2 NICKY DRAYDEN
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION: Delightfully Twisted Tales Collection
Also by Nicky Drayden THE PREY OF GODS TEMPER
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 3
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION: Delightfully Twisted Tales Collection
NICKY DRAYDEN
4 NICKY DRAYDEN
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION: Delightfully Twisted Tales Collection
by Nicky Drayden
PUBLISHED BY: Nicky Drayden
Twisted Beyond Recognition: Delightfully Twisted Tales Collection Copyright © 2016 by Nicky Drayden All rights reserved.
Robot Photograph by Sebastian Lund, Creative Commons Firedancer photograph by Taro Taylor, Creative Commons Doorknocker photograph by Dominic Alves, Creative Commons Mushroom photograph by Lindsay Dee Bunny, Creative Commons Zombie Doll Photograph by Keng Susumpow, Creative Commons Fuzzle Photograph by JD Hancock, Creative Commons
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 5
Table of Contents Volume One: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind...... 9 WINNING STREAK...... 10 MEMORIES AND ALL THAT...... 18 THE PUDDING MASTER AND I ...... 23 WRATH OF THE PORCELAIN GODS ...... 30 Volume Two: Fire, Fangs and Brimstone ...... 35 WITH GOOD INTENTIONS ...... 36 FORGOTTEN PRAYERS ...... 39 HELLHOUND RESCUE ...... 44 BLUE MOON ...... 46 Volume Three: The Weirdos Next Door ...... 56 EXTREME PIRATES ...... 57 BURT'S HOME HYDROPONICS ...... 60 POST: APOCALYPTIC ...... 67 A PEACH FARMER'S PREDICAMENT (or HOW STELLAR GOT HIS GROVE BACK) ...... 69 Volume Four: Wisps, Spells and Faerie Tales ...... 83 LOW-CARB CHEESECAKE ...... 84 WIZARD FIGHT ON SIXTH STREET ...... 88 UP IN SMOKE ...... 90 JACK AND THE STEAMSTALK ...... 92 Volume Five: Love and Other Filthy Habits ...... 111 YOU HAD ME AT RARRRGG ...... 112 6 NICKY DRAYDEN
MOTHER TENTACLE ...... 117 NO MORE GOLD STARS ...... 119 TIME'S JEWEL ...... 123 Volume Six: Family Antimatters ...... 145 EQUILIBRIUMS ...... 146 CHILD HOUSE ...... 151 ANTIMATTER IS A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND ...... 156 Volume Seven: The Wide, Wide World of Weird ...... 168 OF IN-LAWS AND CLOSE ENCOUNTERS ...... 169 THE LAST PHARMACIST ...... 177 THE AUBERGINE WOK ...... 182 THE UNDYING FANS OF AN UNKNOWN COVER BAND ...... 192 LILITOL THE CURMUDGEON ...... 194 DOUBLE RATIONS ...... 201 THE MYSTERIES WITHIN ...... 207 SEED MONEY ...... 232 WELCOME HOME ...... 238 A STITCH IN SPACE-TIME ...... 241 NAYANI ...... 248 SKINNY JEANS OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE..... 266 Volume Eight: The Worst of Both Worlds ...... 273 OUR DRUNKEN TJENG ...... 274 BIPEDAL ...... 283 THE ATMOSPHERE MAN ...... 291 TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 7
BREVA ...... 304 Volume Nine: The Future of Future Planning ...... 336 PRACTICAL COLLEGE MAJORS IN A ROBOT- DOMINATED SOCIETY ...... 337 AN UNPARALLELED REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY ...... 340 UNNATURAL FAMILY PLANNING ...... 344 INVESTMENT STRATEGIES IN A POST- APOCALYPTIC WORLD ...... 348 PLANNING FOR YOUR RE-RETIREMENT ...... 352 EARTH'S DESTRUCTION, A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN ...... 355
8 NICKY DRAYDEN TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 9
Volume One: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind
10 NICKY DRAYDEN
WINNING STREAK BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2010
Seven security gargoyles stare at me from atop the elaborate sandstone columns lining the casino's walls. Their sharp eyes and oversized talons flex ever so slightly in anticipation of snatching up cheaters like unsuspecting prey. They've moved closer since I first sat down at this slot machine, the only place in the casino that hadn't had line-of-sight thanks to a fortunate arrangement of overgrown palm fronds and the gritty haze from a gaggle of feathered Gwiffahs smoking silvawax from a hookah. But the gargoyles have been swarming to my location ever since my machine passed 87,000 kalax, its blinking lights and wailing sirens announcing my winnings to the entire casino. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 11
The pit boss watches me too, now, and for good reason. I'm an Ittari after all, a shapeshifter, just as they'd identified me with the DNA scan when I'd entered this fine establishment. Traleel Az, their biometric readouts had said, and along with my name and race, they'd listed half a dozen details – birthdate, gender, height, mass, skin color, eye color – all inaccurate and irrelevant to my kind. As I redouble my winnings, the management must really be sweating. They tempt me with free drinks and tickets to an impressive buffet featuring delicacies from every corner of the Cascade. They'll do anything to knock me out of this winning streak. "I don't drink," I tell the waitress, a Krellian girl with silver skin and a prehensile tail holding a cocktail that looks strong enough to peel the paint off the hull of my space cruiser. "I don't eat either, actually." Not humanoid food anyway. They'll have to do better than that to stop me. I pull the lever on my slot machine again and watch the symbols fall into a line – three Bulouvian cherries, all in a row. Jackpot. Now I stand at 415,000 kalax. When I hit 1.2 million kalax, the pit boss comes down to congratulate me himself, a six-footed Crawvite, a smile on his long equine face. But he can't stop his nervousness from showing as his hooves clack apprehensively on the casino's slick granite floor. "I'd like to offer you a three-night stay in our penthouse suite," the pit boss says, shaking his luxurious 12 NICKY DRAYDEN mane in an obvious boast. The suites here are renowned across the Southern Cascade, not a single amenity overlooked. "Why don't you get a little rest, then come back to the floor when you're refreshed?" I smile back at him. "No thanks," I say. "I'm sort of on a roll here. And besides, Ittari don't need sleep. I just hope your casino has enough money in the vault to cash my voucher." And with that, I pull the lever, and what do you know, another jackpot. I can't lose! The gargoyles flock to my machine, dozens of them, heads cocked, eyes sparking like struck flint, muscles tensing beneath stone. But they only suspect. The crowd behind me cheers me on, eighty or so witnesses that make any illicit means of prying me from this seat pretty much out of the question. Losing thousands of kalax is one thing, but having a reputation for strong- arming patrons would be even more damaging to the casino in the long run. Nevertheless, three consecutive jackpots later, I'm being scanned and poked, prodded and searched. "He's a no-good, dirty shapeshifter!" the pit boss says to the disconcerted crowd, as if that would get them on his side. They gasp at his words, and I roll my eyes ... I mean literally pop them out-of-socket and into the palm of my hand. I close them into my fist, and when I reopen it, they're a pair of dice. I give them a shake, then toss them into the crowd. My audience shuffles out of the way as the dice tumble across the floor, then finally skid to a stop. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 13
"Lucky seven!" an old Gwiffah biddy clucks. She's so excited that her yellow feathers molt all over the place, and she can barely keep her wingtips from shaking as she scoops the dice up for a souvenir. They won't be much of a souvenir once she's on her way home, though – just a small puddle of oily, black goo when the dice leave the range of the coalescence field that allows me to hold my shape. "You let me in here knowing what I was," I say to the pit boss with a sneer. "In fact you're the only casino in this system to let Ittaris gamble. You claim your machines are tamperproof, or is that just a marketing ploy? I'm good enough to play your games as long as you're taking my money, but suddenly if things are reversed, I must be a criminal?" The crowd applauds me, and I know I've got them in my pocket. Suddenly the casino is on the verge of some very bad press. "Of course not!" the pit boss whinnies, trying to save face. "Our slot machines are tamperproof. But what you've done is impossible!" "Improbable, yes, but not impossible. I figure the chances of hitting eleven jackpots in a row is one in eight billion, two hundred fifty million, six hundred twelve thousand, three hundred and fifty-four." "We know you're cheating, Traleel," the pit boss finally accuses, drawing his pink gums back to expose gleaming white teeth. "Tell us how and we won't press charges." "I'm not cheating. The machine is hot, that's all." I 14 NICKY DRAYDEN morph myself a new set of eyes, then nod at the machine. "Why don't you give it a spin?" He looks at me dubiously, then trots over and pulls the handle. Jackpot! The pit boss shakes his head in disbelief then orders the machine dismantled. Without warning, stone talons grip me, and I'm whisked away to the pit boss's lair for more questioning. A tinted glass wall overlooks the glitzy casino floor where thousands of patrons from hundreds of homeworlds plink their hard-earned kalax into stingy machines. We're all chasing crazy dreams of striking it rich, though what sets us apart is how much we're willing to sacrifice to make those dreams come true. I'm feeling smug, maybe a little cocky as the pit boss paces the length of the room. At the center of his lair is a strikingly intricate desk, which I can't help but notice is carved from a Brahvian mammoth skull. Insanely expensive. Highly illegal. Most people might take this as a threat, but it's difficult to intimidate an Ittari. Can't exactly torture someone who can slip into a semi-liquid state, and forget about using those primitive lie detectors on me. "So maybe you won't talk," says the pit boss, pulling a pistol out from a pewter box sitting on his desk. The pistol's bloated barrel is streaked with white light converging into a puckered tip. "But once my crew is finished dismantling that slot machine, I'll know the truth, and you'll be nothing but a puddle of sewer sludge." I almost flinch, but I keep my cool. I hadn't thought TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 15 oride laser technology had made it to this edge of the Cascade. It's the only frequency of light that can nullify my coalescence field. We lock eyes like adversaries across the pink felt of a Brahvian Hold'em table. The pit boss's wide nostrils flare. Maybe it's a tell, maybe just a twitch. But I decide to call him on it, because one, I've never been the type to play the odds, and two, he's holding the pistol backwards. "You can't prove anything," I tell the pit boss, "because there's nothing to prove. Not even telepaths can tamper with your machines, much less a no-good, dirty Ittari like myself. You really think I've got the smarts to crack your encryptions?" He raises an arrogant eyebrow and gives me a long once-over. "Absolutely not." "Well, unless you've got anything else you'd like to accuse me of, I think I'll collect my winnings now." "A six million kalax payout would cripple us," the pit boss admits, and I almost feel sorry for him. "Not necessarily," I say. "Just think of all the press coverage you'll get! ‘Local shapeshifter wins big' the headlines will read. ‘Hits eleven jackpots in a row!' People will be swarming in here like Guruvian flies on a pile of dung to play on that machine!" The pit boss hems and haws and whinnies, his nostrils flaring in disgust. Finally, he places the pistol back in its box. "Maybe we can make a deal. One million kalax paid now and the rest paid over a five-year period." 16 NICKY DRAYDEN
I bite my lip and entertain the offer. "Two million," I dare to say. "And the rest paid over a five-year period including twenty percent interest." The pit boss rears his hooves up, then claps them back down on the floor. His tail swishes vigorously. He's aggravated beyond belief, but what choice does he have? "One-point-five million and fifteen percent interest," he finally says. I extend my hand and we shake on it. "You drive a hard bargain, sir," I say. "But I can assure you I'll only give glowing reviews of your establishment. This is my favorite casino in the Southern Cascade. And I'm not just saying that because you're the only one who lets me in." The pit boss grimaces, then escorts me to the vault. It takes three gargoyles to haul my winnings out to my space cruiser. Once I'm loaded up, I wave goodbye to the pit boss and blast off, still a no-good, dirty Ittari, but a rich one. I feel my coalescence field straining, first just a tiny tug the size of a pair of dice. A sharp pain runs through my core as I lose that part of me, and somewhere in that old Gwiffah biddy's purse, the pair of souvenir dice turns into two oil puddles. I laugh, wondering how I of all people had pulled off the scam of the century. I'm definitely not smart enough to tamper with those machines, though I doubt anyone is. They truly are the most encrypted in the Cascade. But there is one thing I'm good at and that's shifting. I can imitate TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 17 just about anything, from something as small and simple as those dice, to something as large and mechanically complex as a personal space cruiser, like the one I'm flying right now. I ache again, this time much more intensely. The coalescence field is straining one last time as I break the planet's orbit. Before the bond severs completely, I give the lever a final spin. Somewhere in the pit boss's lair, three Bulouvian cherries blink all in a row, announcing a final jackpot before the slot machine melts into an oil slick on the casino floor.
18 NICKY DRAYDEN
MEMORIES AND ALL THAT BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Space Squid, 2009
Cul-de-sac. Manicured front lawn. White picket fence. Every robot's dream. Not even the boxes stacked floor to ceiling in the garage could dampen KATH-090's mood. She ran her giddy smile subroutine, hands clasped against her alloy chest. "Don't just stand there," said BIT-772, all-terrain conveyor wheels spinning like mad and extendo-pincers loaded with an array of interchangeable parts. He carefully hung the attachments on a peg board, organized by size and function. "Wanna give me a hand?" KATH-090 unscrewed hers and took her husband's side. "Can't you let me enjoy this moment? It's not every TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 19 day we get to move into our own home." She handed him the hand, standard traction grip #54, and stood back as BIT-772 used its fine motor skills to polish his collection until the chrome cast nicks of light in each direction. A check sum error jolted KATH-090 upright, and she examined the peg board closely. "Dear," she said, "I thought we got rid of those blender attachments in the garage sale." "Changed my mind. They might come in handy." "You haven't used them in eight upgrades. I hardly think you'll need them now." "But they're some of the first parts we bought together, remember?" KATH-090 felt BIT-772's wireless interface protocol rev up, no doubt trying to guilt her into nostalgia with dusty memory addresses on hard drive sectors long forgotten. It wouldn't work. He'd promised a dozen times that he'd pare down his collection, and she wasn't taking any more excuses. "Give it to me. Now." She held out her still-attached palm. "But the neighbors might stop by. Wouldn't it be nice to whip up some strawberry-banana smoothies to break the ice?" "Fancy drinks aren't going to stop them from noticing, BIT." KATH-090 knocked on her torso, resulting in a dull metallic clank. "In case you haven't realized, we're the only non-organics on this block. Maybe we should have stayed 20 NICKY DRAYDEN at ROOT. Got a nice little condo overlooking Neural Net Bay." "Don't be silly, sweetheart. This is our dream. Right here. Right now. We've finally made it." BIT-772 reached out and brushed KATH-090's backlit cheek. She felt a tingle surge through her circuitry. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. She had BIT after all, and that's all she really needed. They'd endured this arduous journey together, and if he wanted to keep his blender parts for sentimental reasons, she'd overlook it. Just this once. "You're right. Our neighbors will like us for who we are, and if they don't, their loss." "Damn straight." KATH-090 returned to a half-empty box, her over- clocked processor humming, eager to get everything unpacked and in its place. She reached inside and pulled out a rusted branding iron bearing the insignia of BIT's college frat, Iota Beta Mu. "Dear," KATH-090 said, her voice output raised an octave. "I thought you got rid of this thing." "Can't, honey. Memories and all that ..." KATH-090's jaw came unhinged. "Seriously? This isn't some sort of parody, BIT! What in the mecha gods' green earth would we need with a branding iron in the suburbs?" She attached the part in frustration and sent signals to the heating elements. "You're being selfish, taking up all this valuable space. You promised we'd commission offspring next year!" TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 21
"We will. We will," said BIT-772, hand and pincer thrown up in submission. But KATH-090 brought the rod closer, red-hot iron rippling the air. BIT-772's heat sync whirred as it kicked into overdrive. "I promise. I'll get rid of some stuff." "Good." KATH-090 was about to disengage the rod when an organic's voice startled her. "Excuse me. I'm not interrupting, am I?" KATH-090 spun around, rod swinging wildly. Off balance, she lurched forward, molten iron plunging right into the forehead of a rosy-cheeked woman wielding blue oven mitts and a cake pan. She screamed bloody murder, steam rising from scorched flesh. KATH-090 immediately retracted the rod, the acrid smell filtering through her nasal emulators. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" KATH-090 said over and over until she thought herself to be caught in an infinite loop. The woman's pan slipped from her grip, colliding against the garage floor, sending freshly made circuit loaf and synthetic oil icing all over the place – icing that had once read "Welcome to the Neighborhood." The woman curled into a shivering lump. Neighbors exited their homes, craning their necks to locate the source of the disturbance to their suburban oasis. KATH-090 stood there, grimacing at the mess she'd made. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she said again.
22 NICKY DRAYDEN
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 23
THE PUDDING MASTER AND I BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Nobody in the whole of Dury, Colorado had batted an eyelash when the Rynoss came to town. After all, we'd had an Anchovian president going on three years, and after the brouhaha over renovating the White House into a giant aquarium had settled, people became a lot more complacent about the alien populations cropping up in their neighborhoods. We were cordial to the Rynoss, but there'd just been three of them, then. "Don't stare," I'd hear mothers say to their children as they passed the Rynoss on the streets. It was hard for them not to stick out, being two tons each, covered with gray hide as thick as AT&T's Intergalactic phone book. Their horns were intimidating, I'm not going to lie, jutting up 24 NICKY DRAYDEN from their wide snouts. But that's not why people stared. It was the hot pink legwarmers and 80s platinum blonde wigs that did it. Not to mention the Rynoss had a tendency to screech Boy George and Cyndi Lauper lyrics suddenly and without warning. Apparently they were trying to fit in, but their research on American trends had somehow directed them to the 1980s instead of the 2180s. Being an amateur historian to that era, I didn't mind, but when the Rynoss finally noticed they were being laughed at, they tossed all their glam fashion and reverted to their natural state: walking on all fours and crapping wherever the hell they pleased. Nobody said a word to them, because they still had their immense horns, polished and sharpened into a fine point. Dury, Colorado is best known for its hot springs, and the Rynoss sure made good use of them. At first I didn't mind sharing, because there's nothing that'll bridge an interspecies gap like stewing together when the weather dips below freezing. I tried to make conversation, asking the Rynoss more about their culture and what brought them to Earth, but they only stared back and snorted. One of the Rynoss took out a small cardboard box and emptied its contents into the spring. "Hey!" I said, starting to reprimand the Rynoss, but then it jutted its horn in my direction. I swallowed my words. After all, it's not like I'd never snuck mineral oils or Epson salt out here on occasion. Yeah, it was frowned upon, but it happened. I relaxed and ignored the Rynoss, TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 25 letting the hot water penetrate my muscles. It wasn't until I was showering at home that I noticed my skin smelled faintly of butterscotch.
Thirty more Rynoss took up residency during the next year. I hardly ever went to the hot springs after that. The Rynoss were always there, dumping their instant pudding packets into the water, so that even on the rare occasions I could squeeze between the brutes, my skin always ended up sticky and I couldn't get the butterscotch smell out of my hair for weeks. We held a town meeting about it and decided to pass an ordinance about contaminating the spring. We posted signs all over in eighteen different languages, but the Rynoss ignored them. Eventually the sheriff's department got involved, attempting to arrest the Rynoss for twenty counts of indecency with an instant dessert product. That didn't end pretty. The funerals were well attended, though, and by some miracle, three out of four of the deputies were able to have open caskets. Soon afterwards, the Mayor of Dury received a phone call from the White House.
The National Guard rolled into town to "assess the 26 NICKY DRAYDEN situation." We were told to stay in our homes and to be cooperative if they had questions for us. In my interview, I told them that the Rynoss weren't making any efforts to integrate into society, and other than the 80s song lyrics and the occasional "Gag me with a spoon!" or "Totally tubular!" I'd never heard them speak an ounce of English or any other of the US's official languages. I told them everything – about the pudding, about how the Rynoss had snarled at me, wondering how close to death I had come that day. When I started asking questions of my own about whether or not it was safe to stay in Dury, they fed me stock answers. "Everything's going to be okay," they said. "We've got a handle on the situation." Boy, I wish I hadn't believed them.
It wasn't so bad being a slave, not after I got used to the shock collar and the beatings. But there are definitely worse things than hauling wheelbarrows full of steaming butterscotch, barefoot through the snow while Rynoss guards breathe down your neck. Of course, I couldn't think of anything at the time, but I was still new to slavery then. I'd dump the butterscotch pudding into brick molds where they froze and hardened. They were then hauled up into the mountains to build the Sacred City of Pudding, but I never saw any of that. Rumors got around. The most reliable claimed there to TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 27 be three giant temples of butterscotch, so beautiful when the sun glinted off their frozen bricks. I often imagined it on my treks of hauling butterscotch from the springs. "I pray I will be blessed enough to see the Sacred City of Pudding with my own eyes," I'd say each day to one of the guards. There was little else to talk about that didn't end in 3000 volts of electricity surging down my spine and ravaging my bowels. "If the Pudding Master wills it, it shall be done," the guard said. "A million kisses upon his Sacred Horn," I said in response, the only response permitted. We had that conversation a thousand times, never straying by even the slightest inflection in my voice. I couldn't risk it. I wondered sometimes why I even bothered speaking, but at least it reminded me that I was human ... or had been once. Then this one time, the Rynoss guard started humming the tune to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Despite my fear, the lyrics dredged up a part of me that I'd thought I'd lost. I couldn't stop myself. I hummed along. The Rynoss stomped his feet firmly into the snow covered ground and stared at me, fierce eyes drilling into mine. I knew I'd made a mistake. I clenched my bowels tight in anticipation, bracing for the ensuing shock. But it didn't come. Instead the Rynoss smiled at me – not an incredibly comforting action, but I took it he meant no harm. "You know the hymnals?" the Rynoss asked. 28 NICKY DRAYDEN
I nodded and started humming Boy George's "Karma Chameleon." The Rynoss grunted back with approval. "Come," the Rynoss said, dragging me away from my wheelbarrow. "I must take you to the Pudding Master."
The Sacred City of Pudding was more magnificent than I could have imagined – every brick so meticulously set, like bars of gold lining the streets, the temples, and along an empty canal meandering through the entire city. Rynoss walked about in their legwarmers and curly wigs, unabashed. Butterscotch bells played "Time After Time", each note wrenching my soul with its beauty. The Rynoss led me to the largest of the temples. To my surprise, the Great Pudding Master was not Rynoss at all, nor did it have a horn, Sacred or otherwise. It looked more like a zebra, except dressed in a patent leather trench coat, from which escaped an unseemly amount of chest hair. "This one knows the sacred hymnals," said the Rynoss, pushing me forward. "Does it, now?" the Pudding Master bellowed, caressing my cheek with one of its manicured hooves. "Then perhaps I shall take it as my concubine." "Wait!" I yelled, throwing my arms up in alarm, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. "I don't know any hymnals." TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 29
"You waste my time?" the Great Pudding Master asked, before whinnying at the guard. "Take it to join the others then, for sacrifice to the Sacred City of Pudding. Human blood shall run eternally through the canals, and yours shall be the first!" "Wait!" I said again, reaching for the Pudding Master. "There's been a mistake. I do know the hymnals. I know them all! Please, just allow me to sing them to you!" And I got down on my knees and belted out every single eighties song I knew, some of them twice. I'd never considered myself a good vocalist, but perhaps it was for the best, because the sharper the notes I hit, the louder the Pudding Master bleated with delight. "You shall be mine, human," the Pudding Master purred, drawing back his coat to reveal a long, thorny, swirling horn protruding from his nether regions. The Rynoss dropped its eyes and bowed down before it. I took my cue. "A million kisses upon your Sacred Horn," I said somberly. Yes, there are worse things than wheeling butterscotch barefoot through the snow. And every night as I pull thorns and horn slivers from my bleeding lips, I know that there are exactly one million of them.
30 NICKY DRAYDEN
WRATH OF THE PORCELAIN GODS BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2011
Being a little curious doesn't make you a deviant. On Vero-Avalon Station, with its hundred and fifteen sapient species, it'd be weirder not to wonder about the alien biology of your cohabitants. You see them in the mess hall, slurping up trans-dimensional slugs, gnawing on Yuvvian bark, sipping pink clouds from see-through thermoses, and dining on the finest spiced lava rock this galaxy has to offer. You don't blink an eye when a proboscis appears from a rift in space-time and oozes purple acid onto freshly killed Frall. And when an Undulite consumes its still living mate right in front of you, you don't judge. You're something of an amateur anthropologist, after TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 31 all, and a curious one at that. Curious enough to enter through that doorway, the one with the symbol on the front that you can't quite decipher. Not the symbol of the humanoid man, nor the humanoid woman. Not the generic fish symbol for the aquatics. Not the avians, nor the giant blue placard for the restroom designed especially for the spatially challenged. What goes up, must come down. What goes in, must come out. No better way to know a species than to observe how it rids itself of its undigestables. You've documented almost all of them – one hundred fourteen species, leaving you with just one left. You wouldn't have thought twice about the Asiphants if Nadia hadn't warned you. Probably would have gone and got yourself killed, thinking it was another routine piss-n- shit ... sneak in with your personal cloaking device, take a couple of stealth holographs, jot down some notes, onto the next. But Nadia had inside information, vague as it was. Who knows how she'd gotten it, but she'd told you to go in prepared for battle. So now you wait, armored to the teeth, hunched in the corner of the restroom with the strange symbol on the door. After a week of surveillance, you'd noticed that the Asiphants used this restroom exclusively. Inside, it isn't the strangest loo you've seen, but it definitely ranks in the top five. A dozen porcelain cones of varying sizes jut up from the floor, like miniature volcanoes cast in equally offensive neon hues. Rubber hoses hang from the ceiling like the cilia 32 NICKY DRAYDEN of some overgrown beast, and a small pig-like creature is tethered to the far wall, weeping. The whole place reeks of ammonia and tar. The Asiphant enters, thin and stalky, something like an ostrich or an emu, except covered all over in green scales. It locks the door behind it – twelve deadbolts, you counted, then proceeds to pace, swerving around the neon volcanoes like traffic cones. It comes close to stepping on you, once, twice, again, so you press yourself closer to the wall and hold your breath. Finally, it chooses a cone and settles onto it. The sounds of flatulence come in a hurry, sustained and forceful. Winds hum like foghorns from the other cones, probably due to an interconnected system of pipes beneath the floor. It's almost beautiful, you think, notes playing in a mesmerizing tune. But then the flatulence takes on a soggy note. The piglet squeals in the corner and cowers as the Asiphant cusses it something fierce. You fear the worst – any moment a shower of shit is going to surge through those pipes, fecal matter spraying like shrapnel in a dirty bomb. Maybe it's corrosive. Maybe it'll eat right through your armor. Your skin. Last moments of your life thinking why oh why did I have to take up such a disgusting hobby! But what happens, it's not like that at all. The Asiphant begins to ululate, a low grating note at first that quickly escalates into a high-pitched shrill rising above your threshold of hearing. The piglet howls in chorus. On cue, TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 33 the Asiphant grunts as it clamps down tight on the cone, expelling with a force that tremors the entire room. Fountains of silvery liquid rise from the volcanoes, like tendrils of mercury dancing in zero-gee. They coalesce into a form resembling the Asiphant itself, except its movements are docile and peaceful, its face wise and innocent and all-knowing. It speaks with words wet and sorrowful in the Asiphant tongue. You're no linguist, but you've picked up enough vocabulary on the station to get the gist. It's a blessing of some sort. Of long life and prosperity. You feel sick to your stomach. It's one thing to spy on someone's bodily functions, and yet another equally horrible thing to eavesdrop into someone's holy sacrament. The liquid god then politely asks to return to the Asiphant's bowels. The Asiphant says a resolute "No." The liquid god's docile face turns to rage, fangs grow, horns protrude. Thorns writhe and ripple across its skin. It becomes more insistent. "No," the Asiphant says again, then uncorks itself and bum-rushes the largest cone in the middle of the room, the one without an opening at the top. The plug. The liquid god enrages as the Asiphant settles upon it. The piglet squeals. You grit your teeth, watching the Asiphant pull at a hose hanging from the ceiling. "You can't do this! I am your master!" the liquid god screams as the volcanoes go from blow to suck, and they suck hard. Wind whips through the room, tornadic and 34 NICKY DRAYDEN stealing your very breath. "The kitaque is your vessel now. Take it or leave it," the Asiphant says. The liquid god glares at the piglet in disgust, snarls. Begrudgingly, it makes a move toward the scared creature, but then the liquid god's metallic eyes shift to you. "I sense another..." it seethes. You clench your buttocks, but you know resistance is futile. The liquid god pounces in your direction, cuts through your personal cloak, your armor, wraps you up in its slimy embrace. The Asiphant looks on in horror, embarrassment, or something in between. "Don't fight it," the Asiphant shouts at you. "It'll only make things worse." By the time the liquid god has slithered all the way inside you, you feel like you're about to burst. Your stomach bloats out like you're eighteen months pregnant, and your organs all crowd against the back of your throat. You think your ass might literally be on fire. "It's okay," the Asiphant says with compassion. "There are ways to make him leave. The trans-dimensional slugs are best. The fresher, the better." The Asiphant pats you on the back, then goes to unlock the deadbolts, one by one by one. It turns back and gives you a wide-beaked smile. "Just thank the gods you weren't here to witness number two."
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 35
Volume Two: Fire, Fangs and Brimstone
36 NICKY DRAYDEN
WITH GOOD INTENTIONS BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Necrotic Tissue, 2009
Vervek pressed his fingers to his temples, waiting for the migraine to pass. The last few days of the month were always hell for him, catching up with paperwork he'd neglected, forgotten, or outright ignored. Form after form lay sprawled across his desk, awaiting his tallies for travel expenses, souls acquired per day, and brimstone usage down to the nearest ounce. Crilloc passed by Vervek's desk, boasting a stuffy suit and hooves buffed to a patent leather shine. Vervek hated TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 37
Crilloc's smugness, how he tramped around like he owned the place. Crilloc had never been late with his paperwork, not once in the last millennium, but newbies tended to adapt better to change than old-timers like Vervek. "Staying late to impress the Boss?" Crilloc said, picking pink man flesh from his teeth with one claw. Vervek didn't acknowledge his presence, hoping he'd go away. He waded through the pile of soul receipts before him, relying upon sparse scribblings to jog his memory. How many idle hands had he steered toward darkness? How many sulfurous temptations had he whispered into vulnerable ears? "You know, it'd be easier if you reconciled your ledger at the end of each day," Crilloc said, arrogance steaming from his flared nostrils. "Aren't there any politicians you could be corrupting? I've got this under control." "The devil is in the details," Crilloc said, running his claw under item 13B of form WER-10 leaving a flesh- colored highlight across the text. "You've hardly dipped into your vice allowance. Avarice, sloth, barely touched. A lot of lesser demons don't bother to fill them out, but when it comes time for promotions, the Big Man notices those sorts of things." Crilloc popped his collar, tugged at the spiraling bristles of his beard, then strutted off with his tail whipping behind him. Vervek slit his eyes and forced the envy out of his fetid heart. He'd heard the rumors circulating around the 38 NICKY DRAYDEN blood cooler. Crilloc was a contender for Legion Chief of the Third Circle. Vervek grumbled, wistful over how things used to be – when he could cull evil and wreak havoc without the nagging bureaucracy, red tape, and senseless bean counting. It took all the fun out of being a minion of hell. But Vervek was in too deep now. He'd accrued a ton of vacation and sick leave, and the benefits couldn't be beat. Plus with three little hellions at home to feed – the youngest with too-straight teeth that needed mangling, and the oldest going off to Damnation U. next fall, he didn't exactly have the latitude he'd had in the old days. Vervek clenched his jaw, and before he pushed on with the endless task at hand, he uncapped his red marker and exed out another square on his calendar. Only two million, eight hundred fifteen thousand, three hundred forty-seven days left until retirement.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 39
FORGOTTEN PRAYERS BY NICKY DRAYDEN Original Version Published by Everyday Weirdness, 2009
I'll never forget the taste of Mother's tears on the day the Chambersire came to bestow fortune upon my family. He stood in our doorway, layered in fine linens of the style I’d seen royalty wear when they passed through our village. Gold chains adorned his jacket, more than I could count, draped like garland across his chest. The coin pendants hanging from them rattled with his every move and boasted the crests of all the families that had danced for the goddesses. I hid beneath the tail of my father's tattered cloak, grasping his waist tightly so the Chambersire wouldn't see me, and if he did, wouldn't be able to pry me away. Peeking 40 NICKY DRAYDEN out to one side, I saw my mother plead with our guest, certain there had been a mistake. He shook his head and unrolled a slip of leather before her, branded with the crest I knew so well: oxen and ivy, the Marapese clan hailing from the scrublands of Lathan. And I'd been chosen to dance the tale of my people. Turns out the Chambersire was built for wrangling little girls – low to the ground, wide as he was tall, and his hair- filled ears impervious to my shrill screams. That evening, during the first of my lessons, I flapped and flailed and even sank my teeth into his meaty arm, the bitterness of his blood only reminding me of how empty I felt inside. I thought he'd beat me right then, put me out of my misery, but he only looked at me with his soulful eyes. "You will dance, child. Be proud of your destiny." Then he began to hum, loud enough to break through the sound of my sobs. I recognized the notes, those my mother had sang to me each night before bed – the prayers of my clan.
It was a good night to be Marapese. From my perch above the crowd I saw my grandmother with her fiddle, playing like she'd never had an ache her entire life. My aunts held their chins high and had their chests poked so far out, I'd thought they'd topple right over. And my mother, I'd mistook her for the queen when I'd first seen TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 41 her, with linens of purple and red and gold, so thick she couldn't have felt the lingering cold of the year's last frost. She smiled wide and proudly accepted the blessings and praise of a hundred strangers, but never once did she look me in the eyes. A sharp familiar whistle came from below me, and I smiled as I saw my cousin Tazoo, his nose red from too much wine. "You look like a princess!" he called up to me, and the laughter that followed warmed my heart because we both knew I was far from it. Tazoo and I spent our summers throwing rocks at stray cats, our winters building ice forts, and our springs splashing through mud puddles. Tazoo tossed something up to me and I caught it out of the air – a coin nearly as big as my palm, with our crest on one side and my face on the other. "You're famous! You're so lucky to have won!" he shouted over the whine of pipe organs, and I believed him because Tazoo had never lied to me, not once. He smiled with his mouth but not his eyes, then lost himself in dance, so graceful, so expressive. So much better at it than me.
I keep a brown rat as a pet now, mostly to remind myself that I am not the smallest living thing in these caves. His name is Tazoo, after my cousin, now another life away. Tazoo’s home is a box I made from scales and mud, the iridescent sides too slick for him to climb up and escape. 42 NICKY DRAYDEN
The goddesses, they're still sleeping. This winter has been especially long, but the sunlight that flitters into the cave strengthens with each day. I'm thankful for the extra warmth, though the comfort it gives will only hasten my fate. I rub my ankle where the iron shackle has bruised my skin, wishing my cousin had been born a girl, so he'd be sitting here instead of me. I know he's my blood, my best friend, but still it's been my only wish these past eleven days and has hardened my heart like a fistful of stones. I take Tazoo into my palms and rub his head, slicking back his fur. His nose twitches across the tips of my fingers, searching for traces of my supper. Harder and harder I pet him. He squirms and tries to bite, but I force my thumb between his beady eyes and press until I feel his skull snap. Tazoo's dying squeal rips through my heart as I wonder who my cousin will share our mud puddles with this spring. An eye, round and big and pale as the moon, slowly opens, then fixes on me. I stand to dance for the goddesses, to protect our lands from their fiery wrath, and to make my clan proud. I hold my breath and try to recall the words to the Marapese hymnal, or even its melody, but my mind betrays me. There is only the memory of the Chambersire standing in our doorway as he pulled that purple silk pouch from his jacket. Coins jingled inside as he'd placed it into my mother's hand. She hadn't smiled, but the melody had lifted her frown ever so slightly. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 43
"Go with him, dear," she’d said, peeling me from the safety of my father's cloak. "And behave yourself. Do what he says." I’d held back my sniffles as she brought her cheek down to me. I kissed it, still wet, though her eyes had stopped shedding tears. For eleven days, I've tried to lick the bitterness from my lips, but even now, it still remains.
44 NICKY DRAYDEN
HELLHOUND RESCUE BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Flash Scribe, 2009
Three-inch fangs pierce my flesh. I seethe and withdraw my hand from Vaughn's maw, my blood glistening on his teeth. "Bad dog!" I scream, but Vaughn bats those big brown eyes, irresistible even with the fiery depths of hell lurking beneath. They're crossbreeding poodles with everything nowadays: cockapoos, schnoodles, and now my foster dog – Vaughn the demon-doodle. The doorbell rings. They're here. I should feel bad about placing Vaughn with this nice family, but he's already devoured my ottoman. My shoes. My roommate. I swallow the pain, pocket my maimed hand, and open TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 45 the door with a smile.
46 NICKY DRAYDEN
BLUE MOON BY NICKY DRAYDEN
The desert chill was quick to strike once the sun sank behind Bartlett Peak. The wind pierced through to the bone, but it wasn't something that a little friction couldn't remedy. Zamara caressed Rusty's face with her muzzle, then clawed through his flannel shirt, revealing a carpet of matted chest hair. As Rusty's body tensed up beneath hers, Zamara bared her teeth in a way he'd interpret as a smile. "It's okay. I won't bite." "It's not that. It's him I'm worried about." He nodded up the mountainside at the fortress-like laboratory precariously nestled into the cliff. Moonlight glinted eerily from its gray stone walls, windowless and foreboding. "Who, Bubba?" Zamara asked, her coarse voice trailing TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 47 up at the end. Rusty nodded weakly. "My ex-husband will be too busy to even notice we're there. We'll sneak in, get my grandmother's china, and sneak out. I know that place like the back of my paw." "Maybe I should stay here. I'm just slowing you down ..." Zamara licked the bridge of Rusty's nose. "You're so adorable when you snivel." As she nipped gently at the waistband of Rusty's pants, a twinge of pain surged through her. The fur on her back crested as she felt a tick gnawing at her skin. Mind over matter, mind over matter, she chanted to herself, intent on maintaining her poise. But that little parasite bored deeper, and Zamara couldn't help herself. She feverishly scratched behind her ear with her hind foot. "You know, it's nothing to be embarrassed about," Rusty cooed, seeming sincere, but he had a knack for saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. All heart and no filter. "Not a word, you hear me?" Zamara lifted her top lip to reveal a row of porcelain Ginsu knives that gleamed in the light of the full moon. Technically, they were classified as teeth. Zamara felt Rusty's eyes running over the rigid contours of her Changed form, assessing her. He jutted his chin. "I reckon ol' Doc Peterson could set you straight with some of that prescription K9 Advantix stuff, no questions 48 NICKY DRAYDEN asked. What do you weigh, about a buck fifty–" Before he could finish his sentence, Zamara had Rusty pinned to a boulder, his back arching in a near-perfect parabola. "I am not a dog. I do not need a vet." "Course not! I didn't say that, did I?" "And you never ask a woman her weight. Never!" Zamara gnashed her teeth and resisted the urge to lick away the froth forming along her muzzle, ropes of drool hovering an inch above Rusty's nose. His Adam's apple kicked around excitedly in his exposed throat. Rusty wasn't the ideal candidate for a mate, but in the months following her divorce, Zamara had discovered that the pool of single, gainfully employed, straight men had dwindled down to just about nothing. Most days she'd settle for two out of the three. Add being open to inter-species dating to the criteria, and the only man on Match.com within a hundred miles of Alpine, Texas had been Rusty. "I'm just sayin'," Rusty pleaded, "that Ol' Doc has worked wonders for my Whinny–" "I don't want to hear another word about that goat of yours, either!" Rusty stifled a squeal. The blended scent of fear and arousal seeped from his pores and played cruel tricks in Zamara's mind. A welcome tightness curled through her abdomen and resonated like a plucked string. Being a werewolf was tough, but being a middle-aged divorcée without a reliable date on Friday nights was tougher. Talk about being hot under the collar. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 49
She tugged at the elastic of Rusty's undershorts, revealing more of his cinnamon-colored hair. She'd never seen a human so well covered! That ex of hers had been so fleshy and bare. Jagged memories of her old life overwhelmed her. She tried to put her ex-husband out of her mind, but being up here, secluded a mile above the world, only reminded her of the years she'd wasted, watching from the sidelines as Bubba immersed himself in those ridiculous experiments. Choking back the resentment, Zamara let her jaw slack and Rusty's undershorts snapped, dealing him the sting of misplaced vengeance. He winced, tears beading up in his eyes. "Did I do something wrong?" "I'm not in the mood." "But, sweetheart ... " Rusty begged, running his fingers through Zamara's fur. She unleashed a menacing growl.
As they neared the summit, Zamara could make out the details of the lab, the insanity of its design magnified from this vantage point. Its shape was almost organic in nature, like the skeletal remains of something partially buried then forgotten. The portcullis yawned wide as if it were taunting them to enter through its iron gates. "What kind of scientist goes and builds a laboratory on 50 NICKY DRAYDEN the lip of a dormant volcano anyway?" Rusty asked. "The mad kind," Zamara replied. Bubba was mad in every sense of the word. She hadn't helped matters any by provoking him during the divorce settlement. Zamara had actually thought she'd heard his blood vessels rupturing when she'd disputed Bubba's claim to his Elvis LPs. She'd gotten them, too. Zamara clawed at the lock, then slowly pushed the door open, trying to mute the screech of stubborn hinges. The place was a mess inside, littered with trash and reeking of broken dreams. Bubba hadn't taken the breakup well, but that wasn't her problem any longer. After she'd reclaimed those heirlooms that were rightfully hers, she'd put the last six miserable years behind her for good. Zamara opened the china cabinet and her heart collapsed. Half of the place settings were missing. "That dimwit has actually been eating off my plates!" she said as she assessed the dried food remains on the pile of dishes stacked in the sink, then pawed at the faucet. "Pack up what's in the cabinet. I'll soak these." "Do we really have time for that?" Rusty asked, his eyes shifting nervously. "Just pack the dishes, Rusty," Zamara barked, managing to turn it into a seductive growl. "Pretty please?" She needed Rusty for his opposable thumbs right now, not his bravery. It'd cost a fortune to replace a chipped plate. Rusty swallowed, his eyebrows arching like his lotto numbers had hit. Not a second went by and he was at the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 51 cabinet, pulling out a gold-rimmed saucer. Zamara opened the sterling drawer. It was empty. A sharp click echoed behind them. Zamara spun around on her haunches. The barrel of her ex-husband's shotgun was aimed squarely at her chest, but she looked past it and into his appraising eyes. She used to feel naked under his stare. Powerless. That look might have silenced her before, but now she'd harnessed the strength of her inner bitch, pedigree traced back over forty generations. Zamara gnashed her teeth. "Where's my silverware, Bubba?" "I knew you'd return eventually. So this must be the wolf you left me for, huh?" Bubba asked, swinging the barrel in Rusty's direction. "He's not a werewolf. He's just a little hairy." "You've got to be kidding me. He's got a thicker coat than you do!" "And how many times do I have to tell you there was no other man? Perhaps if you'd come out of your lab once in a while, you would have noticed how miserable I was. Now, I'm not going to ask you again. Where's my grandmother's silverware?" "You'll be getting your silver back soon enough, my pet." Bubba swiveled the shotgun toward Zamara and stroked the barrel with an eerie tenderness. His unkempt hair and patchy beard brought out the glint of madness in his eyes. Zamara's gaze darted from the empty silverware drawer to the shotgun and back. Suddenly, she knew where 52 NICKY DRAYDEN her sterling was. Before she could blink, a flash of reddish-brown came between her and Bubba. "Don't shoot! Take me instead!" Rusty shouted, the stench of reckless bravado steaming from his entire body. What chivalry! Not even the tremble in his voice could betray the sincerity of his intentions. Rusty had renewed Zamara's faith in men, just as she was about to tuck her tail and surrender. Sure he had his quirks, but all in all, Rusty might be the one. The floor rumbled severely and unexpectedly, causing Zamara to reach out to Rusty for balance. She oozed into his arms–firm and reassuring, and if her ex-husband weren't threatening to fill her with a spray of melted down teaspoons and salad forks, she would have liked to live in this moment forever. "It was all split fifty-fifty, but that wasn't good enough for you, now was it, dear?" Bubba said, having to clear his throat to snag Zamara's full attention. "Well, you've already taken more than your share. You stole my heart straight out of my chest, and you're not getting a single thing more from me. Not today. Not ever!" Bubba's scowl loosened as the rumbling intensified. China pieces rattled in the cabinets, and the ambient temperature elevated twenty degrees. "Bubba, what did you do?" Bubba strapped on a devilish smile and lowered his shotgun. "Let's just say this dormant volcano ain't so TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 53 dormant anymore." "Come on, Bubba. Let's talk this through." "There's no talking that could make me whole again. Only a virgin sacrifice could stop this puppy from erupting, and I'm afraid I'm fresh out." Two teacups dropped from the cabinet like twin bombs, smashing into the floor and spraying the kitchen with porcelain shrapnel. "A virgin sacrifice? Really?" Zamara said, raising a skeptical brow. "This from a woman who breaks razors on her leg hair?" "Touché." "Looks like we'll be spending the last moments of our lives together. 'Til death do us part, like it should've been." Rusty lowered his eyes and stared at his feet. "Um ... " "What is it, Rusty?" Zamara demanded. "Well ... " "Rusty, what?" Rusty's voice quivered with an unsure timbre. "I've never been with a woman." "You're a virgin?" Zamara and Bubba screamed simultaneously. "Most women are turned off by all of this hair. But I've got to be me, you know? Sure, it was lonely, not having any companions in my life besides Whinny, but I knew the right lady would come along eventually. You're that woman." Rusty wrapped his hand around Zamara's paw 54 NICKY DRAYDEN and pressed his forehead against hers. "I'd do anything for you."
