OUTER REACHES CONTENTS
WINTER 2010
DUSK by Taylor Preston ................................................................................................................. 3 Revenge can drive a man to the ends of the Earth, or another planet altogether. GRINDERS by Timothy Miller ...................................................................................................... 9 Don't make the mercenaries angry... you won't like them when they're angry. ARABESQUE by Lawrence Buentello .......................................................................................... 17 Can visions created by solitude actually be glimpses of other realities? CHOOSING DAYS TO DIE by Crystal Lynn Hilbert ............................................................. 25 Be careful how well you get to know your enemy... you may not like what it makes you see in yourself. THE TEMPLE OF THE STARS by Martin Turton ................................................................. 35 If the power is still on in the alien ruins, be careful where you take a nap. HERESY by Mark Mattison ........................................................................................................... 40 The World Church assures you there are no aliens. Tell that to the dead miners on 99942 Apophis. HUNTING FOR SCRAPS by I. E. Lester ................................................................................... 72 Where were you the day of the Cataclysm? Hopefully, not on Earth. FREEDOM IS HUMAN NATURE by Greg M. Hall ................................................................ 75 To win a war in the present, it would help if you could change the past. THE REPORT FROM HANSEN'S PLANET by Jeffery Scott Sims ..................................... 81 Contrary to what some say, what you don't see can hurt you. IN THE ICE MINES OF GLIESE by Mike Sweeney .............................................................. 89 If it's alive, it's hungry... watch where you dig. THE TICK-TOCK MAN by Bill Ward ....................................................................................... 99 He's programmed for one task... someone is going to die. THE CRYSTAL BLIGHT by Alva J. Roberts ......................................................................... 107 A flame-haired, female pirate and a space battle... 'nuff said. Front Cover by M. D. Jackson, illustrating a scene from "Grinders" This publication copyright 2009 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC and individually copyrighted by artists and individuals who have contributed to this issue. All stories in this magazine are fiction. Names, characters and places are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Outer Reaches is published quarterly by Black Matrix Publishing LLC, 1252 Redwood Ave. #52, Grants Pass, OR 97527. Our Web site: www.blackmatrixpub.com Other magazines available from Black Matrix: Encounters Magazine, Night Chills and Realms.
Welcome to the first issue of OUTER REACHES. We hope you enjoy the wide selection of science fiction we have collected for this issue. You'll find plenty of action and adventure set in our highest frontier. As with our other publications, you will notice a lack of outside advertisers and page after page of reviews, interviews and essays. We like to give you as much of your favorite fiction as we can, not just a bunch of people talking about it. We were looking at another magazine the other day (one that is now out of business), and noticed that the first story didn't begin until page 41. The total page count was 102, and the last piece of fiction ended on page 76. That tiny little stack of 35 pages in the middle of the magazine contained all the fiction in the entire issue. That will never happen with anything we print. We truly believe it's all about the fiction. That's what you pay for, that's what you should get. Guy Kenyon Editor/Black Matrix Publishing LLC Kim Kenyon Publisher/Black Matrix Publishing LLC
Dusk
by Taylor Preston Revenge can drive a man to the ends of the Earth, or another planet altogether. ___________________________________________________________ The engine coughs. Metal groans and I let up off the gas. I’m not going anywhere. The rear axle is busted. It looks like the crawler is down for good. I turn off the motor, settle in my seat, and watch the vibrant patterns dance against the inky dark through the windshield. A few inches of glass are all that separate me from the circling horrors that have gathered around the dead crawler. I have nowhere to go. Soon the crawler’s tanks will be depleted and I’ll suffocate. I study the broken rebreather, my fingers tracing the shape of hairline cracks webbing the air hose. I toss it in the back and grip the wheel. A crown of brilliant eyes studies me through the glass, the primitive animal brain behind it considering ways to break through this metal cage and get to the meat inside. I stare into the monster’s eyes, transfixed by their devilish glow.
