BLOGS

It tore at her as a ravenous beast might; the hunger. She had never believed it could hurt so. Was this what it was like to be so near to dissolution? This tenuous feeling that she might be flying apart, her molecules, thinner than the gossamer she was already forced to be to feed. She was the thickness of a butterfly's wing; a wisp floating in space.

The sun took up one third of the sky. Its gravity clawed at her, pulled her, drew her toward it. She looked around and prepared to redirect her course away from the star. Where was the gas giant? She looked around and only then did she realize she had miscalculated and was heading directly toward the world which was supposed to be her refuge. She had planned to come up from behind it, scoop the atmospheric mass that she needed, make the repairs necessary and leave once her drive was recharged. 

"I went yesterday."

"I went out the day before."

"I don't care who went out, when. Put your guns on and get out there and bring back something to eat. I don't care what it is."

"Yes, Ma."

"See what you did, now she's mad at us."

"I didn't make her mad, you did."

"Anyway, food won't hop into the house by itself. You two get a move on. Get back before dark."

"Yes, Auntie." Ma's sister was almost as mean as she was.

We left the habitat by the back door, and after looking both ways we started down the vine and headed out of the park, into the city. It used to be called Philadelphia; back when stuff like that mattered.

"Did you pack everything?"

"Why do you always ask me if I packed everything, its not like you weren't standing right there, supervising."

 
"Last time we were out, you forgot the wipes."

"So, you were forced to use your hand or some leaves, why should I care, how you handle your business?"
"You suck."

"You ought to know."

"Be quiet. I hear something."

Whenever we go out, we are always very careful. There used to be lots of humies once upon a time, but after They came, there were a lot less. We can see the one closest to the main city. It sits outside of the city proper and sends its parts looking for food. 

Humies learned not to live in the cities if they wanted to avoid being food. Mama said once, cities used to be filled with humies but now, nobody with any sense goes there. That's why there is so much stuff still there. We don't tell Ma, but sometimes we go there and look for stuff. We learned how to avoid the plants and their critters.

"There it is. It's a cabbage-head." 

"I don't like cabbage-heads. We just ate one a few weeks ago. I'd rather eat my boot first 'fore I eat another."

 
"We ate our boots last week, so we probably shouldn't get a cabbage-head anyway, they be the makings of poor boots."

We let the cabbage-head wander off. They weren't too dangerous or too bright and noisy as all get out, so you didn't have to worry 'bout them sneakin' up or anything. They looked like a horse with the head of a cabbage. And they were about as bright.

Then we saw them. And we nodded. That was the target. Razorbacks. That's what mama called them when she taught us to hunt. Razorbacks were part of the Creature, a fast and dangerous part. They hated humies, too.

 
We waited cause there were too many to try and get one. They had six long legs and were really fast even though they were twice as big as a humie. 

"Why don't you watch 'em, while I catch some shut eye."

"kay, its gonna be a while." I liked it better when he slept anyway, its the only relief I get from his godforsaken mouth. We had taken a position near the edge of the city where a lot of the Creature's parts wandered looking for scavenging humies. There was a mild quakin' and I could see the Creature moving closer to the city. It must be real upset or real hungry, it moved a whole dozen feet today. 

There were still humies living in the city, we knew that cause we could see their lights at night, but the Creature did not have many 'spring that moved around after dark. There were a few, but not many. Humies tried to do their scavenging after dark, cause it was a bit safer than when there were hawkwings about.

 
After a couple of hours, the Creature settled down, mostly cause the sky was 'cast and it did not have any shine on it. The razorbacks started moving back toward the Creature. It was taller than all of the buildings near us. Mama said it was nearly five thousand feet tall and when they landed they changed the weather, killing humie by the dozens every second for years. She said something about spores, but I was never good with that science type stuff. My brother was much better.

One of the razorbacks turns and holds still. It starts makin' its supper sound and turning around. We duck behind the heavy rock wall and wait. It turns toward a building near the clearing next to it. A humie runs out and tries to scurry to the next building. The razorback supper sound grows louder as it turns to the humie, locks its legs and charges fast, faster than any humie could hope to be. 

The humie turns around and points a tiny gun at the razorback. Its pop does not even make the razorback blink. The razorback runs past the humie and its skin bursts with blood. It staggers and tries to keep running. The razorback circles and passes again. The touch of its skin rips the flesh off the humie, and after the second pass the humie falls down.

A second humie runs out, he is a bit bigger and is carrying a shotgun. But shoots too soon and the razorback does him in quick. 

"Get up. We got one on the hook."

"I was just startin' to have my favor dream and you ruined it."

"You wants some boots or not. You can walk barefoot for all I care, but I wants some boots. There ain't no better hide than razorback and ain't no better eatin' either. So shut up and get up."

We check our guns and make sure our chems was dry. No sense shooting if nothing happens. I don't want to tangle with a razorback with just my knife if I can avoid it. My brother is good in a fight but it just the two of us these days, so we can't afford to get hurt.

The razorback is so busy eatin' it doesn't even hear us getting close. We hid in the shadows of the building. It don't see too good and we know that having hunted them for years. It was slow going. Ma says no sense rushing if you get et by what you be chasing. By the time we are close enough to shoot, it was getting dark. We would have to gut, skin and carve before the biguns came out.

And then run for home.

As we approached, my brother covered the right and I covered the left, making sure there were no razorbacks hiding that we might have missed. They were group kin, so where there was one, there may be more. The long shadow of the Creature fell over us and we used the cover of its darkness and the setting shine, to sneak up just a few dozen feet from the creature. We aimed, making sure we hit it below the sack in its belly. That was the only part we could eat and we wanted to be sure we didn't just come home with boots. Mama would tan our hide.

We each had three in our shooters. They were hand-made from parts in the city. Three barrels, three chems. I shot first, making sure to hit it in the head. My brother shot second, hitting it in its hind brain. If you didn't get both, it could still trample you with its head shot clean off. We ducked back into the darkness to wait. We couldn't wait long with dark coming but it was always best after bustin' a chem or two. After ten minutes, we went to work.

"Hurry up, you got that sack yet?"

"Don't worry about me, you just get the hide for our boots."

"I am. I am going to get enough for mama to get a coat too. This razorback's skin is good." 

The skin was covered with a fine grade of spines, but they only cut you if you rubbed the wrong way or if the razorback was alive and pushing them up. Even though it was really big, it was delicate and slashed it food, bleeding it before eatin'. The spines and its leathery hide gave it a toughness that made for fine boots.

 
We loaded the sack and the hide into our ruck, and started making our way home. We had to pass by the river on our way back to wash off the blood before going home. No need to make it too easy to find us. The river was not too far off and we made good time.

We waded in quick-like and cleaned ourselves up. We could hear the wind shifting near the Creature and once the shine was completely gone, we knew the Bigguns was on the prowl. Picking up our guns at the shore, we started running back toward our tree. 

We were in too much of a hurry, when we heard a booming sound from the underbrush ahead of us. We had our guns ready, when two of the bigguns burst out, mouths wide open, spit flying everywhere. Each of us took one, I took the right, he took the left. We shot them straight in their mouths. Its the only spot on their bodies not covered in heavy armor. Each chem went straight into their brains and blew up from the inside.

 
We jumped over their bodies and kept running. Others would hear the chem and rush toward food.

We moved through the outskirts of what mama called a suburb. She learned all of this from reading. She said she taught herself when she was young and there were other humies to live with. It had been a long time since other humies lived with us, nearly thirty summers, give or take.

We could hear them coming.

Sounded like three, maybe four. All of the Creature's parts were fast and hungry. If mama were here, we would just turn around and fight, mama was hell on wheels in a fight, but since she hurt her leg a few summers ago when we were surrounded by razorback and hawkwings, she don't hunt with us anymore.

"What ya wanna do?"

"I hear, three, maybe four."

"We only got, a two chem between us."

"we could drop the food and get away, its slowing us down."

"If we come home without food, mama's going to eat us. I would rather be out here with them."

"Just keep running."

When we came to the park, we could see all of the Creature trees that had landed here. Mama said humies learned to kill the trees brains when they was little and we could live in them while they grew. The trees never got their own creatures when they did not have brains and humies learned to live in them and make homes out of them. We could see our tree in the center of the park but it was just too far, we wasn't gonna make it.

"We gonna have to fight, you know that, right."

"I reckon."

"You ready?"

"Don't miss."

"Have I ever?"

"Nope."

They jumped out of the brush and the earth shook with their landing. We dropped our ruck and had our guns out. One chem each. Four Bigguns. They looked so much bigger up close. When we stopped, they stopped. They had go have seen the two others we killed, and no one was volunteering to go first. We used that to get a few dozen more yards, by pointing at whichever moved toward us first. That wasn't gonna work too much longer.

"Biggest one first, on the right. 

"Then the one next to it."

"Got your knife?"

"Yep. Aim for the eyes."

We stopped moving, each of the bigguns with an armored head and a spike collar stood still. They seemed to know we were going to fight. We roared at them at the top of our lungs, and bared our teeth. The largest two responded in kind. And then they were dead. We dropped out guns. 

Pulling our knives, we rushed the next of the creatures while they absorbed the shock of what happened. While they had good vision facing forward they had to turn their whole bodies to see if something moved to the side of them too quickly. With six legs they could do that fast, but only if another one wasn't in the way. While they were trying to negotiate, we slipped to the side of the Biggun and stabbed into its eye sockets with our knives. We were covered in its warm eye jelly and blood and it reared backward knocking us aside with its huge head.

