From a Broken Angle

By Rei Rosenquist

In a world where so much goes wrong, how does one carry on? This collection of stories seeks to answer that question. Dive into dark worlds with characters barely struggling along, and see where the light shines. Go to the lowest places and find what is there to find. For it is only in the breakdown that we see our true selves. For it is when we catch our fallen faces reflected from a broken angle that we can truly see ourselves best.

 

Why should the world be any different?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rei Rosenquist
• Release date: Mar 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224925209

Rei Rosenquist

Rei Rosenquist first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a nomadic story-teller’s life. Over the years, they have traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. But, some things never change. For them, these are stories, food service, and traveling. These three passions have bloomed from hobbies, studies, and jobs into a way of life. These days, Rei can be found in between Tokyo, Kailua, and Bellingham, Washington pouring beautiful latte art, baking off a batch of famous savory scones, and cozying up with a laptop to obsessively write mountains of dark speculative fiction. You can find Rei’s stories and blog at reirosenquist.com. You can also reach them via email at [e-mail] or connect via Facebook (Rei Rosenquist), Twitter (rylrosenquist) and Instagram (rylrosenquist).

Book preview

The Juniper Spider

CHAPTER 1

I grew up in a camp built for refugees from a war I never knew. The same for the country I was supposedly rescued from. For me, it was all camp, all the time. These busted hovels and broken roads were my home. Thanks to my Cha-cha, I learned quick to navigate the treacheries of this place. Learn or die, that was camp life.

I started out driving spiders across already looted land.

Spider was just a term I made up for big robotic collectors my Cha-cha taught me to build. Sounds fancy; it wasn't. Cha-cha was an engineer, so there was a lot of machine-making gear in the junk lot we called our back yard. The things I could solder and bolt together looked tough: big bulky machines with a high throne-like seats and loads of levers. Clanking self-driven hydraulic beasts that lumbered around on thick legs and kicked up dust as they hissed and roared around camp. They were built to entertain, not to last. Hit one too hard in the wrong spot, and the whole teetering thing went clank-pop and came all apart.

The suits all ran on cheap, outdated s-pads and g-pads that I pilfered from junkyard trash stashes. The kinds of devices with touchscreens and bleep-bleep alert chimes, long forgotten when the age of technology caved in on humanity. I slapped the levers and drive controls together from spare parts.

Old and janky as it all was, programming the spiders was a snap. Cha-cha taught me all the basic codes, plus some. Old world stuff from before the wars and before my La-la died in an explosion. Coding languages, Cha-cha always said, were so complex a brain could get lost in them. So, I did.

I made a pack of spiders and convinced my local scabby friends to ride around in them with me. We called ourselves a gang, but it meant nothing. Tinkering was all it was. Passing time. Forgetting how yuck the world was. Spiders were good for scavenging, wasting time and making fun. But no one ever turned emotional about what they had, got defensive, or stood ground. We just roved around picking random shit up.

Years melted away like that. Cha-cha got older. The spider-riders became my real actual friends. And everything seemed kinda okay.

Then. Cha-cha got sick like all the 30-something adults did.

Cha-cha, I said, pulling up to the disgusting cot where he lay oozing from too many sores.

Ai, Chipa, Cha-cha said, trying to sound like not-dying.

If-then-when you phase out— I began.

Cha-cha chuckled and wheezed. Talking in coding instead of Common, nah?

I nodded. By then, everything in my head was all if/then/when statements. I frowned and pressed on into the dark thought of losing Cha-cha.

What'll I do?

Keep making spiders, Chipa, Cha-cha winked with a puffy red eyelid. Above it, a nasty tumor had taken up residence and was spreading fast.

I mean, I choked. I'll miss you.

No, you don't need a dinosour like me, Cha-cha tried to tease.

I blinked back tears. Do too.

Take this.

Cha-cha held out in a shaking, grey palm a small rose-colored fob. I reached out and plucked it up and turned it over between my fingers. I knew what was on the fob. A program Cha-cha called the drone downer. I'd never known what that meant. I was about to ask when Cha-cha spoke.

Roses for you.

Cha-cha used to say that's how people once showed love – giving roses.

I'd always found the custom of giving dead flower parts strange, but as I held that fob and thought of Cha-cha, gone – I got it. It wasn't about what was in the gift – it was the gesture that mattered. I clutched the rosy fob to my chest.

Thank you.

Be sure to keep that safe, Cha-cha's voice trembled.

Okay, I said and kissed the tumor on Cha-cha's forehead.

The next day, Cha-cha's body had to be dragged out by a spider suit and taken to the dump. I promised right then and there that I'd never lose track of this rosy fob like I did bits of machinery for building spiders. This was special. This was all that was left of my family.

