http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/itunes-rss/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com Science Fiction & Fantasy Wed, 22 May 2013 16:36:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Science Fiction & Fantasy Lightspeed Magazine no Science Fiction & Fantasy http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpg http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-karen-russell/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-karen-russell/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 10:05:06 +0000 The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9186 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-karen-russell/feed/ 1 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-black-2/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-black-2/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 10:04:26 +0000 Jude Griffin http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9160 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-black-2/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-aarne-thompson-classification-revue/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-aarne-thompson-classification-revue/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 10:03:29 +0000 Holly Black http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9200 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-aarne-thompson-classification-revue/feed/ 0 There is a werewolf girl in the city. She sits by the phone on a Saturday night, waiting for it to ring. She paints her nails purple. There is a werewolf girl in the city. She sits by the phone on a Saturday night, waiting for it to ring. She paints her nails purple. She goes to bed early. Body curled around a pillow, fingers clawing at the bedspread, she dreams that she’s on a da... Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-m-bennardo-2/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-m-bennardo-2/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 10:02:38 +0000 Patrick J Stephens http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9164 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-m-bennardo-2/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/water-finds-its-level/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/water-finds-its-level/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 10:01:43 +0000 M. Bennardo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9204 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/water-finds-its-level/feed/ 2 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-giuliano-brocani/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-giuliano-brocani/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 10:05:09 +0000 Galen Dara http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9188 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-giuliano-brocani/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-damien-walters-grintalis/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-damien-walters-grintalis/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 10:04:24 +0000 Christie Yant http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9159 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-damien-walters-grintalis/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/always-they-whisper/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/always-they-whisper/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 10:03:26 +0000 Damien Walters Grintalis http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9199 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/always-they-whisper/feed/ 7 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sean-williams/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sean-williams/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 10:02:35 +0000 Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9163 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sean-williams/feed/ 1 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-missing-metatarsals/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-missing-metatarsals/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 10:01:40 +0000 Sean Williams http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9203 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-missing-metatarsals/feed/ 0 His head swiveled to track me as we walked in lockstep through security. A birth defect called Möbius syndrome inherited from distant Nepalese ancestors left him with underdeveloped VI and VII cranial nerves, so he can’t blink, bite, The moment I stepped from the booth and saw Inspector Forest waiting for me, I knew something was up. “You’re wearing your inscrutable face,” I told him. “This is my usual face.” His head swiveled to track me as we walked in lockstep through security. A birth defect called Möbius syndrome inherited from distant Nepalese ancestors left him with underdeveloped VI and VII cranial nerves, so he can’t blink, bite, or form expressions without the help of a series of tiny implants. My girlfriend Billie is a muscle artist, and she’s tweaked the inspector’s presets a couple of times, giving him conscious control of his face, but that’s not the same as the real thing. Not the same at all. “I would like your perspective on a rather interesting situation, if you have time.” “Sure.” I was a peacekeeper not for the status, but for a chance to crack cases with the legendary PK Forest. “What’s up?” “A theft.” “I didn’t think data crime was your bag.” “This has nothing to do with data.” “Someone actually stole something?” “So it seems.” One eyelid drooped, very precisely. “Let me get my coat and we will be on our way.” #### It was like the inspector to wear a coat when there was no need to go outside. Peacekeeper HQ was in the New York Archipelago that week, and the crime had occurred in Washington D.C., so we took an internal booth and stepped into a mahogany foyer that left me feeling as though I’d moved in time as well as space. My augmented reality lenses synced with the Air on arrival, giving me a brief rundown of our new location. It was the home of a private collection belonging to a Mister Antoine Bayazati, but what the collection consisted of, exactly, the Air didn’t say. Antiques, I guessed, judging by the foyer. I was close. “PK Forest.” A smartly-dressed Caucasian woman stepped out of a doorway to greet us, her hand outstretched to take the inspector’s in a firm grip. “This is my assistant, PK Sargent.” I took the woman’s hand in turn, noting green eyes that danced away too quickly, several strands of hair that had sprung free of a tight, auburn bun, and a not unpleasant smell of dust. The fingernail of her thumb was bitten short, her palm faintly damp. “Diana Scullen, curator of Mister Bayazati’s collection,” she told me. “Please, this way.” She led us through a series of dimly