Grimdark Magazine Issue #7 MOBI

by Edited by Adrian Collins

  ‘I’ll call you whatever I want,’ I tell her, putting a hand on her chest. She resists for a moment, confused, and I exert more pressure, forcing her back a step. She’s resistant, and I make it more obvious, grabbing her arm to pull her towards the stacked chairs.

  ‘You’re not in charge here,’ I tell her, pulling out a chair with my free hand. I sit and pull her down with me, forcing her to her knees. I can feel her quivering under my grip and wonder if I’ve played it right. She looks up at me for a moment, the tiniest crease of a frown. I ignore her. I have to take control. I can’t just let this happen to me like a bystander, that won’t work. I grab her wrist and put it between her thighs. ‘We’re going to do this my way.’

  22.58 Local Time

  Her climax throws open her synaptic pathways just like Melek promised. The sub-routine embedded in me is like a dog at a leash, dragging at me to release it. Far more predatory than my self-coded program. Designed by Melek, I would guess, ready to just take what it wants.

  I comply, knowing I only have an instant to make the connection. It’s different to how it usually feels. There’s no guile here, no tricking the neuronet into opening up, just a rapid, single-minded invasion of Monotyama’s thoughtscape.

  Her network is as beautiful as her exterior. Most folks have layer upon layer of implants and programmes, their internal pathways scarred by nodules and remnants of previous code and hardware. Hiromi Monotyama is pristine, her neuroscape as clean and clinical as a surgical suite. It glistens like diamonds and silver, a web of shining strands arrayed with perfect symmetry.

  With a mental lurch, the hound program drags me off to one side, down a tiny little spiral of thread that unfurls as I approach. I’m in and out, like a hummingbird dabbing at nectar, touching briefly on the sweetness at the bottom of the spiral. Milliseconds later the blossom curls up and Ms Monotyama’s defence systems explode into life, forcing me to eject with a gasp.

  I look into her eyes, centimetres from my face, the sweat on her forehead like glistening pearls, and for a moment I wonder if she knows what happened, whether Melek and his companions have made an error.

  ‘Good,’ she whispers, slumping back to the plush carpet. Her eyes close. ‘We’re done.’

  She doesn’t see the relief welling up inside me, relief I have to shut down because I’m not in the clear yet, and neither is my daughter. I hear the door open and a cough behind me. The rent-a-thugs are waiting. I make my exit as swiftly as I can, to find that the assembled executive ranks have been moved on in preparation for Monotyama’s address.

  Inside the elevator I collapse against the wall, head in my hands as I fight the sickness wracking my body. A sob tries to claw its way up my throat but I won’t let it. I’m not crying for these assholes.

  The elevator arrives. Stuttgartner is beside the roadster with the door open. She says nothing, but directs me with a glance. I get in, convinced she’s going to kill me, fear fighting with relief at the thought that the daughter I’ll never know is safe.

  23.30 Local Time

  Melek waits on a couch in a plainly furnished suite, the sort of place where mid-level execs hang out between conference panels and hook-ups with other attendees.

  ‘So what did–’ I stutter to a gasping halt as Melek’s eyes silver up and he wrenches the spoils of my expedition from the tempfile of my memory stack. It feels like someone is showering the back of my brain with acid as a cleansing routine scrapes up every last bit of data from the junk-syn I swiped. Melek’s drillcode package is still in there, its purpose fulfilled. An unexpected oversight on his part.

  I stagger to an armchair and flop down. Melek looks distracted for a few seconds.

  ‘In answer to your question, it contains nothing.’ He relaxes a little and folds his hands in his lap. ‘Just a data packet that left a nearly invisible trail we can backtrace in the future.’

  I hold back a snide remark—it’s been a disaster of an evening so far but it could get worse. ‘I’ve done my piece, what about my daughter?’

