Sci Fi

In Progress

~ Adam ~ 1 Comment

This post is a little glimpse into the way my mind works. Not intentionally so, but more as a natural side-effect of me sitting down with a pen and paper to record my thoughts in the moment.

So, I’m reading a few books right now, and one thing I love about doing that is seeing connections between them in ways that feel immediate and fresh, unforced and natural in ways that prolonged, intentional reflection can’t achieve. Don’t get me wrong. I love prolonged and intentional reflection. It’s where some of my best and most transformative thoughts have come from. But there’s something powerful about immediacy and spontaneity.

So, I want to pay attention right now to how captivated I am by the books I’m reading (particularly Nona the Ninth and The Citadel of the Autarch) and see where that leads me.

The first thing I see is the use across both stories (and their predecessors) is the term, lictor, which makes me pause to look up the word. What does it mean? Essentially, a lictor was a Roman bodyguard, a specially-selected civil servant with the right to carry out capital punishment. This makes sense for Severian. That’s his job. But what about the lictors in Nona’s (and Gideon’s and Harrow’s) world? Since I’m not done with Nona and so much of the book is told in flashbacks to John’s early days (or at least dreams in which he tells the story of those early days to Harrowhark), I think I’ll get there.

But the prevalence and importance of death to the stories is the next thing that stands out to me. In neither story is death a thing to be avoided at all costs like it is for most of us in 21st century America. It reminds me of my PhD research and the beautiful train of thought that sees death as a mercy, rather than a punishment, as a good part of a good universe. As hard and painful as it is for those left behind, it is a profoundly natural and necessary part of the world we live in.

After all, life comes from death. New growth from destruction. And this connects to a third thing I’ve been reading: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. I have in mind the prodigal, Destruction, also known as Olethros, which has the connotation of destruction that leads to regrowth or rebirth. Not wanton, but targeted with future flourishing in mind. It’s the same idea as that of pruning the vine so the remaining branches will bear more fruit. Destruction with a positive connotation. Destruction which precedes renewal.

What a thought.

And it’s a thought that feels especially appropriate given the state of the world today. How much in our world needs to be destroyed so renewal can occur? How much must crumble, be torn down and destroyed, so that what is good and true and beautiful can emerge? So much. So much.

Olethros is hard, but it is needed. It will hurt, but sometimes pain is required for healing to take place. And that is what the world needs today: healing. But the boils must be lanced so the infection can be cleansed. The festering rot of racism and systemic injustice must be healed. The strip-mining of creation must be stopped and salved. The inequities of capitalism run amok must cease so that a new and better world can emerge.

We need to dream better dreams. Dreams of a world made whole, where everybody belongs and peace (which is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice) prevails. We need to imagine the world as it could be. One that allows everyone to flourish and thrive, bearing good fruit that feeds us all.

Westworld

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

After watching the first two episodes of HBO’s new series, Westworld, a whole host of questions have come up, but two have stood out:

  • What is real?
  • What if there were no consequences?

Let me explain. The show’s premise is that Westworld is an immersive theme park where those who are wealthy enough to pay the exorbitant price of admission can do whatever they want to the robotic (but ridiculously lifelike) inhabitants of the park. This, of course, means that for many they exercise all of their baser instincts because it is a “safe” place to do so free of the consequences those activities would bring in the world outside the park.

Shoot a man in Westworld? No worries, they think. The robot dies an agonizing and believable death, but is patched up good as new for the next day. Want to sleep around? No worries, they say. No robots are getting pregnant, there’s no real chance of STDs, and it can’t really be an affair if it’s done with a robot partner. Because the interactions are with lifelike robots rather than actual humans, people’s actions within the park seem unreal to them. If there are no consequences, then nothing has really happened, right?

Wrong.

Something very real has taken place and there are consequences. What I think the show is begging viewers to consider is that these desires they’re living out in the park are real desires, and they have really acted upon them. They have really shot and killed people. They have really had affairs. Just because the people they do these things with or to aren’t human beings doesn’t mean those actions were not real actions. The lack of consequences is an illusion. Real-world moral formation is happening every time people make choices within the park, whether those choices are for good or for ill. Whether they choose to rescue the hurting or inflict pain on others. Their choices are forming them into certain kinds of people. There are no consequence free actions for our souls.

