Tales of Eve

by edited by Mhairi Simpson

  Tales of Eve

  edited by Mhairi Simpson

  www.foxspirit.co.uk

  ‘Tales of Eve’ edited by Mhairi Simpson

  Cover Art by Daniele Serra

  http://www.multigrade.it/

  typesetting and ebook conversion by handebooks.co.uk

  Introduction Copyright @ 2013 Mhairi Simpson

  Newton’s Method Copyright @ 2013 Paul Weimer

  Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil Copyright @ 2013 Alasdair Stuart

  Father’s Day Copyright @ 2013 Francesca Terminiello

  The CompaniSIM, The Treasure, The Thief and Her Sister

  Copyright @ 2013 C.J. Paget

  Kate and the Buchanan Copyright @ 2013 Andrew Reid

  Game, Set and Match? Copyright @ 2013 Juliet McKenna

  In Memoriam Copyright @ 2013 Rob Haines

  Unravel Copyright @ 2013 Ren Warom

  Mother Knows Best Copyright @ 2013 Suzanne McLeod

  Fragile Creation Copyright @ 2013 Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ISBN: 978-1-909348-19-6 mobi

  978-1-909348-20-2 epub

  978-1-909348-21-9 pb

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Fox Spirit Original

  Fox Spirit Books

  www.foxspirit.co.uk

  adele@foxspirit.co.uk

  Never underestimate a woman

  Contents

  Introduction - Mhairi Simpson

  Newton’s Method - Paul Weimer

  Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil - Alasdair Stuart

  Father’s Day - Francesca Terminiello

  The CompaniSIM, The Treasure, The Thief and Her Sister - Colum Paget

  Kate and the Buchanan - Andrew Reid

  Game, Set and Match? - Juliet McKenna

  In Memoriam - Rob Haines

  Unravel - Ren Warom

  Mother Knows Best - Suzanne McLeod

  Fragile Creation - Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Contributors

  Introduction

  Mhairi Simpson

  Writing, for me, is long periods of isolation punctuated with rather random conversations. The conversations usually occur in the presence of both food and alcohol and have ways of unlocking parts of my brain I didn’t know I had until they stepped out, stretching their fingers and toes, tilting their faces towards the sun, before turning to me and saying, “Now then…”

  The conversation which led to this collection occurred over dinner at alt.fiction 2012, and the idea was simple: the annals of story are filled with men creating the perfect woman, but what about women creating the perfect man?

  Over the next couple of months this expanded to women creating the perfect partner, and although I originally intended someone else to edit it, I eventually gave up on finding anyone to do the job, and the results lie spread across the following pages.

  The beauty of this particular great idea, of course, is that I didn’t have to write it. I got a bunch of rather talented other people to do that for me. And, my, have they done a fine job!

  From Adrian Tchaikovsky’s horribly skilled artificers to Ren Warom’s desperate companion, this is a collection of stories highlighting the ingenuity of the female mind. But not just that. They also show the lengths women will go to, be it for loneliness, love, or even science, to achieve their goals.

  It has been my very great pleasure (and sometimes spine-weakening terror) to edit these stories, bringing together a diverse mix of published and unpublished authors in a variety of takes on the theme. I’m particularly honoured to play host to Juliet McKenna’s sci-fi debut, Game, Set and Match? and Paul Weimer’s worldwide debut, Newton’s Method.

  Newton’s Method actually kicks off the collection with a woman so determined to find a partner that she creates much more than a mere machine. I was particularly entertained by the demonstration of how people become more choosy when provided with options. Weimer has done a brilliant job here and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

  Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil raised hairs on the back of my neck, and I sincerely hope Alasdair Stuart writes more in this world. The idea that you are often the only person you can rely on is dealt with beautifully here and as such the story lingers in your mind long after you finish reading it.

  Father’s Day was another unique take on the theme - who would be a child’s perfect companion? Francesca Terminiello puts together a heartwarming story about the consequences of single parenthood, and a different kind of magic.

