“What are you doing here?”
Nadia picked herself up off of the ground and waved at the security guard. “Hi, George. I’m just leaving.”
“How do you know my name?”
She waved vaguely at his badge, which not even Superman could have read from this distance. “I’ve got crazy eyesight. Anyhow, I think I’m lost. I was looking for a bathroom—”
She was unceremoniously escorted out of the building.
But that was fine with her. She was Nadia, Queen of the Shimmy. She set her hips going, and laughed at how effortless it was. No wonder she could do this for hours!
She pulled her shirt up and took a quick peek at her stomach. Chiseled, taut, and totally unmarked. Excellent. Between that and the shimmies, no wonder she had such an extensive collection of lovers.
Oh wow. Now that was an unexpected bonus.
She hiked her purse over her shoulder and started to head back to the subway, shimmying all the way. A cute undergrad sized her up as he whizzed by on his bike. Perhaps she’d add him to her collection. But first, she needed to get a little rest at the hotel before tomorrow’s big day…
She was stopped by the unmistakable sensation of a gun barrel being pressed into her ribs.
“Freeze,” someone whispered.
Nadia felt the entire contents of her large intestine liquefy and she clenched for all she was worth. “You—you can have all my cash—”
“I don’t want your money.” Her assailant grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off of the sidewalk and into the shadows.
“Then what—?”
“I want to thank you for ruining my life.”
The woman stepped forward into a sliver of light. She looked familiar. Was she one of her aunts? She hadn’t seen them in years, but maybe in this alternate universe—
“I’m you, dumbass, twenty years from how.”
Nadia looked again.
Oh.
Oh dear.
As soon as this was over, she was going to make a beeline for the nearest drug store and stock up on the strongest anti-wrinkle cream she could find. Jowls were not a good look on her.
Old Nadia narrowed her eyes and said, “I was supposed to be the person who discovered time travel, and you went and fucked that all up with your stupid belly dance shit.”
“Stupid belly dance shit? I’m in the Bellydance Superstars!”
“Oh, yes, the Bellydance Superstars. Do you really think history will remember you for that?”
“Who cares? I’m happy. Besides, if I set that world record—”
Older Nadia waved the gun. “Blah blah, you followed your heart, blah blah, art is just as important as science. Trust me, I had all of these arguments with myself too. Fuck you, and fuck the stupid world record you were going to set tomorrow. I could have been someone important rather than a just footnote in a trivia book, and it’s all your fault.”
“Wait a minute, but I do discover time travel. I’ve done it twice now. And I’ve built an entire act around it.”
“Look at the math on your phone.”
“But—”
Older Nadia pressed the gun to Nadia’s temple. “Look at it. Tell me you can make sense of it.”
With shaking hands, she pulled her phone from her purse and called up the first picture.
It was gibberish to her in this timeline.
“You set up an auction to sell the photos to the highest bidder tomorrow. Someone from M.I.T. hacks your phone and posts the photos to the web. Scientists all over the world try and fail to reproduce your results. Someone in the physics department eventually figures out that it’s because their Van de Graaf accelerator is borked. That person figures out how to really send messages through time, and eventually objects, then people. You’re discredited and kicked out of the history books.”
“But…all those lovers…”
“Abandon you once you grow these damned jowls. But do you know the worst part?”
Nadia shook her head.
“Do you know who it was that figured out how time travel really worked?” Older Nadia snorted. “It was Joy.”
“Well, fuck.”
With that, Older Nadia shot her in the kneecaps and vanished.
Nadia cried out and collapsed to the pavement, bleeding profusely from both knees. George ran out of the building, frantically calling 911 on his earpiece. She felt the world fading in and out around her with each heartbeat, and grabbed George by the shirt collar before it faded out completely. She was not going to let Old Her win, even if it might mean that she’d be erased from existence as Current Her died. Or would she? Ugh, maybe she should have studied some physics in this timeline. If she recovered from this, she’d try to send another message.
If she could just figure out the math. And get back into the building. And use the borked accelerator. And come up with a message that was Joy-proof.
Shit.
“You’ll be all right, Lady. Help is on the way.”
No, no she wouldn’t. There would be no world record tomorrow, or ever. Not with these ruined legs. Her career was over. Maybe she could try to pick up physics again? No, she could hear the university admissions board now. Dumb, old Nadia, too ridiculous to realize that no one could pick up experimental physics at the ripe old age of forty-five.
George gave her a little shake. “Did you see who did this to you?”
If she told him that, they’d stick her in a padded room, even if for now she was still the woman who was going to discover how to send messages through time.
Then again…
Maybe she could salvage this day, if only a little bit.
And really, it wasn’t a lie, if you just looked at it the right way.
With her last bit of strength, she murmured, “Joy March.”
She heard the wail of the ambulance, and passed out.
THE DAY THEY REPOSSESSED MY ZOMBIES
K.G. Jewell
The day they repossessed my zombies was the day Andrea broke up with me. She said she knew where our relationship was going, and it wasn’t someplace she wanted to visit.