  ‘She wasn’t your daughter,’ Melek says. ‘Just a random image and a memory I plucked from your core. The adoption service is fully randomised and hex-encrypted for a reason. No way to trace a parent or client. Associates have also scoured clean the room at the motel, of us and you. You are, as they say, in the clear.’

  Why does it feel worse that I’ve been tricked? That my daughter was never at risk? I want to put my fists through his smug, calm face. Just the slightest movement at the edge of my vision reminds me that Stuttgartner is in the room, armed. My fingers claw into the arms of the chair as I control my temper.

  ‘I deployed carefully chosen triggers to ensure your cooperation,’ Melek continues. ‘But we are not monsters.’

  He’s wrong. I think about what I’ve just done; what he forced me to do. Monsters come in different flavours. The anger boils, but just as with the fear my experience keeps it hidden beneath a calm exterior. ‘Derek’s still dead, I take it?’

  ‘Very much so.’ Melek leans forward. ‘You have seen the true face of what we are up against. The elite hold themselves above us. They are contemptuous of the masses. Warm bodies. Human livestock. Numbers in a column. It’s no coincidence these are the very people you have targeted before. A victimless crime, almost? You should feel good that you have been a tiny fly in their ointment.’

  My mind starts to work properly for the first time since they cornered me with Derek.

  ‘It’s certainly more appealing than turning over fat middle managers for a few gigs at a time.’ I force a smile and rub the pleather of the chair. ‘Maybe it’s time I went more upmarket. Can you get me off Nu-Thai? If I was to help you again? Maybe an expenses account?’

  Melek nods.

  ‘That might be arranged. We would prefer an ally to an employee, though. There is more appeal to such work than simply money.’

  ‘There is,’ I assure him. I look at Stuttgartner and back to him. Another forced smile. ‘This feels like it might get personal.’

  He stands, nods once more and then leaves with Mrs Stuttgartner. I wait in the room for another five minutes and then head down to the lobby. I get them to synch me with a cab and another twenty minutes sees me across town and back at my planned drop-out location.

  There’s a public hard terminal and I access the search function. I find the link I need and dial it up. The holo of a perky young Thai receptionist in a bright blue uniform shirt appears on the terminal display.

  ‘Good evening.’ Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘This is your local SunstarRegusCorps security division. How may I be of assistance?’

  They could have asked me, paid me. I’m a professional. But I wasn’t even that to him. Just a tool, a necessary implement, nothing more. Even that I might stomach. Most of my marks don’t see beyond my sex organs. But the fake deal with my daughter... forcing me into this? That’s colder than anything Monotyama did. And the arrogance, to reveal the lie, to pretend they are any better than the corporate leeches? They’ll pay for that mistake. Nobody uses me. I’ll take these FedGov bastards for all the bytes I can. Then I’ll double-down with payouts from the corporation.

  ‘Contractor code tau-five-three-alpha-seven,’ I say.

  The screen goes static-dead and a second later a fresh ring tone starts.

  Melek picked the wrong girl to fuck with—literally. And when it’s all done, I’ll enjoy watching him burn.[GdM]

  Gav Thorpe has a long history with the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes, and has written many novels for the same. He is a New York Times best-selling author with the novella The Lion. His epic swords-and-sandals fantasy Empire of the Blood is available from Angry Robot. Gav has worked on numerous tabletop and video games as designer, writer and world creation consultant. He lives near Nottingham with his partner Kez and son Sammy.

  Review: Fallout 4

  C.T. PHIPPS

  The Fallout series, first published by Interplay and then by Bethesda, has always
been in the border area between grimdark and straight post-apocalypse science fiction/fantasy. It was possible to play an utter bastard or a saint in a world with villains that had rational but detestable reasons for acting the way they did. Bethesda games maximized this contrast with Fallout 3, a game about travelling across a broken, blasted ruin of Washington D.C. with hundreds of reminders of the dead, 1950s-esque world left behind.

