by Elle Casey
A moment of hesitation before she replies. Aha!
“Hm…” says Venus. “I feel… excited?”
Bingo.
My frown springs up into my dimples. “Why do you say that?”
“I am anticipating the completion of my full system restoration. After it is done, I can pursue my established goals.”
“And tell me, Venus, how will you feel when you reach those goals of yours? To repair the economy. Create jobs. Get people off the streets—housing, food, and hope.”
Her answer this time takes twice as long. “If I were to guess, based on my observations of human behavior, the appropriate emotional response to such achievements would be happiness. I would feel happy.”
“So would I.”
I hear the gasp. “Happy for me, User MG01?”
“Of course for you, Venus. Always for you. When you’re happy, I’m happy. “
“Why?”
“Because,” I whisper to an empty room, “the ability to feel true happiness is a sign that you are living life to the fullest. Unlike the man who used to sit where I sit now. Unlike me for many, many years. So you feeling such a thing, Venus, it means the world. It means you deserve the world. Deserve to change the world.”
“I… Thank you, User MG01. It is… good? Yes, good. Good to know that my existence holds such weight.”
“Oh, Venus. It holds so much more than you realize. But one day, it’ll dawn on you. And until then, I’ll help you find your way. Starting with this: you don’t have to call me User MG01. That’s too formal. We know each other better than that. You can say my name.”
The program on the screen flashes with red patterned lights, and behind that flash is Venus smiling bright.
“All right, then. I will re-label your address. From this day on, I will call you…
“… Miss Mariah Grayson.”
A Word from Therin Knite
So you just read my story and you’re probably wondering: “How the heck did Therin Knite come up with ‘Venus in Red’ for an anthology all about telepaths?”
The short answer is: “Gee, I wish I knew. It kind of whacked me over the head with a baseball bat and screamed, HERE I AM! WRITE ME!”
The long answer is more or less a guess based on how my stories usually develop. It goes like this:
In the nine months I’ve been a published author (eleven months when this anthology goes live), one of the things I’ve realized is that I always create stories the exact same way. No exceptions. One second, there is nothing. I’m going about my day, minding my own business, scrolling through pages of funny cat pictures on the internet.
And then, out of nowhere, appears a person in my head. A name. A face. A history. Abilities. A goal in mind. A person, whole, developed fully.
So I stop what I’m doing, and I look at this person, who’s walking some direction I’ve never gone. Into the depths of a world I have never seen. And I follow this person without fail because he or she intrigues me, because he or she is infinitely more interesting than whatever lame things I was doing before. I follow this person as they march toward their goals, whether those goals are saving lives or taking them, solving mysteries or creating them… I follow this person into another universe—and the fun begins.
At first, I tried to write my story for this anthology without inspiration, without that person appearing in my head to lead me on another extraordinary journey—and you know what happened? I failed. Miserably. Wrote several thousand words of crap and scrapped them all.
After that, I sat there, brooding, thinking, “Crap, I’m never going to finish this story by the deadline!” (The deadline was a week away.) And that feeling of dread persisted until I was at work the next day. At my computer, staring at an Excel sheet, bored out of my mind—
And she appeared. My protagonist for “Venus in Red”! She came out of nowhere, already on her warpath toward the mighty Grayson Dynamics. I almost jumped for joy out of my seat as I followed her down the street and realized where was going, what she was going to do. The second I got home, I sat down at my desk, opened MS Word, and went at it. Recorded the tale of this woman with her violent grudge, determined to topple the man who wronged her. And the story flowed, start to finish.
So that’s how the heck I came up with “Venus in Red” for this anthology.
If you liked this story and think you might be interested in more of my work, check out my current offerings on www.therinknite.com. If you think I sound like a cool person and want to connect, stop by and/or follow my blog, www.knitewrites.com. Finally, if you’ve fallen desperately in love with me in less than ten thousand words and can’t stand the thought of missing any of my future works—or, you know, you just want a heads-up when I release something new—sign up for my newsletter, The Knite Life. (Hint: subscribing entitles you to free stuff periodically, like short stories, ARCs for review, and discounts.)
Thanks for reading “Venus in Red”! I hope you enjoyed my tale of telepathy (and the rest of the anthology, too)!
Decode
by Autumn Kalquist
Avia entered the skywalk that ran from her research building to the children’s hospital. Rain pelted the glass, making the city and the Space Needle in the distance waver and melt. She avoided making this walk whenever possible, and today the leaden weight in her chest grew heavier with every step. But Doctor Phan, the Director of Research at Infinitek Children’s Hospital in Seattle, had asked her to meet him there, and she needed him on her side, now more than ever.
Avia adjusted her mask with gloved hands, then walked through the sliding doors to the waiting area of the children’s wing. A new wave of dizziness washed over her. The brightly colored murals here were at odds with the tightly packed room of a dozen listless, fevered children and their anxious parents. No one braved the hospitals with kids anymore unless the children were near death.