The park-goers are committing these acts with their very bodies. It’s not imaginary, not virtual reality; it is reality, even if it is one degree removed. And any acts that our bodies engage in will impact our souls, for the two are deeply intertwined. What harms one, harms the other. What benefits one, benefits the other. There’s no getting around that.

At one point, one of the characters asserts that the park does not show you who you are; it shows you who you could be. I think that’s true, but we need to go further and recognize that each time someone chooses a path toward who they could be, they take real steps toward becoming that very person. Starting from the moment they choose their hat, they have chosen what kind of formative experience they want for their body and soul. While they think they’re simply choosing what kind of fun they wish to have, they’re really choosing what kind of person they want to be when they leave the park. Their choices will extend beyond the park, despite what they, and the park, want to believe.

As I hope the show allows us to see, “These violent delights have violent ends” both inside and outside the park.

The Three-Body Problem

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

There was much about Liu Cixin’s award winning The Three Body Problem, a hard science fiction (or perhaps we can call it SCIENCE fiction) novel, that was interesting. And I do mean much, but in the interest of brevity, I’m only going to focus on a few pieces, particularly since they integrate well with my specific interests.

I think this novel’s awareness of spiritual things is fascinating, though it paints those spiritual things in scientific colors. The driving force throughout the novel is a minority of the human race who has become convinced that humanity cannot solve its own problems and needs help from outside. This minority is a growing population that is working to pave the way for the alien invasion that will either utterly wipe out humanity or if not that then at least bring their advanced technology (which must make them more morally upright than we are) to set the Earth’s civilizations to right. Liu nails this truth of the human race. We can’t fix our problems on our own. We have ruined the world we live on and done irreparable harm to millions–perhaps billions–of people throughout our history, and so we do need help from the outside. But you want to know something crazy? The help already came. And though it came from the outside, it did so by becoming one of us and taking on all the messiness of a human body, all the dependence of flesh and blood, and redeeming it all.

In Liu’s postscript to the novel he writes,

The appearance of extraterrestrial intelligence will force humanity to confront an Other. Before then, humanity as a whole will never have had an external counterpart. The appearance of the Other, or mere knowledge of its existence, will impact our civilization in unpredictable ways.

Wow! Liu nails it again. An external Other, one who is distinctly not human, cannot help but change human civilization irrevocably. But where Liu is looking for an alien other to accomplish this encounter, the reality is that this world was fashioned by an Other who has been actively working throughout the ages of human history to accomplish a particular plan. Though the world was made through him and he has made his reality plain for all to see, the world no longer acknowledges his existence, and as one of this Other’s most ardent disciples notes, we have no excuse. And this Other? He’s the very same one who came in from the outside to take on humanity and by dying to put sin and Death to death. And by rising to new life, he brings us with him.

This quest for an external other is, I think, a deep-seated recognition that we were made for encounter with a Divine Other. In the depths of our souls we know we’re not alone in this universe (or in this multiverse if you prefer), but because we’ve taken God out of the equation we’re looking beyond the walls of the world for someone who is, in reality, near enough to hear our quietest whispers. We can continue to look beyond our solar system for an intelligent other–and we may just find it–but we don’t have to. The Other for whom and through whom and to whom we were made is waiting for us to call out to him, even if we cannot muster strength or breath enough to speak. He is ever near. And as another of his disciples once said, our souls are restless til they find their rest in him.

So let us all find rest in the One who is truly other, but also truly one of us.

His name is Jesus.

A Choir of One

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

The story below was originally slated to appear in the January 2011 edition of This Mutant Life before, sadly, the magazine shut down after the December 2010 issue. I still count this as my second published short story, though in reality it never did see publication. I still like it, though there are some things I may go back to expand upon or rewrite. But I think, in this case, it is best to publish it here as it would have appeared had This Mutant Life continued. Maybe someday down the road I’ll revisit it and rewrite it, but until then, I hope you enjoy it …

* * *

Kuni opened his mouth to speak and a babble of voices filled the air. So he closed it and the voices stopped. Instead of speaking, he nodded and Mia continued.

“I’m really proud of you Kuni,” she said. “You know, most savants can’t attend schools except those specially designed for them. But you, you’re doing exceptionally well. Mr. Trotter said your essay on the rise of savants and the end of mechanized war was superb, though your conclusions were rather bleak. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Kuni shrugged. He knew his essay was good. Kuni also knew why he went to school with regular people. For being “special,” he was quite ordinary. Why should being ordinary make him happy?

