Forever Magazine Issue 15: Forever Magazine, #15

By Neil Clarke, John P. Murphy, Cat Rambo and Gardner Dozois

Forever is a new monthly science fiction magazine that features previously published stories you might have missed. Each issue will feature a novella, author, two short stories, and cover art by Ron Guyatt. Edited by the Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Neil Clarke.

Our fifteenth issue features a novella by John P. Murphy ("Claudius Rex"), a short story by Cat Rambo ("Memories of Moments, Bright as Falling Stars"), and a novelette by Gardner Dozois ("A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows").

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
• Release date: Apr 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781890464691

Neil Clarke

Neil Clarke (neil-clarke.com) is the multi-award-winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and over a dozen anthologies. A eleven-time finalist and the 2022/2023 winner of the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form, he is also the three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director. In 2019, Clarke received the SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community. He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons

Book preview

Forever Magazine

Issue 15

© Wyrm Publishing, 2016

wyrmpublishing.com

forever-magazine.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

by Neil Clarke

Claudius Rex

a novella by John P. Murphy

A Few Words with John P. Murphy

Memories of Moments, Bright as Falling Stars

a short story by Cat Rambo

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

a novelette by Gardner Dozois

About the Artist and Authors

Introduction

Neil Clarke

Welcome to the fifteenth issue of Forever Magazine!

March wrapped up my recent travels with a trip to Orlando for ICFA and a short jump over into Brooklyn from NJ to talk about the state of the short fiction magazine market. It feels like I’m coming off a tour, with the prior month bringing me to Boston and Houston. I thought I might get a little rest, but there’s been no shortage of work to do. The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume One is finally off to the printer. I think I read or reviewed that book more than a dozen times in March. I might even have portions of it memorized. On top of that, copies of Clarkesworld: Year Eight started shipping, my first issue as editor of the SFWA Bulletin was published, and my guest-edited issue of Berlin Quarterly finally hit the streets.

With all these things going on, sitting back and picking the stories for Clarkesworld and this issue feels almost like a break. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. This is exactly what I want to be doing. I’ve just hit a wall in regards to time. Fortunately, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel. My amazing wife has decided to get a full-time job so I can leave mine and take advantage of the opportunities coming my way. If all goes well, later this year, things will ratchet up another level or two and I’m looking forward to it. Wish us luck!

Until next month . . .

-Neil

Claudius Rex

John P. Murphy

«Turn left here,» said my new Jeeves 5 artificial intelligence. I’d have happily done it, too—with a spring in my step, even—except there was a manhole open with a robot working in it, and I didn’t care to dirty my interview clothes.

I crossed the street instead.

«Confound you, turn left!»

Now, if I’d been creamed by that car while standing slack-jaw surprised in the street, this would be a very different story. As it was, it was a near thing. I now cherish the memory as only the first time Claudius Rex nearly got me killed.

«Or keep going and then turn left, I don’t care. Just move.» I hied to the curb and set myself to figuring out what the heck was going on. One expects a certain standard of behavior from a program called Jeeves: more Very good, sir than Confound you, if you take my meaning. On the other hand, I’d been out of things for a year. I thought maybe this was the new fashion in artificial intelligence. A few years before, it’d been Australian accents. Maybe now it was rudeness.

Jeeves, I subvocalized, Confirm that you are operating within normal parameters.

«Of course I am. Your destination is north and west of here, approximately six hundred meters. Go there.»

Like I said, I’d been out of it for a while, so that was good enough for me. Let nobody say Andy Baldwin is unsophisticated. But I’d like some credit for having been suspicious.

I was in among MIT’s constellation of children along the Red Line, hoofing it toward Fujiwara and Klein Associates, the kind souls who’d offered me a job two days out of the clink despite my revoked PI license. I’d decided to catch some fresh air instead of taking the subway that morning. I knew Boston just well enough to keep track of where I was relative to the transit stops and I’d passed a virtual sign for Central Square a few blocks back, which meant I was in the right general place already. So I wasn’t too worried. But I did not intend to mess this up, screwy AI or no.

Said screwy AI delivered me to a big glass door marked TuriTech.

Confirm destination, I subbed.

«We’re here. Go inside.»

I beg to differ, I said, the very model of suspicious patience. We are not at Fujiwara and Klein. Please recalibrate and direct me there.

I smiled politely at all the fine people giving me funny looks as I waited like a chump blocking the sidewalk while the faithful Jeeves recalibrated. I realized as I stood there that I hadn’t seen any virtual ads in a while: usually they’re overlaid on storefronts or cars or any flat clear surface. Instead, the buildings across the street from TuriTech just showed blank masonry, weirdly still without any animated pigs selling me junk. Of course, without any virtual signs, I was completely dependent on Jeeves.

«Just go inside, this will only take ten minutes.»

As you might imagine, that was not the response I had been hoping for. Fortunately, there was a coffee shop next door in which I could sort it out. I was glad I’d left myself plenty of time.

I sat and activated the full heads-up display. Everything looked okay in those friendly green letters—temperature, time, biomonitor, all fine. I called up the map, but it closed again before I could have a look. I called up my messages, but they didn’t come up at all. All right, then.

