Tag: Short Story

Short Story: Schokolade Mit Liebe

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

A lone match struck in the darkness, flared to strength and cast an orb of dim light on an aged, graying face. It leaned into spark a cigarette off the sulfuric flame, extinguished it with a breath and a hint of a putrid stench. The darkness returned save a lone, glowing ember at the cigarette’s end.

A thick German accent sounded over a high, aristocratic voice, “You’ve no idea who I am, do you, Herr Butler?”

The man across the darkness swiveled his head, struggled against the binds that lashed his arms and legs to a metal chair. “What the hell’s going on?” He asked through panic-breaths. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

The cigarette glowed brighter from a deep drag as a third man in the darkness struck Butler with a heavy fist. He yelped, almost toppled sideways from the force. He went silent. Tears welled in his eyes. The German gave a breathy exhale, enunciated each word as though chocolate meant to be savored, “You have stolen something very precious to me.”

“I-I don’t know what your t-talking about–”

He shouted over Butler, “Betrüger!”

Another heavy blow flooded his mouth with blood and salty sweaty. He did topple this time. It was slow, or perhaps instant, but he felt himself hang on two legs for then tumble to his shoulder like some kind of stunned droid.

The German sighed defeat as he rubbed his forehead between his eyes, “Herr Roke, erhohen mein freund, bitte.”

A primal grunt stuttered with amusement. Then, with an effortless stoop, the monstrous creature lifted Butler and the chair, flipped them in mid-air to right them on the floor with a singular motion. Butler felt the beast’s presence span twice the size of a common brick-wall over the scent of a back-alley ashtray soaked in stale beer. Butler would have dry-heaved were he not too occupied by fear.

The German spoke graciously, “Danke, Herr Roke.” He leaned forward so that the cherry of his cigarette inflected a minor light across his Aryan features. “Now, Herr Butler, I say again; you have stolen something precious of mine and I would like it back.” His voice lowered venomously, “Where is die zeitsteuereinheit?”

Butler was lost; he knew no German, let alone whatever the hell a Zeiten-heimer was,“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about?”

The man mumbled German at the ceiling with defeat that apexed into a clearer phrase, “Herr Roke?”

A heavy thud thumped the back of Butler’s head, meant to jarr his thoughts. He was pretty sure he felt marbles roll around in his brain when the world started to spin. His head fell forward in a daze. Another German mumble, almost cheerfully annoyed, and the cherry flared up, gave way to a bright flood-light on the wall to the left. It blinded Butler as his head rose again. There was nothing but the light– and darkness on either side of it– as loafers shuffled over concrete.

A metal clinking began somewhere in the room’s depths. Given the pungent smoke’s ailing waft, Butler guessed the German had displaced himself. A moment later, the metal sounds gave way to the scuff of loafers that approached through the shadows.

The German was merely an average-sized silhouette with something small in its hand. Identification of the object was impossible through the watery spinning of Butler’s vision. While his eyes welled wet, his mouth dried. The German leaned toward his neck, protuberance in-hand over the reek of a recent, expensive cologne bath. He injected something into Butler’s neck. Heat crept through him, small and insidious, as if his internal thermostat had been jacked all the way up. He felt his brow grow wetter, mouth drier, his t-shirt cold around his armpits.

“Now, Herr Butler,” the German said as he turned back for his seat. He sank into it with the satisfied groan of an old man, “Nature is a beautiful thing, is it not? It has lived longer than anything in the universe– it is the universe, in fact– and especially on Earth, it is a wonderfully complex and varied organism.”

Butler felt his tongue fatten. Sweat flowed like a leaky garden hose. He wanted to cry harder, but wasn’t sure how to. He didn’t know what the German wanted, nor why he seemed to so presently hell-bent on his ecology lecture. All he knew was small, throbbing waves of heat turning to molten lava with each second.

“As with all great organisms,” the German was saying. “Nature has found a way to take something simple, and build off it, as a foundation if you will.” He made a small, refined gesture. “I have just injected you with Formic Acid, Herr Butler. In moments your innards will feel as if they have been held to the core of the Earth.”

Butler already felt that, couldn’t imagine it getting any worse– in fact, he didn’t want to try, “B-but, I’m j-just an average guy. I d-don’t know about your Zeitenheimer.”

