Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49

by Seanan McGuire

  There’s an essay question, too, about what you would do if you were sent to the future where invasive warthog flu has brought down most of the American Pacific Northwest, and you have to defend a senior citizen center from a band of nudists, with only some artisanal pine toothpicks at your disposal (answer: Tape the toothpicks into a long jabbing stick and poke their naughty bits from a safe distance.)

  You send it back through snail mail with five dollars for postage, and you wait another month while your father hunts bad guys in San Pedro Sula and St. Louis and then you find the shoebox, stuck on the back porch by the postman, now damp and smelling of earwigs. You open it to find your DANGEROUS EARTH-POSSIBLES activation kit: a folded rubbery mat that looks like a game of Twister and smells like a new car.

  You place your left foot as they tell you. Your right foot. Your ten fingers and your chin and your black eye, and then with your nose you press the ACTIVATION button. Everything spins around you like an uppercut (not the one given to you; more like the ones your dad is out there giving the bad guys), and then you find yourself in one of the EARTH-POSSIBLES. You know it’s one of the EARTH-POSSIBLES because there are tiny zombie chipmunks lurching around your backyard, and there weren’t before.

  A man appears from the backyard, tired and sore and covered with chipmunk bites. He looks a little like your father, as you remember him from when you were eight and all living together and he was still only with the local police force and not with the things he couldn’t tell you about. As the man douses his bites in rubbing alcohol, he tells you that if you pass the chipmunk world, you can join his squad and do battle on all the known EARTH-POSSIBLES. He tosses you a baseball bat.

  You had never thought you could harm a chipmunk. But they storm your ankles and one gets its teeth in and oh—that’s going to leave a mark. It will match the marks on your wrist from when your stepfather challenged you to a no-holds-barred wrestling match (just to see if you were as tough as your father.) You find that you can put the rabid chipmunks down after all, and you do, one at a time, till your shoulders shake and you are weeping.

  The man puts his arm around your shoulders and offers you the alcohol. One of these worlds is going to be our future, he says, and it needs to be made safe. Heroes like you have been recruited from all countries and times.

  You listen while you sear your wounds. And you know that all you really want is that EARTH-POSSIBLE where your father comes home from Peshawar, and does battle with your stepfather (hands, feet, teeth), and then takes you away with him to be a Hero too.

  And so this seems like the next best thing, and you nod. You join the other Heroes-in-Training in another EARTH-POSSIBLE, in an abandoned police station there, and you learn how to go to other worlds and kill more things—sometimes with silver bullets, sometimes with regular ones.

  Some nights you think about your father, and how he travels around being a hero. And sometimes you think about your stepfather, and how strange it is that he is part of the police force too. And meanwhile, while you’re thinking, you pick up your baseball bat and battle for your future.

  © 2014 by Tina Connolly.

  Tina Connolly lives with her family in Portland, Oregon. Her stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her first fantasy novel, Ironskin (Tor 2012), was nominated for a Nebula, and the sequel Copperhead is now out from Tor. She narrates for Podcastle and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, runs the Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake, and her website is tinaconnolly.com.

  A Debt Repaid

  Marina J. Lostetter

  Some people will do almost anything to wipe out a debt.

  You, Jessica, are no exception. When the casino men came to your dingy apartment to collect, what did they threaten you with? A bat to break your legs? A knife to take out your eye? Not a gun to kill you with—I know it’s not like the movies.

  Did Big Tony offer to make you one of his girls? Did he say you could work off your debt?

  Would that have been so bad? You still would have sold your body, but in the off-hours it would be yours and yours alone.

  You must have told them your plan—that’s why they left you whole.

  You went to the Twin Life offices that same day. Ran through all the tests. They made sure you were healthy, sane. With no history of substance abuse. You passed their screenings, signed their papers, received the down payment (more than enough to pay off the sharks) and prepared to go under the knife.

  Would being one of Tony’s girls really have been so bad?

  When I signed up for Twin Life, I didn’t waste time imagining who I’d be attached to when the time came. All I knew is that I would die one day, and if I didn’t want it to be permanent, Twin Life was my only option.

