The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Volume III

By R N Stephenson

The Anthology that collects short stories across three genres from all over the world. While all authors are paid for their work, the eBook is free, or at a low cost to cover the service offered by Smashwords. If a print book is required then it is available on Create Space and Amazon at cost price plus shipping. This non-profit project was designed by Robert N Stephenson to find new and establish voices in genre and give them an outlet for their work. Please do support this enterprise by sharing and letting others come and download the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R N Stephenson
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370678358

R N Stephenson

R N is a writer who has tired of the perfectionist model of the world and in their own small way attempts to enlighten people with wonderful stories and not so wonderful insights into life. The Pencilled in God is all about who we have become as a people, while all other works are fictions designed to entertain and distract us away from all we have become. Entertainment is paramount, so please, be entertained.

Book preview

Anthology rights © Robert N Stephenson

Copyright individual stories © contributing authors 2018

Copyright cover art © Bob Eggleton

Cover design © Rob Bleckly 2018

Internal design: Mike Jansen

ISBN-13: 978-1981123056

ISBN-10: 1981123059

BISAC: FIC028040

First published in 2018

(the worlds of science fiction fantasy and horror vol. III)

This edition published in 2018 by Altair Australia Pty Ltd

The rights of the collected authors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the copyright amendment (moral rights) act 2000.

This work is copyright. apart from any use as permitted under the copyright act 1968. No part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher and or the authors

Thank you to Alice Stephenson, Mike Jansen and

Rob Bleckly for helping to make all this possible.

The Worlds of Science Fiction,

Fantasy and Horror

Vol. III 2018

Edited by

Robert N Stephenson

Published by

Altair Australia Pty Ltd

Contents

Introduction – Robert N Stephenson

A Feast for the Minotaur - Stephen S. Power

Karel on the Other Side - Joanna Maciejewska

Life in Tatters - Jonathan Shipley

Bringing Down the Mast - Floris M. Kleijne

A Particular Skill Set - Julie Frost

Lubarbri - Jakob Drud

Eshenak’s Omega - Mike Jansen

A Position of Power - Gustavo Bondi

The Murders in the Rue Planitia – Greg L. Norris

Kill the King - Ville Meriläinen

The Black Prince - Liam Hogan

A Taste of Eden - Colleen Anderson

Light in the Dark - Simon Rogers

They Don’t Feed the Garden - James Van Pelt

Down into the Dank - Eric Del Carlo

Even Souls Sleep - Jay Hellis

The Powder - Brad McNaughton

The Acolyte - Ben Julien

Repertoire - Kate Morgan

The Ariadne Singularity - Mike Jansen

Introduction

The world is a changing place of ideas and people, but this year we have seen the terrible nature of a President of the United States in Donald Trump, the hatred of people fleeing war in Australia. Across Europe they face change as people flood across borders because of war. Syria has been bombed from existence and Iraq and Afghanistan are still in ruin after a decade of war. North Korea has developed Nuclear weapons and threatens the world and children starve and die in African nations. This is a year where terrorists have killed people in Paris, Barcelona, London and across the Middle East every week and still the politicians in western countries remove everybody’s rights under the guise of National Security.

The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror almost didn’t happen this year as job loss and the decline in sales of my novels have conspired to bring an end to my one great passion. The world may seem like it has gone to hell in a hat box but the survival of this one, small anthology shows if there is a way hope will shine through. I must thank several writers for assistance, though I will not name them, they will know who they are. In this life good people exist even when the world feels so disastrous; I have been blessed by some very good people. Remember there are more good people than bad, there’s more love than hate, more wonderful stories than bad. This anthology brings you hope from across the globe, a collection made up of many nationalities working together to create a work that sits above the differences and hate.

The works here are very eclectic and will not suit everyone’s taste; this is not by accident but more by design. Some writers are just creating little spots for themselves and there is a rawness in their voices and ideas, while some are well developed and at a stage where what they produce seems to shine a little brighter. I wanted a mix of all voices here, the raw and the established. Patrick Swenson took a chance on me back in the late 1990s. This chance set me on a path to always develop and grow as a writer as well as an editor and publisher, so in a way what I am doing here is carrying that same trust forward and giving others a chance to start and make a mark. Not every story will be a masterpiece of epic proportions, but every work has been created by someone who has a driving passion for writing, reading and the adventures of the imagination. Be a part of the adventure with all its ups and downs, with its roughness and smooth bends. This collection is for you the reader, so you may find your small inspiration to create. Read on and share this work with others,

Robert N Stephenson

January 2018

A Feast for the Minotaur

Stephen S. Power

USA

Walton. Preston. Howe. Sutter retraces their names on the bunkhouse wall with a shard of burnt kindling, then he adds his own below. His lettering is crisp with practice. The plank is smudged beneath each of their names and dozens more above. Sutter has written his name there too over the past year, but after every mission he's gotten to wipe it away. Eventually the others hadn't.