The German sighed, “Herr Roke, have you ever known a man to survive the Formic Acid?”

“Nein, Herr Schmidt,” Roke said with a bestial rasp.

“Believe him, if not me, Herr Butler,” Schmidt said.

The acid increased its toll; Butler trembled, shook more with each breath, “B-but I s-s-swear, I d-don’t kn-know anything.”

The German seemed disappointed rather than angry, “Perhaps, then, your wife will tell us.”

Wife? What wife?I don’t have a wife.

“W-wife? Wh-what wife?” Butler asked. “I d-don’t h-have a wife.”

“Herr Buttler, we know all about you, you need not lie; you are Roger Butler, your wife is Penny, und we know where she is,” the German warned casually “If you do not tell us what we want to know, we may have to escalate our interrogation.”

“B-but I-I’ve n-never b-been married!” Butler shouted through the pain.

“Herr Schmidt!” A new voice said from across the room.

“Ja? Excuse me for a moment,” he said politely as he passed the flood-light for a door behind Butler. There was a hushed whisper, then Schmidt’s voice, “Und you’re certain?” Another hurried whisper, then, “Very well.”

Schmidt passed through the floodlight again for the opposite end of the room. There was a shuffle of loafers, another sound of rifled metal, and Schmidt reappeared to inject something else into Butler’s neck.

Schmidt stepped back as Butler felt the pain lessen, “Herr Butler, I must apologize, you are… uh, the wrong man.” He nodded at Roke behind him. A grunt sounded before massive, meaty hands tugged at the knots that bound Butler to the chair. “Please accept my sincerest apologies.”

Roke pulled the last of the binds free, yanked Butler up. Schmidt maneuvered him toward the door, “It would be best if we parted ways– perhaps better if you spoke of this to no-one.”

In the daze of pain, drugs, and the acid’s antagonist, Butler hardly comprehended his surroundings as he was ushered into the hall. When his mind focused again, he was turned ’round, facing Schmidt from the far-side of a doorway, and half-blind from the bright hall-way around him.

“Guten Abend, Herr Butler, pray we do not meet again,” Schmidt said.

The door shut. Butler stared at it a moment longer than he ought’ve, his mind ablaze with questions. They’d obviously had the wrong man, he’d known that from the start, but what convinced them? He suddenly recognized a gift horse’s mouth and bolted in terror. The exit signs along the bright hallways led him into a city’s back-alley in late afternoon. He kept running, faster than any software engineer could or should, all the way through town to his apartment, and inside a closet at its rear. He cowered there in fear, terrified into sleep atop his hugged knees.

He was awoken by heavy knocks on the door that pestered him incessantly. He crept from the closet, hugged the walls along the bedroom, inched out, then sprinted to the door’s peephole. A delivery-man stood on the other side with flowers and chocolates.

He cracked open the door, “Y-yes?”

“Delivery for R. Butler,” the man said casually.

“Wh-what is it? Who’s it from?”

“Cards in the flowers, sir, I just deliver ’em.” Butler hesitated, inched the door open enough for the delivery to slide through. The man passed through a tablet with a stylus, “Sign, please.”

Butler’s shaky hand scrawled a signature, passed it back. A moment later the door shut, the delivery on the kitchen table. Butler lifted the card that read, “Sorry about the torture. Schokolade mit Liebe, H.S.”

Butler’s eyes rolled back into his head as he passed out.

Bonus Short Story: Lake Morton

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The town of Morton, Indiana wasn’t backwoods hickville, but it wasn’t a paradise either. It didn’t have the population of places like Chicago or Indianapolis, or even their high-earning businesses or high-priced residences. It did however, have lake Morton; a four-and-a-half mile wide, twelve mile long, natural lake with all manner of beach houses and cottages along it. These weren’t the typical million-dollar beach-homes, but rather modest, meager places of refuge from the greater part of the world.

In winter, Lake Morton would freeze over deep enough to attract the ice fisherman, skaters, and cold-lovers alike. Conversely, summer brought the regular fisherman, boating enthusiasts, and more than a few getaway seekers that only wished to hide from the work-a-day world they came from.

