3,900 Other Words

"The Tongue of Bees," by my Viable Paradise XII classmate Claire Humphrey, was published yesterday at Fantasy Magazine. It's a damn good piece of fiction, and one of the legendary "Evil Overlord" stories from the workshop.

The first two lines:

The children roll in clover on the other side of the hill. On this side, Raymond Holt is eating belladonna.

If you tell me you don't want more, I'll know you're lying. What are you still doing here? Go. NOW.

Read "The Tongue of Bees" by Claire Humphrey

"Guards"

GUARDS
By Curtis C. Chen

"Asshole," Ivan muttered as the door closed.

"Geez, say it a little louder, why don't you?" Conrad said. "Those doors are bullet-proof, not sound-proof."

The small, circular room was empty except for the display pedestal, two consoles with chairs, and a trash bin between them. Ivan and Conrad were seated facing a holographic map of the base.

Ivan swiveled his chair around, lifted his forearm onto his console, and flipped up his middle finger.

"That's good. Real mature," Conrad said.

Ivan brought his other arm up and deployed his other middle finger as well.

"I'm going back to work now," Conrad said, ignoring the dance that Ivan's middle fingers were doing.

"Don't you ever get sick of it?" Ivan asked, withdrawing his hands. "Following orders all the time? I sure do."

"Probably shouldn't have joined the Army then."

"Didn't have much of a choice." Ivan slumped in his chair.

"Is this where you tell me a sob story and I pretend to care?" Conrad said.

Ivan slapped his console. A red light started blinking, and a shrill alarm bell sounded. "How about that? You care about that?"

Conrad worked his own controls and silenced the alarm. "What is wrong with you? Now we have to write up an incident report. After the duty officer chews us out for another false alarm. Are you trying to get thrown into stockade?"

Ivan pulled a candy bar out of his shirt pocket. He unwrapped it and had the bar halfway to his mouth when Conrad leaned over and snatched it away.

"Hey!" Ivan said.

"No food or drink," Conrad said, throwing the candy bar into the trash. "Regulations."

"That was the last nutty bar at the exchange," Ivan said. "You owe me."

Conrad grabbed his crotch. "I got your nutty bar right here."

Ivan leapt out of his chair and tackled Conrad. They fell to the ground in a tangle of fists and shouts.

The door slid open. The duty officer entered and shouted, "Attention!"

Conrad and Ivan separated, stood, and lined up against the wall.

"What is going on here?" the duty officer asked.

"He started it," Ivan said, pointing at Conrad.

"What are you, twelve years old?"

"Twelve and a half," Ivan muttered.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" the duty officer screamed into Ivan's face.

"Twelve and a half, SIR!" Ivan replied.

The duty officer turned to Conrad. "And what's YOUR excuse?"

"He had a candy bar, sir!" Conrad said.

"A candy bar," the duty officer repeated.

"A nutty bar," Conrad said. Then, after a moment: "They're the best."

The duty officer shook his head. "Okay. I'm going to write up both you idiots, and your C.O. can decide what to do with you later. Now sit down!"

Conrad and Ivan went back to their consoles. The duty officer walked toward the exit and stopped in the open doorway to give them one final dirty look.

"Kids these days," the duty officer muttered as he left. The door slid shut behind him.

"Asshole," Conrad and Ivan said in unison.



Photo taken at Buckingham Palace, June, 2009.

"The Stories We Tell Ourselves"

THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES
By Curtis C. Chen

Gerald stirred his coffee, waiting to change the world.

The front door of the cafe swung open, and the bell jingled. A bald man wearing an overcoat entered and looked around.

Gerald waved. The man walked to the corner table.

"Gerald Mortman?" the man asked.

"That's me."

The man sat down. "Carl Point. Thank you for meeting me."

Gerald held up his hand. "You want some coffee? I ordered you a cup."

He nodded at the table, where a second mug had appeared in front of Carl.

"That wasn't there before!" Carl said.

"Just a small demonstration," Gerald said.