I
remember the look on Allison’s face the last time we fought. She stared at me like I was a complete stranger, and now that I think about it maybe I was. I’d certainly been out of my head for awhile. It was the first time I’d ever seen her scared. She played with the charm on her necklace, rolling the diamond pendant between her delicate fingers, and spoke my name under her breath like a curse. It stung worse than if she’d slapped me across the face. I’d hurt her. It was something I swore I would never do. I died once before, face down in an alley. Rain poured over me as my assailant slid his knife between my ribs. He left me there, blood pooling in my swollen lungs. Some time later I awoke in a clinic with a brand new body, the incident itself only a vague memory. It was like it had happened to someone else and I had just watched it all unfold from a distance. Resurrection, the true eternal life. It’s simple really. First they implant a synaptic-scanning chip in your brain, combining the latest in nanotechnology and quantum computing. The chip makes a copy of your personality, memories, neural patterns – in essence, your “soul”— and remote-downloads them to a supercomputer at your local memory clinic in the event of death. The memories are then transferred to a clone body and you get to start over. It was the best life insurance money could buy. For awhile it was hard to believe I was really alive again. Had I been born a few centuries earlier I wouldn’t have been 5
given a second chance, no matter how wealthy I was. I guess that was the benefit of living today. There were few things that couldn’t be reversed, even death. Years later I found myself on Dusk, a desolate rock on the fringe of colonized space. I was a different person, far away from home. Allison was just a memory. All I had left of her was that diamond pendant, inside which was a faded hologram of us. She was wearing her white dress, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and I was standing behind her with my hand resting on the back of her neck, the love I felt for her reflected in my pale eyes. It had all been so perfect, for a time. I drove for miles through the endless desert, trapped beneath a sky that was forever frozen between night and day, a smear of pink brightening the horizon. Dusk was a barren planet with little surface water and a sparse patchwork of vegetation. The atmosphere was breathable, but just barely. An off-world visitor like me required a rebreather. The air was too thin, and unlike the colonists who lived on this hellhole, I wasn’t biologically adapted for survival in extreme environments. As a habitable world, Dusk was an oddity among oddities. It was tidally locked to its parent star, a dim red dwarf, so one hemisphere was awash in blistering heat while the other was veiled in eternal night. All of the inhabitants lived in the twilight region girdling the planet, where temperatures remained high but tolerable. I brought my crawler into a fueling station near the edge of a thousand-mile long canyon cutting clear across the desert. The station was a clutter of domes and angular stone buildings surrounded by cranes, maintenance bays, and cylindrical storage towers supported by well-lit scaffolding. There were half a dozen other vehicles scattered about the station, most of them six-wheeled crawlers like mine. One was a large transport designed for hauling cargo between the various frontier settlements. I parked by a fuel pump and sat in the cabin. The engine popped and hissed as steam leaked from vents in the undercarriage. Allison’s necklace was on the dash, its diamond catching the light of the big halogen lamps glaring down from a nearby storage tower. I imagined what she would think of me now. I stared
into the mirror set above the windshield. My face was covered in a web of scars, leathery and blistered. The damage to my skin was nothing compared to the anger and pain that burned inside. I picked up the pendant and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I donned my rebreather and opened the cabin door. I left the crawler at one of the pumps with a fueling hose plugged into its socket and made my way toward the station. The startling sound of inhuman cries echoed in the distance, reminding me of the horrors that stalked the desert. It was hot out, as usual. My formfitting bodysuit was webbed with cooling tubes that kept my core temperature within a tolerable range. It had worked well for most of my journey, but I’d started to notice the heat over the last few days. Either the local