lit corridors, heels inaudible on thick, burgundy carpet. I examined a series of framed pictures as they swept past, expecting the usual portraits or landscapes, but they were in fact old paintings of dinosaurs. Their proportions were off, and everyone knows that T. Rex ran with its body parallel to the ground rather than upright like a kangaroo. “Mister Bayazati is an eminent dinophiliac,” the inspector said, noting my interest. “Is that a word?” “Most would say preeminent,” said Scullen, waving us ahead of her through a double door. The office beyond left no doubt of the owner’s opinion regarding the prefix. Mister Bayazati had a crown of curly gray hair that contrasted magisterially with his black skin. The tallest person in the room by almost a full head, followed by me, Scullen, and Inspector Forest, he loomed in a blue three-piece suit over an enormous, leather-topped desk. “Good of you to come,” he said in a voice that was high-pitched with anxiety. He didn’t offer us a seat, but he didn’t sit himself so I supposed that wasn’t impolite. “I’m desperate.” “So I was led to understand,” said the inspector. “Something about a stolen fossil . . . ?” “Not just any fossil, man. The find of the century!” “Perhaps you could explain the significance of the theft in more detail.” “Yes, of course.” Bayazati walked as he talked, circumnavigating around the room as though looking for a way out. “There are three official species of Stegosaurus: armatus, homheni, and mjosi. Two years ago, I discovered a perfectly articulated skeleton of a fourth species, S. ungulatus, Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-may-2013/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-may-2013/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 10:05:04 +0000 John Joseph Adams http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9185 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-may-2013/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-richard-parks/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-richard-parks/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 10:04:21 +0000 Jude Griffin & Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9158 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-richard-parks/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-man-who-carved-skulls/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-man-who-carved-skulls/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 10:03:24 +0000 Richard Parks http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9198 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-man-who-carved-skulls/feed/ 1 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-maria-dahvana-headley-2/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-maria-dahvana-headley-2/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 10:02:33 +0000 Patrick J Stephens http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9162 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-maria-dahvana-headley-2/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-traditional/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-traditional/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 10:01:35 +0000 Maria Dahvana Headley http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=9202 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-traditional/feed/ 0 Illustrated by Galen Dara By your first anniversary, the world’s stopped making paper, and so you can’t give your boyfriend the traditional gift. You never would have anyway, regardless of circumstances. You’re not that kind of girl. You pride yourself on your original sin. (http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Traditional-by-Maria-Dahvana-Headley-575x442.jpg) I. By your first anniversary, the world’s stopped making paper, and so you can’t give your boyfriend the traditional gift. You never would have anyway, regardless of circumstances. You’re not that kind of girl. You pride yourself on your original sin. It’s the hot you trade in. So you give him the piece of your skin just beneath your ribcage on the right side, where the floating ribs bend in. It’s a good part. Not the best. You’re like a food hoarder who pretends her larder’s empty, all the while running her finger along the dusty ledge that leads to the trick shelves that hold the jars of Caspian caviar. You’ve always been the kind of liar who leans back and lets boys fall into you while you see if you can make them fall all the way out the other side. You want them to feel like they’ve hit Narnia. You traffic in interdimensional fucking, during which they transcend space and time, and you go nowhere. When they fall in love, you Shun & Break™ them. Their poor plastic hearts are Pez dispensers topped with copyright violation Mickey Mice. Your boy’s not falling for this shit. He simply refuses. He sees through your methods. You met him in a bar on the night of the first apocalypse, just prior, and both of you somehow lived through the night. He clocked you from moment one, when you bought him a drink and brought it to him, fresh lipstick on your mouth, altering your walk to cause him pain. He drank it. He then took the cherry out of yours and drank your drink too, looking at you the whole time like he was a prime transgressor who was going to rock your world until it broke. “You gonna try to make me love you now?” he asked. “That your thing?” “Brother,” you said, taken aback by the way he’d just needlessly whacked the rules of flirtation, “I don’t even know you exist.” This would have been the end of it, except that five minutes later there was a rending, and everyone was screaming and trying to get away, and buildings were falling down, and the streets were full of unimaginable. You were out of your element. You loved the Woolworthing of the world before the apocalypse, the shopping mall fluorescence of flirtation, the IKEA particleboard pushing together of things that would shortly fall apart. You loved paper parasols and plastic monkeys. Everything was your toy. You killed men, but they never got anywhere near killing you. But he grabbed your hand, and you grabbed his, and you took off running together, dodging crazy, jumping holes in the streets, not stopping to look at the people who were down on the ground already, vomiting up important parts of anatomy. You didn’t actually see the worms that night, though other people did. That was the first anyone heard of them. When you finally got indoors and safe as you were likely to get given the stakes, given the world situation—sex, you informed him, was necessary, because minus sex? This shit was just monsters and the end of the world. He wasn’t so sure. He’d sobered up, considered lighting out on his own, but you insisted you were better off together. Then you tore off his clothes and climbed him like a firefighter reversing up a pole. Maybe you love him now, maybe you don’t. You don’t trust him, but there’s nothing new about that. The apartment you share has big windows, and no curtains. You don’t look out. The floor beneath the window has an old bloodstain, but whatever happened there happened a long time ago. In bed, you’re rubber and he’s glue, and it’s hot enough to keep you going. “This is so you can write on me instead of paper,” you say, thrilling at your own fin de monde generosity. The rest of the world’s in mourning, but you’re celebrating your survival. You roll over to face him. You’ve outlined the page with a razor blade. The rest of you is unmarked. There’s the promise of a quarto. