HyphenPunk Winter 2021: HyphenPunk Magazine, #2

By Jasen Bacon, Matt Bliss, Gustavo Bondoni and 10 more

The winter issue of HyphenPunk brings in 12 different stories in 10 different -punk genres.

 

We have cyberpunk from Glenn Dungan, Russell Hemmell, and Armon Mikal

 

Capepunk from Jeff Hewitt

 

Splatterpunk from Katlina Sommerberg

 

Steampunk from Gustovo Bondoni

 

Arcanopunk from Chad A.B. Wilson

 

Industrialpunk from Matt Bliss

 

Hopepunk from Steve Zisson

 

Solarpunk from Christopher R. Muscato

 

Atompunk from Briar Ripley Page

• Language: English
• Publisher: HyphenPunk
• Release date: Dec 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201681845

Book preview

To all the -punks out there

HyphenPunk is copyright © 2021 Jasen Bacon

All stories are copyright © 2021 by their respective authors

Cover art copyright © 2021 by ma.se.ba

Internal art is all copyright free images from freesvg.org

All rights reserved.

ISSN: 2769-7452

Editor’s Note

Letters from the Singularity

The Suit

Go Fix Yourself

Dust Rabbits

The Opaque Mirror of Your Face

Runner

Johnny Breaks In

A Place for Broken Parts

The Lost Request

Punk's Still a Thing

The Ballad of Guan Zongying

Pomegranate

Reviews

Cyberpunk Red Data Pack

Cyberpunk Red Netrunning Deck

The Affliction of Romance: SeeYou[InMySadLittleSceneAlienBoyHeart]SpaceCowboy<3

Buzzcocks: The Band That Brought Love Songs to Punk

In Solarpunk Futures, gameplay is part of the revolution

Webcomic Reviews by Absintherian

Countdown to Countdown

Thank you

Editor’s Note

Winter brings desolation and feelings of hopelessness for many. Seasonal Affective Disorder affects many of us and adds to the hopelessness we feel, but Spring is coming soon, and the days are starting to get longer. This is the feeling we wish to capture in this issue of HyphenPunk Magazine.

We start this issue with the bleak and surreal Letters from the Singularity. This story is a cyberpunk piece that is apocalyptic in nature. It reads like you are witnessing the beginning of the end of humanity as we know it.

It is followed by The Suit which is a more intimate portrayal of disaster. This is something that the capepunk genre really excels at.

Things start to look up in the extremely violent cyberpunk inspired splatterpunk piece Go Fix Yourself. While starting off disastrous for its main character, it offers a glimmer of hope for change at the end.

Dust Rabbits is the sequel to last issue’s Moo Tube which describes what happens when the cattle rustlers are found in the steampunk American wild west.

Then The Opaque Mirror of Your Face shows us a brutal cyberpunk underworld of body harvesting and cyber snatching. It at least offers a happy ending in this bleak world. The cyberpunk underworld of Runner does not have the body harvesting and cyber snatching, but it does have an ending that offers a very different sort of hope, one that is sort of mirrored in the arcanopunk story Johnny Breaks In.

Next is a piece that, from what we can find, is the first use of the term industrialpunk. A Place for Broken Parts is set entirely in a massive factory in a dystopian world, yet it does give some hope for the future of humanity.

Next up, the hope becomes more prominent as we read about a night out on the town that is so epic it actually staves off the apocalypse in the mythpunk story The Lost Request. It gets followed by our first actual hopepunk piece Punk’s Still a Thing. It combines the attitude of punkpunk with the optimism of solarpunk to envision the creation of a future that should be.

This issue’s fiction ends with the solarpunk story The Ballad of Guan Zongying. This piece details how unionization and access to outward mobility and effective public transportation can help to end the horrors of generational poverty. As an Appalachian, this piece spoke to me on so many levels as I have seen places like the West Virginia town in this piece so close to my home.

Our fiction is wrapped up with the atompunk story Pomegranate. This story of a robot living on Mars is a poignant reflection of the isolation that so many people feel when they are surrounded by people they do not relate to. Sometimes all we need is a single friendly face to make life more livable.

The last two stories were HyphenPunk’s submissions for the Pushcart Prize for small publishers from this issue. They were joined by Don Queerxote, Memories, In the Corners of Our Minds, Birds of a Feather, and Long Live Anacoana Guey from the first issue. All of our Pushcart nominees speak to hope in their own way, which is something that I feel that reading good science fiction should do for us.