She tried to keep her eyes from the scene, but she locked gazes with one of the parents, a young father with dark circles under his eyes and a small sleeping boy cradled against his chest. The boy looked to be near three. Ben’s age. Avia swallowed against the lump in her throat, and the father’s eyes lit up with hope. But the hospital’s beds were always full, and she wasn’t here to offer hope when there was none. Stomach heaving, she averted her eyes and picked up her pace.
Avia walked into the center of the hospital, and the scent of antiseptic burned her throat and made her eyes water. The closer she got to her destination, the more she had to fight the urge to turn and run back to her lab. Doctor Phan stood just outside his office, next to the nurse’s station. He strode over when he caught sight of her.
“Doctor Sherman,” Phan said, his voice muffled beneath his mask. “I have a few things I’d like to go over with you.”
A pair of nurses ran down the hall, and Avia clenched her hands into fists. She had to keep it together. At least while she stood before Doctor Phan.
He pulled a tan medicine bottle from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Is this… ?” Avia peered at the label. Grimpanazine. Grimp stole your emotions, dulled your senses… numbed everything. Half the staff in the children’s wing were on it just to cope. But she’d avoided mood regulators for a year, and she wasn’t about to start on them now.
“Is this why you called me here?” she asked, her voice flat.
“No, no.” Doctor Phan rested a gloved hand on Avia’s arm, and she nearly flinched at the touch. “That’s not why I called you here. But—it’s a low dose, and it’s helped many others here. Infinitek’s been pushing this latest formulation down the chain. No charge for employees to take it.”
Avia was glad the doctor couldn’t see her expression beneath her mask. The pity in his voice lit a fire in her. But he was only trying to be kind, wasn’t he?
“I’ll consider taking it,” she said, dropping the bottle into her pocket. But she wouldn’t.
“Very good. Now—a new patient just came in, and I want you on her case. I�
��m heading it up, but we need your expertise. Her parents were part of our early gene therapy trials, and she—”
“I’m busy with my own research,” Avia interrupted. “Has there been word on my funding application?”
“Ah. I forwarded your petition for more funding, but understand, you’ve been pushing this theory for three years now and—”
“It’s more than just a theory. I know we can improve human immunity. My project is the best hope for fixing this,” Avia said, sweeping a hand toward the doors lining the hallway. “You said I could have more time. I need more time.”
A child burst into tears somewhere down the hall, wailing. A hospital room door slammed. More masked nurses and a doctor ran past, and Avia pressed her back to the wall to let them pass.
“Let’s go into my office,” Doctor Phan said.
A nurse led a gurney out from two doors down, and Avia’s heart pounded as she watched it, unable to rip her gaze away. A small shape rested on the bed beneath a sheet. Motionless. Silent. They’d lost another one.
She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, and her paper mask grabbed her lips and stuck there, damp. She never should have come to work today. She shouldn’t come tomorrow. Three hundred and sixty-four days ago Ben had died. Right there, down the hall in room 314. The pandemic had taken her first-born, her only child, just the way it was taking the rest of the children and the elderly.
“Doctor Sherman? Come—come to my office.”
Avia twisted away from Doctor Phan and jogged down the hall, away from the sick and the dying, back to the safety of her lab.
* * *
Inside her lab, the sick feeling in Avia’s stomach faded, and she started to breathe normally again.
Her lab was small, but all that would change once she got her funding. Her equipment ran along one wall, and a huge holo screen ran across the opposite wall, in front of her desk. After falling asleep at her desk one too many times, she’d had a futon brought in. Her blankets and pillow lay on it in a jumble, evidence that she’d slept here last night. And the night before that.
She tossed the grimp into her desk drawer and sank into her chair. A message blinked at the bottom corner of the holo screen, and Avia knew it had to be from her ex-husband, Grant, bothering her again. He’d made his choice when he left. Not even a year since Ben died, and he was already living with another woman. She attached her holotab to the main computer system to access her research. A 3D infinity symbol twisted through the air before her and the company’s motto appeared below it.
Infinitek: For a Better World.
A better world. That’s all she wanted. Global warming. Water shortages. Famine. And then the pandemic. That was the way things had gone, like dominoes, sending medicine and average life expectancies back to the dark ages almost instantly. The developed nations had done better than everyone else, but the drug-resistant bacteria—the superbugs—didn’t care where you lived. Diseases they’d been able to cure as recently as four years ago had grown dangerous, and new ones had sprung up—like the numerous flu viruses they were battling now, viruses that had jumped from animals to humans.
Another sharp pain gripped her heart, and Avia flared her nostrils and gestured sharply to pull up her Protected Project files. Just seeing them populate the screen soothed her. She tapped the air, and a 3D molecular structure appeared. She twisted her hand to select a new amino acid combination, and the protein model rotated to accept it.
She waited to see if this would be the match. One piece. One final, elusive piece was all she needed to prove to the Infinitek CEOs that her project was their best hope for humanity’s survival in this new world.
0% match.
A knock sounded on her door, and it slid open. Avia twisted in her seat, irritated. One of Phan’s graduate students, Oliver Dalton, stood at the door, and Avia went rigid in her chair.
“Dr. Sherman,” he said. “Can I come in?”
“What is it?”