I, on the other hand, knew where our relationship had been, so I wasn’t surprised by her goodbye. I’d have preferred the breakup wasn’t written in blood on my workshop door, but you learn to expect certain things from a witch, and I had to admit the message had flair. Her words made clear that if I ever called her again, I’d be turned into a frog.
The zombies were another matter. I’d just landed a job to scrap three dozen school buses, and that metal wasn’t going to eat itself. I’d underbid three trolls and the Pixie Syndicate for the job, counting on my undead labor to get it done. Without the zombies, I was in a bit of a pickle.
I went to my usual source of emergency finance for a quickie loan, but Joe reminded me I still owed him for fronting last month’s rent. I got out of his office with only two broken fingers rather than the usual three. “A discount for a frequent borrower,” he said. “Come back soon.”
I looked through my inventory for something to pawn, but the pickings were slim—scrap metal isn’t great collateral. I considered pawning Hank, my shop gargoyle, but he threatened to bite off my unbroken fingers if I tried. I gave him a pass.
Unfortunately, I could see only one path to the funds I needed to get my zombies back. Well, two, but I wasn’t about to sell my soul, even as tattered as it was.
Andrea’s mother Katherine had once offered to buy my middle name. “It has a nice sound,” she said. “Fadai—I could pick up some extra votes with a name like that.” Katherine sat on the city council and was always working an angle on the next election.
For my part, I wouldn’t miss the name. It came from the dark recesses of my father’s side of the family, and I hadn’t talked to them in years. I didn’t know the whole story, but my mother only used the name when I was in trouble: Theodore Fadai Schinkel, you get back here this instant!
So I left Hank watching the shop and went uptown to visit Katherine.
An a cappella group huddled in front of city hall singing an off-key rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” A sign said they were The Undead Abolitionists. I guess it was a protest.
One singer, a woman in a neon-orange sundress, approached me with a clipboard. She was alive—that is, not-dead the first time around—and kind of cute.
“Can the undead even be saints?” I asked her, waving off her petition, “I mean, isn’t that whole eternal damnation thing how they got stuck here in the first place?”
She winked at me and kept singing. I went inside.
Katherine was having open constituent hours, so I put my name on the list and parked myself in the lobby. The faint strains of the abolitionists’ rendition of “The Internationale” drifted in every time the lobby door opened. I sat next to a gentleman who was very upset about the fluoride conspiracy.
“The undead don’t drink tap water,” he said, “and they don’t go to the dentist. Coincidence? I think not.” He shook a toothbrush at me.
I nodded and then avoided eye contact until my name was finally called.
“Ted! How are you holding up?” Katherine said, giving me a long hug that meant she’d talked to Andrea.
“I’ve been better,” I said truthfully, gingerly touching my broken fingers. I settled into the chair across from her desk. “But I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Oh, Ted,” Katherine said, “You’re one of my favorite people in the world, but Andrea’s a grown girl. She made me promise not to get involved in her romantic affairs after that unfortunate Samhain…incident.” She shook her head. “Although, really, I think that was the right hook-up for her at the time.”
“No, no, this isn’t about Andrea. I just have a cash flow problem and you’d mentioned you were interested upgrading your appellation.”
Katherine folded her hands on her desk and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s right. Fadai. I do like that name.”
“Do you like it to the tune of $1500?” That would catch me up, even get me a month ahead, on my zombie lease.
The door blew open with a billow of smoke, cutting off her response. The lights dimmed, thunder crackled, and a dark figure swept through the door.
“Hi, Andrea,” I said. She was the queen of dramatic entrances.
“Hi, Ted. Did you get my note?” The smoke whirled around Andrea and disappeared into her waist-length, jet-black hair; the lights returned to their generic fluorescence. She wore her copper bodice, which really was my favorite item in her witchy wardrobe. Little sparks still arced across the wire ties, electrostatic remnants of her entrance.
“I did. Sorry to hear that.” And really, I was. Andrea had her strong points; we just didn’t belong together—my drama and her drama exceeded a relationship’s critical mass. “What brings you here? Trying to supplicate for a second chance?” Her eyes glowed red in punctuation.
“No, no. I understand where you’re coming from. You’re right—it’s really for the best if we go our separate ways.” I shrugged. She was looking for a battle, but this was one I could only lose.
“Oh.” Andrea frowned. I think she really wanted to turn me into a frog.
“I had a business proposition for your mother. BrainCo repossessed my zombies, and I’m a little short on cash.”
“Zombies!” Katherine said. “You didn’t say anything about zombies.”
“Oh, no. The zombies aren’t your problem, they’re my problem.”
Katherine opened her window. The dissonant singing of The Undead Abolitionists flowed into the room, “How many roads must a man shamble down before you call him a man?” She shut the window.
“They’ve been out there for three days straight. They’ve made the zombies my problem. If it gets out that I bought your name and you used the money to rent zombies, that’ll look bad. I can see the attack ads now—Katherine Wret: funding enslavement of the previously alive.”