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-brandon-sanderson/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-brandon-sanderson/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:05:10 +0000 The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8937 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-brandon-sanderson/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-bruce-sterling-2/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-bruce-sterling-2/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:04:54 +0000 Earnie Sotirokos http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8927 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-bruce-sterling-2/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-hugh-howey/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-hugh-howey/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:04:26 +0000 Robyn Lupo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8905 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-hugh-howey/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deep-blood-kettle/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deep-blood-kettle/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:03:20 +0000 Hugh Howey http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8976 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deep-blood-kettle/feed/ 4 Illustrated by Galen Dara They say the sky will fill with dust in a bad way if we don’t do something soon. My teacher Mrs. Sandy says that if the meteor hits, it’ll put up enough dirt to block the sun, and everything will turn cold for a long, long while. (http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/deep-blood-kettle-by-hugh-howie-575x442.jpg) They say the sky will fill with dust in a bad way if we don’t do something soon. My teacher Mrs. Sandy says that if the meteor hits, it’ll put up enough dirt to block the sun, and everything will turn cold for a long, long while. When I came home and told Pa about this, he got angry. He called Mrs. Sandy a bad word, said she was teaching us nonsense. I told him the dinosaurs died because of dust in the sky. Pa said there weren’t no such thing as dinosaurs. “You boys watch,” he told me and my brother. “That rock’ll burn up. It’ll be no more than a flash of light. I’ve seen a million shooting stars if I’ve seen a dozen.” Pa stopped rubbing his rifle and traced a big arc in the air with his oil-stained rag. “She’ll hit the sky and light up like fireworks, and the worst she’ll do is leave a crater like that one down in Arizona. Then we’ll show them suckers how we watch over our land.” Only Pa don’t use the word “suckers.” Pa uses worse words for the invaders than he ever did for Mrs. Sandy. He never calls them aliens. Sometimes he says it’s the Russians or the Chinese or the Koreans. He believes in aliens about as much as dinosaurs. Pa spat in the dirt and asked if I was taking a break or something. I told him “nossir” and went back to oiling my gun. He and my brother did the same. #### Pa says our land is fertile because of the killin’ we soak it in. That’s why things grow as tall as they do. The little critters are killed dead and give their life to the soil. I seen it every year when we plow it under for the new crops. When I was a boy, before father let me drive the John Deere, I’d play in the loose soil his plowing left behind. Acres and acres for a sandbox. The dust he kicked up would blot the sky and dry my mouth, but I’d kick through the furrows and dig for arrowheads until my fingernails were chipped or packed full of dirt. Where he hadn’t yet plowed, you could see the dead stalks from the last harvest. The soil there was packed tight from the rains and the dry spells. Pa used to laugh at the newfangled ways of planting that kept the ground like that by driving the seeds straight through. It weren’t the way the Samuels tended their land, he told us. We Samuels dragged great steel plows across the hard pack and the old stalks and we killed everything in the ground. That was what made the land ready again. When I was younger, I found half a worm floppin’ on top of the ground after a plow. It moved like the tail on a happy dog, but it was already dead. Took a while for it to realize, was all. I pinched it between my fingers and watched it wind down like the grandfather clock in the great room. When it was still, the worm went into a furrow, and I kicked some dirt over it. That was the whole point. The little things would feed the corn, and the corn would feed us, and we would all get taller because of it. Pa, meanwhile, drove that tractor in great circles that took him nearly out of sight; the dust he kicked up could blot out the whole Montana sky, and my boots would fill up with gravel as I kicked through the loose furrows he left behind. #### Pa only believes in things he can see. He didn’t believe in the meteor until it became brighter than any star in the sky. Before long, you could see it in the daytime if you knew where to look and squinted just right. The people on the TV talked to scientists who said it was coming straight for us. They had a date and time and everything. One of them said you could know where it would land, but that nobody wanted a panic. It just meant people panicked everywhere. And then it leaked that the rock would hit somewhere between Russia and China, and Pa reckoned those people were panicking a little worse. He called it a rock, not a meteor. Like a bunch of people, Pa don’t think it’ll amount to much. Folks been predicting doom since his grandpa was a boy, Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dinner-in-audoghast/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dinner-in-audoghast/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:01:18 +0000 Bruce Sterling http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8975 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dinner-in-audoghast/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-jane-yolen/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-jane-yolen/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:05:05 +0000 The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8935 