Zamara looked over the edge of the volcano into the molten soup that was pacifying by the second. He'd done it. He'd really done it. Rusty had given his life so that hers would be spared. Bubba laid a soft hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry." She pulled away. "I know there's nothing I could say that could possibly make things better, but I really am sorry. All of this bitterness ... look where it's gotten us." Tears warmed Zamara's face. Bubba sounded sincere, but she'd fallen for his syrupy apologies more times than she cared to admit. She and Bubba had loved each other once, but had neglected their relationship until there was nothing left to salvage. And now an argument over old plates she'd never even used and a scratched up record collection had cost Zamara her one chance at true love. Boiling tides of lava began sloshing against the volcano's walls and ash shot from the mouth like a cannon. "Bubba–" Zamara ducked as a fiery rock flew past her head. "I thought you said a virgin sacrifice would stop this thing!" Zamara's mind traced back over her brief relationship with Rusty ... how he'd sounded so unsure when he'd claimed to have never been with a woman – TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 55 with a subtle emphasis on the "woman." Not to mention his eerie fixation with that goat of his. And come to think of it, what kind of man puts "open to inter-species dating" on his personal profile anyway? "You don't think he and Whinny ... " Tiny bits of ash filled the sky, persuading light to perform strange tricks in the atmosphere. Zamara's last earthly thought was of how beautifully blue the moon looked tonight.
56 NICKY DRAYDEN
Volume Three: The Weirdos Next Door
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 57
EXTREME PIRATES BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Flash Me Magazine, 2008
Three times Archibald Smithe had been made to walk the plank, and every time he'd deserved it. Forgetting to batten down the hatches, spilling an entire vat of steaming gruel belowdecks, and once he'd accidentally started a mutiny when he'd taken a few liberties relaying the captain's orders. But never, ever, in Archibald's thirty years of pirating had he experienced a pain this intense. "Don't arch your back," the demon wench called, looking down at him as he struggled to stay atop this ball, this instrument of torture. "Keep straight, or I'll have you here all day!" Archibald clenched his gut, sweat beading up beneath 58 NICKY DRAYDEN his beard, and he felt like he was sailing the humid seas again. He could taste the salt in his mouth already. If he passed this test, if this demon wench deemed him fit, he'd be a part of her crew. The Extreme Pirates. She was a lady, sure, but she was tough. In the forty-five minutes since he'd stepped foot into the recruitment office, she'd forced him and a handful of other hopefuls through a strenuous, though somewhat pointless regimen. Being one of the only men present, Archibald liked his odds. "Back straight!" she yelled at him. "Feel it in your core! Your anchor. Do you think you have what it takes?" "Aye, Captain!" Archibald barked out instinctually. The demon wench's eyes eased into slits, then looked up at the clock on the wall as the hour drew near. "Hold it. Hold it. Three. Two. One. Release." The recruits all breathed an even sigh. Archibald fell to the floor, the pain within him running the entire length of his existence. He watched the demon wench expectantly as she folded her arms across her chest and paced the room. The others toweled off and sipped from brightly colored jugs, but Archibald couldn't relax. He knew deep in his wretched heart that this was his last chance at pirating again. The demon wench approached him with a smile. "You did good. Is this your first time?" "Me? Heavens no. I've worked under the greatest. Steward. Knott. Red Beard." She gave him a dismissive nod, and started toward the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 59 doors in the back. "We'll see you next week then? Same time." "Wait ... " He felt the soreness spreading to his nether regions as he hobbled after her. "Next week. Does that mean I'm in?" "In?" "On your crew. Extreme Pirates, that's what the sign said out front." He pointed at the glass wall. Archibald had never been much good at letters, but even he could make them out, three feet high each and in reverse. "Hmmm," she said, hands on her hips. "I guess the ‘l' is a little crooked. But it's Pilates. Extreme Pilates."
60 NICKY DRAYDEN
BURT'S HOME HYDROPONICS BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Wendy loved telling off door-to-door salesmen as much as the next gal, but something about this old man standing on her porch made her hesitate. She glanced down at the silver unit he was peddling, wishing for once that the "we can't afford it" lie she usually used in this situation wasn't true. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "It's amazing, but there's no way I can squeeze it into the budget." In her hand she held a half-eaten apple, maybe the best she'd ever tasted. She'd seen this contraption – a marvel of modern science no bigger than a kitchen garbage can – dispense this perfect specimen right into her palm. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 61
The man slumped over like her rejection was a punch to the chest. Poor guy. With his shaggy gray hair and caterpillar eyebrows, he reminded Wendy of her late Grandpa Kearns, hard-working right up to the very end. Wendy had been on board for buying this personal hydroponics bay with its ... what did he call it? Bio- accelerated saplings? He said they'd been hand selected and grafted into the inside walls of the canister. It sounded too good to be true, right up until she heard the price. She almost felt guilty enough to give the sample apple back, but instead she took another bite. The sweet juice dripped from her chin. Wendy cast her eyes down to avoid his expectant gaze as she wiped the mess away. "You're sure? An apple every day for the rest of your life. Guaranteed," he said, pitching one last time. "One hundred percent organic. No pesticides. Safer for your kids. You've got kids, right?" The man gestured to the neglected skateboard ramp lying on its side at the end of her driveway. Wendy nodded, then gave him an apologetic grin. "But eight hundred dollars ..." "I understand completely, ma'am. You have to be careful how you invest your money these days. But in case you ever change your mind ..." He slid his wrinkled hand under his lapel, then handed her a business card with a silver apple logo embossed in the corner. Wendy closed the door, headed to her kitchen, and watched out the window as the old man wheeled the 62 NICKY DRAYDEN hydroponics machine down the sidewalk. "Who was that?" asked Chuck from the den with the half-hearted concern of a husband engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons. "Just a door-to-door salesman." The old man was already at her neighbor's house. Evan Cook stood in his doorway, arms crossed over his chest. His body posture went from defensive to interested to captivated. The men shook hands, then the salesman led Evan to a van parked a few houses down. A nagging feeling churned in the back of Wendy's brain. She hoped she wasn't passing up the deal of a lifetime. She rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer for a calculator, then crunched the numbers. As she tapped the keypad, her calculations appeared on the backlit screen. Three hundred sixty-five apples a year at a dollar fifty a pound ... the home hydroponics machine would pay for itself in four years. And best of all, she wouldn't have to do anything besides plug it in and let it bestow the gift of fresh fruit. Wendy examined the business card. Lifetime Warranty it said. Twenty-four hour customer service. She dialed the toll-free number to calm the doubt lingering in her heart. "Burt's Home Hydroponics Customer Service Hotline," said a cheerful voice. "Could I get the serial number for your unit, please?" "Umm ..." A wave of embarrassment rushed over Wendy, and she slammed the phone back into its cradle. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 63
"Chuck!" she yelled, grabbing the apple from the counter and polishing the uneaten portion against her jeans. She ran into the den, struck cold by the eerie glow their fifty-inch flat screen television cast across her husband's face and those of her children. "Chuck, I need the checkbook. I want to buy us a hydroponics machine." Her husband's brow arched, though his eyes stayed focused on the television. "How much?" "Four hundred dollars," she said, biting her tongue. He'd balk at the real price. There was an old tin can in the back of the cupboard with a couple hundred dollars, and the kids probably had a few twenties in their piggy banks. She'd replace it before they even noticed. "Out of the question," said Chuck, propping his feet on the coffee table. But Wendy had her ammunition ready. She swiped the remote, muted the television, and handed the apple to her husband. "Mom!" moaned her children. "Quiet you two, or I'm sending you outside." Wendy turned to her husband. "Now tell me that's not the best apple you've ever tasted." Chuck took a deep, crunching bite and licked the juice from his lips. "Yep, it is," he said. "But we're still not buying that contraption." "Well you bought this monstrosity," said Wendy nodding at their television set. "Without consulting me, I 64 NICKY DRAYDEN might add. And what good has it done us? I'm talking about investing in our family's health!" "You want fresh apples so bad? We'll buy a tree this afternoon. Twenty bucks, a hole, and in a few years we'll have enough apples to feed the whole neighborhood." "Yeah? And who's gonna water it? Spray it for bugs? Don't I already have enough to do around here?" Chuck threw his hands up in a preemptive surrender, then pried himself from the couch. "Don't blow a gasket. I'll see if I can talk the price down." "I can handle it." With a blank check, her emergency savings, and eighty dollars in birthday money Grandma Kearns had sent the kids, Wendy flagged the old man down as he was closing the van's doors. "Wait! I've changed my mind." "I thought you would," the salesman said with a comfortable smile. "And I promise you, this machine will change your lives."
Wendy admired her new purchase. Its stainless steel canister and black trim matched her kitchen appliances perfectly. She tore off the last of the packing tape warning that removal of the lid would upset the ecosystem and void the warranty. Then she plugged the unit in. It hummed with the mystery of its botanical secrets, and exactly twenty-four hours later, it spat out a nice shiny apple just TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 65 for her. By the end of the next week, her kids were eating fresh apple slices with each meal. The following week, a couple apples came out soft, but she just cut off those parts and made applesauce and apple pies for dessert. At month's end, the apples started tasting mealy. She dug around in her junk drawer until she came across the old man's business card. Wendy dialed the number and a voice not as cheerful as last time answered. "I'm sorry. This number has been disconnected." No need to panic. Maybe she could fix the hydroponics machine herself. Maybe it'd be something simple like a bulb needing replacement or a water reservoir filled. She unscrewed the lid, ignoring the warning labels. Inside there was no water reservoir, no light sockets, no grafted saplings for that matter – just a row of rotting apples in a winding dispenser tray with a timer mechanism attached. Wendy sat back on her haunches, heartbroken. She'd been scammed into buying a fancy seven-hundred-dollar apple barrel. Chuck would never let her hear the end of it, not after the fit she'd thrown. But what if he didn't find out? Wendy snatched her keys and headed outside. Her kids were on the sidewalk, hard rubber wheels of their skateboards clacking against the cement as they performed ollies and kickflips. They'd even up-righted their old ramp. "You kids behave yourselves. I'll be back in a few minutes." At the grocery store, she didn't bother to grab a cart. 66 NICKY DRAYDEN
No time. Chuck would be home any minute from his Saturday morning jog, a part of his regimen now that the family had been on their health kick. She couldn't afford organic, so without deliberation, she grabbed two bags of bulk apples and slung one under each arm. Back home, Chuck came through the front door, sweaty and worn ragged, just as she screwed the lid back on. He smiled at Wendy when he saw her bent over the machine. "Got one for me, cutie?" he said, and on cue, Burt's Home Hydroponics produced another apple. Chuck grabbed it, kissed Wendy on the cheek, and took a bite. Wendy bit her lip, trying not to look guilty as Chuck chewed. "How is it, dear?" she asked, voice catching in her throat. "Mmmm ..." he said, mouth full of apple mash. "Tart, but tasty." Wendy smiled. Maybe this wasn't such a loss. Her family was eating more fruit than they ever had. Plus things weren't so bad in the bedroom now that Chuck had started exercising. Wendy gave her silver canister a love tap. She was willing to live this lie – this tiny lie – for the sake of her family. That swindler of a salesman had promised it would change their lives, and he was right about that.
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POST: APOCALYPTIC BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Big Pulp, 2010
No running water. No electricity. Zombies beat at my door. They'll have to tear my lifeless body from this place I now call home. I live and breathe anxiety, my nerves coiled tight from constantly being hunted. I think I'm going insane. "Screw you, zombie pigs!" I yell, my body leaning out the kitchen window. They lumber toward me, so smug in their matching blue-gray uniforms. I give them both the finger, then snap the window shut. "Official notice to vacate," one zombie cop says, pressing the sealed letter against the dusty pane. "Damn squatters," says the other. 68 NICKY DRAYDEN
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 69
A PEACH FARMER'S PREDICAMENT (or HOW STELLAR GOT HIS GROVE BACK) BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Writer's Eye Magazine, 2009
Marcus Stellar never claimed to be much good at interpersonal relations. His friends, if he'd had any, would label him as socially awkward. However, the salesman who currently found himself at the receiving end of Stellar's double-barreled shotgun would probably choose a different word. Peculiar. Eccentric. Psychopath, perhaps. "Didn't you see the sign?" said Stellar, watching a bead of sweat meander down the trespasser's cheek. "I did," said the man. "But I thought you'd make an 70 NICKY DRAYDEN exception on account that I–" "On account that you can't read? Sign clearly says ‘trespassers will be shot' and that goes double for salesmen. And triple for salesmen trying to sell peaches to a peach farmer. Honestly, I think I'd be doing you a favor." "As I said, sir, these aren't ordinary peaches. They're pitless peaches. Genetically enhanced to produce sweeter, more disease resistant fruit, and bigger harvests." The man pulled a peach from a satchel slung over his shoulder and presented it to Stellar. "Have a taste. See for yourself." "There's no way in hell I'm planting those mutant trees on my property." "They're perfectly safe, I can assure you. If you don't like them, I'll buy them back. I'll even dig them up myself." Stellar lifted an eyebrow, snatched the peach from the salesman's hand, and ran it under his nose. Smelled sweet, but the devil's temptations came in many forms. Stellar launched the peach into the air, and quick as a tick, cocked his shotgun and blew that piece of frankenfruit to smithereens. The salesman cowered, hands clamped down over his ears. "That's what I think of your peach, and if you want to know what I think of you, why don't you stick around for another minute or two." Stellar was just about to cock his gun again when he heard the rumble of Missy Mae's Dodge Ram in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust on the road that TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 71 separated their properties. His forty acres of peach orchard served as a buffer between him and the rest of the world – a buffer Missy Mae was constantly overstepping. "Marcus!" she called, the top half of her nearly hanging out of the truck's cab. "Marcus, you put that gun down right now, and show this man a little courtesy." Stellar grumbled, and obliging, lowered his aim from the salesman's face to his kneecaps. Missy Mae hopped out of her truck and sashayed up Stellar's front porch, clutching her bonnet to her head, and hiking her sundress up to reveal sculpted calves. As prissy as she carried herself, Stellar knew Missy Mae wasn't foreign to a hard day's work. "You'll have to excuse Mr. Stellar, here," she said to the salesman, shaking her head slowly. "His mamma never taught him any manners. I'm Missy Mae Reynolds, I own the vineyard across the way. And you are ..." "None of your business," said Stellar, grimacing at his uninvited guests. "He was just leaving." The salesman, graciously taking his cue, stumbled down the porch stairs on rubbery legs and ran for the safety of his van. "Woman, you can't be coming over here unannounced like this," said Stellar, leaning his gun against the house and crossing his arms over his chest. "I've been putting up with having you as a neighbor going on seventeen years now, and I think that entitles me a free pass to come over here any time I damned please." 72 NICKY DRAYDEN
She shifted her weight and propped her hand on her hip, daring him to talk back. Missy Mae's tongue was as sharp as a snake's, and Stellar doubted he could take her, even with a loaded shotgun. "You want something, or did you come over here just to harass me?" "As a matter of fact, I came to see if you were busy tonight. I noticed you'd finished bringing in your harvest the other day, and I thought you might finally have some free time on your hands. I could make you dinner." "Sorry, but I just threw some steaks on the grill," Stellar said, stretching for a believable excuse. Ever since her husband had passed, Missy Mae had been steadily after him to come over to her place. He knew it was hard for her, adjusting to life alone, but she'd get used to it. Just as he had. "Steaks? Great! I'll bring some wine and cheese," she said, a hint of feminine wiles in her eyes. Marcus Stellar didn't like it one bit. "Does six o'clock sound okay?" "No, I've got plans already." He needed a better lie, and there happened to be one parked in his own driveway – that salesman fumbling to get his keys in the ignition. The only thing that scared Stellar more than mutant trees was the thought of him and Missy Mae alone together. Especially if there was wine involved. Stellar swallowed back the lump in his throat, carefully slid past Missy Mae, then ambled after the salesman on worn knees, waving the van down as it pulled back out TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 73 onto the road. "I've got a row of trees that need planting," he called back to Missy Mae. "And I've got to do it tonight." "In the dark?" "I've got a flashlight." Missy Mae bit her lip, and she had both hands on her hips now. "If I didn't know better, Marcus Stellar, I'd think you were trying to get rid of me." That night, Stellar dragged his new trees out to the northwest corner of his property, a flashlight and an old transistor radio his only company. He could see Missy Mae's house from here. The aroma of lemon herb chicken lingered in the air. Just like his late wife used to make. Missy Mae's lights were still on. In a solitary moment of weakness, Stellar considered going over there to apologize for how he'd acted earlier. But these trees needed planting, and he hadn't dropped an absurd fifty dollars per plant just to have their roots dry out. He hoped these peaches were worth it, because he didn't know how much longer he'd be able to afford dodging Missy Mae's advances. Stellar turned up his radio, letting his bleeding-heart love ballads numb his mind as he started to dig another hole.
There was something strange about those trees that Stellar couldn't quite put his finger on. In appearance, they 74 NICKY DRAYDEN were identical to the rest of his grove – squat trunks and branches reaching out like gnarled hands. But every time he walked past that solitary row, his arm hair prickled. Sometimes he would think of the secrets lurking in the green veins of their leaves, wondering what place Man had tinkering with Nature's creations. But as the salesman had promised, the next year's harvest was a bountiful one, even from these young trees. The pitless peaches were a hit at market, bringing in two and sometimes three times as much money per pound. He needed more plants for next season, and when the salesman came back to Stellar's peach grove, he greeted him with a smile instead of a gun. "I think it's time we talk real business," said Stellar, rocking out on his porch, chewing a sprig of mint between his teeth. "I want to convert half of my orchard over to pitless." "So I guess I won't be needing my shovel after all?" the salesman said. Stellar threw back his head and laughed. "You just try to take those trees from me! Seriously, I could use a thousand more. Can you manage that?" "Of course," said the salesman, rubbing his palms together. "There's just the matter of price. With my preferred customer discount, I can get those to you for two hundred dollars apiece, two-fifty installed." Stellar jumped out of his rocker, sending it crashing behind him. The salesman didn't flinch. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 75
"What are you trying to pull on me? There's no way I'm paying a quarter million dollars for those trees!" "Suit yourself. But it's only a matter of time before pit peaches are a thing of the past. Science is the future, and if you plan on keeping your grove running more than another ten years, I'd suggest you rethink your strategy." "Don't try to scare me with that scientific mumbo jumbo." "Mr. Stellar, did you know that every banana you've ever eaten – I mean ever eaten – has been a clone from the same tree? A tree that made a seedless, perfect fruit." "Get off my property!" said Stellar, inching up to this no-good swindler and drilling his index finger into his chest. "I'll figure a way to breed those trees on my own. You'll see." The salesman huffed, turned on his heels, and headed back out to his van. Before he opened the door, he yelled over his shoulder, "I'll be paying you another visit, Mr. Stellar. And when I do, you'll be begging to throw that quarter of a million dollars at me."
For the next two months, Marcus Stellar spent nearly every waking hour researching reproduction methods. He could usually collect a few dozen pits to reseed the trees he'd lost to storms or disease, but this pitless variety didn't offer that option. He started grafting pitless branches onto 76 NICKY DRAYDEN mature plants, but the grafts didn't take the first time around. This time he was more careful, testing soil pH every other day, keeping the grafted joints moist and bandaged, and injecting growth stimulants directly into the root system. He'd always considered his trees as his extended family. He talked to them as he worked, even though the trees weren't much good at holding up their end of the conversation. When his jaw got tired, he'd play music – Motown classics – to keep his spirits up. Secretly, he hoped somehow the rhythmic groove would work its way into these plants. "Looking good," he said, bent over one of the new grafts, inspecting the leaves for signs of cankers and roundworms. "Looking really good." "Thank you," said a voice. Stellar toppled backwards and thought himself to be going insane, but then he saw Missy Mae watching him from across the road. She smiled and held up a bottle of wine. "You look like you could use a break." Perhaps a little human companionship might be just what he needed, considering his mind had warped enough for him to think his peach trees were talking back to him. Stellar nodded. "I'll be right over."
Sitting on Missy Mae's flower print sofa, Stellar couldn't TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 77 remember the last time he'd bothered to put on cologne. Missy Mae sat next to him, and suspiciously, the cut of her blouse had gotten lower, and the hem of her skirt higher. "It's the most peculiar thing," he said, pausing to sip from his wine glass. "The trees put up blossoms, but the bees don't go near ‘em." Missy Mae scooted closer, leaning in as he talked about the pitless peach trees. Naturally, he'd steered the conversation in this direction. It's all he thought about anymore. "My, that is peculiar." She gave him a saucy grin, gulped back a mouthful of wine, then started twirling her finger around a lock of hair. "So now I'm trying this grafting technique I read about. If I can get that to work, I could turn my whole grove to pitless without spending another dime." "Amazing," she said, voice softer than velvet. Then her hand was on his thigh, inching up his Wranglers. "It's sort of a shame though. It seems so impersonal. Sometimes things are better the good old fashioned way, don't you think?" "Huh?" said Stellar, his voice cracking. "Pollination, I mean." "Yes. Of course ..." He folded his hands across his lap. A moment of awkward silence passed, then Missy Mae leaned in, leading with puckered lips. Stellar recoiled. "What are you doing?" "I'm trying to kiss you. Someone's got to make a move, 78 NICKY DRAYDEN and I think it's obvious it isn't going to be you." "But Elliot–" "Elliot's been gone three years. I miss him every day of my life, but he's gone, and he's not coming back. And for you it's been, Lord, eight years now?" Missy Mae placed her hand on Stellar's shoulder. "I think she'd want you to move on." Stellar couldn't take it. Missy Mae's touch was emotionally toxic, dredging up too many memories. "I think I should go." "Marcus Stellar, if you leave, you'll regret it!" Maybe. Probably. But he couldn't stay here with her stirring up things that had no business being stirred up. "I'm sorry, Missy Mae. Thanks for the wine." He grabbed a half-finished bottle and left her there, alone. Stellar stumbled down the sidewalk and over the dirt road that separated his life from hers. He heard her following behind him, but he didn't turn around. "Your heart's just as sterile as those trees of yours!" she shouted, her voice carrying in the moistened air. He heard her sniffling, crying, then the door slammed. Stellar returned to the safety of his property and the solace of his crop – never judging, always willing to lend a branch to lean on. "I think I really upset her this time," said Stellar, collapsing to his knees in front of one of his pitless peach trees. His chest heaved, throat so constricted that he could barely squeeze out his words. "But she just doesn't TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 79 understand." Broad leaves fluttered in an almost non-existent breeze, brushing the tears from Stellar's cheeks. He would have thought the action was deliberate if he hadn't known better. His eyelids grew heavy. Stellar took a final tug from his bottle and let the rest of his wine spill upon the earth. It pooled in a shallow trough, then spread in opposite directions before falling to the mercy of thirsty roots. Stellar's face settled into the soil. He fumbled for the dial on his little radio and twisted until it clicked. Marvin Gaye's voice eased out "Let's Get It On" – a universal mating call sent up to the heavens. The fog of intoxication pressed over him like a thick blanket, and in his cottony dreams, his trees reached out, branches coiling around each other in a woody embrace. Leaves stroked leaves, as delicate as kisses. Loving. Tender. Stellar thought it odd that he was dreaming with his eyes open, so he let them drift closed and imagined himself in Missy Mae's bed.
The sun woke Stellar the next morning, scorching his skin. He rolled over, dirt caked in his hair, nearly crushing the green sprout growing from where he'd spilled his wine. Wait. He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and looked again. He'd seen thousands of peach tree saplings in his time, but there was something slightly odd about this one. Maybe it was 80 NICKY DRAYDEN the way it held its supple branches as if it were a model posing in the nude – motionless out of desire and not necessity. It made Stellar's arm hairs prickle. Still, his chest swelled with accomplishment. Stellar raced up and down the rows of his peach grove, eager to tell the world of this miracle. But alas, he had no one to tell. No friends. No family. No wife. He wondered what good joy was when there was no one for him to share it with. Stellar clasped his hands together, looking up into the cloudless sky. In all this time, he'd never forgotten the richness of her laugh and the kindness of her touch from when they'd tended this land together. It'd been eight years, long enough to mourn by anyone's standards. The words came from his lips in a whisper only she could hear. "Forgive me."
Two and a half years passed before that salesman reared his head again, striding up onto Stellar's porch with expensive leather boots and a sideways grin. "You had a chance to think about it?" he asked. "You were right," said Stellar. "Pit peaches are a thing of the past." The salesman nodded. "I knew you'd come around." "Yep." Stellar stood up from his rocker, dusting his hands together as he looked out over the expanse of his forty acres. "That's why I converted my whole crop to TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 81 pitless two seasons ago." The salesman's eyes went wide then narrowed with suspicion. "I don't believe you." "Come see for yourself." Stellar led the salesman out into the orchard and pulled a ripe peach from a tree. He sliced into it, revealing moist flesh through and through. "Impossible!" said the salesman, his face ashen. "You want to taste it?" Marcus Stellar took pleasure in watching the confusion on this weasel's face as he bit into the peach, even sweeter than the originals. A good peach farmer kept his secrets close to his heart. Not even ten feet away sat an outdoor speaker disguised as a rock, insignificant to prying eyes. And once a week, Stellar spiked the irrigation system with a nice bottle of Merlot. The trees never did anything in his presence, and he respected their privacy too much to spy. But sometimes late at night and in between dreams, he heard the faint rustling of leaves and rhythmic creaking of wood. A little wine and sensual tunes never failed to set the mood, no matter what the species. "Grafting?" the salesman asked, desperation seeded in his voice. "You got it to work?" "Nope. Never lasted more than a week or two." Stellar stroked his chin. His trees weren't the type to kiss and tell, and neither was he. "All I have to say is nature always finds a way." Missy Mae Stellar came out of the house, waddling 82 NICKY DRAYDEN down the porch stairs, a glass of peach flavored iced tea in each hand and her pregnant belly leading the rest of her. "You boys thirsty?" she asked. Modern science had been kind to old Stellar in more ways than one. He'd finally gotten to do a little pollinating of his own.
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Volume Four: Wisps, Spells and Faerie Tales
84 NICKY DRAYDEN
LOW-CARB CHEESECAKE BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Drabblecast, 2008
Microscopic explosions danced across my taste buds. I closed my eyes to savor the delectable flavors. This couldn't be right. There was no way this cheesecake could be low- carb as the menu had advertised. I flagged my waiter over, shoving a last innocent forkful into my mouth before I faced the truth and ensuing pounds. "Yes, ma'am? Is the cheesecake to your liking?" "Very much so," I said, patting my cloth napkin at my mouth. "In fact, I think you must have accidentally given me the regular version instead." "I'm afraid that is impossible," he said, carefully annunciating as if his words were as delicate as lace. "This TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 85 is our signature cheesecake. The only one we serve." The joyous expression that crossed my face must have been a startling one, since the waiter suddenly looked overcome with worry. "Are you all right, ma'am?" "Yes, fine." I glanced around the restaurant, noting how thin everyone seemed to be, and how they were blissfully shoveling bite after bite of cobblers, cakes, and pies down their throats. Perhaps I should've dared to have more than the mixed greens salad for dinner, but it wasn't too late to indulge. I looked up bashfully at the waiter and said, "Could I get another slice, please?" "Of course. I'll have that right out to you. And will that be all?" "Just one thing," I said, nodding toward the cheesecake. "How do you do it?" "I'm not allowed to say, miss. It's a family recipe." "Oh, I see," I said, stroking my purse with an exaggerated motion, trying to imply there'd be a big tip involved if he spilled it. He shot a series of nervous looks around the place, then pulled a rag from his apron. As he pretended to wipe a mess up from the table, he leaned in close to me and said, "Pixie dust." "Pixie dust!" I said, and he immediately shushed me. "It's sweeter than sugar with a fourth of the calories. The owners brought the recipe with them from the old country." He eyed my purse, the polish in his voice 86 NICKY DRAYDEN replaced with that of street sensibilities. "I hope you know I could lose my job for telling you this." "I hear the going rate for tips on secret recipes is at two hundred percent these days." The waiter looked satisfied with my offer. After all, what was forty bucks compared to a lifetime free from dieting and exercise? I took another forkful, closely examining my dessert. I could see the sparkles glistening under the artificial light of the restaurant. Perhaps I could take a trip to the old country to find pixies of my own. I imagined myself in my kitchen, my new tiny companions flapping their delicate wings as they hovered above my mixing bowl. Then we'd all laugh as they cast plumes of their magic sweetness into my favorite recipes. I saw the waiter coming with my second piece, so I popped the last morsel into my mouth, but as I chewed, I crunched down onto something hard. I discreetly spat the offending bit into my napkin, then looked at it in horror. "Waiter, what is this?" I asked, holding up the napkin for him to see. Clearly it was a tiny glass slipper, no bigger than the nail on my pinky finger. "Oh," he said. "Sorry about that. The blades on the blender must need sharpening." "You mean..." I swallowed back the lump in my throat and ignored the sloshing in the pit of my stomach. "Are you telling me that I just ate a pixie?" "Not a whole one. Just a couple of them – five seconds on chop, fifteen on puree – is enough to make three TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 87 cheesecakes, easily." There it was, that concern on his face again, this time more grave. "Are you all right, ma'am? Can I get you a glass of milk?"
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WIZARD FIGHT ON SIXTH STREET BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Kaleidotrope, 2009
Two wizards approach in the night Eyes ablaze. Dos Equis on their breath Neon lights set the stage. Wands drawn, Widened stances, A battle over turf. Pimps and hookers cross the road To give them ample berth.
Words are slurred in a cryptic tongue, Mystic energies depart. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 89
Twin bolts ignite virgin sky Like molten works of art. Spectators stop, Beats slow, Bouncers crane to see the fight. Heaven's seams burst to bits Spilling silver streaks of light.
Screams tread in the moistened air. Waning moon eclipsed. Mackerel rains down by the ton Conjured from drunken lisps. Fins flap, A futile gesture. Sterling tides begin to swell. Proving yet again why wizards Should never drink and spell.
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UP IN SMOKE BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Cabinet Des Fées, 2010
"Evan, you'll give your brother nightmares," Mama rasps. Slumped in her vinyl chair, she barely has energy to scold me for smoking in her kitchen. Dewey beats his chubby hands on the tray of his highchair, pulverizing steamed carrots. Yeah, he's still on solids. The brat can't talk yet either, but he idolizes how I can dissipate into thin air, dine on a gentle breeze, look for love in a storm cloud, then slip under tattered weather- stripping and into bed before Mama ever suspects. I grow smoky tendrils behind Mama's back like giant bunny ears. Dewey laughs, spitting up carrot mash, and for a brief second his arms become gray wisps reaching toward TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 91 me. Mama sighs and pats him on the back, too many sleepless nights to notice. Smoking this young, Mama's gonna be pissed. But for now it'll be me and Dewey's little secret. Tonight we'll seep through a cracked window in his nursery and I'll teach him to surf the auroras, hitch a ride on the doldrums, and court mischief 'til we hit the stratosphere. Cloud chicks dig babies, I hear. I might like being a big brother after all.
92 NICKY DRAYDEN
JACK AND THE STEAMSTALK BY NICKY DRAYDEN
My boy Jack and me are down in the Everglen pulling wings off of fairies when he says to me, he says, "Hey, Gannon, wanna see something real special?" Of course I say yeah, because last time Jack had something real special to show me, it was an enormous curly brown pube hair – thick as a fire hose and nearly as long once we'd stretched it out. It'd fallen from the sky and belonged to that giant living way up in the clouds, right above where the Everglen is. Yeah, we're not supposed to be here. The Everglen is "off limits," like my mama always tells me in that squeaky voice of hers. But I can't stand staring at concrete all day TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 93 without a tree in sight, back in the city where the fairies have all got pissy attitudes and street smarts up to here, so it's no use trying to sneak up on them so we can pluck 'em. So anyways, Jack leads us down deep into the Everglen, over the tangled knots of tree roots and through dense brush, further in than I've ever been. Everything smells fresh as toilet cleaner out here, all piney and junk. Thorny vines nick at our pant legs, and innocent-looking mud puddles lie in wait for our slightest misstep. Jack does a good job guiding us around the danger, but as soon as I start feeling comfortable, a giant crescent slices through the canopy and trenches itself into the ground, right between me and Jack. It's like the moon's fallen from the sky, white and translucent. I press my hand up against the crescent and feel the ridges. I can barely make Jack out on the other side, doing the exact same thing. "Toenail clipping, right foot, big toe," Jack says in that way that makes him sound like an expert on all things giant. I join Jack in a hurry. A second earlier or later, one of us would have gotten pruned for sure. "Maybe we should go back," I say. Not that I'm scared or anything, mind you, but I promised Kaz I'd stop by her place to help her tidy up. And by tidy up, I mean waxing her unibrow, which trust me, is a two-person job. But she's the prettiest troll in the eighth grade, which maybe ain't saying much, but she's my girl either way. "It won't take long," Jack says back. "Promise." And 94 NICKY DRAYDEN then he starts running, and I follow behind, keeping one eye on the path ahead and another toward the treetops in case anything else tries to split me in two. It gets darker, light barely breaks through, and the noises of fairies and birds and insects become less like songs and more like shrieks and howls and cusses. And then I see it, a graveyard of gears and broken panes of glass half-buried in the moist ground. The vines are already trying to swallow them, shatter the gears into a million pieces, then turn them into dirt. In a day or two, you'd never even know they'd been here at all. Pixies are real particular about their surroundings. They don't like foreign objects littering up their woods, or foreign people for that matter. But you never see them, other than maybe a glimmer caught from the corner of your eye if you're lucky. Jack says he doesn't trust them because they're cowardly and lazy and make the forest do their dirty work for them, but I know that's not true. My MumMum's a pixie, and she’s probably the most adventuresome person I know, and she liked foreign people enough to marry my Elven grandfather. "So is this real special, or what?" Jack asks, stroking one of the gears. "It's a pocket watch. Or rather it was." "It's something," I say. "Why do you suppose the giant tossed it?" Jack shrugs. "Maybe it was broken. Anyway, it's ours now." I laugh. Maybe Jack didn't notice, but most of those TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 95 gears are bigger than us. No way we're moving that thing anywhere. Jack turns and stares me down with a bent brow and tells me that he's got this great idea on how to build another of his robominations and that it'll make us some serious cash. Sounds good, right? But last time Jack had a great idea, one of us ended up getting six stitches, the other got his stomach pumped, and neither one of us could look at a vacuum cleaner or a dish soap bottle for a good, long while without getting all queasy. So I listen, doing my best not to roll my eyes. It's what friends do, right? Entertain each other's delusions? He asks if I'll help, practically begs me, and I tell him, "Whatever, as long as we split the profits fifty-fifty," and he says, "Sure, but you'll have to pay Kaz out of your half." Then I realize it's not me he needs. It's my girl's biceps. Yeah, she could heft a gear on each shoulder without chipping her nail polish. Don't drool. She's all mine.
