Engines of Creation

By Louis Shalako

Short stories that pack a punch, including science fiction, fantasy, satire, humour, and a strangely uplifting mild horror. A collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louis Shalako
• Release date: Sep 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9780992102661

Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author of twenty-two novels, numerous novellas and other short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.

Book preview

Engines of Creation

Louis Shalako

This Smashwords edition copyright Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Cover Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-0-9921026-6-1

The Parting first appeared in Breath and Shadow. Leap of Faith first appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction Magazine under the title Love and Death at 300,000 Metres. The story Grey Poupon first appeared in Antipodean Science Fiction Magazine. Hydra originally appeared in Bewildering Stories.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral right has been asserted.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Man Who Was Born Yesterday

Monday mornings could be bad enough at the Driver’s License Bureau, but Friday afternoons were the worst. Even so, after a long week her feet didn’t hurt too bad and she would get through it.

Mondays was when the dealers came in to register sales made over the weekend, but they were all pros and came prepared. Fridays were different. Everyone showed up on Friday afternoon.

The place could be a ghost town at certain times on other weekdays, all for the most random reasons.

In addition to all the normal traffic, for renewal was due on a driver’s birthday, there were the procrastinators and the ones who thought their sticker was good until the end of their birthday month. They might have been pulled over and warned. It was the last long weekend of summer, and Monday was a holiday. The reasons were as variable as the people themselves.

There were eight kiosks in the busy center, each with its correspondingly line, occasionally this afternoon stretching back to the door and curling back along the rear wall, and bunching up when the herd intuitively sensed someone was about done.

Alicia Reese cleared the present client, a nice young man of seventeen, with a genuine smile. She handed him all the requisite papers.

Signed, sealed, and delivered. He would be walking on air out that door.

You’re good to go, sir! Drive safely.

The young man, wearing a work shirt and greasy jeans, nodded and grinned in tired fashion. It was four-thirteen p.m. So far, here in the air-conditioning, she had been immune to it, but he looked bushwhacked.

Thank you. Have a nice weekend.

She nodded and pressed the button.

A bell rang and a light flashed.

Next.

A slender man dressed in a limp grey suit approached. The suit may have once been fashionably cut, but it hung on him, fine in the shoulders but appearing a little too big overall, especially around the waist. She had the impression the belt was three notches too tight, the way the waist of the trousers was all bunched up.

Hello.

He seemed nice enough, and she only had another forty-five minutes to go.

How may I help you, sir?

I would like a driver’s license.

Okay, sir. Do you have a valid driver’s test? The gentleman didn’t have any papers.

They were usually shoving them across the desk, and this guy had a kind of bewildered look about him.

Ah…

Beginner’s permit?

He shook his head, looking confused.

Um, okay, sir. She went to the sloping display behind her and selected several pamphlets.

She brought them back to the counter.

Okay, here’s the driver’s guide, you have to know all this stuff to pass the test. She thought he was about thirty.

A lot of males got their license or at least the beginner’s at age sixteen, it was a familiar rite of passage.

There were sheltered types and the ones who took busses and cabs, she supposed.

This one is a sample test. This one is an application form. You’ll have to fill all that out. She opened the next one. You study the rules of the road.

He looked at the papers, and up at her again. After three years in the job, and more importantly, in her little house in the Aspen Meadow development, her patience knew few boundaries these days. She really was a people-person, and you really did meet all kinds in this job.

Could you help me, please? He looked like a little lost boy, wide of eye and so innocent.

He was kind of cute like that, and she was in between prospects in terms of her personal life. How the heck did illiterates get licenses? Someone must help them, she thought. The other lines were moving, she saw in her peripheral vision.

Okay, sir, you put your name here, and your full address, your date of birth, stuff like that. Don’t forget the zip code. It’s all very simple. Then you take it to the office down the hall, that’s off to your left. They’ll give you an appointment for a beginner’s test, and if you pass, they’ll let you have a beginner’s license. She gave him a brilliant smile. See?

That’s not so bad, her body language implied.

Um, um.

She sighed, resisting the urge to look at the clock or her watch. There were still nine folks at least behind the gentleman.

Look, what don’t you understand? She picked up a blue Bic pen and held it poised over the application form.

Perhaps if she got it started for him…

She looked up pleasantly.

Name?

Fred.

Repressing another sigh, she wrote it in the box.

Middle initial?

B.

