Bonus Short Story: You’re On!

March 19, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ 6 Comments

You’re On

“I don’t give a good god-damn who you are, get out of my house!”

Arvin was pissed. Clearly. The fact that he shouted this particular phrase down the barrel of long-nose .44 didn’t hurt in conveying his otherwise less-than-mellow state. The problem was, at least from his wife’s perspective, there wasn’t quite anyone there for him to be shouting at.

For the last twenty years, Arvin and Marjorie Dunn had been blissfully married. They’d survived a long-distance college relationship, ten years of growing older and bitter, tying the knot and two kids that were now grown and out of the house. In all that time, Marjorie hadn’t seen Arvin raise his voice nor hand in anger. He’d never needed to. He was a frightfully stern-looking man, with eyebrows made for the colossal grump he appeared to be. But really, he was a teddy-bear– all soft and cuddly, and stuffed with more plumped up fibrous tissue than a life-size version of the aforementioned.

In the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Any of it, in fact. He cocked back the hammer of his home-defense .44, ready to rain swift hell-fire on the air. Marjorie was still frozen in horror behind him, not sure whether to run or cry, but all the same unwilling to anger the beast with the large revolver. She wasn’t sure what to do, nor of how things had progressed quite to this point.

She’d already traced it’s origins; this had all started when the Matthews’ moved out. They’d been the Dunn’s neighbors for nigh-on fifteen years, had been there twice as long as anyone else in the suburb– one of the first families to settle the subdivision when it was first built. Granted Warner Matthews was always a couple decades older than Arvin, they grew together as friends.

And for fifteen years, the two men grew older, fatter, balder while they counted the time in barbecues and beers, football games and nachos, and fourth of Julys and hot dogs. They were the best of friends, helped to keep each other grounded. That’s not to say that Darlene Matthews wasn’t the same for Marjorie. They too were the best of friends, but in the way of women whom largely preferred to sit at home with books or cross-stitching were. They just weren’t quite the level of close the other two were.

It was always known between Arvin and Warner that one day the latter’s pension would come due. He and Darlene would pack up their most precious belongings, sell the rest, then run off to Florida to live out their days. Promises to visit on both sides might eventually be upheld, but unfortunately, it just hadn’t been long enough yet to tell if there was any truthfulness to that.

Indeed, the day they did finally finished selling off the less-desirable elements of their home and history, they packed up Warner’s old pick-up (Darlene’s car atop a long-bed trailer towed behind it) and drove off into the sunset. Arvin was happy for them then, as any man or woman might be watching another achieve their dream. He was even happier the next week when they received a post-card of the new condo on the beach in an envelope with a picture of the boat the couple had bought from selling their vehicles.

But that too, was the day when all of this started. It seemed innocuous enough when Marjorie returned home with groceries, and Arvin saying something about new neighbors. Being laden with armfuls of groceries, she didn’t quite hear him, and his mind was too easily swept up in aiding her in the task otherwise. The conversation didn’t re-emerge until the next day, when once again Marjorie came in from the car, keys jangling as she set them in the bowl just inside the door.

Arvin said something about new neighbors again, this time mentioning that he’d only seen the one car. Evidently the new couple– a husband and wife in their thirties– preferred to share a car rather than have two payments. Marjorie’s suggestion to run across the lawn and introduce themselves was met with the curious recollection that he’d seen them both leave just before she’d arrived home.

“Well then,” Marjorie replied. “You’ll just have to make sure you tell me when they’re back so we can introduce ourselves. Otherwise we’re gonna’ be livin’ next to strangers ’til we’re dust.”

He’d chuckled with a casual compliance, but the thought had left his mind somewhere between there and dinner, and by the time that was over, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to get off the couch. The cycle of one thing or another keeping them from meeting their neighbors continued for almost a full week.

That’s when Marjorie noticed the first of a series of insidious changes in Arvin. Where he’d always been one to rise with the sun, have himself a wholesome breakfast before work, then putter off to wile away the day at the salt mines, he was suddenly late for work. For anyone else, it might’ve slipped by unnoticed, but Arvin was a punctual man. Provided you caught him on a normal day, you’d be able to set your watch by him– so long as you knew what time he did what each day.