Sutter tosses the kindling into the fire pit. This time he won't return either, but he has to go through the motions for everyone else.

When Sutter was drafted, the mission number was 2: get in and out of the complex twice with a page, and you went home, your service done. Then they raised the number to 5. Then 10. If someone hit the number, they raised it. Now the number's 20, and Sutter's sitting on 19.

Much of the camp doesn’t want him to return. Some of his bunkmates surely feel the same way. They might be the guys patting him on the back right now. Or wishing him luck as they walk him to the door. Or telling him they'll watch his pallet till he gets back. Sutter can't blame them. There's little hope in 20. There's less in 25. They need to know, though, there's an end in sight. Preston's last words to him were, Twenty and out, what Sutter's been telling them all to keep them going. Only Howe hadn't cared either way.

Howe was a 2 when he'd gone, and that had been a small miracle. The kid was odd. He didn't have a death wish. He just didn't believe he would die, however likely that was on a mission.

The night of his first, Howe refused to put his name on the wall. Sutter had to keep Walton and Preston from breaking him like a stone. Howe didn't back down, though. He said he wasn't dead, wouldn't play dead, and whether they wrote his name on the wall after he left didn't matter because if he didn't return that didn't mean he was dead. Unless they found his body--and bodies were never found in the complex because the locals cleaned their plates--then he was both alive and dead, which would make a memorial absurd.

This notion baffled Walton. He resolved to write Howe's name himself. Sutter had taught him his letters; he might as well use them. Howe went after Walton the way a moth attacks a flame. Walton would have rammed the writing shard through Howe's eye had Sutter not dragged the kid outside behind the bunkhouse, straddled him and explained the names.

They weren't about dying, Sutter said. You put your name on the wall for safekeeping, then reclaimed it. Either way, they wouldn't get it. Until Howe had gone on a mission, he should--then Howe kissed him.

Howe's lips might as well have been a truncheon to his temple. Colors swam before Sutter's eyes. His skin vibrated. He ached for breath, sweating, undone. He had spent so long surviving, he had forgotten what it was like to be alive, let alone to love.

Keep that till I reclaim it, Howe said. He pushed Sutter off him like a bag of sand, went inside, and slashed an X on the wall, then marched out to meet the soldiers coming to take him on his mission.

Afterwards Walton and Preston asked Sutter what he'd told the kid. Facts of life, Sutter said, still woozy.

When Howe returned two days later, he washed away his X with piss. Sutter practically cried to see him, remembering the thrill of escaping death instead of simply having staved it off. Nonetheless, Sutter didn't get in the way of the outraged Walton and Preston. The kid had to learn. The bunk had to see him learn. Howe laughed with every punch and kick, looking at Sutter, unquenchable vitality, invincible.

Howe's been gone three days. No one survives that long, which makes it Sutter's turn.

At the door Sutter tells the bunk the route he'll take through the complex: front hall to the steward's rooms, down the back corridor to the kitchen, then through the pantry and the hole in the wall to the corridors above the library. Nods all around. Locals haven't been seen in that section lately, and if their recent losses indicate this has changed, then Sutter could find the pages they would have dropped while failing to get out. The locals don't care about pages. It's a smart, if unsentimental plan, but that's why the bunk admires him.

Don't follow me if I don't return, Sutter says. It'll be too dangerous. A few chuckle. He always says this. They wouldn't believe he does so because he can't reveal his actual route.

A squad pushes through the door. Sutter doesn't fight them. He's a professional. He'll let them march him up the tortuous cliff path to the complex. He won't leap off when the entrance comes into view. He won't need them to draw swords to make him enter. Howe, on the other hand, made the soldiers carry him his second time, then shove him through the door. The third time Sutter watched them whip him out the front gates and presumably up the path. Howe laughed at them too. What could they have done to him, really?

