Kindle Edition, 2016 © Spilogale Inc.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Table of Contents | 213 words

January/February • 68th Year of Publication

NOVELLAS

Homecoming

Rachel Pollack

NOVELETS

Vinegar and Cinnamon

Nina Kiriki Hoffman

One Way

Rick Norwood

Dunnage for the Soul

Robert Reed

There Used to Be Olive Trees

Rich Larson

SHORT STORIES

The Regression Test

Wole Talabi

A Gathering on Gravity's Shore

Gregor Hartmann

On the Problem of Replacement Children: Prevention, Coping, and Other Practical Strategies

Debbie Urbanski

Alexandria

Monica Byrne

Wetherfell's Reef Runics

Marc Laidlaw

POEMS

Kingship

Mary Soon Lee

DEPARTMENTS

Books To Look For

Charles de Lint

Books

James Sallis

Science: Brainless Robots Stroll the Beach

Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty

Television: Stranger (Yet Oddly Familiar) Things

Tim Pratt

Coming Attractions

Curiosities

David Langford

CARTOONS: Arthur Masear , Bill Long .

Cover by Charles Vess For "Vinegar and Cinnamon"

GORDON VAN GELDER, Publisher

C.C. FINLAY, Editor

BARBARA J. NORTON, Assistant Publisher

KEITH KAHLA, Assistant Publisher

ROBIN O'CONNOR, Assistant Editor

STEPHEN L. MAZUR, Assistant Editor

LISA ROGERS, Assistant Editor

CAROL PINCHEFSKY, Contests Editor

HARLAN ELLISON, Film Editor

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (ISSN 1095-8258), Volume 132, No. 1 & 2, Whole No. 729, January/February 2017. Published bimonthly by Spilogale, Inc. at $7.99 per copy. Annual subscription $47.94; $59.94 outside of the U.S. Postmaster: send form 3579 to Fantasy & Science Fiction, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Publication office, 105 Leonard St., Jersey City, NJ 07307. Periodical postage paid at Hoboken, NJ 07030, and at additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2016 by Spilogale, Inc. All rights reserved.

Distributed by Curtis Circulation Co., 730 River Rd. New Milford, NJ 07646

GENERAL AND EDITORIAL OFFICE: PO BOX 3447, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030

www.fandsf.com

Homecoming

By Rachel Pollack | 22786 words

Jack Shade is a private investigator, occultist, and shaman—just the sort of man you'd want to turn to when noir shadows conceal the otherworldly. He debuted in our pages with "Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls" (Jul/Aug 2012), and returned in "The Queen of Eyes" (Sept/Oct 2013) and "Johnny Rev" (July/Aug 2015). This latest tale is his most complex and difficult mystery yet.

Readers who are fans of Rachel Pollack know that she is also a renowned expert in divinatory tradition, and may be interested to hear that she is currently working with artist Robert Place to create The Raziel Tarot, a deck based on the three thousand years of Jewish myth, lore, and magic.

We want what is real

We want what is real

Do not deceive us

Bald Eagle Song, from Crow Indians

1.

CAROL ACKER SAT ON THE other side of the table from Jack Shade, her eyes downcast on the smooth mahogany surface as she tried to keep her hands from whatever nervous habit she didn't want to display. This was Jack's office, but really it was just another room in the Hôtel de Rêve Noir, Jack's home for the past twelve years. Carol had come to the hotel because that was the address on the card that began "John Shade, Traveler." The hotel owner, Irene Yao, had brought Jack first the card, and then the client.

Now Jack wondered what Mrs. Yao had thought of Carol Acker. Would this prim, old-fashioned white woman seem as out of place to elegant Mrs. Yao as she did to Jack? Jack's usual clients included seers, sorcerers, dream hunters, even an occasional golem. Carol looked as small-town normal as you could get. Hair cut in a style that was pretty enough but you'd forget it the moment you walked away. Face and makeup the same. She wore a gray wool dress with a round collar, long sleeves, and a hemline that reached a couple of inches below her knees. Her left hand bore an unadorned wedding band and a narrow engagement ring with a small but well-cut diamond, yet Jack found himself looking at a ring on her right hand, silver with an unshaped lump of black onyx set on top of it.

Jack said, "Mrs. Acker, what can I do for you?"

She had trouble raising her head to meet his gaze, but when she did, her gray eyes appeared to have a greater depth than Jack might have expected. He felt a slight relief when she looked away. She said, "I'm—do you think I could have a cup of coffee?"

"Sure," Jack said, and dialed room service. "Milk and sugar?" he asked, and she nodded. When he'd placed the order, he told her "They'll be up in a moment. Why don't you start by telling me what's going on?"

"Well, that's just it," she said, eyes once more cast down toward her hands. "It's nothing, really. It's…just a kind of feeling."

"What kind of feeling?"

"That something is missing. I'm sorry, I know how vague that sounds."

"That's all right. It's a start. Tell me about your life, about what's missing."

"I don't know . I mean, I like my life. I've been married thirty years, I have two wonderful children, and three beautiful grandchildren. I'm active in the church and I enjoy it. Just a couple of months ago they actually gave me a small award. For my volunteer service. It's a good life, really it is."

A knock at the door signaled the arrival of Carol's coffee. Room service was always fast when Jack had a client. After he'd tipped the waiter and closed the door, Jack said, "Let's cut to the chase, Carol. Just what is it that's troubling you?"

Staring down at the cup in her hands, she said again, "I keep feeling like something is missing."

"What kind of something?"

"I don't—just some part of me, something very deep."

"How long have you felt this way?"

"As long as I can remember. And now that I'm getting older it feels more urgent. Like time is running out on something very important. Does that sound…foolish?"

Jack guessed she meant "insane," but all he said was, "Not at all. It's what you feel." Christ , he thought, I'm turning into a therapist .

She sipped her coffee. "I keep wondering, maybe something terrible happened to me. When I was very young. I've read about that. Something bad happens to a child and they send part of themselves away. The part that remembers."

Jack nodded. "I know. It's called dissociation."

"No, no," she said, and annoyance briefly flickered in her face. "That's—that's psychological. I'm talking about something.…" She stopped and looked directly at Jack. "Mr. Shade, do you know what soul retrieval is?"

Jack thought, How do I get into these things ? He said, "Yes, of course. It's when a—when someone journeys— (was that the right word?) —and brings back a missing piece of someone else."

"Yes, that's it." She nodded, with a flush of excitement. "That's what I think I need."

Jack sighed. "Mrs. Acker, I know what it is, but I'm not—I don't specialize in that. I'm sure there are better people. If you like, I could get you a referral."

"No!" she said, with more animation. "My—my husband's cousin said you were the person."

"Your husband's cousin?"

She looked down again. "Yes. I asked him to do it, and he said no."

"Why did you ask him?"

Eyes still down. "He, um, it's what he does. He's an urban shaman."

Better and better , Jack thought. He said, "Then why'd he say no?"

"Well, I guess maybe I wasn't always as supportive as I should have been."

So, Jack figured, the church lady was a bit scornful of hubby's weird cousin, with his drums and rattles and New Age jargon. Now suddenly she wants his help. He said, "If you don't mind, Carol, how did your cousin know of me? Was he the one who gave you my card?"

She looked up at him now, hopeful. "Yes, that's right. Jerry—my cousin-in-law—he said he couldn't do it, the retrieval, but then he said he knew just the person. And he got your card from a drawer and gave it to me."

Oh shit , Jack thought. Acker! He should have realized. Jerry fucking Acker .

It was not long after the death of Jack's wife, and his daughter's banishment to the limbo of the Forest of Souls. He was Crazy Johnny back then. He'd moved into the hotel and had the cards with his new address made, but really, he had no fucking idea what he was going to do. He'd been at some party—couldn't even remember how he got there—and he'd had too much to drink, and some asshole named Jerry Acker was holding forth on his mystical journeys to the spirit world, where he hung out with angels and power animals, and other great stuff. Finally, Jack decided to teach him a lesson. He turned Jerry's cocktail glass into a pair of snakes entwined together. It was quick, and Jack made sure no one else could see it, but as poor Jerry stood there, mouth open as if he couldn't decide whether to scream or vomit, Dumbass Jack stuck one of his brand-new cards in Acker's pocket, and whispered to him, "If you ever need the real thing, Jerry boy, come find me."

And now here was Cousin Carol, who was so fucking nice she figured she must be missing some part of her goddamn soul. And she didn't even know that she had come armed with one of the world's most potent magical weapons: Jack Shade's business card. Because of a self-imposed curse—a Guest , the Travelers called it—Jack could not refuse anyone who had his card and wanted to hire him.

"Can you help me?" Carol asked.

That was the question, wasn't it? Maybe she'd been so pressured as a kid to be a proper young lady that some part of her had said, "Screw this. I'm out of here," and Jack could go find it and bring it home. He said, "If you really are missing something, I can locate it and return it to you."

"Thank you!" she said. Then, nervously, "Umm, can you tell me how much this will cost?"

Of course , Jack thought. That was one way to get rid of her, tell her some huge amount she couldn't possibly pay, and then it would be she who turned away, not him. And it wouldn't be entirely a lie. Jack's fees ranged from nothing to tens of thousands of dollars. Somehow, he could not bring himself to do that to her. He said, "Five hundred dollars."

She gulped, then nodded. "When can we do it?"

"Can you come tomorrow afternoon? Three o'clock?"

"Yes. Yes I can. Thank you."

Carol walked stiffly to the door, her hands clutching her purse in front of her like a shield. At the door she turned her head and said again, "Thank you," then quickly left, as if afraid she might embarrass herself with all that emotion.

Jack looked at the door for a moment after she left. Something felt off about this situation. Was Jerry Acker setting him up in some way? He made a face. Poor Jerry was just too much of a jerk. He couldn't have any idea of the power hidden in Jack's card. Carol herself? Jack was pretty sure her meekness was not an act. Any boldness in her soul was probably the part that left. And yet—

"Ray," he said, "what did you make of that?" Ray was Jack's guardian fox, mostly invisible even to Jack, but always around. Only this time, no golden-haired, sharp-nosed fox appeared. "What the hell?" Jack muttered, then louder, "Ray? Where are you?"

Over the next few seconds Ray flickered in and out of existence, as if he couldn't hold on. Or maybe he didn't want to be there, for when he finally manifested, his whole body was shaking. "Hey," Jack said, and knelt down to put his arms around his friend. "It's okay." He couldn't imagine what this would look like to any Linear person who happened to step into the room. Only Travelers and Powers could see creatures like Ray. "I'll be careful," Jack said. "Really I will." He let go, and Ray disappeared.

*   *   *

Carol arrived precisely at three the next day. She was dressed more casually, the same proper coat, but under it a light blue sweater, gray wool pants, and running shoes without any brand marks. Jack wondered if she'd read some book on soul retrieval, and it advised comfortable clothing.

Jack was dressed for work, for travel . He wore loose-fitting black jeans, high black boots with his carbon knife hidden in its sheath along the right calf, and a long-sleeved black canvas tunic buttoned to his neck. The tunic had a lot of pockets, and Jack had spent a couple of hours choosing what to put in them. He ended up with charms and small carvings, a bone flute, Monopoly money, a nineteenth-century London Bobby's police whistle, a miniature blow gun with darts, and a couple of (forged) letters of recommendation from high level Powers. Ray's strange behavior had made Jack realize this job might not be as simple as it looked, and he'd better prepare himself.

Carol stared at him, then blurted "You look darker." Immediately she gasped, and actually put her hand over her mouth, a gesture Jack found sweet. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't—I mean—"

Jack said, "I put a line of charcoal down the center of my face, and on my cheekbones."

"Oh," she said, not sure if she should be relieved, or more embarrassed. She let her attention shift to the room, where a single wooden chair stood in the center of a wide ring of rose petals. "Is that for me? Am I supposed to sit there?"

"Yes."

"It's…it's lovely. Thank you."

What it was, Jack thought, was a pain in the ass. The petals came from a pair of bushes that grew on either side of the Manhattan Gate of Paradise. They were probably the only roses outside a florist's shop in late November, but even if it had been July it wouldn't have made a difference. In New York, if you wanted to form a Whisper of Protection, as the circle was called, the petals had to come from that one Gate. And unlike the five Gates of Paradise in the other boroughs, the Manhattan Gate moved . It had taken Jack nearly three hours to track down its current location, in a nondescript stone archway at the eastern end of Broome Sreet. The whole time he was searching he told himself how ridiculous it all was, he was overdoing a very simple job. But then he thought of Ray and kept at it.

Carol asked, "What do we do?"

" You don't have to do anything, but sit in the chair. Though you probably should take your coat off and set down your purse." As Carol moved to the table, Jack said, "Do you have the fee ready? You might be emotional later and want to go straight home."

"Yes, of course," she said, and reached in her purse for a check, which she waved in the air, as if to say, "Ta da," before laying it on the table.

"Thank you," Jack said.

"And now I sit?"

"That's right." Jack watched her step carefully over the rose petals to take her place, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Jack suddenly hoped that whatever he returned to her would make her as happy as she seemed to expect. He noticed again the onyx ring on her right hand and thought how it might help, how the missing piece might appear as someone wearing the same ring. He said, "How long have you had that ring with the black stone?"

She opened her eyes to look at it. "Oh, this? I don't know, a long time. I found it in a thrift shop when I was just in high school."

Jack nodded. "We're going to start now." He stepped inside the circle.

"I'm so excited," Carol said, and closed her eyes again. "Should I meditate or something?"

"No, you just have to sit there." That sounded kind of dismissive, he thought, so he added, "I'll tell you what. Keep your eyes closed and breathe deeply, and, um, focus on welcoming home the missing part of yourself. Imagine a joyous reunion party. With a cake and candles."

Carol smiled. "That's lovely."

Jesus , Jack thought, there are people who make a living saying shit like that?

Eyes closed, Carol said, "Are you going to drum now?"

"No, I don't do that. No natural rhythm."

"Oh," Carol said, and blushed.

Enough , Jack scolded himself. It was time to stop screwing with the client and get serious. He said, "Carol, it's best that we stop talking now. I won't be able to answer soon." Carol nodded, and Jack added "And if you hear or even feel anything a little strange, it's okay. Just keep your eyes closed and breathe naturally." Another nod, a little more tentative this time.

Jack began to circle her, slowly, bent toward her—and sniffing. He tried to keep it quiet but it was the only way he could find the place where the soul-piece had left the body. Carol tensed, but didn't move or speak. Jack really hoped it wouldn't be anywhere too embarrassing. Once—

Focus , he ordered himself.

Most of Carol just smelled suburban. Cheap perfume, deodorant, kitchen aromas, air freshener, body waste, and traces of male sex, but not female. Her husband had probably screwed her a couple of days ago and she'd faked orgasm. But there wasn't—there! It was just a faint acrid smell at the opening of her left ear, like a long ago cut that looks fine but has never really healed. She must have been very young, Jack thought.

He stood up, took a breath, then blew his police whistle, softly, into Carol's ear. Once, twice—

—and he was falling. He passed through layers, places, unable to hold onto anything. A café in Brooklyn where people laughed and applauded as he went by. A cheap hotel room that stank of illegal surgery. A cowboy town that might have been a movie set. A lecture hall where a group of professors were shouting at each other but turned and stared at Jack as he passed. He fell through rock walls covered in lichens as sharp as barnacles. Finally, Jack discovered he still had the police whistle in his hand. Fuck this shit , he thought, and blew the whistle as hard as he could.

Just before he crashed he heard, then saw, a great wind. It whirled and whirled around itself, not funnel-shaped and black like a tornado, but a hurricane that had reduced itself to ten feet high, with its eye just two or three feet across. For an instant Jack thought he heard a voice inside all that noise, a child calling to him. He almost reached into the wind, but then it was gone.

Jack fell hard on a damp and dirty city street, at nighttime. He grunted and got up, then looked around. West Street down in the Village, he realized, for there was the Hudson, just beyond the West Side Highway, and across the river, Hoboken. Only, it looked like the old days, before the city got around to cleaning it up and raising the rents. Stores were empty, or even boarded up, with not many lights on in the apartments above them. What the hell ? he thought. There's no one here .

Then he looked a little farther down the street and saw, in fact, a whole group of people, neatly lined up and waiting to get inside some dimly lit club. A crude sign above the door declared it "The Iron Cage." Jack stared at the line and realized they were all men, and all dressed in black leather. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he said out loud. "A leather bar?" Jack had been a kid when that scene was going on, but he remembered hearing about it. And he knew a Traveler who'd come from that world and liked to talk—in way too much detail—about the "good old days."

He shook his head. Maybe Carol Acker was meant to be a transman heavy into bondage, and her parents, or just society, drove it out of her. Now how would that work when he brought it back? Talk about getting more than you bargained for.

With a slight limp Jack made his way toward the bar. The men in the line glanced at him as he approached, then looked away. They all dressed the same, tight black leather pants, padded to make their cocks look bigger, muscle shirts to show off all that work at the gym, leather caps worn over short haircuts, and neat mustaches. Jack remembered they were called clones, all those men who'd been bullied in high school and were now trying for the same hyper-masculine look.

Then he got closer and saw that they didn't just look the same, they were the same. Same height, same face, same body. Not clones but duplicates, used as extras to make the whole scene more real. He ignored them and went up to the bouncer. At least he looked different, which meant he wasn't just a prop. Dressed in leather pants and a leather vest with no shirt, he was bigger than the dupes, bulkier. No cap on his shaven head. A red bulb over the door made his scalp glow. Half a foot taller than Jack's six foot two, he crossed his arms as he looked Jack up and down, lingering on the tunic. "Sorry," he said, "we don't do drag here, girlfriend ."

"My name is Jack Shade," Jack said, "and I need to go inside." Behind him, a couple of the clone dupers snorted, while another yelled "Get to the back of the line."

The bouncer barked a laugh. "Do you think so?" he said. "Tell you what, Mary, get in line and maybe I'll decide to let you in when you reach the front. Don't bet on it, though."

Jack considered a glamour to make the bouncer look the other way and forget he'd ever seen the oddly dressed customer. But then he reminded himself that the bouncer was not some non-Traveler whose Linear senses could be easily shifted. He stared hard at the tall figure, then closed his eyes. He opened them as narrowly as he possibly could, and for just a second saw the bouncer in his true form. Bright sunlight obliterated the gray street, the bar, the line of men. A giant cheetah stood on its hind legs in front of Jack. Or rather, an image of a cheetah, with exaggerated whiskers, huge round eyes, large spots that looked painted on in thick daubs, and claws that curved out from human-like hands. Jack whispered, "You're a long way from home, aren't you?"

Jack blinked and the bouncer was back, but now he stared at Jack with a strange look, his mouth slightly open. Jack reached into one of his side pockets and pulled out a charm, a frog carved from an antelope bone. He held it out in his left hand. "Here," he said, "maybe this will help you when you get home. After all this is done." Sometimes, he thought, you bring something and you have no idea why until you need it. The bouncer took the charm in his huge hands and held it up before his eyes. His mouth opened and closed, and he said something Jack couldn't hear. Jack slid past him into the bar.

Bare red bulbs hanging from the ceiling lit up a crowded room. A rough wooden bar ran across one wall, with men who looked just like the ones outside leaning against it and swigging beer from unlabeled bottles. Behind the bar, a shirtless bartender handed out more bottles, his face glistening with sweat. Some kind of heavy metal band blared from loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling. Jack found himself longing for Judy Garland. Or The Sound Of Music . A thick layer of sawdust covered the floor. If it was supposed to absorb any wetness or stains it wasn't doing a very good job. Jack could see blood, and brown spots, and could smell other things. When he got back, he thought, he was definitely charging extra.

He looked around, first at the men by the bar or on the dance floor, then at the ones along the walls and in the corners, most of whom were doing various things to each other in improbable positions. Would he have to go examine each one of them for Carol's onyx ring? He imagined walking up to someone and asking, "Do you mind removing your fist for a moment?"

No. He was being too literal. The scene jarred him, and it was meant to do that. Meant to make it hard for him to think. If these men were all dupes they couldn't all be Carol. He needed to find someone who was different. As he thought this, he noticed a slight change in the men. They didn't stop what they were doing, but shifted, as if to keep watch on him.

Ignore them, he thought, and closed his eyes. He couldn't block the noise, or the smells, but underneath it all, faintly…he opened his eyes to focus on the wall farthest from the door, where a man was spread-eagled against a large wooden X, his wrists and ankles manacled to the ends. Two other men were lashing him with bullwhips that struck him almost horizontally, so that he was criss-crossed with lines, his T-shirt and jeans in shreds. His cries of mixed pain and pleasure sounded like others around the room, except that faintly, underneath them, Jack could hear the tears of a child. It was then that he realized. Whatever had happened to drive Carol Acker's soul piece from her body, her soul wasn't hiding. It was being held prisoner. He studied the man through slitted eyes. There it was, on the right hand. The onyx ring.

And something else. If he turned his head to look at an angle, so that he could barely see the figure on the wall, the whip marks became lines that swirled and moved all on their own, like the winds that Jack had seen before he fell into the street. A cage, he thought. A cage of wind.

As Jack began to move toward the man on the X, the clones tried to block him. Some made crude passes at him, grabbing or rubbing his crotch, others pretended to dance in front of him. He tried to push his way through to the prisoner but more and more of them crowded him. Finally, he took out his police whistle and blew a loud blast. The clones fell back, holding their ears. Now Jack held up one of his forged documents. Covered with a script unknown to language scholars was a painting of a beautiful young man flying naked above a mountain range. "My name is John Shade," Jack called out, "and I come under the banner and protection of Cthermes, Lord of Travelers!"

Whatever their true nature, the men in the bar were real enough to what they were supposed to be that they let him pass. Some stared at the picture, with hunger or a deep sadness. Jack moved quickly, but didn't run, to the wall.

The men with the whips were bulkier than the dupes, more like the bartender, and Jack wondered for a moment if they too were exiled cheetahs. It didn't matter, he had no more antelope charms, and besides they'd already turned to face him and raised their whips. Jack reached down toward his right leg, and his knife jumped into his hand. With two quick slashes he cut off the thongs. To his surprise, what he'd assumed were just leather sinews writhed along the floor, and the guards doubled over in pain, their whip hands held tight against their bellies. Tentacles, Jack realized, but he didn't care. The man on the wall raised his head to look at Jack with hope. "Please," he whispered, "you don't know how long they've held me." What had been whip marks now moved in swirls around the body. Within them, the onyx ring flared as Jack stepped forward.

Still on his knees, one of the guards said, "Shade, stop!" and the other added, "You don't know what you're doing."

Jack ignored them as he moved toward the figure on the wall. The whips were gone, but he still needed a way to break through the swirling lines. As he looked, the man became a girl in a torn red dress, her body covered in angry slashes and what looked like dirt and pieces of stone. "Hurry," she begged. He held up the knife. Would it cut through the lines?

As Jack was about to try, one of the guards gestured with his good hand. Jack braced himself for an attack, but to his surprise the swirls and lines vanished. Amazed, he rushed forward to free the prisoner, only to realize that she was gone, too. For a second, he saw a crude painting on a stone wall—some creature, or spirit, with whirling lines all around it. Then that too vanished, and Jack found himself falling.…

*   *   *

HE CRASHED HARD, on his side, on what turned out to be a highly polished stone floor, lit by flickers of fire. He looked up and saw a layered chandelier with as much as a hundred candles. Sconces along the equally polished walls held five more candles each.

Strangely, Jack heard the music and saw the musicians before he noticed the dancers all around him. At the end of the room, on a low pedestal, eight men in blue velvet waistcoats and breeches, with white wigs on their heads, were playing some ornate but repetitive dance music on what today would be called "early instruments." Jack recognized the odd tinny sound from concerts he'd gone to with his wife.

Finally, he saw the dancers, and just in time, for a line of them was coming toward him as if they'd trample him and not even notice. He rolled out of the way at the last moment. The men wore black waistcoats and breeches, with white stockings and patent leather shoes with gold buckles and one-inch heels. Their wigs were shorter than the musicians', but looked more finely woven. The women also wore wigs, high elaborate concoctions apparently inspired by the chandelier. Their gowns, pale blue with small pearls and jewels sewn into them, had long sleeves, a bodice that flattened the breasts, and wide flounced skirts. Their faces were powdered white, their lips dark red.

Safely by the wall now, Jack studied the dancers. As he'd guessed, there was only one couple, duplicated to fill the floor, which meant he could rule them out. The orchestra, too, were all the same. But when he looked at the wall opposite the musicians, he saw something different. A young woman in a pale green dress that was more flowing than the dancers' gowns was sitting in a high-backed wooden chair with her white-gloved hands folded in her lap. On either side of her stood a wide middle-aged woman in a long black dress buttoned up to the neck. With their arms crossed over their full bosoms, and scowls on their faces, they looked more like harem guards than chaperones. Each had a long beaded purse on her arm, and Jack imagined them drawing out scimitars if he got too close.

He stared at the girl's right hand. It was hard to see through the gloves, but Jack thought he saw the rough shape of the onyx ring.

Jack started to make his way toward the young woman. With each step, however, the dancers, seemingly oblivious to his presence, managed to step in front of him. He tried to slide through them, but more appeared in his way. Shoving them aside brought the same result. Jack wondered if they multiplied, like amoebae. When he glanced back at the orchestra he saw that their faces, impassive and calm, were all turned toward him. Now more and more dancers moved around him, in tighter and tighter rings. Soon they would trample him.

He took out his bone flute and began to play a simple five-note tune, over and over. The musicians scowled. The dancers hesitated, even stumbled. As he continued to play the tune, Jack began to beat out a counter-rhythm against his thigh with his free hand, as complex as the tune was simple, but in a completely different pattern. What he'd said to Carol was true, that he had no natural rhythm—he suspected nobody did—but he'd once spent a year studying with a master drummer in Burkina-Faso.

The effect was immediate. The dancers fell to their knees and pressed their palms against their ears. The musicians played louder, but off-key, the violins and violas sounding like cats in an alley fight. Jack moved in and out of the stricken dancers as he made his way to the girl and her chaperone guards. When he got closer, however, something changed. The music became smoother and harmonious once more, though not the same melody. Jack glanced back at the orchestra. They still looked in pain as they compulsively tortured their instruments. The music here must be coming from the air or the walls, Jack thought. It swirled around and around itself, and as Jack stared at the young woman, the music became visible, that same cage of spiraling wind that had trapped the man in the leather bar. Jack wondered how the hell he could cut through music.

He moved forward, and as he did so, the two women stepped toward him. Jack braced himself. They opened their purses, but instead of swords they took out large hand mirrors, one backed with gold, the other with silver. When they lifted them light poured out from the glass like a great wave. Jack's black clothes, and the charcoal on his skin, would protect his body, but he had only a few seconds to save his eyes. And more, for he knew that "baby starshine," as Travelers called the light, would go straight for his brain. He could already feel the fire through his closed eyes as he fumbled in his pockets for the polished coins from the Shadow Roman Empire. He pressed them tight against his eyelids. The chaperones cried out, and a moment later Jack heard the thud of the mirrors hitting the floor.

He removed the coins and opened his eyes just enough to check that they weren't faking it. Their eyes looked completely blacked out, almost gouged from their heads. In a high quavery voice one of them said, "Shade, no. You don't know what you're doing."

Fuck , Jack thought. I'm getting sick of hearing that from people who've just tried to kill me . He looked past them to the girl. She seemed unable to get up from her seat, but her eyes were wet and her voice tight as she said, "Please. You don't know what they do to me. Every night when the music stops.…" Her voice trailed off into sobs.

Jack made himself look not at the girl but at the energy that swirled around her. In the leather bar it had been whiplashes. Now it was sound. Circular melodies and harmonies impossible to decode moved all around her to form a spiral prison. Jack took out his bone flute again. It was such a simple instrument, just five notes, but maybe if he found the right pattern.… He began to play, tentatively at first, but then he let his instrument lead him. Like a skeleton key, it weaved through the harmonies, finding places to unlock, the way a master thief can open a set of tumblers, one by one.

The lines began to drop away. "Hurry!" the girl called to him. "You don't know how long I've been here, what they do to me." He thought of his daughter, trapped in the Forest of Souls. For him, years had passed, but for her it could be decades, maybe longer.…

Any moment, Jack thought. Just a little more open passage. Now. He braced himself and leaped for her, but even as he moved, one of the women called out some words in a language that almost cracked Jack's head open. And then, just as with the man on the X, the girl turned into a rough painting on a stone wall. Jack crashed into it—and through it—

*   *   *

—and fell onto a wooden floor, in a dark room that smelled of old sweat, older books, and whiskey. He saw a plain wooden table with ten old chairs around it. There were ten shot glasses on the table, along with a bottle of Schnapps, and a plate of small cakes that looked much older than the liquor.

Jack heard a murmur of voices in some language he couldn't quite catch. When he glanced around he saw a half-open door, with light and what he realized now was chanting on the other side. He walked through into what looked like a small makeshift synagogue, with a few benches, a plain wooden ark on the far wall, and ten old men who swayed and sang in Hebrew. They had come in suits but had taken off their jackets and rolled up the right sleeves of their white shirts so they could wrap the leather cords of tefillin around their arms. The small leather box attached to the cords gleamed slightly on their biceps, as did the matching box on their foreheads. There were ten of them, the number for a minyan that would allow a service to take place. And of course they were all the same person. Jack wondered if that counted for a prayer session.

The thing was, there was no one else. None of the dupes could be Carol, so where was someone different, with an onyx ring and trapped behind swirls of energy? Swirls. He looked again at the tefillin straps and realized they wrapped around the men's fingers and up their arms in a spiral. Was Carol's soul trapped in one of those little boxes? In all of them? Would he have to rip them off each man's arm, take them apart, and put all the pieces together, a jigsaw soul? Or search for the ring, like a prize in an old crackerjack box?

Then he looked again at the front of the room and realized there was a larger box. The ark. Usually an ark held one or more Torah scrolls, which made them big enough to hold a child, or even a small woman. He stared at the wooden structure. Unlike the ones he'd seen in richer congregations, it was unadorned beyond a peaked cornice at the top. No carvings, no velvet curtain, just two doors that opened from the center. As he continued to examine it Jack thought he could see faint lines, swirls like the leather on the men's arms, but thinner. And alive. They moved all by themselves, round and round the ark, like chains.

He took a breath of the stale, sweaty air and stepped forward. Without a break in their prayers, or even a turn of the head, the congregants moved to block him. He shifted in a different direction and they followed. This is getting seriously old , Jack thought, and tried to shove them aside. Instantly the tefillin straps sprang off their bodies and wound around Jack's arms and legs so he couldn't move. They held him so tightly he couldn't even strain or push against them. If he could reach his knife—useless. Same with his charms and tricks and whistles.

Now what ? Would they dismember him? Would the straps get tighter and crush his lungs? Instead, the men began to argue. It was in Yiddish, of course, Hebrew being only for prayers, and it took Jack a moment to catch what they were saying. It was about someone they called the Rescuer, and ancient texts detailing what to do to this person if he ever showed up. Kill him? Let him live but never release him? It didn't take Jack long to realize the Rescuer was himself.

One said the Rescuer was innocent because he did not understand his crime. Another claimed that only actions matter, not knowledge or intent. A couple then said they themselves were the guilty ones, for they did not try to correct him. But still another said to tell was useless. "As it is written," he said, "'You shall hide your treasure from the stranger, for the stranger will come with eyes painted over, and ears filled with stone.'"

Enough of this bullshit , Jack thought. The treasure they were holding was a woman's soul. He couldn't reach any of his weapons or tricks, but he didn't need to. He had something better. Jack had once met an old-fashioned golem, the kind made out of dirt by some rabbi. The thing is, the rabbi got so excited, or maybe guilty, that he fell down dead of a heart attack just after the creature came to life. With no master to obey, and stuck in a room full of books, the golem began to study. There were Talmudic texts, but also books on magic. By the time Jack had met him, the golem had become a world famous scholar. Kabbalists, Sufis, and others would travel thousands of miles to study with him.

Jack had come for something simpler. Names. Jewish magic was based on the secret names of God, and just knowing one or two could give you great power. Jack served the golem for twenty-eight days. The idea of a human taking orders from a golem amused the creature so much he kept thinking of new commands just to watch Jack obey them. Finally, the Mud Rabbi, as some called him, gave Jack three names. One to create, one to destroy—and one to escape.

Jack called out the escape name. To his surprise, it hurt his throat, but the effect on the men was more extreme. They cried out and fell to their knees, hands over their ears and yelling curses at him. " Schwartze sorcerer!" he heard, but ignored them as the leather straps fell from his body. He weaved his way through the men to the ark.

Finally he opened it. At first it looked empty, and Jack felt ready to smash something. Then he looked again and saw a small figure, a girl about three inches high. She sat on what looked like a stone chair, with her hands folded in the lap of a shapeless dress that might have been made from animal skin. Despite her tiny size the onyx ring shone brightly on her finger. "Please help me," she said. "They've kept me here so long ." Jack could hear the tears rather than see them. Once again, he thought of Genie.

"It's all right," Jack said, "I've come to take you home."

"Hurry," the girl said.

But before Jack could reach for her, a strong woman's voice called out, "Shade. You don't know what you're doing."

What the fuck now ? Jack thought. He wanted to grab the girl and run, but didn't dare, so he turned and saw what he first thought was an old man in a white robe of heavy wool, with a long white beard, and white hair down his back. Then he looked closer and saw it was a woman. He thought for a second of Abby, the Bearded Lady at the carnival where Jack had worked long ago. Jack had dated her for a while, and when they kissed, Jack sometimes felt like Abby was the man, and Jack the woman, a sensation he found oddly exciting.

In the room, the dupes, still on their knees, called out " Der Wisser Rebbe! Der Wisser Rebbe! "

Jack looked at this "White master" and wondered if he could ignore her, or shove her aside if she tried to stop him. Probably not a great idea, he decided. He had a vial of Vatican holy water in his tunic. Maybe he should douse her and announce her baptized in the name of Christ. Instead, he said, "I know exactly what I'm doing. Bringing back a soul that was taken a long time ago."

In the ark, the girl pleaded "Don't listen to her. She's crazy! She holds me and hurts me."

The Rebbe said, "Mr. Shade, this is your last chance. Please. Turn back."

"Tell me why I should do that," Jack said.

Sadness, and maybe fear, clouded her face a moment, then she said, "I cannot. The Ancient of Winds has ordered silence."

"Well, that's fucking convenient."

The Rebbe closed her eyes and began to sway, as if in prayer. Suddenly, images, sounds, smells swept through Jack's senses. They came and went so quickly he couldn't really identify anything, but there was a great wind somehow smashing into a stone wall, and blood, and burnt meat. And laughter. Then it was all gone, and Jack found himself staggering back from the Bearded Lady. "What the hell was that?" he said. "What did you do to me?"

"More than I should have. More than I'm allowed."

Jack glanced at the miniature child on her chair in the Ark. Why didn't he just take her and run? As if she could sense his confusion the small voice pleaded "We have to go. Now! She's trying to take over your mind. Please . No one's ever come this far before."

Jack shook his head a moment. No one —had Carol Acker hired someone before Jack? Did cousin Jerry actually try before he gave Carol Jack's card? Something was wrong—he looked at the White Rebbe. Her eyes stared at him, unblinking. Of course. The girl was right, the old woman was trying to hypnotize him.

He closed his eyes and grimaced, then shook his head. When he looked again, the Rebbe seemed to have shrunk slightly, her gaze more sad than dangerous. Jack said, "Actually, it doesn't matter if I believe you or not. I have a kind of curse. It's called a Guest. I cannot refuse anyone who brings me a special token. A woman hired me to find her missing soul and bring it back to her."

"Her soul ?" the Rebbe said. "That's the word she used?" She inclined her head toward the ark. "For that ?"

"Yes. And it doesn't matter if she got it right or wrong. I have no choice."

The woman said something in Hebrew. Then, "So. You took a vow, and now it holds you prisoner."

"That's pretty much it."

She glanced at Jack's right boot. "You have a knife. If you cut your throat your Guest would have to leave."

"Don't bet on it."

"Ah, but even if your curse torments you beyond death you would no longer be able to do what should never be done."

And no longer able to bring back my daughter, imprisoned in the Forest Of Souls . Jack moved his eyes from the Rebbe's stare, and suddenly he was sick of all this. These creatures, or Powers, or whatever they were, had taken part of a girl's soul and locked it away behind layers and layers of illusion. It was time to take her home.

He took a golden needle from his survival tunic and moved it across the doorway, conscious all the time of the Rebbe standing motionless alongside him, the dupes behind them. If the end of the needle turned to iron Jack would have to identify whatever was dangerous before he could reach inside. With a smugness that made Jack want to slap her, the Rebbe said, "Don't worry, your Dialectical Needle will stay pure. It's not the ark that threatens you."

Jack finished his examination, then put the needle away. Finally he reached inside the box. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until his arm didn't burn up or turn to stone. "Hurry," the girl said. "You don't know what they do."

"It's okay," Jack said. "I won't let them hurt you anymore. I'm going to put my hand around you, but don't be scared." The last thing that Jack saw before he took hold of the girl was the White Rebbe, her eyes closed, her mouth set in a smile that seemed to express the sadness of centuries. Then the whirlwind hit.

Tight swirls of power, so intense they felt more like wires than gusts of wind. The room was gone, and there was stone all around,. But Jack couldn't worry about that. He managed to get the hand holding the girl next to his face, and said above the screeching winds, "There is a tree in my pocket. When I put you there hold on tight to the tree and you'll be safe." The tree was a six-hundred-year-old sequoia Jack had gotten as a gift in the Miniature Forest. He'd thought he might plant it somewhere as an offering, but this was the best use for it. Now they had to get out of there.

There wasn't much time. He could feel the lacerations on his face and wrists, anywhere that wasn't covered. Jack closed his eyes and mouth and didn't dare breathe. Somehow he managed to reach a hand into a long shallow pocket and take out a crow feather. Every year, on no set day, thirteen such feathers appeared on the unmarked grave of Peter Midnight, the early New York Traveler buried in Manhattan's Inwood Hill Park. There were people who spent weeks camped out in the park in hopes of getting one, but Jack had received a message this past year from the Queen of Eyes, telling him the exact moment the feathers would drift to the ground from a high-flying murder of crows.

With his left hand Jack moved the feather counter-clockwise, in flat horizontal circles. At first he could only do it right in front of him, but slowly the winds backed off and he could turn his whole body around. He stopped when an opening appeared in the air. It was clearly a way out but all it led to was some kind of cave, and Jack was done with hopping world to world. Using the feather as a kind of paintbrush, he drew a doorway where the rough opening was. At the same time he called out a set of numbers. They were like GPS coordinates, except they included more dimensions. And were much older, invented by an Italian Traveler who'd had to rescue a foolish poet who'd accepted an offer of a tour of Hell.

Jack's office materialized on the other side of the doorway. The air appeared thick, almost congealed, but Carol Acker was there, still on her chair in the circle of roses. A couple of hours must have passed, because he could see it was dark outside the windows, but Carol looked peaceful, her eyes closed, her hands in her lap.

Though Jack knew the tiny figure in his pocket couldn't hear him above the angry winds, he said, "Be brave, little soul. You're almost home." With a twist of his body he propelled himself through the doorway.

He landed hard on the floor, just outside the circle. "Jack?" Carol asked, and lifted her head but kept her eyes closed.

"Yes, it's me. Don't open your eyes just yet." He turned on a desk lamp so he could see her more clearly. When he glanced at the digital clock on his desk he discovered even more time had passed than he thought, for it was nearly nine o'clock. He frowned. Had she been sitting there all that time?

Carol said, "Did you—"

"Yes. I have it." Jack hoped these were not empty words. What if the girl—Carol's soul—had not survived the winds? When he reached in his pocket he could feel her still clinging tightly to the sequoia, so he lifted out the tree, with her attached, and set it on the table. He whispered to her, "It's okay. You can let go now." As gently as he could he pried loose her arms, then placed her on his left palm. She looked up at him with a mixture of hope and fear. "Get ready for something wonderful," he whispered to her, then louder, "Carol, something's about to happen. It may feel like a jolt, but it's okay."

"I'm ready," Carol said.

As Jack moved his hand closer to Carol, the girl on it became even smaller, no more than a quarter-inch tall as he brought his palm close to Carol's ear. With a sharp puff he blew on the girl and she vanished into Carol's ear canal.

Carol spasmed, and gasped, but she kept her eyes closed, and her hands clasped. And then she didn't move. Jack pulled up a chair to face her, then waited a full three minutes before he said softly, "Carol? Are you all right?"

For another twenty seconds or so she didn't answer, but then the left side of her mouth turned up a slight smile, and she said, "Oh, yes. That's much better." The voice sounded the same as before, but with more notes and undertones. Still in her seat, Carol opened her eyes. They were the same as before, only deeper, with new subtleties of color. Jack found that if he looked long enough he could see flickers of red deep inside her.

She sat back and looked at Jack, a slight smile on her face. "So," she said, "you met Der Wisser Rebbe ." He must have looked startled because she laughed and said, "Did she make you feel like a young girl again, Jack? That delightful beard. She really is quite old, you know. Well, not as old as me, of course. But all those rules . Things you can say, things you can't say, how does she keep track? I wonder, dear Jack, my hero, my rescuer—if she'd allowed herself to tell you the full truth, would it have made a difference? I doubt it. I imagine plucky Jack Shade still would have brought back timid Carol's missing soul." She stood up and stretched.

Jack tried to stand, but she flicked her fingers and he discovered he couldn't move. When she picked up her purse she said, "Did I pay you? Yes, of course, prudent Jack got his fee up front. Maybe I should double it. You did go through a lot. And I certainly won't want for money. But no. A deal is a deal, and we wouldn't want to spoil you."

At the door she stopped and said, "Oh, and Jack? Remember how you told me to envision a homecoming cake? I just want you to know—I blew out all the candles ." And then she was gone.

*   *   *

Jack stayed frozen in his chair a long time. The night passed and the dawn came and still he couldn't move. When he was finally able to get up it was seven in the morning. He raced to the bathroom, then ignored all the debris and went straight to his laptop. Usually, if he needed to know what was going on, he opened Djinn.net, the dark web service for Travelers and Powers. But something told him he needed the outside world, so he went to the standard internet.

It didn't take long to discover what he didn't want to know. CNN.com burst forth with the headline, "Breaking news! Grisly Double Murder In New Jersey Suburb!" The live feed showed an ordinary ranch house surrounded by police cars. In front, a young correspondent, her face set to "grim" to hide her excitement, said, "We still don't know much yet, Wolf. The police have released the names of the victims, Jerry and Marjorie Acker." Jack began to shake. The woman went on, "According to one policeman I spoke to—and Wolf, I have to tell you, he looked very shocked—the bodies were, quote, 'torn to pieces.'" She paused, as if to convey her own horror, then added, "And one strange detail. Apparently, the killer, or perhaps killers, used the blood, maybe even body parts, to write a cryptic message on the wall of the murder room. Just two words, Wolf. 'Much better.'"

Jack closed his laptop. Still shaking, he reached for the phone.

2.

"FEEBIE" SAM HARWIN and Dean "the Fed" Margolis, so-called because of their ability to impersonate FBI agents, showed up at Carol and Bob Acker's home on Long Island only half an hour after Carolien Hounstra had called them. Though Carolien had said she did not expect Carol to be there, she also told them to bring every level of protection they could manage—etheric body armor, spells written on their faces, clothes, and genitals in invisible ink, entire cans of demon repellent sprayed on their bodies, and whatever charms and weapons they could carry in their conservative FBI suits. Sure enough, however, it wasn't Carol who opened the door, but her grief-stricken and confused husband.

"Is this about Jerry?" Bob Acker asked, and Sam said yes. "But why would I—I haven't seen Jerry in months. Well, Carol—" He stopped himself.

Dean asked, "Is Mrs. Acker here, sir?"

Terror crept into Bob's eyes. "No, she—she was so upset—hearing about Jerry and Marge's death—she said, she said she needed to be alone for a while."

The two Travelers looked at each other. Sam turned to Bob and asked "Did she say anything else?"

Bob looked down. "Yes—she said, she said I and the kids and our grandkids would be safe. That no one would bother us." Now he raised his eyes. "What did she mean? Officer, I mean agent, how could she know that? I mean, did the killer speak to her? Was she going away to save us somehow? She's not—she's not going to get hurt, is she? He's not going to do to her what he did to— oh God ."

Dean cast a glamour over the poor man to erase such thoughts from his head. In a voice enhanced by Basic Persuasion, he said, "There's no need to worry, Mr. Acker. These kinds of cases never work that way."

Acker looked confused. "These kinds of cases?" he said, but then his voice trailed off, and a moment later said, "Oh, thank you. That's so good to hear."

"We're sorry for your loss," Sam said, and then the two men headed for their car.

"Oh, excuse me," Bob Acker called after them. They stopped, turned. "Do you guys have an agent named Jack Shade?"

"Fuck," Dean said, under his breath. All they knew was that Carolien had called them at the New York Travelers Aid Society and asked them to check on this Acker guy. Something to do with his cousin's death. And that they should protect themselves, and if the wife was there, to be prepared for trouble.

To Bob, Dean said, "Yes, we do. New York office. Do you know him?"

"No, no, but my wife asked me, she said if anyone came asking about her, to find out if they knew this Shade person. And if they did, to give them a message for him. For Mr. Shade, that is."

"So what's the message?"

"She said to tell him she was just getting started. Warming up."

"Were those her exact words?"

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

"Thank you," Dean said, and then, "Mr. Acker, look at me, please." Acker's face slackened. "Good. Now this is important. It's for your country. You do love your country, don't you?" Acker nodded. "Good. You will forget the name Jack Shade. You will forget us . You will forget your wife's message. All you will remember is that you and your family are safe. Will you do that for me? For your country?"

"Yes," Bob Acker said.

"Very good." Dean walked to the car, where Sam already had the engine running.

As their black Altima jerked away from the curb, Dean said, "Jesus fucking Christ. Jack Shade . What the goddamn hell has Johnnie Reckless done now?"

*   *   *

Jack's phone call to Carolien had been only three words. "I need you." When she arrived, seventeen minutes later, and saw Jack just sitting there, so clearly frightened, and the other chair inside the remains of a rose petal circle, she grabbed a third chair to sit down right in front of him, and took his hands. "Tell me," she said.

A long shuddering breath ran through Jack, and then he said, "A woman named Carol Acker—or some thing inside her—has just slaughtered her cousin and his wife in Teaneck. She might go for her own family next. We have to protect them."

Carolien said, "Do you know where they are?"

Jack got up and retrieved the check from the table. As he'd figured, it was from a joint account with her husband and displayed their address. "Here's the husband," he said, as he sat down again. He added, "Carolien, it was her cousin who gave her my card. The one she just killed."

Carolien was wearing a navy pea jacket over paint-spattered overalls. She took a cell phone from her jacket pocket and speed-dialed a number. "Sam," she said, "I need you and Dean to go check on someone." When she'd given them the information—and added that they should protect themselves—she hung up and focused again on Jack. "Now," she said. "Everything."

Carolien was Dutch, six feet tall, one hundred sixty-five pounds, with long blond hair, and the whitest skin Jack had ever seen. He found it hard to look at her without thinking of milk, or vanilla ices, or some other ridiculous food cliché. Maybe it was because that was how most of the males, and some of the females, from NYTAS talked about her, as a wondrous meal they'd like to devour. Jack knew that part of their hostility to him came from the fact that Carolien had turned them all down and chosen him. He and Carolien were still more friends than lovers, a relationship that suited both of them, Carolien most of all.

It was only as he talked about it that Jack realized how little he understood. "What was that thing ?" he said. "Was it really a lost part of a suburban housewife who'd always been too nice all her life? And what was holding it prisoner?"

"It may be," Carolien said, "that this is something much older than Mrs. Acker."

"Then what's her connection to it?"

Carolien closed her eyes and let her head drop, something Jack had seen her do just before she came up with some link no one else would have found. Sometimes she would sit like this for a long time, hours even, but now it lasted only ten or fifteen seconds. When she opened them again she said, " Schatje —(Dutch for "little treasure," or sweetheart)—tell me again, please, when you saw this thingetje on the stone wall, what did it look like?"

"Like some kind of beast surrounded by coils of wind."

"Ah," she said, and reached for his laptop. "Password?" she asked.

Jack looked down and mumbled, "Carolien." She laughed and began to type.

A minute or so later, she turned the screen around and held it up to him. "Is this it?" she said.

Jack found himself staring at what looked like a cave painting of some kind, like those in Lascaux or Altamira. Only, where those were mostly realistic images of bulls and horses, this showed a demon or monster, upright like a man, yet wild and ferocious, with long claws and teeth, and arms that looked like it was trying to break free of the world. Or the lines that swirled around it like a cage. "Yes," Jack said, "that's it. What is this?"

She set down the computer but didn't close it. "The pre-historians call it 'the Whirlwind Enigma.' It is strange for them because it seems wrong in so many ways. This, you know, is how they understand things. By making categories."

"Carolien," Jack said, "we have no time for this. I need to know what I'm facing. What I've done."

"No," she said firmly. "We cannot simply rush ahead. We must understand."

Jack looked down, nodded. Carolien didn't need to say that rushing ahead, his rushing, had killed Jerry and Marjorie Acker. And they were probably only the start.

"First," Carolien said, "the painting, if indeed that is what it is, is sixty-five thousand years old. Much older than any other complex cave art. The paintings in Le Chauvet are only thirty-five thousand. Second, all the caves with advanced paintings have many examples. Here there is only one. And the cave is very hard to reach, so much so that it was only discovered ten years ago. Third, the great cave art shows almost all animals, and with great realism. Here we see a monster. Fourth ." Her voice was rising. "The paints. There is the usual ochre and other mineral pigments, but also something else. And that something is very toxic. The scientist who scraped a sample used gloves, of course, but a very little bit fell onto his arm. In the next hour his skin began to itch, and then an hour later he collapsed, and two hours after that he was dead."

Jack waited a second to make sure she was done, then said, "And this Enigma thing—you think it's a picture of what I brought back to Carol Acker?"

She shook her head. "No, schatje . Not a picture."

"Fuck," Jack half-whispered. She was right, of course. Not a painting. The thing itself, imprisoned in that wall for sixty-five thousand years.

Softly now, Caroline said, "Do you know Johannes Ludann's theory of cave paintings?" Jack nodded. Ludann was a Danish Traveler who became obsessed with cave art. Instead of the usual academic belief that they were magical attempts to benefit hunting or fertility, Ludann claimed they were trapped hostile Powers that had preyed upon humanity until it figured out how to imprison them. In 1987, Johannes Ludann disappeared after declaring that he would "find clear proof and bring it back."

Jack said, "So you think this thing, this fucking Enigma, is what Ludann was talking about?"

Carolien nodded. "Possibly. Look." She grabbed the laptop and ran her fingers over the keyboard. Then she turned it around so he could see the screen where a news article declared Mysterious Cave Painting Vanishes from Rock Wall. Scientists Stunned, Angry. She said, "I saw this just before you called me. It was how I knew."

"Christ," Jack said. "Are you telling me this—this thing —was trapped in that wall, and I fucking released it?"

Carolien said, "Yes, that is possible."

Jack discovered his nails were digging into his palms. He spread his fingers, breathed deeply, then said, "But what does this have to do with Carol Acker? She was just some bored housewife."

"Who knows?" Carolien said. "Maybe that creature reached out to her. Maybe it searched the world until it found what it needed, a possible vessel.…" Her voice trailed off.

Jack said, "And a Traveler who didn't think to ask questions."

"No," Carolien said sharply. "To worry about such things will only waste time." Her accent always became stronger when she was being stern. "There is a more important question."

"I know," Jack said. "What does she do next? And how do I stop her?'"

Jack's phone buzzed. He'd set it on the table after calling Carolien, and now it vibrated toward him. He reached across the table for it. "What the hell?" he said, when he saw the display. "Margaret Strand," it read. Now he looked up at Carolien, somehow more amazed by this than everything else that had happened. He said, "It's the Queen of Eyes!"

Carolien, too, looked startled before she quickly said, "Then you had best answer it, yes?"

Jack touched the connect button. "Margaret?" he said, then put it on speaker.

A strong yet distant voice said, "This is Margarita Mariq Nliana Hand." Jack nodded. "Margaret" was her everyday name. She was in her aspect now, her power. The Queen of Eyes was the holder of all oracular power in the world, an office that had passed from mother to daughter for far longer than anyone knew. Some time ago Jack Shade had brought the Queen back after an assassination attempt, and he knew she liked him, but still, the Queen rarely spoke directly, let alone called someone on the phone.

"I am honored," Jack said.

"You have asked, and I shall answer." Asked ? Jack thought, then realized he'd spoken aloud his question about what happened next and how to stop her. Did she hear everyone's questions, all over the world? She said, "And you must listen."

Jack sat up straighter, as if she could see him. "I'm ready," he said.

"You have two days, Jack Shade. There were three, but the first is gone." Jack sucked in a breath, thinking of all those hours stuck in his chair. The Queen said, "Two days before it truly begins. Then it will be too late. Haarlindam, 1132 ." Before Jack could say anything, she hung up.

"Wait!" Jack said. "What about Carol Acker? Damn!" He hit the callback button. After a few rings a pleasant voice said, "Hi. This is the voicemail for Margaret Strand. I'm sorry I'm not—"

It was only after he put down the phone that Jack saw Carolien's reaction to the Queen's message. She was sitting forward on her chair, her back a straight line, her mouth half open, her eyes fixed on the phone. Jack got up to squat before her and take her hands. She didn't seem to notice. "Carolien," he said softly, "what is it?"