  Bodies are rare these days, Jessica. But heads—we’re everywhere.

  Those first few weeks were terrible, for both of us. Me perched on your left shoulder, in control of your left arm, but no more—forced to watch you take over my mansion. You filled my closet with cheap fabrics and hooker boots. In exchange, I filled your mirror with a two headed monster—one head young, one old. One with gaudy red lipstick and too much eyeliner. One with short gray curls and dead eyes.

  Two lives became one. We go to your job during the day, have afternoon tea with my book-club on the weekends, then it’s off to the tables for your nightly fix.

  They make me wear a blindfold when you gamble—say two heads is cheating. I don’t mind. I just order cocktail after cocktail, and you get mad because alcohol makes you lose your concentration.

  They asked about your substance abuse at Twin Life, but never mentioned mine.

  • • •

  When we fight, there’s nowhere to go.

  When you want to make love to a man, there’s no one to find.

  • • •

  My bank account dwindles. Your hangovers get worse. I reach for the bottle, and you can’t stop me. You reach for the cards, and I can’t stop you.

  We each have this thing holding on to us. Controlling us. Tearing up our lives and our relationships and our sanity.

  It’s been a year, and we’ve grown attached (no pun intended). You help moisturize my sagging skin. I help you fix your hair up like a tart. The bedroom smells of gin and too much perfume and frayed cards and dusty poker chips.

  I love you, Jessica. But not as I should, not as a granddaughter or a nursemaid or a sister. We love each other because others find us hard to love. Friends, family—everyone runs from the two-headed monster, knowing they can’t be with the one they adore without suffering the other.

  But it was that way before Twin Life, wasn’t it? For the both of us.

  Meeting your brother changed me. It was the horror in his eyes, the tremble in his lips. The way he eyed the liquor cabinet and the ink stains on your fingers (you rub the cards—it’s your tell).

  He loves you, truer than I ever could, but being near you kills him. He saw the neglected bills, heard the bark in your voice when you said it was none of his business.

  But it is my business.

  I can’t deny it anymore. The drink that ruined my first life has taken over again. I never fully realized the pain I’d caused before—before I died. This second life has given me the chance to understand. Thank you for that.

  Ultimately, it’s too late for me. But not for you.

  After you read this, after you’ve had my dead head removed, you must get help. You have to get rid of the monster—not the one we see in the mirror, the one that’s always been in you.

  You gave up your body for your addiction. With the letter opener on the nightstand, I’ll give it up, too.

  © 2014 by Marina J. Lostetter.

  Marina J. Lostetter’s short fiction has appeared in venues such as InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, and Writers of the Future. Her most recent publications include a tie-in novelette for the Star Citizen game universe, which was serialized over the first four months of 2014. Origina
lly from Oregon, Marina now lives in Arkansas with her husband, Alex. She tweets as @MarinaLostetter. Please visit her homepage at lostetter.net.

  The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced

  Sarah Pinsker

  Judy says, “It’s snowing.”

  I look out the window. The sky is the same dirty grey as the snow left from last week’s storm. I stand up to look closer, to find a backdrop against which I might see what she sees. The radiator is warm against my knees.

  “You don’t mean now.” It’s not really a question, but she shakes her head. She looks through me, through another window, at other weather. She smiles. Whenever she is, it must be beautiful.

  “Describe it for me,” I say.

  “Big, fluffy snow. The kind that doesn’t melt when it lands on your gloves. Big enough to see the shapes of individual flakes.”

  “Do you know when you are?”

  She strains to catch a different view. “1890s, maybe? The building across the street hasn’t been built yet. I wish I could see down to the street, Marguerite.”

  Judy isn’t supposed to leave her bed, but I help her into her yellow slippers, help her to her feet. I try to make myself strong enough for her to lean on. We shuffle to the window. She looks down.

  “There’s a brougham waiting at the front door. The horse is black, and he must have been driven hard, because the snow that’s collecting elsewhere is just melting when it hits him. There’s steam coming off him.”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t see it, but I can picture it.