Sutter tried to help Howe the way he had so many others. Every day after Howe's first mission, Sutter drew the kid a map of the complex in the bunkhouse's dirt floor and marked where pages and locals were likely concentrated. This information had been gathered and shared since before Sutter had arrived, and it was revised after each successful mission. Sutter also told Howe how to search. Move fast. Move silently. Stay out of any light. Take no chances. Be a rat. When you find a page, get out by the straightest, most quiet path. Take nothing else. The soldiers would confiscate it anyway along with the page after you emerge.

Howe said he had no idea where he found the page, no idea how he had returned to the entrance and that he'd go where he would and take whatever he wanted. If the locals had a problem with it, then he'd have a problem with them. He was no rat. He didn't cower or skulk.

Sutter tried to explain what the locals were and what they could do to him. Howe waved Sutter off. Sutter cursed him for a fool and said he was done with him. Howe shrugged and went to the mess to complain about the filthy food and poisonous beer. Sutter cursed him again.

Nevertheless, he didn't complain when Howe joined him on his pallet that night. For that Howe let Sutter teach him the letters of his name.

On the windswept plaza outside the entrance, crows peck at the shapeless heaps of those who chose the soldiers' swords instead of the complex. Sutter touches the wooden door, which replaced the exploded original. He goes into his rat mind. He sees the route he'll take. He opens the door, slides in and closes it quickly so the sunlight doesn't act as a beacon. Sutter stands perfectly still. He listens. Smells. Feels.

No sound. No acrid stink. No vibrations in the walls or floor.

His eyes adjust. It's not entirely dark inside. Illuminating gems are embedded in the walls at regular intervals, but they don't reveal much. They more emphasise the shadows. At least their eclipse can give away a local. The corridor to the front hall is clear. Sutter's disappointed. It's too small for a local, so he'd been hoping Howe would be waiting for him there.

Sutter got used to Howe waiting for him around the camp. He couldn't get used to his questions. As little as Howe wanted to hear about the complex, he wanted to hear everything about Sutter. Where was he from? What had he done out there? Did he have family? You didn't ask these things--camp was outside the world--which was why, Sutter suspected, Howe pressed him.

Early in the morning before his second mission, Howe crawled to Sutter's pallet. He whispered, How do you do it?

I've tried to tell you, Sutter said, rolling away.

No, Howe said, you've tried to tell me what you've told the others so that they might return. That's not how you've managed it. That they can never know, can they? What would they think of their hero then? He blew on Sutter's lips. You gave yourself away to me, though.

Sutter rolled back. I don't know--

I'll show you, Howe said. I'll bring you back a present. He crawled away.

Sutter couldn't sleep from that moment on. If Howe had discovered where he went in the complex, he should have been back in a couple of hours. After a day, Sutter was glad Howe must have been wrong. After two, he was ashamed of his glee. After nearly three, he was shaking so hard at the thought of losing Howe that the rest of the bunk thought him ill. Their concern enraged him, and he nearly went after Walton and Preston himself. Sutter was starting to hallucinate from exhaustion when Howe returned. When he showed Sutter what he had, Sutter wished it was imaginary, but, strangely, his secret discovered, he could finally pass out.

He slept so hard he missed Walton writing his name on the wall for the last time. Howe found that hysterical.

Sutter inches toward the front hall. Why the locals don't sit there like dogs at a kennel gate, he can't understand. Maybe they're on eternal patrol, the wizard's last guardians, loyal long after the army invaded the complex and killed their master. Maybe they're trying to get out, having been summoned here when the wizard's library below exploded in self-defence and scattered pages throughout the complex. Maybe they're fighting their turf battles and can't be bothered with the pagers until the pagers bother them. Avoiding them would be far easier if the locals could be understood, but what chance do rats have to understand dogs? Best to avoid them entirely.

Sutter walks slowly to the middle of the room where a runner crosses the hall. His footsteps muffled, he hurries not to the steward's rooms to his right, but to the small stairway ahead to his left.

Shards of wood cover the runner, and he trips over a ragged panel. That wasn't there during his last mission. Did Howe not make it out of the front hall? Where is the local now? Alarmed, Sutter bolts for the stairs.