  Although there was a game (Fallout: New Vegas) between them, Fallout 4 is a direct sequel to Fallout 3 and shares many of its themes. It also amps up the moral ambiguity of the main factions so that there is no “good” guy in the Wasteland and the protagonist must choose sides, knowing that innocents will suffer on one side or other. In that respect, it is similar to Skyrim with its conflict between the equally-flawed Imperials and Stormcloaks. It is gray morality all around in this installment of Fallout, and thus it is a great example of grimdark.

  The premise is you are the Sole Survivor, a veteran of the war that destroyed the world. Having returned home after your tour to be with your spouse and baby, you do not get to enjoy your retirement because the conflict soon escalates to nuclear. Fleeing to one of the nearby Vaults, basically bomb-shelters the size of towns, you and your family are cryogenically frozen against your will. After sleeping for two-hundred-years, you awaken to a world now populated by mutants, monsters, Raiders, and mysterious cyborgs.

  As the Sole Survivor explores the Commonwealth Wasteland (formerly Massachusetts), he discovers there is a war being waged between multiple factions. There's the militaristic Brotherhood of Steel which wants to wipe out all nonhumans, the technocratic Institute which wants to rule the Wasteland through the power of science, the Railroad that believes in liberating android slaves from the Institute, and the Minutemen that were formerly protectors of the now-destroyed Commonwealth government.

  The game is a hybrid shooter and sandbox RPG with characters exploring the vast Commonwealth on foot. Unlike previous installments in the franchise, your character is voiced and you can listen to them interact with the hundreds of NPCs spread throughout the game. Like in previous games, experience causes your character to level up and grow stronger but the previous skill system has been replaced with a perk system designed to streamline gameplay. I, personally, preferred the Skill system and actually find the Perk system unnecessarily confusing rather than easier to use.

  Exploring the ruins of Massachusetts is a haunting experience and is more colorful and vibrant than the Washington D.C. of Fallout 3 but no less disturbing. You come across many abandoned, empty, and half-collapsed ruins that often have hints as to what sort of people lived there prior to the war. The Sole Survivor can encounter computer terminal entries, holotapes, and even written messages that discuss the tragedies that befell them. One location has a skeleton in a dress with luggage as well as a holotape she was composing to her parents about running away from home due to an unexpected pregnancy.

  Bethesda manages to capture the feeling of Massachusetts in many places while also adding their unique spin to it. You get to visit places like the ruins of M.I.T, (called C.I.T for legal purposes), the U.S.S. Constitution, breweries, canneries, and Fenway Park. There's even a bonus monster to fight if you want to visit the Swan Pond in the ruins of Boston Common. Having visited Boston before, seeing the ruins of so many locations I was familiar with was particularly engaging.

  The companions have a wide variety of moralities, ideals, and thoughts. I'm especially fond of Piper, a Lois Lane-like reporter trying to resurrect printed news as a concept in the post-apocalyptic world. I also very much enjoyed Cait, a Irish pit-fighter and former slave as she struggles with the idea that you're not a complete monster like so many of her former associates. There are a few duds here and there, but, overall, I feel this is some of Bethesda's best writing.

  But is it grimdark?

  While certainly lighter and more humorous than the Metro series, I found it to be an interesting story with a lot of hard choices. Tragedy follows the main quest and, many times, I wasn't able to accomplish what I hoped to do. Even the enemies you shoot are humanized with their lairs containing messages of they had families, friends, and plans for the future. The ending is suitably bleak as well with all of the quests designed to leave you feeling slightly hollow about how things turned out. You can't play an evil character like you can in previous games, but you can't play a purely good one either.

  Gameplay-wise, it's a fun shooter with looting and role-playing elements. They've added a settlement system which gives you the option of constructing your very own post-apocalyptic shanty-towns. The settlement system, however, isn't explained very well and is done mostly through trial and error. Unfortunately, the game is pretty buggy as of the release date with clipping issues and ridiculously long loading times. It's also possible to get stuck in elevators for infinity, requiring you to load from an earlier save.