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-jane-yolen/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-robert-silverberg-3/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-robert-silverberg-3/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:04:56 +0000 Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8940 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-robert-silverberg-3/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/schwartz-between-the-galaxies/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/schwartz-between-the-galaxies/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:03:22 +0000 Robert Silverberg http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8977 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/schwartz-between-the-galaxies/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-karin-tidbeck/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-karin-tidbeck/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:02:23 +0000 Andrew Liptak http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8904 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-karin-tidbeck/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-fine-show-on-the-abyssal-plain/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-fine-show-on-the-abyssal-plain/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:01:37 +0000 Karin Tidbeck http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8973 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-fine-show-on-the-abyssal-plain/feed/ 2 On a beach by the sea stands a gutted stone tower. A man is climbing up the remains of a staircase that spirals up the tower’s interior. Vivi sits on the roof, oblivious, counting coins that have spilled from her breast pocket: one fiver, three ones, On a beach by the sea stands a gutted stone tower. A man is climbing up the remains of a staircase that spirals up the tower’s interior. Vivi sits on the roof, oblivious, counting coins that have spilled from her breast pocket: one fiver, three ones, one golden ten. She’s only wearing a worn pair of pajamas, and the damp breeze from the sea is making her shiver. She has no memory of how she arrived, but is vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps. Eventually the footsteps arrive at the top, and stop. The man who has appeared on the roof is dressed in khakis and worn boots. Dark locks tumble down the left side of his face, which is beautiful in that ruddy way that belongs to adolescence. Vivi looks up, startled. “Who are you?” “I should ask you the same.” The man’s barely winded. “You’re trespassing. We’ve claimed this place.” “I don’t understand,” says Vivi. “Who are you? And who are ‘we’?” “Exploratory actors, of course.” He makes a mock bow. “We’re the Documentary Theatre Troupe. And you, as I said, are trespassing on our territory. I must ask you to come with me.” Vivi follows him down the stairs, down the beach, and into a lush forest where the Documentary Theatre Troupe have made camp and eagerly greet their new audience. #### The play is called The Tragedy of King Vallonius. Contrary to the title’s promise, the story is about a girl named Rosella, famed for her beauty and especially her lovely head of hair, so striking that she must wear a headscarf outside lest she attract unwanted attention. One day Rosella forgets to put her scarf on and goes for a walk with her head uncovered. A pedestrian passing by on the other side of the street sees her bright red hair and runs into a lamppost. The shopping bag he was carrying spills its contents in the street: vegetables, a bottle of milk, and a packet of soft butter. A man riding by on his bicycle slips in the patch of butter and falls over, cracking his head open on the stones. And this is where the Tragedy of King Vallonius comes in. The man on the bicycle was in fact the beloved monarch who liked to disguise himself as a commoner to see how his subjects were faring. Now that the king is dead, the country is plunged into a war with its neighboring nation. Rosella, in terror, shaves her head and never leaves her home again. When the play is done, the troupe lines up and bows for applause. They look bewildered when Vivi doesn’t clap her hands. “What did we do wrong?” says the Pedestrian. “Nothing,” says Vivi. “I just don’t like it. Maybe the setting is wrong.” “How about winter?” says Rosella, pulling off her skin-coloured rubber cap, letting her luxurious hair spill out. Vivi wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like winter. And I don’t like Rosella. Also this would never happen in real life.” “It would,” says the dead king from the floor, twirling his thick grey moustache. “This is based on real events. King Vallonius I died just this way, and that is how the kingdom of Pavalona fell to the Fedrans. We only enact stories that are true.” “Absolutely, one hundred percent true,” Rosella agrees. “There was never a king named Vallonius,” says Vivi. “Of course there was,” replies the Pedestrian. “But not in your world.” #### Apprentice hates playing Vivi, the sniveling girl from a boring dayworld that “encounters” strangeness and through that strangeness tells the story of a “documentary theatre troupe.” There are too many meta levels, too much self-referencing. Why would you set up a play about setting up a play? And the casting is always the same. Apprentice never gets to play the actor who does Rosella, or King Vallonius, or the Pedestrian; she has to be boring old Vivi, and Vivi’s grey tedium is sinking into her bones. “You have to feel her to play her,” says Director, the third time she interrupts the play to correct Vivi. “Let her emotions bleed into yours.” “She doesn’t have any,” Apprentice replies. “She’s a protagonist. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-armand-baltazar/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-armand-baltazar/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:05:08 +0000 Galen Dara http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8936 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-armand-baltazar/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-kathleen-ann-goonan-2/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-kathleen-ann-goonan-2/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:04:59 +0000 Robyn Lupo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8941 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-kathleen-ann-goonan-2/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-love-supreme/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-love-supreme/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:03:24 +0000 Kathleen Ann Goonan http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8978 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/a-love-supreme/feed/ 1 Ellie Santos-Smith grabs a clean white coat as spring dawn brightens her worn Oriental rug and streaks with sun her only luxury, a grand piano. She runs a comb through her