

“Yes.”

“Surely there’s a more fitting name? I don’t want to offend, of course, but this is a unique place and it should have a unique name.”

“My mother’s people were from around Ooldea. They were Maralinga Tjarutja. They still are, actually. Ooldea was a meeting place for them and the others who lived in the area. This was back hundreds of years ago, thousands even. There was water there, you see. It served the people until the British drained it for steam engines that would travel from one end of the country to the other in the early part of the last century.”

“So Ooldea has been named to honour your mother?” Munn said.

“I never knew her well,” Layne said. “But it’s my hope that one day Ooldea will be a place where people can meet.”

“Thomas told me that there were people here when he first arrived.”

“A town has to learn how to be a town.”

“You had visitors?”

“In a way.” Layne turned. “Are you alright, Mr. James? You look concerned.”

He laughed a little. “No, please, forgive me. I was just—it’s just so different, that’s all.”

“Because there are no people?”

“They were very convincing, I must say.”

“A town must learn to be a town,” Layne repeated. “Now, please, come inside, both of you. I’ve prepared a meal for us.”

Layne led them into the middle restaurant. Inside there was a single table surrounded by a series of paintings. Each of them was of a landscape that James recognised but couldn’t easily place. At first, he thought they were of his world, the world he had just left. After a while, though, he realised that the paintings were familiar to him because he’d seen them in other rips. He recognised the rip full of poisonous gas, the gas a mix of lurid colours that he couldn’t explain, the ground barely visible. Next to it was another of a world breaking apart, the land so fragile that to step on it was to sink into it, to be threatened with falling into a dark nothing.

“Please, take a seat,” Layne said. “That includes you, Mr. James.”

James turned away from the paintings.

“Some people find it difficult to eat with Thomas,” Munn said before he could speak. “The illusions that are bound to him slip with prolonged contact.”

“I am more than happy to examine the paintings you have here,” he said. “I very rarely take part in official discussions anyway.”

“I have already seen through the spells.” Layne positioned himself at the head of the table. “Please, Mr. James, take a seat. I will not be a rude host.”

It was Munn who didn’t want him to sit and eat at the table, James knew. He had said so before, made it clear on a number of occasions that James’ place was well away from him during meals. “I don’t want to be a bother,” he said.

“Thomas,” Munn said, a hint of irritation in his voice. “Don’t offend our guest. Take a seat.”

“I can tell you how to strengthen those illusions,” Layne said after everyone had sat. “If they are your work, that is.”

“They are mine. I’m afraid the illusions aren’t really the point, but rather—”

“The control is.”

“Yes,” Munn said.

“Did you make Thomas?”

“A long time ago. It would be—well, I think it would be twenty-seven years this year. I was a young magician then. I came upon Paracelsus’ work and was drawn to the idea of creating life. I had a few failures before Thomas, failures mostly due to Paracelsus’ instructions, I might add, but eventually I got it right.”

“You must be quite proud,” Layne said. “Few fathers have such capable sons.”

“No.” The other man’s laugh was cold. “No, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. Thomas is not my son. I don’t have children. I do not want children. My work is what is important to me. It is the centre of my life. Thomas is part of that. He is—”

“I am his creature,” James finished, surprising not just himself, but Munn as well.

An uncomfortable silence settled around the table. “Creation reveals yourself in ways you don’t expect,” Layne said after a moment. “None of us should be surprised, really. To make something, to create something, asks you to look at yourself in ways you don’t normally. You have to be patient with it. You’re in a conversation, after all. You’re telling your secrets. You’re exposing yourself like you wouldn’t normally. You’re asking for insights that you’re not always going to be comfortable with.”

Food arrived as he finished speaking. It came out of the kitchen on plates that floated by themselves. On them were meats and vegetables and sauces and breads. Drinks followed. The procession was like a tiny parade. James found himself comparing it to the meal that had been laid out beneath the gazebo, the cheapness of the store bought items, the lack of imagination that was at the centre of it.

“What about your work here?” Munn asked after the plates had settled. “Have you been through the doors to other worlds?”

“No.”

“There are entrances to other worlds, yes?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Mr. Layne,” Munn said. “Please. I’ve read about you. I know you’ve met people from other worlds. The director of The Ministry is still the director that you worked under. He gave me your reports. I know that you have met angels and djinns and even a member of the Unseen Court. You’ve had conversations with them. They’ve given you tasks. You’ve even fought one or two. It is why you’re here, at this crossroads, this place that by your own words you hope will become a meeting place.”

“You don’t—” Layne stopped. “I’m afraid that you’ve come here with a misunderstanding. You’re letting your ignorance guide you.”

“I would watch my tone if I were you.”

“It’s just that the world, this world, our world, I mean—this world has had its borders closed for decades. The other worlds shut them with all their power and they patrol them vigorously to stop people coming in and out.”

“What do you mean?” The question slipped out of James. “I’m sorry,” he said, catching himself. “I don’t mean to interrupt. I’ve just never heard anyone say that before.”

“No, I shouldn’t lecture. I’m being a terrible host.” Layne raised his hands in apology. “I have so few people visit. Please, eat your food. Eat your food and let me tell you what I know. Let me tell you how I found Ooldea. You’ll understand what I mean about borders by the end of it.”

4.

I will start by saying that I am no different than most of the people you meet in our profession. I learned what I learned in a haphazard way. A piece here. A piece there. I never found an authority that was complete. I never met a person who knew everything. There’s always something new to learn and something old to make a mistake with. In many ways, it was like studying poetry.

For a while, The Ministry of Saturn was a good place for me to learn and grow. I saw a lot of the world while I worked there. I walked through the hidden labyrinths beneath cities. I rode ships that were tiny floating cities for the living dead. I sat in planes on tarmacs with no names. I met magicians and vampires and djinns and yes, once, a member of the Unseen Court. It was through these meetings that I learned about our closed borders. I learned how we’d been cut off from a larger existence. The people who come here, the people who aren’t like us, are outcasts mostly, runaways, criminals, and the wealthy who are a mix of those others. My job was to learn everything I could from them. The director of The Ministry used to say that Saturn was the father of truth and that a part of him must always be covered or shadowed and that we worked in those shadows to ensure that they were never fully dark.

I allowed myself to believe this. I covered my eyes to the fact that The Ministry was never about truth but was about power. I simply needed it to be about one more than the other. I needed it because of my mother. My mother is where my story begins, you see. The Australian Government took me away from her when I was very young. It was with The Ministry’s help that I was able to uncover the tracks leading back to her. It took too long to find her, though. She would die within two months of meeting her.

For all my skills, for all the things I could bend and break, for all that I had learned from people outside this world, I could do nothing for a woman riddled with cancer. However, I could help those who had been caring for my mother. Her primary carer was a man named Dennis. He was Maralinga Tjarutja, like she was. He was older than me by about a decade and had grown up in Ooldea. He had, in fact, come back to the country with his family. That was where his problem began. One of his children had gone missing.

Dennis didn’t think his son had run away. Instead, he thought he’d gone into the old military base at Maralinga with three of his friends. The base had a long, sordid history. It had been used to test nuclear weapons back in the fifties and sixties and the Maralinga Tjarutja had been forced out of their homes to enable this.

There are no good stories about the base, but the one that sticks in my mind, the one that captures the horror of it best, is the story about the bones of babies. The story about Project Sunshine. You see, The Australian Government purchased over three thousand dead babies and sent them to the base for radiation testing. They didn’t ask any of the parents. How could they? What parent would sell the bones of their child to a government agency? None. Instead, the government paid the staff in hospitals and mortuaries for the dead children. They paid between one hundred dollars and fifty dollars per baby. I don’t know how they decided that one dead baby was worth more than another, but they did. And once they had the bones of these children, they put them out in the nuclear explosions to see how much radiation they’d gather.

The base was weighed down by these horrors and many more. I could feel them from the moment I arrived. It’s still suffering from this history. If you were to walk onto it now, you’d feel your skin prickle with the tragedy and awfulness lingering there. It’s so bad that when I first arrived to find the children, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the place. It is made worse by the fact that the land is barren. The radiation still lingers. You can still find shards of green glass throughout the area from the explosions.

There was a bunker at the edge of the site. There, I am afraid to say, I found my first surprise. On the door was The Ministry’s faded logo, the one from the 1950s that was the outline of Saturn’s veiled face. Beyond the door I heard the song. It was an insistent song, one that dug into me much like the radiation did, one that required a protective ward to be cast just as I had done outside. It was a simple spell, a piece of repetition, but I needed to repeat it every minute. The song coming from within the bunker was strange and alien and performed in a language I didn’t know. The language of it was so strange I wasn’t sure I would be able to perform it, even if I tried.

Ah, I see your excitement, Dr. Munn. You shift around in your chair like a man who thinks he will soon hear one of the great secrets. But sadly, I cannot describe to you what I saw in that bunker, not completely. The song led to a being larger than anything I had seen before. It had such an immensity that all I could comprehend of it were parts. More than once I saw a dozen mouths full of teeth singing. I saw necks and torsos and heads, all disconnected from each other, all emerging from a dark, slippery substance that might be skin but might be something else. The farther I walked through the bunker the more I saw. Eyes would open above me, beside me, below me. I saw ribs. I saw shoulders. I even saw a hand, a huge, clawed, incomplete thing. Soon, I began to realise that whatever this thing was, it wasn’t just one thing, but a whole made up of dozens, maybe a hundred things, none of which was fully there. What I saw was caught between our world and the existence outside our world, that part that no one claims but for those horrors no one speaks of.

I found all four of the missing children in one room. I admit, I was surprised to see them. By then, I thought they were dead. I thought whatever this thing was had devoured them. But I was wrong. It needed them. It needed them to sing. It needed them to chant. It needed them to act as anchor so that it could pull more to it. More people, more animals, more of anything that was alive. More substance that it could use to drag itself into our world.

It was a weak thing, this monster. I want you to know that. I will not talk myself up over what happened next. I am grateful it was weak. I am thankful that when I turned to attack it that it was not at full strength. I am grateful because it fought me like nothing has ever fought me before or after. I know that I could not have defeated it at full strength. It battered me as it was. It threw me. It forced me to use spells of such complexity that I was afraid of what would be done to myself when it came time to pay the cost of them. More than once, I thought I’d lost, but I didn’t.

It was only after our battle that I realised how huge it was, how it had consumed so much already that it would not be sated until it had devoured our world, planets, and universes alike. I also realised that it was our creation. It was not some old thing, nor was it alien. It was ours. We had made it. Somehow in this bunker The Ministry had made this creature. It had used the weapon testing in Maralinga to make this horror. In doing so, it gave all the words and warnings of all the people I met, all the angels and djinns and exiled members of the Unseen Court, a validity that I had never given before.

The entry you used earlier is but one of the entries to that monster’s body. You see, I could not destroy the remains. I could not because I could not destroy the monster itself completely. It is still alive. It is still attached to our world. It is as if there are umbilical cords I cannot see and thus cannot break. It is barely sentient, though. In defeating it, I reduced it to a base state, one it wants to rebuild from. One that I can rebuild it from. So I do. I live inside this monster and I teach it to be something other than what it is. I teach it to be a town. To be a city. To be home. I teach it to be a sanctuary so that when our destructive urges once again create something awful and uncontrollable there is a place for the poor and forgotten, a place where they can go and leave their masters to the fate that they so richly deserve.

