"It's in There"

IT'S IN THERE
By Curtis C. Chen

Granger sat down next to me on the couch and asked, "How is a pizza like a DVD?"

I swallowed my mouthful of pepperoni-extra-cheese-light-sauce and said, "I don't know. They're both round, and nobody really cares what the box looks like as long as the content is good?"

He smiled at me and took a swig of beer. Granger was one of those men who always looked like he didn't give a damn what you thought. One of those men who could pull off an unironic, pencil-thin mustache.

He smiled at me and said, "You always overthink these things, Lily."

It was the first time he'd ever called me by my first name. We had sex that night. Two weeks later, I pulled his body out of a Dumpster in Brooklyn.

***

The case file flopped onto my desk like a dead fish. I looked up and was surprised to see Lieutenant Humphrey.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Merry Christmas," Humphrey said, walking away.

I opened the file just as Dee sat down across from me with her morning cup of not-coffee. The top sheet was a dense grid of numbers and abbreviations. Bio data?

"What's that?" Dee asked.

"Fuck if I know," I said, flipping up pages until I got to something comprehensible. "Shit."

I stared at a crime scene photo: dead wiseguy, face down in a half-eaten calzone.

***

"Death by pizza?" Dee asked. I was driving, so she had nothing to do but talk.

"It's the sauce," I said. "Some biotech idiots figured out how to grow tomatoes with heat-resistant, human-compatible RNA. The idea was that you'd eat the stuff and it would alter your metabolism, help you lose weight."

"Guess that didn't work out."

"Problems with mutations. Gave people heart problems and hormonal imbalances. Huge recalls. Companies went out of business."

"But the technology's still around." Dee grumbled. "So you a speed reader now, or what? You didn't have that file for five minutes."

"I've seen the case before," I said. "It was Granger's before it went cold."

***

The warehouse was full of uniforms moving evidence-tagged crates. Migdale stood next to a box of fruit, reading the newspaper.

"Ladies," he said as Dee and I walked up.

"If you say so." I looked around. "I was expecting to see some tomatoes."

Migdale picked up both halves of a cut avocado, which looked more yellow than green under the warehouse lights. "Customs sliced this open, for inspection, right before they found the guns. Notice anything odd?"

"It's still green," Dee said. "Those things go brown in seconds."

"Enzymatic browning," Migdale said, "triggered by exposure to oxygen. Unless the fruit contains something to prevent that."

"So they're gene-mods. What's the big deal?"

"They were in the same shipment as illegal munitions and narcotics. Therefore, suspicious. We sent a sample to the lab, and it turns out all the fats in this avocado have been fully saturated."

"The hell does that mean?" Dee asked.

"Data," I said. "They were smuggling data."



Image: "The pizza did get cold before it was solved..." by Tiffany Berry, February, 2007

"H is for Horse"

H IS FOR HORSE
By Curtis C. Chen

Dear Exhibitor:

Welcome to the 83rd annual Horse-Shaped Objects Exposition (H-SOE)! The International Association of Horse-Shaped Object Enthusiasts (IAH-SOE) is very excited to be hosting this year's event in a new venue, the brand-new Simonsays Memorial Horse-Shaped Arena (SMH-SA) in Fortland, Uregon.

IMPORTANT: If you are a returning exhibitor, please make sure your shipping company has the correct venue address and current transport licenses for all your Objects. The Uregon customs inspection service operates under much stricter import regulations than most of the forty-seven other continental United States, and recent events in the city of Fortland have made local law enforcement very sensitive to any unusual Objects. (Please refer to our web site for guidelines on how to pack your fragile Objects for shipment.)

As always, the IAH-SOE strives to organize a peaceful and loving event for all H-SOE exhibitors, dealers, panelists, sponsors, and participants. We have received feedback from many past attendees about space issues at our previous venues, and we hope the move to SMH-SA will alleviate a great number of those problems for many years to come.

IF YOU ARE A DEALER, the marketplace will be open starting at 6:00 PM the night before H-SOE begins to allow you to set up your table. Please consult the enclosed brochure from SMH-SA to determine what supplies you are allowed to bring into the arena.

IF YOU ARE A NON-PROFIT, the display hall will be open starting at 12 NOON the day before H-SOE begins to allow you to set up your booth. Please consult the enclosed brochure from SMH-SA to determine what baptismal equipment you are allowed to bring into the arena.

IMPORTANT: All non-alcoholic liquids are banned in the city of Fortland. However, SMH-SA offers a variety of pharmacological aids to maximize hydration and minimize intoxication. Visit any of the "Liquidation Stations" located throughout the arena for complimentary lozenges or tinctures. (If you are unable to ingest medications orally, please visit SMH-SA's basement dispensary to receive a hypodermic or suppository sirup, also free of charge.)

Your enclosed exhibitor badge is required for admittance to all H-SOE event areas. Please wear it whenever you are inside the SMH-SA security perimeter. Do not laminate your badge or place it inside any protective covering, and make sure the fix-shaped metagraphic seal is clearly visible at all times. If the arena's automated scanners cannot read your badge data, security forces may be paged to your location.

If you have any questions about H-SOE, SMH-SA, or anything else related to IAH-SOE events, please contact Sister Judy Phileman. (If you have inquiries regarding revenues or taxation, please contact Sister Octavia Caesar. All other correspondence should be sent to our principal shrine in Jer-Salem, Ohio.)

We look forward to seeing you in Fortland! And remember:

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Matt 18:20)

Yours in Horse,
Brother Jonn Timoth



Image: Matchless Beauty by kelsey_lovefusionphoto, June, 2010

"Meet Brute"

MEET BRUTE
By Curtis C. Chen

"That another alien puzzle?"