She looked at him, almost surprised, as if she'd forgotten where she was. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, swore softly, " Godverdamme. " Then louder, "Haarlindam!"

"What?" Jack said. "What is Haarlindam?"

"A very old Nederlandse city. Every Dutch Traveler knows of it."

"I'm sorry, Carolien, I've never heard of it. And what does—"

"Ah, but you won't have, dear Jack. This is something the Nederlands Reisen Associatie keeps very much to itself. In the year 1132—" She stopped and crossed herself, something Jack had never seen her do. "—the Travelers and the Powers joined together, and they—what is the word, oh yes, obliterated , they obliterated the city of Haarlindam, and everything and every person within it."

"Jesus," Jack said, "Why? What the hell was going on there?"

"No one knows. The Travelers of 1132 time-sealed it."

"Shit," Jack said. A time-seal was a kind of bubble, a force field to use the modern expression, that prevented any information from a place or an event from leaking out to the future, or even the past. "Does anyone have a clue?"

"Only that something verschrikkelijk —terrible—had become free in Haarlindam, and no one could stop it. In this case, some small details, stories perhaps, escaped the seal. Preserved, maybe, by the sealers. Bodies, and body pieces, strung like decorations for Carnaval . Lines and lines of black poles with human heads on top. Heads that could see, and hear, and smell. And of course, scream." She gripped Jack's arm now. It always surprised him how such soft hands could be so strong. She said, "Jack, if this thing you brought back to your client, your Carol Acker, is anything at all the same as what happened in Haarlindam, and we have only two days, we must stop it. Before . Before it completes its so-called warming-up."

Jack took a breath. "I did it, I'll stop it."

She shook her head. "No, no, no. Not alone. Even you will need help this time."

"Where do we go? The Queen has obviously said all she's willing to say."

Carolien smiled slightly, just for a moment, but it thrilled Jack to see she could do it. "Where else? We are Travelers, ja ? Then we must go to NYTAS."

"Oh, great," Jack said. "Arthur!"

*   *   *

THE NEW YORK Travelers' Aid Society had existed, under various names, from long before there was a New York, or a Nieuw Amsterdam, for that matter. Carolien had once traced it back to an alliance of the Mannahasset and Wampanoag Indians, but it went back much further than that. Under the current Chief, however, an erstwhile surgeon named Arthur Canton, it had become something of a showcase—for Canton himself. He'd moved the Chief's office to a former ceremonial chamber and made sure that all group actions, communications, and requests for the help of NYTAS's vast resources must go through him. He assisted those he liked, and blocked those he didn't. Canton liked Carolien; everyone did. Jack, on the other hand—Canton considered Jack arrogant, selfish, a loner who never helped the group and thought himself above everyone else. All true, of course, which made it that much harder for Jack to plead for help.

They found the Chief at his great ebony desk inlaid with gold and silver to show the Planetary Palaces and diamond arrows to chart the pathways between them. Canton wore a charcoal suit with a black tie containing bits of light that represented some constellation or other. His chiseled features and lush hair always made Jack suspect he'd cast some George Clooney glamour over himself, and if they ever saw the real Arthur he'd have a sloping forehead, a rat nose, and a receding chin.

Canton sat with the air of someone who expected a summons from the White House at any moment. The real White House, of course, not the showpiece in Washington. He said, "Carolien, it's lovely to see you as always. Your unruly pet, on the other hand—"

"Enough," Carolien said. "We know you dislike Jack, of course you do. Everyone does." Jack struggled not to stare at her.

Canton smiled. "Except you, apparently."

"I vacillate," Carolien said, and then, before Canton could answer, "Arthur, believe me, please. We come with something so important we must set aside any personal matters." She looked at Jack. "Tell him."

Jack described Carol Acker's "soul retrieval," condensing his struggles in the different worlds and going straight to what happened afterward, especially the slaughter of the man who'd given Jack's card to his cousin Carol. Then he told Arthur about the telephone call from the Queen of Eyes, and let Carolien explain about Haarlindam. He could see it hurt her to do this, reveal a Dutch Travelers' secret to Arthur Canton, but she did it anyway.

For what felt like a long time, Arthur stared at Jack through narrowed eyes, while the fingers of his left hand drummed slowly on the tabletop. "So," he said finally, "we seem to be driving down an old road. Mr. Lone Wolf Shade, who has no use for his colleagues until he needs something, has once again—how shall I say this—Oh right, fucked up. And now he expects NYTAS to save him. Ah, but this time he brings his mommy to plead for him."

"Arthur, please," Carolien said, "this is not about Jack."

"No? I got an interesting call just before you arrived. From Dean Margolis and Sam Harwin. They were not terribly pleased to discover they'd been used as Jack Shade's errand boys."

"Jack did not do that," Carolien said, "it was me. We needed to know if Mr. Acker was safe."

"Well good news, then. He's fine, apparently. But his wife did leave a message. Just in case someone showed up. A message for a certain Jack Shade. She wanted you to know that she's, quote, 'just warming up.' And now the message has been delivered." He inclined his head and rotated his hand in mock servitude.

"God damn it," Jack said, "can't you see that—"

Canton waved a hand and Jack's mouth locked so he couldn't speak. The position of Chief carried certain powers, which probably was why Canton rarely left the building. To Carolien, he said, "I've made my decision, Carolien. You may go now. And take your dog with you before he soils the floor."

Carolien looked about to try again, but Jack took her arm and led her out. When they had left the building, Carolien let loose a stream of Dutch that Jack figured would burn his ears if he knew what it meant.

It didn't matter, Jack knew. He looked around at the street. NYTAS was on Madison Avenue and the passersby were mostly office workers and executives, well-off shoppers, people on their way to appointments with clients, lovers, or therapists. The sun had come out but the air had turned chilly, and some held their light jackets tightly against their bodies. Haarlindam , he thought. What if she chose New York this time? He looked at a man who'd just bought a hot dog from a cart and was happily taking his first bite. For an instant, Jack saw the man turned inside out, his body parts strewn across the Art Deco relief of an angel on the building behind him.

Jack took out his phone and began to dial. Carolien asked whom he was calling, and he said, "COLE."

COLE stood for the Committee of Linear Explanation, and no Traveler liked to call them, though every Traveler knew their number. When an action spilled over to the outside world COLE stepped in to clean things up, to restore Non-Travelers' trust in their limited reality. Jack had only ever called them once, the night his daughter's poltergeist killed her mother and then his daughter had left the world entirely, pulled into the dead zone of the Forest of Souls.

The phone rang once, and then a woman's voice said, "You have reached the offices of COLE. All our agents our occupied right now, but if you stay on the line—"

"Fuck!" Jack said, and almost threw the phone at NYTAS's oak door. Instead, he just put it back in his pocket, and told Carolien, "I have to go do something and it has to be alone." She started to speak but he said, "There's no time. I need you to head back to your place and monitor the news, track any activity that might tell us what she's doing, where she is. The Queen said two days, but she's already started. Warming up. Will you do that for me?"

She nodded. "Call me," she said.

"When I can." Jack stepped into the street and raised his arm. Instantly, a taxi pulled to the curb and the cabbie ordered the confused couple in back to get out. When they tried to protest, he yelled, "Emergency! No charge, okay?" Jack took their place the moment they stepped out. The ability to command taxis was one of Jack's favorite perks of being a New York Traveler, but now all he cared about was getting where he needed to go. "The Public Library," he said. "And I'll pay their fare as well as mine."

The scene on the Library steps might have been summer, with people sitting on the cold stone, or the small slat chairs on the sidewalk, some reading but most talking, eating street food, playing games or texting on their phones. Two young women in tight jeans and sweaters and wearing clunky Ugg boots leaned against one of the stone lions, talking intensely about some boyfriend, while in front of the other lion a young white guy was doing card tricks to impress a couple of middle-aged marks.

Okay , Jack thought, where to start ? He gestured at the two women. Both of them gasped, then laughed with delight. "Mr. Kewpie!" one of them said, and patted the lion's mane, which had become soft and silky. "What are you doing here, little one? So far from home! Did you follow me? Who let you out?" She began to pull on the stone head, which didn't move but let out a low growl. "Come on, sweetie," she said. "When did you get so heavy?"

Jack pointed at the card sharp. The eight of hearts flew out of his hand and began to loop around the heads of the older men. Soon other cards followed it. "What the fuck?" one of the marks said, and the two of them hurried down the steps, swatting at the cards, while the sharp stared after them and made strange noises.

Come on , Jack thought, who do you have to screw to get some attention in this town ? He went back to the two women, gestured again, and a deep voice boomed out of the lion. "Riddle me this. What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the—"

That was as far as it got. Everything froze, the lion, the people, even the cards in the air. Jack closed his eyes. Finally , he thought.

Behind him, a firm man's voice said, "John Shade!" He turned and there they were, a white man and woman in black suits and white shirts. An old Traveler joke went "Nothing is ever just black and white. Well, except for COLE, of course." Jack wasn't sure, but he thought they might be the same two who'd confronted him some months back, when he was fighting off his dream duplicate. Maybe he'd become their special assignment. Or maybe all COLE teams just looked alike. The man said, "John Shade, you have violated—" but the woman interrupted him.

"Jesus, Jack," she said, "what the fuck are you doing?"

"I needed help," Jack said, "and nobody was answering the phone at your headquarters."

The man ordered "Move!" Jack had never heard so much fury in one syllable. It was just standard procedure, get the bad boy Traveler away from the scene before the weird memories could take hold in the witnesses' minds. As he began walking east, toward Grand Central Station, he saw that two more agents had arrived to glam the witnesses' minds. Jack thought how he'd often pitied Nons—non-Travelers. They knew so little of reality, and were so easily put asleep. Now he envied them.

They didn't talk until they stopped at the main entrance to the train station, under the statue of Mercury in flight above the doors. Before the agents could accuse him, Jack told them what had happened. "Look, I need help. I ony staged that scene so I could talk to you. I've got to find that, that thing , and stop it, and I have just two days. Maybe just today, maybe tomorrow will already be too late. And I don't think I can do it alone."

The woman looked from Jack to her partner. "What do you think? Maybe the satellite system?"

"No," the man said.

Startled, the woman let some color show in her face. "But you heard what Nliana Hand said. Haarlindam was almost a thousand years ago. We were in that seminar together, Paul. Think how much bigger the targets could be today."

"Stop," the man said. "This is not our responsibility. It will only become so if Mr. Shade reveals things to the outside world. And then our task will be to remove Mr. Shade."

The woman stared at her partner. "Don't you think mass slaughter will reveal things?"

His shoulders moved in the slightest of shrugs. "Not necessarily. The outer population will no doubt cast its own interpretation. Disease or terrorism, most likely." He waved a finger and a white Lexus illegally parked in front of the Grand Hyatt Hotel next door to Grand Central glided forward. As the man got in the car, the woman said to Jack, "This isn't over. He's letting his dislike of you cloud—" And then, as if realizing she'd said too much, she ducked into the car.

She would try, Jack thought, but her partner—whatever he thought about Jack—represented the agency's mission. Don't save the world, just keep it ignorant. He watched the Lexus get absorbed in traffic. So many people, he thought. In trains, on the street, in stores and offices. Tell Jack I'm just getting started , Carol Acker had said. Warming up. And two days, the Queen had said. And Jack Shade had no idea what to do.

He stepped inside the train station to reduce the traffic noise, and called Carolien. "COLE's a wash-out," he said. "All they'll do is cover it up after it happens."

She made some kind of Dutch noise, then said, "Maybe I should speak to Arthur alone."

"Don't bother," Jack said.

"What are you going to do? You cannot act alone this time. You must understand that."

"I know. There's another possibility."

"Possibility?"

"An ally. Someone who owes me."

"What? Do you mean your Dream Hunter friends?"

"No. I'm talking about someone with real fire power."

"Who—Oh no. No, Jack, you cannot— La Societé ?"

"I told you, they owe me."

"And what will you owe them if you do this? You know what they are! Jack, please."

"I don't have a choice, Carolien."

" Godverdamme , Jack. That's what you told yourself when you freed that— thing . You always have a choice."

"Not this time."

"Maybe we can petition the Powers."

He made a noise. "Come on. Even an emergency request would take four or five days just to get a hearing."

"Perhaps they could undo any damage done between the petition and their acceptance."

"Maybe. But what if they can't? Or won't? And suppose they don't grant the petition? Without NYTAS behind me they could say I don't have standing. You know what they're like. Fucking divine bureaucrats."

He could hear tears in her voice now. "Please, Jack, think of what you're doing. Think of who they are!"

"I'm sorry, Carolien, I just can't worry about myself in all this."

"I can't let you—"

"I have to go, Carolien. I'm sorry." He ended the call, then switched off the phone. It was time to move.

He hailed a taxi and had the driver take him to 67th and Lexington. The building on the northwest corner housed a high end Islamic couturier on the ground floor with long silk dresses and hijabs so elegant that Carolien had once said she might convert for the fashions. Above the shop rose faceless offices, whose entry door, gray and anonymous, bore only one logo, the initials "S.I." in gold letters, and to the left of it a keypad of numbers. There was no bell to ring, no intercom. Either you knew the number code or you didn't. The code was simple but impossible to guess. It was the birthday of King Solomon, according to the ancient Hebrew calendar.

Suleiman International, originally headquartered in Baghdad but for the past ninety-two years in Geneva, had diversified in recent times, like all wise conglomerates. And SI was nothing if not wise. If you knew of their existence, and had the money, you could hire them for cross-world quantum encryption, nano-possession of troublesome clients, Akashic data protection (guaranteed for up to one hundred past lives), or emergency exorcisms of politicians in danger of foreclosure by their operational hosts. But if you knew they existed, you also knew their original and primary function—controlling, and selling, the services of the Djinn.

Jack tapped in the king's dates. The door silently opened, then closed behind him the moment he entered. There was only one elevator in the narrow lobby and Jack rode it to the third floor, where a young white woman in a pale blue dress sat at a crescent-shaped cedar desk. Judging by her uncovered long blond hair she was not a believer. Nice to know, Jack thought, that S.I. didn't discriminate. Before Jack could say anything, the woman told him, "Welcome to S.I., Mr. Shade. How may we help you?"

Jack had often noticed the proclivity of powerful organizations to flaunt their intelligence. He was not in the mood to play, however. "I need a flask," he said.

"Ah," the woman said, "I'm afraid that service is restricted, and most likely—how shall I put this—beyond your financial resources."

"Please tell Mr. ibn Hakeem that Nadia Nazeer's son-in-law is here."

Jack thought he saw just a flicker of surprise before she smoothed her face and said, "A moment, please." She stood up and gestured toward a red leather chair and a small table with various newspapers scattered around it. "Please have a seat," she said, "this won't take long." Jack sat down and immediately felt like he'd returned to his favorite chair. It was so comfortable he had to remind himself it had not existed thirty seconds ago.

The receptionist returned a minute later with a middle-aged Arab man dressed in the sort of suit whose price Jack could not even try to guess. Of course, he thought, if you control a Djinn tailor you might not have to pay anything. Jack knew of a prince who went through the Seven Trials just to acquire a Djinni who would craft the robe for the prince's coronation. "Jack!" Mr. ibn Hakeem said, and took Jack's right hand in both of his. "It's good to see you. Sandra tells me you've requested one of our higher end services. Come. We will discuss it over tea."

Years ago, Abdullah ibn Hakeem had dated Nadia Nazeer, Jack's mother-in-law. They met at some Arab-American fund-raiser and went out for about a year, until Nadia had seen something, just a hint of something, that was not supposed to exist. Jack had stepped in to help ibn Hakeem cover it up and change Nadia's memories. Ibn Hakeem had ended the relationship, but he'd told Jack not to hesitate if he ever needed a favor.

Jack said, "I'm sorry, sir, I would love tea, but my time is not my own right now."

S. I.'s man in New York looked startled for a moment, though not as much as Sandra, who actually stared at Jack, mouth open, for a few seconds before she composed herself. "Ah," ibn Hakeem said, "everyone is so busy these days. Perhaps when your time returns to you."

"I would like that very much. Thank you."

To Sandra, Mr. ibn Hakeem said, "Please tell Mr. Hakami in Resources that Mr. Shade will be coming down, with my personal request for all assistance." He led Jack to the elevator, or rather elevators , for now a second door had appeared, narrower, with discreet glyphs in the corners. He held it open and Jack stepped into a varnished cedar chamber, with a gold plate that held only one button, marked with a tav , the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Jack wondered if the wood came from the Temple—the first one, of course, the real one, built by Solomon and a work crew of Djinn.

He didn't feel the elevator descend but a moment later it opened to reveal a vast room of eight-foot-high metal cabinets that went back as far as Jack could see, perhaps even across borders between worlds. A small man in shirtsleeves stood before the elevator. He was bald, with a neat mustache. He didn't look Arabic, but not exactly European either. Of course, he might not have been human. He said softly, "Good afternoon, Mr. Shade. My name is Hakami. I am happy to assist you."

"I need a flask."

"Yes, of course." He turned and set off down the central corridor. "This way, please," he said. They rounded various corners, until Jack wasn't sure he could find his way back alone. Finally, they came to a stop before a cabinet that looked exactly the same as all the others, except that the gray metal appeared slightly newer, shinier. "This will do," Hakami said. He smiled at Jack. "You know, I presume, that they come in two sorts, those who accepted the Messenger and those who remained infidels. I am sure Mr. ibn Hakeem would prefer the former for you. Much easier to control. For a beginner, of course." He slid open one of the cabinet's ten or so metal drawers. Inside was what looked like a rectangular steel thermos with a black screw-on cap. He smiled as he lifted it out. "As I am sure you know, Mr. Shade, the smoky glass bottle with the ancient cork has gone out of fashion." He began walking back, and Jack followed.

At the elevator, Hakami somehow produced a clipboard with a sheet of paper and attached pen. "Please," he said. Slight smile. "There are no hidden clauses, I assure you." Jack read the paper which acknowledged his receipt of "Container RS-42," and his acceptance that any unfortunate side effects of his "desired grantings" would be solely his responsibility. Jack took a breath and signed. Hakeem took the clipboard and handed over the container.

It felt warm, and slightly heavier than Jack had expected, but otherwise unremarkable. "You might want to open it outdoors," Hakeem said as he pushed the elevator button. "This is not to imply any danger, or indeed issues of size, but only that clients sometimes misspeak—from the surprise, you understand—and their first grantings become, well, a bit untidy. Not that such a thing would happen to you, I'm sure."

"Yeah, thanks," Jack said. He was getting a little tired of the guy.

There was still only one button in the elevator, but now when Jack pushed it, it returned him to the lobby. Back in the street, he hailed a cab and took it to the garage where he kept his Altima. As he drove up the West Side Highway he found he kept looking at the clock, and then the flask. 1:45. Only two days, and the first was half over. Maybe he was making a mistake. He had gone to Suleiman International for quick transportation to where he needed to go, but maybe they were what he needed. He went over the meeting with ibn Hakeem again and again, and each time he decided he'd gotten all he could have expected. And who knows, maybe the flask would be enough? But he didn't think so. At least this way he could go get the help he really needed.

Jack continued north as the West Side Highway became the Henry Hudson Parkway. Just past the city line he pulled onto a local road, then a dirt road marked "Private Property." It ended at the edge of a meadow. As Jack stepped onto the grass he felt the crackle of the NYTAS shield that protected the place from nosy hikers, dog walkers, and real estate developers. "Okay," he said to the flask as he set it down on the ground, "let's see what I've got here." He unscrewed the top.

Jack had expected to see great swirls of smoke pour out, but instead he felt a twisting inside him, as if he himself were the one changed. His eyes stung, and he blinked, and when he opened them again, an Egyptian-looking businessman in a pinstripe suit and shiny black shoes, with slicked back hair and manicured hands, stood calmly before him. Slightly taller than Jack, the Djinni raised an eyebrow. "Nice place you have here. Do you know that Dr. Canton brings acolytes here for what he likes to pretend is sex magic?"

Jack just stared at him.

"What?" the Djinni said, "Did you expect a twenty-foot-tall fellow in a loin cloth with a booming laugh?"

Jack said, "Nah, that's a great movie, but I'm no little Indian kid." They looked at each other a moment, then Jack said, "So what happens now? You say you're going to turn me inside out and set me on fire, and then I say I don't believe you could ever fit inside that tiny flask—"

"No, no, we'll just skip to the wishes. I might add, though, that we were never actually that stupid. The routine used to be part of the standard contract—let the clients think they've gotten the better of us—but in recent years, I'm happy to say, Suleiman International has modernized."

"Glad to hear it," Jack said. "Do you have a name?"

"Of course I do. Do you wish to know it?"

Jack laughed. "No thanks. I may not have done this before, but I know the rules. You'll know when I use up any of my wishes. Three of them, right?"

The Djinni pressed his palms together before his heart and bowed his head. "Certainly, effendi."

"How about I call you Archie?"

The Djinni smiled. "An honorable name."

Jack looked him up and down. Was it possible this creature could take on Carol Acker? Would he waste a wish if he tried it?

The Djinni dropped his subservient post and said, "Mr. Shade—my contract indeed requires that I attempt to fulfill whatever you wish. However, even we must know our limits, and your—problem—is older even than the Djinn. I would greatly prefer it that you not waste your opportunity, and that I remain—intact."

"So you know," Jack said.

"Of course I know."

"Do you know my plan?" Plan was stretching it.

"No, only your dilemma."

"All right, then. First wish. You ready?"

"Always, effendi."

"I want you to take me to the Old Man of the Woods."

The Djinni smiled. "Ah. This will, of course, require flight. You had best step back."

"Wait," Jack said, "why not just, I don't know, magically transport me?"

"We say teleport these days."

"Teleport. Fine."

"But you did not wish that, effendi. Your wish is my command. As stated . If you prefer, we can consider your 'take me' wish as granted, and initiate a new—"

"Forget it," Jack said. "Flight it is." He took a few steps back. "Do what you need to do."

The Djinn inclined his head once more, and then—grew larger. One moment he was a little taller than Jack, the next he was some thirty feet tall. Jack half expected the Djinni to boom at him like low-level thunder, but the same smooth voice as before said, "I apologize for the lack of a pigtail to cling to. I suggest you ride in my pocket, though again, I am sorry I did not think to bring along a Sequoia tree. If you like, you can wish for one—No? Then I suggest you hold onto the flap." He knelt down and held out his palm. Jack climbed on, and a moment later was gently deposited in the jacket's right-hand pocket. The silk lining felt oddly pleasant.

Jack was one of those people who when asked what super-power they would most want, answered "Flying, of course." So when they lifted into the air he stuck his head out to look. But it all went by so fast, trees, houses, whole towns, and the air was so cold, that he quickly sank down again. He did see enough to know they were following the Hudson River north, but that was no surprise, for the one thing anyone knew about the Old Man's house was that he lived near the Canadian border.

Jack wasn't sure how long the journey took, probably no more than fifteen minutes. When he felt the Djinni set down he was so grateful to be out of the cold that he forgot, just for an instant, why he was there. And then it was back, and all he could think about was how much time had passed, and whether he was even making the right choice. The Djinni said, "Effendi, I suggest you emerge before I resume my normal size." Jack lifted himself out of the pocket and jumped onto the giant hand which then set him on the ground.

Jack realized he'd had no idea what he would see when he arrived at the home of l'Homme Ancien du Bois . If he'd expected anything, it might have been some grand Versailles mansion surrounded by elegant guards. Instead, he found a one-story wooden house with a plain porch and a dormered attic. It wasn't exactly a log cabin but it wasn't too far above it. He thought for a moment of the suburban house where the Queen of Eyes lived, and then of the cocktail party Carolien had taken him to at Arthur Canton's two-story apartment overlooking the Hudson, with its grand piano and marble statues.

He turned to the Djinni. "I may want my second wish when I'm finished here."

The Djinni inclined his head. "Very good, effendi. And how might I spend my time in the interval?"

"I don't know. Become a tree or something."

"As you wish, Master." He pressed his palms together.

"Bullshit," Jack said quickly. "You know damn well that wasn't a wish. I don't give a fuck what you do."

The Djinni said, "It is a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Shade." And then, with a slight smile, "I don't care what anybody says." Jack laughed but the Djinni had already become a young maple tree.

3.

AS JACK WALKED UP the leaf-strewn steps to the plain wooden door, he thought how maybe it wasn't too late. He could use wish two to return to Suleiman International, then three to gain temporary access to the Undeniable Voice, and use that to persuade ibn Hakeem to grant him an army of Djinn. But Archie had already told him there were things even the Djinn couldn't fight, so what difference would numbers make?

He knocked on the door. A dry precise voice with a slight French accent said, "Come in, Jack." Shade took a breath, turned the knob, and stepped inside. Once again he realized he'd had no idea what to expect, either of its interior or its famous occupant. And once again, it all appeared so ordinary—a comfortable living room with a fireplace and well-worn leather easy chairs, simple lamps, an oak table and chairs, a cabinet with glass doors showing wine and liquor glasses of various sizes, and alongside it two shelves with wine bottles, most without labels. An iPad lay face down on a side table. It was the only intrusion of the modern world. Here and there were small glimpses of luxury. A Persian rug of subtle reds and golds lay between the easy chairs. There were two paintings on the walls, Rembrandt's old Jewish couple and Caravaggio's gamblers. Jack assumed they were the originals, and that the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth, were proudly displaying fakes.

As for the Old Man himself, he stood around five foot ten inches, thin, wearing jeans and an old-fashioned red and black flannel shirt. His high brow and aquiline nose and thin lips struck Jack as very Gallic, perhaps even aristo. He was clean-shaven, and wore his silver hair short and parted on the left. His skin had that look of thin, almost transparent leather that could sometimes be seen in the very old and very rich. His left ring finger displayed a wide gold band with some sigil Jack couldn't place. Is this what he really looks like ? thought Jack. Alone in his house ? Does this house even exist ?

No one knew the actual age of the Old Man of the Woods, but everyone who knew the title also knew what he was—the Grand Master of the Society of the Morning, an ancient order of gangster sorcerers. In their present configuration they began in France in the eighteenth century, and were said to have gained a foothold in the Americas via Benjamin Franklin, though many believed them to have been much older, possibly as old, or even older, than the Travelers themselves, which would make them very old indeed. Jack had no opinion. He only knew that the Travelers Aid Society, and even COLE, were frightened of them. They were said to exert influence, or raw power, at every level, from the demon nano-worlds all the way up to the High Orders of Angelic Light.

Jack knew all this but he knew something else as well. The Old Man of the Woods owed him. When Jack saved the Queen of Eyes he also blocked an attempted coup against the leader of the Society. "Jack," the Old Man said, "it's good to finally meet you." He offered his hand, and Jack knew he had no choice but to shake it. The handshake was firm and dry. It reminded Jack of an ancient parchment he'd once dug up in the Negev Desert.

The Old Man waved Jack to one of the leather chairs. "Would you like a drink?"

"Sure," Jack said.

"Perhaps whiskey. You look like you could use some warming up."

Jack thought of his frigid ride in the Djinni's pocket. Did the Old Man know about that? Probably. "Sounds good," he said.

The Old Man took two tumblers from the cabinet and a dark green bottle from one of the shelves. "Do you want water, or ice? I recommend straight, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Straight is fine," Jack said. The Old Man poured Jack's tumbler a third full and handed it to him. For just an instant Jack hesitated—what was the old story? Never eat or drink anything in the Land of the Dead?—and then took a sip. The taste was dark and smoky, and seemed to permeate his body all at once.

The Old Man smiled. "I assure you, Jack, the people who distill that for me are quite alive. Do you like it?"

"It's amazing."

"Good. Then I will send a case to your hotel. Perhaps Mrs. Yao will like it as well."

Jack stared at him. "She knows nothing of this. Of any of it."

The Old Man waved a hand. "Of course. I simply thought you might wish to share it with her. And the remarkable Ms. Hounstra."

Jack thought of how Carolien had begged him not to do this. He leaned forward in his chair. "Let's stop the bullshit," he said. "I appreciate your hospitality, it's great, but I came here to ask for some serious help."

The old Man sipped his whiskey. "Of course," he said. "And I will offer any assistance I can. And not just because of the debt I owe you. This creature endangers all of us. These things that we do, you and I, they are very different but they depend on the world remaining stable. And more, ignorant. Unaware of itself."

"So you know what's happened."

"Not everything. Tell me about the host, please."

"Host?"

"The human who wears the ring."

"Right. The ring is the key." Jack told him about Carol Acker and her desire for a soul retrieval. "Was it fake?" he asked. "Was she playing me the whole time?"

"No, no. I see I must explain about the host." He sipped his drink, then set it down to lean forward slightly. To Jack it felt like something had shifted in the room, a subtle mass moving toward him. "The creature came to life long ago, before humanity, quite possibly one of the First Incursions. For millennia it fed on whatever wretched creatures stumbled before it. I suspect it always felt there was some lack in its existence, though of course there is no way to know. I doubt that even your Peter Midnight could have traveled back that far, if he were foolish enough to wish to do so." Jack nodded. Peter Midnight was from the eighteenth century but he was said to have mastered moving through time. Though he was buried in that unmarked grave, Jack always half expected to meet him. Is a time traveler ever really dead?

The Old Man went on, "Then the Powers seeded awareness and culture into the world. As always with our benevolent Friends, their good intentions brought unwelcome side effects. For now the creature discovered something new and wonderful. Group suffering. As humanity became conscious, so did the enemy."

Enemy ? thought Jack, Isn't that you ? But all he said was, "Let's cut to the important part. What stopped it? What will stop it now?"

"No one knows precisely who, or what, imprisoned it. It is possible that the Travelers came into being for just this purpose."

Jack did his best not to react. No one really knew the origin of the Travelers, though most believed that the Powers (or a Power) imbued a few early humans with knowledge and ability, and the desire for more. He said, "So the Travelers did it?"

"Rather an alliance. The neo-Travelers, certain Powers, and quite possibly the White Ravens." Now Jack's eyebrows went up. The White Ravens very rarely ventured from their own world, usually content to interact with this one through their dark children. The Old Man said, "It would make sense, for the Ravens control the winds."

"And so the whirlwind cage."

"Precisely. First trap it, then imprison it in the wall. Only—it found an escape hatch. Somehow it managed to break off a piece of its own prison, the wall, and send that into the world. The wall contained onyx—another indication that the Ravens were involved—and so the black stone became the link."

"Was it always a ring?"

"No, no, that is a relatively modern configuration, an adaptation, we might say, to cultural adornments." Jack knew that by "modern" he meant the last five thousand years or so. The Old Man said, "In one form or another, the link attached itself to a possible host. This human would know nothing of this, only an intense experience of something missing. Almost all have simply died, and then the link found its way to someone else. Did your Carol Acker say where she got the ring?"

"A thrift shop."

"Yes, that would work. Anonymous, unassuming."

"So let me see if I get this," Jack said. "The link—the ring, or whatever—goes from one host to another and each one dies with no harm done. Except every now and then some asshole decides to help one of them resolve that awful feeling of something missing. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"So now it's up to me, the current asshole, to destroy it."

"That cannot be done. What you can accomplish is to reimprison it. And soon, before it becomes so strong that we have another Haarlindam. Or worse. But you cannot do this yourself. It is already too strong."

"So you're offering to help me?"

"Yes."

Jack leaned forward. "And then what—at some future time you show up and remind me that I owe you?"

The Old Man shook his head. "No, no, I am already in your debt. Besides, having this creature loose in the world doesn't suit me any more than it suits you."

"Okay then. Where do we start?"

"I can offer you two things. A tool, and firepower." He opened a small drawer in the end table next to the couch and took out a lump of black rock. As he handed it to Jack he said, "Like the ring, it comes from the cave wall. This will help you transport Ms. Acker to the cave, and then to separate her from the parasite and force it back into its prison."

"Just like that, huh?"

"No. You will have assistance. Frank? Benny?"

The door at the back of the room opened, and two men stepped into the room. Had they been waiting on the other side, or had the Old Man used their names as a summoning spell? Didn't matter, Jack decided. They were white, and both around six feet tall, but there the resemblance ended. One was thin and handsome, with curly black hair, and dressed in high-end jeans and a navy blazer over a pale red polo shirt. The other was stocky and muscular, with wide shoulders, a face that was broad and hard, a nose that had been broken more than once, and brown hair thinning on top. He wore old jeans, heavy shoes, and a leather jacket over a dark T-shirt. The Old Man said, "These are the Pope brothers." He extended a bony finger, first toward the thin one, then the other. "Frank, Benny."

Frank Pope nodded and said, "It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Shade." His brother—if in fact, that was true—said nothing, only nodded. Frank added, "My brother doesn't talk much, but he's quite useful, especially in a fight."

Jack said, "Frank Pope, Benny Pope, are you guys named after—"

"Actually," said Frank, "I'm afraid it's kind of the other way around."

Jack glanced at the Old Man, who allowed himself a momentary smile. "Sure," Jack said, "I guess it figures. So they're, what, backup?"

"Don't underestimate them," the Old Man said.

"I won't. When do we start? How do we find her?"

"I'm afraid that won't be a problem." The Old Man reached for his iPad and opened it to show Jack the screen. The sound was off, but a streaming banner on the bottom read "Breaking News: Brutal Attack on New Hampshire Town—No Claim of Responsibility—Mysterious Message—'Warming Up, Jack.'"

The shaking was back. Jack tried to control it, but it only got worse. Fuck it , he thought. He said, "The Queen told me three days."

"And she was right," the Old Man said. He set down the iPad. "This is just a practice session."

"So what, I go there—with your Pope boys—and we take her on? How do we know she'll still be there?"

Softly, the Old Man said, "Because she's proud of her work, Jack. She wants you to see. You are her rescuer, after all."

Jack clenched his fists to keep from hitting him. Or trying to. "All right," he said. "I guess this is our shot. How do we get there?"

The Old Man smiled for a moment, then said, "I'll take care of that."

"I should have realized," Jack said. Then, "I have to go outside for a moment."

"If you're going outside to ask Archie for increased strength that'd probably be a good idea."

"Christ," Jack said, "is there anything you don't know?"

"In my woods? Please. Do you think your Djinni is the only entity disguised as a tree? Perhaps I myself am a tree and you are talking to a puppet. Perhaps, unlike Archie, I have always been a tree. Perhaps that is the true meaning of the Old Man of the Woods."

Jack stepped out without answering.

Outside, it had gotten dark, and Jack swayed with a moment's vertigo. How much time had passed? He remembered the Sun in the sky as he'd approached the porch. Was it even the same day? It had to be. Why would the Old Man offer to help him, then speed up time so Carol Acker, or the thing inside her, would reach full power before Jack could get there?

In the dark, it was hard to tell the trees apart, so that Jack finally had to say, "Archie. Show yourself, please. And that's not a wish, it's a request."

The Djinni's voice came from the left. "And my pleasure to grant it, effendi."

Jack turned to face him. The Djinni stood motionless, with his hands clasped loosely in front of him. A quarter Moon had risen, which it was well into the evening, and there was just enough light to show Archie's hair stirred slightly by a breeze. Jack said, "The Old Man knows you're here. Knows you were a tree."

"Of course. These are his woods, after all."

"Yeah, kind of what he said. Look, is there a way you can block him hearing what we say?"

"I believe so, yes."

"And can we do that without it being an official wish?"

The Djinni smiled. "Perhaps I myself do not wish to be overheard."

Jack smiled back. "Thanks, Archie."

Archie's face became serious. "But please understand, effendi, there is a limit to how many favors I may grant. I remain under contract, after all, to Suleiman International, and the terms do not just govern the clients."

"Don't worry," Jack said. "I'll need my second wish soon enough. I'll even tell you what it is. Power. It's what the Old Man thinks I came out here for, but I'd rather wait until I really need it. So when I say 'Now,' I want you to give me energy to resist whatever Carol Acker throws at me. Agreed?"

"Of course. But if all you wanted was to adjust the timing, why close off our conversation?"

"Because that's not the reason. I need to ask you something. Can you tell if the Old Man is lying? Does he really want to stop Carol, or is he playing me? I don't know if you realize it, but he's done this thing with time. Speeded it up." The Djinni nodded. "So I need to know, is he actually going to help?"

The Djinni closed his eyes and bent his head forward. When he looked up again slight stress lines had formed around his mouth and eyes. With what seemed a conscious effort he smoothed them away. He said, "It is—difficult to venture too deeply into such a convoluted mind. There are—traps. If you will, effendi, tell me, please, how much time has passed since you asked me that question?"

"Only a few seconds," Jack said.

"Ah. Thank you. Let me say that as far as I can discern, the Old Man did not lie to you. He does indeed wish to help you. He does wish to see the creature returned to its confinement. Only—and I cannot be certain about this—he may wish to delay that confinement until the last possible moment. Exactly why I could not say."

"And that moment would be?"

"Shortly before it reaches full power. Sometime in the next several hours."

Jack made a noise. "Okay. Thanks. And the Pope brothers?"

"They are sincere. They wish to follow their Master's orders and do not seek to understand his motives."

"All right, then," Jack said. "I guess that's as good as I'm going to get." He started to head for the porch but turned and said, "Oh, and as long as you grant my second wish at the moment I need it, you're free to do what you like for now. Roam the world, see the sights."

The Djinni smiled. "That would be most pleasant."

Once again, Jack stopped himself before going inside. "Oh, and Archie?"

"Yes, effendi?"

"Thank you. And call me Jack. If that doesn't break your contract."

"You are most welcome, Jack."

Inside, the Old Man stared at Jack for a few seconds before he said, "Very well, then. Are you ready?"

"That thing you did with time," Jack said. "Speed it up. Why did you do that?"

When the Old Man didn't answer, Frank said to his boss, "What's he talking about?"

Jack told him, "We had a whole day left to stop Carol—that thing—before it reached full power. But your Chief accelerated time while we were chatting, so now it's down to the wire." He stared at the Old Man. "Right?"

The Old Man sighed. "There would have been no point in sending you too soon. The creature simply would have gone dormant, hidden away inside Ms. Acker. You would have thought yourselves victorious while merely teaching it to be cautious."

Frank and Benny looked at each other, then Frank said, "We could have just killed her. The Acker woman."

"You do not understand," the Old Man said. "Once it's out it's out. If you'd killed Ms. Acker it would have jumped into someone else. Perhaps Mr. Shade. They have a bond, after all." Before Jack could say anything, the Old Man went on, "It needs to fully expose itself, to be almost ready. Only then can you return it to its prison." He looked at Jack. "That is what Margarita Mariq meant by three days. Not a time frame, but the moment at which to act. That was the reason for Haarlindam. The Dutch Travelers and their allies knew they had to allow it to reveal itself before they could send it back to the cave."

Frank said, "What the fuck is Haarlindam?"

The Old Man shook his head. "Of no importance. You had best be going. I pushed time to bring you to the correct moment, but if you delay.…"

Jack said, "Where is she?"

"I just showed you. Willowtown, New Hampshire, is the name, I believe."

"She hasn't left."

"Oh no, Jack. She wants you there. To witness. You're her rescuer."

"Can you send us there?"

"Of course." He pointed to a plain wooden door to the right of the bar. Jack could not swear it had been there before. "You'll find that opens to where you want to be."

Jack looked at Frank and Benny. "Ready?"

Benny grunted, and Frank said, "Let's go."

4.

The noise and the lights hit Jack the hardest. Helicopters, vans, bullhorns, armies of police and FBI, and all the media, all of them struggling for control, for something they could understand. And then the smell—blood, organs, slaughter. There were bodies, and pieces of bodies, everywhere, on the streets, the lawns. They were in some well-trimmed neighborhood, neat rows of two-story houses, lawns raked free of leaves, glassed-in porches, all set for an early New Hampshire winter.

And oddly, the first thought that came to Jack was not about the dead, or the cops, or even Carol Acker, but rather COLE's not here . He knew what they would do, of course. Mind slam everyone—cops, media, survivors—so it all became a terrorist attack, and the pols could make speeches, and the people could light candles and vow revenge. There were Travelers who believed that COLE had created and maintained a Jihadist group and a couple of right-wing militias just so they could have people to take credit for things no one would understand. So where were they? Maybe they'd already been and gone. Maybe they wouldn't even have to do anything, the Linear world would just believe what they needed to believe about something so terrifying. Or maybe—maybe COLE was keeping away because they were scared.

Frank Pope said, "Jack! Where is she? Can you see her?"

But before Jack could even look around some guys in suits—FBI? NSA?—spotted them , and came running, guns out, yelling, "Who the fuck are you?" and "On the ground! Now!" and "Where did you come from?"

"Shit," Frank Pope said, and turned to his brother. "Benny, shut them up, will you?"

Jack saw Benny reach under his jacket, and from some holster Jack was pretty sure hadn't existed a moment ago, take out a gun. It looked a little like Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum, but the cylinders were different colors, and the barrel was shorter and thicker. Jack knew what it was, though he'd never seen one up close before—a Gun of the Morning, the weapon of choice for La Société du Matin . "No!" Jack said, "They're innocent. COLE will—"

"Fuck COLE," Benny said, in a voice softer and higher than Jack would have expected. He fired once, a silent blast of blue light that filled the air, bright as the Sun if only for an instant. Everyone froze—the cops, the agents, the media people, even the helicopters in the sky. They might have been a frame from some big budget zombie apocalypse movie.

"There," Frank said, "Now we can goddamn think."

And then she was there, weaving her way slowly through the bodies on the ground, the frozen mob of outsiders. She wore a black dress with no coat, and high red boots (absurdly, Jack thought how that was smart, she wouldn't have to worry about staining them with blood), and she'd cut her hair shorter, the sides angled longer from back to front, and she, or some salon person, had made her up in a way that was both subdued and sharp as a knife.

As she approached them she raised her hands and clapped, three times. "Oh Jack," she said, "you came. My hero, my rescuer, and now my witness. Sweet loyal Jack. I can't tell you how good it is to see you."

Benny fired again, black light this time. It surrounded Carol, and for a second she swayed, and looked about to fall. But then she shook herself, and the light cracked like a thin shell and fell in actual shards that vanished as soon as they touched the ground. "Seriously?" she said. "Against me ?" Benny didn't answer. She turned to Jack. "Your new homies?"

"We're here to take you back," Jack said.

"Oh, but sweetie, you just set me free."

"We all make mistakes," Jack said.

"Not you, Jack. You did it exactly right. And you know what? Because of you, and your steadfast loyalty, I'm almost ready. You should be proud."

Frank Pope said, "Shade! She's mind-fucking you. Do it!"

Jack looked at him, then back at Carol, who tilted her head slightly, still smiling at him. "Do what, Jack?" she said. She spun her head around on her shoulders, Linda Blair style, and when it was facing him again, she said, "Would you like me to devour you?" She opened her mouth, and it seemed to get larger and larger, the teeth like sharp mountains and beyond them black smoke that swirled endlessly into darkness.

Jack didn't realize he was moving toward her until Benny yanked him backward.

"Archie!" Jack called out. "Now!"

Fire surged through him, a holy flame that burned out any confusion or fear. He laughed suddenly as he remembered that the Djinn, for all their ability to take on human form, were made of "smokeless fire," offshoots of the Original Flame. He reached inside his jacket and took out the black stone. "You've used Carol Acker long enough," he said. "It's time to go home."

For a moment, Carol's face twitched and changed shape, becoming larger and more ferocious at first, then almost formless, made of nothing more than teeth and wind. Then it was Carol again, and she screamed at him, "Where did you get that?"

"An old man gave it to me," Jack said. He stepped toward her, holding the stone in front of him. She began to spin, faster and faster, and Jack became scared she would escape them. But then Frank and Benny each fired their guns, blasts of light the color of a bruise, and the air itself screamed, and Jack wanted to drop the stone and cover his ears, but the Fire inside him held on. Carol stopped spinning and fell to the ground, on all fours on the blood-soaked grass.

And then they were falling, all of them, plummeting through worlds, one after another, some familiar, like the leather bar and the minuet, some new and strange, and so quick Jack couldn't make out what they were. In a few the little girl was there, begging Jack not to send her back, please , she said, she trusted him, he'd saved her, how could he give her back to the torturers, didn't he know the terrible things they would do to her? The Fire in Jack's arms held on to the black stone, and his ears of flame refused to listen.

They landed heavily, off balance, in a dark cave lit only by Jack's Fire until Frank found the switch for the lights the French archaeologists had set up along the walls. It was smaller than Jack had expected, only about twelve feet long, and three feet wide at its center, narrowing at each end to low tunnels. Carol Acker was on all fours, crumpled and scared. She looked up, her face frightened and wet as she stared at Jack who was still holding the black stone before him. His whole body was shaking but he refused to let go.

"Why are you doing this?" Carol said. "I don't understand." She looked at Frank and Benny, who stood on either side of her and fired dark purple light at her from their Guns of the Morning. The light became spiraling strands, winding tighter and tighter. Carol Acker's pleading voice said, "They're hurting me, Jack! They want to kill me. They're evil, can't you see it? You're not like them. You're not like them. You're better, Jack. I know you are. Make them stop. Please!" She sounded like a child who'd been viciously abused and just tasted freedom, only to have her rescuer inexplicably return her to her tormentors. Jack didn't listen. If the memory of all those bodies hadn't been enough, if he might have weakened, the Holy Fire of the Djinn kept him strong. It wasn't just Archie, it was all of them, they were one being, one flame. Armed with that Fire, Jack Shade bore down on the crumpled, bleeding woman.

And then something lifted out of her. It wasn't really a creature, though it appeared to take the form of a squat beast with thick legs and arms and a narrow triangular head. Whatever it might have been originally, it was so old and ferocious that it couldn't really hold its shape but kept twisting and stretching as it tried to fight its way free of the swirls of energy from the two guns, and the eternal Fire of the Djinn that pushed it back, back to the wall—until finally there was only one escape. With an agonized cry it retreated into the rock.

Light still filled the cave, and a scream of rage and pain, and in that moment two figures suddenly appeared, causing a puff of wind as they displaced the air around them. One was a bearded woman in a long white robe, and the other was an old man wearing a black shirt, black pants, and black shoes. They looked at each other and smiled, and the light, and the fading scream of the beast filled their bodies. They became radiant, younger, more upright, and their eyes—their eyes gleamed with love.

The two brothers looked frozen, unable to move or speak as their guns fell to the floor. Jack held the stone in front of him, the way he'd done with Carol Acker, but all the energy had gone from it. He threw it at the Old Man and the Rebbe, only to watch it break up in the air before it could touch them. He tried to use the Fire but that was gone too, and he realized he'd only asked for power against the creature, and that was done. Wish granted.

Der Wisser Rebbe and the Old Man of the Woods held hands and smiled at each other. Jack half-expected them to start necking, like teenagers in the back of a car, but instead the Rebbe smiled and said something in Yiddish—Jack couldn't make it out, but he was pretty sure it was something like "See you next time"—and then she was gone.

The Old Man turned toward Jack now, his face serene.

"You sonofabitch," Jack said. "You used me."

"Of course," the Old Man said. "That time you rescued the Queen of Eyes—what was it she said about you?"

Jack stared at him a moment, confused, then he made himself remember. Softly he said, "She told me 'I knew I could count on you.'"

"Exactly."

"So she was part of this too?" Nausea rose up in him at the thought.

"Not at all," the Old Man said.

"Then why didn't she warn me? She didn't say anything about you."

"You didn't ask. The Queen only answers questions. Indeed, she cannot do anything else. She cannot see anything but answers. All you asked about was the creature."

"And the Rebbe—her attempts to stop me—that was all for show?"

The Old Man smiled. "Child psychology. You're stubborn, Jack. Your best incentive is to tell you no."

Suddenly, Benny Pope lunged at his master, arms out as if to strangle him. He never made it. The Old Man gestured and Benny was flung back against the wall, landing not far from Carol Acker's unconscious body. Frank bent down to put his arm around his brother, but he kept his eyes on the Old Man.

"All those people," Jack said. "That whole town."

"Seriously, Jack? You would complain to me about a few hundred dead? When you've lived as long as I have—do you know that fifty-five million people died in World War II? And poor little Willowtown was nothing compared to Haarlindam."

"You were there," Jack said. "You staged it, just like you staged this. You and your bearded girlfriend."

"Of course. But seriously, Jack, you did a good thing today. If you hadn't stopped it, if the creature had truly reached full strength, I assure you, a great many more would have perished."

"If we'd stopped it right away—if Carol hadn't come to me with my card—no one at all would have died."

"Ah, but then there would have been no benefit."

"Benefit?" Jack said, his voice almost a whisper.

The Old Man sighed. "You have done me a great service, John Shade. And now I will make you a promise. Neither I, not any of my followers, will ever come to you bearing your card. You will never be compelled to serve La Société du Matin ."

"Right," Jack said. "You'll just use another Carol Acker."

"No. My vow extends to any third parties. I know you have feared this, Jack. That fear is over."

"Go to Hell," Jack said.

"Oh, not yet. And not for some time. Thanks to you. Good-bye, Jack." And then he was gone.

Jack just stood there, staring at the space where the Old Man had been, feeling suddenly how cold the cave was. He might have simply done nothing for a long time if Carol Acker hadn't moaned to his left. He turned and she said, "Jack, where am I?" She tried to get up but winced, and leaned against the cave wall, underneath the "painting." Jack glanced at Frank and Benny, saw that Benny was still dazed and Frank was staying with him. He went over to squat beside Carol.

"It's okay," he told her, "I'm going to take you home. Unconsciously her left hand covered the ring on her right, as if to protect it. Jack wondered if it was true that she'd found it in a thrift shop. For all he knew, Carol Acker hadn't existed before the ring. Maybe it grew her, the way those night plants in Bolivia grew pseudo-human beings to defend them. He decided it didn't matter. It wasn't Carol who killed all those people, it was that thing now back safely in the wall. The Whirlwind Enigma.

"Jack," Carol said, "did I—I dreamed—did I hurt Jerry? And Marjorie—and—" She began to shake.

Jack put his arm around her. "No, no," he said, "that wasn't you. It's okay." Behind him he could hear Frank and Benny getting to their feet. He said to Carol, "I'm taking you home, remember?" She nodded against his shoulder. "But first, you have to do something for me, okay?" Another nod. "I need you to give me that black ring."

Carol scrambled back away from him. Again her left hand covered her right, which now was a fist. "No!" she said. "I can't."

Jack said, "It's just a ring, Carol. Just something you found in a thrift shop."

She shook her head. "It's mine. I've always had it."

And it's always had you , Jack thought, but he said, "Tell you what. You give it to me, and I promise to take care of it." Carol just shook her head.

Frank Pope touched Jack's shoulder. When Jack turned his head, Frank said, "I need to tell you something."

Jack looked from Frank to Carol. "It's okay," he told the shaking woman. "I'll be right back. Nothing's going to happen."

He stood, and moved to where Frank was waiting for him, a few feet from Carol, alongside the cave painting. Benny stood behind his brother. Frank said, "Jack, look at the creature. Do you see the way it's pulsing?"

It took Jack a moment to see it, but Frank was right. A faint energy, like an old light bulb, was pulsing on and off behind the swirling lines.

"Now look at the host," Frank said. "Look at its hand." Jack stared at Carol. Every few seconds a faint flash of red showed between the fingers of her left hand, which still covered the right. Frank said, "The connection's still alive. If we destroy the ring, right now, we might break the connection for good. No more host."

"She won't give it up," Jack said.

"So we cut off its hand. Who the fuck cares?"

"None of this was her fault. Look, I can watch over her, catch her just before she dies, and get the ring before it has a chance to find a new host."

Frank made a noise. "Give me a fucking break, Shade. You watch over someone? Seen your daughter recently ?"

Later, Jack wondered what he might have done if nothing else had happened. Would he have tried to kill Frank Pope? And if he had, what would he have felt? Shame? Satisfaction? But he would never know, for it was right then that Benny Pope shot Carol Acker in the face.

The light was yellow and blue, and so hot Jack had to move away from it. Carol tried to scream but before any sound could come out, the skin on her face peeled back, and then the muscles, and in a second her face was on fire, a napalm-like flame that poured down her body, burning clothes, skin, organs, even the bones. The onyx ring didn't so much slip from her hand as the hand disappeared from inside it. It fell to the floor among Carol's ashes and almost immediately began to fade, seeking escape, seeking a new host. Benny fired again, at the ring now, a blast of dark purple light. The ring lifted off the ground and spun in the air so fast Jack could hardly see it. His breath stopped as he feared for a moment it would escape. But then it fell to the stone floor, dull and gray. Benny stamped on it, and when he lifted his boot there was nothing but dust.

The creature in the wall made no noise but rage vibrated through Jack's body. He doubled over in pain, and when he looked up again the Whirlwind Enigma had become an old worn painting, the swirls of energy mostly gone, the twisted face dull and chipped away.

"There," Frank Pope said. "It's done."

"Archie!" Jack called out. "Get me out of here!"

*   *   *

He discovered himself on all fours in the NYTAS meadow, a few feet from his car. As he stood up he saw the Djinni, a polite distance in front of him. "Thank you," he said. "I just—" He couldn't seem to finish.

Archie inclined his head toward him. "It has been an honor to serve you, Jack."

"So that's it, right? Three wishes, three grantings?"

"I'm afraid so, yes." His eyes darted to the car.

"What?" Jack said, then, "Oh, right." He went over and took out the metal flask and cap.

"Not allowed to hang around, huh? Go for a drink?"

"Sadly, no. And now, if I might make a suggestion, you might want to set the flask on the ground and stand back."

"Just one thing," Jack said.

"Quickly, please," the Djinni said. He looked in pain.

"If I'd saved a wish—that was my plan, you know."

Archie nodded. "Yes."

"And I'd asked you to bring back my daughter from the Forest of Souls—could you have done it?"

"No, effendi. We are not permitted there."