  The CompaniSIM, The Treasure, The Thief And Her Sister takes the reader into a virtual world, and I love that all the main characters in this story are female. Not because I’m against male characters, but because each plays a part in the creation of one or more of the others as the tale unfolds. Paget’s skill in blending these with a high tech world produces a fascinating story.

  Andrew Reid’s Kate and the Buchanan presents a whole new perspective on the possibilities afforded by machinery. I was almost moved to violence at one point when someone I thought deserved it did not, in fact, get hit over the head with a wrench. But Reid more than makes up for that in the end.

  Game, Set and Match? represents Juliet McKenna’s science fiction debut, and inspired the most editorial comments along the lines of “Aha! Take that!” in the margins. It represents a triumph for feminism, in its true sense, and leaves the reader with a sense of hope and happiness.

  In Memoriam, on the other hand, almost made me cry several times. Rob Haines’ depiction of artificial intelligence gave me shivers, and still does. It also made me look up at the sky, wondering what may or may not be out there.

  I’m not sure I’m supposed to admit to this, but Unravel is my personal favourite. Where In Memoriam almost made me cry, Unravel made me sob unashamedly for hours, which did slow the editorial process somewhat. Ren Warom has combined desperation, love, determination and sheer ingenuity in a protagonist you will not soon forget.

  Mother Knows Best had me laughing out loud, which I think is what the reader needs after Unravel. Suzanne McLeod’s magical story of one woman trying to live her life while dealing with motherly machinations is brilliantly entertaining and I’m sure most readers, of either gender, will be able to relate.

  Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Fragile Creation scared me to shaking point, and ends the collection with a powerful warning not to underestimate the female of the species. Any species.

  The best thing about editing this anthology wasn’t that I got to see every story before anyone else (although that came very close), or that I got to see so many wonderful tales from so many talented authors (although that too was brilliant). It’s that I know these people at all. Between Adele Wearing (Feral Leader at Fox Spirit) and various conventions, I have been fortunate enough to encounter a number of people who are as ridiculously talented as they are unfailingly supportive. I consider myself honoured that so many of them were able to contribute to this collection, and I hope you enjoy their tales of the female spirit as much as I did.

  Mhairi Simpson

  Westgate-on-Sea

  March 2013

  Newton’s Method

  Paul Weimer

  ‘At last,’ she whispered, as she looked over her handiwork. The house gave silent answer, as it had for far too long. Truth be told, she had finished an hour ago, but then she had taken a long shower to wash away the grease, sweat, and tension she’d felt at completing her invention. She was eager to test it out, of course, but she forced herself to relax, to wind down, and to think about what she had built. Years of practical mechanical engineering learned at her mother’s knee, combined with the theoretical physics of her father’s work, had come to fruition.

  Is it selfish
of me? Noys thought, to use this for such a personal purpose? She shook her head, denying the thought. She wasn’t changing the world with her device, just the world she was in.

  Noys regarded the front display. She could have used digital readouts and touch screen inputs, making it look more 21st century than 20th century retropunk. Steve Jobs instead of IBM. But the red segmented numbers on the display, reminiscent of an ancient calculator, and the white dials to set parameters, gave it charm and a very tactile note. Mother would approve, Noys thought. She felt a pang in her chest at the memory of the drunken driver who took both of her parents on that icy January night.

  Noys took a deep breath, and started turning the three dials. Three dials to change the three dimensional axes of what Frederick K. Newton’s physics called the three post quaternary dimensions. Thanks, Dad, she thought. She fought down the indelible memory of the phone call from the hospital, asking her to come. The sorrowful tone of voice from the grief counsellor, telling what she already instinctively knew in her heart. Instead, she focused on what her parents had taught her. A modest change first. Even a small one. Surely, she wasn’t as unsocialized as she thought, and a close branch of her own world would have what she was seeking.