jet-black hair, cut short because she thinks that makes her look older. Ellie Santos-Smith grabs a clean white coat as spring dawn brightens her worn Oriental rug and streaks with sun her only luxury, a grand piano. She runs a comb through her jet-black hair, cut short because she thinks that makes her look older. Her smooth skin glows with 20-ish health, though she is 47. Patients distrust young doctors. Nanomed infusions keep her body young, her mind sharp, and mitigate her crippling agoraphobia. She has worked hard to be able to live in a minuscule apartment in The Enclave, a safe, low-population-density bubble in Washington, D.C. In this small, pure paradise, the incredibly rich claim more cubic feet than most people in the world can dream of, dine on rare organic food, and ingest the most finely tuned infusions. She hates herself for needing this. But she does. If she is to help anyone, if she is to put her hard-won training to use, she does. She can walk to the Longevity Center for her frequent infusions and, after that, to her job as an emergency physician at Capital Hospital without being trapped in a car, a subway, a plane. Her phone rings. “Dad?” His voice gravelly, odd. Not that she’s heard from him in a long time. “Hi, hon.” She thinks blue for a moment. His eyes, tear-shimmered blue beneath a thatch of sun-whitened hair, all those years ago. He had been abruptly summoned from his marine biology kingdom the day her mother was murdered, as Ellie watched, during the First East Coast Riot. He’d fled back to his undersea haven soon afterwards, leaving her to Grandma and boarding schools. “Can we talk later? My infusion is overdue; then I’m working emergency till seven,” she says. She imagines him in the teak cabin of his Key West-anchored sloop, stubbornly aging. “Never mind.” He hangs up. Same old game. She should be used to his gruff elusiveness, but it always hurts. Her father, a celebrated marine biologist with a worm named after him, quit academia once she got her college scholarships and spent decades painting bizarre ocean creatures, gaining a small international following. Downstairs, the doorman smiles. She steps out into her safe haven, a few tree-lined blocks of historic mansions, townhomes, restaurants, and shops bounded on one side by Connecticut Avenue and patrolled by security professionals (thugs, to her mind) for which she pays a hefty neighborhood fee. They keep out the homeless, the hungry, the desperate, and the different. Once outside this discreet, invisible boundary she will have to pass through a few blocks she calls The Gauntlet, which throbs with the dense crowds that now fill most of the cities on Earth, before reaching the hospital where she works. Only her nanomed infusions keep panic at bay. In front of her, a lone bicyclist splashes through puddles, and nearby Don Stapleton descends the broad stairs of Forever, a 1900-vintage condominium mansion of 30 wealthy centenarians, some of whom worked hard to establish The Enclave. He waves. “Doc! Lovely morning!” Trapped. She could swear he hacks her schedule. White dreads halo his dark, handsome face. “Coffee on the veranda?” She glances over at the broad Victorian porch, with wicker chairs, hanging ferns, and eight limber residents sun-saluting as Ella Fitzgerald sings. Six hundred million centenarians—C’s—the last recipients of Social Security. It is the lifeline of most C’s but only slightly augments the wealth the people in Forever acquired during successful professional lives. “Thanks, but I’m late.” “I’ll walk with you. We have a new offer.” Her throat constricts. “Sorry, but no.” The work, she knows, would be a nightmare. Perpetually on call for a household of detail-oriented hypochondriacs; crushed by constant, whimsical, impossible demands. She walks faster toward her job in the Hospital Center, where her patients are poor and in desperate need of her skills. They are the people to whom she has devoted her training and her life. Don persists. “You got Mrs. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-anaea-lay/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-anaea-lay/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:02:16 +0000 Earnie Sotirokos http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8903 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-anaea-lay/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-visited/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-visited/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:01:07 +0000 Anaea Lay http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8974 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-visited/feed/ 2 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-april-2013/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-april-2013/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:05:01 +0000 John Joseph Adams http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8934 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/editorial-april-2013/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-desirina-boskovich/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-desirina-boskovich/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:04:23 +0000 Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8896 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-desirina-boskovich/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deus-ex-arca/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deus-ex-arca/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:03:47 +0000 Desirina Boskovich http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8898 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/deus-ex-arca/feed/ 2 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-christopher-barzak/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-christopher-barzak/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:02:10 +0000 Robyn Lupo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8906 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-christopher-barzak/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/smoke-city/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/smoke-city/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:01:33 +0000 Christopher Barzak http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8964 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/smoke-city/feed/ 1 One night, I woke to the sound of my mother’s voice, as I did when I was a child. The words were familiar to my ear, they matched the voice that formed them, but it was not until I had opened my eyes to the dark of my room and my husband’s snoring that... One night, I woke to the sound of my mother’s voice, as I did when I was a child. The words were familiar to my ear, they matched the voice that formed them, but it was not until I had opened my eyes to the dark of my room and my husband’s snoring that I