Beware the Little Children

By G. Owen Wears

"On a patchy section of lawn, beside a faded pink pre-fab, stood a pair of little girls. One had light hair and one had dark hair. One was short and one was even shorter. Both were unkempt, draped in mismatched dresses and leggings with holes in the knees. Grubby trainers were Velcroed to pigeon-toed feet and neon bands held unwashed hair in lopsided ponytails. Around their wrists were tied bits of string and stacks of cheap plastic bracelets. Between the two rested what must have been a soccer ball before it had been left in the sun to fade away to a dull yellow."

Newly unemployed and overwhelmed, Aled was not prepared for the two little girls and their demands for attention. And why would he have been? He did not know the girls, he had never seen them before. All Aled wanted to do was go home and wallow in self pity. The girls, however, had plans of their own. They would not be dissuaded. They would not be ignored. The two little girls wanted a playmate for their deadly games and Aled was the only one in sight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. Owen Wears
• Release date: Nov 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223044802

Book preview

One

In retrospect it was all so painfully obvious. Financial failure was inevitable. The accountants knew it, the other developers knew it, even the janitorial staff knew it. The writing had been on the wall, but Aled had not bothered to look at it. He had instead put his nose to the grindstone, buckled down, took the bull by the horns, buried himself in work. The way he figured it, no one wanted to go out of business. It was only logical that the company was working towards a soluble and sustainable solution.

What a tit.

What an absolute tit.

Of course, the higher-ups had no interest in silly things like sustainability. Nor had they been for quite some time. Their priorities had shifted around year number two from building the company up into pitching it to the highest bidder. After months of shopping around, however, there had not been a single nibble. Not from the likes of SLI, Vandred, or Stratus. Through it all, Aled’s division had remained viable. There was always a need for aggregating software. If a ship wanted to go past the Kuiper Belt it needed all the number crunching capability it could muster. The big guys did not have a working algorithm yet, but Aled was close. He was so close he could taste it.

Tit.

For the sake of appearances, the higher-ups had hinted at staying independent and making a go of it. Aled had kept right on coding. Other members of the team had jumped ship, taken jobs in other sectors. Still he went on writing line after line. He liked his job, he liked working from home, he liked being able to get up and go for a walk whenever he felt like it. Then the higher-ups had called a company-wide meeting and explained that there was no more money. The investor capital had been spent. Everyone was out of a job. There would be no severance.

Tit, tit, tit, tit.

A raindrop slapped the pavement. It was followed by another, then another. A fourth went splat against Aled’s cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

In the distance the rumble of a freighter burning its second stage echoed off the foothills. It was a third-generation engine, one of the older hybrid models. Aled squinted at the clouds. The freighter was already out of sight. The sound, however, was unmistakable. This one was outbound, packed with cargo, destined for the likes of Didymos, Anteros, or Ryugu.

Aled sighed. Aled scratched above his right ear. Aled stuck his hands in his pockets and burrowed further into the collar of his jacket.

A week after receiving his pink slip, SLI had announced a software platform that was nearly identical to the one Aled had been so diligently coding. The shipping giant was moving into the same sector as his former employer, only they were doing it with all the backing of a one hundred trillion dollar-corporation. It was no wonder they had not been interested in acquiring an understaffed start-up that had failed to make a name for itself.

Behind him a car honked, and the driver shouted out the window. Aled hunched up his shoulders and stared straight ahead. Part of him wanted to see what the noise was all about, but that would only encourage the honker. Besides, if he turned around he would get a face full of the skyline, high-rise apartments all sparkling and new. The largest was where Fish made his second home. Or was it his third? The fat man had a place in California, Aled knew that much. This was just his hogar lejos del hogar.

The car passed Aled, the passenger’s grinning face plastered against the window. He was making an up and down motion with his left hand. Whatever joke they had made at Aled’s expense, Aled had not been able to make it out. For the best really.

The sound of the freighter was fading now, fading into a sky hung low with clouds the color of tarnished silver. Fingerlings of fog crept down the sides of the foothills, reaching into deep-cuts thick with scrub and acacia. Around Aled a few more spots of rain darkened the sidewalk. One enterprising droplet caught him in the corner of the eye. Aled scrunched up the eye and said Motherfucker. Then he said, Cocksucker, and Stupid piece of shit.

Aled lowered his head and took a deep breath. The air was cool and wet. That was good. Even if he had been dropped like a sack of shit, at least the rest of the world had not changed. There was rain and there were mountains; there were clouds and there was sky. It was almost enough to chase away the ache in Aled’s chest. Almost.

Aled put his feet in motion. His old boots made officious clop-clopping sounds as they struck the pavement. Aled increased his pace. Walking chased a bit more of the ache away. Not enough to keep the scowl off his face, but a little.

Ten minutes later and the suburbs came to an abrupt end. A few blocks after that and Aled passed the last tracts of pre-fabs that marked the outermost edge of town. Across the ring-road he marched, quick-stepping his way up the dirt trail that led to the retaining pond just beyond the rows of cheap aluminium housing. There he stopped, his breath coming quick, steaming up his glasses. He took them off and wiped them on his sleeve.

The banks of the pond were choked with reeds and bushes with red branches. There were saplings as well, cottonwoods and aspen. The broken slabs of concrete that made up the eastern edge of the pond were mostly hidden by vegetation. The water itself carried a slick of algae that smelled like dead fish. Aled supposed that was because the algae had robbed the water of its oxygen, and the fish were indeed dead.

Aled watched as a pair of ducks paddled themselves around the pond, parting the algae as they went. First one then the other upended itself, sticking its tail in the air. The light was already starting go. The wind tugged at Aled’s jacket, and he allowed himself another sigh. To either side the reeds clattered and chorused.

He would have to find a job now, a real job. The thought of no longer being able to commute from his bedroom to his office made Aled feel ill. He would have to drive the same roads as the pair of idiots that had honked at him a few blocks back...those two and a whole host of others. He would have to get up at an ungodly hour, dress like an adult, and interact with other human beings. The thought of all that interpersonal interaction brought on a wave of nausea.  

There came another gust from out of the west, this one stronger. Aled squinted against the grit that came with it. When the wind finally died, Aled raised his eyes in time to see a far-off flash of lightning. A peal of thunder followed.

Crap, said Aled.

Clouds and a bit of rain were one thing. A body could do some top-notch brooding in the rain. Being electrocuted...that was another matter entirely. He was here to mope, not kill himself.

Aled turned his back on the Sangre de Christos and started walking. He was across the street and back in civilization by the time the second peal of thunder rolled across the sky.

Couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The wind seemed to agree, slapping at the side of his head and peppering him with rain. Aled tried to disappear in his coat collar.

Now why the hell, said Aled, "would a company spend the remainder of its capital tearing down the infrastructure that was already paying its bills? Why recreate the software we already had? It’s like Babbage’s Difference Engine. They told us to recreate the whole platform. They told us it would make the company more competitive. They