"Yeah," Jack said. "That's what I thought." He put the flask on the grass, the top alongside it, and moved away.

The Djinni's form wavered and flickered, like some primitive movie, and then gave way entirely to a stream of fire that poured into the flask. Jack wondered if he was supposed to screw on the cap but the thing lifted off the grass and settled on the opening, where it turned swiftly until it locked into place. Jack walked over and touched the flask gingerly to see if it was hot, but if anything it was a little cold. He picked it up in both hands and brought it to the car, where he set it down upright on the front passenger seat. Then he got in and began the long short journey to Suleiman International.

EPILOGUE

If Jack looked carefully from the end of the cemetery he could just make out the top of the George Washington Bridge. He was glad the place was quiet on this chilly cloudy afternoon, and that the grave he sought was at the edge of the grassy necropolis. He had no desire to glam any curious mourners who'd strayed from a boring funeral. He reached in his car, parked at the end of the lane, and pulled out the small flat drum and deer antler.

It had taken him three days to make the drum, following an instruction video he'd found on a Facebook shaman group. He'd gotten the wooden frame, deerskin, and antler stick from a shop on East Ninth Street. They sold ready-made drums, of course, but he'd wanted to do it himself, and without any Traveler shortcuts. Briefly, he'd considered going out and hunting a deer, skinning it, drying the hide, the whole deal. But besides the time it would take he remembered how much Genie had loved seeing deer, and how upset she'd gotten when she found out there were men who waited all year for the chance to kill one.

Now he squatted by the double grave with the simple headstone. "Jerome Acker," the left side said, and "Marjorie Acker" on the right, with "Beloved Husband/Wife, Father/Mother" as the only epitaphs. So they had kids , Jack thought. He wondered how old the children were. Full grown, he hoped. Like Carol Acker's children.

There were no religious symbols on the stone, no five-pointed star, no lunar crescent on its side to resemble cow's horns. Maybe not all urban shamans were Pagans, he thought. What the hell did he know?

With as much reverence as he could muster, he laid the drum on the grassy grave, with the antler stick on top of it. "I'm sorry, Jerry," he said. "You didn't deserve what happened to you, you and Marjorie. I was an asshole and you suffered for it. Like Carol." He sighed and stood up. He took a moment to set a long-standing glamour on the drum so that no one would notice it and take it away. And then he walked back to his car.

Vinegar and Cinnamon

By Nina Kiriki Hoffman | 7357 words

Nina Kiriki Hoffman first appeared in the pages of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1993 with "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentle Ghosts" and in the years since, we've been fortunate to share many of her stories with you. We welcome her back this month with a new tale of magic and family.

THE SUMMER MY LITTLE sister Maura was twelve and I was fourteen, she got fed up with me sniping at her for getting all the attention because she was a wizard and I wasn't. She added Master of Transformation to her list of skills.

It was market day, so Ma and Pa took the flatbed truck loaded with our farm's wizard supplies into town. I finished my regular morning chores in the wereweed field and the dragon-brain barn and decided to head for an irrigation ditch. It had filled with the roots of an especially pernicious stingweed that had spread into a field of spellstarter. If I trimmed the roots in the ditch, it might kill the whole stingweed plant, and if it didn't, I'd at least have cleared the ditch so water could get to the curse mustard downstream. I grabbed the thickest leather gloves I had, a pickax, a shovel, and a machete.

Maura was sitting in a chair on the front porch drinking lemonade and reading a magazine.

"Come on, Squirt. Want to be useful?"

"No," she said. "It's too hot." She flicked a page of her magazine.

I was tired of her attitude. "Do it anyway, or I'll tell Ma you're using farseeing to cheat on your written tests in chem class."

She stared at me with narrowed eyes. "I'll cast silence on you, Sam."

"Try it. I've been eating bounceback for weeks."

She whined and waffled, but finally came, bringing her magazine with her.

It was a hot day. Sun beat down on my bare arms and head. I had the pickax and the shovel over my right shoulder, with the machete in a sheath on my belt. The big tools felt like they were wearing grooves into my shoulder. The fields baked and sweated in shimmers. The dragon-brain barn looked tall, dark, cool, and inviting.

Maura dragged her feet, held her magazine over her blond head, and muttered. She opened and closed her free hand, moving her thumb along her index finger in what looked like a pattern. Building some kind of spell, I thought, and wiped sweat off my forehead with a bandanna. I tried not to worry what she was going to do with the spell.

It was worse than I remembered at the ditch. The pale white roots stuck out of the sidewall like masses of plump fingers, sucking water, and the stingweed had grown to juicy green shrubs all along the ditch and far into the spellstarters. Most of it was new growth since I spotted the problem yesterday.

"Can you curse those bright green plants dead?" I asked my little sister.

She crinkled her nose. "Pa says I'm not allowed to use magic to kill things."

Right. After what she had done to a skunk two years earlier, there had been New Rules, in spite of Maura's ability to change our parents' minds. "He means animals, Squirt. Some plants have to be killed."

"It's not my job, Sam. That's for you to do."

"That's for you to help me do."

She stuck out her lower lip.

I lowered the shovel and the pickax to the ground and watched her thumb slide over her index finger as her hand pumped open and closed. "What are you doing? Is that going to help?"

"Maybe," she said.

"Meantime, could you try cutting one of those plants down?" I unsheathed the machete and handed it to her.

Her hand sagged under its weight. She dropped her magazine and gripped the machete in two hands, then swung it. Sun flashed from the sharpened blade. I jumped back before she could slice off my head.

She was smiling.

"That's the idea," I said, "but aim at that bush." I pointed to the nearest stingweed. Grinning, she turned and swung the knife at the main trunk of the plant. She put a good notch in it, too. The plant whipped its leaves at her, slapping her bare arms and face with sting juice. She screamed, dropped the machete, and stumbled toward me, away from the plant's reach.

"Oh, heckfire, oh, stumpers, Maura, I'm sorry—I didn't—" Blisters were rising on her arms and face, and her skin had turned bright red, as though she'd been boiled. I grabbed her, rushed her to the ditch, and dunked her in the water, away from the waving white finger roots of the stingweed. I hoped the water would wash off the poison.

She struggled and flailed. I let go of her and stepped up onto the bank. She rose up shrieking.

I had no power of my own, but I could sense it in other people if it was strong enough. Just then, Maura burned bright as a falling star with power. She shaped it and spoke it and spat it at me. The bounceback I'd been eating didn't stand a chance of turning it aside.

I had never been transformed before. It hurt to dwindle down and crunch inward, but the intensification of hair sprouting over my skin was exciting. A tail shot out of me, extending my spine, shifting my balance. As I shrank, my clothes collapsed to the ground around me. I ended up perched on my shoe, then nosed out from under the cuff of my jeans. Sunlight blinded me. I ducked back into my clothes cave.

My upper lip twitched with whiskers that quivered and brushed against the clothes crumpled around me. A three-dimensional image formed in my mind of the woven texture of the cloth, the folds it had fallen into as I shrank, the scuffed leather of my shoe. I knew the geography of the features around me.

I smelled leather and denim, and the body odor of my old self pressed into both. The stink of my former feet was especially strong, but my new self liked it.

My new self. Small enough to perch on my own shoe. I looked back, whiskers twitching, at the nearly naked tail that snaked out behind me like a blind worm.

Only possums and rats had tails like that. I was too small to be a possum.

My bratty sister had turned me into a rat.

A rat .

I so wanted to bite her!

The ground was full of scents that warned and invited and informed. Delectable insect scents, juicy plant stems and roots; the faint scent of the cat (the cat! whose value was partly in her powers as a vermin-catcher!); and the much louder scent of the human I had been and the wet human Maura still was, charged with the burn of stingweed venom and distress. Magic had a smell, too, vinegar and cinnamon.

The air cracked with Maura's shrieks. My ears swiveled away from the big, pushy sounds. Maura was jumping up and down on the bank, and I felt the impacts of her jumps in the ground against my palms, the soles of my feet, the underside of my tail, and my furry belly.

I poked my head out under my pants cuff again and stared at my jumping, furious sister. She was much blurrier than before, and much grayer, though she had a purple and blue aura. She had finished the curse she cast on me, and now she was just screaming at the sky.

I still wanted to bite her. But more, I wanted to get as far from her as I could.

Air-current information came to me, and the tingle and stink of the great glot of nearby magic that surrounded Maura, and the inbred magic signatures of the plants, weeds and crops alike. The hair on my back rose as my skin tightened. My heart hammered. I peered around and saw, dimly, sheltering shade under plants. I darted out, then ran toward safety on hands and feet. My body knew how to do it, though my arms and legs worked differently, with the added tool of my tail.

Shadows swallowed me. The shift from hot to cool was amazing. I ran deeper in among the plants, away from the sap-oozing, wounded stingweed Maura had hacked, and into the spellstarter thicket, which smelled like gingerbread and oranges. I found a dip in the ground filled with dead leaves and dug myself in, the cool earth soothing against my chest and belly and tail.

Maura stopped shrieking after a while and switched to muttering. I heard her, even from a distance. She was speaking more spell words. I didn't understand them—I'd had no magical training—but I heard a shift of intention in her voice, or felt it, or smelled it. She wasn't cursing anymore. She was healing herself.

Birds called. A breeze whispered through the leaves above me. Little lives made small movements in the soil. I heard sounds higher than I had as a human, an overlay of noises I had never known, information on what insects and other small animals were talking about and doing. Birds in the air, moles in the ground, bees and butterflies and beetles and ants. Even the dragon brains in their barn sang small, high songs I had never heard before.

I blinked. My eyelids felt different sliding across my eyes. I tasted the inside of my mouth, with its changed shape and strange, curved teeth. My whiskers moved, brushing against everything nearby, and fed new details to the map in my mind. I glanced around. The world looked unfamiliar, even taking my new ground-level viewpoint into account. Everything more than a foot away disappeared into a blurred chaos of light and dark. Colors were duller, and there were some cold, radiant ones I'd never seen before. I shifted my shoulders. My new shrug moved more skin across my back.

The world was huge. Lots of it smelled delicious. Many things I would never have considered eating as a human tantalized my rat nose. I gnawed on the juicy stem of a nearby spellstarter plant. The sap was thick and sweet and satisfying. There was a flavor in it I'd never tasted before, warm and spicy.

"Sam!"

Maura's voice. I cocked my head and swiveled my ears.

"Where are you? Sam? I'm sorry."

She was often sorry when her magic made messes. I usually had to clean up after her. This time, I didn't know how.

"Sam? Sam, come back. Where'd you go? Sam?" She walked along the path toward the house. I felt her feet stepping on the earth, vibration coupled with sound. Nowhere near my little nest. I licked sap from the wound I'd bitten in the plant stem. I wanted a nap.

"Sam? Come here so I can change you back."

I closed my eyes. The sun's heat was muted by the leaves above me, but strong enough to feel like an embrace. I was tired. I had worked all morning cleaning out the dragon-brain vats, then come out to tackle the stingweed. Well, I couldn't work on that in this shape.

I slept.

*   *   *

WHEN I WOKE, night had fallen, but it was so bright with scents and sounds it didn't feel dark. I ran through the spellstarter field toward the house, adjusting to being four-footed and very short, and enjoying my new senses. I ate fallen seeds and withered flower petals and a worm that squirmed even after I bit it in half. It tasted so good.

I wondered what my family thought about my disappearance. Had Maura told Ma and Pa what she'd done? I wanted to creep into the house and hear what they were saying.

I smelled a new scent that made my hair bristle and my heart race.

I'd temporarily forgotten Slaughter, our cat. An excellent mouser, long-bodied and wiry with short tortoiseshell fur, she was the best pest control we had. Rats were a bit big for her, and she'd been bitten by them before, but she had managed to kill a few the traps didn't catch.

I noticed the motion of her tail and turned to discover her stalking me, only two feet away. An array of scents described her in ways I'd never thought of her before—fishy breath, laundry scent from the blanket where she liked to sleep, cat fur and cat body, heat and hunger.

"Slaughter," I tried to say. It came out as a high-pitched chirp.

She crept closer, crouching low to the ground, her eyes as big as basketballs, ears perked forward, hips quivering, tail-tip twitching. She was making that ticking sound she used when she was about to pounce on something tasty.

Standing still didn't seem like a good idea. Running would be worse. She chased anything that fled. I ground my teeth and remembered I could use them as a weapon, but they wouldn't be enough to stop Slaughter if she really wanted to kill me. I would hate to hurt her.

I would hate even more to die.

I stood on my hind legs and realized how ridiculously small my pink forefeet were for fighting, almost T. rex ridiculous. I tried to speak again. Noises came out, a rat's clicks, squeaks, and chitters; I felt unknown words flow up my throat and out of my mouth, a smooth stream of sound freighted with intention and the sharp taste of ginger fire.

Warmth bloomed in my stomach and spread through me. My whiskers quivered. My tail vibrated. I opened and closed my hand-feet. I squeaked, and warmth flowed from my hands. Pale purple fire shot at Slaughter, surrounded her head with a helmet of lavender light, then faded.

She sneezed and shook her head, then stared at me, her pupils flaring even wider. She had stopped emitting her hunting chirp. "Mrrow?" she said.

What had I done?

Was it magic? That would be strange. I'd wished all my life for magic, and here it was. I'd been munching on spellstarter plants, sucking the sap.… I'd eaten spellstarter before, when I was younger and yearning for magic, and it had had no effect on me, but maybe, with this smaller body—

Magic! It had the color of magic, and it tasted gingery and salty. I had cast a spell! I wasn't sure what it was supposed to do, but sure as shootin', magic had come out of me and entered my cat.

Joy and terror made me wavery, or maybe it was just the tired that came from spell-casting, or the exhaustion of overwhelming fear.

Slaughter's ears twitched. She started toward me and paused. Her whiskers frilled and her nose worked. "Mrrp?" she said.

I froze. Maybe this was the end. A stupid end, killed by a cat who often shared my bed and purred me to sleep.

She came closer and sniffed me, then knocked me over by rubbing her cheek on me. She laid her scent on my fur, a familiar, spicy, fishy scent that comforted me. Then she licked my stomach. Her tongue was rough. I wondered if this was the prequel to making a meal of me.

Maybe this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Good spell.

I tried to pet Slaughter. My hands sank into her fur. I stroked her. Tiny rat-hand strokes.

She purred. Then she picked me up by the scruff of the neck. I went limp as soon as her teeth pinched my skin. It was a strange sensation. It didn't hurt, but it paralyzed me. It was weirdly relaxing.

She carried me into the house through the cat door, then through the kitchen, right past the big kitchen table where my parents and my sister were having dinner. Ma had made pork chops and sweet potatoes. The mix of spices and ingredients smelled intense and tantalizing, sparking rich red and golden colors in my imagination. My stomach gave a tiny grumble, though I had eaten all sorts of things that afternoon.

"I'm asking you again. Don't spell at me this time. Where is your brother, Maura?" Ma said, an unusual edge of anger in her voice.

"I haven't seen Sam since this afternoon," said Maura.

"He missed our teatime music jam," said Pa, sounding grumpy. "I got two new tunes from Bert this afternoon. S'posed to make the dragon brains smarter. I need to teach them to Sam."

"I wonder if he has a girlfriend," Ma said. "Maybe he's distracted. He always calls if he's going to miss a meal, though."

"It's not like him to skip work, and he didn't do his afternoon chores," said Pa. "Maura, you sure you don't know where he is?"

"I don't. I really don't," said my sister, with a little choke in her voice.

Slaughter carried me into the hallway and up the stairs. She nudged open the door to my room, jumped up on my bed, and dropped me. She curled around me and purred us both to sleep.

*   *   *

"Sam?"

I blinked awake, whisked my whiskers to rebuild my mental map—cloth beneath me, air above me, warm, purring presence at my back—and stretched against a large, furry wall, then noticed my hands, which were more properly fingery feet. And my new snaky tail.

Whoosha. I was a rat. Oh, yeah.

"There you are!" Maura said. "Holy hidden! At least the cat didn't eat you! Holy hidden!" She grabbed me around the middle. Slaughter huffed, then meowed as my sister lifted me away from her island of warmth. I struggled, tempted to try my teeth on Maura, but she had me in a grip I couldn't get out of, her fingers safely out of reach.

"I haven't worked out the counter-spell yet," Maura muttered as she carried me down the hall and into her room. "I was so mad I don't remember what I said when I changed you. I'm sorry, Sam. I need to keep you safe until I can reverse this."

She put me in a cage on the desk in her bedroom, where I and my parents never, ever went. We didn't know if she booby-trapped her room on purpose or left careless spells around that could be triggered by a touch. Either way, Maura had perfect privacy in her room. The cat never came in here, either.

The cage was a big one, with several levels, ramps, and toys. Maura had had a pet hamster once. Something unfortunate happened to it during one of her spelling experiments. She'd cried for days.

The cage bottom was covered with shredded paper. There was a crockery bowl of water, and another with apple slices, torn bits of bread, and some cheese in it. She locked the door. "I need to know where you are, that you're safe, while I figure out the reverse spell," she said. "Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

She almost never did mean.

I chirped at her. She frowned. Then she ran from the room.

*   *   *

CAGED LIFE was boring after half a day.

At first I explored my new senses.

My sight was very bad. Nearby things had detail, but anything farther than a foot was a blobby blur, and colors had bled out of everything, except shades of gray, blue, purple, and an intensification of violet that was almost like light shining, almost like a sound.

Smells were so much stronger, most of them enticing, even when I knew they would disgust me if I were my human self. Everything Ma or Pa cooked. Traces of Maura's botched spells, and her successful ones. Her spell-makings in the cabinet on her desk—her own supply of all the herbs, fruit, stems, and tubers we sold at market, and other ingredients she had bought or her wizard teacher gave her. Anything she had tracked into the house—fertilized dirt, plant traces, decaying things, animal droppings, water clean and stagnant. Weather. Other rats who had been in the walls. The cat, the carpets, the history of the house. The distinct scent of each of the humans living here, which shifted depending on how recently they had showered and how sweaty they had gotten and how they felt. Trace scents of my former human self. Dirty laundry, the soap Ma washed the clothes and sheets with, the sunlight drying spell she used, and, under the bed, rotting fruit where Maura had tossed apple cores. Bouquets of dust. Lots of intriguing things I couldn't investigate.

So much information came to me from the quivers of my whiskers. I sensed the shape, size, and texture of things in my cage just by walking past them. Even in the dark, I built a map of everything around me by paying attention to what my whiskers and nose told me.

I heard what happened all over the house. By swiveling my ears, I could change the focus of sounds around me. I heard Ma and Pa calling my friends, trying to track me down, worrying and wondering, and Maura worrying and wondering with them. Our parents questioned Maura, but even though Pa had a bit of wizard in him—he could always tell when I was lying, for instance—he couldn't tell when Maura was. Ma's housewitch spells had very little effect on Maura, being tailored for managing inanimate things.

Whatever calming magic Maura might have, it wasn't working very well on Ma and Pa.

I couldn't do anything about their distress, so I tuned it out.

Slaughter came to Maura's door and meowed, but the door only opened when Maura came or left, and the cat always hid when Maura was around.

I had nowhere to go, not much to do, and not much to see, except when Maura came in for the night, and even that wasn't interesting after she actually fell asleep. Maura brought me bread and cut-up fruit once a day, which made a nice change. Otherwise she avoided her own room. I heard and smelled her studying spells in my room next door.

Spelling studies. Hadn't I cast a spell on my cat? I could study, too.

I thought about changing myself into something smaller that could fit through the bars of the cage. I squeaked and gestured. Nothing happened.

I tried casting spells on the cage door to unlock. Nothing.

My stomach rumbled. Fruit and bread were not what I craved, and Maura never brought me enough of either to satisfy.

A beetle wandered into my cage. It had a harsh, stinky smell with an edge of iron, and my rat self wanted to eat it. I imagined the crunch of its hard shell between my teeth, the squirt of its soft, wet internal organs onto my tongue, and my mouth watered. Still—

"I wish you were a leg of lamb," I said in squeaks, and laid my paws on the beetle's back. Warmth gathered in my stomach, then flowed up my arms and out of my paws.

The beetle turned into a tiny but complete roast leg of lamb, with all my favorite seasonings. I devoured it, even crunching the bones, then took a nap.

That evening, Maura gave me a roll. As soon as she left the room, I squeaked to the roll, "I wish you were a pound cake." It turned into a pound cake the size of the roll. Delicious.

I had magic. I had a power! I could turn food I wasn't interested in into food I wanted.

Fizzy with excitement, I touched the bars of my cage and wished them into pretzels. Salty and delicious. I ate my way out of my prison and stayed to eat more, a mistake, for Maura came in while I was munching through the forest of pretzel bars and cast another cage around me. "What happened?" she asked, crushing some of the leftover pretzels between her fingers. She stared at me and the remains of the cage.

She peered out the open window, her face pinched with fear. She placed my new cage carefully on the floor under her desk and closed the window after doing a few unsuccessful spells to reveal the presence of an enemy. They weren't crafted small enough to point to me.

Was I her enemy? In my previous body, I had teased her without mercy. Were I she, I might have done something nasty to me, too. I never wanted to hurt her, though, and I was pretty sure she hadn't meant to hurt me.

I waited until she went out, then changed my new cage's bars into soft, fresh breadsticks. This time I ate my way out and paused just long enough to conduct an experiment. I put my hand on the breadsticks and said, "I wish you were bars again," but it didn't work; they stayed bread. A limit.

I scooted under Maura's bed, dodging dust dragons and rotting apple cores. I turned a rat-sized section of floorboard under the bed into mashed potatoes and ate my way into the house's substructure.

In the spaces between walls, floors, and ceilings, I explored the hidden skeleton of the house. I appreciated my new ability to run up walls and wedge myself into narrow cracks, and I enjoyed the rich weight of scents, the whisker map I made without even thinking, the embrace of sounds and smells that brought me so much information the dark didn't scare me anymore.

I crafted peepholes in most rooms of the house, turning knots into nuts and gnawing my way through.

I explored the house while my family was outside working.

Slaughter found me when I ventured into the human spaces. Sometimes she carried me as though I were a kitten. Sometimes we hid together in the backs of closets or under the living room couch to take naps. She let me hug her, and she purred, enveloping me in comfort and love.

In my explorations, I discovered secrets.

Ma had a secret stash of photos in an envelope taped to the underside of her dresser. I managed to ease them out of the envelope without untaping it. I found pictures of a much younger Ma with a man I didn't recognize. It was difficult for rat-me to see the pictures. I had to drag them out from under the dresser one by one so the light fell on them, and then I climbed up on a shoe so I could look down and see the whole picture. In one, Ma and the stranger, smiling wide, held up fat fish. I couldn't remember Ma ever fishing, or smiling that wide. In another picture, the man aimed the camera toward the two of them, and they were kissing. Ma had her eyes closed, and she looked so relaxed, an edge of smile lifting her cheek, as though she were holding laughter inside. The man's eye glanced toward the lens, and he looked sly. The third picture showed the two of them at Harvest Festival, wrapped together in ropes woven from corn husks, dancing the dance for couples who planned to marry, with people cheering all around them.

Not Pa. What had happened?

I found one of Pa's secrets under a pile of magazines in a basket beside the table where he and I worked on the farm accounts. There were three small, slim books of advanced wizarding spells.

Pa's magic was minimal. All of these spells were beyond him. But he had written notes on all the pages. Questions, alternate ingredients, results—always "Nothing apparent." I borrowed one of the books and hid it under the big, squashy sofa no one ever moved. Slaughter and I slept there together, and I studied the spells in the evening. They didn't work for me, either.

One of Maura's secrets was in the attic, where we stored things we might repair or need later. She had a guitar up there. I saw her craft a sound cocoon around herself and the guitar, and I saw her playing it. She frowned a lot. Maybe she had found something that wasn't as easy as breathing for her, and she didn't want us to know there was anything she did badly.

*   *   *

Maura had been taking wizard lessons from the town librarian, though the librarian wasn't much of a wizard. Our normal school was not equipped for students who showed wizard-sign at such an early age; wizards were supposed to manifest in high school, by which time they would be enrolled in proper wizard schools with teachers who could control them. The librarian located elementary wizarding books Maura studied on her own.

We had stepped up production of dragon brains in hopes of sending Maura to a good school. After she graduated from six years of advanced wizardry study, she would be able to command the best rates for her skills, and maybe help us improve the farm and give Ma and Pa a comfortable old age.

Most of these plans depended on me being active in farm maintenance, though. Pa had hurt his leg in a fall last autumn, and he hadn't recovered well, despite Maura's using healing charms on him. We didn't have enough savings to pay for a cure doctor in the nearest city, and the longer we waited, the less likely it was anybody would be able to change things. Ma's talents were household ones; she could mend clothes and unburn burnt food, cleanse windows with words, but she couldn't affect flesh.

I had shouldered a lot of Pa's work, happy to be useful, growing stronger every day. I knew lots about our routines and was learning more as fast as I could. I wanted to be a farmer the rest of my life.

I couldn't help with the farm as a rat, even with a food spell. I could help best if restored to myself. If that didn't happen—

I could lead a comfortable rat-wizard life. I had all the food I wanted, and I would never have to worry about taking care of anyone else.

I crept up under the kitchen floor and listened to my parents and my sister during supper.

"Where is Sam?" Pa asked. "It's three days he's been gone! He's never done that before. Sam's not visiting the Tomkins the way you said, Maura-chick. I called over there and they haven't seen him. Where did he say he was going, again?"

"Maybe it was the Adeltwishers," Maura said. My best friend was Rob Adeltwisher. Ma and Pa didn't like the family because they had no farm of their own. They got by with wildcrafting, harvesting things in the forest and selling them, and creating small, elegant, useful spells—flavor adjustments for food, mending spells you could use on clothes and nicked and tarnished metalware, spells for light. Sometimes they went hungry. They weren't land-settled, but lived in a house wagon that could move them wherever the hunting was good. They had been parked on a lot down the road from us the past three years, near a finger of forest at the base of the hills. They had no phone.

Ma said, "Maura, I don't like you mucking about in the brain barn. You leave the chores half done, and the dragon brains are getting puffy with ideas and upsets. And what have you been doing to our wereweeds?"

My sister sniffled. "I'm doing the best I can."

"You'd think such a talented girl could do better," said Pa. "Stick to studying your magic. Lady knows how I'll find time to do Sam's chores and my own, but somehow I'll manage."

Ma said, "I'll give you a hand with the wereweeds. I've laid in a good supply of spell stitcheries; I can afford to spend time elsewhere until after our next market day."

"Good," said Pa. "I'll go out to the Adeltwishers tomorrow and fetch Sam home. What's got into him? He's never run off before."

Ma rapped her fingers on the table, horses galloping. "Maura, are you making our worries go away? I think we should be more upset about Sam's disappearance. If you're mindbending us, stop it right now."

"I never—"

Silence.

"Unmuffle us, Maura," Ma said.

A hesitation. Then the sharp smell of pickles, vinegar, and peaches.

Ma and Pa both jumped to their feet.

"Maura, what have you done to your brother?" Pa yelled.

"Did you kill Sam?" Ma said. The silence after her words was like thunder.

"He's not dead. He's just transformed," Maura said, her voice squashed. "I've been working on unspelling ever since it happened. I've got most of the kinks worked out. I'll get him back, Ma. I promise."

"What did you do?" Pa said, in the quiet voice that meant he had a storm inside.

"Sam's a rat."

"The traps!" Ma cried.

"I tripped them all and put them in the hall closet with an unsee spell around them," Maura said.

"The cat!" Ma said.

"The cat didn't kill him," Maura whispered. "When I found him, he and the cat were sleeping on his bed together."

"When was that?"

"The day I changed him."

"Do you know for a fact that your brother is still alive?" Pa asked. His words had a weight of frost on them that made me shiver.

Maura cried. "I caught him and put him in a cage the day I changed him, but he escaped," she said, between small sobs. "Twice! The cages turned into food, and he ate his way out. I don't know how that happened. I've done seek spells, and I can't find him. I've been working and working on reverse spells. I think I have one that'll work—"

"You cast on him without a planned spell?" Ma's voice was quiet.

"I was mad and hurt," Maura said. "I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to! Then he ran away. I couldn't find him." A sob. "I searched and searched. I can't find him."

"Sam!" Pa yelled. "Sam, are you in the house? Come here!"

In the dark under the floor, I thought about this. I could come, now, emerge, and Ma and Pa would see me as vermin. Shame swamped me for the first time since my transformation. I missed my human life, and I liked being a rat. I had fashioned a comfortable life for myself. I hadn't thought about my human view of rats: despised pests that harmed crops, spread disease, damaged supplies, and corrupted structures. Unclean, sneaky beasts, worthy only of being killed.

How could I let them see me like this?

"Sam!" Ma shouted. "Please come out!" Her voice held fear and pain.

I stilled, held my breath, tried to get myself to move. I felt as paralyzed as I had when the cat picked me up by the scruff.

I was so diminished. So much smaller and less powerful and less helpful than the good son I had been.

"Sam," Ma and Pa said together.

"Do you think he went outside somewhere?" Ma asked after a minute. "Maura, can't you craft a better seek spell?"

"I'll try again," said my sister. "Maybe Mr. Corazon has a better book for that. I'll ask him."

I squeaked. I didn't want her to make a seek spell that would work.

"Sam?" Ma said.

My belly was full of sour churning. The taste in my mouth was defeat. I couldn't let them go on not knowing what had happened to me, no matter what I looked like now.

I crept up through the hole I'd made a day earlier behind the refrigerator. Slaughter, curled in her cat bed beside the stove, heard me and meowed.

"The cat!" said Pa. "Holy heckfire! The cat!"

"The cat didn't hurt him," Maura said.

I scuttled through shadows until I was near the kitchen table, then emerged and darted to the center of the rag rug, out of stomping range.

I turned and stared at my family. I squeaked, and they looked at me.

My family were blurry gray giants among blurry gray mountains of furniture. I smelled their emotions: vinegar surprise, hot-pepper anger, warm, buttery love from Ma; baking-bread love from Pa; and caramel love and salt-water dismay from Maura. No lightning ozone of intent to attack, at least. I heard their breathing, the shuffle of their hearts pushing blood through their veins.

Ma knelt near me—a giant who smelled of laundry soap, onions, roasted beef, the salamander stones that powered our oven and stove, the ice-giant spell we used in the fridge, cotton thread, sweat, and the lemon balm she put in her hair-rinse. "Oh, Sam," she whispered.

My body quivered with the urge to flee. Holding still was hard.

Pa edged forward on his knees and held out a hand to me. I sniffed his fingers and whisked them, mapping the rough texture of his calloused skin, smelling the grime of work in the dragon-brain barn, with hints of stinkweed, earth, and the wooden handles of farm tools. I touched his thumb with one of my hands. He lowered his hand, put it palm down on the floor.

Maura came to me, too, crouching but still giant, her scents the many herbs she used in wizardry, the nose-burning vinegar of magic, the softer smells of her sweat, and the salt water of tears. "I've been working really hard, Sam," she said. "The hardest in my life. I have the spell ready."

I stood on my hind paws and stared up at her. I blinked, swiveled my ears toward her. Her breathing hitched.

Did I trust her to spell me again?

She had turned me into an excellent rat without any preparation. Her wizard powers were strong.

I couldn't still my trembling, but I stayed where I was.

"I'm going to spell now," she said. Then she spoke in wizard language and moved her hands. The vinegar and cinnamon smell grew so strong my nose bled, and the words made me wish I could close my ears.

Change came.

Everything in me shifted and grew as I stretched up into an approximation of the boy I had been. I shed fur and most of my augmented rat senses. My bones crackled as they lengthened, and my muscles restrung themselves with exquisite pain, pain so strong it swallowed me. I was blind, deaf, impervious to anything but how much I hurt.

When at last shocks and stabs stopped cracking through me, when the pain eased, when the shift felt finished and nothing changed, I blinked and looked around.

My eyes worked well again. Air against my skin was mostly cold, though a current of warmth came to me from the stove. A whole world of sounds and scents had vanished; I was dizzy with new deafness.

Ma, Pa, and Maura were all sitting on the floor staring up at me, and I realized I was naked. I looked down, then hunched my shoulders and covered my genitals with my hands.

Pa got to his feet, went to the coat hooks by the back door, and grabbed my winter coat. He handed it to me, and I put it on. Then Ma was hugging me tighter than she had since I was seven and fell from a tree onto gravel and skinned my knees and palms.

"Sam, are you okay?" Pa asked, his voice hoarse. He stroked my head.

"I don't know," I said. My voice cracked. It had been doing that a lot in my recent non-rat past. Cracking or not, I had a voice again, and I could say words.

Ma was crushing me. I hadn't known she was so strong. "Ma," I squeaked.

She eased her grip on me. Once I could breathe again, I heaved the biggest sigh of my life. I was glad to have my regular body back, and I already missed my rat senses. And I was starving, thirsty, and majorly tired.

Ma finally let me go. Maura grabbed me, her arms around my waist, her damp face pressed into my chest. "I'll never do it again, Sammy, never, ever, ever. I'm so sorry!" she said, punctuated by small hiccoughy sobs.

"Hey," I said. "At least you turned me into something alive and functioning. And it feels like you turned me back okay. Better than some of your experiments, right?"

She sniffled and let go of me, looked up at my face. Her breath hitched and she blinked, then reached up to touch the space between my nose and mouth. I felt movement under the skin there. I whisked the shape and texture of her fingertip. Her mouth opened. No words came out.

I fingered what might be a mustache, only it felt more like heavy, individual hairs instead of a pelt like a regular mustache. I twitched them, felt air currents, but nothing besides my hand was close enough to whisk. They flickered over my fingertips, building a three-dimensional map in my mind.

Maura touched one of my ears. I swiveled it, flicking it back, away from her fingers.

Oh, yeah. I hadn't been able to do that before. I glanced around the room, moving my ears. I could hear everyone's breathing and separate out those sounds, assigning one breath-thread to each of my relatives, but I no longer heard their heartbeats.

"I—I'll figure out how to fix it," she whispered.

"Leave me alone, will you? No more changes!" I stroked my flickery whiskers. Anger rumbled in my stomach. Things had been changing too fast for my feelings to catch up with me, but now that I was more or less stable again, I was angry with the fire of a thousand suns.

"If that's what you want," Maura said, staring at the floor. She kicked at a floorboard.

"It is." I kept my tone even. No sense loosing my anger on her. I'd have to find something else to do with it.

She looked up, her eyes wet and shimmering, then ran from the room.

I looked at Ma and Pa. "How bad is it?"

Ma hugged me again, then stepped back and studied me. She mussed my hair. "If you grow your hair a little longer than it is now, it'll cover the ears," she said. "They're not terrible, just not entirely human anymore. You know, like Lem Allowyn's after the accident with the trans-taters." She hesitated, then touched my whiskers. "Well."

"My razor can take those right off," said Pa.

I twitched my whiskers and shook my head. "Not yet. I want to see—who I am now." Thank the Source it was summer and I didn't have school. I wanted to take a look at myself before I had to face anybody besides family.

"Was it terrible?" Ma asked.

I shook my head again. "In some ways, it was great. I was a wizard."

"Being a rat made you a wizard?" Pa asked.

I nodded.

He gripped my shoulder. "Are you a wizard still?" he asked.

"I—I don't know." I picked up a carved wooden spoon from the kitchen table, held it in both hands, and said: "Be a sausage."

My stomach growled as loud as speech. I felt something stir in my middle, but the spoon stayed a spoon.

Ma smiled at me and went to the stove. She dished up a bowl of sausage, kale, and white bean soup and brought it to the table. She set it in front of me and kissed my forehead.

"Wizard or not, you're our Sam. I'm so glad you're back."

The soup smelled amazing, thick, rich, peppery, and meaty. I spooned up a bite. It tasted like paradise.

"Me, too," I said.

*   *   *

In the upstairs bathroom, I examined my new self. My face looked pointier than it used to, and my ears were bigger, sticking-out cups on the sides of my head. With a thought, I could move one or the other. So not human.

My whiskers formed a bristling forest of stiff white hairs with independent movement. That would disgust people, especially girls. Maybe I could dye them.

I held my hand up and whisked it. A three-dimensional map of my fingers formed in my mind, sharper than any vision. I smelled a faint hint of vinegar and cinnamon.

Hope woke, warm in my chest.

My frame was the same as it had been: a muscular boy, tall for fourteen, with big hands and feet I hadn't grown into yet.

My face, though—it wasn't normal. Anyone glancing at me would know I'd been spelled.

Lem looked weirder, and people got used to him.

I strode two-footed to my own room, a towering giant. Slaughter lay on my bed. I sat next to her and stroked her, and she woke enough to slit her green eyes open and purr at me. My bed was covered by an orange, yellow, and red quilt Ma had made from scraps. Color: I was glad I had that back.

Maura had left one of her wizard textbooks open on my desk. Elementary Spells Review . It was open to a page headed, "Simple Transformations."

Before my ratification, I had never shown a hint of wizard power aside from sensing magic, so I'd never looked at any of Maura's wizard books. I took the book to my bed, sat down, and pulled the cat into my lap.

I had tasted my own magic, in more ways than one, and I hungered for more. Slaughter purred drowsily in my lap. I lifted the book and touched it with my whiskers. They tingled, and I smelled ginger and pepper and possibility.

One Way

By Rick Norwood | 7883 words

Rick Norwood tells us that the beginning of this story is based on his own experiences presenting papers at academic conferences, although we're quite sure that nothing ever happened to him as bad—or as good—as what is about to happen to Harvey Gold.

HARVEY GOLD FELT LIKE the invisible man. Even his friends pretended that he wasn't there. There had been a time when he strode through a physics conference surrounded by admiring young faces. His invited talks were filled to overflowing. He wore a T-shirt and jeans.

Now, uncomfortable in a new suit bought at Sears with a credit card that had not been paid off in years, he doubted that more than two or three people would attend his contributed fifteen-minute talk. Fifteen minutes was the most time he had been able to wrangle. The next downward step would be a poster presentation, and then oblivion.

When he arrived at the small room where his talk was scheduled, he found just one person in the audience, a very young man with red hair and freckles. The only other person in the room was the professor who would introduce him.

Harvey pegged the young man as a mathematician. Mathematicians often look younger than they actually are. He was probably a graduate student who had wandered into this talk more or less at random, and who would wander out again before the talk was over.

Harvey slid his transparencies out of a manila envelope and began to check that they were in order. The facilitator gave him a pitying look. Everyone else was using PowerPoint. Harvey had never found time to learn PowerPoint. Since he lost his tenure, the only job he could land was as an adjunct, with a heavy teaching load and mountains of papers to grade. He spent every spare minute on his research. The only recreation he allowed himself was an hour or two playing blues guitar just before bed.

Nervously, he began to sort through the thin plastic sheets. They squirted out of his hand and splashed to the floor. He stooped to pick them up and found his face near the freckled cheek of the youngster from the audience.

"Allow me, Professor Gold." Grateful, Harvey stood up. He was breathing hard and there was a pain in his chest. In recent years it had become more and more difficult to bend over.

He allowed the stranger to gather up the transparencies while he tried to put his thoughts in order. Surely a few more people would drift in, for old time's sake.

He took the stack of plastic sheets from the stranger and clicked their edges against the desk to straighten them. Glancing down, he realized that they were hopelessly out of order.

He heard his name and looked up. The introducer read, from the printed schedule of talks, "Doctor Harvey Gold, of Kansas State University, will be speaking on 'A Stable Field which Acts at the Atomic Level.'"

Harvey shuffled through the transparencies, found the title page, and put it on the overhead projector. He looked up. He still had an audience of one. But the young man had known his name and was gazing at him with an intent expression, and so he began.

It was the worst talk he had ever given in his life. Even trivial derivations confused him. He kept finding mistakes on the transparencies, scratching them out, and writing in the margins. He had not even gotten to his important results when he saw other people drifting into the room and taking their seats. The introducer stood up and interrupted him. "Are there any questions? No. Then I'm afraid we're out of time. Our next talk will start in five minutes."

Harvey gathered up his transparencies and shoved them into the manila envelope, tearing it along one side. He pushed his way through the crowd at the door and hurried down the hall. He wanted nothing so much as a drink.

Then he noticed that the young man was walking at his side. He stopped. The closer he looked, the stronger his impression became that this was just a boy. He couldn't be more than sixteen. He was short, clean-shaven, with curly red hair and blue eyes, slim but muscular—clearly he got some sort of regular exercise. He was wearing a Pima cotton shirt, chinos, and expensive loafers. Harvey was impressed by the intensity of his gaze.

Harvey said, "I want to thank you for attending my talk."

The boy held out his hand. "Jerry Morgan."

Harvey blinked. He had read about this boy. MIT graduate at twelve. Johns Hopkins Ph.D. at fourteen. "Thank you again," he said.

"Can we go somewhere and talk? It's a little early for lunch, but we could get a cup of coffee."

Harvey allowed himself to be led to the line at the coffee machine.

"I've been following your work," Jerry said. "You can't imagine how excited I was when I heard you would be presenting a new paper. I flew in from New York just to hear your talk."

Harvey began to feel a little of the old excitement but he clenched his jaw. This was no time to become sentimental, to dwell on the promising career he had thrown away. A startlingly erotic image of Ann flashed into his mind. He hadn't thought of her that way for years. Yes, she had been his student, but she had been willing. God, had she been willing!

This boy, this Jerry Morgan, was talking about his work. He forced himself to focus. They were sitting at student desks someone had pulled into the hallway. There was a cup of coffee in front of him—Harvey couldn't remember getting it. What was Jerry saying? It didn't make sense.

"It's really a good thing nobody came to your talk. Can you imagine what would happen if anyone understood what you've discovered? We have to be careful—not publish until you've taken out a patent. Several patents, actually," Jerry said.

"Not publish?"

"If you publish now, and if anyone is smart enough to grasp what you're on to, they'll take out a whole slew of patents on every application of your discovery, possible or impossible. Then they'll claim proprietary rights and get an injunction to stop you from publishing anything else. You'll be shut out."

Harvey could feel the pulse in his neck. His hands were shaking. This boy understood. This boy really understood.

"I hope you'll allow me to work with you," Jerry was saying. "I'm not even in your league when it comes to theory, but I think I have something to contribute to experimental design. And nobody is going to believe your theory until it's been tested in the lab. With your permission, I'd like to bring two other people in on this. One is a friend of mine I've worked with before, Sam Gleason. He's great with machines—couldn't solve a quadratic equation if his life depended on it, but if it's made out of wires and metal, he's your man. The other person we need is a patent lawyer. Do you know one?"

"Me?" Harvey said. "No. The only lawyer I know I still owe money to."

"Seriously, we need a first-rate patent lawyer who is willing to work on spec. If we can get one who's honest, all the better. Because unless I am very much mistaken, you and I are going to become obscenely rich."

*   *   *

The warehouse in New Jersey did not look like a proper birthplace for a major new invention. It had a high metal roof, a cement floor, corrugated metal walls. The only amenities were a toilet and sink in one corner, with two low wooden walls that did not come all the way down to the floor providing the minimum of privacy.

Harvey and Jerry dropped Harvey's bags off at a cheap motel where Harvey would be spending the summer. Jerry had a loft in the City. They walked to the warehouse—their new laboratory—where they found a young man sweeping the floor. Harvey took him for a janitor until Jerry introduced him as Sam Gleason, their lab technician.

In a remarkably short time, the lab began to fill up with crates, cartons, and FedEx boxes. Sam didn't say much, but machines seemed to know he was their friend.

Harvey left the experimental design entirely to Jerry. All he really cared about was the theory. But he knew that an experiment was necessary for his theories to be accepted. There was plenty of work for all three men. The paper that Harvey had presented—or rather tried to present—at the conference provided a theory which depended on the existence of a solution to a certain family of partial differential equations. Harvey had demonstrated that a solution existed. Jerry wanted numbers. Harvey spent most of his days sitting on a high stool by a lab table, scribbling equations on a legal pad and then solving them on his laptop using Mathematica. On the other side of the table, Jerry sketched circuit diagrams and Sam worked with a soldering iron.

The biggest challenge was to make the tools required to build the field generator. The generator itself had a simple design, but it needed to be constructed to more exacting specifications than a commercial tool and die works could meet. Nothing like it had ever been built before, and endless tests were performed to make sure that every part was exactly right. Like a chronometer, the generator would not work unless every part was perfect.

*   *   *

JERRY BROUGHT his girlfriend to see the lab. "Harvey Gold, meet Deloris Lake. She's an undergraduate at Pratt."

Without understanding why, Harvey disliked Deloris on sight. He made an effort not to frown and took her small, cool hand in his. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Lake."

"Call me Lor. Everybody does. Any friend of Jer's is a friend of mine."

"I wanted to show Lor the lab," Jerry said.

"I'm so excited about the work you're doing. Jer is happier than he's been in years."

"Lor is an English major," Jerry said.

What Harvey understood by this was that Lor didn't know any science, and so he started to talk about their work. "We're building a one-way screen. You've seen one-way mirrors? On one side they reflect light, on the other side they let light through? Well, what we're building is like that, only for matter instead of energy. Atoms can pass through in one direction but not in the other."

Lor's said, "That sounds important. I don't know any science, but if anything like that had been invented, I think I'd have heard about it. Are you and Jer going to become famous?" She put an arm around Jerry and pulled him closer.

Lor and Jer! Harvey felt vaguely sick to his stomach and wished he had not spoken so frankly about their work. Knowing that he was being rude, he turned and walked away. He listened to the tap , tap , tap of Lor's feet as she crossed the concrete and heard her say, "Hello, Sam." He returned to the lab table, but it was hard for him to concentrate. The equations on the yellow sheet of paper stopped making sense. He put one hand over his face and rubbed his temples, then he jumped down from the stool and walked to the door. "I'll be back," he said.

It was late when he returned to the lab. He was carrying a bottle, and he slipped it into a drawer in an old wooden desk that he or Jerry sometimes used when they were sorting through the mail.

*   *   *

Even the most dedicated researchers need some downtime. In the evenings, Harvey and Jerry played Go. They both played like Americans, which is to say badly. A professional Go player from Japan would have been bored by their game. They had not memorized even the simplest figures—for them, the fun lay in deducing moves from first principles. The game of Go has only two rules. From simple axioms complex systems grow. Because they were playing for fun rather than seriously, they were able to carry on a conversation as they did so, with frequent pauses to count degrees of freedom.

"I read your first paper when I was ten," Jerry said.

Harvey shook his head in wonder. That paper had made his reputation, but he later learned that many of the people who praised it had not really understood it.

"I had just started MIT. I'd been homeschooled before that. When Mom and Dad thought I was ready for college, I knew that an 800 on the SAT wouldn't impress any of the schools I wanted to go to, so I took the Graduate Record Exam as well. That got their attention."

Jerry paused to study the Go board, then snapped a white stone into place and continued, "I was thinking of majoring in math, but one of my physics professors suggested that I read your paper. It changed my life. As soon as I read it, I knew this was what I wanted to do. I really haven't done anything else since."

This revelation felt so good that Harvey found the courage to mention something he rarely allowed himself to even think about. He said, "Around the time you graduated from MIT, my life began to fall apart. It's hard to concentrate on science when you've lost your job and are going through a divorce. It's not an emotion I can describe, except to say that it feels really bad and isn't like anything else I've experienced."

Jerry said, "I didn't know anything about your personal life. I was just waiting for your next paper and designing experiments that would confirm your results. The more I thought about the implications, the more excited I got—but there was something missing, and without it, I knew none of my ideas were practical. I thought about getting in touch with you a few times but decided I should get my Ph.D. first. I did my dissertation on some stuff in high-energy physics that my major professor was working on, but it wasn't what I was really interested in. Physical Review Letters took the short version and the full paper went to the Journal , and somebody thought it was good enough for me to be offered a full professorship at Columbia. But to me, it was just a way of getting a degree. Then, almost by accident, I found out that you were giving a talk at the meeting in Ann Arbor and flew out to hear it."

"You flew all that way just to listen to me. It's still hard for me to believe." Life is strange , Harvey thought. Am I really going to get a second chance?

*   *   *

The work went quickly. The theory was all there. The details fell into place. Some nights, after a few drinks, Harvey was in awe of his own brilliance. Then, just one day before the first actual test of the machine, he came to work feeling as if he had aged ten years.

Jerry looked up. "You okay?"

"We have to quit," Harvey said.

Jerry stopped what he was doing but didn't get up. Harvey went over to him. It's strange , Harvey thought. I'm so much older than he is, and yet I feel like I'm the student and he's the professor. He looked down at the floor, pooled with shadows, and shook his head from side to side, which made him dizzy. Harvey clenched his jaw and forced himself to look Jerry in the eye. "We've got to stop. It's too dangerous."

"No," Jerry said. "We're not going to stop. You're just tired—why don't you go back to the motel and get some rest?"

"I don't need rest!" Harvey was surprised to find himself shouting. With an effort, he lowered his voice. He brought his left thumb and forefinger together to form a circle. "Here's our one-way screen." He moved the index finger of his right hand toward the circle. "Here's a molecule of water vapor. It starts to pass through. It can't back up. What happens?"

"It goes on through," Jerry said.

"Maybe. But think about it. We have an oxygen atom, with two hydrogen atoms coming off it at that famous 104-degree angle. That molecule of water is vibrating like a tuning fork. So, as it passes through the one-way screen, one of the atoms in the molecule is trying to go back. It can't, because the screen only allows atoms to pass through in one direction."

Jerry said, "So it gets pulled through to the other side."

"What if it doesn't? What if the one-way screen cuts the hydrogen-oxygen bond? What if molecular oxygen and hydrogen come out the other side?"

"Then we have another interesting application," Jerry said.

"Then we have an explosion!" Harvey's voice broke and his shout ended in a squeak.

"How likely is this?"

"Not very," Harvey admitted. "But we can't risk it. It's not safe. We've got to turn this over to someone who can take better precautions than we can."

Jerry said, "Turn it over to who? The government? Big Oil? I trust us more than I trust them. Listen to me, Harvey. I'm taking your concerns seriously. Here's what we'll do. We'll make the field as small as possible and turn it on for just a fraction of a second. If there is an explosion, it will only be like a firecracker. Then we'll know."

Harvey found his voice rising again. "What if that isn't all? The atomic nucleus is vibrating. Protons and neutrons have orbitals, you know. What if we get nuclear fission?"

"Harvey, you're a little drunk, and you're worrying about things that are so unlikely they aren't worth considering."

Appearing to change the subject, Harvey asked, "Where is everybody?"

"Sam couldn't come in today."

"That's not what I mean and you know it. Where is everybody? Why haven't we found life anywhere except on Earth? I'll tell you why not. Maybe there is some experiment, maybe it's an experiment like this one, maybe it's this experiment—" Harvey had to stop to catch his breath. "Maybe the reason there aren't any extraterrestrials is that every sentient race discovers science, and in the next microsecond, on a cosmic scale, conducts an experiment that wipes it out. Maybe this is that experiment."

"Oh," said Jerry. "That. Harvey, I want you to sit down." Jerry took Harvey by the arm and led him to one of the tall stools. "They worried about that at Los Alamos. They wondered if the atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth. They went ahead with the test anyway."

"That was different. We were fighting Hitler."

"That was human nature. Harvey, suppose you're right. I don't think you are, but suppose you are. Suppose we don't do this experiment. Suppose we burn your papers and never tell anybody. Don't you think somebody else is going to make the same discovery? Don't you think somebody is going to carry out this experiment, sooner or later?"

Exhaustion washed over Harvey. The energy he had felt earlier that day was wearing off. He put his head down on his hands.

"We are going to do this, Harvey. This is your big discovery, and we're going to test it right now. While you've been talking, I've been thinking. You know what a ball-bearing switch is?" Harvey lifted his head off his hands. "It's a simple idea," Jerry continued. "A ball bearing rolls down a trough and passes between two electrical wires, making a connection, closing a circuit. As soon as it rolls past the wires, it breaks the circuit. Like this. Watch."

Jerry was excited now. He began gathering up equipment. "I was planning to do this tomorrow, but we're not going to wait. We'll do it now. Everything is ready. You aren't the only one who has worried about an explosion. I've replaced the original loop of wire with a loop less than a centimeter in diameter. Now, where's something we can use for the trough?" Jerry glanced around and pulled a glass tube from a wooden rack full of glass vessels. He lit a Bunsen burner and heated a thin metal rod. When the metal glowed bright orange, he used the rod to poke a hole all the way through both sides of the glass tube. Then he took two wires, shaved off the insulation, and put them through the holes. He held the ball bearing at the top of the tube.

The wires led to the small device that Sam had so cunningly crafted. The centimeter loop that would hold the field was connected to the other side of the generator. "No guts, no glory," Jerry said.

Harvey felt paralyzed. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He stared as Jerry dropped the ball bearing. There was a faint whirr as it spun down the glass tube. In an instant, the electrical connection was made and broken. Nothing happened.

"It didn't work." In spite of his fear, Harvey was disappointed.

"We don't know that," Jerry said. "What we do know is that you were worried unnecessarily. There was no explosion, no mushroom cloud. Not even a firecracker." He pulled the two wires out of the sides of the glass tube and twisted them together. "Listen!"

There was a tiny whistling noise. Harvey stared at the loop. He held his hand in front of it and felt a cool draft as the air in the room rushed through it—one way.

*   *   *

NEITHER HARVEY nor Jerry realized it at the time, but they would discover that the one-way screen had not stopped working when the rolling ball bearing broke the circuit. It took just as much power to turn the screen off as it took to turn it on.

The first person they showed the one-way device to after Sam was a lawyer named Micah Holstein. He was in his early thirties, degree from Harvard Law, and he had agreed to give Harvey and Jerry an hour of his time.