Nowhere in the town profited more from this duality of attraction than downtown Morton. In the decades since post-World War II growth saw America’s great boons of all types, Morton had grown from a literal one-horse town to a full-functioning modern city with all the usual amenities. Where once there had been nothing more than plains, a few forests, and Lake Morton, now there were supermarkets, suburbs, and even a strip-mall or two. None of those things would’ve been possible if not for that duality; the lake brought the people, the people brought their money, and others followed.

The people of Morton were no different than the town itself, most of modest means that had somehow found a living working the pair of farms, the handful of businesses, or lake-related jobs seasonally and year-round. Some people became city officials, police or firefighters, or took jobs in the comparably small medical field, but it was important to their heritage that each of them care for the lake that had brought them so much fortune.

Enter a company– a small corporation, in fact– that wished to procure a plot of land on the outskirts of town. The CEO, a man in his mid-thirties, pressed and dressed, personally met with the municipal government officials to ensure the transition went smoothly. He wasn’t much different than any of the other types that found refuge on Lake Morton’s beaches. Sure, he had a sort of smart way about him that nearly exuded condescension, but so did most like him. None of them though, he included, ever made those they spoke to feel outwardly offended. The people in Morton just took them as “that kind” of folk.

So of course when the CEO offered them massive sums for the small plot of land, overvalued as a charitable donation, they took it– especially with the promise of more and more jobs to come. No-one was quite sure what the company did, but they knew it promised more stimulation and stability to the local economy. The paper-work was signed, ground was broken, and the small, five-story corporate office was built in less than a month.

Truthfully, it was a kind of an eye-sore on the well-known horizon of low shop-fronts and trees, with only their one, tall hospital to rise above them. Even so, the people couldn’t help but welcome the corporation with open arms. The CEO had promised wealth, more neighbors, and with them, the expansion of Morton’s downtown district and economy. It was a sort of kindness the CEO had granted them, and if Morton’s people were anything, it was grateful for their “blessings.”

The first whispers of something wrong came from fringe-folk learning about the company’s work. It was called Dump-Corp, a waste-management purveyor rented out by large cities when their own, governmental waste-management couldn’t handle their trash-loads. The regular people thought the fringe-folk were out of their minds to be suspicious. Everyone needed to rid themselves of trash, and it wasn’t difficult to understand the need for a company to help.

And it wasn’t as if they were dumping garbage in Morton. The town was, and always had been, clean and well cared for. It was their civic duty, civic-pride even, to keep Morton the getaway-refuge it had always been. Unfortunately, all the goodwill in the world couldn’t change the trucks that started appearing on the highways just outside town. It wasn’t long before the fringe-folk gave the rest a big “told ‘ya so.”

Still, the trucks didn’t mean anything, and in fact the CEO made a very public presentation to keep the people calm, tell them everything was alright, and that those trucks were just driving a caravan of trash to a land-fill a few towns over. That seemed to work for most people, but the fringe-folk weren’t satisfied. They kept their eyes, ears, noses too, sharp for danger or treachery.

The first signs– or rather, scents– of something seriously wrong came the summer after Dump-Corp’s office opened. There was an unusual influx of people that summer, drawn by the advertising campaign the city could now afford. All the same, that influx only helped to spread later rumors.

It was with a swift wind that kicked up from the South-East that people finally began to see the error of their ways. The scent of trash was so foul it burned their nostrils, made more than a few people retch from bile spurred from their guts.

It was quickly discovered the “land-fill” a few towns over was actually only a few miles away– where county and city-lines converged in a kind of dead zone for several towns. Morton was one of them. That time of the summer, those southern winds always seemed to kick up and through that dead-zone.

But who could’ve known that? Even that CEO couldn’t have. No-one could have anticipated that a freak occurrence of nature that most took for granted would shift the winds at precisely the wrong time– and in precisely the worst direction– to rocket the stench of countless people’s refuse over the natural lake and the town it served.

The next few events happened almost so fast there was no time between to realize it. Someone had left a warning on a travel-review website for Morton about the stench. Then others added their comments and warnings. People pulled their reservations left and right, and in less than a week, Morton’s summer was ruined. Without their main source of income the people panicked– both residents and government officials.