He winds up to a thin wooden balcony extending from the wall opposite the complex entrance and above the huge door leading out of the front hall. Half the front railing has been torn away or shattered. Sutter flings himself down. He's told everyone in camp never to come up here. It's a deathtrap. There's no safe way down if a local block the stairs. That no local is waiting someone out, means that someone didn't get down. Howe would've had a chance, though, because he discovered that Sutter's been lying. There is another way off.

Sutter crawls to the back corner of the balcony's far end. An iron sconce is set in the stone blocks above the wainscoting. It's like every other sconce in the complex with one difference. It's slightly askew. When Sutter saw it while foolishly hiding in the balcony on his first mission, he thought the skew a trick of the shadows. He straightened it as he does now. A soft click comes from the wainscoting beneath it.

Sutter thought Howe would make him wait a few hours before revealing his souvenir, but Howe could barely contain himself. He led Sutter behind the bunkhouse and pulled from his pants a scarlet tassel on a golden cord.

Sutter blanched. How did you know? he said.

Whenever you draw the map, you extend the lines describing the balcony too far to the right, as if you want to draw a room beyond the wall. One time you scratched them out and said they were a mistake, but nothing's a mistake. All I had to figure out was how to get in. He spun the tassel. The cord wrapped around his finger. What treasures I found. A whole room full of tassels.

That's not a tassel, Sutter said. It's a bookmark.

Sutter presses the wainscoting with his thumb. There's another click and a panel swings in slightly. Sutter pushes it. His hand recoils at something scabrous on the wood. In the light coming from beyond the door he makes out a word written in dried blood: HOWE.

He made it.

Sutter is too relieved to be afraid of the light acting as a beacon while he scrapes away the letters so that another pager won't see it and the locals won't smell it. He crawls through and closes the door. The sconce grinds back into place.

Sutter emerges in a comfortable high-ceilinged study lined with bookshelves. Bright gems in sconces with brass hoods provide a warm light. Doors lead to a bedchamber, a privy and a small laboratory with a summoning circle. Vases full of flowers that reject withering freshen the air, and in a pot in one corner, improbably, stands a tree ever-laden with dwarf apples and tangerines. On the sideboard stands a black bottle that when corked fills with water having just a hint of lime. A matching pot replenishes itself with hot stew whenever covered. A man could live here forever if he didn't get bored of fruit, water, and stew.

It had been the wizard's bad luck, Sutter figured, that the army had caught him before he could reach his warren.

Howe sits barefoot on the plush red carpet. He's flipping through a huge tome Sutter's never seen before. It's full of diagrams and runes written in gold ink. Howe's skin looks golden too.

Howe says without looking up, So the library below--

Keep your voice down, Sutter whispers.

Howe doesn't. --and the pages scattered around, they're all fake?

Decoys. Sutter crawls beside him.

This was the wizard's real library.

Sutter nods. Howe has lost the stench of camp. He smells like the flowers.

Books are boring, Howe says, flipping clumps of pages with calculations, especially these. You've probably read them all, right?

No.

Howe laughs. Of course. He slams the tome shut. I bet you've spent every minute you've been here before holed up in the bedroom, shivering like a rat under the bed, only coming out for food. No wonder I found the lights muffled with pillows. He puts a hand on Sutter's back. You're shivering even now.

Sutter wants him to shut up before the locals hear, then he wants to cover the lights, but he can't bring himself to throw off Howe's hand. Howe knows it too. He slips his hand beneath Sutter's tunic and tickles his spine, making him shiver more violently.

And after three days in the dark, Howe says, you'd bring back a page from one of these books.

A useless page, as far as I could tell, Sutter says, arching his back. Nothing like what's in that book. The army can't know any of this.

Just like the pagers can't know you've been lying to them about your routes. What a magnificent joke, Howe says and pulls Sutter down on top of him.

Afterwards, Sutter nestles in the crook of Howe's arm, the storm in his heart subsiding, his breath steadying, then Howe starts in with his questions. Why did you ever leave this place? And once you did, why didn't you tell the captains about it? They might have closed the camp. Who knows how many men wouldn't have died on missions; but you saved yourself instead.

Sutter's shivering returns. I don't want to talk about camp, he says. We're outside it, twice removed from the world.

Howe pulls his arm from under Sutter and props his head on it. What's else is there to talk about?

You wouldn't understand.

I do. Howe says. I just want to hear you say it. Don't be a rat with me.

Why are you doing this? Everything could be so perfect.