Jerry had discovered Micah through a network of friends. He put the word out that he was looking for an honest lawyer, and while most of the responses were horselaughs, Micah's name came up more than once. He was the youngest full partner in a well-respected Wall Street law firm, and he managed the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Charitable Trust. People who had made their fortune and who wanted to give something back came to Micah.

He seldom did pro bono work because he was convinced it was not a good allotment of resources. Bust one crooked politician and you may help one city for one year. Change the system and you may help all the cities for a lifetime. But he agreed to hear what Jerry had to say.

From Jerry's point of view, Micah was ideal. By all accounts, Micah was honest, and the potential for corruption that lay in Harvey's discovery was almost infinite. Micah was not a patent lawyer—he would farm that work out to an associate. Jerry wanted Micah to handle the money, and the many problems that always come with large sums of money.

Micah Holstein had a round, bland face and a pleasant smile that gave no hint of what he was thinking. He wore a three-piece suit that was expensive but not flashy, and a deep maroon bow tie. Jerry's reputation as one of MIT's three youngest graduates was one reason why Micah had agreed to this meeting. Another was the fact that they had two or three mutual friends whose opinion Micah valued. When Jerry picked him up outside his Wall Street office building to drive him to the lab in Jersey, Jerry had said, "I'll fight you for that bow tie." Micah nodded and accepted the compliment.

The lab was an untidy assembly of machines, none of which Micah recognized. Fat black electrical cables snaked over the floor. It looked nothing at all like the labs in movies or on television. Nobody wore a white lab coat. Micah shook hands with Harvey, whose gray hair was combed over his bald spot. Harvey looked very tired. Jerry introduced Micah to Sam Gleason, who had a grip that was painful and who said not a word. With an outstretched arm, Jerry indicated a metal ring mounted on a small wheeled table. The lower shelf of the table was filled with machinery. Wires of various sizes and colors stuck out all over it, like a work of modern art. Attached to the top of one leg of the table was a heavy switch.

Harvey threw the switch. There was a blast of cool air from the metal ring and Harvey's worried expression was replaced by a wide grin. Jerry was grinning, too. Sam, on the other hand, looked as if he had been called away from important work and wanted to get back to it.

The inside of the metal ring shimmered— Flash Gordon calling Ming the Merciless , Micah thought. The cool breeze was welcome in the hot warehouse.

"A fan with no moving parts," said Micah. Jerry and Harvey were still grinning. "I can see the potential, but…" He stopped. Clearly he was missing something. "What?" Micah's eyes narrowed as he tried to puzzle out the mystery.

"This," said Jerry, "is going to put every oil company on the planet out of business. We want your help to do the most good and the least harm."

Micah had been hearing all his life about scientific discoveries that would put the oil companies out of business. Nothing ever came of them. People had been driving cars with internal-combustion engines for a hundred years and in Micah's opinion would still be driving cars with internal-combustion engines for the next hundred. The magic pill that would turn water into fuel, the flying car powered by fusion, the Douglas-Martin sun-power screens—all were science fiction. There were electric cars, of course, but so expensive only the rich could afford them. Micah was deeply suspicious of this new discovery and to his natural skepticism was added a determination not to be fooled by a clever swindle.

"How much power does it use?" he asked.

"Quite a lot to get started," said Harvey. "But once it's started, almost no power at all. The field is extremely stable. It takes the same application of power, in reverse, to turn it off."

"Why doesn't that violate the laws of thermodynamics?" Micah didn't actually know the laws of thermodynamics, but he knew they were something physics types often spoke of in the witness box, to show that a perpetual motion machine couldn't work.

"The molecules in the air are already in perpetual motion," Harvey explained. "The energy for that motion comes from the heat of the Sun. This is just a uniquely efficient way of harvesting that energy. The energy we take out makes the air a little cooler. If we use this in industry worldwide, maybe it will offset global warming, in addition to the advantages of not using oil. Think of it as a windmill that provides its own wind."

The blast of air was still blowing from the metal ring.

"Unplug it," Micah said.

"Sure," said Harvey, and pulled several wires out of the base of the metal ring. The air continued to flow.

Jerry said, "That doesn't prove anything, of course. If this were a hoax, there are a dozen ways we could power the machine that you couldn't discover. We're asking for your valuable time, with payment deferred. You tell us what you need to be convinced. If you want a demonstration on your home ground, tell us where and when. We'll supply as much power as you can handle. We can power an automobile. If we had a big enough generator, we could power a city. We'll turn the machine on for you and go away. It will keep running until we come back and turn it off. Power isn't the only thing this is good for, but it's the application that will bring us the working capital we need."

Micah said, "Let me see if I understand. The molecules in the air are constantly in motion, up and down, left and right, every which-a-way. Your field, the one you've put across this ring, allows molecules to pass through, but only in one direction. So the wind coming out of the ring is just all the molecules on the other side that happen to be moving this way."

"Right," said Jerry. "Without the field, these same molecules would still be coming out of the ring, but they'd be balanced by an equal number of molecules going into the ring, so there would be no net flow of air. But now the molecules that try to go into the ring can't get through. They bounce back, so all the air flows in one direction. That's all there is to it."

"What would happen if I put my hand through the ring?"

For the first time, Sam spoke. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Micah looked at Sam, but he had nothing more to say on the subject.

Jerry said, "Every molecule in your body is moving back and forth all the time. Your blood is flowing through your veins and arteries. My hunch is, if you stuck your hand into that thing, it would fall off."

"So it's a weapon," said Micah.

"Everything is a weapon," said Jerry. "It can also slice salami."

"Have you actually tried?"

"I shouldn't tell you this. We could get into a lot of trouble. We put a cockroach through."

"A cockroach!"

"You laugh, but the laws against unauthorized animal experiments are very strict. If I stomp on a cockroach, that's perfectly legal. Nobody objects except the cockroach. But if I want to experiment on a cockroach, I have to fill out more than a dozen forms and allow federal inspectors into the lab to make sure that no cockroach has been needlessly harmed. It's the law."

"They say that laws aren't for lawyers," Micah said, "but I've got some friends in federal prison who can testify that isn't true. So I didn't hear anything about a cockroach. What happened?"

"I dropped it in one side, and out the other side came a fine black powder," Jerry said.

"So this is a weapon," Micah said.

"And a water purifier—it kills parasites, even microscopic ones," Jerry said.

"I think I need to sit down," Micah said.

"I need a drink," Harvey said.

"Does anybody mind if I get back to work?" asked Sam.

*   *   *

Summer was almost over and Harvey dreaded the necessity of going back to his old job of teaching large freshman sections and grading papers. Jerry paid all their expenses. As a full professor at Columbia, Jerry earned a good salary for nine months of teaching and research, with summers off to pursue his research as he pleased. Even so, he had to borrow money from his dad. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was still somewhere in the indefinite future. Now there were bills to pay. Harvey's nine-month salary (with no benefits) depended on him showing up for work the day after Labor Day.

Harvey could almost smell the bourbon hidden away in the desk drawer. He set aside the legal pad filled with equations and slid down from the tall lab chair. Jerry was sitting at the old desk, tinkering with a penknife, some wires, and a screwdriver. With a mixture of shame and bravado, Harvey pulled open a drawer, took out the bottle of bourbon, and poured himself a drink.

"How long before the hit men from Big Oil come after us?" Harvey asked.

"I read that story, too," said Jerry. "Not going to happen. If we went public, announced your discovery to the press, and then gave the oil company executives six months to think about it, the idea of a hit man might cross somebody's mind. As it is, before we announce anything, we're going to have the patents locked up tight. As soon as the patents are filed—and that's what is taking so long—killing us wouldn't do any good. It might make some Big Oil man feel better—and make no mistake about it, we are going to be called communists, anarchists, liberals, and every other dirty name in the book—but in practical terms, we get to enjoy our ill-gotten gains."

"That's good news," said Harvey. He tossed back another slug of bourbon. "I don't suppose you have any idea when we'll actually start all this enjoying?"

Jerry met Harvey's melancholy gaze. "It could be another eighteen months, if we want to do this right. Can you hold out that long?"

"Do I have any choice?" Harvey asked.

"Yes. We could bring in a silent partner, a money man. It would make our lives easier. But we lose control—whoever pays the piper calls the tune."

"I can hold out," Harvey said. "I just feel bad about sponging off you all summer."

Jerry laughed. "Listen to yourself. You've let me in on the greatest scientific discovery since Al Gore invented the Internet, and you're worried about a few bucks for meals and rent?"

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Harvey said.

"What?"

"Pretend this discovery is all mine. You always say, 'Harvey's discovery,' 'Harvey's invention.' I just did the theory. You built the machine. If you hadn't shown up at that horrible talk I gave.…" They both began to laugh, remembering the day they first met.

"I'll hold out," Harvey said.

He returned to his lonely motel room and played blues guitar, but the equations kept going around and around in his head. For the first time, a Greek letter—kappa, representing curvature—began to show up in the equations, and he could not make it go away. The more he thought about it, the more excited he got. This could change everything. He didn't need to tell Jerry about it; the idea was all his own. Jerry would be impressed. The money would come rolling in. Hadn't Jerry said that if he didn't do it, somebody else would? As soon as he returned to the lab, he would give his idea a try.

*   *   *

Harvey's face was white. "I've destroyed the world," he said.

Jerry felt a pang of fear. "What happened?"

Harvey was almost crying. "I didn't think. I didn't think! I'd been fooling around with an idea. And everything has been going so well. And the field generator was right there. I just changed a few of the connections."

Jerry paid him the compliment of taking what he was saying very seriously. "What have you done?"

"I made a sphere."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Jerry jumped up. "Show me."

There was a hole, about the size of a pea. It had cut through the metal ring, through the equipment on the shelf below, and on down through the cement floor.

"Oh, God!" Jerry said.

"It will fall right through the Earth," Harvey said, "consuming everything in its way—cement, dirt, rock, nickel, iron, molten magma, everything will go into the field. And nothing will come out. It will get more and more dense until it reaches the other side of the Earth. Then gravity will slow it, and it will come to a stop somewhere in the Indian Ocean. All the water it passes through will enter the sphere. None of it will ever come out. Then it falls back toward us. And it will keep doing that. Back and forth. Forever."

Harvey could feel the panic building. He became hysterical. He started to shout. "Don't you understand? The one-way sphere offers no resistance to matter going in. Atoms slip between the interstices of the atoms inside. It gets so dense there is a thermonuclear reaction—a fusion bomb the size of a pea. And it can't get out. No matter how great the pressure inside, nothing can ever get out. The one-way sphere just keeps eating everything it touches, until it swallows the Earth."

Jerry's voice was steady. "After it gets to the other side of the Earth and falls back toward us—can we stop it?"

"How? It will weigh tons. And even if we could work out how to stop it—what would we stop it with?" Harvey asked. "You're asking me to find a bottle for a universal solvent. It can punch through anything we try to use to stop it."

"Will it come back here?" Jerry asked.

"If it falls without friction, and I think it will, then in effect it's in orbit around the center of the Earth. It should return to its starting place, right here," Harvey said.

"The Earth turns," said Jerry.

"True. Okay, taking that into account, when it fell it already had momentum from the rotation of the Earth. It's been in free fall ever since." Harvey grabbed a legal pad and started to scribble equations. "Freshman calculus! Who would have thought freshman calculus might actually be useful?"

There was a long silence as Harvey scribbled and Jerry paced.

After what felt like forever, Harvey said, "Well, I've got some numbers."

Jerry held his breath.

"That thing I created will be coming back this way from the other side of the Earth in about an hour. It won't return to the exact point of origin, but it should still be somewhere inside this warehouse. And we don't want to be standing where it comes up. When it gets here, it'll be the same size it was when it started, but weigh millions of tons."

"How do we stop it?" Jerry asked.

"We can't."

"We've got to." Jerry reached up and put his hands on Harvey's shoulders. "Harvey, you're the most brilliant person I know. Think. Figure a way out."

"There isn't any way to stop it. It will take a long time, but eventually the entire planet will be inside that tiny sphere." Harvey felt numb. He wanted a drink.

"Think of the pressure! That much mass in so small a space! Your field can't possibly hold back that much pressure!"

"The field doesn't even feel the pressure. It just doesn't let anything out." Harvey paused, his face tight. "Remember when I asked, 'Where is everybody?' They're gone. They did this experiment and it killed them."

"Stop it! That kind of thinking doesn't help. You're wasting time. Listen to me. Harvey. Listen. You are on your way to being hailed as the greatest scientist in the world. Your discovery is going to bring cheap energy and clean water to billions. That is how you should go down in history—as humanity's great benefactor. Or do you want to be remembered as the man who destroyed the world? Now think! Is there any way to turn the field off when it pops back up out of the ground?"

"Oh, you wouldn't want to do that." Harvey shook his head. "Millions of kilograms per cubic centimeter—that means fusion. I don't know how to turn a spherical field off. I don't think it can be turned off. But I certainly don't want to turn it off this close to New York City."

"So what do we do now? You know the problem. Solve it!"

Sam came in. "What up, guys?"

Jerry took Sam over to the other side of the warehouse to explain.

Harvey went back to his legal pad. Then he looked up with a puzzled expression on his face. "I know how to stop it. We stop it with a one-way field that opens upward. We need to cover the floor of the laboratory with the field. The sphere will pass through the field from below and then fall back down. When it tries to go through the wrong way, it should stop."

"A million tons?" Jerry asked.

"It should stop. We've got to hurry. We don't have long."

"If we miss it on this pass, can we catch it the next time it comes around?"

"Maybe," Harvey said. "But we don't know how far away from the starting point it will move on each pass. The longer we wait, the greater the chance that it will come up outside the laboratory, where we can't find it."

Sam said, "All right, then. We need a bunch of eye screws, a soldering iron, lots of wire, and a drill with a long extension cord."

The field generator sat on a wheeled, metal cart, plugged into a power strip built into the cart. A heavily insulated cord hung down. Jerry gathered up the slack in the cord and tied it off, so it wouldn't drag on the floor. Then he examined the generator. "It looks fine. All the damage was to the ring, off to the side." He pulled the broken ring free from two set screws at the base of the generator and threw it away, then held out his hand. "Soldering iron." Sam handed him the tool and a roll of solder. It only took Jerry a few minutes to make the necessary repairs. "Okay, move the cart over to the door. How much time have we got?"

"I don't know," Harvey said. "Not long."

Jerry said "Be careful not to bump the cart. That repair is fragile."

Gently, Jerry and Sam lifted the cart over the door sill while Harvey stood by helplessly. The three of them were in a dark alley. Traffic sounds came from the street. The Jersey sky was pale gray, crisscrossed by wires overhead.

Jerry picked up a large roll of insulated wire. He uncoiled a few feet, shaved the insulation off one end, and carefully inserted the wire into one of the two set screws that carried the output of the field generator. He then doubled the wire and tied it tightly to one leg of the wheeled cart, between the lower shelf and the wheel. He locked all four wheels in place. "Hand me the drill," he said, and Sam complied. "Eye screw." Harvey passed him one large eye screw from a full box.

The electric wire now ran from the generator down the leg of the cart and across to the inside wall of the warehouse about six inches above the floor. "I'll drill holes in the wall and put in eye screws," Jerry said. "Harvey, you keep tension on the wire and hook it through the eye of each screw. Sam, you start on the other side of the door and put in screws where we'll need them."

Harvey squatted down next to Jerry, then found it hard to breathe. He had chest pains. He sat on the cold cement floor. The drill made a deep grinding noise as it bit into metal, then a high whine as it punched through. Jerry screwed in the eye screw by hand and moved on. Harvey hooked the wire into the eye.

Jerry ran on ahead, pushing or kicking obstacles out of the way, lifting the drill's bright orange extension cord over obstructions.

There was a stitch in Harvey's side by the time they reached the second corner. They were near the old wooden desk, and Harvey thought how much better he'd feel if he had a drink. He put the thought out of his mind and unreeled more wire from the roll.

Harvey's imagination trembled back and forth between how good a drink would taste right now and fear of the million-ton bullet coming his way. He told himself that the odds against actually getting hit by the one-way sphere were astronomical, but there was still fear in the pit of his stomach and cold sweat on his brow.

In the third corner was the bathroom. The privacy walls of the bathroom were wood, about five feet high, bolted to the warehouse walls.

"Sam!" Jerry said. "We need you. Bring the circular saw."

Sam helped Jerry switch the orange extension cord from the drill to the saw and soon the wooden walls fell away. Harvey sat down on the cement floor, squeezed the roll of wire behind the pipes where they rose up out of the cement, and passed it to Jerry, who was crouched awkwardly in the corner behind the toilet.

As he stood, Harvey stared down at the cement, as if he expected the one-way sphere to come shooting up through the very spot where he had been sitting.

The drill noise from behind the toilet stopped and Jerry handed out the roll of wire. The three men ran for the fourth corner.

Sam said, "When the field is turned on, it's going to cut through those pipes. We'll have water all over the place."

"Worry about that later," Jerry said.

Stringing the wire along the last wall went quickly. Sam had already put the eye screws in place. Now the wire ran all the way around the warehouse, just above the floor. Harvey, holding the roll of wire, felt the muscles in his arm jump. It was hard to think. His chest pains were worse.

Jerry said, "Run the wire through that last eye screw next to the door and pull it as tight as you can."

"What if one of the screws comes lose?" asked Harvey.

"We don't want the wire to sag. If it's not more or less level, the field won't start."

"Right," said Harvey, and pulled.

Jerry tied off a double loop of wire on the same cart leg where they had started, completing the circuit. Then he measured off a length with his arm and passed the roll up to Sam, who cut it off, shaved the insulation, and made the final connection, wrapping the shaved section of wire around the set screw in the generator and pulling it tight. "Tighten the screw," he said.

Harvey fumbled for a screwdriver and tightened the screw with all his strength.

The three men stepped out into the alley. Jerry plugged the table's electrical cord into a plug just inside the door and halfway up the wall, flipped the switch and a blast of air came up through the field. From the far corner they heard the sound of gurgling water. Air rushing into the narrow gap below the field drew litter from the alley, which popped up through the one-way field and was tossed about in the uprush of air. The one-way field was now self-sustaining.

"How long have we got?" Jerry asked.

"I don't know," Harvey said. "It may already have come up while we were too busy to notice and gone down again. It may come up somewhere else entirely. It may not come up at all. We've done everything we can. All we can do now is wait."

"It will work," Jerry said. "Everything I've ever built to your specifications has worked."

"If that's true, then I suggest you find something to stuff in your ears," said Harvey. "Because when that sphere falls onto the field, it's going to make a very loud noise."

*   *   *

The President of the United States stood between American flags on a platform outside the warehouse, facing a large crowd. All of the nearby buildings had been torn down. Along each side of the warehouse, below ground level, mammoth air intakes had been installed. Power lines led from the warehouse roof to a row of towers that marched off into the distance.

The President had to shout to be heard over the roar of the turbines inside. "I am honored to designate this site, the original Gold Power Station, a National Monument. Inside this very warehouse, in a vacuum chamber protected by balanced, one-way containment walls, is the famous Sphere, a constant reminder that this great boon of cheap electricity comes with the price of eternal vigilance. It is up to the citizens of New Jersey, of America, and of the world, to always ensure that power is used as a force for good. And now, the men you've all been waiting to meet—Harvey Gold and Jerry Morgan."

Jerry looked boyish and couldn't stop grinning as he stepped out onto the platform to a thunderous wave of applause. When Harvey joined him, the applause grew even louder. Harvey felt young again, a hot-shot professor at the top of his game. And why shouldn't he feel that way? He was at the top of his game. If they thought the one-way shield was something, just wait until the news got out about what he was going to do next!

Dunnage for the Soul

By Robert Reed | 7755 words

Story ideas aren't always born instantly and fully formed. Sometimes they take a while to gestate. Sometimes, they take a very long while. Robert Reed tells us that he discovered the word "dunnage" around 1980 when he was working in a factory after college. "It felt very highbrow," he confesses, "written on the outside board in a stack of Abitibi/Masonite, and I thought up this title on the spot." More than thirty years and hundreds of publications later, he discovered the story that goes with the title.

Reed's latest project is an epic alternate history novel in four volumes called The Trials of Quentin Maurus, which you can find at Amazon.

I KNOW WHAT LOVE MEANS.

Not fucking much, that's what.

My parents, for example. I always thought I loved those people, and they certainly seemed to adore me. Except our little family didn't realize what I was. A complicated, sometimes clever machine living in their house, and they were fools wasting their warmth on the likes of me.

A person gets used to trusting his emotions. But what right do I have to emotions?

None at all, some people will claim.

And while that's not the worst part of this, it cuts. Do I even exist? Outside a sequence of electric impulses lazily following the habit avenue, I mean. Empirical evidence says, "Who the hell knows?" Nobody knows. But I can't stop asking the question. Life involves explaining yourself. To others, to yourself. And while I don't know any of your minds, I assume that everybody here is trying to answer the mystery inside me. Right?

So let's get started.

There was this couple who loved each other enough to make a boy. Except existence is easy enough. One squirt and a willing egg, and there you are. He was their only child, as it happens, and they gave him a home and gifts and loving words. Which speaks of love. But it bears mentioning that raising a child and dropping the occasional gift under the Christmas tree don't mean that much. Parents go to jail if they won't feed and clean what belongs to them, and gift-givers eventually receive their own packages.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Show me that the world is good and cynicism is misplaced.

To me, the best evidence of love is affectionate words. Sure, accomplished liars can pump out a lot of adoring noise. But lies have this way of building, acquiring chinks and fractures as the project grows. And if the boy is raised to believe that he is magnificent, a treasure in those old people's eyes, then I think he's entitled to be convinced by the love.

I used to be magnificent.

And to the best of my knowledge, I loved those people, too.

Don't tell me you understand.

You don't understand.

And never claim that you know me.

You haven't a fucking clue what this murderous machine understands.

*   *   *

As a rule, people hate tests.

On the other hand, I have always loved tests. Sitting tall in a bright sterile classroom, filling in ovals with pencil lead. The intellectual pressure bearing down, my future turning vivid and near. That was a joy for me. And it didn't hurt that I'm an excellent test-taker. That's a skill that helped me earn a scholarship to a quality university. But scholarships don't pay for everything, which was why I offered my body and my patience to any well-funded study that gave away cash.

During my junior year, for instance. An entire weekend and some blood was surrendered, and I endured every kind of psychological examination, and in thanks, I pocketed quite a lot of beer money. Most of the details are forgotten, but one moment felt peculiar, and that's why I remembered it. A grad student showed me a deceptively simple device. Three minutes to boot up and ten seconds to run. It resembled a dentist's X-ray wand, but was smaller and obviously handmade, right down to the packing tape over the seams. And instead of aiming at jaws and teeth, the tube was pointed at the back of my skull.

Aiming for levity, I offered an obvious joke. "What if my brain is missing?"

The grad student responded with bright, slightly nervous laughter. But another person was present, a female professor. She's the one who made the moment memorable. Straightening her back, she somehow flooded the room with smothering cold silence. That's how I described the scene later, drinking well-earned beers with my very best friends. That lady was the most important person in my future, only I didn't know it yet. What I did know is that her assistant quickly shut his mouth and dipped his head, as if he had been wrong to enjoy himself. And I know I quit smiling. Even the all-important tube seemed to hum more softly. Then the test was finished, and I turned my head, looking at the lady's pale green eyes, thinking how I'd never seen eyes that blank, that nothing.

"Shit," I thought. "She's the empty one here."

*   *   *

Nineteen months later, I had a lucrative job and a fetching, intelligent girlfriend. I was even convinced I was in love. Adulthood was proving more fun than I imagined possible. Marriage, children. All that looked likely, right up until a certain green-eyed neurophysicist appeared on a thousand newsfeeds.

My female researcher wasn't quiet anymore, or a tenth as chilly. In fact, she grinned like a homecoming queen, describing a new technology she designed with her graduate student's help—a simple rearrangement of off-the-shelf tech that could easily gaze inside any human head. And inside other kinds of heads too.

"Soul" was the word to avoid. It was better to talk about "persistent electrical signatures." It was best to sing about terabytes of clinical data. The lady wasn't claiming that souls were god-carved wonders. It was enough to tell the world that this phenomenon, these persistent electrical signatures, were lurking inside human heads, and they enjoyed distinct patterns easily mapped by her new-generation sensor. Imagine a whirlpool, she said. Imagine a big whirlpool turning with determination inside the human mind. Every PE signature had a whirlpool's endurance. That's what she and her assistant had determined. The outside world could intrude. Heavy drink. A mild injury. No sleep for a week. But the flow remained stable, bestowing order and personality to an otherwise unruly mind. So stable and self-renewing, in fact, that it lasted beyond death.

"I don't understand," the interviewer said.

She didn't understand his comment. "PES," she repeated. "It's our name for the phenomenon."

"I understand your acronym," he said. "But this last bit of news. Did you just admit that you've studied dying people?"

"At a local hospice, with everyone's full consent. Yes."

"And you learned what?"

Science had its boundaries, and she didn't want to say too much. But she couldn't stop smiling. What began as an investigation into the electrical architecture of the brain had uncovered quite a bit more than expected. Her importance in the world was soaring. For all I know, she was smiling because she'd had cocktails for lunch and was riding a very nice buzz.

"When the body dies," she began.

And hesitated.

"Yes?" he coaxed.

"But only if the mind is intact," she added, lifting her gaze. "Then the PES endures after the body's death."

"Endures," the interviewer repeated.

"For several minutes, usually."

"We're talking about the soul," he said.

The moment was inevitable. She had to know it was coming. Yet she smirked at the one word, acting as if she were too much the professional to fall for superstitious noise.

"You can see our souls," the interviewer said.

No, she didn't approve of that word. But she loved the cameras. With nods and a polite shrug, she said, "We have observed a very specific, very impressive phenomenon."

"The souls inside dying people," he said.

"Patients in hospice care, yes."

"And after death, what?" The interviewer managed a quick sigh, adding, "You're claiming this PE business has its own life."

"Call it a soul if you have to," she said, giving up her brief battle for an unmemorable acronym. "For several minutes, yes. What looks like the soul persists. In one case, for almost twenty minutes."

"And then?"

"The motions slow and the energies fade away." The words felt careful and practiced. But they weren't good enough. Guided by hope or some childhood faith, she revealed a possibility for which she had zero evidence. "Unless the phenomenon migrates to some other realm, of course. Some corner of this universe that we can't yet see.…"

*   *   *

REVELATIONS ARE LIKE SOULS. Each has its own trajectory, ignoring every obstacle in the way.

Something was living inside our minds, a higher state of organization using memory and reflex as its raw materials. That was her news, and the rest of the world was thinking, "Of course it's the soul." But the revelations weren't finished. The green-eyed expert explained that every soul had its recognizable characteristics. Shape. Size. Speed of flow. And her studies had proved the phenomenon wasn't limited to the human species.

Apes could carry them.

Dolphins and elephants, monkeys and seals.

"Our research has grown and grown," she confessed. "Without trying, we keep uncovering PE signatures inside more species."

Including dogs. But not all dogs. Forty percent was a good working estimate of how many canines were blessed. Fewer cats but more pigs had them, and a very few cattle, and every tested bird species had some capacity to hold an enduring signature. How many species out there carried souls? She didn't know. Why did one hawk have a persistent signature but not its brother? That was fine mystery. Then she mentioned that she hadn't found any signatures inside fishes or salamanders, but it was far too early to claim that every bass and bullfrog was devoid of those telltale markers.

"About us," the interviewer interrupted. "What are people's souls like? Bigger than a dog's, maybe?"

The professor looked at the cameras, offering an intense, hard-to-read smile.

Did she sense difficult terrain coming?

Her partner was the brave one. That former graduate student was sitting amiably beside her, ignored by questions and the cameras. But now he began to laugh, that cackling rattle I recalled from nineteen months before. Jumping into the controversy, he reported that it was possible, particularly inside the large human mind, to observe multiple signatures.

"What's that?" the interviewer repeated. "Two souls inside one head?"

"Two PE signatures, yes, coexisting without obvious troubles." The young man waited for the cameras to find him, then proclaimed, "About nine percent of humanity carries multiples. The signatures flow around each other. They maybe might possibly could help maintain the mind's stability. And there don't seem to be any cognitive costs. In fact, multiple-souled people are often among our best, most accomplished citizens."

And with that, he fondly touched the shoulder of the lady wearing the impenetrable smile.

And this is the key point. This is where those abundantly souled assholes should have retreated to the lab. There was no reason to say anything more. But from what I can tell, souls and wisdom don't have much in common.

"So everybody has a soul," the interviewer declared.

Neither scientist spoke, but the shared glances said quite a lot.

Finally the woman said, "Well, as it happens, half of our babies are born without. And although most of them do acquire a PE signature, if one hasn't formed after seven months, there won't be any."

"No soul at all?"

Appropriately grim, both of them shook their heads.

"Well, how many people is that?" was the obvious question, and the interviewer tossed it out.

Did she hear him? For a moment, she acted as if she was elsewhere. Maybe she remembering that one young man sitting in her laboratory, his joke and his empty head about to bear the burden of everything that would make her famous.

"A little more than six percent of us," she said.

Then she said, "They never show any PE signatures."

"But we don't know what that means," her partner interjected.

"Not yet, no," she added, quick as a reflex. "But all of us have neurons. All of us learn. And those without any signature can do very well. In fact, these people are indistinguishable from normal citizens."

The interview was nearly at an end.

Along with my happy life.

"For reasons we don't understand," she began.

"Reasons we might never identify," she added.

Then she said, "A portion of us are shells. Are dunnage. Which in itself is a most amazing result."

*   *   *

Cracked plywood, warped timber, or that knotty board rescued from the trash heap. That's dunnage, the waste used to protect whatever is precious, whether it's cargo inside a ship's hold or the quivering, vibrant electrical music inside a shell of soulless bone and blood.

Suddenly the world was filled with talk about souls and dunnage.

At my work, people offered all kinds of speculative noise about metaphysical happenings and the "soulless souls" among us. And while I made my contributions to the nonsense, I avoided mentioning my connection with the famous researchers.

My girlfriend already knew my story. While she wasn't a particularly curious person, she was intrigued enough to pepper me with questions. No, I didn't know my status. Nobody had told me that I was this way or that way. But ignorance didn't stop her from building her own answers.

"There's something about you," she said. "Something different."

People want to believe that lovers are exceptional, or at least somehow removed from the boring normal.

"I bet you're one of those with two souls," she proposed. "A dark soul and a bright one. That's why you're so intense."

"Am I intense?" I asked.

"In the best ways, yes."

My parents were middle-aged when I was born, and their health was never robust, what with weight issues and diabetes, and in one case, a history of enthusiastic drug abuse. They were also good people who measured others by their "goodness." We never attended church, yet my mother and my father had often displayed a passion for the ethereal. Souls were real, and souls were human and only human, and the largest science story of our time left them painfully offended.

"That woman taught at your school," one of them pointed out.

"She didn't teach much," I said. "Mostly, she did research."

"But did you take her classes?"

"No" had the luxury of being true. So I said, "No."

"Well, good," both declared.

Then my father added, "This is crazy-ass blasphemy. Souls inside bugs and gravel, inside piles of shit in the field."

I don't know where those images came from. Maybe this was ironic humor, overstating the sacrilegious work. But my impression was that my father had some furious need to deny every aspect of the work and curse anybody involved. Which was another fine reason to keep my past out of reach.

Suddenly my mother touched my arm, demanding my attention. "Did you ever see that woman? Or her partner, what's his name?"

"I might have," I confessed. "Once or twice."

My father responded with sharp cursing.

Which won a disapproving finger-shake from his wife. But then Mom offered one truly awful notion.

"I wish she was dead," that old, white-haired lady said to me. Said to her life partner. Maybe she said it to God. "Her and that idiot man. Years ago, I wish somebody had split their idiot heads."

*   *   *

Things are never as they appear.

No, in my experience, the world is even simpler than it pretends to be.

I loved my girlfriend and I wanted to marry her. But we split up. Our relationship had the usual difficulties: She complained that I was emotionally cool, sometimes remote. Her work was thankless while I enjoyed every minute of my job. She suffered from the beginnings of depression, and why did I have to keep making noise about marriage? Too much noise, as it happens. We fought a pitched battle at Christmas, in front of her famously difficult parents. We fought about religion and her fondness for country music, and I didn't like her brother, by the way. Pretentious shit. She also mentioned that her last boyfriend was better in bed, and she missed that blessing, and why the hell did I believe marriage was a half-good notion?

I'd be interested to know how she tells our story now. If she tells it at all. But if the woman were honest, she'd admit that none of those reasons were enough, even if heaped on top of one another.

No, we separated because of something simpler and more embarrassing than one boyfriend's inadequate tool.

Yet I still had my career. At least.

Single again, I dated younger girls as well as one older woman—a colleague from another department. And then my department and my job suddenly vanished. It was a small, unpeculiar shakeup. These things happened all of the time. Of course I tried for another position inside the company, but every opening had its standards, and a man didn't have to look hard to see where he had fallen short.

"Difficult choices," one spokesperson explained.

My sometime lady-friend, as it happened.

"A lot of factors to balance, and I urged them to hire you. I did. But I also mentioned going out to dinner with you. A few times, and I'm afraid that might have cost you something."

I made noise about cats landing on their feet. Then I added, "If you feel guilty, how about a conciliatory dinner?"

Silence and a smile were her response.

So I said, "Or I can take you out to dinner."

"Oh no. You need to save your money." And because that wasn't enough to quelch things, she added, "Oh, I'm seeing someone else. By the way. I've been meaning to tell you."

She told me a lot with her face and manner. She was finding a suitable name for this fresh boyfriend. In case I asked. But I didn't ask. Then she set her hands on the edge of the table, ready to rise. And when I said nothing and did nothing, she felt a small, worthwhile pity, and, lowering her hands, offered a somewhat better smile.

"I promise," she said. "We can help you find other work. Something better than what you're leaving here."

"Except I'm not leaving," I pointed out. "You just kicked me out the door."

I'd like to think I accomplished a lot over the following months. I know my resume became a polished wonder, and I proved to be a genius for generating hope and wishful stories. But I didn't find work until my savings were gone, and I had no choices left. The jobs were rough and routine. Yet I remained a willing body wearing a smile, particularly when I was paid at the end of the day.

Then I wrenched my back, my young back, lifting too much at once.

And I was out of work again.

Moving in with my parents was unthinkable, and then it was inevitable. Everybody pretended this would last for a week or a month, but not much longer. Our family got good about putting on brave faces. The back door was my door. I could come and leave again whenever I wished. The basement was my realm. Deep windows and the guest bedroom made life comfortable if not important, and I slept like I hadn't slept since childhood. Ten, twelve, even fifteen hours. Leaving the bed wasn't particularly difficult, it also didn't give any rewards. It was best to nap, and when my eyes had to be open, I watched the Internet leap from passion to passion. I could live on peanut butter and cookies, and every third day meant showering in the laundry room. Nobody warned me to stay underground. Neither parent praised the merits of isolation, yet they were less than comfortable in my presence, and I only hoped it was because I was such a miserable failure as an adult.

My existence must have been stressful for both of them, and stresses can be complicated. I'll give you that. Everybody breaks, but you can never know for certain why we break, or when it will be.

My father suffered a heart attack late one night, and that despite proven medicines and a relatively modern pacemaker. He woke up dying in bed, and, panicked, his wife of nearly thirty years cried out to God.

I woke to the sound of wailing.

Empty pants in one hand, I climbed the stairs three at a time. I could have run out the back and around to the front of the house, but that would have taken too long. So I tried the other door, the hollow-core door leading into the kitchen. Someone had turned the knob's tiny lock. Which could have been done by mistake, of course. But when I drove my shoulder into the locked door, I discovered that one of our kitchen chairs had been shoved under the knob. I nearly broke my collarbone. I really wish I had. The pain would have stopped me there. But no, I was all adrenaline and rage. Cheap wood splintered. The chair flew across the kitchen floor. Almost naked, still holding my pants, I ran into the bedroom, screaming, "What the fuck's wrong?"

And there was my father, most of the way dead, and my mother cradling his head but looking up at me.

Terrified of nothing but the manic, soulless beast.

*   *   *

I WANTED THE JOB for no reason but rent and food and filling up days and making it possible to sleep through the night. Modest goals for a thirty-three-year-old man who had seen quite a lot.

My future employer was in her fifties, save for the face with its huge eyes and far too much mouth. But that's the trend, people sculpting each other, trying to be the same kind of pretty as their online avatars.

Thankfully she had a human voice, complete with the usual suspicions.

"I insist on sniffers," she said.

"It wouldn't be my first rodeo," I offered.

My complacency didn't impress. "I had a girl last year," the woman continued. "She gave me appropriate records, including images of her three souls. Three. As if the lie wasn't big enough with just one soul on the screen."

Nodding, I pretended to give half a shit about her tiny troubles.

"The thing is, I would have wanted her as she is," said the avatar face. "People are people. That's what I believe. But she proved she wasn't to be trusted, and that means more than anything."

"Well, I'm not going to lie," I promised.

"And I don't intend to let you, either. Is that understood?"

I nodded. I kept smiling. Smiles are important tools in convincing people of pretty much everything in life.

She opened a drawer.

"Here's a tidbit," I offered. "A piece of biography not on my resume."

"All right."

"I was one of the first people ever tested."

The big eyes were intrigued, but the mouth remained skeptical.

"Of course, I can only assume what they found. Privacy laws and all. But this head you're looking at? It was kissed by the prototype sniffer. And then a couple years later, my ex-girlfriend tested me. With a sniffer borrowed from her rich brother."

"All right," said the woman.

"Since then, maybe a dozen testers have had their fun with me, and the results never change."

It was her give-half-a-shit moment, nodding amiably.

"Psychology," I said.

"Excuse me?"

"In college, I read about this unfortunate young man. Like me, he assumed he was normal. Except for the headaches, in his case. When the headaches got unbearable, he went to a doctor. The doctor ordered a CAT scan. And do you know what? The patient was hydrocephalic. Water in place of a normal brain. Save for a thin frosting of white-matter, this miserable fellow had almost no mind, which made him one of the most minimal examples of a functional human being ever discovered. And by functional, I mean that he was a math major. Probably not the smartest mathematician, but certainly better than me. Described as a bit of a straight-line thinker, uncreative by nature. But damn, he had always been a happy boy, right up until he was defined by everything that was missing."

That unexpected anecdote led to silence.

From everywhere around us came the cacophony of the kennels. A thousand dogs, some boarded but most living here forever.

Finally she pulled a trim little soul-sniffer from its drawer: Burmese-built, purchased online for less than a day's minimum-wage earnings. And built for animals, not humans. This woman could be careful with a dollar.

"Have your look," I said with a theatrical turn of the head. "No whirlpools of goodness here. But afterward, please, check every record. Study my life. This soulless beast has never been accused of stealing. This organic machine has never struck anybody. What sits here will show up for work, usually early, and there won't be complaints about very much. Because this is a compliant sack of meat, and every one of these neurons knows how to act human."

She wasn't certain how to respond. The polycarbonate tube dropped from sight, and she studied me with nothing but her platter-sized eyes.

"You want me to shovel dogshit," I guessed.

And then she laughed, suddenly and surprising both of us, I suspect.

"If you're willing to do that," she answered. "But no, I have a job that strikes me as being a good deal harder."

*   *   *

I know what hatred means.

As it happens, the world has granted me quite a lot of authority on that topic. Certainly more credibility than I enjoy while chattering about love.

Love revels in its complications. The intricate skeletons of lust and need, the shifting attitudes that build every friable relationship. In contrast, hatred wants to appear obvious and blunt. And if a problem is obvious and blunt, shouldn't every solution be as simple?

"Hurt people and you'll pay with your freedom."

That's what the law says.

Except there are so many ways to injure. Every robbery is matched with a hundred smaller cheats. Every knife wound looks tiny surrounded by ten thousand insults. Everybody delivers pain to everybody else, if only by accident. And while we're talking about hatred, let's agree that no matter how successful, even the most soul-enriched human has exceptionally little regard for the damage she does.

The PES was discovered.

But just as important, its antithesis was revealed—a syndrome affecting six people out of every one hundred.

I didn't know which camp I belonged to. Not immediately. But I felt like a reasonable person, educated and responsible, and being part of that initial experiment, it was my obligation to understand the research, and even better, appreciate it. I read about the new field studies being launched. Animal studies. Human studies. I tried to absorb the high physics of quantum theory as it applied to "stable chaotic flows," whatever the fuck they were. Then the woman I wanted to marry placed a borrowed sniffer against the back of my head. While I was sleeping, as it happens. Except I felt the polycarbonate tube being shoved against my skull, and as I woke up and sat up, she muttered that awful word:

"Dunnage."

I was dunnage. I was habit and reflex, a machine endowed with faux-personality. But really, how was I changed from two minutes earlier? I could have asked that. I wanted to ask. But the woman in my life had passed into hysterics.

She had a soul, by the way. A lovely fine soul. Its image filled the screen of an adjacent laptop, complete with arbitrary colors defining the strength and vibrancy of her essence.

In contrast, dunnage is always characterized by a steel-gray color.

Who decided that was the standard? Probably those who stole an ordinary word, "sniffer," and made it into a must-purchase toy.

Initially my kind were treated with easy, instinctive pity. Born a little dumb but generally nice, we would have become a respected minority. But no, it was our misfortune to sound normal and act normal. And worse still, one of our dunnage brothers responded to the diagnosis by sneaking a pair of pistols into a sporting arena, two dozen strangers dead before he put a bullet through his soulless head.

Good-hearted people instantly arrived at the same conclusion: Take away the soul and you take away remorse. You remove kindness. And despite what dunnage says about love and decency, each of us is just one nudge removed from becoming a psychopath.

Panicked legislators made panicked law.

A week later, my job began testing its employees. It was a precaution, they said. They were just building a database for insurance purposes. And because fairness mattered, everybody went through the ritual.

I considered protesting.

Not on the legalities, which looked ironclad, but because this was simply and wickedly wrong. Except I understood how that tactic would likely end, and not wanting to be labeled an asshole as well as amoral, I was polite and smiled bravely while hoping that a few of the bosses were like me.

Not enough of them were, apparently. And I was jobless, trapped inside my childhood home with two people who wanted nothing but a grown and happy and very successful son.

I tried to explain the world, but I refused to use the "soul" word.

"People with PES," I said, as if others were afflicted, not me.

I had read that PES gave people a two- or three-point boost to IQ scores. Which was practically nothing. And it might lower the incidence of some mental illnesses. Maybe. And yes, surveys showed that PES people were happier. "But then again," I pointed out, "those are the same people who stole my job and my girlfriend and everything else from my happy old life."

"What about folks with two or three souls?" my mother asked.

"You mean PES," I corrected.

"That woman professor," my father said. "She's carrying three, I hear."

"Three signatures," I said.

"Which gives the bitch what?" he wanted to know.

There. An example of genuine, fully realized hatred.

"Is the bitch extra smart or extra stupid?" Dad asked. "Or is she crazy Sybil, flipping from one voice to the next?"

Crude as hell, yet the old man had nailed down one major problem.

"Threes are scarce and the data are soft," I answered. "But because nobody has ever found a genuine Four, it probably means there's zero advantage in carrying multiple signatures."

That won a considerate pause.

But reflection wasn't what these people wanted. Sitting at the kitchen table, they let the quiet run its course. Then they launched into various revenge scenarios, describing what they would say and what they would do if they ever got within arm's reach of that three-headed woman.

Not for the first time, I wondered if these old people possessed souls.

PE signatures, I mean.

But I had no plans to investigate.

Hatred is fire.

Once lit, even the guttering flame wants nothing but to spread, consuming the world.

*   *   *

"You work here."

It wasn't a question. But I wouldn't be any use if I was just another customer, like her, which was why the words sounded like a command.

"As a matter of fact, I do work here."

"Take these," the woman said, offering two leashes and the attached dogs.

"Except I'm on my way to lunch," I said.

Obviously, I was going to be a problem. "But you work here," she began.

"Not during lunch," I said. "Go up to the office. There." I pointed helpfully, even though the building was large and well-marked, including cartoon images of happy dogs tugging at invisible owners, eager to live inside this wondrous place.

"Can't you just take them?"

A question, at last.

"No. I'm famished and I want to eat."

She didn't know what to say next. One possibility was dismissed, then another. I could tell from her shifting expressions. Then she settled on honesty, admitting, "This is hard for me and I really wish I could leave now. I don't want good-byes."

The dogs were dogs. A small mutt and a fat golden retriever. I looked at them and at her, sizing up her likely worth.

"Ten dollars," I said.

"For what?"

"My time and considerable effort."

She handed me two coins and both leashes. "Names and the rest are on their chips," she said helpfully. "I can sign anything you send me."

"Good enough."

I started across the lawn.

"I never tested them," she confessed.

"Testing is my job," I said. "Right after lunch."

"But I don't think either has a soul," she said.

Which was when I paused, looking back at her. "Ma'am, I've been doing this for eight months now. So you should believe me. Eyes and slobber and good hearts? None of that matters."

*   *   *

I like to play with revenge.

Sitting in a quiet place. Or driving. Any routine activity that gives me time without important distractions. I imagine violent acts directed against those who have done horrible things to me. And not just with sniffers. A driver cuts me off in traffic. A salesman gets through my spam filters. Then the fictional villain on a favorite program proves to be exceptionally evil. Each of those enemies earns my strong hands wrapped around their dying necks.

Maybe you aren't like me.

Maybe only six people in a hundred are capable of gruesome, vindictive daydreams.

But honestly, I would never strangle anyone. I'm too much of a connoisseur of this artform. True revenge is very difficult, probably impossible to accomplish, and after years of playing with fantasies, I had reached that point where I was certain nothing worthwhile could ever be accomplished, and I didn't fucking care anymore.

All true, except for that last part.

I did fucking care, and that's why I kept up my search.

*   *   *

THE TWO DOGS didn't want to follow after the woman. I couldn't blame them. But they didn't want to come with me either. I had to invest some back into dragging them across the yard. Once inside the office, the golden and then the mutt pissed on the corner that ten thousand other dogs had already marked. The receptionist guessed what had happened outside. Nothing was out of the routine. I started to yank my companions over to the temporary cages, but the receptionist said, "She needs to talk to you. Soon as you can."

Something important. Words and the mood said as much.

"I'm working," I said.

"As soon as you can," she insisted.

"So where is she?" I asked.

"The Blue Building," she said.

That brought a sudden premonition, and in my guts, a nagging pain. I decided to do the testing and then slip away to lunch unnoticed. The dogs had to be dragged back to the first examination room. One of the staff vets was fighting with a toy poodle, trying to place our newest citizen into a cardboard box.

"I thought you were eating," he said.

I got out one of the Burmese sniffers, the same model once used on me.

"Everything okay?" the vet asked.

Usually I held the sniffer to my head, using myself as the calibrating test. But today I placed the humming tube against his temple, and both of us watched grayness appear on the convenient screen.

Two dunnages missing their lunches.

In the end, one dog held a PES, but the mutt had a different destiny. Maybe the boss had left the Blue Building by now. While the vet examined the health of our new brother, I wrapped a bright orange ribbon around the doomed fellow's neck and took him through the back door, heading for that place with its chemical smells and quiet, scared barking, and in its belly, a furnace where still-warm bodies were incinerated with minimal fuss.

The lady stepped through the front door, catching me.

"How long have you worked with us?" she asked.

She knew how long. This was the polite noise before what really mattered.

"Because I've been very pleased with your work," she added. Then, "Everybody has."

"Good," I said.

"Would you like to do more?"

"More hours or a different job?"

"Both," she said.

I waited.

"Two people are quitting," she explained, nodding at the building in front of me.

"You want me manning the needle," I guessed.

My tone, harsh and unsentimental, perfectly matched her expectations. I was empty and we were talking about killing things that were empty. She certainly didn't have the strength for such work, but I did. Which was a common thought: PE signatures felt entitled to do nothing that made them uncomfortable.

"We've never used needles," she said.

"I know that."

"I wish I could give you a raise," she mentioned.

"And I wish I'd have the luxury to turn down the raise."

The doomed dog peed on a likely spot.

"But our grants aren't coming as fast anymore," she continued. "Cat people are getting too good with their fundraising."

"We could sic our beasts on theirs," I said.

Which didn't win me any leeway.

"Think about it," she advised. "Although I have to warn you. Your job isn't that difficult, and I have a nephew who needs work."

With that threat in the wind, she left me.

I watched her vanish and I watched my thoughts. Then I kneeled, removing the orange ribbon, and I took my new friend to the other end of the compound, giving him more life than he deserved.

*   *   *

I wasn't considering vengeance, much less justice.

What I was doing was learning how to manage a new and distasteful job.

The dunnage vet demonstrated the equipment, and he made me practice with saline solutions, gauging doses while using the pressure injector. The Blue Building was subject to all kinds of accreditation issues. Even killing empty dogs had to be done with a hint of professional poise.

I understood that.

And I knew how to read labels, too.

"I don't know this compound," I said.

"Yeah, it's kind of new." He laughed. Because something was funny, although I couldn't see what.

I started to look up the compound.

"Peruvian," he said. "Originally, I mean. They pulled it from some gum tree, and it's easy to synthesize, and yeah, it's ridiculously cheap. Which doesn't make the pharmaceutical people happy. But believe me, it's about a hundred times easier to handle than anything else on the market."

"It's an anesthetic?"

"In the right dose. But give the victim more, and the nervous system shuts down forever. Nice and easy."

"And cheap," I said.

"That's why our boss loves it."

"But you don't use it for everything," I pointed out. "When you're cleaning teeth and battling cancers, you use the other anesthetics."

I couldn't recall medical names.

"Well," he said. "That's because."

Again, the knowing laugh.

I waited.

"Our kennel has to obey the rules. That or the good souls of the world stop giving us money."

"So what are we talking about?"

"Side effects," he said. "Which aren't talked about, since nobody has any money to make here."

"Tell me," I said.

He told me.

The explanation took two moments, and then I knew.

"You're smiling," he mentioned.

I nodded.

"Okay," I said. "Show me everything."

*   *   *

Old age had made the woman scrawny and somehow angrier than ever. But in the next moment, she turned infinitely sweet. I was always a bad son for showing up late, even though I didn't tell her when I was coming. But after the initial round of cursing, I was welcomed like a hero for standing close when nobody else would.

"Hi, Mom."

"You look tired," she said.

"Must be then," I said, sitting in the chair beside her chair.

We were alone inside a small, relatively comfortable room. The hallway door was open, but traffic was sparse enough to accomplish the first chore.

"What do you have in that bag?" she asked.

A sniffer borrowed from work, as it happened. "This is a mistake," I lied. "I didn't know this was in here."

She wrinkled her nose. "Put that away."

Designed to deal with squirming hounds, the sniffer booted in an instant and needed nothing but one quick touch to the skull to do its work. Pivoting the screen, I said, "Here it is. Your soul."

"I know what that is," she growled, the angry mom returning.

"Have you seen it before?"

"Maybe."

I reached into the bag's outer pocket. "Hey, Mom, I'm curious. What are you weighing lately? You remember?"

"I keep losing weight," she said.

"That's why I'm asking. Because you look great."

She grinned.

And I kissed her with the injector, the dose pushed through her skin, and the only sensation was a chill that vanished as it was noticed. I knew because I'd done it to myself. With saline, and with the real stuff, too.

Practicing.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Today or years ago?" I asked.

That confused her even more than usual.

A human nurse eventually arrived. "Your mother's asleep?"

"Yes," I said emphatically. "But she'll wake soon, I think. Do you want me to call you?"

"If you would."

"Sure."

He left, and I brought out the sniffer again. I hadn't turned it off in the first place. And with a touch, the image of my mother's colorful soul was replaced by the honest gray of dunnage.

Then I touched my head, just to see.

Nope. Apparently the PES doesn't frog-leap from one head to the next.

*   *   *

How many people have I killed?

None, of course. These hands have never stabbed anyone or shot anyone, and the only necks they've been wrapped around are the imaginary kind, existing as colorful electrons inside our frail, vicious heads.

But that's not the question you're asking.

How many souls have I extinguished?

None. Not one. Because I don't believe there is such a beast.

Then what am I responsible for, exactly?

I'm responsible for thousands of days of being a good-enough citizen. I'm guilty of paying taxes and working harder than many, and I didn't complain when I could have, and I ate my anger, and I ignored some spectacularly poor thinking that was happening around me. Except for those occasions when I spoke my mind, of course. And at the end of it, I allowed my stored-up frustrations to impact people who deserved exactly what I gave them.

My mother is dead now.

That's why I'll tell you about her.

But the others, most of them…they remain healthy and whole, save for those little eddies of spark they will never miss.

Make a list of my likely targets.

I'm sure some of them got a visit from me.

And strangers too. People I met inside a bar, at a concert, on a random corner. And people I never met at all. One of my perfect schemes was to spot the loner in a movie theatre, and when the show began, immersive light and music washing over all of us, I would touch the stranger from behind. First with the dog-sniffer, and if necessary, a quick tap on the neck. Thirty or forty minutes of unconsciousness was enough, unless it wasn't. But if the PES persisted…well, that was their misfortune. I had long since moved to another seat and another target.

Sometimes I got caught, of course.

Victims, particularly those who knew me before, would come out of their fog, understanding some little piece of what had happened. In horror, they asked what I had done to them. Robbery? Rape? Because even while groggy, they remembered that I was soulless, thus capable of who-knew-what, and how horrible was this last unremembered hour been?

I told the truth to some of them.

On a case-by-case basis.

It shouldn't amaze me, but it did. It does. When people learn what has been stolen from them, when they were full of outrage and helplessness, I nonetheless gained their silence by promising…silence. Nobody needed to know their fate, and it would be our secret.