Does that not sound appealing, Mr. James?

5.

“I don’t know,” James said. He was staring across the table at Munn. The other man sat straightly in his chair, unnaturally so. In front of him was a scattered mess of food and broken plates. Some of it had spilled over the edge and onto Munn’s lap. “Maybe,” James said. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Layne said. “I never knew my father. My mother told me that he died young. He was a soldier, she said. That was all she said. But I had father figures, much like your Dr. Munn. I had a number of them while I was growing up and each and every one of them was a bastard. Each saw me as a tool. A tool for money. A tool for labour. A tool for their own ambitions. Not a single one of them cared who I was. And this man does not care who you are.” He rose. “I’ve removed the spells that bind you, Mr. James. It took me a while and you almost gave it away before I was finished. It was why I had to tell my story. I didn’t plan to, but if Munn had realised—well, it’s not important. What’s important now is that you’re free.”

“Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you,” he said again.

“Don’t thank me, please. It was a common decency. However, now I must ask something of you. Peter Munn cannot stay here. He is not welcome in my home. You can carry him out through the door alive, or you can kill him and throw his body out, I don’t care. I only ask that you do that shortly. Afterwards, you’re welcome to either return or to go on your way. If you wish to stay, I want you to know that I can use a hand with my work. I can use a student. I’m not sure I’ll live to see my work here finished. It’s such an immense task. I would like to know that when I die someone will carry my work on. But there is no obligation. If you wish to leave, you are free to do so. I only ask that you keep my secret and that you do not return.”

After Layne left, James continued to stare at Munn. The other man’s eyes hadn’t left him. James thought he was pleading with him, but he wasn’t sure. At times he thought Munn looked like he was concentrating on something not in the room. At times he looked like he was trying to cast a spell. Munn would be furious once he was free, James knew. If he got free, that was. He would rant. He would scream. He would rebind the spells on James. He would hunt down Layne. He would become the embodiment of something awful and unknown and not concern himself with what happened later so long as he got his revenge. Let the world burn, James could almost hear Munn say.

For a while, he sat and thought about his life. It had started in London. He remembered very little of it. Most of what he did remember took place on the coasts of Sydney and Melbourne. He’d lived his life in a series of ugly apartments and rundown offices. There had been a collection of desperate people around him every day. He thought about the cruelties he’d been subjected to during those times as Munn’s creation. He thought about the kindness he had been shown as well. There had been some of both, but did the fact that he’d had no freedom render the second meaningless? He thought so. He thought about his future, as well. He thought about where he could live without Munn. He thought of the people he could meet. He thought about how they would respond to his true appearance. There would be more cruelties. He would no longer have the comfort of what he knew.

He stood up and walked around the table to where Munn was seated. He placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

For a brief moment, he thought again about the choices he could make.

©2023 by Benjamin Peek.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Peek is the author of seven books including The Godless, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and Dead Americans and Other Stories. His short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Nightmare Magazine, and various Year’s Best collections. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

EXCERPT: The Starless Crown (Tor Books)

James Rollins | 5824 words

An alliance embarks on a dangerous journey to uncover the secrets of the distant past and save their world in this captivating, deeply visionary adventure from #1  New York Times bestselling thriller-master James Rollins.

A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.

Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts:

A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home.

A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother’s shadow and claims a purpose of his own.

An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact—one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe.

On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.

But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.

Available Now from Tor Books

1.

Nyx sought to understand the stars with her fingertips.

Near blind, she had to lean far over the low table to reach to the heart of the orrery, to the warmth of the bronze sun at the center of the complicated astronomical mechanism. She knew the kettle-sized sphere had been filled with hot coals prior to the morning’s lesson, to mimic the life-giving heat of the Father Above, who made His home there. She held her palm toward that warmth, then took great care to count outward along the slowly turning rings that marked the paths of inner planets around the Father. Her fingers stopped at the third. She rested a tip there and felt the vibrations of the gears that turned this ring, heard the tick-tick-ticking as their teacher spun the wheel on the far side of the orrery to drive their world to Nyx’s waiting hand.

“Take care, child,” she was warned.

The device was four centuries old, one of the school’s most precious artifacts. It was said to have been stolen from the courts of Azantiia by the founding high prioress and brought to the Cloistery of Brayk. Others claimed it wasn’t stolen, but crafted by the prioress herself, using skills long lost to those who lived and taught here now.

Either way—

“Better not break it, Dumblefoot,” Byrd blurted out. His comment stirred snickers from the other students who sat in a circle around the domed chamber of the astronicum.

Their teacher—Sister Reed, a young novitiate of the Cloistery—growled them all to silence.

Nyx’s cheeks heated. While her fellow students could easily observe the intricate dance of spheres around the bronze sun, she could not. To her, the world was perpetually lost in a foggy haze, where movement could be detected in shifts of shadows and objects discerned in gradations of shimmering outlines in the brightest sunlight. Even colors were muted and watery to her afflicted eyes. Worst of all, when she was inside, like now, her sight was smothered to darkness.

She needed to touch to understand.

She took a deep breath and steadied her fingers as the small sphere that marked their world rotated into her hand. The bronze ring to which it was pinned continued to turn with the spin of the wheeled gears. To keep her fingertips in place atop the fist-sized sphere of their world, she had to scoot around the table. By now, the bronze sun had heated one surface of the sphere to a subtle warmth, while the opposite was cold metal, forever turned from the Father.

“Can you now better appreciate how the Mother always keeps one face perpetually gazing at the Father Above?” Sister Reed asked. “A side that eternally burns under His stern-but-loving attention.”

Nyx nodded, still circling the table to match the sphere’s path around the sun.

Sister Reed addressed both her and the other students. “And at the same time, the other side of our world is forever denied the Father’s fierce gaze and remains frozen in eternal darkness, where it is said the very air is ice.”

Nyx did not bother to acknowledge the obvious, her attention fixed as the Urth completed its circuit around the sun.

“It is why we live in the Crown,” the sister continued, “the circlet of the world that lies between the scorched lands on one side of the Urth and those forever frozen on the other.”

Nyx ran her fingertip around this circumference of the sphere, passing from north to south and back again. The Crown of the Urth marked the only hospitable lands where its peoples, flora, and fauna could flourish. Not that there weren’t stories of what lay beyond the Crown, terrifying tales— many blasphemous—whispered about those dreaded lands, those frozen on one side, scorched on the other.

Sister Reed stopped turning the wheel, bringing the dance of planets to a rest. “Now that Nyx has had her turn to study the orrery, can anyone tell me why the Mother Below eternally matches her gaze with the Father Above, without ever turning her face away?”

Nyx kept her post, her fingers still on the half-warmed sphere.

Kindjal answered the teacher’s question. She quoted from the text they had been assigned to study this past week. “She and our world are forever trapped in the hardened amber of the void, unable to ever turn away.”

“Very good,” Sister Reed said warmly. Nyx could almost feel the beam of satisfaction from Kindjal, twin sister to Byrd, both children of the highmayor of Fiskur, the largest town along the northern coast of Mýr. Though the town lay a full day’s boat ride away, the two lorded their status among the students here, proffering gifts on those who fawned over them, while ridiculing all others, often resorting to physical affronts to reinforce their humiliations.

It was perhaps for that reason more than any other that Nyx spoke up, contradicting Kindjal. “But the Urth is not trapped in amber,” she mumbled to the orrery, her fingers still on the half-heated sphere. She hated to draw attention to herself, longing to return to the obscurity of her seat near the back of the class, but she refused to deny what her fingers discovered. “It still turns in the void.”

Byrd came to his twin’s defense, scoffing loudly. “Even blindfolded, any fool could tell the Mother always faces the Father. The Urth never turns away.”

“This is indeed immutable and unchangeable,” Sister Reed concurred. “As the Father burns forever in our skies, the Mother always stares with love and gratefulness toward the majesty of Him.”

“But the Urth does turn,” Nyx insisted, her mumble firming with frustration.

Though already nearly blind, she closed her eyes and viewed the orrery from above in her mind. She pictured the path of the sphere as it rotated around the bronze sun. She remembered the tiniest ticking under her fingertips as she had followed its course. She had felt it turn in her grip as it made a full passage around the sun.

She tried to explain. “It must turn. To keep the Mother forever facing the Father, the Urth turns once fully around as it makes a complete circuit through the seasons. One slow turn every year. It’s the only way for one side of the Urth to be continually burning under the sun’s gaze.”

Kindjal scoffed. “No wonder her mother tossed her away. She’s too stupid to understand the simplest truths.”

“But she’s right,” a voice said behind them, rising from the open door to the astronicum dome.

Nyx froze, only shifting her clouded gaze toward the patch of brightness that marked the open door. A shadow darkened the threshold. She did not need sight to know who stood there, recognizing the hard tones, presently undercut with a hint of amusement.

“Prioress Ghyle,” Sister Reed said. “What an honor. Please join us.”

The shadow moved away from the brightness as the head of the cloistered school entered. “It seems the youngest among you has proven that insight does not necessarily equate with the ability to see.”

“But surely—” Sister Reed started.

“Yes, surely,” Prioress Ghyle interrupted. “It is a subtlety of astronomical knowledge that is usually reserved for those in their first years of alchymical studies. Not for a seventhyear underclass. Even then, many alchymical students have difficulty seeing what is plain before their eyes.”

A shuffle of leather on stone marked the prioress’s approach to the orrery.

Finally releasing her grip on the world, Nyx straightened and bowed her head.

“Let us test what else this young woman of only fourteen winters can discern from today’s lesson.” The prioress’s finger lifted Nyx’s chin. “Can you tell us why those in the northern Crown experience seasons—from the icy bite of winter to the warmth of summer—even when one side of the Urth forever faces the sun?”

Nyx had to swallow twice to free her tongue. “It . . . It is to remind us of the gift of the Father to the Mother, so we better appreciate His kindness at being allowed to live in the Crown, in the safe lands between scorching heat and icy death. He gives us a taste of hot and cold with the passage of each year.”

The prioress sighed. “Yes, very good. Just as Hieromonk Plakk has droned into you.” The finger lifted her chin higher as if to study Nyx more intently. “But what does the orrery tell you?”

Nyx stepped back. Even with her hazy sight, she was unable to withstand the weight of Ghyle’s attention any longer. She returned to the orrery and again pictured the path of the Urth around the coal-heated sun. She had felt the waxing and waning of the warmth as the sphere rotated fully around.

“The Urth’s path is not a perfect circle around the sun,” Nyx noted aloud. “More like an oval.”

“An ellipse, it is called.”

Nyx nodded and cast a quizzical look at the prioress. “Maybe when the Urth’s path is farthest from the sun, farthest from the heat, could that be our wintertime?”

“It is not a bad guess. Even some of the most esteemed alchymists might tell you the same. But they are no more correct than Hieromonk Plakk.”

“Then why?” Nyx asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

“What if I told you that when we have our dark winters here in the northern half of the Crown, that the lands to the far south enjoy a bright summer?”