So many wonderful inventions that make our life easier have been born of science fiction. I hope that some of what we publish here at HyphenPunk will inspire the inventors of the future to create a world that our children can thrive in, like the stories towards the end of this issue, and not the traps that our issue starts with.

Our cover this issue comes from Spanish artist ma.se.ba. We fell in love with the colors in the piece as soon as we saw it, and when we noticed the circuitry in the eyes we knew that this one would be our cover. More of ma.se.ba’s work can be found on her Instagram page at Instagram.com/ma.se.ba . MardeMaria (@ma.se.ba) • Instagram photos and videos

This issue also starts our Reviews section. We have reviews in this issue on everything from early punk bands to current cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying games. This will be an ongoing feature in the magazine going forward, and a feature that you will not be able to find on HyphenPunk.com. We hope you find something new that you will enjoy through these, because we did!

But that is enough from me, you’re here for the stories. We sincerely hope that you enjoy this issue of HyphenPunk magazine as much as we have enjoyed putting it together for you.

Letters from the Singularity

Cyberpunk

by Glenn Dungan

Fort Rio, Albuquerque, September 8th, 2061,

Dear Margaret,

How your warm embrace keeps me company as the rain pelts our camp here at Fort Rio. Your smile has helped me sleep at night, your emerald eyes brighter than the sapphire hue which occupies several clicks near Death Valley and just won’t seem to go away. I hope these few lines will find you, Margot, and Jr. well.

I cannot talk about REDACTED but I can say that it is frightening to the troops, myself included. All our technology had to be confiscated for inspection once we got off the bus, hence this letter written on a typewriter. When was the last time anyone used one of these? It feels good, the weight of the buttons underneath my fingers, the click-click-clicking. The brass needs to check if our technology is susceptible to the strange aura above the Valley. It looks a little like the Northern Lights, which you might recall we saw on our honeymoon. That memory warms me on the coldest nights and gets me through the slop in the mess tent. No phones available here. Nothing with wireless internet.

They have me working on recon, in the Binary Division. I’m with two others. Carl is one of them. He has been smoking cigarettes like the world is ending. They took away his electric vape when he was touched base, and sometimes he shakes when he thinks no one is looking. There is also Josie, who keeps a picture of her wife and kids in a fastened pocket of her army fatigues. Apparently, the top brass told her she can only take one physical picture of them, because they could not trust her mobile device would remain independent from REDACTED.

Please send a physical picture of you and the kids. It gives me something to hold onto.

We live in racks right where Nob Hill used to be. Houses have been turned into barracks that house about twenty people. The lights all had to be retrofitted to manual switches. It is a strange change, not being able to command the room vocally to light up. Luckily, we were given black out curtains to stop the blue aura in Death Valley from waking us up too early.

My dear little daughter Margot, I want you to send your papa one of you’re A+ book reports as it would please her papa very much to know his daughter is so smart. Papa is so proud of you.

My strong and proud Jr, protect your mother and your sister while I’m gone. Have you made chess captain yet? You are probably too young for that. We play chess sometimes here to pass the time. You would like it.

Margaret do not be afraid for me. We are fighting the good fight. These scary times for us all, but like always, we’ll get through it. Make sure to only stay on the secure network. I love you to the moon and back, and you and the family are in my mind always.

---

Fort Rio, Albuquerque, September 29th, 2061,

To my Margaret,

I love you dearly. Your picture of you and the children is kept at a post on my bunk, right where I can see it when I wake up.

Things are going well here, I wish beyond hope, that the same is for you and the children. We are only allowed oral news here because our phones and devices have been confiscated due to the digital infection. Can you picture that? I real town crier in this day and age!

Last week was me, Carl, and Josie’s first recon in the blue light. They had us travel via motorcar up to the base of Death Valley, and then travel the rest by foot to meet the rest of the platoon. Nothing with any digital connectivity. Did you know that cars originally did not have screens on the terminals? Even the radio was retro. I remember a story that your father told me about remembering when televisions had color—it was hard to imagine now that VR is everywhere, but you get the idea. Anyway, Carl and Josie and I made the hike, Carl leaving a trail of cigarettes in his wake. We used walkies instead of our Bluetooths, and actual maps instead of our GPS. It felt like we were hiking up the Valley with a hand tied behind our backs.

