Buy My Book!

Well, technically, it's mine and ninety-nine other writers'. But my name is front and center on the cover, just left of the "100" in the logo:



You can pre-order the paperback edition now, or check back on March 4th for the eBook version. All proceeds go to benefit victims of the Haiti earthquake, via the British Red Cross.

"Technobabble"

TECHNOBABBLE
By Curtis C. Chen

"Everybody's sick," said the Doctor.

"That's not possible." The Captain glared at his chief medical officer. "You're not sick. I'm not sick."

"We're not showing symptoms yet. Scans confirm we're both infected. And before you ask, yes, I've run the tests three times."

The Captain continued glaring. "Winston, there are twenty-three different species serving on this ship. Some of our crew members aren't even carbon-based. How can one single contagion possibly affect us all?"

"Don't know what to tell you, Captain. I'm finding the same trace radiation in everyone." The Doctor held up a display pad. "It doesn't match any shipboard systems, so it's not leakage from our power grid. And it's not natural."

"How do you know that?" The Captain pointed a finger at the Doctor. "We were mapping an unexplored sector on the edge of known space. Maybe we found some new astronomical phenomenon. Maybe that's where the radiation came from."

The Doctor pursed his lips. "With all due respect, Captain, I've been over this with Commander Danek already." Jarrell Danek was head of the Ichneumon's science department. "External sensors are not picking up any abnormal readings outside the ship. Nothing is reacting with the hull, the superstructure, or the gravity field generators. We've tested everything."

"But it can't be making everyone sick in the same way," the Captain said. "You said before that our human crew were exhibiting 'flu-like' symptoms. But then—" he tapped at his console— "later, you said Ensign Moyeri had been infected. He's a Thraxian. He doesn't even have a respiratory system."

"No," the Doctor said, "he was experiencing numbness in his extremities. When he came to Sickbay, we found the same radiation throughout his body."

The Captain sighed. "Any idea what's causing the radiation?"

"Not yet."

"You've been working on this for a week."

The expression on the Doctor's face was unreadable. "We are attempting to reverse-engineer a completely novel form of radioactive decay using only shipboard instruments. It could take years."

The Captain groaned. "Remind me again why we can't bring better equipment on board?"

"Because we don't know how the contagion is transmitted," the Doctor said. "We've been assuming it's airborne, but it could be anything. Some kind of nanotechnology, which might be small enough to get through the station's quarantine filters. Maybe even an energy virus."

"Now you're just making stuff up."

"It's theoretically possible. I read a paper—"

"All right, fine." The Captain shook his head. "I assume you came in here because there's some good news to report?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said. "So far, none of the crew has become severely ill. I don't think this thing is life-threatening, whatever it is. And with time, we should be able to collect enough data to find a pattern in how the contagion affects different species, and that should point us toward a cause."

"So we just sit here and wait."

The Doctor shrugged. "Science works. I never said it was fast."

The Captain said, "Sometimes I hate living on the frontier."



Photo: Enterprise-D model at Star Trek: The Experience, Las Vegas, Nevada, August, 2008.

The Stories We Tell for Haiti

Big news! A longer version of my short story "The Stories We Tell Ourselves" (think of it as the "extended remix") will be published in the charity anthology 100 Stories for Haiti, a project organized by British expat author Greg McQueen.



I'm glad my submission was chosen, because this longer version (approximately 1,000 words) incorporates a lot of detail from the first draft which I had to cut for the original 512.

Thanks to Greg and Bridge House Publishing, 100 Stories for Haiti will be in finer bookstores everywhere on March 4th, 2010, with an introduction by Nick Harkaway. If you can't find it locally, ask for it--most booksellers should be able to order copies--or search online.

All proceeds go to benefit the British Red Cross, but this project is also about raising and maintaining awareness. Hundreds of thousands of people have already died in Haiti, and many more are still suffering. If you can do nothing else to help, you can do this: Remember.

"Practice"

PRACTICE
By Curtis C. Chen

Travis didn't recognize the boy running toward him or the woman chasing after the boy. That was his first hint that it was going to be trouble.

He looked up and down the corridor. Where's hospital security when you need them?

The boy skidded to a halt in front of Travis.

"Help you find something?" Travis said, forcing a smile.

The boy gaped for a long moment, then said, "Excuse me, are you—" he looked at something flat and rectangular in his hand— "Doctor Travis Imhofe?"

Travis recognized the object. He hadn't been able to tell what it was before, thanks to the reflection of white hospital walls off the plastic slipcover. Now that the boy had tilted it, Travis could clearly see the stat-block on the back of his residency year-one trading card.

"Yes," Travis sighed. "That's me."

The boy grinned from ear to ear. "Cool!"

The woman caught up to the boy and knelt down next to him, putting her hands on his shoulders.

"I'm sorry!" she said. "He got away from me downstairs. I didn't know he had brought that." She nodded at the trading card.

"It's okay," Travis said, still smiling. "Always nice to meet a fan."

"Will you sign this, please?" the boy asked, holding up the card.