"Incredible." Carl looked around the coffee shop. "What happens if someone's watching when things change?"

"Nothing changes," Gerald said. "This is how it's always been."

"But I remember—"

"You'll forget soon enough," Gerald said. "Everyone does. Everyone except me." He leaned forward. "We don't have much time."

"Okay," Carl said. "It's my daughter, Emily. She passed away recently. Leukemia. She was five years old."

Gerald started pulling back. "I think you've misunderstood—"

"Just say she didn't die, say she's cured." Carl grabbed Gerald's arm. "I'll pay anything."

"I don't want money," Gerald said.

"Four words. 'Your daughter didn't die.' Simple."

"It's never simple, Mr. Point."

Carl reached under his coat and pulled out a revolver. Gerald heard gasps and murmurs all around. People moved away from the table.

"Say my daughter's alive," Carl said. "Say it!"

"Your daughter is alive, Mr. Point," Gerald said. "She's standing right behind you."

Carl stood, keeping the revolver trained on Gerald, and turned to see a teenage girl with curly brown hair. She was shaking.

"Please, Daddy," she said, "put down the gun."

Carl's head whipped back around to Gerald. "What the hell is this? That's not my daughter!"

"This isn't my story," Gerald said. "This is your story."

"Daddy!" the girl sobbed. "It's me! Allie!"

"Allison?" Carl's face went pale. "My God. You're all grown up."

"You have to stop, Daddy," Allie said.

"Look at your hair. Just like your mother's," Carl said. "God, we were both so young. We couldn't afford to raise a child..."

His arm fell just a little, and Gerald spoke.

"I'm glad you didn't bring a gun, Mr. Point. Some people get upset when I can't help them. Thank you for being reasonable."

Allie was gone, and so was the revolver. Carl looked down at Gerald, his face blank, waiting for the rest of the story.

"I'm glad you've finally accepted your daughter's death."

Carl sat down. "It's been very difficult."

"Go home, Mr. Point. Spend some time with your family. If you ever need to talk, you know how to find me."

Gerald extended his hand, and Carl shook it. "Thank you, Mr. Mortman. I think I'm going to be okay."

"I know you will be."

The bell rang as Carl walked back into the cold.

Gerald took out his notebook and started writing. He had lied to Carl. If he didn't write down all the stories, he would forget them, too. And he wanted to remember.



Photo taken at Charlotte Nature Museum, June, 2008.

This story is dedicated to Bayla. May she rest in peace.

"On Orbit"

ON ORBIT
By Curtis C. Chen

"Someone," Don said, "put poison in the Coke machine?"

"Well, technically, the poison was attached to the water intake," Thomas said. "It's a good thing Richard could taste the difference. And then complained about it."

"How is he, by the way?"

"Nic says he'll be fine. She doesn't want him going EVA for a few days, so I put David into the rotation. We're checking the rest of our water supply now, but it's going to take a while."

Don shook his head. His white hair pixelated with the motion; the low-bandwidth videophone wasn't designed to support much more than talking heads.

"Right." Don tapped at something off-screen. "We'll send more potable water rations in the next supply run. Anything else go wrong this week? Alien body snatchers? A new strain of drug-resistant bacteria?"

"That was a rhinovirus," Thomas said. "And no. That's all the bad news." He tried and failed to hide his smile.

"Oh, boy," Don said. "You did it, didn't you? You nailed Penny."

"Don! I'm offended." Thomas waggled a finger. "And Penny would be, too. She much prefers the terms 'banged,' 'knocked boots,' or 'played hide-the-sausage.'"

The white-haired man sighed. "Is this a space station or a soap opera?"

Thomas shrugged. "Hey, I just work here."

"Seriously, Thomas," Don said, "I can't have you sleeping with anyone in your chain of command. It's bad for morale, not to mention just plain unprofessional."

It took Thomas a moment to process what he heard. "Wait. What are you talking about? We're not even in the same department. I'm Engineering, Penny's Bioscience—"

"You're being promoted," Don said. "Congratulations, Thomas; we're making it official. You're the new Station Chief."