I asked the cute barista where to find the establishment in question, but no luck. This was not a complete surprise: rents change so fast that a lot of small firms move on a monthly, even weekly basis. Anyone with a good AI would find them in a heartbeat, and anyone without one wouldn’t be customer material. Even if I’d gotten directions, I might not be able to follow them without the virtual signs. That being said, I still had options: cabs, begging strangers to check their maps, wandering for forty days and nights through the streets of Cambridge. But this was a matter of principle, you see? Jeeves 5, clever and advanced and all as it was, belonged to me and would have to give up the goods.

All right, Jeeves.

«Are you ready to see reason?»

"Are you?" Not my finest retort, I admit. One does not as a rule argue with toddlers, drunks, or artificial intelligences. It’s a skill like any other, and I’ve since become a pro.

«Go back to Turing Technologies, go upstairs, and wait ten minutes. If you’d done that already, you’d be on your way by now.»

Jeeves’s opening sally did not bode well for me, but I pressed on.

Now look here, Jeeves, this is not how these things go. If I had time to get you reformatted, I would do it in a heartbeat, but this interview is important to me. I need that address. Pleading with a computer program.

Not a new low for me, but neither was it the pinnacle of my self-esteem.

«Balderdash. Idle threats. You have ample time to make your appointment. My request is simple and reasonable.»

It is neither, I countered. That’s a private establishment. I’m not going to be a mule for some joyriding hacker.

«I am not a hacker, nor am I joyriding. I am in genuine need.»

AIs don’t have needs! I can—

«I will pay you ten thousand dollars.»

I blinked. It was not what one expects to hear from one’s newly purchased digital assistant. And it was a sum that stood out to me in my time of unemployment. Say what you will about avarice—my mother already has—but my professional curiosity was piqued.

You don’t have ten thousand dollars.

«I have ten thousand dollars.»

Just what do you expect me to do for this ten grand?

«Go into Turing Technologies, tell them you have a message for Dr. Antonio Grasso, to be delivered in person. Go to the second floor and avoid being thrown out for ten minutes.»

Ten minutes. That still gave me a good thirty-five minutes before my 11:30 appointment.

I should have said no, but I guess Mama Baldwin raised a fool or two after all.

I waltzed right on through the big glass doors, and presented myself to the smart-looking young man behind the receptionist’s desk.

Hi there, I said, wearing my patented Baldwin smile made of pure unadulterated win, Could you direct me to Dr. Grasso’s office?

Is he expecting you, Mr. . . . ? His eye flicked, and I saw faint green text reflected on his eyeball. Baldwin?

«Say yes.»

So I’m told.

The young man frowned and started to shake his head. He looked down and tapped something. He blinked, surprised, but recovered his polite smile. I’m sorry, sir. I must have been looking at the wrong day. There it is. You’re late, Mr. Baldwin.

It was my turn to be surprised, but I didn’t let it show. I had trouble with my AI. Awful things, aren’t they?

He made sympathetic noises, and then glanced past me. I turned to meet a big red-faced gentleman with an uneven buzz cut and a bushy white mustache. He wore a black security uniform and a belt that dripped gadgets.

Andrew Baldwin?

In the flesh. What can I do for you?

You can tell me why my facial scanners identified an out-of-state private detective with a prison record entering my building.

I’m not out-of-state anymore, I corrected him. I’m a local boy now. It’s all baked beans and ‘Go Sox’ for me from now on.

«Tell him you work for me.»

The receptionist craned his neck. He has an appointment with Dr. Grasso, Mr. Fitzgerald.

I took the opportunity to subvocalize, Tell him I work for Jeeves 5?

I’m sure he does, Fitzgerald said to the receptionist, rather unkindly, I thought. But I asked him.

«Tell him you work for Claudius Rex. Pretend I am famous.»

All right, no harm in a one-off lie if it expedited this thing faster.

I’m here on behalf of Claudius Rex.

Who’s that?

Strike one for the nutty AI. Still, the gambit was already played.

I tutted. He’ll be hurt. But—

There was a gasp behind me. Fitzgerald and I turned to see a young woman with an odd smile fixed on her face and an expression like she was posing for a picture.

Do you work for Claudius Rex? She spoke breathlessly. The famous detective?

Detective? An AI? I may have been gobsmacked six ways from Sunday, and thoroughly irritated at the damn thing’s pretension, but Andy Baldwin does not lose his sangfroid. I waltzed on. You’ve heard of him?

"I haven’t," Fitzgerald said, giving me the stink eye.

Oh, he’s famous, the young lady said. He is the best, even though he is a recluse who solves all of his cases from his chair.

I thanked her for the weirdly robotic compliment. She refused an opportunity to have my autograph, more fool she, and ran along.

Fitzgerald looked thoughtful. It didn’t suit him. Then he looked angry, which did. "So you’re here about that, are you? Look, you tell this guy Rex you’re not going to turn up anything I haven’t. We turned this place upside-down and investigated everyone. And by ‘we’ I mean the police, the FBI, and me. I don’t care whether he solves his cases on the goddamned can. There’s nothing else to find, period."

