092317

Time Ain't So Simple

I've heard that time is the simplest thing, but I'm here to tell you that it ain't so. F'rinstance. Back in my trans-temporal youth, which is to say origination-1, I was lusting after this fine young lady I'd met at Rusty's late one night. Well, little did I know she done already caught somethin' nasty from another fellow looked a lot like me, who'd slid in on a trans-7 or trans-8 timeline, but she didn't know it. Well, there I am, pants down around my ankles and fixin' to you know what in the back of my Chevy, when here comes my own trans-temporal self, acting like a fool and telling me to keep it zipped if I knew what was good for me. Well, the origination-1 self didn't know what the heck was goin' on, and he figgered he was having the DTs from all that Jack Daniels he'd consumed over to Rusty's place. Which did save me from the fate that would have overtook me if I'd continued where I was headed. Anyway, some time later I'm shacked up with another sweet young thing (trans-2) in a motel room in Biloxi, and here comes my ex, wielding a sawed off shotgun.

"But honey!" I yelled, trying to disentangle myself from the young lady with whom I was associated, "You was sposed to be gone all week!"

"I sure was, you philandering jerk, but I come back (trans-5) and told myself to get my tail over here and see if I didn't need to blow your pecker clean off to keep you pokin' it where it don't belong," she retorted.

Well, I don't think that's any way for one lady to talk in front of another, even if one of 'em aint' wearin' nought but a raggedy ole t-shirt, and so I slammed my hand down on the button of my time machine, which I always keep handy for times like this. Now, I gotta find my ex's trans-5 and sweet-talk her into layin' off informing her trans-4 about my little indiscretion in the motel room, and probably that means a few drinks and a nice meal overlookin' the Gulf, and still get back to the motel bar and pick up that hot young thing before some other time-travelin' dude makes off with her.

Oh, I'm here to tell ya, time is not near so simple as it was in my pa's day.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

With apologies to Clifford Simak.

092217

Stitches

I couldn’t see. I felt around my eyes. My lids were sewn shut! I screamed, but no sound came out. My lips were sewn shut too. I started to run, hands out in front to ward off obstacles. It was night, I felt sure, because no tiniest bit of light came through my lids, and it was silent. I stopped and felt my ears. They were folded forward and sewn shut too. I hugged myself. I’d have wet my pants but for two things: I was naked and I couldn’t pee. What’s happening to me?! I screamed silently and ran again. I struck something and flew backward. I felt wooden planks beneath me. There was no knot on my forehead—there was a crack. But no blood. I huddled on the floor, blind, deaf, mute, and naked. A sudden suspicion made me feel my nose. Sewn shut, just like my other orifices. Dreading what I would find, I felt again. I now knew why I couldn’t pee. Misery overcame me and I bowed my head.

I started violently when a hand firmly grasped my shoulder. A small pair of scissors cut the thread binding my right ear. I could feel lips there, and I could hear breathing. A woman whispered:

“It’s alright, I will free you.” She snipped the thread binding my left ear and my eyes. She was a dusky young woman dressed in a black body suit. I touched my lips, my nose. She smiled and shook her head. Then she whispered again. I listened for a long time, shrinking from the sibilance of those antediluvian words. I shouldn’t have understood them, for she spoke the language of the dead, which is the second oldest language. She told me what I must do. If I succeeded, then she would free me.

I strangled the judge. When it was over, I left the message she had dictated, and returned to the tumble-down warehouse where she’d found me. She cut the threads from my lips and I told her how it went.

“Free me,” I begged. She smiled and I knew fear again. “You promised!”

“I will,” she said, and spoke again the language of death. I collapsed like a masterless puppet. I could not move. She went away then—I heard her footsteps. I endured a kind of living death for such a long time. Weeks? Months?

A long time later some men came and wrapped me in a bag. They picked me up, threw me in the back of a pickup truck, and drove for at least half an hour. Later, they threw me down in a hole and shoveled dirt on top of me. I think they have buried me alive.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

092117

Still contagious?