“Truly?” Nyx asked. “At the same time?”

“Indeed.” Nyx scrunched her brow at what sounded like absurdity. Still, she sensed the prioress was hinting at something with the words she had emphasized.

Dark and bright.

“Have you never wondered,” Ghyle pressed, “how in winter the Father sits lower in the sky, then higher again in the summer? Though the sun never vanishes, it makes a tiny circle in the sky over one year’s passing?”

Nyx gave a tiny shake of her head and a wave toward her eyes. There was no way she could appreciate such subtlety.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Of course, I’m sorry. But let me assure you this is true. And as such, can you guess from your study of the orrery why this might be?”

Nyx turned back to the convoluted rings of bronze on the table. She sensed she was being tested. She could almost feel the prioress’s intensity burning next to her. She took a deep breath, determined not to disappoint the head of the school. She reached out a hand to the orrery. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Nyx again took her time to center herself on the warm sun and fumble to the third ring. Once she found the sphere affixed there, she examined its shape more closely, taking care of the tiny bead of the moon that spun on its own ring around the Urth. She particularly noted how the sphere of the Urth was pinned to the ring beneath it.

Ghyle offered a suggestion. “Sister Reed, it might help our young student if you set everything in motion again.”

After a rustling of skirts, the mechanism’s complicated gears resumed their tick-ticking and the rings started to turn again. Nyx concentrated on how the Urth slowly spun in place as it made a full pass around the sun. She struggled to understand how the southern half could be brighter, while the northern side was darker. Then understanding traveled up her fingertips. The pin around which the Urth spun was not perfectly up and down. Instead, it was set at a slight angle from the sun.

Could that be the answer?

Certainty grew.

She spoke as she continued her own path around the sun. “As the Urth turns, its axis spins at a slight angle, rather than straight up and down. Because of that, for a time, the top half of the world leans toward the sun.”

“Creating our bright northern summer,” the prioress confirmed.

“And when that happens, the bottom half is left leaning away from the sun.”

“Marking the southern Crown’s gloomy winter.”

Nyx turned to the prioress, shocked. “So, seasons are due to the Urth spinning crookedly in place, leaning one side more fully toward the sun, then away again.”

Murmurs spread among the students. Some sounded distraught; others incredulous. But at least Byrd offered no overt ridicule, not in the presence of the prioress.

Still, Nyx felt her face heating up again.

Then a hand patted her shoulder, ending with a squeeze of reassurance. Startled by the contact, she flinched away. She hated any unexpected touch. Many a boy—even some girls—had come of late to grab at her, often cruelly, pinching what was most tender and private. She could not even accuse and point a finger. Not that she often didn’t know who it was. Especially Byrd, who always reeked of rank sweat and a sour-yeasty breath. It was a cloud that he carried about him from the stores of ale secretly sent to him by his father in Fiskur.

“I’m sorry—” the prioress said softly, plainly noting Nyx’s reaction and unease.

Nyx tried to retreat, but one of her fingers had hooked through the Urth’s ring when she had flinched. Embarrassment turned to panic. She tried to extract her hand but twisted her finger wrong. A metallic pop sounded, which earned a gasp from Sister Reed. Free now, Nyx withdrew her hand from the orrery and clutched a fist to her chest.

Something tinged and tanged across the stone floor near her toes.

“She broke it!” Byrd blurted out, but there was no scorn, only shock.

Another hand grasped her elbow and yanked her back. Caught off guard, Nyx stumbled and tripped to her knees on the floor.

“What have you done, you clumsy girl?” Sister Reed still clutched her. “I’ll have you switched to your core for this.”

“No, you won’t,” Prioress Ghyle said. “It was an accident. One for which I’m equally at fault for startling the child. Would you have me tied to the rod and beaten, Sister Reed?”

“I would never . . .”

“Then neither will the child suffer. Leave her be.”

Nyx’s elbow was freed, but not before those same fingers squeezed hard, digging down to the bone. The message was clear. This matter was not over. It was a bruising promise. Sister Reed intended to exact payment for being humiliated in front of the students, in front of the prioress.

Ghyle’s robes swished as her voice lowered toward the floor. “See. It is just the Urth’s moon that has broken free.” Nyx pictured the prioress collecting the bronze marble from the floor. “It can easily be returned to its proper place and repaired.”

Nyx gained her feet, her face as hot as the sun, tears threatening.

“Sister Reed, mayhap it’s best that you end today’s lesson. I think your seventhyears have had more than enough celestial excitement for one morning.”

Nyx was already moving before Sister Reed dismissed the class to break for their midday meal. She raced her tears toward the brightness of the door. No one blocked her flight, perhaps fearing to catch her humiliation and shame. In her haste to escape, she left behind her cane—a sturdy length of polished elm—which she used to help guide her steps. Still, she refused to go back and fled out into the sunlight and shadows of a summer day.

2.

As others headed to their dormitory hall, where a cold midday repast awaited the students, Nyx hurried in the other direction. She had no appetite. Instead, she reached one of the four staircases that led down from the seventh tier to the one below, where the sixthyears were likely already eating in their own hall.

Though the world around her was only shadows against that brightness, she did not slow. Even without her cane, she moved swiftly. She had lived half of her life in the walled Cloistery. By now, she knew every nook and crook of its tiers. The number of steps, turns, and stairs had been ingrained into her, allowing her to traverse the school with relative ease. At the edge of her full awareness, a silent count ran in the back of her skull. She instinctively reached out a hand every now and then—to a carved lintel, to a wooden post of a stall, to a stone flogging pillar—continually confirming her location and position.

As she descended through the tiers, she pictured the breadth of the Cloistery of Brayk. It rose like a stepped hill from the swamps of Mýr. At its base, the school stretched over a mile across, built atop a foundation of volcanic stone, one of the rare solid places among these watery marshlands and drowned forests. The school was the second oldest in the Kingdom of Hálendii—the oldest being on the outskirts of its capital, Azantiia—but the Cloistery was still considered the harshest and most esteemed due to its isolation. Students spent their entire nine years in Brayk, beginning at the lowermost tier where the young firstyears were instructed. From there, classes were winnowed smaller and smaller to match the ever-shrinking tiers of the school. Those that failed to rise were sent back to their families in shame, but that did not stop students from arriving here by boats and ships from all around the Crown. For those who succeeded in reaching the ninth tier at the school’s pinnacle, they were destined for honor and prominence, advancing either to the handful of alchymical academies where they’d be instructed into the deeper mysteries of the world or into one of the religious orders to be ordained into the highest devotions.

When Nyx reached the third tier, she glanced back to the summit of the school. Twin fires glowed amidst the shadows at the top, bright enough for even her clouded eyes to discern. One pyre smoked with alchymical mysteries; the other burned with clouds of sacred incense. It was said the shape and fires of the Cloistery mimicked the volcanic peak at the heart of Mýr, the steam-shrouded mountain of The Fist. In addition, the infused smoke rising from the top of the school served to keep the denizens of those cave-pocked slopes—the winged bats—from approaching too close. Still, in the gloom of winter, dark wings occasionally shredded through the low clouds. Screeches would send first- and secondyears cowering and crying for reassurance from the sisters and brothers who taught them—until eventually one grew to ignore the threat.

Nyx could not say the same was true for her. Even at her age, the hunting cries would set her heart to pounding, her head to burning. And when she was younger—a firstyear new to the school—terror would overwhelm her, sending her into a dead faint. But she had nothing to fear now. It was the middle of summer, and whether from the brightness or the heat, the massive bats kept away from the swamp’s edges, sticking close to their dark dens in The Fist.

By the time she finally reached the lowermost tier of the Cloistery, her shame and embarrassment had waned to a dull ache in her chest. She rubbed her bruised elbow, a reminder that there would still be repercussions to come.

Until then, she wanted reassurance and aimed for the only place she could find it. She headed out through the school gates and into the trading post of Brayk. The ramshackle village hugged the walls of the Cloistery. Brayk fed, supplied, and maintained the school. Goods were carted upward every morning, accompanied by lines of men and women who served as chambermaids, servitors, sculleries, and cooks. Nyx had thought this to be her own fate, having started at the school as a housegirl at the age of six.

Once out into the village, she moved just as surefooted. She not only counted her footsteps through the crooked streets, but her ears pricked to the rhythmic hammering of Smithy’s Row to her left. The steady ringing helped guide her path. Her nose also lifted to the pungent smoke and heady spices of markets, where fishes and eels were already frying under the midday sun. Even her skin noted the thickening air and growing dampness as she reached Brayk’s outskirts. Here the stone-and-plaster palacios closer to the school’s walls declined to more modest homes and storehouses with wooden walls and thatched roofs.

Still, she continued onward until a new smell filled her world. It was a heavy brume of sodden hair, sweet shite, trampled mud, and sulfurous belch. She felt her fears shedding from her shoulders as she drew nearer, enveloping herself in the rich odors.

It meant home.

Her arrival did not go unnoticed. A rumbling bellow greeted her, followed by another, and another. Splashing headed her way.

She crossed forward until her hands found the stacked stone fence that marked off the bullock pens at the swamp’s edge. A heavy shuffle aimed toward her, accompanied by a softer grunting and a few plaintive bleats, as if the great lumbering beasts thought themselves to blame for her long absence. She lifted a hand until a wet nose, covered in cold phlegm, settled into her palm. Her fingers were nosed up and gently nuzzled. From its size and the shape, she knew this snout as readily as she did the village and school.

“It’s good to see you, too, Gramblebuck.”

She freed her hand and reached up. She dug her fingers through the thick matted fur between the stubby horns until her nails found skin. She scratched him hard where he always liked it, earning a contented huff of hot air against her chest. Gramblebuck was the eldest of the herd, nearly a century old. He rarely pulled the sledges through the rushes and marshes any longer, but he remained lord of the bullocks. Most of the shaggy herd here could trace their blood to this one beast.

She reached up both arms and gripped his horns. Even with his head bowed low, she had to lift to her toes to get hold. She pulled his head to hers, his crown as wide as her chest. She inhaled his wet musk, leaned into the warm hearth of his bulk.

“I missed you, too,” she whispered.

He grunted back and tried to haul her up by arching his short neck.

She laughed and let go of his horns before she was carried aloft. “I don’t have time to go for a ride with you. Maybe on my midsummer break.”

Though Gramblebuck no longer pulled the sledges, he still loved to trek the swamps. All her life, she had spent many a long day on his wide back, traversing the marshes. His long legs and splayed hooves made easy passage through its bogs and streams, while his size and curled tusks discouraged any predators from daring to approach.

She patted his cheek. “Soon. I promise you.”

As she headed down the fencerow, running her fingertips along the posts, she hoped it was a promise she could keep. Other bullocks shuffled and sidled up, wanting attention, too. She knew most of them by touch and smell. But her time was limited. The bells would soon be summoning her back to her studies.