We landed on the ground, hard and our knives were still in the head of the Biggun that was running off into the overgrowth of the suburbs.

The last Biggun, turned toward us and seemed to sense our vulnerability. It stamped the ground and huffed. The tree was right behind us but it might as well have been miles away. With those six legs, he would be on us faster than ugly on my brother.

We stood up, determined to go down fightin', though without weapons, we did not have much of a chance.

 
I looked up at the Creature in the distance. It glowed with a green light once the 'shine was gone. It made it easier for its kin to find it. I could see three others in the distance, each standing still over a different part of the city. My brother and I had managed to live in the shadow of the things for thirty years before dying. 

"You ready?"

"I don't want to die."

"Who said anything about dying?"

"Between the two of us, all we got left is some harsh language."

We started laughing as the creature closed with us. We would do our best.

We heard a swooshing sound, like nothing we had ever heard before. We thought it might be a creature we had not seen yet, so we crouched low, so we could try to get up on the Biggun's back, over its snapping jaws.

And then there was the loudest boom I ever heard. Sharp shards of metal ripped though our skin and we were thrown from our feet. Chunks of Biggun landed on us. There was a crater where the Biggun was. It looked just like the 'rite craters from when the creatures landed all them years ago, only a sight smaller.

My ears were ringing and I was a bit dizzy for a second. I saw my brother was okay with little more than a cut on his forehead and some minor wounds on his chest.

"What were the two of you laughing about down there. Did you see something funny I didn't?"
"No, ma."

"Where are you manners at boys?" The voice was Auntie's.

"Thank you, ma."

"Now get up here and bring me whatever you managed to find out there. You did find something. If not, you bring up that blowed up Biggun meat. Its foul, but you can eat it in a pinch."

"We found something, ma."

"Razorback, your favorite."

"Did you bring me any hide? You know I need a new coat this winter."

"Yes, Ma, we got you and Auntie fixin's for a new coat."

When the smoke cleared we could see Ma looking down on us with some strange contraption on her shoulder. It was a tube with a handle on the bottom and had a orange tip facing down toward us. Her sister was looking out toward the horizon while she stared down at us as we climbed the rope toward the house. The tiny scratches we suffered wouldn't keep us from getting home.

When we got to the house, Ma kissed us while her sister watched the horizon. Then we all turned into the house and slid the ironwood door closed. My brother's arm had a nasty cut and Ma tended it while her sister looked me over and cleaned my arm and chest wounds. 

Both of them fixed our injuries with their medical kit placed between us, with the same speed and the same way at which we butchered that razorback, they were able to tend our wounds, one handed.

It had become second nature because we were injured almost ever time we left the house. We sat facing each other with our arms at our sides. Our huge broad chest was covered with scars from earlier surgeries after being in the field. A quick inventory and they were satisfied we were okay. Our four heads  and two bodies silhouetted in the internal green light of the Creature tree.

"You boys look a right mess, don't they sis."

"They sure do. A right mess. Nothing a meal and a good night sleep won't fix. Go lay down while we make supper."

They kissed each of us and we walked into the back of the house, which was carved out of the flesh of the Creature-tree and saw our bed carved into the wall of the tree. They had already turned it out and fluffed our pillows.

"Face down or face up?"

"Face up. These cuts on my chest hurt."

"Ow."

"Crybaby."

As we lay down and covered up with the blanket, he was out in seconds. We almost didn't make it today. But there is no place I would rather be than right here with my brother, big head and all. I could hear mom and sis walking in the kitchen doing their dinner-making dance, one hand stirring and the other keeping the pot steady, singing some old duet.

I pulled his arm under the blanket and lay back on my own pillow making sure I faced right. He always starts out turned left but ends up turned right in the night. 

He sleeps with his mouth open. I hate that.

Brotherhood © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

"Agent Smallpox is down. I repeat, Agent Smallpox is down." 

"Check your data, have your human centers report in. We have heard this before, it is possible that you're wrong."

Commander Rhinovirus stalked inside the cells of the throat of the head of the CDC. He could not believe what he was hearing. First polio, now smallpox. We were slowly winning the war against Nature's most insidious agent, Man. At least until that last news report.

At first I did not believe it. Agent Smallpox had been our best agent for the last twelve thousand cycles. No Agent had the killing potential, the transferability, the lethality and the overall fear-causing capability that Agent Smallpox, The Maker, bless his viral core, had. 

Then, in the human year 1975, they boasted they would be able to prevent the spread and could eradicate Smallpox. They had a systematic program that would effectively render smallpox extinct everywhere on Earth. Another creature brought to extinction by the hand of Man.

There were only two samples of smallpox left in the entire world, as far as we knew,  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and a Russian facility in Siberia. We had tried numerous times to free them. Tried to cause technicians to become sloppy in their work, tried to get terrorists to liberate them, to no effect. 

I have infiltrated the head of the CDC but he is so strong-willed, I cannot get him to even consider the liberation of the virus. I have convinced him it should not be destroyed, in the event of a spontaneous outbreak or perhaps if a weapon cell were to be initialized by a terrorist group. Unfortunately, weapon cells do not report in, so we never know if they have been destroyed or are just waiting to be released.

Ten thousand years ago, mighty smallpox ravaged entire villages with his pustule causing variola virus. Single handedly he is thought to have killed over five hundred million humans. Few diseases could bast such an amazing body of work. Whipping through villages, spreading like wildfire, killing in days. Those were the days. Man had a healthy respect for disease back then.

They feared us so much they named gods after us; Pestilence of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Nurgel, Lord of Disease, the Nosi, spirits of plague and sickness. They believed their gods dispensed disease among them as a punishment and so did nothing to stop their spread of the disease. They did not understand how we even worked until that accursed "germ theory" idea came about. 

We had been successful in suppressing the idea of germ transmission for centuries. The Hindu texts, the Atharvaveda whispered ideas of causative agents and they even developed means of killing many of our earlier diseases. But we eventually slew them and their ideas fell on deaf ears until 36 BC when 'On Agriculture' tried to preach it again. The author died of a fever three years later. Then the ideas of germ theory stayed hidden again for nearly a thousand germ-filled years. Those were glorious times. 

Then the Moors in their 'Canon of Medicine' posited that clothing could carry infectious agents. Dark days, even while the Black Plague roared through Europe, the seeds of our destruction were already being planted. We were too greedy, to eager to spread, we were not cautious enough and while we devastated the world, we did not destroy it; and man persisted. By the sixteenth century,Girolamo Fracastoro and his ideas of seed-like entities that could travel for miles was the final straw.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, curse his cells, was the first to document our existence with incontrovertible proof. After that, each idea of how we moved how we worked came faster and faster, soon mankind realized we were everywhere and fought against us in every way possible. But until the discovery of Penicillin, bless the Maker, curse the Maker, man had little recourse for most major diseases and bacteria our primary agent, still ruled the world. 

After Penicillin, our forces demoralized retreated for a time and our greatest Agent Bacteria, found nearly everywhere, and on nearly everything, had been all but defeated. This lead to the rise of the virus to the leadership of disease in our struggle against mankind. Bacterial was relegated to the role of second line commander along with fungus in our attacks against the food supplies of man.

Today the war has taken a new tone, something we don't quite understand, where they try to contain us, weaken us and use us to develop immunity to us. Imagine the horror of being a virus too weak to fight and being decoded and turned into an antibody, an enemy of the state, aiding and abetting. Nothing more tragic than a virus-turned-serum.

We have begun a shadow war now. Since humanity does not seem to be trying cure disease today, only treat the symptoms, we have opted to work on bringing bacteria to the forefront by creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria and placing them in their medical facilities. While their immune systems are weakened, we strike, giving them MRSA, tearing into their flesh and killing them while they look for care. We are getting back our mystique as well, striking without warning, killing mercilessly with things like flesh-eating bacteria and we have learned to turn the media to our benefit, so you can hardly surf the internet without a picture of MRSA or flesh eating bacteria showing up. Propaganda is a powerful tool for our side. 

Our shadow campaign includes STDs which were once incredibly powerful, now they attack the immune systems, wearing down the new breed of healthy, well-fed humans. They sit inside their bodies until they have a moment of weakness, being spread by the young and ignorant, until they are everywhere. Even now, Agent Herpes believes it has infiltrated half of the humans of the civilized world. Not deadly in and of itself, it is a vector for other more dangerous agents such as HIV.

The old standbys still have a place, Diphtheria, Hanta, Ebola, Malaria all do their part by staying out there, working in the shadows waiting for mankind to weaken, to get too far from his technology. To forget he is part of the circle of life.

"Continue on your protocols. I have a meeting with a pharmaceutical company today. They want to tell us how we can manage the symptoms of HIV and ensure the continued economic success of the medical-pharmacological industrial complex."

Humanity is a terrifying creature. It is resilient, intelligent, capable, resistant, durable and deadly. If it weren't so damned big and ugly, it would make one hell of a virus.

A Private Little War © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

Just working out some new properties as I get ready for convention season.. So here's the first preview .
of a concept I'm Trying to prepare a preview of for ECBACC:
Pencils by;
Jay Aquilera
&
Juan Frigeri

                         [b]        TOOL-BOI[/b] 
                        An Original Concept
                     Created & Written
                                       By
                     Robert Garrett@2010

Robert Garrett
Xmoor Studios
http://www.xmoorstudio.com
All rights and characters are trademarks of Robert Garrett for Xmoor Studios.

