The Grey Stride

By Rei Rosenquist

Gull wants one thing in life. To feel alive.

But in this district, the sun never shines. Buildings clutter out the sky. Dirt clings to everything. Life hides in the cracks. Gull doesn't know, but suspects. If only there were a way to peek in between.

Even briefly.

"Take Tranquility," Fox the trusted colleague advises.

Once you go Tranq- you never go back.

A single bar in all the district sells it. Specific behaviors are necessary to buy it. Gull agrees to everything. In a single shot, everything come apart.

The cracks reveal a truth Gull has been missing all along.

Can Gull survive the aftermath?

Rei Rosenquist writes the Broken Circle stories from a dark place, holding a black hope close to a faintly beating heart. These stories bring you a gritty speculative future so hollow it will leave you hunting, squinting, begging for light.

A short story in approximately 7500 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tangled Sky Press
• Release date: Jan 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386969853

Rei Rosenquist

Rei Rosenquist first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a nomadic story-teller’s life. Over the years, they have traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. But, some things never change. For them, these are stories, food service, and traveling. These three passions have bloomed from hobbies, studies, and jobs into a way of life. These days, Rei can be found in between Tokyo, Kailua, and Bellingham, Washington pouring beautiful latte art, baking off a batch of famous savory scones, and cozying up with a laptop to obsessively write mountains of dark speculative fiction. You can find Rei’s stories and blog at reirosenquist.com. You can also reach them via email at [e-mail] or connect via Facebook (Rei Rosenquist), Twitter (rylrosenquist) and Instagram (rylrosenquist).

Book preview

The Grey Stride

The Grey Stride

A Broken Circle Short Story

Rei Rosenquist

Tangled Sky Press

Contents

The Grey Stride

Also by Rei Rosenquist

About the Author

The Grey Stride

A row of little globe-shaped bottles littered the top of the bar where dirty glasses and spent-up drug paraphernalia collected like dust and spider webs. There were no more spider webs. They'd all been wiped out with massive chemical warfare.

Now, it was all robotics—fully animated, fully autonomous, self replicating robotics. Free Technologies produced the first batch years before the revolution. Back then, nobody believed it would work. Now, everyone occasionally dusted away uncollected rusty bits of broken down machinery.

These devices all went by the old insect names, but in reality, form fit function every time. A flight-capable pollinator appeared nothing like a colorful, imaginative butterfly, though it fulfilled the job three-fold.

Not a single robot ever knew the previous profundity of a metamorphosis. It was what it was, and eventually, it was obsolete.

Ash and Cinder's bar was not a place where bits of insectoid robotics collected. It was the kind of place where shit-faced citizens, sewage, and sex workers collected. It was lit by candles covered in thin gauze lampshades. Here, if anywhere, was the old stench of human and death.

Ash and Cinder prized themselves on this. Neither of them bothered to clean a single table, wipe a single counter, or dust off a single shelf. As customers came and went, things were shifted around, used up, replaced. The place was at least organic, if not clean. That's why people came to The Grey Stride. An organic experience.

Cinder, long stringy burnt-brown hair and steel-grey eyes, looked up at the door as it opened. A single short man walked through. He looked like just that, a man. He looked rumpled, though dressed in a full suit. Wrinkled tan vest, thin blue tie, stained brown faux-suede shoes. A partially collapsed bowler cap covered up a head of presumably tangled, possibly unwashed hair.

Cinder squinted eyelids that were going old before their time.

You got drinks here? came a biting low voice from the man.

Cinder bobbed a thick