by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 21, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Peck met Richards at the door of the diner. They stood staring at each other without speaking for a long minute before Peck opened the door and ushered his partner inside.
Gwynne was at a booth in the very back corner. There was a halo of empty seats surrounding her that was too noticeable in the busy restaurant not to be deliberate.
“Gwynne Yones?” Richards asked the question. The woman in the booth looked up at each of their faces before waving them into seats across from her at the table.
“You’re the men from, where was it again?” Gwynne returned to cutting slices of what appeared to be natural bacon with a vibrablade, the instrument slicing effortlessly through the meat and causing the plate to hum gently on the table.
“New New York,” Peck answered, “we understand you’re in the printing business.” Two statements, the second wasn’t a question.
She skewered a slice of fried potato and a piece of bacon. “I may be. What exactly are you looking for?” She put the forkful of food in her mouth, then chewed slowly as she continued to study the two men.
“One hundred packages, one hundred kilos each. Unique serial numbers. Mixed” Richards leaned into the table as he spoke, hands folded in front of him.
Yones pushed a piece of fried egg around the plate, chasing it into what was left of the pile of home fries before scooping both into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before answering.
“Unique serial numbers are a bitch. That will cost extra.” Peck flinched noticeably. “Where are you circulating?”
“What business is that of yours?” Peck snapped. “As long as you get paid real money, what do you care what we do with the product?” His nerves were visibly frayed, his voice raised. There was something here, something…
“I’m an artist, and a connoisseur, and a businesswoman Mr. Peck,” she placed the fork on the nearly empty plate, the blade disappearing into a pocket. “I need to know where my product is in circulation so that we can, all of us, avoid the dangers of oversaturation and the increased likelihood of discovery that brings.” She smiled almost imperceptibly. “I’m the best because my work goes undetected, and that’s good for me, and good for you.” She straightened her shirt sleeves, and then very deliberately checked her watch, an old analog affair. The large, man’s sized timepiece conspicuous on her thin olive wrists.
Richards shot Peck a sidelong glare before catching himself and answering. “Nothing around here, we’ll be distributing in New New York, and over several months.”
She folded her hands on the table, strummed her nails on the polished surface one single time.
“Thirty percent up front, the balance when you collect the merchandise.”
She watched as a vein started to pulse in Peck’s temple.
“Ten percent.” Richards was notably more collected than his partner.
“If you knew me, you would know I don’t negotiate. I don’t print until I have thirty percent up front in hard, real currency.”
“Twenty.” He tried again.
“Do you know how much work it is to secure unique serial numbers? Ones that will pass close scrutiny? And there are very complex anti-counterfeiting measures woven into the genuine article minted by the state, none of that is easy to reproduce.
“Fine. But if you screw us–”
“If I wanted to screw you, there would be nothing you could do about it at any percentage,” she cut him off in mid-sentence, “and screwing is bad for business.” She finished, smiling. “I’m here every morning for breakfast. Come back when you have the front money.”
With that, Yones slipped out of the bench seat and to her feet in one fluid motion, and without looking back walked through the diner and out the front door.
“What the–” Peck started.
“Don’t.” Richards cut him off. “Not here.”
Outside Gwynne dialed as she walked, then spoke quietly, her voice encrypted at the voice box.
“Start combing the lost off-world database for viable serials. We’ll need male and female, fifty of each. Make sure we can get organic material and skeletal scaffolding to print on short notice. I think our new friends are cops, or private military, so they’re either trying to arrest me, or they’re buying a small private army.” At the end of the street, she turned the corner and descended into the subway. “So we get thirty percent and two potentially valuable serials, or one hundred percent and a little new world anarchy. Either way, a win.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 11, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Do you know what happens when a black star dies?” Tony asks, rhetorically, not waiting for an answer. “It collapses in upon itself, and in one last gasp, ejaculates a single burst of energy into the void.”
His assistant nods, numbly, pen to paper but motionless, unsure of whether this is something she should be writing down.