Linda looked up from her diagnostic table, where the artifact sat inside a vacuum chamber. She didn't recognize the man who had just walked in holding an uncovered mug of coffee.

"It's an artifact," she said, "and you can't have that drink in here, Mister...?"

He switched the mug from his right hand to his left hand, making Linda cringe as the liquid inside sloshed around, then extended his right hand.

"Bell. Marty Bell."

Linda shook his hand, then placed her palms back in the waldo control wells. "You're not allowed to have uncovered liquids in any lab or computer areas."

"Sorry, I didn't know. First day here..." He looked around the empty lab.

"Kitchenette around the corner. Leave it there."

"Thanks."

He returned a minute later, beverage-free, just as Linda was turning over the artifact. There were no symbols on the exterior, but sometimes the surface grooves lined up to make characters in the Az-Orpic language.

Marty said, "You're Linda Tanaka? I'm supposed to report to you." He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.

Linda locked the waldos and took the paper. It was a transfer order from the company's weapons division to the advanced research group. That meant Mary already had the proper security clearances, but—

"I'm sorry," Marty said.

Linda looked up and into the barrel of a small revolver.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Open the chamber," he said, "and step away from the table."

"Okay, you understand why we keep these artifacts in vacuum chambers, right?" Linda said. "Some of these materials react poorly to atmosphere."

Marty hesitated. "Well, how do you transport them, then?"

"It'll take me about fifteen minutes to prep a transfer crate."

"Oh no," Marty said. "You tell me how, I'll do it myself."

"You don't have the training. And it'll take both hands—"

Marty reached into his back pocket and slapped a handful of plastic zip ties down on the table. "Tie yourself up. Ankles first, then wrists."

Linda's company-mandated security training flashed through her mind. She bent down, tied her ankles, then stood up to grab another zip tie. She lost her balance, wobbled, and fell to the floor, landing hard on her shoulder.

"Ow!" she said.

Marty pushed the rest of the zip ties onto the floor next to her. "Hurry up."

Linda picked up a zip tie. "The crates are in that cabinet by the back wall."

As she hoped, Marty turned to look. Linda placed both palms on the floor to brace herself, then swung her legs hard into Marty's shins, knocking him down.

The revolver skittered across the floor. Linda kicked her legs free—she hadn't tied them very tightly—and scrambled over to pick up the weapon. She sat up, turned around, and aimed it at Marty.

He was smiling at her. "Right. Like you know how to use that."

"Smith & Wesson Model 36. Double action, five rounds, .38 caliber."

Linda cocked the hammer. Marty's smile faded.

"Now," Linda said, "who are you working for?"



Image: Sphere/cube vacuum chamber by Jeff Sherman, September, 2005

"A Place in Time"

A PLACE IN TIME
By Curtis C. Chen

Transit always made Judy a little dizzy. As soon as she emerged from the vortex, she found an empty bench and sat down, surveying the park while catching her breath. The people of this century looked so different from her contemporaries—like short, stocky, hairy statues.

To her surprise, she saw movement off one edge of the grass field.

"Not possible," Judy muttered. Then she remembered what the operator had told her before one of her previous transits:

"Well, it's not actually a technical limitation, ma'am. Sure, we gotta comply with commerce regulations and not send too many people each transit, but the technology lets us slice down to the nanosecond level, so we can avoid traveler collisions. And that's only because one nanosecond is the half-life of the positronium stream. Resolution's getting finer all the time, and pretty soon our transit capacity's gonna be pretty much infinite, or close enough that it won't matter..."

Dark hair, cut short, exposed ears, noticeable discoloration over exposed skin areas—this other traveler must have come from an era before her own, and was clearly a man. Judy let out the breath she'd been holding. At least she wouldn't have to confront the thorny issue of what to say if she ever met herself in the past. Not yet, anyway.

She watched the man approach and considered the entertainment value of remaining still a little longer, pretending to be one of the people frozen in this preserved slice of the past. But then she decided her own appearance would give herself away.

Judy stood up just as the man stepped onto the grass. He jumped when he saw her move.

"What the—!" Definitely from the past; that twang was unmistakable. "Who are you?"

"A traveler, like yourself," Judy said. "I'm from the year 3014."

"Three thousand? Wow. I didn't think humanity would last that long—" The man shook his head. "You know what? We shouldn't even be talking. You might accidentally tell me something I shouldn't know."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Judy said. "The Novikov principle dictates that we can't change anything. Determinism and all that."

"Yeah, and exactly how much time traveling did Novikov actually do?"

"I'm told the mathematics are quite airtight."

"You're from the future. Anybody figured out quantum mechanics yet?"

"Not as such."

"Right." The man pointed behind him. "So I'm just going to leave now before we cause some kind of paradox that destroys the universe."

"Wait!" Judy raised a hand. "Perhaps I shouldn't tell you anything, but you can give me information. Time's arrow only flies in one direction, right?"

The man frowned. "What could I possibly tell you?"

"Why are you here?" Judy asked. "That is, why travel to this event, this moment in history? It's not terribly significant, in the grand scheme of things. Most people in my time don't even remember Professor Muntrona."

"Yeah, well, that's my name," the man said. "I'm Frederick Muntrona."

Judy raised an eyebrow. "I had a great-grandfather named Frederick."

Frederick's eyes widened. "Okay, now I really should leave."



Image: squirrel without honor, Washington, DC, July, 2008