remembered the words were calling me away from my warm bed and the steady breathing of my children, both asleep in their own rooms across the hall. “Because I could not stop for death,” my mother used to tell me, “he kindly stopped for me.” They were Dickinson’s words, of course, not my mother’s, but she said them as if they were hers, and because of that, they were hers, and because of that, they are now mine, passed down with every other object my mother gave me before I left for what I hoped would be a better world. “Here, take this candy dish.” Her hands pushing the red knobbed glass into my hands. “Here, take this sweater.” Her hands folding it, a made thing, pulled together by her hands, so that I could lift it and lay it on the seat as my car pulled me away. Her hand lifted into the air above her cloud of white hair behind me. The smoke of that other city enveloping her, putting it behind me, trying to put it behind me, until I had the words in my mouth again, like a bit, and then the way opened up beneath me, a fissure through which I slipped, down through the bed sheets, no matter how I grasped at them, down through the mattress, down through the floorboards, down, down, down, through the mud and earth and gravel, leaving my snoring husband and my steadily breathing children above, in that better place, until I was floating, once more, along the swiftly flowing current of the Fourth River. When I rose up, gasping for air, and blinked the water from my eyes, I saw the familiar cavern lit by lanterns that lined the walls, orange fires burning behind smoked glass. And, not far downstream, his shadow stood along the water’s edge, a lantern held out over the slug and tow of the current, waiting, as he was always waiting for me, there, in that place beneath the three rivers, there in the Fourth River’s tunnel that leads to Smoke City. It was time again, I understood, to attend to my obligations. #### History always exacts a price from those who have climbed out to live in the world above. There is never a way to fully outrun our beginnings. And here was mine, and he was mine here. I smiled, happy to see him again, the sharp bones of his face gold-leafed by the light of his lantern. He put out his hand to fish me from the river, and pulled me up to stand beside him. “It is good to see you again, wife,” he said, and I wrapped my arms around him. “It is good to smell you again, husband,” I said, my face pressed against his thick chest. They are large down here, the men of Smoke City. Their labor makes them into giants. We walked along the Fourth River’s edge, our hands linked between us, until we came to the mouth of the tunnel, where the city tipped into sight below, cupped as it is within the hands of a valley, strung together by the many bridges crossing the rivers that wind round its perimeter. The smoke obscured all but the dark mirrored glass of city towers, which gleamed by the light of the mill-fired skies down in the financial district, where the captains sit around long, polished tables throughout the hours and commit their business. It did not take the fumes long to find me, the scent of the mills and the sweaty, grease-faced laborers, so that when my husband pulled me toward the carriage at the top of the Incline Passage, a moment passed in which my heart flickered like the flame climbing the wick of his lantern. I inhaled sharply, trying to catch my breath. Already what nostalgia for home I possessed had begun to evaporate as I began to remember, to piece together what I had worked so hard to obscure. I hesitated at the door of the Incline carriage, looking back at the cavern opening, where the Fourth River spilled over the edge, Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-angelica-gorodischer/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-angelica-gorodischer/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:05:15 +0000 Amalia Gladhart http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8688 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-angelica-gorodischer/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-lisa-tuttle/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-lisa-tuttle/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:04:18 +0000 Robyn Lupo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8410 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-lisa-tuttle/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-dream-detective/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-dream-detective/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:03:44 +0000 Lisa Tuttle http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8684 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-dream-detective/feed/ 3 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-angelica-gorodischer/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-angelica-gorodischer/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:02:32 +0000 Jude Griffin http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8414 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-angelica-gorodischer/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-sense-of-the-circle/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-sense-of-the-circle/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:01:29 +0000 Angélica Gorodischer http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8681 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-sense-of-the-circle/feed/ 0 Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito. Great guy, a little weary, tolerably rich, married to a tiresome and exasperating woman, Fina Ereñú. Every time Fina goes to Salta to visit their daughter and the grandchildren, and fortunately she goes often enough that he does not fall completely silent, Cirito stops going to the Jockey Club and that is when a few friends of the kind who correctly interpret the signs go to the cold, dry house and play poker in the dining room. Exclusively masculine, even somewhat solemn gatherings at which they drink whiskey in moderation and a coffee or two, or liters of coffee if Trafalgar Medrano is there, like last Thursday. Not that I have ever been there, because as I mentioned, women are just in the way, but Ciro often shows up at Raúl’s with the Albino Gamen, who was there. Cirito has incredible luck. At least that’s what his friends say who don’t want to recognize the truth that, obliged by circumstances, he has developed an infinite sense of opportunity and an infinite ability to distort the truth as necessary, just exactly as much as necessary. And that night, although they play with the same moderation with which they drink whiskey, he won piles of money. Most of all at the expense of the Albino and of Doctor Flynn—the physician, not the lawyer. Trafalgar Medrano, who is more circumspect, came out even. After a catastrophic rematch, the Albino said enough and