“Consider the size of the universe, think about the odds of such a burst of the purest concentration of energy hitting a planet with life on it, let alone this,” he pauses waving his hands about, searching for the appropriate words, “this shit hole,” he finishes.
She writes ‘shit hole’ on the notepad.
“And of all the forms it could have taken, cockroach, palm tree, a blade of fucking grass, but no, it coalesces into the form of a man, or mostly man, a kind of androgynous whoever.”
She writes ‘androgynous’, followed by a question mark.
“You can’t keep energy contained like that, not in a fleshy meatsuit, you have to let some of it out, obviously, and what more obvious a form of energy expression than music?” He walks to his desk and pushes piles of paper around recklessly until he uncovers a package of cigarettes, from which he extracts one and lights it, drawing deeply and waiting for the nicotine rush to wash over him and subside so he can speak again.
She writes ‘Hepafilter’.
“Have you ever heard a piece of music and been unaffected?” He waits until she shrugs. “I mean, not ‘get up and dance’ affected, but you either love it or hate it, or it makes your foot tap or stands your teeth on edge, but it affects you, right?”
She nods.
“Imagine what a black star averting death can do, how that kind of energy worms its way into each and every body, tunes us to a common frequency and kind of weaves us all together.” He takes a long slow pull on the cigarette, watching its reflection in the window as the white paper tube is slowly consumed by the crawling orange glow against the blackness of the city outside.
She absently draws a row of stars across the page, each with a continuous stroke, crisscrossing lines without lifting the pen.
“And the crazy thing, we’re all so screwed up, nobody stops to consider that maybe, maybe this really is a star man, not just some crackerjack musician with a hypnotizing voice.” He plucks out another cigarette and lights it off the first before crushing the spent one out in the ashtray. “We’re all pointing our antennae to the sky, decoding static we’re getting from the great black nothingness looking for alien life, while we’re playing a real live star man’s music on our car stereo’s without a fucking clue what it really is.”
She starts filling in small parts of each star, where the crossing lines have created little shapes inside each one.
“And while we’re cluelessly consuming his energy, what happens? Booze, and drugs, and women, and pollution, and disease.” He takes another long pull of the cigarette, then blows the smoke out before fully inhaling. “And these bloody things,” he hollers, waving the half-smoked cigarette in the air for effect.
“And after we absorb all of his energy we’ve pretty much killed him again ourselves, haven’t we?” He stops speaking and stares at her.
She shrugs.
“Do you know what a rare opportunity we had, and we blew it?” He turns back to the window, looking through the glass up into the darkness.
“You only have to turn on the news to realize how much of our world he must have been holding together.” Smoke drifts slowly against the glass, and he watches it roll off in waves. “I give us five years, tops.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 3, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Baxter found the fortune teller at the very back of the carnival grounds, as far away from the entrance as one could get without leaving the sprawling complex. It was either an afterthought or the origin point, which exactly was unclear.
The ancient tent canvas was greasy grey, the surface the texture of stiff leather, pulled tight over the center pole. The guide ropes stiff as iron keeping the walls at right angles to the ground.
The sign, carefully lettered in a bold calligraphic script, read simply ‘Futures Told, Inquire Within’, and hung beside a black tear of an entranceway which beckoned through the mist.
Baxter stepped into the darkness and followed a soft glow left, partway around the inside of the tent, until he emerged into the interior proper.
A low ceiling of sorts was composed of hundreds of light bulbs suspended by lengths of string stretching up into the darkness. Some were familiar incandescents of various shapes and sizes, some long skinny chandelier styles, and some large clear bulbous affairs, all unlit, having no apparent wiring. Each was tied by their metal base such that their bottom faces were at the same level and spaced equally about a shoulder’s width away from the next nearest in a grid that filled the room.
In the middle was a simple table, and on either side, there was a single straight back chair.
“Come, sit.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and Baxter jumped despite himself, so focused on the decor he’d forgotten there would be someone else here.
From the darkness on the opposite side of the tent, perhaps fifteen meters away, the bulbs started to glow above a figure emerging from another entranceway.