They hear clomping outside. Huge feet. Sutter freezes. Howe stands up.

That's Red, Howe says. He stops by each day.

Get down. Don't move. Be quiet.

Why? He can't find us. He's done some damage to the railing, though, trying. Hey, Red!

The footsteps shuffle. The local snorts, considering.

Sutter grabs Howe's wrists. They can break through walls.

He hasn't yet. At Sutter's terrified expression, he says, He won't, either. Stupid creature. I call and call, and he can't figure out where I am. Howe gets an idea. Have you ever seen one?

Not up close, and I don't want to get any closer.

I'm going to. He yanks free and steps to the door. We really should meet the neighbours.

Sutter tackles him and holds him down. Don't.

Let me go. I told you, I won't cower. I will not skulk.

Sutter spreads himself over Howe and bears down. Howe knees Sutter in the crotch. Sutter, evacuated, rolls off him.

Did you think I was going to stay in here with you forever?

Sutter winces and clutches at himself.

You did! Howe laughs. You care. And here I've thought our little tryst was just the only way you could get me to keep your secret.

Sutter winces again.

I should have told the bunk about you, Howe says. I should have made you understand real danger. Real life. Here, I'll show you.

Howe gets on all fours, undoes the door's interior latch and pokes his head out. The light from the room pokes out farther. Past Howe and the broken railing Sutter can see a red-furred shoulder, a turning horn, a tightening eye, and the air vibrating as the local roars at Howe.

Red! Howe waves.

The local reaches over the railing with a clawed hand and scrapes for Howe.

He laughs and calls again. The local rips away more railing. Howe looks backwards between his legs, eyes shining, and yells, This is why I volunteered. To sit on the lip of a volcano and watch it erupt.

Sutter pushes himself up onto his hands and knees. He can barely lift his head. His legs are water.

Come on, Howe says. You'll miss it.

The local bashes the railing. A piece snaps off.

Sutter crawls to Howe, who shifts his bony hips to make room for him.

Now the local grabs the railing, hauls itself up, and grips the balcony floor with its other claw. Its huffing fills Sutter's mouth with the tang of copper and iron. It stares at him with yellow eyes.

Sutter disappears into his rat mind. He must protect his burrow. He grabs Howe's hips and leans forward with all this weight.

Howe pushes back. What are you doing?

Sutter digs in with his knees and shoves harder. If he gives the local what it wants, maybe it will go away.

The local drags itself down the balcony towards the door, the railing shattering beneath its muscular red chest. Howe kicks at Sutter, but Sutter grabs his ankle with one hand and drives his unbalanced body through the doorway. Howe collapses onto his belly, and Sutter grabs the back of Howe's thighs, pinning him. Splinters fly from the local's relentless claws. Howe keens. The balcony creaks and bends down, and an immense shudder runs through the wall.

Sutter slides toward the local, and Howe pushes him along like a board in a sawmill. The balcony snaps. The local lunges, and two black claws as thick as Sutter's wrist and as long as his forearm curl under Howe's armpits. Howe kicks furiously. Sutter loses his grip and he thinks Howe might squirm away, then the balcony tears away from the wall, and as the local falls it drags Howe with it.

Sutter springs backwards and flails at the door with his feet until it closes, then he grabs his pants, hugs them and gnashes the ragged fabric.

After a while there's silence outside. Later Sutter's mind goes silent too. He pulls on his pants and calms his fingers enough to knot the drawstring. He listens at the door. Nothing. He taps it. No response. He knocks. Did the rubble shift? He scuttles to the bedroom, bars the door and hides under the bed.

In a couple of days, if the local has forgotten about him and wandered off, he could make a rope from the bed sheets, get down and get out. He couldn't close the door behind him, though. The next pager would get inside and figure out what he's been doing, and once he made it back, perhaps with the tome Howe left on the rug, the whole camp would know. Sutter would be safer here with the locals unless his twentieth page did, in fact, get him sent home. Unlikely.

He curls up, shivering. His rat mind tells him to stay under the bed. No one could find him with the secret door shut and the balcony destroyed. This is a good home, he thinks, even without Howe.

Sutter closes his eyes. He sees Howe reading. What if the book let him learn how to bind? What if he could control the locals? He could lead them down the cliff path to free the camp, his hometown, his whole land. He could make up for what he's done. Sutter can't believe he's never thought of this before. He's been so caught up in surviving each today that he never imagined what he might do with any tomorrow.

