E-Book, Englisch, Band 37, 448 Seiten
Reihe: Writers of the Future
Hubbard / Chatsworth / Card L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 37
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61986-698-0
Verlag: Galaxy Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Bestselling Anthology of Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Stories
E-Book, Englisch, Band 37, 448 Seiten
Reihe: Writers of the Future
ISBN: 978-1-61986-698-0
Verlag: Galaxy Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
The Sci-Fi and Fantasy of Tomorrow Selected by Masters of Today
28 Award-winning Authors and Illustrators?
Get ready to get carried away . . . to places no one has ever gone before.
Turn the page . . . from dark fantasy to dystopian nightmare, from magical realism to military science, from paranormal urban fantasy to post-apocalyptic power trips . . . and beyond.
Take flight on a starship powered by a godlike being, willing to go to any length to know what it is to be human. Delve into the psyche of a scientist who must choose between ambition and compassion while compelled to participate in a secret and sadistic government project. Get lost in the chilling Museum of Modern Warfare, where one woman is about to discover life-changing secrets. Experience the stories that challenge our sense of self-and our sense of the world. And that's just the beginning of your journey. . . .
Discover the mesmerizing power of these new stories, thought-provoking new ideas, brilliant new horizons, and astounding new writers and illustrators-the chosen ones, selected by today's bestselling science fiction and fantasy authors and artists.
3 Bonus Short Stories: L. Ron Hubbard • Jody Lynn Nye • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Art and Writing Tips: L. Ron Hubbard • Orson Scott Card • Craig Elliott
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Sixers
A bomb screamed overhead, then dropped somewhere far enough in front of me that my old Ford pickup truck absorbed most of the shock and the boom. Flinching, I wondered which of the skyscrapers had been hit this time. I hadn’t thought there were any left to come down. From my left, the morning sun flickered, shadow, haze, shadow, haze, and I throttled my urge to drive faster, instead easing carefully around the holes in the pavement. The current war had come to my city only ten days ago, but already so many buildings had been mol-decked, so many lives taken, leaving gaping holes in the skyline and gaping holes in families. The molecular decohesifiers were supposed to be more humane, instantly breaking the connections between molecules and then sucking into their own relatively tiny black holes, leaving almost nothing behind, or so the scientists said. But the boom from the black holes collapsing shook the surrounding buildings like small earthquakes, causing some of those buildings to come down too, damage the politicians claimed was “avoidable” if buildings were “kept up to code.” Having random bits of sludge left behind instead of bodies didn’t make the deaths any cleaner or easier for the survivors. In my opinion. The gas mask on my face shifted, bumping up against my tech goggles, and I winced. The raw spot on my left cheekbone would probably be bleeding by the time I reached my son’s house, forty miles away. Forty miles would have been nothing before, but now … ? My son. Panic and fear and the need to see him safe surged up inside me hard enough that my foot hit the accelerator and my old truck—just as disguised as I was—roared forward. The bumper struck an abandoned car, and I pushed inside my head, using a wisp of magic to shove it out of the way. It hurt like poking a bruise, but pain and I were old friends. Sixers, they called us, from sixth-sensers, now that they had equipment sensitive enough to prove our magic existed, only what the three-letter agencies didn’t know was everyone had that sixth sense, just some more than others. It was like having blue eyes or a gift for painting—stronger in some, weaker in others, but always there in the population somewhere. Lila had told me. She had been my roommate during the eternity-long six weeks I’d been held in their facilities, prodded, poked, and tested, until they’d finally admitted that though I tested off the charts, I was useless to them. They didn’t understand that my gift was actually a touch of all the gifts, which meant I couldn’t do anything flashy. No fire starting more than a candle. No healing more than a simple, shallow cut. No seeing the future more than a feeling of dread or excitement. Certainly no reading minds or influencing them or anything useful. I could move things with my mind—barely—like I did now, helping my old truck to push the car out of the way, and my sense of the future was that I was supposed to be here, now, heading across the torn-up city to my boy’s house. I’d left the government facility with a shiny, laminated card explaining my “disability” and a sense of relief that they’d let me go. As far as I knew, Lila had never gotten out. She was too valuable. A man stepped out into the road ahead of me. He wore dusty black BDUs and a balaclava, with a handgun strapped to his thigh and a rifle half-slung over one shoulder, his dark-brown skin showing only between his gloves and his sleeves. His goggles were cleaner than mine. His partner, a woman, watched me from the other side of the road. The first checkpoint. I slowed the truck to a stop, fished out