Flynn said you’re an animal Cirito and Trafalgar Medrano said is there no more coffee? There was. The others served themselves whiskey and Cirito put away the cards. The Albino said that the next day he was going to bring a new deck and someone suggested it should be a Spanish one, let’s see if playing truco Cirito kept sweeping everything before him. “Bring whatever deck you want,” said Cirito, who was happy, “Spanish or Chinese or whatever else.” “Playing cards are Chinese,” said the Albino. “Could be,” said Flynn, who is cultured, “but it was the Arabs who brought them to the West. Viterbo says that at the end of the fourteenth century, the Arabs carried them to Spain and that they were called naib.” “And who is that, Viterbo?” asked the Albino. “And that,” Flynn continued, “the coins are the bourgeoisie, the cups are the clergy, the swords are the army, and the clubs are the people.” “As always and everywhere,” said Cirito. “I met some guys who were all of that and nothing at the same time,” said Trafalgar. “I know,” said the Albino, “and then who made the revolutions, huh?” “There were none,” said Trafalgar. “Not revolutions, not anything.” “Tell,” said Cirito. A rhetorical request, because when Trafalgar begins to tell something like that very slowly, almost in spite of himself, no one can stop him. “Were any of you ever on Anandaha-A?” No one, ever, as was to be expected. It isn’t easy to go to the places where he goes. “It’s horrible,” he said. “The most horrible world you can imagine. When it’s day, it seems like it’s night, and when it’s night, you turn on the strongest light you have and you can barely see your hands because the darkness swallows everything. There are no trees, there are no plants, there are no animals, there are no cities, there is nothing. The land is rolling, with stunted little mountains. The air is sticky; there are a few narrow, lazy rivers and the few people that live there, and at first glance one wonders if they can be called people, take some gray leaves or some worms, I don’t know, from the bottom of the rivers, they squash them between their fingers, they mix them with water, and they eat them. Disgusting. The ground is cold and damp, like tamped earth. There is never wind, it never rains, it is never cold, it is never hot. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-philip-pullman/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-philip-pullman/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:05:34 +0000 The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8691 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-philip-pullman/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-felicity-savage/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-felicity-savage/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:04:15 +0000 Earnie Sotirokos http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8409 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-felicity-savage/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/ash-minette/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/ash-minette/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:03:47 +0000 Felicity Savage http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8685 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/ash-minette/feed/ 3 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-rich-larson/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-rich-larson/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:02:29 +0000 Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8413 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-rich-larson/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/lets-take-this-viral/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/lets-take-this-viral/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:01:38 +0000 Rich Larson http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8682 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/lets-take-this-viral/feed/ 2 Default hadn’t been down in the nocturns for some time, probably half an orbit, but he had just dissolved the geneshare contract with his now-ex-lover and needed to get completely fucking perforated to take his mind off things. Default hadn’t been down in the nocturns for some time, probably half an orbit, but he had just dissolved the geneshare contract with his now-ex-lover and needed to get completely fucking perforated to take his mind off things. His lift was full of revelers all laughing and widecasting the same synthesized whalesong from Old Old Earth. Ancient aquatic groans were currently vogue, so Default grudgingly let his aural implants synchronize to it. The lift plunged down the station’s magnetic spine and into artificial night. The nocturns were always dark, but never sleeping. Red splashes of hologram and crude argon signs bloomed in the void below Default’s feet and the other passengers pumped their fists in excitement, exchanged surgically-widened smiles. Default was sort of wishing he’d updated his tattoos. Everyone else had checkerboard swatches on. Worse, it seemed like he was the only unit not nursing a cosmetic virus. He watched a pretty fem succumb to a sneezing fit, spraying mucus to applause and livefeed shares, and sullenly bioscanned his own immune system. Untouched and utterly boring. Default triple-checked to be sure Schorr was still meeting him. Schorr had been his most staticky friend for as long as he remembered. He’d have him party-synched in no time. #### When the dilating doors spilled him out on mainstreet, Default resisted cranking up the brightness in his optic implants. To do the nocturns right you had to do them dark. Flyby lights poured grainy orange on streets still wet from a pheromone-laced rainshower. Swirling neon advertisements tugged his gaze in all directions, icy blues, radiation yellows. If it wasn’t for the socialite tag, Default wouldn’t have even recognized Schorr upon arrival. For one thing, Schorr had changed sex and was now very much a fem, and an attractive one to boot. She was fashionably naked apart from a flock of flutterdroids that swathed her skin in shifting patterns. Default saw a tentative follow-cam bobbing along in her wake and realized that Schorr had been one busy unit. He could feel his social stock skyrocketing just from being in her proximity. “Default, you steady satellite,” Schorr said aloud, chatting it simultaneously. “How long has it been? What have you been doing up there with the serious folk?” She embraced him and the flutterdroids whirred around them like a cloak. “Half an orbit?” Default grinned weakly. “Longer. Last time I saw you, you, ah . . .” “Trying new things,” Schorr said, languid. She raised one pale arm and Default saw something bumpy and pink underneath it. Before he could remark, her fingers had encircled his wrist and she was tugging him into the crush. Skin sliding