For Marjorie, this lapse raised her guard. Ever the housewife, she watched three days pass like this, her time wasted in worry rather than up-keeping the house and flower-beds. The front petunias withered, only saved by a short rainstorm that managed to perk them back up. Even so, Marjorie’s routine was as shaken up as Arvin’s.

On the fourth day, she paced about the house, so tense at Arvin’s shift she wasn’t sure what to do. Over the previous days and nights, Arvin had spoken more of the young couple next door. He’d managed to run into one of them at the gas-station and introduce himself. Unfortunately, due to their schedules, the two were almost never home, both instead absorbed by positions at a mutual job concerning computer-something or other– Arvin couldn’t recall, he was too old for computers to make sense to him.

On that fourth day, Marjorie devised a plan. By four AM of the fifth day after Arvin’s failure to rise began, she was up. She lurked in the shadows of the window that faced the Matthews’ old house. She refused to leave, almost refused to blink, even when Arvin rose, once more late for work. He left as the sun settled into its passage through-out the sky, and by the time Marjorie recognized high-noon coming, she’d devised another plan.

She didn’t wait to execute it. Instead, she sneaked over to the Matthews’ old house, through the back, wooden gate, and across the paver-block patio that Arvin and Warner had built one summer a decade ago. She rifled through the mulched flower-bed beside the back door, fished out an old, fake rock that contained a key to the door. Evidently, the new neighbors hadn’t moved it yet, or even replaced the locks: the key slid in just as it should, turned without issue.

She slipped into the house only to be chased out moments later by a bilious feeling that sent shivers through her spine: the house was empty, just as she, Arvin, and the Matthews’ had left it after they’d filled Warner’s pick-up and Darlene’s car.

To be standing between the kitchen and front room now, watching her husband curse and swear with a gun in his hand made her feel all the more guilty. When he’d returned from work, she’d confronted him. With little more than a short argument, and a promise to bring one of them over, he’d left the house. What Marjorie didn’t realize was that he’d retrieved the .44 from the bedroom after he’d stormed off. Why was anyone’s guess, but all the same here they were.

“I said get out of my house god damn it!”

“Arvin there’s no-one there!” Marjorie wailed.

“The hell there isn’t!” He said.

He fired two rounds through the air into the man he saw before him. A moment later, the man was on the ground before Arvin, blood pooling on the cream, shag-carpet. Suddenly Marjorie saw him too, but it wasn’t a man. Instead, the long, distended features of caricatured humanoid creature lay before them. Arvin dropped the gun, back-stepped in horror. He’d grown too frustrated, angry at the world and the break in his routine. Marjorie hadn’t seen him snap at his co-workers, or flip off other drivers, or feel the rise in his pulse and blood-pressure during the argument.

It all seemed to make sense to Arvin, but to Marjorie, nothing made sense.

“My god, what is that?” Arvin said, finally seeing the creature’s true form.

A woman appeared in the doorway, fell to the ground wailing, “No, no!”

The woman suddenly lit with a bright, glowing light. A similar figure to the creature became apparent through it. Marjorie fainted.

When she awoke, Arvin and the two creatures were grouped around her, but they once more resembled their human selves.

“Honey, I think we need to listen to these people,” Arvin said, still sickly pale.

The woman spoke, the man still clutching his side, though no longer bleeding. “We’re terribly sorry for all of this. We knew we could not keep the masquerade up forever.”

“I… I shot him,” Arvin said breathlessly.

The wounded man gave a grunt, “We heal… quickly.”

“You’re… not human, are you?” Marjorie asked.

The woman shook her head. The man attempted a joke, “For once that’s… a good thing.”

“I-I didn’t know… I swear. After what Marjorie said… I-I-I thought you weren’t real.”

The man gave a shrug. The woman grimaced, “This wouldn’t have happened if we were honest with you to begin with.”

“Honest?” Marjorie asked. “About what?”

The two creatures exchanged a look, then, the man gave a pained nod to his partner. She frowned, “The Matthews, the ones you believed lived beside you? We’re them.” A mutual “Huh?” escaped the Dunns. The creature claiming to be Mrs. Matthews explained, “We’ve lived her for a long time. A lot longer than the short life-span humans carry.”