"No." Thomas' finger came up again, this time threatening. "No. You can't do this to me, Don. You don't want me in charge. Cynthia! Give it to Cynthia. She's better at logistics anyway."

"Station doesn't need a log," Don said. "Station needs a leader. That's you."

"Oh, come on! Just because I happened to remember where the emergency supplies were that one time—"

"You know, most people are happy when they get promoted at work."

Thomas shook his head. "I'm flattered, Don, really I am, but this isn't what I want. Not right now." He couldn't stop thinking about Penny—her smile, her lips, her smooth, pale skin. He didn't want to stop thinking about her.

"Too bad." Don's eyes glittered under a scowl. "What everyone on station needs is more important than what you want. It's out of my hands anyway. The board voted yesterday. I'm just the messenger."

"I never wanted your job, Don," Thomas said softly.

"I know. Believe me, I know."

"'Chain of command,'" Thomas muttered. "What are we, a military shop now? Am I going to be issuing uniforms and sidearms next week?"

"I'm hoping it won't come to that," Don said. "But you've still got a—what's the term?—'locked room mystery' on your hands. We need to deal with that first."

"Yeah," Thomas said. "Let's hope it doesn't turn into a murder mystery."



Photo: mission patch from my trip to SpaceCamp in September, 2003.

"Sidrav Corsol's Backstory"

SIDRAV CORSOL'S BACKSTORY
By Curtis C. Chen

"Where's Feli?" Sidrav asked when he got home from Academy.

"She's not here," his father said. He held a glass of ethanol in his metal hands.

"Where is she?" Sidrav asked. "Dad, it's not my fault. I waited right outside the library for her, and I never saw her. She must have snuck out some other way. Brat."

His father stood up. He walked over to the sideboard and picked up a datapad, and Sidrav's heart jumped when he recognized the device he'd been using to track his sister's monthly cycles and medico charts—without her knowledge. They were forbidden calculations, and Sidrav always kept his curiosity hidden. He realized he had left the datapad in the pocket of his trousers before throwing them in the laundry.

Sidrav's father said, "Did you know about this?"

Fear overruled Sidrav's nobler instincts, and he said: "What is it?"

"It's blasphemy!" his father roared, and threw the datapad. Sidrav flinched at the sound of plastic breaking against the wall. His father sat down and shook his head.

"Dad," Sidrav asked quietly, "what happened to Feli?"

"She's gone," his father said. "And good riddance to her. I always knew she would be trouble. I blame your mother." He pointed a chrome finger at Sidrav. "She's at temple now, asking forgiveness, and we're joining her right after I finish my drink."

Sidrav wondered how long his father had been home, and how much he'd already drunk. He wondered when Feliax had been taken away. Maybe there was still time. Maybe he could tell the Pealers that it wasn't her datapad—

And then what? Of course Feli would have denied ownership. She knew it wasn't hers. She had to know it was Sidrav's. She could have given him up. Why hadn't she tried to save herself?

Sidrav agonized about it all night, and finally decided that he had to incriminate himself. He woke early the next morning and searched for some other evidence of his wrongdoing, something traceable to him directly but not Feliax.

He found her message under the bathroom sink, where they used to hide their childhood treasures. It was a palm-sized repro disk, the kind girls used to pass notes and boys used to literally hurl insults at each other. The timeprint showed Feli had written the disk yesterday afternoon.

The message read: "Dear Sid, CONTINUE. Love, Feli."

Sidrav sat on the floor and wept.

"Continue" was what Feli and Sid said to each other in rare, tender moments, when they actually sought permission to persist in teasing each other. "Continue" was what Feliax had said to more than one boy who started asking her out, but became intimidated by the big brother standing beside her.

"Continue" was what Sidrav now heard all over Academy, and he wondered if he and Feliax had been leading a trend, or if he was just noticing it more because of his guilt.

CONTINUE was what Sidrav did. But he vowed to never again risk anyone else's life for his beliefs. Especially not his family.