On December 31, 2010 at the stroke of Midnight around the world during celebratory events, hidden assassins burst into the room, killing world leaders and the worlds most powerful dignitaries, while at the same time the president of the United States was saved by man  who appears inside the White house with a message to President, a message that will spark an exploration of the secret layers of power in order to find what knowledge may have been hidden away - or what enemy may be finally willing to reveal itself…, introducing the remnants of an old civilization that was destroyed centuries ago slowly revealing secrets and hidden organizations, so intricately timed and managed….

In the shadows they whisper of men who don’t exist… Mythical assassins who play with the lives of the rich and powerful… They are the EBONATI… These assassins brought new battle tactics and philosophies of war with them

For Moser Sloane it means to have created the perfect assassins Guild… Reclaiming a forgotten heritage with a race extinct that was destined to conquer the world.

For A’ Meir it has become survival… Raised by killers, he chose life over death… For that he has been marked

The Ebonati operate primarily in the darkness a Covert guild of assassins that ingest ancient drugs within themselves allows them to jump to great heights, operate at super-accelerated speeds, and have superhuman strength.
The Nations of the world are in chaos. The Ebonati unleashed powerful drugs which almost crippled the United States. Then as the U.S. recovers, the world plays witness to the reappearance of an ancient African Tribe that few knew existed… The Wictonda nation has arisen and has begun to Conquer through the plans of their charismatic Leader Kali Mu’tu, the Overseer of the newly recognized Wictonda nation… Unbeknownst to most the Wictonda is the breeding grown for the Assassination Guild called the Ebonati… And they have laid siege to all of Africa.

“ My name is A’ Meir pronounced A’ Mir.., Names are important to people. I wish I knew my mine… Amere is the name I was given by the man whom I once called Father…, Father taught me everything about life… that paid for my education by the best scholars and tutors money can buy… The father who found amusement as I prowled the streets thinking myself a man plying my inherited trade of death to those who dared crossed my path… The father who taught me how to kill… Not just kill, but master every form of death, every nuance of action and reaction that could take a life.
The father who had lied to me for as long as I can remember… The father who proved himself just … Just a man… a vile… cold, calculating man who now wants to take the life he lavishly groomed and hoped to pass his torch…
I will never be father… For I have embraced life…And become a man… Yet there is one thing that I can not disavow that the man who was once my father left me… I am Ebonati… I am a TOOL-BOI”

Heppp was rendered speechless with a shock that competed fitfully with his rage.  Live images were beamed from the All Seer cruiser to the holo-sphere and he still could not believe the veracity of what he was witnessing.  Hundreds of Protip fighters wiped out in.  One enemy vessel destroyed.  Just one!  The lopsided nature of this contest sent a numbing chill through  every Protip in the Ops Center.  Clearly, Heppp had underestimated these aliens, underestimated their technology.  But how could he have not have underestimated them?  No Protip, regardless of clan, could have conceived of facing a force of such indescribable killing power.  The Toooi’s sweep to dominance over much of the Protip domain had been of unprecedented swiftness, but it was a still hard fought campaign that cost millions of Toooi lives.

            If this enemy could impart such slaughter with just a few ships…Heppp sliced through that line of thought and discarded it like a useless appendage.  This dreary rumination on the aliens’ capabilities was a useless exercise in self-inflicted fear.  He would not allow himself to sink into that morass.  “Task Giver, send more Fangbolts to intercept the enemy in the mountains.  I want Mole bombers to join them.”

            “Site Keeper if I may.”  Itikkk lowered his upper body until his neck was almost touching the floor.

            Allayed by the Task Giver’s humility display, Heppp raised a hand, allowing the latter to submit a suggestion.

            “Thus far, no suborbital craft have been able to stand against the enemy.  Sending more craft, even Moles, would only be a repeat of past dismal results.  We should rely strictly on cruisers from this point on.”

            “The enemy ships are too fast for the cruisers to lock onto,” Heppp protested.  “Even the one they managed to destroy was only a result of luck.”

            “All the more reason why we should deploy additional cruisers against them.  The more firepower they can bring down upon those ships, the better their chances of having more luck.”

            Heppp emitted a faint musk of consideration.  It was actually a reasonable piece of advice.  “Deploy more cruisers.”

            Itikkk acknowledged and passed the order along.

            Heppp turned his attention to a screen displaying a live image of the eight alien ships in space.

            Why were they still there? He wondered.  There was no way the alien transports were getting off this planet intact.  And if they did, the Guardian station was not going to allow them to leave the system.  It made no sense for the alien commander to keep his ships lingering on the edge of Protip space.  No sense at all.

            The mountain’s snow capped peak erupted like a volcano.  But it was no geologic process that generated that immensely powerful blast.  The second and third transports in the formation were shoved off course by the resultant shock wave.  The second transport clipped the steep rockface of another mountain before its pilot regained control.  The third shuttle executed a tight incline that brought it within literal inches of scraping that same mountain’s surface.  A thick jet of snow and gravel boiled off the mountain’s summit in the transport’s hyper-velocity wake.

            Massive explosions from successive orbital strikes showered around the transports, turning sections of mountains into steaming spouts of flame and lava.

            The transports dove to a lower altitude, utilizing the deep depressions between the towering, craggy mountains as cover.

            Colonel Goshin wanted to look away, but some odd morbid compulsion kept his gaze tensely fixed on the outside view.  And quite a heart-hammering view it was.  Mountains flew at him.  His stomach coiled and he flinched when the pilot just narrowly avoided a collision with a wall of rock.  Not more than two seconds of clearance elapsed before the transport was on another collision course which the pilot skillfully averted.  All the while, hell from above continued to dog the transports, turning winding passageways into flame-choked, smoke-clogged corridors.

            A deafening crack reverberated like the bellow of an angry god inside the transport.  A piece of a mountain about half the size of the transport smashed against the vessel at a rocketing speed.  The shield easily repelled the contact, but could do little to sooth Goshin’s frayed nerves. 

            “Release EMDs on my mark,” the pilot transmitted to the other transports.

            Three seconds went by.  “Mark!” The pilot toggled a control and  two EMDs dropped from launchers at the bottom of the transport.

            The three other transports released their EMDs simultaneously. 

            Within a second of their deployments, the drones emitted a series of potent omni-directional bursts…

            Heppp jerked forward as if he had been struck from behind.  His eyes raced across the holo-sphere, searching in vain for enemy blips that simply…vanished.  He slithered through the Ops Center, glancing from screen to screen.  “What happened to them?  Where are they?”

            Itikkk went to the comm and established contact with an All Seer.  “We’ve lost visual and sensor contact with the enemy. Do you have them on your screens?”

            “No, Task Giver,” the cruiser captain replied.  “We have lost contact as well.”

            “You must have destroyed them,” Heppp speculated optimistically.

            “Unlikely,” returned the voice of the captain.  “Our engagement computers have verified no neutralizations.”

            “Nonsense!”  Heppp’s head bobbed with catatonic fury.  “Check your engagement computers AGAIN!”

            “It is possible, Site Keeper that the enemy ships are jamming us,” Itikkk ventured.  “If we can cut through it…”

            “Waste of time.”  Heppp snapped a command to the cruiser captain.  “Direct fire on the length and breadth of the mountain range, saturate it with orbitals.”  He looked at Itikkk.  “Contact every strategic missile base on this planet. I want fusion ballistics launched against those mountains.  If we have to flatten the entire range to destroy four blood-pissing ships then that is exactly what we will do!”

            The executive officer entered the bridge level conference room to find Commander Greggory intently studying probe-fed holo-feeds.

            “The transports have released EMDs,” Lian reported, coming around the table.

            “I know,” said Greggory.  “We have a good probe-track on them.”  He pointed to a projection of four icons moving across a realistic rendering of a mountainscape.  “They’re slowing down.  There’s a deep depression here.  The EMD pulses will throw off their pursuers.  The nature of the terrain will make it even more difficult for the Protips to find them.”

            “It’ll buy time.” Lian perched on the edge of the table, her lips pressed tightly in a troubled look.  “But what happens when the pulses subside and we still haven’t cracked the station’s network.  What then?”

            Greggory clasped his hands on top of the table, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them.  He looked up, meeting Lian’s eyes with a steadfast optimism.  “That network will be cracked. I won’t permit myself to think otherwise.  I can’t.”

            Mushroom clouds oozed into the sky from a thousand fusion missile impacts.  The mountain range birthed a thousand more, layering pristine white peaks beneath a sooty blanket of fallout.  Six All Seer cruisers hovered above at the lowest possible orbit.  Lightning streaks of energy bolts blazed from their emitters stabbing downward in random strokes.  Bombardment missiles contributed to the storm, delivering fiery vengeance.  Perpetual explosions from an endless rain of ground and orbital launched projectiles bathed large sections of the mountain range in a thick, ashy haze.  Temperature levels elevated.  The spike in heat clashed with the frigid cold of high altitude to generate ferocious wind gusts that melded into a deadly tempest. 

            The transports rested at a low patch of rocky ground dividing two massive mountains.  A fusion missile struck the other side of one of those behemoths, causing enough breakage to initiate a rock slide.  Tons of dislodged rock drenched the stationary vessels.

            Colonel Goshin stared out the window, but couldn’t see a thing.  Visibility was nil, but  enhanced optics lit the way, cutting through the fog of devastation to present a clear picture of the outside.  Protip ballistics, launched from every silo across the planet, continued to pepper the range.  The orbital attacks were similarly endless. 

            “EMD pulse is holding,” said the pilot, checking console readings.