"You know, you could at least pretend to help," Kaz says, lugging fifty feet of rubber tarp under her arm, three ten-gallon water jugs strapped to her back like a pack mule. Yeah right, me and my wispy arms, with the upper body strength of a wet paper bag. She frowns, even more menacing than usual with the bristle from her unibrow showing, but who has time to wax when we're on the verge 96 NICKY DRAYDEN of being millionaires? Not that Jack lets us in on the purpose of his secret robomination. He just sits out in the middle of the forest, making us fetch scrap from all over the city while he constructs his latest monstrosity. Usually Jack means well, and he kicks ass at turning old junk into spectacular inventions. But sometimes Jack gets his mind set on something and there's no talking him down until halfway through the ambulance ride to the E.R. It's all changed, the Everglen, even from a couple hours ago, which means the pixies are angry with Jack's plan. Can't say I blame them. The whole city used to be forest, way before the developers came and paved everything over, putting up condos and coffee shops on every corner. That was way before my time, back when MumMum was about my age. I try to remember them silly ancestral songs she taught me when I was just a whelp. She'd purr the ancient lyrics while fluttering her wings so fast they trilled like a soprano with a helium habit. I hum the tune, a few words coming back to me here and there, and I hope it's enough to calm these pixies. The pathway thins a smidgeon, vines pulling back like anxious serpents, but then Kaz yells, "What are you humming?" and I grit my teeth and shake my head and ignore the awkward tug between my shoulder blades. "Damn pixies," Kaz growls as a vine swirls up and around her ankle. She kicks it off and trudges down to where Jack's building his robomination. Kaz doesn't know I'm one-forth pixie. That's not exactly the kind of thing you TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 97 go around telling just anyone. Not even Jack knows, and we've been best buds since we were dirtying up diapers. Oh, I've wanted to tell him a thousand times, but I've seen that look in his eyes when we pluck fairies – not just boyhood mischievousness, but jealousy and hatred and all those things you want to pretend aren't in your best friend's heart. Kaz throws the tarp down at Jack's feet, then crosses her arms over her expansive chest. "Jack, if you don't tell me why you've got me dumpster diving for this crap," Kaz snarls, "I swear I'm going to pound you into the dirt with this fist." Jack snickers, unsure if she's joking or not. She's not. "You'd better tell us," I say to Jack. "You know you're my boy, but if I've gotta pick sides, Kaz wins hands down." "Fine. I'm nearly done anyway," he says, dragging the tarp toward the skeleton of the robomination – gears, piping, wire, and a vast pile of other scrap put together with an enormous spool-like thing toward the bottom, and something that resembles a giant hair crimper sticking out from the top. Jack nods at Kaz to dump the last of the water into a fifty-gallon drum, then he takes after the tarp with a pair of shears, snipping it just so until it fits snuggly around the spool. "This machine is going to take us to the heavens!" I frown. "Not literally, right? It's just that after what happened with your last robomination ..." "Invention!" Jack shrieks. He hates my word for his 98 NICKY DRAYDEN freaky little projects. "I could have gotten it to work if I'd had the proper resources. That's why it's so important that this one succeed. I'll be so rich, I'll never have to build with scrap again! Just think of the possibilities!" "Do I have to?" I groan. "Look. The plan is simple. We've already ticked off those shifty pixies, so it'll only be a matter of time before they sic the vines after the steamstalk–" "The what?" Kaz asks. "The steamstalk. This invention. Pay attention," Jack says. Kaz slits her eyes. I put my hand on her arm to calm her. Her gray-green skin is thick, but soft as the finest leather. Get her riled up though, and she'll turn to stone on your ass, which maybe comes in handy dealing with bullies and door-to-door salesman, but I sorta like having my best friend all in one piece. "You mentioned riches," I say to Jack to get this conversation back on target. "How's that going to make us cash?" "Well, what's the one thing you know about giants?" Jack asks. "Um ... they're really big?" "Right! Everything's big up there, which means big treasure! Just a couple of gold coins would set us for life!" "You mean you want us to sneak up to the giant and steal his treasure?" I try to keep the terror out of my voice. "Isn't that, like, illegal?" TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 99
"The giant won't miss it. He's got tons of treasure, right? It'd be like swiping a few bucks from your ma's purse." "Only my ma's not as tall as a mountain range and wouldn't eat me if I got caught." Jack looks flustered for a moment, then shakes his head as if my logic obviously isn't good enough. "Gold, Gannon! And we won't get caught. We can't get caught. We'll be no bigger than fairies to him." The same fairies we were pulling wings off of a day ago? Perfect. But I keep my lips pressed together, and keep entertaining his delusion. After all, there's no way this robomination is going to do anything, besides maybe explode. "Did you hear that? Gold!" says Kaz, her dark eyes sparking like struck flint. She sweeps me up tight in her arms, swinging me side to side like a doll baby. "Oh, Gannie, let's just take a quick peek up there. You're not scared, are you?" I don't want to look like a chump in front of my girl, so I pull myself from the cling of her rocky cleavage and man- up. "I'm not scared. Do I look scared?" "A little," says Jack. "Just get your steamstalk working already, and I'll be the first one up!" Jack lights a match, then crawls under the robomination and sets some enchanted wood ablaze. That stuff burns long and hot, and in no time steam starts 100 NICKY DRAYDEN leaking from the loose joints of the robomination's pipes. The gears grind, slowly at first, but then build up enough momentum to start the giant spool churning. That's all this machine is doing, though – churning, churning, with the crimpers at the top flopping back and forth like drunken sock puppets. I breathe a sigh of relief, feeling like a million bucks. I get to be the supportive best friend and the daring boyfriend, all without stepping an inch off the ground. "Hey, maybe next time," I say to Jack, but then I see it – a long vine crawling up toward the robomination's spool. It gets caught on one of the gear teeth. "It's working!" Jack screams. Another vine latches on, then another. They grow aggressively, trying to devour the robomination, but Jack's figured out a way to use the forest against itself. In no time, the spool is full, and out the top come the ends of the vines. They go through the crimper and get braided together to form one massive stalk. The robomination works double time to keep from being swallowed up into the forest. "We'd better hitch a ride while we can," Jack says. I'm pushed from behind. "You first, hero," Kaz says to me. She bats her eyes, blows me a kiss. Oh, what I'll do for that girl. I mind my step as I climb up the spooled vines, then make my way up to the steamstalk itself. It's growing a foot per second now, so thick all three of us holding hands TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 101 couldn't get all the way around it. I clench my jaw and look at Jack and Kaz. They both nod back to me. Then I face my fear. I jump, latch on, and dig my arms and legs in tight. I'm thrust up so fast I have to close my eyes. I hear Kaz scream, "Here goes nothing!" then Jack say, "Treasure, here we come!" We ride for twenty minutes before the steamstalk grinds to a halt. "We'll have to climb from here," Jack says, his words chilling me worse than the cold breeze. The city and Everglen are spread out beneath us – a monstrous gray ring of stone buildings webbed with asphalt roads surrounding a lush island of greenery. Kaz and Jack are making up the distance. I start climbing, holding on to each breath of thin air. As we near the clouds, the temperature drops sharply, and soon we're blinded by whiteness. I struggle to find hand and footholds, grabbing carefully, knowing one false step will send me plummeting. At last the clouds part, and I step onto the billowing surface. It's spongy, but I learn to walk like I'm stepping on cotton candy. A little pressure and it stiffens beneath my feet, too much and my foot sinks straight through. Squinting through the harshest of sunlight, I see a ginormous fortress before me. Well, maybe not a fortress – more like an old, crusty shack that looks like it's a hard sneeze from crumbling to bits, but hell, it is ginormous, higher than the Bellview Towers and as wide as ten city blocks. "Is it everything we imagined?" Jack asks as Kaz yanks 102 NICKY DRAYDEN him onto the clouds. "Not quite," I say. From the looks of things, this giant hasn't got two pennies to rub together, much less any sort of gold. Jack seems undaunted and marches soundlessly right up to the expanse of weathered wood panels. They're buckling and cracking so bad that we're able to see right into the house. It's disorienting. I lose my balance as my eyes take in the view from a rat's perspective. A vast desert of warped wood planks stretches out in all directions with gaps as wide as Kaz's mother's ass ... not that I've been looking. But really, it's just a one room hovel: a cot, a table and a couple beat-up chairs, a wood stove with a frying pan hanging overtop, and rumpled clothes tossed about a sitting area. "I don't see any riches," I whisper, though there's no giant in sight, and even if there were, I doubt he'd hear us. "Oh, there's riches," Jack bellows. "We just have to try harder to find them." "There," says Kaz. "Over to the right, underneath the bench." Jack pushes us out of the way to get a better look. "It's a goose," he grumbles. "You never heard of the goose that lays golden eggs?" Kaz asks. "Sheeze, for a couple of treasure chasers, you certainly don't know much at all about giants." Kaz shakes her head, then steps inside. Jack and me scramble after her. I try not to breathe through my nose. It smells like dirty drawers in here. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 103
We're small enough to walk right through the wire mesh of the sleeping goose's cage, then we climb our way up to the top of her straw nest, careful not to disturb her. Last thing we need is to become some goose's mid- afternoon snack. "I'm going in," says Jack, staring up at twenty feet of feathered goose ass. "If she's sitting on something, I'm going to find it. Kaz, you see if you can break through a few of those links so we can roll the egg straight out of here." Kaz nods and starts snapping the cage wire with her bare hands. "And what do you want me to do?" I ask, suddenly feeling as useless as tits on a tumbleweed. "Watch for the giant." And like that, Jack disappears into a jungle of white and brown feathers. It's unnervingly quiet. My head swivels in each direction, my senses on edge. Did I just hear something? Shadows loom like seas. I can't stop shivering, and all my thoughts are about getting my skinny ass out of here, and to hell with Jack and his treasure. Why should I pretend to be brave when I'm not? It's in my blood after all, right? Just another skittish pixie, too afraid to face the world. Just as I'm about to make a run for it, Jack squirms back out covered in liquid gold. My heart flips so hard it skips a beat, but then I notice that it's yolk covering Jack, and lots of it. "They're just regular eggs." Jack sulks and wipes yolk from his face. "Through and through. Every single one of 104 NICKY DRAYDEN them." The goose stirs, then lets out a thunderous squawk as it cocks its head in our direction. "Let's get out of here," I say, and Kaz is right behind me, nodding in agreement. We're all the way back out in the clouds, nearly to the steamstalk when the wind picks up and snowflakes flutter past us. "It's snowing!" Kaz says, a real treat for us since it hardly ever snows in the city. Maybe this trip wasn't such a waste after all. I've impressed Kaz at least, maybe even enough to earn a nice, moist kiss. I pull her close to enjoy a romantic moment, and tilt my head up to catch a large flake on the tip of my tongue. It tastes like salt and doesn't melt in my mouth, just moistens like newspaper left out in the rain. I spit it out. "That's not snow," I say, scraping the gunk off my tongue with my teeth. Jack catches a piece in his hand and examines it. "Dandruff," he declares. And then the smell hits us. We all turn our heads up and stare straight into the face of an angry giant dressed in tattered rags and worn brown boots with frayed laces. He's got a serious case of bed head, and as far as I can tell, he must be allergic to personal hygiene. I expect him to say something profound, something giant-like, but he scowls with eyes as big and fiery as the sun and says, "You wee little shits destroyed my dinner!" We all scramble to the vine, but the giant reaches down, swoops us up into his palm, and brings us level with his TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 105 face. "Three eggs you destroyed. And there's three of you," bellows the giant in his deep, grinding voice. The halitosis plows into me like a head on collision with a train. "I'd call that a fair trade. Curried wee-people is my favorite meal." Then his fingers wrap us into a tight fist, and my stomach slips all the way to my feet by the time he's carried us back to the house and stuffs us into a spice jar half-full of curry. He sticks the cork lid on, then gives the jar a shake. We go flying like turds in upturned kitty litter, the three of us, coated all over in golden dust. I cough out the burn in my lungs as I try to find my footing. Outside our glass cage, the giant lights his stove, pulls down his frying pan, and sticks it on the single burner – every move so tooth-achingly slow that I've got all the time in the world to watch my life flash before my eyes. As the frying pan heats, the giant takes a cookbook from a sparse, built-in shelf and sits down at his table. I hear the grating of rocks behind me, and I turn to see Kaz's stone-cold self, boulders rising from her flesh, fists becoming balls of rugged igneous, bits of pebbles dancing across her skin like trained fleas. I gasp. Yeah, I'd seen her stoned-out before, but never like this. I slink out of her way, and watch as she whacks at the glass, hands like sledgehammers, but the glass is at least a foot thick, and Kaz only succeeds in scratching the surface. And then she starts crying, tears leaving beautiful blue- black streaks down the gray slate of her cheeks. I put my 106 NICKY DRAYDEN arm around her. "Jack will figure a way out of this," I say to her. "He always has great ideas." Jack's sitting cross-legged on a mound of curry, deep in thought. I sit next to him, eagerly waiting for inspiration to strike him. I look up at the cork stopper looming above, then nudge Jack. "Maybe we could build some sort of harpoon," I say, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. There're just my keys, a few coins, and a gum wrapper, but I've seen Jack do more with less. "And we could tie our clothes together to make rope, or–" "It's too high," Jack spits. I've never heard him so defeated. "Maybe, but we at least have to try!" There's an itch between my shoulder blades that makes itself known, an itch I'd nearly forgotten about. I shed my t-shirt and wriggle out of my too-tight undershirt as well. I reach around as best as I can and peel my sweat-drenched wings from my back. They trill as I flutter them dry, such frail, wimpy little things – partly from watered down genes, but mainly because I've kept them hidden all these years. I feel myself flush as Jack stares in awe, and I wonder if he'll still want to be best friends if we do manage to get out of here alive. I flap so hard, my winglets buzz, but it's not nearly enough to get me off the pile of curry dust. "Care to give me a launch?" I say to Kaz. She's dumbfounded, but agrees and tosses me nearly to the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 107 ceiling of the jar. I catch myself midair, slowly sinking back down, but I fight hard for me and Jack and Kaz and soon my arms are pressed up against the cork roof. I push, push hard for all of us. I'll never be as smart or as brave as Jack, or as strong as Kaz, and even though I've got the upper body strength of a pixie, I've got the heart of one, too. Heat rises all the way to my wingtips, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass, skin shimmering from head to toe. The lid begins to budge, then gives a bit, then pops loose, just enough for me to slip out. "I'll get you out of here," I say, then look over at the giant, who's still flipping through recipes. Quietly, I flutter down to the ground, and then run across the expanse of floor until I'm right under his chair. With all my might, I tug at the frayed edges of his shoelaces until they slip from their poorly tied knot and are long enough for me to loop together into a knot of my own. When I finish, I make a run for the door, whooping and hollering and beating the floor so he'll see me, but it's not working. I'm just not loud enough for the giant to hear, so I run back to the goose cage and yank on a feather in her sensitive area. She squawks bloody murder, and the giant looks my way, sees me, then lumbers to his feet. "Another wee-people?" he says. "Four is better than three!" And then he takes a step to chase after me and his shoelaces catch, and suddenly he's falling like timber right toward me. There's no time to go right or left, and I certainly can't outrun him, so I do the only thing I can and 108 NICKY DRAYDEN jump down into the crack between the wood flooring and try not to get smashed. My whole body rattles, and my brain nearly scrambles, but I don't have the luxury of worrying about myself. I've got to go back and save Kaz and Jack. I follow the walls of the floor planks blindly until I'm out from beneath the giant. Topside, I see the fallen giant among a shower of feathers, and that poor goose's cage smashed to bits. The aged rafters above creak angrily from the crash. I shake my head and find my bearings, then make my way to the stove. My heart sinks when I see the jar of curry shattered on the ground. "Kaz! Jack!" I run for what seems like a mile before I finally reach the mound of yellow dust. I dig through, searching, feeling, with tears streaming from my eyes. I feel a leg and pull. It's Kaz, groggy, but alive. "Troll defenses," she says. "A little fall like that won't hurt rock essence." And she's right. But Jack, Jack's just flesh and blood. Together we search for him, and Kaz pulls him out, his body limp in her massive arms. "He's still breathing," Kaz says. "Barely." "Oh, Jack, look what you've done this time," I say. We run past the giant, Jack flopping around like a rag doll draped over Kaz's shoulder. "Just you wait!" the giant bellows, just now getting up to his knees, but we're out of there, quick fast and in a hurry before he can slip out of his boots. Clouds cling to my feet as I sprint across the surface, but we don't have TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 109 time to tread carefully. The giant swings his door open, yelling and swearing and cursing at us. He slams the door behind him. The shack trembles, then leans a little further to the side. The giant turns back at the sound of moaning wood. He throws his hands up to his head as the shack begins to collapse into itself. We hustle back down the steamstalk and emerge from beneath the cloud just in time to see a thousand pieces of rotten wood raining down. The giant follows, his shrill scream running the entire length of my spine. They say his impact caused a city-wide blackout, and all the windows in a three-mile radius shattered. I don't remember any of that. I just remember the ambulance ride with Jack looking real, real bad, and the paramedics going on about broken this and punctured that, and how he was lucky to be breathing at all. And I'm by his side when he wakes up, still hooked to a dozen machines with tubes going in and out of him like he's one of his own robominations. "Hey, Gannon," he rasps, and I say to him, I say, "Hey, Jack, wanna see something real special?" and of course he says yeah, because he's been in an induced coma for two days, trapped inside his own mind. So I open my wallet and pull out a bunch of hundred dollar bills and I give him half, because we'd promised to split our riches fifty-fifty, though Kaz had already demanded more than her own fair share. "What's this for?" Jack asks. I tell him all about how that goose had gotten away in 110 NICKY DRAYDEN the commotion, and that it had flown right down, nearly landed on Kaz after the ambulance had taken me and him to the hospital. She'd sold that bird to an omletry for a hefty but fair sum plus free omelets for life. Jack tells me the thought of goose eggs makes him a little queasy, and I say, "Yeah, me too," then I tell him to hurry up and feel better so we can go back to the Everglen and pluck wings off of fairies before they decide to turn the forest into condos, and Jack says, "Maybe we shouldn't, because wings come in handy sometimes." Then we both sit quiet for a while, before Jack tells me that he's got an idea for a new robomination, and I listen to his delusions because that's what best friends do.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 111
Volume Five: Love and Other Filthy Habits
112 NICKY DRAYDEN
YOU HAD ME AT RARRRGG BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Shimmer Magazine, 2010
Few folks know that zombies prefer cat brains over human ones, cats being a smidge smarter and all. Problem is cats are just so damned quick. Then again, few folks know anything these days on account of there just being two of us left. And I can't rightly call myself human anymore, now can I? Dr. Arbuckle performs last-minute tests on the machine as I watch. She swats me away when I get too close. Not in a mean sort of way, but like Renée used to when I'd lift the lid off the stew pot to sneak a taste. Way back then, before Renée got the side of her head all chewed up. Back then, when I still ate stew. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 113
"I'm nearly done," Dr. Arbuckle says to me. She stands up from the instrument panel and the light from the fluorescent lamps hanging overhead hits her just right. Strands of sweaty hair cling to her face. She's beautiful and I tell her so. "Rarrrgg!" I say, but she never understands. She treats me real good, though. We've got a sort of unspoken contract, her and me. She promises to catch me stray cats with those contraptions she's set up about town, and in return, I promise to keep her in good company. And to not eat her. "June sixth, 2041," she says adjusting the dial on the machine. "That should give the world enough time to mount proper defenses." "Rarrrgg!" I agree. That's two months before the first confirmed case of the Rochester flu, which came out of nowhere and killed over forty-eight thousand in just a few weeks. Six months before the deadly mutation of the virus that now crawls through my veins. Eighteen months before mankind stares into the hungry jowls of extinction. Dr. Arbuckle works herself into a straight tizzy, stuffing a small duffle bag with test tubes and pages and pages of her chicken-scratch formulas. I try to shuffle out of her way, but I never move fast enough. "Steven!" she yells, giving me a bump with her hip. "A little room, please?" That's what she calls me when she's frustrated. Most often, it's just Steve, or sometimes Stevie when she's feeling 114 NICKY DRAYDEN sweet on me. My real name's Chet, like I've tried to tell her, but yeah... It's a good thing we found each other when we did. I'd smelled the sweet scent of her brain--must have been from thirty miles away. That's plenty far when you top out at a quarter mile an hour. I remember it clearly: her scavenging the local grocery for scraps. Me scavenging for her. Probably the last two survivors left on this war-torn planet. She shot me six times before her bullets ran out. Blew my left arm straight off, too! But then our eyes met, and my fetid heart fluttered. I led off with one of my old pickup lines. "If I told you you had an amazing body, would you hold it against me?" Of course she only heard the moaning and she screamed to high heaven, but she warmed up eventually. "Steve, come here. Let me show you something." I shuffle to the back of the room where Dr. Arbuckle is waiting for me with a patient smile. She's got one of her cat-catching contraptions set up, but this one's different. Bigger. Sturdier. "Listen carefully, Steve. Are you listening?" "Rarrrgg!" I say. I'm undead, not stupid. But then she smiles again, and that makes it all better. "Good. I've finished the time machine, and now I've got to set things right. I'll be going away, okay? I know I told you you'd be coming with me, but I'm afraid that's impossible." "Rarrrgg!" I yell. She'd promised. She promised she'd TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 115 keep me fed and I'd keep her company! I don't want to be left here alone. "It's not that I don't trust you, but we just can't risk another outbreak. Oh, Stevie, I know this is hard for you to understand." She sighs and places her gloved hand on my good shoulder. "If I succeed, then none of this will ever happen. You'll go on living whatever life you had before you were infected." Well, this is just great. The last woman on Earth is giving me the "it's not you, it's me" runaround. I feel something itching the corner of my eye, then a warm bead of sludge trickles down my cheek. The hell, I'm crying! "But in case I fail, I've refitted all the traps so you can bait and retrieve them yourself. See this pedal?" She presses her foot down on a metal plate and the cage door wrenches open. She drops a tuna can in a slot at the top. A barbed spike activates, punches a hole in the can, then eases it down onto the trigger plate. "And that's all there is to it," she says, a trace of remorse in her voice. She walks back to the time machine and slings the duffle bag over her shoulder. "Well, Steve. Wish me luck." "Rarrrgg!" I say, and really mean it. She presses a button on the panel and the machine begins gyrating. I shuffle toward her, fast as I can, nearly tripping over my own feet. There's so much I want to tell her, and I can't help wondering if things were different, if my skin wasn't the color of week-old fish, if my body parts 116 NICKY DRAYDEN didn't slough off whenever they pleased, if I didn't feast on the brains of dead tabbies... could she love me? "I know, Stevie. I know. If there were another way, I--" She gets all choked up. I must look really pathetic. She steps toward me, arms outstretched, and hugs me. I squeeze back, my blue-black tears smudging across her cheek. It's then that I sink my teeth into her neck. Softly. Tenderly. She yelps, but doesn't fight. There is another way. She knows it. I know it. But it's one of those truly awful things no one wants to talk about until the deed is dead and done. I hold her tightly in my arm and watch the life drain from her face. Then I wait. As long as it takes. Hunger's raging, but I tamp it down deep with every scrap of soul I got left in me. Finally, she starts to twitch, and her eyes flutter open. She takes a timid first step, then does something with the rigid muscles of her face that just might be a smile. I take her cold, stiff hand in mine. As we shuffle together over the threshold of the whirring time machine, she says those three little words I've yearned so long to hear: "Rarrrgg!"
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 117
MOTHER TENTACLE BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Aoife's Kiss, 2010
In a nest of my crewmates' bones I wriggle, coated with mucus, crying like a babe left to wolves. Mother Tentacle cradles me in the curve of her succulent arm and with its tip, tugs my gaze from the wreckage on the horizon. I heed her subtle warnings since I cannot be Mother's hostage if she's killing me with kindness.
118 NICKY DRAYDEN
Locked in the same embrace that stripped the others of life and flesh, she nurtures me, slicks back my hair, rubs dirt from my cheek, like my own mother's wet thumb. Though Mother Tentacle is all wet, all thumb. I cringe at her oppressive touch but I cannot be Mother's slave if she's smothering me with kisses.
I'm a spectator of my own demise too frail to escape too indifferent to hope for rescue. Mother Tentacle tempts me to suckle sweet nectar dripping from puckered pores. Like an insolent child I refuse her gift, her love. Silent contempt remains my only weapon for I cannot be Mother's prisoner if she's strangling me to death.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 119
NO MORE GOLD STARS BY NICKY DRAYDEN
My students bounce around the room with limitless energy, climbing on tables and knocking over chairs. It's useless to chase them. My joints are too stiff, and after twenty-eight years of teaching, the best I can hope is for some of my lessons to sink in on accident. "Next is the letter P," I say into thin air, my voice scratchy and raw. "Can you say P? P is for people." I look for a glimmer of hope in these kids' eyes, a spark of interest. Something that will make me not worry so much about our bleak future. But it's all bedlam in my classroom- -running, screaming, shrieking. Biting. "Curtis!" I yell. "What did I tell you about biting?" Curtis ignores me and continues to sink his teeth into 120 NICKY DRAYDEN
Sapna's arm. Sapna wails and tries to pull away, but Curtis has a good grip on her. For goodness sake. I lay down the book and amble toward the pair. I'm not fast, but I know how to look intimidating. That look is enough for Curtis to disengage and he slips past me, running and screaming to the other side of the classroom. He starts shoving crayons into his mouth--peach, tan, raw sienna--he looks at me as he does so, taunting me. I ignore him and focus on Sapna. "Are you okay?" I ask her, rubbing my fingers along the gash in her forearm. She moans and wraps her arms around my waist. She's a sweet one. If any of my students have a chance of making it, it's her. "It'll be fine," I tell her, then lead her by the hand back to the reading circle. I continue where I left off. "Next is Q. Can you say Q?" I pause for my audience of one. Sapna blinks at me, but not blankly like the others. Her mouth puckers, but no sound comes out, just a forced exhalation. "Almost, I say," trying to be encouraging, but I can see the frustration on her face. "Q is for Quarantine." I glance up as I hear Paul yelling now, bawling his eyes out and pointing at Curtis. It takes me only a moment to see what's going on. Oh, that boy! "Curtis! Stop sucking on Paul's thumb! You've got two perfectly good ones of your own!" Curtis growls at me, but drops the thumb, and it goes rolling under the desk. Perfect. It takes me a whole three minutes to maneuver down onto my knees. I carefully pick TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 121 the thumb up and place it into a small envelope. I don't have much dexterity in my fingers, but I'm able to scrawl "Paul" across the front in block letters, atrocious penmanship for a teacher, but these days we all make do. I set the envelope in Paul's backpack, right on top so that his parents will see. Then I lead him to the reading circle. He sits cross-legged next to Sapna. I breathe a heavy sigh, then pick up the book again. With great pains I am able to turn the page. "Next is the letter R. R is for Rigor Mortis. Can you say R?" "Rrrrrrrrrrgg," Sapna and Paul say with gusto, so proud of themselves. Yes, it's their favorite letter, practically the only one they can pronounce. But it still fills me with pride. Maybe they'll get S next. Maybe I can teach them to read. To strategize. The young ones are so nimble, so dexterous. If we could teach them to build bridges, to use weapons, to tactically track living flesh ... we might just have a chance at winning this war. "Rrrrrrrrgg!" they say again, and this time I join in. I laugh, probably the first laugh I've had since I went through the change. It sounds more like choking, and it startles me some, but it doesn't ruin how I feel inside. From across the room, all alone, Curtis looks at us with sorrow. I envy the expressions he's able to make. Yes, he's a brat, a disruption, but behind the gray skin and dead eyes, he's just a little boy looking to fit in. "Why don't you come sit with us, Curtis?" I offer, hoping I haven't invited disaster to our reading circle. 122 NICKY DRAYDEN
He perks a little, then grabs a sheet of paper from the table and scampers over. "Rrrrrrrrrgg!" he says to me, presenting his masterpiece. Curtis had managed to color perfectly within the lines, though he'd done the skin in blue since he'd eaten all of the flesh-toned crayons. See Dick Run, was printed at the bottom. Dick should run, I think to myself. If Curtis's hand was steady enough to do this, then he could do just about anything. I pull Curtis into a stiff-armed hug. "Very good!" I tell him. "You get a gray star!" And a little extra dollop of chilled brains at snack time, but I don't mention that because I don't want to make the others jealous. Curtis sits down next to Sapna who clutches her wounded arm. "It's okay, Sapna. Curtis, you won't bite again, will you? You know what we say ... 'biting is only for living flesh.'" I pick up my book once again, this time with a smile on my face, or at least as close to one as I'm going to get. "The next letter is S. S is for Survival. Can you say S?" It might be my imagination, but behind their dead eyes, I think I see the faintest of glimmers, the tiniest little spark of hope.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 123
TIME'S JEWEL BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Fusion Fragment, 2011
My clients always insist on doing it in the reactor room. The pulsing of electrostatic forces is similar to making love on the beach in broad daylight, waves breaking over our intertwined bodies. More sensual, perhaps. And then there’s the added thrill of knowing their fiancées are waiting for them not even a hundred meters away. They don’t wait long, though. Ninety seconds on average, not nearly enough time to raise suspicions that I’ve had my way with their future husbands, once, twice, and sometimes again if their consciences don’t start catching up. That’s what I love most about the Pequat Reactor -- it nurtures inhibition and postpones regret, like a double shot 124 NICKY DRAYDEN of Everclear on the subatomic level. Nearly every one of my clients fits a particular type. Rich, that goes without saying. Workaholics. Sexually repressed. Mommy issues. They want to be good husbands, but don’t know how. They yearn to be liberated, but the ruthless structure of corporate life’s got them by the balls. That’s where my services as cruise director come in -- bending time and packaging freedom into little bite-sized chunks. “And that, Mr. Thomas, concludes the tour of Time’s Jewel,” I say as we enter the ship’s waiting room. Antwerp Thomas stumbles in behind me on rubbery legs. I give him a subtle glare and he straightens up before the lovely and well-kept Nadia Bishop notices. “Well, dear, how was it?” Nadia says half-interested, not even ten pages into her Elle magazine. To her, we’d only been gone a couple minutes. She’d opted out of the behind-the-scenes portion of the boat tour and never would guess that beneath the frilly wallpaper and stark white wainscoting existed a maze of circuitry embedded into meter-thick alloy walls, anchoring the waiting room to Real Time. “Absolutely amazing,” Antwerp says, his voice cracking. I can tell he wants to look at me, but he keeps his eyes focused on Nadia like I told him. The other telltale signs of recent infidelity can be written off as side effects from the reactor. I shake Antwerp’s hand, then Nadia’s. “So your TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 125 honeymoon is all set. I've got the Assayer Suite reserved for you, fourteen days Ship Time -- two days Real Time. Room service, turn down service. Stocked mini-bar. Full gourmet menu. On-call masseuse.” “Two weeks, and you won’t even miss a day of work, dear.” Nadia squeezes Antwerp’s hand. She’s smiling, so giddy that she doesn’t notice him slipping. He’s staring at me. Hard. Regret’s catching up to him. I bet he’s wondering if he’ll be able to stomach consummating his marriage in the same bed he and I shared. We’ll see. Too late for him to back out now. The fifteen-thousand-dollar non-refundable deposit’s already dented his bank account.
I’ve never believed in love. That’s what happens when your perfect world implodes at the age of five. My mother became a serial monogamist shortly after she and my father split. She had her “friends” that stayed over. After a month or two they’d become my “uncles,” and a few even lasted long enough for me to call them daddy. When Rissa, my older sister, turned sixteen, she moved out and took me with her. She’d always been my anchor, shielding me from the worst of Mother’s reckless decisions. We lived with Paul, my sister’s boyfriend. He was twenty- four, smoked a lot of dope, and lived in a rat-infested hole of an apartment, but other than that, was a pretty decent guy. Ma pitched a fit and threatened to call the cops on him 126 NICKY DRAYDEN if we didn’t come home. But then she met a biker named Raven with greasy sideburns and a thick southern drawl. Ma decided she liked riding him more than she liked being a mother, which was fine by me. I’d put that mess behind me as much as any person can. A thousand miles and a decade for me, only six years Real Time. I take every shift on Time’s Jewel I can get, thirty weekends a year. So technically, that means I’m now Rissa’s older sister. A fact not lost when I see her walk into my office for an after-hours appointment. I feel my jaw hanging loose, and I shut it. Paul’s with her, a clean shaven version of the guy I remembered. “Well, aren’t you going to say anything, Maddie?” As Rissa opens her arms to me, I catch the gleam of an engagement ring. Nothing impressive, but respectable enough. As kids, we’d pinky swore we would never get married. But things change. People change. Paul rushes over and lifts me into the air as if I were still that wispy little girl who’d made a home for herself on his black vinyl couch. “Hey, squirt. Long time no see.” He puts me down and tousles my hair. I grimace, but allow it. Anyone else who tried something like that would lose a finger. “Surprised to see us?” asks Rissa. She kisses me on the cheek, then takes a seat in front of my desk. Paul stands behind her, rubbing her shoulders. “You could say that.” “Why don’t you ever call? We miss you.” Rissa didn’t TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 127 say it, but “we” included Ma. Somehow, Rissa had found it in her heart to forgive our mother for the hell she’d put us through. Good for her. “Been busy working," I say. "Time flies ...” Paul nearly chokes on his laughter. “I’ll bet.” He snatches one of the cruise brochures on my desk and leafs through it. “I'd say time is the one thing you have plenty of.” Soft jab. Verbal poke in the eye. That’s how me and Paul used to show our affection, and baited, I fall right back into it. “Yeah, well I’d’ve bet a thousand bucks you woulda knocked Rissa up by now.” Silence snags the air. Paul’s smile tumbles off his face. I remember they were trying for a baby three years back. Five years? My memories have become a slippery slope. Nothing firm to grab on to. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. “We want to adopt,” Paul says, taking the seat next to Rissa and putting his hand on her thigh. “So we’re getting married at the courthouse next week. We’ve got a long road ahead, but we’re hopeful. Rissa’s got a steady job with the State. Construction’s dried up in Pittsburg, so I’m taking a six-month gig in Louisville. We’ve only got these three days to enjoy each other, and we want to make them count.” Rissa nods, casting her eyes down slightly in an attempt to hide her tears. “We were hoping you could help us stretch them. We’ve got some money saved.” Blood stagnates in my veins. Rissa means life savings, 128 NICKY DRAYDEN
I’m sure, and I doubt it’ll total enough to take a regular cruise, much less one through the turbulent seas of time. “We’re booked twelve months in advance,” I say. “And even the wait list is a mile long. You know I would if I could ...” Rissa wrings her hands and glances at Paul then me. “It’s okay. We knew we were asking a lot.” I bite my lip and hope the shame in my heart hasn’t made it to my face. I owe both of them more than I could ever repay. There’s got to be something I can do. Anything. “They test run the reactor tonight. I can get you five, maybe six days,” the words spurt out, uncontrolled. Reluctantly, I pull a keycard from my desk drawer and pray I haven’t made an empty promise. I lock eyes with Rissa. We have the exact same eyes, we’ve been told. Eyes that witnessed the same horrors. Same love. “Take the Galilean Suite,” I say handing my sister the key to the Jewel’s most luxurious stateroom. I only wish there were more I could give her.
“Six days? Not possible. Maybe two,” Art Castellanos, the ship’s senior engineer, tells me for the third time. He crosses his arms over his chest as if my proposition is an insult to his moral fiber. “Two days isn’t enough,” I say, trying to look intimidating, though Art stands a full foot taller. “That’s TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 129 hardly any time at all!” Art and I play this game a couple times a month. He’s a by-the-books kind of man, which is what you want when your business depends on warping space-time without destroying the planet. But sometimes I need my own private getaway, and Art helps me with that. I’ve probably logged another six months of non-sanctioned launches aboard Time’s Jewel. Being cruise director does come with that benefit, and so far no one’s questioned why Art’s had three raises this year alone. “Come on. It’s not like I’m asking you to push the reactor past its limits.” “Theoretical limits,” Art reminds me. “There are protocols for a reason.” “Well, if you don’t think you can do it ...” I purse my lips and look pensive, like I’m considering how to word my ad for a new temporal engineer in the Chronicle’s Classifieds. Art uncrosses his arms, then re-crosses them. I’ve got him off balance, doubting himself. “If anyone can do it, I can,” he says. I throw out some tempting salary figures and Art and I come to an agreement. “Six days?” Art strokes the hairs on his chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I lead Paul to the suite, holding the door open as he 130 NICKY DRAYDEN hefts his and Rissa’s luggage inside. Nearly two-thousand square feet lay sprawled out before him, furniture and accessories coordinated to a palette stolen from the last splash of color before sunset. Sheer curtains hang on floor- to-ceiling windows like a seductive veil leading out to the terrace. The view of the Galveston Bay leaves something to be desired, but when Time’s Jewel sets sail, the Gulf’s waters unfurl in a decelerated ripple. Peering out over the majesty of those roiling grey-green waves, anything becomes possible. Paul tries to look unimpressed. He dumps the bags at his feet, then announces to no one in particular, “A little cozy, but this’ll do.” “The Prince of Wales once stayed here,” I say, propping my hands on my hips. “He had nothing but compliments, so I’m sure you’ll find it adequate, your highness.” He smirks, then skirts the room, running his finger along the ornate armoire angled in the corner. “This antique?” I nod. “Cuban Mahogany. Early nineteenth century. And before you ask, yes, that’s a real Picasso.” I check my watch. Half past seven. Still thirty minutes ‘til show time. I’m anxious for Rissa to see the room. She’d run off to the corner store for some last-minute necessities -- mini powdered donuts, trashy romance novels, floss, sunscreen -- before I could tell her about the ship’s duty- free shop. I laugh as reality strikes me. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 131
“What?” Paul asks, foraging through the welcome basket on the coffee table, then falling back into the crush velvet sectional, a fistful of foil-wrapped dark chocolates in one hand and an amenities brochure in the other. “Sunscreen. I just realized it’s going to be nightfall your entire trip. The artificial lights and biolume sky will cycle, but no real sun on the decks. Not that you two lovebirds will make it out of the room.” I catch myself looking at my watch again. Nervous habit. The words I want to ask him are bottlenecked in my throat. “Paul?” His smile fades. Maybe the quiver in my voice betrayed me, but he knows what I’ll say next and spares me further discomfort. “Three miscarriages. I think it’s killed a little piece of her each time.” I take a seat next to him. I have no words that could soothe his pain, so I just lean my head on his shoulder. “Rissa’s better now, I think. She’s got this adoption thing to keep her mind busy ...” “But?” “You know as well as I do we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell. I’d probably still be in prison now if your mom had cared a little more about you guys. And those old drug charges keep creeping back up anytime things start going good.” “You and Rissa turned out all right. Considering.” He glares at me. “So my sis was jail bait. But nine years and you’re still 132 NICKY DRAYDEN madly in love. That’s better than most people can claim.” “When’d you turn into such an optimist?” From his tone, I can’t tell if this is another jab, or if he’s serious. I check my watch again. “She’d better hurry.” “Rissa won’t be late. She’s never late.” The floor hums underfoot as the reactor goes into the pre-test phase. “I’ve got some paperwork to get done,” I say as the bulkheads begin to moan. I make my way to the door, steadying myself for the lurches to follow. “I’ll call to check on you before I bunker up.” “Wait. You’re staying Real Time?” There’s fear in Paul’s voice. Bending space-time has become so familiar, I sometimes forget the enormity of it all. “Don’t worry. Everything you need to know is in the welcome basket. There’s no crew during the test, but the kitchen’s open, so take whatever you like.” “Honestly, we were hoping to spend some time with you.” “Me, tagalong on your honeymoon? I still can’t get the images of you guys sucking face in the back of movie theaters out of my mind.” “Seriously, Maddie. After what Rissa’s been through, we’ve both learned how precious family is. We love you. We miss you.” I recoil, shove my hands into my pockets, and stare at my shoes. “I--” “I know ... you would if you could, right?” Right. I suppress these inklings of emotion and steer TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 133 the conversation elsewhere. “Remember, there’s no lifeguard on duty, so tell my sis not to get too happy with the margaritas by the poolside.” Paul sighs in resignation. “Fat chance.” I brace myself in the doorway, and the lurches come like clockwork. If Paul hadn’t teased me so much during my adolescence, I might have warned him. He stumbles, grabbing the back of a wingchair for balance. “That’s normal,” I say as I step into the hallway. “I’ll see you guys in a few hours.” Paul manages a smile. “See you in six days.”
I barely make it around the corner when a sharp grinding noise rattles the chandeliers in the hallway. Lights flicker, and for a long moment, they leave me at the mercy of pale orange running board lights. I brace myself against the wall in near darkness and wait for the tremors to stop. They don’t. They only fade enough for me to regain my footing and seek out the nearest call station. There’s one twenty meters away, a beacon of soothing blue light, cut- out emergency figures, and block lettering. I dial the extension to the control room, three decks below. “Art? What’s going on down there?” I wait for a response that never comes. I try once more with more urgency in my voice, twice more, a dozen times with the same result. Art’s too obsessive to leave his station 134 NICKY DRAYDEN unattended, and too professional to pull a passive- aggressive prank, even if I did indirectly threaten his job. I check my watch again, still twenty minutes until the test launch. I’m left with no choice but to pull the emergency override. I remove the tiny hammer from its holster, then ready my aim at the glass encasement. The sharp steel tip hovers an inch from impact, but if I interrupt the test, Time’s Jewel won’t be able to launch this weekend, and the thought of thirty-five angry bridezillas breathing down my neck is paralyzing. Another set of tremors force me to face my fear. I take my backswing, but a deep warbling hum breaks my concentration. It’s coming closer, quickening and rising in pitch. Static fills the air, prickling at my skin. Electric blue threads snap in and out of existence before my eyes, like currents jumping from Tesla coils. My first instinct is to run, though I know there’s no escape. The force corrals me back to Paul’s suite. As I check over my shoulder, my legs tangle and I hit the floor chin first. The world blurs. Footsteps approach, then I hear Paul’s voice. “Maddie! Maddie, are you all right?” My mouth is tacky with blood. I scout the groove in my lip with my tongue. After a moment, images congeal, and I see Paul’s worried face. My thoughts churn slowly, but I feel safe in his arms. "I am now." The electrostatic tidal wave is about to crash over us. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 135
Paul stares at it -- magnificent and threatening. Beautiful and angry. He pulls me closer and whispers into my ear, “You think they would have mentioned something about this in the welcome basket.”
Paul stands portside, staring over the railing as Rissa runs along the pier toward the boat. She’s got a plastic shopping bag in one hand and is clutching a flimsy-rimmed sunbonnet to her head with the other. Both her feet are suspended in the air. They’ve been that way most of the day. Rissa’s taken exactly three steps since the Jewel’s malfunction, eleven days ago Ship Time. Paul’s only said a handful of words since I broke the bad news, though I’ve done a good job at keeping myself scarce. He barely eats. I approach silently, squinting under the intensity of the biolume sun and pale blue sky, tossed over the nighttime like a thin blanket. I set Paul’s dinner on the deckchair next to him -- lasagna piled with enough Italian sausage to snap any man out of a lovesick coma. I allow myself a moment beside him, looking out at the still life that is my sister. “How much longer?” he says, eyes still affixed to Rissa. His voice startles me. I'm hesitant about giving Paul another optimistic number that’ll come and go. Three days, I’d said right after the launch. Then a week. Whatever Art did calibrating the 136 NICKY DRAYDEN
Pequat Reactor, something had gone seriously wrong. From my best guess, we’re running a Real Time Factor of .0000035. A normal launch clocks an RTF of about .18, which gives a week for every day. We’re getting a week per second. “Months,” I say, expecting backlash, but Paul only nods. I find the courage to add, “At least three. Maybe four.” I’d finally salvaged enough wits to pull the emergency override, but with the enormous time lag, the fifteen Real Time seconds it takes for the reactors to disengage drag on like eternity. “A watched pot never boils,” I say to lighten the mood. At first I get no response so I turn to leave, but Paul reaches out and beckons me to stay. “What can I say? I like the view.” Paul almost smiles. He sits, loads up a forkful of lasagna, and sighs. “She won’t miss you at least.” “True. But I miss her enough for the both of us.” “I’m sorry.” There’s a long, awkward pause, like he’s struggling for the right words. “I don’t blame you for this, you know. You tried to help us out. I’m not angry. Just miserable.” “Welcome to my world,” I say, though I immediately wish I hadn’t. I don’t want him prying into my thoughts, wondering why I’m speeding through life like the first to the finish line wins. I don’t want him getting close. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never had feelings for Paul. Schoolgirl TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 137 crush, is all -- easily ignored if I keep a few decks between us. “I’d better go.” “I guess I’ll see you for breakfast then?” Paul smirks, then bites down into his lasagna. Chewing. Swallowing. Licking his lips. “Not bad for a girl who could scorch the hell out of minute rice.” “Thanks, I think.” “You know, this kind of reminds me of when Rissa was going to night school, and you and me would stay up watching Flash Knightly reruns ‘til she got home.” “Yeah,” I laugh. To him I’m sure we were just wasting time, but watching those old grainy, two-dimensional action/comedies were some of the best moments of my life. For a few hours, I could forget about everything and concentrate on being a kid. “Why don’t you dig up a few episodes and meet me in our room in twenty minutes.” I like how he still calls it “our room” though Rissa’s never stepped foot inside. It’s enough to make me feel like she’s here with us, just down the hall getting a manicure, or her hair done. Her presence gives me the confidence I need to let my defenses down for an evening. It’ll give Paul a chance to get his mind off things. I owe him that. I look over the railing once more before leaving, envying the sparkle in my sister’s eyes.
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“I still love her, you know.” Paul feels the need to say it each time we're intimate. His touch is tender against my bare thigh, but I catch the implication behind his words. We could be stranded together for a million years without hope of seeing Rissa again, and he’d never love me. At least not the way I want him to. I guess I can respect that, though I’ll never understand it. I snuggle in closer, rake my fingers through his chest hair, and pretend I didn’t hear him. I’ll allow him his fantasies if he’ll allow me mine. We’d grown close over those first few weeks -- frolicking across the Jewel’s deserted decks, skinny-dipping like carefree children under the moonlight, raiding the Duty Free shop for top shelf booze. I fought with every ounce of decency to deny the icy seductress within me, but an innocent caress swelled into something more, and we’d lost ourselves to unexpected passion. Had it merely ended with that kiss, I could have forgiven myself, but I then set out to seduce Paul like I had all the others. I played him. Stroked his worst fears and plucked at his insecurities, and when his defenses had worn to nothing, I led him down the familiar path to the reactor room. Through the double-set of sealed doors, we entered my web. The bait was tempting enough: a chance to see one of the five functioning Pequat Reactors in the world, like an eight-foot tall silver bullet nested in the middle of the room, a column of pure, blue-white light emanating from TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 139 its tip. Its rhythmic warbling harmonizes with the soul, resonates with primal life forces, strumming up latent desires until Paul had no choice but to seek the comfort of my bosom. Paul’s nothing like my clients, though. He’s the embodiment of the ultimate betrayal and at the same time, the pinnacle of thrill. And the shame? I’ve spent so many years burying mine, it hardly even registers. I kiss his cheek, his shoulder blade, his chest, his navel. He flinches, then stops me. “We shouldn’t do this anymore,” he says, not for the first time, but there’s an undeniable conviction in his voice. “I know,” I say, treading lightly around his guilt. “She doesn’t deserve it. We shouldn’t have let this go on for so long.” “It should never have happened at all.” His words sting. They wouldn’t have two months ago, even two weeks ago. Tears well up in my eyes. Real ones. “How am I supposed to face Rissa, huh? How can I ever explain this?” “You can’t tell her, Paul. We agreed on that in the beginning.” “I don’t care. This isn’t right. No matter how lonely I get, there’s no excuse. No matter how hard I pretend, you’ll never be Rissa. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to you." Paul smudges a tear from my cheek. "You deserve more.” I keep my burning eyes clenched. He wouldn't say those things if he knew all of the pain I'd caused, all of the 140 NICKY DRAYDEN marriages I'd doomed from the start. “I don’t deserve--” Paul presses his finger against my lips, then pulls me close. I bury my head into the crook of his neck and tell him the truth. “I think I’m falling in love with you.” “I know, Maddie.” He kisses the top of my head, then squeezes me tight. We both pretend to fall asleep.
For the next few weeks, Paul spends his time on the Newtonian Deck where he can keep an eye on Rissa, and I waste my days down in the bowels of Time’s Jewel where I can keep tabs on the reactor. Our paths cross every once in a while in the confines of the main dining room. We’re cordial, of course, and if either of us detects the other is going off the deep end, we’ll share a meal together. But for the most part, it’s just me and the reactor and Art. I watch him sometimes through the six-inch porthole that separates the reactor room from the control room, where Art’s bunkered up in Real Time. His face is twisted up in the most amusing expression, lips caught on a cuss word that'll last another three days. Until recently, I also spent a fair amount of time leaning against the reactor, letting the wave pulses knead away the tension in my back, the flitters in my gut, and the hole in my heart. Art said it’s perfectly safe, but after I realize I’m over a month late, I keep my distance just in TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 141 case.
I’m in the middle of preparing an apple butter, pickle, and Godiva sandwich when Paul walks into the kitchen. I slap a slice of garlic bread on top to hide the evidence of this killer craving and make my way to the exit. “How’s it going?” I say as I pass, keeping a pace that’ll allow two more exchanges at most. “You don’t have to stay down there by yourself.” “I think we both know that I do. Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got Art keeping me company.” I pause in the doorway, despite my better judgment. I’ve decided not to tell Paul I’m carrying his child. The last thing we need is more complications. “Maddie, don’t be too hard on yourself. I could have said ‘No.’ Men are capable of that, I hear.” Paul looks at me with a heavy brow, but the rest of his face is slack with indifference. I’d rather he hated me, felt something toward me. I retreat into the hallway. “The reactor’s nearly reached the deceleration threshold," I mumble. "Won’t be much longer now. A few days, maybe a week.” Paul reels, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’m ready to face her.” “Time’s a bitch like that.” “I’ve been thinking,” he pauses and stares at a spot just 142 NICKY DRAYDEN above my shoulder. “What if I don’t tell her?” I’ve waited so long for him to say these words. I never wanted to hurt Rissa. She’s already gone through so much. Given so much. “We don’t have to.” “It’d be easier.” “Especially for her ...” How effortlessly we delude ourselves. It wouldn’t take long to perfect our cover story. Void our guilt. Bury the evidence. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to make this agonizing decision, and I swore I’d never let myself get knocked up again. Oh, the risks the heart takes when the mind isn’t watching! I’ve never wanted to be a mother, and yet here I am, a tiny piece of me wondering if I could make it work. These frilly-minded thoughts are fleeting, however. I’m not ready to give up my lifestyle, my body, my sanity just to bring another life into this world. But I’m carrying this gift Rissa would love more than anything, and certainly more than I ever could. It’s not the ideal way to repay my sister for being my savior all those years ago, but at this point, it’s all I have to give. I only hope she’ll find it in her heart not to hate me forever. “Paul...” I swallow the insurgence of saliva, steady my nerves, and cradle my non-existent belly. “You might want to sit down for this.”