“Problem is…” the man said. “Every few decades we have to change our appearance or else we draw suspicion. I mean, we can fool you with gradual aging, but eventually humans have to die.”

“We don’t die so easily,” the woman added.

“So clearly,” Marjorie said, overwhelmed.

Arvin shook off his guilt long enough to speak, “So… you’re telling me, you two are… what Aliens? And every sixty or seventy years you change your appearance to keep blending?”

The man’s features flickered from the handsome thirty-something to the wrinkled, white-haired countenance of Warner Matthews. “That’s the long and short of it, pal,” he said with Warner’s tell-tale buddyism.

“Warner?” Arvin said. “It really is you!”

The man morphed back into the thirty-something, gave a nod, “Yeah-huh.”

The woman explained to Marjorie directly, “We didn’t want to move away from our home, our friends. So we just pretended to. We’re still waiting on having the new furniture delivered– that’s why the house is empty.”

“But what about not seeing you?” Marjorie asked.

The man replied, “Just bad luck. We had the day off today. When you came in to examine the house we hid ourselves– the same way we trick you into seeing these forms instead of our true ones.”

“The trickery requires focus, concentration, that’s why you saw him when he was shot,” the would-be Darlene said.

“My god,” Arvin said. “You really are our neighbors then.”

The young man chuckled, already almost fully head, “Yep, that’s us.”

“Can you ever forgive me for shooting you?”

Warner smiled, “You’re my friend, Arv and I couldn’t trick your wife and you together yet. It was as much my doing as yours. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you everything, and I’d’ve had to after we saw Marjorie break in earlier.”

“So… it’s really my fault, isn’t it?” Marjorie asked.

“Let’s just say,” Darlene began. “Everyone made mistakes.”

The human couple swallowed hard and exchanged a look. Arvin glanced up at his extra-earthly neighbor, “Lemme’ at least make it up to you. I got some steaks and some beer, we’ll have a cook-out– just like old times.”

Darlene and Warner exchanged a laugh, the latter nodded, “You’re on pal.”

The Collective: Part 1

March 18, 2016March 17, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Declaration of War

Her crème white skin gleamed in the dimmed light of overhead LEDs, tinted with a plethora of colors from the 3-D holo-vid in the room’s center. Her body mirrored that of the projected woman before her; legs and back straight, eyes forward, and arms at her sides. In her hands, two, razor sharp Katanas gleamed with hints of light and caricatured reflections. She began to move with the projection; her feet parted, braced her exposed torso as her arms drew the blades up to rest on her shoulders. The cold steel triggered waves that coursed through her body, tickled thin, light hairs along her arms and neck, and refined the shape of her nipples.

With a fluid motion, the blades lifted. A foot kept her balance in a pivot while the other leg swept sideways to come about. The blades’ hilts touched, began to whirl as one entity with graceful movements. She urged them apart and into a vertical tumble. Balanced extensions of arms and legs moved her lower, forward. The blades made long, controlled swipes as she pirouetted to bring their blunt edges in toward one another, form make-shift bars of death before her face. Her dark eyes closed in a meditative trance, and the movements flowed into one another again, faster this time.

The nudity wasn’t required for her practice, but she couldn’t escape the freedom it brought. To be one with the sword required she be willing to dance as naked as it was. The two were beautiful beasts, as graceful and ready to love, embrace passion as to murder, spill bloods.

The movements became faster with small leaps. The room’s layout was clear in her mind as her muscles worked. Despite the darkness, she saw the room with light– an unnecessary luxury given her routine. She was as much dead to the world now as anyone who might cross her blades would become. At that, it wouldn’t be long before the polished steel ran crimson.

They were already watching from the cameras embedded in the apartment. She knew who they were, had seen them before. In that odd way that memories sometimes manifest from the aether, they appeared in portents of violence. The visions were stills of things yet to happen, as though made of old, analog film left on the cutting room floor of time. For her part, she would see the film joined by blood.

