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“Good evening, sir,” Dave says pleasantly, hiding his crossword puzzle under his computer keyboard, as the front door chimes. “Do you have a reservation?” “Afraid not.” The guest fiddles with his suitcase. “I saw the No Vacancy sign, but I gotta ask—” “No problem at all.” Dave’s keyboard clatters busily, a series of well-practiced keystrokes.
Alvin’s scripts arrived in yellow envelopes. They were hand delivered, placed inside his letter box as if part of the regular mail, but with no address or stamps on it. The scripts were typed on unlined paper. They were short, never longer than a page, never more than a scene. The scene would be set inside a shop, or a bar.
Once a decade, a titanium-nosed shuttle plows through the rings of the planet Tartarus with a new batch of prisoners destined for the Orpheus Factory. The debris that makes up the rings is so thick that it thunders like a hailstorm, deafening the passengers. As the orbiting debris bounces and scrapes against the hull, the prisoners squeeze their eyes closed
“Is there a problem, officer?” “We’re not the police.” My partner, Enrico, places his palm against the door, ready to test the old man’s resolve. I tap my finger against my thumb and SNAPbeam the warrant to the old man’s synaptic cache. “We’re EPF.”
How did we end up here? The humans before me had the same physiological traits as I did, yet still we had no means of communicating with one another. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Words and phrases spilled from their mouths, a torrent of sounds bleeding into one another, syllables pouring out in a drum roll, unending and uninterrupted.
If you’re reading this, in a self-destructing DM, on the reverse strand of a plasmid, in the recipe binder you found in a deported neighbor’s belongings dumped on the curb, you’re no longer angry. You’re hungry. Your last co-op got raided by the Department of Homeland Biosecurity, hunting for pharmaceuticals “dangerous” to those at risk of getting pregnant.
Every Teshiarr metropolis, town, and hamlet had featured an agora, the community centerpiece for shopping, conversing, and joining. It was where one received their daily meals, heard news from leaders, and reported to communal soul alcoves.
When the ship’s scanners first chirped in the dead of night, Sien figured it was another misfire: light reflecting off asteroid ice, solar radiation, space dust. But xe still slid from xir berth into the chilly, cramped cockpit, eyes bleary.
“I lined up a new gig for you,” said the Glovemaster. “All you have to do is protect one special guy.” I sat in my trailer with my Bluetooth headphones on and my laptop perched on an Amazon box. I wore a boonie hat with a militia logo.
Dr. Nirwater Leera only agreed to study Mr. Girat because he is supposed to be dead. Tomorrow, they will meet in person for the first time. But today, Leera wastes time by staring at a cellophane bag full of Girat’s vomit.
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