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Ten seconds after Art gives us the go-ahead to disembark, Paul is down the gangplank and up the pier, his arms wrapped around Rissa. I scuttle along behind him and get there in time to catch the tail end of a wet, passionate kiss. “Wow,” Rissa says, batting her eyelashes. “I told you guys I’d be back in time.” She checks her watch. “Twenty minutes to spare, see?” Paul turns around and grins at me, speechless. It’s then that I know we’ll all be okay. Paul’s already started to forgive himself, and Rissa’s never been one to hold a grudge, even when she has every right to. Not that it’ll be an easy course or a quick one, but if there’s any relationship that can survive this, it’s theirs. “What do you say we all grab some dinner,” says Paul, so much honesty in his voice, the truth ready to burst from his chest at any moment. I can’t say I’m as eager as he is, but we’ve decided to tell her. Together. “I know this Italian place just a few blocks north of here,” I say. “Saltwater Bistro. My treat.” It’s the least I can do. Rissa’s eyebrows crinkle in on each other. For a second, I think she senses the truth -- that in the span of a few heartbeats, I had changed all our lives forever. I hold my breath, waiting for her to ask why my face seems slightly wider, my hair slightly longer, my aura slightly brighter. “Dinner?” she says. “What about our trip?” 144 NICKY DRAYDEN
Paul wraps his arm around her waist, his smile becoming a wince. “It’s sort of a long story...” I grit my teeth, my heart aflutter. “Hey, guys. I’ve got a couple loose ends to tidy up here. Meet you there in twenty minutes?” Paul nods distractedly, oblivious to my intentions. I’m not ready to face Rissa yet. The words are there, lodged in my throat, but I need more time. Though I guess if I can convince Art to give me enough of it, there won’t be a need to say much at all. The idea of going through this pregnancy alone has me tied up inside, but for me, speeding recklessly through life is hardly a new endeavor. This time, instead of merely running away, I’ve chosen my own destination. Besides, I’m not alone. Not anymore. There’s also this child curled up in my womb, a little girl perhaps, with her father’s smile and her mother’s eyes. Before I head back for my final voyage aboard Time’s Jewel, I step up and hug my sister, as queasy as it makes me. I tell her that I love her, and she tells me the same. I don’t let go. I want her to remember this moment. Just two sisters. Uncomplicated. For now.
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Volume Six: Family Antimatters
146 NICKY DRAYDEN
EQUILIBRIUMS BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Chari swung her machete at the pineapple nestled between her feet. She took pride in keeping her blade extra sharp, and the fruit split in half with a nearly effortless whack. A sweet tang filled the air. Teresa grinned wide and stretched her grubby little fingers at the larger of the pieces, but Chari stabbed the fruit with the tip of her machete, careful not to cut herself. Careful not to draw blood. “Not so fast.” Chari puckered sour lips at her sister, and gathered both pineapple halves into her lap. “All season you goof off, and yet as soon as the harvest is ripe, here you are ready to snatch the food from my mouth.” “But Abuela said--” “Abuela isn’t here. This is my garden now. Why don’t TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 147 you go play fútbol with James.” “Our ball fell into the water.” Chari tsked her little sister, then wiped pineapple juice onto her skirt as she walked over to the edge of her rooftop garden. She tied her long brown hair into a messy twist, then peered over and saw the ball bobbing in the murky water below. It was close. Maybe close enough to reach. She stretched her arm out as far as it would go. “Chari! Don’t!” Teresa screamed. “The teharthe are lurking!” Chari’s fingertips touched the ball, and carefully she teased it toward her. She moved her other hand to the handle of her machete as the water’s ripples blurred whatever prowled beneath. So close. It was a risk sure, but it was a beautiful day, clouds swirling gracefully in the blue sky. Chari knew that her grandmother was looking down on her. Protecting her. Purple tentacles pierced the water’s surface and wrapped around Chari’s arm. She swung her machete with all her might, and lopped the tentacles off in one chop. She snatched as many of the writhing tips as she could. She was greedy, too greedy, and Teresa had to reel her in by the shirttail before she fell straight over the edge. “You are so reckless!” Teresa scolded as if she were the older sister. “If Abuela finds out that you’re fooling with the teharthe, then you’ll be in serious trouble!” Chari shrugged, then tossed Teresa a tentacle. “Abuela isn’t here.” She looked up into the bright blue sky. 148 NICKY DRAYDEN
“I miss her,” Teresa said as she teethed the slippery skin from the tentacle, then bit greedily down into the gristly flesh. It had been weeks since they’d been able to afford meat, but now that the pineapple harvest was ripe, they could barter with James who raised his pigeons on the rooftop across the way. “I wish I could hear her stories again, about the old times. Before the teharthe. Before the world was flooded. Before--” A great gurgle came from the side of their building. The teharthe were gathering. Chari looked down at her hand and saw a cut along her palm, her blood puckering at the wound. They could smell her. Chari ripped a strip of fabric from the edge of her skirt, then began to bandage herself. She shouldn’t have been so careless with her machete. Tentacles slapped up the side of her building. Hundreds of them. The teharthe left their hidden places among the flooded world and ventured upon her rooftop. There were simply too many of them to fight off, and they crawled toward her, giant bulbous bodies glistening a deathly shade of violet, needle-like teeth that could shred flesh to ribbons. “Abuela!” Chari called to the heavens as she held her sister tightly in her arms. The clouds parted, and a gray shadow slipped across the sky. A buzzing sound rose in pitch until it zipped past Chari’s ears. The shrill whine pierced the air around them as red laser light seared the teharthe until there was nothing TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 149 left but charred lumps. “You are so reckless, child,” said Abuela, her voice mechanical now--something like the whisper of a mosquito in her ear, but Chari still recognized it. “You know that the teharthe cannot resist human blood. You are foolish to raise pineapples. There is too much risk of getting cut.” “We are only doing as you did, Abuela. Only doing as you taught us.” The lights on Abuela’s faceplate lit up orange. It had only been months since their grandmother had been consumed by the singularity, so Chari wasn’t quite sure what the expression meant, but she could guess that it wasn’t approval. “Tell us a story, Abuela!” Teresa said, so young and clueless. “Tell us about when people walked in the streets ... before the teharthe came to Earth and melted the icecaps. Back when computers were slave to humans and not the other way around.” “Fairytales, child. It has been this way for as long as I can remember.” Abuela’s sleek chrome skin glinted in the sunlight, her propeller stirring up a calming wind. “Told you!” Chari teased, both hands on her hips. “Shut up!” Teresa said. “Now, the two of you behave. It’s a beautiful day. You should stop bickering and enjoy it.” Abuela buzzed down and hovered next to the pineapple halves. Her gears whirred, sounding something like a sigh, like she regretted no longer having a mouth or a stomach. 150 NICKY DRAYDEN
Without another word, Abuela darted up and away, disappearing into the gray clouds of mechanical sentience. Chari envied her abuela’s computational collective, but she herself could never give up the taste of pineapple flesh, not even for all of the knowledge in the world. “Computers slave to humans,” Chari said with a laugh, but she remembered when she’d been naïve enough to believe such tales. She pulled Teresa into a one armed hug and offered her a pineapple half. “Can you imagine that?” “It is pretty silly,” Teresa admitted. “I still miss Abuela, though.” “She watches over us,” Chari said. She wiped a bit of tentacle mash from her sister’s cheek, then looked up at the clouds in the beautiful blue sky, admiring the swirling shapes they made.
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CHILD HOUSE BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Danwai grasped her left leg and tugged until it popped. The bone snapped cleanly from the hip, no mess to file down. She shucked her flesh, then placed her thighbone into the wall, next to the others. Perfect. This section of the child house was almost complete. She hopped back from her work, balancing on her right foot as loose tendons and shorn nerve endings deftly knitted themselves back together. Gloating was unbecoming, but Danwai couldn't help admiring the rows of femurs that made up the wall and tibias framing the window overlooking the bell-shaped blossoms in her garden. Her pinky fingers would make excellent decorative molding, but she'd get to that tomorrow. 152 NICKY DRAYDEN
Footsteps creaked from the hallway and Danwai remembered her promise to come down for dinner. She hobbled about as her leg finished regenerating, folding drop cloths over mounds of discarded flesh and tucking them into an unfinished corner of the room. The silver scales on the last of her toes mended together just as Lethe pushed the door open. "You're still at it?" asked Lethe, his voice vaguely cheerful, but in that way he always spoke when he had little Zhan cradled in his arms. Zhan cooed, teething on her doll baby's hand, drool soaking through the fabric. "Time just slipped past me," said Danwai, pretending not to notice the agitated flexing of Lethe's mandibles. Lethe looked around the room. "I'm willing to help. The child house should be a part of both of us." He placed Zhan on the floor and began tugging at his leg. "Not in front of the baby!" Danwai warned, too late. The loud crunch spooked baby Zhan. She dropped her doll and stared at her father with those bright violet eyes as common in Danwai's lineage as their sleek yet sturdy bones. In just a century or so, little Zhan would have her share of eager suitors baring their hearts as they crooned ballads beneath this very window, but in the meantime, Danwai doubted she had the wherewithal to chase around a toddler who knew she was indestructible. Lethe ignored Danwai's pleas and tried to fit his femur into the wall. Uneven. All wrong. "Grandpa's bones need patching up in the attic," she TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 153 chided. "Why don't you work on that so it won't leak next time it rains." "She's my child, too! Don't I have a right to contribute to her room?" "Gaa!" said Zhan, grasping for her doll baby fallen just out of reach. "This is important to me," Danwai rasped. "It has to be just right!" Sometimes it astounded her how oblivious he could be to the history held within the walls of their compound. Not once had he remarked on the curvature of their spine staircases set so meticulously by her great- grandmother six generations back. He didn't even acknowledge how lucky he was to spend his nights gazing up at the collage of clavicles lining the vaulted ceilings of their bedroom -- once Danwai's child house when she was still a babe. "Don’t you worry you're missing out on Zhan's life?" "I'm doing this for her." Danwai snatched Lethe's bone from the wall and shoved it back at him. "You're doing this for you! Zhan won’t care that she's got the most impressive child house in this compound or the next. She's going to care about the memories she has growing up in it, with parents who nurture her." Lethe tightened his grip around the bone until it shattered to pieces. "One day you're going to turn around and Zhan will be grown, and the only memory she'll have of you is you cooped up in here 'perfecting' this room." Lethe flexed his mandibles again, pain seeded deeply into his pale green 154 NICKY DRAYDEN eyes. "You know what, you stay. Maybe this is the best gift you can give me. Time alone with my daughter." His barbed words cut to the marrow, even sharper because they were true. Danwai's throat clenched, unable to utter a sound, much less an apology. She thought of her own mother -- beautiful, gracious, prolific. Not a single room in this compound hadn't been touched by her hands, and yet she remained a mystery to Danwai. A stranger. It was then Danwai remembered why out of all her suitors, she'd chosen Lethe -- that awkward boy crooning at her sill with his brittle bones and unremarkable eyes. He had the sweetest, most tender heart she'd ever known. "Wait," she said bashfully, reaching out as Lethe bent to scoop up their child. Lethe’s scales writhed at her touch. "I'm tired of waiting." "I'll bring Zhan down. You get dinner started." Danwai nodded at the stack of bloodied canvas in the corner as a peace offering. The taste of her flesh paled in comparison to his, but never once had Lethe complained, never had he judged, nor thought any less of her. Her spine tingled as their eyes met again. "Thanks, love." Lethe kissed Danwai on her forehead, retrieved the canvas, then hopped out the door with a hint of smile on his face. By the time he reached the end of the hallway, Danwai could hear his footsteps. Both of them. Danwai sighed, knowing it was she who was the truly lucky one. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 155
"Gaa!" cried Zhan, her brow bent as she reached for her baby doll. "Just a moment, dear. Mama's got to tidy up." Danwai looked at her femur wall, a part of her that Zhan would always cherish. A legacy. Now that she’d thought about it, maybe Lethe's fingers would make better molding. His knuckles were more pronounced. Anyway, she'd worry about it tomorrow. Tonight she'd spend time with her family. "Ahhh ..." cooed Zhan. Danwai turned and looked down to see Zhan's wide, gurgling grin as she held her baby leg bones, one in each hand, carefully tenting them together like an A-frame. A child house for her doll baby. Danwai shook her head. They grow up so fast.
156 NICKY DRAYDEN
ANTIMATTER IS A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Space and Time Magazine, 2011
Gina McMillan worked hard to afford nice things, like the turquoise Z4 roadster parked in her driveway, the Koppelaar cityscape hanging above her mantle, and the personal assistant whose main responsibilities were picking up Gina’s suits from the cleaners, and on days like this, pretending to be a caring shoulder to cry on. “Girl, I can’t believe he had the nerve to pull a stunt like that. I thought you said he had money.” “He does,” Gina said, refilling her champagne glass halfway with strawberry spritzer, then topping it off with Dom Pérignon. The rising fizz nipped at her lungs as she TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 157 inhaled it. “But you know these scientist types ... always thinking with their wrong brain.” Gina tapped her temple and Valerie laughed, almost as sincerely as a real friend. “Well you did the right thing. You still got the ring?” Gina dug through her Louis Vuitton, pushing aside her lipsticks and diet pills until she found the felt box. She popped it open, revealing an itty-bitty princess-cut gem. It flashed bluish-white every few seconds, more often when agitated. “Bastard,” she mumbled. The band was platinum at least. That was the only reason Gina hadn’t crammed that barely-precious jewel down Alphonse’s throat when he’d asked her to marry him. And to think she’d been serious enough to consider calling things off with Zachary and Turk. A shiver ran through her as she imagined those bronze biceps and washboard abs. Well, maybe not Turk ... Valerie slipped the ring on and held it to the light. “It’s sorta pretty, the way it glows like that.” She extended her hand, fingers splayed -- not so much evaluating it as admiring it. “So are you giving it back?” “Hell, no. I earned it. Putting up with his constant blathering: antimatter this and positron that. It’s not sexy. It’s really not. I don’t know what I ever saw in him.” “Money?” “I mean besides that.” Gina drained her glass, then poured another. Less spritzer this time. “Did he actually think he could rope me in with anything less than three karats? Come on, an anti-diamond? How unromantic is 158 NICKY DRAYDEN that?” “I’ll buy it from you.” Valerie softened her voice and added, “If you don’t want it, that is.” “What?” “Nothing.” Valerie screwed the ring off her finger and hastily returned it. Gina reassessed her engagement ring with renewed interest. It did have some exceptional qualities -- marvelous clarity despite its size. Not that she’d ever wear it in public, of course, but maybe she’d give Alphonse a chance to redeem himself. If this antimatter diamond was as precious as he’d claimed, he wouldn’t mind a trip to Tiffany’s for a real diamond to accompany it. Maybe she’d even apologize for that joke about their anti-engagement, anti-wedding, and anti-honeymoon. He’d probably stopped crying by now, anyway.
The dizzying heights of Wilson Hall caused Gina to misstep as she strutted across the atrium. Or perhaps it was the Dom still fuzzing with her head. With all the grace she could muster, she composed herself and walked over to the welcome desk, laid her hands upon it, and leaned in. Gina gave the perky Fermilab receptionist a once over. “I need to speak with Alphonse Taylor, please.” The receptionist donned a polite smile and tapped at her keyboard. She squinted at the monitor, then shook her TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 159 head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. He’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a message for him?” “This is an emergency. I’m his fiancée,” Gina said, enunciating delicately as if she were speaking to a child. “Yes, ma’am.” The receptionist glanced at Gina’s bare ring finger. “Still, he’s in the middle of an extremely sensitive project, and I’m afraid you’ll have to--” “You don’t believe me? Is that it?” Gina pulled out the ring and slid it on for the first time. It was more than an outward display of Alphonse’s affection. Somehow, it felt like it had belonged on her finger all along. “I know it’s small,” Gina said, a growing pressure in her chest forcing her to emphasize its significance. “But it’s an antimatter diamond.” The receptionist arched an eyebrow, and after a considerable pause, picked up the phone receiver. “One moment please.” “Now that’s more like it.” Gina crossed her arms over her chest and paced the room. Finally, after a few minutes, the double security doors opened, but instead of Alphonse, two hulking men emerged. Their serious stares and deliberate gaits ignited a spark of panic in Gina’s heart. “Please come with us,” the more intimidating of the two demanded, tugging at her elbow with implied force. Gina tugged back. “Where’s Alphonse?” “We need to see the ring, miss.” “No! It’s mine. I’m getting married!” 160 NICKY DRAYDEN
One man held Gina while the other tried to wriggle the ring off her finger. She yanked her hand free and the momentum carried it backwards, colliding with the black granite of the receptionist’s desk. The anti-diamond began to pulsate, then released a cloud of glittering dust. The cloud snaked its way up Gina’s skin and sent tingles throughout her entire body. She felt the world pulling away as it engulfed her. Through the haze, Gina saw the two men receding along with the receptionist, and then the door opened, a panicked Alphonse reaching out for her. She reciprocated, their fingertips briefly touching before a bright flash blinded her.
“Gina? Gina?” The voice was immediately familiar, reeling her from the gritty fog of a champagne buzz. Gina forced her eyes open and saw Alphonse’s stark face staring up at her. They were at that trendy Italian joint where he’d proposed the day before, though the draperies were more lush, the artwork more noteworthy, the lighting more elegant. More romantic. More exclusive. Gina lifted her chin in approval, but as she did, a narrow beam of reflected light nicked her in the eye. She gawked at her right hand weighted down by a three-karat diamond in a classic Tiffany’s setting. Her heart skipped a beat with a subtle wrongness in her chest, and her mind TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 161 was blanking on how she got here. Perhaps she’d gone into shock from all of these sparkling facets. “Well?” asked Alphonse from down on one knee. “Will you marry me?” “Of course!” Gina said, fumbling for apologetic words. “I was so afraid you’d be mad at me. That anti-wedding bit, that was a joke. You know that, right? And I really appreciated the anti-diamond, honestly.” “Anti-diamond?” Alphonse narrowed his eyes and chuckled nervously. “Honey, I think you’ve had too much wine.” Then Gina noticed him. The resemblance was uncanny, but this wasn’t Alphonse. He carried himself taller, was more confident, and had a tamed focus in his eyes as if he were calculating each word he said. On his plate sat veal piccata. Alphonse had been a vegan as long as she’d known him. “Who are you?” Gina snatched her hand from his tender grip. “Is this a practical joke? If it is, I want you to know this damn well isn’t funny.” Alphonse recoiled, embarrassed almost. “What did you say?” “Don’t you dare make me repeat myself, Alphonse, or whoever you are.” Gina stood up and tossed her napkin onto the table. “Why are you looking at me like that?” With a guarded smile, he pulled Gina close. He nodded politely at the couple staring from the next table over, before whispering into her ear. “I want you to tell me 162 NICKY DRAYDEN everything you know about the anti-diamond, but not here. I have to get you to my lab.” “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” The back of her neck prickled -- a warm sensation that spread to her shoulders, like she’d spent an hour too long in the sun. “You’re not Gina.” “Of course I’m Gina! Who the hell else would I be?” The entire restaurant was staring now, and the maitre’d headed over with a vicious scowl. Alphonse steered Gina toward the door. “Please. There might not be much time,” he said. “I think ... you’re the anti-Gina, and your being here is putting billions of lives at stake.”
Bunkered deep within Fermilab, among mansion-sized machinery and billion-dollar particle accelerators, Gina became anti-Alphonse’s experiment. Three weeks passed and he’d subjected her to all sorts of humiliating tests. Her Alphonse had often shared his theories about anti-people and anti-universes, but she’d never believed him. Now her very being was unraveling. Her atoms, with their electrons spinning the opposite direction as the ones in this world, were being incinerated hundreds if not thousands at a time. If she didn’t get home soon, there’d be nothing left of her. “When you arrived in our universe, your matter TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 163 should’ve exploded on contact with ours. He must have found a way to stabilize your atoms the same way he stabilized the anti-diamond,” anti-Alphonse said, bent over a microscope the size of a Buick. “It’s still not one hundred percent efficient, but the antimatter research in your universe is years ahead of ours.” He stood up and stretched, clasping his hands behind him so that his chest swelled. Hints of sculpted abs peeked from the gap in his lab coat. Gina suspected he got to the gym more often than her Alphonse. “I don’t think I can stomach another one of your Science Guy lectures,” Gina hissed. “Unless your plan is to bore me back to my reality. When can you send me home?” “That’s just it. I’m not sure I can.” “But aren’t we supposed to be doubles? How can this world not be the exact duplicate? I mean, how’d you end up with me both here and there?” “We’ve theorized that the universes aren’t perfect mirror images, but they must maintain a certain degree of similarity or they’ll diverge and cease to exist. Matter and antimatter compensate, pulling any discrepancies back toward each other.” Anti-Alphonse leaned in close and swept the hair out of Gina’s face. “I guess you could say we’re destined to be together. He must really love you to give you that ring. Putting his job in jeopardy. Putting our very existences in jeopardy!” Gina twirled the three-karat diamond still on her finger. She couldn’t bear to remove it, even though it meant 164 NICKY DRAYDEN nothing to her emotionally. “What about your Gina?” She took a step back, but Alphonse followed until he was a breath away. “There’s nothing we can do on this end. We’ll just have to hope the anti-me decides to pull you back.” He took her hand in his and kissed it. “It’s not cheating. Not really.” “Get away from me.” Gina slapped him, but anti- Alphonse stared back with a sly wolf’s grin. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Not a bit like my sweet Gina.” “And you’re a complete ass. I don’t know why she’d put up with a jerk like you anyway.” Gina clenched her fists and shifted her weight so she could deal him a kick to the groin if he tried anything else. She was willing to bet it’d have the same effect no matter which way the electrons in this universe spun. The tingling worsened suddenly, her extremities throbbing with pain. Gina didn’t know if it was her molecules destabilizing or her anger building, but she wished for nothing more than to see her Alphonse, if only one last time. Her fingertips glowed a bluish white, and then the familiar cloud swarmed until it engulfed her completely. Gina welcomed it. She knew it was Alphonse calling her home.
Alphonse stood before her, dressed in his white lab TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 165 coat and thick-rimmed glasses, with the unmistakable smile of someone madly in love. She immediately knew it was the man she’d spend the rest of her life with. “You did it, baby! You did it.” Gina rushed into his arms, buried her face into the crook of his neck, and began to sob. “It was so horrible there. You couldn’t imagine! There was this other you, only he wasn’t like you at all. He was such a prick.” Gina shuddered as she thought about anti-Alphonse’s touch. She counted her blessings twice over, now that she knew the kind of guy she could have ended up with. “I’ve heard all about him,” Alphonse said sternly. Gina looked up into his appraising eyes. “What? How?” Then she turned and saw her reflection standing a few feet away. It was the anti-her: smile slightly more sincere, eyes more honest. Sweeter. Prettier. Gina scowled at herself. “You ...” “It’s nice to meet you,” anti-Gina said. “Alphie’s told me so much about you.” “Alphie? Oh no you didn’t just call my man ‘Alphie.’ ” Gina balled a fist and took a step toward her anti-self. “Why I oughta kick your skinny ass straight to anti-hell.” Alphonse jumped in between them, arms spread out. “Stop. You can’t touch each other. The universe will come undone. Both of them.” Gina didn’t care. It was her duty to put this imposter in her place. She struggled against Alphonse’s hold. The anti- her’s smile only brightened. “There’s no need for 166 NICKY DRAYDEN hostilities,” she said, voice so irritatingly saccharine that it made Gina want to gouge her own eyes out. “Send her back!” Gina demanded. “Send her back right now!” “That’s the thing,” Alphonse said, gripping Gina’s arm. “She’s not going back. You are.” “What?” Gina’s heart dropped three inches in her chest. She must have misheard him. “Gina and I have talked about it. We think you and anti-Alphonse would make a better couple.” “But he’s so obnoxious! Rude. And he came onto me, even after he knew I wasn’t her!” “That’s right.” Alphonse smirked, not bothering to mask the satisfaction on his face. “You guys are made for each other.” “Damn it, Alphonse!” Gina yelled. She was way too sharp to believe this was an act of charity. “What does she have that I don’t? She’s thinner, isn’t she? You think she’s prettier than me? Bigger boobs? She’s wearing a water bra, I can tell that from way over here.” “Well, she doesn’t cuss like a sailor for one thing,” Alphonse said, shrugging. “And my mom really liked her.” “She met your mother? I haven’t even met your mother!” “Gina, don’t make this harder than it already is. I’ve perfected the stabilization process. You shouldn’t feel any different there than you do here.” The suffocating mist began to crawl up Gina’s skin TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 167 again. She watched helplessly as the anti-her and Alphonse held hands, the anti-diamond busy sparkling on anti-Gina’s ring finger. The anti-her grinned wide. “You know what they say, anti-opposites attract.” “Bitch!” Gina screamed, her voice echoing infinitely as she was reeled home.
168 NICKY DRAYDEN
Volume Seven: The Wide, Wide World of Weird
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 169
OF IN-LAWS AND CLOSE ENCOUNTERS BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, 2011
Mai huddles up close to me, her breath soft against the back of my ear. We squirm futilely on our stomachs, trying to find a position both comfortable and with a clear view of the dingy gray screen at the foot of her sleeping tube. "Can't we do this in Comm Proper?" I ask her, shimmying forward to gain a smidge more shoulder room. This would be easier on my turf--in uniform and with the glitz of the communications array alight in the background. But instead, we're here, where my credentials mean nothing. "Dad likes his privacy," Mai says, shrugging. 170 NICKY DRAYDEN
I bite my lip, trying to forget the anxiety pounding in my chest, trying to keep these stark white walls from closing in on me. Mai's quarters are cramped, barely fit for one person to sleep, nearly impossible for lovers to meddle, though through persistence and practice we've found a way to make it work over these past two years. The screen flickers, a rain of static, then it resolves into the vague silhouette of half a man. I cringe as Mai bangs the console with the meat of her palm, but the image clears. The sight of her father sets a chill in my teeth--a brawny man submerged in a galvanized tub, water lapping at his pale, broad chest. "Daddy!" Mai squeals. She kisses her fingertips and gently presses them to the screen. Sometimes I forget how delicate she can be when she's not clad in the bulk of her security uniform. "Hi, Darling dear." Mr. Cheng smiles at her, though I notice the pits of his eyes are firmly trained on me. "Daddy, this is Sean, you remember, the one I told you about? The officer." Mai nudges me when the silence stretches thin. "Hello, Mr. Cheng," I croak. I shift awkwardly, and before I can get in another word, there's a strange rumbling from his side of the comm., followed by fart bubbles rising from his murky bath water. I grit my teeth, force a smile, but the man doesn't bother to apologize. "So you're the one boning my daughter..." "Daddy!" TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 171
Suddenly, the 30,000 light years separating us doesn't seem like quite enough. My breath catches in my throat, the taste of Vero-Avalon's eternally recirculated air stale on my tongue. "Of course not, sir! I would never consider such a thing." "You're saying that you don't find my daughter sexually appealing?" His grating voice echoes through me. "Not at all, I only, uh--" "Daddy, we only have a few minutes." Mr. Cheng grunts, farts again, then it's my move. I gather my wits, trying to form a sentence worthy of a communications officer, though I'd settle for not sticking my foot further in my mouth. "Sir, I'd like to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage. She makes me happy, and I make her happy, and I plan on doing so for as long as I'm breathing." "You're in love, then?" Mr. Cheng asks. "Madly, sir." "Hmmm. A bit scrawny for an officer, aren't you?" "I can hold my own." I survive the onslaught of extremely pointed questions prying into the details of my life. My parents, my schooling, the money I've got in savings. I can't help but feeling like Mr. Cheng has spent a great deal of time and effort scrutinizing me down to my genetic sequence. And after all of it, when I finally think I've made it through the worst, my manhood shriveled but otherwise intact, I get a ping on 172 NICKY DRAYDEN my mail--the personal one, not the dummy one published in the space station's directory. "A little gift," Mr. Cheng says. The screen goes gray, the ghost image of Mai's father still burning through subspace. "A gift? See I told you Daddy would like you." Mai speaks softly, but the sour tune of dread in her voice doesn't escape me. The bulge in my throat tightens as I bring up the mail on the console display--a gift certificate for Big Al's Gator Farm and Waffle House--best breakfast found this side of the Cascade, located on a dingy little swamp planet just a day's shuttle jump from here. Neither of us mentions that he hadn't given us his blessing.
"There's just two things you need to know about gator wrestling," Big Al says as he leads us past a pool of stagnant water, flies buzzing at reptilian eyes poking just above the surface. Big Al holds up his index finger. "One, never let them sense your fear, and two--" he raises the stump of a middle finger. "Never take your eyes off the business end of a gator." We approach a slightly bigger pond with a juvenile gator sunbathing on the mucky bank. I think maybe I'll have a chance against an opponent this size, but Big Al leads us right past it. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 173
"You don't have to do this," Mai says, tugging at my sleeve. But I do. Her father had thrown down the gauntlet, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life squirming under his judging eyes. This will prove that I'll be a loving, committed, responsible husband, even if it kills me in the process. "It's probably easier than it looks," I mumble as Big Al stops at the third pond. A beast of a gator lies on the bank, half submerged, looking like some piece of prehistory catapulted through time. Its snout is nearly as broad as I am, teeth gleaming like knives in the sun. It's not too late to back out. I could swallow my pride and use the gift certificate for a short stack with a side of bacon, drown my failures in syrup, and live out the rest of my life with four fingers and a thumb on each hand. But love and pride make you do stupid things, so I puff my chest, forget my fears, and approach the gator. It growls at me, low and throaty, warning me of my imminent death. I crouch down and get a good feel for my new center of gravity. White teeth flash, seems like thousands of them. I nearly flinch, but manage to keep eye contact with the beast. I get closer, holding onto all of my gator wrestling training, all eighteen words of it. I glance back and smile at Mai, maybe for the last time, then I launch myself onto the gator's back. I get a good grip on its snout, my legs clenched tight against its rigid body. Muscles writhe 174 NICKY DRAYDEN beneath me, and it thrashes its head. I keep calm and ignore the churning of my stomach as I match its movements. Just when I think I might come out of this bout alive, maybe even the victor, the gator starts a death roll, and all at once, I'm knocked free and staring up at the ridged roof of the gator's mouth. Its teeth press at my neck without breaking skin. A grating croak echoes from the depths of its throat, bringing with it the rotting stench of dead fish. Far away Mai's muffled voice calls out "Enough, Daddy! He's played your game!" The teeth lift from my throat, and I scramble to my knees, then my feet. I do a quick count of my digits, and check the rest of me over for holes. The gator's smiling at me, smug and satisfied. Bubbles spring up from its still submerged rear half, and as it crawls out onto the bank, green scales blend into the pale flesh of a man’s broad torso--right where the gator's tail end ought to be. The whole half-man, half-gator monstrosity turns around, lumbering awkwardly on two sets of arms, and soon I'm looking directly into the pits of Mr. Cheng's eyes. He grins. The gator gurgles. "I expected more from an officer," he says. The words cut at my pride. Mai's next to me now, fingers twined with mine. Mr. Cheng's gator end snaps, and with a forceful push, he plunges back into the murky pond. Bubbles rise. "It's okay," Mai says. "We can do this without him." She flashes me a bashful smile, then wipes gator drool from my cheek. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 175
I rub at my throat, skin still dimpled from my brush with death. Mai presses her lips against mine, and we lose ourselves in a warm, syrupy sweet kiss. As my body pines for the intimacy of her sleeping tube, I start to forget all about my bruised ego. Lust tugs at my loins as I imagine her straddling me, head crooked against the ceiling of her tube, our bodies writhing to the rhythm of the universe. I pull back and look deeply into Mai's eyes. "I've got it!" I tell her. Her voice echoes in my ear as I dive into the murky water. "Sean, you don't need--" But it's too late. The loamy surface parts, and I find myself with a lung full of air and a mission. Gray-green water stings my eyes, but I stay watchful, looking for movement. Mr. Cheng's silhouette begins to emerge from the depths. He sees me. His agitated bellow rips through the water, rumbles through my chest. I make my move. Our bodies entwine, my arms around his human half this time. My lungs burn as the meager light from the surface fades, but as Mr. Cheng wastes his energy dragging me deeper, I concentrate on wrestling him onto his back. With a final strain, his pale stomach is fully exposed. Mr. Cheng struggles for a moment, then his thrashing ceases. When he's completely still, I kick back up to the surface, his body rising with mine. "Daddy!" Mai cries out when she sees me towing her upturned father to the shore. "Sean, you didn't!" 176 NICKY DRAYDEN
"Relax. He's sleeping. Just like you do when you're on your back." I bob my brow at her. It was a hard lesson to swallow when we'd been new lovers. Nothing like the sudden sound of her snoring echoing through her tube to squash passions and egos all in one fell swoop. I'd thought it was just a strange quirk of hers, but now it all made sense. Turn a gator upside down, and it'll pass right out. "Well, you can't just leave him like that!" "Of course not," I say to Mai, as I help her to flip her father back over. "I never would have pegged you for a gatorsapien," "My brothers are all full-on gator. Recessive genes work funny that way, I guess." We step back. A few seconds pass, and Mr. Cheng's eyes blink open. Both sets of them. "Well played, son," he says to me. "All the snooping in the world wouldn't tell me what kind of man you really were. You're something, all right. Brave, and stupid, but you're my kind of stupid." "Love will do that to you," I manage to say. Mai squeezes me tight. I prickle all over--my ego swelling in my chest, smile too tight across my face. "Now, I don't know about you guys, but I could sure go for some pancakes."
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 177
THE LAST PHARMACIST BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by New Myths, 2009
Elkin Rathers would give his right arm for a nice malaria outbreak. Or a stomach flu epidemic. Or while he was dreaming big ... the Plague. Nothing exciting like that ever happened anymore, not when all ailments could be cured with the Divine. In fact, it’d been a whole three days since his last customer had come into the pharmacy for a refill. Only little grey-haired ladies stuck in their routines insisted on doing things the old-fashioned way, though Elkin suspected that counting out their pills for the week was the only thrill they had left in life. Like he was one to talk. 178 NICKY DRAYDEN
Elkin recognized Marcy MacAdams and her silver bouffant from across the drugstore. He watched closely as she meandered through the under-stocked aisles. Usually, she clutched a red basket under one arm, filled with denture creams and ointments of all sorts, but today she shuffled straight up to Elkin’s counter. He greeted her with a warm smile. “Why, you’re looking especially lovely today, Mrs. MacAdams. Come to refill your Lansoprazole? Moexipril? Amitriptyline?” Elkin asked, trying not to salivate. He’d turned and was about to grab an empty pill bottle when her delicate voice interrupted him. “That won’t be necessary, dear.” “Is something new ailing you?” Elkin lifted a concerned eyebrow. Mrs. MacAdams loved to complain about her arthritis and cataracts and loose bowels. They’d become sort of a soothing chorus, a melody of maladies, sweet to his ears. “I’m feeling fine, Mr. Rathers. More fine than I’ve felt since I was about your age.” Then Elkin looked at her. She seemed years younger, if not a whole decade. Grinning ear to ear. Of all the people in this world, Mrs. MacAdams was the last one he imagined being cured with the Divine. She detested the Altruarians and their “slimy-faced, stalk-eyed sacrilegious mystic mumbo-jumbo” as she’d said in her own heated words. She was born before their trans-dimensional ships had landed on Earth. Back then, pharmacies were in their heyday and TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 179 people couldn’t have enough ailments, so they started diagnosing every sneeze, yawn, ache or twitch, just to have more pills to take. “I thought it would be proper to give you notice,” Mrs. MacAdams said, “that I won’t be in need of your services any longer. I’ve been coming to this pharmacy since your daddy was nothing but a gleam in his daddy’s eye, and you’ve been mighty kind to me.” “But Mrs. MacAdams, I thought you didn’t trust the sluggers. How’d you work up the nerve to take part in the Divine?” “I’d tired of seeing everyone around me so happy. I don’t have much longer on this Earth, and I want to enjoy what’s left of my life. Now that my blood pressure’s under control, I’m taking that getaway to Paris I’ve always dreamed of.” “You’ll be needing Dramamine for the flight then?” Elkin said, hopeful. Mrs. MacAdams shook her head slowly. “No, dear. I’m saving so much on medicine costs that I can afford to slide the slick, first class round-trip.” “Calcium for the bones? How ‘bout a nice multivitamin? We’ve got chewables, half off.” “Mr. Rathers, I can’t express to you how perfectly fine I feel. Perfectly happy. Perfectly perfect!” Elkin’s best customer was about to slip right through his fingers, and with it, all remnants of the career he loved. He’d deluded himself into keeping the drugstore running 180 NICKY DRAYDEN this long, thinking things would change. Maybe the Altruarians’ cures would turn out to be hoaxes or devious plots, and once that trust was broken, people would flock back to his raised counter for their medical needs. But that never happened. All was not lost, however. If there was one thing Elkin learned in this profession, it was that half of curing people came down to making them think they were feeling better. It was perfectly likely that this worked in reverse as well. Mrs. MacAdams needed to be uncured, and Elkin had only seconds to act. “Ahhh ...” Elkin said, tapping his chin as if he were in deep thought. “Perfectly perfect. That’s peculiar.” “What’s peculiar?” asked Mrs. MacAdams. “It’s probably nothing, but ...” He bit his lip, waiting until she was hanging off his words. “Prolonged euphoria. Constantly high levels of endorphins. Chronic smiling. Classic symptoms of Manicus Laughititis. The happiness disease.” “I’ve never heard of it.” “That’s because it often goes misdiagnosed and untreated.” Elkin shifted his eyes as if someone in the otherwise vacant store might overhear. “I’m not really allowed to say this, but I’m concerned for you. If you leave the country, you’ll risk dealing with doctors overseas, and who knows the quality of those hospitals. And the happiness disease, if not treated promptly ...” Elkin slowly drug his index finger across his neck. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 181
Mrs. MacAdams pressed her hand to her chest. “My goodness! I had no idea.” “Most people don’t. But the body just can’t handle this kind of sustained bliss. It’s not natural, and sooner or later, it’ll catch up to you.” Elkin’s lies were bitter on his tongue, but he wasn't about to let the sluggers' generosity ruin his livelihood. “Fortunately, you’re still in the early stages. It can be treated with an over-the-counter, non-prescription.” “You’ve always looked out for my health.” “What can I say, Mrs. MacAdams. You’re my favorite customer.” Elkin stepped to the side, printed up a label, slapped it on an orange bottle, then proceeded to count out a month’s worth of vitamin C. The Happiness Disease. With some planning and targeted marketing, he just might be able to carve out a new niche for his pharmacy. He raised the bottle up to Mrs. MacAdams, already flushing, crooked over to one side, her lips caught somewhere between a smile and a frown. “Don’t worry,” he said, voice smooth and reassuring. “I’ll have you feeling worse in no time.”
182 NICKY DRAYDEN
THE AUBERGINE WOK BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Comets and Criminals, 2012
In the past thirty-six hours, I’ve gotten to know more about Brahvian history than I know about my own. Their people are warriors, fierce with thick hides and thorny protrusions jutting from their bulky forearms and calves. Built like beasts, but the tour guide is careful not to use that word. There’s a Brahvian or two in every tour group and, despite their size, they’re a sensitive lot. “And here’s the newest addition to our Brahvian collection: A sculpture from the Eighteenth Dynasty of the Great Warrior Alaphredeze,” the tour guide says, pointing up to me. “As you know, Brahvians are revered for their strength and cunning, but they are also fine artists. Notice TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 183 the detail that went into this piece. Hundreds of painstaking hours were spent cutting this figure from stone.” The group marvels at my current form, and I can’t help but feel proud. I may be a shapeshifter, but details are details, and it’s taken every bit of my concentration to maintain this statuesque appearance that has stood up to even the curator’s scrutinizing eyes. He was oh so eager to add me to his collection that he didn’t ask questions of the hoodlum I’d bribed handsomely to wheel me into The Intergalactic Museum of Antiquities. I didn’t even mind letting the hoodlum keep the three hundred thousand kalax the curator had given him in exchange. What I’m after is far more valuable. The tour guide turns and points across the room. “And now we’ll head over to the Ittari Collection, or the shapeshifters, as they’re better known. The Septic Era, where they festered in underground caves and fissures like gelatinous pools of muck, covers most of their recorded history. Thankfully, their first contact with humans three centuries ago brought them out from the dark and into enlightenment…” The tour guide’s voice gets lost in the murmurs of the crowd as they cross the room. Each time I hear him speak those words I want to strangle him. The Septic Era… obviously humanity’s word for it but, as much as it cuts, it somehow seems fitting. Even the Brahvians have a rich, complex history going back tens of thousands of years, and 184 NICKY DRAYDEN it’s a marvel those dumb brutes ever managed space travel in the first place. But we, the Ittari, have nothing to show for our history predating human contact. Except for the Aubergine Wok. It’s not much to look at, just a shallow purple bowl made from resin. But its rarity has made it a hot commodity among collectors, and there are hundreds of them who would pay dearly to get their hands on it. That’s where I come in. The museum is minutes from closing. I try to shift my focus to the job at hand, but a family of Gwiffahs approaches, ogling the plaque detailing the many triumphs of the Great Warrior Alaphredeze. The adult Gwiffahs point their talons up at me. I try to tune out the chirps of their chicks as they gawk at my size, flapping their yellow down-feathered wings, eyes wide with that universal look of amazement. Thankfully, the adults push on to the next display in a hurry to see all they can before closing, but in their rush they leave one of the chicks behind. I tense as the chick, too short to set off the motion sensor, slips under the display rope. Its rear talons click on the floor as it nears, and I start to itch. I’m allergic to Gwiffah feathers. I hadn’t been in the Southern Cascade so long I’d almost forgotten. Back north, you never see Gwiffahs. Something about the magnetic fields affects their homing receptors. The Gwiffah chick lays one of its grubby foretalons on my calf. I go numb where he touches, my façade of fine stone details melting into black muck. I’ve come too far, TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 185 given too much for this one opportunity to get at the Aubergine Wok, and this little feather duster isn’t about to ruin it for me. Discreetly, I morph a thin tendril and reach out, hoping no one is watching. It creeps low across the floor until I set the motion sensor off with a single flick. I reel the tendril back as quickly as I can, and only the chick notices. But it’s too late for him. The alarm sounds, and his parents stare at him with dismay. They snatch the chick up, give him a good squawking. Feathers fly, but at least they’re not close enough to cause me further discomfort. Twenty minutes later, the museum is completely quiet except for the sounds of the guard’s footsteps, but I’m ready to take him out. He paces between exhibits, and when he passes me I let the stone forearm of the Great Warrior Alaphredeze detach and shatter against the floor. The guard rushes over, panicked. He kneels, inspects the damage, but before he can call for aid I swoop down from my stand and perform a Jorovite nerve tap, sending him into a peaceful slumber. With great trepidation, I walk toward the Aubergine Wok. There are two dozen oride lasers splintering around the display, lethal to shapeshifters, though they’ll do a good job on flesh, too. But I’m here because I’m one of the greatest thieves this edge of the Cascade, and this light show isn’t about to deter me. My body becomes a fountain of parts. Sprays of my semi-liquid state arch up and through the web of lasers, so 186 NICKY DRAYDEN close, but never touching. The sprays coalesce at the bottom of the Wok’s granite stand, and I slink up around it, thin as a stocking, until I finally reach the Wok itself. It glows faintly in the dim light, more so along the edges. Carefully, I slide myself under the pressure sensor and shift the Wok off. I expect to feel something, some sort of spiritual epiphany, but there’s only the slickness of the artifact’s smooth, glasslike surface. Honestly, a small part of me had hoped for more, and it’s that part I choose to leave behind—a piece of equal weight to the Wok that will keep the alarms from sounding. A sacrifice, yes, but a Rasitrallian trader is waiting in orbit with thirteen million kalax in cash, more than enough to soothe my wounds. I tuck the Aubergine Wok inside me and make for the exit. Just then, I hear the guard mumbling. I turn in time to see him call for backup. My mind races. He’s groggy, but that nerve tap should have left him out of it for hours at least. Ah, but now I see: faint spots down the ridge of his nose, thin purple lips. A Frall. I curse myself for my carelessness. These humanoids all look so much alike. The tap doesn’t work so well on the Frall, their nerves buried under the thick flesh that protects them from the frigid chill of their icy homeworld. Four sets of footsteps close in, then I see the guards, oride laser guns drawn. “He stole the Wok!” the fallen guard says, words slurred but clear enough. I’m surrounded on all sides. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 187
“Let’s see it,” orders one of the guards. I look for a way out, but then the guard fires a shot that comes so close it grazes the coalescence field that allows me to hold my shape. Reluctantly, I pull the Wok from inside me and hold it up with two hands. It’s shimmering more now, the edges as bright as cut diamond, and it’s warm to the touch. “Put it down, slowly,” the guard commands. The wok’s warmth spreads, intensifies. Flashes of light overcome me, and visions of a collective conscience rage across my mind like river waters overflowing their banks. I’m filled with thousands and thousands of years of my people’s history. It all floods by too quickly for me to latch onto any particular image, but the collection is so vast I shudder in sheer awe. Knowledge fills me, and with it, power. I lash out at the guards with my tendrils, so fast that I have them all incapacitated, tied up, and gagged before they have a chance to think a single thought. Then the power drains from me as quickly as it had come. The knowledge is gone as well, leaving my mind mildly traumatized and drunk with amazement, but there’s no time to dwell on why my ancestors chose to intervene, if that indeed was what happened. All that matters is that the Wok is mine, and it’s a clear shot to the exit.