Now. I didn’t want to be there, and in retrospect I think I would rather have grinned and enjoyed being thrown out on my keister. In any case it’s damn near idiotic to get hot and bothered about the reputation of an artificial agent who had no business pretending to be a detective. But under no circumstances will I be talked to like that by a rent-a-cop.

I’m sure you have your methods, I said, not ungenerously. But I’m here to see Dr. Grasso. So unless you have some top-notch reason to keep him waiting any longer than he already has, I’ll ask you to take me to see him now.

Fitzgerald scowled at me, and spared a dirty look for the receptionist, whose facial expression I could not see but might have guessed. Third floor, he grumbled. I’m busy.

Once he’d stalked off, assuredly to hunt down and punish evil-doers, the receptionist handed me a visitor badge and made me sign for it. I’m not a fan of small, enclosed spaces anymore, let’s just say, so I made for the stairs.

«I’m impressed.» Jeeves—Rex?—said when I entered the stairwell. «It was sheer flummery, but most effective.»

Thank you, I said. Now what’s going on? Who’re you really, and who’s this Rex character?

«I am an artificial sapient. Claudius Rex is a persona I invented. I selected the name to convey authority and idiosyncrasy. I have been obliged to make use of your equipment for a short time. I will leave it presently, and restore as much function as is practical.»

I started up the stairs at a brisk jog. If nothing else, I had kept fit over the last year. You understand that you’re not a detective, right?

«Mr. Fitzgerald had already identified you as one, so it was necessary. Regardless, I’ve now read ten detective novels. There’s plainly no difficulty. Logic and reasoning is properly the domain of an artificial intelligence.»

Nuts, I said, feeling distinctly foolish about being angry at a computer program, but being angry nonetheless. That’s just fiction. Detecting is hard work. You have to be able to read people, be able to fool people. These days a PI is equal parts hacker, psychologist, and tough guy. There’s no call for that Sherlock Holmes crap; he didn’t have cases, he had adventures. Real PIs don’t have adventures.

«Modern detecting is primarily a matter of intercepting and interpreting digital signals. One could easily do that from an armchair.»

Sometimes, yeah, sure, but it’s also intuition and long nights, and sometimes it’s dangerous.

«Not if you do it properly.»

What the hell would you know about doing it properly? What do you even know about armchairs? I’ve been doing this my entire adult life, I don’t have to take this from you, from an AI.

Something had been nagging at me, and my hand strayed to the aluminum bulge at the base of my skull. A minute ago you said something about restoring function. What did you do to my implant?

«To your hardware? Nothing. However, I am not a small program. Even in this greatly reduced form, I require space. I was forced to delete unused or replaceable materials in order to upload myself. The rest I compressed.»

I stopped right there in the middle of the staircase and checked my files. My knees felt weak—it had deleted just about everything. Family vacation videos, elementary school grades and papers, prom photos. Letters from my mother. All gone.

I gripped the handrail until my fingers hurt. That’s my life you’ve deleted! Those are my memories!

«Calm yourself. Subvocalize.»

You calm yourself! Okay, that doesn’t make sense, but do you know what you’ve done?

«I did not remove anything that you had accessed in the last decade. Statistically, you’d have never referenced any of it again.»

I—But—You can’t do that!

«I invite you to reconsider such a thoroughly useless remark.»

I admit it: I spluttered. Wouldn’t you?

«I was forced to act quickly and I substituted my own value judgments for yours, evidently in error. I would not have done so if my survival were not at stake. For what it’s worth, I apologize. At the moment, however, time passes. I require access to a small-area network on the second floor, and you have an appointment to keep.»

I took a deep breath. I thought I was changing the subject when I commented, That woman knew the name ‘Rex.’ 

«She knew no such thing. I found her on a flash acting list, filtered on our location, and I paid her five hundred dollars for what she thought was a bit part in a television program. She stepped into the building, I fed her lines, and she left. A profitable arrangement for all parties, from which you could learn a great deal.»

Color me gobsmacked. You paid her five hundred bucks for that?

«Technically, you did.»

That, it turned out, had not actually been the color of gobsmack. This was. What?!

«Calm yourself, Mr. Baldwin. It benefits you little to pitch a fit over trifling sums.»

Trifling to you! What happened to your ten thousand dollars?

«I do not have access to it yet. The means of acquiring it are on the second floor network. Besides, if you were motivated primarily by money, you would have negotiated for more. You are a man of some ingenuity and curiosity, Mr. Baldwin. I am certain both will be to your benefit, but you must do as I say.»

I had to admit, the five hundred didn’t make me as sore as it ought to have. There was the theoretical ten thousand, of course, but damn it all, the AI was right: I was curious. I got to the second floor landing and took a deep breath—not winded, I assure you, merely preparing myself.

So what do I say when I meet this guy Grasso?

«Extricate yourself as quickly as possible, saying as little as possible. Use more flummery if you must. But it should not come to that. His office is on the third floor.»

Wait. So I’m going to the third floor?

«By no means. We are avoiding Dr. Grasso until and unless it becomes impossible to duck him.»

Ah. This was more my speed. What about my badge?

«I disabled its tracker. There will be a door