Two dunnages bound forever.

*   *   *

Maybe I'm being too modest. At this point, where's the good in underplaying my role in larger events?

The Internet was built for odd souls.

Two days after commercial sniffers left the stores, there were sites dedicated to the wonderful people who had multiple souls inside them. And more importantly, there were hundreds of busy, intense, and usually unhappy digital realms where dunnage could meet dunnage, sharing the woes of their lives.

The news broke first on various dunnage-support sites. There was an antidote for PES, people learned. And this was its formula, and here were the legal suppliers, and the less-legal avenues, and these were the best three ways to deliver the cure to our loved ones.

I won't claim to be the source of everything. Others were already working in my field.

But let's assume I am responsible.

That means at least ten million PE signatures have been lost because of me, and several hundred people have died due to the inappropriate use of a powerful anesthetic. And besides being a mass murderer, I'm the founder and patron saint of a cause embroiling the world today.

*   *   *

And now you want the famous last bit.

Oh, you've heard the rumors. The conjectures. People sharing bits of the tale, but not nearly enough.

After several years of being clever, I was facing arrest and prosecution. The veterinarian at the kennels had turned me in and my face was everywhere, nothing but wits and willing allies keeping me free.

So of course that's when I went to find her again.

Which wasn't all that difficult, as it happens. Celebrities are the most visible people in the world. And where a starlet or billionaire would have a platoon of security agents around her, my lady made due with electronic tools and a former Marine who proved easily distracted by several of my dunnage friends.

So yes, I met with the green-eyed woman once more.

Not that it ever appears on any charges, or that she would have any interest in seeing me suffer any more than I already have.

We met inside the women's restroom, in a hotel where she was scheduled to speak. She knew my face instantly. She thought she knew what I was holding in my hand. But no, it was just salt and water, and after waving the injector under her nose, I said, "I don't believe I will."

"What?" she muttered.

"I'm not going through with it," I said. "And do you know why?"

She leaned against the sink, trembling.

"Let's imagine," I said. "Imagine that what you discovered is real. That these are souls, and they are eternal in all of the best ways. I don't happen to have one, but you have three. The luck of the draw and all that. And yes, I could cut them out of your head right now. But then they're drifting in the afterlife without you. Free of this body and your continued existence, and the poor shits will never know how it ends."

"What ends?" she managed.

"Your story. What happens to your life and the world. I don't want those three souls missing out on whatever comes."

She stared at me, sighed deeply, and then she stared at the injector again.

I gave the alleged weapon another slow wave.

"Besides, taking your souls would be a kindness," I said.

Which startled her, and angered her. "Why's that?"

"Because there's a war coming. Your war and mine. And if there is an ethereal spark of life, and if I don't have it, then I want something carrying that experience to the ends of time."

That's what I told her.

Maybe I believed my words, maybe not.

I honestly don't know.

But about hate. I didn't feel any hatred just then. After all those years, she was nothing but a smart, scared lady with her skinny ass pushed against the soapy sink, those green eyes ready to cry. I couldn't come up with any reason to hurt her again. I almost felt sorry for everything, reaching with my free hand, ready to pull a tear off that sorry cheek.

That's when she shoved me off my feet and ran.

And for an instant, dropping toward that hard bathroom floor, I realized that this woman had given me a strange and amazing life, and sure as this fall was going to hurt, I decided that I had no choice but to love her.

There Used to Be Olive Trees

By Rich Larson | 8144 words

Rich Larson's first F&SF story was "The Nostalgia Calculator," which appeared in our March/April issue last year. He rejoins us with a new science fiction tale inspired by his time spent working in Andalusia. Lately, he spends most of his time in front of a computer. In addition to the new story we offer below, this talented and prolific young writer has recent and forthcoming work in Asimov's, Lightspeed, Interzone, and Gardner Dozois's The Book of Swords anthology, just to name a few.

VALENTIN CREPT THROUGH the darkness toward the high stone wall of the Town, heart thumping hard against his ribs. His nanoshadow, wrapped warm and gritty around his chest, sensed his anxiety and gave a comforting pulse. It helped a little. Valentin had never gone over the wall before. He had never left the Town before.

But anything was better than what awaited him in the morning: the prueba . His fourth prueba , to be precise. Valentin ran a finger over caked scar tissue until it contacted the gleaming black implant poking from the crest of his shaved head. It was the implant that let him control his nanoshadow—for anyone else, it would have been an inert black puddle. It was the implant that let him communicate with some of the simpler machines inside the Town.

The implant didn't make him a true prophet, though. Not until he passed the prueba , until the Town's machine god spoke to him. No prophet had ever failed the test more than twice. Valentin was on three and counting.

So he was leaving. Valentin breathed deep, staring up the weathered stone face of the wall that had kept him safe for all his sixteen years. He knew the world outside was a dangerous one. There were wilders and mudslides and scuttling scorpions. Valentin hated scorpions, and he had a healthy fear of wilders from growing up with scarestories.

But so long as he had his nanoshadow, he could do things no barbarian could even dream of. He reached out with his implant and summoned the gleaming black motes, coaxing the shadow down his arms, gloving his hands. He steadied his nerves, looked around once more for anyone who might stop him, then took a flying leap at the wall.

Valentin was normally clumsy, but with the nanoshadow strengthening his arms like corded black muscle and coating his hands with clinging tendrils, he went up the sheer wall as easily as a gecko. He felt a grin splitting his face as he topped it. Poised there on the edge with his nanoshadow balancing him, Valentin could see the empty campo stretching far and away. Rolling hills of dead gray soil, dotted ruins, crumbling road. It looked like freedom.

With only the slightest guilt thinking of Javier, who would wake up in the morning to find his apprentice gone, Valentin slid down the other side of the wall and started to walk. It wasn't long before he heard a familiar rumble of gods on the move. Valentin kept low but still felt a swirl of static inside his skull, the customary sting of his implant, as the pod of biomechanical gods thundered through the dark sky overhead.

He could sense them, but their thoughts were walled off from him, inscrutable as those of the god who controlled the Town, and a moment later their ghostly yellow lights disappeared into the distance.

Leaving him in the dark again.

*   *   *

"Wake up, little Townie."

Still half in a dream, Valentin thought it was Javier's voice, waking him for the prueba . Then he remembered scaling the wall, walking and walking, finding a crevice to sleep in cocooned by his nanoshadow.

His nanoshadow that he could no longer feel against his skin. Valentin wrenched his eyes open, jolted by adrenaline, and found himself face to face with a monster: beetle-black eyes, an impossibly wide mouth.

Valentin jerked backward, probing desperately for his shadow, and the bag clutched in the monster's pale hand writhed.

"None of that," the monster said sourly, shaking the rucksack where Valentin's nanoshadow was trapped. "None of your Townie tricks. All right?"

It wasn't a monster. It was a boy, maybe his age, maybe a bit younger. His mouth was the normal size, but a raw-looking scar gashed upward from one corner of it, splitting his cheek. He had shaggy black hair and coarse skin and wore a black coat that was different fabrics all patched together, nothing like the identical gray garments made by the Town's autofab.

The boy turned his head, and Valentin realized the other half of his face was beautiful, fine-cut with long black lashes. He had never thought wilders might be beautiful. It didn't do much to help the cold panic numbing his limbs.

"A live shadow," the wilder said, shaking his head. His accent was thick and nasal and dropped the endings off familiar words. "Thought they were only in tales. Are you a prophet, then?"

Valentin tried to clear his head. The wilder had found him while he was sleeping and peeled his shadow off him. Normally he'd still be able to control it, make it leap out of the bag, but he'd used it all through the night to keep warm and now, still without sunshine, it didn't have enough strength to escape.

"I'm a prophet," Valentin said. "Yeah. I am. So if you don't give me my nanoshadow now, I'll have the gods blast you to ashes and a little heap of bone."

Alarm flashed over the wilder's split face for a split second, then he tipped back his head and gave a warbling laugh. "Once you do something for me, Prophet," he said, thumbing an eyelash off his cheek, "you can ask the gods to punish me however you like." He hefted the rucksack onto his shoulders and strapped it tight.

Valentin's heart pounded. Maybe he could run for it, but the hard look of the wilder's eyes and the long knife in his belt made him think otherwise. And no way was he returning to the Town as not only the first prophet to fail three pruebas in a row, but the first to lose his nanoshadow to a wilder.

"What do you want?" he asked, trying to sound brave, bored, maybe a little mysterious. The tremor in his voice gave him dead away.

"I'm Pepe," the wilder said. "Who're you?"

"What do you want?" Valentin repeated, and this time with no quaver.

The wilder shrugged. "To do what prophets do, Prophet," he said. "Get a stubborn fucking god to care about us for a change. You help me, I won't cut your toes off." He patted his rucksack. "And maybe I'll even let you have your shadow back," he added.

*   *   *

THE CAMPO didn't look like freedom anymore. Pepe set the pace and set it fast, leaving Valentin to stumble along behind him, watching for the telltale skitter of scorpions in the cracked mud. His skin ached for his nanoshadow. A few times he probed hard for it and managed to elicit a sluggish twitch from inside Pepe's rucksack, which in turn made Pepe shoot him a suspicious look from under his eyelids. But without sunshine or Valentin's bioelectricity, the inert nanoshadow was nothing but a lump of gritty black gelatin.

They walked and walked and only paused to eat—a slab of cold tortilla comfortingly similar to what they had in the Town—before they walked again. Valentin spent the time trying to think of a way to escape. The wilder had them heading west, toward his tribe's derelict autofab, farther and farther away from the Town. Pepe thought Valentin was going to interface with whatever god was controlling it and set it working again. As if it was that simple.

And when Pepe found out that Valentin couldn't do it, Valentin figured the wilder would use his sawtoothed knife to cut out his implant as a keepsake, then let him bleed out in the dust. He shivered, half from the thought and half from the Andalusian winter, as they walked in silence across another barren field. The soil underfoot was pallid gray.

Another god, this one alone, hummed through the sky overhead, moving like the whales Valentin had seen clips of, the ones that used to inhabit the oceans. Pepe stopped where he was, pulled down his scarf, and craned his neck to watch its passage. The yellow lights bathing his face made the scar glisten wetly.

"Can you talk to them, then?" Pepe asked.

"When they want to talk," Valentin lied, feeling Pepe's dark eyes go to the crest of his head, where he had scar tissue of his own. Valentin pulled up his hood and glowered. He didn't like people staring at the implant.

"Should tell them to give us a lift," Pepe said, with his macabre grin, and started to walk again. They passed the husk of an old harvester stripped for parts. "There used to be olive trees here," he said. "Far as the unaugmented eye could see, my grandfather says his grandfather said. The harvesters rolled up and down the campo all day long. Back when more things grew. Back when machines listened to anybody, not just prophets."

Valentin probed the harvester as they passed by, wishing he could swing its clawed arm and knock Pepe to the ground, grind him into the dirt, but the farm equipment was long-dead. He didn't feel so much as a flicker from his implant.

Before long the moon was rising overhead, fat and yellow, and the air was turning cold enough to bite. Valentin missed the slick warmth of his nanoshadow again, pulling his scarf snug against the chill. He could see Pepe's exposed hands turning purple in the night air, and after a few more minutes his captor pointed to a crumbling stone derelict up ahead.

"We'll hunker down in there for night," he said, tongue flicking distractedly against his scar. "Start early in the morning, get to the autofab by noon. Make sure you have enough daylight to work."

Valentin gave the ruins a dubious once-over. The sagging stone and twists of old rebar looked like something out of a scarestory. As they approached, Pepe found a torch and thumped it to life with the heel of his hand. The lance of harsh white light strobed damp ground and what was left of the walls. Following Pepe inside, Valentin felt immensely far from the gated pueblo he'd called home only a day ago.

"Wait here, Prophet," Pepe said. "I'll make a sweep for lobos."

"Funny," Valentin muttered. The spidery machines that once hunted down the survivors of satbombed Seville and the other ruined cities had been recycled decades since. Humans knew better than to make war with the gods now, and the gods were otherwise occupied.

His captor bounced off into the dark, and Valentin considered running yet again. The same counterweight held him fast: Pepe had his nanoshadow, and even if Valentin could make it back to the Town without being overtaken—not likely—he couldn't return without his shadow. At that point, he was better off bleeding out in the dust.

A beetle scuttled past Valentin's toe; he stomped it dead and when he looked up he found himself face to face with empty eye sockets and a ghoulish grin. He flinched.

"Boo," Pepe said, waggling the dog skull on its jagged spinal column. He tossed it away. "Found us a nice corner. Venga. "

Valentin helped Pepe clear away a few ancient syringes and typically inscrutable bits of plastic, things from the old days. There was space for the blankets and the portable estufa that Pepe said had enough solar charge to keep them warm for at least a couple hours. Valentin had to admit that Pepe was far better equipped to wander the campo than he was. But then, Valentin had been counting on his nanoshadow.

"Could keep the heat longer if we use my shadow," he said, watching Pepe strip down to sleep, uncovering the swathes of lean muscle Valentin had yet to develop—if he ever would. He spent his days sitting in the shade, learning his implant from Javier instead of boxing or playing in brutal games of barefooted football.

Suddenly he remembered how Pepe must have touched him to take his nanoshadow in the first place.

Suddenly he couldn't help but imagine what the wilder's sinewy body might feel like wrapping around his.

"Right, right," Pepe said, sliding on his stomach under the blankets, clamping his arm over the rucksack with knife held loosely in hand. "So it can smother me in my sleep and then whisk you back home."

"Something like that."

Pepe shifted, showing the unscarred side of his face, blinking soot-black lashes. "What were you doing over the wall, anyway?" the wilder asked.

"What were you doing skulking around outside it?" Valentin parried.

The wilder looked at him full-on, exposing his scar. "Was looking for a way to set things right," he said. His black eyes bored hard into Valentin's, then he blinked, and what might have been a smirk tugged at the scarred side of his mouth. "Your ears are red."

"I'm getting fucking frostbite," Valentin said.

"Soft little Townie." Pepe squinted at him. "Did it hurt when they put the godchip in you?"

Valentin's hand went reflexively to his implant. The truth was that he barely remembered his seventh birthday, the scraping caul and needle, the incense-smothered fire. But he wanted an answer Pepe would respect. "They give you something to chew," he said. "But yeah. It hurt." He paused. "It's only successful half the time, you know. There can be bad infection, or they can bore too deep. The two tries before me, one ended up dead, the other one damaged."

Pepe nodded, spinning his knife idly in one hand, not as impressed as Valentin had hoped.

"How about that?" Valentin dragged a finger along the curve of his mouth. "Did that hurt?" Pepe clenched the knife hard and Valentin froze, realizing with a sick drop in his stomach that he'd overstepped, that the wilder was about to stab him in a fit of anger.

Then Pepe's ruined smile returned and he pressed the gleaming flat of his blade against it. "He gave me something to chew."

Valentin turned away to hide his shudder. Everything about Pepe unbalanced him. Even as he'd calculated escapes all day, he also catalogued the looks held too long, the brief moments when the space between them seemed to simmer, trying to decide if it was his imagination or not. Deciding what Pepe would do if he knew. Prophets were meant to be different and the Town didn't care one way or another. But wilders were another breed entirely. Superstitious, hard. Dangerous.

As soon as Pepe was asleep or faking it well, Valentin tugged off as quietly as he could to an anonymous body, trying not to put deep, dark eyes on the face. He didn't think he would be able to sleep tonight.

*   *   *

IN THE MORNING, when Valentin crawled out of his blankets massaging night-numbed fingers, he could smell oil and electricity in the air. Pepe was pulling food out of the rucksack. He handed Valentin a piece of tortilla smaller than yesterday's.

"The gods were working in the night," he said, tapping his nostril.

"They do that."

"You ever ask them why?"

"It's colder at night," Valentin said, cobbling an answer from half-remembered lessons. "Machines think faster in the cold." It was flimsy, even to his own ears, but Pepe nodded solemnly and went back to chewing with the unscarred side of his mouth.

When they stepped outside, a thick winter fog prickled Valentin's eyes. Pepe took a moment to get his bearings, then set off into it, not even bothering to check if his captive was following. Valentin was, of course. The nanoshadow puddled in the bottom of Pepe's rucksack was as effective as any tether.

The gradient sloped upward, and gradually the dead soil turned to slippery shale under their feet. Pepe picked his way among the rocks as nimble as a lizard while Valentin labored behind, trying to hide his heavy breathing. The rucksack always bobbed just ahead of him, mockingly, he thought. With his shadow, he could scale a slope like this as easily as he'd slithered up and over the outer wall of the Town.

"Who'll they send to look for you?" Pepe asked over his shoulder. "Will they have a shadow, too?"

Valentin thought of Javier setting out to find him, easing his creaking bones through the Town's gate. No. Javier was sitting in his quickfabbed piso at the edge of housing, sipping anise and staring at the blacked window, murmuring to the gods in the dark. As far as he was concerned, whether Valentin came back or not was up to them.

"Nobody," he admitted. "Nobody goes over the wall."

"Your family, though."

Valentin stiffened instinctively at the word, at the reminder of his mother, who caught the last kick of the bleeding virus when he was six, and of the fact no father ever claimed him.

"Don't have one," Valentin said. "That's why I'm a prophet."

"Ah. You came out an autofab full-formed." Pepe gave another solemn nod. "That's why your skin is all.…" His hand looped in the air for the missing word.

"All what?" Valentin asked, trying not to sound too curious.

"Smooth." Pepe shrugged. "I was joking," he said. "You didn't come out an autofab."

"No," Valentin said. "I didn't."

By the time they reached the crest, the sun was rising red and smeary like someone had rubbed their thumb across it. Pepe offered a hand for the last lift, and Valentin was tempted but struggled up without it. Pepe didn't appear to notice the slight. He was peering down the other side with an unreadable expression. Valentin clambered up beside him, heart still thudding hard, and wiped the grime of the climb off on his knees. He took a deep breath and smelled overturned earth, and the machine fumes again, sooty and sharp.

"Look," Pepe said.

Valentin looked. Down below, the barren field was no longer empty. Thrusting out from the mist, glistening the biomechanical black of godwork, were rows and rows of man-high carved shapes.

"Heads." Pepe turned to Valentin with an almost pleading look. "A field of giant fucking heads. Why?"

"I don't know," Valentin said. "They might not, either. The gods don't think how we do."

"Straight through is still quickest to the autofab," Pepe said, more to himself, tongue flicking at his scar. "Come on, Prophet. Maybe they'll talk to you."

Valentin imagined the mouths opening wide to swallow him and shuddered. But then he saw the rucksack strap had loosened on Pepe's shoulder, saw how the wilder's eyes were glued to the sculptures. When Pepe started down the slope, Valentin followed.

The fog thickened again as they descended, and at the bottom they found the field had been smoothed and leveled, with uncanny precision, into a flat, gray plane veined by darker streaks of clay. It looked unreal, and Valentin was almost surprised Pepe's boots left prints. Pale vapor roiled back and forth in waves as they approached the heads.

They were taller than they'd looked from above, each at least twice Valentin's height, looming out of the fog. Their enormous faces were cut symmetrical but the features themselves were crude, disproportionate, and with the mist creeping up past their wide mouths, they looked like drowning men. Valentin probed. He felt a faint drone of machinery at work, but no god was inside. He couldn't begin to guess the heads' purpose.

"Is there a god here?" Pepe asked.

Valentin turned and realized the wilder had rooted to the spot, his dark eyes roving from one head to the next. "No," he said. "They're just sculptures. You coming, or what?"

Pepe shook himself, then stalked past to lead the way. Silence swallowed up their footsteps as they walked the row. The heads were coated in a glistening, raw black material that sometimes looked as if it was moving—the same material that the autofab in the center of the Town used to make tools and cables and brick molds. As always, Valentin wondered if it was somehow alive.

The strap on Pepe's shoulder slid a bit.

"Tell me about your autofab," Valentin said. "If I'm going to get it running, I need to know details. How old it is. Last it was used. All that."

Pepe shot a shrewd look backward. "Old," he said. "And it stopped working back when my grandfather was young. A few years after our last prophet died. The gods drove him insane, so he pushed his forehead into a spinning drill to get them out."

"He wasn't calibrating enough," Valentin said, to hide the sudden lurch in his stomach. "He was careless."

Pepe shrugged. The strap slipped lower.

"And the implant?" Valentin asked. "The godchip? Nobody else had the surgery?"

" Hombre. " Pepe stopped walking and stared at him with something like revulsion. "It was buried with the rest of him. Our band, we respect the dead."

Valentin was equally perturbed. "You have any idea how valuable that implant was?" he demanded. "No autofab will make them anymore. Ever." He frowned. "I mean, if he'd already shattered his skull on a drill bit, how hard would it have been to—"

"I thought everyone in the Town had a godchip," Pepe cut across, starting to walk again. "In the stories you've all got a godchip."

"No. We only have two." Valentin wished he hadn't said it. He felt the crushing weight again, the knowledge that had driven him over the wall. Two godchips in all of the Town—one in Javier's graying head, and one in his own, and if he couldn't learn to interface, they would be better off prying it out of his skull and trying again with someone else.

"Guess I'm lucky I found you, Prophet." Pepe flashed his warped grin. "The gods must have wanted—" He froze, head cocked. Valentin stopped, watching the sway of the rucksack. "D'you hear that?" Pepe asked.

Valentin pretended to listen, but he was coiling his legs, running his tongue around his dry mouth. As Pepe lifted the strap of the rucksack to readjust it, still peering into the mist, Valentin lunged. He ripped the bag free and hurtled past. Down the row, a dead sprint, clutching the rucksack to his chest and fumbling for the clasp as he gasped hot air. His pulse foamed in his ears. He could feel Pepe behind him, not bothering to curse or shout, just running him down like a hunting dog. Valentin's cold, stiff fingers bounced off the clasp.

He hooked left at the next head, veering into the fog. He had a grip on the clasp now, thought he could feel his nanoshadow writhing under the fabric. He tore the rucksack open and plunged his hand inside at the very instant Pepe slammed him to the damp ground. Valentin scrabbled desperately for the slippery grit of his shadow, and for the barest slice of a second his fingers brushed against it with an electric tingle.

Then Pepe seized his wrist and pried his hand slowly, almost tenderly, out of the rucksack. Valentin probed hard, trying to make the nanoshadow leap, make it stream up his arm and turn into corded black muscle, make it wrap around the wilder's neck like a noose. There was nothing but a weak ripple in response.

Pepe's dead weight pressed him into the earth, and it was not as comfortable as he'd fantasized it. Valentin could feel Pepe's bony knee, his chest, his hot breath at the nape of Valentin's neck. He wanted to sink into the mud. His best chance, maybe the only one he would get, gone and wasted.

Pepe refastened the clasp of his rucksack and stood up. "Fucking Townies," he said, breathing harder from the chase than Valentin would have expected. "I was getting to like you, Prophet."

Valentin didn't reply. He rolled over onto his back, getting his lungs back, then slowly sat up. The wilder was sitting cross-legged in front of the head closest to him, tightening the straps of the rucksack across his shoulders. His dark eyes looked almost hurt.

"My brother told me you Townies were snakes," Pepe said. "Said I was going to give you it back, didn't I? Said after you get the autofab working." He spat a glob of saliva. "I should fucking stick you for that."

"Sorry," Valentin said dully. In the moment, he felt like he already had a knife in the gut and one more wouldn't make much difference. They sat across from each other in silence, tendrils of fog creeping around their waists. When he scowled, the wilder's scar seemed to distort his whole face, making his mouth one wide gash. Almost as ugly as the sculpture behind him.

Valentin's eyes trailed up the crude face. This head was different. There was a sort of topknot glinting at the peak of its carved skull.

"Did you not hear it, then?" Pepe said.

"Hear what?" Valentin said. His implant gave him a sharp prick of random static. He needed to calibrate again soon.

Then a gnashing metal meteor dropped from the top of the sculpture onto Pepe's back. Valentin hollered, scrambling backward, heaving to his feet. Pepe and the machine creature writhed, rolled, tangling flesh limbs with jet-black running blades. Valentin was frozen. The furious buzz in his implant and every chemical in his body screamed for him to run.

But Pepe still had his shadow. Valentin watched as the wilder flung himself back against the base of the head, smashing the clinging creature free. Its segmented body whirred in midair and it landed on its feet like a cat. Quadrupedal, skeletal black carbon, and where the head might have been, a pair of jagged rotary saws now hummed to life. Scarestories bounced through Valentin's head and he knew the lobos had not all been recycled, not a chance.

Pepe had his knife out now, dropped to a crouch, wrapping his offhand in his scarf. Valentin didn't see what either could do against the lobo's spinning maw. It hurtled at Pepe again; the wilder spun away, slashing low in the same motion. His knife screeched against the lobo's underside to no visible effect. The buzz in Valentin's implant was skull-splitting. He could feel the crude machine mind roaring for function completion, for disable, maim, refuel.

This was not a god. This was an animal.

As Pepe and the lobo broke and collided again, Valentin clenched his teeth and probed inside the buzzing hive. In midstride, the lobo jerked to a stop, shivering in place. Valentin felt a rush of elation. The machine mind was still yammering objectives, but Valentin had it clamped down, iced over. Pepe didn't take his eyes off the lobo, only switching his grip on the knife and circling closer.

"Is that you done that, Prophet?" he panted.

"Yeah," Valentin said, tamping down a grin. "Yeah. So give me my shadow back before I set it on you again."

Pepe was silent for a long moment, maybe trying to suss out if Valentin was bluffing, then he barked an anguished sort of laugh. "All right, Prophet," he said. "Fuck you. But all right." Still watching the lobo, he slid the rucksack off his back and undid the clasp. Valentin's heart laddered up his ribs when he saw the nanoshadow rustle within. He reached out a hand, already imagining the feel of it on his skin.

The buzz in his implant changed pitch. Distracted, Valentin probed. His mouth went dry. The machine mind was trying to squeeze him out. He dug in hard, desperate, but a wave of defenseware carried him away and he felt himself lose his hold all at once. The lobo's formless head swiveled to face him, ignoring Pepe and his knife. The saws began to spin.

Valentin didn't even have time to shout before the lobo pounced, brushing past Pepe and slamming him to the ground. He kicked frantically, but the lobo's black running blades had his arms pinned, and now the grinding, shrieking maw was a millimeter off his face and—

Pepe's scarfed hand drove the knife between the saws. Sparks spat wild; one sizzled through Valentin's shirt. The lobo seized, shuddered, and Pepe dragged Valentin from underneath. He hauled himself to his feet and spun around just as Pepe's knife shot out of the lobo's mouth and pinged against the side of the sculpture. A ripple clacked through the creature's joints.

"I need my shadow," Valentin panted. "I can kill it with my shadow."

"Do it, then." Pepe shoved the open rucksack into Valentin's chest. As the lobo turned on them again, Valentin plunged both hands into the cold, gritty gelatin. His nanoshadow rippled in response to his touch, his biorhythm, the signal of his implant. The lobo darted forward. The nanoshadow was weak from days without sun, days without electricity. Valentin gripped it hard. As the lobo sprang, the nanoshadow shot away from his hands in a long plume of pitch and met it in the air, streaming into every crack in its carapace with a horrible shredding noise.

The lobo dropped to the dirt as the nanoshadow writhed through its body, leaving it a collapsed husk hemorrhaging sparks. Valentin finally exhaled. Pepe's eyes were wide as the nanoshadow pooled under the lobo's corpse, regaining its shape, then slithered back to its owner.

Valentin's shadow webbed its way up his knee, slipping underneath his shirt to spread cool and gritty and pulsating across his thumping chest. Tendrils wove between his fingers, licked up his neck, wicked sweat from around his nostrils and lips. Valentin closed his eyes as his shadow warmed to skin temperature. With his eyes closed, with his shadow pressing gently against him, he could almost be back home.

"So that's it, then. That's your shadow back."

Valentin opened his eyes. Pepe was unwrapping the scarf from around his left hand. The cloth was stained a bright red, and when it peeled away from his skin, he didn't wince, but his tongue flicked fast against his scar. The lobo's saw had shorn through the scarf and left gouges on his wrist, his palm. Blood was welling steadily and dripping to the ground.

"Guess you leave now."

Valentin considered it. With his nanoshadow, he could make good time back to the Town with no fear of scorpions or lobos or wilders. Then he would give some catshit story about the gods sending him out into the campo to receive a vision, which Javier would not believe. Then, the prueba . Again.

"Yeah," Valentin said. "I go back to the Town with my shadow. You bleed to death in a field of giant heads. I won, you lost." He directed his shadow down his arm in a soft, black ribbon that waved in the space between them. "Here. Let me staunch it."

Pepe looked wary, but also pale and slightly dizzy. He held out his injured hand and watched as the nanoshadow shrouded over his skin, sealing to the wounds. He blinked at the sensation. "How many of these shadow things have you got in the Town?"

"A few," Valentin said. "But you need an implant to work them."

"That's too bad. Wouldn't mind one for the next lobo."

Valentin glanced over at the corpse of the machine and shivered. It looked smaller now, and he could see it was malformed, slightly warped, with one unfinished limb shorter than the others. "I thought they were all gone," he said. "That's what I was taught. That they were all gone. Extinct like the actual animals."

"They were gone for a long time," Pepe said. "Last winter they started to come back." He gave Valentin a considering look. "You don't actually know anything, do you, Prophet? You've never left the Town before."

Valentin bit back his urge to argue. The wilder was right. He'd been right about most things. "So what do you usually do?" he asked instead. "When there's a lobo." He pulled his shadow back up his arm.

Pepe inspected his hand. "Usually you die."

The smaller cuts were beginning to scab shut, but Valentin guessed that the gash along the wilder's wrist would need to be stitched or glued. And disinfected, preferably soon. He still remembered watching the Town's surgeon lop off a woman's two gangrenous fingers. He cast a glance toward the rucksack.

"Have you got anything in there to clean the cut?" he asked.

"Only water," Pepe said. He paused. "The autofab'll make medicine kits. Food for you, too. For your way back."

"Why are you so set on this autofab?" Valentin demanded at last. "If it's so important to your tribe, why's it only you taking me there? And what the hell was your plan if you hadn't found me in the gully? Were you going to knock on the Town gate and ask to borrow a godchip, or what?"

Pepe's face darkened. "What was your plan, heading over the wall?"

Valentin's mouth opened. Closed. "To get away," he finally said. "Just away."

"Yeah," Pepe said. He stumped to his rucksack and pulled it up onto his shoulders, gingerly for his left hand. "I want to help my family," Pepe said. "I want to help the band. If you can't contribute one way, you've got to find another. The autofab would help us. Would make us strong again."

Valentin looked down at the inky black edge of the nanoshadow pressed to his collarbone. He thought of Pepe journeying back to his tribe alone, dragging the same weight Valentin knew so well. Getting muck in his cuts, dying of fever, maybe even running into another lobo.

"What's your name, Prophet?" Pepe asked.

Valentin hesitated. "Valentin."

The wilder's eyes were shiny and desperate. "I can't go back with nothing. Will you help me, Valentin?"

The autofab had to be nearby now. Valentin could try. It would be like a fourth prueba , only with a different god, and with nobody watching but Pepe.

"All right," Valentin said. "Fuck you, but all right. To the autofab."

*   *   *

The autofab was about half the size of the Town's, a featureless black mushroom cap that Valentin knew extended far below the ground. When they stopped in front of it, he felt a familiar twinge of fear, taken right back to his very first prueba , his sixteenth birthday. There'd been a procession through the Town's narrow streets, men carrying the plastic mannequins of the saints, women throwing red sand at his feet. He'd sat in front of the hulking black autofab, with Javier behind him and everyone watching, and the god inside had refused to speak to him.

"They used to keep everything clean," Pepe said as they passed the pockmarks of old fire pits and stepped over shattered tent poles. "They used to lay wreaths. But it's been a long time. Nobody comes here anymore."

Valentin probed hard. He could hear a faint, rustling whisper in his implant. The god was communicating, maybe with the pod that had passed over them in the night. Valentin sat, folding his legs, and his nanoshadow slid underneath him to cushion his tailbone. He sucked down a deep breath.

"Should I cant?" Pepe asked. "Don't know any prophet cants. But I could do the one for snakebite."

"Just don't talk," Valentin said, fixing his eyes on the slick surface of the autofab. He could see his own warped reflection in its black mirror. He took another deep breath, reminding himself that nobody was watching, only a wilder, only a stupid wilder with long, lean arms and deep, dark eyes and a careless laugh. Valentin closed his own eyes and willed the whisper in his implant louder. Through the electric cascade of the god's thoughts, Valentin could see, or feel, a fresh stimulus-response that could only be their presence. The autofab knew they were there.

Valentin reached, like he had for the lobo, but this time softly. And he thought: Help us. For the briefest instant, he felt the god turn sluggishly toward his probe, felt an interface blink open like a sleeper's eye. Valentin's heart leapt. Then it was gone, walled off behind impenetrable code, and the whisper in his implant receded. He'd failed his fourth. His stomach churned sick with it. Valentin opened his eyes.

Pepe was crouched down in his peripheral, tongue working against his scar. "What did you tell it?" he murmured. "What did it say?"

"It said nothing." Valentin knuckled a bit of sand away from his eye. "Like always."

Pepe's face fell. He stared at the autofab wall with an expression of fury, and for a moment Valentin thought he might try to put his uninjured fist through it. Then his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, like always?"

"I mean I've never talked to a god," Valentin said. He wasn't scared of Pepe's knife anymore, not with his shadow thrumming against his skin. All he felt was dry and tired.

"The lobo," Pepe said. "You talked to the lobo. You made it stop."

"For five fucking seconds, yeah," Valentin admitted. "But that was a crude mind. Not a god." He tapped his implant. "When you turn sixteen, to be a prophet, you have to take a test. You have to talk to the Town's god, ask it to do some sign. Pulse the electric lights, or print up a plastic bird, or something stupid like that." He swallowed. "The god doesn't speak back to me. I've failed it three times already."

"Three times?" Pepe asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah. And if you count this—"

"Three times is nothing," Pepe said. "Nothing. Listen. I used to footrace my older brother. I wanted so badly to beat him I'd wake up an hour before the sun, go out to the field. Scratch lines in the dirt and run, to train my muscles. Every morning, even if I was sick or if I was up all the night on a scavenging party." His nostrils flared. "It took two years of that before I won. Took a hundred races."

"Running a footrace is nothing like interfacing with a god. If they don't speak to me, there's nothing I can do to change—"

"You said your tribe's got only two godchips," Pepe interjected. "Two in the whole Town. So they must have picked you for a reason."

"Not the one you think."

Pepe leaned close and put his good hand on Valentin's shoulder. "A hundred races, remember?"

Valentin shut his eyes again. He breathed in through his mouth, out through his nose. His nanoshadow pulsed comfortably against his chest, and Pepe's hand resting on his shoulder was comfortable in its own way. Valentin reached out for the autofab. The whisper in his implant rose. A minute passed. Two minutes. More. Valentin's hands were clenched, nails digging crescents in his palms. A blank eternity later, he opened his eyes. He wanted to lie, to keep Pepe's fingers cupped against him.

"Nothing," he admitted.

Pepe's hand squeezed his shoulder, but didn't leave it.

*   *   *

VALENTIN TRIED off and on again as dusk dropped over the campo, with no success. The first probe had at least elicited the autofab's attention, but now he was blocked out entirely. They ate the last of the tortilla and a handful of dry dates. Pepe used a bit of water to wash his cuts. He'd stopped bleeding but his face was still drawn and pale. Eventually they camped down at the base of the autofab, Pepe wrapped in a blanket and Valentin using his nanoshadow like a cocoon, exposing only his face. Neither of them had spoken for hours.

As Pepe shifted, finding elevation for his injured hand, Valentin couldn't help but eyetrace the slant of his shoulder blades, his hip, imagining the body underneath the blanket. He felt himself getting hard, and his nanoshadow moved to slide a tendril around his cock. Valentin chewed his lip. Then Pepe gave a ragged groan, and Valentin felt a wave of shame. He yanked his nanoshadow away from his groin and pretended to be asleep.

"You awake still, Prophet?"

Valentin hesitated. "Yeah. I am."

A moment later, Pepe shuffled over, dragging his blanket with him. The nanoshadow stretched membranous to accommodate the both of them, at the same time wrapping Pepe's injured hand. The wilder smelled like sweat and copper. When their arms brushed together, Valentin's heart beat hard. When Pepe touched the back of his head, just below his implant, his breath caught.

"Do you hear them all the time, then?" Pepe whispered.

"Only when they're close," Valentin said, trying to breathe evenly.

Pepe's finger traced the metal edge of the implant. "You can hear them, but they can't hear you."

"Can't. Won't." Valentin squirmed, freeing one arm. "Either." He reached out, hesitantly, heart hammering, and touched Pepe's face.

The wilder stiffened, turning away. His anxious gaze raked across the sky, as if watching gods might be drifting overhead. Then he relaxed and turned back with the smirk Valentin recognized from the night before. "Fucking Townies," he said, fitting his good hand around the edge of Valentin's hip.

The kiss was brief and badly angled and went through Valentin like voltage, making his nanoshadow thump against him. When it broke, Valentin leaned forward, unsleeving a grin in the dark, not caring about the autofab or the prueba or anything else, only feeling Pepe's lips on his again. He ran his thumb along the wilder's jaw and found the rippled scar tissue.

"Who cut your mouth?" he asked.

A long pause. Valentin remembered when he'd asked in the ruins, wondered again if he had gone too far, but Pepe left his hand where it was. "My brother," he said.

"Right. Because you beat him at the footrace."

Pepe pulled back, staring at him. "No. It was for this." He struggled up onto his elbow, careful with his injured hand. "He caught me with someone. Again. This time he was shitface drunk and angry and he held me down and cut me. Said it was to keep the mariconas away."

Valentin felt his grin fall off. "I didn't know it was like that. With wilders."

"I'm seventeen now," Pepe said dully. "I have to start fucking who they tell me. I've got good blood. Can't waste it. I have to help make the band strong again." His voice splintered. "I thought if I do something big. Something like this. I thought if I give them the autofab back, maybe it'll be enough." He kneaded his eyes hard. "And then he'll love me again."

Valentin swallowed. "Maybe I'm lucky," he said. "Not having family. That's the real reason they pick you for a prophet. Nobody would have missed me if the surgery went bad. It's not because I was anything special."

Pepe looked at him for a stretched moment. "You are, though. I think." He blinked and turned over.

Valentin stared at the back of his dark head, wishing he could window inside of it and see where he'd been placed. He thought a thousand thoughts as Pepe's breathing slowly steadied. He pictured the pair of them setting off on their own, not back to the Town and not back to Pepe's band and his psychopath brother. Maybe to the wilderness up north in Old France, maybe farther south to where the gods were busy reshaping the coastline.

He was half-submerged in a dream when his implant gave him a short, sharp shock. His eyes flicked open. For a moment, Valentin thought he was still dreaming because the glossy black hide of the autofab was now veined with soft orange status lights.

His first instinct was to wake Pepe, but as he sat up the autofab's orange lights wriggled together to form an image. Valentin rubbed his eyes. The autofab had drawn a pixelated face, and as he watched, a pixelated finger rose to its lips. The gesture was unmistakable. Valentin looked down at the sleeping wilder, then back up to the image. The orange ghost stared at him, then slipped around the side of the autofab.

Valentin got quietly to his feet. His nanoshadow came with him, slithering up his body. Pepe shivered. Valentin debated leaving the wilder his shadow, peeling at it half-heartedly with his fingernails. In the end he pulled the dirty blanket overtop of Pepe instead. Sweat was beading along Pepe's hairline. Valentin bit his lip, remembering the fever prediction.

The nanoshadow swathed his limbs as he made his way around to the back of the autofab. The orange ghost had become an orange doorway, pulsing gently in the dark. Valentin stared at it. His implant was no longer humming. The night was dead silent, cold, a sky of tarry black cloud. Then a sibilant whisper entered his head with a feeling like a thousand insects scraping against each other. Enter.

Valentin realized, dimly, that he had been waiting sixteen years for the invitation. When the skin of the autofab peeled back, he didn't hesitate. He stepped inside and the autofab sealed shut behind him. He was in absolute dark. A moment passed. Valentin felt a claustrophobic terror stab through him, imagined himself entombed by a malfunct god.

White lights bloomed to life, and he was suddenly a giant, sunk to his ankles in a map of the peninsula. He saw the bone-dry furrow of the Guadalquivir, recognized the mountains around the ruins of Granada, and knew, instantly, that he was seeing what the gods saw when they drifted through the sky in their flying bodies. He found the tiny walled pueblo south of Seville's burnt carcass and felt an ache in his throat.

You are not a scavenger. You are the [organic relay] displaced from [Installation 17].

The god's voice scraped down his neck. The Town swelled on the map. "Yeah," Valentin said. "Yes. That's where I'm from."

The map jumped, and Valentin saw the field of towering heads forming a perfect square.

[Installation 17's patron] requested an early dispatch in [Gestation Field 2944] in order to eliminate the scavenger and ensure your security. Why did you dismantle the [organic disposal module] before it could attain function completion ?

Valentin's head was a whirlwind. This was not the voice he'd always imagined. "You watched that?" he demanded. "You've been watching us?"

The map plunged toward the ground, zooming in on the collapsed lobo. Valentin's stomach sloshed with the illusion of falling.

Why did you dismantle the [organic disposal module] before it could attain function completion ?

"It attacked me. Both of us." Valentin shook himself. "You mean the Town's god sent that thing?"

You will go back to [Installation 17] now. Supplies have been manufactured.

The map disappeared and Valentin found himself in a small, dark alcove. Facing him, on an illuminated plinth, he saw a slick black carrycase, and beside it a blocky shape he recognized as twin to the printed handgun Javier kept in his house.

If the scavenger attempts to obstruct you, use the weapon.

Valentin stared down at it. "I don't need help," he said shakily. "He does. His tribe, his band or whatever, they need this autofab functional again. Why did it shut down?"

Autofab access was rescinded from all scavengers as the [first act of culling]. [Installation 17] contains sufficient genetic diversity if breeding programs are followed. A larger sample size is unnecessary. Scavengers are extraneous. The [Gestation Fields] are preparing for the [second act of culling].

Valentin thought back to the field, to the rows and rows of heads, and remembered the faint buzz from inside each one. With a sick drop in his stomach, he realized that they were not sculptures. They were wombs. He pictured the carved mouths winching slowly open, the spidery shadows unfolding from inside.

"You're sending more of those things after them?" he demanded. "For what? Stripping parts?"

[Installation 17] will not be affected. You will go back now, before the [second act of culling] begins.

Valentin picked up the case. His nanoshadow clung to it, sticking it to his back like a rucksack. Then he picked up the weapon. "Why didn't the god speak to me in the Town?" he asked shakily. "It speaks to Javier."

[Installation 17's patron] believes it is important that [organic relays] understand the dangers outside its walls. You have completed a [pilgrimage]. Now you understand the [severe mercy of the gods]. Now you will go back.

Behind Valentin, the door peeled open again. Winter air licked his back with ice. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want," he said, sticking the weapon to his hip.

Valentin walked back out into the world. The autofab's status lights had winked off again, but overhead he could make out a shard of moon. Enough light to travel by, if only just. He could start his trek back to the Town. He would have the hard evidence that he'd spoken to a god, and maybe by the time Javier died, the god in the Town's autofab would listen to him, too. He could let the wilders find out about the second act of culling when lobos dragged them from their tents and chopped them to pieces.

Valentin went to where Pepe was sleeping, rummaging the medicine kit out of his new case. The wilder was on his side, showing only the perfect side of his face, the faultless bones and dark lashes. Valentin touched his chin, turning his head. The jagged smile reappeared and Pepe's eyes flicked open.

"I got disinfectant for your hand," Valentin said.

"From the autofab? The god spoke to you?" His voice was hoarse with sleep.

"I'm a prophet, aren't I?" Valentin shook the tube of disinfectant spray. "This is going to sting a bit."

Valentin helped him wrap his hand and sling it up as he told him, in fragments, about the conversation with the god in the autofab. The whisper in his implant grew louder and louder, and by the time they stole away into the night, heading north to the band's last campsite to give them the warning, it was a chorus of furious voices.

Valentin had his own concerns.

The Regression Test

By Wole Talabi | 3964 words

We asked Wole Talabi about his inspiration for this next piece. "The idea for this story came to me," he explained, "while I was trying to rederive an equation for fluid flow that was originally designed for liquids, in order to adapt it for cases where the medium is constantly transitioning from liquid to gas as it moves. I eventually found the Sorites paradox and then, reading further, I started trying to apply that idea to slow, gradual change in the behavior of people."

The Nigerian-born Talabi has degrees in chemical and petroleum engineering—he currently works as an engineer in Malaysia—and a growing bibliography of both academic papers and science fiction credits. He recently finished editing Lights Out: Resurrection, an anthology of horror stories by African writers that was published last October.

THE CONFERENCE ROOM IS white, spacious, and ugly.

Not ugly in any particular sort of way: it doesn't have garish furniture or out-of-place art or vomit-colored walls or anything like that. It's actually quite plain. It's just that everything in it looks furfuraceous, like the skin of some diseased albino animal, as if everything is made of barely attached bleached Bran Flakes. I know that's how all modern furnishing looks now—SlatTex, they call it—especially in these high-tech offices where the walls, doors, windows, and even some pieces of furniture are designed to integrate physically, but I still find it off-putting. I want to get this over with and leave the room as soon as possible. Return to my nice two-hundred-year-old brick bungalow in Ajah where the walls still look like real walls, not futuristic leper-skin.

"So you understand why you're here and what you need to do, Madam?" Dr. Dimeji asks me.

I force myself to smile and say, "Of course—I'm here as a human control for the regression test."

Dr. Dimeji does not smile back. The man reminds me of an agama lizard. His face is elongated, reptilian, and there is something that resembles a bony ridge running through the middle of his skull from front to back. His eyes are sunken but always darting about, looking at multiple things, never really focused on me. The electric-blue circle ringing one iris confirms that he has a sensory-augmentation implant.

" Sorites regression test," he corrects, as though the precise specification is important or I don't know what it is called. Which I certainly do—I pored over the damn data-pack they gave me until all the meaningless technobabble in it eventually made some sense.

I roll my eyes. "Yes, I'm here as a human control for the sorites regression test."

"Good," he says, pointing at a black bead with a red eye that is probably a recording device set in the middle of the conference room table. "When you are ready, I need you to state your name, age, index, and the reason why you are here today while looking directly at that. Can you do that for me, Madam?"

He might be a professor of memrionics or whatever they're calling this version of their A.I. nonsense these days, but he is much younger than I, by at least seven decades, probably more. Someone should have taught him to say "please" and to lose that condescending tone of voice when addressing his elders. His sour attitude matches his sour face, just like my grandson Tunji, who is now executive director of the research division of LegbaTech. He's always scowling, too, even at family functions, perpetually obsessed with some work thing or other. These children of today take themselves too seriously. Tunji's even become religious now. Goes to church every Sunday, I hear. I don't know how my daughter and her husband managed to raise such a child.

"I'll be just outside observing if you need anything," Dr. Dimeji says as he opens the door. I nod so I don't accidentally say something caustic to him about his home training or lack thereof. He shuts the door behind him and I hear a lock click into place. That strikes me as odd but I ignore it. I want to get this over with quickly.

"My name is Titilope Ajimobi," I say, remembering my briefing instructions advising me to give as much detail as possible. "I am one hundred and sixteen years old. Sentient Entity Index Number HM033-2021-HK76776. Today I am in the Eko Atlantic office of LegbaTech Industries as the human control for a sorites regression test."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ajimobi," a female voice says to me from everywhere in the room, the characteristic nonlocation of an ever-present A.I. "Regression test initiated."

I lean back in my chair. The air conditioning makes me lick my lips. For all their sophistication, hospitality A.I.s never find the ideal room temperature for human comfort. They can't understand that it's not the calculated optimum. With human desires, it rarely is. It's always just a little bit off. My mother used to say that a lot.

Across the conference room, lines of light flicker to life and begin to dance in sharp, apparently random motions. The lights halt, disappear, and then around the table, where chairs like mine might have been placed, eight smooth, black, rectangular monoliths rise, slowly, as if being extruded from the floor itself. I don't bother moving my own chair to see where they are coming from; it doesn't matter. The slabs grow about seven feet tall or so then stop.

The one directly across from me projects onto the table a red-light matrix of symbols and characters so intricate and dense it looks like abstract art. The matrix is three-dimensional, mathematically speaking, and within its elements patterns emerge, complex and beautiful, mesmerizing in their way. The patterns are changing so quickly that they give the illusion of stability, which adds to the beauty of the projection. This slab is putting on a display. I assume it must be the casing for the memrionic copy being regression tested.

A sorites regression test is designed to determine whether an artificial intelligence created by extrapolating and context-optimizing recorded versions of a particular human's thought patterns has deviated too far from the way the original person would think. Essentially, several previous versions of the record—backups with less learning experience—interrogate the most recent update in order to ascertain whether they agree on a wide range of mathematical, phenomenological, and philosophical questions, not just in answer, but also in cognitive approach to deriving and presenting a response. At the end of the experiment, the previous versions judge whether the new version's answers are close enough to those they would give for the update to still be considered "them," or could only have been produced by a completely different entity. The test usually concludes with a person who knew the original human subject—me, in this case—asking the A.I. questions to determine the same thing. Or, as Tunji summarized once, the test verifies that the A.I., at its core, remains recognizable to itself and others, even as it continuously improves.

The seven other slabs each focus a single stream of yellow light into the heart of the red matrix. I guess they are trying to read it. The matrix expands as the beams of light crawl through it, ballooning in the center and fragmenting suddenly, exploding to four times its original size, then folding around itself into something I vaguely recognize as a hypercube from when I still used to enjoy mathematics enough to try to understand this sort of thing. The slabs' fascinating light display now occupies more than half of the table's surface and I am no longer sure what I am looking at. I am still completely ensorcelled by it when the A.I. reminds me why I am here.

"Mrs. Ajimobi, please ask your mother a question."

I snap to attention, startled at the sentence before I remember the detailed instructions from my briefing. Despite them, I am skeptical about the value of the part I am to play in all this.

"Who are you?" I ask, even though I am not supposed to.

The light matrix reconstructs itself, its elements flowing rapidly and then stilling, like hot water poured onto ice. Then a voice I can only describe as a glassy, brittle version of my mother's replies.

"I am Olusola Ajimobi."

I gasp. For all its artifice, the sound strikes at my most tender and delicate memories and I almost shed a tear. That voice is too familiar. That voice used to read me stories about the tortoise while she braided my hair, each word echoing throughout our house. That voice used to call to me from downstairs, telling me to hurry up so I wouldn't be late for school. That voice screamed at me when I told her I was dropping out of my Ph.D. program to take a job in Cape Town. That voice answered Global Network News interview questions intelligently and measuredly, if a bit impatiently. That voice whispered, "She's beautiful," into my ear at the hospital when my darling Simioluwa was born and I held her in my arms for the first time. That voice told me to leave her alone when I suggested she retire after her first heart attack. It's funny how one stimulus can trigger so much memory and emotion.

I sit up in my chair, drawing my knees together, and try to see this for what it is: a technical evaluation of software performance. My mother, Olusola Ajimobi—"Africa's answer to Einstein," as the magazines liked to call her—has been dead thirty-eight years and her memrionic copies have been providing research advice and guidance to LegbaTech for forty. This A.I., created after her third heart attack, is not her. It is nothing but a template of her memory and thought patterns which has had many years to diverge from her original scan. That potential diversion is what has brought me here today.

When Tunji first contacted me, he told me that his team at LegbaTech has discovered a promising new research direction—one they cannot tell me anything about, of course—for which they are trying to secure funding. The review board thinks this research direction is based on flawed thinking and has recommended it not be pursued. My mother's memrionic copy insists that it should. It will cost billions of Naira just to test its basic assumptions. They need my help to decide if this memrionic is still representative of my mother, or whether it has diverged so much that it is making decisions and judgment calls of which she would never have approved. My briefing instructions told me to begin by revisiting philosophical discussions or debates we had in the past to see if her positions or attitudes toward key ideas have changed. I choose the origins of the universe, something she used to enjoy speculating about.

"How was the universe created?" I ask.

"Current scientific consensus is—"

"No," I interrupt quickly, surprised that her first response is to regurgitate standard answers. I'm not sure if A.I.s can believe anything and I'm not supposed to ask her questions about such things, but that's what the human control is for, right? To ask questions that the other A.I.s would never think to ask, to force this electronic extrapolation of my mother into untested territory and see if the simulated thought matrix holds up or breaks down. "Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you believe ."

There is a brief pause. If this were really my mother she'd be smiling by now, relishing the discussion. And then that voice speaks again: "I believe that, given current scientific understanding and available data, we cannot know how the universe was created. In fact, I believe we will never be able to know. For every source we find, there will be a question regarding its own source. If we discover a god, we must then ask how this god came to be. If we trace the expanding universe back to a single superparticle, we must then ask how this particle came to be. And so on. Therefore, I believe it is unknowable and will be so indefinitely."

I find it impressive how familiarly the argument is presented without exact parroting. I am also reminded of how uncomfortable my mother always was around Creationists. She actively hated religion, the result of being raised by an Evangelical Christian family who demanded faith from her when she sought verifiable facts.

"So you believe god could exist?"

"It is within the realm of possibility, though highly unlikely." Another familiar answer with a paraphrastic twist.

"Do you believe in magic?"

It is a trick question. My mother loved watching magicians and magic tricks but certainly never believed in real magic.