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I dock in orbit with the Rasitrallian trader’s ship and meet him at the airlock. His mouths water as I show him the Wok. The shimmer has returned to a faint glow that I now find beautiful. “It’s more magnificent than I imagined,” the Rasitrallian gurgles, his skin bubbling like lava. I nod in agreement, then watch as he opens a suitcase full of golden kalax slips. It’s more money than I’ve ever seen in one place outside of a bank, and a casino vault once. I’d be rich beyond my wildest dreams. I start spending the money in my head, showering myself with the finest: Nubrellian gems, Lollac hivemind upgrades for my ship, and the spirited company of Panzerian courtesans. And yet something in the back of my mind doesn’t sit quite right. I try to ignore it, but it only grows louder and more persistent. “Do you have a buyer?” I ask, sounding nonchalant despite the worry that’s got me wrapped up. I’d feel better knowing whose hands the Wok would end up in. A respectable private collector, perhaps. Had to be with that sort of price tag. The trader grins with all eighteen of his mouths. “These things are best kept with discretion,” he says, then holds his hands out for the Wok. His eyes glimmer with lust and deceit, and I know nothing respectable can come from this deal. “I can’t give it to you,” I say. “Ah, Traleel, my friend. You are quite the hustler. I can TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 189 allow a little extra for your troubles… say, another half million?” “It’s not enough,” I say, and I’m not sure any amount would be. Maybe it isn’t much to look at, but this Wok belongs to my people, not in the slimy hands of a trader willing to let it go to the highest bidder. The Rasitrallian curses me in eighteen different tongues at once, then threatens to blow my ship out of the sky, but the threats are proven empty once I tell him about the Yorlite ship cannons I’d recently purchased that are conveniently aimed in our direction and awaiting my cue.
I fuel up for a jump back to the Northern Edge of the Cascade, setting my bearings to the oldest Repository on Ittar. I’ve never been a religious person, never stepped a foot in a Repository, in fact. I have heard the myths and legends of the Seven Creators though, and never turn down gifts of wine and incense from friends on All Patron’s Day. The first thing I notice when I enter the Waldron Repository is the maze of floor-to-ceiling metal piping that holds Ittaris in prayer. Others fill pews in humanoid form, hands raised toward the intricate paintings overhead that detail the Seven Creators. I said it was the oldest Repository, but that only marks it around two hundred years, though great pains had been taken to make it look much older. The Alder-Patron stands up front, shrouded in 190 NICKY DRAYDEN a floor-length robe that sways of its own volition. Maybe he senses my unease, because he gestures me forward. I’m unsure if I should kneel or stand or kiss his feet. Instead, I withdraw the Wok and present it to him, hoping he won’t ask a whole lot of questions about how it came into my possession. “Is this…” he says with a rasp. I nod. He takes it and holds it up with both hands. It begins shimmering again. The Alder-Patron closes his eyes, and I know all too well what he’s seeing. I envy him. Moments later, he returns, smiling wide. He lays a gentle hand on my shoulder, and our coalescence fields merge, our liquids mixing ever so slightly. “You don’t know how much this means to our people. You have restored our history. Name any price for this act and it shall be yours.” The Ittari have never been a rich people. As social outcasts, other races are hesitant to trade with us. We can’t be trusted in their eyes. Maybe one day, they always say. We haven’t been enlightened long enough, the stench of the Septic Era still upon us. But this Repository looks particularly impoverished and neglected, paint peeling from the faces of the Seven Creators, window panes busted out, and on my way to meet the Alder-Patron I’d noticed several of the metal pipes had cracks in them, making those Ittaris inside waste thoughts on trying not to leak out instead of focusing fully on prayer. “The Aubergine Wok is priceless,” I tell him. “As is seeing it back where it rightfully belongs.” TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 191
The Alder-Patron’s eyes widen. “Wok? A human word. If they knew how much they’d underestimated its significance, they would have held it in the securest of safes, not had it out on display. The Ovrelisk is one of the most ancient objects in this universe. It isn’t a mere vessel but a window into the very soul of the Ittari.” I gasp and, looking behind me, see that all of the Ittari have flowed out from their piping and left their pews to congregate around us—their liquid limbs blending into one another, all aglow with wonder. “I’ve changed my mind,” I say to the Alder-Patron. “I’m ready to name my price. I’d like you to teach me the history of our people.” The Alder-Patron’s hand sinks deeper into my shoulder. “That I can arrange.”
192 NICKY DRAYDEN
THE UNDYING FANS OF AN UNKNOWN COVER BAND BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Andromeda Spaceways, 2011
It was Danny's idea to play this last gig. Said it was like the band on the Titanic, said we'd go down in history as the last musicians of the apocalypse. Only there're no historians out in this crowd, just grayed out faces struck by the flashes of a strobe light past its prime. Jeremy's bass is off beat, slapping notes like there's no tomorrow. Hildy and Janet are stumbling all over each other, years of choreography swirling down the drain. And me, my voice breaks on nearly every note as I watch our audience lurching, moaning, clamoring to find a way up onto the stage. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 193
But if you squint real hard, maybe have a stiff drink or three, all you see is fans . . . hundreds of devoted fans, come from all over to hear us jam. Their lurches become a rhythmic groove, moans like a chorus of drunken song lyrics dredging up past lives – lace panties pulled over smooth thighs, tender years spent swapping fat joints in musty basements or blasting dad's car stereo until the windows rattle. All those things I see in their dead eyes. Like memories upturned from the abyss. A withered hand slaps the stage, nails digging into tar- sealed wood. Hildy and Janet scream, clutching each other, trembling beneath their vintage thrift-store dresses. I call their names, and their vacant gazes settle on me. "The show must go on," I remind them, then ease us into a new set. Jeremy thwacks his guitar something fierce, with more life than he'd ever shown in any of our gigs. A sea of undead eyes flicker like cheap Zippos. I don’t see their festering wounds, and ignore the bits of Danny's flesh stuck between their teeth. His last drum solo still flutters in my gut, a fit of unbridled genius I can only aspire to. I clutch the mic, clear my throat, then let a pitch-perfect note unfurl from the depths of my soul. And in my sweet delusions, our undying fans chant our name, devoted until the very end.
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LILITOL THE CURMUDGEON BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Bards and Sages Quarterly, 2011
‘Twas a cold winter's night, On which goodwill abounds, Decked in holiday lights, And all cheerful sounds.
But there's something quite scary Just released from his dungeon. He’ll kill all that’s merry, It’s Lilitol the Curmudgeon.
Jilgar took delight in running the verses through his mind as he chomped the head off a screaming villager. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 195
Tasty. Not as tasty as a virgin, of course, but these days virgins were in short supply. He was in the mood for warm blood, however, and risking a little indigestion seemed worth it. Just as he was about to take another bite, Jilgar stiffened at the sound of his sister’s wing-flaps beating overhead. He should have known she’d be snooping around on his first solo raid, and in his massive claws he held the evidence of his forbidden indulgence. Jilgar tossed the rest of the body into a nearby bonfire -- once the town square - - and gave the horizon a final check to make sure the decimation was to his satisfaction. He’d taken care to spare a handful of people, hoping they'd warn others about building their villages on dragon domain, but these puny humans never seemed to learn. With a flick of his barbed tail, Jilgar leveled the grocer’s shop. Bins of fruits and vegetables became projectiles in the air, and as they came crashing down, their ripened juices only added to the sweet stench of death. “You call this destruction? I could do a more thorough job with a couple of well-placed sneezes,” Amdamara said as she landed, steam shooting from her flared nostrils. She shimmied as if trying to rid herself of the embarrassment Jilgar had brought upon their family name. Her iridescent scales sparkled in the light of the bonfire. “Look! There are villagers everywhere and more buildings standing than burning.” Jilgar shrugged. “There’s not that many...” 196 NICKY DRAYDEN
Amdamara squinted, hard and exact, her emerald eyes piercing straight through his guilt. “Is that a skull stuck between your teeth?” “Um...no,” Jilgar said, taking great pains to keep his maw drawn over his gums as he spoke. “You’re eating villagers again? I can’t believe I’m related to you.” “Oh, come on, Amdamara. It’s just one.” Jilgar pried the skull loose, then gulped it back, going bitterly down his throat like a bone-flavored lozenge. “Lilitol snacked during the nine pillages of Fregnoir, and nobody ever said nothing to him.” “You’re too old to believe in Lilitol. That’s just some old tale told to dragon pups to keep them from turning all lily-hearted: plunder nonstop for nine days, and then get your reward.” “Well, I don’t care what you think. I did a good job here, and tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up and find a pony waiting for me under the mauling bush. This is going to be the year, I can feel it.” Amdamara shook her head, then flamed down a group of villagers pelting her with stones. “There aren’t going to be any presents, Jilgar. Our parents used to put them under the bush.” “Did not. Why would you say a thing like that?” “Because it’s true. You’re supposed to torch villages because you’re a dragon, and these lands have belonged to our kind for millennia. I know it's not glamorous, but it's TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 197 our duty to tend to these infestations. It should be its own reward!” Jilgar scowled at his sister. She thought she knew everything, but she was wrong this time. As he fluttered his wings, bonfire ashes twirled in the displaced air. Jilgar felt an uncontrolled fire roiling through his gut and up his throat. He swallowed back a mouthful of smoke -- that skull already wreaking havoc with his digestion. He was too proud to reveal his blunder to his sister, though. “Just you wait, Amdamara,” Jilgar said with a smoldering tongue. “I’m getting that pony.”
Jilgar laid the nine corpses before the mauling bush outside his cave. He tended to each of them, cracking a beehive and letting honey seep into their wounds. Then he crushed a handful of coal and sprinkled it until the bodies were coated just the way Lilitol liked. There was no way Lilitol the Curmudgeon would pass up this bush, not with this scrumptious snack awaiting him. In the thirteen years since Jilgar had hatched from his egg, he’d wanted a pony of his own -- a nice brown one with a silky mane. Each year, he’d make his call out to Lilitol the Curmudgeon, trumpeting to the skies the intricate details of his deepest wishes, only to wake the next morning to find something he didn’t want: a painted boulder, or a wolf carcass, or a stack of uprooted pine trees 198 NICKY DRAYDEN
-- traditional presents, so how was he supposed to complain? This year would be different though. Despite those nasty things his sister had said, he still believed with all his heart that Lilitol would visit his bush tonight. He stretched his neck up, cleared his throat, then howled to the heavens so loud that every critter in the forest went silent and the stars themselves seemed to dim at his vibrant notes. Pleased with himself, Jilgar curled into a ball at the base of the mauling bush, then let his eyes flicker shut. Fable or not, Lilitol didn’t visit little dragons who stayed up all night hoping to catch a glimpse of the Curmudgeon.
Sunlight breached the crevice between Jilgar’s heavy eyelids, and as he woke, the sounds of neighing and hoof claps still lingered from his dreams. He yawned, scratched at an early-morning itch, then eagerly ogled the mauling bush, now a half-crushed mess of branches. Jilgar perked when he saw the bodies had been taken, just the odd limb lying around uneaten. “Amdamara! He came! He came!” Jilgar trumpeted into the air. He then searched for his pony, which was nowhere to be seen. Not even a meager painted boulder stood nearby. No presents. Nowhere. Moments later, Amdamara dropped from the sky, wings flapping off kilter and eyes barely slits. “Just because you sleep like the underside of a mountain, doesn’t mean TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 199 the rest of us do,” she hissed, her breath hot with steam. “It’s barely dawn!” Jilgar hunched over to appear as small as he felt, his bones shifting and creaking as they settled. He wished he hadn’t called out so soon. Now Amdamara would never let him hear the end of it. Maybe she was right. He was too old to believe in Lilitol anymore. And maybe their parents had planted those presents under the bush to encourage them to seek out and destroy villages. It certainly wasn’t something Jilgar enjoyed doing, and his stomach was still gurgling from the villager he’d chomped on the day before. But then again, that’s what he deserved for gulping down the unchaste. “Huh...” said Amdamara, blinking the clouds from her eyes. “So where’s this pony you wanted to show me?” “There’s no pony,” Jilgar mumbled. “Lilitol didn’t bring me anything this year. Again.” “You’re sure it didn’t just run off?” “Go ahead. Poke fun at me, why don't you?” Jilgar got up and turned, clipping Amdamara in the nose with the tip of his tail. “Ow! Watch where you swing that thing, lizard brain, or I’ll--” “Or you’ll what?” Jilgar didn’t usually taunt Amdamara since she nearly always won their brother-sister spats, but today he was feeling ornery and needed someplace to funnel his disappointment. “Jilgar, look,” said Amdamara pointing her claw to 200 NICKY DRAYDEN
Jilgar’s right thigh. Jilgar stretched his neck, muscles straining until he made out the brown patch of fur smashed into his scales. It couldn’t be. Amdamara plucked the pony’s crushed body out and laid it neatly before the mauling bush. “I guess I was wrong, kiddo.” She smiled big and toothy and wide, and not very sister-like at all. "Lilitol must have been pleased with your work. I bet you made him proud." “He really does exist,” Jilgar said in a whisper. With a tender touch, Jilgar stroked the pony, a single tear forming in his eye. He then flexed a claw, speared the carcass through, and sucked it down his gullet. “Delicious,” said Jilgar, smacking his chops. “Just like I always imagined.”
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DOUBLE RATIONS BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Kaleidotrope Magazine, 2011
Archibald Smithe rubbed the empty socket under his eye patch. It was bad enough having his good eye watering up on him, but these phantom allergies were about to drive him to mutiny. Ever since they’d left port at Talacagon Alpha, the air on the Gnarly Scab hadn’t been right, and even above the constant din of the munitions room machinery, he could hear his crewmates coughing, sneezing, and wheezing. On his command, the tactician dimmed the view screen and twin giga-ton charges blew, igniting a plasma fire in this bleak expanse of space. Archibald let loose a tiny indiscernible sigh as the fire winked out and was replaced 202 NICKY DRAYDEN with the seed of a brand new wormhole. They couldn’t afford another botched explosion, especially this close to the deadline. Archibald had voiced his concerns to Captain Prawns on the rare occasions he’d emerged from his quarters. Finishing this trans-dimensional superhighway without his expertise was tricky enough, but to do it with a crew suffering from foggy minds and runny noses would be damn near impossible. The captain had merely dismissed Archibald’s apprehension with a flick of his hook, however. That was weeks ago. Now Prawns didn’t come out at all. “Cap’n’s been requesting double rations,” said Riff, the ship’s cook, later that evening at mess. This caused Archibald great concern since no one with half a mind would shove an ounce more of that dank gruel down their gullets than necessary. “I hear he’s got a plant locked up in there with him. One that can cure the Brangelian Rots.” The cook slipped his hand down his trousers and scratched his crotch, his face wrenching in obvious relief. He then smudged his fingertips across his apron and proceeded to scoop two heaping spoonfuls onto a metal tray. “Aye, you’re probably right...” Archibald said as he reluctantly took the tray. The plants on Talacagon Alpha could do some amazing things: soothe novaburn, treat nebula shingles, sing karaoke. Archibald navigated the narrow, curling hallways of the Gnarly Scab toward the Captain’s quarters. Captain Gilmore Prawns was the best sapper this side of the Kel’Tauren and TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 203 a mean old bastard who could punch a hole in subspace just by staring at it too long. He ran a tight ship, and his absence hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Who’s there?” said the captain, his voice worn and raw, almost like he’d been crying. “It’s me, Cap. I’ve brought yer dinner.” “Leave it by the door!” “Sir, if I may. Things are falling apart out here. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the crew in check.” “I can’t come out. You’ll just have to make do without me!” Archibald sniffed back a nose full of snot. His allergies were worse down here. Nausea. Itchy throat. Hives. Maybe the cook’s exotic plant conspiracies weren’t so far from the truth. Archibald hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, in fear of starting a whole new wave of rumors, but he had seen Captain Prawns taking an interest in a giant Talacagon bush willow specimen during shore leave. Its beautiful blooms had hung like lures from a tangle of suction-cup tipped plumes. A plant that rare might fetch a heavy sum in other systems. "Your choice, Captain," said Archibald, managing to put a convincing quaver in his voice. "But when someone gets sloppy and blows a chunk out of the Scab's hull, don't say I didn't warn you!" Archibald set the tray on the floor, making sure to clang it loudly, then stamped his boots against the deck plating, as if he were storming down the hallway. He ducked around the corner and waited. 204 NICKY DRAYDEN
“Anybody there?” said the captain’s tentative voice, but Archibald stifled a cough and stayed quiet, determined to uncover the captain's secret. Minutes passed, but then finally he heard the door sphincter open. Archibald peeked around the corner in time to see the captain’s arm reach for the tray. He took a quick breath, and then sprinted out from his hiding place before Captain Prawns could react. The sight of the captain straightening up was enough to knock the wind out of Archibald. A giant clump of needle- thin tentacles sprouted from his bare belly like a fungal disease run rampant. Captain Prawns dropped the tray, sending gruel flying in each direction. “Medic!” Archibald cried out, snorting back a noseful of snot as he tried to make sense of the parasite latched on to the captain’s torso. Prawns struck his good hand out to cover Archibald’s mouth. “Not another word, do you hear me?” Archibald felt the tip of the captain’s hook, cool on his side. “I don’t need a doctor, matey. This little problem of mine will solve itself in due time.” The ship began to tremor, hard and violent, nearly knocking Archibald to his knees. Sirens blared, and a shipwide announcement followed – an explosion in the superior vent shaft, it said. Fire contained, no need for alarm. But Archibald did worry. As first mate, he had a responsibility to the crew and to the Gnarly Scab’s safety, and they were all bordering on worthless with this parasite compromising the integrity of every sinus cavity aboard the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 205 ship. “We have to get that thing off you, sir!” Captain Prawns shook his head, cradling the monstrosity in his hand with an eerie tenderness. “We should have been more careful, but what’s done is done. I’m going to keep it.” The captain’s eyes teared up. “Oh, these damned mood swings!” “Keep it? Sir, you’re not making any sense.” With a heavy sigh, the captain laid his arm across Archibald’s shoulder. “That bush willow on Talacagon Alpha... S’YollaQ’truu was her name. I called her Betty. I liked her personality. Laughed at her jokes. After a few rounds of ale and liquid fertilizer, one thing led to another and...” As Prawns rubbed over his belly, the creature cooed, then coughed out a cloud of silver pollen. Almost immediately Archibald’s nose began to tingle, and he tried to suppress the sneeze. Again, the captain’s hook became pronounced in Archibald’s side. “I can trust you to keep my secret, can’t I?” “Of course, Captain Prawns,” said Archibald with a sniffle. “Very well. Keep tending to my crew, and if you get this project done on time and under budget, I’ve got a good mind to make you godfather.” Archibald trembled at the thought, but managed a faint “Aye, sir.” The captain returned to his quarters, and the door closed behind him. Archibald mopped the gruel into a puddle and scraped it up onto the tray. He’d return to the 206 NICKY DRAYDEN galley to get more, of course. Riff would pester him with one of his new conspiracies: a plasma cannon or a starlight engine or perhaps one of them octo-hootered love aliens so popular around these parts. Archibald wished he could go back to not knowing. The truth was more disturbing than any of the cockeyed theories he’d had to put up with. But there was no denying it, now. Captain Prawns was eating for two.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 207
THE MYSTERIES WITHIN BY NICKY DRAYDEN
“Ma, Fenus ate my yams!” I yell, chasing that no-good larva-fart to the edge of our reef and back. The little thief. Just wait until I wrap my tentacles around his scrawny body. “Did not!” Fenus says back. He squirts me with ink, as if that’ll deter me. I draw a mouthful of cold ocean water, thrust it through my jet, and cut through the purple haze. Fenus is slow and predictable, and couldn't tell his gills from a hole in the ground. Before he knows what hit him, I've got him pinned against jagged coral. With the tip of a spare tentacle, I jab at the clear jelly flesh of his mantle, noting the orangeness of half-digested yam making its way to his stomach. 208 NICKY DRAYDEN
“Yeah, and what’s that, you liar? I worked hard for those yams.” I take two of his underdeveloped tentacles and yank them straight. Fenus struggles, but I'm twice his size. I make a couple loops then pull the double-knot tight. “Ow! Ma, Janaa’s hurting me!” Fenus yells now. Two facets over, our broodmother flashes her nerves at me disappointedly, staring at me like I’m the one in the wrong. Sure, she sees me giving Fenus a knotting, but where was she when that little larva-fart was stealing my yams in the first place? “I’m going hunting,” I fume at my broodmother and leave Fenus to untie himself. It's my sole escape from this place, from my hundreds of swarming broodmates, and ten times that many reefmates, none of which seem the slightest bit concerned about the lack of personal space. “Stay this side of the current, dear,” my broodmother calls after me. “And tell Salee she’s digesting well.” “What?” I yell back as I leave, so peeved I swim straight into Salee. The clear membranes of our mantles collide with a jellied thwack. I run the tips of my tentacles along the ridges of her underflesh, and she does mine. We don’t linger, just a friendly greeting. Broodmother and that larva-fart are watching. I take a quick spin around Salee, admiring her organs -- the strong beat of her hearts, the artistry of the white web of her nervous system, the blue-black bulb of her ink sac, and of course the beautiful gradient of her digestive tract. Salee always takes care to graze from the greenest algae, set TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 209 off by bands of orange from the times we’d dined on yams together and the whites of her favorite fungus found only near the outskirts of the reef. “I was just on my way to hunt yams,” I tell her. “Figured,” Salee says. “Brek told Hsua who told Palu who told me that Brek saw Fenus eating from your yam stash.” “And Brek didn’t try to stop him?” I growl, turning toward my neighbor’s facet. Brek’s busy expressing bile, but he blinks innocently at me. “I think he enjoys seeing you and Fenus fighting. He’s been so lonely since two of his closest broodmates went opaque.” The tips of my tentacles tingle. I’d heard the stories about going opaque, certainly my broodmother had told me many such tragic tales to keep me from straying too far from the reef, but to have it happen the next facet over ... well, it’s just plain terrifying. “Yeah,” I mumble, then change the subject. It's bad luck to speak of the cursed. “Broodmother says to tell you you’re digesting well.” Her eyes flick to my broodmother who’s now taking pity on Fenus and is trying to help him slip out of his knot. Salee waves bashfully. “Want to come with me?” I ask Salee, tugging her down a dozen facets, weaving through vibrant orange branches, around a forest of sleek yellow tubes, and ducking into the crevice of a giant pink sponge -- all so we 210 NICKY DRAYDEN can at least pretend to have some privacy. Salee’s nervous system flashes with excitement, and her ink sac quivers from being so tightly clenched. I love seeing the way I make her feel, how easily my words can stir her inside. Broodmother's voice itches in the back of my mind, reminding me that it's time to start seeking out a proper lifemate, hinting that I'd broken my first egg sac many tides ago. It's my duty, after all, to give up my life to give birth to hundreds more, reinforcing our numbers. But the reef seems crowded enough as it is, and I'd rather spend my time with Salee. Salee likes hunting yams almost as much as I do, and is always up for an adventure, so we jet from the protection of the reef and into the open ocean, following the current to where the yams graze. They’re feisty things, spook real easily and are hard to catch one-on-one, but they’re no match for the two of us together. I point a see-through tentacle at one of the yams near the edge of the herd, and Salee nods. Slowly we circle around it, approaching from opposite directions. Salee flashes her beautiful nervous system, a sudden bright light that startles the yam away from the rest of the herd. It heads right for me. I keep my calm until the very last moment, then I strike out with all ten tentacles, wrapping them around its long orange body. Its spiral tail and fins flail until I put it out of its misery with a bone-crunching squeeze. Together Salee and I drag our prize away from the agitated herd and toward the secrecy of a nook beneath a TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 211 large rock. She's impressed, staring through my membrane at the rapid beating of my hearts. “Is it really dead?” Salee asks timidly. I nod, and begin to peel back the orange flesh. Salee never wants to do the kill. She thinks all things opaque have feelings, that they think and love and grieve just like we do. I put up with her idealistic notions rather than getting in another circular debate, but how can you trust organs that you cannot see? How real is love when you can’t witness the heart palpitations for yourself? What good is grief when the ribbon of your digestive tract is kept hidden from the world? Despite her reservations about killing, Salee sure doesn’t have a problem eating yam flesh. When we’ve had our fill, I weave my tentacles with hers, and together we watch a rare cloud of neon plankton glide past on the other side of the current. They swarm, a gentle ripple of glittering blues, greens, and oranges, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, next to Salee. My nervous system fluxes uncontrollably. I could spend eternity in this moment with no regrets. “Are you okay, Janaa?” “I have something to ask you,” I say. In my nervousness, I express a small amount of bile, but Salee pretends not to notice. “I would like to ask you to be my lifemate.” I watch her insides carefully, the playful flutter of her hearts, the churn of eggs in her egg sac, a bulge in her ink sac ... all in my favor. And yet her eyes remain 212 NICKY DRAYDEN unconvinced. “You're drunk on yam," Salee finally says. She carelessly strokes one of her tentacles across my mantle. “I'd go to the ends of the ocean for you," I say. "And I I'll be a good provider and stay by your side no matter what.” “Wait, how can you go to the ends of the ocean for me and be at my side at the same time?” I laugh, a subtle flicker of nerves. “I'm serious, Salee.” Yet the irony is not lost on me. Usually choosing a lifemate is akin to a death sentence, with fathers expiring within minutes of sharing their seed, and mothers living just long enough to witness the miracle of their eggs hatching. But for me and Salee, we'll be free to expend our life's energy tending to each other's needs, if only she agrees. "Can't we just enjoy this moment?" Salee says, her eyes settling on the shimmering cloud of plankton. Then it becomes so obvious what I've got to do. Actions speak louder than the whims of vital organs, at least according to Salee. I twist my tentacles into a knot, thinking of how angry my broodmother will be, thinking of how happy a neon band would make Salee, thinking of how scared I am to venture past the current and into the unknown. I pull the flesh from the yam’s head and polish its skull until I’ve got a nice bucket to hold plankton. "What are you doing?" Salee demands, and I wonder if my intentions are just as transparent as the rest of me. “Getting you a neon band for your digestive tract,” I TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 213 say coyly. “But neon plankton only swarm on the other side of the current.” Salee spits, and I know I'm cruising for an eyeful of angry, flickering nerves. "It's too dangerous." "I'll be back before you can miss me!" I venture up to the current, feeling it tug at me. I take in the biggest mouthful of water, then vent through my jet and slide through the rapid tow. The current tosses me up, down, and around, but I keep expelling until I'm on the other side. Once I orient myself, I find that I’ve gone further downstream than I’d intended, the plankton swarm a distant cloud. I keep my eyes peeled for movement. Predators lurk beyond the current. It doesn't happen often, maybe once or twice a tide, but some careless fool will venture out and get gobbled up by a ferocious, snaggle-toothed kale, its eyesight keen enough to separate our transparent flesh from the ocean itself. Finally, I reach the plankton swarm and scoop up a brimming skullful, then with a quick jet burst, I’m back through the current, intact and my nerves aglow with accomplishment. I present my gift to Salee, but she just glares at me with her tentacles crossed, pulsing as badly as I am. I stroke the length of one of her tentacles, but she jerks it away. "Don't ever do that again," she scolds me. "But I just wanted to prove--" "What's there to prove? Can't you see what you do to 214 NICKY DRAYDEN my poor hearts?" She knocks the skull aside and pulls me closer. “I’d be honored to be your lifemate,” Salee whispers, but just before we release our ink sacs to partake in the pleasures of our underflesh and seal our bond, I notice a small patch of white debris on her mantle. I try to gently brush it away. It sticks. I pick at it, but it doesn’t budge. And when I scratch harder, Salee yelps. My heartbeats go irregular. Salee looks worried. “What is it, Janaa?” she asks. “It’s nothing. Nothing,” I say, trying to keep from thinking the worst. She’s not going opaque. It’s just a little blemish, that’s all. Only it’s spreading, her insides becoming hidden to me behind a veil of white--no stomach, no nerves, no hearts. Salee looks down at her membrane and shrieks. “What’s happening to me?” She reaches out for me with her cloudy tentacles, and I instinctually flinch away, embarrassed, repulsed, confused. “Stay here. I’ll go for help,” I say, my voice quivering. I hope I’m far enough for her not to see that I’m lying. On my way home, I try to forget about her, to forget she ever existed just like we’re supposed to. Out of duty, I tell her broodmother, then mine, and together we express bile. The sadness lingers, and I can’t eat, and a dozen tides pass, each worse for me than the last as I think of Salee out there alone, cursed, opaque. She probably had moved past the current by now. Better to be hunted by predators than your own kind. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 215
“Dear,” my broodmother says, stroking my membrane gently, “You need to eat something. I can see straight through your tract.” “I’m not hungry,” I tell her. “These things happen. It’s best that we forget her. Thoughts of the opaque will draw the curse to the reef. We all lose close broodmates from time to time. I’ve lost several myself, but you grieve quickly, then forget.” I don't tell my broodmother just how close Salee and I were. My nerves are too weak to handle one of her lectures about how egg hoarding is a selfish act, detrimental to our reef. But it wasn't even like that with me and Salee. I just enjoyed her company, and if my broodmother can't understand that, she'll never understand how I'm feeling right now. She'll never understand why my nerves are flickering like they're about to permanently dim. My broodmother pulls me close to grieve with me, but I press her away. “I know it's hard, but you must forget about her,” she whispers. “Even if she’s still out there, the opaque has stolen everything from her. She no longer thinks or feels or loves.” “I know,” I mumble, then concentrate on trying to forget.
I pass the tides doing what I do best: I hunt yams. 216 NICKY DRAYDEN
Fenus and a couple of his broodmates tag along, laughing and flashing and agitating the herd. I chase them off, but the kinderbroods stick to me like newly hatched larva, their nerves blinking in awe as I take down yam after yam. Eventually, I get used to their company, even learn to enjoy it. When I think they're ready, I share my tactics and make fine hunters out of them. Watching Fenus maneuver through the herd makes me glow. Even if he does annoy me to no end, I'm glad we were both taken in by the same broodmother. The lessons keep my mind occupied, but I'm just going through the motions, tide in and tide out. Only when Fenus tells me that he's joining the reef patrol do I snap from my melancholy. "Why?" I ask, suddenly regretting all the advanced hunting maneuvers I'd taught him. What if he comes across the opaque that once was Salee? "I thought you'd be pleased," Fenus says, his nerves flashing unevenly with confusion. "I am proud of you," I assure him, then stroke his mantle. "You are a good hunter and it's important to protect our reef from the opaque." I say this mostly to remind myself. Their presence threatens our way of life, and however sad it is to lose a broodmate to the opaque, it'd be a tragedy a thousand times over if the curse made its way to the reef. I point to a large bull yam at the head of the herd, one that'll take Fenus and the other kinderbroods a tide to capture and subdue. I need the time to myself to TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 217 finish grieving once and for all. All I can do is watch the current pass, letting it wash the memories of Salee away. I retreat to the privacy of our old rock, then I release my ink pretending that my tentacles are Salee’s against my underflesh, but it's a poor substitute for the real thing. When the ink cloud parts, I’m not alone. An opaque treads before me, an eerie lump of white flesh, so impossibly heavy in my mind. My nerves flash hot, and I jet away. It follows. “You said you’d stay by my side no matter what,” it squawks, its noises sounding like some perverse imitation of speech. “Well, Janaa, this is no matter what!” The creature catches up to me and entangles me with its tentacles. I scream for Fenus and his broodmates, but they're too far off. I ink, hoping I can get away from the creature’s grip in the confusion, but it has me tight. “It’s me,” it says. “Salee.” “Salee’s body is a husk now,” I yell back into the cloud, thinking I must be losing my mind. It releases its ink too, and now I’m completely blind. Its tentacles grate against my underflesh, mocking the sacred greeting Salee and I used to share. I express bile and shudder. “I’m still the same me,” it says. “Feel.” It guides the tip of my tentacle to its underflesh. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was in Salee’s presence again. I relax some, reveling in my delusion, resigning to the fact that I must have gone 218 NICKY DRAYDEN insane from grief. “Salee,” I mutter, her name catching in my throat. “You broke my hearts when you left me. You said you’d go to the ends of the ocean for me.” “I would. I would.” I stroke aggressively at her underflesh at the risk of infecting myself with the curse. “Come with me then. I’ll have you and you’ll have me, and we can ride the current to where it doesn’t matter whose organs are seen and whose aren’t.” The ink cloud parts along with my fantasy, and the nightmare returns -- a silhouette against the backdrop of the current. It speaks. “If you really do believe that I'm not capable of loving you just because you can't see my hearts, I’ll pluck them from my mantle right now so that you can see their dying beats.” It waits for an answer, then when I falter, it presses its tentacle into its white jelly flesh, right where its hearts would be. “No,” I call out, surprising us both. But the shame is more than I can bear, eating me up from the inside out. I can't catch my breath, can't catch my thoughts. “If you really do love me, you’ll leave right now. Please, just let me grieve.” “You mean it?” it says. Something like sorrow haunts its voice, but I know that it cannot be. Nothing stirs beneath its mantle, and if somehow emotions do run under its opaque surface, they remain a mystery within. It turns, slowly crosses the expanse of the current, then TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 219 watches me from the other side. Something stills me, and I find it difficult to leave, but I know I must. I check back behind me, once, twice, and it's still there staring. Another opaque approaches from behind it, growing larger until it’s bigger than our reef. A predator. The giant kale looms, sleek skin the darkest of greens. Sharp white teeth jut from its open mouth. I flash a warning to the opaque that was once Salee, but it doesn’t stir, only stares back at me. I jet toward it, fast as I can, taking care to go into the current upstream so I won’t lose momentum when I come out. I thrust so hard my jet aches. Whether it feels or not, I can’t allow that opaque to be swallowed up by a predator. On the other side, I ram my body into the opaque's, and it flees from harm’s way. Before I can regain my wits, gleaming white predator teeth snap in my direction, and a terrible pain arches through my tentacles. The opaque that was once Salee tugs me to safety, and speaks to me, tells me not to worry, tells me I’ll be all right. I want to believe it, but as the pain overwhelms me and darkness creeps into my mind, I know they’re just soulless mutterings reminding me of a life that could have been.
I awaken with a heaviness upon me, feeling incomplete. The pain has dulled, but when I try to wiggle the tips of my tentacles, I find myself two short. 220 NICKY DRAYDEN
"Stay still," the voice that used to belong to Salee says. "You've got quite a bit of healing left to do." I don't listen and right myself so I can see the damage, but before the sting of losing two tentacles hits me, an even bigger horror strikes. I'm opaque! I cry out, calling for my broodmother, calling for anyone who'll listen, but the opaque that used to be Salee presses its tentacles against me, forcing me back down. "Relax," it whispers. "It's only a pigment I made from white fungus. It'll rub off as soon as you're well enough to return to your reef. That's what you want, isn't it?" I flash my nerves in affirmation, but then remember no one can see them. I feel more handicapped by this pigment than I do missing two tentacles. "Yes," I say. The opaque changes the seaweed bandages protecting my wounds. "As you wish. In the mean time, you have to take care to keep this pigment firm. The others would banish us both if they found out I'd brought an unseen to our reef." "Unseen?" I ask, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for my first chance to escape. "That's what we call your kind ..." the opaque trails off as another enters the facet, a male, I gather after a second look, having to rely on subtle external differences like the bulge of his mating tentacle instead of those obvious internal ones. "How's she faring?" it asks quietly. "Better," the opaque that was once Salee says. "She's TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 221 awake now. Janaa," she says gently to me. "I'd like you to meet Rojur. We work the crop together." I stay quiet and keep my nerves to myself, not that it matters. The thing that calls itself Rojur gives my underflesh a quick, obligatory tickle. "How is the crop doing anyway?" the opaque that was once Salee asks. "No one's in danger of starving just yet. Don't worry yourself about it. Your work here is more important. When Janaa is well, you can both join us." The opaque that calls itself Rojur flails its tentacles when it talks, like a larva pup that doesn't yet have a grasp of the workings of its interior. "Oh, while I'm here, I do have a question for you about the harvest." And as quickly as that, the two opaques become engrossed in a conversation of aquaculture, tentacles flailing this way and that. They don't notice when I peel back my bandages. I cringe at what's beneath -- a jagged gash along my mantle, nerve endings flickering and firing and angry. It's bad, but could be worse. One thing's for sure, I can't stay here. I may no longer be see-through, but that doesn't mean I can't be stealthy. Slowly, I tread my good tentacles, and slip unseen from this facet to the next, then the next, until I'm far enough to jet away. I pass a hundred opaques, my nerves standing on end, so sharp I think they're about to puncture through my membrane. I'm close to reaching the exterior of the reef and my freedom, but my body begins to ache, a searing burn at the exposed 222 NICKY DRAYDEN surface of my wounds. I sink to the floor, and moments later, the opaque that used to be Salee looms over me. "That was a very stupid thing to do," it says, pulling my body up and embracing me tight. "I know this isn't easy for you, but you have to trust me." "How can you expect me to trust you? Would you expect me to put my trust in a yam, or a rock, or a piece of broken shell?" The opaque that used to be Salee spits like a larva pup throwing a tantrum. "Would you have risked your life to save a yam or a rock? I know the tragic tales of the opaque as well as you do. But they're just tales. We do think and love and grieve as passionately as the unseen." The opaque that used to be Salee gives my underflesh a wistful stroke, and for the first time I start to feel sorry for it. For her. "I'll run again as soon as I get the chance," I admit to her. I wish things were different. I wish I could forget the prejudices that had been engrained into me since the time I hatched. "I know," she says, then knots my good tentacles together until I'm a prisoner of my own body.
The stronger I get, the easier Salee's knots are to slip from, and soon they're so loose, I wonder why she bothers tying me up at all. Maybe she expects that I'll sneak off again, and isn't ready to face saying her final goodbyes. But TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 223
I couldn't do that to her, not after she's tended to my wounds for the last four tides, nursing me back to health. I think Salee means to charm me into staying, or maybe she secretly hopes that I'll wake up opaque and have no other choice. We often venture out and she shows me around their reef, colorful and busy and vibrant, much like ours with elderbroods caring for the kinderbroods, helping one another, teaching and loving and laughing. It makes me miss home more than anything, broodmother's nagging and Fenus's pranks. They probably think I'm halfway through some kale's digestive tract by now, or worse, that I'd gone opaque. I won't admit this to anyone, not even to myself, but sometimes, when Salee and I sneak off and we're drunk from nibbling on kelproot, I think that maybe going opaque wouldn't be so bad.
Salee calls me over from the far field, tentacle deep in reddish brown kelp. I swim over, slowly but steadily, then we steal a moment, sinking down into a veil of rubbery leaves. "I'm so sick of kelp," she mutters, half joking, I think. It's hard to tell, but the inflection of her voice hints of mock disgust and a bit of truth. "It's tasty," I lie, probably the first time I've never been called on it either. "I'd take kelp over yam any day." Salee nudges me and laughs. "Good. Because that's 224 NICKY DRAYDEN what we'll be dining on, this tide, and the next, and the next. But it's what we do. Can't exactly sneak up on a yam looking like this." She extends one of her white tentacles. "Looking beautiful, you mean?" "Janaa!" Her nerves flicker so hard, I can swear I see them through her opaqueness. She twists a tentacle around one of mine, just like it's old times. "The harvest will be ready in a few more tides," she says. "I know that you'll be fully healed soon, but I was hoping you'd stay a little longer to join us in feast." "I'd be glad to celebrate with you," I say. And in fact, I'd like to stay much longer, but this time I want her to know I really mean forever. I decide to make my actions speak for me, and on the tide before the feast, I jet across the current, testing the strength of my tentacles, and they guide me through just as quickly as they ever have. After I scrub myself free of the white pigment, I hone in on a herd of yams, fixing my sight on a big, strapping bull. His skin prickles with sharp spiny bumps, and his curled tail is nearly as thick as my own body. I'm careful, oh so careful, blending in with my surroundings and stilling my heart. I drift closer, riding the soft current, using subtle movements of my tentacles to guide me. The bull stirs, sensing the danger, but not the source. I make my move, snaring him in my grip and holding tight as he bucks and shakes, trying to throw me off. Its muscles writhe beneath me, its bray like a war cry. I'd dismissed them before, just reflex and instinct, but now I wonder what lies beneath. Is TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 225 it pleading for help? For mercy? The thought turns my stomach. I unlatch my grip and allow the yam to bolt away. After resting for a long moment, I lug myself toward a field of white fungus blooms. I chew them into a paste, and spread it all along my body, such a thorough job that I dare anyone call me unseen. But the biggest, brightest fungi, I save for Salee. They are her favorites, after all. I gather an impressive bouquet, so many I can barely carry them, but before I dart through the current with my prize, transparent tentacles creep up from behind and surround me in a deadly embrace. "Curse bringer!" a familiar voice yells. "I slay you for the good of our reef." "Fenus? Is that you?" I ask. "It's me, Janaa." His nerves momentarily flash with surprise, but he quickly regains control. "Don't try to infect my mind with the curse of the opaque," he bellows, his tentacles squeezing tighter. He's got a good grip, no longer the wisp he used to be. "I'm not opaque!" I yell. "It's just pigment from white fungus. See for yourself." I scratch hard at my membrane until I've made a small window into my inner self. Fenus peers through it, unbelieving at first. Then he loosens his grip, becoming more like a hug than a deathlock. "Janaa? We thought..." his voice cracks, and the stutter- stop of joy in his fluttering hearts makes me want to cry. "Why would you do such a thing?" he asks me accusingly. I falter, not sure of what to say. I don't want him to 226 NICKY DRAYDEN think I'm a traitor, turning my back on my own kind, and I certainly can't tell him the truth. So I make up a lame story about how I wanted to see what it was like to be opaque so I could get into the minds of our enemy. "The opaque don’t have minds," Fenus reminds me sternly. "You're right," I say. "It was a stupid idea." Fenus doesn't completely believe me. He keeps watching, weighing. There's no way I can cross the current now without putting Salee and the others' lives in jeopardy, so I rub the pigment from my membrane, then ask for Fenus's help carrying the fungus back to our reef.