This week's 512 is an excerpt from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, which is based on a previous 512 story, "Better."

"Rieta Linbitter's Backstory"

RIETA LINBITTER'S BACKSTORY
By Curtis C. Chen

It still amazed Rieta that her husband could do so many delicate things with his metal appendages. The men in Rieta's family were rarely gentle. Her own father had earned his arms through military service, and he would have stayed in except that the rulers had discharged him. It happened to a few soldiers every year. The rulers never explained why, and nobody dared to complain.

Rieta's mother was happy to have her father home instead of being deployed to faraway lands at some commander's whim, but he had been denied a lifetime of glorious conquest and a warrior's death on the battlefield, and he felt cheated. Rieta's grandfather had been a ground general in the Amphibious War. All the men in Rieta's family had grown up in a martial atmosphere, conditioned to respect strength in others and cultivate it in themselves.

Rieta had learned the same lessons from the receiving end. Men were protectors, or destroyers, and for the longest time she believed that her own happiness and safety depended on choosing the right kind to be her husband. Then her father had been discharged, and she had watched him turn from a good man into something else.

She would always hesitate to say what he became after leaving the army. It wasn't that she couldn't put a name to it; she just feared that saying the word aloud would cement the concept in reality. Rieta knew the power of incantation, and she did not want to curse her father any more than he already had been.

He had only struck her once in her life. Rieta had been nine years old and late getting home for dinner one night. She had walked into the dining room to find the table set with food, and her parents sitting but not eating.

Rieta couldn't remember if she or her father had said anything. She remembered that her mother had stayed silent, with wide eyes and a pale face. She remembered that her father had stood and raised his arm, and she had wondered what he was going to do with it.

She remembered the pain. She winced when she thought of it, and her tongue went involuntarily to the space in her mouth where there used to be a tooth. She remembered blacking out for a moment, and her father being gone when she struggled back to her feet, and her mother still sitting at the table.

He had only struck Rieta once, and never again. The Pealers found him asleep in an alley the next morning and brought him home.

Rieta had not looked at made men and their metal arms the same after that. Where once she saw strength, she also now saw terrible power. She understood that even though those metal arms and legs were bonded to human bodies, they were no more or less tools than the shovels and lasers used by builders. And tools could be used for good or ill.



This week's 512 is an excerpt from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, which is based on a previous 512 story, "Better."

"Harold & Kumar Get Left 4 Dead Once Upon A Time In Mexico"

HAROLD & KUMAR GET LEFT 4 DEAD ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
By Curtis C. Chen

Tijuana after the zombie apocalypse didn't look that different to Harold Lee. Of course, all the previous times he'd visited, he'd been drunk, stoned, or both.

He heard rustling outside the front door of the motel. Harold crouched down behind the counter and aimed his assault rifle.

The doorknob turned, and Harold hesitated. Zombies don't do that! Do they?

Kumar Patel threw open the door and ran in, holding an automatic shotgun in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. "Harold! Where are you?"

Harold stood up, his heart still pounding. "Close the door and keep your voice down, man!"

Kumar kicked the door shut. "You're not going to believe—"

"Dude!" Harold said. "Knock before entering. I almost blew your head off!"

"It's cool, I forgive you. Check this out!" Kumar laid his shotgun on the counter, opened the paper bag, and pulled out a plastic-wrapped green bundle.

Harold stared at the bundle. "What is it with you?"

"I know! It's like a sixth sense or something. I was just coming back through the alley—"

Harold slapped Kumar across the face.

"What the fuck!" Kumar said.

"Exactly," Harold said. "We're stranded in Tijuana. There are thousands of zombies between us and the border. We have two guns. It's going to be dark soon.

"And all you can think about is getting high?" he screamed.

Kumar nodded. "You're right. We'll probably be dead in a few hours." He held up the bundle. "So do you want to bite it with a stick up your ass, or do you want to go out in a haze of glory?"

Harold glared at him.

***

The back door of the motel clanged open. The noise echoed down the alley.

"Fuck me, that was loud," Kumar said, stepping through.