my IDs, and shoved my goggles up and my mask down before stepping out slowly and carefully. I knew what they saw because I’d taken pains every day to cultivate it. An older woman, just above average height, gray streaks in her dark hair, with a thick waist and wide hips from bearing a child and eating well since. Rumpled flannel over baggy cargo pants, the pockets full of things old ladies might carry: crochet hooks and yarn leaking out of one, and crayons peeking out of another. Not a threat. So like my son with his upright, military look that my throat closed, the young man took my ID and my disability card and scanned them. He held my ID up to my face and squinted against the dust in the air. “Where are you heading, ma’am?” “My son lives on the other side of the city,” I explained hoarsely, letting my eyes moisten. “I’m going to see … to find out …” His voice softened. “If he’s still alive? Drive carefully. This whole area is unstable.” I didn’t think he meant just the buildings or the roads. Stifling my “Yes, sir,” I muttered, “I will. Thanks.” He handed back my IDs and waved me forward. Climbing slowly back into the truck, I mentally apologized to it and let the engine stall before I restarted it and eased it into first gear. The first guard spoke into his radio, probably telling the next checkpoint about the batty old lady in the barely functional truck coming their way. Perfect. Sunset. I’d gone as far as I could for one day. My left leg was seizing up and if I didn’t get out of the truck to stretch it, it’d be useless for days. The joys of getting old. Grimacing, I remembered how I used to drive from my property into the city to my son’s house all in one afternoon. But the roads hadn’t been choked by holes, debris, abandoned vehicles, and checkpoints. The bombs had stopped, and the air had settled a bit so I could see the blood-sun sinking through fiery clouds. A gutted gas station looked promising. I ran the truck up onto the curb and into the parking lot, then around back. The front was too hard to defend: all broken-out glass windows and doors open to the weather. The rear of the building was an unbroken wall of brick with a good line of sight, and the dumpster missing from its enclosure, so I backed the truck up to it, making the U into a G shape. Limping, I grabbed the rake out of the truck bed and moved trash to the left half of the opening. With a match and a touch of the gift, I started the trash on fire. Now I only had a couple feet to defend, and space under the truck if I needed another exit. My leg moved a little easier now, but my right shoulder had taken up the whine of pain. Ignoring it, I slid the rake back into the truck bed, then cracked open my cooler to fish out a mason jar full of homemade wine—a poor woman’s painkiller—and a chunk of cheddar. I wasn’t that hungry, but if I didn’t eat—and drink—I wouldn’t sleep, and then I’d feel even worse tomorrow. Obligatory food consumed while leaning against the tailgate, I straightened, sighed, and began to move. Tai Chi is an old art, and those who don’t know any better see it as a healing art. They forget it is also a martial art; they forget that the best killers are healers, because they understand how the body is put together. Those of us who practice it tend to try to help them forget. I let the form pull me along, moving slowly and carefully as the kinks worked themselves out, then even more slowly as the night deepened. Moving meditation, my instructor had called it, and it was. About halfway through Long Form, I felt eyes examining me, but they did not invade my little safe space, so I ignored them. The untrained never saw the strength it took to move slowly, the balance and grace that could turn in an instant to power. At last I stilled and waited for the watcher to come closer. Out of the darkness from beyond the truck, a voice hailed me. “Halloooo the fire? May we join you?” “We?” I called back. “Me ’n’ my boys.” A man approached just close enough I could see the sharp planes of his face and see the way his clothes hung off his body as if he’d recently lost weight—or stolen them from a larger man. He had a walking stick, and I wondered if he knew how to use it. I nodded, my left hand slipping into my pocket to wrap carefully around the loaded Glock 26 strapped to my thigh on the inside of the baggy pants. “Come ahead. ’Ware the fire.” The man smiled, baring crooked teeth, and I couldn’t help but see his resemblance to a rat, hunting in the darkness. Then he stepped forward, and three boys followed him. Three boys all about nine years old … though my sixth sense told me one of them was a girl pretending to be a boy. Not a boy in a girl’s body, but a girl who was a girl, dressing and acting like a boy for safety. Good choice. Even after all the rhetoric and protests for equality, when it came to wartime, it was safer to be male. A second glance showed me these boys weren’t biologically his. The man was white, with light-brown hair and a day-old beard. The boys were Black, Indian, and Hispanic—maybe Guatemala mixed with Mexico; I tended to know the Latin countries better than the parts of India—and none of them shared the unfortunate shape of his mouth, nose, or jaw, nor his ears, nor cheekbones. Perhaps he’d adopted them. Illustration by Will Knight That didn’t feel right though. They each carried backpacks, wore ragged jackets and holey jeans, and their shoes looked worn through while his were almost new. Not my problem....
