Thinkers

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

In 1970, a group of Weathermen bombed a statue of Rodin's The Thinker, where it sat outside the Cleveland Art Museum. The perpetrators were never caught.

In 2016, the museum celebrates its 100th anniversary. When Erika begins her internship at the museum, she finds herself assigned to the celebration preparations. As she researches the museum's history, she can't stop thinking about The Thinker and its bomb-damaged legs.

But when she comes face to face with history, she discovers that the past proves difficult to understand and even harder to explain.

"Rusch's short fiction is golden."

—Kansas City Star

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Mar 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386847649

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

Thinkers

THINKERS

KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH

WMG Publishing

CONTENTS

Thinkers

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author

THINKERS

1970:

Leo’s blood, warm against her cold hands, steamed in the frosty night air. Like hot coffee in a paper cup.

Lisa tried not to giggle, because she knew the giggle would be hysterical. She ran a hand over Leo’s face. He was leaning against the marble edge of the empty pool surrounding the Fountain of the Waters, legs splayed, head pointed toward Wade Lagoon.

Irv was just staring at him, and Helen—God knew where Helen had gotten off to, because Lisa didn’t. Her ears still rang from the explosion, which had been louder than she had expected.

Cold night, dry night, and when that happened, sound traveled. Which meant someone would be here soon to investigate.

Lisa peered over her shoulder, looking past the sculptures jutting out of the fountain, saw light from the full moon glinting on the ice on the terrace. The Cleveland Art Museum formed the backdrop, big, rectangular, and official, like some government office building. A man hunched near the stairs, facedown on the marble tiles.

Then she realized it wasn’t a man at all. It was the statue, down, damaged, but not destroyed.

God, she thought it had been destroyed, the way that pieces had sailed by her, slamming into everything.

Slamming into Leo.

Irv was rocking, mouth working. He couldn’t be hit, could he? He wasn’t even looking at her.

She was covering one of the wounds on Leo’s side with her hands. But his face was dripping, and she couldn’t tell in the silver moonlight if his eyes were half-closed because he was unconscious or if they were half-closed because they were damaged.

We have to get him out of here, she said to Irv. Her voice sounded tinny, flat, faraway. Her ears were plugged, her face aching from either the cold or shock or something.

Irv didn’t even look at her. Maybe he couldn’t hear her.

She grabbed him with one bloody hand. Irv! she shouted, then realized that was stupid.

People had to be running here. Someone had probably called the police by now.

And if they heard her shout, they would have a name.

But no one lived near the art museum, that she knew of anyway, and the students at Case Western University lived blocks away. Students wouldn’t run toward the sound of an explosion, would they? They would think it was something planned.

She hoped.

Irv blinked, his eyes focusing on her.

She pointed forcefully at Leo, then carefully mouthed, We have to go.

Irv nodded. She had been right: he couldn’t hear.

He slipped his arms under Leo, and lifted him easily.

"Where’s