Stories of Hope

by Aussie Speculative Fiction

  I read them to Bazza; “‘To Live is to Love, to Love is to Hope and to Hope is to Live.’” The glowing dimmed and I swear the ring that was once too big to fit had shrunk to the perfect size in an instant. I put it on and it felt warm, it felt like Nan was there holding my hand, reassuring me. I could almost feel her standing there, looking down at me with her precious wind chime collection clanging loudly in the non-existent wind.

  I looked at Bazza as he sat on my shoulder. “So are you looking for a ride out of town mate?”

  Bazza looked me in the eye and began his warbling song as we made our way back to my car. I stopped at the gate and looked back to where the house once was. ‘You will find it when you need it most’. The tinkling of bells and chimes drifting from the wreckage as if Nan was saying her goodbye.

  “Thanks, Nan. You were right, as always,” I whispered, and I swear the smoke cleared a little and the grim view was suddenly a little more colourful.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: FOLLOW @EvelienClarke on Twitter and Facebook.

  Just like Veronica by R. J. Rodda

  THE DEATH-BEES ZIPPED around the vast dining room, emptied of its elegant furniture. The citizens watched the live stream in the lobby with eager expressions, occasionally glancing over to the assembled Skilled Migrants in Transition huddled together. Aidan grasped his net tighter as dread smothered his empty stomach. Now that Mr Raz was in charge, what would he do to him?

  Mr Raz clapped once and spoke into a microphone, his usual biting tone replaced by a salesperson’s enthusiasm. “Let us welcome our heroes today who will capture the bees so they can be returned safely to our subterranean forest system.” A full smile stretched across his hairless face exposing his large overcrowded teeth. “The battle will begin in five minutes.”

  A cheer erupted from above.

  He stepped away from the microphone and gestured to Aidan and the other SMITs to come close. “You’ll prove your worth today. You’ll rid the hotel of all those nasty bees some terrorist has infected it with and the people up there will cheer you on, grateful for your sacrifice.” His gaze swept around the room at all the SMITs, lined up and waiting, all bare-armed and bare legged.

  Aiden wondered why Mr Raz bothered with the lie. They were just all live entertainment for the tourists. The betting had already begun. He wondered if any would pick him as the winner, though his shaggy uncut hair and too thin arms probably made them dismiss him. He could jump well though. He might catch the most.

  “Of course, you will be bitten—that goes without saying—but at the end of the session, you’ll be given the antidote and you’ll survive.” Mr Raz’s small protruding eyes rested on Aidan and his mouth twisted in a sneer. A message just for him. Everyone else would get the antidote, except Aidan and he would die.

  Aidan started to shake as SMITs began slipping under the huge mesh net that encased the door. He’d never have guessed Mr Raz would hold a grudge for so long. Weren’t teachers supposed to be above the mockery of students? Not this one. Not now that he really had power. There was nothing Aidan could do. The world seemed to grey before his eyes and a prayer of desperation swelled to his lips.

  When he opened his eyes he saw across the lobby, waiting for the elevator, a familiar head of dark plaited hair with one purple streak. It had to be Veronica. She was surrounded by a crowd. She’d never hear him cry out. He had to create enough of a scene for her to see him. But would she even care?

  The rest of the SMITs shuffled forward. Aidan hung back. The elevator light began to descend from the thirtieth floor. Still, he waited until Raz was urging forward another reluctant SMIT before he sprinted with all his strength towards her. Mr Raz shouted something but he kept going, all the while waiting for the sickening inevitable.

  A high-voltage zap went through him and he jerked to the ground. He tried to call out but couldn’t make his shaking tongue obey. As he spasmed he heard the soothing voice of Mr Raz. “Sorry about that everyone. Just a runaway SMIT. It happens sometimes. Don’t worry, we’ll see he gets what he deserves.”

  “Mr Raz?”

  At the edges of the buzzing, he heard Veronica. He tried to move his thrashing body towards her but all he could manage was to tilt his head slightly in her direction.