She put it in the appropriate box. In the background, the incessant murmur, the shuffling of feet and papers, the low voices of the staff, went on unabated. But her own little world was reduced to just this. Two wickets off to the left, a bell rang and a light flashed. That was her friend Hermione.

Next!

Last name?

Jones.

Okay. Now, what’s your date of birth?

The tip of the pen hit the paper in the correct box.

I was born August thirtieth, twenty-eighteen.

She got almost halfway through it before she caught on. She snickered as she looked into his eyes appreciatively.

So you’re saying you were born yesterday, Mister Jones? She smiled into his boyish features.

This could be fun.

He nodded brightly.

That’s right. I was just born yesterday. He swallowed convulsively. Basically, I just want to drive a car.

I…sir. She thought he was serious, she was pretty sure he was. I think I’m going to have to call my supervisor.

Yes, they were creating people now. She took another look at those worried brown eyes, seemingly unable to meet her own. Her pulse quickened at the sheer novelty of it, and she tried not to gape or stare. Of course he had no idea…she bit her lip in a moment of sheer poignant empathy.

She’d never had one of these people before, and yet the state being what it was, she was sure there must be some viable procedure for this eventuality. There usually was, if only you knew who to ask or where to look in the handbook.

***

Mr. Jones was serious.

She waited patiently, examining the man before her in a neutral, courteous fashion that she hoped conveyed the proper dignity and respect. This was a minor matter and she was sure it could be worked out. The door at the end clattered open against the wall-stop and the tapping of Marissa’s heels came down the polished terrazzo towards them.

Here she is now, sir.

He tried to look confident and relaxed, but she saw that he wasn’t. He had a little too much white around the outside edges of his eyes, and when he pulled his hands off the black plastic counter he left little sweat marks which disappeared almost as soon as she saw them.

Good afternoon, sir. Hi, Alicia. What’s up?

Thank you, Mrs. Doucette. Mr. Jones would like a driver’s license, or I think a beginner’s permit. Unfortunately, he was born yesterday—and it’s going to mush the computer, I just know it. Alicia didn’t get to finish.

Marissa’s head snapped around to Mr. Jones, taking him in up and down. Swiveling the upper half of her body, she looked at Alicia and her eyes glittered. Her face was frozen in a mask of indifference.

She took two short steps to the counter, and put her hands on it. Marissa leaned forward and grabbed the partially filled-out forms. She looked up in malice and hissed at him.

We don’t serve your kind here.

His face white with shock, he stared at Marissa and Alicia, who was just as shocked as Mr. Jones.

But, but— But Alicia had just read something the other day, about an artificial person.

They had a car, and a house, and a job in some big corporation doing business overseas.

That will be enough.

Further protest died instantly at the look in Marissa’s eyes. Alicia coughed slightly, hands neatly folded in front of her.

Yes, Marissa. Thank you.

Mr. Jones’ face was enough to make her guts quiver. He just seemed so vulnerable, and now this.

Please, ma’am, I— Fred thought it would be good to have a driver’s license.

Maybe he could get a job or something.

Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Otherwise I will call security and have you charged with trespassing.

The dull murmur picked up in tone and fidelity, as the sound came in rather more clearly now as Mr. Jones backed up initially, and then turned and blundered through the crowd and into the vestibule. The sunlight swept across the room as he exited and then everything returned to normal allowing for one or two surprised faces looking this way.

There was a long silence.

I thought it was legal.

Not as long as I’m here.

Alicia swallowed.

Are there any more questions, Alicia? It was hard to look upon that face, and yet she must. Otherwise, I’ll be in my office.

No, ma’am. As soon as Marissa had stalked away with the papers still in her hand, Alicia stepped back in to her work area.

She hit the button. A bell rang and a light flashed.

Next!

An elderly couple shuffled forward, replete with the necessary forms, all perfectly filled out, and with the woman clutching a special case, no doubt for the reading glasses.

Well, don’t that beat all. I’ve never seen anything like that before. The man was agog.

He turned to his wife and shouted at the side of her head.

An artificial person! Don’t that beat all.

She put her hand to her ear.

Eh? Her voice was hardly much quieter. Eh? I can’t hear you. My hearing aid’s dead.

Her skeletal hand fluttered around in the air beside her head, all covered in liver spots.

Alicia smiled, relieved the unpleasantness was over and glad to be of assistance. She took the proffered papers, opening them up and smoothing them out on the countertop.

"Good afternoon. And how may I help you folks