"No magical event has ever been recorded. Cameras are ubiquitous in the modern world and yet not a single verifiable piece of footage of genuine, repeatable magic has ever been produced. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude, given the improbability of this, that there is no true magic."

Close enough but lacking the playful tone with which my mother would have delivered her thoughts on such matters.

I decide that pop philosophy is too closely linked to actual brain patterns for me to detect any major differences by asking those questions. If there is a deviation, it is more likely to be emotional. That is the most unstable solution space of the human equation.

"Do you like your great-grandson, Tunji?"

Blunt, but provoking. Tunji never met his great-grandmother when she was alive and so there is no memory for the A.I. to base its response on. Its answer will have to be derived from whatever limited interaction he and the memrionic have engaged in and her strong natural tendency to dislike over-serious people. A tendency we shared. Tunji is my daughter's son and I love him as much as our blood demands, but he is an insufferable chore most of the time. I would expect my mother to agree.

"Tunji is a perfectly capable executive director."

I'm both disappointed and somehow impressed to hear an A.I. playing deflection games with vocabulary.

"I have no doubt that he is," I say, watching the bright patterns in the light matrix shift and flow. "What I want to know is how you feel about him. Do you like him? Give me a simple yes or no."

"Yes."

That's unexpected. I sink into my chair. I was sure she would say no. Perhaps Tunji has spent more time interacting with this memrionic and building rapport with it than I thought. After all, everything this memrionic has experienced over the last forty years will have changed, however minutely, the system that alleges to represent my mother. A small variation in the elements of the thought matrix is assumed not to alter who she is fundamentally, her core way of thinking. But, like a heap of rice from which grains are removed one by one, over and over again, eventually all the rice will be gone and the heap will then obviously be a heap no more. As the process proceeds, is it even possible to know when the heap stops being, essentially, a heap? When it becomes something else? Does it ever? Who decides how many grains of rice defines a heap? Is it still a heap even when only a few grains of rice are all that remain of it? No? Then when exactly did it change from a heap of rice to a new thing that is not a heap of rice? When did this recording-of-my-mother change to not-a-recording-of-my-mother?

I shake my head. I am falling into the philosophical paradox for which this test was named and designed to serve as a sort of solution. But the test depends on me making judgments based on forty-year-old memories of a very complicated woman. Am I still the same person I was when I knew her? I'm not even made of the exact same molecules as I was forty years ago. Nothing is constant. We are all in flux. Has my own personality drifted so much that I no longer have the ability to know what she would think? Or is something else going on here?

"That's good to hear," I lie. "Tell me, what is the temperature in this room?"

"It is twenty-one-point-two degrees Celsius." The glassy iteration of my mother's voice appears to have lost its emotional power over me.

"Given my age and physical condition, is this the ideal temperature for my comfort?"

"Yes, this is the optimum."

I force a deep breath in place of the snort that almost escapes me. "Olusola." I try once more, with feeling, giving my suspicions one more chance to commit hara-kiri. "If you were standing here now, beside me, with a control dock in your hand, what temperature would you set the room to?"

"The current optimum—twenty-one-point-two degrees Celsius."

There it is.

"Thank you. I'm done with the regression test now."

The electric-red hypercube matrix and yellow lines of light begin to shrink, as though being compressed back to their pretest positions, and then, mid-retraction, they disappear abruptly, as if they have simply been turned off. The beautiful kaleidoscope of numbers and symbols, flowing, flickering and flaring in fanciful fits, is gone, like a dream. Do old women dream of their electric mothers?

I sigh.

The slabs begin to sink back into the ground, and this time I shift my chair to see that they are descending into hatches, not being extruded from the floor as they would if they were made of SlatTex. They fall away from my sight leaving an eerie silence in their wake, and just like that, the regression test is over.

I hear a click and the door opens about halfway. Dr. Dimeji enters, tablet in hand. "I think that went well," he says as he slides in. His motions are snake-like and creepy. Or maybe I'm just projecting. I wonder who else is observing me and what exactly they think just happened. I remember my data-pack explaining that regression tests are typically devised and conducted by teams of three but I haven't seen anyone except Dr. Dimeji since I entered the facility. Come to think of it, there was no one at reception, either. Odd.

"Your questions were few, but good, as expected. A few philosophical ones, a few personal. I'm not sure where you were going with that last question about the temperature, but no matter. So tell me, in your opinion, Madam, on a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that the tested thought analog thinks like your mother?"

"Zero," I say, looking straight into his eyes.

"Of course." Dr. Dimeji nods calmly and starts tapping at his tablet to make a note before he fully registers what I just said, and then his head jerks up, his expression confounded. "I'm sorry, what?"

"That contrivance is not my mother. It thinks things that she would but in ways she would never think them."

A grimace twists the corners of Dr. Dimeji's mouth and furrows his forehead, enhancing his reptilian appearance from strange to sinister. "Are you sure?" He stares right at me, eyes narrowed and somehow dangerous. The fact that we are alone presses down on my chest, heavy like a sack of rice. Morbidly, it occurs to me that I don't even know if anyone will come if he does something to me and I scream for help. I don't want to die in this ugly room at the hands of this lizard-faced man.

"I just told you, didn't I?" I bark, defensive. "The basic thoughts are consistent but something is fundamentally different. It's almost like you've mixed parts of her mind with someone else's to make a new mind."

"I see." Dr. Dimeji's frown melts into a smile. Finally, some human expression. I allow myself to relax a little.

I don't even notice the humming near my ear until I feel the sting in the base of my skull where it meets my neck and see the edge of his smile curl unpleasantly. I try to cry out in pain but a constriction in my throat prevents me. My body isn't working like it's supposed to. My arms spasm and flail, then go rigid and stiff, like firewood. My breathing is even despite my internal panic. My body is not under my control anymore. Someone or something else has taken over. Everything is numb.

A man enters the room through the still half-open door and my heart skips a beat.

Ah! Tunji.

He is wearing a tailored gray suit of the same severe cut he always favors. Ignoring me, he walks up to Dr. Dimeji and studies the man's tablet. His skin is darker than the last time I saw him and he is whip-lean. He stands there for almost thirty seconds before saying, "You didn't do it right."

"But it passed the regression test. It passed," Dr. Dimeji protests.

Tunji glowers at him until he looks away and down, gazing at nothing between his feet. I strain every muscle in my body to say something, to call out to Tunji, to scream— Tunji, what the hell is going on here? —but I barely manage a facial twitch.

"If she could tell there was a difference," Tunji is telling Dimeji, "then it didn't pass the regression test, did it? The human control is here for a reason and the board insists on having her for a reason: she knows things about her mother no one else does. So don't fucking tell me it passed the regression test just because you fooled the other pieces of code. I need you to review her test questions and tell me exactly which parts of my thought patterns she detected in there and how. Understand? We can't take any chances."

Dr. Dimeji nods, his lizard-like appearance making it look almost natural for him to do so.

Understanding crystallizes in my mind like salt. Tunji must have been seeding the memrionic A.I. of my mother with his own thought patterns, trying to get her to agree with his decisions on research direction in order to add legitimacy to his own ideas. Apparently, he's created something so ridiculous or radical or both that the board has insisted on a regression test. So now he's trying to rig the test. By manipulating me.

"And do it quickly. We can't wipe more than an hour of her short-term memory before we try again."

Tunji stands still for a while and then turns calmly from Dimeji to me, his face stiff and unkind. "Sorry, Grandma," he says through his perfectly polished teeth. "This is the only way."

Omo ale jati jati! I curse and I swear and I rage until my blood boils with impotent anger. I have never wanted to kill anyone so much in my life but I know I can't. Still, I can't let them get away with this. I focus my mind on the one thing I hope they will never be able to understand, the one thing my mother used to say in her clear, ringing voice, about fulfilling a human desire. An oft-repeated half-joke that is now my anchor to memory.

It's never the optimum. It's always just a little bit off.

Dr. Dimeji wearily approaches me as Tunji steps aside, his eyes emotionless. Useless boy. My own flesh and blood. How far the apple has fallen from the tree. I repeat the words in my mind, trying to forge a neural pathway connecting this moment all the way back to my oldest memories of my mother.

It's never the optimum. It's always just a little bit off.

Dr. Dimeji leans forward, pulls something gray and bloody out of my neck, and fiddles. I don't feel anything except a profound discomfort, not even when he finishes his fiddling and rudely jams it back in.

It's never the optimum. It's always just a little bit off.

I repeat the words in my mind, over and over and over again, hoping even as darkness falls and I lose consciousness that no matter what they do to me, my memory, or the thing that is a memory of my mother, I will always remember to ask her the question and never forget to be surprised by the answer.

A Gathering on Gravity's Shore

By Gregor Hartmann | 4614 words

We were introduced to Franden and his quest to get an artist's visa for the planet Zephyr in "The Man from X" ( F&SF , Jan/Feb 2015). He returned—five years later in the timeline of the series—to go "Into the Fiery Planet" ( F&SF , July/Aug 2015), where his creative talents finally made a difference for his adopted home. His newest adventure takes place only about six months after the previous one, and if he's better off because he's a little less naïve now, he's also grown more ambitious, which carries its own risks. Especially when a civil war is brewing.

MOVING SLOWLY SO AS NOT to spook the guards, Franden placed his oMo in the inspection machine. Trying not to fidget, he stood motionless while the guards scanned him. They were suspicious. His fancy uniform, his muscular body—Franden was obviously not one of the gracile Upheld. Why was he on the guest list?

He was afraid they would find some excuse to bar him. But finally they returned his oMo and let him enter the party. Acting as if they were doing him a favor. Jerks. Franden bet not one of them had seen Duvant naked.

He strode through a short passage in the thick wall. People glanced at him, at his uniform. Trying to ignore them, at last he entered Crestwood Gardens.

The meticulously designed grounds lay open to the sky and the sun was a tiny distant dot. Vado, the gas giant Zephyr orbited, was a wide grin directly overhead. The dueling rays of the sun and Vado clashed on a startling landscape.

On Zephyr, utilitarian plants were black in order to capture every precious photon. Only the decorative varieties dear to the ordinary citizen were green. At Crestwood Gardens the attraction was artificial species created on Tensen, so nature was not a constraint.

Crestwood had no pretty flowers, no bushes from which the average person might want to take a cutting. The organisms on display looked like someone had attacked a jungle with a biological weapon and crossbred the survivors. Or perhaps mad savos had mated atop a thorium reactor, and Crestwood was the asylum where their mutant vegetative spawn were confined.

Disturbing plants. But rare and prestigious on Zephyr, so the Upheld were oohing and aahing. Franden hid his unease and copied their respectful expressions.

Franden's knowledge of the Upheld came mainly via media. The only individual he knew personally was Duvant, who was not typical. Franden wanted to see what was true, what was propaganda. He appreciated a good fiction more than the average person, but did the Upheld really wash their faces using soap made with breast milk? That had to be a smear concocted by the revolutionaries.

Determined to meet someone, he set off along one of the paths that radiated from the checkpoint.

The grounds were filled with strolling Upheld of various ages, their political rivalries temporarily suspended for Duvant's ascension party. The young within domains had congregated in affinity groups. When one affinity came within range of another, their social wrappers changed hue and pattern in coordinated bursts, like trees full of fireflies flashing in sync. Greetings? Rivalry? A game? Franden couldn't tell. The wrapper resolution was high enough for them to play clips of their favorite bands to challenge each other's taste.

Eager to join the fun, Franden positioned himself on a path where a Fragrant Gate affinity would pass. Duvant was Fragrant Gate; maybe others in that domain would accept him. He selected a woman about his age who looked approachable and made eye contact. She checked him out visually, then pinged him with her oMo. When she looked at the screen, her face hardened. She must have signaled the others; despite his eye-catching uniform, the group promenaded past Franden as if he were a post holding a street sign.

He tried affinities in other domains. Deep Circle, Bright Rock—same result. Anyone who pinged him saw the profile in his oMo and placed him in a flash. An ordinary citizen? A nobody, to the lords of Zephyr.

Rattled, he sat on a bench near a tangle of twitching blue vines that dripped aromatic mucus.

He was irritated with himself for being vulnerable to snubs. After all, he was still the same person he'd been before he was invited to the party, right? But that and other rationalizations failed to cheer him up. He felt like crawling away with his tail between his legs. He couldn't bail, though. He had a mission to complete.

Franden's invitation to the party came with a condition: He was required to give a speech praising Duvant. It would be recorded at the media center and posted in the cloud as part of the official record. While he was happy to honor his friend, the speech had been written by someone in the family. It was awful. Everyone who viewed it would think the sycophantic words were his.

He called Duvant, got a recorded imago welcoming the viewer to the party. It had been shot while Duvant was being fitted for his robe. He was standing on a low platform; the wigs he was considering hovered around him like furry little moons. Duvant's recorded message was chipper, but he looked overwhelmed. Franden laughed. "You asked for this, buddy."

He put his oMo away and wondered what to do next. The office was envious that he'd been invited to an ascension party. He couldn't admit the Upheld shunned him. He'd never hear the end of it. Unless he lied? That would be shameful.

A woman came along the path, frowning. Being alone was unusual. So was her costume. She was wearing a caftan made of iridescent scales, over long ultramarine harem pants speckled with gold dots. A hood with a fine black-and-white diamond pattern concealed most of her hair. She looked as if she couldn't decide between outfits, so had chosen items from several. No-tech wooden bracelets clattered on her wrists. None of her clothing was social; each piece remained inert, not reacting to Franden.

Exasperated, she halted and brandished her oMo. "Why isn't this working?" she complained.

Her assumption that Franden could assist compelled him to stand and accept her device. A beautiful piece of Mainline techne, it morphed to fit his palm, felt weightless. It had power but no cloud access. Technical difficulties , the screen said.

Two Crestwood security guards approached on gyro-spinners. From a safe distance they scrutinized Franden and the woman with facial recognition gear, then zoomed away.

"My, that was rude," she huffed.

Franden noticed that drones had been launched and were flitting overhead like avian sentinels.

Reluctantly, he pulled out his oMo (made on Zephyr, hence inferior and embarrassing, compared to hers) and checked the screen. His was offline, too.

Since Crestwood was hosting an Upheld event, tough security was in place. Everyone who entered the Gardens was thoroughly scanned. It was hard to imagine weapons getting through, but sympathizers might be able to sneak in and make a political gesture.

"We're under a security lockdown," he concluded. "Something must be happening. Crestwood is blocking communication so infiltrators can't coordinate with each other."

Instead of showing fear, her face lit up. "How exciting! Do you think our lives are in danger? Will you protect me, Captain?"

He was wearing a ceremonial dress uniform that Duvant's family had dug up somewhere. No insignia. She was wrong about his actual rank. Franden started to correct her, then saw by her impish smile that she didn't care. She was teasing.

With their oMos paralyzed, she had no way to profile him. He was a blank.

Cautiously, he bowed and steepled his hands. "Franden." She had to be Upheld, so he shifted to a flowery high register. "How delightful that our paths should cross."

"Maya. The day is brightened by this encounter."

For the moment, he was anonymous. No social context, no profile. As long as the lockdown lasted, he was not scum. But who was she? He tried to profile her the old-fashioned way: with his eyes.

Eccentric style, but expensive pieces. Flawless complexion, subtle makeup, good muscle tone, no wrinkles—based on appearance, she could have been anywhere from thirty to ninety. Going by her exquisitely modulated voice, she was either a singer or at the older end of that range. Her bracelets were interlocking beads carved—by hand, not a machine—from a single piece of fine-grained wood. They were the sort of souvenir a wealthy tourist picked up in the Forgan Archipelago. The perfect curls peeping out under her hood were probably a wig. What do you say to a woman so rich she can pay someone to grow hair for her? He hesitated.

Maya helped. "How do you know the guest of honor?"

"I was a sergeant in the Preservation Authority. Duvant served on my team."

"Is that why you're wearing that absurd uniform? You're more flamboyant than some of the plants in here."

Franden nodded ruefully. "I've mustered out—I have a job in Rockville now—but the family insisted I come in uniform. They want to remind everyone what a great patriot Duvant was. In the field we wore yellow coveralls, not this froufrou stuff. Bright yellow. So if a volcano killed us, our bodies would be easy to find."

By law, every citizen of Zephyr had to spend two years with the Preservation Authority doing ecological restoration. Hard, monotonous work. The Upheld always hired a substitute. When Duvant was summoned, he had whimsically decided to do Service personally. A lark, he claimed, although Franden figured it was a good excuse to get away from his father. At the time the family was furious, but it turned out his gesture was appreciated by the masses. As the crisis intensified, the domain was using his Service for political advantage.

"You're a prop," Maya declared, not unkindly.

He nodded. "I have to give one of the speeches."

"Isn't that an honor? You don't look thrilled."

"Someone in the family wrote it. I have to say that Duvant was awesome. He started earlier and worked longer than anyone else in the team. He inspired everyone to plant record amounts of bindweed. If there was stinkbush to cull, he always volunteered."

"Laudable. In reality?"

"We called him the Great Slacker. He paid other team members to take his shifts. And hedonistic? He could score hapium in the middle of the Heller Sea. And sex? When I roused the team in the morning I never knew who else I'd find in his bunk."

Maya's laugh was as delightful as her speaking voice.

"To give credit where credit is due, Duvant was fun. He organized some fabulous stunts. Once? We had a dinner party at a table on the rim of an active volcano. After each toast we threw our goblets in the caldera. The sulfur smell was awful, but we made it through four courses before we had to run for our lives."

Belatedly, it occurred to Franden he could be speaking to one of Duvant's relatives. Hell, he could be speaking to Duvant's mother . Damn. He had just spilled a huge wad of gossip to a stranger.

Maya didn't appear to care. She was keen to see infiltrators. An eccentric older woman was not who he'd hoped to meet, but since he wasn't getting anywhere with people his own age, Franden decided to accompany her. At least he wouldn't be wandering around alone, like a loser.

The party was in turmoil. Upheld guests were confronting Crestwood managers, demanding that cloud access be restored. What was the point in being at an ascension party if they couldn't stream it to their followers? Meanwhile, security guards were accosting the staff, looking for troublemakers. Most of the workers and entertainers were Rockville locals. Waiters, musicians, spark artists—probably a lot of sympathizers, if not outright revolutionaries, in that stratum.

The situation was volatile because Tensen, the world that owned Zephyr, was being sucked into a Mainline war. As part of the strategic maneuvering, Tensen was considering "releasing" Zephyr. The Upheld, the high stratum whose power dated back to the Tenser Conquest, were divided. Some domains would benefit from release but others would lose power. On Tensen they were lobbying. On Zephyr they were negotiating alliances to prepare for a shock that might or might not come. The political structure that had prevailed for centuries was crumbling, and revolutionary energy was bursting through the cracks.

Security guards converged on a juggler, hooded him, marched him away. Servos clustered, muttering, ignoring guests who were trying to get a drink. Workers were sneaking off behind a greenhouse; it wasn't clear if they were shirking or preparing to attack.

Franden was impressed by the nonchalance of the Upheld guests. That morning there had been a demonstration in Rockville calling for their overthrow, yet here they stood, calmly exchanging quips. He observed how an elegant young man was standing and copied his pose. Meanwhile, he tried to think of something safely nonpolitical to discuss with Maya.

She said, "How do you feel about independence, Captain?"

Damn.

Franden made a conflicted head roll. "Independence is good. Generally speaking. Theoretically. Nobody wants to be ruled by someone else." Especially not by your crowd , he thought. "But it makes no sense economically. If Tensen cuts us loose, the adjustment will be hard. All the things we have to import—how will we pay for those? So, I don't know." He shrugged.

Maya looked skeptical. "Really? The entire planet is taking sides and you don't know where you stand?"

"I'm not being evasive. I'm undecided."

He told her about a protest he'd witnessed near his office. In the middle of the workday, four daredevils had sneaked onto the roof of a Tenser bank. They rappelled down the face of the building and on it painted , the glyph that had come to symbolize independence. They stayed up there for an hour, lecturing a flock of media drones and thereby broadcasting their manifesto to the world. When they finally descended and were about to be arrested, the crowd mobbed the Stability cops and helped them escape.

"Why ?" Maya asked.

He was surprised she didn't know.

"I've heard several stories," he said. "All relating to Vado."

They glanced up. Zephyr was tidally locked to Vado, one side always facing the big planet. Rockville had been built around the subplanetary point, so Vado was directly overhead. It was a busy sky. In addition to the distant sun they could see the fuzzy cloud bands of giant Vado, two big inner moons, some small fry, sparkles of debris—and slashing through it all, the ghostly line of edge-on rings.

Franden said, "In astrology, is the symbol for Vado. Why does mean independence? Some say it's been rotated ninety degrees to show that fate will point us in a different direction if Tensen relinquishes its claim to this system."

"Makes sense."

"Another version is that our history will be divided into two parts: before and after independence."

She nodded. "By the line through the middle."

He knew a third explanation, but it was vulgar, so he decided not to say it. In any event, Maya suddenly became less exuberant and walked away. He hesitated, then followed.

She had drawn out his own views without revealing hers. Had he said something that offended her? Maybe she sensed his admiration of the bank protest. Eccentric or not, she was Upheld. If Tensen's decision led to revolution, she was in the cross hairs. How would she defend herself?

They came to a display of plants with heart-shaped leaves. In each leaf, a burst of purple and black struggled with a red border. Like gaping flesh wounds. The sickroom scent of their pollen made his eyes water.

The plants were hideous, but since he was supposed to appreciate them, Franden dutifully said, "Those are striking." He had to breathe through his mouth.

Maya scowled. "I despise them. I hate everything in Crestwood Gardens."

He was startled by her outburst. "How come?"

"These freaks were created on Tensen. Brighter sun, shorter day/night cycle than Zephyr. These ridiculous constructs wouldn't survive here without special care. During our long day, servos have to shade them so they don't burn. During our long night, servos have to erect lights to keep them alive. It takes a lot of effort and power to fake the day/night cycle they require. A disgusting waste of resources."

Her anger was real. He'd touched a nerve. "Are you a gardener?" he hazarded.

She laughed. "No. But I like plants. Useful plants, not these pretentious vascular monsters. Small plants. Small enough that millions would fit in the palm of your hand." His puzzled expression appeared to amuse her. "Come, I'll show you."

Maya led him to one of the ornamental pools that dotted the grounds. At the edge, she knelt. He thought she was going to pick one of the spiky orange blossoms that floated on the surface. Instead, Maya took off some bracelets, rolled up her sleeve, plunged her arm down into the murk.

On the other side of the pool, five people in a Proud Chain affinity watched in disbelief. Franden cringed. He didn't want to be seen with a nutter. He wished he were invisible.

Muttering to herself, Maya felt around and pulled up a rock covered with slimy bright-green tendrils. Beaming, she stood and shoved the dripping mess at his face.

" This is your favorite plant?" Franden grimaced. He pretended the people across the pool were statues.

"Actually, I prefer smaller, but this pretty baby forms colonies big enough to see with the naked eye. Each thread is filamentous colonial algae. Now here's a useful plant. It produces oxygen for fish. It provides food for zooplankton, shelter for insects and snails. It's perfectly adapted to the light that reaches Zephyr, and it looks after itself. You keep up the good work, dear!" She pretended to kiss the stone, then carefully placed it back in the water. She wiped her arm with a red cloth that looked like a dock worker's bandana.

Franden had been treating her as "dotty old relative to be humored." The burst of ecological insight gave him pause.

"Maya, by any chance are you a savo?"

She shrugged coquettishly.

"A biologist, even?"

"You're getting warmer."

"A marine biologist?"

"Well done, Major. I work for Ocean. Phytoplankton Division."

A marine biologist, indeed. At the highest level. In the pioneer era, Zephyr had been thawed using methane-producing cryophiles. After the Flood, the atmosphere was adjusted and maintained with phytoplankton. Some species were tweaked to make oxygen, some to release CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Ocean was an elite organization, employing only a few thousand people. It was a tiny workforce compared to the hordes who served in the Preservation Authority, but their skillful management of the seas produced much of the atmosphere. Franden's company had been stationed near a marine biology base once. Those snotty bastards never socialized. They considered Preservation Authority workers little better than janitors.

He told her this.

"Well, you are janitors, compared to us," she said without rancor. "Do you know how the ratio of heliophilic and umbrophilic species fluctuates as Zephyr orbits Vado?"

"Not a clue."

"See?"

Franden was embarrassed he'd misread her. As they walked on, he tried to get her talking about her job. Where was she when Pico erupted?

She deflected that. "Only bores talk shop at a party."

"Well, what would you rather discuss?"

"Urban legends," she declared, with a mischievous grin. "People say Rockville is the best place on Zephyr to have sex. Since Vado is directly overhead, its gravity lifts you up, so you weigh less. Have you experienced that, Major?"

He lowered his guess about her age. Was she flirting? Two could play that game.

"You know, I have noticed that. The phenomenon is very subtle, though—I want to do more experiments."

"Do you like experimenting, Major?"

"I am tireless in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. I can pursue scientific knowledge all night long."

"What's your favorite experimental protocol?"

"Depends on the subject."

"That sounds subjective."

"You're right. I should conduct my next experiment with the assistance of a trained savo. Someone who wants to rigorously and repeatedly test a hypothesis."

"Urban legend." But she brushed against him.

They came around a corner to a little glade where a quartet was trying to play. The low-stratum musicians were being taunted by a Hard Stream affinity that was sabotaging their performance. One girl was near tears. Grimly she plucked at her byabistrum, keeping her head down, struggling to complete the piece.

In the streets of Rockville, Franden sometimes encountered buskers playing amusingly complicated instruments. Buskers might act goofy, but they didn't take shit. Franden had seen a guy put down his instrument and fistfight a heckler who stepped on his sound. These musicians looked like effete, easily intimidated conservatory students. They played on, desperately trying to placate their tormenters with a soothing classical piece. It wasn't working.

One of the Upheld grinned and waved, inviting Franden and Maya to join the fun.

Franden had wanted to learn Upheld manners, but this was too much.

He circled around the affinity, got between them and the musicians. "Knock it off," he said.

They gaped at him, startled by the interruption.

From the front, Franden could see how the Upheld were baiting the musicians. Standing side by side, they were playing an imago, divided into segments and displayed widescreen across all their wrappers. It was a clip of Stability cops breaking up a pro-independence demonstration at the Diversity. Earnest-looking students were paralyzed by neural nets, toppled by slip-spray. The clip had been edited; each time a cop hit a student, toonish blood gushed from eyes, ears, mouth.

Franden confronted the man in the middle of the line, pushed him back. Under his palms, he felt the man's wrapper crumple as its circuit mesh broke. Franden shoved him again, at a different place on his chest, doing more damage to his techne. "Beat it. Let them do their job." He hit something hard—so hard it hurt his knuckles—but it must have been the projector node because the provocative imago dissolved into a snowstorm of random pixels.

The Upheld outnumbered him. They exchanged glances, clenched their fists.

Maya came bustling up. "Colonel, please let them go!" she shouted. "They don't know any better. Don't arrest them!"

With operable oMos they could have pinged him. Lacking that information, all they saw was a uniform. An angry authority figure. Grumbling and cursing, they retreated. At a safe distance, they turned and flashed obscene glyphs on their wrappers. But they left.

Franden's heart was pounding. "Thanks for backing me up," he said to Maya.

"My pleasure. There's no excuse for that sort of rudeness. Are you all right, dear?" she said to the byabistrum player.

The girl nodded and pulled herself together. "Do you have a request?" She sniffled, wiping her eyes.

Franden asked for a pop hit. The musicians belted it out with gusto. He and Maya applauded, then moved on.

The fight had broken the mood. Franden was thinking about how to regain momentum when up ahead, four hard-looking men and women came into view, spotted them, and advanced. Oh-oh , he thought. The affinity must have reported him. Was he going to be arrested?

The four closed in. No visible weapons, but Franden had the impression all were armed. The outfits were unremarkable. Conservative business suits. But the fabric looked stiff. Although it was styled to resemble civilian clothing, the material was impact-resistant skarmor.

Maya frowned at the four. "I told you to wait outside."

Their leader scrutinized Franden. "Madame, are you all right?"

Madame ? He raised his guess about her age.

Maya slid her arm through Franden's.

"I'm fine, Barr. The Colonel has been taking good care of me."

Barr glared at Franden as if it were his fault the boss was being silly. "Madame, Crestwood canceled the alert, but I still don't feel it's secure here. You should go. I had your car brought up to the gate."

"Oh, very well. I'll be along in a bit."

Barr cocked his head, pleading.

"When I'm ready!"

He bowed. His team split up. Two in front, two trailing, they all set off along the path.

Franden said, "You have bodyguards?"

"Sadly, in these troubled times, one must take precautions."

"The domain logo on their collars is Cold Arrow."

"Is there a problem with that?"

Each Upheld domain controlled a key sector of Zephyr's economy. Cold Arrow was energy. It built the geothermal power plants that tapped Zephyr's volcanoes. Mined thorium in the Talus, the asteroid field closer to the sun. Constructed the reactors that burned the thorium. Built and controlled all the conversion techne between source and consumer: heat exchangers, evaporators, supercapacitors, thermogalvanic batteries. Cold Arrow was the power structure, literally.

"You said you're a marine biologist."

"Not everyone goes into the family business. Heat plumbing?" She wrinkled her nose. "Plankton are fun ."

Maya produced her beautiful oMo. It worked now; the security lockdown must have been lifted. She pinged Franden and coolly examined his profile.

Resigned, he braced for judgment. They'd had a good time, outside the social framework. Now he felt like a specimen on a glass slide, under the scrutiny of a superior intelligence.

Maya nodded.

"I'm hosting a soiree in two days. I'd like you to attend. Some of my friends are afraid to go into the city—perhaps you can tell them what's happening." She tapped the screen. "Here's my contact information."

He bowed and went back to high register to show respect. "I shall bend every bone in your direction."

"Do not wear that uniform. My staff will instruct you how to dress."

"Words of wisdom are always welcome."

"Try to pick a side by then, Mr. Franden. Ambivalence is boring." A challenging smile, and she strode off within her perimeter of guards.

When she was out of sight, Franden checked his oMo. Her contact info! And an invite to an Upheld soiree? A high honor indeed.

And an even tougher social gauntlet to run. Fortunately he had two days to prepare. If Duvant coached him, maybe he could pull it off and not disgrace himself.

He would have called it a day, but one task remained. Reluctantly, he looked up the location of the media center and started in that direction.

His speech would not go out live, of course. He had been warned that his performance would be scrutinized by a PR specialist, two lawyers, and a qi master before it was released. Given the edgy mood in Rockville, the family was taking no chances.

What would Duvant do?

Ditch the prepared speech, of course. March into the recording studio, look the handlers in the eye, and say whatever he wanted.

Yes. Why not deliver a sincere personal tribute? The man deserved it. If the family spiked the speech, that was their call. But he would have completed his mission. In a manner the Great Slacker himself would approve of.

Smiling, Franden walked with a lighter step.

The exotic vegetation of Crestwood Gardens looked different now. No. It looked exactly as garish as before. But Maya's attitude allowed him to admit what he really thought.

He'd calculated once that during his hitch in the Preservation Authority, he had personally planted over two million plants. Humble black-leaf working plants, not gaudy ornamentals. Useful plants that turned volcanic ash into meadows that kept everyone on Zephyr breathing. What had the creepers from Tensen accomplished? Nothing. Unless you counted entertainment for Upholes.

He came to a hillside covered with swan-necked plants topped by dainty white eruptions of lacy fringe. Pale flowers, stalks, leaves—they must be reflecting almost every photon, so how did they survive? With artificial help, of course. They were the epitome of fragile monsters requiring time and energy to survive.

Franden contemplated the haughty flowers.

No one else was in sight.

The drones had flown back to their cote.

He charged uphill through the white plants. Snapping stems, crumpling flowers. He trotted straight down and up again, exposing soil to make a dark vertical line. Then he walked in a wide circle, going around and around, stomping the plants flat. Their sap was a ghastly white pus that smelled of phosphorus and stained his boots. He persevered until he created a dark ⦶ in the midst of the whiteness.

Franden shot a clip to upload to the cloud anonymously. His hands were shaking so hard he had to steady the oMo on the back of a bench.

His ⦶ wasn't as pretty as the one on the bank, but for mooning the Upheld, it would do.

On the Problem of Replacement Children: Prevention, Coping, and Other Practical Strategies

By Debbie Urbanski | 5496 words

When Debbie Urbanski's son was diagnosed with autism, she became keenly aware of the many ways that she and other parents respond to that news. Being a writer, she could also see the connections to old, familiar myths.

Case Study 64221

AMBER Y. SAID, "THAT ISN'T our child anymore upstairs."

"What do you mean, that isn't our child?" Clark Y. asked. "Are you delirious? Do you have the fever or something? That is our child. Who else would that be in our child's bed?"

"I don't know who he is but he isn't ours. When I read to him, he sat on the bed picking at the edges of the blanket. He's never done that before. He always sits with me on the glider when I'm reading."

"So he's too big for the glider now," Clark said. "Anyway, a lot of kids start acting different in the summer."

"And his hair is changing color. I thought it was all that time spent outside in the sun, but after I tucked him in, I kept an eye on him, and his hair changed color, it lightened, while I was in the room. And the smell of his room—it smells like dirt now. Like he's been burrowing."

"Okay. So his room smells like dirt." Not knowing what to do next, Clark suggested the situation might look better in the morning and recommended they go upstairs to try and sleep.

The following morning, after the hair of the boy who slept in their son's bed had turned completely silver and he began to speak an unrecognizable language, Clark admitted that Amber was right, this was no longer their child, and he asked to know more about what happened the previous night.

It had been Amber's turn to watch over their son, and she had been watching over him, closely, until she remembered a bowl of cold cherries in the fridge. A sudden irrational longing for these cherries overtook her. It felt like something external had placed that longing in her and there was nothing she could do about it, other than to rush downstairs and grab a handful. She was gone for no more than two minutes. When she returned, she saw the candle had been blown out.

"Let me guess, you didn't relight the candle right away?" Clark couldn't help asking this in an accusatory tone, for every parent these days knows a child should not be left alone during a full moon, but if a child has to be left alone, at the very least the candle in the child's bedroom must not go out. Clark was correct: Amber had not re-lit the candle right away. Instead she ate the cherries, threw the pits into the garbage bin in the corner, and then she walked over to their child's bed to check on him. That was when she knew.

*   *   *

What exactly is a replacement child?

A replacement is a sort of otherworldly "child"—the term child used here loosely—who arrives in the middle of the night, usually on the night of a full moon, taking the place of the family's original child who appears to have gone away to some unreachable location. We aren't sure where.

*   *   *

Why is this happening ?

Actually, this has been happening for a while, for hundreds of years or longer if we pay attention to the old stories, though replacements have not previously existed here in such quantities that they warranted notice. We only learned about the first replacement in our community four years ago. On that initial occasion, many of us brought casseroles to the affected family's house, the kind of hot dish one brings to funeral lunches, appropriate as the mother of the household had taken to dressing entirely in black, in order to better mourn for the child she believed she had lost. This is no longer a recommended response to the appearance of a replacement.

*   *   *

Should such disappearances of original children be considered an ongoing epidemic ?

Yes.

*   *   *

What are some preventative measures I can take to protect my original children, thereby keeping the replacement children away ?

Because the children who are being taken are taken away at night, many parents have found it useful to stay awake guarding the windows of their children's bedrooms. Alternatively, some have forced their children to sleep in windowless rooms, such as an interior bathroom. Parents whose children are not taken away tend to be resourceful, driven, but also tired. To force a child to remain as they are, to stay like they're supposed to: this requires a great deal of effort. Many parents say such effort is worth it. Receiving a replacement child can, in some cases, indicate a failure of attention (see Case Study 64221 above).

Because boys are taken most often—we do not know why—some parents have found it useful to dress their male babies at night in stereotypically feminine clothing, i.e. ruffled dresses, in the hope of tricking whatever is coming for their children, as such beings appear to abide by old-fashioned gender stereotypes. Or at least give the boy one of his father's socks, a technique which worked in many of the old stories. You should definitely leave a light burning. It must be the light of a candle made from beeswax.

Whatever is taking our children appears to lose interest in them after they reach the age of nine.

*   *   *

If a replacement child somehow appears one night in my child's bed, is it useful to obsessively remember everything about my original child ?

No.

*   *   *

Case Study 148200

"What did you do wrong?" Tina Q.'s neighbor asked Tina on a particularly hot July day when everybody's lawn sprinklers were on trying to revive the sod. "You know you were supposed to be watching over your son, right?"

Tina's child had been taken the Monday previous; her child's replacement, silvery haired, smelling of the underside of soil, had not left her son's bed since.

"I thought it was a story that happened to other people," said Tina quietly. Her shoes were soaked from her neighbor's sprinkler though she did not move out of the way.

"What?" the neighbor asked.

"I thought it was a metaphor," Tina said.

*   *   *

What are some reasons a replacement child might appear ?

1. Parent did not watch child adequately throughout the night.

2. Candle was extinguished beside child's bed during the night.

3. Mother's diet during pregnancy lacked certain vitamins, such as B or D.

4. Unrestrained exercise of mother during pregnancy.

5. Age of father (increased age equals increased risk).

6. Pesticides used on lawn.

7. Carrying the baby only in one arm, especially the left arm.

7. Living beside a busy road with truck traffic.

8. Mother breaks a glass cup during pregnancy.

9. Excessive looking into the mirror.

*   *   *

What about the idea that the original child was not dragged off unwillingly but in fact wanted to go away ?

This certainly is one possibility, that the original child wishes for a more exciting life, such as the kind of life they might have in a children's fantasy book, where dwarves will lead them to underground caverns coated in emeralds, and nymphs will be swimming with them under the lakes in blurry wet worlds. With this in mind, it's possible that when whatever it is comes beckoning, the child unlatches the window and jumps eagerly into its arms. Such an explanation suggests two additional solutions.

One: it is in the parent's best interest to give their child an exciting life filled with adventure and quests.

Two: parents should limit, or perhaps forbid, the reading of fantastical stories, instead encouraging at bedtime nonfiction, such as almanacs, which are now available in colorful glossy editions.

*   *   *

What are some things we know for sure about replacement children ?

1. The replacements are said to sleep a lot.

2. At the same time, the notion that they sleep so much might be a deception. Certain parents suspect that the moment they leave the room where the replacement is napping, the moment they shut the door, the replacement springs up and joyfully runs around while speaking in full and comprehensible sentences, so long as no one is watching or listening.

3. Contradictions are common when talking about replacement children.

4. Replacement children have silvery hair that does not feel like hair.

5. They do not like to look us in the eye.

6. Communication with them will prove difficult.

7. Replacement children may not consider communication to be a form of connection.

8. Replacements may have difficulty using the toilet properly.

9. It appears the replacement, in most cases, doesn't want to be here with us either. Like us, they may be frightened, or disappointed, or even bored. Probably it is obvious to them that this is not supposed to be their home and we are not supposed to be their parents.

*   *   *

Case Study 88265

Sometimes when the replacement we'll call P. was sleeping, the mother stared at him for hours, because when he was sleeping he looked like her original son, except for the color of his hair and the odd position in which he slept, with his legs bent slightly yet also open, as if he were running and in the middle of a stride. "Timothy?" she would ask while the replacement slept. That was the name of her original child. "Timothy?" she said again when P. was wandering back and forth in the hallway, dragging his fingers along the wallpaper.

*   *   *

Where do the real children go ?

One thought is that they are still somewhere inside the replacement's body, for instance crouched inside of the liver, waiting to be set free by devoted parents. This line of reasoning places a great deal of pressure on the parents as they must now devote their lives to finding a way to get their original child out of that liver (or whatever organ it is). A second possibility is that the real children have been dragged off elsewhere by ill-intended forces, that they are locked up in a stranger's wardrobe or in some man's garden shed.

Though why imagine the worst? There is also the possibility that our children have been taken to a better place than here, a fairy-tale place, perhaps, where they might help rule over a magical land, happier there than they would have ever been here with us.

*   *   *

Case Study 391041

In the long afternoons, Terri O. had begun to drive her replacement to a park in the valley where several mothers brought their silver-haired children. The back seat of her car smelled like a toilet. She kept extra underwear and shorts in the trunk but the replacement refused to change when he peed through his clothes. At the park, the mothers avoided looking at each other, in case it was something they had done, while the replacements patted each other's hair, then gathered up sand in their hands and watched it spilling out onto the ground like it wasn't sand. They might do this a hundred times in an afternoon. Terri tried to pay attention to the replacement, as we recommend, but when that proved difficult, she focused on the landscape instead, on the cardinals singing their melodic nonsense in the canopy of the trees.

*   *   *

If a replacement child appears in the middle of the night in my original child's bed, what reaction can I expect from the surrounding community ?

Certain adults will tend to act enamored at first, especially if the replacement is a neighbor's and not their own. They might find it all spine-tingling and exciting, like they're part of a show on the SyFy Channel, this idea that a child can disappear in the middle of the night and be replaced by a piece of another world—that there are parts of this world we still can't understand. In Case Study 88266, we find the example of one such adult, a Mrs. M., who appeared at the W. family's home, carrying a loaf of banana bread wrapped in a tea towel, in the hope of glimpsing the new replacement. Mrs. M. is not alone in her belief that the replacements may have been touched by magic and are, in fact, part fairy or water nymph. The reason some people think this is because of the replacements' silvery hair, and also because of the occasional yet strange look in the replacements' eyes, as if what a replacement sees around them is vastly different from what any of us can see. No one answered the door to the W. family home, so Mrs. M. left the banana bread on the stoop, where it became soggy due to afternoon rains.

Other adults may respond in a more negative fashion, wondering what the parents had done wrong (see Case Study 148200 above). They may ask inappropriate questions in order to avoid making the same mistakes themselves.

*   *   *

Case Study 23571

The replacement who appeared in Susan K.'s house acted all the time as if he was starving. He ate anything bland that she put in front of him. Potatoes, yogurt, basmati rice. She did not like to watch him eat. She did not use a brush on his hair.

*   *   *

What is the role of the extended family, such as grandparents, in all this ?

The initial impulse of many grandparents may be to deny that anything has happened to their grandchild. In Case Study 292589, when Grandmother L. first saw her grandchild's replacement during an autumn visit, she said, "Nonsense. This is still the same boy I know and love." The child was running his fingers repeatedly over the suede fabric of the family's couch.

"He refuses to take a bath," the mother pointed out. "He hates the water. Remember how Brian used to love floating in the water? And his hair is silver, Mom."

"Children change, dear," the grandmother said. "God knows you changed so many times, and every time you changed, I certainly did not go around suggesting that a boogeyman had snatched you up."

"It wasn't a boogeyman. It was something else. I don't know what it was. Something came into his room in the middle of the night. There was water around the windowsill. The window was open."

"Rain," the grandmother replied calmly. "Rain causes water to pool around a window." She reached to hug the replacement, who ran, screaming, out of the room.

"Well, if that's how you want to raise him," said the grandmother.

Grandfather L. would not come into the house.

"It's not contagious," the mother told him. "Whatever is it, you can't catch it."

The grandfather still would not come into the house.

To assist grandparents and other extended-family members in accepting your new reality, we suggest sharing helpful educational materials with them, such as the pamphlet you are now reading. Keep in mind that people of earlier generations may possess traditional wisdom, and since the taking of children in the middle of the night appears to be a problem with ancient roots, it can be useful to consult with someone who still understands folkloric customs.

*   *   *

Case Study 56833

When Leslie X. moved toward her child's replacement to pick him up in her arms, he cried. Every time she did this, he cried. Eventually she stopped approaching him.

*   *   *

What do replacement children like to do ?

We are not sure. See Case Study 400021 (below) for one possible idea.

*   *   *

Why do you recommend parents seek outside help after a replacement appears in their home ?

Let's assume most parents know how to take care of an ordinary child: if you act stern yet playful, distant yet loving, and tell a few jokes in between, you'll do fine. But replacements require us to become a different kind of parent. If that's even possible. For many parents, it isn't, which is why the help of experts becomes necessary once a replacement appears in your child's bed. There are also community resources such as camps made specifically for replacements where they will be taught, or someone will try to teach them, how to blend better into a crowd of ordinary children. There are schools that look like regular boarding schools only all the children would be like them at such a school and they never have to come home (see Case Study 53020 below).

*   *   *

Case Study 18769

"I think I know how to be a mother," Angela D. said. "I think I can handle it myself."

"Actually, I don't think you can," said the doctor, who was an expert. "Here's my advice. You are still young. You can have another child. Why don't you go and have another child and we can all forget about this one who isn't even yours?"

*   *   *

What is the role of science in these disappearances and appearances ?

We do not think that science, in its traditional sense, can be of much help, as this is not a scientific problem per se. It is more of a magical or fantastical problem, the difficulty being that we do not live in a magical or fantastical world.

*   *   *

Case Study 400021

Freddy W., having always been the easygoing parent oblivious to bedtimes and vegetable-intake requirements, did not become obsessed, as many parents do, about where his actual child had gone. Instead, he took it upon himself to find a shared activity that he and the replacement child could enjoy together (this is a very good idea if a parent hopes to find their happiness again). It turned out that this replacement liked being tossed into the air in their backyard, as high as Freddy could throw him, so that his silvery hair flew around his head like wings. Although the replacement's expression did not change, Freddy imagined he enjoyed it, as it was the only time the boy allowed anyone to touch him. "I miss our son, sure," Freddy insisted to his wife, Dorothy, "but I'm trying to move past all that." While Freddy was tossing the replacement into the air, Dorothy attended many support groups where she wrote down in a notebook any therapy that claimed to bring the original child back, assuming the original still existed.

*   *   *

What's up with the gender stereotypes (i.e., mother as distracted researcher vs. father as playful acceptor) ?

When a replacement appears in your child's bed, there aren't many possibilities in terms of what you can do. Such limited options make for a lot of repetition. If it appears that the same thing keeps happening over and over in this narrative, that's because this is how life is once you have a replacement. Your life becomes a pattern of repetitions. If it bothers you, we suggest you skip the remaining case studies. As for gender roles, we too would prefer to see more variation—for instance, a researching father or a playful and accepting mother—but this does not appear to be the norm.

*   *   *

Do replacement children have parents of their own ?

Most likely yes, though the reason why replacement parents continue exchanging their children with ours is unclear. Does this exchange happen by accident? If so, we can assume that the replacement's parents are as worried and distracted with longing as we are. Or is the exchange intentional? Maybe these parents are obsessed with our original children's language and laughter, which is understandable as that is also what we miss most about our real children. In any case, if your child has been taken, we encourage you to imagine that the replacement's parents are trying to learn to love your child just as you are attempting to love your child's replacement.

*   *   *

Case study 243819

Throughout his first month, a replacement we'll call Q. did not speak a word, nor did he look at the mother of the household. Only after that initial month was over did he begin to speak, though he used a language none of us could identify, his words guttural and involving a rolling of "r"s. The mother pointed to a shoe. "Shoe," she said. They stood in the kitchen, Q. entranced by the sunlight on the floor. "Shoe," she said again, this time bringing her house slippers into Q.'s field of vision. When Q. saw the slippers interfering with the sunlight, he began to howl. She put away her slippers. The following week, she tried to learn his language. He said something like, " Obush grush treshla tran. " She pointed to herself. " Grush? " she said. She pointed to him. " Obush ?" He wandered out of the room, leaving a thin trail of pee behind him. She wiped up the pee with a towel that once had bright poppy flowers all over it.

*   *   *

What are some therapy options for replacement children ?

The therapies listed below may strike some, at best, as old fashioned and, at worst, as reminiscent of the barbaric practices one imagines illiterate peasants used hundreds of years ago. But as we've said before, the snatching of our children in the middle of the night is a very old occurrence, so old solutions might be called for.

1. Take the replacement child to a field and beat it with a branch from a weeping birch tree.

2. Cut off the mother's hair and weave a blanket out of the hair. Lay the blanket over the replacement child.

3. Place the replacement child on a hot stove and boil water in two eggshells.

4. Abandon the replacement child in a field of weeds.

5. Put the child on a chopping block used for firewood.

6. Pretend to throw the replacement child into the oven.

7. Show the replacement something they have never seen before, like a savory pudding containing an entire animal, such as a chicken, including the beak and claws and the head.

8. Leave the replacement child tethered all night to a stake beside a well, preferably a well on a hill.

9. Toss the replacement child into a rapidly moving river.

10. Stop feeding the replacement child.

An alternative is to accept the replacement child as they are, avoiding such therapies altogether, but few of us seem able to do this since we tend, as a species, to have an obsessive desire to alter whatever around us is different from what we expected to find (see Case Study 60039 below).

*   *   *

What are the possible outcomes of such therapies ?

Outcome 1. The replacement child's actual parents, who will probably be both unearthly and indescribable, snatch the replacement child away, leaving the original child in its place.

Outcome 2. The replacement child becomes injured or dies.

Outcome 3. Nothing happens.

*   *   *

Case study 60039

Grandmother G. said to the mother, "The whole time you were mine, I never let anyone or anything take you away. But if you had been taken, I would have done everything possible to bring you back. Are you even trying to get him back? I hear there are stories about how to do that."

The old stories Grandma G. was referencing read like miracles. In the evening, a mother either does something to herself or to the replacement living in her house. By the middle of the night, the replacement has disappeared. In the morning, the mother's original child has returned and is lying comfortably in their own bed. The children who come back are said to be similar in most ways to who they were before.

"Let me have him for the weekend and I'll see what I can do," said Grandmother G. "It's like the medicine I used to have to force down your throat. God knows I did that more than enough times when you were young, but sometimes cures don't taste very good."

The replacement child fell sick after the grandmother's treatments. He did not recover.

*   *   *

Can replacement children offer their families joy ?

Yes, though whether such joy is recognized depends on the parent's ability to let go of old memories. Take the replacement found in Case Study 243550, who seemed happiest while staring at his bedroom wall, so this is what the father began to do with the boy. First the father set aside his memories, such as kicking a soccer ball with his old son across the yard. Then he settled the replacement on the rug in the boy's bedroom, surrounded him with pillows, and sat there beside the replacement for many hours. "Sometimes I think I'm going to stay in that room forever," the father told us, and when he told us this, he was smiling. His happiness measured 7.4 out of 10, which is just fine. The mother of the household, on the other hand, was bent over a book beside a pile of additional books (see our note above on the unfortunate gender divide in parental roles). She was holding a yellow highlighter in her right hand. Every one of those books concerned how to bring the original child back. This mother did not allow us to measure her happiness quotient but we assume it was low or immeasurable.

Let's also review Case Study 14099, where mother Karyn B. found much contentment touching or even, on occasion, stroking the replacement child's hair, which is very beautiful and doesn't feel like hair. Karyn B. told us that touching the replacement's hair felt like she was resting her hand on something with a heartbeat, like she was resting her hand on the chest of a rabbit who was considering whether to bolt.

*   *   *

At what point should I stop hoping for the return of my original child ?

Given the low percentage of the original children's reappearances and the toll such hope for reappearance takes on the family unit, it is in everyone's best interest to give up hope immediately, the moment you see a replacement in your child's bed. To hurry this process along, several parents have found it useful to convince themselves their original child never existed. That there is no original child to bring back. That they were given this replacement child at birth and, for a short while, they simply thought otherwise.

*   *   *

What do the replacement children themselves think about all this ?

We would guess some replacements wish to return where they came from; some may wish to stay where they are; and some must wish we not tell their story for them or, at least, that we tell a different type of story.

*   *   *

After I have given up hope that my actual child will return, what are best practices for accepting my replacement child ?

There are two common ways to view the arrival of your replacement.

One is to consider it as a loss, as we once did. But then you will always be missing something. Every time you go to the park, you will see so many original children there holding each other's hands or running up to their mothers to show off a pile of shining rocks, like your actual child used to do, and you will feel that loss again, which is very depressing.

Or you can look at the replacement's arrival as proof that, in this world, there is still something magical at work, even if it's a magic you didn't ask for. When you gaze upon the replacement sleeping in your child's bed, we suggest doing so with a little wonder. Try to tell yourself you are glimpsing one of the universe's possibilities, the possibility that there are other worlds out there, or at least other realities, and that this child may have come from such a faraway place, and perhaps they are, in fact, still half-living in such a place, a foot in our world and a foot in theirs. This positioning allows them to see things we will never be able to see, the overlays upon our own reality that we can only imagine. Perhaps beside us, to our right, directly over our right shoulder, or reflecting onto the wall, there is something hovering that is so miraculous and large that they cannot take their eyes off of it. No wonder they don't wish to look at us instead.

*   *   *

How do most case studies end ?

In the original case studies, which are actually the old folk stories, the replacement child either stayed put as a burden on the family, or else the parent, usually the mother, did what the wise neighbor told her to do, often involving a birch branch or an axe, in which case the replacement child either died or he went away, while the original child either came back or, more often, didn't. Nowadays, it is difficult to figure out the correct endings to our stories, as modern parents are hesitant to admit to the more desperate therapies, fearing we will frame their tales in a somber moralism. No one wants their life story to be framed in such a way. There is also the problem of privacy. A family who receives a replacement child usually will, at some point, begin to retreat into their homes, away from their neighbors and their friends, as it eventually becomes too painful to interact with families whose children are still originals. You begin to want those other families' lives, which means you are ready to throw away your own family and your own life, which is an impossible way to live. Once a family retreats into their home, it is challenging for us to find out what happens next, as they tend to keep their drapes closed and they no longer answer the door.

While we might not know the endings to the majority of our case studies, we can make certain assumptions.

One assumption is that while it's possible many parents never love their replacements, it is also possible such parents haven't recognized their own love, because it isn't the kind of love they expected or wanted.

Another conclusion is that unrecognizable or unrecognized love is still love.

