In A World

By Rob Vagle

Escape your own world into these wonderous and imaginative places in these six science fiction short stories by Rob Vagle. 

In a world . . .

Where a new form of execution transforms more than just the condemned.

Where a being made of gears and scales calculates a human life's monetary worth.

Where a stranger courts away mirror reflections of others, leaving one narcissist desperate and 

 alone. 

Where the Earth holds what completes each of us to fill the hollow inside our bodies.  

Where one woman glimpses her alternate lives in a strange and sudden room. 

Where a burning creature of the sun pines for the little blue planet in the distance.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Vagle
• Release date: Jul 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393902768

Rob Vagle

Rob Vagle's short stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Polyphony, Heliotrope, and Strange New Worlds. He lives and writes in Tempe, AZ. He grew up in Minnesota and lived in Eugene, OR. for fifteen years. Stories and novels published by Dog Copilot Press, available wherever ebooks are sold. He drinks coffee.

Book preview

In A World

In A World

Six science fiction short stories

Rob Vagle

Dog Copilot Press

Copyright © 2020 by Rob Vagle

All rights reserved.

The Counter first published in Fiction River: Last Stand, 2016, WMG Publishing.

He Angles, She Refracts first published in Heliotrope E-Zine, Fall 2007.

Cover art copyright © by innovari at depositphotos.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Introduction

The Forgiving Execution

The Counter

He Angles, She Refracts

Pieces Of Us From The Earth

The Sudden Room

Pining Away In The Heat Of The Sun

Who Is This Writer-dude?

Also by Rob Vagle

Introduction

In a world . . .

Those three words encapsulates the spark of an idea for a science fiction story. It’s one of my favorite things about writing science fiction—imagining other societies and worlds where things run differently but also filled with human beings and human emotion. A science fiction story is a comment on the human condition.

This book you have in your possession holds worlds. Inside these pages, you will find:

A world where a new form of execution transforms more than just the condemned, in The Forgiving Execution.

A world where a being made of gears and scales calculates a human life’s monetary worth, in The Counter.

A world where a stranger courts away mirror reflections of others, leaving one narcissist desperate and alone, in He Angles, She Refracts.

A world where the Earth holds what completes each of us to fill the hollow inside our bodies, in Pieces Of Us From The Earth.

A world where one woman glimpses her alternate lives, in The Sudden Room.

A world where a burning creature of the sun yearns for a little blue planet, in Pining Away In The Heat Of The Sun.

Leave the world you’re in for a little while and glimpse someplace new.

---

Rob Vagle

Mesa, Arizona

July 2020

The Forgiving Execution

I was born the only daughter of Jon and Elizabeth Shields. Jim Bird murdered my parents twelve years ago. This is my story for anyone enthused or disenchanted about the forgiving transformation.

But most of all, this story is for Dee: Please understand. You must be capable of understanding.

The first time I saw a core in public I was in the check-out line at Safeway. It was winter and outside the wide, tall windows at the front of the store rain pattered the asphalt from a gray opaque sky. The woman in front of me was humming, her hair still wet from the rain and clinging to the back of her neck. Her trench coat was open and she studied the supermarket tabloids, which coincidentally reported that the hot new English actor Joshua Hamilton had signed a forgiveness contract with his stalker who attempted to stab and kill Josh a year ago. Even in countries without capital punishment, the forgiving transformation had its enthusiastic supporters. The banner headline read: Josh says, 'This is a brave new world.'

Then the woman turned around. She was stroking a core cradled in a leather harness and hung by a cord around her neck.

I stared at it for a long time. The stranger didn't respond or move. The core was the size of my fist and in the shape of a potato. On the Internet the cores were usually shaped like the human heart.

The core pulsed like a heart, however, the life force inside it beating rapidly. Its bronze skin was covered with dark pimples, all evenly spaced. The skin changed color--yellow to green, green to yellow. When the stranger touched the core, it turned a lovely shade of light blue.

This is Lance, the stranger said, referring to the core.

I made eye contact with the stranger for the first time. Despite how red my face had turned (how long had I been staring?), the woman smiled, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

How rude of me, I'm sorry, I said.

It's quite all right, she said.

Questions arouse in my mind like fireworks—How was she a victim? Did her husband get murdered? Did she find peace? Did she find closure?

I would have been happy to release a long string of them, but her basket rolled down the conveyor to the cashier, a tall boy with acne on his face. The cashier took one look at the woman's core and said, You're not suppose to be hauling that thing around in public.

Pleasant and calm, she replied, It's not being harmed.

The cores had been classified as living organisms, the harmless flesh of condemned murders. Victims had their rights but there were rules and regulations in place to protect both the victim and the condemned, and the families of the condemned.

One such regulation: the core should be confined to the victim's house and not moved around.

The cashier rolled his eyes and said, They aren't suppose to be carted around in public like hunting trophies.

Just check and bag, she said. Or call the authorities.

As the boy waved her items over the scanner, I moved closer to her. A salty sea smell wafted in my face and I wondered if that came from the core.

My parents' murderer is on death row.

She turned and considered me. He hasn't asked for the transformation yet? she asked.

There are those, like me, who believe the condemned choose the forgiving transformation to escape a painful execution or the long hard years of living in a penitentiary. Some condemned believe the hype, that their minds would be free through enlightenment and without the shackles of the human body and all its terrible urges, and there are those who believe them.

I shook my head. How long have you had your core?

Two years, she said. Then she inserted her debit card into the card reader.

They don't live much longer than five, I said.

"For a