Her style of practice was something of Tai-Chi mixed with Ballet, both forms of bodily training lost to the world in the rise of self-medicating technology. Before the Sleep, it had surrounded people, become so much a part of their lives most hadn’t noticed it any longer. Now, it was their lives; virtual worlds had become as real as the Earth itself– moreso even, given the untold possibilities V-R allowed for. Everyone was now a buff-stud or supermodel in a world of their choosing, lived out through the use of special chairs, visors, and neural adapters. Nowadays peoples’ avatars were more them than their chair-bound vessels ever could be.

The world had gorged itself on greed and gluttony when all but a few jobs became automated, relegated to synthetic workers, robots, or intelligent software. The World Economy had begun to collapse then. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s work force was laid off. Before it could decimate the planet entirely, steps were taken, precautions put in place. The populous was given living stipends, needs and luxuries made available at fractions of the cost to ensure complacency.

Most of the world saw the change as a positive, but not Lex. She saw if for what it was, and in some instances, what it would become. There were no more wars, sure, but there was also no more freedom, no property but what was allotted. There were no avenues to pursue hopes or dreams, and given time, there would be no hopes or dreams anyhow. The world’s peoples had become victims of their own hubris, compromised fertility for longer life, vitality for luxury, and mental health for quick fix pleasures that would only lead to stagnation. All the while the rich got richer off it, did whatever they wanted. The global population had compromised fertility for longer life, vitality for luxury, and mental well-being for the quick-fix of pleasures that would only lead to stagnation.

Lex knew that, and so eschewed all but the most necessary luxuries, stipends, or pacifying technology that would allow her to achieve her goals. Those things couldn’t stop her from pursuing the future she sought, nor eliminating anyone in her way of it. Her only dream or hope was to change things– by force or reason, whichever was fastest, easiest.

That was how they had found her; through a few, overlooked surveillance devices embedded in common goods. Then, once surveillance had begun, they’d come in when she’d been away and planted more equipment to build their case. All she’d needed was the sense to investigate at the scents of foreign sweat, leather. When she did, she realized her mistake. Regardless, it only served to hasten her plans.

The world was the oyster of a very select few whom had carved it out for themselves over the course of decades. They had private armies– whole governments even– on their side, had otherwise pacified any other resistance against them. They’d drugged, imprisoned, or neutralized anyone that might stand against them, refused to sleep. They would kill anyone, no matter their station, to ensure the status-quo.

And now they were here.

The door to her apartment burst open. A flash-bang went exploded. Lex remained poised, blades touching before her face. Her ears rang, but she felt the vibrations of a half dozen feet charge inside. It was one of the few squads of police left in Tokyo– the whole world at that. The bulk of their numbers had long been reduced to drone patrols with high-powered tazers or small chain-guns mounted to their bellies, but these were foot soldiers.

They filed in. The latest, high-tech battle-rifles in their hands rose on her. Shouts of Japanese and English commanded the American-born woman to drop her weapons. They flowed in, fanned out in a half-circle around her. The commands never ceased.

Her arms lowered deliberately, swords in a downward-point toward the floor, her readied poise. The squad flinched. Shouts grew louder, repetitive. Rifle’s shook from adrenaline and fear. A few sparks of arousal in men and women left them half-dazed at Lex’s beauty and nudity.

In a blink, she leapt forward. A foot landed on the ball. Her hands flashed. The blades sliced up, in, down, flourished with a backward flip. Lex landed back in place as if she’d never moved at all. The only evidence was the slow river that flow form the blades’ tips, dripped crimson onto the metal floor. The squad blinked in disbelief as the lead man disassembled, arms severed from his torso and head from neck. His corpse fell to a heap.

Someone fidgeted, fingered a trigger. Lex leapt, spun. Blades sliced air, marred flesh, sundered bone and spinal nerves. Two of the left-most squad were decapitated in a flick of wrists. The others reacted, moved to take aim. Rifles were kicked from hands, bodies winded and propelled back with tremendous force. The dual blades mutilated wrists, incised throats. Screams turned to gurgles and bubbled whispers.

The room went silent again from the dead and wounded.