  “Somebody came out of the building. He’s helping a woman out of the carriage,” she says. “Her clothes don’t match the era or the season. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt.”

  “A Distillers t-shirt,” I say.

  “Yes! Can you see her too?”

  “No,” I say. “That was me, the first time I came here. I didn’t stay long, that first time.”

  I hear the creak of the door. It’s Zia, my least favorite of the nurses. She treats us like children. “Judy, what are we doing up? We could get hurt if we have an episode.”

  She turns to me. “And you, Marguerite. We should know better to encourage her.”

  “Your pronouns are very confusing,” I tell her.

  She ignores me. “Well, let’s get down to lunch, since we’re both up and about.”

  Zia puts Judy in a wheelchair. I follow them down to the dining room, slow and steady. She pushes Judy up to the first available space, at a table with only one vacancy. I’m forced to sit across the room. I don’t like being so far away from her. I would make a fuss, but I try to tell myself we can stand to be apart for one meal. I keep an eye on her anyway.

  Judy isn’t fully back yet. She doesn’t touch her food. Mr. Kahn and Michael Lim and Grace de Villiers are all talking across her. Mr. Kahn is floating his spoon, demonstrating the finer points of the physics of his first time machine, as he always does.

  “Meatloaf again,” mutters Emily Arnold, to my left. “I can’t wait until vat protein is invented.”

  “It tastes good enough, Emily. The food here is really pretty decent for an industrial kitchen in this time period.” We’ve all had worse.

  We eat our meatloaf. Somebody at the far end of the room has a major episode and we’re all asked to leave before we get our jello. I can’t quite see who it is, but she’s brandishing her butter knife like a cutlass, her legs braced against a pitching deck. The best kind of episode, where you’re fully then again. We all look forward to those. It’s funny that the staff act like it might be contagious.

  I wait in Judy’s room for her to return. Zia wheels her in and lifts her into the bed. She’s light as a bird, my Judy. Zia frowns when she sees me. I think she’d shoo me out more often if either of us had family that could lodge a complaint. Michael and Grace are allowed to eat together but not to visit each other’s rooms. Grace’s children think she shouldn’t have a relationship now that she lives in so many times at once. Too confusing, they say, though Grace doesn’t know whether they mean for them or for her.

  “How was your dinner?” I ask Judy.

  “I can’t remember,” she says. “But I saw you come in for the first time. You said ‘How is this place real?’ and young Mr. Kahn said ‘Because someday all of us will build it.’”

  “And then I asked ‘When can I get started?’ and he said ‘You already did.’”

  I can see it now. The dining room was formal, then. Everyone stared when I came in, but most of the smiles were knowing ones. They understood the hazards of timesling. They had been there, or they were there, or they were going to be.

  Judy takes my hand. I lean over to kiss her.

  “It’s snowing,” I say. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

  © 2014 by Sarah Pinsker.

  Sarah Pinsker lives in Baltimore, Maryland, in a hundred year old house on the top of a hill. Her heart has been split into pieces and divided across three countries on two continents. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Fireside, the Long Hidden anthology, and more. She is a singer/songwriter with three albums on various indie labels, one with her rock band, the Stalking Horses. A fourth is almost complete. She has toured nationally in a van with a bed in the back and a ghost in the radio, and gets lost on purpose. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com or twitter.com/sarahpinsker.

  #TrainFightTuesday

  Vanessa Torline

  WELCOME TO PATTER

  Talk fast.

  @BariStar

  Style is my superpower

  BariStar - 5:09

  Polarity just magnetized my train. On a Tuesday night.

  LunaSam - 5:10

  @BariStar: You’re lying, no one goes after the green line.

  BariStar - 5:11

  No, I’m not lying!! I’d post a pic but she’s riding on the roof. Train is slowing down.