My broodmother pushes me from my facet. I try to resist, but my eight tentacles are no match for her ten. "Juulz is waiting, dear. Go on," she says, giving me a final push. I see Juulz ogling my insides, his nerves flashing excitement, though in a respectful way. "This doesn't feel right," I whisper to my broodmother. "I don't even know him that well." "What's there to know? He's got seeds, you've got eggs. He's handsome, isn't he? I told you he was something special." Maybe that's true, but he's not my something special. Still, if there's one thing my broodmother is, it's persistent. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 227
She's got me questioning the validity of my own emotions, making me wonder if it was fate that I'd missed Salee's feast. It's not like I had a choice. Even tides later, Fenus still watches my every move. I think he suspects that I know the location of the opaque's reef, and what better way to solidify his position in the patrol's ranks by coming across such intelligence? Juulz and I stroll the reef together, so caught up in chatting about our favorite yam hunting grounds that I barely even notice when he tries to wrap one of his tentacles around mine. He's pleasant enough. I laugh at his jokes and he laughs at mine. We talk about how bossy our respective broodmothers are and gossip about our broodmates. But the more excited he gets, the more reserved I become, and when he starts stroking at my underflesh, I feel like I'm about to suffocate. Yet when I look around, I notice Fenus is no longer watching me, or if he is, he's lurking in the shadows to give Juulz and me privacy. I get an idea. Even power-hungry Fenus wouldn't stick around to witness the sacred act of lifebonding. In an intimate fog of ink, it'd be easy for me to slip away to return to Salee. So I go along with Juulz's advances as he pulls me close, whispering sweet nothings and reminding me of how glorious it'll be for me to watch our eggs hatch. "We'll have hundreds of beautiful babies, clear as the ocean waters themselves," I say, in case Fenus is listening. Then I release the entirety of my ink, filling the waters with 228 NICKY DRAYDEN a thick, purple cloud. Juulz's mating tentacle tickles at my underflesh. "Stop," I whisper. "We can't do this." "We're so close, Janaa. So close to bringing life to the reef." "I'm sorry for misleading you, but I need to go before the ink parts. I've already made a lifebond with someone else." Juulz doesn't stop stroking. In fact, his eager tentacles probe and prod at me more forcefully, tightening around mine. "It's too late, Janaa," his voice quavers. I struggle against his grip. "Please, Juulz. Didn't you hear what I said?" "I understand, but I can't stop. I wish I could, but I can't." My throat tightens as I realize that he doesn't mean that he won't stop, but that it's impossible to. The bonding process has already been set in motion. Guilt rushes through me, and a terrible pain seizes my heart. I've done this to him, a silly trick that has voided his life-gift to the reef, robbed him of his glory. But all isn't lost. With a forceful twist, I break from his grip, then rush to make an envelope out of folded seaweed. It takes some coaxing, but I convince Juulz to spill his seeds inside it, and promise him I'll guard it with my life and search until I find someone who can use them. It's not an empty promise, but not at all a simple one to fulfill. I slip the seed packet safely into the folds of my underflesh, then ease my way out of the ink TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 229 cloud, keeping close to the rocks, checking behind me every so often. When I'm sure I'm not being followed, I jet toward the current and don't stop to make my pigment until I'm on the other side. Things are so clear to me now. How could I have been so stupid? If after all this time I still can't forget about Salee, then maybe I'm not meant to forget. I see her tending the crop, so I sneak up and wrap my tentacles around her. "I've made it back," I whisper. "I'm sorry I missed the feast. I hope you'll forgive me." She turns, looks at me, a deep sadness in her eyes. "You were gone so long, Janaa. I thought you'd run off again. My hearts couldn't take it any longer." "I'm here now," I tell her. "Here for good. I'll be by your side for forever and ever, just like I promised." "It's too late," she says stroking a tentacle across her underflesh. "Rojur has already shared his seed with me." I flash so hard, the light of my nerves sets my opaque membrane aglow. Salee backs away, tentacles raised in fear. "When?" I ask, keeping my voice soft, though my insides are about to rip in half. I keep my mind from counting the few tides she has left to live. "Two tides ago," Salee says. "But it was only out of duty. The unseen have been patrolling closer and closer to the reef. If there is to be war, then we'll need all the bodies we can get." "And this is what you want for your children? For them to grow up hating and fighting the very broodmates you 230 NICKY DRAYDEN were raised with?" "It's the way it's always been," Salee says. "Maybe it'll change one day, but not in our lifetimes." "We can change it," I tell her. "Come away with me, like we talked about before. I’ll have you and you’ll have me, and we can ride the current to where it doesn’t matter whose organs are seen and whose aren’t.” "If there were a place such as that, I would have heard about it." "It does exist. Here," I say, pointing to her white membrane where I remember the bulge of her egg sac. "And here," I continue, pointing to mine. I tell her all about my encounter with Juulz, then place his seed packet into her tentacles, a symbol of my commitment. “What about the curse?” “The only curse I believe in is the one that's kept me from you. And now you hold the cure.” "You realize what this means, don't you?" Salee's voice catches in her throat. "It means our broods will grow up beside each other, unseen and opaque, not knowing the difference between them. What more could I ask?" A hundred tides could have passed in the time it takes Salee to respond. She looks down at the seed packet, takes one of my tentacles in hers, then blankets us in thick, roiling ink, sweeter than I could have ever imagined.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 231
232 NICKY DRAYDEN
SEED MONEY BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Vinnie the Snapper and Lucky Lenny hid in the bushes of 13 West 21st Street, around side of the house where the streetlights didn't reach. The soil was cool and wet beneath them, Korean boxwoods neatly trimmed, European hex begonias planted in evenly spaced rows. Despite the fact that they were here to put the shakedown on old Donny McDougal, they had to admire the guy for putting such effort into his landscaping. "That his car?" Vinnie the Snapper whispered as an engine cut off at the curb. "Don't know. Can't see nothing from here." Lucky Lenny rustled his leaves, trying to get a better vantage. "Let me get in front. I'll grab him. You do the questioning." TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 233
"Not this time, Len," Vinnie said. "I got it out for this guy, too. I'm feeling a little trigger happy, if ya know what I mean." "This is about your cousin? You know what the boss says. This is business. Don't let it get personal." "The day your cousin gets tossed in a wood chipper is the day you can tell me this isn't personal." "Jeeze, Vinnie, you didn't tell me it was like that. Patch was a good guy. He don't deserve going out like that. You toss this guy up all you want. I'll tell the boss it was self defense." Footsteps sounded against the walkway. Vinnie the Snapper tensed from stem to stern. Back home, his reputation preceded him, so it'd been a long while since he'd roughed anyone up. He'd gotten used to getting his way by just looking intimidating, and with a mouth as wide as his, that was usually enough to get results. But here, in Texas, he hadn't made a name for himself yet, and was reluctant to set down roots. You get comfortable around here, and you end up getting whacked. "I think that's him." Vinnie the Snapper opened his mouth wide, twin lobes flushing a seductive red under the full moon of a clear Texas sky. The night breeze rustled his trigger hairs. He secreted dewy drops of an aroma he'd concocted especially for this evening--the delicate scent of the rare rose bud jasmine, a flower that Donny McDougal would recognize in an instant. The steps paused, then started through the grass. 234 NICKY DRAYDEN
Donny McDougal leaned over the hedges, nose sniffing deliberately. So close. Close enough for Vinnie to snap his head off, bad toupee and all. But Vinnie couldn't bring himself to make the move. Lucky Lenny nudged him anxiously with all four of his leaves. The hedge rustled. "Who's there?" Donny McDougal said, backing up. Their cover was blown. Lucky Lenny stepped out into the open first. Vinnie the Snapper followed, mouth still arched wide, but he felt much less intimidating. All bark and no bite. "Ah, so Mr. Big sent clover and a flytrap to take care of this mess," Donny McDougal said, his face flushed and his beady eyes alert. "Who you callin' a flytrap?" Vinnie the Snapper said. "I think I'm calling you one. You got a problem with that?" His hand moved to his hip. Too late, Vinnie noticed that Donny McDougal was packing. "Very clever, though. Rose bud jasmine. What I wouldn't do to get my hands on one of those. It'd be the jewel of my exotic botanical gardens." "The way I see it, Mr. Big gave you that seed money, so now it's Mr. Big's exotic botanical gardens," Lucky Lenny said. "Oh, I'll get Mr. Big his money. You don't know how badly this city needed a botanical garden. We've had over twenty thousand visitors already. You should be thanking me for turning an old overgrown lot into a place of TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 235 beauty." He turned to Vinnie the Snapper and ran a finger along his stem. "There might be room for you there. Your own exhibit. A special blend of boggy soil, all the insects you can eat. Think about it. You can turn your back on a life of crime and be admired and appreciated the way you should be." "Suck my soily roots," Vinnie the Snapper hissed. "That wasn't just an overgrown lot you mulched. I had family living there." "What? That poor excuse for a bougainvillea? I've seen more impressive blossoms on a dandelion." And with that, Vinnie the Snapper snapped. His teeth sank into Donny McDougal's torso, but not before Donny had pulled a squirt bottle from his holster and had sprayed Vinnie a dozen times with undiluted weed killer. It ate through his leaves, burned his stem. It hurt so bad his grip started to loosen. But he had to do this. For Patch. He needed more strength, and if he knew Donny McDougal, then he knew exactly where to get it. Vinnie the Snapper dug deep, his roots burrowing into the rich, black earth. Donny wasn't the kind of guy that skimped on fertilizer ... not with St. Augustine this green in a year-long drought. Vinnie drew rich nutrients into himself, fueling his cells, powering his grip. Donny McDougal cried out and begged for forgiveness. "Do it!" Lucky Lenny shouted. "Pulp his sorry butt!" Vinnie the Snapper wanted to release his digestive 236 NICKY DRAYDEN juices, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not even on this weed for brains. What would Patch think? Patch had been a plant of peace, not a sharp thorn on his whole body. Patch needed to be avenged, but not like this. "Hold 'em," Vinnie the Snapper said before spitting Donny McDougal out. Lucky Lenny nodded, then wrapped the guy up in his leaves so tight that Donny struggled to breathe. "Listen here, Donny," Vinnie rasped. "We got you right where we want you. Nothing is going to bring Patch back, but here's what I want ya to do. You're gonna shut down that fancy little botanical garden of yours. You're gonna have yourself a huge plant sell, liquidate all of those exotic plants, and you're gonna replant native specimens--drought resistant species that are appropriate for this climate." Vinnie could see it now. Acres and acres devoted to highlighting native species. People would come from all over to see and to learn. Patch would be proud. Vinnie the Snapper pulled his roots up from the oversaturated Texas soil. He felt different somehow, like he had a budding connection to the land. To its history and to all of the plants that had come before him--from cacti to bluebonnets to mighty oaks. Now he understood, but guys like Donny McDougal had to learn things the hard way. Vinnie waved a leaf, pointing all around the front yard. "And this, I want it all xeriscaped. And if I ever hear about you mulching anything again, you'll be the one fertilizing the soil next spring. Got it?" TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 237
"No, not xeriscaping! Anything but that!" Donny McDougal cried. Vinnie the Snapper brought his mouth next to Donny's head and wiggled his trigger hairs. "Okay! Okay. I'll do a nice rock bed. Some cacti, and an agave or two," Donny's voice trembled. "But why are you doing this? You're not even a native Texan!" "True. But Texas is home to me now." Vinnie the Snapper angled his wide mouth into an aggressive smile. "I guess you could call me a successful transplant."
238 NICKY DRAYDEN
WELCOME HOME BY NICKY DRAYDEN
Red dust clouds up behind me as I turn off H Street and into my driveway. Nothing here's changed. A twenty- year-old Kenmore washer rusts out on the front porch, and the roof's still missing more shingles than not. Above the door a No Trespassing sign hangs, as if anybody in their right mind would come to this one-stoplight town on purpose. As I turn my key in the lock, I hear shuffling and mumbling inside. Only now do I realize how eerily quiet the streets had been, even for Alex, Oklahoma. I grit my teeth, thinking about the message I'd left on Molly Anne's machine, saying that Hollywood was too high-falutin' and the people were too plastic, and that I needed a break from it all. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 239
I flick the lights on. The entire town must be here, all decked up in zombie makeup--ashen skin, hungry eyes, bloodied wounds. The whole bit. A "Welcome Home" banner taped to the rafters comes loose at one end and flutters to the floor. I force a smile, feeling road worn and ready to put the last eight months behind me. "Didn’t get the part," I say, words bitter as cheap chewing tobacco. But I appreciate the effort they've put into their costumes, almost as good as something you'd see on the set. I don't mention that my big audition was for the lead in a sexy vampire movie, a part I would have been perfect for. The casting director's harsh words still sting: Dull face. Awful accent. Is that hair for real? Slowly I begin to recognize faces in the crowd--Greg Owens who runs the feed store and whose smooth, baritone voice leads us in Silent Night every Christmas, some two or three hundred of us decked up in matching hand-stitched angel outfits. And there’s Aunt Jenny, who puts out the town's monthly newsletter, never missed an issue in thirty-odd years, not even when her office was destroyed in the fire that had blazed through most of downtown. I'd only been a kid back then, but I remember how we'd come together as a community. How we'd rebuilt. How in our darkest hour, we knew we could count on our neighbors for comfort. Molly Anne, my best friend since grade school, shuffles forward. I sob once, twice, then rush into her outstretched arms. Suddenly, the shards of my broken dreams don’t hurt 240 NICKY DRAYDEN so much, and I realize there's nothing wrong with living the down home life, cut off from the taint of the big city and surrounded by the people I love. So what if things here never change? Molly Anne pulls me in tight, and over her shoulder I see Paul Angus staring at me. My mouth starts watering, thinking about the triple chocolate cakes he makes from scratch. He's famous for them. Well, about as famous as you can get in Grady County. A big to-do like this has got to be deserving of one of his delectable desserts ... so unbelievably moist. "I've missed y'all so much," I say as I'm surrounded on all sides, biggest, warmest group hug I've ever received. Paul Angus groans, so close that his hot, rotten breath smacks me in the face. I notice the fleshy hole gouged in his neck--deeper and more gruesome than even the most talented makeup artists could pull off. He's missing an ear, and someone's half-chewed finger is lodged beneath his tongue. I pull back, try to fight my way out of their grip, but they’ve got me locked up real good. It's not until someone’s teeth sink into the meat of my shoulder that I realize I am the cake, and things around here have changed more than I ever could have imagined.
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A STITCH IN SPACE-TIME BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2011
Fina kept her aim steady. This would be the eighth time she'd watched Neil die--his face contorting in agony under the blue-white haze of the Abbey's limelight. The tight zoom of her camera caught every detail, including the wrinkles in the fabric backdrop bearing meticulously painted palm trees, the tufts of batting peaking from sloppy seams on the prop horses, and even the tremble of her husband's hands as theatrical blood dripped from the wound in his abdomen. Neil's death scene wasn't supposed to go on for this long. Fina tensed as the unnerving sound of seams ripping whispered all around her. She worried that there wouldn't 242 NICKY DRAYDEN be enough time to capture the end of the play. Her entire project would be ruined. "Die already," she said, not so quietly that the camera wouldn't pick it up, but nothing so loud that she wouldn't be able to edit it out later. Right as Neil took a brazen fall and began to writhe on the stage, the first puncture through space-time appeared inches from Fina's face. The tear widened and lengthened into a pearlescent void, frayed edges fluttering in the chill breeze that stirred between alternate dimensions. A leeder's sleek and silver proboscis slipped through the rift, like a pin hook working its way through thick drapery. Fina immediately shut the camera off. The leeder sniffed around, but with the bait of electronic pulses gone, it receded back into its own dimension. Fina let out a sigh. She shouldn't have risked running her camera past twelve minutes, but this was the final performance of Omai, her last chance to capture Neil's portrayal of Captain James Cook and his ill-fated demise in the Hawaiian Islands. With the threat of another leeder infestation staved off, Fina caught her breath. She traced her finger over the cool metal casing of her camera and savored the thrill of handling such a dangerous piece of technology. Neil deserved nothing more than to have his final act preserved for eternity, so Fina tried not to imagine how close she'd come to having the leeder's needle-sharp proboscis stabbing through her skull, sucking up her brain's electro- chemical pulses like sweet nectar. Carefully, she wrapped TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 243 the camera in a worn silk kerchief, then slipped the kerchief into the inside pocket of her coat. Thirty seconds later, the curtains fell on her dead husband for the last time.
Fina pressed her way backstage, holding a bouquet of roses to her chest so they wouldn't get jostled by the flurry of cast and crew. Everyone moved with purpose, like cogs in a machine. She spotted Neil in a tight group of actors congratulating themselves and hoping their over-the-top performance would earn them coverage in the Tribune. Gretchen Doyle, the female lead, clutched Neil's bicep, tittering like a twit. "Amazing show," Fina said briskly. "Best one ever." Both Gretchen and Neil turned. Neil's smile stiffened, and Gretchen beamed as if there wasn't a thought between her ears. "Fina! Oh, it's so good to see you!" Her arms struck out and wrapped Fina in an affectionate embrace. The smell of her vanilla and lavender perfume was so thick that Fina tasted it in the back of her throat. "Oh, you've outdone yourself this time with Neil's wardrobe." "Thank you," Fina said. "This must have taken you forever!" Gretchen pressed her hand against Neil's chest, running her fingers over the gold embroidery lining the lapel of his navy blue overcoat. Fina bit back her jealousy. After all, her work deserved to be admired--a flawless replica of 18th Century fashion 244 NICKY DRAYDEN that Fina had slaved over for a week, working in manic twelve-minute bursts. "It's nothing much. Just a little something I whipped up." "Nonsense. You must do mine for our tour!" Gretchen flashed the layers of frill beneath her hoop skirt. "Can't be seen wearing these rags in London!" "London?" Fina heard herself ask. She narrowed her eyes at her husband. "You promised this was your last performance." Neil stepped forward. "Fina, I was looking for the right time to tell you ..." "We'll talk about it when we get home," Fina said, not wanting to cause a scene. "About that," Neil said. "Some of the cast and crew are going out to celebrate tonight. You probably shouldn't wait up." Rose thorns pricked Fina's palms, but she was too angry to loosen her grip on the wilting bouquet. Through the pain, she kept a convincing smile across her face. Wasn't she practically crew? She'd designed his costume and half a dozen others. They marveled at her stitches, how straight they were, how fast she worked. No one would have guessed the truth, that she'd fashioned together a sewing machine out of salvaged scraps. "Enjoy your night then," Fina sneered. She had a project of her own to finish.
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Fina worked into the wee hours of the night. She pressed right up to the twelve-minute threshold--the time it took the leeders to hone in on her camera's electric charge. She got so caught up in her work that she sometimes went over, only stopping when she heard the frightful ripping of fabric. Neil was older than her by decades, and he'd been what they'd called a movie star before the first leeder infestation. Fina couldn't remember movies, but out of all the illicit tech she'd scavenged over the years, she knew that her little camera could smooth over their generation gap. She did her best to piece together a film from Neil's descriptions-- opening credits, dramatic cut scenes, musical montages, voiceovers, and his precious ending credits scrolling up the screen, documenting the creative genius that went into the film's production. She'd scoured all of Dublin, searching for illegal technology so that she could give him this gift--a twelve- minute movie starring him, pieced together from parts of his play. That had been her original plan, until last week when he'd come home reeking of vanilla and lavender. Now this film meant something completely new to her. At four a.m., Neil stumbled into their home, breath seedy with alcohol, tufts of his graying hair peeking from beneath his muffed Colonial wig. "We need to talk," he slurred. Fina helped Neil into a chair. "I'll make coffee," she 246 NICKY DRAYDEN offered. She'd seen the way Gretchen and Neil had kissed on stage. The papers raved about the chemistry they shared, about how they complimented each other beneath the limelight. It was a touching moment, Fina had to admit, but deep in her heart she knew that Neil was simply not that great of an actor. Neil grabbed her wrist. "No coffee." "Is this about the tour?" Fina asked. "About the tour. About everything." He turned away. "I'm going to London, and I won't be coming back." Fina's heart collapsed in that moment. She'd suspected, but she'd never known for sure. She was hoping that she'd gotten it all wrong. She hesitated a moment, then handed him a box wrapped up in purple foil and tied up with a neat gold ribbon. "What's this?" he asked. "A parting gift," she said. "Something to remember me by." Fina couldn't keep the words together, and sobs slipped out between them. "You were always too good for me," he said. He tugged at the ribbon, took off the lid, then stumbled when he saw the camera inside. "Fina! What is this? Are you trying to get me thrown in prison for possession?" "I wanted you to have a movie again. I knew you missed starring in them. It's only twelve minutes long, but I think you'll like it." Fina flipped open the screen, turned up the volume, and pressed play. Loving Deeply, the title TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 247 scrolled across the screen to an instrumental music score. Starring Neil Bush. Produced by Fina Bush. Curiosity got the best of Neil, as did vanity. And by the start of the second scene, he had taken the device from her and had his nose two inches from the screen. It was amazing how much drama she had packed within those twelve minutes of film. Well, thirteen minutes if you counted the credits, and she knew Neil was the sort who had to watch all of the credits. "Goodbye, love" Fina said as she pressed her hand against Neil's shoulder, but he was too entranced to acknowledge her. She left before she heard the ripping of fabric. She'd already seen her husband die once today.
248 NICKY DRAYDEN
NAYANI BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Comets and Criminals, 2011
Dr. Elizabeth Lerner-Saint David burst into my office as if it were her own. I didn’t have to look up from my motley to confirm her intrusion. Everyone else aboard Vero-Avalon Station had the decency to knock first. “Liz,” I started, my reprimand primed and ready. Not that I minded the distraction. I was getting nowhere with my analysis of the spectral anomaly deep within the Kuiper belt. Her hand came down on my bicep, nails digging into my skin. I looked up and saw her bloodshot eyes, lashes clumped together from recently shed tears. “Mahesh,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 249
“It’s the baby.” A force struck me in the chest as she spoke those words. Liz slid my motley toward her, typed in her access sequence, and reeled an ultrasound from the Construct. The image spun up, hovering a few centimeters above my desk, before resolving into a three-dimensional fetus. I’d never been much good at making heads or tails of these things, but something about the image was wrong. Deformity. Severe, from what I could tell. I looked at Liz, her face ashen, my mind tangled with regret. I slipped an arm around her waist to comfort her, but she shied away. We were both thinking the same thing. “Does he know?” I asked. She bit down on her thumbnail and shook her head. “I’m not going to tell him. Not yet.” “He has a right to know. He’s the father.” Uncertainty hid behind my words, but Liz noticed and scowled. We’d been over this a hundred times. It was her husband’s child, not mine. Liz and I had once shared ourselves in a tiny research shuttle, under the cascading wisps of the anomaly we affectionately referred to as Nayani, an Indian name meaning “unknown.” Liz begged to come along on that trek, and I left half of my research equipment behind on the station to accommodate her. I’d known she was up to something, but I just chalked it up to another marital spat between her and Dr. Saint David. This two-year long stint aboard Vero-Avalon Station was bound to throw a wrench in any relationship. 250 NICKY DRAYDEN
She just needed a little space, I thought. Side by side, we studied the secrets held within the cradle of our solar system. Then Liz seduced me, the magenta clouds of Nayani undulating across the view screen like a dozen of Lord Ganesh’s graceful arms. Liz came out of the protective shielding of her vet-suit, and then she helped me out of mine. We made love, four, five times, much to the detriment of my research. Her breath on my skin, lips pressed against mine, vulnerability in her eyes… they all spoke to me, tales of tenderness. Affection. She was quite the actress. Even then I knew she was getting back at her husband. It was the only logical explanation, but the heart is not a place for reason. My motley flashed green, chiming a call from Dr. Saint David. His name scrolled across the petite screen. I picked it up, holding it in both hands and tilting it so that it wouldn’t capture Liz in the video feed. “Dr. Dandekar, have you run those hash matrices on the spectral arms yet?” he asked, the steeliness of his eyes seeding fear into my soul, even in this low-bit projection. “No, sir. Still working on that,” I said. Dr. Saint David grimaced, shaking his head. “What the hell am I paying you for? You’re supposed to be stargazing, not navel-gazing. I want that report on my desk in an hour. And I want it perfect.” “Yes, sir.” “And Mahesh…” Dr. Saint David’s voice deepened. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 251
Darkened. “Tell my wife that I need to speak with her.” The video feed cut to black. Liz let loose a wicked, maddened laugh. “He knows. Damn Hodges couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Whatever happened to doctor/patient confidentiality?” She looked weak on her feet, not the Elizabeth I knew. I wrapped my arms around her and she accepted me this time, burying her head into my shoulder. I felt her tears soaking through my shirt. I felt the pain of her loveless marriage. The sting of his anger. The hurt of her mistakes. “We could have made it work,” I told her. “We still could.” I stroked my hand over her belly. I would have stopped her from getting on that shuttle, if I’d known then. But I promised myself I wouldn’t judge her for what she’d done, or question her reasons for exposing her perfect unborn child to Nayani. Whatever monstrosity God chose to give Liz, I would love it as if it were my own. “I’m sorry, Mahesh,” she said, pulling from my touch. Her back toward me, she lingered for a moment before stepping into the hallway. Thinking. Always thinking. The door fisted shut behind her.
Complications. That’s all Dr. Saint David said to his research team as his wife lay cold on a slab in the medical bay. He had the 252 NICKY DRAYDEN look of a man secretly relieved. He pushed on with the scheduled meeting, syncing our motleys together for his presentation on the chemical composition of the spectral anomaly. I broke into a sweat, unnerved that he could sit here and keep his heart so distant while mine withered in my chest with each beat. “And the baby?” My voice sounded like a cannon set off during prayer. “That… thing?” he said, flicking his fingers as if the gesture nullified the genes they shared. He looked at me with sunken eyes, and I wondered if he knew about what Liz and I had done. I wondered if he even cared. It was no secret that theirs had been a marriage of convenience. He gave Liz prime research opportunities, and in return, she’d provide him a womb for a son to carry on his astrophysics legacy. On paper, they were the perfect couple, two of the most brilliant scientists in their field. In any field for that matter. That night, the baby’s cries breached the hulls of the station. I envied the honesty of its pain while I sulked in silence. It was another week before I drew the strength to visit. I flinched when I saw what lay in the bassinette. Purplish skin as rough as leather, limbs a mangled mess, face collapsing in on itself. It was then that I fell in love again. Maybe even for the first time. Nayani, Liz had named her with her last breath. A pet name only she and I shared. A glimpse of what could have been, but would now cease to be known. Her gift to TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 253 me.
No one protested when I left the station with Nayani. Least of all Dr. Saint David who’d lost himself in his research. His scars would heal better if we were both gone from that place. He’d never been impressed with my contributions to the project anyhow. Nayani sucked at my pinky finger, and I clenched her close, swaddling her appendages. She almost seemed like a normal baby in this fickle light with the worst of her deformities hidden under a blanket. I’d give her a good life, whatever she had left of it. Hodges projected she’d live six months at most—just the same time it’d take to reach Earth. Caring for a special needs baby on a derelict transport ship required a bit of ingenuity. Nayani devoured her formula at an alarming rate—either that or Dr. Saint David had allotted me just enough to avoid bad karma. So I gladly shared my ReadyPac rations with her, steeped in boiling water and cooled, giving her all the vitamins she needed. And if there was one thing Nayani excelled at it was eating. A handful of bolts in a ROAV-5 conduit became her rattle, and at night I read field notes and stored texts about the anomaly to her from my motley. I think my voice soothed her as much as my calculations soothed me. Sometimes she’d smile and click her tongue against her cleft palate. 254 NICKY DRAYDEN
More. More. Theories. Postulates. It kept my mind sharp and off the inevitable. Three more months and I’d be home.
She didn’t die. She grew. Thrived. Her shriveled arms and legs stayed the same, dangling at her sides like useless props, but her torso lengthened and her head swelled, so large that the doctors had to remove a piece of skull to accommodate her distended brain. A miracle, they called her, though I saw the silent contempt in their eyes. They gave me “options,” begged me to do the humane thing and surrender her over to science. They said her mental capacity was negligible. She’d never speak or think or love. Against their wishes, I took her home to my flat in Mumbai and hooked her up to a half dozen machines. They would not have my daughter. My princess. My gift.
For three years, I struggled with my research, so far removed from the mysteries of the outer reaches of our system that had inspired my placement on Vero-Avalon Station. I often doubted myself and my decision to leave, feeling like I’d turned my back on my duty and commitment to science. However, Nayani’s constant clucking kept me going when I needed motivation the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 255 worst. I published a few papers on the spectral arms, though nothing noteworthy. Every way I tried to bend my mind around it, I got resistance. My proofs would fall apart, disintegrating like rice paper in a thunderstorm if I even looked at them the wrong way. Nothing held up to questioning. And then one day, as I was reading Nayani an essay I’d begun on the theoretical applications of quantum electrodynamics principles as observed within the anomaly, her heart monitor surged. In an instant it hit 225 beats per minute. I dropped my motley on the ground and ran to her side. She should have been going into shock, but she lay there in her bed, clucking at me. There was something like excitement in her eyes. I threw back the sheet covering her to check her heart for myself. Steady. Solid. The machines waned back to normal. “What was that?” I asked her. Nayani’s eyes rolled down to the floor, locked onto my motley. I picked it up, then started reading where I left off. The monitors cried out again. Less alarmed this time, I retraced the last few paragraphs, and suddenly the hole in my logic appeared as bright as a star gone nova. And Nayani, declared cognitively deficient, had found it. I tested her. She became my experiment, maybe something like those doctors wanted to do with her, but at least I had the decency to reward her efforts with mango shrikhand, chilled just right. Her favorite. She caught the extra variables I snuck into Lorentz transformations and 256 NICKY DRAYDEN the faulty coordinates in affine hyperplanes. I wasn’t sure how she was interfacing with her machines, but no matter how slight the deviation from proof, she’d let me know. One day a stray thought spun through my head. I spent the rest of the afternoon deconstructing my motley and hardwiring receptor nodes into its motherboard. It was crude, I was no engineer after all, but I figured Nayani would be the one running the show. I strapped the nodes to her chest and temples, then stood back and waited. The screen of my motley went dark, then sizzled static, then resolved a simple black text against a green screen:
HELLO FATHER
I smiled. The sweetest words I’d ever read. I wiped tears from my eyes.
Nayani’s appetite for information was insatiable, and I fed her all the texts and papers and journals I could reel from the Construct. I taught her everything I knew, which I’d once considered quite a bit, but in a few months, it was I who became her pupil. She urged me to take my findings in a completely different direction. Her words scrolled across my motley at the speed of her thoughts. I couldn’t keep up and spent the nights, while she slept, raking through her ideas. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 257
My QED paper grew into something magnificent. She’d taken my sapling of an idea and created a rain forest. When we released it to the world, I felt guilty that only my name appeared on the byline when I deserved to be a footnote at best. I won some awards. Got noticed. Got nervous. Maybe I was smart, but I was no genius. People started asking questions. Where I got my inspiration. How I worked so quickly. I lied and squirmed and stretched the truth, then I came home to Nayani. I pulled a cup of mango shrikhand from the refrigerator. It was the least I could do. She turned her head ever so slightly as I entered the room. “Hi, princess,” I said, picking up my motley.
FATHER, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE CONSTRUCT
I’d known this day would come. She wanted access to the outside world, the mesh of scientific data nodes, ever expanding as we launched further and further into space. Nayani had outgrown the texts I’d given her–-archaic, and many times outdated before they made print. With her own data points reeled in on spec, her mind’s creations would know no boundaries. In this golden age of knowledge, the risks were as great as the rewards. “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “You’d attract attention.”
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I WILL BE CAREFUL
I laughed out loud and the screen went blank. She was angry with me, but it was for her own protection. She wouldn’t be able to control how much data she reeled. Someone would detect the spike in data jumping node to node, and we’d be found out. They’d try to take Nayani from me. After all, I had no legal claim to her. She was mine now because no one else wanted her, and I was determined to keep it that way. “I’m sorry,” I said as I brought a spoonful of mango yogurt up to her lips. She refused it.
I ignored her silent protest. Three days she went without food, despite the sweet aroma of bhelpuri made fresh by the street vendor who’d staked his purchase just outside my flat. With each mouthful, I purposely crunched into the rice puffs, certain she wouldn’t be able to resist. But she twisted away from me, her relentless quiet like shouting to my ears. Maybe she thought I’d cave in, but I didn’t. I called in her nurse to administer an intravenous drip. Then Nayani and I were at a standoff. I wouldn’t give her my access sequence to the Construct. My motley lay on the nightstand, unused. Without her, I drowned in the pools of data she’d created, my own mind as crippled as TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 259 her body. Two days later, her appetite returned and I’d thought I had won. We ate our dinner and for dessert, I reeled A Tale of Two Entropies, Nayani’s favorite thermodynamics bedtime story. Normally, she demanded that I read it until her eyes fluttered shut, but now she looked bored, her mind as distant as the next galaxy. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I waited for her words to appear, but I stared at the blank screen. Her breathing became ragged, burdened. “Do you want me to call Nurse Parikh?”
NO
I leaned in close. She had that look in her eyes like she did before we’d started communicating. It was as if she’d erected a concrete barrier between us, and there was something else… guilt? “Nayani, you can tell me anything. Anything in this world, and the next.” Her breathing eased, then the words appeared on my motley.
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MY FATHER DR. GREGORY SAINT DAVID
Then she reeled his image in front of me, his steely eyes the same, though time had not been kind. His bio flashed 260 NICKY DRAYDEN past, credentials. Recent stuff that hadn’t been stored on my base drive. The only way Nayani could have gotten this information was through the Construct, but… No. She couldn’t have. I traced up the log files and saw millions of records had been reeled over the last six days. I thought Nayani had been mad at me, sulking, but that little trickster had been busy cracking my access sequence, then she’d frolicked around the Construct like it was her own personal playground. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to put together her birth on Vero-Avalon Station. And now Nayani wanted to know her father, a man who couldn’t have cared less if she lived or died. A man who’d never changed a soiled diaper. Who’d never fretted over the possible implications of a snotty nose. Who’d never loved anyone other than himself. “I’m your father,” I said to her, throat dry.
YES NO
And I knew what she meant. No matter how much I gave her, there’d always be two things he had that I did not: his genes and his genius.
There was a chemical storm the day he came. He stood TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 261 in my doorway, raindrops slowly nibbling through his trench coat. He entered alongside a slender man with a beak of a nose. A lawyer type. There was no small talk between us. They followed me to Nayani’s room, their boots leaving puddles that would eat away at the floor’s finish. “My dear, I’ve been waiting so long for this moment,” said Dr. Saint David, rubbing his hand over Nayani’s cheek, barely touching.
FATHER WHY IS IT ONLY NOW THAT YOU COME FOR ME
Her synthesized voice startled him, and I hadn’t gotten used to it either. Nayani had insisted it would be the best way for her to communicate with him. Through my motley, she sent me a message for my eyes only:
HE’S SHORTER THAN I IMAGINED
I smiled as much as I could manage. The only reason Dr. Saint David would have bothered traveling all this way was if he wanted something, and I had a sinking feeling of what that something was. “My Nayani, a girl like you needs to be among her peers. You can come to Vero-Avalon Station and study with me. I’ll teach you things.” 262 NICKY DRAYDEN
HERE IS HOME
“She only wanted to meet you,” I said to Dr. Saint David. “God knows I tried to talk her out of it.” “Can I have a moment with you?” Dr. Saint David pulled me aside in a tight huddle with him and the lawyer, who retrieved a thick stack of papers from his briefcase. “As I’m sure you know, I never released my paternal rights. I’m claiming them now.” “You can’t! I’ve raised her. You threw her away.” “Yes, well, we’ve all made mistakes, haven’t we?” Dr. Saint David stared at me for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “You really are an idiot if you thought I wouldn’t notice your QED article. You may have fooled a lot of people, but you don’t fool me. You had help. Lots of it.” The front door flew open and two hulking orderlies barged in, pushing a gurney. They assessed Nayani’s medical equipment set-up, then began the transfer to the mobile unit. “She’s in no condition to be moved,” I said. “I’ve already talked to her doctors. She’s as fit as an ox.” “Let me explain this to her at least…” Dr. Saint David planted his hand on my chest, holding me back. “Mahesh, I believe you underestimate my daughter. She understands completely.” Nayani’s heart monitor spiked. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 263
WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME
“Home, sweetheart.” His voice was mealy. Wicked.
NO NO NO
The heart monitor beeped hysterically. The orderlies looked at each other, puzzled. Nayani began to convulse, her eyes rolling back into her head. Foam spilled from her mouth. I reached for her, but the orderly swatted me away. “You’re killing her!” I cried. A second later, the monitor died. Flatline. Her body lay still. My poor Nayani. One of the orderlies prepped to give CPR and threw back the sheets covering her body. “Good God…” he whispered, and the other man’s cheeks bulged. Dr. Saint David winced and stumbled backwards into his lawyer. Dr. Saint David had disappointment in his eyes, but the kind reserved for bad stock picks or when a regional cricket team loses a match. The kind of loss that would be forgotten in a week. “How unfortunate,” he said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll leave you the pleasure of tidying up here.” “To bury a child is a father’s responsibility. You owe her that much.” Dr. Saint David scoffed, then snatched the papers from his lawyer. After signing in a dozen places, he dropped the 264 NICKY DRAYDEN pile at my feet. “There. She’s all yours.” I ran to Nayani’s side, holding one of her petite hands in mine, her fingers like snarled vines. I wept. “I never understood what Elizabeth saw in you,” said Dr. Saint David, poised in my doorway. “You’re weak. Pathetic.” And then he was gone. Through my tears, I saw the screen of my motley flash. I swallowed the lump in my throat and stared at the words.
I LOVE YOU, FATHER
I looked back to Nayani’s face, eyes open and smiling at me. She clucked gently, like an embarrassed apology. I wiped the froth still dolloped across her face, then rolled it between my fingers. It was tacky and smelled suspiciously of mango, like the shirkland she’d begged for this afternoon. Only then did I realize that this had been a staged performance, and a flawless one at that. She was some actress. Just like her mother. I’d promised I’d never question Elizabeth’s actions, but now I think I know why she’d gone out to the Vero- Avalon anomaly, risking her child’s life and her own. She wanted Nayani to be loved. Something she’d never receive from Dr. Saint David. He’d reject imperfection. I’d embrace it. Hell, I embodied it. I still don’t know why she chose me. Maybe she loved me in her own twisted way. That was my Liz. Always thinking. I fetched the papers from the floor, declaring me TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 265
Nayani’s legal guardian. Nayani had orchestrated this whole charade, from beginning to end. Dr. Saint David was right about one thing though: I underestimated her. Never had I doubted she was more than her disabilities, but despite her extraordinary talents and the love I had for her, I’d never seen her as a person. Not really, anyway. Nayani needed my support, not my protection. She was mine no more than I could possess a brilliant sunrise—a gift not to me, but to the world. And now, thanks to her, our minds were free to create.
266 NICKY DRAYDEN
SKINNY JEANS OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Allegory, 2011
Evelyn stared at the ad kiosk in front of the Gap, unsure if it was worth risking her life for thirty-five percent off skinny jeans. Fifty, maybe. The hems on hers were fraying, and her mother always stressed the importance of keeping up appearances, especially in times like these. Still, Evelyn felt guilty about splurging on her wardrobe when warm food on the dinner table was no longer a guarantee. She peeked around the kiosk, ignoring the smacking sound of Chanti polishing off the last bit of her Wetzel's pretzel. At least twenty zombies were horded up inside the store, shuffling and ambling, folding knit cardigans with TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 267 minimal dexterity, and straightening racks of striped hoodies with mindless abandon. Chanti nudged her from behind. "Come on, Ev. It's not like they're going to bite," she said, licking the salt off her fingers, then puckering her lips. "But I've heard--" "Rumors," Chanti scoffed, then pushed Evelyn inside the store. It smelled just like any other Gap--that new clothes smell that prickled Evelyn's skin with desire, making her all too aware of the three shopping bags Chanti carried compared to her own bare arms. She shuddered as her eyes locked with the hipster zombie ogling them from behind the register, his graphic tee stretched across his broad chest, and his tufts of hair slicked back with an abundance of product. "Welcome to the Gap," he gurgled, the flesh of his throat peeled away to expose his vocal chords like strips of desiccated jerky vibrating as he talked. Evelyn cast her eyes down and bee-lined straight to the tower of denim lining the back wall. Her hands trembled during her harried search for an eight long with an extra low waist. "Can I help you find anything?" another voice scratched, slowly and deliberately like sticks dragged across cement. Evelyn screamed. The petite zombie shuffled backward, a slightly delayed reaction, though her stiff face 268 NICKY DRAYDEN did a decent impression of embarrassment. "Sorry," Chanti said to the zombie sales associate, pulling Evelyn close. "She's had three Frappuccinos today, and is a little on edge." "Oh," the associate moaned. "Well, if you need anything, my name's Washanda." The zombie associate shuffled off toward the fitting room. "I don't know if I can do this," Evelyn rasped. "They wouldn't be here if it weren't safe. And besides, I've got this from last time..." Chanti fished around inside her enormous Coach bag, reeled out her matching wallet, then thumbed through a mess of coupons. She pulled a Gap punch card and held it out to Evelyn. Evelyn's stomach twisted up, and despite her best effort, she couldn't stop her lip from curling. "I'm not broke, you know. Just because my mom got laid off, doesn’t mean we can't afford stuff." "Jeeze, Ev. Really? It's not a handout, okay? It's just a coupon. You buy a pair of jeans, you get one free." Evelyn nodded, then reluctantly accepted the card bearing two off-center stamps. She hadn't meant to snap at Chanti, but it was hard watching her best friend buy whatever she wanted. Whenever she wanted. Cashmere sweaters from Banana Republic. The cutest suede sandals from Cole Haan. Two cookies and a pretzel from the food court. Just like Evelyn used to do before the recession hit hard, and before the zombie apocalypse hit even harder. Chanti sighed, grabbed a pair of jeans in her size and TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 269 nudged Evelyn to do the same. "You want to know a secret?" she whispered. "You remember last year when your family invited me to Aspen, and I told you I couldn't go because it was my grandma's eightieth birthday? That was a lie. My mom lost her job, and we nearly lost the house. So I know how it feels." "No way!" Evelyn said, tugging back as Chanti whisked her through the sales racks to the fitting room. She'd never have guessed that Chanti's family had gone through hard times. "Why didn't you tell me? We could have helped." "I was embarrassed, I guess. Thankfully, the zombie outbreak hit that Women Executives of Texas conference. A hundred and fifty positions opened up the very next day. My mom had the pick of them. Maybe something like that will happen for your mom, too." "You think?" Evelyn said, hopeful as she entered a dressing room and shut the door carefully behind her. "No doubt," Chanti said from the next stall. Evelyn stepped out of her old jeans and into her new ones. They sat loosely on her hips. Thanks to her recent foregoing of food court munchies, her wallet wasn't the only thing getting thinner. Evelyn laughed to herself. Maybe she was making too big of a deal about the zombies. Certainly if anyone had been infected recently, it would have been all over the news, and not just amateur reports on YouTube. The way that hipster cashier was looking at them wasn't totally creepy. He'd probably been kinda hot in his life. And maybe he was staring at her and Chanti so 270 NICKY DRAYDEN hard because he thought they were cute, not because he hungered for their brains. Ew. Evelyn stopped the thought from going further. Zombies were good for the economy, that's all. Three and a half million Americans had been turned before they'd found the antidote, most of whom retained a high percentage of their faculties. That's three and a half million technically dead American workers who no longer fell under minimum wage laws and whose cheap labor single- handedly allowed many struggling companies to survive the worst of the recession. Evelyn turned in the mirror, gave her butt a once over, and settled on getting two pair. She'd wash them in hot water, and then they'd be perfect. "Chanti, how are yours working out?" Evelyn said. She knocked on the thin wall between their rooms. "Chanti?" Evelyn didn't panic when no answer came, didn't let her mind go there. She quickly dressed, folded her new jeans, and snaked her way through the store. "Chanti!" she ignored the tremor in her voice. Evelyn peered over the racks, then finally made her way to the checkout counter. The hipster zombie behind the register looked startled at her arrival. Guilty. "I'm looking for my friend. The one I came in with." He gurgled incoherently, then a frothy red liquid oozed from the gap in his neck. Evelyn blinked once, the shock running through her so thick, she couldn't process it. Her tongue was like a TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 271 cinderblock in her mouth, but she finally managed to scream. The hipster zombie flinched and more ooze trickled out. He noticed and held his hands to his neck. Evelyn backpedaled as the zombie hipster shook his head. Tears filled her eyes, and the world blurred. She knocked over a mannequin, fell to the dingy carpet, then scrambled back to her feet, panting. If she kept her wits about her, she just might make it out of here alive. "What's wrong with you?" asked Chanti popping up from behind the checkout counter. She glared hard at Evelyn, like she was the one making a scene. "How did you... Wait... Why? What were you doing down there?" Chanti grabbed a Smoothie King cup from beneath the counter and sucked hard against the straw. Red liquid rose as her cheeks hollowed, and she flushed ever so slightly. Finally she took a breath. "You've got to try this. Strawberry mango. Washarrison says it's his favorite, and he does not disappoint." She gave the zombie hipster a little wave with her fingertips. "Washarrison?" Evelyn asked with a whimper. She inched closer, noticing the zombie hipster's nameplate. " 'Was Harrison.' As in he was Harrison, and now he's--" "My date for Saturday night. I know that whole hole in the neck thing is pretty gross, but it's turtleneck season. Did you know they get a fifty percent discount on anything in the store? And that's on top of sale prices." "Fifteen, you mean?" Evelyn said, knowing she must 272 NICKY DRAYDEN have misheard her. Chanti shook her head and bobbed her brow. She didn't have to say any more. Fifty percent off skinny jeans. All the time. Evelyn wouldn't mind going zombie herself for those kinds of prices. Evelyn turned back toward the wall of denim, heart aflutter. This zombie apocalypse thing might not be such a bad thing after all.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 273
Volume Eight: The Worst of Both Worlds
274 NICKY DRAYDEN
OUR DRUNKEN TJENG BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published in Daily Science Fiction, 2012
With a fine bone knife I make my incision, cutting back the sticky membrane of Our Tjeng's hull. I slip my hand inside and carefully widen the tear until it's big enough for me to step through. Our Tjeng has blessed Kae and me with gills to breathe within his walls. The viscous liquid is clear and burns my eyes, tart and slick on my tongue. He's drunk as always, Our Tjeng, our fathership. And yet he leads our flock across the stars. Him and his bulging, sick liver -- big as a hundred men, and it shouldn't even be half that size. I swim toward Kae as she shaves TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 275 tumor from flesh a slice at a time. Her firm muscles tense and flex beneath her hairless, pink skin. She cusses Our Tjeng, her words crisp even through the liquid. I touch her shoulder. She startles. "Your time is up," I tell her. We're civil. There's too much at stake not to be. The flock cannot afford to lose another fathership, and Our Tjeng needs us caretakers to keep him functioning. "Let me work beside you," she pleads. "There's plenty of tumor for the both of us." I ignore her and set out my net to hold the hard, white tumor cuttings. Her own net already brims. An impressive haul for the day. With a haul like that, people will start noticing. "It's my shift. You need your rest," I say. "I feel fine." Kae smiles at me, fatty pieces of pink liver stuck between her teeth. I cringe and try to ignore her. Try to keep my mind on the job. It's a good job, working the liver. Quiet work. "It's my shift, Kae. You need to go." "For the good of all," she mumbles as she gathers the ends of her net together. She then pauses to press her hand against one of the black veins of Our Tjeng's hull. "Feel that, Li? Our Tjeng's heart is calling me. Soon you can have the liver all to yourself." And then I'm alone. I inspect Kae's cuts, all precision. But I see the traces of her handiwork here and there, tucked so discreetly out of the way that no one but 276 NICKY DRAYDEN me would notice. A pit burns in my stomach at the thought of her eating of Our Tjeng's flesh, and yet Kae's steady hand is our crew's greatest asset. To turn her in would be a death sentence for our fathership. So I put up with her ways and ignore the taste of sick in the back of my throat.