She hurried toward the corner of the hundred-acre bullock pen, where a homestead stood. Its foundation was anchored to the stone shore but also stretched out atop a massive dock, which extended a quarter league into the swamps. The home’s walls were stacked stones matching the fence, its roof thatched like the homes nearby. Higher up, a rock chimney pointed at the skies, where the shadows of low clouds scudded across the brightness, rolling ever eastward, carrying the freezing cold of the dark toward the searing scorch on the other side of the world.

She crossed to the stout door, lifted the iron latch, and shoved inside without a knock or a shout. As she stepped into the deeper shadows, her world shrank, but not in a disconcerting way. It was like being wrapped in a warm, familiar blanket. She was immediately struck by a mélange of odors that meant home: the smell of old wool, the oily polish of wood, the smoke of dying coals, the melting beeswax from the tiny candles in the home’s corner altar. Even the waft of composting silage from the twin stone silos that flanked the docks pervaded everything.

Her ears piqued to a shuffle of limbs and creak of wood near the ruddy glow of the hearth. A voice, wry with amusement, rose from there. “Trouble again, is it?” her dah asked. “Is there any other reason you tumble back home nowadays, lass? And without your cane?”

She hung her head, staring down at her empty hands. She wanted to dismiss his words but could not.

A gentle laugh softened his judgement. “Come sit and tell me about it.”

• • • •

With her back to the fire, Nyx finished her litany of the morning’s humiliations and fears. It lightened her spirit simply to unburden them.

All the while, her dah sat silently, puffing on a pipe smoldering with snakeroot. The tincture in the smoke helped with the crick and rasp of his joints. But she suspected his silence was less about tempering any pain than it was to allow her the time to fill the quiet with her complaints.

She let out a sigh to announce the ending.

Her dah sucked on his pipe and exhaled one long bitter breath of smoke. “Let me ken it better for you. You certainly tweaked the nose of the nonne who taught you this last quarter.”

Nyx rubbed the bruise from Sister Reed’s bony fingers and nodded.

“But you also impressed yourself upon the prioress of the entire school. Not a small feat, I imagine.”

“She was being kindly at best. And I don’t think my clumsiness helped the situation. Especially breaking the school’s treasured orrery.”

“No matter. What is broken can always be set aright. On the balance of it, I’d say you fared well for one morning. You’ll finish your seventhyear in another turn of the moon. Leaving only the eighthyear to go until the final culling to the ninth and highest tier. It seems, under such circumstances, earning the good graces of the prioress herself versus irking a single nonne—a sister who you’ll soon leave behind anyway—is not a bad trade.”

His words helped further temper her misgivings. Maybe he was right. She had certainly endured far harsher obstacles to reach the seventh tier. And now I’m so close to the top. She shoved that hope down deep, fearing even wishing it might dash her chances.

As if reading her thoughts, her dah underscored her luck. “Look where you started. A babe of six moons mewling atop a floating raft of fenweed. If not for your bellyaching, we wouldn’t aheard ya. Gramblebuck would have dragged my sledge right past ya.”

She attempted to smile. The story of her being found abandoned in the bog was a point of joy to her dah. He had two strong sons—both in their third decade now, who managed the paddocks and ran the sledges—but the man’s wife had died giving birth to his only daughter, losing both at the same time. He took Nyx’s discovery in the swamps as some gift from the Mother, especially as there was no evidence of who had left the infant naked and crying in the bog. The spread of fenweed, a fragile and temperamental plant, exhibited no evidence of any treadfall around her body. Even the tender blooms that covered the floating mat’s surface showed no bruise to their petals. It was as if she had been dropped from the skies as a reward for the devout and hardworking swamper.

Still, while this oft told story was a point of pride for her dah, for her it was laced with an uncomfortable mix of shame and anger. Her mother—maybe both her parents—had abandoned her in the swamps, surely left to die, perhaps because she had been born afflicted, the surfaces of her eyes glazed to a bluish white.

“How I loved ya,” her dah said, admitting another truth. “Even if you hadn’t been picked to join the firstyears at the Cloistery. Though my heart just about burst when I heard you passed the test.”

“It was an accident,” she muttered.

He coughed out a gout of smoke. “Don’t say that. Nothing in life is simple chance. It was a sign the Mother still smiles on you.”

Nyx didn’t believe as devoutly as him, but she knew better than to contradict him.

At the time, she had been a housegirl at the school, assigned to washing and scrubbing. She had been mopping one of the testing wards when she tripped over a tumble of small blocks—some stone, others wooden—on the floor. Fearing they might be important, she gathered them up and set them atop a nearby table. But curiosity got the better of her. While neatly stacking them, she felt how different shapes fit against one another. It was how she experienced much of the world around her—then and now—through the sensitivity of her fingers. With no one around, she began fiddling with the blocks and lost track of the time, but eventually the ninescore of shapes built themselves into an intricate structure with crenellated towers and jagged walls that formed a six-pointed star around the castle in the center.

Lost in her labors and concentrating fully on her work, she had failed to notice the gathering around her. Only when done did she straighten, earning gasps from her hidden audience.

She remembered one nonne asking another, “How long has she been in here?”

The answer: “I left when she came in with the mop and pail. That was less than one ring ago.”

“She built the Highmount of Azantiia in such a short time. We give the aspirants an entire day to do the same. And most fail.”

“I swear.”

Someone had then grabbed her chin and turned her face. “And look at the blue cast to her eyes. She’s all but blind.”

Afterward, she had been granted a spot among the firstyears, entering the Cloistery a year younger than anyone else. Only a handful of children from the village of Brayk had ever been granted entrance to the school, and none had climbed higher than the third tier. She secretly took pride in this accomplishment, but it was hard to maintain that satisfaction. As she climbed the tiers with the same shrinking class, the others never let her forget her lowly beginnings. They shamed her for the stink of the silage about her. They teased her for her lack of fine clothes and manners. And then there was her clouded vision, a wall of shadows that continually separated her from the others.

Still, she found solace in her dah’s joy. To stoke that happiness, she kept steadfast in her studies. She also found pleasure in learning more about the world. It was like climbing out of the darkness of a root cellar and into a bright summer day. Shadows remained, mysteries yet to be revealed, but each year more of the darkness about the world lifted. The same curiosity with which she handled those blocks in the testing ward remained and grew with each tier gained.

“You will make it to your ninthyear,” her dah said. “I know it in my bones.”

She gathered his confidence into her heart and held it there. She would devote everything to make that happen.

If nothing else, for him.

Off in the distance, a ringing echoed from the heights of the Cloistery. It was the Summoning Bell. She had to be in her latterday studies before they rang again. She did not have much time.

Her dah heard it, too. “Best you get going, lass.”

She gained her feet by the hearth and reached to his hand, feeling the wiry muscles under thin skin, all wrapped around strong bones. She leaned and kissed him, finding his whiskered cheek as surely as a bee to a honeyclott.

“I’ll see you again when I can,” she promised him, remembering she had sworn the same earlier to Gramblebuck. She intended to keep that promise to both.

“Be good,” her dah said. “And remember the Mother is always looking out for you.”

As she headed toward the door, she smiled at her dah’s undying faith in both her and the Mother Below. She prayed it was not misplaced—not with either of them.

Copyright © 2023 by James Rollins. Excerpted from The Starless Crown by James Rollins. Published by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Rollins is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers that have been translated into more than forty languages. Known for unveiling unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets, Rollins’ knack for breakneck pacing and stunning originality has been hailed by critics and embraced by scores of millions of readers around the world.

EXCERPT: Arch-Conspirator (Tor Books)

Veronica Roth | 3389 words

In this gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Antigone, #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth reaches back to the root of legend and delivers a world of tomorrow both timeless and unexpected.

“I’m cursed, haven’t you heard?”

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the Archive, where the genes of the dead are stored, humanity will end.

Antigone’s parents—Oedipus and Jocasta—are dead. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father’s vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage.

When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

“Roth is a masterful conjurer, summoning both classic myth and visceral dystopia to weave a breathtaking tale of love, avarice, and the timeless desire for revenge.” — Ryka Aoki, bestselling author of Light From Uncommon Stars

Available Now from Tor Books

Antigone

The Archive stood in the middle of the city, where the land sloped steeply upward into a hill that looked more like a shelf. It was a building of chalky beige stone, and the land surrounding it was the same, rough and bare. It had been so difficult to move materials up there, the story went, that no one had wanted to repeat the experience, so the Archive was a lonely place, a place for pilgrims.

I worked my way down narrow side streets, where my fine clothing drew the eyes of those who wanted to sell or pilfer, and my recognizable face sent those eyes away almost in the same moment. Still, wherever I went there was the jingling of change in cups, voices strained by coughing up dust asking me to buy, church tracts pressed into my hands that I let fall rather than grasp. I should have had an escort. I was viable and young. Like a crystal glass, fragile and precious and useful only for what I might contain.

All the buildings in this part of the Electran District were worn by weather and wind, but covered in colorful graffiti, some more artful than others. I paused by a scene of a boat in the midst of a stormy sea, a cartoon duo boxing in a ring with gloves made of rock, a woman’s face with a name and date scrawled beneath it. I walked past little shops with no signs: Hardware stores that were just rows of buckets with nails and bolts in them, electronics stores advertising access to the old Internet for ten spend a minute, bakeries stacked high with bread loaves behind bars.

I reached the steps at the foot of the hill, and waited in line to climb them. They were wide enough for one person going up and one person going down. My feet ached in flat sandals. I had not planned to come here. But with Polyneikes’ “just in case” Extractor weighing down the bag at my side, I had no other choice.

On the steps, the man in front of me was counting every time he picked up his foot. I wondered who he was going to visit—a spouse gone before him, or a child gone too soon. Or maybe he was going to prepare a place for himself. It was possible even for the poor to find a place in the Archive now. My father’s law, my father’s doing. I listened to the feeble voice in front of me saying, “Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two.” Immortality, I had once heard my father say, should be for everyone.

The back of my neck was slick with sweat by the time we reached the top, the old man’s counting now in the shape of a harsh exhale. The straps of my sandals had worn blisters into my heels and toes. There were people sitting on the rocks at the top, resting, staring out at the city—the dust-haze moved through the streets, the bumps of short buildings and the sheen of their windows and the rolling hills that surrounded us on all sides too distant to be clear. I could only see their faint ripple against the sky.

Beyond the hills was wilderness in every direction. I’d never been out there, but my father had told me it was exactly what I would expect: ruins.

From there I could see the High Commander’s house to the east, in the Seventh District, a grand, sprawling structure with an open courtyard that was a market, an oddity, a place of public pronouncements and demonstrations. Not far from it was the Trireme, our beacon of hope.

The Trireme was a ship, but the ocean would never touch its hull. Instead it would leap into the stars that enfolded us—it would leap as high as it could go, and send out a signal that said, we are here, help us, to whoever might be listening. Our planet was a tomb, but hope still lived in the Trireme for the rock to be rolled away, for the grave to be unearthed.

It reflected the bright clouds back at me. I turned away and walked toward the Archive.

At the entrance, I removed my shoes with a sigh of relief and let them dangle from my fingertips by their straps. As I passed between the columns at the entrance, cool air washed over me and I sighed again.