The commander is a hard ass, but I like him. He told us that the blue light is just a noxious cloud, sort of like spittle from a very voracious eater. I disagreed, and said so, but everyone else was sort of in agreement. My work in AI back home meant nothing to them. They only needed by the Binary Division’s reconnaissance to see if the digital storm is going to take over New Mexico proper. I wish I took a polaroid for you, but I am not really sure how to load the camera.

We made it to the top of a canyon and had to use our issued sunglasses to block any of the digital influence. Everyone on the crew was made sure to take out any bio-sensors in their body, evidenced by the pockmarks on everyone’s skin when they scappled them out (which reminds me, please do not send any pictures to my personal cloud, my AGU is out—living like your great-grandfather in the desert like a bunch of hippies). After initial surveys to confirm that the cloud has not grown, we then tested for any stronger electrical surges that might suggest it is being funneled through a new network. Then it was back down, scanning the area for any of the Digital Nomads who seem so intent on leaving old routers, x-boxes, cell phones, etc. in the bushes to create another anchor for the cloud. Like spores. Jr. would have liked to see what scraps we found. We found a couple old cell phones from a time when people put them in their pocket. Josie found an old laptop that weighed the size of a small cat. Where are these Nomads getting everything?

Margot is getting very good with her words! I liked her essay about nature. A real Thoreau. And Jr., send please send me an autographed piece from one of your matches.

I love you all very dearly.

---

Fort Rio, Albuquerque, October 19th, 2061,

Dearest Margaret,

These last two weeks have been a different kind of hell. The Digital Nomads have rounded the mountains and planted wireless networks for the blue cloud. They are a finicky bunch, wrapped in cloth and attached with more tech than anyone I’ve ever seen. They carry around these little routers on their waists and I cannot help but think they are marionettes to that blue cloud lurking above the Valley. We caught one and intended on interrogating him, but he used some sort of far-reaching radio wave to explode his head when we brought him to camp. His last words were 101000100101101001. Whatever that that means.

The incident rattled everyone in the camp, and it has been up the Binary Division and my platoon to round up all the old technologies to make sure the blue cloud does not infiltrate our systems by sheer digital domination. It has been hard. The desert is very hot in the day and extremely cold in the night. We must search the hills manually for the artefacts because modern day dossiers have Bluetooth connectivity. All we have are flashlights and little shovels.

I took a fall, Margaret, but I am alright! Just a sprained ankle. I am only writing to you now because I know you will find out eventually and you will be less mad knowing that I did not hide this from you. I trust that you’ll trust my confidence. I was scaling a mountain with Josie and Carl, trying to find some plants by the Digital Nomads. I lost my footing and tumbled down the rocks, about twelve feet. Fortunately, my black-out glasses covered my eyes from damage.

Unfortunately, my black-out glasses cracked. I was in the Valley with my Bio-Optics out in the blue-aura open. It was only for a second before Josie shoved another pair of glasses on me and we continued our trek back to camp.

The blue cloud floating above the Valley looks very beautiful. Almost like a painting, or visual music. I know it is nefarious because sometimes beautiful things are.

Speaking of, how are Margot’s eyes? It is getting time for her to receive her implants. Not only will the AR help her vision problems, but it’ll help her with school too. Imagine growing up having a computer in your brain instead of your pocket! Times have changed, Margaret. Haven’t they?

The Valley has gotten strangely warmer these past couple of days. The blue cloud has started to emit a heat and strange sound. I think it’s a death knell, but my superiors are defiant that it is not.

---

Fort Point, San Francisco, October 30th, 2061,

Margaret,

I hope this message finds you and the children well. This letter has taken a little more time getting to you because we have been relocated to San Francisco. Fear not. I understand that San Francisco is known to be the worst of it, but it truly is not that bad.

I volunteered to go to the epicenter. The public will commend me with a medal, they say. Carl and Josie are with me. It took some convincing but all it took was a good, strong stern look to ask what they wanted out of this endeavor, and after a while they agreed.

I hope that you read this and do not cry, my love. I hope you understand my need to commit all of myself to this mission. Our country is at stake. Our humanity is on the plank.

I’ve been having strange dreams lately. I close my eyes and I see an ocean of blue. And then I see beyond. It reminds me when I wake up in the morning that I am a part of something bigger than myself. We all are. You understand this, right, Margaret?

There is a new kind of Digital Nomads in San Francisco. They speak in clicks and move sluggishly. It is hard to