Once more the CEO came to the rescue though, only everyone was so busy being scared they didn’t realize the grand plan he had in the works. When someone on the city-council signed a new agreement with the company, the others followed without thinking or reading it. Half weren’t even sure what had been promised to them, the other half didn’t care to know, they only cared to fix the town. With a final, billowy stench, Lake Morton was simultaneously drained and filled with trash.

Most headed for the hills, took the losses on their once well-valued homes just to escape the stench. The rest shook their heads and plugged their noses and tried to trudge on through life despite the muck. Together, they knew the truth; that the lake had always provided for them. Even now, it is adulterated form, it does just that.

In less than a year, the people of Morton learned not only the value of kindness, but also prudence. They lost their way in an odorous panic that escaped no-one, and when they weren’t sure what to do, they closed their eyes and made a leap of faith– right into a corporate mound of trash.

Short Story: Sprawl Life

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

They strolled down one of the sprawl’s side-streets. It was a typical city image; neon signs and LED billboards atop shades of gray that afflicted your teeth with the tastes of grit, gravel and sand. Her natural, left arm was linked in his right, cybernetic one. He’d elected to have it to harness the advanced tech and its strength. He was already built like a Mack truck, and hit like one too, but the fresh chrome and carbon fiber completed the look. Taking the street-name Mack didn’t hurt either.

Conversely, she looked as intimidating as the moniker she’d taken on. Rabbit wasn’t sure whether she loved or hated Mack, but walked arm in arm with him all the same. She did it with a saunter that accented a tight ass in even tighter leather pants. They matched Mack’s leather biker jacket, its chrome zippers identical to the glints of silver in her nose, lip, and ears. The only thing that made them stick out like a sore thumb was Rabbit’s hair; shaved clean on one side with the other a wave of bangs and electric-blue.

A few cars whizzed past spewing exhaust– old, manual things. The new auto vehicles weren’t common around these parts, unless you counted vans with massive corp-logos emblazoned on their sides. Corps or cops, same problem in a different wrapper.

Rabbit steered Mack into a diner. It was as ancient as the waitress that came to take their order. The owner seemed to have made it a point not to let the place get cleaned. It had a retro, 1950s feel, beneath a layer of vintage dirt and grime worse than the street’s.

Mack stared out a window from a booth while they waited for their bacon and eggs. The place may’ve been a pit, but it was one of the few that could still get their hands on the real thing. Rabbit had even speculated the owner raised and slaughtered his own pigs. Judging by the floors and walls, it wasn’t that wild a theory.

Outside the sun peeked through deep, dark clouds, then immediately hid away again. The first of the rain came down immediately after. Buckets poured beneath their mutual silence. It wasn’t for lack of words, but rather protection form the hellish hangovers they both had. Any sound made their heads echo like chasms. Only the place’s paint-thinning coffee could force away the pain. At least usually anyhow, today seemed like a different story.

Rabbit was half-way through her second cup when she realized something about the day was off. It was one of those gut-feelings that said it was best to crawl back into bed, pull the mylar covers over her head, and hide.

She couldn’t though. There was a lot to be done. She’d probably see the sunrise again before it was all over– or at least what counted for one. Sprawl-life was like that, there wasn’t sun, just smog and rain. Even if there had been sun, she still wouldn’t see it beyond the sporadic times she ended up in the diner, with or without Mack.

Once breakfast was finished, the waitress ambled over with her aged gait, poured one last cup of coffee for each of them. She tore the check from a yellowed pad, slid it across the table, and returned to the bar-counter across the diner. The woman stood sentinel at the register, unmoving until Rabbit approached moments later, one cup of coffee fuller. She waved a USB stick over the RF reader, verified her various bank account details. The reader was old enough to have retained a debit card slot, but read the cred-stick without hassle. Bit currency was a God-send, especially for miscreants like her.

Mack met her at the door. They stepped out to smoke. Rain still poured down, splattered their sneakers as they nestled against the building’s front beneath its awning. Rabbit deliberately leaned against the “no smoking within 8 feet” sign, and let the rain draw her mind along with its polyrhythms. There was a definite sprawl-way to the rain. It wasn’t like in the rural areas– if there technically were any anymore– the wind didn’t hit the city the same way so the rain developed its own way of falling. It always seemed to have polyrhythms and rests with distant, syncopated drumming behind it.