It was dark—early superstition had said that too much light might compromise the samples, though we knew now that wasn’t the case. But where there was light, it was warm, almost orange, thanks to the color of the high stone walls. Rows and rows of shelves confronted me, narrow, and I thought of the photographs I had seen of grand libraries from other eras, housing books instead of gametes. There were still books, of course, but time had devoured them. They existed digitally, but accessing them was onerous—you had to find a port, pay for your time, and download what you wanted to your own device, which was likely finicky and prone to malfunction.

I counted the fourth row from the left and walked down the aisle, a few paces behind two women who walked with hands clasped, whispering to each other. The one on the left wore her hair loose over her shoulders; she threw it back and leaned into the one on the right, smiling. The one on the right glanced back at me and released her partner’s hand abruptly. It wasn’t uncommon for two women to come here under the guise of friendship to make a child together. They would explore the Archive together, and then one of them would meet with an Archivist alongside a man willing to play the part. The Archivist, none the wiser, would help them narrow down the kind of resurrection they wanted to facilitate.

I turned at the end of the row to give them privacy. I knew what it was to be something you were not permitted to be.

My existence, as well as my siblings’, was blasphemous. People didn’t resurrect their own genes—to do so was considered dangerous, for practical as well as mystical reasons. We were each of us born with a virus, passed on from mother to child, and there was no cure. It deteriorated our genetic code from the moment we were born, introducing abnormalities, aberrations. Genes therefore needed to be edited before they were passed on, so that every child could be born with a clean slate—so that they wouldn’t die young, as my siblings and I would.

But for the mystics, not the scientists, there was another crime in having a natural-born child. Each person’s ichor was like a tapestry containing the many threads of those who lived before. When combined with another person’s ichor, that tapestry grew richer and more complex. But ichor couldn’t convey the soul through the cells until a person’s death. Having a child of your own flesh, while you were still alive, meant having a child who wasn’t a part of that tapestry. It meant having a child who had no soul.

Like me.

In the gap between the shelves, I saw the couple stop near the end of the row. The woman on the right tugged the placard out of its place next to one of the samples, and they both crouched to read it, the woman on the left resting her chin on the other’s shoulder. I could have moved past them, but I lingered, watching them instead as they read the summary of a life they found on the little metal sheet.

They would choose two souls in the Archive that they found worthy of resurrection, and in doing so, at least in theory, they would choose their child’s story before they were born. I wondered what kind of story these two would want. A quiet life, maybe, unremarkable but peaceful, kind. Or perhaps—drama, a tragic end, a life of tumult and potential. In the Archive, you could read a person’s story and remake it. Combine it with another pattern, to heighten it or temper it. The possibilities were endless, overwhelming.

It didn’t matter if a person wanted a child or not. It didn’t matter if they changed the rest of their body, if they embraced a new name—if they were viable, the state considered them a woman, and they were required to carry a child, even though only half of them would survive it. Our species would die without this law, people were so fond of saying. And perhaps they were right about that. Every year, we were shrinking. Contracting. Receding.

Regardless, I didn’t see, in the women who walked beside me, separated by shelves of samples, any hesitation, any resentment. That their bodies were considered vessels for the continuation of the species rather than things that belonged solely to them did not appear to weigh on them. They looked caught up in this mystical alchemy, genes and ritual stirred together in the incense- and dust-saturated air of the Archive.

Or maybe I was just seeing what I expected to see. Pol often said that I saw the world in extremes. And I often reminded him that it was an extreme world.

The couple turned at the next throughway, and I continued ahead to the sealed records at the very back of the space, where the famous, the notorious, the prominent were kept. Their genes couldn’t be repurposed without express permission from the state. That was where my parents’ ichor resided.

Ichor, I heard my mother say, sneering, in the back of my mind.

No one likes to use the technical terms for things, do they? Not enough romance in “egg” and “sperm” for them.

I was sure that Kreon would hold my parents’ ichor hostage, using the threat of their permanent destruction to control us. We couldn’t resurrect them, but as long as they were stored here, someone could. One day. And I had believed in resurrection, once. Even now that I didn’t . . . Pol, Ismene, and Eteocles still did, and I wouldn’t be the one to take the hope of my parents enduring away from them. And so the axe blade was always dangling over us.

It was even darker here, the channels cut in the ceiling farther apart. Each sample occupied a space the size of a book, making the library comparison even more apt. During the day, a dim light glowed beneath each one, to illuminate the name written on a label beneath. In a slot beside them was a slate with a description of their lives. I didn’t need the label to find my father and mother, settled next to each other in a place of prominence, near the front. Oedipus. Jocasta.

Oedipus, who would have been our first freely elected leader. Jocasta, who sought to give childbearing to everyone—thus freeing those who didn’t want it. A scientist in a city where only men were scientists; an impossibility of a woman.

Some people came to the Archive to grieve. I heard their whispers even then, like a distant stream. I wondered what they said to the dead. I didn’t come here to tell my mother and father my secrets, my sorrows, and my regrets. I came here because it was the only place where Kreon wasn’t watching. I knelt on the stone floor in front of my parents’ names, set my sandals down, and opened my bag. I took out the Extractor and held it up to the light.

It was one of my mother’s old ones, I was sure. We had so little of her, of him. Distributing their possessions was a rite of mourning, and we had not been permitted to mourn. The closest Ismene and I had come was preparing the bodies. I had stripped them bare; Ismene had washed them. Ismene had said the prayer; I had done the Extraction, plunging one instrument into my father’s body, two inches below the belly button, and another into my mother’s. It could only be done on the dead. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to imagine doing it to Polyneikes, but try as I might, I couldn’t envision him dead. He was only ever sleeping.

I put the Extractor back in my bag, and took a deep breath. The name “Jocasta” was scribbled in poor handwriting on the label. It took me a few seconds to remember that it was mine. Those days had passed in a fog.

“Hello, dear,” came a soft voice on my right.

I jerked to attention. Standing at the end of the short aisle was Eurydice, Kreon’s wife.

People called her the angel of Thebes. She was fine boned and delicate. Her skin was so pale that in sunlight, you could see right through it to the blue veins and straight tendons beneath.

“Hello.” I picked up my sandals and stood. There was dust on my knees, dust on my heels.

“I apologize for interrupting,” she said. “I came here to see my own mother, and thought I would say hello to yours on my way out.”

“Your mother is still here?” I asked. Though children weren’t permitted to resurrect their parents—it was considered incestuous, as well as selfish, not to contribute to genetic diversity—a prominent family like hers was a desirable one, in the Archive. I had assumed that someone would have brought Eurydice’s mother forth by now.

“My mother was a Follower of Lazarus,” Eurydice said. “She’ll be here until the end of everything. Or so she believed.”

Followers of Lazarus—we called them “Fools,” an easy nickname, hand delivered. They believed a creator would raise them from the dead via their ichor when the world ended, and as such, they requested that their material be used only if there was no alternative. It was noted on their placards in red. My mother had criticized them regularly, claiming that looking forward to the end meant no longer striving for survival, no longer valuing humanity. Despite that, I felt more kinship with them now than I ever had. Sometimes the end was all there was left to long for.

“But you don’t agree with her,” I said.

Eurydice smiled. “No. I believe in the enduring nature of the soul, as she did, but I don’t believe in the end.”

“I don’t think I believe in either,” I said, and in this place that so many thought of as holy, it felt like a confession. I touched my mother’s name with just my fingertips. “I don’t think if I used her ichor I would get her back. I think she’s gone.”

“Those two things do not have to coincide,” Eurydice said. “If a soul endures, then perhaps—it simply endures, no matter what we do. If not in ichor, then elsewhere.”

“How do you know a soul even exists?” I said.

“I suppose I don’t,” Eurydice said. “I simply don’t prioritize certainty.”

Her eyes were gentle. It was tempting to think of her as a flimsy thing. But no flimsy thing could have been with Kreon for so long and remained herself.

“Shall we go?” I said. “Or do you want a moment alone with her?”

I nodded toward my mother’s slot. Eurydice just shook her head, and we walked together down the aisle. I thought of the couple from earlier, finishing their perusal, talking about the kind of child they wanted. Once they made their selections, down the road, the Archivist would combine the cells they selected, the souls they selected, and implant them in one of their wombs. After that, I wasn’t sure. Maybe she would die in childbirth. Statistically, it was as likely as survival. But even if she did survive—women were protected by the home, and only men could move freely outside of it. Would those women raise a child with two men who favored each other? Would they try to scrape together a life on their own? The memory of them scolded me. What a small creature I was to fear and hate the thing they were risking everything for. But a small creature I was, and I could not be otherwise.

The air was hot outside the Archive, and it was always strange to go places with Eurydice, who was the closest thing to royalty that existed in our city. People gathered around her like supplicants, eyes sparkling, mouths smiling, hands reaching. She was overwhelmed by them, searching for exits, but I couldn’t help her. Their eyes skipped over me as if I wasn’t there. It was kinder than acknowledging what I was.

Her eyes fixed on something in the distance, and the smile she gave was relieved. Kreon’s face surfaced from the crowd and I fought all my instincts to recoil. He was surrounded by space, as if he emitted a repulsive force. He walked up to Eurydice, taller than she was and broader, and kissed her cheek. Everyone around us watched.

Lingering a few feet behind him was my eldest brother, Eteocles. Our eyes met.

“Brother,” I said. “I trust you’re here to visit our parents.”

“Hello, Antigone,” he said with obvious unease.

Eteocles was Kreon’s shadow, these days. He hardly took a step without clearing it first.

“Antigone,” Kreon said in what might have sounded like warmth if his eyes were not so full of scrutiny. He didn’t bend toward me to kiss my cheek. He never touched any of us if he could help it, as if our profound emptiness could leech the life from his body if he did.

“Uncle,” I replied.

“You’re alone?” It was clear he didn’t approve. “Did you come to pay your respects to the dead?”

“I came to ask a question,” I said.

“Did you receive an answer?”

So many were listening to us. I smiled.

“I’m at peace,” I said. “That’s answer enough.”

Kreon’s eyes glittered as they met mine. Over his shoulder, Eteocles’ eyes darted from mine to Kreon and back again.

“I am glad to hear it,” Kreon said.

What came next was a script of courtesy. Kreon ensured that I would return home. Eurydice would remain a bit longer, waiting for him to finish his business, and Eteocles would accompany me back to the house. God forbid I be alone.

In silence I descended the steps behind the older of my two brothers. One, two, three . . .

Copyright © 2023 by Veronica Roth. Excerpted from Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth. Published by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection), the Carve the Mark duology (Carve the Mark, The Fates Divide), The End and Other Beginnings collection of short fiction, and many short stories and essays. Her debut novel for adults, Chosen Ones, is available now from John Joseph Adams Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). She lives in Chicago.

Book Review: New Suns 2 edited by Nisi Shawl

Arley Sorg | 1573 words

New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color
Nisi Shawl, ed.
Paperback
ISBN: 9781786188588
Solaris, March 14, 2023, 352 pgs

Back in 2019 I reviewed the first New Suns anthology, calling it “a celebration of people of color.” Editor Nisi Shawl has returned to this purpose with a second installment: New Suns 2. That first book won Locus, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Ignyte, and Brave New Words awards. It was also one of my Locus Magazine “Staff Picks”—in other words, one of my favorite books of that year. The easiest way to sum up Book Two: Shawl has done it again!