  “Aidan. It’s Aidan! Stop it, please!”

  A boot blocked his mouth even as the burning in his head faded. “Hello Veronica,” Mr Raz intoned in an almost polite voice. “Why, what a reunion! I see you became a citizen. You always were a bright, efficient girl. I knew you’d go far.”

  He made it sound like he’d actually liked her, instead of ignoring her in class because she was a scholarship girl with a servant for a mother. Aidan struggled against the boot but failed to shift it off his mouth.

  “Thanks,” Veronica said dryly. She always was polite to teachers. “What’s he done?”

  “He’s run off from fighting the death-bees. It’s not that dangerous. He’s just a coward.”

  Veronica bent down towards him, her red lips puckered in a frown. “He’s never been that.”

  Aidan pleaded with his green eyes at her, the eyes so many girls had claimed to fall for when he was rich.

  She inclined her head. “Who’s his Protector?”

  “Gavin Bulkington,” Mr Raz simpered. “The Gavin Bulkington.”

  Veronica waved away Gavin Bulkington. “An old friend of mine. I have a client who wants someone exactly like Aidan. I’ll call Gavin now and make an offer. You’ll get a cut of the purchase price of course. Ten per cent.”

  Mr Raz snarled. “Twenty.”

  They settled on fifteen.

  “Do you agree?”

  With a shock, he realised Veronica was asking him, her head bent down towards him, her plait swaying in the air between them. “It will be in Fidelis but it will be clean enough and I’ll help you get out after.”

  It had been a long time since someone had asked for his consent. Fidelis was bad news of course but anything was better than Mr Raz enjoying his death. The boot on top of him lifted and he got out a yes, his body still twitching from the after-shock.

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened. A crowd of well-dressed people got out as Veronica negotiated his transferal to a new Protector. Screams came from the dining room as Veronica ended her call.

  “Done.” She flipped her pigtails. “My client wishes to inspect Aidan tomorrow. I’ll pick him up from here then. See that he’s undamaged.” She ran for the elevator, getting in just before the door shut.

  Mr Raz spat, “How like Veronica. She always had a blind spot where you were concerned. The desire of an outcast to be popular I suppose. It was not like you ever earned her help.”

  He hadn’t. At least she could let go of the past.

  “I’ll make it up to her.”

  Mr Raz laughed in his nasty sneering way and went to kick Aidan, but at the last minute held back his foot. “Undamaged, she said.” He reached out and hauled Aidan to his feet. “You better sit the rest of the death-bees out.”

  The first SMIT emerged with four bees flapping in her net, her legs red and blistered and an ugly welt across her cheek. Mr Raz inserted a huge needle into her arm as she sunk moaning to the ground.

  For the first time in a long time, the tension leaked from Aiden’s body and was replaced by hope. He would do his time as a SMIT and he’d become a citizen. He’d be a good one, a kind one, just like Veronica.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: R. J. Rodda lives in an ex-Soviet country where there aren’t many English books so she’s forced to write her own. Her short stories have appeared in The Crux Anthology, Three Dummies in a Dinghy and Papa’s Shoes. Her work in progress can be found on Wattpad at https://my.w.tt/OZHb5U63F3.

  Breakthrough by Zena Shapter

  THROUGH THE TURRET’S underwater porthole, I watch my husband swim blind and defenceless towards the humans. The fishermen aren’t hunting for us in the darkening navy ocean, their lines are baited for fish. Still, other dangers lurk in the rocks at night—sea
stars, crabs, seagulls . . .

  A high-pitched squeak pierces the silence. Has something gone wrong already? I squeeze my muscle against the glass and still my gills. The sound stops. The squeal came from me.

  “He’ll be fine, Leah,” my father says, gliding through the turret’s dimmed freshwater to his sleep pad. “He’s done this before.”

  “Not here,” I remind him. Arun once stopped his gills for a whole hour on our home planet of Taeual. But there he was surrounded by the freshwater of our communes, not Earth’s toxic saltwater. “And not without sight.”