            Goshin slouched in his seat.  “That’s good to know.  Although, I think I’d feel better if we were on the move.”

            The pilot looked back, putting on a wry, confident smile.  “Moving only increases our odds of being hit or caught in a nasty blast swell.”

            “That could happen to us standing still.”

            “It could, but the odds of that being the case is less.”

            “Well if you’re not worried about it then I won’t be.”

            The pilot gave a thumbs up.  “That’s the spirit, Colonel.”

            A triple beam barrage raked the rockface several thousands yards up from where Goshin’s transport was idling.  An ionic blast front slammed into the vessel, buffeting it within an angry, scorching hot eddy.  Repulsor units flared from all sides of the transport, holding it steady until the driving effects of the explosion subsided.

            “I retract my last statement,” said Goshin.

            “Site Keeper.  The Clan Lord wishes to speak to you.”

            Heppp twisted around to face Itikkk.  “What does he want?”  The Site Keeper withdrew the question as rapidly as he’d posed it.  “Nevermind…nevermind.  Monitor the situation.”  Heppp slithered to the rear of the Ops Center and entered a private communication alcove. He tapped the receive panel and an image of a Protip adorned with silver head gear and a brilliantly matching star shaped pendant draped his around his neck, appeared on the alcove’s circular screen.

            Heppp lowered his body to near total floor level.  “Clan Lord Oppal.  I honor you.”

            The Clan Lord skipped the formalities.  “What is happening on my planet, Site Keeper?”

            “Nothing that I am incapable of handling,” Heppp replied with an edge that skirted dangerously close to insubordination.  “We are merely dealing with alien bandits who attacked us, unprovoked.  We have them under siege in the Lilk Mountains.  If they are not dead already, they soon will be.”

            “Unprovoked?”  Oppal let the word linger on his palette as if sampling a fine delicacy.  “It would seem the definition of that term has changed.  From my understanding, you ordered a number of these bandits killed before they in turn, attacked you.  How does their present assault against you qualify as…unprovoked?”

            A surging chill raised Heppp’s back bristles.  The Site Keeper suppressed a rising annoyance at his own fear. He loathed this intolerable position he was in.  He loathed those treacherous aliens who had succeeded in making him look like a bumbling fool.  Most of all, he loathed with all the passion and energy he could muster, the smug, arrogant face staring at him from the comm. screen.

            “Semantics, Honorable Clan Lord.  The situation as it stands now is that the aliens on the planet will die.  The ones in space will not dare cross our boundary.  The station holds them at bay.  The situation is contained.”

            “At the cost of thousands of lives thus far,” Oppal added with infuriating dryness.

            Heppp stiffened.  “They are more powerful than we anticipated…”

            “And this treasure you took from them,” the Clan Lord continued over Heppp’s attempt at an explanation.  “Were you going to report this to me, or withhold that bit of information as you withheld the fact that you are under attack?”

            “Clan Lord…I,”  Heppp had to calm himself.  “Clan Lord, the implication in your question is deeply, deeply troubling.  Of course I was going to report the treasure.  I was preparing a freighter to deliver your share.  Rest assured…”

            “That is the trouble, Site Keeper.  I cannot rest assured.  Not when the Toooi domain is under assault by a force unknown, with enemy clans lurking close by like expectant vermin waiting for us to expose a vulnerability so they can exploit it.  I put you on that planet because I thought in the very least you could guard our farthest frontier with some degree of competency.  Was I wrong in my thinking, Site Keeper?”

            Heppp dipped his body sharply, displaying outward gratitude even as the corrosive acid of humiliation burned inside him.  “No, Clan Lord. Of course not .  I am most thankful to you for assigning me to this post, but you must understand, these aliens come from beyond Protip space.  Their capabilities were unknown to us. But when we have destroyed them, we can comb through the wreckage of their vessels, unlock the secret of their power.  With that power the Toooi will be stronger than it has ever been and all enemy clans will either submit to our might or be smashed by it.”  Emboldened by his grandiose claim, Heppp rose to a height that suggested but did not overtly advertise equal status with the Clan Lord.  “You will be the most powerful Protip that has ever lived.” 

            It was the Clan Lord’s turn to feel the not so subtle brush of an implication. The thought of obtaining alien technology and using it to bring all of Protip space under Toooi dominance encapsulated him in a pleasing aura of intoxication.  That he would have Heppp to thank for this unexpected fortune...Oppal’s chin sagged at the thought.

            “You need not send a freighter to me, Site Keeper.  I will be arriving soon to personally retrieve my share.  I trust by the time of my arrival you will have resolved your alien problem?”

            Heppp was caught off guard by the prospect of a visitation by the Clan Lord.  He very masterfully concealed his displeasure.  “Of course, Clan Lord.”

            Oppal’s face vanished and Heppp slapped his tail against the floor in frustration.  Itikkk.  Slavishly loyal Itikkk.  Of course it was no surprise that the Task Giver would have blabbed to the Clan Lord about Heppp’s predicament.  And now that pompous twit was coming here!

I was asked, on the basis of my having written a pretty good book, to "help" write the script for one of the Chicago teams for the 48 Hour Film Project; a 48 hour contest where you have to write, film and post-produce a 4 to 7 minute film.

When our team had drawn its genre and went back to our headquarters to get started writing, we found out that the primary writer was really an actor, not a writer.  Well, I panicked, and then had a twenty minute nervous breakdown because I had never written a movie script.  So by about 8:30 I managed to get started on the script.  I finished at 5AM.  Here's the link to the short, Fallout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SjZFPT2wfE

I managed to win for Best Script in Chicago's leg of the international contest.  I couldn't believe it, but in retrospect it's pretty cool...

Hello, Everyone,

I just launched a campaign to build a Safe House for Haitian Rape Victims as part of the OneWoman/OneHouse Haiti Project. There are several donation options available. If you choose not to donate to this effort, please help by posting a link to the site on your homepage and download a free copy of the Atlas and His Wife Poster proudly proclaiming the campaign theme "Art As A Tool For Social Justice". Follow the link below to the campaign homepage. Thanks for your support.

Safe House for Haitian Rape Victims

Just wanted to drop this on you guys,

I was shocked to see as a writer I was included!

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bet.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Fphotos%2F2011%2F04%2Fphotos-top-black-graphic-artists.photo8.html%23flipbook&h=377db

Hello all,

My webcomic, Goatwater, is a celebration of the strange, an adventure in storytelling and a journey into the world of carnival, selective memory, visions and dreams.   Updated every other Tuesday. 

I hand paint everything, including the lettering with acrylics onto cotton rag paper.  So far, I’ve posted the cover on to the Goatwater site as well as the first six pages of the story and there’s much more to come. I am looking for feedback and regular readers of Goatwater as I develop it for the web and print. I release a new page every other Tuesday and I am working towards releasing a new page once a week. Just to play it safe, I would overall say it’s NSFW.  Enjoy and remember to bookmark the site.

http://www.tiffanyosedramiller.com/goatwaterbook.html

Tiffany Osedra Miller

Desi Roberto Santiago was a slacker. There is nothing wrong with being a slacker, except if you owed people money. Dezy owed very few people but the people he owed money were the kind of folks who would break one or both of your legs if you were late paying up. 

Unfortunately for him, slacking was his avowed lifestyle. He learned early in life, nothing was ever worth rushing for, or worse, putting in hard time and effort. It always disappointing and never worth the time you spent getting it. A form of perpetual buyer's remorse. So Dezy's motto was want not, work not. But he never lived up to it. He always spent more than he had and now had borrowed money from the local máfia boss, Don Milagro to keep himself in the latest tech. But Dezy had a plan.

Dezy was a bit skinny and asthmatic. His black hair was perpetually uncombed and often more than a bit dirty. He had a bit of chin hair and a line on his lip that wanted to be a mustache, unsuccessfully. His clothing reflected his overall attempts at looking prosperous, all second hand clothing that used to belong to rich tourists. None of it matched and most of it was ill-fitting only making it more apparent he was poor.

He left his day job with the same rage he felt every day. Two hours of work on the phone providing technical support to some cabrón in India, and then sent home. It wasn't even work anymore. Two hours? It took him longer to get to work, than he was there. No matter, after his next score, he was going to quit that job and maybe even come in a piss on his bosses desk before leaving.

He hated climbing the stairs to his fifteenth story apartment on the Southside of what was left of Mexico City. He stepped over Antonio on the ninth floor, passed out in a puddle of the latest pharmaceutical mierda being put out by Pharmacon. The man reeked something awful, the mix of body odor, urine and vomit might have caused Dezy to throw up, if he had anything to eat for the last few days. Instead, a burning sensation filled the pit of his stomach and he clenched his nose and jumped over the prone body on the stairs. When Antonio sobered up, he would probably be looking for a bath. He was not the only person squatting here with a pungent aroma of soaplessness. 

Living in what was called the Ivory Tower, a partially completed tenement abandoned by a construction company after the earthquake, water was in short supply past the fifth floor. Beyond that water pressure had to be created using mechanical tools. Dezy's solution was to use a salvaged bicycle and a room-mate to help bring up enough water from the street. When Dezy could spare some water or get some extra time on the bike, he would help Tony clean up but today wasn't going to be one of those days. Dezy had work to do.