Two soldiers remained. One reached for her side arm, the other on her back on the floor, dazed. She gasped for air. Lex landed beside her, jabbed the left blade down into her chest, pierced her glossy body armor. The blade wrenched with cracking kevlar and bone. Blood spurted from an opened heart. Lex’s movement became a raised-leg spin that struck the side-arm. It flew across the room as the blades went for the woman’s throat, poised on either side to cut. She backed her up to the wall, forced her to her knees.

Lex stared down, blood spattered along her silken body, “You speak English.” The woman nodded. It wasn’t a question. “Tell your bosses I’m coming.” The woman nodded again. She raised her back up to her feet. “Tell them what you’ve seen here today, and that you know I could have done the same to you.”

“Wh-why?” The armored woman asked.

Lex chose her words carefully, “Mercy is a gift not often given. The world is about to change. You may choose to change with it, or die by my sword.” She locked eyes with the woman, “The choice is yours.” The woman sensed her conviction, swallowed hard. Lex sneered, “Leave. Do not return.”

The blades fell back to Lex’s sides in their readied poise. The woman bolted, stumbled over bodies for the door, fell through it only to scramble up and flee.

No matter what happened now, the Collective would know she was coming. They’d forced her hand, but she could use it, show them the stakes so they might watch, see the carnage about to befall them. Only then could they begin to feel fear– fear that would force them to make rash decisions, position their empire to be crumbled as they were taken out, one-by-one.

One way or another, an end would soon come.

Short Story: A Job to Do

March 15, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

Smoke curled and rolled beneath a low-hanging light, dissipated by the wave of a wrinkled hand. The man it was attached to hunched forward over the table beneath the light, in a booth seat of a dank bar most just called by its designation. Officially it was named The Oldhouse Tap. Unofficially, it ran by other names, most as unappealing as its never-swept, never-mopped tile floors. Even the walls had felt the rigors of age, their wall-paper stained and peeled like a cheap motel.

Another man sat before the smoking man, both with large mugs of beer that were more foam than brew. Such was the way the burnt-out bartender poured her patrons their poison. She cared about as much as they did. Most people in at this time of day were still on company time, the others hiding from their wives or families when they should have been at the unemployment office, or one of the half-dozen places through-out town with help-wanted signs in their front windows.

Instead, they were spread out around the bar, staring up at a television that never strayed from its Info-Corp news channel. Like them, the two men at the booth were mostly quiet, but when deigned to speak, did so in low, hushed tones. The second man hunched forward over the table, parted the smoke with his wrinkled, black, sunken eyes.

“I can have the money in a week, all I need’s more time.”

The smoking man took a drag from his cigarette with a few, resolute nods, “And you’re sure of that, yeah?”

The other man began to launch into a tall-tale. Of course, he started by explaining his position; like many others, he’d been laid off due to the shaky economy. No amount of groveling or employment seeking would help. All those help-wanted signs were for men and women twenty years younger. The shops in town didn’t care much for the older generation with their responsibilities, bills, and needs. They wanted expendable assets to leash one day, and kick-out when they were no longer cost-effective.

The other man went into detail on his experiences, “I was in with a shop down Main St, a coffee place– nothing in the front mind you, they don’t want the geezers working the front. They’ve got an image, you know.”
“Hmm,” the smoking man said with a long drag. He blew a long plume, “Got to have appeal with the kids.”

“Exactly.”

He went further in the same vein, but the smoking man was no longer listening. He’d heard all the tales a million times over. Everyone had their sob story, and everyone thought theirs was worse than everyone else’s. In truth, the smoking man knew they were all the same. It wasn’t his business to care, but he knew nonetheless. Each of the men and women he’d met were cut of a similar cloth; all older– his age really– out of work, and needing money. In a way, he sympathized; it could just as easily be him. Well, not him, but him in another life. He could have just as easily found himself in their shoes were circumstances even a little different.

Alas, no amount of empathy, sympathy, or cold beer would change what he knew now. He wasn’t like them. He was what they wanted to be; well-aged, still sane, and with immovable job-security. He even had spending money, something in direly short supply these days. Hell, he thought, probably not a one of the patrons in the bar today had that. They were all likely drinking on tabs that would follow them past their graves.

