HyphenPunk Spring 2023: HyphenPunk Magazine, #7

By Briar Ripley Page, Joachim Heijndermans, Katlina Sommerberg and 7 more

HyphenPunk brings you eleven new pieces of science fiction in four different -punk genres!

 

Stories by:

Mar Vincent

Fayaway & Hermester Barrington

Michael Stevens

Joachim Heijndermans

Briar Ripley Page

Nicholas Jay

e.x.weis

Jennifer Jeanne McArdle

Isaac E. Payne

Mattie Bukowski

Katlina Sommerberg

• Language: English
• Publisher: HyphenPunk
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215844762

Book preview

HyphenPunk

Volume 7

March 2023

Fayaway & Hermester Barrington

Mattie Bukowski  Joachim Heijndermans

Nicholas Jay  Jennifer Jeanne McArdle

Briar Ripley Page  Isaac E. Payne  Katlina Sommerberg

Michael Stevens  Mar Vincent  e.x.weis

Edited by Jasen Bacon

To all the -punks out there

HyphenPunk is Copyright © 2021-2023 Jasen Bacon

All stories are copyright 2023 by their respective authors

Cover art by Ma.Se.Ba

Internal art is all copyright free images from freesvg.org

All rights reserved.

ISSN: 2769-7452

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Editor’s Note

MythPunk

Duckie’s Revenge

By Mar Vincent

On the discovery of a most marvelous species of Angiosperm, Sarraceniarafflesia taurua (Maraetoa 1863), from the Flitcroft Isles

by Fayaway & Hermester Barrington

NanoPunk

Electric Memories Don’t Fade in the Evening Sun

By Michael Stevens

SteamPunk

The Golden Man from Summer Creek

by Joachim Heijndermans

CyberPunk

The Early Days of My Sordid Career

By Briar Ripley Page

Iron Hand in Velvet Glove

by Nicholas Jay

The Chariot

by e.x.weis

Silk Shadow Part III

By Jennifer Jeanne McArdle

Oil, Knives, and Neon

by Isaac E. Payne

Satisfied

By Mattie Bukowski

Employee Termination Protocol

By Katlina Sommerberg

Reviews

Stories of the Eye

Edited by Sam Richard and Joe Koch

Black Chrome

R. Talsorian Games

Interface Red 2

R. Talsorian Games

Thank you for reading.

Editor’s Note

Spring is a time for flowers, and when Ma.Se.Ba sent me a biopunk image that she describes as an attempt to show how interconnected life is, I knew that this was going to be the cover of our spring issue. I was a fan of Ma.Se.Ba long before she ever sent us a cover for issue two, and I love that she graced us with more art.

Behind this cover we have eleven stories in four different -punk genres. We start with some mythpunk because Duckie’s Revenge is the most appropriate opening to an issue of HyphenPunk. An all out war fought with music that is capable of changing reality is the type of concept that we live for. And that last line...

The next mythpunk piece carries the longest title yet printed by us. On the discovery of a most marvelous species of Angiosperm, Sarraceniarafflesia taurua (Maraetoa 1863), from the Flitcroft Isles by Fayaway & Hermester Barringto is a story of revenge in the British occupied south Pacific.

The nanopunk piece Electric Memories Don’t Fade in the Evening Sun by Michael Stevens shares its title with a song by Stevens’s psychedelic indie pop band Skelocrats. The story carries a hopeful look at tech being able to help with the memory of Alzheimer’s patients, but comes with a beautiful twist.

Joachim Heijndermans returns to HyphenPunk with a steampunk piece The Golden Man from Summer Creek. This tale of wild west America is a very solemn piece.

We then move into the cyberpunk that is the bulk of the issue. What issue 6 lacked in cyberpunk pieces was made up for this time.

Briar Ripley Page offers up the story of a child who finally finds their way in life, even if it goes against everything their mother wanted for them in The Early Days of My Sordid Career.

Iron Hand in Velvet Glove by Nicholas Jay is a think piece about what it means to have a mind. What you mind means and where your mind can go inside tech. It is simultaneously a reflection on trauma and a hope for the future.

e.x.weis brings us a courier story that runs through the heart of a city. The Chariot is classic cyberpunk action that really turns up the heat.

The third and final installment of Jennifer Jeanne McArdle’s Silk Shadow novella is here. If you have not read the first two pieces in issues 4 & 5 I highly suggest you pick those up so you can have the full experience!