“How can you sit there and shrug like that? You have been born with a gift!”

Kuni met Mia’s eye and opened his mouth. A cacophony of voices erupted. Eyes fixed on Mia’s, Kuni let the words roll and tumble over each other in wave upon wave. As the avalanche of voices thundered, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write in his childish scrawl. When he finished, he shoved the paper across the table and closed his mouth. The voices fell silent.

She picked up the paper and read aloud, “How is this a gift? I can’t even make the voices say what I want. They just talk and talk and talk and there’s nothing I can do but shut my mouth. What good is being a savant when my gift can’t do anything of use?”
“Your gift is useful,” Mia said immediately.

Kuni snatched the paper back and scribbled furiously. He knew his haste would only make his writing harder to read, but he didn’t care. Again, he thrust the paper at Mia when he had finished and leaned back in his chair awaiting her response.

“Can I lift cars? Can I fly?” Mia paused in her reading and looked up at Kuni. “Do you really want those gifts? Sure they’re flashy and impressive, but what about their minds? Will either of them ever be more than a three year-old mentally? Will either of them ever be able to ask the questions you’re asking now? And what about your essay? Didn’t you say that savants, just like every other weapon in history, would eventually be replaced?”

Kuni did not allow himself to be swayed. He just leaned forward and tapped hard on the paper with two rigid fingers.

Mia sighed and continued reading, “If war ever comes, who will they send to fight for us? Who will protect us from the other savants out there? Me?”

Mia didn’t respond; she only looked at him with pity.

Kuni grabbed the paper once more, and ignoring the message Mia had not finished reading, wrote in thick, dark letters, “I DON’T WANT YOUR PITY! I JUST WANT TO BE USEFUL!”

He slammed the pencil down and stood up, toppling his chair. He stormed across the room to lean, head and forearms against the wall.

A paper rustled once. Otherwise the room was quiet, the constant hum of the air conditioning the only sound keeping the room from complete silence.

Kuni wasn’t surprised to hear Mia rise from her chair a few moments later. He wasn’t surprised to hear her approach on quiet feet. Neither was he surprised when her voice broke the quiet just behind him.

“It may not make you useful for war, but the voices—I think I can help with those.”
Now that was surprising.

* * *

Kuni wiped away the tears that streamed down his face at the closing notes of the anthem. He wouldn’t look at Mia, wouldn’t acknowledge the way she had watched him when the song began and the tears followed. He realized that she had remained seated throughout the anthem—very unpatriotic of her.

The game didn’t interest him much, so after only a few minutes of back and forth between the teams he changed the channel, landing on the news of all things. War was brewing again and a dozen or more nations were readying their savants. He almost changed the channel then, almost turned the television off, but the map on the screen was too beautiful. Each country stood out boldly in a different color, each played its role in the image before him. But as he watched, the image transformed. Half of the colors, so striking when viewed side by side, turned to a deep red, rich and strong. And the beauty was destroyed.

He shut the TV off.

“Why does the anthem move you so?” Mia asked after a short pause.

Kuni shrugged and Mia came to sit beside him.

“I told you before that I think I can help with those voices. Do you remember that?” She paused again. “Of course you remember. But I think the anthem might be the key. I think if anything can bring the voices together into one, it’s the anthem.”

Kuni looked up at her, not quite willing to believe that what she said was possible. If he didn’t believe her then he wouldn’t be disappointed when it didn’t work. But he wanted to believe. He met her eyes and she must have seen something there, because she smiled, took his hand, and led him outside.

Perhaps it was the touch of her hand, or the hope she offered, or some mixture of the two, but whatever it was made Kuni’s heart thunder in his chest. They stopped beneath an oak tree and took a seat on a shaded bench. Mia released his hand.

Kuni pulled out a pad and pencil and wrote in a shaky scrawl, “How will the anthem help? What difference will it make? Why do you think you can help me with the voices?”

“It’s powerful, Kuni,” she said. “Somehow it cuts through defenses you don’t even know you have in place and grabs your heart. Does anything else do that? If anything will work, it’ll be this.”

Kuni scribbled a response with a hand that shook even worse than before. Mia read it and laughed.

“Of course we’ll start right away. Why do you think I brought you out here?”
Kuni’s heart pounded so hard he felt as if he rocked back and forth with each beat. Could this be possible?

“Do you know the anthem by heart?”

Kuni nodded.

“Good. What is it about the anthem that moves you so? Is it the words? The music? Or something else?”