Roxane drew Steve's attention to them. She leaned on her hands. "Put down the paper."

His eyes were conveyed by her low-cut top to the tanned shapes within. "Very nice," he thought, as always, and then noticed a large freckle that seemed to be sliding towards her cleavage.

"What the hell is that, Dr. Stevens?" she demanded.

He took of his glasses and leaned forward for a closer look. It appeared to be some kind of crude drawing of a monster, complete with green scales.

"A new tattoo?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Later, she admitted that she should not have slugged him, but maintained that it was his fault they'd lost track of the migrating blot.

Close examination of Roxane's epidermis (and Steve's) turned up nothing unexpected, but two days later a herd (pack?) of the creatures were observed gliding all over the kitchen cabinets.

Roxane ushered Joey and his friends outside ("Cool cabinets, Ms. Stevens!") and set about dealing with the infestation. A fly swatter had no perceptible effect, nor did pesticide spray. Paint remover repelled the vermin, but the cabinets just didn't look the same afterwards. After about an hour they were just … gone.

"As if they turned and went into the cabinets," she told Steve that night, "but they weren't inside at all."

Steve decided that the next step was to photograph the "Space Invaders." The next morning he came rushing in from the bathroom. "The sink! They're on the sink!" Steve grabbed the camera and dashed back out of the room. He took one photo of the sink and the invaders were gone. Disappointed, he downloaded the lone image to his computer and sent it to a few colleagues.

In retrospect, he admitted that he should not have used the digital camera.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

091917

Proceedings of the 19^th Galactic Congress/page 1209/Late Archaic Dwellings

Inner Cluster Archeological Aggregate

In this contribution we describe a series of villages (clusters of 3 to 16 dwellings) in the Inc Valley of southern Loomisia. These dwellings have been dated at 1.54 billion years before Congruence (bybc) (+/- 0.065 bybc) using neutrino-trace decay and at 1.44 +/- 0.10 bybc using the comparative muon method. Beta Signoris III (BS3) has been occupied by at least two races that reached the Village cultural level. The villages of the Inc Valley were constructed by the extinct Lopher people, apparently unrelated to the Chtrbэg, who colonized BS3 in 12,967 ybc. Biomarkers from material collected in village 14C (map layer 11) indicates that the inhabitants were part of the third Remul Inflorescence. The dwellings are typically 1.8 to 2.4 meters high at the center, domical, with a single entrance hole generally facing the valley center. Inside, one large room was subdivided into 3 to 4 cubicals. One cubical was reserved for bartering, one for reproduction/food consumption, and others for purposes connected to art (or weather prediction). The outer surfaces of the dun-colored domes bear traces of diverse natural pigments visible primarily in the near-infrared. This is consistent with previous interpretations of thermal murals observed in caves NE of the Inc Valley, which were previously inferred to be products of Chtrbэg of the northern strain. New neutrino-trace dates of the cave murals (p. 1766 of this volume) indicate they are too old to have been painted by the Chtrbэg. 692,236 samples of pigment residue were mapped in one village of 16 dwellings. Response-cycle analysis (diurnal and seasonal) generated a reflectance map covering the period of one year (translated to the visual spectrum on map layer 12). The resultant image stream, viewed as video, depicts construction of an object resembling the 4.2-km high "Face" on BS2. There is no evidence that the Lopher ever existed on BS2. Further research is needed.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

091717

I'll Return It

Dr. Steve Robertson hunted around in the litter on the lab bench. "It has to be here somewhere," he muttered. The Transworld Express lacked only one thing, and he had just had it in his hand. The BD junction was off-the-shelf technology, but the stores were closed. He would have to wait until Monday morning unless -- there it was. No. Yes! He screwed it in, tossed the sonic screwdriver (left by a rather peculiar visitor) on the bench, and punched the *start* button (scavenged antique labtech).