  The soft hum of the machine only increased slightly, cycling like a washing machine heard at a distance. Did she make a mistake in the calculations? she wondered, nibbling her lip. Did she need to stand closer to the machine? She thought she had set the field to a 2 meter radius, but what if a mistake in the calculations made that a 20 centimetre radius? With the machine attuned to her, it would only take itself, and her, to the new universe. But she had to be within its range.

  Had anything happened at all? Noys stared at the red numerals on the display. Wu +3. Yin -2. Zeta +1. All as measured from Homeline.

  They suggested she had made a successful transition. She didn’t feel different, though. She closed her eyes and breathed in the air. Was that the smell of ham? And she thought she heard something beyond the machine. Or was this all her imagination? She remained where she stood, not yet daring to leave her machine without further evidence that something had happened.

  Noys was relieved when the soft white noise of the machine was momentarily drowned out by a voice.

  ‘Sweetie!’ A man’s voice. From a nearby room. ‘Stop messing with that. Breakfast is ready. Your favorite!’ That scent she thought she had smelled finally registered in her nostrils. Sausage? Bacon? No, she really had smelled ham!

  Her heart hammered in her chest. It worked! It worked! She had changed worlds, and found one where her shyness had not kept her from finding a man. She closed her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms, an old nervous habit.

  ‘I can do this. I can do this,’ she said softly. This was what she wanted, what she was looking for. What she needed. She turned around the room in a circle. Was it her imagination, or did it look shabbier? The bookcases were pine, not teak, and fewer books were on them. A long dark stain marred the pale rug, evidence of some long-ago spill.

  There are going to be other changes, she thought. It was even possible her parents... She stopped the thought. Whatever the other changes would be, she could live with them. She skipped out of her office and into and through her bedroom. A bigger bed! It was a tangle of sheets rather than crisply made. But Noys didn’t care. She could live with that. Besides, it might imply that she’d had no time to make the bed this morning, she thought breathlessly.

  In the kitchen, manning the stove, a basic gas stove rather than the high-tech electric stove she knew, was a short man with a tangle of hair. What was left of it anyway. He wore a dingy white wife beater and shorts that didn’t cover much of his hairy legs.

  ‘Sweetie!’ he said, turning to look at Noys. Noys stopped in her tracks. He didn’t seem to read her suddenly stiff body language. He gave a snaggle-toothed grin. ‘Ham is ready,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘Eggs will be next.’

  ‘I can fix this,’ she muttered.

  ‘I’ll be right back, honey. I need... I need to, err, brush my teeth,’ she said. She fled back to the computer room. For good measure, she closed the door behind her, took a deep breath, and faced the device.

  ‘That was just a first attempt,’ she said to herself. ‘It was an approximation to the root of the equation.’ She could take this result and use it to converge on a better root. Of course she wouldn’t get it right on the first try. It was foolish of her to think she would! But a second one...

  She reached for the dials, and turned them again. A little more Wu, a little less Zeta. Keep Yin the same. Focus in on the solution. Activate the machine.

  Again, there was no sensation of movement that she could tell.

  ‘Honey?’ a voice came, muffled by the door. Which was now solid steel? ‘Um, I’m hungry. Breakfast? Please?’

  Noys opened the door. It sounded like it was pressurized.

  A blond haired man lounged on a round (round?!) bed whose pale white sheets contrasted against his sooty-dark skin and dark eyes. She smiled into those dark eyes. And then her appraisal of the rest of him made her think that he would do. Her heart started that hammer beat again.

  ‘I know you’re a big time physicist and got plenty of work to do,’ the man said, lounging back, lowering his hand to his stomach. Noys’ eyes followed, and saw that below that, he wasn’t wearing much. As opposed to the nothing above it. ‘But Papa needs some breakfast. Oh, and the dry cleaning needs to be picked up. And we’re out of milk.’