"I'm sorry," Travis said, addressing the mother. "The hospital has a strict policy. No autographs except through the fan club."

He couldn't say what he was really thinking: I'm under enough pressure every time I go into surgery. I'd rather not have to also worry about living up to a child's unrealistic expectations!

He didn't look at the boy's face, but the mother's reaction wasn't much better. She stood up and stepped closer to Travis.

"Couldn't you make an exception?" she asked. "Patrick's been following your career since UCLA. He wants to be a neurosurgeon when he grows up."

Travis glanced over at the nearby nurse's station. The Club rep seated there—her name tag said DORIS—gave him a stern look.

"I'm sorry," Travis repeated. "You know, I think I'm appearing at a convention next month."

Patrick's mother nodded. "I don't know if we could afford that, but..."

Travis gritted his teeth. Come on, dude, he's just a little kid.

"Tell you what," Travis said, lowering his voice. "Leave the card with me, I'll sign it and get it back to you."

"Really?" The woman's eyes widened. "What about the fan club?"

"I'll take care of it," Travis said.

"Oh, thank you!" She explained it to Patrick, who nodded and held up his arm again. "What do you say, Patrick?"

"Thank you!" said the boy.

"No problem," Travis said, slipping the card into a pocket. "I'll just need your mailing address, Mrs.—?"

"Actually," the woman said, "it's Miss. Robinson."

Travis smiled so hard he thought his face might crack. "Your address?"

She recited it for him, then said, "Would you like my phone number, too?"

Travis turned toward the nurse's station. "Doris? Could you call security to escort these nice folks out of the building?"



Photo: Electrocardiogram (EKG) exhibit at Science Museum of Minnesota, July, 2008.

"Telling Tales Out of School"

TELLING TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
By Curtis C. Chen

"I can't tell you who actually shot JFK. But I can say this: Yes, the Company was involved, and the money came from Texas."

That was Nick. I don't know how he found out about the party. I had made a point of not inviting any of his friends, who we'd hardly seen anyway since he broke up with Michelle.

She had been avoiding him all night, and I had been running interference. I was actually relieved to see Nick hitting on some random blonde.

"Think about it," he said. "The driver—sorry, can you excuse me for one second?"

I followed his gaze and saw Michelle heading to our bedroom with a couple of jackets. Nick was elbowing his way toward her. I caught him before he reached the hallway.

"Looking for the little boys' room?" I said.

"Gloria?"

I grabbed his arm and pushed him out the front door, onto the lawn. The sun had gone down hours ago, and it was cold outside. California's a desert.

"What the hell are you doing here, Nick?" I asked.

He folded his arms. "It's a party, right? Free beer."

"If you came here to harass Michelle—"

"I came to say good-bye."

"You had that chance two years ago," I said. "You blew it. She got over it. End of story."

"This is none of your business, Gloria."

That made me angry. "It becomes my business when you break my best friend's heart! When you dump her over e-mail and move to the other side of the country? It's my business when I have to make excuses for you, so she doesn't think it's all her fault!"

He stared at my shoes. "I'm leaving the country tonight. For a long time. Maybe forever. I wanted to..." He shrugged. "To make things right, I guess."

"Michelle wanted you to stay," I said. "She didn't get what she wanted. Why should you?"

He shook his head. "I wish I could explain."

"Why don't you just send her an e-mail?"

I regretted saying it as soon as I saw his eyes.

"Just tell her I'm sorry," he said. "Will you do that?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Thank you." He turned and walked toward the street.

I heard blood rushing in my ears. Maybe I had been a little too hard on him. I'd had at least four drinks that night, and they had all come out of shot glasses. I was just starting to say something when Nick stopped on the sidewalk and spoke into his wristwatch.

"One four tango," he said. "Yes. I'm alone."

The air around him shimmered and glowed like a fluorescent mirage. I heard a soft whut sound, and Nick vanished. One second he was there, and then he wasn't. I ran out to where he had been standing and looked up and down the street. Nothing.

I wasn't drunk. I'm sure Nick knew I was still watching when he left. He wanted me to see. And he knew I could never tell Michelle any of it.

What a bastard.



Photo: Recyclables left behind in hotel room, Falls Church, Virginia, July, 2008.

"The Kid Who Noticed Things"

THE KID WHO NOTICED THINGS
By Curtis C. Chen

Everyone knew Jason Hawn had uncanny powers of observation, but nobody cared much until the day he rescued a cat from the President of the United States.

The President was one of the life-sized robots made for Lemarr Smith's re-election campaign. After Smith won, most of the robots were shut down by remote—they all had built-in radios to receive updated speeches every week during the campaign. Many of the robots disappeared, presumably stripped for parts; the few left standing were reprogrammed to deliver new talking points.

Every day after school, Jason walked past the President outside the western entrance to Linchpin Shoppingtown. This was one of the first Presidents installed anywhere in the country, and its weatherproof exterior was printed with a texture map of a three-piece suit. It had long since stopped talking, but one arm still waved whenever it sensed motion nearby.