The laboratory hummed and an eerie blue glow emanated from the tubing that circumscribed the TWE chamber. Inside the chamber the black plastic floor had been replaced by industrial tiles. Steve tossed a drafting weight into the chamber and it landed on the tile. A camera mounted on top of the weight sent video imagery to his laptop as it panned 360°. When it faced the door it showed his lab. The rest of the time... it showed his lab. Damn! When he saw the tile he was sure... wait a minute. That's my lab, but where is the gravity neutralizer? And what is that gray thing in the corner? Oh my God. There's the x-ray mapper I lost last month, lying on the counter. He dashed into the chamber and into the other lab, grabbed the mapper and stuffed it into his pocket, then dashed back into his own lab, snatching up the weight and camera on the way. He slammed the stop button and the field died. Plastic flooring reappeared inside the TWE chamber.

Success! The thing actually worked. They'd have to respect him now at the Academy. It was perfect , , . although it seemed a little rough on the transition, and the frequency matching circuits might need adjustment. Now where was that sonic screwdriver? He had just had it a minute ago. But these things seemed to have a habit of disappearing. In fact, stuff sometimes seemed to walk off as soon as his back was turned. And it was getting worse.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

091617

Heaven's Back Door

Something moved on the stone bridge. Considering what one had to go through to get there, any traffic was remarkable. It made duty in the pass boring but easy. Coton wrapped the statuette in a rag and stowed it with his stone-cutting tools in the hut.

The warrior was armed with a sword. She stopped about 20 feet from the bridge's terminus. "I seek to enter Heaven!"

"Sorry," Coton replied. "This passage is barred. Unless you have a Token?"

She trotted forward and drew a dagger with her right hand. Answer enough. Her movements betrayed no augmentation, so he did not draw his sword. She thrust for his throat; he caught the blade between his palms and twisted it out of her hand. The dagger was moving toward his belly. He kicked her wrist, followed with a punch to her stomach, and another kick to the forehead. She lay on her back on the bridge, stunned. The dagger was still falling; it would be minutes yet before it hit anything. Coton sequestered her sword and sat down to wait.

After a while she stirred and rolled to her feet, groaning.

"Heaven doesn't guard the door with amateurs," Coton started to say, but the words wouldn't come. She had palmed something, perhaps an amulet, and it emitted a spell that robbed him of the power of movement.

She grinned weakly and brushed blond hair out of her eyes. "No offense, but I really must go through," she said. "I need to retrieve someone who doesn't belong there. I will spare you as you spared me." As she passed between the onyx pillars that flanked the entrance, the gargoyle atop the southern pillar leaped into the air and flapped swiftly out of sight towards the fortress at the inner end of the trail. The other fell upon the woman, mouth wide open. Coton couldn't see what happened next, but she re-entered his field of view moments later, bleeding profusely from gouges in her right arm. "I didn't count on it being this difficult just to get in," she panted, ripping strips from his shirt to bind her wound. Then she was gone. He heard a clink as she retrieved her sword from his room.

"Good luck," he wanted to say, but the spell was just wearing off, and it came out "gag loog." She might make it if she started being careful.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis

091517

displacement

Charlie bent down and caught a dollar that was tumbling along the sidewalk. When he picked it up he saw that it was actually a fragment of a note, written on green paper in a precise hand. The note read:

…in certain worlds nearly all details are identical. The surest way to ascertain the degree of modification is to visit your own self…

Charlie tossed the scrap in a nearby trash can; it was time to head back to work.

* * *

Charlie had the oddest feeling. It was like déjà vu in reverse: a feeling of unfamiliarity in a familiar setting. Bridget was not behind the counter. Instead, there was a teenage boy he did not know.

“Can I help you?” the youth asked, as Charlie made to pass through the employees-only door beside the register.

Charlie stared at him blankly. “I work here.”

The clerk stepped in front of the employees’ door. “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he said, folding his arms.

Charlie thought for a moment he had actually walked into the wrong store. “Look, where’s Bridget?” he asked.

Now the boy looked confused. “Bridget? The only other person here is the owner, and her name is not Bridget. If you want to buy a book, this is the right place. Otherwise….”