Kuni flushed, but decided it would be worth a little embarrassment if this worked. He wrote, “The words and the music seem to speak of a longing for home and family. It’s beautiful.”

Mia looked up from the paper and gave him a look he’d never seen before. He had no clue what it meant, but his face grew hotter and he looked down at his toes.

“What I want you to do,” Mia said, “is concentrate on that feeling. Let it break your heart if that’s what needs to happen, but feel it. Can you do that?”

Kuni shrugged. But how could he know unless he tried?

He focused, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, but nothing happened. He could remember the feeling, but he couldn’t feel it from memory. He tried again, this time gritting his teeth. Still nothing. He opened his eyes and shook his head.

“Okay, instead of thinking of the feeling, think of the anthem, remember the words and the music, and maybe that will bring the feeling back.”

Again Kuni’s brow scrunched and his eyes closed. The song was beautiful and he could even hear it in his head, but it was no use. The memory didn’t have any power to move him. He was about to open his eyes when a voice began to whisper the anthem, singing soft and low.

It had to be Mia since no one else was there, but with his eyes closed, Kuni couldn’t be sure—he had never heard her sing before. He didn’t want to open his eyes, knowing it would break the spell her gentle song was weaving. The words washed over him and one by one the emotions followed.

“Now sing Kuni,” Mia said.

Somehow he still heard her singing, yet clearly she had spoken to him. Was it her song he heard or some other?

Kuni opened his mouth expecting the cacophony to ruin the song, but all he heard was music.

* * *

Alexei yawned and rubbed his eyes with tiny fists. He bent down to pick up Teddy where he rested beside yet another charred and broken body.

“You have done well Alexei,” Teddy said in his fuzzy, far off voice. “There is only one more job for us to do before we can rest.”

“But I want to rest now Teddy.”

“No whining Alexei.”

His shoulders sagged and he nodded.

“I’m sorry to be sharp with you,” Teddy said. “This has been a long war for me too and my nerves aren’t what they used to be.”

“It’s okay,” Alexei said, stroking Teddy’s plush fur and squeezing him tight. “I forgive you. Where do we need to go?”

“East. I know we’ve only been punishing a few people at a time, but this time it’s a room full of people. They’ve been very bad, and they need to be punished—more than any of the people you’ve met so far.”

“Which way’s east?”

“It’s to your left.”

“Thanks Teddy. What would I do without you?”

Alexei gave Teddy’s soft, furry body another squeeze.

“Now hold on tight, okay Teddy?”

Alexei leapt into the air then sped off to his left, into the east, and toward those he needed to punish.

* * *

Kuni opened his mouth and for the fifth time that week, and second time that day, the voices said only what he wanted them to. It was progress. He promptly shut his mouth and smiled.

“You’re getting better,” Mia said. “I’m proud of you.”

Kuni grabbed the paper to write his response, but Mia’s hand closed over his. Her hand was warm and soft. His heart experimented with a new rhythm, beating with strange beats he felt in his ears.

“Why don’t you say it rather than writing it,” she said, not letting go of his hand.
Kuni spoke, or tried to speak, but the voices were no longer under his control. Still her hand did not leave his and his heart continued its irregular rhythm. Words continued to pour from his mouth in a multitude of voices, but gradually he began to hear in the cacophony one voice he recognized as truly his own. It wasn’t the tenor or rhythm of speech that alerted him, for he had never heard himself speak. Rather it was what the voice said.

Could she hear it? Could she pick it out of the noise?

“I love you,” it said. “I would give up all my progress with these voices if it meant you would stay and tutor me.”

He clamped his mouth shut. Those words, that declaration of love, were the only ones he had heard. It sounded as though they were the only words he had said, and all the other voices had gone still and silent.

Her head looked down and her hair, short though it was, fell in a veil, hiding her eyes from him.

His hand let go of the pencil and turned over to clasp hers where it rested. He leaned left and leaned right, hoping for a glimpse of her hidden features.

What had she heard?

Mia’s free hand reached up beneath the veil and did something, but even its motions were obscured. Its job complete, she let her hand fall into her lap once more. Kuni watched it fall and thought he might have seen a finger or two glistening, but it could have been a trick of the light. Still his heart stumbled along its uneven path, convinced she had heard him.

Kuni waited, afraid to move. Afraid the slightest motion would make her pull her hand away from his. He felt his strange pulse through fingers gently clasping hers. Even if she hadn’t heard him she had to feel the difference in that telltale pulse. She had to know.