Where the first book had no explicit theme, this one does: “Many things come in twos: dualities, binaries, halves, and alternates. Twos are found throughout New Suns 2, in eighteen science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories revealing daring futures, hidden pasts, and present-day worlds filled with unmapped wonders.” Each author approaches the theme in their own way, which makes the journey through the book an interesting one, revealing how differently some of the most creative people envision, interpret, or apply an idea. At the same time, many of the authors in this book had pieces in the first book, which lends a sense of cohesion to the two books as installments in a series, and which creates a continuation of vibe. I’ll talk about a few of the standout stories and encourage you to pick up New Suns 2 and discover the rest.

“Ocasta” by Daniel H. Wilson opens with techspeak and physics theory. Well, to be precise, it opens with a Maya Angelou quote about the “untold story,” then applies quantum theory to the quote: “Speaking from a quantum mechanics perspective, untold stories never happen. The superposition will not collapse until it is observed.” The story goes from there into the techspeak—including a patent application. But then the story slides into powerful images, juxtaposed by narrative plot, which creates a subtle but important message, one which is poignant and felt as much as it is understood. Just as quickly, Wilson switches to a pointed but beautifully written section, demonstrating nothing less than a mastery of language. Pain rendered poetry and brought to an interesting scale. If this sounds disjointed, it’s not. Wilson fits the pieces together perfectly, giving shape to the generation and development of an artificial intelligence named Ocasta. On the one hand “Ocasta” is based on the idea that reality only happens if it’s observed; that things don’t get going until observed. On the other, the narrative is a deep meditation on the meaning of humans as a species, asking, “What is the value of the sum of all human knowledge?” It also raises the question of who this supposed “observer” could be, and the fact that perhaps the observer doesn’t need to be human. Finally, I see this as a tale of otherness and loneliness, and what it is to be an observer—on the outside of everything—especially one that is pretty much unique. Shocking at times, thoughtful, powerful.

Geetanjali Vandemark’s “Neti-Neti” is a well-told and interesting story about reincarnation in the hands of the criminal. In this case, quick and directed reincarnation can happen at the hands of a monk. The worldbuilding is vivid and the piece itself is pleasantly grim. Panna is one such monk, but she is far from pure. Worse, Panna is trapped in the terrible circumstances of her life. As she tries to right a wrong, she also has to navigate a corrupt world, one where the local slum lord owns everyone around her, and rules with a greedy fist. She also has to navigate her own conflicting drives. As engaging as the story is for me—and I thought it was awesome!—I suspect there are even more layers of subtext that readers familiar with the details of the culture will enjoy.

I bounced hard off Minsoo Kang’s story in the first New Suns, but also noted that perhaps I wasn’t the reader for that particular piece, and that other readers might find it to be brilliant. Here Minsoo Kang offers “Before the Glory of Their Majesties” and I am definitely the reader for this one. Fans of the darker elements of Game of Thrones and similar will be smitten within a few paragraphs. And after a few pages, they will be hungry for a series set in this macabre world. Many authors attempt to write captivating dark high fantasy, but so often it reads as generic or derivative. Kang makes putting together a captivating story look easy. And then, just when you think, “Damn, this is good, I wonder where it’s all going,” Kang turns everything on its head. What follows? I don’t even want to tell you. But it’s essential reading for writers engaged in the act of telling stories, as well as for readers who casually chew through book after book, story after story. It’s unexpected and kind of breathtaking, and I don’t want to spoil it for you any more than that.

Speaking of “breathtaking,” Nghi Vo’s “Silk and Cotton and Linen and Blood” is just that. Vo paints scenes wonderfully. She begins by imbuing the moment with immersive details as well as pressing tension, then sews in flashes of color which create the sense of a complex and interesting world. Vo also makes great narrative choices, keeping the read full of unexpected moments, directions, and decisions, all of which still feel right for the story, never contrived or forced. Even her choices of what to focus on and when, if closely examined, reveal storytelling genius: clothes that resist the blade, noticed by an invader in the act of killing the lord, setting important things in motion and creating room for a different kind of hero. Who tells the story, what the focal point is, and where it all goes are among the great choices here, rendering everything fresh and fascinating. Some of the choices also blend in layers of depth and subtext—for readers who want to look closely. A number of wonderful lines and phrases make occasional treats for those of us who enjoy language itself. Even better, Vo is a master at bringing various story elements together at the end, like a seamstress crafting something beautiful from a batch of bright swatches. Yes, folks, this is a fantastic story.

In Christopher Caldwell’s story “Counting Her Petals,” he uses descriptive details with expertise, which lends nuance and realness to everything. The story opens with effective tension and fear, and folds in interesting characters and world building from there. It’s one of those narratives where the author decides to not tell the reader what’s going on, which can often be a frustrating approach. But here it works because the author gives us so much to be involved in and enjoy, which also serves to instill faith that the read will be well worth following along. Among what there is to “be involved in and enjoy” is fantastic dialogue and a wonderfully sketched relationship. There’s also a kind of secondary story which is a brilliantly sparkling little fable in its own right. The final reveal of the central narrative is a familiar premise, but it’s reinvigorated and given more weight than many other versions by the context of this particular story; not to mention the way the author blends world building elements, which gives these tropes a fine polish. By the time you get to the end, yes, the read was well worth it indeed. Even the final line is clever, but not just for cleverness’s sake—it also carries the weight of the themes of the piece. Simply stated: this a damn good story.

I mentioned at the top that book one, ostensibly, didn’t have a theme. But the theme might be something like “cool stories by people of color.” Can’t that be a theme? And if it is, then the theme is continued in book two. And if we want to be a bit pickier about what a word like “theme” means, we might point to the fact that many of the stories in book one, either overtly or slyly, deal with identity, suggesting that there could potentially be an accidental theme along those lines; one which is also continued in this book. Part of the fun of book two for some readers will be in identifying and thinking about the interpretation of the explicit theme. For example, in Caldwell’s story, there are a number of ways the theme is represented, including the structure. But for folks who just want to read a bunch of really great stories, Nisi Shawl has got you. In fact, they got you twice now. Go get this book and enjoy it, on whatever level suits you. And if you didn’t get the first book? It’s not required, by any means, but you might want to take the opportunity to correct the oversight and pick that one up as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine and a 2022 recipient of SFWA’s Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. He is also a 2021 and a 2022 World Fantasy Award Finalist, a 2022 Locus Award Finalist, and a finalist for two 2022 Ignyte Awards: for his work as a critic as well as for his creative nonfiction. Arley is a senior editor at Locus Magazine, associate editor at both Lightspeed & Nightmare, and a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He takes on multiple roles, including slush reader, movie reviewer, and book reviewer, and conducts interviews for multiple venues, including Clarkesworld Magazine and his own site: arleysorg.com. He has taught classes, run workshops, and been a guest for Clarion West, the Odyssey Writing Workshop, Cascade Writers, Augur Magazine, and more. Arley grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado, and studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in the SF Bay Area and writes in local coffee shops when he can. Find him on Twitter @arleysorg. Arley is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate.

Book Review: The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai

Chris Kluwe | 849 words

The Daughters of Izdihar
Hadeer Elsbai
Hardcover / eBook
ISBN: 9780063114746
Harper Voyager, January 2023, 370 pages

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another review! This month we’re going to take a look at a book that mixes political machinations, magical mayhem, and quiet struggles to survive in everyday life dominated by a relentless patriarchy—it’s The Daughters of Izdihar, written by Hadeer Elsbai.

Right off the bat I found myself drawn into the premise of the story—two women from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds, each gifted with the power to change the world around them (via magic, because heavens forbid women change the world on their own and upset the menfolk!), but each trapped within a systemic imbalance that refuses to let them explore who they’re truly meant to be. My initial excitement was only furthered by the setting our dual protagonists (Nehal and Giorgina) find themselves in—a heady melange of three different Egyptian revolutions spanning from 1919 to the Arab Spring protests of the early 2010’s.

First and foremost, I have to point out that this book feels like a love/hate letter from Elsbai to the Egyptian authorities, and after reading it, it’s hard not to agree with her. Themes of government corruption, violent crackdowns, and forcibly arranged marriages war with both the obvious love Elsbai has for her community, culture, and history of one of the oldest cradles of humanity, as well as the desire of people to find a life free from oppression. Both Nehal and Giorgina are gifted with otherworldly powers, but even those aren’t enough to break through centuries of toxic honor and cronyism, no matter how hard each tries.

For Nehal, the struggle is comparatively easier—borne to an upper-class family that’s fallen on hard times thanks to her father’s profligate gambling habits, she exemplifies the privilege of one who has come to the struggle late, but understands at a visceral (and some might say naive) level that fighting is the only answer, and also has the resources to shield her from all but the worst of happenstances. For Giorgina, life is quite crueler. As a younger daughter from an abusive lower-class household, she wants nothing more than to care for her books and find a way to fit in while somehow finding true love, but her contradictory wants match the tumultuous magic buried deep within her soul—and it seems only destruction follows their release. Mix in recently cast-off colonialism, religious fanatics willing to burn down the world to rid it of magic, and a saber-rattling neighbor, and the world these two women have to navigate is both fantastical as well as achingly familiar.

One thing I really enjoyed was the way Elsbai weaves her storyline between the two differing viewpoints of Nehal and Giorgina. Both feel like fully fleshed characters, each with their own distinctive voice, but throughout the course of the book it never felt like two separate stories. While not quite opposing sides of the same coin, Nehal and Giorgina share many similarities. They also carry just as many differences that help bring their world alive with the friction that arises between them. In a delightfully ironic twist, the man between them, Nico, is relegated to a sideline role for almost the entirety of the book, despite being the one closest to the levers of power—a clever upending of the typical male-dominated gaze trope that wars with the obvious patriarchal elements underlying the story.

The other thing I thought Elsbai portrayed really well is the duality of power and helplessness that accompanies revolution. Both Nehal and Giorgina are committed to upending the established order, and both achieve various successes, but each accomplishment is accompanied by a backlash of social and actual violence that leaves them wondering if they’re pursuing the right path. The tension between the protagonists and their families, drawn along multiple fault lines, is just as engaging as the various action scenes that dot the narrative, and all rotate around the shared axis of what a woman’s role in this society is supposed to be.

Overall, The Daughters of Izdihar is a book I could have written another thousand words about and still not done justice to the complexities contained within, which in my view is the sign of an author who knows what they’re doing, and is even more impressive for a debut novel. My only complaint is that I have to wait for the second part of the story to come out to find out how everything ends, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a minor quibble indeed. Go read it.

Read if: You enjoy mashed up political history in your fantasy magic struggle; your favorite day is a quiet afternoon with a new book; you’ve contemplated tearing out the foundations of an unjust system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Kluwe grew up in Southern California among a colony of wild chinchillas and didn’t learn how to communicate outside of barking and howling until he was fourteen years old. He has played football in the NFL, once wrestled a bear for a pot of gold, and lies occasionally. He is also the eternal disappointment of his mother, who just can’t understand why he hasn’t cured cancer yet. Do you know why these bio things are in third person? I have no idea. Please tell me if you figure it out.