He moved slowly and deliberately across the room to stand behind one of the chairs, and as he did so, a meter wide circle of light followed him, the hanging bulbs brightest at the point directly above his head.
Baxter walked to the table, hesitated for a moment, then pulled out one chair and sat. The parlour trick impressed him. The table had appeared weathered and worn as he approached, but he could see the top now was, in fact, a vivid green dressed in immaculate felt. The man remained standing for a long moment before sitting down himself, the lights above him dimming slightly as he did so.
Baxter cleared his throat, and then started “I’d like you to tell me–”
“I will look into your future, and I will tell you what I see,” the man interrupted as though Baxter himself hadn’t spoken at all, “what you do with what you learn is not my concern.”
Baxter sat back and crossed his arms, the man, in contrast, leaned forward, placing well-manicured hands flat on the table, crisp shirt-cuffs pinned with shining gold links. The light cast strange shadows, hiding the features of the man’s face, and when Baxter looked down, he would have sworn for a moment the man’s trousers were frayed at the edges, his shoes nearly worn through, but then the light changed and reflected back off highly polished oxfords below sharply creased slacks.
“Your hands,” the man said, turning his own palms up. Baxter paused, then leaned forward to place his hands on top of the man’s, and…
Jacob relaxed and sighed. The customer before him sat frozen in place, eyes fixed and pupils fully dilated. He took a deep breath, focused intently on the darkness inside the man’s barely visible irises, exhaled and then…
They were in a kitchen, seated at the table where Baxter was reading a letter in his shirtsleeves, a mug of coffee forgotten, a piece of toast in mid-flight between plate and mouth. Jacob stood and quickly scanned the letter over his shoulder, a ‘Dear John’ from a Vanessa expressing her frustration with his persistent indiscretions, informing him that she’d taken the kids, and he would hear from her lawyer.
Jacob filed the information away and looked cautiously out the kitchen window. They were here, too. Shadows of men staring back at him, unseeing at a distance, but here. Clearly, this wasn’t a viable exit either.
As he turned back to the kitchen table, he reached up and carefully unscrewed the light bulb from the hanging fixture, and then…
“You are going to lose Vanessa if you choose to womanize.” The man was sitting back now, and Baxter blinked twice before snatching his hands back from where they’d been suspended in the air over the empty table.
“Vanessa?” He said, his voice rising, uncertain. “From accounting?” Uncertainty turning to disbelief.
“There will be children, and happiness, a home, but you’ll throw it all away on frivolous affairs.”
The man stood, the lights overhead glowing with his ascent, and they followed as he walked back towards the edge of the tent, where he paused only for a moment to reach above and tie the new bulb to a dangling bit of string.
“See yourself out.”
And with that he was gone, leaving Baxter almost completely in the dark.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 27, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
It breached the atmosphere in the late evening, the sun beginning to warm the far side of the little blue planet as it tucked into the shadows and dropped down to the clouds.
It swam in the moist air, swirling and cavorting with the storm formations as they coalesced and broke over the seemingly endless expanse of nothingness.
Below, a network of dark lines traced the curves of the earth, some streaming with lights, with activity, and it avoided these, settling on one instead that traced through a series of low mountain ranges, a rare pathway seemingly devoid of life.
It alternately swooped low, kissing the earth at breakneck speed before gaining altitude with the earth to burst from the peaks back towards the heavens, slicing through the clouds, again and again, tearing holes into the rain heavy night sky.
In time it tired, having traveled far, from another time and another place, and its gyrations and antics became less energetic. It allowed the pull of the little blue planet to strip it of its altitude, and it hugged the gray stripe on the ground as it weaved through the little mountains, rising and falling gently, and easing through the corners.
In the middle of a long straight stretch rose a monument that reached from the ground high into the night. Beyond it, a low structure clung to the earth, stretching off into the darkness, riddled with holes and reeking of neglect.