“You’ve done well,” she said, sliding her hand off of his. “I thought you might progress with my help, but I must admit I didn’t expect to succeed.”

Did her voice tremble, or was it his imagination?

“I am proud of you, Kuni, but it’s time I was leaving.”

She stood and he rose to his feet with her, movements synchronized. Heart still stumbling, but picking up speed as though it was tripping down stairs, he opened his mouth.

Mia held up a hand, her left hand, the hand he had so recently held and wished he still did.

“I have to go.”

She turned and ran from him then. Wrenched open the door, she dashed through it. He stood and stared, shocked at her haste but hopeful.

Minutes dragged by and hope began to wither.

Five minutes after the door had closed, it opened a crack and Mia slipped halfway through. She did not look at him.

“Kuni, I just want you to know that I will be your tutor for as long as you’ll have me.”
With that she slipped out the door once more and left Kuni rooted to the same spot. It was only when the clock beeped the hour that he realized his mouth was still open, poised to speak, but no sound emerged.

* * *

Two days later, Kuni found a note taped across his door. It read:

Kuni,
Please forgive me for missing our tutoring session yesterday; I was called away to an important meeting. At that meeting I heard an update on the war. It’s not going well for us, but there is hope. I know this may surprise you, but that hope is in you. With the progress you’ve made, we think you might be able to help when the savant who has caused such damage arrives sometime tonight. Your gift is something he has never seen and you may be able to stop him, or slow him long enough for help to arrive. You wanted to be useful. Well, here’s your chance.

Meet me tonight at the city council office at 6:00.

Mia

He arrived that evening, eager to see Mia and to prove himself to these people, whoever they were. Instead, all he found was another note.

* * *

Echoes of voices drifted down the halls so faintly at first Alexei couldn’t be sure they were truly there. Cocking his head, he strained to hear them more clearly, but couldn’t. He began drifting down corridors, feet hovering a few inches off the ground. There was no particular reason he went down some hallways and not others, he just floated, until he rounded a bend and the voices grew louder.

He sped down the hall and came to a T, but there was no confusion left in him. The voices came from the left-hand branch. A few turns later and he stopped in front of a door. Even though he was sure the voices came from the other side of this door, they were still hushed. The door had to be thick.

Alexei pressed his ear against the door and realized for the first time that the voices were singing.

“They must be punished,” Teddy said in his metallic voice. “All of them.”

Alexei hesitated. He didn’t want to punish anyone else. He wanted to sleep. At the thought of sleep he yawned and rubbed at one eye with a fist. It wouldn’t even have to be a comfortable place. He just needed somewhere to lie down without Teddy telling him what to do.

“I know you don’t want to do this,” Teddy said, “but you must Alexei. This is the last time you’ll have to punish anyone.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“And after this I can sleep.”

“For as long as you need. Now, the sooner you open that door, the sooner our job is done.”

Alexei reached out and with strength beyond his small stature pushed through the heavy wooden doors.

* * *

The doors opened and Kuni’s mouth snapped shut. The anthem hung in the air, echoing back from wall to wall for a few moments while the young boy stood and looked around him. He was just a child. Kuni could almost imagine him with one arm tightly holding his teddy bear and his thumb in his mouth. The picture in Kuni’s head was nearly complete before him: the boy clutched a teddy bear tightly in one arm, but he doubted this boy had ever been allowed to have a thumb near his mouth.

Their eyes met and the boy asked a question in a language Kuni could not understand so he shrugged and shook his head. The boy tried again, though Kuni couldn’t tell if he had repeated himself or said something different.

“I’m sorry,” Kuni said in one clear voice, “I don’t understand you.”

The boy nodded then and paused. After a few moments of silence he began to hum and pointed at Kuni.

He understood then and focused on what Mia had taught him, letting his mind and heart sink into the longing stirred by the anthem. He began to sing. It was his voice, and his alone that sang. The boy watched him, looking vaguely unsatisfied. So Kuni relaxed his control just a bit and a couple voices joined his.

The boy looked at him more closely for a moment before leaping into the air and soaring around the room. He looked behind chairs and under tables. Obviously finding no one, he flew back and landed closer to Kuni. The boy watched him closely, eyes blinking only occasionally.

Kuni relaxed his control a little further and more voices joined the song. The little boy’s face lit up and he crept even closer.