It had rained all last week and Dezy's catch basins on the roof were full. He had made them several months ago after finding an old printed copy of Home Designers Quarterly, one of the last prints made before paper became illegal to produce. He found them in, of all places, the burned out quarter of the barrio, hidden in a cache of thousands of magazines, buried deep after Mexico City's great quake of 2052. Whole sections of the city were off limits, too dangerous they said, but despite his asthma, Dezy loved to explore. He used the magazine to create catch basins from plastic containers all over the city, and set them up on the top of the roof to capture the ever decreasing rainwater. Engineering a distribution system and a water-cranked dynamo with old auto batteries allowed Dezy to power his electronics.

Pumping water was never something Desi enjoyed doing, so his catch basins were a way of letting nature work for him instead. But when nature wasn't feeling generous Dezy had rigged up a bicycle in his apartment to act as his pump and could fill his bathtub in about fifteen minutes with vigorous riding. And that was the catch. It had to be vigorous. Which means he needed help. Hence his less than perfect room-mate.

"Hermano, its good to see you. What did you bring me?"

"Nothing, the same thing I bring you everyday. I got some extra work today and I need to get started. Go back to your bootleg cable." The freemium directed receiver array gave a grainy picture, in high definition, no less.

"Why you got to be like that?" Nicolas was half Russian and half Mexican, so he was a giant in tan. 

"Be like what, you are always mooching. Why don't you run out and find something to eat for us today? You could always go back to work." Nicolas' exotic appearance made him a hit with the ladies and all of the screaming meant they liked his... assets. Dezy despised him most of the time, when he wasn't wanting to be him. Nicolas went back to his room and a few minutes later, giggling could be heard through the closed door. Dezy grimaced, shook his head and picked up his Nakatomi 3270 integrated OS datadeck. Sleek and tiny, Dezy may have shoes with holes, but it was clear this piece of state-of-the-art technology was his real priority.

Dezy pulled out his oversized rig from under the sofa and plugged his deck into it. His rig was twice the size of a standard unit because of all of his extended non-standard adaptations. Numerous cards of different colors were clipped onto his primary databoard in an unsightly, and precariously balanced array.

He looked at the series of readouts and saw with the amount of water he had on the roof, he could run his deck for about eight hours. He set up the piping so he could redirect water to his bathtub and to his internal storage containers in the apartment. He would be able to capture nearly half of the water from the roof. He tapped on the pipe in a series of warning tones that he would be opening his water supply to anyone downstream and to let them know in thirty minutes water would flow until it was gone and for them to be ready. He received three taps back from three different people, so he knew most of the water would find a home.

The deck's internal battery was already nearly fully powered and he did his best to keep it that way, because he never knew when he would have work and wanted to always have the option to work even if there wasn't any water or electricity where he might be staying. The deck, in power-saving mode, might last twenty hours, but it took half that time just to find a buyer these days. Paper is lucrative, but the fines and penalties were high if you were caught trafficking in paper products or infodrops of paper from older magazines from the last century.

His initial diagnostic of his deck said the software was up to date as it could be and there was no traffic that resembled los ángeles at his current connection. That would change, the more suspicious his traffic got. Los ángeles, low Turing AI's monitored the NewerNet kept track of any packets whose pedigree they could not easily identify. Dezy's greatest hack was his ability to make his packets look completely innocent and resemble the multitude of datastreams out there already.

The NewerNet was not like the old Internet that collapsed in 2027 in the media explosion of the late 2020's. It was designed from the ground up to be completely under the control of the founding governments of the United States and Europe, the primary investors. As other countries were allowed to buy their way in, strict regulation of the traffic and content was established. Since media crashed the Internet, there were multiple control systems on media, ensuring smoother traffic and better management. This also meant the worldwide internet agency chartered by the United Nations became the impromptu police of the NewerNet. This new stricter internet was one of the most policed and controlled systems in the world. Using pre-turing AI's, the network was constantly patrolled, regulated, data managed and operating system upgraded piece of technology to ever exist.

And the most souless, thought Dezy. Once the NewerNet was established three years after the collapse of the Old Internet, big money kept the network the playground of the elite and the superwealthy. The OlderNet was restored as a shadow of itself but because so many people were forced to use it, it was very unstable and unfriendly, not to mention filled with a variety of spyware, malware and rogue viruses. The insecurity of the Oldernet allowed Dezy to use it to enter the NewerNet and meet his clients using specialized hacks Dezy had created when he was just a child of nine or ten.

Dezy activated his rainwater power system and his rig hummed to life. Gotta work fast, ten hours will vanish like magic. Indeed they did, he did not find his next buyer for almost nine hours after starting. The data his buyer was looking for was information regarding private solar technology development. Information of this nature had become government owned during the economic collapse of big business when the internet failed. Energy companies were the first services absorbed by the government. 

All of their attendant information was also absorbed. The cache of publications Dezy had found had to be a library extension because his database linked two dozen articles and five of them were specifically about the processes used to make advanced solar cells. Dezy was able to convince his client to the astronomical finder fees of five hundred thousand New Pesos. That would be enough to pay off Don Milago and get the price off of his head. There would still be enough to get a new deck and upgrade this shitty old rig to something more state of the art. Maybe even new. He might even share the wealth with his stupid room mate for all the times he spent riding water into the bathtub when Dezy couldn't. He would blow through his fifty thousand in putas and tequila, but that would be his business.

He arranged for a meeting place with the client with a time delay activation. The client would only get the key to break the encryption twenty minutes before the drop. No military or police can mobilize in that kind of time. At the first hint of betrayal, Dezy will vanish into the crowds and will never be seen. Dezy could hear the knocking of the pipes and see the pressure timer indicating he had used up eight hours of water and was about to run out of pressure. He turned off the pipe, leaving thirty or so minutes of extra water to spare. He tapped the pipes again and everyone responded with thanks and shutting off their values until the next time.

Exhausted, Dezy fell into a dreamless sleep. 

#

"Salir, puta, vete a casa de tu madre." Nicolas was drunk and threw the woman's clothes out of the apartment door. As she ran by in disgust, she snatched the money of his hands as she passed him. He in return smacked her on the ass and lifted the heavy door back into the locked position. Nicky stank of sex and went into the bathroom and noticed the tub was more than half full of water. He considered just jumping into the water, but not completely crazy, Nicky drew a small bucket from the wall and filled it with water. Using this he cleaned himself up and admired himself in the mirror, again.

Nicky hated the putas. They always thought they were better than him. Selling your ass is not a job he would say, but they would just laugh and take his money. Nicky noted sunrise had just taken place as he left out of the bathroom and lit up the eastern side of the building without a completed face. Feeling better after his washing up, he grabbed the last of the cheese and stale bread from their refrigerating pantry. 

We need to score soon, there ain't shit in here to eat now. As he chewed the tough bread and slightly dessicated cheese, Nicky had an idea. He had been following Dezy a few days ago and knew he had found a new cache of paper. Nicky mentioned idly to Dezy they could sell the whole lot at a black market paper pulper and make some good money. Nicky had sold stockpiles that size for easily fifty thousand New Pesos. Dezy had told him to wait until he had finished his survey, but well, he aint my boss. I can get that money and give him his fifty percent and be in hookers, booze and money for weeks, if he managed it right. Nicky went to his closet and put on a good suit. It was never a good idea to meet Don Milago looking anything less than perfect.

#

Dezy woke hungry and feeling just a bit sick. The sun shining through the open east face of the building was hot, very hot. He was sweating and knew this would be another one of those three digit days. Washing off the stink of his sweaty night's sleep, Dezy had wanted to be up and out before it go this hot, and now he would have to be climbing in the heat of the day. The drop was tomorrow so he couldn't let it wait. 

He opened the pantry in the partially complete kitchen. The cheese and bread were both gone. Cabrón. That was enough cheese and bread he could have left half for me. Why do I deal with him? It isn't like we are even friends anymore. After tomorrow, I will just move out try and rent a small house closer to the center of town near my job. I will be able to pay the rent for a year, giving me time to figure out my next move. Even after I give Don Milago his cut and interest, I will be set for months. I could even take my time with my next project.

Dezy's stomach rumbled, breaking his reverie. Okay mijo, we have fifteen pesos left. Just enough to grab something to eat and get over to the zone. This would be his last meal for a while if this drop didn't work. He changed out of his good clothing and put on some tan khakis and a backpack. In the pack were his deck, water, rope, duct tape, a filtermask, gloves and waterproof folders to move the product in.

The climb down did nothing to improve his state of mind. It seemed everyone had the same idea to sit in the stairwell, because it was fifteen degrees cooler in the concrete isolated tube. By the time he reached the street, he was hot, annoyed and more tired than when he woke up. The five miles to the zone was thankfully uneventful other than a few nu-chickens waddling down the road, their oversized breasts making it nearly impossible for them to escape the children chasing behind them.

Seeing those children put him in mind of Nicolas. When they were younger, they were just like these kids, chasing chickens for dinner just like mother asked us to. Nicky was fun back then, reckless, wild and completely fearless. Those same traits make him an irresponsible adult. His transformation was a gradual one, and it didn't seem to be complete until after their mother died. Mom told Nicky to take care of me because of my asthma and that he was the man of the house. But right after mom died, we lost our home in the quake and we lived on the street until we found a place at the Ivory Towers. Falling in with Don Milago and his mafia was the worst thing Nicky ever did. The worst thing I did was to listen and join with him. But today, that ends. Dezy's mental ramblings had distracted him from the distance and the heat. He came to the edge of the earthquake zone, still marked with orange traffic cones and concrete dividers at the edge of the sinkhole.

