L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35

by L. Ron Hubbard

  A human scream made him glance toward the windows. He leaned forward, squinting into the dimness of the labyrinth. One of the Skitters was climbing the wall nearest him, six of its eight legs finding purchase on the specially designed ridges. He’d grown accustomed to them by now, the grotesque, nightmare look of them—the way they seemed to put shape to his pain. But for a moment, as he watched, his gut twisted.

  In its other two legs, the thing held a girl.

  She was a teenager, short and blond and still struggling, her arms beating against the sharp metal claws. The memory hurtled forward, of two boys holding Rissa. Keeping her back as they made her watch …

  But it was Eddie who did the watching now, his gaze flashing across the silver grips of the Skitter as the blond girl writhed and squealed.

  The console blared again. “Operator,” came the computer’s mechanical voice, “request pivot of Wall T-7.”

  Eddie made a few quick strokes across the nearest touchscreen, and a wall segment near the Skitter spun in place, closing off a passage in front of Eddie’s control tower. The Skitter crab-walked over to the Wall and vanished, the Feeder-girl still screaming.

  As Eddie smoothed the ridges on the Wall, preventing anyone from following the Skitter, he caught movement. A group of human subjects—Feeders—sprinting around the corner of the labyrinth. Eddie snickered as their heads tilted back, their eyes scaling the impassable Wall. One of them collapsed to his knees while another tried to scrabble up the partition.

  The scream on the other side died abruptly, and Eddie leaned back in his chair.

  Question Nine, he read, from the magazine. What is the best holiday for throwing a party?

  His fingers tightened on the pen. There were four options, but his eyes were glued to C: your birthday.

  He could still remember the pink decorations.

  Eddie leaned forward and pressed the mic button. “Engineer, request access to subject log.”

  “Granted,” came the warbling voice. It never had cause to deny him.

  The red window popped up on his screen, and he clicked OK and scanned the names of the Feeders with a fingertip. To his surprise, most of them came from high-numbered holding tanks; had the experiment shifted from old stock to new? Last week, he’d submitted a Human Feedback report, where he’d mused that people in long-term containment wouldn’t run as fast as the fresh ones. It was the sort of thing the Engineers might not notice on their own, the whole reason they used people like him.

  His heart sped up. If they had liked his report …

  Eddie scanned the subject log, eyes darting between human names. When he found what he was searching for, he cried out the word “Bingo!” as he slammed the bright console with a fist.

  In response, a Wall pivoted somewhere in the distance. Eddie corrected the error before he could get reprimanded, grinning widely at the familiar name in the log. He’d memorized every one of the little pricks: the bullies that had pinned her, the so-called friends that had laughed, even the witnesses that had shown up in court. And one of those names was in his labyrinth—a Feeder! It was as close as Eddie had come to a Christmas since the Engineers had taken control.

  Mentally he recalled what this particular offender had done: stood up before God and jury and said that the kids who’d destroyed his little girl’s life “hadn’t meant no harm, Your Honor. It was just a little prank.”

  “Character witness my ass,” Eddie spat, peering through the glass again. The group of Feeders were still huddled in front of Wall T-7, dazed and terrified. Dumb brats, they ought to be running.

  Leaning back, he wondered what it felt like, to finally get what was coming to you. Someday, the Engineers would throw Eddie to the Skitters, and then he would know.

  But he’d been waiting an awful long time.

  He scanned the name again. It was not marked Terminated. Eddie flipped a switch, and Wall T-6 closed.

  “Unauthorized closure,” came the mechanical voice as the Feeders were shut inside an impenetrable cube. “Immediate pivot of Wall T-6 ordered. Skitter has completed the feed-scan, repeat, order of immediate pivot—”

  Eddie muted the mic and reopened Teenspeak.