Sutter crawls into the study. Howe's tunic and pants are splayed over the tome. Everything could have been so perfect. Sutter pinches a corner of the scaly cover, shakes the clothes off, then pushes the tome to the bedroom.

While he can read the runes, much of what they mean eludes him, and what might be names could be sobriquets instead. The diagrams seem to describe shapes to be traced in the air and on the ground. Traced with what, he doesn't know. The calculations are entirely opaque. What Sutter can piece together, though, excites him to the point of pacing the room. He has a whole library to help him understand this book, he thinks, and he goes back the study. Running his fingers along the spines, Sutter feels a laugh like Howe's erupt from his throat. Invincible.

Karel on the Other Side

Joanna Maciejewska

Poland

When he said, I'll meet you on the other side I thought he meant the other side of the shopping mall, not the afterlife.

You see, Jean-Pierre was all kinds of crazy, but he loved life as much as he loved himself. So, when I heard his words, I gave him as little as a nod and took a turn, running into the mall’s biggest food store. I never looked back.

I pushed through the customers, slid through the aisles’ turns, and I focused on losing my pursuers, not on his words. Following the route in the corner of my retinal display, I left the food store, chased by the smell of oranges and strawberries, and ran into Toy Extreme.

A woman screamed when I leapt over a child. Seconds later, when I was passing a five-foot-tall stuffed Tod the Croc, the blast wave hit the shop and I understood the woman wasn’t screaming because of me. Before the explosion and polyprene stuffing enveloped me, I realized which other side Jean-Pierre had in mind. That bastard planned it all along.

What came later was pain mixed with screams by a DJ from Hell. Tod the Croc didn’t survive the explosion, and I think neither the kid nor his mother made it either. My body suffered multiple injuries, but the flame-resistant stuffing from the ripped toy spared me the fate many others in the mall shared.

Dazed and wounded, I crawled from beneath the toppled shelves, coughing out fluff, and before I passed out, I could swear I heard Jean-Pierre laughing.

Yes, it came from the other side.

When I woke up to the beeps of medical machinery and the overwhelming smell of sanitary disinfectant, I hoped for a moment I’d been mistaken for a victim, but one glimpse at the guard by the door voided any such thoughts. I guess they had made it clear anyway with all my limbs cuffed to the hospital bed.

In the long hours of consciousness, denied the luxury of drug-induced sleep, I had enough time to consider my situation, and the more I thought, the less I liked being alive.

Stealing a miracle drug fell under industrial espionage, a crime that would land one in a labour facility for the rest of their miserable life, but blowing up a mall counted as terrorism, a fast track to death row. That is, if the terrorist confessed and exposed other conspirators, otherwise the track became slow and painful. And I had no names to give them except one which belonged to a man already dead.

You knew the risks. Jean-Pierre’s voice echoed in my head while his semi-translucent silhouette paced around the room, and I shut my eyes in the hope he’d go away.

I wanted to reply, to point out I knew the risks of stealing from an indigenously evil company, not killing a bunch of somewhat innocent citizens. I wanted to reply, but Jean-Pierre was dead, and hallucinations meant they put drugs in my meds to make me talk.

Go away. He was still there when I opened my eyes. His amused expression irked me, and I wanted to scream at him. Instead, I asked a question that gave the investigators no clues or latching points.

Why did you do it?

I wanted to hear the answer. Even though his words would be conjured by the figments of my mind, I hoped my subconscious had picked up something that could explain his actions. Jean-Pierre shook his head making it clear I wasn’t getting my answers so easily, and I wished I could scrape the grin off his face.

The door slid open, and a man with a data pad walked in. Groomed and handsome, he didn’t fit the bill of a ruthless investigator, and his cologne smelled of a trap.

Jean-Pierre’s silhouette leaned against the opposite wall. His face reflected a mixture of amusement and curiosity, and although he didn’t say anything, I imagined he’d pick the words he spoke so often: This will be interesting.

As the man pulled the chair closer, I saw my profile on the pad’s display, and the access card on his jacket told me I had just met agent Levyn. He caught my gaze, and the presentation was over without even a single word spoken. I rested on the pillows, waiting for the rest of the meeting to unfold, but the agent stared at the pad, as if all the answers hid in the shining diodes of its LED display.