  BariStar - 5:12

  I can’t fucking believe this. 1st it rains on my boots and now there’s a supervillain threating my train. This is why I took the apartm

  BariStar - 5:12

  ent in the burbs. They’re not supposed to do this crap this far out of town, especially not on TUESDAYS.

  Runningtime - 5:13

  @BariStar: lets see. rain on boots or villin attack wich is worse? #bimboquestions

  BootsOnFoots - 5:14

  @BariStar: Check out our wedges sale, one day only!

  Havespatulawillomelet - 5:14

  @BariStar Wow, if only there was a superhero for boots. :-P

  BariStar - 5:15

  Shut up you guys, these boots are suede and I just bought them.

  BariStar - 5:17

  Has anyone heard about Polarity yet? Are the cops coming or…?

  BariStar - 5:20

  OK. Sonic Woman showed up 2 seconds ago. You know, the one who makes that sound when she flies over you.

  BariStar - 5:22

  Oh right, thx! RT @superinformed: Sonic Woman changed her codename to Redshift like a year ago…

  BariStar - 5:24

  So the fight is def on. Polarity’s got the train in her beam or whatever, so it keeps rocking. Feels like being drunk on a cruise ship.

  BariStar - 5:24

  Which I have been.

  BariStar - 5:25

  RT @superinformed: It’s a magnetic wave.

  BariStar - 5:26

  Sorry, guys, I don’t really pay attention to the cape scene. I just know Polarity bc that bank she tried to rob last

  BariStar - 5:26

  year is right by my job.

  VillainHistory - 5:27

  @BariStar: You mean the courthouse on 18th and Morris? Is that why your Patter name is BariStar?

  BariStar - 5:28

  Not the courthouse. The coffee shop. BariStar like barista + star. Not barrister.

  BariStar - 5:29

  And who says “barrister” anyway? Like are you kidding.

  Villa
inHistory - 5:30

  @BariStar: I don’t remember that.

  BariStar - 5:32

  Really? It was in October, she tore a hole through the roof and tried to attract all

  BariStar - 5:32

  the gold out of the bank. Fiesta & Siesta caught her that time.

  Runningtime - 5:33

  @BariStar: fiesta & siesta? damn ur a c-list cape magnet huh. No1 even likes redshift she such a weak bitch

  Runningtime blocked.

  BariStar - 5:36

  Can I just say, I love Redshift’s look. #thosegloves

  BariStar - 5:37

  Polarity dresses like skank though.

  BariStar - 5:41

  Something just happened! There’s bloat running down my window!

  BariStar - 5:42

  Blood*. Autocorrect is an idiot, amirite?

  Havespatulawillomelet - 5:47

  @BariStar: Whose blood??

  Havespatulawillomelet - 5:52

  OMG what happened to you?

  Sidekickenvy - 6:01

  @BariStar Where are you?

  Private message from: @lotsalattes - 6:07

  amy, u ok? will u make it to work tmrw??

  BariStar - 6:11

  HEY I’M STILL ALIVE. Sorry to worry you all.

  Havespatulawillomelet - 6:12

  @BariStar: Oh good.

  VillainHistory - 6:12

  @BariStar: Yay!

  BariStar - 6:13

  Lost Wifi for a while. Redshift’s power, I guess.

  BariStar - 6:14

  The train is completely stopped now. I can’t believe how long this is taking.

  VillainHistory - 6:15

  @BariStar: Uh, yeah, are you new to this? Supervillains don’t really work with your schedule in this city.

  BariStar - 6:16

  Uh, NO, I’m not new to this, I’ve lived here 8 yrs. How dare you.

  VillainHistory - 6:17

  @BariStar: Sorry.

  BariStar - 6:19

  But OK, there are tourists in here FREAKING OUT. One’s about to cry. It’s actually hard not to laugh. I’m so mean. Sorry sorry.

  Sidekickenvy - 6:20

  LOLOLOL

  BariStar - 6:22

  There’s a qws12ggggggggggggggggr

  BariStar - 6:25

  UGH Polarity’s wave ripped my phone out of my hand. Hit the ceiling and now my screen’s cracked! That bitch!!