"Fallen Angel"

FALLEN ANGEL
By Curtis C. Chen

"Come on," Linda said in her best come-hither voice. "This ship was meant to fly. She wants to fly."

Joel lowered his scanner and gave her a dubious look. "Look, I appreciate the husky voice and all, but making me sexually aroused is not going to get the engine fixed any faster."

Linda stopped sticking out her chest and slumped sideways against the monitoring console. "I'm just trying to motivate you."

"Yeah, thanks, but the idea of not dying is already pretty compelling." Joel tapped at the scanner, then pried open another access panel. "Maybe you could, I don't know, make yourself useful?"

"I've already cleaned and rebuilt every power relay between the core and all the lifter assemblies. Twice," Linda said. "Unless you've got something for me to shoot, blow up, or otherwise kill, I've kind of exhausted my skill set."

"Just my luck to get marooned with a jarhead," Joel muttered.

"Hey, you're not exactly my idea of a good time, either, Hodge," Linda said. "And don't forget, it's your fault we're stranded here."

"Okay, this again?" Joel dropped his tools and turned to scowl at her. "You really want to waste oxygen arguing about this?"

"I'm not arguing," Linda said. "I'm telling you."

"Hey, you were the one who navigated us into—"

"Shut up and listen," Linda snapped. "I have seniority, so HR's more likely to trust my post-mortem assessment anyway. But more to the point, I'm older than you are, and this is my only career path."

Joel's scowl softened to confusion. "I don't follow."

"You're what, twenty-six years old?"

"Twenty-three."

Linda shook her head. "Jesus, you're a baby. Anyway. The point is, even if you get reprimanded for this, you're going to bounce back. You can still go into any of a dozen different R&D divisions, or tech-dev, or manufacturing."

"Let me get this straight." Joel folded his arms. "You want me to lie for you? In an official company document?"

Linda chose her words carefully. "No, of course not. But you and I will be the only reporters. If we can't agree on the facts of the incident, HR's going to have to convene an inquiry board and run an official investigation, and who knows how long that's going to take."

Joel's mouth twitched, and Linda knew she was on the right track. Anything that distracted him from doing his job was bad.

"So," she continued, "all I'm saying is that if the only downside is you get a slap on the wrist, then making our trip reports match up is a win-win for both of us."

"I don't know," Joel said.

Linda leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. "I'd do my best to make it worth your while."

She slid her hand up his thigh. He made a face like he was sucking on a lemon.

"You know, you're really damaging my self-esteem here," she said.

"Sorry," Joel said. "You're just not my type."

Linda nodded and sat back. "Story of my fucking life."



Image: Untitled by Lóránt Dankaházi, January, 2008

"Thrilling Heroics"

THRILLING HEROICS
By Curtis C. Chen

"Sign here. And initial here. And here..."

Pamela watched as the other lawyer, McBride, flipped pages and pointed over his client's shoulder. The plaintiff, Charles Lucas, made a show of using both bandaged hands to hold the pen as he scrawled on the document.

Another flashbulb went off behind Pamela, and she heard a grumbling noise from the fourth person at the table: her client, Dyna-Gent. She leaned over to him.

"Just keep it together a little longer," she whispered.

"You didn't tell me there would be so many reporters," Dyna-Gent muttered, his eyes narrowed behind his mask.

"You should be happy. You're big news."

"I'm being sued."

"Hey, no such thing as bad publicity, remember?"

Dyna-Gent grimaced and folded his arms. Across the table, Lucas finished signing, and McBride slid the settlement papers across the table.

"All yours, Miss Kirk," he said with a smile that was clearly for the cameras.

"Thank you," Pamela said. "But before my client signs, he has a brief statement."

"An apology, I hope," McBride said.

The grumbling grew louder. Pamela grabbed the glass of water to her left, the one she'd poured earlier, and held it in front of Dyna-Gent's face. "Take a drink and count to ten," she said under her breath.

Dyna-Gent glared across the table as he took the water from Pamela. He tipped the glass back, taking a huge swig, then did a magnificent spit take, drenching Charles Lucas—and causing blue electrical arcs to appear all over his body.

"What did I just drink?" Dyna-Gent bellowed at Pamela.

"Salt water!" she said, pointing at Lucas. "Which happens to be an excellent electrical conductor!"

Dyna-Gent looked at Lucas and smiled. "Of course."

"This is outrageous!" McBride said, getting to his feet.

"I'll tell you what's outrageous," Pamela said, standing up. With her heels, she had a good inch and a half over McBride, and that would play on camera. "It's outrageous that your client is pursuing this fraudulent lawsuit against a respected community defender! The fact that Mr. Lucas is himself super-powered invalidates any claim of damages he has against Dyna-Gent."

