God Of War

by | Apr 18, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

There’s blood up to the windows. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, to stack the bodies in the Mercer Building, to get ‘em off the Rail. But I can’t help wondering if the allusion to gore behind those art-deco panes is worse the actual carnage.

At least they’re off the Rail. At least there’s that.

My brother took his class—God, how many would that have been? 50? 60 schoolchildren?—to the History Museum just yesterday. Show them the Independence Day exhibit, remind them of the two decades spent fighting the Earth Alliance so that the Mars colony could be a world in its own right, beholden to none. Took the Rail, Line 4—site #1 of 15. Had they made that trip today, on Independence Day itself, then their screams would have been the first.

Fifteen bombs, throughout the city. Crippling not only the Rail, but also the ComNet. All com systems were shut down, in order to stop more bombs from being set off remotely. I can’t imagine what this did to the survivors, though, who counted on their coms to call for help.

As a paramedic, I’m only any use in the aftermath. Arriving at Olympus station—site #7 of 15—I was surprised at how helpful most of the “civilians” were. There were no gawkers, no brawlers, none of the usual characters that make my job more difficult than it already is. Only assistants. People moving debris and corpses, being directed by myself and the other emergency personal. We were all helping, those who could. And we stayed silent for those who couldn’t.

They say it takes a particular kind of person to live on Mars, a temperament out of place on Earth or the Moon. Looking back, on what we did on that day of chaos, of fifteen bombs and fifteen major disasters, I can see how true that statement is. And it fills me with an immense pride.

No one’s taken credit for this destruction yet, but it doesn’t matter.

Mars won’t be beaten. We spent 20 years under the shadow of the EA, after decades of carving a life out of red rock and poison air.

We are used to terror.

Alien Love Affair

by | Apr 17, 2006 | Story

The orphanage was in the ghetto of the city, below the levels that Anodramida’s mother had forbidden her to visit when she was a podling. It smelled like metal and sulfur, and the darkness made her shake. Christopher wrapped her tentacle around his arm, and his warmth evoked an involuntary purr, from deep within her throats.

Her mother said that humans were ugly, all those holes on their faces, the creases and the tangle of hair. Her mother thought that hair was the worst, it seemed filthy to her, the way it fell everywhere. Anodramida had thought humans were creepy till she separated the telepathic link from her mother and went to University. Without her mothers influence she found herself attracted to the humans heat and innocence. Christopher was all warmth, and he had hair on every section of his body, Anodramida knew this from examining his body in detail.

Christopher signed all the documents and told the robot caretakers that she was his lawyer. A lie, of course, but humans were good at lying. They walked the rows of cradles and looked at all the little humans. They were asleep; drugged or in stasis. Humans reproduced like bacteria, so much that they could not always afford to keep the children they produced. They were very territorial too, here, on their rusted home world, aliens were forbidden from adopting human children. Humans would rather keep their young in stasis than allow them to be raised by an alien.

To take home a child, Anodramida would not be able to return to her home world till her child was a legal adult. The child would never be allowed off world without Christopher, who would be his legal guardian. That would be twenty-two years on Earth, one of the most politically unstable planets in the galaxy. Anodramida wanted to grab all the children at once, made a little pod nest of all of them, like back at home how she was raised. Of course, she had read that human children required more care, and since they didn’t have a psychic link with a mother, they would be much harder to control.

The robots let them pick a child to lift out of stasis. All curled up, he looked like a little pink bean. She wrapped her tentacles around him, but he didn’t wake up. The robots took him to wash all the stasis fluid off him, and he slept through all of their scrubbing. Anodramida watched and thought they might be handling him a bit rough, the little thing looked so small, so delicate, like parts of it were almost transparent. When they were done toweling him off they handed him back to her, and she examined his little toes, the feathery hair, and the pudgy tummy. This child would grow and change, and get covered with hair and eat human food, oh divine energies, she would have to make human food!

Anodramida felt like she was breaking inside. She looked at Christopher. What had she been thinking? Had her idealism been overwhelming her good sense? How did she get to be here, holding a pink thing, giving up her life for this little person she didn’t even know! She couldn’t do it. She would tell the robots to put it back to sleep. Maybe it was good to want to help but maybe it wouldn’t be possible, she couldn’t raise an alien.

She looked down at the little one. “I’m sorry.” She said, in her native tongue. She gave him a careful squeeze and his eyes opened. She stroked his head with a free tentacle, and his lips curled up into a human smile.

Anodramida took him home.

Red Letter Day

by | Apr 16, 2006 | Story

Bernard held the letter loosely in his hands. He sat down on his bed, staring at the blank taupe walls of the Renewal center and didn’t look at the letter. Bernard’s Renewalist, Maureen, had suggested he try and read the letter again today. He’d been trying for three hours.