temperature was spiking, or the suit wasn’t working as advertised. It didn’t really matter. I wasn’t planning on an extended stay. The dark robes I wore over the cooling suit fluttered in the hot desert wind. Dust hissed against my breathing mask as I walked across the scabrous ground and toward a small prefab dome covered in resin-bonded sand. There was an arched stone entryway at the front of the dome, its opening sealed with an energy field that separated the interior atmosphere from that of the surrounding desert. I pushed my way through the field and then through a creaking steel hatch and into the bar. Light and sound assaulted me as I stepped over the hatch coaming and walked along a sandtile floor. Colorful lasers fanned across the room, glittering through clouds of neon vapor that poured from slots in the curving walls. The place was a modest establishment with a fully stocked bar and a collection of small circular tables and stools. There were a couple of patrons seated at the tables, their weathered faces smeared with dirt and grime. They wore desert garb over tattered leather pants, cinched with utility belts from which hung a collection of tools that clattered as they shifted in their seats. Others were at the bar enjoying cold drinks after an honest day’s labor. Garbled music piped through speakers in the ceiling. I unplugged my rebreather, coiling the air hose at my belt. Then I pulled the mask away and stowed it within my robe. The air stunk of sweat and engine grease. The bar was by no means the cleanest of establishments I’d seen on Dusk, but it didn’t have to be. It served only one purpose. Toland was nowhere to be found, but I had no doubt he would be along any time now. He always stopped at this station. It had become part of his 6
weekly route. Tracking him to this planet had been an ordeal, but I still had connections in the Criminal Investigation Service and they had eyes everywhere. Toland was not a criminal mastermind, at least not in his current state. He had once been the head of a powerful organization but was reduced to a paranoid schizophrenic after a bad download at the memory clinic. Frequent resurrection would do that to a person. They said the download was nearly a hundred percent effective, but there was always the odd chance something would go wrong. The more frequently a person resurrected, the greater the possibility of a mishap. I imagined what it must be like to die so many times, only to be reborn again with little consequence. It would give a person a new perspective on everything, knowing that no matter what happened there would always be another chance. It must be an empowering feeling, being practically immortal. I’d only resurrected once, and I probably couldn’t afford it again. Most people couldn’t. I made my way over to the bar, tugging the glove off my right hand. I shook sand from the cracks in the metal prosthesis and flexed titanium fingers that shimmered in the flashing laser light. I’d lost my original hand during an early, violent encounter with Toland. It was the same explosion that had left me with extensive facial scarring and burns that covered half my body. It was my fault, of course. Explosives weren’t my forte. I settled at the bar and waited. When I was a kid I killed a boy. I don’t remember his name anymore. He and his friends used to torment me. I was smaller than they were and was utterly helpless against their abuse. I remember seeing him alone one day on a back street in the slums where I grew up, on a planet whose name I’ve long since forgotten. I ambushed him. Before he ever saw me, I bashed his head in with a rock. I remember standing there, my hands soaked in blood, thinking why did I do that? It was a question that would haunt me for most of my youth. My first life had been plagued by poor decisions, culminating in a fight that left me puking blood in a flooded alley. I’d made a small fortune running drugs and had set aside enough money for a memory backup, just in case. When I resurrected I was given a chance to start over, and I did, for awhile anyway. I tried to outrun my past, joining the Criminal Investigation Service where I would later meet Allison. I had convinced myself I was a different person, that I had grown out of my taste for violence. I remember something Allison said to me the last time we were together. “You can’t escape your past.” I didn’t want to