Charlie turned away and hurried outside. When he got onto the sidewalk he looked back at the window. It read “Books Again,” just as it always had. He saw the clerk staring at him.

* * *

He stumbled down the street. Everything looked the same, but how often had he really looked at these buildings? “Snak Shop.” Everything was starting to look unfamiliar, but were they really different? He stopped at a paper box and looked at the headlines. “China warns against Taiwan arms sales.” “United pilots threaten walkout.” “Mississippi River crests above flood stage.” None of those seemed surprising, but he hadn’t really been paying much attention to the news.

* * *

With a little practice an experienced world-hopper can learn to recognize the newly displaced. The challenge is to find these people before they run afoul of the law or disappear into the homeless populations of the urban centers.
--Lore Sændзrsun, “Hændbouk fur Niw Wзrldz,” transl. G. Schmidt

* * *

It was getting dark and he was hungry. The park bench was cold. Was his money any good? He’d found a penny on the ground near the duck pond and he couldn’t see anything wrong with it, so that suggested he’d be able to spend his cash. However, he only had about 2 bucks in his pocket, and he doubted that his credit cards were going to be valid here. What had that fragment of writing said? He snapped his fingers and jumped to his feet. Look yourself up! He ran to a pay phone and dragged out the phone book, flipping through it with trembling fingers. Charlie Heaton, Charlie Heaton; he chanted his name silently as if he might forget it. He clamped his lips shut and ran a shaky finger down the page, then back up again. He wasn’t there. He just wasn’t there. He squeezed his eyes shut and made a fist. After a minute he wandered back to the bench. Could he get a job without an I.D? “I’m an illegal immigrant,” he realized, staring blindly out across the park. “I need to look for the kind of job they can get.”

A shadow fell across him. A young woman stood with her hands in her pockets. She wore a navy windbreaker and the wind whipped her dirty blonde hair in her face. Her eyes were a very pale brown flecked with gold. She smiled and stuck out her hand. “New in town?”

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

091417

A winning hand

Adele stopped at the receptionist's desk. "I'm applying for the transcription job," she said, shifting her case from right hand to left, left to right.

"Through there," the girl said, pointing to Adele's left. Adele opened the door and went in. The door closed behind her with a soft snick. Something was wrong with the carpet. Thousands of tiny mouths, all wearing her color of lipstick rose up on fleshy pink stalks. She screamed and tried to run, but several of the stalks twined around her left leg and she fell. The mouths opened, hovered above her, and then descended. Within moments she was hidden from view.  Her eyes, ears, and mouth were covered. She could not get up.

Charles stopped at the receptionist's desk. "Any calls?" She shook her head and continued painting her nails. "No one in the mouth room?"

"Not really," she said.

"I'll be in the cellar then." A medieval wine cellar had been reconstructed below the parking garage, God knows why. It was a good place to goof off, because everybody else down there was doing the same thing. And there were some quite nice vintages too.

The receptionist opened the door of the mouth room and slipped inside. The girl was moving a bit under the mouths but no longer making any sound. The receptionist whistled a series of notes and the mouths retracted, disappearing under the carpet.

Adele stared blankly at the woman standing above her, eyes like owls. "Find him," the woman said. Adele rose and left the room without a word.

Charles put down the bottle and stared at the nude woman approaching him from the back of the cellar. The light was not bright in here, but it looked like she had hickies all over her body. That seemed promising. "Want some wine?" She didn't speak, but knelt down beside him and took his head in her hands. The mouths emerged from her body when he closed his eyes..

The elderly man put down his magazine and looked uneasily around the waiting room. He thought he heard screams from some lower floor. The receptionist paid no notice to the sounds, if in fact they were real sounds at all.

The receptionist cleared her throat. "Sir? You can go in now." She pointed at a wooden door to her right. She felt thirsty.

Adele let the empty husk drop. It shattered on the stone floor. She picked up the wine bottle and drank from the mouth. She heard footsteps coming down the stair.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007