Next up is Oil, Knives, and Neon by Isaac E. Payne. This piece combines cyberpunk, biopunk, and mythpunk to tell the story of a bar owner that just wants to retire, she just doesn’t realize it yet.

Satisfied by Mattie Bukowski is a cyberpunk horror story told through the experimental technique of instant messages coming into a newly installed cybernetic neuralware piece.

The issue finishes its fiction with Employee Termination Protocol by Katlina Sommerberg. This is a gory piece of splatter- cyberpunk that envisions what it means to get fired in a very dystopian corporate controlled future.

I hope you all enjoy!

MythPunk

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Duckie’s Revenge

By Mar Vincent

The Punks lost their lead singer to a unified attack of Honkeytonkers and Whiteboy Rappers. From opposing arcs of the Venue’s stage, posse and gang built a two-pronged assault of banjo and drum machine, cheatin’ wives and old Chevys and Cristal in the Club and Dat Ass, Dat Ass, Dat Ass. The Punks worked their three proscribed chords and Duckie raged against institutions until his voice cracked, but it wasn’t enough to help Fuck the Machine win out over Dat Ass.

Duckie dropped in a moment of fatal disharmony with the second guitarist, which led to catastrophic heart failure — both apparently caused by the banjo. It wasn’t unheard of for frontmen to die in the line of fire, as they bore the brunt of performance, but the rest of the band panicked and fled, guitars and prized cymbals slung over shoulders, leaving Duckie’s legendarily overtaxed liver and dogged idealism to be disposed of by the enemy.

That night in the crumbling cement, bare-wire, gasoline- and cigarette-poisoned back alley behind the Punks’ warehouse-commune, Duckie’s guitar was laid to rest, the case nailed shut. The band spray-painted final sentiments to the decedent:

I said quit smoking, wrote Frack, the drummer.

An all right guy, wrote Slinky, the bassist.

What the fuck, wrote Jizzabel Jackass, the second guitarist. Whether an expression of remorse or disbelief, only they could say.

Emissaries from the Emo, Screamo, and Goth camps came to pay their respects. The Doo-Wopers sent silk flowers and the Teen Pop Rockers sent a soap basket — a backhanded insult if ever there’d been one. Jizzabel heaped the shallow gifts atop the guitar case, doused them with plentiful acetone, and lit all that shit ablaze. The funeral party moshed and drank and abused substances around the bonfire until they passed out on curbs and a few in thickening puddles of vomit. It was the way these things were done.

In the aftermath, Jizzabel awoke in a dogpile with something other than the agonized shriek of a hangover ringing in their ears. A familiar sound, hypnotic in its pull; Jizzabel climbed out from under Frack and listened, slack-mouthed and revolving in place. They’d never heard divine inspiration before, but this was it.

Jizzabel’s eyes stopped on the silhouette of a boy with a guitar atop a nearby warehouse, wailing about message over melody. It was the core of the Punk ideal, but his delivery was new, different. To have any power it had to be. Jizzabel attempted shouting the kid down, but nausea lurched from stomach to throat.

The ascent up graffitied stairwells proved no less harrowing; the mere thought of the word vertiginous turned each step into a war. And yet, gaining the roof, it wasn’t sunlight stabbing into desiccated pupils that caused Jizzabel’s eyes to leak, but the beautiful cacophony of that kid.

The kid was familiar. A safety pin like a chicken bone through his nose. Hair others would call snot green looked like sour apple candy to Jizzabel. He’d volunteered for backup before, for stage security, for sound guy. He’d tried to write material, but Duckie had shot him down. This must be why.

Your name? Jizzabel demanded. Or wavered, more accurately.

The kid turned. Brad.

It wasn’t a good Punk name, so Jizzabel translated it into an appropriate form. Brat. All right. You’re in.

Brat had fast fingers and youthful lungs that, Frack and Slinky agreed, could level the entire Venue with the right support. While the band made plans, Brat picked at forehead acne and grunted assent.

Runners were sent to call in favors — to the Screamos in their converted asylum, the Goths in their slumping Victorian mansion, Emos in parents’ basements or congregated at the eastside hostel — requesting the presence of every sideman, every sound guy, every spare speaker and amp.

With reinforcements, they filled almost half of the Venue’s stage.

As soundcheck finished, Jizzabel issued the Punks’ traditional challenge: Oy, oy, oy! The city’s speaker system carried it to every last borough, barrio, and hood.

