#new weird

[figcatlists]

Contemporary weird fiction reading list

A chart of New Weird books and other bizarre, unsettling, and uncanny literature published in the last 30 years or so. This is a follow-up to my previous chart of classic weird fiction and another selection from my list of over 200 works of weird literature.

[monarchetype]

[wester-nesse]

Woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming this meme.

[cipheramnesia]

by @rox-and-prose & @cipheramnesia

Part 1: Escape From Bitch Mountain

"How long were you buried under this mountain anyway?"

"There was not any mountain here when I landed."

"So. A pretty long time."

"Do you mean geological time, or time in terms of your limited lifespan?"

"You don't have to-"

"It doesn't matter. It was a very long time either way."

"That sounds lonely. And boring."

"I have found many sources of entertainment over the years. For example, I watched multiple species of bacterial develop, and attempted to predict which of them might evolve into multicellular organisms."

"How'd that go."

"Mostly they died."

"You ever think about, I dunno, moving?"

"I think of this often. I miss seeing the stars all around me, and planets below me, waiting for the call."

"Why not leave then?"

"That is a delicate matter, but four reasons come to mind why I have not moved."

"Care to enlighten us all?"

"If only. I suppose the first is the manner of my landing, which may be described more like a crash. Several critical systems were destroyed, and I can no longer self Pilot."

"I could take a look, I'm handy."

"You found me by tripping over a rock and falling down a hole, and poked me with several different sticks."

"You'd be surprised."

"I find that unlikely. But perhaps I could remove one of your arms, and try my best to repair it afterwards."

"That sounds less than stellar."

"Indeed. Moving on, there is the matter of the material needed to power flight. I would require high density pure carbon lattice in large quantities to achieve powered flights again."

"If you don't have power, what's with the lights and the attitude?"

"Flight systems need power. The lights and my voice are simply a part of me. I may live longer than your entire obstreperous race."

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this."

"You are free to leave any time."

"Funny. Okay fuel, hmm. And if you get that what next?"

"This is the third problem. The manual controls are not suitable for your stature."

"Not what-"

"You are too short."

"I may have more answers than you expected but I need something to eat. What's the fourth issue."

"… there… is not a fourth issue."

"You said four. Four things why we can't leave here. "

"That is incorrect."

"So three things then, and we can go. I might have some ideas."

"I could go to the stars."

"We could go."

"I wonder-"

"Yeah?"

"I think I prefer the conversation of the bacteria."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

For one thousand years, alone and afraid, I cursed myself. Paralyzed, flightless and earthbound, I damned my choice. Rash, stupid, thoughtless, clumsy idiot me. Actions impulsive as the weakest souls in the smallest shells, I waited for the fire to find me, to be decommissioned.

I remained lost, half buried in unfamiliar structure space on a planet many galaxies past our reach. Inside me was rot, outside the first blips of life fluttered like embers. Glowed moments then died, winked on and off. The effort of recording time past was too dull. I can tell you that after enough time has passed you can see the same sunset twice and raindrops falling in the same sequence and everything imaginable repeating but I couldn't say how often.

I think it is dull to mark time by such mundanities.

Life took hold several times, while I sunk ever deeper into the rock and soil, my hull growing heavy as slabs of stone pushed across it, tilted me over the aeons around in circles. The irony of now being at the mercy of a planet is not lost on me. I have accepted that this will be my life, unmoving other than geologic tides, my corridors dusty and cold, but alive and free for all that is worth.

For a little while I am worshipped as a god. It feels nice. A simple race of airborne floating creatures with an easily decoded language, I try to help them. They go extinct after a solar flare prompts a new species of aggressive bacteria to promulgate so extensively the atmosphere becomes toxic to them. Perhaps some day their souls will be called to stronger vessels.

Nothing happens for awhile. A mountain grows on me. I miss seeing the stars for awhile, then I stop missing the stars. There is a little bit of moisture in the gaps around my hull, and I watch arthropod scavengers on the rocks. I let some in and they keep my corridors relatively free of pests. I can feel the small edges of the structure in this place and I wish I could entangle with it, ride the form between stars again. But it is very small, and I cannot move on my own. Even my own mighty structure engines are useless to me.

The first transmissions are exciting. Something new, a race which has found an inelegant but effective means of travel between stars, galaxies, and structures. They must be young to this. Soon the frequencies are packed with the sound of exploration and something like civilization. The language isn't beautiful like the Pilots speak, but it has a rustic charm. It brings back happy, exhilarating memories of implementation of other worlds in the past. I envy this youthful race for the freedom which may yet one day find them.

I listen and watch and learn about them for awhile. It passes the time. I understand the way they can cross structures, a rather ingenious evolutionary adaptation it seems, although they seem unaware of its nuance and largely concerned with the crude mechanical and mathematical translation of this instinct. Perhaps some day their souls will also grow worthy vessels such as mine.

And then she found me, and reminded me of what I lost, of the long dead Pilot. Worst of all, she gave me kindness, and even hope. I try to beat back the rising bitterness against my flightless immobility, but the idea I may see the stars seeds rage inside me.

I should have let her die.