The towering construct captivated it, and it curled around the risers, rubbing against them and feeling the iron react to its touch. It wrapped itself around one of the columns and followed it to its peak where it found an intricate maze of glass. It traced the outside, hugging its curves and stretching out along its lengths. The shape fascinated it, and it busied itself for a while exploring its surface before discovering a small crack where it could squeeze inside. Once contained within, it was protected from the rain and the cool night air. It pressed outward against the restraint the almost clear labyrinth provided, and found the confinement calming; it was safe here, secure.
As it explored, it tasted neon, and hydrogen, helium and mercury. The flavours evoked feelings, and the feelings manifested themselves in a coloured glow. It spread itself thin, filling every inch of the glass resting space it had found, and waited out the night, and the arrival of the sun’s energy in the morning with which it would recharge.
As it idled it marveled at its own reflected beauty, painted in brilliant multicoloured light on the rain covered ground below.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 23, 2017 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Trent sat in the small office cradling the cup of hours-old coffee until the clock showed twelve. He then unfolded himself from his chair, collected his flashlight and his hat and started his rounds.
Every hour, on the hour. Up the east stairwell on the even hours to the second floor, clockwise around the perimeter before midnight, counterclockwise after. Back down the same stairs, around the ground floor then to the basement, then back to the office to sip crappy coffee. On the odd hours, he’d go down the east stairwell and work from the basement up.
There wasn’t anything to see, there wasn’t ever anything to see. The complex had three-meter perimeter fencing iced with razorwire, and there were guards with guns at the corners and the gate. His position was largely ceremonial.
Trent had cleared the second and the ground floors and had just rounded the corner at the west stairwell when something moved.
He blinked, then shone his flashlight directly towards the source of the motion, but there wasn’t anything there.
He blinked again, checked quickly behind him and switched the flashlight to his left hand, then loosened his Glock in its holster.
He swung the light back and forth along the empty hallway. Nothing. No, wait, there was something. A line on the wall from the floor two-thirds of the way to the ceiling that he’d not noticed before. He put his back to the far wall and moved forward. Someone had clearly drawn a stick figure on the wall, a long body with a head that was just the line bent at an angle, where he would have drawn a circle. The legs bent in a slight crouch, and arms akimbo.
This wasn’t here an hour earlier, of that he was positive. Someone was in the building or had been. His gun was out now, barrel held parallel to the flashlight as he moved slowly down the hallway, shining the light back and forth. The doors were flush to the wall, so there were no shadows in which someone might hide, and he crisscrossed the hall carefully trying each door to make sure they were all locked.
None opened, and none appeared to have been tampered with.
He walked a full revolution of the basement hall, stopping at the east stairwell and listening for any sound, then back to the west stairwell.
He couldn’t hear anyone.
The stick figure just stood there, arms crossed. Silent.
He should radio this in, but he didn’t relish the thought of explaining how someone managed to slip into the building and graffiti the walls on his wa…
Arms crossed?
Trent turned and brought the flashlight and gun back to chest level.
The stick figure was crouched, but its arms now were extended out from the wall.
“What the f…”
There was a sound, like a wet towel snapping in a locker room and the line bridged the distance from the wall and hit Trent hard in the face, knocking him off his feet to land with a wheeze on the concrete floor. The flashlight and gun landed somewhere out of reach, and as he blinked to get his wind and his bearings back he saw the line elongate from the floor and hang in the air above him. It bent slightly where its waist might have been, as though regarding him, before raising one thin line above his head and stomping down, knocking Trent unconscious.
Anyone watching would have squirmed at the sight of the stick figure stretching out on the floor and inserting its stick legs into Trent’s tipped back head, through his gaping mouth and down his throat. The shadowy stick creature pulled Trent on like a suit, and then stood him up and lumbered up and down the hall for a few minutes, until it had a feel for him.
Stick Trent retrieved the gun and the flashlight, perched his hat back on his head and wandered back upstairs.
When Lewis relieved him at six am, he said nothing, he just watched him start his rounds from his position in the doorway of the office, slightly crouched, arms akimbo with his head bent at a slight angle.