With every voice that Kuni allowed to join the song, the boy moved closer, until Kuni let his control fall the rest of the way and a choir joined the song. The boy dropped his teddy bear and clapped, a huge smile spread across his lean, tired face. He leapt the last dozen yards and sat at Kuni’s feet, still smiling.

A metallic voice screeched from the teddy bear, but the boy didn’t even glance toward it. His eyes remained fixed on Kuni.

When the anthem ended, the little boy clapped again and cheered in his foreign tongue, before sitting still and waiting, eyes expectant. So Kuni began a softer song, a lullaby sung just above a whisper. The choir of voices sang together, soft and gentle, and gradually the boy’s eyes began to close. His body relaxed along with his eyes and Kuni kept singing. The boy inched down until he was curled up on his side in a little ball. The teddy bear screeched and hissed again, but Kuni kept singing. The boy’s eyes remained closed, his breathing slow and even.

Just watching the boy made Kuni drowsy, but he let the song continue. The little guy needed rest.

A side door opened behind Kuni with a soft squeak and quiet footsteps crept toward them. He heard these sounds, but continued singing. The footsteps stopped behind him, something was set down, and latches were undone, their clicks louder than the squeak of the door or the creak of the floorboards. Kuni wanted to turn and shush the newcomer, but he continued singing, afraid the boy would wake if he allowed the song to stop.
But a pinch at the base of his neck interrupted his song. He reached back to brush away whatever insect had bitten him, but was surprised to find that he couldn’t lift his arm. Strong hands supported him beneath his armpits and at their touch his legs gave way beneath him. The hands guided him to the ground to rest on his side, facing the still sleeping boy.

The newcomer walked around Kuni to squat by the boy’s side. He slid a needle out of a sleeve and gave it two slow shakes. The fluid in the syringe swirled. The newcomer pressed the tip of the needle against the base of the boy’s neck and pushed. The needle bowed and threatened to snap, but the newcomer eased off the pressure. He appeared to think for a moment and all the while Kuni’s body grew heavier. He felt as though he were sinking into the floorboards beneath him. All he could do was watch.

The newcomer reached across the sleeping boy and stuck the needle into the boy’s open mouth. With a slow pressure he let the liquid dribble out to mingle with the boy’s saliva. The boy didn’t wake.

Still squatting the newcomer turned to face Kuni then and with a surprise dulled by whatever drug coursed through him, he saw that the newcomer was a woman. He tried to focus his eyes on her face, but they refused, only growing blurrier the longer he kept them open. Kuni closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His heart beat slowly, pounding as it too seemed to join with the floor beneath him.

“I’m so sorry Kuni,” the woman said, her words barely a whisper.

He felt a tingle in his ear at the woman’s whispered breath.

“They told me to do whatever I could to train you, to break through your block. I hoped I wouldn’t succeed. Because success would only lead to this.”

The woman’s voice broke and in the silence that followed Kuni tried to make sense of her words. His brain felt hazy and unclear.

“You were right, you know, in your essay. The savants’ time has ended, but not to be replaced by something new. We are replacing you with nothing. There will be no weapons, there will be no war. Kuni, you and Alexei are the last of the savants, and soon, even you will be gone. And with you . . .”

The haze lifted just a little from Kuni’s mind, enough to recognize the speaker and follow her words.

“Who are we kidding? Killing the savants won’t end anything. It may give us a break, perhaps even a long one, but there will always be war.” He felt her gently brush his hair from his face. “You’ve known that for longer even that I have. But we have to try, right? We must try!”

Kuni tried to open his eyes, tried to look at Mia’s face one last time. She was killing him, but with her hand still brushing his face, he somehow didn’t mind. His eyes would not open.

So he stopped trying and focused instead on all the things she had taught him. He pictured her face. And with one voice, his own voice, he hummed.

She gasped and pulled away her hand. Seconds later both hands were on his face and he felt more than heard her soft crying just above him. One drop fell onto his face and with one kiss she brushed it away.

Kuni hummed until his breath ran out. The last sound he heard was Mia’s gentle voice singing the anthem over him.

All I’ll say about this year’s Hugo nominations

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

There’s a great big tide of Internet hullaballoo over this year’s Hugo Award finalists. If you neither know what the Hugos are nor have any idea what I’m talking about, you can probably just skip this entry.