  Noys blinked in surprise. ‘Well, we could split the chores,’ she found herself saying. Was the version of her in this world a complete pushover? Or, did she create a man who thought she was? What did this guy actually do for a living? She hoped he liked bagels; she wasn’t much of a cook. At least Snagglepuss had cooked. It had been the only appealing thing about him.

  ‘Sweetie?’ the man said. His eyebrows furrowed. ‘What are you talking about? The store is three miles away, and the dry cleaning is even further. You don’t want me to get picked up by one of the Hippo gangs for being out without a woman to protect me, do you? Probably wind up with some pencil-thin Exasis user who’ll slap me around for kicks when she’s coming off her highs.’ His pupils dilated and he drew a sharp breath. ‘Is this your way of trying to get rid of me?’

  ‘I can fix this,’ Noys whispered to herself, like a prayer. She fled to the computer room and was relieved that the steel door kept the man’s pleas at bay. She repeated her mantra again and again as she returned to the dials.

  She kept searching and refining. Through twenty-six distinct attempts.

  John Cross seemed nice enough, but the apartment building they lived in sounded like it was in a free-fire zone. The telepaper warning about rebel forces moving south through New Aalborg was enough to send Noys back to the computer room.

  Corwin Olson was charming, tall (so very tall), and handsome. But he smoked, and worse, seemed to think he was the center of the universe. He was a single dad, although his son Merlin (where DID they get the names in this world?) was now an adult, and according to Corwin, was being driven crazy by his mother, who Corwin tried to avoid as much as possible. ‘The Queen Mother,’ he called her, although Noys got the impression his ex was younger than he, not older. Noys wondered, if Corwin was arrogant and self-centred, how much worse could Dara really be?

  One iteration had Noys wind up in a world where she was indeed married—not to a man, but to Alise Wells, a photographer and artist. Noys had apparently given up her family name for Alise, and was no longer a Newton.

  That was surprising. Alise was sweet and caring, and extremely confused by Noys’ standoffishness. She seemed to expect a very demonstrative relationship. But Noys was not interested in a relationship with another woman.

  Noys started to wonder at the efficacy of her method. A slight change in just one dial was enough to change things, sometimes radically. On one world, she’d been dead for two years and the house was abandoned. She had been married, but see
king out her widower was too creepy by half, even if she pretended to be someone else like in Vertigo, that Hitchcock movie. That movie ended tragically, too, she thought.

  But with only a slight change in Zeta, and the other settings kept the same, she found a world where her husband had recently died of something horrible the newspaper called Soderbergh-Nine. It was a pandemic spreading across the globe, fast, and there seemed to be no cure. The wrong bat had met the wrong pig, and the result was decimating humanity. Was she immune to this disease? Had she created a world where she was immune? There were locks on every window. The front door had three.

  Would a radical change of the dials lead to worlds where her equipment wouldn’t be able to recharge, or worse, there was no technology besides it? She imagined the machine sending her on a one way trip to a universe where she was wife or concubine to one of the sons of the Great Khan, living in a yurt. A more portable machine, or perhaps one that doubled as a vehicle, were the next obvious iterations. Once she found what she was looking for and could keep him.

  Several were misses for other reasons. What good was a relationship with Michael Lawrence if he was away on a business trip to Albion (Australia, Noys figured out, from a map) for the next six months? Cameron Isley came by the night after Noys activated the device, but apparently it was to get his stuff. Noys still wasn’t sure who had instigated his departure.

  That experience did get her to thinking, albeit briefly, about the lives she was inhabiting. Were they ever changed by her passing through them? But did they really even exist until Noys activated her machine? Was she finding worlds, or creating them? And how could she tell the difference? She finally decided she was creating both worlds and men in her quest to fill that aching hole in her heart. It might have been simpler to try and find a world where her parents were alive, but that wouldn’t have been healthy. She needed a man, a family of her own. Then she would be happy. Then she wouldn’t be so very alone, as she had been for the last three years.