The cat in question was a feral female who lived in the woods behind the mall. A variety of wild animals came and went through the battered chain-link fence, foraging in the dumpsters by night.

On this particular afternoon, Jason noticed something fuzzy wriggling in the shadow of the Linchpin President. Normally, he would have ignored it, not wanting to delay his daily pilgrimage to Zeta Blasters, but then he heard a noise.

"Meow?"

Jason stopped and turned. He could just make out the shape of the cat's head, her ears flattened suspiciously.

"What are you doing down there?" he said.

"Meow," the cat replied.

Jason knelt down. The cat was wedged in the seam between the President's trouser legs. As Jason moved closer, the cat groaned and tried to move away. He saw one of her front paws touching the back of the President's left leg. One of the cat's claws had sunk into the President's plastic exterior and was now stuck.

"Hunting something, were you?" Jason muttered. "Okay, now, don't hurt me."

"Meow!" the cat complained as Jason tugged at her front leg.

"Relax," Jason said. "I just need to lift this—"

The claw came loose with a ripping noise, and the cat kicked her legs against the President and Jason's arm. Then she was a brownish blur streaking toward the treeline.

"You're welcome!" Jason called after her.

He turned back to the robot and inspected its torn casing. Inside, he could see electronic components wired into the robot's metal skeleton. He had expected the only circuitry to be up near the President's head, where the speakers were located. Jason himself had built a digital audio player in science class last year, and that hadn't been much bigger than a deck of cards, even with the battery pack. What in the world could all this extra tech be needed for?

Jason touched the side of his eyeglass frames, storing an image of the President's innards, then stood up and walked into the mall. He could research this stuff on Wikipedia later. The afternoon rush was almost upon Zeta Blasters, and he wanted to be first in line to play the new gravity booth.



Photo: Thomas Starr King statue inside U.S. Capitol, July, 2008.

"Within Sight"

WITHIN SIGHT
By Curtis C. Chen

Johanna sees the sound of footsteps, and she panics. Dark blue, blotchy—they're boots, and it's a man wearing them. Can't be good.

Into the bathroom, open the toilet tank—oh, hell, just two more for the road—peel apart dripping wet plastic, pick out the little yellow lifesavers. Dry-swallow both in one gulp, drop the rest and flush. Scrape the lid back into place.

Knocking. Go to the front door, breathe, unlock the deadbolts. Standing outside is a fresh-faced ensign in service khakis. His heartbeat pulses dull red, almost twice a second.

Lieutenant Klaus? says the ensign, whose name tag reads ACKER. His green-blue syllables blossom like a false-color sat map.

Who wants to know? Johanna asks. Her own voice makes a purple tunnel around Acker's face.

VA outreach, Acker says, saluting. We're surveying veterans with synesthetic disorders. He holds up a digital notepad.

Bullshit, Johanna says. The VA doesn't make house calls.

Acker swallows, and his throat glows sickly urine yellow. May I come in, Lieutenant? This is a sensitive matter.

Johanna nods. Acker walks into the apartment. Johanna sticks her head outside, looks both ways down the hall, doesn't see a spotter. Can't be that important if greenhorn came alone.

She closes the door, folds her arms. So what is this really about, Ensign? The last word pulses in a blue halo.

Acker turns his notepad around. The screen glitters with a Naval Intelligence shield above a thumbscan box. I need to verify your identity first, ma'am.

Johanna's heart jumps, painting an orange haze over the pad. She's been waiting for this. Months now, suffering with constant noise in her ears, but she knew they had to approve the transfer. Someone with her experience, her skills? They had no choice!

She reaches for the notepad, smiles up at Acker, and freezes.

His hat. He's still wearing cover, indoors. She had the habit drilled out of her in boot camp—

He grabs her wrist, yanks her thumb toward the scanner. Johanna closes her fist, punches the pad away, slams her forehead into his nose. Before he hits the floor, she's already got her go-bag, pulling open the front door.

Two plainclothes police detectives block her way, one showing his badge, the other holding a revolver.

NYPD, says badge-cop, his voice a red mist shot through with orange streaks. Johanna Klaus, you are under arrest for possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell...

Behind her, Acker struggles to his feet, moaning yellow and green.

Told you that was a dumb idea, revolver-cop calls into the apartment.

Ma'am, I need to handcuff you, says badge-cop.

Johanna drops her bag and turns around. She knows the drill.

Damn, Andy, why do you always get the hot suspects?

The cuffs go on with a flashbulb clink. Jake, this woman was wounded in battle. Show some respect.

Oh, I definitely respect that.

Johanna sees a puff of pink, elbow hitting gut. She allows herself a tiny smile. That's not the drugs.



Photo: View from WWII Memorial in Washington, DC, June, 2008.

Elsewhere, 250 words

At Larry Hosken's urging, I've submitted a story to the "Silhouette" Short Fiction Contest over at The Clarity of Night, a short fiction and poetry blog. I'm Entry #198. Feel free to visit, read, and comment.