Doorways

By Douglas Smith

Aurora Award Finalist

 

Dr. Lucius Rainer, head of research at GenTech, is dead. But to Jack, it seems that his old mentor still lives on through his house. Certainly, Rainer's strange island retreat exudes the personality of its late owner: isolated and eccentric, brooding and uninviting. But when GenTech learns that the house holds a working model of Rainer's final project, Jack discovers that the house shares one other trait with its former owner.

 

Dangerous.

 

The house will open only to Jack's biometrics, and will only allow two very specific people to accompany him: Wendy, Jack's now ex-wife, and Deak Sanderson, Wendy's new lover and Jack's former rival at GenTech. As the three of them explore the house and its secrets, Jack discovers that some doors—in this house and in life—should never be opened.

 

Science Fiction, contemporary (novelette)

 

"A couple months ago I was introduced to Douglas Smith by way of his collected short stories, Impossibilia. So I was looking forward to his story 'Doorways' and was not disappointed. ... This story has a cunningly satisfying conclusion. I find a good short story falls into two categories: There is the complete story, the novel miniaturised, which is a nearly perfect art form. These are hard to capture but constantly illustrated by such writers as Douglas Smith." —SF Crowsnest Book Reviews

"…is based on an interesting concept … The puzzles [in the story] and the final invention that they hint at are intriguing … Smith ties [the story's] denouement's metaphorical significance in well with the technological concept at the center of the plot." —The Fix

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Smith
• Release date: Jun 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780991800797

Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.

Book preview

Doorways

by Douglas Smith

Aurora Award Finalist

The House promised Jack wealth, fame, and revenge...if it didn’t kill him first.

~~

Dr. Lucius Rainer, head of research at GenTech, is dead. But to Jack, it seems that his old mentor still lives on through his house. Certainly, Rainer’s strange island retreat exudes the personality of its late owner: isolated and eccentric, brooding and uninviting. But when GenTech learns that the house holds a working model of Rainer’s final project, Jack discovers that the house shares one other trait with its former owner.

Dangerous.

The house will open only to Jack’s biometrics, and will only allow two very specific people to accompany him: Wendy, Jack’s now ex-wife, and Deak Sanderson, Wendy’s new lover and Jack’s former rival at GenTech. As the three of them explore the house and its secrets, Jack discovers that some doors—in this house and in life—should never be opened.

~~

"A couple months ago I was introduced to Douglas Smith by way of his collected short stories, Impossibilia. So I was looking forward to his story ‘Doorways’ and was not disappointed. ... This story has a cunningly satisfying conclusion. I find a good short story falls into two categories: There is the complete story, the novel miniaturised, which is a nearly perfect art form. These are hard to capture but constantly illustrated by such writers as Douglas Smith."

—SF Crowsnest Book Reviews

…is based on an interesting concept … The puzzles [in the story] and the final invention that they hint at are intriguing … Smith ties [the story’s] denouement’s metaphorical significance in well with the technological concept at the center of the plot.

—The Fix

Table of Contents

DESCRIPTION

DOORWAYS

ABOUT THE STORY

A REQUEST

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY DOUGLAS SMITH

THE HOLLOW BOYS

THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD

CHIMERASCOPE

COPYRIGHT

DOORWAYS

"I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exit."

—John Webster, Duchess of Malfi

ON AN ISLAND,

lies a house.

In the house, lies a box.

In the box, lies another house.

A smaller house, of course, but one that mirrors exactly—quite exactly—the larger structure.

In that smaller house, three mice, two males and one female, scurry along a hallway, following the scent of food. They stop before a doorway, a duplicate of the front entrance in the larger house.

The older male, their leader, sniffs at the opening. He knows the House and its rules. He must—to survive. The other two wait. They depend on him, on his decisions.

He backs away. Something is different, something is wrong.

The game has changed.

~~

THOUGH RAINER WAS

dead, it seemed to Jack that the old man still lived on through his house. Even from a half mile out on the lake and in the early morning sun, the strange island retreat exuded the personality of its late owner: isolated and eccentric, brooding and uninviting.

Jack huddled lower in the back of the fishing boat he’d chartered, while its captain bounced it over the waves towards the island. The boat stank of fish and gasoline, reminding Jack of last summer’s disastrous camping trip with Wendy, an attempt to save his marriage by giving them time together away from the rest of the world.

But in the end, Wendy had preferred the rest of the world. Or at least a part of the world without Jack in it.

Jack pulled the collar of his faded denim jacket up against the wind and spray and bitter memories, and stared at the house perched atop the island’s cliff. The building was a rambling amalgam of