Rabbit sympathized. Life here was all about falling gracefully, hitting the ground as softly as possible, or with both feet and running, whichever was needed.

An old-era Ford thundered to a squealing stop in front of them. Three guys got out, tatted up where they weren’t gleaming with chrome, carbon-fiber, or leather. Rabbit and Mack both watched the last guy in line, who walked with a stiff, left, cyber-arm against an otherwise billowing trench-coat.

The three guys passed Rabbit and Mack without a second look, stepped inside. The two exchanged a glance. They didn’t need the still-running Ford to tell them what was going on. Rabbit gave a heavy sigh, and pulled open the door in dejection. Mack rolled his eyes, stepped in ahead of her.

The moron with the stiff arm now had both locked before him with a sawed-off boomer in them. He shouted at the old lady whom hurriedly transferred creds to a stick in the register.

“Alright,” Mack said with a grim scowl. “Who’s first?”

The guy with the shotgun kept aimed on the woman. One of the other morons spun ’round with an S&W .44 aimed for Mack’s head.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Rabbit warned. “Give the old lay back her cash while you’re at it.”

“The fuck you say blue?” The third moron demanded. He swiveled with a 1911 in-hand.

Rabbit gave Mack a look, then heaved another, colossal sigh, “Alright. Fine. Have it your way.”

Before they could react, Rabbit had the shotgunner on the ground, boomer in hand. She gave a heavy, booted kick to the guy’s head, aimed for the guy with the 1911. Mack unleashed his semi-truck force with a lunge, knocked the S&W wielder out cold. Mack wasn’t sure, but he might’ve given his brain a jolt; blood leaked from an ear and a nostril.

The third guy shook a little. His hand swayed. Rabbit shook her head. His eyes darted between her and Mack. His finger tapped the trigger. The sawed-off boomed. He was dead on the ground, half his guts missing, before he squeezed.

A stray round hit an overhead tile, buit Rabbit tossed Mack the sawed-off, retrieved the two pistols from the dead morons. She nodded to the old lady who’d fallen into a chair behind the counter, shaking and hoping to recover her wits.

“For next time,” Rabbit said casually, sliding the 1911 across the counter. “See you.”

She and Mack left nonchalantly. There was too much to do to hang around. It was all just another day of sprawl-life, nothing special– even if it was her birthday.

Bonus Short Story: E.R.V.

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The Extended-Living Habitat Research Vessel was a mouthful to most people that heard or read about it. Colloquially it became known as Erv (like Irvine), for obvious reasons. However loquaciously challenging, it was also the most state-of-the-art aquatic research vessel ever built. It was, for all intents and purposes, a floating skyscraper. It extended a Kilometer into the air and equally as much into the sea.

To the distant observer, it appeared as a hilted sword, point-up, on the horizon. It even shined as one from the solar-cells along its upper-half. The glint of glass from apartments was only barely visible between the cells that supplied power to its nearly two-kilometers of various facilities and dwellings.

The hilted shape, more a bulbous, closed ring than anything, formed the sections necessary for navigation while just beneath the surface, at its stern, arrays of hybrid magneto-hydro-dynamic engines were its propulsion. That is to say, giant, jet-like turbines that served as both engines (by means controlled of electrical charges from induced from salt-water conductivity over magnetically charged plates), as well as power generation.

It was the greatest achievement in maritime engineering since the first, primitive submarine was put into commission and helped create the first modern, Navy. Erv was designed and manufactured with a specific purpose in mind; to harness the power and neglected space of the ocean for marine research and relief of overburdened, land-based cities. Erv was more than a strangely-shaped ship with fancy new technology, it was Humanity’s next, greatest hope.