on skin, static starching his hair. Default tried to enjoy the sensations. “In a hurry?” he asked. “Slipping the cam,” Schorr said, wagging a hand back toward the spherical cyclops. It was drifting over the crowd, trying to pinpoint them. “Bit of privacy is better for where we’re heading.” Default craned his neck. The cam carved a dancing red laserlight through the throng of revelers. Schorr started to run, and Default, fixing the grin to his face, followed. #### They pelted through the neon-swatched streets and Default felt lactic acids licking muscles that hadn’t burned in ages. They dashed down a row of flashing dream machines, in and then out of a slick-floored purging booth, past fleshfacs vending extra limbs. Schorr’s laugh danced ahead of them like phantom code. Default’s lungs were tight by the time they slipped into a dopamine bar, but it was a good feeling. Schorr shed her flutterdroid swarm at the door and, gauging the dresscode, Default pulled off his thermal but kept his footwraps. They made their way to the bar, still laughing, and it wasn’t until they were seated with the plastic plugs snaking into their brain stems that Schorr asked about Memmi, about the break-up. Default exhaled long. “She joined a fucking polymind,” he said. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-matt-tkocz/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-matt-tkocz/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:05:23 +0000 Galen Dara http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8690 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/artist-showcase-matt-tkocz/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sarena-ulibarri/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sarena-ulibarri/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:04:12 +0000 Robyn Lupo http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8408 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-sarena-ulibarri/feed/ 1 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-bolt-tightener/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-bolt-tightener/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:03:50 +0000 Sarena Ulibarri http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8686 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-bolt-tightener/feed/ 6 “There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.” “There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.” “Is that all?” Chaun asked. They treaded water on the inside of the seawall, the old man twisting one of the giant bolts with sharp, seasoned movements. “That’s enough, believe me. At first, mark where you left off for the next day, but a few times around and you’ll get to know them like your own family.” Chaun looked at the line of cold metal bolts, doubting he could ever look on them the same way he did his young wife Lin or their baby, just born and brown as a chestnut. He had accepted this strange job to support them. The seawall had been there for as long as Chaun or his parents or grandparents could remember. It created a u-shape around the bay, closing the city off from the ocean. Legend said that years ago the lock would open now and then to admit a ship full of ghostly white men who brought fabric and exotic meats and traded with the people of the city for rice and sweet fruits. But even the lock had been closed for a century or more. When the sky lightened, Chaun and the old man pulled themselves onto the floating walkway that ran along the inside perimeter of the seawall. Chaun’s skin felt puckered from the water. The old man’s was wrinkled leather; a web of thick scars covered his legs. “What will you do now?” Chaun asked. They followed the floating walkway to a small office at the edge of the beach. “I’m going up to the mountains,” the old man said, “to get as far away from the sea as I can.” “Is there anything dangerous in the water?” The old man was silent for a moment. “Just—be cautious around bolt number 841.” Before Chaun could ask what had made him so bitter, the old man handed him an envelope full of money. “Every morning, this will be waiting here.” “So much, every day?” “Every day,” the old man said. “No one knows what you do, but it’s the most important job in the city.” #### The next night Chaun slid quietly out of bed, kissed Lin’s sleeping face and slipped on the wet suit he’d bought for his new job. It had cost most of his first payment, but he was young and afraid Lin would shy away from his touch if his skin became tough like the old man’s. He started at bolt number one. It was difficult to swim with the tool, a heavy metal octagon that fitted over the bolts. A lever extended from one side and it took his full body weight to pull the lever and tighten the bolt. Each bolt was far enough apart that he had to swim several strokes between them. By bolt twenty-nine, Chaun had developed a rhythm to his work. What began as tedium dissolved into meditation. He found peace in the repetition and the cold water that lapped around his body. When the rays of sun peeked over the top of the seawall he pulled himself back onto the walkway, marked his place on his waterproof map and went home to have breakfast with his family. #### On the second night, he was jarred from his peaceful groove by a sudden boom: something crashing against the outside of the seawall. The reverberations knocked him backward. The water on his side of the seawall sloshed over the floating walkway. The boom happened once more and then stopped, and Chaun waited for the vibrations to fade away before he returned to his work. “The ocean,” he whispered to the bolts. “The ocean waves.” The water in the bay was always dull and steady, so he had never seen real ocean waves. He pictured the tiny waves in his child’s bathwater, imagined them magnified to a size that would require this metal seawall to protect the city. During subsequent nights, he searched for a pattern to the crashes against the outer seawall, but found none. They came whether it was clear or raining, windy or calm. Some nights they did not come at all. The crashes bothered him less the more he heard them. Chaun found he was getting stronger. Lightspeed Magazine no http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-phillips/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-phillips/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:02:25 +0000 Kevin McNeil http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8412 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-holly-phillips/feed/ 0 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/three-days-of-rain/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/three-days-of-rain/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:01:41 +0000 Holly Phillips http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/?p=8683 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/three-days-of-rain/feed/ 1