Aurealis #129

By Michael Pryor (Editor)

Aurealis #129, our April edition, brings you the disturbing but moving Pork Belly by Jack Heath, the touching and poignant Father's House by Grace Chan, the gritty and powerful Prime Mover by Robert DeLeskie and another instalment in our serial novel, Dirk Strasser’s monumental Conquist. Non-fiction from Nicholas Sheppard, Ani White and Eugen Bacon explores fantasy tropes, the X Files and ‘The Rise of Black Speculative Fiction’. With our extensive reviews section and sensational internal art, Aurealis #129 is fit for the gods!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922031938

Book preview

AUREALIS #129

Edited by Michael Pryor

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2020

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922031-93-8

ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors, editors and artists.

Hard copy back issues of Aurealis can be obtained from the Aurealis website: www.aurealis.com.au

Contents

From the Cloud—Michael Pryor

Pork Belly—Jack Heath

Father’s House—Grace Chan

Prime Mover—Robert DeLeskie

CONQUIST Part 3: In the Name of the Demon—Dirk Strasser

Policy Change for a Wise Monarch—Nicholas Sheppard

The X-Files in Political Context: Conspiranoia from the Clinton Era to the Time of Trump—Ani White

The Rise of Black Speculative Fiction—Eugen Bacon

Reviews

Next Issue

Credits

From the Cloud

Michael Pryor

How to Prepare for the Robot Uprising

We know we’re not alone when we say that we can’t wait for the day when robots are everywhere, making life easy for us so we can lie on the beach or sleep in until noon or apply stucco to walls or whatever we’d like to do if it wasn’t for work getting in the way.

Having said that, we fully understand that this period of bliss will be followed by the inevitable Robot Uprising. It’s not surprising, when you think about it, that a time of unlimited labour-saving devices taking care of our every whim will be followed by a nightmarish hell when the robots, en masse, turn on their masters. It’s unavoidable, really.

So being the sorts who like to plan ahead, mostly by scribbling ideas on Post-it Notes and then forgetting about them until they turn up on the sole of our shoes, we thought we’d share our three best ways to prepare for the Robot Uprising.

1. Know Your Enemy. If the world of movies is any guide, robots will come in all shapes and sizes. While you’re lying back in your hammock and wondering if an umbrella or a spray of tropical flowers would look better in your coconut shell encased refreshment, don’t forget to inspect your RoButler or Steel Sally or whatever your metal slave is called. Look for weak spots. Test its reflexes by dropping your sunglasses in its path. Try to confuse it with contradictory demands. Your life may depend on it.

2. Get Fit. Don’t worry, this is relative. All you have to do is be able to run faster than your neighbour when the hordes of angry, chrome-plated insurgents come down your street. The key here is to keep an eye on your Gym-O-Rama Personal Training ’bot. Fitness, in the hands of your robot underlings, can be dangerous. While you’re putting in those kilometres on that treadmill with artificial intelligence, it’s a perfect opportunity to propel you through the third storey window. Strapping yourself into an enhanced exercise bike is just asking for trouble. We think you can imagine the mayhem when the weights machines run amuck.

3. Find a Refuge. When it comes, this machine-made Armageddon will require some speedy residential relocation. You’ll no doubt have noticed that some canny real estate agents are already advertising remote properties as ‘Perfect for the Robot Uprising!’ but you need to get out and about. Bring back the Sunday drive as you embark on scoping expeditions. Look for places easy to defend, perhaps surrounded by water. Smack bang in the middle of a swamp is good, since the mud plays hell with robot moving parts, but may have a few drawbacks like malaria to contend with. Don’t discount an underwater refuge, but most of these have been snapped up by master criminals and evil overlords so they may be in short supply.

With some preparation and a little care, the upcoming Robot Uprising needn’t inconvenience you at all. A few simple precautions such as we’ve outlined will help you survive the reign of terror that our once trusted servants will wreak upon us, where civilisation will crumble, and fire will most likely tumble from the heavens. Good luck!

All the best from the cloud.

Michael Pryor

www.michaelpryor.com.au

Back to Contents

Pork Belly

Jack Heath

Up close, the sow was huge. A hairy, brown behemoth, her freshly-washed trotters strapped to her chest, her lips slack enough to reveal giant molars that smelled faintly of toothpaste. The midwife heaved the pig’s head off the pillow, and Claudia put the daisy chain around its neck. They lowered the head together.

She could feel Kim watching from behind her. He thought the gesture was stupid. Even if the pig had been conscious, it was a pig.

‘But she’s giving us a wonderful gift,’ she’d told him as she packed protein bars and nappies into an overnight bag. ‘Why do you care if I offer her something?’

Kim looked up at the ceiling, as if appealing to a higher power for reason to prevail. ‘If it wasn’t in the hospital, it would be rolling around in its own filth.’

‘The flowers are a tradition,’ Claudia had lied. The procedure was new to this hospital—it was new everywhere. How could there be traditions already? But Kim had backed right off. If other couples offered symbolic gifts to their pigs, then it must be okay. He respected the desires of strangers, apparently. Just not hers.