  “The salt would corrode his sight sensors, you know that.”

  “Not if he wore his re-breather shell,” I grumble.

  “We’ve tried that. We need to know if he can smell or track the native chitons better without it. He’ll come straight back if he can’t. He’ll be fine.”

  “What if he isn’t?”

  “We’re running out of time, Leah.”

  I tighten my grip again. If our planet were in that much danger, they would have sent the military here, not our tiny group of scientists. “He won’t help anyone by dying tonight.”

  “Nothing will happen.” My father lands on his pad, disconnects his sight sensors and plugs them in to recharge. “It’s just a trial.”

  “An unnecessary one. We still have a whole month!”

  My father switches off the last light in response. We’ve been having this conversation all day. He and Arun have agreed, as they always do, that the risks are worth it. If only I’d venture outside, they say, I’d see that this was the type of place where the parents brought their children to splash, where the ageing brought their tired limbs to train, and where no one would ever dream of hunting for us. Every day Arun tantalises me with his descriptions of the rock baths. But I shudder every time waves pound against the outside walls. To me, they’re waves of poison and will never be anything else, just as the humans will never be anything other than predators. I can’t understand what could make Arun think I’m missing out by staying safe inside the turret; and I’m angry with myself . . . Arun is just like my father, an irresponsible thrill-seeker, and I’m a sucker for wanting to see him happy. I’m also, therefore, going to end up alone.

  I remain glued to the window until Arun and his night team are out of visual range, then glide to wait by the radio. Even though the fishermen won’t understand if they hear us, Arun’s team plan to maintain radio silence until they reach the rocks, as a precaution. The only sounds are the soft swishing of freshwater in and out of gills as my father and his day-crew sleep in the stacked pads above me. I’ll hear more if I disconnect my sight sensors. So I relieve my body of the artificial circuitry, creep on top of the radio’s control pad and let my hearing adjust.

  Gradually more sounds come—the snapping of distant shrimp claws and fish crunching on coral, the resounding chink of what Arun says are chain-rails swinging against boardwalk posts, and the reassuring gush of water being piped from beach taps into our turret. The human government has gone to a lot of trouble to help us. They could have simply granted us permission to take samples and make observations, then left us to it. But they located this turret, converted it into a home and laboratory, and passed laws making it illegal for humans to hunt chitons of any kind. All we have to do is stay within the confines of what they call the aquatic reserve.

  Of course none of that will protect us from being killed and eaten by some unsuspecting human who doesn’t know the law. Maybe that’s why the human government has been so helpful—they don’t want to be responsible for an intergalactic incident, as they have in the past with other species? War is the last thing my planet needs right now. Maybe theirs too?

  My mucus glands fill as I think of home. At the rate our seawater is rising, it will reach our family’s commune in eleven months. Of course, like Earth, it depends on how fast global warming melts our ice caps.

  The mucus oozes up through my body. I snort it into the water so it can dissipate before someone wakes up and realises I’ve been crying. We haven’t evolved eyes, like Earth’s chitons, we’ve evolved intelligence instead. So why can’t Arun use his brain to think a way around this? Seawater adaptation can’t be the only solution for our species.

  With the control pad under my body, I shift my weight around, using pressure points to access research cells containing our latest findings. My father and Arun both anticipated that the chitons of Earth would be similar in size to our species, yet docile and inattentive. But when we got here, the dumb brutes were almost twice our size, had fully functioning eyes that could see us coming, and avoided us at every opportunity, leaving each other undetectable chemical cues along the rocks for swift escape routes. They’re so fast, yet collecting samples from them is vital to figuring out how the stupid buggers have adapted to the salt. If only we could totally submerge ourselves in the water, our sense of smell might hone in on their subtle tracks. At least that’s the theory Arun’s trying out tonight.

  Finally, the radio crackles into life. I shift off the files and start recording. What I hear, though, is not the reporting of a controlled experiment.