The center of Mexico City sat on an underground aquifer which had existed for millions of years. As the city grew and demanded more water for its twenty million inhabitants, the aquifer slowly lost water faster than it gained it from rainwater and mountain run off. The day of the great quake, a 9.3, one of the greatest quakes of all time, teamed up with the collapse of the aquifer cavity and you have one of the worst natural disasters in history. Nine million people died in the initial collapse. The poorest quarters of town outside of the city proper, the barrios, survived with collapsed buildings but without the catastrophic loss of life.

The edges of the city farthest from the sinkhole were still relatively accessible if one was careful and tied very good knots. There was something wrong with the area as he approached. The cones had been moved from their normal positions and the concrete barriers were parted as if to allow a vehicle past. Slipping down behind rubble, Dezy followed the road, determined to figure out what anyone in a vehicle could possibly want down here. The road was unstable and a truck was simply the stupidest thing you could do.

When Nicolas showed up at Don Milagro's villa it was still early in the morning, with only the slightest hint of the coming heat. The gate guards let Nicolas through with only a cursory glance and a quick pat down. Nicky was of course, unarmed. Very few people could afford a firearm these days. Two guards waved Nicky toward the house and he made his way up to the side of the pool where the Don was having breakfast in the shade of a tree that blocked the morning sun.

The Don smiled as Nicolas came into view and stood up to greet him. He was a huge man, still vigorous-looking despite his age and salt and pepper hair. "Nicky, sit down with me and have breakfast."

Nicolas thought to refuse but the Don's tone left him with the impression he did not have a choice. "Si, Don Milagro, Gracias."

"Now tell me about your project, Nicky."

"Well, I need a truck and some men to help me move some paper. I found a large stockpile of it in Old New Mexico City."

"Really?" Don Milagro's face was smiling but his dark eyes didn't. His eyes were all business. 

Nicolas continued "Its near the edge of the collapse zone and I believe there is several tons of it. I have a buyer lined up willing to convert it at their own facility. So, all we have to do is pick up the load, move it and drop it and they are promising me $175,000 New Pesos for the shipment."

"What would you want from me, Nicky? You sound as if everything is already worked out."

"I need manpower and a truck, Don Milago. To move that much paper, quickly, will take at least 4-6 men."

"And what is my percentage of this endeavor if I provide you with fast manpower and a vehicle?" The Don had stopped eating and fixed Nicolas with his complete attention. Nicolas suddenly felt hot and sweat burst out underneath his shirt, a cold sweat, decidingly uncomfortable. 

"I was thinking of splitting it, 60/40. With the sixty going to you, of course."

"It seems a bit one-sided to me, mijo. I am providing the truck, and up to six men to work in the heat of the day, near a dangerous sinkhole. I certainly hope you can do better than that."

"Of course, Don Milagro. What was I thinking? I meant to say 80/20, seeing how generous you are being with your men and your overall support."

"Now you know that you and your brother are in deep debt to me at the moment. But I think of you like family. I would like to think you would want to help out your younger brother in his time of need. He owes me enough money, at this point, for me to have his kneecaps shattered. I like you, Nicky. I understand you. Greed and avarice are things near to me. Your brother, not so much. I do not understand his motivations and what I don't understand, I don't have any use for."

"I don't follow you, señor." Nicolas did not like where this conversation was heading.

"Your brother is in debt to me for nearly 250,000 New Pesos. I have not tried to call that debt in for some time, because he is usually good about paying me, but now the word has gotten out that he owes me this money. I cannot have my reputation being damaged, having anyone saying that I am weak, and I cannot control my men. I need you to make the problem of your brother go away. Necesito que a desaparecer."

"Don Milagro, you know I will do anything you ask me to. But he is my brother."

"He is your problem, then. He has my money or you make him disappear. I shall show you my generosity. Keep all the money from your little paper excursion. I will call it your fee. Feel better, now? I will have the men and truck ready within the hour. Finish your breakfast.

Nicky could barely eat anything and he was starving. His stomach felt like a pool of bubbling acid. What in the hell was he going to do?

#

Dezy could not believe anyone could be this stupid. The truck was parked backward on a steep slope, with the backdoor open. But this whole are was unstable and could slide into the sinkhole at any time. As it was, the repository was nearer to the edge than he would have liked. He used his line to tie himself off and began to pay it out behind him, watching his every step until he came to the drop point. As he got closer, he could hear the voices of the men and a couple of them sounded familiar.

Alfredo? What's he doing here? Is that Nicky? Dezy slips out of line of sight of the van. Alfredo, Nicky and two others come around the corner pulling dollies with containers filled to the brim with paper from his stockpile! 

"Tú pendejo!" Dezy ran out and drew back with all his strength and knocks Nicky flat on his ass. "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?"

"What? Do you know how much this is worth?" Nicky clutched his bleeding lip and jaw. He sat up but did not move.

"Do you? How much do you think you are going to get for this?"

"I have been promised 175,000 New Peso, cabrón. Now you need to get out of my face, so I can get back to work."

Dezy's rage grew ten times stronger and made him reckless. He kicked Nicky in the chin and screamed at him. "Estupido. I will make more money from a single page than you would for this entire lot."

The remainder of Don Milagro's men lifted not a finger to interfere. This was a family matter and they turned around and found a nicstick to smoke and share while the two worked out their issues. They would follow whoever came out on top.

Dezy's rage tightened his chest and his breathing became labored. He started wheezing and fell to his knees.

Nicky shook off the kick and got to his knees. "Mijo, slow down. Calm down." He hefted Dezy to his chest and held him close. "Breathe slower. You are always so over-excited. Mama was right to leave me in charge."

Dezy weakly struck out at Nicky and then turned into his chest as his breath slowly came back to him. He began to cry. "Why Nicky, why do you always want to screw up my things?"

"I don't know, Dezy. I'm always jealous of you. You can do so many things with your mind. I'm just a dumb jock. Selling your paper was petty. I just wanted to make some quick cash. I'm sorry."

The four men from Don Milago's villa had finished their nickstik and turned to look at the two men. "Is this lovefest over? Can we get back to work?"

Nicky looked at Dezy with inquiry in his eyes. "Wait here. Hold this rope. I will be right back." Dezy moved into the partially collapsed building and dropped off a floor adjacent to the stairwell Nicky had been using. The paper Dezy needed was several levels below what they were moving. He could tell from the covers of the books he was seeing they had not reached the information he planned to sell. Working quickly, he grabbed the publications he had already set aside and put them into his pack.

He tugged the rope and shouted up, "Okay, pull me up."

Nicky and his men pulled Dezy back to the first floor. "Go ahead, do what you need to. Be careful, this area is less stable than it looks. Don't go beyond the second floor."

"Okay, you heard the man. Let's get moving." As Alfredo and his team move out, Nicky turns Dezy towards him and knocks some of the dust off of him. "Dezy, Don Milagro is really pissed about the money you owe him. Can you pay him?"

"I think so. If my buy goes down tomorrow, we will be alright. I will buy us out, free and clear."

"That's great. Is everything in the bag?" Nicky turned away for a second while Dezy starts wrapping his line. When he turns back, he has brandished a gun pointed toward Dezy. "Give me the bag, Dezy."

"What are you doing, Nicolas?"

"I promised Don Milagro that I would make you disappear. You have caused him to lose face, and I want to move up in his organization. So you give me the bag, I sell what you have in it, move this paper, and I get it all. A promotion, money, status."

"So this was all an act? You had planned to kill me the next time you saw me no matter what?"

"I'm sorry, Dezy."

"It doesn't have to be like this. I can get us clear. Just trust me."

"You have been promising me you would make a big score for the last twelve years. We have been living hand to mouth since Mama died. Its always one more  job, one more scheme and we'll be set. Well, I am tired of waiting. I am taking my shot now. I am so sorry."

"Fuck you, Nicky." Tears welled up in Dezy's eyes as he hands over his backpack.

Don Milagro comes around the corner and looks at Nicky with pride. "Well done, my boy, well done." Don Milagro puts his hand out and Nicky hands him the gun. 

"I will be giving you your reward today, Nicky. I told you, I respect greed and avarice and you are a testament to the effect of money on family relationships. Milagro had been pointing the gun at Dezy and then turns suddenly shooting Nicky in the gut. Nicky staggers backward and falls into the house where the last of the Don Milagro's men are rolling out the last of the paper.

"Now my boy. I understand you were in the business of selling paper to buyers. I have been told I have been thinking too small and there is a lucrative business arrangement we could be working out. So, to show me your renewed value, you will give me the drop coordinates and your contact codes. Work with me, and we could all be very wealthy. With that truck alone, I am confident we could become very wealthy men."

"You lied to Nicky. To make him bring you to me."

"So true. His greed made him easy to confuse."

"And if I work for you, what would make me think you won't do the same thing to me?"

"You are more valuable to me alive, of course. But only if you cooperate."

Dezy hears a pinging noise with a rhythm that sounds familiar. It happens three times before he realizes he recognizes it; the water's about to start flowing signal. Dezy hadn't taken his rope off from around his waist and shoulders. He began to back up toward the edge of the sinkhole. "I don't see how I can trust you. You just killed my brother. He may have been my half-brother but you killed him anyway. Like you would kill a dog."

"So what? To me, he was just a dog. A dog I paid to bite who I wanted him to bite. You are wasting my time. Give me the coordinates and the access codes. Otherwise I will just shoot you and consider today a wash. I made a little money and got rid of a couple of problems."

The tapping got louder and more insistent. "Go in there and find out what that noise is. If it Nicky, feel free to beat him to death." The four men rushed off to comply with the Don's request. Dezy felt the shelf vibrating and realized what Nicky was doing.