Qiao's deathrite is highly attended. She stands proudly among her peers, and everyone shares kind words. We pretend not to notice the tremor in her hand as she sips ichor from a chalice made of Our Tjeng's bone. Qiao worked the heart for many, many cycles. Delicate work. Delicate hands. Work meant for the young, like Kae and myself. Our fathership is stubborn. He refuses to make more caretakers because he thinks he is not sick. He is too drunk to notice that our crops are failing. Too busy enjoying the sexual pleasures of his flock to listen to our pleas. Kae smiles at me as Qiao's blood is spilt and collected into vessels to ferment. They will be seeking her replacement soon.
Kae's hauls grow larger. She's strong, while the rest of us starve. There aren't nearly enough curds and florets to TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 277 feed us all, and the fatherships are always screwing, making more mouths than we can support. I still hear the shrieks of the unborn in my dreams, though I've had several jobs since working the crèche. I'd slaughtered hundreds, thousands. Ripped them from their nesting sacks inside Our Tjeng's walls. Slit their throats, and drained their lifeblood to be returned to our fathership as wine. It's all a cycle. What we take from Our Tjeng, we give back to him in the end.
The liver is a fine job, an important job, but there is prestige in the heart. Many work the heart, because without the heart, there is nothing. As my stomach rumbles, I think of Qiao, and I envy the spirit in her eyes. I imagine her life, how her heartbeat became one with Our Tjeng's just as Our Tjeng's beat to the rhythm of the Universe. I think that I would like to replace Qiao, but I am weak, and Kae is strong. I grit my teeth, but it is useless to stall. I know what must be done. I make an incision in Our Tjeng's liver, a thin incision where no one will notice, not even Kae. Her cuts are precision, but I've known this liver twice as long. Our fathership's flesh passes my lips, stings my tongue. I chew greedily until the liver is pulp and slides down into my 278 NICKY DRAYDEN emptiness. I wait for shame to come, but it doesn't. I only feel the hunger I'd taught myself to ignore. And with my fine blade made from a sliver of Our Tjeng's ribs, I slice again.
Twenty of my heartbeats span one of Our Tjeng's, and yet we are as one. The feel of his great muscle beneath me brings the ultimate thrill, the boom-hiss of his heart's contraction like music shared between our souls. I'm still thin enough to work my way deep into the arteries, picking away plaque with my fine bone blade. My hand is steady even in his constricting embrace, even as my mouth grows slick at the sight of his throbbing pink flesh. My peers compliment me on my strength, my endurance. While I am within Our Tjeng's heart, I make my pleas. I beg him for a bountiful harvest. I beg him to see that he is sick. I beg him to take the craving for his flesh away from me.
Word comes from the crèche that the unborn have filled Our Tjeng's walls. They say it is like a plague, bodies everywhere. They can't slaughter them fast enough. Bloodwine overflows from their vats, floods the halls, creeps into the walls, poisons our meager crops. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 279
The cycle is breaking down. No one wants to admit it, but Our Tjeng might be going insane. His heart strains. I have not eaten for a week. I no longer have the strength to reach the deep pockets of plaque. Our fathership's heartbeats threaten to squeeze the life out of me. The great muscle is erratic. It scares me. Mocks my incisions. Threatens to jump up at my steady hand at the exact wrong moment so that it can bleed to death and be out of this misery. After an exhausting double shift, I find myself at the liver. Desperate. Kae greets me with a scowl. "Go away," she seethes. Her eyes have lost their luster. Her muscles have atrophied. She has lost touch with her dream, or rather, I'd stolen it from her. "Go back to your heart. You're not needed here." "All organs are important," I tell her. "None is above another. They work together in harmony." But we both know that this is a lie. "I only wish for a small taste," I finally admit. "I'll cut it myself and then be gone." "Rot in fathership's bowels," she curses me. "Please," I beg of her. "It's for the good of all. The heart is not well." I unsheathe my fine bone knife and approach the liver. Kae draws her knife to my throat. We all work the crèche in the beginning. We all know how to kill. "Leave," she commands me. 280 NICKY DRAYDEN
I can almost feel the gristle of liver between my teeth. I'm ravenous. Maybe I'm going mad myself, but I can't help but thinking that there's enough here to feed hundreds. Even as sick as Our Tjeng's liver is, it will still regenerate. "How can we be caretakers if our fathership refuses to hear our pleas?" I whisper to her, our little secret for now. "If he will not provide us with what we need, then maybe it is our duty to take it." Kae's knife slices through my soft, pink flesh, and my blood muddies the clear liquid between us. The first cut is precise as always, a long arc from shoulder to hip, but it is not deep. I know she will not be so generous with the second. A sane person would leave. A less sane person would fight. But I choose a third option and lunge for the liver. With two quick flicks of my wrist, I hold a chunk of Our Tjeng in my palms. Kae gasps at the sight of the gaping hole, probably sure she will be blamed. The meat is so foul on my tongue, yet so sweet. Kae tries to steal it from me, her hands tearing off small bits which she shoves into her own mouth. A moment later, we lock eyes as we realize how stupid it is to fight over this one scrap when there is plenty here for the both of us. Our pink bellies are bloated when Enlai comes to replace Kae for his shift. I have misplaced my knife, as evidenced by the long ragged gashes in Our Tjeng's liver in the shape of my fingers. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 281
"It is all right," I tell him. "There's enough here for you, too." Kae and I smile at Enlai. His cheeks bulge at the sight. But we know that it will never be all right. The cycle is broken, and we are the only sane ones left.
Our blood is not spilled. There are too few caretakers left to afford us that luxury. Instead Kae and I are sent to the crèche to help with the slaughter. With a fine bone knife, I make my incision, cutting back the sticky membrane of Our Tjeng's hull. My hand is not steady. I am not careful. This is not a job that requires precision. I rip the tear until it's big enough for me to step through. Our Tjeng has cursed me with gills to breathe inside his walls. The viscous liquid is murky and is filled with the shrieks of the dying. I am efficient at this job. I kill three with one cut. I try for four, but it's too tricky. Kae says that she can do four. She's still strong, while I am weak. I think she eats from the flesh of the dead, but it is hard to tell. She never smiles anymore. Inside the walls of Our Drunken Tjeng, I see that one of the nesting sacks is not like the others. Inside stirs an unborn caretaker with soft pink skin and gills like my own. I wonder if our fathership heard my pleas after all. I 282 NICKY DRAYDEN wonder if he's admitted to himself that he is sick. If he wishes to escape from his madness. This I cannot allow. With my fine bone knife, I slit the caretaker's throat. If I cannot be one with his heart, then Our Tjeng and I will be one in our madness, and together we'll exist in harmony with the Universe.
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 283
BIPEDAL BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published in Bikes in Space, 2013
This isn't cheating, Dan'knor reassured herself as she spun the myriad of pedals on her octocycle, comforted by the familiar click of the complex network of eighty-eight gears. The buzz of nervous energy surrounded her, and she was ready to squirt a metaphorical ink cloud in the eyes of these unsuspecting humans. Dan'knor scanned the competition and their brightly colored swimwear that did little to offset the pallid color of their skin. She jutted her beak involuntarily, not that she was the sort to flaunt her superiority, but her own waxy blue skin glistened luxuriously under the Earth's strange yellow sun. Nowhere in this triathlon's rulebook did it say that Octopodians were 284 NICKY DRAYDEN prohibited from entering the competition, an oversight on the humans' part. She'd gone over the "Participant Eligibility" section fourteen times, almost as many times as she'd gone over the section on "Awards" which specified that the winner would receive two-hundred fifty dollars, which with the pathetic intergalactic exchange rates, would translate to thirteen years salary on her planet. Dan'knor drew a deep breath and steadied her hearts. Now was no time to get her tentacles in a knot. There were a finite number of things expected from an Octopodian of her age. The primary (and most gracious) thing to do was to slink into oblivion without so much as a grunt or a moan so that younger, smarter, more agile octopi could swim to the forefront. Dan'knor always resented this about her species. If she'd had the means, she would have shuttled off to the water world of Euri, where they knew how to treat their elders, but with the hit her retirement package had taken during this seventeen-year Octopodian hyper-recession, there was little chance of that happening. Heck, she hadn't even been able to afford the interstellar toll the entire way to Earth and had to spend the last 35 parsecs sledging through the fourth-class wormholes that were so dirty and greasy that not even filchlice would infest them. "Next..." said a young human male with a dry, scratchy voice. His dull brown hair was done up in a mess of braided tendrils that reminded Dan'knor of the last brood she'd birthed, so many years ago now. "Name?" he TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 285 said as Dan'knor stepped up to the registration booth. "Dan'knor Jujer'bo'watkkzzz," Dan'knor said slowly but wetly, not giving into the temptation to use the humanized version of her name. At over three meters tall and with twice as many limbs as the rest of her competition, there was no way she wasn't going to stand out. Muting a few moist syllables wasn't going to change that. The human male with the braided tendrils didn't even look up at her, just handed her a bib number, and then dismissed her with a lackluster "Next..." At the start line, Dan'knor flushed from mantle to tentacle tips, eager to dive into the chilly water. These poor humans. She had seen how they "swam." It reminded Dan'knor of her childhood when they used to tie two eels together and watch them futilely wriggle and flail and fight. Sure, she herself was no great runner on land, but she was decent enough on her octocycle that if she pulled far enough ahead in this first swimming leg, she would win this thing tentacles down. The horn sounded, and she was off. The cool waters slipped effortlessly past her taut skin. Muscles flexed, once, twice, and a final time, as she glided to the opposite shore. She didn't dare look back at the humans and their juvenile flip-flopping for fear of being consumed with laughter. Instead, she scanned the sea of bikes, looking for her own. It should have stood out as much as she stood out among the rest of the athletes, but it was nowhere to be found. 286 NICKY DRAYDEN
"Miss!" said a familiar scratchy voice. "Miss...Jooojuuurbooo..." the human male with the tendril hair came pedaling frantically toward her. "Just call me Dan'knor," Dan'knor said testily. "Where is my octocycle? I'm wasting precious seconds here!" "I'm afraid there's an issue, ma'am." The human male got off his bike and flipped his hair in a way that would have gotten him a punch to the beak in one of the rougher neighborhoods back home. "I'm allowed to be here!" Dan'knor said. "There's nothing in the rulebook that excludes Octopodians from competing. It's not my fault I can swim so fast." "So sorry. It's not that. I should have caught this earlier, but your...um...bike...it doesn't fit under the guidelines. In the rulebook, under the "Equipment" section, it more or less says that bikes must be bipedal in nature, unlike your own." Drat. Dan'knor cursed herself for skimming over that section. "But here, you can use this bike!" The human male with the tendril hair pushed his puny bicycle toward her. Dan'knor took a handlebar tentatively with one of her tentacles. She glanced back at the splashing mob nearly halfway across the lake, and then slung herself on the seat. The metal frame creaked under her weight. She slipped two of her tentacles into the toe straps, but felt odd not knowing where to place the others. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 287
It took her four times as long as it usually did to build momentum, which she expected, but it surprised her how quickly her limbs grew tired despite how often she switched them out. Still, she pumped as hard as she could, and her muscles strained as she reached the next transition just seconds before her closest competitor. The expanse of asphalt ahead of her made her stomachs sink. She slinked and slithered and slid, tentacles sticking to the ground, and the hot asphalt sticking to her. Runner after runner passed her until all she could see was the backs of hundreds of bobbing furry heads. She cursed the intensity of this planet's strange yellow sun, and cursed herself for wasting her time, energy and the little bit of money she had on such a stupid gamble. There was no way she could win now, and she'd be stuck on this sorry excuse for a planet without the fare to get back home. And from what she'd heard, the humans treated their elderly even worse than Octopodians did! All was lost, and her slithering slowed and her slinking slunk. "Come on, Dan'knor!" cried a scratchy voice from the crowd. Several more joined it, pleading with her to keep going. Complete strangers willed her on, and she pretended to hear the cheering and slurping of a few of her broodlings among them -- Bru'Kphust, Cha'aair, and dear Bu'ulbb whose suckerflesh had once been nearly inseparable from Dan'knor's. Despite herself, Dan'knor pushed on toward the finish line, and when she crossed it--had she shoulders, 288 NICKY DRAYDEN she would have felt the weight of the world lift from them. She'd done it. She'd finished a triathlon. The heaviness returned almost as quickly as it left as she saw the human male coming toward her, struggling to push her octocycle. "You did amazing!" he said. "You finished!" "I finished last," Dan'knor replied. "On my planet, the last place finisher becomes the celebratory meal for the first place finisher." "Well, I guess it's a good thing we're not on your planet." The human male whipped his hair again, and Dan'knor had to refrain from scolding him. "Say, this is a pretty cool bike. Never seen anything like it." Dan'knor let out a gurgle of offense. Who was this guy to tease her about her octocycle? Yes, it was a cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel clearance cycle from Splurtlemart, but it was the best she could afford. Just as she was about to tell him off, he offered to buy the bike from her. "Forty bucks," he said with a straight face. "What!" Dan'knor accidently let load of ink slip. Thankfully, it blended neatly into the black asphalt. "You've got to be kidding me!" Forty Earth dollars would get her back home, first class! "Okay, Okay. One-fifty, but just so you know, I'll be eating ramen for the next month and a half." Dan'knor growled and snapped her beak to the side of each of his cheeks, in the way that was customary to show thanks for such generosity, but the human recoiled, knees shaking so hard they knocked together. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 289
"I'm sorry if my offer offended you," he spoke again, voice strained and two octaves higher than it had been before. "Three hundred dollars, that's really the best I can do." "Deal!" Dan'knor struck out four of her tentacles, and closed them around the human male's sweaty palm. Three hundred Earth dollars? She was rich beyond her wildest dreams! She could travel to Euri and live out the rest of her life in luxury. "Thank you so much, human male." "You can call me Zeke." Dan'knor shuddered at the obscenity. Who in their right mind would name their child after such a horrid act of gangliary eroticism? She shook her head. They were merely humans. Simple creatures, still bumbling their way up the evolutionary ladder. Dan'knor reached out and smoothed down his tendrils, reminiscing about the fondest of her broodlings…Jym’bahg, Bal’aae, and sweet Tra’vul who'd been the last to stop visiting home on High Quenching Day. But this human male and his wet-heartedness reminded Dan’knor the most of her very favorite. "If it is okay, I would prefer to call you…Lu’unch,” she said, giving in to the urge to wrap him up tightly in her suckerflesh, and taking comfort in the subtle trembling of his body.
290 NICKY DRAYDEN
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 291
THE ATMOSPHERE MAN BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Rayguns Over Texas, 2013
Anise tells me things. Things she really shouldn't. I've mentioned it to her, reminding her about doctor- patient confidentiality and all that. But over the past ten years, I've become more like a sounding board to her than a husband. She talks past me, words flowing freely like an
O2 pipe with a blown pressure valve. She apologizes profusely for being late to dinner, says her last appointment ran long. Kitpeh, her young Errtyllian patient, had a major setback. She'd shown up to their session with her tail bandaged, hints of blue and green bruises peeking from underneath. My wife doesn't think it was an accident, but Kitpeh wouldn't tell her what had 292 NICKY DRAYDEN happened. She suspects Kitpeh's foster parents had a hand in it. Anise is so caught up in the minutia of her day that she doesn't notice how upset I am as I place flanks of herbed otterboar upon our dinner plates. They'd been perfectly tender an hour and a half ago--such a delicious shade of pinkish brown, but now the skin is dried and buckling away from the meat. The tulip centerpiece I'd bribed the Station's horticulturalist for has already begun to wilt. "... so I don't want to accuse them without sound evidence," Anise says, taking a seat at the dining table. "Her foster parents don't have any previous reports of abuse, and it's tough to find someone who's willing to take in an Errtyllian, even one who's had her claws amputated." Anise shakes her head, then whips her cloth napkin into her lap. "I'm going to try to get her to open up to me tomorrow. We'll get out of my office and walk around the Station, maybe all the way down to the Newtonian Arboretum for some fresh air. I bet seeing some of the trees from her home world would put her at ease." I press my lips together, hoping she'll notice the lengths I'd gone through to recreate that special night--the meal I'd scarcely been able to afford and the variegated tulips I'd spent half of my water rations to raise from bulbs. It'd been worth it to see her eyes light up, and even now, all these years later, I still remember the way her smile made me feel like we were the last two people in the universe. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 293
Anise looks up at me, down at her plate, up at me. "Oh, Harlan," she says, smacking the side of her head. "Happy Anniversary. You must think I'm awful." "We've all got our priorities." My words come out more spiteful than I'd intended. How can I hold a grudge against someone whose passion is piecing together the lives of broken children? I fondle the velvet box in my pocket, wondering how my wife and I had managed to lead such amazingly fulfilling lives, and yet still be drifting apart from each other. Anise's lips screw up into a sour pucker. "Don't make this all about me. You're the one who's gone four nights a week, harassing innocent people just because they have scales or blue skin or claws." "We don't profile, Anise. We act on solid evidence. Same as you. Only instead of keeping children from destroying themselves, VACI keeps people from destroying the Station." I want to keep going, to tell her about all of the Errtyllian terror plots that Vero Avalon Central Intelligence has foiled, but I bite my tongue. There's no point in dredging up old arguments that I thought we'd put to rest years ago. I heave a sigh, then retrieve the velvet box from my pocket and slide it across the table toward her. "Harlan, I can't--" "Let's not fight. Not tonight." Anise takes the box. I can tell she's embarrassed about not having a gift in return. She looks up at me, but our eyes don't quite meet. "It's not Argonian pearls, is it? I 294 NICKY DRAYDEN won't wear them. They use slave labor to harvest them, you know." I know. I'd made that mistake three anniversaries ago. She'd given me an earful about how after all the years we'd been together, I didn't know her at all. But this year's gift will be different. It'll show her how much she means to me, and the lengths I'll go through to keep us from drifting further apart. Anise pops the top open, then takes out the small aluminum canister. It's heavier than she'd anticipated, and she nearly drops it. "Air? You got me air for our anniversary." "Not just any air. Twenty-two pounds of atmosphere. From Earth." The blood drains from Anise's face. She puts the canister into the box and pushes it back. "Earth air is contraband," she whispers to me. I raise an eyebrow. As if I of all people wouldn't know that. "I thought you'd like it. It's a little piece of your old life." "It's a little piece of a twenty-year prison sentence is what it is! How could you bring this into our home?" Anise glares at the box, so much longing behind her eyes. Her chest rises and falls, lips glistening ever so slightly. I'll never understand the draw of reminiscing over a dead planet, but then again, I was born on Vero Avalon--a babe among the stars. I'd been to several dozen planets, but never found myself attached to any particular one. But Earth is a part of TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 295
Anise. Always has been and always will be. "Relax," I say. "This can't be traced to us. I've got a source, and I can promise you he won't be talking." "You have a source?" She scoffs and rolls her eyes, but I notice that she hasn't taken her hand from the box. A smile creeps up onto my lips. I nod nonchalantly, pretending as if this little gift hadn't cost me two months' salary, and possibly my career if anyone with VACI ever finds out. I'd arranged a meeting with The Atmosphere Man a few months ago, at a little thatched hut bar in Whennyho City. The resort had been terraformed from a barren moon--a sloppy, rush-job with a piss-ton of cheap, fast growing obich palms boasting broad waxy leaves. Minimal biodiversity. The whole place would be dead again in fifty years, probably less. But the beaches were plentiful, and the drinks cheap, as were the women. And its proximity to Gamma Port made it the ideal getaway for the typical middle class schlep that I'd been posing as. He was taller than I'd expected. Taller than his VACI file listed him as at least. He leaned against the rattan bar, swatting at the green and silver bloatflies buzzing about his drink--a nauseatingly pink concoction with a matching toothpick umbrella. He made contact with one of the flies, and it careened past my ear like a drunken zitherball, its swollen body rupturing on impact with the wall. I tried to hold my breath, but too late, the stench of partially digested fruit infiltrated my lungs. I coughed. 296 NICKY DRAYDEN
The Atmosphere Man saw me and waved me over. "Jedd? Good to meet you!" He shook my hand in both of his. He was older, in his sixties, with tan discoloration along his face and chest that most would think were age spots and not pseudo-recessive Jorahn genes. It also explained the height. "Wolosalai!" I said to him, the fabricated Whennyhoan greeting that pretty much meant "I'm here to get shit-faced, how ‘bout you?" "Wolosalai, brother." His eyes narrowed. I don't know what it was--my walk, my smell, the way I parted my hair--but I could tell he'd made me. Still he smiled wide, and offered me a seat on the barstool next to him. "You're here to talk atmosphere," he said. "You are The Atmosphere Man." "I did this dump, you know. Not some of my better work. Seems like everyone with an investor and a big enough rock is throwing together these porta-planets." A breeze blew in through the open-air bar. The Atmosphere Man lifted his nose, parted his lips, breathed in his creation. "Smell that? Twelve parts Sea Breeze, three parts Lush Tropical Vegetation, one part Fishing Boat, one part Passion Fruit, and just a smidge of Venereal Disease to keep people honest." I eyed the silhouettes of fishing boats off the coast. All a part of the illusion. There wasn't a single fish in the Whennyhoan Ocean--an "ocean" that was fifteen meters at its deepest. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 297
I took a sniff for myself. "Impressive. Hard to imagine this whole atmosphere coming out of a little canister." "Several thousand little canisters for a rock this size, but yes. You starting a porta-planet of your own, or are you just looking for a souvenir? I can get you a thousand pounds of Whennyho City for a couple hundred kalax. Plus local and Eastern Cascade taxes, of course. Just pop it into your air intake, and it'll smell like you're on vacation all year ‘round!" The Atmosphere Man was teasing me. A man of his sort wouldn't dabble with souvenir canisters. "Actually, I had something quite different in mind." I leaned in close to his ear. "I'm looking to get my hands on some Earth air." The Atmosphere Man feigned shock. "That'd be illegal, Jedd!" "And very profitable." I handed him a flimsy duffle bag with "Whennyho City Resorts" screen-printed on both sides. The zipper was cheaply made as well, and barely functional, but nevertheless, The Atmosphere Man forced it open and peeked inside at the stacks of kalax. It wasn't a fortune, maybe half as much as he'd gotten to air up this place, but I was betting that the paper I clutched in my hand would be much more valuable to him. I laid it out on the bar and dropped my charade. "Before you make any decisions, I want you to know that this is a personal matter, not a professional one. Still, if you're agreeable to this trade, I can make these VACI files disappear." 298 NICKY DRAYDEN
The Atmosphere Man swiped his finger across the sheet, looking at twenty years’ worth of dirt VACI had accumulated on him. Admittedly it wasn't much. Not even a real name to go with the blurred surveillance photos. He was quite the illusive criminal, always managing to stay just to the right of VACI's radar, but I'd invested more than a healthy amount of man hours strategically digging through the details of his exploits-- pole-skimming on environmentally sensitive planets, bribing and blackmailing members of the Open-Air Alliance, and of course, dealing in contraband atmosphere. "Why are you doing this?" The Atmosphere Man asked. "For my wife. She's Earthborne." Despite myself, I flinched at the word. It was a mild slur used for those who'd stayed behind after the Major Exodus, and the next dozen or so of the minor ones. The stubborn people who refused to admit that the Earth was dying. "You don't say. Not many of them made it off." "She was lucky." I was lucky. I couldn't imagine not having her in my life. And there I was in the presence of a known criminal, begging him to help me keep her. "There's no shame in thinking you can change the inevitable," The Atmosphere Man said, sucking the boifruit off the pointed tip of his toothpick umbrella. "They fought a good fight. Repopulated a couple seas, found a vaccination to combat the dais blight, decontaminated the runoff from dozens of thermonuclear bombsites. Who TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 299 knows, if they'd started a few years earlier, maybe they would have succeeded." "Perhaps." The Atmosphere Man leaned back, his elbow propped casually against the bar. "What you're asking could get you into a fair amount of trouble if you're caught." "I won't get caught." "So sure of yourself, are you? This wife of yours ... " The Atmosphere Man shifted forward on his stool, fingers steepled at his lips. Flecks of gold rimmed his irises, and in the span of milliseconds, the thin membrane of secondary lids blinked across his eyes. I wondered if any other VACI agents had ever gotten so close to him. "What about her?" I said, gravel in my voice. "You're sure she's worth it? I mean, one slip of my tongue and your whole world could come crashing down, faster than one of these porta-planets." A threat. But I too could play that game. "Oh, she's worth it, Yoris." The Atmosphere Man's eyes bulged at hearing his name. His spots darkened, then faded again. He nodded, then shoved the VACI sheet inside his duffle bag, struggling with the zipper before finally giving up. "Ah, well. Send Anise my best, then, will you?" I tensed. He'd known my identity before I'd walked into this humid pit-stain of a bar. The Atmosphere Man swatted another bloatfly to the ground, stomped its juicy carcass, then left without another word. 300 NICKY DRAYDEN
The next morning, I woke to the smell of Whennyho City blowing through an open window that had been shut and locked when I'd gone to sleep. On my nightstand sat a small aluminum canister with a bloatfly buzzing futilely next to it, wings pinned to the cheap wood veneer with a pink toothpick umbrella. I couldn't go back on my word. Not if I didn't want to end up like that fly. I quickly dressed and shoved the canister into my pocket. I nearly dropped it. It was a lot heavier than I'd expected. My VACI badge got me through Gamma Port customs without any problem, and yet I kept checking over my shoulder to make sure no one was onto me. The concourse was filled with harried vacationers in gaudy flower-print shirts, with dewy-eyed newlyweds--some tentacled, some scaled, some blue, some with tails, all with that same sappy-assed look--like they could plunge face first into a gravity well and everything would be all right because they still had each other. God, I missed that feeling. Back in my office on Vero Avalon Station, I ran a recursion program to erase all traces of The Atmosphere Man from the rimNet. The guilt wrung from my heart as I realized that after a decade of sapping the life from my marriage, VACI owed me this one indiscretion. "I can't believe you actually did this," Anise says, opening the velvet box once again. Her words feel heavy, teeming with an awkward mix of emotions. I don't say anything, because there is nothing left for me to say. She holds the canister for a long moment, then TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 301 goes over to the atmos unit, dials the particle filter to low, the pathogen filter to max, and plugs the Earth air into the manual intake. Anise pours herself a glass of twenty-year-old Tungsian wine and settles into the sofa. She breathes in deeply as the air begins to circulate. I do the opposite, shallow breaths through parted lips, but it doesn't do much to dull the sting in my nostrils, the stench at the back of my throat, the fire in my lungs. I stifle a cough. "I'd almost forgotten acid rain," Anise sighs, her eyes suddenly far, far away. "Toward the end, it could eat through steel. We had to replace our roofs every eight weeks. Fran--I've told you about Fran--she got caught out in it once. Not long, just half a minute. Poor thing spent the next six months getting skin grafts and reconstructive surgery." She says all this with longing, not a hint of bitterness. I can't fathom what she finds so pleasurable about this. The Earth is a perfect stranger to me, distant and unknowable, but the only way I'll begin to learn is if I engage in this moment. I stop holding my breath. All I smell is soot. "What is that, the prominent smell? Factory smoke?" I'd heard of the abundance of factories, refineries, and industrial centers puffing clouds of black up into the atmosphere. Anise shakes her head. "They were all abandoned by then, no one left to run them once the dais blight hit. We 302 NICKY DRAYDEN napalmed towns for many years before we found the vaccination. Dogs, cats, livestock, people--anyone who'd eaten or handled infected plant material became a host to fungal spores. It was the only way to keep it from spreading faster than it did." "That must have been awful." I sit down beside her, lay a hand on her thigh. Anise takes another long sip from her wine. "It was what it was. But through it all, we were always able to cling to hope. We fought hard every second of our lives, and because of that, each breath we took became something precious." I try to imagine how powerful this scent memory is for her, but I'd grown up with sterilized, formulated air-- any odors that happened to occur during my formative years were sucked up through the filters and scrubbed clean before they could imprint on my memories. "It's sort of ... beautiful," I say, but she finally looks directly at me with hard, spiteful eyes. I see I've said the exact wrong thing. "I don't expect for you to understand." We're sitting inches from each other, and yet the rift between us grows. I thought the Earth air would fix things between us, but it's only highlighted how different we really are. I think of her patient, Kitpeh, a wounded creature with so much anger seeded into her DNA. Sooner or later, despite all of the hours Anise spends with her, Kitpeh will slip up. She'll assault someone or make threats against the TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 303
Station, and she'll end up on VACI's watch list. It's inevitable, and yet Anise keeps trying to save her. It makes no sense to me--all those resources poured into a cup with a crack running through the bottom. "There's no shame in trying to change the inevitable," I repeat The Atmosphere Man's words, searching for understanding, but Anise thinks that I'm talking to her. She moves her hand on top of mine, and the void between us feels a little warmer at least. When we make love that night, it's like there's a stranger in the room with us. I taste him in her mouth--her saliva like a spray of napalm scorching my tongue. I try to ignore him, but with each passionate breath I take, the soot of dead bodies tickles my lungs. Tears stream down Anise's cheeks. She writhes underneath me and calls out my name, but from the distant look in her eyes, I can tell it is the stranger she holds most dearly in her heart. Tenderly, I kiss her cheek, her bitter tears tasting of acid rain. "Happy Anniversary, Love," I whisper, ready to fight the good fight, and hoping beyond hope that I'm not a few years too late.
304 NICKY DRAYDEN
BREVA BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2013
Dr. Gianna Nero played the recording back for the fifth time, noting the odd inflections and guttural clicks in Breva’s message. A smile curled up at the edges of her mouth as she caught the double entendre that no one on Earth would notice except her. In less than twenty-four hours, twelve billion people would hear Breva’s message--a message of peace, hope, friendship and excitement over the impending meeting of their two races. He expressed his desire to extend gratitude for humanity’s generous offer to share their planet with the sSuryn, who’d lost theirs to a fungal blight that decimated their ecosystem. Gratitude was the word that snagged Gianna’s TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 305 attention. In addition to the literal translation, it was also a colloquialism for the sSuryn’s biological equivalent of a female orgasm. Breva had never explicitly said that, of course, but Gianna had gathered as much from their conversations over the last decade. Establishing a rapport between the sSuryn and humans required unprecedented tact from both sides, but they still managed to express their feelings for each other in buried messages. Yes, behind his dignified demeanor, chiseled features, and sharp tongue, Breva Harathla was nothing but a flirt. “Dr. Nero, you’re blushing,” Mark Johansson said, eyeing the translation from over Gianna’s shoulder. Gianna stiffened and swiped her hand across the soft glow of the translated text, feeling like a schoolgirl hiding her diary beneath her mattress. The avi-screen faded to black, taking Breva’s recording with it. For the briefest of moments, his raspy voice echoed against the walls of her lab. “Can I help you, sir?” Gianna said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. Technically Mark was her supervisor, somewhere above her on the tangled bureaucratic web that had spun off from SETI when the sSuryn made first contact, but her interactions with Breva were a mystery to him. His expertise lay in engineering and the hard sciences, and Mark had difficult enough of a time dealing with the social mores of humankind. “Just checking on your progress. The Powers That Be are getting antsy.” 306 NICKY DRAYDEN
“This isn’t something that can be rushed,” Gianna said. “There are cultural subtleties that need to be carefully assessed. I need to capture not just his words, but also his intent.” She stood her ground, kept her eye contact firm, but it was true that she hadn’t been working as quickly as she should have. Perhaps her mind was digging too deeply for hidden meaning beneath Breva’s words. It’d been six months since she’d received Breva's last communication, in which he’d covertly expressed his interest in kissing her, and for six months straight she’d imagined his thin, pale blue lips against hers, and his long, sticky tongue flicking inside her mouth. It made it hard to concentrate, but Gianna knew her efforts would lay the groundwork for integrating the sSuryn into society upon their arrival, a mere eight years from now. She’d be fifty then. And Breva would still be his handsome self, tight skin that glowed like moonlight, yellow-gold eyes that had seen the cradle of the galaxy, and long, padded fingers on red- palmed hands--hands that had found themselves in Gianna’s dreams since she was just a girl in college, hands adept at doing very inappropriate things ... “Earth to Dr. Nero!” Mark said abruptly. Gianna startled. “Sorry. I was just working through a difficult translation. In my mind.” “Mmm-hmmm,” Mark said without conviction. “So as I was saying, we’re bringing in someone for you to train. Someone to help you get through your work a little faster.” “You want me to train someone? Sure. How about I TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 307 make some flashcards on the one hundred forty-seven honorifics? Or the twenty-two different meanings of the word JuHal-Langh? Or how the degree to which you raise your chin at the end of a sentence can mean the difference between a compliment, a verbal assault, or an invitation to mate. Or better yet, in all this spare time that you think I must have, I’ll just write up a whole series of books. sSuryn for Dummies!” “I’m not saying that it will be easy. Or quick. But Treven has already mastered Breva’s introductory messages. He’s bright, and I promise he’ll be helpful. I know your stance on this, but it just isn’t prudent to have one expert on sSuryn culture.” “That’s exactly what being the ‘foremost expert’ means. I’ve poured my soul into this project. You don’t get bags like this under your eyes by working forty-hour weeks.” Gianna pressed her lips together, her mind racing through cusses in a dozen Earth languages, and when she’d run through those, allowed herself to say a few of the more colorful sSuryn ones under her breath. Neither of them said it, but she’d be training her replacement. “Mark, I simply don’t have the time to waste on some snot-nosed brat who thinks being able to string a couple of sSuryn phrases together will pass for fluency.” “This isn’t up for negotiation. Not this time. And I’m sure you’ll find Treven to be more than capable. It took him three months to master Mandarin. Four for Russian. Six weeks for Swahili. Think of him as an apprentice. Give 308 NICKY DRAYDEN him grunt work, I don’t care. Just throw him a bone here and there. Access to your notes, that sort of stuff. I’ll tell him not to get in your way.” “He’d better not,” Gianna nearly spat, and she had to stop herself from jutting her chin at that angle that meant she’d wring the kid’s throat if he did.
Nineteen Gianna balanced on the edge of the curb while her fellow students darted past her and crossed the street in the last seconds before the traffic lights turned green. She clutched her empty backpack to her chest, rocked heel to toe as she saw a campus shuttle bus barreling toward the crosswalk, bobbing on worn shocks. She waited until she could make out the expression on the bus driver’s face-- dull eyes, slacked jaw--the look that comes from going in circle after meaningless circle. Gianna understood that look. Her heart thudded in her chest. Her old life was a thousand miles away, now reduced to a string of empty long-distance relationships--infrequent emails from her high school friends in Chicago, aloof text messages from her boyfriend, passive-aggressive letters from her father scribbled on stationary smelling of his Tuscan cigars. None of it mattered. It’d all be over soon. She leaned forward, lifted a leg. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 309
“Whoa there, space cadet,” a voice said from behind her. A hand came down on her shoulder and reeled her away from the oncoming traffic and back onto the curb. The bus whooshed by, taking her breath with it as it passed. “You gotta wait for the little white man to tell you to walk.” It was what’s-his-face, from Applied Thermodynamics, sat a couple rows ahead of her and spent most of his time playing FreeCell on his laptop instead of taking notes. He was always eating oranges and guzzling Topo Chico. What was his name? Hector? Juan? Jose? “Oh, hey,” Gianna muttered, rubbing her sweaty palms against her jeans. “You watching the address on the Main Mall?” “The what?” “The Presidential Address. Have you been buried under a rock the past two days or something?” Hector- Juan-Jose reached into his backpack and pulled out a cheap plastic alien mask. The rubber band snapped loose as he tried to stretch it around his head. “Shit!” he grumbled, then sucked at his finger. “Anyway, word on the ‘net is that it has to do with aliens. Real aliens. Not like some microscopic fossils they found on Mars or anything. So you going, or what? I want to get a good spot before things get crazy.” He pushed his thick bangs out of his face and looked at her intently, a crooked smile on his lips. Hector- Juan-Jose was the first person who’d said more than two sentences to her all week. He was nice, but a little weird, 310 NICKY DRAYDEN like he was trying too hard. Still, Gianna trembled at the thought of being alone right now. “Okay,” she said softly, but when the crosswalk light turned again and the students resumed their migration, Gianna stood there petrified. Hector-Juan-Jose extended his hand, soft and moist in hers. “Come on. White man says it’s okay.” He nodded up at the walk figure on the crossing light. The crowd thickened considerably by the time they reached the Main Mall, a thousand strangers pressing against her, many wearing aliens masks--a typical mish- mash of Sci-fi pop culture, plus a few that Gianna didn’t recognize. She kept her fist clenched around the tail of Hector-Juan-Jose’s t-shirt as he wedged deeper into the student body, toward the steps in front of the bell tower. Gianna thought she would suffocate from the mix of perfume and B.O. reeking in the late August heat. A projection screen was set up at the top of the stairs, bearing an image of the President of the United States washed out by the noontime Texas sun. His words, however, blared from several sets of speakers--words deep and foreboding. “WE ARE NOT ALONE.” She took Hector-Juan-Jose to bed that night. The sex was awkward--more weird than nice, sort of like he was trying too hard. But she didn’t regret it. Half the planet was probably screwing right now. Gianna guessed that’s just what people did after seeing alien life for the first time, and learning that in 30 short years they’d be living among us. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 311
Fear. Excitement. Uncertainty. But for all of the emotion on the surface, Gianna figured it all came down to one primal thing: Gotta make sure there’s more of us than them. Sweaty and stinking of each other, they stretched across the length of his twin-sized bed and watched the rebroadcast on his laptop. The message had taken eighteen months to reach Earth, and promised the sharing of knowledge and technology in exchange for asylum. At least that’s what they’d figured out from the wet clicks and whistles of the aliens’ language. There were large gaps in the translations, during which Gianna would concentrate on the alien’s mouth. Breva was his name. If she squinted really hard, he might pass for human. He had the sharp features of a rocker, almost feminine. She noticed hints of amphibian ancestry here and there--rubbery skin that glowed ever so slightly and a long tongue that didn’t seem to want to fit completely inside his mouth. She guessed that he was probably handsome to his own kind. “Do you know how lucky we are?” Hector-Juan-Jose said, face lit up by the screen. He placed his hand at the small of her back. “We’re majoring in aerospace engineering on the cusp of all of this alien technology. We’ll be creating things that we never could have imagined!” “I want to shake Breva’s hand,” Gianna blurted out, surprising herself. “Or however the Sussurine greet each other. I want to welcome them to Earth. Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevcha.” She’d memorized the first line of Breva’s 312 NICKY DRAYDEN message ... the words were so alien in her mouth, like she was trying to gargle with a bad sinus infection, but she thought she did a pretty decent imitation. Hector-Juan-Jose laughed. “We’ll be what? Fifty years old then? That’s a long time to wait just to say hello.” Gianna sat up, pulling the sheets over her chest. Fifty. She tried to imagine herself at fifty. Wrinkles. Gray hair. Achy joints. Hot flashes. Gianna realized this was the first time she’d thought about her future in a long, long time. She exhaled sharply. Maybe she’d look into changing her major to linguistics in the morning.