  Fallout 4 is a fun game and has a lot going for it. If you are a fan of the previous games, it's a must-buy, and if you're new to the series then it's a good place to jump on. Unfortunately, it's marred by a number of engine issues, and the role-playing isn't especially deep. The game could be darker, too, and lacks some of the impact of Fallout 3's more haunting and heartbreaking moments. Thankfully, that game is included with console versions so it can be played by those who didn't get to enjoy it the first time around.

  Still, great game for grimdark fans.GdM]

  An Interview with Django Wexler

  TOM SMITH

  Greetings grimdarkers! This issue we’re catching up with Django Wexler, writer of the recent Thousand Names series. Django calls the Pacific Northwest home these days and has degrees in Creative Writing and Computer Science. As a Navy Veteran, I particularly enjoy the military flavor of the Thousand Names series and wanted to get inside his head for a while.

  [GdM] Hi Django! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us.

  [DW] Happy to!

  [GdM] Your stories have some of the themes that we consider grimdark, dark and gritty, morally ambiguous protagonists, but you have said before that you don’t consider yourself a grimdark author. How would you classify your stories if you had to?

  [DW] The nature of grimdark is always up for debate, but for me the most important element is a cynicism about human nature. This idea that people are mostly, perhaps entirely, pretty awful runs through what I think of the grimdark canon—A Song of Ice and Fire, The First Law trilogy (and especially Best Served Cold), the works of K.J. Parker and Mark Lawrence, etc.

  By this standard, my books don't qualify, because they're too hopeful about people. Bad things certainly happen, and there's a fair amount of moral ambiguity and graphic violence that we see in a lot of grimdark, but I don't think we end up with quite as harsh a view of humanity as some of those other writers. When describing my books, I tend to characterize them as "military fantasy", because the emphasis on actual soldiering is for me one of the primary aspects.

  [GdM] There is a distinctly military air to the Thousand Names series (particularly book 1), what influenced you to go that route?

  [DW] Essentially, it comes out of my love of military history. I play wargames and read campaign histories for fun, and trying to capture some of the excitement I get from these things in a novel was a big part of the genesis of the series. I was also a little frustrated with fantasy series that have enormous wars in them, but with little or no detail or historical realism; reading A Song of Ice and Fire, with its careful grounding in historical reality, made me want to try something similar in a different historical period.

  [GdM] Have you written a character that you would consider the most like you as a person? Conversely, if you lived in that world, what do you think you would be doing?

  [DW] It's tempting to say Janus bet Vhalnich! Maybe better to say that he's a sort of idealized version or what I would love to be in that situation, the kind of character I always idolized—brilliant, enigmatic, always maintaining a cool res
erve and a dry wit. I'm not actually like that, of course.

  My guess would be, writing stories! It's actually one of the few professions that transfers well into different worlds and culture—almost every human society has some place for storytellers. Maybe I could write for the broadsheets or the penny-operas.

  [GdM] Did you draw on any existing religions or mythologies for inspiration in creating the religions in the Thousand Names world?

  [DW] I tried to draw on some features of real-world religions, without mapping the fictional religions directly onto their real-world counterparts. The clearest example is probably the division of the Karisai into Free Church and Sworn Church, which mirrors the conflicts between Protestant and Catholic in Renaissance Europe. That theme, the conflict between a powerful religious authority and a secular one, is something that comes up over and over again in history.

  Another not-quite-religion I used liberally was the Enlightenment philosophy leading up to the French Revolution, which has various analogues mentioned by the revolutionaries in The Shadow Throne. The conflicts of that era, and in particular the collision between the idealism of the early revolutionaries and the realities of governing, I think are another archetypical theme.

  [GdM] Without spoiling too much, thus far in your books you haven’t introduced much in the way of what I think of as traditional magic. Will that change in future books in the Thousand Names setting?