His finger danced over the screen, in patterns too quick to justify research, and I wondered whether he was secretly playing Sudoku, but then the lights in the room dimmed, and I stretched to see his pad’s display.

With one move he wiped off a set of tick boxes and the screen went blank.

Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into quite a mess, Miss Sernoff. His pleasant voice lost its appeal when used with a formal tone. My name is agent Otto Levyn and I’m your only chance of getting out of it.

Living on the edge of society makes one sensitive to the smell of bullshit, but something about agent Levyn suggested he believed his own words. I smirked at Jean-Pierre, seeking support in his usual mockery, but no silhouettes lurked in the shadows. The peace guards had to cut off the drugs.

Make your offer, I said.

Agent Levyn’s smile made me wonder why he didn’t pick a sales career. Lifting all the charges of terrorism and industrial espionage. You’d be deemed a victim of psycho-manipulation and sent to a rehab facility.

I arched my eyebrows. Better than death row, and probably more comfortable than a labour facility, but a prison was always a prison.

The standard therapy takes six months, but it would have to be doubled to convince the public of your case’s severity, agent Levyn continued. After that time, you’ll be free to return to society in whatever way you choose, even in as minimal a way as it was... before the recent events.

I said nothing for a long moment. I was wrong. They didn’t cut off the drugs. They had to increase the dose, because agent Levyn was a hallucination if he just said: Hey, Karel, we’ll keep you in rehab for a year, and then you can go back to your anarchist way of life. No biggie.

It wasn’t an offer, it was insanity, and my state had to have worsened if my brain conjured such absurdity. I had to tell the doctors to be more careful with their drugs, otherwise they’d make my synapses rave-dance before the guards had learned anything useful from me. Not to mention, I preferred my grey mass somewhat unaltered.

Is there something wrong with the offer? agent Levyn’s polite tone snapped me from my inner rant.

How about everything? I couldn’t help it.

We’re ready to keep our side of the agreement, Miss Sernoff. The public is looking for a scapegoat, but if you help us apprehend the real perpetrator, you won’t have to suffer the consequences of someone else’s actions.

Did I mention the bullshit part? Tooth fairies and compassionate peace guards ceased to exist once you turned five, devoured by the monster called You’re-Big-Enough-Now, so an agent expressing concerns about justice--the real justice, not the marketing hype--could send any reality-check sensor off the scale.

The real perpetrator died in that mall.

Telling them they won’t get their evil mastermind, and the scapegoat would have to do, didn’t seem very bright, but with surveillance data from before the explosion they had to know that already.

Agent Levyn smiled again. What makes you think that?

What made me think that? The blast wave that wiped out the mall and came from where I saw him last? Or the words he said?

See you on the other side…

They didn’t ring right coming from self-absorbed Jean-Pierre, and against all reason I doubted what I considered the truth. My eyes fixed on Otto Levyn. I couldn’t read him, but the longer I thought, the more it made sense. Jean-Pierre did something other than simply die in a suicide bombing. And the agent’s generous offer meant they were desperate for help, for my help.

Piecing something together? he asked.

Just basics. Still don’t know why you need me so bad.

Agent Levyn smiled again, and I had second thoughts about him as a salesman. He should have become a politician. With all my inherent and acquired mistrust for government officials, I’d sell my soul if he asked me to. Which, for all I knew, he might have been considering.

Divulging that information would require your agreeing to help us, Miss Sernoff.

I gave Otto Levyn a look I’d give my ten-year-old son when he did something stupid if I had ever gone insane and decided to have a child.

You know I have no choice but to agree.

Considering your past, I need something more than my knowledge. The smile never left his face. I’d hate to hear later you didn’t agree to anything.

I snorted. They did their homework, and it made me wonder how long they had me under surveillance. Or were their personality profilers that good?

I agree to your terms. I’ll help you apprehend Jean-Pierre, I said.

Jean-Pierre? This is the name he goes by nowadays? Agent Levyn punched information onto the pad.

I resisted pointing out I was already being useful giving them new information, since I thought it’d come across more desperate than witty, and I preferred to sound smart whenever I could.

You keep insisting he’s not dead, I said instead.

Otto’s eyes tore away from the pad. Because he isn’t. He’s not alive either.

At first, I thought Jean-Pierre survived and was in a coma, but agent Levyn’s expression reassured that I shouldn’t bother with simple solutions, so instead of taking part in a riddle contest, I waited for the story to unfold.