Anyway, lots of people are suggesting how to vote and giving good reasons for those opinions, others are encouraging their readers to vote their conscience (which is a remarkably practical suggestion). I will only weigh in on this by referring to my reviews of the pieces the Puppies pushed through onto last year’s ballot:

The Exchange Officers

Opera Vita Aeterna

Let me offer one simple suggestion: maybe their stories haven’t won, not because of some conspiracy within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy community, but because they’re not good enough to win. Just throwing that out there.

Two Feet Apart

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

This is the first short story I had published. It appeared on the Residential Aliens website (now taken down it appears) in April 2010. It was an exciting thing, having someone pay me for my writing, even if it was only a small amount.

Stephen’s eyes opened and his brow furrowed, puzzled. Something was different, but what? He looked around him, and his room looked the same; all his furniture was in the right spot, the central air conditioning and filtering unit was whirring away contentedly, and . . . he could hear the central air being pumped into his room. He had never heard that sound before. It had forced air into his room for the past twenty years and yet this day marked the first time he had ever heard it. Odd that something so simple can stand out all of a sudden, he thought as he got off the couch and headed into the kitchen for a snack.

As he stood in the five-by-five cubicle, his shoulders began to shake, gently at first, but with increasing force, until a loud laugh burst from his diaphragm. As if I could even get any food without my DLS operating, he thought happily. His chuckles continuing, he put on his jacket and stepped outside into the hallway of his high-rise apartment complex and headed for the elevator. The two-hundred some odd stories between him and the ground would take only a minute to pass, so Stephen didn’t have much time to focus on the polychromatic digital display as the numbers swept past like the flow of traffic on the multi-tiered freeway outside his apartment. But Stephen did notice, once again, for the first time. It’s amazing, he thought. Has this always been here or was it just recently added? If it’s always been here, I would have noticed it before now. It must be new.

The elevator touched down on the ground floor and Stephen strode out to the front doors and into the street. The air was clean and the sun was bright, but it was always like that. Wasn’t it? A steady flow of cars and pedestrians swept past him. As Stephen watched, he noticed each pedestrian walked about two feet behind the person in front of him. Hundreds of people passed by and each person was spaced evenly—two feet apart. The cars too, though they moved so fast it was hard to tell exactly, were spaced evenly it seemed—two feet apart. And strangely, with all the traffic, both human and machine, there was hardly any sound on the street.

How odd, Stephen thought, as he merged into the pedestrian traffic headed downtown, toward the DLS office. Stephen walked along with the crowd, looking around as he went. Splotches of green burst into sight as he rounded the corner—trees. Had he ever noticed those trees before? Stephen stopped and as he did, the traffic behind him did also. A ripple of confusion passed through the crowd milling in consternation behind him. A line began to form as confused citizens focused their eyes on this unprecedented roadblock. The man behind Stephen even began to sweat in perplexity. At first, Stephen didn’t notice the disturbance his momentary pause had caused; he was too enraptured by the soft speckling of bleach-white blossoms on a background of verdant green leaves. Nature was something he was used to seeing through his DLS, but not through his eyes. It existed in some far off place, but not in his own city.

Gradually another new feeling swept over him, and he was aware, for the first time in his recollection, of the people surrounding him. He felt their confusion and the press of bodies stacking up behind him. He glanced back at the sweating man, who grimaced as though physically pained by the interruption of his normal routine, flashed a small, apologetic smile to the obviously uncomfortable man and danced his way through the evenly spaced two-foot gaps to a spot clear of traffic. The pedestrian traffic immediately picked up in his absence, and no one spared him another glance.

How did I fail to notice these colors? Stephen wondered. They were so vibrant, so bold, they really were impossible to miss. And with the blue sky spread out behind them, peeking mischievously between the branches, he could almost have believed they wanted to be noticed. Almost. The tree may have been beautiful and that thought may have been interesting, but he had no time for either. Neither did he have the patience to ponder either in more depth than he already had. Perhaps these trees are new too, he thought, smiling, and jumped back into the flow of traffic.

But Stephen quickly grew bored with the two foot buffer zone between every person and began to vary his pace; walking first faster than normal, whizzing past people on his right and left as though he were one of those race cars the DLS was always showing, then walking so slowly that traffic once again began to pile up behind him, and the sudden focus of the people around him became a palpable thing. In truth, he found it all rather amusing. Imagine that people could get so flustered by something so simple.