believe her, yet here I was. In a strange way everything I’d done up until this moment had been for her. Toland finally arrived. He removed his robe and breathing mask and sauntered over to the bar to order a drink before sitting two stools down from me. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He was a short man, lean and muscular, his ginger hair lashed into a ponytail. He sported a mustache and a neatly trimmed goatee. A black tattoo of a hammer and chisel adorned his right bicep. He was dressed in a gray shirt and pants made from glossy nocturnite leather. A flash of memory came to me. I was in a public restroom stall, forcing Toland’s shaved head into the toilet bowl, the tip of my knife wedged between the base of his skull and the top of his spine. Blood stained the water like a grisly Rorschach blot blossoming from the gash in his throat. I cut a wedge from his skull and pried loose his memory chip, crushing it into dust before flushing the remains down the toilet. That was a long time ago, on another planet. He wouldn’t recognize me. Those memories were gone, washed away like so much filth. I studied Toland as he gulped down his beer, my hand moving seemingly under its own direction into the folds of my robe, groping for the weapon hidden there. No. I arrested myself. Not here. There were too many people. I’d come too far to screw it up now. I returned my hand to the bar and stared at the wallscreen showing some net-cast ballgame. Toland shifted on his stool and looked at me, one hand cupping his glass. “Haven’t seen you before,” he said. “You new out here?” I was taken aback. Doubtless he’d noticed my scars. I tended to stick out in a crowd. “Yes,” I said. “Tough run,” he replied. “These deep desert routes can really get to you.” I nodded and extended a hand. “Crawford.” “Toland,” he said. We shook. .I knew his story well. He awoke in a clinic a few months back, his mind a jumble of fractured memories, none of which made any sense. He found his way to the colonies and settled on Dusk, taking a job driving a transport between the desert settlements. He didn’t know who he was or where he’d come from, just that he had a past he couldn’t remember. Under different circumstances I might have been sympathetic. “It just takes some getting used to, I’m sure,” I said. I looked at him, our eyes meeting in an uneasy stare. He didn’t know what I was planning to do, nor 7
did he know what I had already done. I wondered what it must be like for a man to stare into the eyes of his murderer and not see what was coming. Our conversation was short. Toland finished his beer, tipped the bartender, and then made his way to the door. “Long night tonight,” he said as he pressed his breathing mask back into place. He slipped on his robe and stepped through the hatch. I followed. Once we were clear of the dome, Toland continued toward the fuel pumps. His rig was parked beside my crawler, an eighteen-wheeled transport with company logos plastered on its sides. When we reached the pumps I stepped between Toland and the transport. “Something I can do for you?” he said. I seized him by the throat and forced him to his knees. We were between my crawler and his rig, shielded from watchful eyes. I shoved him against the sand like so much dead weight. He moved to get up, but I punched him in the face. His rebreather came loose. Blood spilled from his shattered nose. I considered killing him but decided it would be too messy. We would finish this in the desert. It would be easier to dispose of the body there. Gasping for air, Toland struggled to reattach his mask. I snatched it from him and hit him with the back of my artificial hand, sending him into a dark oblivion. I dragged his body to my crawler, opened the rear door, and shoved him inside. Once he was secure, I closed the door, tugged free the fueling hose, and slipped my credit disk into the pump’s reader. Then I opened the driver’s side door and planted myself in the seat. I started the engine. Thirty miles out, I parked the crawler in an expanse of red desert near the edge of the canyon. I killed the engine and sat in silence, staring at myself in the rear view mirror. I was taking a big risk coming out here. We were a long way off the grid, the nearest road miles behind us. It was dangerous in the deep desert, but I had no choice. I wanted this done discreetly. Toland was a motionless lump in the seat behind me. I felt hot blood surge through my veins, pulsing rhythmically at my temples. I unfastened my rebreather and set it beside me, sucking in the cabin’s cool, recycled air. Then I drew my sidearm, a compact ion pistol, and placed the weapon on the seat beside me. I waited for Toland to regain consciousness.