Farming the oceans with massive nets, as well as fostering marine-animal husbandry through special containment areas in the hilt, no-one aboard wanted for food. Between that and its advanced power-collection systems, ERV was practically self-sustaining, would required only the occasional re-stock of certain, mechanical parts that could not be repaired nor recreated aboard. Eventually, even that was possible– in addition to extensive hydroponics and aeroponics centers aboard, the more than a thousand people living and working there were given an immense catalog of manufacturing abilities. The helm of this massive sword bobbing along the water was a forward section of the bulbous ring-like hilt. Its bridge was a technophile’s wet-dream. Every known form of navigational, computational, and long-range transmitter known to man occupied. Arrays of antennae atop the hilt connected the ship with all facets of modern living– from NOAA weather monitoring satellites in orbit to satellite television and internet. More-over, it’s own, personal system of satellites– built in anticipation of wide-spread deployment of Erv-like vessels– tracked and aided its navigational computers with nearly-autonomous, pin-point precision. All that was necessary was to plot a course, enter it into the nav-systems, then let it run.

With two “kims” of height, the only thing Erv couldn’t do was enter shallow water or win speed races. What it could do was accept and dock with ferries, and once finished, other Erv-class vessels. A series of retractable piers and docks were easily unfolded, anchored to the lower hull for stability. With Erv’s necessary strength, it was possible to form a make-shift port that held true in even the worst seas.
The upper-half of the sword was a composition of modern residences comfortably sandwiched around one another. Its lower-half, a series of labs, offices, farms, and other specialized sections allowed its crew to partake in anything from recreation to medical check-ups in the necessary, hospital-like infirmary level.

The first “test” of Erv was to stand a pre-determined length of time against the elements. In that it excelled. With every storm that came and went, it never faltered. Due to its size and stabilized shape, it was impossible to topple regardless of the category of dangerous hurricanes. Tsunamis only barely registered and merely required its docks remain folded. It was a sword in the proverbial master’s hands, ever-balanced and unyielding.

The Second Erv-class vessel was completed shortly after the first finished its last test; a live-scenario that simulated an extended loss of communications and sat-guidance equipment. Though carefully monitored, Erv-1 had been at sea long enough that the people aboard were confident in fending for themselves. The fully-functioning agriculture and live-stock programs allowed the crew no limit to rations. Moreover, due to the advanced navigational-systems aboard, the loss of satellites only required good, old-fashioned mathematics and active sonar to keep them sailing unhindered.

ERV-2 was put through its paces shortly after contact between ERV-1 and land was re-established. The only test left for the former vessel after a time was to dock with ERV-2 once it survived its extended comm-blackout tests. As expected, ERV-2’s performance was flawless, and like its predecessor, became fully autonomous when lost by land.

The docking of ERVs 1 and 2 was equally successful. Having then been at sea near five years, ERV-1’s crew was happy to be joined at the hip by her sister and its new people. After establishing their tether and linking their docks, they formed a two-pointed palace on the ocean with a harbor between them. Able to now share their crews and foods equally, a kind of specified niche-market began on ERV-2. By scaling back its agriculture focus, with ERV-1 in turn ramping up its own, the two ships were able to compliment one another in both crew and utilization.

ERV-3 and ERV-4 were finished only months later, the construction process now stream-lined. Having been the prototype, ERV-1 required a quick retro-fit and re-calibration of its navigational systems before it could be considered on-par with the slightly newer tech in the second-gen vessels. Before long, all four ERVs were linked to form a half-moon joined only months later by four more, new vessels known as ERVs 5-8.

Together, the vessels formed a massive ring of swords. At a distance, they appeared as streaks of light emanating orb-like energy-bolts beneath. Due to the increased demand for space aboard the existing vessels, and the growing need for more housing on land, a third generation of ERVs were constructed all at once. These eight further vessels broke water only to link with and beside the first series.

It wasn’t long before the ERVs took over the ocean. They formed an inter-connected metropolis complete with streets and walk-ways that dominated the outer areas and allowed for easy traversal across the massive sprawls of ships. Before people realized it, they no-longer felt themselves as crews of ships, but rather citizens of the first, fully-aquatic city. Like Erv-1, these settlers broke-ground to become something Humanity could look upon fondly.

Even today, decades later, newer ERVs are under construction and the sea is on its way to being harnessed to its full-potential. Millions dwell in the metros created by the interlinked ships. Millions more still await their place aboard the cities to come.

With a silent reverie, it seems, the collective wisdom of Humanity has allowed them to once more brave a new-world and thrive. Like ERV-1, those water-dwellers were the first generation of a new class of being; aquanauts who knew first-hand the beauty of the sea in all of its gentle, fierce, and life-giving forms, and embraced it as home.