Slowly, Bernard unfolded the letter, catching glimpse of the clean type at the top.

To Myself, Upon My Renewal,
What a strange way to start–

Bernard crushed the letter in his hands, and threw the ball of crumpled paper across the room. He closed his eyes tight and shook his head over and over before burying his face in his pillow. Even with his eyes closed, Bernard knew the letter was there. Waiting for him.

He had to read it today. Maureen had said as much, implying that this was a necessary block he had to get over before they could move forward. He had to read it today.

Slowly, tentatively, as if it was going to explode, Bernard approached the crumpled ball. He carefully smoothed it out, and began to read.

To Myself, Upon My Renewal,
What a strange way to start to a letter. Still, I don’t know of another way to address you. “Clone,” just seems…wrong. You’ve got all my memories, after all. Well, most of them

Which brings us to the reason you are receiving this reintroduction letter. I have not been negligent in my updating. Granted, more than a year has passed, and at lot has happened since the last bit of memory you possess. Luckily, the reason I was renewed wasn’t anything sudden—not an accident like poor Thomas, thank God. I have cobbled together an extensive collection of videos and snapshots and written material to better acclimate you, myself, my clone, me back into the world. But I wanted to start with this letter. Because there is no sense trying to obfuscate why you’re here, in this state.

Eight months ago, Mom died–

With a howl, Bernard tore the letter in half, and then in half again, and again, in smaller and smaller pieces until he couldn’t read it, until it wasn’t a letter, until it was only confetti about his bare feet.

Bernard took a deep breath and thumbed the intercom. “Shelly? This is Bernard, patient number 235674. Could you have Maureen send over another copy of my reintroduction letter. please?”

Shelly’s sunny voice crackled in. “Certainly, Bernard. How far did you get this time?”

“Same place.”

“You’ll get through it. This is just a difficult day for you.”

In the Garden

by | Apr 15, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

Dust filled the air as a sand blast landed on the flames coming from the cathedral of St. Liz. Brother Kyle’s red mechanical eye, the Snipers Lover, adjusted to the lower light as he ran towards the Archbishops secretary.

“Brother Alexander! Who is in the garden?”

“What?” Alexander clutched his data pad to his chest and stared past Louis toward the blaze.” Kyle grabbed Alexander and shook him.

“Who is holding St. Liz? Who has the pillar?”

Alexander shook his head. “Ah, it’s noon, mid-meal, so it’s one of the acolytes.”

Kyle muttered a curse. The pillar of St. Liz was a forty-pound architectural marvel that was held at a crucial intersection in the cathedral. If the pillar were to be dropped St. Liz would crumble. Kyle had seen simulations of the twenty-eight hour collapse, wood and stone crashing inwards leaving only a few outside walls standing. The St. Liz pillar was designed as a representation of the people’s connection to the body of the church, and under the dome, it had special relevance to the interdependency of the lunar community.

Another gust of sand and ash blew over the cathedral scattering tourists and clergy as the domes emergency system, millions of spider shaped drones, swarmed over the fire. Kyle’s lungs, manufactured during the war, filtered out the excess oxygen produced by the malfunctioning pumps. The excess oxygen produced by the environmental system in the dome had started the fire. Warnings flashed on the inside of his skull that the concentration of toxins in the air was exceeding recommended doses for normal human capacity.

Brother Kyle caught the eye of Ruth, a Sister in the order who he had never spoken to before. Both of them had purposefully given each other distance. After the war, most veterans did. Now, he found himself calling to her.

“Sister Ruth! Move Up!” She leaped, her steel extensions unfolding under her robe. In two seconds she was standing next to him, boosted five feet in the air by her Steel Razors, the legs that could cut through bone. They headed down through the maze of the cathedral, built with the native grey stone. Ruth snatched Kyle up into her extended mechanical arms and vaulted over patches of intense heat. When she began coughing Kyle grabbed her face and mashed her mouth against his, exhaling into her lungs.

“I’ve got the Sweet Breath.” he explained nervously. In the war he had given out a thousand breaths, but after a few years in a monastery, he was suddenly squeamish about touching lips.

At the entrance to the underground garden fire was crawling up the graceful trees, bright like jewels on a woman’s hand. The acolyte stood in his red robes coughing, struggling to hold up the pillar. The acolyte cried out when he saw Kyle and Ruth.

“The fire!” he said, tears in his lashes.

Kyle yanked the acolyte close and forced a breath into his throat. The kid was too surprised to do anything but inhale. “It’s okay, I’m here to take over.”

“No!” yelled Ruth, her voice dimmed by the roar of the flames. “We’ll all getting out.”

Kyle took hold of the pillar. “I’m staying in the garden. I have the Sweet Breath, I can do this.”

“The church may collapse anyway! If you force me I will carry you out of here.”