I
remember the day Allison died, the memory forever burned into my mind. I was standing in the living room of our apartment, watching the news feed. The initial blast had excised a sizeable chunk of the city, vaporizing the memory clinic and everyone in it. She’d left for the clinic that morning with a group of
protestors. I dropped my coffee mug on the carpet, a dark stain spreading around my feet as I stared gapemouthed at the screen, my thoughts a blur. As information scrolled across the screen, I realized I was seeing the aftermath of a bombing. The image would later be replaced by a gaunt man dressed in the priestly robes of the Unified Church, condemning the use of resurrection technology and blaming a corrupt humanity for its own demise. Nothing survived the explosion. Three thousand people died that day, but only one had a place in my thoughts. The previous night’s confrontation replaying in my head, I collapsed on the floor and stared into the screen. A blinding fireball blossomed into existence, repeating again and again as if to torture me. As long as I had known her, Allison refused to get a memory backup. She came from a religious family, not quite Church affiliates but just as fundamental in their beliefs. Resurrection was the plight of a decadent society ruled by rich immortals. She found no comfort in it. We’d fought about it many times. Our last argument grew so heated that I lost my temper, my old self reasserting control. I thought I had changed. I was wrong. I hit her so hard it left an imprint on her cheek as bright as the lipstick she wore. She ripped her necklace off and threw it at me before storming out the door. I didn’t see her till the next morning. She was rallying with a group of protesters. She left and she didn’t come back.
A
fter nearly half an hour, Toland rejoined the world of the living and sat up slowly in the seat, his hand pressed against his head. He mumbled something incomprehensible and looked around. He saw my disfigured face in the mirror, and memory came flooding back. He scrambled for the door, but it was locked. I raised the ion pistol to show him I meant business. “What the hell do you want from me?” he asked, fear rising in his voice. “You want money? I don’t have any, okay? A few credits, that’s it. Nothin’ else.” He fumbled for his credit disk, and I shook my head. “I don’t care about money.” I opened the door, and air rushed from the cabin. I secured my rebreather. “You should do the same if you don’t want to suffocate.” Toland picked up his mask, which I’d left on the seat beside him, and pressed it to his face. It attached with a muffled sucking sound. I opened his door, and he collapsed on the ground. Then he struggled to his feet. “Nowhere to run,” I said. “We’re too far out. You 8
can try if you want, but I’ll still catch you.” Toland glanced around and realized I was telling the truth. The desert stretched in every direction, the station’s lights shining against the bruised sky. “It looks closer than it is.” “Who are you?” he said, stumbling away from the crawler. “What do you want?” “That’s not important.” I disengaged the pistol’s safety. “You’re the last one, Toland. Then it’s finally over.” “Last one…what are you talking about?” “You don’t remember much of your old life,” I said. “They probably told you there was a mistake with the download, that your memories would eventually come back to you, but they haven’t.” Anger burned through me as I tightened my grip on the ion pistol and began to walk slowly toward him. Toland wiped sweat from his eyes. “I don’t understand. How do you know this?” “How doesn’t really matter. What matters is who you are and, more importantly, what you’ve done. You were a wealthy man once, virtually immortal. Now this pathetic body is all you have left, the last in a very long line.” “Can’t we talk about this?” Toland raised his hands defensively. “There’s not much to discuss, I’m afraid. You had everything—money, power, influence, but you threw it all away when you decided to sell yourself out to the Church. You had a price, Toland, and it was the blood of three thousand innocent people that paid it.” “You mean the bombing,” Toland said, realization awakened within him. “But I didn’t have anything to do with that. I wasn’t there. How can you blame me for something I didn’t do?” “You are responsible, Toland. Before the resurrection you were a different man. Everything that you were, it’s still in there somewhere, rattling around in your brain. The pieces haven’t fallen into place yet, but eventually they will. How can I let you go, knowing what you’ve done and the damage that you’ve caused? How could I live with myself when I had the chance to end it all?” “You said I was the last. What happened to the others?” “I killed them, of course.” Toland’s eyes betrayed a growing fear. “But how?” “It took awhile, and you weren’t the first I’d come after, just the last in an extensive list of those involved. I started with the Church and tracked down the man who ordered the attack. He died quickly and with far more mercy than he deserved. I was still an amateur back then. I eventually traced everything