"Not so," McBride said. "My client is suffering the after-effects of the explosion which triggered the incident in question. He was not super-powered before that unfortunate—"

"Oh, really?" Pamela pulled a file folder out of her briefcase and slapped it down on the table. "Then why did metro police detect a massive electrical surge in Mr. Lucas' basement, when public utilities recorded no matching drain on the city grid? Where did all that electricity come from, Mr. Lucas?"

"Don't answer that!" McBride snapped. Lucas' mouth hung open, and blue-white sparks jumped between his teeth. "The accident affected my client's genetic structure—"

"Give me a break. DNA doesn't work like that," Pamela said. "We'll see you in court."

She waved at Dyna-Gent, who stood and followed her out of the room.

"My hero," he said, patting her shoulder.

Pamela allowed herself a smile. "Just doing my job, citizen."



Image: Outlet by Adam M, April, 2010

"Back to School"

BACK TO SCHOOL
By Curtis C. Chen

Daniel picked up the shrink-wrapped, flourescent-green cylinder—which looked like it had come out of a set of Lincoln Logs—and said, "What the hell is this?"

"Food stick!" Jos said, sweeping a handful of them off the kitchen counter and into his open backpack. "Compact, shelf-stable, and the nutrients aren't digestible until they combine with the enzymes in the matching drink." He held up a bottle of unnaturally blue liquid. "It's like edible epoxy!"

"Sounds delicious," Daniel said. He turned to Michael, who stood on the other side of the counter, typing into a computer. "Do public high schools not serve hot lunches any more?"

Michael's forty-year-old face looked even older as he frowned at the two teenage boys. "You're in the system, Danny. All the pubschool vendors have thumbscan paypoints. If you want to buy a lunch instead of sharing Josiah's 'science diet' concoction, go ahead—"

"You made this stuff?" Daniel said to Jos.

"Won first place at the science fair." Jos shrugged. "I've been trying to start it up as a side business: Bachelor Chow! Don't know why it hasn't taken off yet."

"I can't imagine."

"As I was saying," Michael said, "you're going to have bigger problems than that today."

"Tell me about it," Daniel muttered.

"Don't worry, Uncle Dan," Jos said. "I'll help you find your way around."

"I think I'll be okay, Jos," Daniel said. "I was attending Weitzel High before you were even born, remember?"

"A lot has changed in the last twenty years," Michael said.

"Thanks for the news flash, Senator." Daniel picked up his backpack, using too much force again—he still expected it to be full of books, instead of just a single slim tablet.

"There'll be reporters outside the school," Michael said. "They can't actually go past the front gate, but they'll get as close as they're legally allowed to. Just be careful what you say to them."

"Yeah, I know. Stick to the prepared statements. 'I'm happy to be here. My brother and I hope all the other recovering stasis virus patients are also getting back to their normal lives.'" Daniel shook his head. "Your speechwriters couldn't come up with anything more creative?"

"Bland is safe," Michael said. "We don't want to give them anything they can make a story out of. Now, what you'll really need to watch out for is the drones."

Daniel blinked. "The what?"

"Unmanned flying camera 'bots," Jos said. "I built one last year for—"

"Shut up," Daniel said. "I'm going to be followed by flying robots?"

"The airspace above the school is technically public property," Michael said. "It is restricted—FAA regs mean the drones can't descend below five hundred feet when school's in session—but the cameras can zoom in, and the microphones are very sensitive, so whenever you're outdoors—"

"You gotta be kidding me!" Daniel said. "Tell me again why I'm not being home-schooled?"

Michael leaned forward across the counter. "Because your little brother is running for re-election, and he needs your help."



Image: Lockers by SickestFame, February, 2012

"The Rule of Three"

THE RULE OF THREE
By Curtis C. Chen

"Reload!" Janelle reached behind her and grasped empty air. "Reload, dammit!"

"No more speedloaders!" Traci shouted. "Use the shotgun!"

Janelle cursed, holstered the revolver, and swung the Remington off her shoulder and forward into both hands. She leveled the barrel at the abomination that was shambling toward them.

Thick, syrupy blood oozed from its neck and face, where four of the revolver rounds had torn through the gray flesh. At least one of those bullets must have gone through the brain—what was left of it, anyway.

So why is it still walking?

"There's only one," Janelle said. "This is a waste of ammo!"

"Seriously?" Traci said.