  “Not . . . You’re gonna be . . . Arun!”

  I shift my body weight right so they can hear me. The crackling cuts out. “Leah here. What’s happening?” I lean left.

  More crackling.

  “Leah! He’s following . . . Get back, get back . . . Is that a . . .” Their yelling continues, distorted.

  I shift right. “You’re on the wrong frequency. Can you hear me? Switch channels.”

  No one answers. Then, through all the distortion . . . a word that makes my girdle shudder . . .

  “Hook!”

  “What’s going on?” I shout.

  The crackling screeches higher, then falls into a gentle whooshing rhythm. “Leah,” says a clearer voice. Someone has re-tuned. It isn’t Arun. “We can’t see him. There are hooks everywhere. We’re coming back.”

  “What? No!” I scream. “You can’t leave him there! He can’t see!”

  “It’s too late, Leah. He’s gone. We’re excreting a track for him to follow in case he makes it.”

  “You’ve already left? You can’t!”

  Someone nudges me. “You don’t want them to get caught too, do you love?” My father’s scent follows the voice. “Let me up there.”

  I slide down. Images flash through my mind: Arun caught on a hook, twisting in water as he’s reeled up, unable to see his way free.

  I grab my sight sensors and attach my rebreather shell. My father’s already so deep in conversation with Arun’s night team he doesn’t hear me sling a spare rebreather shell over the top of mine. I dart past the sleeping day-crew and slide silently into the upper hatch. The clanking of the hatch’s lock is so loud it startles some of the day-crew awake.

  “Leah!” my father shouts. “Wait! You don’t need to . . .”

  “Arun is on the beach,” I yell back. “This is the quickest way.” I heave myself up, out of the water, and flop through the hatch onto a cold hard surface. Arun’s descriptions become my breathless black reality. Ahead of me is a boardwalk. It stretches across the rock baths, ending near the beach. Floodlights bolted to a tall pole cast long shadows over sandy rock plains. That’s where I have to go.

  I angle my sight sensors, search behind me for danger, see only our curved turret and the grill of the upper exit hatch, so hurry towards the salty baths. The boardwalk’s swinging chain-rail chinks as wind howls over my shell. Crashing waves send sea spray into the churning emerald water. The floodlights’ yellow beams strike through the blue brine, turning it green. It’s both beautiful and deadly, and I’m running out of breath.

  As soon as I feel the edge under my muscle, I throw myself in and swim like I’ve never swum before.

  I’m halfway when the salt numbs my muscle. The water shallows. I’m almost there.

  Then I hear the humans.

  “Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.”

  They are
n’t on the beach anymore. They’re on the boardwalk, crouching around a white bucket. One of them is making notes on an electronic device. I slow, unsure how to get around them. Without a translator present, I can’t understand what they’re saying.

  One of them gasps, points into the water.

  I still my gills but it’s too late. Their bulging eyes are on me. I search around. There’s no camouflage, nothing red or green in sight. I’m clearly visible. I don’t know what else to do, so sink low and cling onto a boardwalk post.

  Undeterred, the human faces move closer to the water surface. “Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.” Baring their teeth, they lower their bucket.

  They’ll need more than a plastic rim to scrape me away. I tighten my grip and feel mucus rising. These humans have my husband, now they want me!

  “Leah?” A familiar scent follows the voice.

  “Arun?”

  He glides out of the bucket, the scent of freshwater surrounding him.

  I don’t understand. There’s also no time for questions. Arun can’t breathe in the saline rock baths. I shake off the spare rebreather shell. “Get inside this!”

  Over his shoulder, the bucket rises out of the water. The human faces remain.

  Arun attaches his shell. Filtered water swishes in and out of his gills. He can breathe.

  There’s no stopping my mucus from pouring out now.

  “It’s okay, Leah. Calm down. It was an accident. I told you, it’s safe here.” He nudges me. “You were right though, I shouldn’t have gone without my sight. I could’ve seen it all—the beach, at night, out of the water! It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”