back to you, a wealthy criminal specializing in illegal weaponry, which you supplied to the terrorists for a modest fee. I hope the money was worth it, Toland. Someone I loved very dearly died in that attack, and now you’re going to pay for it.” I raised the ion pistol. A glowing reticle appeared in my field of vision, transposed over my eyes. “No, you can’t—!” Toland was cut off by a shrill cry, softened slightly by distance. Frantically, he looked around. “Shit! Do you know what that is?” I nodded, watching Toland back slowly away from me. He wouldn’t run. Another cry cut through the darkness, this time closer than the last. I steeled myself and focused all my attention on Toland. “With the Church it was easy. They don’t believe in resurrection, so once you kill them, they’re dead for good. You, on the other hand, you were a piece of work. Fortunately you’re the last, a backup in case all the others met their untimely deaths.” “They’re coming,” Toland gasped. “They’ll kill us both.” The alien cries filled the air around us. They had a slightly metallic sound, like steel buckling under a tremendous weight. I glanced toward the source of the cries, and while my guard was down, Toland launched himself at me. I lost my grip on the pistol, and it clattered on the ground somewhere behind us. Together we collapsed. I shoved Toland off and was about to shout something, but the words evaporated in my mouth. A group of eyes floated in the darkness. They glowed like embers. The creatures moved as silently as the dark itself, their bodies sleek and black and nearly invisible as they glided toward us. Silver teeth flashed in the night, and I felt my heart sink in my chest. They began to circle. As they moved, markings on their hides shimmered electric-blue. They were beautiful and strangely hypnotic in the way something deadly is also alluring. I couldn’t look away from them. Nocturnites. The name set fear coiling in my gut. They were the deadliest predators on Dusk, a native life form that somehow managed to survive the planet’s ecomodification, breeding stronger and more numerous than before. Powered by six muscular legs and equipped with infrared vision, they were welladapted to both extremes of the planet’s environment. They were perfect hunters, nature’s most cunning and intelligent creation. Toland scrabbled for the ion weapon. I threw myself on him and pulled free his air hose. Oxygen hissed from the severed pipe. I locked the crook of my arm around his throat and squeezed. Toland thrashed 9
and kicked, boots scraping up dust in a cloud around us. He ripped my breathing mask away and landed a blow on my jaw. I felt two of my teeth crunch inward, and hot blood began to well up in my mouth. The nocturnites held back, watching us duke it out over a weapon that would probably be useless. In our struggle I swallowed my teeth. I spat blood and began searching for my rebreather. I wouldn’t last long out here without air. As I pressed the mask to my face, gulping in precious oxygen, Toland recovered the ion pistol and aimed it at me. He rested on one elbow, air seeping from the canister at his belt in a ghostly plume. The pistol discharged, and I dodged a blast that struck the ground with a hissing blue flash. I rolled on my side and began crawling on my belly toward the vehicle. The nocturnites attacked. Toland fired, but the weapon did little to deter them. As I reached the crawler, my breathing grew labored. I could hear air leaking from cracks in the hose. My head swam, and I knew I didn’t have long before oxygen starvation would lead to loss of consciousness. I pulled myself up and moved to open the door. Before I could get a decent grip on the handle, something struck me from the dark. Hard, daggerlike claws sank into my back, piercing the rubbery material of my cooling suit and ripping into me. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have the breath for it. I fell in a lazy spiral, colliding with the hard ground, the creature’s weight bearing down on me. Toland choked and gasped as two of the nocturnites jumped him. I couldn’t see much from my position, but I heard harsh screams and the crackling discharge of the ion pistol. One of the creatures let out a cry and toppled over, oily smoke billowing from its charred face. The other bit Toland in the shoulder. He beat it with the pistol, his hits doing little to discourage the monster. “Help me!” he shouted, his voice raw. I rolled onto my back, blood staining the ground beneath me. The nocturnite lowered its long, sharklike head, its mouth parts folding open, revealing rows of gleaming teeth. Hot saliva spattered my face, and fetid breath assaulted me. With what little strength I had left, I ripped the air hose from my breathing mask and shot a stream of pure oxygen into the monster’s face. It leapt back, shaking its head in confusion. I forced myself up, the world spinning around me in a whirlwind of sensation. I fumbled with the door, tugging the handle with trembling hands. Toland continued to shout for help. I stopped for a moment and considered turning back. I didn’t. The door swung out with a sigh. I struggled into the crawler and shut
the door just as the nocturnite recovered. It leapt against the crawler, claws splayed on the window. Hairline cracks spread from the points of impact. The cabin began to repressurize, and I tore the mask away, sucking in fresh oxygen. I collapsed against the seat. I saw Toland wriggle free of the monster’s grasp and scrabble toward the vehicle, kicking up dust in his wake. He slammed into the crawler and began to beat his fists against the hood. I could see him mouth the words “please.” I turned on the crawler’s headlamps, and Toland was pulled away by a swiftly moving shadow. Our eyes met across the void, and for an instant I almost felt sorry for him. In the beams’ glare, I watched him die. I cranked the engine, pressed my foot on the gas, and the tires shrieked. The nocturnites pounced, slashing into rubber and chewing through metal as easily as if it were flesh. I spun the crawler in a widening circle, hitting a dip in the sand. The crawler canted sideways, dust jetting out from over-spun tires. I slammed my fists against the wheel and shouted in frustration. “Move, goddamn it!” It didn’t. I stomped on the gas, but nothing happened. Defeated, I fell against the seat, and the engine gave a gentle sigh of relief. Steam poured from the undercarriage. A warning message flashed on the windshield display. The damage was extensive. It
seemed I was trapped here, far from any hope of rescue. The fueling station glimmered on the horizon, just out of reach, its faint lights mocking me from an untraversable distance. I sat in the cabin, staring into the darkness around me. Something flickered against the windshield, and it wasn’t long before I realized it was on my side of the glass. I reached for Allison’s pendant and cupped it in my hands. It glowed faintly, the brightest source of light in the crawler. It’s been hours since the crash. I think maybe the creatures are gone, but then I notice dark shapes moving stealthily in the distance. They’ve been known to linger for days, their patience only surpassed by their ferocity. The air’s getting thin. I can feel death looming, its presence a black pressure building steadily around me. I grip the pendant. The cabin is washed in its warm light. The hologram flickers within, a fragment of what once was. It’s the only memory worth holding on to, the only thing worth saving. I watch us turn slowly, trapped forever in a cage of diamond, our dance a perpetual movement of light. The lights in the dash fail, and the crawler’s battery dies without a fight. The dark is allencompassing, held at bay by the dim glow of the pendant. I cradle Allison in my hands, wishing things could have been different.
In the Fall issue of ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE look for... The smells of dust and paper and old ink in my office were suddenly overlain with a thick bloom of lavender. My mind and body threw up every red flag the old proximity-sensors could bark into muster. Laurie McKenzie stood there in my office, again. Her hair, which must have been waist-length, was bound in double French braids just like before. This time, she was wearing a green Nehru jacket with a high stiff collar. Laurie’s witchy green eyes sparkled in the dark. The black, multi-lensed pistol she was pointing at me looked like it could drop a commercial plane. I laid my hands palm down on the desk. “Still mad at me, I see,” I said flatly. “I wasn’t really going to give you to the cops. Is that… Is that a weapon, or…” But I couldn’t hang anything on the ‘or’. It had been a long night. Laurie smiled. One of her front teeth was silver. “It’s multi-purpose. I brought it with me from home. This little baby could dissimilate your tachyons. You’d disappear two weeks ago.”
...excerpt from Stairway To Heaven by Lou Antonelli and Edward Morris Available now from Black Matrix Publishing at www.blackmatrixpub.com and Amazon.com, or ask your local bookseller to order a copy.