  Question Ten, he read, and again heard the scuttling, just out of sight under his tower. The first thing you do when you get to any party … is ruin the birthday girl’s life, he thought, his jaw working. She’d been passing out cake when the girls had snuck off, stealing plus-size underwear straight out of her dresser. Rissa had dropped her plate when she’d seen her panties waving, paraded around the room like a flag.…

  His gaze slipped to the labyrinth, where the group of Feeders broke into pieces. Running in all directions, every man for himself.

  He snorted. It was always like that, with teenagers. Each Maze operator ran a different demographic, depending on how their past life made them useful. Martin ran toddlers because he’d been a child-killer; Wu ran middle-aged men because he’d been abused. But for all the variety, Eddie felt that his groups were best. None of his teens ever gave a crap about anyone but themselves, and this made it easy to pick them all off.

  More screaming, that old shrill cry of terror; it had haunted his dreams the first years he’d been stationed. Beneath his observation deck, there came a clang and steel screeching, and a noise that could only be blood splatter.

  Illustration by Josh Pemberton

  In the magazine, Eddie marked option D. Out loud, he said: “‘Say hello to the host.’”

  More scuttling, a pot-and-pan banging. He popped open a cam-channel to listen closer. Someone retched, and the screaming wore louder.

  Eddie scowled. This was taking longer than usual. The Engineers must be having a blast. The Maze was their favorite way to study the Feeders, and the longer it went on, the more they could learn. It was bad news for humanity that these kids weren’t dead yet; with enough information, the Skitters could change how they fed, making it harder to fight them out in the field.

  The final scream died, and Eddie relaxed. There was only one Feeder left now, a boy; he didn’t check to see if it was the boy from his shit list, but he liked to think it was. The kid was backed into the towering Wall, so Eddie reached over and switched the climbing ridges back on. The boy jumped, but he wasn’t stupid; reaching into the special slots, he ascended toward the hope of escape.

  The boy did good, got about twenty feet before Eddie pulled back on the ridge-lever. It slid through the track panel, reaching off-mode with a click. The ruts meant for the Skitter went smooth again, and the boy fell and broke his leg.

  As if he and the Skitter were somehow connected, Eddie felt its scanner homing in on the boy.

  “How does it feel, to be helpless?” Eddie said. “How does it feel to have nowhere to run?”

  The boy tried to roll over. The Skitter was faster.

  On the quiz, Eddie tallied his points.

  There was a buzz of feedback as the Engineer overrode Eddie’s mute command.

  “All subjects deceased,” burbled the voice, as if it had never been silenced. “Disobedience Report in progress for Operator Bowman. You have one-point-five warnings remaining.”

  “I know, I know,” Eddie muttered, not bothering to turn on his mic. He flipped the page, trailing a finger down the smooth paper. The quiz results were listed in bubbly pink font. Pink had been her favorite color.

  “Statement retracted,” the Engineer said abruptly, its voice crackling with static. “Leniency assessed. Combat-usable data gathered within unplanned scenario. Enclosed space, no escape, kill rate slower than usual. Possible mercy code: check command drive for errors. Scenario filed for future testing.”

  Eddie looked up. In his mind’s eye, he saw the wooden beam in the living room, still wrapped in pink crepe paper and sprouting balloons. He’d gone down the next morning to clean up the cake, and found his daughter and her jump-rope
hanging down.

  “Mercy,” he mumbled. “You don’t say.”

  Then he turned to his quiz results: You are the perfect partyer!

  A soft grin spread across his face. “See there, Rissa? You woulda been great.”

  Release from Service

  written by

  Rustin Lovewell

  illustrated by

  EMERSON RABBITT

  * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rustin Lovewell is a native New Englander now living in Maryland with his wife, daughter, and overly yappy dog/mobile alarm system. Full of contradictions, he is an immunologist when not writing fantasy stories, a soccer player when not rolling d20s, and a snowboarder if he can ever find enough snow.