Book Review: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Aigner Loren Wilson | 361 words

The Saint of Bright Doors
Vajra Chandrasekera
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN: 9781250847386
Tordotcom, July 2023, 368 pgs

Vajra Chandrasekera’s debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors traces Fetter’s path from child assassin to misguided adult with the ability to see the devils, demons, antigods, and magical aspects of their world—like the mysterious and revered bright doors littered around the city. Fetter’s mother raised him to kill his father, the powerful leader of a cult. Now as an adult, he’s no longer destined to bring the end to his father’s religion; instead, he spends his days walking the city, dating guys, and going to therapy.

Chandrasekera blends the mundane and fantastical with political turmoil, religious control, and the struggles of the disenfranchised to create a slow beautiful burn of wonderful city descriptions and magical mysteries. Under all of that, but in no way hidden, are themes of generational, religious, and political trauma. Fetter has a very sarcastic, depressed view of the world around him, but for a guy whose shadow was taken at a young age by his mother, he’s pretty well adjusted.

Surrounding and calling to Fetter are the bright doors nestled all around the city of Luriat. Bright doors are hidden doors painted bright colors and maintained as though deserving of high acclaim, despite the fact they cannot be opened. Fetter encounters these doors and finds cold wind and a strong force surrounding their thresholds. While at moments, the mystery of the bright doors and Fetter’s place in it all were a tad confusing, the prose was beautiful and skilled all the same.

Even though Fetter is a trained assassin and the novel’s world is filled with demons and destinies unachieved, The Saint of Bright Doors isn’t as dark as I was expecting. Sure, there is darkness—and lots of it—but there is also hope and connection between the pages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aigner Loren Wilson is a queer Black writer of speculative fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and games. She serves as a senior fiction editor at Strange Horizons and has guest-edited issues of Fireside Fiction and Apparition Literary Magazine. Her work has appeared in FIYAH, Anathema, Arsenika, and other publications. When she’s not writing or editing for others, she’s learning, hiking, or loving on her fur babies—both human and animal. To check out her books, games, bread bakes, and other writings visit her website (aignerlwilson.com).

Author Spotlight: Daniel H. Wilson

Laurel Amberdine | 554 words

How did “Crystalline” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

Well, I’m a dad. I like to think I’m a nice dad. And, possibly as a result, I write a lot of science fiction with nice dad protagonists. For this story, I wanted to challenge myself to go in the opposite direction and write the villainous origin story of a not-very-nice dad. So, I basically fought my best instincts as a parent, and explored a much more selfish point of view. Like most of my short stories, this is just a jumping off point. I’d love to write more about what happens in this cave with these people.

What is your writing process like? Did this story fit the pattern?

This story had been kicking around in my head for a few years, so it came relatively according to plan. It was a bit challenging to write such an unlikable character. I had to spend a lot of time adjusting just how much of a jerk he should be. In the end, “Crystalline” got to a rough draft stage after the usual amount of fiddling around until the whole thing felt right.

What is your writing space like? What do you like to have around for optimal creativity?

I have an Addam’s Family-style Victorian style office in my home, equipped with a couple of cats to bother me every five or six minutes. I used to think it was the perfect place to write. But the quarantine years proved me wrong. At home alone, I discovered that I actually do my best writing with lots of other humans all around me (but not talking to me, oh god, no). When my local coffee shop finally opened back up, it felt like breathing again. Thank you, kind strangers, for existing, and again, for not talking to me while I write.

Other than writing, do you have any other creative pursuits? What do you do to relax?

It took years and years, but the Pacific Northwest has slowly infected me with a —gulp—love of the outdoors. I could only struggle against my embodiment as a human being for so long, I suppose. And as much as I’d like to be a brain in an aquarium, processing information, divorced from the material world—I really do like the smell of trees. Hiking around the misty, mossy, probably werewolf-infested Oregon wilderness has become my go-to relaxing hobby.

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

For the last couple of years, I’ve been exploring the new frontier of writing screenplays and television. It turns out those projects take a long time, and they often bite the dust before they see the light of day. One exciting project that isn’t dead yet is a film adaptation of my short story “The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever” at Paramount Pictures. In the literary world, while I don’t have a new novel on the way, I do have another new short story (called “Ocasta”) coming out in the superb, Nisi Shawl-edited anthology, New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color (Solaris, March 2023).

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She currently lives in Portland and works (remotely) for Locus Magazine. Find her on Twitter at @amberdine.

Author Spotlight: Oyedotun Damilola Muees

Laurel Amberdine | 562 words

How did “The Chosen Six” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

There’s a common slang we have in Nigeria called “japa.” This simply means migration from your country to another country for better opportunities and greener pastures.

I was having a conversation with a friend who was talking about the hardship being faced by the ever-growing Nigerian population, hence, the reason for the mass migration.

A spark of an idea was birthed during the conversation. What if this supposed greener pasture is not what we think it is? Perhaps, we are too engrossed with the news we hear about such places, not considering that maybe they have their own challenges.

Right there I knew I had to carve a story out of this.

What really inspired this story is the clamor for climate justice happening around the world. The environment is suffering so much from our mismanagement and selfish acts. It’s high time everyone treats her with respect.

Did you get stuck at any point while writing this? How did you get past that?

I got stuck at the scene where I wanted to create a vivid image of Pappylon’s challenge. Being a supposedly Utopian-state, I had to think of an issue that couldn’t be solved by just one person.

I got past this challenge by engaging in other activities. I saw a movie, did some research, wrote a list of issues faced by developed states, and browsed through my Twitter feed.

What led you into writing genre fiction?

When I was much younger I read a lot of comic books and stories, especially the types with exhilarating stuff. This feeling transformed into having a penchant for science fiction and fantasy books and movies.

Over the years I created my own characters and world, with everything how I wanted it to be. But it was all in my head. The only way to bring it into reality was to put it into writing.

What trends in speculative fiction would you like to see gain popularity in the next few years?

I’d love to see African futurism grow in mass. The number of speculative fiction writers of African indigene are growing by the day with amazing work. It will be super amazing to see these stories get adapted into movies, series, and graphic novels, and of course win awards.

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

Currently, I’m working on a cyberpunk novelette that explores the dangers of capitalism.

You can find my other published works in Reckoning, Clarkesworld, Solarpunk, Africa Risen (Tor Books), Our Move Next, Omenana, and Science Fiction World.

Other than writing, do you have any other creative pursuits? What do you do to relax?

Besides writing I have a great passion for photography and artistic pictures. When I’m not writing I browse through pages of artists whose pictures leave me in awe.

I watch comedy videos to relax, and then sleep.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Sure. Be unique in your creations. Find the path that works for you.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She currently lives in Portland and works (remotely) for Locus Magazine. Find her on Twitter at @amberdine.

Author Spotlight: Peter Watts

Laurel Amberdine | 1503 words

How did “Contracting Iris” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

The story originated with a buddy of mine, Steven Archer. He’s something of a polymath: half of the darkwave duo Ego Likeness (the other half is Donna Lynch, whose name should be familiar to anyone who follows the Stokers); an artist (paintings, graphic novels, weird-ass props for his videos, he’s even getting into video production for other artists—you can see his handiwork all over the recent “Uroboros” video from the Alan Parsons Project—bit.ly/3l9DxUg). He’s written a children’s book. He’s worked with NASA. He’s not selling out Shea Stadium any time soon but the dude is everywhere, if you know where to look.

One of Steve’s solo projects is Stoneburner (named, yes, after the tech from Dune), which is a kind of ongoing experiment in industrial-grunge electronica. (He describes it as “what dance music might be like on Arrakis.”) A while back, working on Stoneburner’s “Apex Predator” album, he drops me an email: “So I wrote this song about a disease and a girl both called Iris . . . it’s 700 angstroms, and appears as a green and gold cloud which seeds the atmosphere making it rain. I also don’t know why it’s called Iris.”

He asks if I wanted to base a story on it, maybe as some kind of online bonus content hidden in a puzzle built into the album. I check out the lyrics—here’s a taste—

I am always sight unseen
Exchange the facts for faith
Contracts the pack
Intentionally
Myopically
The culture blinding
Proteins binding
And in the cold and distant sky iris is rising

—and I say Fuck yeah. So here we are.

What is your writing process like?

Depends on the form. If I’m writing a short story, I like to plan everything out in advance and then write from the bullet points; there’s not so much wiggle room when you’re writing against a maximum word count. If I’m writing a novel I also like to plan everything out in advance and write from the bullet points, with the difference that I generally get maybe two-thirds of the way through and realize that two or more of my bullet points conflict with each other and the entire house of cards is gonna collapse and how was I too stupid to see that until now? At which point I have to retcon and rezone and basically fly by the seat of my pants until it all works out. (Or doesn’t. Depending on the title. You’d have to ask my readers.)

Did “Iris” fit that pattern?

It may have fit the pattern in terms of the construction flowchart. Where it diverged was in the original inspiration.

Back in the old days I had endless degrees of freedom. I’d base my stories on whatever cool idea happened to float into my brain after reading some paper or waking from a dream. After a while people started coming to me for contributions to themed anthologies; I could still incorporate pop-sci and dreamscapes, but they had to be in service to stories about robots or “future Toronto” or “aliens that live inside your nose.” Probably the most extreme such constraint was when I was commissioned to novelize a video game that had been plotted out entirely by someone else.

“Contracting Iris” clearly falls into the writing-to-someone-else’s-theme category, but Steve’s lyrics were way more open-ended than they had any right to be. He had an extraterrestrial microbe in mind when he wrote the song, but the lyrics were long on impressionistic imagery and short on specifics. It was more of a Rorschach blot than a blueprint.

So I took those impressions and wedded them to my specifics. Steve was content to let his work serve as a springboard and back off. I kept him semi-posted on my thoughts as the biology developed but he never once said You gotta get Ancient Astronauts in there somehow or Iris has to be a dental hygienist. There was virtually no creative interaction once he said Wanna? and I said Yes! Yet somehow, this story feels more like a true collaboration than the actual collaborations I’ve been part of.

Did you get stuck at any point while writing this?

I guess my major misgiving was the story’s essential subject. Songs are one thing, but stories about self-usurping parasites have been done to death since Bradbury kicked it all off in the forties. Think Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters; think Silverberg’s Passengers; think an entire cottage industry of Star Trek episodes and movies with the term “body snatcher” in their titles. Do I really have anything new to say on the subject? Does anyone?

How did you get past that?

I don’t know if I ever did. “Contracting Iris” definitely has its own Wattsian spin. The “science,” such as it is, is updated. The whole body-horror/infection theme becomes freshly relevant in a world where zoonotic outbreaks have quadrupled since the seventies, where pandemics are the New Normal, where we’ve only identified (much less developed countermeasures for) about one percent of the microbes that could make a meal of us. And of course, the microbe is only half the story; the other half is the creatures it inhabits. The same bug could appear in a thousand tales, and if the people in each are unique then the tales will be too.