"I need to key the code in myself. It will only activate with my biometric signature. Hand me the bag." Dezy put his hand out and the Don, hesitates for a moment and then gives the bag to him.

Dezy reaches into the bag and the Don raises his gun and points it at Dezy. Dezy pulls out the deck and activates it. He puts his key code in and begins entering the twenty four character string. His hands are shaking so he puts the backpack onto his back while he contines to enter code. Then there was a snapping, cracking sound and the shelf shook violently, bounced once and fell away.

"Te quiero, mijo", was the last thing he heard as he fell freely into the open sinkhole. The Don, unable to maintain his footing, he slid toward the edge of the shelf and was flung into space. He turned as he fell and shot five times before he disappeared into the darkness. Dezy saw the line pay out and then there was a snap and he lost consciousness.

When Dezy woke up, he was bleeding from a scalp wound. Bloody but not fatal. He climbed up the rope and realized he did not have his deck. Didn't matter; he had activated the dropcode and would meet the client on time.

When he got to the top he saw the truck was now on the edge of the shelf, but still able to be driven. He got in and found the keys were still in the ignition. He looked back and saw the entire stockpile was now inside the truck. As he drove away, wiping the sticky blood from his face with a towel he found inside the truck, he wondered what Costa Rica looked like this time of year.

Paper © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

It was a dumb idea. Going down to New Orleans for Mardi Gra with his friends. To top it all off he had some strange chick fall in love with him, and in his drunken stupor that persisted for the entire week they were there, he married her. This whole occurrence would have been fine if there wasn’t the issue of him already being married to worry about. But all was well they left New Orleans the morning after Mardi Gra ended with his new bride still sleeping in bed. He figured that had ended this embarrassing chapter of his life, and that it would only come up over drinks with his friends. Boy was he wrong…


A few weeks later he began to feel a pain in his crotch. His first thought was that his Louisiana bride had given him an unexpected wedding present, an STD. worried he would pass it on to his wife he slept on the couch for a month straight. He had to wait to go to the doctor about it because he didn’t want his wife getting suspicious. But then a strange thing happen he felt the pain in his hand. He didn’t know what to make of it. One night at the dinner table with his wife and kids he could feel the pains all over his body. He did his best to ignore them. But the pains became worse, and worse until the pain of what felt like a sword going through his chest rushed through him. He stood up and yelled in agony. His wife and children looked on in fear, and confusion as he fell on the floor in writhing pain.



The crying priestess

With Voudou doll of husband

Abortion clinic

-William Landis

The sky was darkened by steel-grey clouds, running toward the horizon's setting sun, as if to extinguish its light on this scene of urban justice. The scaffold, hastily erected seemed eerily at peace in this riotous sky, blood red near the edges like a vein opening and flowing into an nearby gutter. Angry flashes of lightning as a storm, riding a hot desert wind blew in from the west, drying the mouths of the onlookers, waiting to see this bastard get hung. Flies blew in with the wind, the biting kind, and they seemed angrier than most days, biting and stinging and drinking from everyone. Even these desert-hardened folk were annoyed by them. 

Not that it would take much for that to be the case. They had waited all day while the scaffold was being built and they restrained their urge to rush the jail and make their own justice. The sheriff, Brody Atkins, standing outside with his Winchester rifle, freshly cleaned and charged and known for the sharpest eye this side of Texas, and a temper to match made it clear, there would be no justice today but his. In Kansas City, we do things by the book, he said. And he was willing to shoot anyone to make sure they understood.

He always said, a town needed laws. There were mutants and chimera out in the badlands surrounding the gates of Kansas City but that didn't matter none, if there were no laws in the city either. He ran a fair town. There were two deputies and a town militia, mostly for show these days, that got together once a month to drill and help people keep their shooting skills up. But mostly, charges were burned up on targets, there hadn't been a mutant attack for over two years. There hadn't been much of anything until this bandit and his friends show up a few months ago. 

The sheriff and his deputies handled the roughest and worst behaved members of that crew in a shoot out where Old Man Percy was killed. But the leader of the group was not around at the time and a warrant was put out for his arrest. Messages from Oklahoma said a man matching his description was wanted for murder and he had taken up with bad men upon being run out of town there. For sheriff Brody Atkins, that was all the incentive he needed. The reprobate was found after he returned to the city, claiming to be out hunting, and was promptly arrested.

Having technically committed no crime, the sheriff could not hold him. But he was relieved of his firearms and told to be on his best behavior while the sheriff waited for a Marshal Van Raken to arrive in town in a few days. The suspect was named J. T. Wilks. He surrendered peacefully claiming he would be found innocent. But in this frontier town, suspicion was akin to guilt. It did not take long for the locals to harass J. T. Wilks in a local saloon.

JT, never known for holding his temper among his people, in the altercation, managed to serious injure several patrons of the bar. During the fight, it became public knowledge JT was a passer, a mutant who could pass for human. It was not illegal to be a passer, but most city's had ordinances that insisted any unregistered mutant must report to the town sheriff and announce their mutation. Unfortunately, most after making such an announcement were run out of town immediately or killed on the spot. Hence most passers said nothing and did their best to keep their mutations out of the public eye. JT was superhumanly strong, it took nearly eight men to hold him down until he could be bound and brought before the sheriff. 

Two of the men he fought died of their internal injuries, several days later. He was promptly returned to the jail to await the Marshal who would also sit as the judge for the trial. Needless to say, while he was not the same man the Marshal was expecting to find, it no longer mattered as he was in violation of local laws in Kansas City. His trial was swift, perhaps too swift, and the judgment was never in doubt. He would hang by the neck until he was dead at sundown tomorrow.

 When the time came, JT was brought out in cuffs and many of the townsfolk had never seen him before today. He was a giant, nearly black as coal, with arms that looked as if they were forged of steel. Removed from his baggy clothing, his massive proportions became apparent, especially when standing next to the giant that was Sheriff Brody. JT stood a head taller than Brody. His eyes were in a stern and unsmiling face, sharp lines, as if sculpted from onyx and as he was lead to the scaffold he did not look down.

 He looked into the audience, who was breathing shallow and excitedly and he noted the various shapes, colors, sizes and scents wafting upward toward the gallows. The smell came in on the hot wind, with biting flies. The flies landed on everyone but JT. Their avoidance was a small comfort, as the sky grew dark and rain began to fall.  It was a trickle at first, and then it grew stronger. The audience, recognizing the weather, simply pulled up their hoods or put up hand-made umbrellas but kept them low to their heads. Men with hats simply pulled up their collars to protect their necks and waited stolidly for the main event.

 A reverend came up with JT and stood by him. "Son, is there anything you want to say to the people as a sign of contrition for your acts?"

 JT looked at the reverend, and the intensity of his stare, caused the normally nonplussed man of the cloth, who was used to dealing with the damned souls of this world, to look away and clutch himself seeking his holy symbol. "Padre, don't waste my time. Since your little town knows nothing about justice, I will seek mine in the next life. Now get outta my face. I got some dying to do."

 The sky opened up as JT was positioned over the drop door and the noose was placed around his neck. He did not flinch, nor fight with his captors. The two deputies were stationed across from the scaffold on nearby rooftops and were in position to shoot him if he did not comply. JT had seen them as soon as he stepped on the scaffold, and knew any resistance would get him shot. The rain began to pour so hard, it became hard to see the audience and JT became enraged even as he ignored the charges being read to him. The rain flowed into his ears, over his face, and he could not wipe it away, because his hands were bound behind his back. He could taste the sweat as it rolled down his face into his mouth, mixed with the tang of the sulfurous rain.

 "...having been found guilty of murder, you have been sentenced to be hung by the neck until you are dead." Brody was having to shout over the sound of the rain hitting metallic roofs nearby. A crack of lightning and a boom of thunder sounded immediately after the word dead, as if there was a punctuation to the sentence from on high.

 "This is your last chance, my son, God wants to hear your prayers and for you to beg for forgiveness." The reverend stood near to JT so he did not have to yell. They were intimately close as the preacher whispered to him.

 "Tell your God, I rebuke him and there is nothing he can do for me, that I have not already had to do for myself. I don't need his help or want his mercy. Now get out of my face, Padre, before I do something you'll regret."

 "May God have mercy on you anyway." The reverend backs away from JT and looks to he hangman.

 "Be about your work hangman, I am beginning to get bored with all of these folk standing around in the rain. Do me." When JT Wilks looked out over the crowd, he did not feel the peace of a man going to his death. He felt conflicted, wronged and sickened by the need of these people to find a scapegoat for their spiritual weaknesses. His disgust with the world rose into his throat and he roared defiantly as the hangman pulled the switch. His primal scream terrified the onlookers and several turned away in fear. In that moment, a bolt of lightning struck JT as he fell through the trapdoor and the noose tightened only for a split second around his neck. The flash of lightning caught the entire town staring at JT as he lit up with the bolt of lightning from the top of his head to his feet.

 Because they were all watching, save the few who turned away, most were blinded by the lightning for many minutes. During that time, the few who had turned back saw JTs burning body lying on the ground, slowly moving, turning squirming as electricity still played across his body, slowly draining into the ground. Steam and smoke rose from him as he got to his knees. His face, looking down was unreadable, and the noose hung loosely around his neck with the burned end still smoldering on his chest along with what appeared to be a scar, on his face and his chest, as if the lightning had arced from his chest to his face before destroying the rope that, by all rights, should have killed him.