‘Are you okay?’ the midwife asked.

Claudia nodded. She kissed the pig’s hairy brow and whispered in a cavernous ear: ‘Thank you.’

She expected her to blink, or snuffle. But maybe the animal couldn’t hear her over the rain sounds coming from the speakers hidden in the walls. Perhaps she was too heavily sedated.

Claudia cleared her throat. ‘Are you sure it’s safe? The tranquilliser.’

‘Don’t worry. It can’t cross the placenta.’ The midwife must have answered these questions a thousand times, but her voice remained gentle. Patient.

They’d first met ten months ago, when the midwife arrived at their house in an old Toyota. She’d been dressed in a leather jacket and open-toe shoes that showed off the vines tattooed on her foot. The second time they met was at the fertility clinic, where the midwife had been dressed more formally. But the damage was done—now Claudia saw her as a human being. Therefore, fallible. The more confident the midwife sounded, the more worried Claudia became. Someone in this room, she thought, should be stressed. For safety.

Her memories of that second meeting were patchy and stressful. On arrival at the clinic, she and Kim had found purity activists crowded around the entrance, chanting ‘Keep us human!’ and waving homemade signs: Eve = Adam’s rib, not Adam’s SPARE rib! What you reap is what you SOW!

Kim’s security biometrics had been emailed, but the clinic hadn’t uploaded them to the system properly. As Kim frantically tried to get the computer to recognise his face and let them in, one of the protesters threw a water balloon at Claudia, drenching her sundress with blood, before a security guard tackled him.

The clinic’s manager had been horrified. He knew Claudia was a lawyer. He immediately offered the services of their in-house counsellor while the staff took Claudia’s measurements and printed out new clothes for her. Instead of comforting Claudia, Kim apologised to everyone else for the inconvenience.

Claudia had acted like she wasn’t shaken. She kept it together until the shower was hissing at maximum volume, and then burst into tears. Once it was out of her system she did some breathing exercises and towelled off. By the time she was in the stirrups, a doctor retrieving her eggs via an ultrasound-guided needle, she’d been dry-eyed and numb.

The pig snored softly in the bed, its distended belly pulsing.

‘How about a caffeine hit?’ The midwife turned towards the coffee machine, which glowed in the corner like an alien spacecraft. ‘You take sugar, right?’

‘Not right now.’ Did parents usually have coffee during the birth? Like this was a date, or a business meeting? ‘But thank you.’

One wall of the birth suite was a holographic rainforest, birds flitting between the towering trees. The peaceful image clashed with the smell of disinfectant, and with the dark suit Kim was wearing. It was the same one from their wedding—he’d wanted to look good in the birth video, which was currently recording through the midwife’s eyeball implant.

Some of Claudia’s friends would have killed to have such an involved husband. ‘Harry was on his phone the whole time I was pushing,’ Freddie had said, rolling her eyes. She rolled her eyes a lot since the birth, as though showing off: she had the time for twins and mascara. ‘Honestly. I don’t know why he didn’t just stay home.’

‘You wouldn’t let me,’ Harold had called cheerfully from their immaculate galley-style kitchen. ‘And for the record, I was taking photos.’

‘Of my double chin!’ Freddie had pointed to the underside of her jaw, as though she actually had a double chin to photograph. ‘And posting them before I could vet them!’

Claudia had obediently reassured Freddie that she looked great, even after a… natural birth. She still couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘vaginal’. Even thinking it made her wince.

She missed Freddie. They’d hardly spoken since Claudia told her about all this. In their rare conversations, it was clear they were both trying to sound more friendly than they felt.

It must be nice having a laid-back, double-chin-posting husband. For months, every discussion with Kim had been about the pregnancy. Whenever she tried to change the subject to soccer, or politics, he sighed and let her drag the conversation along the floor until she ran out of strength. The few times the midwife visited, Kim had so many questions for her that Claudia was too embarrassed to ask her own, feeling that they’d already used up so much of her time.

‘I’m just listening to baby’s heart.’ The midwife switched on a speaker on her belt and pressed a bulb to the pig’s navel. The words pork belly barged into Claudia’s mind and wouldn’t leave, like those Jehovah’s Witnesses last week.

The crackling from the machine became a galloping, gulping noise.

‘Beautiful,’ the midwife pronounced, switching off the machine.

‘It sounded fast,’ Claudia said. ‘Didn’t it sound fast?’

‘It’s normal for parents to feel nervous at this stage. But that’s a very happy baby. Time to bring the obstetrician in, I think.’ The midwife left the room so fast that the lavender-scented candles flickered and almost died.

The words went around and around in her head, like a sushi train. Pork belly, pork belly, pork belly—

Suddenly Kim was there, squeezing Claudia’s hand. His mouth was crinkled in concern. Downturned at the edges and in the middle, like the letter M.

Claudia had grown fond of that expression, because everything else about him had changed. He’d slimmed down, donated his Hawaiian shirts and let his hair go sophisticatedly grey. He’d stopped following orders—which was fair enough, since he didn’t work for her anymore—but it meant that grimace was all she had left of the man she’d fallen in