Ultimately, though, the song remains the same; it’s the venue, the audience that changes. There’s nothing truly groundbreaking about “Iris.” It’s just the latest variation on a venerable theme, and that’s totally okay. Even Shakespeare stole from his predecessors.

(Not that I’m comparing myself to Shakespeare, mind you. I’d much rather be compared to Brunner.)

Where are you in this story?

I guess I’m in Yasur. And maybe the giant squid at the end.

What are you reading lately?

One of my oft-repeated complaints during these interviews is that somehow, in the process of becoming a full-time SF author, I stopped reading SF for fun. Right up to grad school I was ploughing through a few novels a week; these days I actually feel guilty curling up with a good book because there are so many other things I should be doing, and if you don’t hate what you’re doing it’s obviously not important (I was raised by Baptists).

I’ve recently taken to forcing myself to read for fun every morning between the time my wife leaves for work and the time she gets there, which gets me maybe a couple hours pleasure reading a week. Other than that, though, my current reading largely comes down to titles that people have pushed in front of me in hopes of blurbage—and there’ve been a few this year that really stuck out for me. One is Leech, by Hiron Ennes: “a gothic far-future bioclockpunk novel from the POV of a parasitic hive mind.”

Another is Rachel Rosen’s Cascade, out of a Canadian small press with the unlikely name of “Bumblepuppy.” That one has ecological collapse, Canadian realpolitik, and wizards on retainer to the civil service. I wrote several blurbs for that one; the one I’ll quote here is “Finally, something to make the hopepunks shut the fuck up,” but I don’t know how widely they used it.

Both those books are in stores even as we speak. But I’ve also recently blurbed a monster of a novel by a dude named Seth Dickinson (you may have heard of him), and it’s still in press.

I literally squirmed in horrified revulsion when I read parts of this novel. In other parts my mind exploded, in still others I wobbled almost unto tears. (I’m generally a very unemotional guy, immune to the wobblies for anything short of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the Norris chest-chomper scene from The Thing.) Right out of the gate—second, maybe third chapter—the dude presents a whole new rationale for Free Will in the context of digital physics. And he’s just getting started.

Last I heard, many thousands of words had to be flensed away to satisfy some bean-counting algorithm, so I don’t know what the final word count will weigh in at. But I weep for the loss of a single paragraph.

The book is Exordia. Keep an eye out.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She currently lives in Portland and works (remotely) for Locus Magazine. Find her on Twitter at @amberdine.

Author Spotlight: Benjamin Peek

Laurel Amberdine | 245 words

How did “The Ministry of Saturn” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

I don’t really remember, to be honest. I think I wanted to write a story about werewolves. I’ve been trying to do that for a while now, but instead I wrote about a homunculus. Some time before I’d come across Paracelsus and I read what he wrote and I guess it stuck.

What is your writing process like? Did this story fit the pattern?

I write and rewrite and rewrite some more. I wish I was quicker, but I’m not. This story, like most of them, was meant to be done in a week or two, but wasn’t.

Where are you in this story?

Everywhere and nowhere, like most writers in most stories, I imagine.

What led you into writing genre fiction?

I just like strange things.

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

I finished a novel recently. I’ll see if anything comes of it. I’m going to start a new novel soon. I’ve some short fiction I’m writing. It’s the same old thing, tapping away. If you want, you can find some more work here in Lightspeed, and I’ve some in Nightmare and other places on the net.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She currently lives in Portland and works (remotely) for Locus Magazine. Find her on Twitter at @amberdine.

Coming Attractions

The Editors | 225 words

Coming up in April, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Brian K. Hudson (“Virtually Cherokee”) and Adam-Troy Castro (“Spaceman Jones”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Lament of a Specialist in Interspecies Relations” from Amy Johnson and “Every Bone A Bell” by Shaoni C. White.

Plus, we have original fantasy by Bogi Takács (“Construction Sacrifice”) and Amanda Helms (“The House, the Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks”). We also have a flash story (“So You Want to Kiss Your Nemesis”) from John Wiswell, and another (“When the Giants Came Through the Valley”) from Derrick Boden.

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy a book excerpt.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

• • • •

Looking ahead beyond next month, we’ve got a veritable plethora of stories forthcoming. We’ve got work from the following authors coming up over the next couple of issues: Sarah Grey, Kat Howard, Wole Talabi, Timothy Mudie, Ruth Joffre, and Oyedotun Damilola Muees.

So be sure to keep an eye out for all that SFnal goodness in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

Thanks for reading!

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The Editors

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Subscriptions and Ebooks

The Editors

Subscriptions: If you enjoy reading Lightspeed, please consider subscribing. It’s a great way to support the magazine, and you’ll get your issues in the convenient ebook format of your choice. All purchases from the Lightspeed store are provided in epub, mobi, and pdf format. A 12-month subscription to Lightspeed includes more than 100 stories (about 700,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction). The cost is just $35.88 ($12 off the cover price)—what a bargain!

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Ebooks & Bundles: We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors ($3.99 each), and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Lightspeed ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! We currently have a number of ebook bundles available: Year One (issues 1-12), Year Two (issues 13-24), Year Three (issues 25-36), the Mega Bundle (issues 1-36), and the Supermassive Bundle (issues 1-48). Buying a bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So if you need to catch up on Lightspeed, that’s a great way to do so.

Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store for more information.

• • • •

All caught up on Lightspeed? Good news! We also have lots of ebooks available from our sister-publications:

Nightmare Ebooks, Bundles, & Subscriptions: Like Lightspeed, our sister-magazine Nightmare (nightmare-magazine.com) also has ebooks, bundles, and subscriptions available as well. For instance, you can get the complete first year (12 issues) of Nightmare for just $24.99; that’s savings of $11 off buying the issues individually. Or, if you’d like to subscribe, a 12-month subscription to Nightmare includes 48 stories (about 240,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction), and will cost you just $23.88 ($12 off the cover price).

Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues—and ebook back issue bundles—of Lightspeed’s (recently revived, other) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine— all 57 issues—for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

The Editors

We already offer ebook subscriptions as a way of supporting the magazines, but we wanted to add an additional option to allow folks to support us, thus we’ve launched a Patreon (patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams).

TL;DR Version

If you enjoy Fantasy, Nightmare, and/or Lightspeed, our Patreon page is a way for you to help support those endeavors by chipping in a buck or more on a recurring basis. Your support will help us bring bigger and better (and more) projects into the world.

Why Patreon?

There are no big companies supporting or funding our magazines, so they really rely on reader support. Though we offer the magazines online for free, we’re able to fund them by selling ebook subscriptions or website advertising.

While we have a dedicated ebook subscriber base, the vast majority of our readers consume the magazine online for free. If just 10% of our website readers pledged just $1 a month, the magazines would be doing fantastically well. So we thought it might be useful to have an option like Patreon for readers who maybe haven’t considered supporting the magazine, or who maybe haven’t because they don’t have any desire to receive the ebook editions—or who would be glad to pay $1 a month, but not $3 (the cost of a monthly subscriber issue of Lightspeed).

Though Fantasy, Nightmare, and Lightspeed are separate entities, we decided to create a single “publisher” Patreon account because it seemed like it would be more efficient to manage just one account.

Basically, we wanted to create a crowdfunding page where, if you enjoy the work Adamant Press puts out, and you want to contribute a little something to help make it easier for us to produce more cool projects, then our Patreon is the place to do that.

What Do I Get Out of Being a Patron?

Well, you get the satisfaction of helping to usher the creation of cool new short fiction projects into the world! Plus, the more support we get, the better we can make the magazines and compensate our authors and staff. By becoming a supporter via Patreon, you help fund our growth and continued publication of three award-winning magazines. Of course, if you’re already one of our ebook subscribers (thank you!), you are already supporting us. This is for those who prefer to read the issues each month on our free websites, or wish to support our efforts more generally.

By becoming a supporter, you are also bestowed a title, such as Dragonrider, or Space Wizard, or Savior of the World and/or Universe, thus making you instantly the envy of all your friends.

Thank You!

If you’ve read this far, thanks so much. We hope you’ll consider becoming a backer on Patreon. That URL again is patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams.

Thanks in advance for your time. We look forward to hopefully being able to make the magazines—and our other publishing endeavors—even better with the support of people like you.

About the Lightspeed Team

The Editors

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

John Joseph Adams

Managing/Senior Editor

Wendy N. Wagner

Associate Editor

Arley Sorg

Podcast Producer

Stefan Rudnicki

Podcast Editor/Host

Jim Freund

Art Director

John Joseph Adams

Assistant Editor

Laurel Amberdine

Editorial Interns

Mayookh Barua

Madison Brake

Reviewers

Arley Sorg

Chris Kluwe

Aigner Loren Wilson

Copy Editor

Luke Tolvaj

Proofreaders

Anthony R. Cardno

Devin Marcus

Webmaster

Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios

Associate Publisher

Christie Yant

Reprint Editor (Emeritus)

Rich Horton

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

The Editors

If you enjoy reading our Adamant Press magazines, you might also enjoy these works edited by our publisher John Joseph Adams:

ANTHOLOGIES

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 1: The End is Nigh (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 2: The End is Now (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 3: The End Has Come (with Hugh Howey)

Armored

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (with Joe Hill)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (with Karen Joy Fowler)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (with Charles Yu)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 (with N.K. Jemisin)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 (with Carmen Maria Machado)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 (with Diana Gabaldon)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 (with Veronica Roth)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 (with Rebecca Roanhorse)

Brave New Worlds

By Blood We Live

Cosmic Powers

Dead Man’s Hand

THE DYSTOPIA TRIPTYCH, Vol. 1: Ignorance is Strength (with Hugh Howey and Christie Yant)

THE DYSTOPIA TRIPTYCH, Vol. 2: Burn the Ashes (with Hugh Howey and Christie Yant)

THE DYSTOPIA TRIPTYCH, Vol. 3: Or Else the Light (with Hugh Howey and Christie Yant)

Epic: Legends of Fantasy

Federations

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects

Lightspeed: Year One

The Living Dead

The Living Dead 2

Loosed Upon the World

Lost Worlds and Mythological Kingdoms

The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

Operation Arcana

Other Worlds Than These

Oz Reimagined (with Douglas Cohen)

A People’s Future of the United States (with Victor LaValle)

Press Start to Play (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Robot Uprisings (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Seeds of Change

Under the Moons of Mars

Wastelands

Wastelands 2

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

The Way of the Wizard

What the #@&% is That? (with Douglas Cohen)

NOVELS and COLLECTIONS

Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey

Wool by Hugh Howey

Shift by Hugh Howey

Dust by Hugh Howey

The Silo Saga Omnibus by Hugh Howey

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn

Sand by Hugh Howey

Retrograde by Peter Cawdron

Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer

The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn

The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette

In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks

The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead

Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

Gather the Fortunes by Bryan L. Camp

Reentry by Peter Cawdron

Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

Creatures of Charm and Hunger by Molly Tanzer

The Unfinished Land by Greg Bear

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

A Dark Queen Rises by Ashok K. Banker

The Apocalypse Seven by Gene Doucette

Questland by Carrie Vaughn

The Undertakers by Nicole Glover

Visit johnjosephadams.com to learn more about all of the above.