This said, in the two rare case studies below, we have been lucky to observe endings of a sort.

*   *   *

Ending of case study 53020

Husband Michael S. went away on a business trip to Missouri, and on the second night of his trip, his wife Laura called one of the replacement schools that had a nice brochure, the school with the natural lake right on the grounds and the horse stable. She spent several minutes on the phone explaining her family's situation to the intake coordinator: the hysterics, the lack of affection, the amount of work. "He's getting worse," Laura said, "and I think I'm doing everything wrong."

"Honey, I get it," replied the coordinator. "Motherhood is supposed to be filled with delight or at least have much delight in it, am I right, but I can tell from your voice that there isn't a whole lot of delight in your current situation. We get it into our heads that just because a child is sleeping in one of our beds, we have to take care of him. But if that isn't the child you wanted—I mean, you tried. It's not like you're giving up on him. Goodness, no. You're putting him someplace where he can belong."

The replacement did not cry the following week when the two men came to the door, not dressed in nice suits, as Laura had hoped, or driving an official-looking car. They were driving a blue Camry. They were wearing polo shirts and shorts. One of the men picked up the replacement's suitcase. "What do you have in here, rocks?" the man asked, and Laura replied yes, that was exactly what was in there, as this replacement was fond of rocks. The other man beckoned the child forward and placed him in the sedan. The replacement looked back at Laura only once, as if she could have been anyone to him, any tired, sad woman in a brown cardigan. There had been stories, the coordinator recounted previously on the phone, of the original children returning within days of the replacement's departure, no worse for the wear. "Do let us know if that happens," the coordinator said.

When Michael arrived home, he refused to try and conceive another child. They waited many years for their original son to come back. For a long time, they left the doors and the windows unlocked at night and the lamp on in the family room, which some people considered a waste of electricity.

*   *   *

Ending of Case Study 21433

It is rumored, especially in those old stories we keep bringing up, that for every kindness you give your replacement, a similar kindness will be bestowed upon your own child, wherever your own child has gone. Likewise, for every cruelty you inflict upon your replacement child, the same cruelty will be suffered by the child who was once yours. For this reason, Georgia F. put aside her lists of therapies, some crueler than others, and she began treating her replacement child with kindness and sympathy, like how she would treat a doll if everybody was taking notes. This did not change the replacement's behavior. After her husband received a promotion, they built an extension onto their house, a guest bedroom they didn't need since no one wanted to visit them, as their replacement made other people uncomfortable. One week during the following fall, they decided to rent a sailboat, since the replacement child enjoyed watching objects fill with wind. The family sailed across a faraway lake. The replacement slept on the deck. Only once did he throw himself into the water and have to be rescued. When they reached the other side of the lake, where a wooden dock led to an ice cream shop with striped awnings, the replacement clung to the rails and refused to get off the boat. "Oh, well," Georgia said, as she had wanted ice cream. "Maybe another time." They turned around and sailed back to where they had started, while overhead, the clouds gathered into the shapes of fantastical animals, animals so ridiculous and beautiful they could never exist.

Alexandria

By Monica Byrne | 4786 words

Monica Byrne is a playwright and author who is probably most famous—so far—for her debut novel The Girl in the Road, which won the 2015 James W. Tiptree Award. Her first appearance in F&SF is a story that she completed because of encouragement from Ursula K. Le Guin. We'll be sharing that story in more detail later this month in an interview on the F&SF blog (fandsf.com/blog/). In the meantime, we welcome you to visit...

What does a Lighthouse mean, when it is not by the sea?

Phan Thj Khiem, Studies in Suffering (University of Kansas Press, 2075)

BETH WOKE AT THE COLDEST hour, her mind ringing from a dream.

She lay with her head on her pillow, looking up at the ceiling, mottled with water stains the color of tea. She and Keiji had named them all—the many seas of their intimate geography.

She pushed back the blankets, eased her thick legs over the side of the bed, and pressed her fists into the mattress to stand up. On the rocking chair by the vanity, she found her dressing gown—made of flannel, patterned with crocuses—and tied it over her pajamas.

Outside, the moon shone bright as the sun, and the wind stung like ice water. But Beth was a native daughter. She liked the cold. She removed one slipper, then the other, and curled her feet into Kansas dirt. Globes of soil burst between her toes.

*   *   *

Later that morning, Beth made a breakfast of toast and eggs and looked through her mail. There was some paperwork from her estate lawyer. There was a newsletter from the Farmworkers' Union advertising summer jobs, including at her own Miyake Farms. There was a card from Nell Greer, inviting her to another "home-cooked dinner" at their house.

This meant the Greers were angling for her land again. They didn't bother to hide it much. The invitation was even printed on Greer Contractors company stationery. Beth tossed it aside with more force than she meant to, and its inertia made the whole pile swivel, and all of the letters ended up on the floor.

Beth stared at them.

The clock on the wall ticked in the silence.

She got up, carried her dish and cup over to the sink, washed each, dried each, and put each of them away.

There: done.

She looked out the window. The acres of farmland receded to the horizon, farther than her eyes could see, stretching away like a rubber band that never got to snap.

*   *   *

The night before Keiji died, they did their evening routine, like it was any other evening.

They shared a study in the back of the house. In it was a star projector, three globes, and two overstuffed armchairs. They were travelers, though of the domestic sort. After their terrible honeymoon, they'd never left Kansas again.

But Keiji had become restless. That night, Beth was surprised to find him bent over a book of classical archaeology. He straightened up and blinked in greeting, and Beth could see the page: an artist's rendering of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Oh, that old thing, she said.

You remember? he said.

I remember that it wasn't there, she said.

Keiji nodded and looked down at the drawing again. Beth took a seat across from him, and they sat in silence. She knew they were both remembering themselves as teenagers in Egypt. The church folk had not looked kindly on it. First she marries a Jap, now she's going to Arabia on honeymoon ?

Jokes abounded. But it wasn't funny. Nothing was funny when they got there and realized that, contrary to their foolish assumption, the Lighthouse no longer existed.

How long has it been gone? Keiji asked a young British soldier.

About seven hundred years, he said.

Beth could still remember the look on that young man's face. Hilarity, incredulity, and pity. They must learn such things in school in England. But Beth and Keiji had never even thought to check whether the Lighthouse was still standing. They'd planned to climb to the top, look out across the sea, and imagine the Roman warships arriving, or the Chinese junk traders, or the great Ottoman fleet.

Beth and Keiji had been private, before. But when they returned from their honeymoon, they were even more so. Every night during fifty years of marriage, they held their study sessions, sometimes in silence and sometimes in conversation. They quizzed each other on dates and names and geography. They pored over books of ancient sculpture and marveled at all the things in the world that had been lost. They gifted each other with talk and quiet.

And so it was, on their last night together. Keiji set the archaeology book on the table, and they both looked at the drawing of the Lighthouse, in silence.

When I first laid eyes on the Lighthouse, it was as if a mallet had dropped vertically from my head to my toes, and I stood there, ringing. The Lighthouse was both Rooted and Reaching, the midpoint of all things. When I entered the courtyard, I felt I knew its contours and colonnades as if by memory—as if I had played there as a child and forgotten till now.

Francis Mbachu, Midwestern Dreaming (Sankofa Inc., 2191)

Nell and Nathan Greer, co-owners of Greer Contractors, sat across the kitchen table.

"Beth, we're worried about you," said Nell, her voice low and soft, like a wheedling loon.

"How's that?" said Beth, not looking their way.

"It's been about, oh, eighteen months since Kay passed on," said Nathan.

Keiji , Beth corrected in her mind. His name was Keiji.

"You have no children and your brothers have also passed on. Beth, you're sixty-nine years old. And here you are, sitting alone on five hundred acres. What are you going to do with it all?"

Beth held her coffee cup close and leveled her eyes at Nathan. "You folks sure are concerned," she said.

The rebuke swung in the air like a scythe. Beth waited for it to slow, relishing the silence.

At last, she said, "I'm going to build."

Nathan looked at Nell in alarm. "You're going to build? Build what?"

"A lighthouse."

Long silence.

Finally, Nathan said, "You're not the joking type."

"Nope."

"I don't suppose you've lost your mind."

"Not yet."

"Beth, the nearest coastline is a thousand miles away."

"I know that."

Nathan went quiet. Outside the window on a branch, a raven cawed, and the sound curdled in the cold.

Nell asked, "Well, what do you want to build it for?"

Beth knew, but she didn't want to tell them, so instead she said, "Couldn't quite say." She put down her coffee cup and used her hands to draw in the air. "But I can tell you it's limestone, with a room at the top, faced in granite. And there's a pretty good-sized courtyard, walled in. There's a long ramp that leads up to a doorway. Then there are four tiers, like a wedding cake. First there's a square tier at the bottom, and then an eight-sided tier rising up out of that, and then one circular tier, then another, more narrow, and…oh, a statue at the top." She flapped her hand, as if to dismiss the sentimentality.

"What's the statue?"

"Poseidon."

"Is that Indian?"

"He's the Greek god of the sea."

Nell and Nathan exchanged looks. They were trying to discern whether Beth was senile.

"Is this some kind of temple?"

"I told you. It's a lighthouse."

"And you want the body of it faced in limestone?"

"No, I want it pure limestone."

" Pure limestone? How high is this lighthouse?"

She'd considered this as well. "Higher than the house."

"So what, thirty feet?"

"Make it fifty. Got to top the weather vane."

Nathan guffawed. "And granite facing for the top room, which would have to come from out of state. Beth, that could cost you your land and everything on it."

She held up her coffee mug as if to toast him. "You almost figured it out."

He sat back in his chair, stunned.

But Nell had caught on. "If we put in the order at the quarry by spring, we can get construction started," she said, as if waking from a dream.

Nathan leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Now just hold on, the both of you," he said. "Beth, you're saying you want to sell all your land?"

"All but what this house is built on. And the lighthouse."

"Five hundred acres?"

"Yes. To you. And then you'll build for me."

"But think this through, now. You want to forgo any concrete? Pure limestone and granite? You'd be willing to sell the lake and the duck pond, too? And the dairy? The greenhouse and the garden? Even the vineyard?"

Each place he named felt like a bolt to the chest, but all she said was, "Yes."

Nathan turned to his wife, who pursed her lips at him as if to say, Do you understand now ?

And he did. Now he understood the scope of the exchange and how much he was going to make. He started murmuring to Nell, who started taking notes. "We'll need to get it all appraised, so call Jane. I guess we have to find some kind of artist to make that statue. And we'd better call Pete Stocker over in Kansas City, too, because we can't contract everything. He'll know people in the mirror business, if you want a proper lighthouse—Beth, what do you want to put up there? A big ol' lens?"

But Beth had stopped listening. She was staring out the window, off into the cornfields, where in the summer, it was so easy to disappear.

*   *   *

On their wedding night, Keiji wrote her a poem.

Keiji, she said, This is prettier than anything I've ever read. Can I show it to Dad?

No, he said, looking heartbroken.

Beth knew she'd said something very wrong, but didn't know what.

He took her hand in his. Forgive me, he said. I haven't explained. These poems are only for you. I ask that you never share them.

Beth did not understand, but she nodded, a young bride in blind faith.

Keiji pushed her hand over her heart and pressed it there. Please promise me, he said. I want you to read this poem and commit it here.

Beth nodded.

And then, he said, please burn it.

*   *   *

THE FIRST STONES arrived in February.

Beth walked out onto the porch with her cup of coffee, in her crocus dressing gown, to watch the trucks drive up. Slabs of white limestone were strapped across the flatbeds.

Right behind them were two four-by-fours, full of workers who hopped out of the cabs in sweatshirts and jeans and called to each other in English and Spanish. Another vehicle followed, this one shaped like a hundred-foot giraffe with the crane as its neck and a tiny pulley-head. New vehicles kept arriving, one after the other. A mechanical menagerie. It was beginning.

Overwhelmed, Beth took a breath and went back into the house to change her clothes so she could meet the workers properly.

As she moved through the house, she murmured a poem of Keiji's to herself.

It was the one from their fifth anniversary. A tense night. She'd cooked dinner for the whole family, including her three older brothers, who were always a little wary of Keiji. Roger, her oldest brother, pulled her aside in the kitchen.

Are you happy with him? he said. Because if you're not, we'll take care of you.

Beth folded her arms. What makes you think I'm not happy with him?

Well, hell, it can't be easy living with a person from a whole other country. And one that has it in for Americans.

Beth gave him a look that made him take a step back.

Roger held up his hand. All right, I know what you're about to say. I'll shut up. But let me just tell you: it looks odd. He never thanks you. He never appreciates you. He never even seems to acknowledge you. I don't know if this is a custom of his people or what, but it sure feels strange for my baby sister to be treated like she's not there.

Beth stared at him. What he was saying might make sense—from outside the marriage. But how could she tell him how much Keiji adored her? How passionate he was? How extraordinary his love poems were—twelve of them, at last count, and all faithfully committed to memory? But she was forbidden to tell anyone about them.

That night, Keiji gave her a new poem with the usual command to memorize and then burn it.

Why? she said.

Keiji looked at her in surprise. Why what?

Why do we have to hide this? Everyone thinks we don't love each other. That you're just a mute and I'm just a serving maid. If I show this to people, they wouldn't think that.

Keiji narrowed his eyes at her, looking very disappointed. Why do you care what others think?

Beth stared down at the poem. After a while, she said, I just don't know that love has to be secret to be valuable.

*   *   *

It was May. The ground had softened in spring rains. At the construction site, wildflowers popped up in the soil.

Beth stood at the top of the new ramp with her fists on her hips. She looked ahead, off the edge, into the empty air where the lighthouse itself would stand. Down on the ground, she could see the Greers in matching hard hats. They were bent over a blueprint. Nell was pointing and gesturing. Nathan was nodding.

Beth turned toward her house. It was time for lunch. She could tell because the picnickers were back. There were families on quilts spread out, watching and chewing, and teenagers on truck hoods. Beth had resigned herself to it. She'd figured the construction was bound to attract the curious and the stupid alike.

As Beth approached the house, she saw a small, neat figure in a rocking chair on the porch. She drew closer. It was Dr. Anselm.

Beth sighed in her mind but made no other sign. Dr. Anselm was an old friend, and fragile, now.

"Afternoon, good Doctor," she said, pulling off a canvas glove to shake his hand.

Dr. Anselm steadied himself up from the chair and shuffled forward to take her hand. "Bethany Handel!" he said. "How are you doing?"

"It's Beth Miyake, Doc." She shook his hand, then took his arm to support him.

"Well." His blue eyes focused on something in the distance. "It's always been Bethany Handel to me."

Beth nodded. This exchange was well-worn. When they were young, Mike Anselm had gone sweet on her for a while. Lovestruck looks exchanged at church, notes carried back and forth, and so on. But the romance blew away as soon as it had blown in. He married Georgia Presley, and then of course Beth got engaged to the field hand's son Keiji, and all hell broke loose for about a year. Old news.

Now both of them were old news, too. Dr. Anselm was stooped and skinny. Beth was taller by several inches, and commanded the space around her with her sloping river-shelf of bosom, her body wide and strong as a pillar.

"I was just about to have lunch, Doc," she said. "Care to join me?"

"Oh!" He looked surprised, as if he hadn't planned to come around lunchtime for just that reason. "I certainly will, Bethany. I haven't eaten anything since my morning fruit, which these days is a banana, which I think is good for me.…"

He talked on as Beth led him into the kitchen. With her help, he pulled out a chair and sat down in it, more by way of falling than sitting. Beth set out bowls of warm potato soup, tomato sandwiches, and cups of milk. She settled across from him and picked up her spoon.

But Dr. Anselm did not pick up his spoon.

Beth, noticing, lowered her own spoon and waited for him to speak.

"I'm concerned about you, Bethany," he said in a loud voice, as if volume counted as courage.

Beth nodded, but broke eye contact and sipped her soup. "What are you concerned about?"

Dr. Anselm made a noise of exasperation. He was looking beyond the porch, to the sun-bright fields outside. "About your health!" he said. "I don't know how much you know, about people in the town talking—" he waved his fingers as if to mimic loose lips "—but they all think you're crazy. And I said to them, you know, I've known this gal for sixty-odd years now and she's no dummy. She knew what she was doing when she married Kay—everyone thought it was just the craziest thing to do, and now look at all the young kids doing it, marrying every which color, ten ways to Sunday. And she and Kay knew what they were doing when they inherited Art Handel's land. They took it, they bought the Stiptik farm, they added it on, they dug a pond and planted a garden and built up the dairy, and they became worth a whole heck of a lot more than anyone else in this town."

Beth nodded. She knew he'd stood up for her, and paid for it.

Dr. Anselm pressed on. "So I would just like to come out here and prove myself right, you know," he said, making a show of getting back to his sandwich. He took off the top slice of bread and rearranged the tomatoes and put it back again.

Beth sat back in her chair. "Thanks for coming, Doc," she said as Dr. Anselm finally brought the sandwich to his mouth. "I appreciate it. I know a lot of people don't understand what I'm doing."

Dr. Anselm had a mouthful and was now chewing, his eyes bright and focused on her. There was affection in his gaze. Beth saw it, recognized it, and put it away quickly, a gift she was embarrassed to receive.

"I just had this dream—" She stopped, and restarted. "This idea, from way back.…" She stopped again. There were no words in her mind to follow that. The sudden generosity of heart was now gone without a trace. She didn't want to tell Dr. Anselm about her studies with Keiji, about the poems he'd written for her, about all of the evenings of quiet, happy repose, balancing books on their knees, engaged in sparse conversation. The counties of Kansas, the islands of Japan. Their country of two.

Dr. Anselm reached across the table and placed a spotted hand on hers. "You must miss him," he said.

Beth's mind went blank. She stared at nothing.

"God knows," he continued, leaning in, "I miss Georgie still, every day, and that's been what—twenty years? And you just lost him not even two years ago."

Beth was aware that her breathing was shorter, more shallow, like an animal in captivity.

"Bethany…?"

Her vision began to go dark. Black specks danced around the periphery, closing in. Thousands of little black runners, thousands of little black arms pumping.…

"Bethany!"

Beth coughed, and blinked, to recenter herself. She withdrew her hand and sat up in her chair. "Yep, well." The words hung in the air, transparent, meaningless. She focused on her soup.

"Well what?"

Beth threw down her spoon so hard that it bounced and knocked over her cup. "Why do you want to know?"

Dr. Anselm stared at her. He didn't answer. Milk dripped onto the floor.

After a few seconds, Beth got a washcloth, sopped up the mess, and dropped it into the sink. She rejoined him at the table and picked up her spoon. He picked up his sandwich. They ate in silence.

The area's number-one attraction is, of course, the eccentric Lighthouse. The top tier was sealed off by the first major earthquake but, still, a visit is mandatory, more so because it may be underwater soon. You can climb to the top of the stairs and see the encroaching sea.

A. MacAvoy, Old Kansas Historical Society, 2340

September was dwindling. The embers of summer were fading to gray.

Beth stood at her kitchen window in her dressing gown. The lighthouse was rising. A tower of stone. Shaped like a wedding cake. Construction workers circled its base. Every morning, she found herself gazing at it, like she was trying to stretch her mind around it, to let it in, to let it push out other things.

Suddenly her view was obscured by a woman on the porch: blond bob, business suit. Sally Pickett from the Farmers' Bank.

Beth went to the door and pulled it open. "Hello there."

Sally jerked to one side as a way of greeting. Her eyes were bright green from colored contact lenses. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Miyake, how are you?"

"I'm doing all right," Beth said. She looked into Sally's lizard eyes. "Caught me a bit early, though. I'll put on some coffee and find some decent clothes."

"Oh, sure, Mrs. Miyake, take your time, I don't mind at all, you just do…what you…need." Sally's words spilled out. As usual, Beth thought, she was ill-suited to any unscripted situation.

When Beth came down the stairs again, she saw Sally sitting at the kitchen table with coffee, shuffling through papers mindlessly, like a stuck machine. But as soon as Beth appeared, she was all sunshine again.

"Quite a…" Sally gestured out in the direction of the lighthouse. "What a lot of…" She faltered, as Beth did not meet her eyes. Beth saw her computing that pleasantries would do no good here. So instead she launched into her field script.

"Mrs. Miyake, you probably know why I am here. Almost all of your land and assets, including the dairy, have been transferred to Greer Contractors in exchange for their work on your…your project, but they've spoken with me, and unfortunately—"

"They want to take more."

Sally looked uncomfortable. "They don't want to take more, Mrs. Miyake, but the financial reality of the situation has become clear. The cost of this project is more than we projected when we first met with you. And as your case manager, I need to be honest with you."

Beth raised her eyebrows. "Well, Sally, give me the worst. Am I going to lose my house?"

Sally shuffled papers and fumbled with words. "Well…ah, if we do a few things here and there, and if you give up on the granite facing, which seems to be a big—"

"Am I going to lose my house?"

Sally stopped, both hands suspended in midair, clutching papers. She rested them on the table before she spoke.

"Yes."

"Mmm." Beth continued to gaze toward the lighthouse, as if considering. Then she got up to rinse dishes in the sink.

"Mrs. Miyake? We do need to talk about this." Beth heard papers flapping. "I have the forms right here—you can sign them if you want to and get it over with, but if you want to talk about it first, that's what I'm here for."

Beth turned off the faucet, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and sat down. "Show me where to sign," she said.

Sally spread her arms in exasperation. But Beth did not move. So Sally pointed to a line at the bottom of a long form. "Here. But Mrs. Miyake…"

"Hm?"

"Where will you go?"

Beth signed the paper, straightened up, and then flicked the end of the pen toward the lighthouse.

"There?" asked Sally, faintly.

"You got it, kiddo."

Beth rose and went into the study and closed the door, leaving Sally in the kitchen, alone.

*   *   *

BETH SAT DOWN in the study. Her brain felt like wobbling mercury, in danger of spilling.

She traced the old sketch of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, lying open and untouched on the table for two years, now.

In her mind, Keiji sat across from her, the book balanced on his legs.

Alexandria, he said. Who built it?

Alexander founded it, but after he died, Ptolemy came back and finished it and built the Lighthouse.

Keiji nodded. Why there?

Because Alexander loved the place. He would have wanted to be buried there. Ptolemy loved Alexander, so he commissioned a monument to him, to show his love.

Keiji sat back in his chair, looking out toward the window. I wonder, he said.

You wonder what?

What a lighthouse is for.

It shows you where the danger is. It's to warn away oncoming ships so they don't wreck themselves on the rocks.

But it is also there to light the way, to guide you in. To show you the way to safety.

Hmm. Beth considered. I guess it depends on the sailor.

Keiji drew a line, from his heart, forward into empty space. Yes—the meaning of the signal depends on the receiver. Should I go away, or come closer? Will I dash myself on the rocks, or find safe harbor?

Beth let his words sink in.

Finally she dipped into a sagging pocket of her dressing gown and drew out a sheet of paper. Got this one memorized, she said.

Keiji stood and, from an upper shelf, pulled down a bronze urn. The bowl of it was blackened. They pushed the poem down into it. Beth reached across the desk and picked up a blue lacquered lighter that they used only for this purpose. She lit the paper, then watched as it became like a live thing, curling in the oncoming surf of the fire.

Keiji, she said.

He looked up at her. Her bright-eyed husband.

Bethany, he said, inviting her to speak.

If you ever die, before me, she said, looking down into the bronze bowl. She couldn't finish.

You're a strong one, said Keiji. Strong as earth.

He reached out and gripped her arm, humming, squeezing in one place and then another, as if to transfer strength to her.

Strong as water. My wife.

Strong as water, my wife—

Beth came back to the present.

That was the first line of the last poem he had ever written for her, which lay curled and unburned in the bronze urn. She did not want to burn it, even though she knew Keiji would have wanted her to if he were alive.

But he was dead.

Tumbled blocks of stone upon the

bed, under tides the river-

bed, mother river cover

over, close the lids of learn'ed

dead, done and lost to all

above.

—Ayesha Rawlings, "Midwest"

( Tesseract: A Journal of New Poetry , v. 78:5, 2415)

The first snowstorm of the year was settling in.

Beth stopped at the foot of the ramp and tipped her head back, looking up to the top of the lighthouse, straining her eyes, but she couldn't see the statue of Poseidon. Only the faint butter glow of her own room.

She ascended the ramp, carrying bagfuls of supplies. The wind picked up and rose to a scream, pushing her body to the edge, but she struggled forward. Once she was through the doorway, everything became quiet, as if she'd flipped a switch. She turned around to look behind her. The snow was blowing sideways, and in the distance, the house lay silent, its windows now dark, taped, and ready for demolition. It was not hers anymore.

She got a better grip on her bags and walked forward.

White candles burned inside hurricane lamps, set in alcoves in the wall, lighting the way ahead. Her footsteps were loud in the vaulted space. Every echo took a beat to return. As she passed each candle, she bent and blew it out. Darkness followed her.

Her apartment was in the top tier of the tower. From outside, the tier appeared circular; but the room inside was shaped like an octagon and faced with rose-colored granite, with round windows at every point of the compass. There was a narrow bed with a single pillow, and a stack of woolen blankets at its foot. A composting toilet, just off the stairwell. A gas range with a cast-iron pan on the burner. Cupboards full of food. An oak desk, and surrounding it, her globes, maps, and books. Next to it were half-built bookshelves, with lumber and tools nearby.

The place was good. Her new home. Her last home.

Beth set down her bags and unpacked. The last thing she drew out was a brown parcel that she'd picked up from the engraver's shop, by special order. She sat down at her desk, cut away the strings, sliced open the edges, opened the flaps, and drew close her wastebasket to hold all the shipping fluff. Once she'd cleared enough away, the tools emerged one by one.

Hammer.

Chisels.

Mallet.

Scrapers.

Knife.

Rasp.

Brushes.

Pencils.

She laid them out on her desk as if setting the table for a Thanksgiving meal, and then, folding her hands as if saying grace, she closed her eyes and recited every poem she had memorized in fifty years of marriage.

When she opened her eyes again, the snow was falling even harder outside her windows, blowing first one way then the other in erratic pulses. But Beth was warm and dry. She put on some water for instant coffee, sat down again, and eyed the narrow iron stairway across the room, which led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The great hearth—the light of the Lighthouse—was in the room above.

Tomorrow her work on the walls would begin. But tonight she would set the fire above, and keep her first watch—for what would go away to sea, and what would come in to harbor.

The first of the ruins was lifted at 7:44 A.M., from a depth of twenty feet. Up it came, a monstrous, rosy slab of granite, like a goddess inert, patient with our grappling ropes. But when we laid it down on the deck, one of the sailors cried out and pointed, and a crowd came running to see. There were words in the stone.

T. Y. Falion, The Recovery (2702)

Wetherfell's Reef Runics

By Marc Laidlaw | 7800 words

Since retiring from the game industry about a year ago, Marc Laidlaw has been spending a lot of his time on the island of Kauai. One of his projects has been reissuing his catalog of novels as ebooks. He's also collected almost all his short fiction, which has been recently published under the title 400 Boys and 50 More.

When he noticed that there aren't many bookstores on Kauai, he decided to create the fictional Castaway Books and the Hawaiian island of Tauai around it. We love bookstores, especially when they contain rare and possibly dangerous volumes. After reading this story, we immediately hoped to visit Castaway again. We think you will too.

THE VISITOR DROWNED AT Hollows Reef while Ambrose Sabala, mid-snorkel, was making a gleeful mental inventory of the morning's haul—not of fish, but of books. Ambrose drifted over the dull, trampled coral beds with ears full of seawater, snorkel mouthpiece firmly clenched in his teeth, three-pronged pole spear dangling, and did not hear the sirens wailing louder and softer and louder again as emergency vehicles raced along the folds of the ocean highway. He had raided the Friends of the Library bin outside the Schefferville Library that morning, and with one ten-dollar bill taken away a stack of first editions in good and even mint condition. A Bret Easton Ellis, stowed in someone's luggage, then unpacked and left behind—no doubt to make room for a resin tiki or a seashell mug. A biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, also unread. An untouched copy of The Marriage Plot , or anyway one that had been touched only in order that it might be used to flatten a dozen photographs of a bat mitzvah and family surfing lessons. Ambrose pulled his spear back taut on its rubber sling and released it halfheartedly in the direction of a triggerfish, which failed to react except to swerve away slowly from the empty triple threat of his barbed prongs.

Meanwhile, a quarter-mile east along the beach, the fire engine was just pulling into the crowded Hollows parking lot. Lifeguards floated above the drowned man, taking turns diving down, trying to figure out how he had tied or tangled himself in the cracks of the massive, sunken stone slabs that lay partly buried in sand a hundred yards offshore. Just up the beach, a scuba instructor in charge of the morning's first batch of tourist divers from the majestic Schefferville Cliffs Resort Hotel told his group to continue struggling out of their wet suits and enjoy the complimentary bottled water while he went to see if the lifeguards needed a scuba diver's assistance.

Ambrose's booklust was so all-consuming that after convincing himself he should probably head back to town to open the shop, he managed to cross the sand, unchain his scooter from the fence half-hidden in lilikoi vines, and putter away from Hollows without ever having the slightest idea that a man had drowned a short distance away, possibly while he was paddling around gloating about his finds.

Later that morning, he started hearing rumors from people coming into the shop but still didn't think anything in particular about it. Not until Anisi came in and told him the whole story, dropping off his midmorning iced coconut mocha, did he realize that he must have been there all the time it was unfolding.

"So Lucas goes down—"

"Lucas?"

"Borrezo, he's working at Tauai Dive Adventures now, yeah?"

"Okay."

"He goes down and finds the guy has chained himself there with a bicycle lock."

"The fuck?"

"I know. The fire truck has a bolt cutter on it but try using one of those underwater. With a dead guy staring at you."

"They made Lucas cut the lock?"

"No, but dude's gonna have nightmares about that one for sure."

"So who did cut him free?"

She shrugged. Skinny, heavily tattooed, all kinds of iridescent colors against her brown skin. They had lived together once for a little while, when Brose was back and forth between the Mainland; heading to L.A. had made it relatively easy to break up without totaling their friendship. She worked at Java & Kava, just across the street. The coffee counter where she pulled shots was like the central switchboard for the Coconut Hotline.

"Dive rescue was on the scene by then, I guess. But still, chills. I haven't seen Lucas yet. Usually he's in by now for his chai banana latte."

Brose slurped a fat strawful of his drink. "How's the Kava book cart doing?"

"Whyn't you come see for yourself? I never check it. I have a Bindle now. It's waterproof."

"Never thought you'd let yourself get chained to the digital tether," he said.

"What tether? It's wireless. Look at all these fat fucking books you have to haul around. What if you ever had to move shop? What you gonna do in the next tsunami?"

"Build a raft out of 'em," he said. "Anyway, I'll take you up on that bin-check. It's slow." As he opened the door to let her out, he gestured back at the shady interior, the teetering piles and shelves crammed with books. "Now these are wireless."

She snickered. "Come on, my break is pau . I gotta get back."

He picked up an armload of trashed books, including a waterlogged copy of The Alienist and one nameless book, ruined by someone slapping a Tauai Local bumper sticker around it to hold the decaying jacket together, so that all you could see of the original cover was the name Dan Brown. He locked the knob from the inside and pulled the door shut as he followed Anisi into the street. A rental car almost didn't stop—the driver had a guidebook open on the steering wheel and was consulting a cell phone in addition—but somehow they Froggered two lanes without mishap. Anisi sashayed up the steps and into the musically pulsing interior of the J&K, where the hiss of espresso machines and the roar of grinders fought to drown out the beat of reggaeton and local hits from the island's only station, KTAU ("Indy Island Radio, Bradda!").

Ambrose hung back and idled on the porch, glancing at handbills pinned up around the door

Twin Trees Keiki Surf Contest!

Grommets 12 and under! Scouts welcome!

Slack-key guitar! Ukulele concerts!

Custom lessons from a former roadie for Suns & Daughters!

Also hauling and painting!

Roommates wanted! Share our pono treehouse!

We are a chef, a musician, an artist, and

a beginning yoga instructor. No drugs or dogs! Mahalo!

Someone had pushed the book cart to the deck's far corner. Paper signs were duct-taped to either end: Take One, Leave One! and Take One and Leave a Few $$$! The stock had been slightly depleted since yesterday and there was a buck in the can. Money was money, but sometimes a prize volume turned up in trade for something shitty. Weird books came to Castaway by all different avenues, he was starting to learn. Uncle Byron had warned him the carts weren't usually profitable, but it was still wise to diversify. He inventoried the one at J&K every few days like a trapper checking lines, ever hopeful. He slotted the armload of freebies onto the top shelf and skimmed the assorted titles to see if anything worth snagging for the store had turned up. Nothing. Trail guides always sold quickly, but the only new one on the cart looked like it had been through a flashflood rescue situation, dumped here to lighten the load before its rattled owners had hightailed back to an actual continent rather than the weathered slopes of a not-terribly-old volcano. Perhaps the Dan Brown and Caleb Carr would be tempting changeling-bait for the book menehune , those magical fairies with the ability to turn bestseller dross into rare-book gold.

"Hey, Ambrose, you still buying books?"

Turning, he saw Kailani Nakoa sipping milky coffee at the deck rail. She was one of his mom's old friends; he had known her for years. Graying, a little plump, still worked too hard considering how little she ever had to show for it. Sad eyes.

" Aloha , Auntie! Yeah, somehow Castaway Books is surviving for now, even without Byron around. I'm always looking for new books—new to me, I mean. Used is fine."

"I was about to come see you. I got some boxes I filled up cleaning."

"Vacation rentals, ah? Sweet. Visitors ditching books, that's my prime source of supply. Happy to take a look."

"A lot of places I clean, if the owners spend time there, they want the books to stay. But the management companies, they tell me throw 'em out. Don't like to waste 'em, though, yeah?"

"If I can use 'em, it's a few extra bucks for you, Auntie. Bring 'em by the shop anytime."

She gave him a kiss on the cheek, but he glimpsed something troubled in her eyes as she slipped away. Worries ran deep in her life. Rain falling on the ocean, she'd said once, and he'd never forgotten, even though he couldn't remember why she'd said it. An old woman's tears are like rain falling on the ocean. They were probably talking about Cutty, one of the times he'd been in jail. One of the many times. When he was out, burglaries crept up, tourist luggage was liberated from cars, all the usual houses were broken into…until he went away again and crime declined. In some ways, Auntie Kailani seemed more relieved when he was in county, because then at least it couldn't get any worse. He'd had some OD scares; he'd been in rehab; he'd left the island and come back in what amounted to a crash landing. Brose and Cutty had been friends as kids. It was gut-wrenching to watch him willfully throw himself over the edge. Brose's own mother still asked about him, though he couldn't bear to tell her what had happened to the funny, mischievous little kid she'd known. The island was an increasingly distant dream to his mom, and with time it appeared to be turning into a fantasy of itself—like the dreams of paradise the first-time visitors kept bringing over with them, stoked by the tourist bureau, the airlines, and the hotel industry.

As Ambrose footed aside a chicken that was pecking at a piece of mahi-mahi fallen from a taco, he thought again about the man who had drowned at Hollows while he was snorkeling that morning. What kind of delusions must that guy have been harboring to chain himself in fifteen feet of water, with no chance of changing his mind once he'd closed the lock? Was it supposed to be some kind of Houdini escape stunt? Suicide? The whole thing was bizarre.

Ambrose fit his key into the front door of Castaway Books and stepped inside, making a beeline for the biography section. A stray curiosity, but as usual it claimed him. He fell deep into a life of Houdini and didn't surface, except for the usual bookselling transactions, until someone rapped on the rear door.

The door opened onto the shopping village parking lot. He kept it closed because the fish trucks threw guts in the Dumpsters and it could get rank. He opened it now to see that Auntie Kailani had reversed her old car up to the door with the hatchback raised. A couple cardboard boxes full of books sat among the cleaning supplies.

Ambrose carried them in and set them on the counter, seeing an average assortment of paperbacks, at first glance nothing of note. He was wondering how much he could afford to offer, just to help her out, when she let him off the hook.

"I have to run, Ambrose. Got my grandson to pick up. Maybe you can take a look and call me later. Tell me if you want any of them."

"Okay, Auntie," he said, relieved not to have to disappoint her right away. "Looks decent. I'll call you in a little bit, yeah?"

When she was gone, he started unpacking and making stacks. It was as dreary a collection as he had feared. Some were the sort of books that sold by the pound for use in furniture store displays. Reader's Digest abridged novels, old textbooks. Maybe some local realtor could use them for staging an open house, but it wouldn't be worth his while to waste shelf space on them. Even taking them off her hands, he'd be incurring the cost of driving them to the recycling center. At this point they weren't books so much as "mixed paper."

There were a few old mystery paperbacks, lightly furred or spotted with mold, their once-golden edges faded to the color of a water stain. Also, there were water stains. They looked like rejects from a hoarder's estate sale. Auntie needed to clean a better class of house. He slammed a few Barbara Cartland romance novels down with a sigh, then dug to the bottom of the second box.

From under a pulped copy of Fate Magazine , 1968, he pulled a softbound volume the size and shape of a notebook, covered in a dark green material that felt like textured leather. His first impression was that it was wet, slippery, but he laid it on the counter and studied it until he proved to himself that it was dry as powder, soft and smooth. The patterned texture resembled scales, rounded and overlapping. Snakeskin? It looked expensive, the sort of material you'd reserve for a wallet or designer purse. With growing bibliophilic excitement, he gently opened the cover to a title page of parchment-colored paper.

Reef Runics

By W. S. Wetherfell

A Study Of Sunken Pictoglyphs

Associated With A Geognostic Network

Waiting To Be Activated For

Global And Personal Transformation

(As Illustrated By The Author)

Except there were no illustrations.

Next stop, the Internet.

Specifically, that small, exclusive corner of it to which his Uncle Byron had introduced him shortly before departing to ransack the globe's far-flung bookcases—even then, in retrospect, preparing Ambrose to receive the burdensome bequest of Castaway Books.

Wetherfell and his book warranted not even a stub on Wikipedia, but the denizens of Byron's exclusive collectors' forum had bragged about keeping certain works out of Wikipedia entirely. Ambrose started a thread with the title of the work and made one brief query to see what anyone might know about it. Then he returned to the book itself.

The whole thing was printed on the fake parchment; the pages felt slippery, as if no ink would ever dry upon them. The printing job looked antiquated, but numerous clues in the book indicated that it was of recent production, a specimen of the riotous variety that self-publishing had afforded eccentric authors to propagate without a care as to whether the world actually wanted them. It was enough that the authors wanted them! Of most interest, the last dozen or so pages of the book were left blank for notes, and these had been almost completely filled with an elegant cursive script.

The door jingled and he started to say his usual tourist-friendly, " Aloha! " But as he lifted his eyes from the book, his greeting died into " Al…ohhhh… "

"Hey, brah, my ma says you got some money for her you wanna give me."

"Cutty," he said. "Not sure Auntie is cool with that."

Cutty sucked air through teeth the color and texture of coarse, wet sand. "No, man, she's cool. She asked me could I swing by." He pushed up against the counter, fingers frantically drumming on the nautical map laminated there, beating a tattoo on Tauai. To his own surprise, Ambrose found that he had instinctively hidden Wetherfell's notebook under the counter. "She asked me!"

It seemed reasonably unlikely that Cutty would have descended on the bookshop other than at his mother's request, but caution was always warranted when Cutty came around. He'd have to be on high alert for shoplifting, if nothing else. Cutty wore only a pair of ratty khaki board shorts and there wasn't much in the shop he could have hidden in them. But even so.

"Lemme just call her," Ambrose said. "We hadn't agreed on a price."

"Right on." As Ambrose dialed Kailani's number, Cutty said, "How you been, anyway?"

Ambrose watched his hands. Cutty wanted something. Money, that went without saying. But there was an anxious jitter he knew from their teens.

"You heard about the old dude who died at Hollows?" he blurted. And there was the old Cutty. He had a secret but he wanted to boast, couldn't contain it even though he knew he should keep his mouth shut. "I was working for him! Kahuna's apprentice kine ting."

Considering how to get rid of Cutty most efficiently, he said, "Cutty, if I give you money for these books, it's not gonna make it to Auntie. I know you better than that."

"Shit, Brose, you know me, true! But I been working with her, helping out, cleaning houses to make some cash. You call her up, brah, she tell you."

Kailani wasn't answering. Island-style reception. She was no doubt out on some windy road, tucked way back in the folds of the cliffs. He made a judgment call.

"Tell Auntie I give her twenty for the books," Ambrose said. "But I only give ten to you now, and the rest to her next time I see her."

"Only ten? The fuck, brah?"

"These books are shit, Cutty! There's one I have to run down might be worth more to a collector, but I need more time on that. For now…"

Ambrose held up a ten.

Cutty scowled, his premature age lines like twin knife wounds alongside his thin, jagged mouth. Then it uptwisted at the corners, like sutures jerked too tight. Cutty took the bill.

"Maybe your old kahuna should have taught you some money-making spells."

"Dude wasn't into any shit like that," he said, halfway to the door, anxious to blow his cash. "Old Wetherfell just wanna stare at fucking doodles on the rocks."

Ambrose didn't let out his breath till the door had settled and Cutty's shadow cleared away. He went to the website for Tauai Tides , the little local paper that was half come-on to the tourists and half purveyor of their worst nightmares. "Timely as the Tides, and Just as Accurate!" Visitors coming in from the airport, picking up the local paper to see what was happening, were treated to listings of community events, church-sponsored luaus, "The Morning Mahalo," and hair-raising reports of entire families swept from rocks by rogue waves, dengue fever outbreaks, toddlers maimed by monk seals, convertible drivers and passengers killed by falling coconuts while speeding along scenic coconut-tree-lined drives, hikers washed from slippery trails to certain deaths on rocks below, and drownings…many, many drownings. In January, the visitor death counter reset to zero, and the articles that led with "First Fatality of the Year" soon crept up to "Fourth Since February," usually rounding out to a couple dozen by Christmas. The Chamber of Commerce couldn't wait to reset the mortality counter, but the local journalists seemed to take a mordant glee in their reportage. As tourist dollars soared, would the island set new records for spending and fatalities? Throw in a handful of shark attacks, and Happy New Year!

But the news of that morning's drowning was still meager. " Diver Drowns at Hollows Reef… seventy-three-year-old Watson J. Wetherfell of Sonoma, California…"

"Wetherfell's book!" Ambrose whispered. Kept reading.

"…Chained to the rocks in an apparent suicide, he entered the water Monday night and waited in fifteen feet of water as his oxygen ran out.… Discovered by snorkelers Tuesday morning.… Investigators seeking any individuals with knowledge of his activities prior to Monday night."

"Fucking Cutty." No wonder he wanted to brag but was afraid to. What else does he know? And what about…

Ambrose slid the slick green book, Wetherfell's book, the dead man's book, out from under the counter and leafed to the last few pages.

I have secured the services of a local guide, a trustworthy-seeming fellow, part-Hawaiian, although I am disappointed that any knowledge of the authentic Kahuna traditions, as espoused by Max Freedom Long, is clearly lacking from his education, no doubt due to the lingering influence of Christian missionaries and their attempted eradication of the old ways. Perhaps I can take this one under my wing once the ritual observance has been completed, making him a member of my "Ohana."

"Fucking Cutty," Ambrose said again, a phrase he had uttered many times. "And you, Wetherfell, a fucking terrible judge of character. 'Trustworthy'?"

A reply had appeared to his post on the collectors' forum. The message was from Bibliossifer , an irascible sort whose opinion Uncle Byron had valued highly.

Bibliossifer

Antiquarian

Posts: 4,407

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #1»

This guy is a flake. Not that he didn't

sometimes grab a live wire. That's what

happens when you actively peel away

reality's insulation. He believes (believed?

is he still alive?)

"Not right this minute," Ambrose muttered.

in an interconnected network of pictorial nudes

for the global mind,

It took Ambrose a minute to deduce that Bibliossifer had either mistyped or been autocompleted into posting "nudes" when he'd surely meant "nodes." Reading on confirmed it.

basically the intersection points of ley lines,

sacred hotspots that had to be activated by

meditating in their presence. Claimed (on

dubious evidence) that certain ancients

predicted climate catastrophe, rising sea

levels, everything we're seeing today, but

unlike say Nostradamus they did some-

thing about it. The runes were somehow

key to humanity's survival. Unfortunately,

for him, the runes tended over the ages to

have wound up in dangerous or inacces-

sible places. He was booted out of Tibet for

trying to climb onto the roof of the Potala.

Nearly died in Burma/Myanmar—first of

snakebite, then at the hands of the police.

Exposure and dehydration almost took him

in New Mexico. I can't imagine the quality

of meditation in any of those conditions

could have been very good.

Ambrose typed a reply.

Castaway2.0

Dealer

Posts: 273

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #2»

It looks like the remaining site was underwa-

ter, an offshore pictoglyph here on Tauai. He

died on paradise in 15 feet of water. Picked

the wrong assistant.

Survived every manner of hardship for seventy-plus years. Finished off by Cutty in three days.

Is this a book we should snag? And how

much can the Collective get together for it?

Fell into the hands of a good woman who

could badly use a few $ and has no desire to

keep it.

Less than a minute later:

Bibliossifer

Antiquarian

Posts: 4,408

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #3»

Definitely get it out of circulation. I think we

can put $500 toward its safekeeping.

Castaway2.0

Dealer

Posts: 274

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #4»

Thx. Will advance the $$$ and get reim-

bursed from the pool.

Bibliossifer

Antiquarian

Posts: 4,409

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #5»

It'd be worth seeing if he had any other books

with him.

Ambrose glanced at the pile of tattered Cartlands, parted the pages of the topmost, a well-thumbed copy of Lord Ravenscar's Revenge . Inside the cover was an inscription, black ink, cursive: " To my dearest W., himself the soul of Romance and my own Lord R. In love eternal, your darling C. "

Castaway2.0

Dealer

Posts: 275

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #6»

Looks like we got them all.

Even then wondering what else Cutty might have made off with.

His cell phone lit up. Kailani. "Hello, Auntie! Good news!"

"Yeah? Ambrose, I sent Cutty over there, did he—"

"He's been and gone. I paid him ten toward a twenty and I'm holding the rest for you, yeah? But in the meantime, one of these books, I've got a collector who'll take it for a pretty good price. How's five hundred sound?"

"Five hundred, no joke?"

"Only thing, Auntie. I just want to make sure…were these books from the house of the visitor who died this morning at Hollows? I mean, it seems like they'd want to get that place cleaned up fast, but still.…"

"No, Ambrose, I been busy with school and taking care of Kai today, haven't done any cleaning. Those are all from yesterday and last week, yeah?"

"Okay. That makes it simpler, then."

Simpler but not for him.

"Come by, I'll write you a check, okay? Just you, though. No Cutty."

"Thank you, doll. I be over tomorrow, yeah?"

"Oh, Auntie, one more thing. Cutty said you were—he was helping you clean houses? It sounded a little—"

"What? I can't let that boy in no house with his record! You know better than that!"

"I know Cutty, that's true."

"I think maybe he asked if he could throw some of his old books into my boxes. I said okay to that. Oh no.… Ambrose, were they stolen?"

"Don't give it a thought. If anything, he's getting them from the library bins just like me. No worries, okay?"

"If you say so. I gotta go, this little bird needs feeding."

"Tomorrow. Five hundred."

"Yah, that's good news! I find you!"

"Oh, and hey, you know where Cutty's living these days? I have another ten bucks for him. Is he still up in Schefferville?"

"No, I don't think so, he lost his car and he's down somewhere in Honukai now. He won't tell me where."

But Ambrose had a good idea where to start looking.

*   *   *

Up Lauhala Canyon, behind the Road's End Market (technically three miles shy of the actual end of the road), was a depressing cluster of unfinished vacation homes, stranded when the regulators preemptively declared the area a flood zone, triggering insurance costs equal to a second mortgage on each property. All stood on thirty-foot columns accessible by stairs that were never finished and in some cases had been partly dismantled. Squatters, in a shifting muddle of loose affiliations, moved through the houses while ownership passed from bank to court and back to bank again. Actual floods had followed the prophetic rezoning and left high mudlines on the pilings under a dense wrapping of vines. Ambrose parked his scooter under a spreading albizia that had grown like a weed in the time since construction stopped. The late-afternoon sun blazed; the air was still and humid this far from the ocean. As he waded through the saw grass, crickets stopped their chirring , like a sentry system working in reverse.

He nearly tripped over a bicycle abandoned at the edge of a concrete pad, then entered the shade cast across the carport by the house above. He stopped before a tent pitched on the concrete, with a pair of familiar, ratty board shorts draped over the angular spine like a khaki flag.

"Cutty! It's Ambrose! Got your ten bucks, man."

A slow unzipping, and Cutty emerged blinking, eyes far away. "Hey, brah. Ten bucks, you said?"

"How much was Wetherfell paying you?"

Cutty's eyes widened and he started to pull back inside, but Ambrose held out the ten-dollar bill and he paused on the threshold of the tent, torn.

"Guess he wasn't paying you enough to keep you from stealing his stuff, huh?"

"What's your deal, Brose? He was just some tourist idiot. I mean, I didn't want to see him dead but he was asking for trouble, disrespecting the ancestors, yeah? Fucking haole thought he was some kine kahuna. I was supposed to be his fucking kanaka lucky charm or some shit."

"You're fencing his books, Cutty. That makes me an accomplice. Your mom, too, for that matter. I don't like to see Auntie in trouble for shit you pulled."

Cutty looked disbelieving and made as if to brush him off. "Nobody cares about no books, brah. Woulda been a lotta trouble for twenty bucks."

"You could be in trouble! One of those books you bagged was like his diary. He talks about hiring you. If cops ever read that thing—"

"You turning me in, Brose?"

"No, man, I just want the story. Listen, seriously. I'm not turning you in, fool. But I need to know. You stole the books before he died, right?"

Cutty fell over backward into the tent and gave a huge sigh. Then, almost immediately, he came out on hands and knees and sat cross-legged in the entry. Resigned. Ambrose heard irritated voices arguing overhead in the squat. "Keep it down, brah, don't want none a them having dirt on me. C'mere. Closer. Hit?"

Cutty had gone back in for a blunt, apparently. He lit it now, the fragrant, dense smoke puffing up like incense to appease the squatters overhead. Ambrose took a short toke, noting that what little flower it had was skunky. He settled opposite Cutty on the concrete pad and passed the doob back.

"I met him at the rental, up Icehouse Road. I was hanging with my mom while she cleaned the place, stocking towels and shit. When he showed up, we got to talking. He was way into my mom cause she's pure Hawaiian, yeah? But the kahuna stuff, shit, he wasn't getting nowhere with her. She's all about Jesus. So I kind of start answering his questions. He knew about the runes out at Hollows. Wanted to know about diving, where he could rent equipment, find a guide, all that. I talked him into hiring me."

"His last mistake."

"Hundred bucks a day, Brose, to drive around with him. Told him I could get him the kama'aina discount wherever. It was good work for me! Easy! I just turned on the natural charm, you know." Coarse beachy smile. "I had to put up wit a lot of bullshit, though. He wanted to see the heiau , back of Uncle Lucky's, said it had some connection to the runes."

"I happen to know Uncle Lucky said he'd shoot you, you ever set foot on his land."

Cutty raised his hands, innocence incarnate. "I look stupid? I took him up the cliffs by E'e'ki, showed him the rockfall where we used to get high, told him it was the ruins of a old temple built by menehune . There's so much graffiti and shit carved on those rocks, he believed me. We did stuff like that, drove all over the island for three days. At night he did some purification rituals. Finally he was ready for the big dive at Hollows. I took him out to the rock once in the day, just swimming like, so he knew where it was. His plan—and this was all his idea—he gonna dive down and chain himself to it! Yeah, brah! Like a sacrifice! He had full tanks to stay a good long time in some kind of trance or meditation. That Lemurian bullshit, you know? He said all these stones around the world were connected, and he had the wisdom from all the rest of them, and this was gonna be his last one. They all charged up from Wetherfell giving 'em a look, and it only take him meditating over the last one for the whole thing to switch on. Then…I don't know what after that."

"Then he died."

"That sure as fuck wasn't the idea. Don't know what went wrong. The real plan was, I swim out with him, make sure he's all set up, then I go back to shore and drive his car to the house so it don't get towed or broken into. This is all around midnight, yeah? Then I'm supposed to drive back at three in the morning and pick him up. Only…"

"You were too busy ripping him off."

"Old dude was leaving the island the next day, Brose! Soon's his ritual was pau . So I boosted a few things from his luggage. Books, a watch, an old phone…not worth shit, by the way."

"You're a fucking idiot. You didn't think he'd have gone after your mom? Get her fired? Make sure she could never find another job cleaning houses? You let her in for a lot of trouble!"

Cutty clenched his jaw, looking off to one side, as it occurred to him that this had not occurred to him.

"I just figured…he'd come out, wait around for a while, ditch the scuba gear, and walk back. Wasn't far. Guy was gonna be all enlightened and shit, why should he care if a few, you know, material possessions went missing? Next thing I hear, some kid spots his body in the reef the next morning. I almost shit! Sorta keep waiting for the cops to come around. But so far the only one who seems to care is you. Shoulda known that if books were involved, you'd be all over this thing."

"If you didn't kill him, then why should you worry? Looks like suicide to everyone else. Or maybe just an accident. Locked himself up and what, dropped the key?"

"Wasn't no key, brah," Cutty said. "It was a combination lock. And not the old kine, neither. New kine use letters for remember easy, I guess. He made me set it up for him, how I know. I checked his tanks, double-checked the combination. I was doing him fair, Brose. Deciding to steal the stuff was a last-minute thing. Like, fuck it, he's leaving, never gonna see him again, why not, right? But out in the water with him, as he chained himself up, I freaked a little. Just before I head back to shore, I think I see something come out the lava tubes. Don't know what he was conjuring. I mean, I don't believe in that shit so much, but he had me going."