In all, Stephen enjoyed his four-block walk, enjoyed it more than he could remember enjoying anything. There were so many things he noticed for the first time that he began to lose track. He heard birds serenading an unlistening and uncaring populace; he saw butterflies flitting and fluttering across the street, thinking butterfly thoughts and dreaming butterfly dreams; he felt the sun gently caressing his neck and shoulders with its tender warmth; he saw occasional clouds drifting past on errands of their own; he watched a trail of ants bustle across the sidewalk, each walking at its own pace in zigs and zags with no regard for space between them, carrying little scraps of food for their larvae; he even saw a stray dog sitting miserably in the shade of a building, all its hopes of an affectionate pat on the head extinguished by long months of being overlooked—or more accurately, by long months without even being noticed. The dog saw Stephen watching him and began to slowly wag her tail starting with the faintest flicks of the tip, and proceeding to full tail wags when she saw Stephen smile.

Stephen looked up from his new friend and saw the building he sought just a few yards ahead, “Direct Linkage Services” etched in the marble façade. He smiled once more at the dog, waved to her, and walked into the foyer. I’ll go back and scratch her ears on my way out. The dog watched him go and its tail slowly wound to a halt.

After a few minutes of searching he found an open repair station. As soon as he stepped into the small, metal-framed structure a handsome but unremarkable face appeared on the screen in front of him.

“Welcome citizen,” the face smiled inhospitably. “Please stand still while I verify your identity and check your account status.”

Two small pods dropped from the ceiling. One hovered in front of his face, scanning the iris of each eye, while the other zipped from his fingertips to the top of his head, where it removed a short brown hair. He nearly reached out to grab his hair back from the machine—he didn’t exactly have a lot of brown hair left to spare. The conquering army of age was advancing across his scalp, leaving outposts of gray sentinels guarding against any revolution by the browns attempting to reclaim lost ground. As each pod finished its duty, oblivious to his consternation, it disappeared into the hole it came from just moments before.

“I apologize for the delay citizen,” the face sympathized unfeelingly, “it will take a few minutes to process your information. I appreciate your patience.”

Stephen stood quietly looking around at the empty metal walls and soon became bored. There was really very little to see inside the machine, and the smiling face had disappeared—apparently to analyze his information personally. I can’t remember ever being this bored, he thought as he fidgeted with the buttons of his shirt. It seemed that days passed, perhaps even years, before the face returned, still smiling.

“Stephen Redman, it is my pleasure to service you. I am creating a new Direct Linkage System, which we will insert to replace your faulty one. It will be just one moment.” And with that, the smiling face disappeared again.

The years turned to decades as Stephen waited, still fidgeting with his buttons. Stephen’s right hand reached up to touch his hair as he idly wondered if more gray hairs had sprung up to replace the brown while he waited. His thoughts drifted back to the day when the DLS went on the market. He had been first in line, camped out the night before. “After all,” he had said, “what’s not to like about it?” Earbuds, screens, monitors, keyboards, touchpads, phones–all were things of the past. Wires had been done away with years before, but this . . . this was the future! Direct connections, always active and available. It was all of his communication and entertainment needs bundled into a product he didn’t even need to carry. It was a beautiful thing. But I’ve seen beautiful things today too, haven’t I? More beautiful than this, I’d wager, and actually seen them too, not just in my mind, but with my eyes.  The hatch opened and the pods came out again, thrusting Stephen’s thoughts back into the moment, the all-important now.

The pods descended slowly from the ceiling to hover, one at each temple, two feet apart. They circled his head, slowly at first, but with steadily increasing velocity. A field of electricity formed around the rim of the pods’ orbit, crackling and sparking. With a soft pop, the electric current around him dissipated and the pods ascended back into the ceiling.

The smiling face returned. “Your new DLS has been implanted. It will be activated in three-two-one-”SNAP!

Life returned to Stephen then and there. A steady stream of images and information filled his mind, connecting him directly with every other human on the planet, revealing events from around the globe. Messages from his friends had stockpiled during the hours his DLS had been down, asking if he was dead, or incapacitated in some way.

The doors opened and Stephen walked out, his eyes flitting unseeing past the shy flicks and wags of a dog’s tail, so consumed was he in watching in his mind the image of some foolish man with hair more gray than brown standing by a white-blossomed tree, holding up the flow of traffic. Strange person, Stephen thought as he stepped out into the sunlight, slipping without a thought into the traffic flowing past, everyone walking two feet apart.