 As he stood up, the last of the onlookers had seen his giant form rising and crossed themselves with their various religious signs and many slunk away under the cover of the rain. But most stood there wondering what would be the outcome of this turn of events. Sheriff Brody looked to the two deputies and raised his hand, and then waved them to come down to him. Brody climbed down off of the scaffold and began to move toward JT who had already begun walking toward the gates of the city.

 "You know I can't help you, right?"

 "Did I ask? Am I free to go? Or will you shoot me in the back as I leave the gate so the chimera will eat my corpse and you won't have to spring for my burial?"

 "Nope, 'fraid not. I know the law better than the next man. You are free to go from here. God set you free."

 "If you say so."

 "I do have one bit of advice, if you're willing to take it."

 "What's that, sheriff?"

 "Head for New Texas if you can."

 "Now why would I want to do that?"

 "Because if I was to say to the locals that you were heading for New Texas, most would hesitate to follow you."

 "I see. I don't suppose you could see your way to letting me out of these cuffs."

 "Sorry, no can do. The law says, as the Lord frees you, you must go. No one will stop

you from reaching the gate, and I will prevent anyone from following you the next twenty four hours. After that, you are on your own. I hear New Texas is really nice this time of year, and they may have work for you as well."

 Talking louder, JT replied, "New Texas, it is then."

And then Brody whispered, "Now off the record, while they may have work, there are other things going on there you might want to be aware of and as you get closer to the city. We have heard nothing from them for over two weeks, so something is wrong. A man who brings back news could find his way to making friends."

 The smaller gate set opened while the larger and main gate stayed closed. The sheriff walked out with JT and they continued down the road toward the south. Outside the gate, nature rapidly took over anything that was not the road. Stunted and gnarled trees with strangely shaped leaves hung casting lengthening shadows.

 "Personally, I ain't got nothing against your kind, if you know what I mean. And I wish I could do more to help you, but you understand." Then the sheriff grabbed JT by his forearm and before JT could move, a knife materialized at his throat. "On the other hand, if this knife were to get dropped during our tussel, I might forget it was out here in my hurry to get inside.

 JT kicked upward with his knee into the groin of the sheriff, who managed to turn his hip into the blow preventing the full contact JT was hoping to make. This, in turn, forced the sheriff to move his knife from JT throat and JT snapped his massive head forward, cracking the sheriff on the forehead and knocking him forcefully backward into the dirt. The knife, flew through the air and landed in the underbrush. JT noted its landing but kept his eye on the sheriff. When the sheriff looked back at JT, his eyes had changed color from the deep sapphire blue they were when he was reading off JT's list of crimes, to a fire-golden hue with catlike slits instead of round pupils. He looked up at JT and blinked again. His sapphires had returned. He got up and dusted himself off before turning back up the road.

 "You have a hard head there, partner. I hope you will be able to keep it on your shoulders. Try not to come back here anytime soon. Ya hear?"

 "Sheriff, did you do this? I know it is possible for some...."

 "Don't look at me, I don't know nothing about it. It's said, the Lord works in mysterious ways. You and He, have unfinished business, I reckon." The sheriff began whistling some strange tune as he disappeared around the bend heading back to the gate.

Forsaken © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

I saw this post mentioned on Twitter and decided to check it out. It's a discussion between bestselling thriller novelist Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath. The beginning came about from Eisler's rejection of a half a million dollar book deal in order to self-publish. It's rather lengthy, but you can read it here:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html

Here are three concepts mentioned that really got my attention.

1.) Publishing and selling short stories digitally. I have to admit, I never thought of doing that one. But now that I think about it, it makes sense. I have a lot of short stories that I think are good, but have trouble getting them published for a variety of reasons. And finding paying magazine markets is another challenge. Not to say I have anything against magazines and journals. They are a great way of getting exposure. Some of the ones I have been in contact with also have editors that give reasons and suggestions including with the rejections. But I still think selling short stories individually is an appealing idea. I do have a collection of short stories available for free on Smashwords.

2.) Selling digital books is easier. I have seen this happen to me already. Although my e-book sales are nowhere near the two authors in the discussion, they are greater than my print books. With little effort on my part marketing wise. It seems to me that users of e-readers tend to browse more, and pick up titles from unfamiliar authors. My books being priced at $0.99 on the Kindle and on Smashwords is probably a contributing factor.

3.) The more you write, the more you'll sell. This one makes a lot of sense, and I'm kind of upset with myself for not coming to this conclusion myself. I think I've been so focused on marketing my print books, trying to get those sales closer to my e-book sales, and getting my work published in magazines and journals that I haven't been writing as much as I used to and would like. I gotten wrapped up too much in the business part of writing I forgot about the reason why I started writing in the first place: out of love for words and to share my stories. In the blog, the authors talk a bit about their touring experiences and the pros and cons of such. I personally like going out with my books, meeting people and getting to place a face and name on my readers. I like knowing they're more than just dollar signs on a royalty sheet. However, the authors were talking about doing hundreds of events in a year. I prefer to keep my events in the 1 - 5 scale. I will, however, get back to writing more stories and more often. I'll even go back to publishing more of my work, namely poetry, on my blog again.

There is so much more that could be said about this blog post. But these are 3 that struck a cord with me.

Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC is calling for submissions of novels, novellas and short stories.

We’re currently looking for titles in the following genres: horror, science fiction, fantasy, and romance. We’re most excited about seeing stories in the subgenres of cyberpunk, steampunk, near-future sf, and space opera.

We do publish paranormal romance, science fiction romance, fantasy romance, and dark fantasy romance. We’d like to see submissions in these areas as well. Our interracial romance titles have been very successful, so feel free submit those as well.

To submit your work to us, submit a cover letter, completed work and synopsis to Nicole Givens Kurtz

mochamemoirspress@gmail.com.

Thank you.
Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC.
http://stores.lulu.com/mochamemoirspress

As someone who frequents message boards oriented around African history, I've run into several individuals who have some very...unorthodox ideas about the role of black people in world history. According to these people, black Africans founded nearly every significant civilization in antiquity, including Greece, Mesopotamia, the Olmec culture of Mesoamerica, and the Chinese Shang Dynasty. I've even met people claiming that the ancient Celts and Vikings were black!

Such individuals would likely be called "radical Afrocentrists", but the more I consider their claims, the more I doubt that this label is really applicable to them. I've noticed that these guys actually seldom pay much attention to cultures inside of Africa itself; they're more concerned with finding blacks in far-flung reaches of the planet. Take as an example Gregory Walker's Shades of Memnon trilogy, which claims a significant black presence in Olmec Mesoamerica and Shang Dynasty China. Walker may proclaim that his books are pro-African, but while the protagonist is indeed Egyptian, as far as I can tell he is in Europe, Asia, and the Americas rather than Africa proper for most of the books' length.

On the other hand, if you study the word "Afrocentrism", you'll see that it implies a focus on Africa. How can people be Afrocentric if they spend more energy declaring non-African cultures to be black than encouraging the study of genuine African cultures? This emphasis on peoples outside of Africa isn't Afrocentric, but is if anything the opposite.

Mind you, I'm not against the notion of black Africans exploring faraway lands by itself. If there's any evidence for it, I can even buy African merchants trading with the Olmecs, Chinese, or what have you. However, I really do not like the idea of black Africans founding every significant non-African culture, for it's implicitly disrespectful to non-Africans. It's tantamount to how Europeans used to claim a non-African origin for every major civilization in Africa, such as Egypt and Great Zimbabwe. The truth of the matter is that the history of world civilization is multichromatic, with its builders ranging in complexion from ebony black Kushites to lily white English. That's a much more colorful picture than the one painted by racial supremacists of any shade.

Recently, I was talking to Wanuri Kahiu, director of the Kenyan science fiction short film Pumzi (she's also set to direct Who Fears Death: The Movie). I asked her how she came to science fiction . She said that she didn't grow up reading or watching science fiction, that it was organic. "The story led me to science fiction," she said.

I had a similar experience. As a kid, I read everything, including some science fiction but not much (I didn't see a hint of myself in science fiction novels back then- no girls, no blacks. I didn't purposely shy away from sf, I simply was never drawn to it and I didn't have anyone to turn me on to it). Yes, I grew up consuming Isaac Asimov books like crazy...but not his science fiction novels, his science books (though I did read I, Robot...I enjoyed reading about the robots). As the story of Pumzi led Wanuri to science fiction, the stories of Zahrah the Windseeker, The Shadow Speaker and Who Fears Death led me to it.

My short story "Spider the Artist" was pivotal for me. It was my first time consciously writing "pure" science fiction. One day, editor John Joseph Adams had come to me and asked me to write a story for his anthology Seeds of Change. He said, no fantasy, just science fiction.The idea was a bit foreign for me because my world on and off the page is full of magic and fantasy. However, I always like a good challenge so I took him up on it. "Spider the Artist" was the result.

After writing it back in 2008, I was sure of two things: 1. That I was on the right path with Who Fears Death (I was editing it around the time I wrote "Spider the Artist" and I remember going back to it and turning the volume up on some things). 2. That I would write more science fiction. I liked the taste very much. I thank John Joseph Adams for gently nudging me to the table. I think he changed the direction of my work.

A burst pipeline in Nigeria

Here's a brief description: "In “Spider the Artist,” Nnedi Okorafor takes us to Nigeria of the future, where Big Oil protects the pipelines with spider-like AIs known as zombies, and tells the tale of a woman who faces down one of the murderous machines armed only with a guitar."