"So what was the combination? You remember?"

"Sure. Easy one. Hollow, like the reef."

"Like your head," Ambrose said, already walking away.

"Brose! My tenner!"

Ambrose dropped the bill into the weeds. Kept walking.

*   *   *

HOLLOWS AT DUSK. The sun was still in clouds, somewhere above the horizon, as Ambrose waded into the meager surf. The beach was scattered with the evening's loyal gathering of sunset worshipers. He followed their gaze to the peaks that rose above the water, green eroded pyramids that made him wish he could write like one of the authors of the books he sold. Something about the coastline brought out the poet in him, but he couldn't make it work. There was a huge mound that swept roundly down and sharply up again into a narrow ridge with distinct pinnacles. On certain nights, the old Hawaiians had climbed to the highest point closest to the sea, lit spears, and hurled them off flaming into the night. You didn't have to believe in magic to get carried away with visions in this place, especially at twilight. But if he were a writer, how could he possibly describe it? The massive mound looked like a pregnant belly, that much was obvious. But the jagged ridge of rock between the belly and the sea, what words could do justice to its simultaneous simplicity and complexity? Curves and crenelations? A scattering of fingers? Two fangs and a nose?

With a shrug, he slipped in up to his chin and started kicking toward the reef. He hadn't brought his spear with him and he wasn't about to spend any real time underwater. The sea was so warm that it barely registered as separate from himself. Amniotic. Along the beach, below the peaks, tiny flashes popped and glinted—wedding pix were happening despite the occasional cloudburst. Rain swept from land to sea, gray sheets dragged across the beach like a bridal train. He thought of Kailani's words again: rain on the ocean, an old woman's tears. How much did they raise the water level? The open sea was vast and wide; this little speck of volcanic rock scarcely registered, let alone the littler specks upon it. What did it all matter? Cutty was a fuckup. And? He felt shitty for old Wetherfell, dying out here alone in the water, abandoned though he wouldn't know it until too late, ripped off by his bought-and-paid-for local friend. Some kama'aina discount…ten percent off the time you've got left. Done. Pau.

The sun broke through the bottom deck of clouds and began to melt against the horizon. There wasn't room between cloud and sea for the whole disk to show itself. He slipped on his mask and chomped the snorkel's mouthpiece.

The angle of light was severe, the shadows almost black between the rocks. Where the reef dropped off, he saw long, rectangular slabs that looked like toppled dominoes. Geologists said it was a natural formation, but the local space-case Lemurians declared these the remains of an old temple, predating even the ancient menehune of Hawaiian folklore. It had to be pre-Hawaiian because the Hawaiians themselves had never worked with slabs like that; even the ruins attributed to the little people were built up stone by stone.

Signs of the morning's emergency rescue were evident down below. Ambrose fought the faint current to keep himself in place. Raking marks on the largest slab had cleared it of some of the slime, revealing the vague etchings of humanoid figures and some others that might have been mountains, birds, waves. He took a breath and dived to the slab, looking about in the surrounding rocks. Fish scattered first, then came close in case he stirred up good eats. The surrounding reef was full of holes; it was rare to see a moray eel, even rarer to see an octopus, but he sought something rarer still.

There it was, hanging limp, a black tube like seaweed looped through a wrist-wide hole. He shot back up to the surface, blew his snorkel clear, then dived down again and went straight to the severed cable.

It was looped through the rock, pulled snug. It must have been a pain to cut, especially with a body in the way. Poor old Wetherfell. Well, your book was being taken out of circulation, no one else was going to follow in your watery footsteps…if you could call them that. Finsteps? Two fingers and a nose, Ambrose reminded himself. He was not the author of this story but its reader. He needed to see how it ended, even if he was the only one who finished it.

He followed the cable till he came to the lock and saw the letters, scrambled.

Once more to the surface. The sun was a fat wedge now, top and bottom bitten off, sinking fast.

Another deep breath, then back down to the lock.

He rolled the letters until they came into line: H-O-L-L-O-W.

The lock popped open.

What the…?

With the lock in his hand, free of the chain, he kicked to the surface. He read the word again.

He had thought for certain that Cutty had fucked the old man when setting the combination. Wetherfell had picked an illiterate assistant and trusted him to spell; that was the ending he'd expected. In a darker moment, Ambrose had wondered if maybe Cutty had spelled it wrong on purpose, to trap the old man here. But Cutty wasn't evil, or even wrong. Somehow he had gotten something right.

It made no sense.

Ambrose gazed down between his fins as the sun commenced its final plunge. There had to be some explanation, some other clue. Once more, he dived, kicking back down to the slabs. A last flicker of orange light cut through the shallows, painting the reef with a mesh of green and gold, like a net woven of water that fish had spread to trap humans. The pictoglyphs caught and held the glow, seeming to catch fire from within, convincing him in some dreamy, wish-riddled part of his mind that he could read them, that they had reserved their meaning for just this moment, and just for him. Wetherfell had charged up the spell, then died before completing it—but the ritual needed a living witness, someone to give it completion by coming away with its meaning.

Ambrose felt himself switch on. Enlightenment or whatever. Like Cutty, he sensed he was stealing away with something that shouldn't belong to him, something revealed in the magic light when he hadn't intended to look.

He realized that his mouth was open and the snorkel mouthpiece had drifted out. His mouth gaped, filling with water. In a daze, he was about to suck in seawater as if it were a breath. He sputtered, shoved the rubber piece back between his teeth, panicking as if he had come close to drowning.

At the same moment, the glyphs went dark. The sun had set. He was left to paddle back to shore in gray dusk, rain passing over him on its way to the open sea, and for some reason he found when he stripped off his mask that he was crying.

*   *   *

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, rambling back into Honukai, streets full of tourists, bars pumping reggae and hula tunes, he parked his scooter in the alley behind the stores. He let himself into the cluttered dark of Castaway Books and up the stairs to his flat above the shop. He had put Wetherfell's book in his safe. Switching on the stove to boil a kettle, he opened the green journal to the very last line and read:

Preparations are finished for the final observance at Hallows Reef. When next I write, I will be a changed man.

"Hallows."

So it hadn't been Cutty after all. Wetherfell thought the name of the reef denoted holiness instead of merely holes. A misunderstanding, but a fundamental one. And fatal.

Ambrose felt slightly better about Cutty. Slightly worse about everything else.

Wetherfell hanging there, chained, desperately trying HALLOW over and over, never once switching the A to an O; so fixed on his idea that he never saw the obvious alternative, not even when his air ran out. Or maybe he had waited till the very end to even try the lock, still hoping for his magic breakthrough. Naïve or dogmatic, but either way doomed.

The answer, somehow, was in the words—or in between them. Wherever Ambrose looked, he saw them. Towers of books rose all over the room, occupied every surface. He still hadn't decided which ones were going downstairs to be sold, to become the book some customer didn't realize they'd been looking for all along, and which were going to stay up here a bit longer, to be picked at and possibly read by Ambrose first. A truly beat-up copy of Moloka'i , atop an only slightly less dog-eared paperback of The Hunger Games . Tristram Shandy , which he'd never started, and 2666 , which he had yet to finish. And these had only just displaced the previous stack, itself topped by Wolf Hall and Night at the Circus . Whatever he decided on tonight, there was no such thing as finality, for tomorrow he would just pull in another haul of lively, silvery, restless book-fish, and one of them would instantly shove the rest aside, its glyphs briefly flickering brighter than all the other words caught in the vast shadow-skeins of the evening shore.

He settled on The Hunger Games .

As was far from unusual, he dozed off with his finger marking his place in a passage he would never remember having read when he awoke some unclear amount of time later. Normally at this point he would close whatever book he was reading and switch off the bedside light, but tonight he lay listening for a repeat of whatever sound had woken him. A noise from the sidewalk below his window?

Rising, he opened the window over the street. It was never fully sealed so the night noises barely increased, but at least now he could put his head out and check the highway in both directions. Across the highway, the shops opposite were dark, quiet, deserted; while beyond the storefronts, the valley peaks were shrouded in rain and mist. Between black blots of cloud, the stars were stunningly bright but did nothing to illuminate the street. Honukai shut down early, and there were no bars except in restaurants, so silence prevailed. Few cars had any reason to come down from the Schefferville Cliffs at this hour. A cool, damp breeze shouldered past him into his flat and he started to retreat, because these winds were hell on books. But then he saw a movement just below, maybe a dog nosing around near the shop entrance. He leaned a bit farther out and saw someone standing on the threshold, holding the door ajar, hoping not to be seen.

"Hey!" Ambrose cried.

The figure didn't stir. His first thought was that Cutty, having discovered the journal was worth five hundred dollars, had come back to rip him off. But the stranger was too pale for that.

"Hold on," he said and threw himself across the room, negotiating his way in the dark, then quickly flying downstairs into the shop. The only light came from the glow of the computer by the register. That was troubling in itself, but at least it didn't blind him as he approached the front door. It was closed now, but not locked, and he opened it.

The visitor, burglar, or late-night customer was gone. A sudden surge of passing rain swept down the highway and concealed a pallid, naked shape, like a large white frog, limping around the corner, out of sight. Ambrose realized that even though he hadn't passed the threshold, his feet were wet. He backed up and saw that he'd been standing in a puddle.

Now he hit the lights.

A watery trail ran from the back of the shop to the front door, and he had tracked through it as he crossed the floor. The rear door to the parking lot was ajar. Maybe he had left it open when he came back from Hollows. He was willing to admit the possibility.

But one thing he hadn't done was drip water all over the inventory. Damp patches caught his eye all the way from the back door to the front counter. Small puddles trembled on the covers of books, dripped down the sides of paperback stacks. Next to the register, it looked as if someone had spilled a glass of water over the laminated maps, and the floor behind the counter was so puddled that he thought maybe the explanation for all of this was that some old, corroded pipe had finally burst in the ancient building. But then why had it stopped leaking?

The computer screen caught his eye again, reminding him that there was probably more to it than plumbing. It should not have been aglow when he came down into the shop. It would have been in sleep mode all night, unless someone disturbed it.

But the screen was not only on, it was still open to the collectors' forum, where he had been typing earlier. Ambrose touched the keys and his fingers came away damp. Leaning close to the screen, he saw that a post had been made, according to the computer clock, only moments ago.

Whoever made the post had done so from this computer, taking advantage of his login.

Castaway2.0

Dealer

Posts: 276

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #7»

Fluke? My plan wrked altho mperfectl. I need

feign deat to aid in my unchaning. I retrn only

to rtriev my prizd BOOK, and yu shal hear frm

me no more whil te contintnts occpy thr curnt

postion.

Yr Nwly Amphbs Assoc,

WSW

As Ambrose watched, another post appeared immediately following:

Bibliossifer

Antiquarian

Posts: 4,410

Re: Wetherfell's Reef Runics

«Reply #8»

Drunken posting may result in forum privi-

leges being revoked, young Mr. Sabala. Don't

embarrass your uncle. Serious discussion

only. Now excuse me while I go get ham-

mered.

Ambrose refrained from responding, refrained from deleting the offending post. He might well want it as evidence. But of what? A hacker? Burglary? The obvious target of the intruder was safe in the safe upstairs and the stairs were perfectly dry. And what of the dampened stacks around the shop? There was little of value set out, the first-edition case was locked, and nothing appeared to be missing. He kept no cash in the shop and the register drawer was untouched. No inventory out of place. Except.…

Ah. Yes.

Near the register, he had sorted Auntie's books into two stacks, one for sale, the other to be hauled off for recycling. As soon as he saw the stacks, he shivered and swore: "Uncle Byron, the fuck you get me into?"

Much as Wetherfell's body would be reported missing from the morgue the next morning by the Tauai Tides , one memorable title was mysteriously absent from the top of the recycling stack:

Wetherfell's own inscribed water-stained copy of Lord Ravenscar's Revenge .

Kingship

By Mary Soon Lee | 55 words

Before King Xau slew a demon,

before the wild horses came to him,

before he was crowned,

before his sword was forged,

before the palace foundations were laid,

before his kingdom had a name,

before the dragon who ordained his destiny

hatched from out her shell,

before those things:

this tree,

this silver apricot tree

whose autumn leaves

he helps his youngest heap

into a pile of gold.

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

By Charles de Lint | 3472 words

The Perdition Score, by Richard Kadrey, Harper Voyager, 2016, $25.99.

IT'S BEEN A while since I've read a Sandman Slim book—Richard Kadrey's ongoing character who first appeared in 2009's eponymous introduction. I remember liking the brash vigor of the series, but I didn't keep up with it. (Probably for the simple reason that there are just too many books out there and when you're reading for a column, favorites can fall by the wayside as you cast your net a little wider to make sure you're not endlessly reviewing the same handful of authors.)

But The Perdition Score —the latest entry in the series—showed up in my P.O. Box and I was curious as to what the character had been up to. Turns out things haven't changed so much for James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim. He still lives above the Maximum Overdrive video store that he co-owns with his frenemy Kasabian. He still drinks at the punk tiki bar Bamboo House of Dolls. He still has a hot demonic girlfriend named Candy. And he's still got plenty of attitude.

History and experience have added gravitas to the simple brawler he was at the beginning of the series, but he continues to be better at bulling through a situation than handling it with much finesse.

This time out, a dying angel gives Stark a vial filled with a mysterious black milky liquid that could be the solution to the ongoing war between angels who want to allow human souls into Heaven and the rebel angels who are willing to die to keep them out.

An aside here: the world of Sandman Slim doesn't strictly follow the Biblical view of Christian mythology. In Kadrey's books, God is actually five beings who have become separated from each other. One of them is still in Heaven, one's dead, one is now Lucifer. (Lucifer seems to be more of a title, since Stark was Lucifer for a time.) The other two are MIA.

There's also the supposition that God didn't so much create the universe as steal it from an older race of powerful beings who are now trying to find a way here from another dimension in order to destroy us all.

The good news is that it's easy to get completely and comfortably up to date within the context of The Perdition Score if you want to try the series with the latest book.

Anyway, when a friend of Stark's gets poisoned by the mysterious black liquid, Stark and Candy go back to Hell in hopes of finding a cure, and while they're at it, see if they can't find a way to break the stalemate in the angel war.

The Sandman Slim books are hardboiled and dark, but hardly unrelentingly so. That's mostly because of the sardonic wiseacre tone of Stark's first person point-of-view. Stark doesn't really have a filter, so he just says what most of us would only think.

It's a bit of a rock 'n' roll ride with lots of referencing of old punk and surf acts, classic and pulp movies, and the whole concept of the antihero taken to the extreme. If the above piques your interest, and you like your fiction noir with a hellish twist, this is probably the series for you.

The other good news is that any of the Sandman Slim books would make a good entry point should you decide to give the character a try, and The Perdition Score is no different, although I should warn you that this latest volume has a bit of a cliffhanger ending.

*   *   *

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne, Arthur A. Levine Books, 2016, $29.99

It's pretty much impossible to discuss Harry Potter and the Cursed Child without spoilers, so if you have yet to read this eighth installment in the Harry Potter series, you should probably skip to the next review. Ditto to those of you unfamiliar with the first seven books in the series, though if that's the case, this will likely be of little interest to you anyway and you should also skip ahead.

So now it's just those of us who've read the whole series, which is probably only half the world.

Were you hoping for a continuation? I wasn't. I hadn't even considered the option. But here we are with a new entry nevertheless—and it's canon, not fanfic—and I admit to being curious.

Now first off, it isn't a novel. It's a play, which means there are stage directions and dialog rather than the sort of narrative you'd expect from the other books. It takes place nineteen years after the end of 2007's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and focuses primarily on Albus Potter (the son of Harry and Ginny) and Scorpius Malfoy (the son of Draco Malfoy, Harry's nemesis throughout the series), detailing the friendship that grows between the two boys from when they meet on their first trip on the Hogwarts Express.

But besides all the new characters, many other familiar faces are back as well. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Ron. Even Dumbledore, sort of.

Both boys are weighed down by the reputations of their fathers. Albus is the great hero's son. Scorpius's father Draco was a Death-Eater, but there are persistent rumors that his actual father was Voldemort.

At some point the pair decide to save Cedric Diggory, who Harry let die. They infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and steal a Time-Turner (basically a time machine device) and use it to go back to prevent Cedric from co-winning the Triwizard Tournament with Harry because it led directly to Cedric's death (all of which happened in the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , published in 2000).

Albus and Scorpius manage to save Cedric, but—as any reader of time travel stories would suspect—that sets off a chain of reactions that threatens the entire wizard world and brings back the evil Lord Voldemort. The pair keeps using the Time-Turner to try to fix their first mistake, with each subsequent use only making things worse.

So half of the book deals with these time-traveling misadventures, the other with the poor father-son relationships plaguing Harry and Albus, as well as Draco and Scorpius.

There are a number of ways to look at Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . If you're a diehard Potter fan, you'll either be delighted to have the story of these characters continue, adding in the next generation, or you were completely satisfied with how the seventh book ended and don't want any more.

What will probably create more dissension is the fact that, as mentioned above, the book is a play. That's fair enough—as a souvenir of the actual production. But without seeing the actors breathe life into the dialogue, it all comes off a little flat on the page.

When I read a play, I expect the dialogue to shine, but the words we're given here are plainspoken, admirably carrying the story forward, but without much more than the most basic characterization.

The plot is often full of holes, obvious and even contrived (mostly the time-travel segments), while the relationships between the characters have all the believability and depth of those after-school TV movies that used to be so popular. You know the kind: Where Lessons Are Learned.

I'm pretty sure the actual production won't leave viewers with the same feelings. Actors can save dialog, and plot holes can be covered up with flashy effects—the same way that many action movies not only survive but thrive on the big screen. The viewer is carried away by the momentum and the experience and doesn't really have the time to think everything through while they're in the moment.

Reading is a slower process and depends on the reader creating a movie in their mind. The problems I refer to above become much more obvious when the pace of consumption is slowed down.

Still, kudos to all involved for trying something different. If they try it again, perhaps they could have it written less by committee (which is sort of what this felt like). Unfortunately, the next Harry Potter-related project is the film prequel to the series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , and movies are notorious for being created by committees.

We'll just have to wait and see how that works out.

*   *   *

Angel Stakes: Bite Back 5 , by Mark Henwick, Marque, 2016, $17.

I have to take back a few things I said in this column in late 2015 about Cool Hand , the fourth book in Henwick's Bite Back series. I likened Henwick's series to the TV series Lost , which I thought started out as very intriguing, but I grew disenchanted with the way it felt as though the writers were simply throwing things on the screen because they'd be suitably mysterious and/or surprising, What they ended up with was something less than its parts and an ending that just kind of petered out. Instead of delivering an ah-ha moment (like, say, Mr. Robot's first season did), it was more: Really? That's it?

I was afraid the same thing was happening with the Bite Back series. In the review of Cool Hand I mentioned that I'd really liked the first couple of books but then went on to write:

The storytelling—by which I mean the pace of the narrative, rather than the actual plot—remains top notch through the next two books ( Wild Card and the novel under discussion here, Cool Hand ). I still really like the characters, too, although the size of the cast is getting a little unwieldy. The plot is becoming unwieldy as well, and that's my biggest concern.

Small arcs resolve, but the overall storyline is just getting more and more swollen and complicated to the point where four books in, it feels as though the story is still only being set up.

Yes, there's lots of forward momentum and action but I'm beginning to get the sense that Henwick doesn't have an end game. Or if he does, he keeps thinking of new cool things to add to the mix which pushes the endgame further away. Instead of clarifying matters, it seems to be tottering on the brink of collapsing in on itself.

It all reminds me too much of Lost . Yes, I know that series books are the norm now, and that it can take a while to reach any sort of emotional payoff for all the time we've invested in reading it. But one likes to think that there will be a payoff and I'm no longer sure that's going to be the case. Instead, like Lost , I'm afraid it's just going to fizzle out.

I finished up the review saying that I'd wait for book five to come out before I made any final decision as to whether or not I'd continue with this series.

Well, book five is here and I went ahead and bought a copy, paying a lot of attention this time out to the nuances of Henwick's plotting. I wanted to see if unresolved things he'd put in earlier books were picked up and how they, and the new elements added in this book, worked to the unfolding of the overall story arc.

(Before I go on, a brief aside: this is a complicated story with a lot of characters. Since I've already sketched out the elements in previous reviews, and because it would take so much wordage to get you up to date for this book, I'm going to direct you to the earlier reviews, the last of which is handily available here: https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2015/cdl1511.htm. )

I found to my surprise that there were not only many payoffs along the way, but definitely a promise of the big payoff when the series concludes. Contrary to my earlier impression while reviewing the previous book, it's obvious in Angel Stakes that Henwick knows exactly what he's doing.

Probably the biggest problem with a series such as this that doesn't have installments capable of standing on their own is that the time between reading the books as they're published allows details—even important ones—to slide away. I don't have total recall—not even close—which can make it a challenge to hold all the elements of a complicated plot in my head when there's a year or so between my reading each book.

But I've got a stronger sense of where Henwick is going now—helped perhaps by this being such a satisfying book. And I can readily recommend the series to you again. But please read them in order or you'll be hopelessly confused. The good thing is that everything about Henwick's writing—the characters, the prose, the plot arcs—is so welcoming to the reader that what might seem like a daunting proposition (it's so long now) is actually a pleasure.

So start with Sleight of Hand . Or if you just want to get a taste of what the series is all about, you could try Raw Deal , which is a prequel and complete on its own.

*   *   *

Uncollected Anthology Issue 9: Fortune Tales

A Future Song, by Stephanie Writt, Wayne Press, 2016, $2.99.

Fight or Flight, by Leslie Claire Walker, Secret Fire Press, 2016, $2.99.

Fortune's Cookie, by Rebecca M. Senese, RFAR Publishing, 2016, $2.99

Tramps & Thieves, by Annie Reed, Thunder Valley Press, 2016, $2.99

The Most Recent Madame Fortuna, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, WMG Publishing, 2016, $2.99.

Candles and Shadows, by Leah R. Cutter, Knotted Road Press, 2016, $2.99.

The idea behind this anthology series is a little different. Rather than having the stories collected all under one cover as has been traditional with anthologies, they've each been simultaneously published as separate ebooks that share a collective theme, which in the case of this ninth issue is fortunetelling.

I'm curious about the philosophy behind this way of publishing, mostly because I think of anthologies as being something that we're drawn to by a few big name authors but then get to discover other authors that we don't know and probably wouldn't have tried otherwise. I've discovered some favorite writers this way.

But I know. The stories are supposed to stand by themselves, regardless of who wrote them. And many readers are attracted to the themes that the anthologies often present rather than who wrote the stories.

Regardless of your opinion, what can't be denied is that something is working with this new method. The Uncollected Anthology series is now nine anthologies strong and a companion series called Fiction River has eighteen anthologies under its belt.

So let's have a look at the stories in Uncollected Anthology Issue 9: Fortune Tales.

There's not a lot of narrative story in Stephanie Writt's A Future Song , but I really liked the characters, twins Hadley and her younger brother Garrett. The former's a free spirit, the latter a new parent and teacher. The affection feels genuine, as does the way they can push each other's buttons, but the differences between them get taken to the limit when Hadley begins to "see" visions of the future in the songs of humpbacked whales while helping Garrett on a class outing to an aquarium.

For all the brevity of the story and the lightness of the plot, the story still left me feeling satisfied and touched.

Leslie Claire Walker's Fight or Flight doesn't seem to be about fortunetelling so much as time travel, but I suppose an argument can be made that brief trips to the future are a form of fortunetelling.

When Charlie gets punched hard enough, he leaves his depression-era world and ends up in a future one. It doesn't last long. When the story opens, his half-brother Doogie attacks him and this time they both travel into the future.

The story's quite short so I don't want to say much more. But I really liked Charlie's voice ( Fight or Flight is told from his point of view) and the feisty Sunday Sloan he meets in the future. Everything about this story sparkles with invention and gritty truth.

In Rebecca M. Senese's Fortune's Cookie, Nola has a summer job working at Chen's Fabulous Chinese Take-Out. One day a customer complains that their fortune cookie is empty and Nola discovers that's the case with the entire supply. So she and her boss come up with a plan: he'll bake homemade cookies and Nola will write fortunes for them.

I like how it all plays out, but the real story here is Nola learning to stand up to her parents' plan for her future and becoming her own person. Senese pulls this off without getting sappy, and the whole of the story is the better for that.

Tramps & Thieves by Annie Reed introduces us to an unnamed fortuneteller who has a little shop. Her parents were carnie folk but she likes being somewhat more settled. Where customers are concerned, all she wants is to get her fee and a little respect.

When Owen Grady and his friends come into her shop, it's obvious they have no respect. They're out for a night on the town and harassing the fortuneteller plays right into their idea of having a good time. Unfortunately for them, the fortuneteller is the real deal and they get far more than they bargained for.

I really liked this story—mostly for the backstory of the fortuneteller growing up, her parents, the carnie life. But then I'm a sucker for that kind of a narrative.

Which makes Kristine Kathryn Rusch's The Most Recent Madame Fortuna a perfect follow-up, because we get not only a story set in a carnival with lots of little background bits about the carnie life, but it's also written by Rusch, who has long been a favorite writer of mine.

Our narrator here is Carol, who runs the carnival and so has to deal with the problem that arises with her most recent fortunetelling hire (apparently the turnover rate for this job is high).

Rusch hits all the right notes here, delivering character, a strong narrative voice, and a solid story. It's one of my favorites in the anthology.

Last up we have Leah Cutter's Candles and Shadows , in which the Pearl of Pearl's Magic Shop finds herself getting deeper into the workings of magic and foretelling than she has the skills to handle. There are some good turnarounds in this story, and the narrative voice, while told from a third person point-of-view, is compelling and immediate.

All in all, it's a strong anthology, but I'll admit to having a few reservations about the delivery system. Having to order each story individually is a bit of a pain—not insurmountable, but you have to work at it a little.

Another issue is the $2.99 per story price tag. It doesn't seem like much, but if you add it up, it comes to $17.94 for 206 pages of story, which isn't really a bargain.

To be honest, if I was coming to this cold, I would probably have just bought the Rusch story because I know I'll get my money's worth and passed on the—to me—unknowns. But then I would have missed out on some other great stories.

The delivery system here isn't optimum but I do appreciate the thinking outside the box in terms of getting material out there, and I suppose with the proper promotion—and perhaps a tweaking of how you actually buy the stories—it could work better in the future. At the very least there should be an option to buy all the stories at once, but since they're all coming from different publishers I'm not sure of the best way to do it so that the authors are still fairly compensated and the readers aren't overpaying.

Because frankly, at a time when you can try a novel by an unknown writer for ninety-nine cents, the $2.99 price tag per story seems just a tad high. I liken it to singles and albums in the music biz. Ninety-nine cents is a fair price for a single. I think the same should hold for a short story.

*   *   *

The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories, by Ursula K. Le Guin, Saga Press, 2016, $29.99.

The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas, by Ursula K. Le Guin, Saga Press, 2016, $29.99.

I just have room here to mention that Saga Press has published a pair of Ursula K. Le Guin collections that are well worth your attention. The Unreal and the Real was originally published in two volumes by the astute Small Beer Press, whereas The Found and the Lost appears to be original to Saga Press.

Everybody has their own favorites, I'm sure, but if Le Guin had only written "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight" (which you can find in The Found and the Lost ), I'd consider her a favorite writer. But of course there is so much more to delight in with her work, which transcends genre and literary categories and is written in styles that veer between luminous and down-to-earth—sometimes in the same story.

Throw in a few of her novels (such as The Left Hand of Darkness , The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven , the Earthsea books) along with these two collections and you have the cornerstone of a great sf/fantasy collection.

The two collections are handsome and affordable productions (with the ebooks coming in at a bargain $7.99 per title) so you really have no excuse not to add them to your library.

*   *   *

Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P. O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2. EBooks may be sent as an attachment to cdelint@gmail.com.

BOOKS

By James Sallis | 1661 words

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life , by Ruth Franklin, 2016, Liveright Publishing Corporation/W.W. Norton & Company, $35.

For four days the ground moved.

This from real life, from a man giving witness to mass executions in his village during WWII, with entire families lined up and shot, to fall forward into trenches dead or nearly so and be covered over.

There's more terror in that brief sentence and its accompanying image than in a thousand drooling monsters. Horror builds from what you sense yet don't see, things moving beneath the surface, dark shapes at the corner of mind and vision. And with that, you're in Shirley Jackson land.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is the second major biography, following upon 1988's Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer and two collections of miscellany, Just an Ordinary Day (1995) and Let Me Tell You (2015). In 2010 Jackson's work joined The Library of America in a volume edited by Joyce Carol Oates: 800-plus pages, two classic novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle , forty-six stories and sketches. Perhaps all this will collude to bring the focused attention Shirley Jackson has long deserved.

Or maybe not. Maybe in the public mind she'll continue to be known only as author of "The Lottery." Ruth Franklin's introduction to this outstanding biography touches on some of the reasons recognition has been so long delayed. Jackson wrote, she says, always with a central interest in women's lives, and in genres regarded as "faintly disreputable," turning plots and characters on a lathe so distinctly personal as to produce a body of work that's finally uncategorizable. And since there's no ready drawer for what Jackson wrote, all too often it gets cut down to fit. The Haunting of Hill House is received as simply a well written ghost story, We Have Always Lived in the Castle as a standard mystery. Meanwhile, what is to be made of those lightly comic tales of suburban life with the kids? How on earth do those fit in?

It's all a confusion, all a tangle.

As was Shirley Jackson's life.

She was, from the first, resolutely a commercial writer. Even while essaying the problem of evil, as in "One Ordinary Day with Peanuts," she anchored her work in the domestic, so that the stories have about them an easy familiarity, an apparent lightness in sharp contrast to the chasms and gorges beneath.

"No writer since Henry James has been so successful in exploring the psychological reach of terror," Franklin writes.

And Shirley Jackson herself: "I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work."

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides , the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

—We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Plenty of fear to work with, plenty of contrast, an abundance of tamped-down pain, all of which grew as years wore on.

She wrote in quick bites, hours seized here and there—stories for The New Yorker, dozens of vignettes and stories for Saturday Evening Post , Mademoiselle , and Good Housekeeping , six novels—while raising four children, maintaining some semblance of a normal suburban household, pursuing an active social life with husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, and hiding out from neighbors estranged by the family's oddness, all this as she struggled upstream of a crushing sense of failure and fragility, prolonged bouts of depression, and occasional hospitalizations.

That sentence may give you some idea of the tangle of her life. All told, she was out there pitching for twenty-four years, dying of heart failure in 1965 aged forty-eight. From 1961 on, she was essentially housebound.

Her second novel, Hangsaman (1951), recounts the emotional breakdown of a young woman fleeing her poisonous homelife for an ever stronger fantasy world overseen by the imaginary Tony, an amalgam of the protagonist's own anxiety and turmoil.

In The Bird's Nest (1954, filmed as Lizzie ), Elizabeth Richmond, a woman with multiple personalities, one day arrives at work in the town's museum to find that the wall of her office has been removed and that she can extend her arm into the gaping hole, into nothingness. As again and again, a building is central to the tale; the dissolution of the building and of Elizabeth are one and the same. Already she is so fractured, so insubstantial, that coworkers barely register her presence. Franklin praises scenes in which Elizabeth sets out four coffee cups, one for each personality, and another in which Elizabeth watches as each personality in turn takes a bath.

The Sundial (1958, four years after the first hydrogen bomb test) was Jackson's own favorite of her novels. Behind the walls of the Halloran estate, built by a businessman who "could think of nothing better to do with his money than set up his own world," the profoundly broken Halloran family gathers to await apocalypse, after which they will, as deserved, come forth into "a world clean and silent."

Centering on another dissolution, The Haunting of Hill House (1959, filmed at least twice) may very well be the best ghost story ever written. It is a ghost story, but above all it's the story of a woman's steady erasure from forces within and without in a world where longing and dread, what is most feared and most hoped for, speak the same language. A ghost story, yes—but one as much aligned with Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, William Faulkner, and Albert Camus as with any standard fare.

With what she perceived as quick cleverness she pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator…. I can hear them calling now, she thought, and the little footsteps running through Hill House and the soft sound of the hills pressing closer…. I am really doing it, she thought….

In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don't they stop me?

Three years after Hill House came We Have Always Lived in the Castle , with its tale of two sisters shunned by their community for the presumed murder of their family. In those first lines—"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance.… Everyone else in my family is dead"—the narrator leans close to say she has something important to tell you, and though you trust none of what she says and know that listening may lead you to terrible places, you do listen, and you follow. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is utterly original, a feast for readers, a how-to manual for writers. It would be the last novel.

*   *   *

In 1958, while working on Hill House, Jackson wrote a letter to her husband, calling out his indifference to her and the children, his retreat into work and the attention of his female students, her own loneliness, his affairs with other women. She ends by reminding him that he once wrote a letter to her to say she would never be lonely again, that this was the first and most dreadful lie he ever told her.

Just as the house of Usher in its collapse memorialized the passing of the Old South and a once grand, now degraded style of living, Hill House echoes the crumbling of Shirley's marriage, or of her belief in it. Nothing can ever again be as it once seemed. Eleanor believes the house in its haunting has called to her, inviting her to become one with it. I am home, I am home , she thinks, not long before driving her car into a tree.

In both the last novels Jackson's art is at a very high level indeed. But sadly, as Franklin writes, "the trajectory of Jackson's creative ascent was mirrored by an arc of personal descent." The depression that had been a lifelong companion, the predative feelings of rejection and helplessness, crowded ever closer, exacerbated perhaps by drinking and by the amphetamines she'd taken for years for weight control. Obese, in poor general health, hamstrung by feelings of betrayal, she was unable to write, barely able to leave the house and to cope with details of everyday life.

She was on her way back up and again writing—three new stories, a piece for the Saturday Evening Post , seventy-five pages of a new novel titled Come Along with Me —when on an August afternoon in 1965 her husband came to wake her from a nap and could not.

*   *   *

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is an artful, elegant book that does honor to its subject. Ruth Franklin writes extraordinarily well, with fine narrative instincts. She keeps things moving, never allowing the story to founder (as do so many biographies) in facts and details or to be strangled by its timeline, forever aware that she is indeed telling a story , often stepping briefly forward and back to suggest connections that flower as we read on. We clearly sense the ranging of Franklin's mind across the ciphers and crosses of Jackson's life and, behind that, the ranging of Jackson's own, both of them trying to make sense of the pieces. It's a biography that wears its surmise lightly in much the way that accomplished fiction does, knowing the pieces cannot fit together snugly but nudging at them, moving them about again and again, trying for the best fit possible.

Shirley Jackson used to take the kids out onto the porch during storms and howl back at the thunder. "The very nicest thing about being a writer," she wrote in one essay, "is that you can afford to indulge yourself endlessly with oddness, and nobody can really do anything about it, as long as you keep writing and kind of using it up." One finishes this biography with full gratitude for all that Shirley Jackson's "using it up" has given us.

Truly amazing, what can come of howling back at the thunder.

SCIENCE

By Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty | 1318 words

BRAINLESS ROBOTS STROLL THE BEACH

WITH THIS column, we're changing our format. Rather than publishing long columns just twice a year, we'll be writing short columns for every issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction . For the next few issues, we'll be discussing a topic that is near to the heart of every science fiction reader: the robot.

No need to discuss fictional robots—we are confident that you know them. We don't need to mention Asimov's robots governed by laws that are carefully scripted to protect humanity or Lester del Rey's Helen O'Loy (perhaps the first in a long line of robots destined to fall in love). You all know about Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot, Star Trek 's Data with his positronic brain (a term conceived by Asimov), R2-D2 and C-3PO of Star Wars , and Marvel's criminally insane sentient robot Ultron.

We're going to be focusing on robots that don't fit neatly into the boxes defined by science fiction. These are not mechanical people or even synthetic people. They aren't itching to dominate humanity. (No robot overlords here.) Nor are they likely to be humans' slaves, cheerfully doing our unpleasant chores.

We'll start with Paul's favorite—the Strandbeest. Paul works (and Pat used to work) at the Exploratorium, San Francisco's museum of science, art, and human perception. For the last few months, the Exploratorium has hosted a show about the Strandbeest, with several actual Beests on display and, occasionally, in action. Getting to know the Strandbeest has expanded our notion of what a robot can be.

Before we go further, take a look at one of Jansen's Strandbeests if you haven't seen one before. You'll find many videos online; we recommend this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYGJ9jrbpvg

The Strandbeests are many-legged constructions made of PVC tubes and plastic soda bottles. They come in many sizes and varieties—their creator, artist Theo Jansen, has been busy for decades, creating herds of these mechanical creatures.

The Strandbeests, in all their varieties, march along sandy beaches, their many legs moving in a vaguely bug-like way that's not quite like any bug you've ever seen. Watching them, in real life or on video, it's easy to believe these are animals. They act like animals—moving purposefully, approaching the surf, then retreating from the rising water. A large Beest waves its head (or is that its tail?) as if catching a scent on the wind. Smaller ones gather in a group, plastic sails undulating in the breeze.

The Strandbeests react to their environment like living creatures, betraying every appearance of thought. Yet they use no electric power, no electronic logic. They are powered by the wind, using two different types of sails to take advantage of this power source.

Their undulating sails move like flags flapping in the breeze. With each back-and-forth movement, the sail pumps air into plastic two-liter bottles. (Yes, think soda bottles. This is low tech.) The pumps compress the air, storing energy. The air that's compressed in the soda bottles can push on pistons that move the Beest's legs to make it stroll along the beach. No electric power—it's entirely pneumatic.

A Strandbeest raises its other sail when it needs to move because water is coming up. With the help of this sail, the wind pushes the Strandbeest—but only in a downwind direction. To move in any other direction, the Strandbeest must use its stored wind energy. If the wind is blowing toward the water, a Strandbeest uses its stored energy to move against the wind, heading away from the water.

Put this all together and this contraption of PVC pipes and soda bottles is starting to sound a lot like a robot. The Strandbeest obtains energy from its environment and stores it. It uses that stored energy to move from place to place. It senses its environment and uses the information it gains to change its behavior.

But maybe, having been influenced by the good Doctor Asimov and many other sf writers, you're thinking, "But it doesn't have a brain!" How can it "decide" to move away from the water without some central processing unit—a positronic brain that collects its sensory data and manages its response?

A simple open-ended tube lets a Strandbeest sense water. If water plugs the tube, no air can enter. The lack of air triggers pneumatic logic gates that open certain air pressure tubes while closing others. These gates open the tubes that squirt air into pistons that push against the sand to start the Beest walking away from that water-plugged tube. No central processing unit needed!

We humans rely on our brains—so naturally we tend to imagine robots that work in the same way. As a science fiction writer, Pat is well aware of how robots have been used as a way to examine what it means to be human. But the Strandbeest suggests that it might be more interesting to use robots to think out of our neurocentric, human box. Maybe creations like the Strandbeest let us examine a greater question: What does it mean to be alive?

Theo Jansen regards the Strandbeests as a form of artificial life. He describes them as if they were animals that he invented. Versions that didn't work have become "extinct." He refers to the beach as their "natural habitat" where he would like them to be able to "live" freely.

The Strandbeest can't reproduce like a living thing. On the other hand, it has managed to cause another organism (that organism being Theo Jansen and others who have been inspired by him) to make copies of it. In that way, the Strandbeest is akin to a virus, which can't reproduce unless it invades a living cell and commandeers its genetic machinery. And scientists are still debating whether viruses are living entities.

Maybe we'd better stick to the simpler question: Is the Strandbeest a robot? Even though the word "robot" has been around since the 1920s, it has no standard definition. Generally, the word is defined by listing the characteristics every robot should have. Most definitions specify that a robot has to sense its environment and use the information it gains to follow instructions and perform some action. Some definitions also require that a robot have a way to power itself.

By those standards, the Strandbeest is a robot. Pat is intrigued by how inhuman a robot it is—and how that messes with science fictional robotic conventions. Thinking about the Strandbeest made us acutely aware that Asimov's laws of robotics are all about people. (For those who need a refresher course, the laws are: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. And the zeroth law, added later: A robot may not injure humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.)

For the Strandbeest, people are essentially irrelevant. It doesn't care about you—in the same way that a large, benign herbivore doesn't care about you. It might trample you by mistake, but it's not going to go out of its way to protect you or harm you.

In our future columns, we'll consider a few more robots—some of which, you'll be glad to hear, do care about you. In the meantime, we suggest you contemplate the possibilities offered by robots who do not want to be our overlords. They just don't care. It's a great thing to think about while going for a long walk on the beach.

__________________________________

Paul Doherty works at The Exploratorium, San Francisco's museum of science, art, and human perception—where science and science fiction meet. For more on Paul's work and his latest adventures, visit www.exo.net/~pauld . Pat Murphy is a science educator, a science fiction writer, and occasionally a troublemaker. She works at Mystery Science, developing hands-on lessons for elementary school. You can learn more about what she's up to at www.brazenhussies.net/Murphy.

TELEVISION: STRANGER (YET ODDLY FAMILIAR) THINGS

By Tim Pratt | 1479 words

STRANGER Things is an original sf/horror series from streaming subscription service Netflix. All eight episodes were released on July 15, 2016, and the show was viewed by about fourteen million adults in its first month of availability. I was one of them, gobbling it up over the course of two or three days, and it was a high point of my entertainment for the year.

Set in 1983 in a small town in Indiana, the story begins with four twelve-year-old friends—Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin—playing Dungeons & Dragons in Mike's basement, facing off against the terrifying demogorgon (complete with miniatures). It's a great character-introduction sequence, and offers some of the best foreshadowing I've seen on TV: those kids will have to face monsters, and their only hope of success is to work together and depend on each other.

When the game ends, the kids set off on their bicycles through the night to their respective homes. Will (who we already like as a loyal, honest kid) cuts through the dark woods near a Department of Energy facility. A strange creature menaces him in the forest, and he abandons his bike and flees on foot, first into his house, and then into a shed in the back yard when the thing pursues him. When the creature appears mysteriously inside the shed, the electric lights stutter and dim, plunging the scene into darkness, and when the lights come on again, the room is empty, and Will has vanished.

The rest of the series is devoted to finding out where Will went…and dealing with the thing that took him. Those searching for Will include his friends, his mother (played to grief-stricken, determined perfection by Winona Ryder), his older brother, the local cops, and more. There's another major plot engine, though, and that concerns a twelve-year-old girl known as Eleven, played in an astonishing breakout performance by young actress Millie Bobby Brown. We first encounter El as a runaway in a hospital gown, her hair buzzed so short she's mistaken for a boy, her mannerisms strange and stilted. She tries to steal food from kindly diner owner Benny, who catches her and treats her with compassion when he realizes the strangely silent girl has suffered some terrible trauma. We soon discover that Eleven has psychic powers (beginning with telekinesis) and that she's being hunted by government agents who won't hesitate to murder innocent citizens to capture her. When Mike, Dustin, and Lucas find Eleven while searching for Will, they offer her a refuge. Her powers—and her past—turn out to be integral to finding out what happened to their lost friend.

I won't go full-on spoiler, but I don't think it's revealing too much to say there is a monster from another place, and Eleven was present when it came to our world. The creature hails from a parallel dimension, a dark and twisted shadow version of our own world the kids eventually call "the upside down." In proper horror-story fashion, we catch only glimpses of the monster early on, but when we do get a look at it, it's impressively grotesque—a little bit H. R. Giger, a little bit Lovecraft by way of Guillermo del Toro.

Over the course of eight harrowing and exhilarating episodes, we're treated to monsters, mad science, alternate realities, government conspiracies, loyalty, treachery, friendship, tragedy, sacrifice, and triumph. Stranger Things is full of great, pulpy storytelling stuff. It's also very firmly eighties stuff, and the show is absolutely steeped in references to film and TV of that era. Stranger Things doesn't so much wear its influences on its sleeve as wear a suit woven almost entirely of influences. The subtle and overt homages to the eighties work of Stephen King, John Carpenter, James Cameron, and Steven Spielberg (among others) permeate just about every frame. Spielberg's E.T. is a major visual touchstone, the flashbacks to Eleven's captivity in a government lab strongly reference the film version of King's Firestarter , and the dynamic of the kids is very Stand By Me , but that just scratches the surface—there have been whole articles dissecting the various references and nods you can find in the series.

That kind of gesturing-backward can be a huge weakness. I don't have much patience for copycat exercises that genuflect toward some beloved set of signifiers, hoping the audience's passion for the source material will translate into fondness for some extruded nostalgia product. In particular, I'm thinking of things like the film Super 8 , which tried to out-Spielberg Spielberg but missed out on the emotional core that made Spielberg's eighties films so effective.

However, Stranger Things isn't just a Frankenstein's monster of stitched-together references. Creators the Duffer Brothers aren't recombining bits from movies they loved as children as a cynical marketing ploy, or because they lack imagination. They're genuinely trying to recreate the feeling of those films, to create a new story of small-town life transformed into a world of horror, or wonder, or both. I have a lot of sympathy for that mission (though I'm pretty close to their target demographic, as I turned ten in 1986, so consider my possible bias). With Stranger Things , the Duffer Brothers succeeded in creating something that has the feel of those eighties adventure movies but with a very modern approach to character.

And oh, those characters! The "boy gets stolen by extradimensional monster, government tries to cover it up, unlikely band of kids and grownups try to find the truth" premise is a compelling story, but it's the characters who make this worth watching. The kids are the core. Mike, the dungeon master, is the one most willing to take big chances and formulate a plan of action (not that they're necessarily good plans), and he refuses to give up on Will even when all hope seems lost. Dustin, the goofy kid with the missing front teeth who at first seems like our designated comic relief character, eventually steals every scene he's in, gives some rousing call-to-action speeches, and demonstrates astonishing insight into the dynamics of his group. (He also knows how compasses work, which turns out to be crucial.) Lucas is argumentative and suspicious of Eleven, but his anger is born out of tremendous loyalty to and worry for Will. They're all great characters and their dynamic is a joy to behold. Eleven is profoundly traumatized by her captivity, but she's also desperate for human companionship—for friends , something she's never had—and seeing her bond with Mike and discover a capacity for joy (if only in brief waffle-related intervals between threats and horrors) is immensely satisfying.

Will's mom, as I already mentioned, is fantastic, and her relationship with the misanthropic local chief of police is wonderful. She tries to make contact with Will (who seems to be communicating from the upside down, somehow, by manipulating electrical fields) regardless of how crazy everyone thinks she is. The chief doggedly hunts down the missing boy, even as it puts him in direct conflict with shadowy government forces. When they team up, they kick ass. Will's older brother Jonathan, a teen with a reputation as a weirdo and a penchant for photography, is also great, and with the help of Mike's popular-but-not-shallow sister Nancy, they do most of the work of tracking and fighting the monster, especially after Nancy's friend Barb also vanishes under mysterious circumstances.

While many of the minor characters are necessarily caricatured or shorthanded (the teen bullies are exactly what you'd expect, Will's no-good absent father is scum, and the evil head scientist is irredeemably evil), a lot of them are given impressive depths. Nancy's boyfriend Steve transcends his "glib jerk" origins by the end; I'd watch a whole prequel series about Benny the diner owner; and though she had only a few lines and scenes, the resolutely unfashionable Barb captured the imagination of the internet, with fans lamenting how limited her arc was.

Now let me spend a few lines singing the praises of my favorite deliverer-of-exposition on television ever (yes, even better than Giles on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer ): Mr. Clarke, the boys' science teacher, played with vast dorky charm by Randall P. Havens. He is unflappably affable and helpful, whether the boys are asking about portals to parallel universes, how to build a sensory deprivation tank, or the metaphysical underpinnings of Dungeons & Dragons. He gets excited about science, encourages the boys in their hunger for knowledge, and neither talks down to them nor talks over their heads. I love him so much.

The show isn't perfect. I could quibble about the pacing, and there were elements of the resolution I found unsatisfactory (the plot arcs and character arcs don't dovetail properly, damn it), but as a whole I enjoyed it so much that I can forgive the flaws. Stranger Things twists and turns; it provides regular spectacles and revelations; there are wonderful set pieces and terrible setbacks; there are moments of fist-pumping triumph and nail-biting tension. Everything that needs wrapping up is resolved in the end, but the final moments provide enough hints of future complications to make me eager for the recently announced second season.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

By C.C. Finlay | 223 words

WITH "THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS," published in the January 2001 issue of F&SF , Richard Chwedyk acquainted us with the "saurs," genetically engineered and intelligent toy companions who looked like tiny versions of dinosaurs. Like many other pets, the saurs sometimes ended up neglected and abandoned, but there was a house where rescued saurs could be safe...and get into new kinds of trouble. The saurs have appeared three more times, in "Bronte's Egg" (August 2002), "In Tibor's Cardboard Castle" (Oct/Nov 2004), and "Orfy" (Sept/Oct 2010). The series has been incredibly popular, garnering numerous award nominations and winning a Nebula Award for "Bronte's Egg."

Why mention this? Because next issue, after more than half a decade, the saurs return. We'll be bringing you Richard Chwedyk's "The Man Who Put the Bomp"—an all-new novella full of saurs and voom .

If that weren't enough (and, honestly, that could probably be enough) the issue will also introduce Baldemar, a young wizard's henchman. It's the start of a new series in Matthew Hughes's Archonate universe. Plus there will be stories by other writers familiar to our regular readers, including Eleanor Arnason, Cat Hellisen, and James Sallis, as well as work by Hazra Arundhati and Ingrid Garcia, who will be making their F&SF debuts, along with all our other regular columns and features. If you haven't renewed your subscription lately, now is a great time.

CURIOSITIES

By David Langford | 254 words

A VOYAGE TO PURILIA,

BY ELMER RICE (1930)

PLANET Purilia is the goal of a pioneering space flight, riding the ether waves with the "Winstead gravitator." As usual in older sf with a humorous axe to grind, the target is Earthly, and satire begins at home.

Purilia is fraught with the fantastic. Violence, slapstick, melodrama and background music abound. Even before landing, the visitors from Earth witness a typical Purilian scene of a girl murderously attacked while teetering on the wing of a speeding biplane. Swift and heroic rescue follows....

Optical quirks of the planetary atmosphere randomly cause such distant dramas and other landscape features to swell into terrifying close-up. Mysterious voices offer commentary: "Spring comes early to the Purilian hills."

Purilia, in fact, is the world of silent movies, with portentous voiceovers as caption boards. Its weird social dynamics and caste system (heroes, villains, nubile "Pudencians") fascinate the narrator, who happens to be an ethnologist. Local biology is also puzzling:

"…babies are really not born, but merely occur. There is no long and difficult period of gestation. No one, in Purilia, has ever seen a woman who gave outward evidence of approaching maternity."

Thus the sweet innocence of 1920s Hollywood. Nevertheless, peril lurks for the unwary. After many cliché-ridden adventures, our hero finds himself blundering into marriage with a Purilian beauty, although he knows the wedding can only be followed by a fade-out into utter tasteful oblivion.

Talkies were already on the rise when A Voyage to Purilia appeared. Enjoy that special musty charm of a satire whose target long ago vanished.

—David Langford

Cartoon (Long)

By Bill Long | 2 words

—Bill Long

Cartoon (Masear)

By Arthur Masear | 14 words

"All you said was that you wanted to live in a gated community."

—Arthur Masear

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE

Classified Ads | 308 words

BOOKS-MAGAZINES

S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, pulps, books, fanzines. 96 page catalog. $5.00. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853

Benchmarks Continued: F&SF "Books" Columns 1975-1982 by Algis Budrys. Ansible Editions/Lulu.com, ISBN 978-1-300-34659-3

WHAT IF? #3 ed. by Richard A. Lupoff. Stories that didn't win a Hugo, but should have. Brand New. www.ramblehouse.com

Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.

20-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $30/12 months.

Sought: Signed first editions of Lord Ravenscar's Revenge . Will pay. No questions asked. Castaway Books, Tauai.

Tarzan in Kentucky . Poems by Judith Moffett. www.davidrobertbooks.com/moffett.html

eNOVEL: Guise of Child: Time traveler must save soul mate's life. Problem: He's trapped in a child's body. Barnes/Noble.com, Amazon.

Welcome to Witchlandia by Steven Popkes: "An exciting and fun combination of hard-boiled police procedural and supernatural thriller." —James L. Cambias. Available from Amazon.com.

New! DEVIL-MAY-CARE by Jody Scott. http://digitalparchmentservices.com/

SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

MISCELLANEOUS

If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. http://www.undoingstress.com

Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu .

Longtime professional editor will help you polish your manuscript for submittal/self-publication. Betsymitchelleditorial.com

TechieAnnex.com for your small business. More to do than time or people? Hand off web or software tasks to a solid pro.

Bring your imagination to life! How to Draw Manga Characters by J. C. Amberlyn (Monacelli Press).

F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words per issue). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

Table of Contents

Fantasy & Science Fiction

January/February • 68th Year of Publication

Homecoming

Vinegar and Cinnamon

One Way

Dunnage for the Soul

There Used to Be Olive Trees

The Regression Test

A Gathering on Gravity's Shore

On the Problem of Replacement Children: Prevention, Coping, and Other Practical Strategies

Alexandria

Wetherfell's Reef Runics

Kingship

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

BOOKS

SCIENCE

TELEVISION: STRANGER (YET ODDLY FAMILIAR) THINGS

COMING ATTRACTIONS

CURIOSITIES

A VOYAGE TO PURILIA,

Cartoon (Long)

Cartoon (Masear)

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE