Chris Furst is a California nomad who lives in upstate New York. He is a graduate of Clarion West. His work has appeared in Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies and Captain Kidd Monthly. He once tried to join the circus, but they wouldn't have him.
* * *
A LAKE OF SPACES
by Tim Pratt
So I'm underwater like most days, and like most days I'm thinking that as far as superpowers go I kind of got the dirty end of the magic stick. MaryJo says I shouldn't bitch. The Intrusion did a lot of weird shit, and I'm lucky I'm one of the 1-in-1,000,000 to get some kind of power, and not one of the people who got translocated out of this reality or turned into a basalt statue or something like that. Still, if I had to get a power, I wouldn't mind being able to fly or turn invisible or shoot blue fire out of my mouth, though the guys with those powers all have harder jobs than I do, and I don't really need the aggravation.
I kick down a little lower into the body of water we nicknamed Lake Ohfuck, wishing I was a better swimmer, itchy in my wetsuit. I miss my baggy old swimming trunks, but the organization decided a wetsuit made for better publicity photos, and down here where it's colder, it's more practical, too. Still feels too tight though. And I don't even really like swimming.
I frogkick in my flippers and make my way down to the muddy lake bottom, switch on the lamp on my headband, and check the gates. They're still closed—which is good, because while it's totally fine to piss yourself in a wetsuit, it's no fun to shit yourself, and I'd definitely lose my shit if the gates opened. I mutter a status report into my transmitter, which picks up the vibrations right off my voicebox, because voices travel lousy underwater. MaryJo doesn't answer me, which is weird, because her power is superhuman multitasking, and she monitors all five thousand of us in the organization, and keeps up communication with us simultaneously by using a bunch of simulated computer voices. Maybe my transmitter's on the fritz.
I kick my way back toward the surface. My eyes are all dry under my goggles. My buddy Jim, who was on the swim team and everything, once asked me why I don't stay underwater all the time—after all, my power is the ability to breathe underwater, and I can go to depths that would crush normal people, and I don't get the bends when I dive deep and come up fast, so doesn't that give me access to a wondrous world of inhuman beauty and stuff? I told him, “What do you think it would feel like to be under water all the time? I'd get pruny. My eyes would get all effed up. And it's not like I can talk to fish or something, I'm not Aquaman. I don't swim so good, and it's cold, and wet, and dark when you get deep enough. Plus even if the pressure doesn't crush me, it makes me all claustrophobic. And have you ever taken a crap under water? That shit floats up.”
I haven't talked to Jim in ages. Not long after that conversation I got drafted into the organization and, after a year of globe-hopping while we catalogued the gates and other intrusions and I messed up more often than not, I was sent to monitor the gate at the bottom of Lake Ohfuck. The lake occupies the space where the unincorporated township of Lizard Lick, North Carolina used to be, before the Intrusion started poking holes in reality. Could've been worse. Lizard Lick was a tiny town—it only had one traffic light—and only about a thousand people lived there, most of them outside the spot where Lake Ohfuck appeared, so only a few hundred citizens were lost. Not like Chicago, where most of downtown got replaced with a giant black stinking mushroom, or Paris, which is now a radioactive zone covered with a shimmering silver dome that resists all attempts at penetration. I flew near the dome once on a mission. That weird-ass rumble that comes from inside it made my teeth itch. Those French people are goners, no doubt.
I look up and don't see the wobbly blurred circle of the sun beyond the lake surface. Clouds must've rolled in on us, though it was real sunny before. Too bad. The lake is kinda pretty when it's sunny, light shimmering on the water, with all the green pine trees off in the distance. It's pretty dreary when the sun's gone though. Sucks.
Lake Ohfuck is what you'd call a low-priority location. There's no radiation from the big metal gate at the bottom, no noise from behind it, and the lake is full of plain-old lake water, the plants are identical to Earth plants, there are no weird alien fish, nothing too exciting. None of the intrusion points are considered safe—there's a protective cordon around Lake Ohfuck that stretches for miles—but it's low-risk. Perfect for me. I live on a little houseboat. I get supplies from the military personnel on shore. Every hour I swim down and give the gate a visual examination. Been doing it for months, and it's a routine I'm used to.
Except when I break the surface everything's different. I take a reflexive breath like always when I pop into the air, even though I breathe fine underwater, and the air is this horrible choking gas. I hold my breath and wipe at the sudden condensation on my goggles and the pine trees are gone, the sky is pale gray and streaked with lightning, and basically I'm not in Lizard Lick anymore. All I see is my houseboat, and beyond the lake there's nothing but big black rocks. The blood starts pounding in my ears from not breathing and I dive back down under the water and take a deep cool liquid breath. Some people think I don't need to breathe at all, that I can swim around holding my breath forever, but it's not like that—the Intrusion just changed my body so I can breathe water or air, but I need one or the other. And whatever's above the lake now, it's not the good old nitrogen-oxygen-etc. blend of the Earth's atmosphere. Which means I'm not on Earth anymore.
I don't shit myself, but it's a near thing.
I try to contact MaryJo again, and again I get nothing, which isn't a surprise. Our communication is high-tech but there are limits. This kind of thing has never happened before, as far as I know. The day of the Intrusion, all sorts of weird shit popped into existence—flying islands, giant eternal fires, the dead bodies of enormous things with tentacles for eyes, you know what I mean—replacing whatever used to inhabit the space, and some people turned into statues of themselves, and some other people got powers. But since then things have been stable, with nothing new appearing, and certainly with none of the intrusions disappearing, as I assume Lake Ohfuck just did. Just my luck to be inside an intrusion when it decides to, what, de-intrude, extrude? Whatever.
I did basic survival training when I got jumped into the organization. But most of that stuff assumes you're in the wilderness or something, not in a lake on another planet, or dimension, or whichever. I take a gulp of lake water and swallow. I realize I'm not going to die of thirst, and that's important. In my wetsuit I'm warm, and unlikely to die of exposure. Food is a problem, but the plants growing at the bottom of the lake are probably edible, or at least not poisonous. And there's food on my houseboat, if I can hold my breath long enough to climb up there and get it. Though eating a ham and cheese sandwich underwater won't be a treat. If I was a normal diver I'd have oxygen tanks and stuff that would let me breathe above the surface of the water, too, poisonous atmosphere or not, but no such luck.
Shit. How am I going to sleep? If I fall asleep, my pudgy ass will float to the surface and die. I'll have to tether myself down at the bottom somehow, but the only thing I can tie myself to is the massive metal gate. Each of the doors is as big as a tennis court, and there are plenty of weird loops and protrusions and bumpy things that might be bolts. There's already a rope running from my houseboat to the gate—I follow it down, pulling myself hand-over-hand, when I feel really lazy—so I could tie myself to that. Sounds fun, being tied to an alien artifact on an alien planet (or dimension or whatever, the science guys explained the difference to me, but it doesn't matter, does it?).
I swim down to the gate because what the fuck. I start knocking on the metal and it doesn't even ring out, just makes a dull thunk when my class ring hits it, like always. What if it opens? I don't even have a gun. If the gate ever opens, I'm supposed to haul ass to the surface and call in the Navy SEALs. A great plan, with some current drawbacks.
Something splashes and I freak out, start thrashing and spinning. There's a shape descending
from the surface, looks human, but if it jumped into the water from up there, how can it be human?
My com unit buzzes, and the implant in my ear says, “Cody Roberson?”
It's not MaryJo's voice, it's some guy with an accent that's not French but almost. “Who's asking?”
The shape kicks its way down to me, and I see it's a guy in a scuba suit. He waves in that slow underwater way. “I'm Dr. Hadrian Lang. We have accessed your com channel.”
The name rings a few bells. Lang is one of the guys who got replaced with a statue, only he mattered more than most because he had a Nobel prize and was the mayor of some European city, damned if I can recall which one. “You're alive?” I say, and decide, screw it, and swim up to him. His face behind the mask could be the Lang guy, I don't know, I only saw pictures, and it was a while back.
“I was taken, yes, as were others.” I see his lips moving when he talks, which reassures me somehow. “We have been gone two years, is that right?”
“Sure, but gone where? Where is this?”
He hesitates. “It is difficult to explain. We are in another place. Please, I have things to tell you, messages you must take back with you.”
Back. I seize on that like a lifeline. Back is good. “Okay. Shoot.”
“The cities and people who were taken were part of an effort by . . . we can call them aliens, for convenience, as they are certainly alien to Earth. These aliens want to preserve Earth from destruction. Paris, Chicago, Mumbai, Ottawa, Johannesburg, Egypt, all of those places would have been destroyed by terrorist attacks if they had not been transported to safety by our benefactors. These aliens saved the lives of millions.”
Terrorists. Huh. Nobody talks much about terrorists anymore. When Baghdad got replaced by a giant tree with orange bark, religious differences suddenly seemed kinda trivial. “Okay,” I say. “But why replace the cities with such fucked-up shit? And why give some of us these powers?”
Dr. Lang's eyebrows draw down in a disapproving way. Maybe he's used to a higher level of discussion, but fuck it, I'm just the pool boy. I should've been working at the shipyard or something like my old man, not getting recruited by the government before I even graduated high school. “Law of conservation of mass,” Lang says finally. “It's more complex than that, but it's the same idea. They had to replace what they took with equivalent objects—though the equivalencies necessary extend beyond size and weight into more esoteric realms. The powers some of you acquired are a sort of side effect, the result of strange radiations. Their understanding of human psychology is—or was—rather limited. Our benefactors didn't realize the panic they would cause. Now that they've spent more time with humans, talking to us, they want you to go back and make assurances, and apologize for any alarm they caused. They plan to open the gates soon, and make their presence on Earth known. They want to help us save ourselves, and usher in a golden age. It's a message of great promise and joy, Mr. Roberson. You have to tell everyone.”
“Yeah, sure.” Sounded reasonable to me. After you see reality get changed around, it opens you up to outrageous possibilities. “I don't know if they'll believe me—”
“Your com unit is recording this conversation,” Lang says. Duh. I forgot that. “Voice analysis will prove I am who I say. I'm sorry for the dramatic way they've chosen to contact you. Our benefactors don't really understand us very well, I'm afraid.”
“Why me?” I say.
Lang shrugs. “Their selection criteria is beyond my comprehension.” I wonder if there's an insult hidden in there.
“Okay,” I say. “I'll carry the message. People will be relieved, I gotta say.” I'm kinda thrilled. Maybe I can quit now, get out of the organization, enjoy the golden age to come someplace nice and dry, like Phoenix. Meet a girl, have a life, not be so damp all the time. I worry a lot about the possibility of mildew and fungus growing in unpleasant places.
“Can I shake your hand, Mr. Roberson?” Lang says. “It's been a long time since I touched a human.”
“Knock yourself out.” I take his hand in mine and feel him shove something into the sleeve of my wetsuit, and his eyes are wide and scared looking, so I don't say anything, just shake his hand solemnly.
“Tell them not to worry,” Lang says. “The gates will open soon, and all hurts will be cured, all wants satisfied. Tell them.” Lang kicks his way toward the surface, and then begins to accelerate out of sight fast, like he's being reeled out of the water, like a fish on a line.
I don't feel anything change, but suddenly there's sunlight filtering down from the surface of the lake again. I want to kick my way to the surface, to breathe air, but there's something poking into my wrist, and even though I don't want to look, I do. I reach into my wristband and pull out a wad of something flattish, folded. Like a black sheet of paper, but not paper, feels more like plastic. I unfold it, and in the light of my headlamp I can see words written in something white that's probably not ink, the print neat and small. “All lies,” it says. “Don't believe what I told you. They forced me. The gates must not be allowed to open. Beware. There are human collaborators at the highest levels.”
I close my eyes. My com unit crackles, and MaryJo—or one of her electronic voices—says “Cody? Are you all right? Cody?”
I don't answer. I open my eyes and keep reading the note. It gives coordinates, says they're in the deep sea, says there's a gate that runs the other way, into another world, their world, but it's deeper than any submersible can go, only I can reach it, only I can stop what's going to happen.
Oh fuck, I think. Oh fuck, ohfuck, ohfuckohfuckohfuck.
I let go of the note, thinking it will float up, thinking it will be someone else's problem. I won't go. I won't do it. Last time I went deep in the ocean I almost got bitten by a thing with giant fangs and a glowing bulb hanging from its head like a Christmas tree ornament. I totally freaked out, I thought it was an alien, part of the Intrusion, but the Navy SEALs just laughed at me and said it was an ordinary deep sea fish, just one that looks weird. I cussed them and called them names and even hit a guy, and they reassigned me to Lake Ohfuck.
The note doesn't float up. It's not paper or plastic, it's something else, and it sinks to the bottom, vanishing against the dark mud.
“Cody!” MaryJo's voice is anxious, even though it's electronic.
“I'm here,” I say. Because fuck it. I'm just a guy. I didn't want this. Even if I went where the note said, what would I do? I'd get killed is what. No doubt. Besides, the government science types will do voice analysis and find out Lang was lying, they'll be suspicious, it's not like we'll be unprepared when the gates open. Right?
I say, “You're not going to believe what happened to me, MaryJo. Go into my com and play back the recording in its memory.” After what happened to me, after what I went through today, they'll have to let me retire. And if they don't, I'll just prove I'm unfit. I'll grab a gun and shoot at somebody. I'm done.
I kick up from the bottom. I head for the surface, and the light, and the dry air above.
Tim Pratt's stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and other nice places. He won a Hugo award (and lost a Nebula) for his short fiction, and his collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories is a World Fantasy Award finalist. He lives in Oakland, California, with wife Heather Shaw and their son River.
* * *
CATASTROPHE
by Felix Gilman
We have a refugee problem in this city. They come from all points of the compass, from districts unfamiliar to me. Men, women, children—they are frequently sentimental about families. They settle in our empty spaces, our abandoned zones, our hunting-grounds. Generally they arrive by night, silently, hunched with the weight of their bags and cases, so that you might think perhaps they have the good grace to be embarrassed at the intrusion; but when I take my promenade in the morning there they are, another one of our beautiful ruins has been made over into a shop, and the proprietor stands stoutly and
defiantly at the door. Arms folded; apron; spectacles. Puzzled and cunning at once. He does not know whose territory he stands on. He is almost invariably wearing the wrong colors.
For instance: Moor Street belongs to Dwarf John, and one is expected to wear black somewhere on one's person if one likes—as I do!—to amble down it, admiring the worn and blackened splinters of ancient arson, dreaming of the scent of long-dead fires. But this morning a plump bald refugee gentleman stood there, in front of his shop, his pie-shop, gods help us, where yesterday there was only a beautiful ruin of timbers like a rotten rib-cage. Did he wear the black? He did not. His white shirt was rolled up his fat arms and his trousers, which were too short, were a horrible brown, as were his shoes. His wife watched through the window and her hair was a ginger bun, her spectacles . . . Will they suffer for it?
No. Dwarf John only watches them. He squats cat-like on the jut of a ruined pillar, drinking his rotgut, tugging thoughtfully at his filthy beard with one misshapen little hand.
(Before the refugees came, he would have been well-hidden there, for Moor Street's ruins were watched over by gargoyles, among which ancient stones that twisted little man was entirely and gloatingly at home. But gargoyles are not to the taste of the new men. Discreetly, apologetically, persistently, they take the gargoyles down. I do not know where they dispose of them. The new men prefer floral window-boxes, laundry-lines, blue flags, colorful advertisements for soap-powder.)
And as I pass, Dwarf John grins ruefully at me. His knife remains in its leathery sheath.
(Oh that knife! It is terrible to have him drop on your neck from the heights and grope down your body for vulnerables! Or to have that jet-black blood-grimed blade darting up from the gutters at your groin! Dwarf John has a thing for groins, and he is persistent).
We shrug, as if to say, what can you do?
Well, what can he do? He cannot kill them. They do not understand the rules; it would be unsporting. The rules cannot be explained to them—if one tries, they blink their pale eyes nervously and make fish-like gulping sounds, and say, please, sir, which may be the only words they know, and then they attempt to sell us pies, or shoes, or clocks, or spectacles, or record-players, or kettles, or . . . It is heartbreaking. They cannot be made to understand.
Weird Tales, Volume 352 Page 5