Kyle nodded and hit the acolyte on the back of the head. The acolyte folded like silk onto the crackling grass.

“You can only take one of us Ruth.”

“Damn you! We all did shit in the war. You don’t need to do this.”

“This isn’t about the war. Get that kid out. I’ll survive; I’m the only person in that can do this. I need to do this. Let me go!”

Ruth picked up the kid and danced into the flames.

Brother Kyle curled himself around the pillar, leaning his baldhead against the lacquered wood. Smoke clouded his vision. His lungs flashed red warnings on the inside of his eyes. He thought about being on tourist duty, carefully handing the pillar to a young woman posing for a picture with her parents.

“I’m not really a believer.” She had said.

“Maybe not.” Kyle remembered smiling. “But right now, you are holding up the church.”

Like A Stone

by | Apr 14, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

“Hey, neighbor!” Chawly called down from across the way. He had a pint glass of something that looked like red wine in each fist. I knew it couldn’t be–not in Topside–but Chawly had his ways. Chawly yanked the line-suspended basket that served as dumbwaiter between his window and mine over to him and placed a glass in. He gave the basket a shove, sliding it across the expanse. “Taste somma this!”

The basket was a battered salvage from an abandoned grocery store and stayed remarkably stable on it’s journey, barely sloshing the blood-red contents. I watched the drops fall and disappear though the cloud cover, wondering if they would hit any Suits on the ground. I smiled, imagining red splatter all over the pale face of Suit, on his way to a job or meeting or something, his eyes scanning the heavens, wondering where such sacrament came from.

Actually, it was probably raining down there.

The wine was shit, naturally; the latest in Chawly’s experiments to speed up the fermentation process in grape juice. “This is gonna make me blind one day,” I called out to Chawly.

“Whatchu worried about missing?” Chawly howled back. He motioned over-dramatically to our surroundings, arms out stretched. Living above the rain had spared these top tenements water damage, but the heat had baked the buildings until all surfaces were the same cracked brown. Chawly almost blended in, with his tan skin, filthy shirt and tangled hair. Chawly had been here when I was broke and starving, and Topside was the only place I could go; to me, Chawly was Topside. From the way he yelped and hollered when the buildings swayed in the wind to his usual, pantless way of hanging off his window ledge. No one lived Topside by choice, but Chawly certainly made the most of it.

“You cooking over there, Chawly?” It smelled like hamburgers, but I knew it couldn’t be. Not even Chawly could get beef.

“Hells yes, brother! Morganna totally brought home the bacon!” Morganna was Chawly’s cat, just as brown and dirty has her owner. The realization of the sort of “bacon” Morganna was able to catch and kill suddenly made me queasy. “You okay there? Your air-conditioner on the fritz?”

I glanced back the black cube in the corner of my room. It’s sputters of pure oxygen in the thin air caused the airborne dust to dance and panic. “Nah, it’s fine Chawly…”

“Somethin’s bothern you, brother. Here, penny for your thoughts.” Chawly flipped a coin, the distance between our windows making his simple act miraculous. It hit my hand still warm from Chawly’s fist.

“This is a five yen coin, Chawly.”

“Does that make it more or less than a penny*?”

“I think it’s about the same amount of worthless.”

“Let’er rip, then.” Chawly crawled out onto the window ledge, his long, naked legs dangling in midair. “Let’er rip.”

I took in a deep breath and let it snake slowly back out of my lips. “I ain’t ever gonna get out of here, am I?”

“Old widow Keerney bought it three days ago. You could move in to her old place.”

“Not that. Topside. I used to go places, you know? On the ground, up the river back east. The world’s a big place, man. It gave me everything I needed. I was like a rolling stone, Chawly.”

“Like a stone,” Chawly said, drawing it in. “I heard once, that you drop a penny from high enough, the force of gravity turns it hard and fast. You can kill a man from this height, turn a worthless coin into a killing machine. Load of bullshit, but fun to think about.You wanna be a stone, that may be the only way.” Chawly turned around, slinking back into his crevice of a room. “I got meat on the grill. You’re welcome to some, you wanna come over”

I laughed at this. Pass the chasm that separated our buildings? Might as well fly, or put on a Suit. But Chawly stopped me fast with a stone-serious gaze. “Basket’s waiting, brother.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I don’t got your faith in the world, neighbor. But I do know that I anchored this line pretty damn well.”

“And if the line breaks?”

“You were the one that wanted to leave.”

I imagined falling out of the basket, tumbling through clouds like spilt wine. “Maybe I’ll get lucky,” I said. “Maybe I’ll land on a Suit.”

“HA! I like that!” Chawly threw his bearded head back, and his laughter echoed and shook the stones of Topside.

For the first time since I had first crawled up to that umpth-hundred-floor room, I felt it shake me, too.