I checked my moral compass. It was missing, but that didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t used it since high school and I’d gathered a lot of ambiguous moral clutter since then.
“Wait a minute—have you met a zombie? They aren’t enslaved, they just have a one-track mind, and “More Brains” is the track on repeat. My hamster has more free will than a zombie,” I said.
Andrea snorted. “You don’t have a hamster. You’re just saying that because you need zombie labor at the shop.”
I stuck out my tongue. I knew that drove her nuts. “The hamster might be hypothetical, but that doesn’t mean the argument isn’t real.” I turned to Katherine. “Do you know how I get my zombies to scrap a vehicle? I smear a dab of brains on the transmission, and they take apart the entire vehicle for the chance to lick it.
“I don’t even lock them in at night. I put a Teletubbies DVD on repeat in the breakroom, and when I come back, even if I’ve gone on vacation for a week, they are still sitting there, watching the sun giggle.”
Katherine shook her head. “It still doesn’t look good. I mean, BrainCo owns them, and you pay BrainCo for their use. Sounds like slavery to me.”
“I give them everything they want in undeath—brains and brain-dead television. What would change if they were free?”
“The world would be a little more just,” Katherine said. I’m pretty sure she recycled that from the council debate on instituting a no-kill policy at the town animal shelter.
“And more in balance, free from the chains of capitalism,” said Andrea, tracing a glowing yin-yang circle in the air.
That was the moment I realized the true injustice of zombie slavery. If zombies were free, they would still work for brains and television but I wouldn’t owe BrainCo a monthly payment. If zombies were free, they’d be free.
I was a convert.
I threw my hands up in the air. “Ok, you guys are right. What can I do to support the abolition of zombie oppression?”
Andrea furrowed her eyebrows and cast a suspicious glare. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” I smiled brightly.
Katherine took my turn in stride. I imagine she’d seen some flip-flopping politicians in her day. “Well, for starters, you can stop paying BrainCo.”
“Done. But what can I do for the zombies that work at my shop? I can’t stand the thought of them being enslaved like that.”
“Can you buy them free?”
I wanted to say If I could buy them, I would have bought them a long time ago and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Instead I said, “I have a buyout clause in my lease, but I can’t afford to swing that.” I lifted my hands helplessly. “Unless you like Fadai $150,000 worth? Freeing the oppressed could make a great ad!”
Katherine grimaced. “Let me talk to some people. We might have some cultural affairs funds in the city budget we can squeeze into this.”
“Oh, this is a cultural affair alright,” I said. “Zombie culture is the next big thing. It’s going to make the neo-pagans look like community theatre.”
Andrea glared at me, smoke leaking out of her hair.
MY ACCOUNT MANAGER at BrainCo was the only person I’d ever met in person that actually used pomade. You could smell the stuff the second you entered his office, and his slicked-back hair resembled a speed skater’s helmet, only more aerodynamic. His snakeskin tie was slick too, but not in an aerodynamic way.
His name was Jeff. You knew this because he referred to himself in the third person, as in “Don’t worry, Jeff is on your side,” or “Jeff wants you to be happy with your undead purchase decision.”
Today Jeff was a little negative.
“Thanks for paying up your account, but Jeff can’t let you exercise your buyout clause.”
“Why not?” I asked, waving a ridiculous wad of cash under Jeff’s nose. Jeff was clearly not used to turning down money. I think those were tears in the corner of his eyes.
“Jeff wonders if you would be interested in some house zombies? They make great trash disposals.”
Katherine had come
up with the cash, in part donated by one of her campaign supporters and in part covered by the cultural affairs budget. The zombies were going to have to do a dance routine symbolizing freedom when this was all done. I was thinking a “Thriller” cover.
Andrea had declared the entire procedure some type of scam and stomped off. She wasn’t as good at dramatic exits as entrances. But here I was trying to buy out my zombies, and BrainCo was having nothing to do with it.
“Why won’t you take my money for the buyout?” I repeated. I counted the money in front of him one more time.
“Jeff wishes he could tell you.”
I set a grand down on the desk. “Can Jeff tell me for this?”
I’m sure a bribe wasn’t an approved use of the city’s cultural budget, but Katherine had made the mistake of giving the money to me because town legal said they couldn’t execute the buyout clause of my lease directly themselves. That meant I had some flexibility. If I had to, I’d do the “Thriller” cover myself.
Jeff picked up the wad and counted it. He looked like he wanted more, but I put the rest of the funds back in my knapsack.
“Jeff was told that the pixies pushed for the repossession. You were only a couple of months behind—BrainCo would have let it slide a little further to maximize the late fees. But pixies bought your zombies— BrainCo didn’t want to sell, but it was an offer they couldn’t refuse. The zombies are excavating for the new syndicate headquarters under the bridge.”
The Pixie Syndicate. They must be pissed I underbid them for the bus contract. Now they were playing dirty.
They weren’t the only ones in this town that could play dirty.
Unidentified Funny Objects Page 6