"It's cool, man," Harold said, following. "Zombies can't hear shit."

Harold had to admit, Kumar had found some amazing weed. He took a long drag off the joint and handed it over.

Kumar puffed and said, "Fucking zombies." He hefted his shotgun. "Come and suck on this, you undead assholes!"

"Sshhh!" Harold hissed.

They stopped. The sound of a little girl crying drifted toward them. They inched forward until they saw a thin, pale body kneeling at the end of the alley, rocking back and forth.

"Witch!" Harold whispered. "Turn off your flashlight. We gotta sneak around her."

Kumar put a hand on his belt. "I have a better idea."

"What? Nooooo..."

Harold seemed to move in slow motion as Kumar raised the bottle, touched the gasoline-soaked rag in its neck to the burning joint in his mouth, and threw the Molotov. It smashed open against the witch's head, spilling flame everywhere. She screamed.

Kumar chuckled. A sparkle in the distance caught his eye. He squinted at a building across the street. A figure walked into the amber light of sunset. Kumar saw cowboy boots with spurs, a sequined shirt, and a giant sombrero. A dark mustache obscured much of the face, but it looked like—

"Neil Patrick Harris?" Kumar said.

"Part of the Solution"

PART OF THE SOLUTION
By Curtis C. Chen

"This job is killing me," Tim said.

"Maybe you should find a new job," Karl said.

"That's funny." Tim tossed back the rest of his drink.

"I think you've had enough." Karl waved a bill at the bartender. "I'll drive you home."

"I'll call a cab."

"Like hell you will." Karl paid their tab and grabbed Tim's left arm.

Tim made a halfhearted attempt to break free of Karl's grip. "What time is it?"

"Half past midnight," Karl said, shoving Tim forward.

"One more for the road," Tim said, spinning himself around.

Karl twisted Tim's arm behind his back and pushed him down into an empty chair by the door. "I'm the brawn, remember?"

Tim grimaced with pain. "Make it a coffee?"

Karl shook his head and flagged down a waitress.

***

Tim's wristwatch beeped on the hour at one o'clock, and he stopped struggling and let Karl maneuver him the rest of the way up to his apartment.

"You're a great partner," Tim said.

"Don't kiss me," Karl said.

"I ain't that drunk."

At the top of the stairs, Karl lowered Tim to a sitting position in the hallway, facing away from the door to Tim's apartment. Karl had to use both hands to turn the key in the ancient lock. He had stopped complaining after the first dozen times.

Tim closed his eyes and hummed loudly, trying to muffle the sounds he knew were coming.

Karl had been a good partner. It wasn't just his formerly sense-resistant brain structure or his physical strength. They had been a team. Karl hadn't simply shielded Tim's sensitive noggin, though he had lasted longer at that than anyone else. Karl had also helped with their investigations. He had been least as much a solver as Tim had. Sometimes more.

The whiskey was wearing off. Tim could feel the familiar tingling in his head which preceded the intrusion of another person's subconscious. The company called it a gift, but it felt more like a curse—he couldn't control it, couldn't even read people clearly most of the time, usually just got jumbled images—

Should have let him have that last drink. Might have been asleep by now. Wouldn't have to listen to his off-key humming.

Tim's head snapped up, and the thought flashed through his mind before he could speak: I'm reading Karl? That's impossible!

Karl looked down at Tim, frowning. "What's impossible?"

The door creaked open.

Tim launched himself sideways, slamming his shoulder into Karl's legs and knocking him down. The shotgun discharged a split second after Karl's head dropped out of the doorway.

Karl had already drawn his sidearm and was pulling his cell phone out of his jacket. Tim grabbed his partner's hand and stopped him from pushing the panic button.

Twelve-gauge rigged to a magnetic switch, activated by light and motion sensors, Tim thought, looking straight at Karl. Plausible deniability.

Karl blinked twice, then lowered his weapon. "You're—I'm—"

Tim pulled out his own cell phone, opened the case, and removed the battery. "Disappear first. Talk later."