Soon, they came. Not just the guilty parties but Dubsteppers and R&Bers, Ska Rockers and Instrumentalists from uptown, a medley of Alternatives and Experimentals. Souls and Folks and Psychedelics. All without any dog in the fight.

When they arrived, the Teen Pop Rockers seemed acutely aware of the fate of their soap basket.

The Whiteboys showed first, and Brat fired a warning shot with The Disillusioned State of Youth Today. The Whiteboys, who were men, not boys, volleyed back with You Think You Got the Street Cred to Stand Up to Us? Brat responded with Your Valuations of Strength are Self-Determined Social Constructs.

Jizzabel led the band, shouting a chorus of "Anarchy, Anarchy, Anarchy." Sound waves became battering rams pummeling Whiteboys toward redundancy. The Honkeytonkers arrived yodeling how one of those old Chevys had stalled and There Ain’t No Honor in Starting a Band Fight Before Its Time. Brat deflected with Lifelong Victims of Oppression Don’t Play Fair.

Jizzabel watched the kid, salivating over sour apple hair that framed a face screaming Justifiable Rage. Brat’s voice jolted the crowd to revelation, moving hands to wave and voices to shout in unison. Everyone obeyed when Jizzabel and Slinky urged Justice, Jump! Justice, Jump!, and Frack thrashed the drums like he had five arms.

Soundwaves rippled like a collective heartbeat. The whole crowd, in that time and place, became Punks.

They all wanted justice for Duckie.

The Venue turned on the tag-teamers in a singular tide. From nowhere a pickup cut through the crowd, scattering bodies and whisking away Honkeytonkers and the few Whiteboys swift enough to hitch their saggy pants high and jump for the tailgate.

The crowd pursued, Brat’s words translated into action.

Jizzabel couldn’t remember the last time anyone sang a riot into being. Divine inspiration struck again as they cast aside their guitar and took a running leap into the crowd.

Hundreds of hands stretched out to catch them with a cry of music for all, seeing as music, for Punks, was another word for justice.

---

As a fine art professional, Mar has wielded katanas and handled Lady Gaga’s shoes. As a veterinary assistant, she has cared for hairless cats, hedgehogs, and, one time, a coyote. As a writer (under Marissa James or Mar Vincent), her short fiction can be found in Flash Fiction Online, Translunar Travelers Lounge, Zooscape, and many other publications. She is a recipient of the Ladies of Horror Fiction grant, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a reader for Interstellar Flight Press. She resides in the Pacific Northwest and can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @MaroftheBooks.

On the discovery of a most marvelous species of Angiosperm, Sarraceniarafflesia taurua (Maraetoa 1863), from the Flitcroft Isles

by Fayaway & Hermester Barrington

---

Tiaé paused at the crest of the hill — at last! Wiping the sweat from her brow, she looked down into the valley. The insects and the heat were being driven away by the breeze, now. It’s all downhill from here, Baron Farley, she said, not looking back.

Bah! he said, leaning on his knees some ten feet down the trail. You’d best hope that you are not leading me on a fool’s errand, girl, or I’ll give you again what I gave you last night.

Yes, sir. He had caught her while she was watering the plants in the greenhouse, and with a few quick thrusts had planted his seed in her, as he had twice before. At least she knew the proper herb to still her quickening womb — and if her plan worked, it would be the last time she would need it. I think you’ll be pleased, sir. My mother’s people knew this plant by two names in her native tongue — ‘maneater,’ and ‘honey sipper.’

Still panting, Farley pushed past Tiaé and sat down on a stone at the trail’s edge. If it exists, he said, its official name will reflect the generosity of my sponsor, Lord Bottomleigh.

"Splendid idea!  Something like Melosculum­ or Homovora bottomleighi — very dignified, sir! "

Do not mock me, girl. Didn’t your ancestors once live here? he continued, sneering.

Yes, sir, but they were wiped out because they lived too freely. I know their lore through my mother, may she rest in peace.

Yes, I remember your mother, Farley growled.

The journals of my father also make mention of this plant, but he didn’t have time to follow through on it.

Yes, I’m sure that my cousin was too busy teaching you to read and write, skills wasted on the bastards of nobles. Rising from his resting place and reaching out for her, he said, Speaking of love children...

Best we press on, sir, Tiaé answered, slashing a bamboo stalk just next to Farley, who jumped back. After five hours of cutting bush and carrying the supplies she needed for the night, her shoulders ached.