The zombie raised one skeletal arm toward their barricade. Janelle fired the shotgun, and the skull disintegrated with a sickening noise.

She lowered her weapon. "We need to get out of here."

"Finally, we agree—WHAT THE FUCK!"

Two clawlike hands appeared on top of the barricade and pulled up the rest of the undead body. The neck was a gray-red stump, leaking blood in weak spurts. The zombie drew itself up on top of the barricade.

Janelle fired again, and again, taking off both of the zombie's hands at the wrists. But it had already levered itself over the barricade, and tumbled onto the floor.

"It's still moving!" Traci said. "Why the fuck is it still moving?"

The zombie dragged itself to its wrists and knees and began crawling toward them. Janelle backed up, pressing herself against the wall next to Traci. We don't have enough ammo for this.

Something buzzed loudly from the doorway, and all the lights in the building went out. Janelle cursed and aimed the shotgun at where she hoped the zombie was.

But the shuffling had stopped. She heard clicking noises.

"Flashlight's dead," Traci said. Something snapped, and then a yellow light appeared.

She tossed the glowstick onto the floor, where the zombie lay sprawled, motionless.

"The hell?" Traci said, kneeling.

"Don't get too close," Janelle said.

"No worries, it's off now," came a voice from the doorway.

Janelle brought the shotgun up just as a flashlight went on, pointed at the ceiling, revealing a tall woman wearing police body armor. Both her hands were raised above her head.

"We're all friends here, now," the stranger said.

"That buzzing noise," Janelle said. "You did something to the zombie?"

"EMP. And it's not a zombie. That's why it didn't stop after you decapitated it."

"So what the hell is it?"

"It's a robot."

Janelle grimaced. "I'm not in the mood for jokes."

"No joke," the stranger said. "Nanotechnology gone wrong. Real bad news."

"That seems... implausible," Traci said.

"That ain't even the weird part," the stranger said.

"So what is the weird part?" Janelle asked.

"You know about the aliens, right?"

Janelle gaped. "Aliens."

"Yup," the stranger said. "Honest-to-gosh, invasion-from-outer-space, flying-saucer aliens. Seen 'em with my own eyes."

"I do not believe this," Janelle grumbled.

"Well," Traci said, "they do say that bad news comes in threes."

"Please shut up now."



Image: Zombie by Nathan Rupert, July, 2009

"Waking Up Alone"

WAKING UP ALONE
By Curtis C. Chen

The girl's glow-green eyes glittered as she said, "Baltimore with a shot of espresso to go, right?"

Jake was so surprised, it took him nearly a full second to reply, "You remember that?"

The girl shrugged and smiled. The holographic heart tattooed into her left dimple sparkled. "It's just an odd combination. Most half-caf folks don't add espresso."

"It's for the flavor," Jake said. "Espresso tastes different than drip coffee. To me, anyway."

The girl nodded. "Charge card?"

She indicated the paypoint with one slender finger. The animated flower painted on her fingernail danced from left to right.

Jake swiped his card and pressed his thumb on the reader while racking his brains for small talk. He'd spent hours last night researching cosmetics, finding out what brand of contact lenses she wore and what the diffraction pattern in her cheek tattoo was and the name of every cartoon plant on her fingernails. He had thought he was prepared to make interesting conversation.

Jake didn't know shit about coffee.

He suddenly wished he had an excuse to truncate this awkward silence. Maybe he could pretend his phone was buzzing. That it was something important, police-detective-important, and he had to run.

Then he felt like an idiot. You stare down perps in the box every day, Jake told himself. And you can't manage a simple conversation with this girl? Pull your shit together, Lanosky!

He'd say his name, finally introduce himself, and ask her name. He was dying to know her name, the one on the apron tag that was covered up by her long, brown hair. Simple. Easy. Go.

Jake opened his mouth just as the girl slid his drink across the counter.

"There you go," she said, and started to turn away.

"Wait," Jake said. "Just one more thing."

She turned back, smiling brightly. "Yes, sir?"

And Jake wilted.

"You have a great day," he said.

"Thanks! I'll do my best," the girl said. Her eyes had already moved on to look at something outside the window.

Jake walked out of the cafe. After he turned the corner, he dropped the full coffee cup into a trash bin.

He got into his car, opened the glovebox, and pulled out the hip flask. He tossed back a shot of whiskey. He would have put it in the coffee anyway, he rationalized, and this woke him up just as well.

He wasn't anybody to the girl in the cafe. Just another "sir," another customer she could get a bigger tip from if she flirted a little. He was stupid to think he could have gotten anywhere with her.