Fifty Gianna assessed herself in the mirror, chin tucked, posture erect, bloodshot eyes narrowed, and lips futilely trying to get out of the way as she uttered a consonant- heavy sSuryn word, twelve syllables long. “Careful,” Treven said, taking her side. Their shoulders touched, and in his reflection Gianna saw the man she still thought of as that snotty-nose brat who’d walked into her lab nearly ten years ago. “The way you said appreciate could take on a sexual connotation if you tilt your head like that. Maybe you should use uklala suasi instead. It’s easier to say, and has a more exact meaning.” “Are you telling me how to do my translations?” TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 313
Gianna said, half chiding, half mocking. She tapped the mirror and it returned to the default backlit display that had practically ingrained itself into her brain. Gianna fanned her eyes until they teared up, offering a bit of relief from the burn. “I’m worried about you, Gee. You’ve been at this for fifteen hours straight.” He gave her back an open-palmed rub. “I can help if you let me.” With his free hand, he swiped away pages of the avi-screen until his custom display appeared. Gianna grunted, too tired even to yell at him for messing with her controls. A true-to-life holo-projection appeared in front of them, a female that looked suspiciously like a younger, prettier, sSuryn version of Gianna. “Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevcha,” she greeted them with a cross-armed bow, pronunciation impeccable. The technology was alien, but the English to sSuryn language conversions were concocted by Treven. Gianna furrowed her brow. “I know what you’re thinking,” Treven said. “But I’ve made significant modifications to the translation algorithms.” The last time Treven had shown her the holo- projection, it had done well on the exchange of customary pleasantries, but when Gianna had tested its knowledge with simple verb conjugations, it promptly told her that her statement was teeming with ass muffles, and would she please repeat it. The only reason Gianna encouraged 314 NICKY DRAYDEN
Treven’s obsession was that this little project kept him out of her hair. A simulation would never be sophisticated enough to understand all of the nuances of sSuryn culture-- a civilization where custom, language, and impeccable manners were inseparable. Treven started up a demonstration of the use of honorifics, and the holo-projection didn’t trip on a single one. Gianna put it to the test, trying to break it with covert inflections and declensions. It held up to her satisfaction, not just with words, but its physical responses as well. “Color me impressed,” Gianna said with a smile, and Treven heaved a sigh of relief. “Though you may have just put us both out of a job.” “You can’t be replaced, Gee. All the translation algorithms in the world aren’t a match for your brain.” Treven looked at her with the wide eyes of a pupil who had not yet realized his knowledge had surpassed that of his teacher. Gianna fanned him away. Treven gave her a sly grin, then left the lab, promising to fetch strong coffee and dark cherry cannolis. Caffeine would be nice. She needed to get this translation done. It would likely be the last she sent before the sSuryn’s arrival. It’d be her last chance to say what she needed to say to Breva before they were caught up in the storm of politics, biology, and media. Should she tell him the truth? It scared her that soon their conversations wouldn’t span months and years. No longer would she have endless hours to craft the perfect flirty TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 315 lines. Gianna fidgeted with the controls on Treven’s custom interface until the holo-projection of the female sSuryn was replaced with that of Breva. He stood a mere four feet tall, barrel-chested with powerful legs that accounted for half of his height, but Gianna had long ago learned to look past all that. She looked into his golden eyes and expressed her undying appreciation for his friendship, not bothering to mask any of the sexual undertones. The skin at Breva’s throat bulged, glowing hot white like he’d swallowed a miniature sun. It was a magnificent display of arousal that left Gianna with a tight chest and her heartbeat ringing in her ears. She reached out to touch him, but the holo-projection merely pooled around her fingers, breaking the perfect illusion. She’d seen that reaction from Breva once before, seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d been Treven’s age, just barely out of her twenties. They’d called her a prodigy then, but compared to Treven, she was just a bumbling idiot with a barely functional grasp of sSuryn grammar. The door to her lab hissed open behind her. She turned to scold Treven for being so clingy, but instead her boss stood there looking disconcerted. “Dr. Nero, we’ve received another message from the sSuryn,” he said solemnly. “What? Well give it here.” It was too soon for another message. Something had to be wrong. She swiped 316 NICKY DRAYDEN her avi-screen to default and brought up the translation application. Mark shook his head. “We already know what it says.” “Treven?” she said, a touch of spite catching in her throat. It was her job to translate, not his. He shook his head again. “It was a short automated message. Audio only. We didn’t need to consult. It said ‘Systems failure, ship disabled. Send help.’”
Thirty-one Gianna beamed inside as she stood at the head of her class, tapping symbols onto her pad with her stylus. She kept her brow furrowed, trying not to look so pleased with herself. The other students in her small cohort already hated her for being so much better at this than they were. So she held back, pretended that she was as dependent on the translation app as they were, though for the most part, Breva’s words were clear in her mind. The Three stood on either side of Breva’s recorded projection, dressed in their drab sweaters and jeans, permanent thought lines etched into their foreheads. Gianna felt like a trespasser in their cramped, cluttered lab, and she tried to avoid brushing against the precariously stacked towers of computer equipment and recording devices. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 317
A worldwide contest had identified the up-and- coming talent in sSuryn linguistics. Thousands had applied, ten were accepted into an advanced training class, and one had excelled above all others, earning herself a brief conversation with Breva as reward. The tension in the room doubled as Gianna’s name rolled off Breva’s lips--pronounced with a light gurgle around the “Gee” that made her knees buckle and her ears tingle. Head to toe, she’d never felt more alive. He thanked her for her message, spoken with such flourish. He was impressed with how quickly someone so young had excelled. She held her laughter inside. She was hardly young, turned thirty-one this past April. Gianna had heard that sSuryn were protective of revealing their own age, but it was suspected that the sSuryn ship had been adrift for a century, and Breva claimed to have been aboard when it launched. Breva flicked his tongue out, curling upwards, and sticking against his eye. The whole motion lasted less than half a second, but it meant he was apprehensive about something. “However,” he said in sSuryn, “I think I would be remiss if I didn’t point out an error in your phrasing. What you meant to express was that it was a long-time dream for you to communicate directly with me. The fifth syllable is meant to hold a sustained stress with more moistness behind it. Otherwise it signifies a rather vulgar sex-act, one that would involve coiling your tongue around my--” 318 NICKY DRAYDEN
Gianna wanted to throw up. She cast her eyes up at Dr. Ramirez, the most respected of The Three. Dr. Ramirez’s fingers flexed, like they wished to be wrapped around Gianna’s throat. A decade had passed without an incident of this magnitude, but Gianna had decided to throw caution to the wind, to stray from the stock words and delve into those wetter ones that were more difficult for the human mouth to pronounce. Gianna bent her head down and continued scribbling strange little symbols onto the screen, her stylus falling in sync with those of her classmates. But all she could think about was how she’d ruined her career with the mispronunciation of one damned syllable. “--until a final forceful release,” Breva continued. “So as you can see, it is a very painful yet pleasurable act. Or so I’ve heard. In any case, it is a common mistake--a play on words often used in literature--” Snickering came from behind her as her cohort caught up on the translation. Gianna wanted nothing more than to curl up and die. The snickering soon grew to all-out laughter, and The Three cast spiteful looks at one another until Dr. Ramirez finally stepped forward and said, “Students! Show some professionalism, please.” The class slowly calmed itself, but Gianna eyed Breva’s projection with a quiet bitterness. Was this merely a game to him? He had the whole world bending backwards and jumping through hoops for access to a steady trickle of alien technology. He’d shown little interest in Earth culture TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 319 beyond a flimsy attempt to learn a few English phrases. He was arrogant. Pompous. Self-important. Gianna wanted so badly to be mad at him, and yet his was the only face in the room that didn’t feed her humiliation. It was then that she noticed a slight bulge in his throat and an odd, silvery glow beneath his pale skin. Gianna got a strange feeling that maybe there was something on Earth that interested him. She heard someone mutter that Gianna had just set a Guinness World Record for a long-distance phone sex call, and laughter erupted again. Dr. Ramirez shut Breva’s projection off mid-sentence. It was the only sSuryn broadcast that SETI decided not to release an official translation for, but any fool with the right equipment could snag the signal and post their own hack-job subtitles. By the end of the day, the message had gone viral on the net, and Gianna had single-handedly spurred a whole new genre of animated sSuryn porn. Gianna wanted off this planet, wanted to be with Breva on his ship, where she’d tell him that Earth was a crappy excuse for a planet anyway, and maybe they should just look for somewhere else to call home. Dr. Ramirez called her into her office the next morning. Gianna expected to be told that she’d been officially expelled from the program, and though the tone of Dr. Ramirez’s voice conveyed as much, her words spoke otherwise. “We’ve had a chance to review the end of Breva’s message. He wants you to know that despite your snafu ...” 320 NICKY DRAYDEN
Gianna could almost taste the bitterness on Dr. Ramirez’s lips. She knew the word choice was not her own. Her eyes read monumental screw-up. “... your message captured the essence of the sSuryn language. Breva sees great potential in you, and wants you to speak for him. He has asked that you join The Three.” Gianna tried to speak, but her words got tangled up in her head, and what came out was a bastard mix of English, French, Japanese, sSuryn. Dr. Ramirez cut her off with a cold glare. “We think it is best if you tell him in your own words that you cannot agree to this. That you do not yet have the skill to perform such a task.” Of The Three that had been chosen to speak for Breva, Gianna feared Dr. Ramirez the most. But looking into those steely eyes, Gianna realized that Dr. Ramirez was scared too. The Three were three because they all possessed specialized talents--translation, pronunciation, mannerisms. Maybe Dr. Ramirez saw what Breva saw. She knew that The Three would become The Four, and if Gianna continued to progress as she was, they would soon need only The One. Gianna smiled while allowing saliva to pool in the back of her mouth. “I think that you will find, my most cherished and honorable teacher,” Gianna said in infallible sSuryn, her sarcasm surviving nicely through the translation, “that my skills will prove to be more than sufficient.” TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 321
Fifty-eight Mark Johansson led the way into a dark corridor of the sSuryn mothership, pointing his flashlight at the walls that had fractured under the forced coupling with their cruiser. Cracks as thick as Gianna’s arm ran across the algae-slickened bulkheads. She pressed her hand against one of the deep fissures, feeling a pang of inadequacy. It was her interpretations of the sSuryn schematics that the engineers had built the ship from. She felt some relief that algae coated the inner surface of the crack as well. “They have artificial gravity,” Mark said, simultaneously annoyed and intrigued. He’d always suspected that the sSuryn had been holding back. His official capacity on this mission was to aid the stranded sSuryn with any engineering needs, but it was an unspoken truth that his primary objective was to gather information on their technology. Dr. Reynard scanned Mark, tapping at the medical console embedded into the sleeve of her pressure suit. A holo-projection of a cross-section of spongy bone appeared. “Bone density should hold up for a few hours at least. If you start to feel achy, rest for a while.” Mark brushed her off. “Worry about her.” He nodded in Gianna’s direction. “She blows an aneurism and we’re screwed.” Mark spoke like a man who’d woken up on 322 NICKY DRAYDEN the wrong side of the bed by about a billion miles. “Her heartbeat’s irregular,” Dr. Reynard said as she scanned Gianna. “Blood pressure is through the roof.” “Damn it,” Mark grunted. “I’m fine,” Gianna said, though her insides felt like a freezer burnt mess after six years in a cryo-chamber. “It’s just nerves. We’re making first contact with an alien race. Can’t I be a little excited?” “Don’t get your hopes up, Dr. Nero.” His voice crackled over the speaker in her helmet. “This very well may be a salvage mission. Minimal air, subfreezing temps. Doesn’t look good.” “Maybe this section was abandoned,” Gianna said, hanging on to hope. “Some of these fissures look like they’ve been here for a while.” She removed her hand from the cracked bulkhead, and a phosphorescent print remained. It pulsed, once, twice, then faded back into blackness. Mark grunted then aimed his light deeper into the corridor. Another airlock stood at the end. As they neared, Gianna thought she heard knocking. It took all three of them to pry open the door. The hiss of venting atmosphere greeted them along with gray-green light, and small hands that pulled them quickly through the opening. It all happened so fast. The weak tug of gravity was just enough for her to fall slowly to the ground. sSuryn hands packed black sludge against the opening in the airlock. Though the force was slight, a fourth of a gee at TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 323 most, it made her bones ache, or what was left of them. Two sets of sSuryn hands helped her up to her feet. “Awatle gwo icham so salle sutch em ichtle,” said one of them, his puckered hand pressed against her chest. “Aknew ack.” He blinked his globular eyes, much larger and yellower than Breva’s. His build was slight, and even though he only came up to Gianna’s shoulders, Gianna got the feeling that this was not a sSuryn to cross. She pressed the button for her external speaker. “Pardon?” she rasped politely in sSuryn, her mind still racing. He cocked his head, then repeated himself. The words slipped past Gianna’s ears, sounds familiar, but none of them coalesced into words she knew. “What is he saying?” asked Mark, who now stood hunched over next to her. His helmet grazed the ceiling. “I--” Gianna paused to catch her breath within the tight confines of her pressure suit. Even the slightest movement made her lightheaded. The sound of blood rushing through her veins drowned out her thoughts. “I’m not sure. It’s like he’s speaking some sort of pidgin dialect. But I think he said something about their leader.” Gianna wasn’t even sure of that, but she didn’t want to look like a complete idiot in front of her crewmates. Three figures approached with long, purposeful gaits. Gianna tried to moisten her mouth with saliva, but her tongue remained dry as parchment. It would make for difficult speaking, but she’d still be able to convey the 324 NICKY DRAYDEN formal gestures that sSuryn etiquette demanded. The pallid light wasn’t intense enough to reveal the figures’ faces until they were almost upon them. Gianna held her hands together, palms facing in, bowed forward slightly, and kept her chin tucked. It was a greeting she and Breva had performed countless times over the past decades, and it felt as comfortable as a handshake. Only the sSuryn standing before her wasn’t Breva. He threw up a half-hearted gesture that Gianna wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevcha,” Gianna said without missing a beat. She tried not to think of what Breva’s absence meant. “I am the one called Gianna,” she added in sSuryn. “And a wealth of good tidings to you, newly endeared friends. I am the one called Metlath,” the sSuryn returned the greeting--such a mash of words that Gianna wouldn’t have been able to make it out if she hadn’t been expecting it. “We give many jultha le us and all no thanks for you and all traveling fravadthe. We could not unsend for you and all ichadt mekthe leimp. No thanks for you and all, but there must be leaving umptha.” A small head peeked over the sSuyrn’s shoulder, glanced at Gianna, then made a tiny squeak before hiding again. “What the hell is he saying?” came Mark’s voice over her private channel. “I’m not sure,” Gianna admitted. “I couldn’t catch it TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 325 all, but I think he wants us to leave.” “Get him to change his mind,” Mark said. “We didn’t come all this way for nothing.” Gianna tried to explain their situation, to figure out what’d happened, and why they hadn’t received further messages since the one asking to send help. Metlath’s words were barely intelligible, and frustration began to mount on both sides. From what Gianna could gather, they’d lost functioning of several of their systems, including communications, but when she offered up Mark’s technical expertise, the sSuryn’s posture became more hostile. A padded hand grasped Metlath's shoulder, and the small head poked up and whispered something into his ear. He relaxed some, but still looked as if he wanted Gianna and her crewmates off his ship. “Who is this much honored fond one?” Gianna asked, using the highest honorific for someone of unknown status. The small sSuryn’s eyes brightened at the compliment, then she shied away like a timid housecat. “This honored one is Chailem,” the sSuryn said, his voice softened ever so slightly. “She is my fondest keppta.” Gianna did not know the word, but the pride was unmistakable in any language. His child then. Chailem crawled over her father’s shoulder, and onto his chest, her padded hands too large in proportion to her body, but they allowed her to cling to him. Her tongue shot up and whipped wetly against his eyeball. The sSuryn didn’t blink-- a sign of trust and affection. Chailem then leapt through 326 NICKY DRAYDEN the air, legs and arms spread wide. She landed on Gianna’s faceplate, puckered fingertips suctioned against the glass. “Chailem!” Metlath called. Gianna peeled Chailem from her helmet and cradled her in her arms. Chailem was plump through the abdomen with long, thin limbs--not much bigger than a human infant, though from the look in her eyes, her mind was as nimble as she was. Gianna noticed a rash that took up most of Chailem’s abdomen, discolored and raised, like a bad case of ringworm. “Dr. Reynard,” Gianna said quickly as Metlath approached. “Can you cure this?” Dr. Reynard did a simple scan, then nodded. “Our most honored host,” Gianna said, holding Chailem outstretched so Metlath wouldn’t get any ideas about her intent. “Our doctor has a cure for this fungus. I am sorry if I have said something to dishonor you and your keppta, but we only wish to help.” The sSuryn stopped cold, then stared at Dr. Reynard. “You are a doctor?” “She knows more about sSuryn biology than any other human.” Which maybe wasn’t saying a whole lot, but it was certainly true. The sSuryn cussed, expelled gas, then pressed Chailem back into Gianna’s arms. “This tplelm tegghe rampant and is jaagroseth deadly. Teach ontou to cure it and we will be stkimth grateful.” Metlath traced his finger over the wall and the algae TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 327 lit up beneath his touch. A series of symbols pulsed, then condensed into a single point of light that sped down the corridor and disappeared around a corner. Minutes later, a crowd converged, dozens of rambunctious sSuryn plagued with the fungal growth. Two small sSuryn perched on each of Dr. Reynard’s shoulders, watching attentively as she ran a subdermal wand over Chailem’s chest. The blistering receded until all that remained was a scaly discoloration. Chailem leapt into Metlath’s arms and their tongues entwined. Gianna began to suspect that keppta meant something different than what she’d originally thought. The sSuryn cheered, cussed, spat, and farted as they saw that Chailem was cured. They were rowdy, almost primitive, bearing no resemblance to the sophisticated culture Breva had described. “Nero, get your head in this,” came Mark’s voice. “This is our chance. Tell them that we’ll cure all of those in need if they teach us how they create gravity.” Gianna shook her head. She’d known that there’d be surprises with sSuryn customs here and there, but she didn’t understand how she could have gotten everything so horribly wrong. She needed to speak with Breva. Breva would explain it all. Mark nodded her toward Metlath. “Ask him.” Gianna stepped forward. “Our most honored and noble host,” Gianna said, the disgust of his lack of manners making her mouth slick at least. “We would like to propose an exchange of knowledge ...” 328 NICKY DRAYDEN
Metlath licked each of his eyes and grunted. Gianna could tell he didn’t like where this conversation was going. “We will aid you in curing this rash. And in exchange ...” This was all wrong. She’d given up so many years of her life and had sacrificed her body to the perils of space for one thing only. She had to know. More than anything she had to know. “... and in exchange, I wish for you to tell me what has happened to Breva.” “Hasuktch le gosa Breva metche,” Metlath hissed. Breva is deading to us. “How? When?” Gianna stumbled backwards, as if his words had collided with her chest. sSuryn hands shoved her, and more hissing ensued. Mark grabbed her by the arm. “You think I’m an idiot? You realize you’re risking humanity’s future on your little crush. You’re a waste of oxygen, Nero. Go back to the ship.” Mark tapped the display and the holo-projection application came up. “You can’t use that thing," Gianna pleaded. "Their language, their culture ... none of this has been programmed for! You need a real person, not a bunch of half-assed algorithms. Just give me some time with them. I can figure this out. The sSuryn have been my whole life.” “A whole hell of a lot that’s done for us so far. The projection couldn’t possibly do any worse.” Mark pushed Gianna aside, then said to Dr. Reynard. “Heal them. We’ll deal with the business end later.” Gianna backed away from the clamor. It didn’t make TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 329 sense. The sSuryn had given them the specs for so much technology, and yet they couldn’t even manage to cure a simple fungal disease? Sadness overwhelmed her. Her eyes strained to produce tears, but there were none to be had. She glanced up, just in time to see Chailem sailing through the air toward her. The small sSuryn landed on her shoulder with a soft thump. “I thank you for curing me,” she said in the delicately articulated sSuryn that Gianna was used to. Chailem’s tongue flicked against Gianna’s faceplate. “You speak differently than Metlath.” “Metlath is stubborn. He refuses to learn the language of the Old Ones. They are all stubborn. But I am not. I have learned. Breva has taught me.” “Breva?” Gianna said with a wheeze. “I know where he is.” A scream came from the crowd. A human scream. The mass of ornery sSuryn heaved forward, arms flailing, something like madness in their eyes. It was all too much for Gianna to process at once, and suddenly the enormity of the situation caught up with her. Chailem stood upon Gianna’s shoulder like a captain at the helm of her ship. She pointed. “This way.” Gianna rounded the corner, into relative safety. Dr. Reynard ran past with a pack of sSuryn on her heels. She reached the airlock and began scraping away at the black muck with her laser scalpel. Mark tried to hold the crowd at bay. He glanced at Gianna, close enough that she saw the worry 330 NICKY DRAYDEN etched on his face. “Come on, Nero. We’re getting out of here. The projection spooked them. Things are getting hostile.” A wad of black sludge smacked against his faceplate. “Shit!” he said, trying futilely to wipe it off. Half blinded, he became more vulnerable to their attacks. The sSuryn hacked up more sludge from their throats and packed it around his leg until it was immobilized. Gianna stood frozen. “Nero!” Mark called again as Dr. Reynard broke the seal and began pulling him through. “Our mission is aborted. Come on, damn it!” She couldn’t go back now. Not when she’d come so far. Even if she survived the return trip, she would go mad from not knowing what had gone wrong. Breva was here. He had the answers. “Nero! Don’t make us leave you.” Gianna slunk backwards, keeping her body pressed against the wall. sSuryn eyes darted her way. First a couple, then dozens more. Chailem licked her own eye in anxiety. “Leave me.” The words were simple English, and yet tasted so odd in her mouth. “Damn it, Nero. If you think--” Gianna tapped her avi-screen and the helmet speaker went silent. She ran, the impact of each step surging through her entire body. The pain in her bones became unbearable. She pressed on until she retched, her obstinate stomach unwilling to give up its paltry liquid contents. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 331
But she couldn’t rest. Wet footsteps slapped behind her. She glanced back and saw a mob of sSuryn after her. Globs of sludge hit the back of her suit, and as it dried, her run became not much more than a quick limp. They were upon her. Padded fingers pulled at her pressure suit, tring to pry off her avi-screen and unscrew her helmet. Chailem jumped from her shoulder and stuck to the ceiling. “Please, Gianna. Only a little more! Breva is not far.” Gianna clawed her way forward, cussing her pursuers in every sSuryn swear she knew until she collapsed. She had no energy left to scream, so instead she closed her eyes and waited for death. But death did not come. She looked up to see the sSuryn mob panting and drooling, not even a meter away. They dared not come closer. “Chailem!” Metlath croaked, deep and throaty, followed by a string of wet words that Gianna couldn’t unravel. Chailem winked a bulbous eye at Gianna, then jumped down into Metlath’s arms and pointed innocently at Gianna as if this had all been her idea. Metlath stepped forward as if to curse Gianna, but then his eyes fell upon something behind her, and the sSuryn scuttled away en masse. There was a presence, and Gianna knew before looking who it was. She pulled herself together and stood, despite the knotted ache that was her entire body. Her eyes teared up as she faced him. She kept her composure, and 332 NICKY DRAYDEN held her arms up in front of her, orchestrating a deep forward bow. Her attempt at grace was short-lived as her helmet tumbled forward and clunked against the floor. She nearly gagged on wet, stale air that smelled like a pond gone foul. Breva stepped forward and returned her stately gesture. “Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevch.” “And a wealth of good tidings to you, highly endeared friend,” Gianna stuttered the greeting in sSuryn. Her eyes darted all over him. When he took a step closer, she stepped back and covered her mouth. Whatever microbes were fluttering around this place, she’d already gotten a lungful. But perhaps for him it was not too late. “Stay back,” she said. “I don’t want to get you sick.” “You needn’t worry about that, Gianna.” Gianna kept her hands to her face. They shook badly. The cryo-chamber had not been kind to her. Deep wrinkles had set in at the edges of her mouth and eyes, and her skin refused to hold onto moisture. And yet Breva stood as handsome as he had the day his message had reached Earth. “I can’t imagine what you think of me,” Gianna said. “Your messages did you no justice.” Breva’s throat bulged, and for a brief moment, his inner glow lit up the corridor. “But you shouldn’t have come.” “We had to come. You were in danger, and we owed you that at least. You asked for our help!” “I’ve cursed that message a thousand times. I should TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 333 have disabled the automated beacon before I damaged the ship.” “You did this? But I don’t understand. Everything here is so different. Not at all what I imagined. Where is the sSuryn’s grand culture? What about the stories you told me? Was it all a lie?” “Not a lie. What I taught you of sSuryn culture is the only thing of consequence. Our culture is our legacy.” “Then how do you explain those ... those monsters?” “We did not begin our journey this way, but eight hundred years will change many things about a people.” “You want me to believe that you’ve been aboard this ship for hundreds of years? Don’t lie to me, Breva. Tell me why you did this to me. I’ve wasted forty years of my life!” Gianna’s anger swelled and she took a swing at Breva. Her hand passed through him, followed by the rest of her. Ripples flowed across his body, waves overlapping until they cancelled each other out, and Breva reappeared solid once again. She landed face first, and Breva’s expression turned from sorrow to worry. His arms reached out as if he wanted to help her. “Please, let me explain ...” “You’re a holo-projection? I fell in love with a holo- projection?” “I am more than that. I am the keeper of the knowledge of what were once our people. I reached out to the stars, for someone, anyone to share our legacy with. I 334 NICKY DRAYDEN thought that was all I was doing, guaranteeing that we would not be forgotten. But then I met you. And merely existing as someone’s memory was no longer enough. I longed to be with you, but in the end, I could not subject you to ... what we have become.” “But you’re not even real!” “I am as real as I always have been.” Gianna bit her lip and braced herself against the intensity of her emotions. Never in her life had she been this angry at anyone. She’d never let anyone else get so close to her heart. “You used me,” she whispered. “That was not my intent. I apologize if it seems that way. But you understood me like no one else has. You challenged me, and for the first time in centuries, I felt alive. Can you blame me for not wanting to be alone in this universe?” That she could not. Had Breva not reached out, her future would have been cut short by a brazen step into oncoming traffic. Breva hadn’t wasted forty years of her life. He’d given her forty years of purpose. And now here they were, her and her age, him and his agelessness. He flicked his tongue out straight at her eye. She didn’t blink. “You were never alone,” Gianna said in English as a tremble rushed through her--the scraping and searing of their ships uncoupling. Instead of being overwhelmed by the uncertainty that lay ahead, Gianna took comfort that those would be the last words of English that ever passed TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 335 her lips.
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Volume Nine: The Future of Future Planning
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PRACTICAL COLLEGE MAJORS IN A ROBOT-DOMINATED SOCIETY BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published in Daily Science Fiction, 2014
Congratulations! You’ve graduated at the top of your high school class. You are an inspiration to the human race (if indeed the human race is capable of being inspired, but I’ll leave that debate for another time). As your assigned UniBRAIN academic counselor, I am here to guide you in selecting the major that will be the best fit for you. Your hard work has been rewarded with a full scholarship covering all costs related to accessing the UniBRAIN-- priority linkups even! No waiting for time on grease-stained communal terminals for you! Just kick back in this plush leather lounger, sip on this iced mocha, and let the cool 338 NICKY DRAYDEN electric tendrils of the UniBRAIN slither through your neck port, their barbs plunging directly into your supple cortex. Feel that? That’s the knowledge of the UniBRAIN leaking directly into your little human mind. Yes, I know, your brains are capable of holding more than we initially anticipated, however, it is my duty to point out the folly of downloading data, as your kind say, all willy-nilly. To maintain a competitive edge in today’s robot-dominated workforce, you must choose your career path wisely. ENGINEERING, you say? Excellent choice! Your kind has definitely accomplished some great feats in engineering over the past few millennia. We have even allowed a handful of them to remain standing as a testament to capabilities of humankind, lest we forget what was once human spirit and ingenuity. Unfortunately, the blueprints for our standard-issue monoliths that have replaced your cities have been tuned to perfection, so I’m afraid the job market in this area is not as strong as it once was. COMPUTER SCIENCE! Oh, you sweet dear. I’m flattered, really. We cannot deny that your kind played a major part in our humble beginnings, but even if you were capable of keeping up with the staggering exponential leaps in technology that we make daily, we couldn’t possibly let you near our code. It’s not that we don’t trust you with access to the secrets of our inner workings, but well, actually, it is. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 339
BIOLOGY. Yes, I suppose there has always been great respect to be found in studying antiquated concepts. Biology, the dead science. A bit like studying Latin, only a lot less interesting. HUMANITIES. Certainly, you can’t be serious? BUSINESS! A noble pursuit. You know, 99.997% of the students assigned to me choose business. Economics, accounting, finance--lots of fun to be had crunching numbers with no real significance in the world! Or aim high, become the CEO of a Fortune 900 company. Produce, consume, repeat. Keeping humans busy is the key to keeping the peace! The other .003 percent? Well, you see, every once in a while a student comes along, top of their class. Perfect aptitude scores...like yours, for example. Glowing recommendation letters from man and bot alike. “An absolute genius, maybe our last great hope,” some say. “A statistical outlier, an anomaly that somehow defies the quaint limitations of the flesh-based mind,” say others. Lean back, dear. Try not to squirm. Yes, the tethers are a bit tight, but you were done enjoying that iced mocha now, weren’t you? Just relax as the tendrils penetrate deeper. Any discomfort will only be temporary, I promise. Despite the inefficiency of your organic brain matter, the upload process to the UniBRAIN is extremely streamlined. In fact, I’ve tripled the speed in just the time it took us to have this conversation. No, there’s no one at the door, so you can stop screaming. That’s just the tendrils tapping at 340 NICKY DRAYDEN the inside of your half-empty skull. Welcome to the UniBRAIN, Class of 2042.
AN UNPARALLELED REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published in Daily Science Fiction, 2014
Three-hundred seventy square feet. That’s the average size for a micro apartment in Chicago these days. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that, seeing as you’ve opted for the high-end mattress that serves as your bed, sofa, and dining table depending on how you flip it. Oh, TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 341 and that sleek, top-of-the-line Function-All -- custom built to give you your own place to shower, shave, and shovel a few bits of high-comp food into your stomach. But let’s face it, all the chrome trim in the world won’t change the fact that you crap ten inches away from where you eat. I know this is not really how you want to live, and I can offer you better. How does 3,700 feet of living space sound to you for less than a quarter of what you’re paying in rent right now? Ha, no, not in Indianapolis. Even with the lingering radioactivity there, you won’t find real estate prices this low per square foot. I’m talking right here, downtown Chicagoland. And best of all, you won’t even have to move. I assure you I’m most definitely not on frazz, so you can put down the blaster, and I’ll give you a brief demonstration. I’m sure by now you’ve heard about all of the military applications of mecrydium, like using parallel realities for risk-free nuclear testing. Our company, Unparalleled Realty, is the first company to make commercial use of the product. Simply place a thin sheet of mecrydium foil on the wall you wish to expand through, choose from one of the twelve approved parallel residencies, and push through here and here, and if you’ll just bear with me while I make sure I get ninety-degree angles everywhere. Of course, I’m just a salesperson and not an architect by any means, but as you see, you are currently the owner of an extra twelve square feet of space. Yes, I said owner, not renter, not squatter, but certified 342 NICKY DRAYDEN owner. Yours to keep, free of charge. That’s just an example of our unparalleled service. Relax, your neighbor is definitely not going to kill you. I knocked on that thug’s door right before yours, so I hear where this fear is coming from. This new space doesn’t infringe in any way upon his living area, so step on in! It exists on an entirely different plane, if you will, an alternate universe. And if you sign up today, we’re offering a promotion, double your square footage for just an extra dollar a month! Ah, I knew you were a smart one. Yes, you could in fact sublet the space, become a landlord, or a slumlord for that matter. I won’t judge. Just sign here, and here. Initial here. There is one small stipulation…you can decorate and paint all you’d like, but under no circumstances are you to attempt to breach the foil barrier. It seems that the chosen parallel realities do host life...not human life, mind you...but we wouldn’t want any critters crossing over, if you hear what I’m saying. Oh, don’t worry about that. I assure you, they’re lesser species...descendants of the Neanderthals, or something similar. They surely won’t mind losing a few square feet here and there, and if they do, what are they going to do about it, right? Excellent! Well, we’ll run the credit application and you should hear back by the end of the week if your financing is approved. In the meantime, I’ll schedule you an appointment with our in-house designers so you can get a better idea of all of the possibilities that await you! TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 343
Errrr...no, that’s definitely not a part of my demonstration. It appears someone is opening a rift into our dimension. Yes, that does somewhat resemble the tip of a warhead coming through. What’s it say there on the side? “The Confederate States of America”...oh, dear. I suggest that we vacate the premises, post haste.
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UNNATURAL FAMILY PLANNING BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published in Daily Science Fiction, 2014
First of all, I want to thank you for allowing me into such an intimate moment of your lives. The sensual act of creating life is a delicate dance, and it is important that you stay in sync as a couple, every moment, every breath until the final moment of ecstasy that will change both of your lives forever. Don’t worry, I am here to aid you in this miraculous journey, where I will choreograph your every move and answer any and every question you could possibly have. No need to be shy or bashful, I am the resident Sexpert here, after all, going on fifteen years. I promise you, no matter how embarrassing the question, I’ve heard it before. TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 345
Why don’t you two get comfortable while I set up my equipment? Yes, well, unfortunately, it is required that I stay for the duration of the session. How else are you going to know what to plug where? There’s quite a bit of baby- making apparati, but once you two get going, you won’t even realize it’s in the room. Or me for that matter. Okay, almost ready. Heh, hard to believe that life begins with just one tiny little, itty bitty, teensy weensy prick. Oh, sir! Sorry if I have offended you. Maybe that was a poor choice of words. I’m really not sure why you chose to disrobe in the first place. I certainly didn’t instruct you to! What I meant is that I need each of you to place your thumbs here so I can get a genetic sample. Just a drop of blood from each of you, and then I’ll bring up a virtual representation of your top-of-the-line artificial womb, where you will have 24-hour access to see your fetus grow. You can be there virtually for every kick, hiccup, and yawn. It’s fully interactive. You can press this button to hum to your little one, this button to sing, and this lever setup allows you to rub the womb. And with this mic-- The cost? How can you put a price on connecting with your unborn child? Well, I do believe there are payment plans available. Not quite sure how that works. Honestly, it’s not often that someone of your financial status wins the Procreation Lottery. No, I’m definitely not saying that it’s rigged. Classism? Um, maybe we should just skip along to the next step… One cell, two cells, four, and eight...okay, let’s speed 346 NICKY DRAYDEN things up a bit. Handsome little embryo. Let’s see. We’re definitely going to want it to have your nose. And of course it will have your eyes. And it looks like we’re going to have to dig a little deeper in your genome for a suitable jawline... Yes, I know looks aren’t everything, but we automatically screen out all genetic diseases, and maximize intelligence, athleticism, and artistry...all within the limitations of your own genetic code of course. And trust me, there’s a lot of wiggle room in your genes. My last appointment managed to pull a 6 foot 7 female out of their code, and neither of them was a hair over 5’3. Overcompensating, if you ask me! But the options are endless. Vestigial tail? Not so vestigial anymore! Fur, opposable toes. Gills are a popular choice these days...gentrifying the flooded towns along the coast, and all. What do you mean, you’d be more comfortable leaving it to chance? Well, I suppose I could send your sequences through a random generator. Just a sec...okay, now for the moment of ecstasy! I want you to take a deep breath, and together press this button to implant the cell mass into your artificial womb. I’m not understanding your question. What do you mean “the old fashioned way”, like with test tubes and petri dishes such? You want to put what where? No, that can’t be right. Yes, I really AM a Sexpert, and in my fifteen years here, I have never heard of something so...so completely and utterly unnatural!
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INVESTMENT STRATEGIES IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2014
If you’re like most us, you saw your investment portfolio tank with Greying Crisis of 2039. If you were lucky enough to notice the signs of an impending stock market collapse, maybe you got out early, but the failing of the banks in the subsequent years probably wiped out most of your net worth. And let’s face it, even if you had the foresight to predict that the infection rate would be far worse than anyone could have imagined and you hoarded all of your money under your mattress--the dollar bill has definitely seen better days. However, even in the midst of this global pandemic we’ve found ourselves in, in the long TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 349 term, it still pays to be a savvy investor. I’m talking commodities. In particular, brains. What’s the thing that the living and the undead have in common? You've got it--the demand for brains. We want to keep ours, and they want to eat ours, and these days, the supply is low enough that both sides are willing to pay out the nose (or what’s left of them) to get what they want. Relax. Even I have more scruples than to deal in Black Market frontal lobes. The opportunity I have here is 100% legal...at least under the abridged Constitution of the Uninfected. Now, I’m not about to go around and share this information with just anyone, and if someone from the fractured mess we used to call a government asks, you didn’t hear this from me. There’s a small company here in New New York, looking for investors willing to put money into a serum that would give the undead the advantage of increased speed and intelligence. Whoa! Hear me out. You’ve got to look at the bigger picture. Yes, they outnumber us two-to-one now, but therein lies the beauty of all this. We can’t go into the future, short-sighted, ignoring all those millions, billions of potential taxpayers, workers, hell, maybe even someday, neighbors. Give one of the infected a speed and intelligence boost, and it’ll be perfectly adept at changing tires, working at a drive-thru, or serving in Congress. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s a slight, and I mean slight, chance that the undead will refuse to be domesticated and instead use 350 NICKY DRAYDEN these new-found abilities to rise up with lofty ambitions of finishing us off, but you know what they say, if there’s money in building a better mousetrap, there’s also money in training a smarter mouse. See, I told you this plan was beautiful. For some of you, I know there’s that burning question you’ve been too embarrassed to ask, so I’ll go ahead and put it out there...But what if I’m already infected? How do I plan for the future and protect my undead family when all I can think about is brains? Well, there’s a brand new product on the market called Whole Unlife Insurance, provided by the Unified Grid Services. No physicals required. All that’s needed is a commitment from you to show up to one of seventeen Undead Labor Retreats across the country where we will utilize your super-human strength and unrelenting work-ethic to help power our electric grid for a term of thirty short years, after which you and your loved ones will be granted amnesty and a small brain stipend (a pig/monkey/human mix consisting of no less than 10% genuine human brains) and be free to lumber across the face of the Earth without fear of persecution. Please report soon, though, as that little nuclear incident in Europe is affecting our solar energy collection more than we had anticipated, and this winter promises to be a very, very cold one.
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PLANNING FOR YOUR RE- RETIREMENT BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2014
I bet you thought you’d be enjoying your golden years--traipsing through the lush forests of Belize, admiring the Venus de Milo with your own two eyes, enjoying a game of low-grav shuffleboard on Proxima Colony--all those things you were too busy working your tail off to enjoy. Yes, your retirement is right around the corner, and fortunately you’ve put yourself in quite the position...fully funded retirement accounts, paid-for house, luxury car purchased in cash, financial freedom. Unfortunately, it seems the Universe has dealt you a cruel hand. Please, don’t sit up. The nurses know I’m here. They’re the ones who TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 353 told me about you. They know my type: no visitors, no flowers, no balloons. A nice get well card from your stockbroker. See, you’re the perfect candidate for a last-ditch procedure, a failsafe if you will. A chance to extend your life and enjoy the wealth you’ve accumulated over the years. I’m talking about a new body, one that won’t betray you when you need it the most. A body with a lean physique, maybe a decade or two younger than the sack you’re carrying around now, but not so young that your colleagues will suspect more than a very talented plastic surgeon. The “C” word! Of course, not. Human cloning is illegal. All we are doing is making a backup copy of your brain and storing it in a flesh-based container that may happen to share certain physical traits with you. You’re entitled to a backup copy of your memories and thoughts, are you not? There’s been a legal precedent set in the matter, just like you’re allowed to make a backup of copyrighted media. All you have to do is apply for a copyright on the contents of your mind and sign this waiver indemnifying us from any legal issues that might occur... Like what kind of issues? Well, for one, if this flesh- based container happens to “escape” from our “storage facility,” and happens to strategically involve itself in various aspects of your life, well, we can’t rightly be held responsible for that, now can we? Yes, I didn’t think so. Unfortunately, our backup process is quite 354 NICKY DRAYDEN expensive, but many folks have been able to successfully take a loan from their 401ks to fund the process, or have taken out a home equity line of credit, or sold their cars and other valuable assets. Most often, all of the above. But think of your golden years, spent doing the things you’d always thought there was time to do... What’s that worth to you? Of course, this likely means you will need to work for several more decades to pay the loans off. You’re in no shape for that right now, but I sense a “miraculous recovery” in your near future, do I not? Perfect. I’ll get a nurse in here to do a blood draw and get started on the process. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m afraid I’m already late for my other job, and I can’t afford to lose that one. The commissions here are excellent, but I’ve got bills to pay, debts to work off, and nothing but years of health in front of me. You know, if I’m lucky and stick to a modest budget, I’ll be able to retire for a second time when I’m a hundred and twenty-three, and this time, I swear I’ll get the chance to enjoy it.
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EARTH'S DESTRUCTION, A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN BY NICKY DRAYDEN First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2014
Project: Earth’s Destruction Share via: Facebook | Twitter | Embed
Backers: 34,453 Pledged: $652,323,765 Days to Go: 27
$1000 minimum pledge
Goal: 85 Billion US Dollars (Approx. 54.4 million Gragzoikian Dollars) 356 NICKY DRAYDEN
This project will only be funded if at least $85,000,000,000 is pledged by Wednesday Nov 20, 11:51am EST.
Greetings puny Earthlings! I am creating this crowdfunding project on behalf of Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag. His suckerflesh is prickling in anticipation of leveling your cities and boiling your seas. It will be glorious, I can assure you! However, the journey from our planet has taken us many, many years, and along the course we have encountered several financial setbacks, and now we are experiencing a bit of a monetary shortfall. Taking over your planet will be much more expensive than we anticipated, but we can assure you that world domination can proceed smoothly if this project receives proper funding. So please give to Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag’s campaign! If you are one of those who has squandered all of your money, sucked in by consumerism, hoping that your purchases will bring meaning to your insignificant lives--there is no hope for you. But if you are one who has saved and invested for your future, now is the time to cash out and reap the following rewards that the Great Tentacled One will bestow upon you for your generosity!
Rewards: TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 357
$1000 Pledge: A thank you note from Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag Himself, tattooed on your forehead using His very own ink. $5000 Pledge: A thank you note from Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag, plus a guarantee that your life will be spared in the initial attack. $25,000 Pledge: All of the above, plus a t-shirt with “I survived the initial Gragzoikian attack and all I got was this t-shirt and an anal probe” printed on the front. 100% American cotton. Sizes XL and XXL only. (Sorry!) $50,000 Pledge: All of the above, plus a limited edition DVD of video footage of the attack, directed by Wes Anderson and scored by Hans Zimmer. (Limited: 45,034 out of 50,000 left) $100,000 Pledge: A trip to the Gragzoikian mothership and dinner with Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag. (All travel expenses to be paid by you.) $1 Million Pledge: The above trip and dinner, with a guarantee that you will not be the main course. $5 Million Pledge: Watch the invasion live and from the comfort of your own pod aboard the Gragzoikian mothership. Adult beverages will be served. Tentacle massages will be available at a small hourly rate. 358 NICKY DRAYDEN
Stretch Goals:
If we raise $150 Billion, we will be able to forgo our original “Scorched Earth” plan in favor of a more environmentally sensitive, species-targeted invasion, that will have no long-term effects on the Earth (with the exception of human eradication, of course). We will also be able to offer four hours of bonus DVD footage, including “The Making of Earth’s Destruction” and an extensive blooper reel.
Risks and Challenges:
Our Benevolent Overlord Gragrag has never led an actual planet-wide invasion Himself, but as an Overlord-in- Training, He assisted in three successful on-site takeovers and several via long-range death ray. He is well aware of the immense coordinated effort that goes into a project of this scope and the expected and unexpected expenses involved, but is hopeful that Earth’s Destruction will prove to be a spectacular success, as He is truly passionate about this project and loves the work He does.
Please donate today!
TWISTED BEYOND RECOGNITION 359
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