I went back home after the factory tower burned up Cha-cha's body. I found one of Cha-cha's fixing needles and I stitched a secret pocket into my jeans. I tucked my rosy fob into it, safe for good.

My fingers touched the spot where the fob hid. My secret from the world. My bundle of dead flower heads. The last gift.

I collapsed on the dirt ground of our hovel and cried until the dirt around me was mud.

Codes rose inside my mind, but every single one felt like a violation of Cha-cha's ghost. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't even so much as think of a spider suit.

The spider-riders were through.

I closed the windows and doors of my home and vowed never to come out again.

CHAPTER 2

I hadn't been out of the house in seven years.

I survived off packets of nutri-gloo that Cha-cha had stock piled before the camp got built. That stuff never expires and there was enough for two people for ten years. I was set for another thirteen, and maybe by then, I'd be dead from low immune system and lack of exercise.

I sighed, threw my nutri-gloo packet on the floor, and decided to take a nap.

A knock nearly banged down my broken door.

I stayed silent, hoping whoever it was would assume I was dead. Maybe they'd burn the house down with me inside. Oh well. I touched my secret pocket. At least I still had my roses.

C'mon, I know you're in there! called a voice I remembered from another life.

Fan, one of the spider-riders. Fan had been the first to be a real friend, building more suits alongside me in the middle of the yard. Fan's family was gone long before we met, but Fan made do.

A stab of guilt sank into my chest like a shiv. I stood and opened the door.

I don't feel good, I said bluntly.

I could always be honest with Fan. That was the great thing about our friendship. We were honest with each other, even when it sucked.

The camp's gone to shit, Chipa.

I craned my neck out the doorway and took a look.

Seems about the same to me.

It's the Junipers.

I shivered, drawing back into the darkness without really meaning to.

I knew that name. The Juniper Berries, or just Junipers for short, were one of the nasty street gangs who fought weaker street gangs to survive. The Junipers were the biggest, most organized, and the meanest.

They didn't even pretend to follow any sort of rules like the other lesser gangs did. They owned the streets, did what they wanted, and they had enough clout (read: killing power) to hold their own against even the offies who carried cheap rubber bullets, auto-spray teargas canisters, and stun batons.

Everyone who was smart said: if a cluster of Junip Bs come into your area -- you get out of the way, quick.

So what? I asked.

Surely, we couldn't say we were friends anymore. It'd been too long. Fan's face was hardly recognizable with a big uneven scar twisting up their nose and lip into a snarl. My own face my be changed too. Thinner and gray.

I have spiders. We need riders

No way.

And better programming. What I wrote...it won't--

Can't help you.

It wasn't true. I could have helped if I'd wanted to. I could have reprogrammed a dozen spider suits by the end of the day. I could have saved some lives. But, I had my roses to protect, and I couldn't so much as touch a pad screen without the tears gushing out. So, no.

Fan knew it was a lie, too. Their already ruined face crumbled up and they turned away.

I shut the door and that was the end of that day.

The next day, I heard something clank outside my door.

I opened it and saw a busted spider suit waiting for me, wires all which ways, the control pad half ripped out. The seat was dusty and unused but well worn. I instantly recognized the gear knob. I'd found it from an old world car, cherry red once upon a time. The car itself had turned into a total rust bucket long ago, but the knob was somehow in perfect condition. Real silver and shiny as ever. Cha-cha had said in another life, it'd be worth a whole lot of creds.

My old suit.

No. I wouldn't go out to it. I wouldn't fight the Junipers. I wouldn't help Fan out.

I didn't owe the world anything.

I owed it to Cha-cha to stay alive, though, so that's what I did. I turned back into my hut, drank down the gunk of another nutri-gloo packet, and went to sleep.

In the morning, the suit was still there just as Fan had left it.

Fan, who had no family. Who's face was a wreckage. Who's only friend had once been me. Who came because the violent Junipers were ruining everything.

Spider suits weren't meant for fighting, but maybe Fan had been using them for running, hiding, helping others escape. The kid had a heart of gold like that. They'd have done anything to help a little and lesser one. I remember that about them, always giving the sparkliest junk we found to kids who had less than we did.

Fan had even risked coming here and dropping my suit in the yard.

And here I was, safe and sound, doing nothing at all.

Guilt pulled me out the door of Cha-cha's hovel. I scaled up the janky ribbed side of a spider-suit. My feet and hands remembered just where to go. Half-way up I found a hole where I'd tried to cover the main operation panel in cool filigree gold foil. I'd even etched Spider Rider underneath like a name-plate.

Cha-cha had watched me. Said it'd never last, but it was cute.

True, Cha-cha. It was all shredded now. Just a glint here and there. Not even cute anymore. The whole clunky thing looked like a monster of broken parts held together with twisted wire