  Rustin has been an avid reader since he discovered Tom Swift’s incredible inventions and the nightmares hidden within the pages of Goosebumps. His favorite stories have always been those that pointed left and then twisted right, only to twist yet again, before finally knocking the reader out with a “Luke, I am your father” roundhouse. After reading several such pieces, he wondered if he could come up with one of his own. He did, and he wrote it, and it was awful. Of course, that’s how it starts. He’s loved trying to get it right ever since. This is his first published work of fiction. Follow him @RustinLovewell or visit him at rustinlovewell.com.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Emerson Rabbitt was born in 1996 in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

  He became incredibly inspired by the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game, and the likes of H. R. Giger’s concepts for Ridley Scott’s Alien, and has been illustrating ever since.

  Emerson pursued his passion for creating and attended the Minneapolis College of Art Design, where he set his sights on becoming a concept artist within the videogame industry. Currently, he is sharpening his skills on private projects and is always in search of new opportunities to learn and grow. www.artstation.com/e_rabbitt

  Release from Service

  Would you kill a child?

  That is one of the questions they ask you. The Recruiters pay attention to every aspect of how you respond. Do you recoil in shock? Twist your face in revulsion? Do you pause and consider the question, and, if so, how long do you take before responding? They measure these things, noting every tic and breath and word choice. You can lie, of course, and they measure that, as well. Is your lie convincing? Do you glance to the left? How much conviction is in your voice?

  For most, Would you kill a child? is a difficult question.

  I answered immediately. Worst of all, I meant it.

  1. ARRIVAL

  I arrive in the island city of Xu on a perfect morning. One with blinding tropical sunshine pounding down from a cloudless blue sky. The Mantis keeps the cowl on his cloak pulled over his head and pays no attention to the weather; the only thing that ever interests my master are people, and then only in a distant, clinical manner. He leads me through a bustling waterfront of sailors and landsmen, where dockworkers load barrels of molasses and hogsheads of beef and piles of timber onto merchant ships bound for the mainland. This is his home city, but my first time in an island colony, and while I’m accustomed to the heat, I’m not used to such humidity. Sweat beads across my scalp and soaks my shirt, making my skin chafe where my twin blades sit in their inverted sheaths against my back. I could remove the cloak draping my shoulders, but that would expose my blades and hint at what I am. Anonymity is a powerful weapon—that was the first lesson my master taught me.

  The Mantis brings me to a rooftop overlooking a central plaza. Crushed basalt cobblestones pave the square, a striking feature unique to the volcanic islands. A twelve-foot statue of a regal-looking man in flowing robes dominates the middle of the space. At the far end is the mansion of the Tyressry of Xu, a man with the family name Kaab. I don’t know his given name, only that he is one of the Kyo’Vyar, the People of the Eye, and the administrator of this colony. He must have failed in some extraordinary capacity for his peers to send for us.

  The Mantis hands me the telescopic lens he keeps in his pouch. “What do you see?” he says.

  I let my eyes scan the plaza below, then double-check with the lens. “A pair of couriers moving past the statue. An elderly Kyo’Rusalk just below us selling folding hand-fans. A half-dozen pedestrians entering the square from the south. There is a beggar crone sitting against the building at the western edge, two sentries with muskets guarding the stairs leading to the mansion, and a garden keeper watering the boxed plants on the terrace. The gardener moves like a dancer, meaning he is likely a bodyguard with training.”

  My master waits for me to finish. When I say nothing further, his hand snaps out from beneath his cloak and cracks across my face. I reel from the blow, pinpricks of light blooming in my vision like stars. Blood tastes tacky and metallic in my mouth.

  I’ve missed something.

  The Mantis watches me. There is no malice in his gaze. No passion, no anger. Just curiosity tinged with annoyance.

  I wipe my mouth and reassess the people below, checking each with the lens. The vendor, the guards, the old beggar crone … Her hands are wrong.

  An elderly beggar living in the isles would have hands the color of dark bronze, veins like tree roots and dirty fingernails. This woman’s hands are clean, calloused but young. Otherwise, her disguise is flawless. Her face remains hidden underneath a wide hood, silver strands of hair dangling out the front. She wears a filthy robe and sits on a shred of sailcloth, her back against the side of a building, head drooped and posture off-kilter as if she suffers a bent spine. She holds a chipped bowl out before her.

  “That isn’t a beggar,” I say.

  My master slides his gaze back to the square. Had I missed it a second time, he would have dismissed me back to the ship.

  “You should know,” the Mantis says. “She is an acquaintance of ours.”

  The fact that this revelation doesn’t come with a slap means he didn’t really expect me to know, but he does expect me to figure it out. I suppress my frustration. The Mantis is one of the oldest of the Kyo’Assyn, second only to the Moth, and his lethality is legend. What he is not, however, is forthcoming.

  I can’t see the woman’s face, so I scour my memory. I’ve forged few relationships in the decade since my recruitment. There have been some few marks that required intimacy, but they are all dead. There is my family, who I haven’t seen in years, but those hands are too young to be my mother’s, and while my sister would be of an age, she lost the tip of one middle finger to a falling boulder when she was eight, and this woman’s hands are whole. Not a family member, then. That left the other Kyo’Assyn.

  The People of the Carapace number only seven, plus their apprentices, and only among each other do they form any real kinship. My master is a step beyond this; I believe the Mantis incapable of friendship. He is endlessly curious, but behind his cold scrutiny there is only more coldness, as if he is not a man but a golem made from clay, a thing built and not born. His peers afford him distance, but great respect.

  I have trained with a choice few of those peers, a regal pyromancer called the Firefly and a surgeon-trained killer called the Locust, and I’ve heard descriptions and stories of all the others. The Mantis would, on occasion, take their apprentices to co-train with me, as well.

  One pupil, a girl my own age apprenticed to the Firefly, joined us several times. She was the daughter of a trade magistrate and one of the People of the Eye, and in our first interactions she intimidated me. As apprentices, we were both of equal caste, but in those first years I was still in the mindset of a villager and saw her as a rich aristocrat from the capitol. The Mantis pitted us against each other in a series of training exercises. She beat me three times before my master said that if I lost again, he would release me.

  I remember those hands clearly, now.

  “That is Jen’lyn Reed,” I say.

  The
Mantis gives a shallow nod within his cowl. “She arrived in Xu with the Firefly ten days ago.”

  The Firefly is an older version of her apprentice, a lady of court whose delicate manner belies her penchant for fire and explosives. I scan the square a third time but do not see her.

  “Are we to assist them in eliminating the Tyressry?” I ask. The Kyo’Vyar would sometimes send more than one Assyn for a difficult assignment. Eliminating the administrator of Xu might qualify.

  “No,” the Mantis says. “And you won’t find the Firefly. Jen’lyn killed her master just after they arrived.”

  I look sharply at him. “What?”

  He makes a thin-lipped frown. “Jen’lyn is the primary reason we are here. We must perform a release from service.”

  2. RECRUITMENT

  Nine years ago …

  “Ty’rin Dovu,” the first Recruiter said. “That is your name?”

  “It is,” I said.

  The Recruiter wrote something in her book. Her pinched brow and pointy nose reminded me of a headmistress who enjoys disciplining children more than instructing them. She hadn’t stopped scribbling in her leather-bound tome since we sat down.

  The other three Recruiters stared at me across the table with near unbearable scrutiny. Then, they started their examination. The two sitting beside Scribbling-woman were twin brother and sister. They asked all their questions in tandem, one acting bored and the other engaged. Every few minutes, and without any apparent cue, they would switch personalities. The fourth Recruiter was plain-faced and balding. He never blinked.

  The Recruiters’ questions came at me without rhythm. Sometimes they indulged long stretches of silence between each question, other times they allowed me barely a breath before launching their next inquiry. They asked my opinion of the government; what I thought of the caste system; did I hunt for food; did I lick my blood from a cut? The topics ranged all over the place. Some questions were political, some were logical, some made no sense whatsoever.