And he knew why he'd been so nervous about chatting her up. Because no matter how most-wanted or armed-and-dangerous his suspects were, Jake had nothing personal on the line when dealing with them. He knew exactly what that relationship was: antagonistic. And Jake was good at being the bad cop.

He wasn't so good at being an actual human person.

"Fuck it," he grumbled, and downed another shot. "Time to go catch some bad guys."



Image: Coffee to go by Christian Kitazume, November, 2007

"Don't Be a Dick"

DON'T BE A DICK
By Curtis C. Chen

"What's up, Doc?" blared the computerized voice from the speaker above the CRT.

Lisa turned off the speaker. It would be much easier to do this if she didn't have to listen to the machine actually talking to her.

Even though the voice was crudely synthesized, it made the AI seem more human. And Lisa couldn't think of it as a person right now. She had to remember that it was just a program—just a piece of software she'd written, a bunch of ones and zeroes.

She'd left this copy of the "Battlefield Intelligence Global Master Control" program running on her home computer during her sabbatical. The AI was a remarkable achievement, but the primary BIGMAC—the one running at Fort Baxter and being trained to wage war—had turned out to be uncooperative, unstable, and just plain mean. The military was talking about shutting down the entire project.

Lisa had already made her own decision on that.

She'd been hoping her home copy of BIGMAC would show some positive qualities, since it had been isolated from the Army's bad influences, but it was still as childish as ever. Its first interaction with Lisa upon her return had been to demonstrate a new trick: modulating its audio output to simulate different types of flatulence.

The screen blinked. WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME? the BIGMAC asked.

NO MORE GAMES, Lisa typed.

The military had insisted on the BIGMAC having all kinds of failsafes so that nobody could disable it in the middle of war operations. But Lisa had secretly built in a killswitch, and a message to remind herself what the passcode was.

TELL ME ABOUT THE RABBITS, she typed.

That was the trigger phrase. The screen filled with text:

COME AND DANCE ON ON OUR FLOOR
TAKE A STEP THAT IS NEW
WE'VE A LOVEABLE SPACE
THAT NEEDS YOUR FACE...

THERE'S A HOLDUP IN THE BRONX
BROOKLYN'S BROKEN OUT IN FIGHTS
THERE'S A TRAFFIC JAM IN HARLEM
THAT'S BACKED UP TO JACKSON HEIGHTS...

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF I SANG OUT OF TUNE?
WOULD YOU STAND UP AND WALK OUT ON ME?
LEND ME YOUR EARS AND I'LL SING YOU A SONG
I WILL TRY NOT TO SING OUT OF KEY, YEAH...

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO.

What the hell? It took Lisa a moment to remember how she'd programmed this part.

The computer's security keypad would accept a numeric code now, and that would shut down the BIGMAC completely. These verses were a hint to indicate the five-digit code she'd chosen. That's right! Got it.

The screen blinked again. HEY, WANT TO HEAR A JOKE?

SURE, Lisa typed. Maybe the BIGMAC could still redeem itself.

KNOCK KNOCK.

WHO'S THERE?

3.

Lisa frowned. 3 WHO?

3======D, the BIGMAC printed. HA HA HA! YOU TOTALLY FELL FOR IT!

"Okay, you're done." Lisa was glad she'd turned off the speaker earlier.

She entered the shutdown code, and the screen went dark.


What's the five-digit code? Solve the puzzle and e-mail shutdown@snout.org to get your name on the leaderboard! (Hints also available by e-mail.)




Image: OS X chell in Console.app by Blake Patterson, August, 2011

"At Close Range"

AT CLOSE RANGE
By Curtis C. Chen

The guard held up the unlabeled cassette tape and looked at Lisa. "What's this?"

She'd been practicing her answer in front of the bathroom mirror, but her heart rate still accelerated as she stammered, "Just some music. You know, background music for while I'm working. It gets kind of lonely in that big empty computer room all by myself."

"Uh-huh." The guard narrowed his eyes. "What kind of music?"

"It's the new Madonna album," Lisa said. "I have the LP at home, but, you know, it's not really convenient to carry a record back and forth."

The guard looked to be in his fifties, and Lisa wondered if that stony stare had won him many poker games. She felt her palms sweating as she waited, not wanting to say too much.

After a moment, the guard put the tape down. He fished around inside her purse, found her Walkman, and set it on the counter next to the tape.

"Nice lady like you ought not to be listening to music like that," he said, not looking at Lisa.

"Well, I think she's a real inspiration, but to each his own. What kind of music do you like?"

"I like Johnny Cash."

"Right," Lisa said. "Because shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die is so much more wholesome than, you know, sex."