His body died in the blast, but his persona transferred into the Cybernet, the agent said. At the moment, our gliders are focused on keeping him away from essential operations. Like this one. His hand indicated the room.

I looked at the machinery plugged into my body, eyeing suspiciously the liquid dripping in the cannula, and I questioned my sanity. Maybe the fumes from burnt Tod the Croc caused brain damage? Then I looked at the wall where I last saw Jean-Pierre’s silhouette, and the blast wave in the mall was nothing compared to the thought that hit me next.

What if he wasn’t my hallucination?

Miss Sernoff?

My brain worked like a self-assembly line in a drone factory, piecing facts together into a mockery of reasonable explanation, refusing me the bliss of discarding the absurdity Otto Levyn conjured.

The vial we stole wasn’t the cure for Robinson-Frett Syndrome, I uttered.

No.

I hoped I didn’t look like a little girl about to cry. Risking my life to help the poor appealed to my principles, and the certainty that Jean-Pierre played on this emotion left me feeling betrayed. At the same time, the cynical part of me remarked about the guards’ profilers not being worth their salary. Should Otto Levyn have mentioned that first, I’d agreed to help even if they didn’t promise me anything.

The agent’s face softened, and my feelings toward him did the opposite. I might have reacted to him reading me so easily, but I didn’t need his pity. Compassion was easy when one had a well-paying job, a place to stay, and a belief of being one of the good guys. Living on the society’s edge taught just one lesson: stop crying like a wimp and man up. Or woman up, in my case.

The sample you stole was an experimental transferring agent developed for Cybernet security, Otto said. Something to replace the inconvenient sockets and reduce the risk of tampering with them. We believe that Jean-Pierre, or rather Frederic Yukku, knew exactly what he came for.

I did my best to keep a cool face, but within the confines of my mind I made a long list of things I wanted Jean-Pierre to suffer. And if someone made it possible, I’d swear I’d turn an honest, hard-working citizen for the rest of my life.

So, what do you want me to do? Talk him out of it?

Otto Levyn glanced at the data pad, and I bet he did it for the dramatic effect rather than searching for the actual info. According to tests, your blood contains traces of the substance.

I nodded cautiously. Jean-Pierre insisted we both injected a dose, arguing if we lost the vial during our escape, we’d hopefully still have some in our blood for the independent scientists to examine.

You want me to go after him, don’t you?

We want you to distract him and find a way to push him into a host.

A host? I didn’t like the sound of it. I didn’t.

The agent was designed to allow the glider to come back to his own body, Levyn said. Frederic’s body is dead, but according to the research data, he’ll be able to hijack any plugged-in person, and go back to the net once the host is dead.

My eyes widened while I considered all the possibilities. Of course, body hijacks happened every so often, and some ended in a spectacular way, like the man dubbed Naked Dave dancing in front of the government building or the triple suicide of the Tangen sisters, but most of the jackers feared for their own life and avoided doing anything too crazy. Jean-Pierre had both nothing to fear and reasons to use his abilities.

What makes you think he’ll trust me? I moved, making the handcuffs jingle against the bedrail. My drama teacher always told us to use sounds for better effect. Even if he can’t hear us now, he’ll piece things together when he meets me on the net.

Otto Levyn smiled, and if he were a politician, he’d just have convinced me he’d fulfil all his election promises. If he were a priest, I’d convert to any religion. But he was a peace guard I was making a deal with, and that warm twitch of his lips promised I would regret not picking death row. At least I’d have the best seat there.

Fuck you.

Otto Levyn didn’t even flinch at this verbal display. I hoped you’d be more cooperative, Miss Sernoff, provided your circumstances, he said. When I walk through that door, your chance to--

Don’t forget to take your lies with you, I snapped.

My heart rate picked up, responding to the chemical cocktail that bastard had been pumping into my veins. My aggression levels spiked--apparently agent Levyn didn’t leave anything to chance.

Very well.

Agent Levyn walked up to the guard at the door. Get her prepped for transport. And then he left.

The argument outside, followed by a splutter of medical terms, told me doctors claimed I shouldn’t be moved, but my attention focused on the bulky man approaching my bed. He uncuffed my legs only to bind them together, and while he leaned over to do the same with my wrists, I stared at the holster