He listened to the sob-story a little longer, if only for courtesy’s sake. He already knew what would happen. It wouldn’t be another month before he was back in here to discuss the terms of the man’s repayment, only to be begged and pled with to hold off on collecting. Unfortunately, begging and pleading only went so far. Maybe the man hadn’t personally helped to tank the economy, but he had to deal with it the same as the rest. The problem was, dealing was all they ever tried to do. Not a one of them had learned to hold to their word.

He’d been in the banks’ employ long enough to know that the defaulters knew the stakes. Loans were an uncommon luxury even in the best of times. Now, they were downright impossible to come by. Even so, most of the people that had signed on the dotted lines had still refused to cop to the responsibility inherent in signing. Then, when the smoking man came to collect, they bargained and begged, and pled for more time.

His job wasn’t the most pleasant by any means. He could think of thirty or forty jobs off the top of his head that he’d rather have if only they were quite so secure in their need. That was the interesting thing though, as much as people wanted what he had, they never wanted to take the opportunity to get it. It left him as the sole member of an occupation where help-wanted truly meant it. But it wasn’t a fun job, most certainly unpleasant even with the best cases. Too many people defaulted nowadays, and by the first and fifteenth of every month he was expected to be in fifty places at once. Most places weren’t much different than this one.

Sure, a few of the people would repay the debt, or else shake his cynical core to feeling with their real misfortune. In those rare cases, he’d leave with a thankful politeness, possibly never to be seen again. Or else, he’d promise to return, understanding of their unfortunate circumstances. Whatever that latter groups circumstances were, he was certain he would never find any of them in a dank pit like the Oldhouse.

That was how the smoking man could tell the unfortunate from the dead-beats: when the unfortunate were down-trodden, lost for hope, they ran to their families to spend those possibly last moments with them. Conversely, the dead-beats were always in bars, restaurants, what-have-yous, running up tabs and knowing their last moments were upon them. It was an effective system, one that only a man working so deeply under the table for the banks could have established– or even distinguished.

He listened to the man tell his woes for another half-cigarette, then stopped him mid-sentence.

“I can’t help you,” he said as he rose from his seat.

He pulled his over coat open on the one side while the other man stammered and choked on his beer. A moment later a gun was out. A single, suppressed round ended the man’s life. He fell forward onto the table, blood leaking from a wound in his head. The rest of the bar had watched, each of them fearing they might be next. The smoking man replaced the gun into its shoulder-hoslter, then stepped over to the bar to drop a wad of cash on it.

“The bank will send someone by to collect the body,” the man said as he snuffed a butt in a tray on the counter. “You all have a good day. I’ll be seeing some of you next week.”

Most heads were hidden as he turned away. He had work to do. There was such little job security left in the world, and though it was messy, it was still a job that needed to be done. Even if there was no-one else willing to do it, few would do it as well as him.

The Collective: A Preview

March 11, 2016March 10, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Do you like sci-fi? How about action? With a side of bloody vendetta, cyberpunk, and swordplay?

If you’ve answered yes, and are suddenly wondering why I’ve begun sounding like a television announcer, then keep your eyes out for The Collective, starting next Friday, — and stop questioning my methods, I can be a television announcer if I want.

Excerpt From The Collective;

Someone fidgeted, finger on the trigger. Lex leapt, spun, blades sliced air, marred flesh, sundered bone and spinal nerves. Two of the leftmost squad were decapitated in a flick of wrists. The others reacted, moved to take aim. Rifles were kicked from hands, bodies winded and propelled back with tremendous force. The dual blades mutilated wrists, incised throats. Screams turned to gurgles and bubbling whispers.

The room went silent again from the dead and wounded.

A short summary: The Collective is ten chapters of one woman’s masterfully executed plan of sabotage and vengeance against a small group seeking to rule the world. Set against the backdrop of a nearly-abandoned Tokyo, the cyberpunk-esque setting follows Lex and her blood-thirsty swords as they aim to awaken a global population from The Sleep– a technological take-over that has left the world largely abandoned.

But how can one woman hope to change the world? Find out starting March 18th, 2016.

(P.S. I promise I’ll only do the announcer thing when it’s necessary…)