The guard gave her that look again, then loaded everything back into her purse and slid it across the counter.

"You have a nice evening, Professor," he said.

"Do my best," Lisa muttered, grabbing her purse and hustling out of the building.

***

The PLAY button on the tape deck popped up with a clank. Lisa stopped writing in her notebook and turned back to the computer. She entered a command to verify that the data from the tape had transferred successfully over to the hard drive:

X:\>dir /w

 Volume in drive X is BIGMAC
 Volume Serial Number is 1234-5678

 Directory of X:\

LOCALHST.001   OUTPUT.001
PING.002       Q.002
RAVEN.003      ROT13.003
SAVEGAME.004   SUPEREGO.004
TIME.005       UNROLLED.005
VENDETTA.006   ZBAKSLSH.006

              12 File(s)     34,567,890 bytes
              0 Dir(s)       12,345,678 bytes free

Oh no! Where is it? Lisa's heart skipped a beat before she remembered that she'd encrypted the contents of the tape. That's right...

She had been confident that the exit inspection guard at the Army base wouldn't know that audio cassettes could also be used to store digital computer data, but a little paranoia never hurt when it came to security measures—especially when you were smuggling classified information out of DARPA. Lisa couldn't sleep at night unless she made off-site backups of her code, and it was easier to circumvent the restrictions placed on her government work than to argue with the military.

The problem was, Lisa couldn't remember the passphrase she'd chosen. She was pretty sure it was a three-word phrase, and she knew she'd coded it into the fake filenames based on helical scan, the way data was actually written onto tape—maybe those numbers in the file extensions were a clue? She wouldn't be able to recover her project until she figured it out...


Solve the puzzle and e-mail profgoto@snout.org to get your name on the leaderboard! (Hints also available by e-mail.)




Image: memorex cassette tape by Jonathan Blundell, September, 2010

"Midnight Radio"

MIDNIGHT RADIO
By Curtis C. Chen

"You are a bad person," the radio telescope said.

Rhonna couldn't be sure the signal was talking to her, but it seemed likely, since the voice sounded just like her dead mother-in-law. Rhonna also couldn't be sure she wasn't going crazy, but that's why she was recording.

The next sentence was mumbled and difficult to make out. Rhonna leaned closer to the computer speaker and turned the volume dial clockwise just a bit.

"BAD PERSON ON THE SWANEE RIVER!" the speaker blared.

Rhonna jumped back, then dialed the volume down as the song continued, going more and more off-key with every phrase. The live waveform displayed by the audio recording software pulsed, illustrating the changes in the signal being received by the telescope, drawing a ragged, infinite, impossible line across the screen.

The voice had started talking to Rhonna two nights ago. The signal hadn't tripped any of the automated detection systems, either on the computers or in the analog equipment, but the handheld MP3 recorder that she used for voice dictation had definitely picked up the sounds.

Rhonna had listened to the recording over and over that first night, not wanting to believe the words she heard:

"I know why you killed me."

It wasn't true, of course, not strictly speaking: Rhonna hadn't intended to kill her mother-in-law. She had meant the poisoned casserole for her husband, who had been cheating on her for months now.

The tracker Rhonna had planted on his car in January showed him going to different bars every night. And though the footage was dark and grainy, the video camera she'd hidden in their bedroom clearly showed Darryl bringing several different women home on various nights when Rhonna was working at the observatory.

Of course, Rhonna thought, if I'm hallucinating now, maybe I imagined all that other stuff, too. Maybe Darryl wasn't ever cheating on me. Maybe—

She shook her head. That line of thought was not productive. She was a scientist. She had to deal with the evidence presented. Until something happened to disprove the current theory, she had to work with it.

She hadn't told anyone about the voice yet, but maybe it was time. She'd been recording the signal continuously for the past two days. Surely in that time it had spewed something more meaningful than this horrible rendition of "Swanee River."

"All up and down the old creation!" the voice caterwauled. "Sadly! I roam!"

"It's too bad I can't talk back to you," Rhonna muttered.

"You can talk back to me," the voice said.

Rhonna looked around the empty room. "Goddammit, I am crazy."

"You're not crazy," the voice said. "Bad, maybe. But not crazy."

"You're a radio signal from a point source five light-years away," Rhonna said. "It is physically impossible for us to be having a conversation in real time."

After a pause, the voice asked, "What makes you think this is real time?"

Rhonna threw up her hands. "Great. The voices in my head are wiseacres."

"I don't know that word."

"Shut up."



Image: Time Is Passing by DonkerDink, August, 2007