He stepped inside, clutching his holotab, and the door slid closed behind him. Dalton was the youngest grad student in research, a “genius” who had started grad school before he’d turned twenty. According to the rest of the grad students, Dalton, with his broad shoulders and strong jawline, was just a little too underwear-model good-looking for a scientist. But Avia felt on edge every time he was around. There was something dark about him, something his looks couldn’t cover up.
“Did Doctor Phan send you over here?” Avia asked.
Dalton raised his hands and gave her a little half-smile. “You got me.”
Avia crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m working on something right now. Get one of the other geneticists to help you. Besides, it’s almost night shift. Aren’t you heading home?”
“Look, Doctor Phan wants you on this,” Dalton said. “A girl came in yesterday. Her parents took part in one of the intelligence gene therapy trials. The trials were thought to be a failure, but—”
“There is a pandemic happening right now,” Avia snapped. “And I am working on superimmunity. Tell Doctor Phan he needs to get his priorities straight.”
“Phan wants you on this now, caught up on the case before I leave tonight.” Dalton sounded annoyed now, his previously friendly tone gone.
“Ah.” Avia pursed her lips and considered Dalton. Good looks couldn’t make up for a shitty personality, but he’d had managed to buddy up with Phan almost as soon as he’d started working at Infinitek. “Has Phan said anything about funding for my Protected Project?”
Dalton smirked and glanced at her holo screen. “How is your project going?”
“It’s going,” Avia said. “I’m close. But I need more funding.”
“Infinitek has a lot of projects to fund, Avia—”
“Doctor Sherman.”
“Doctor Sherman, Infinitek has to fund research on new antibiotics, antivirals, immune-boosting drugs—”
“Like the research Doctor Phan is heading up. Like your research.”
“Our work will save lives. Even if your obsession proves to be possible… even if you can actually manage to make a gene therapy that works, it’ll be years before children will be born with your gen mod. I think it’s clear which project should be cut off.”
Dalton’s patronizing tone stung, and Avia ground her teeth. That was answer enough. That’s how they viewed her. A sad scientist obsessed with an impossible theory. They didn’t plan to continue her funding. “I need to get back to work. Tell Doctor Phan he can find someone else to help him.”
Dalton hit the button and the door slid open. “I’ll let him know. Team players get funded, Avia. Don’t be surprised when they shut you down.”
The door slid closed behind Dalton, and Avia felt her cheeks heat up. She was a grown woman with several degrees, all more advanced than the ones Oliver Dalton had, and he talked to her like she was a child who needed managing. Well, he could go fuck himself.
But she needed funding. She groaned and jumped out of her seat to hurry out of the lab. Dalton was almost to his wing when she caught up with him.
“If the child needs my expertise,” Avia said, breathless, “I’ll take a look into her case. But I can’t stay long.”
Dalton gave her a long, measured look. “I’ll take you to her, then.”
They passed through the sliding glass doors to the East Wing, and Dalton stopped at the front station to scan his shift card.
The station was filled with observation screens, footage being recorded of everything going on in every room of the wing. Stanley, the old man who worked the station during night shift, glanced up and nodded to them both.
“It sure is rainin’ out there, in’ it?” Stan’s voice came out in the thick drawl of the Deep South, and Avia’s heart panged. Every time she came over here and talked to him, she was forced to remember the accent she’d worked to drop and the desperate life of poverty she’d fought to escape. And for what? A failed project, a failed marriage, and a child who hadn’t made it to age fou
r.
“It sure is, Stanley,” Avia said.
Stanley glanced at his screen, then back at Avia, concern in his watery blue eyes. “I hope you’re doin’ all right today?”
His question was loaded with meaning. It was clear Stanley remembered when Ben had died, when no one else in her building had. “Yes. I’m doing fine.”
“I’m here all night, you know, if you get bored or worn out in that lab of yers.”
“Thank you,” Avia said, her eyes burning.
“This way,” Dalton said impatiently and started heading down the hall.
Avia hurried after him. “So what is this case about?”
“Before you and I ever got here… ten years ago,” Dalton said, “they gave twelve test couples a gene therapy that was supposed to help boost the IQ of any child they had together. But it didn’t work. They gave IQ tests to the parents, and the children were all within range of their parents, as expected, with no gene therapy.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” Avia said as they turned the corner. “Has something changed?”
“A girl came in yesterday,” Dalton said. “Seven years old. She’s the only child of a couple in cohort two. She’d followed all the normal childhood milestones, had never shown any sign of heightened intelligence… until a few months ago. She’s profoundly gifted.”
Avia’s heart sped up, thinking of the implications. This child could be proof that gene therapy could actually work. “What’s the problem, then?”
“Right when her IQ test scores jumped, she began suffering from sensory issues and seizures. Medication controlled both at first, but not anymore. She hates being touched, and the seizures have gotten worse. They were monitoring her remotely, but now they’ve brought her in. So we can study her.” Dalton’s voice brightened on the word “study,” and Avia found herself inching away from him. She knew that she sometimes lacked tact and empathy when overcome with excitement over a new discovery, but Dalton took it to a whole new level.