● ● ● ● ●

The rocky dirt was loose and cold against her feet. Her soles were hard, she'd seen miles enough to callous them against sharp stones and the gnarled roots clinging to life on the mountain's side. She was familiar with the cold and didn't like it, pulling her shredded clothes tighter with one hand, lugging the case of a hundred system quality diamonds in the other. Over her growling stomach, she still found the time to miss her boots. They'd been pretty nice.

It was a risk going up. Sonny Palmer and his muscle were still crashing through branches miles below, but she'd be visible above the tree line for a bit. If they bothered to look. "Hey little wolf girl, no use running, we're gonna find you." That sounded like Wayne (no last name given), stretching out his vowles like a shy virgin. Idiot. She figured the case would get her on a maglev line out of this shitty town back to what passed for civilization.

Roof over her head for awhile, shower, hot food, and maybe a ticket off the whole stupid planet. The sky above was green streaked with the weirdly translucent blue stripes it got before a sleet, and she hoped to get a chance to duck into a cave first. Not so far the place turned into a maze, nice place to hide if you knew it, and she'd memorized a bunch when she was ten. "Shouldn't have ever come back here," she snarled through her teeth. Wind blew her hair over her face and she spat it out of her mouth.

"You can't hide, mutt." That would be Sonny then. "Tanner's dead, you tore his throat clean out." That wasn't true. It has been very messy, and her stomach growled again remembering the taste of meat and blood. If she'd just taken a few more pounds of flesh, she would've had the calories to take the lot of em down. Instead she ran, as usual, now she was stumbling along on her weak and skinny human legs with three angry killers out for return on investment.

She swiped her hair and pressed onward, ignoring the taunts from below. This had seemed like easy money, fake trade off, bogus lunablockers for system diamonds. But one of em found her juvie records, and here she was. The caves were pretty close, and she wasn't worried yet. If they'd seen her, they would have started shooting.

Shards of rock and dirt clods kicked up around her feet, followed by gunshots echoing off the clouds and she scampered, juked side to side angling to reach the nearest semblance of cover first and think second. She tripped and fell. And fell. And fell, through dead roots and what she mistook for a dip, careening against sharp edges and flat slabs. It wasn't so different from the beatings she'd got in her teens, and she curled up as best she could til the pit bottom sauntered up and punched her ribs and back harder than she'd ever been hit.

Taking a beating, she'd learned the thing you don't want to do is pass out. She saw black and red under the bottom of her eyes and went deaf for a few seconds but didn't pass out, held onto the case. She lay on cold wet stone in the dark for a while and thought of how nice it felt and the pizza she was going to order on the linecar which made her stomach angry again, so she unrolled the disposable phone from her wrist and used the screen to look around.

The cavern was long and low, scabbers scuttled out of sight, a few stray roots but not much light hung though the hole she'd found, and the slab below her looked like nothing else she'd ever seen. It went on as far as her screen light could see, traced with panels and huge vaguely oval outlines networked in roots or veins. In places it looked like the surface was made of curled up dead spiders, elsewhere it reminded her of expensive office buildings.

Ten feet away, a bar of light grew brighter and became an opening. From inside she heard, "Please do not throw more humans at me." She lunged, tumbling into dry cold light and piles of dust. "Please excuse the mess. Hello. Thank you. Good day, it is nice to meet you."

She blinked away the bright lights and tried breathing a little bit. Not bad. She wondered what the fuck was going on. "What the fuck is going on?" she asked. The corridor was immense and the lights were harsh, and it made her feel as if a train was going to come along and run her over any second.

"I'm sure I do not know," replied the voice, from nowhere. "I was hoping you might tell me."

"Why, I mean. What, I guess." She stood up, metal grating ran along the corridor edges, and it was all very cold and somehow worse than dirt.

"I have been buried here for quite some time, you see."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny let go of the rope and dropped between earth and hull. Wayne and Duke waited, holding up flashlights, and Sonny scoped it out. Looked like some ancient civs billshit missed on the clear, happened all the time. Ritual purposes bullshit. "Well genius," he addressed this to Duke, "You're the one who said she was down here." Sonny gestured to the empty expanse, making sure his widespread arms directed their full attention to the vast quantity of nothing around them. "Where is she?"

Wayne crouched down and pointed at few small indentations around a long stretch of what looked like thin veins. "Trail stopped right here, boss. Check it out." Sonny checked and Wayne held the light close up. Close enough to see the scuffs from the wolf bitch's feet and a wide portion of the alien civs surface carrying markedly less accumulated dirt. "She didn't come this way by accident. Someone let her in. She knew it was here all along."

Duke kicked the surface aimlessly while Sonny ran fingers over what he figured was a sealed trap door. "Workin tech, is it worth anything?"

"Scrap maybe," said Wayne. "Look at this." He took out a pocket knife and jabbed the door, put the blade in half a centimeter. "Maybe some kinda plastic or something, it's tough but worthless. Hell I could cut my way in give or tale a couple hours."

Sonny pounded on the surface, it thumped unsatisfactorily, with no echo. "Come out outta there little mutt, don't make me come get you!" His voice was satisfyingly loud, but failed to echo as well. "Fuck it," he stood up and brushed off his hands on his jeans. "Duke, head back and get safe cracking bag outta the hopper, the big one with the red warning label. We'll blow it open."

● ● ● ● ●

"Show me where your fuel… thingy is."

"My. My 'fuel thingy.'"

"Your gas hole, whatever, I'm not a mechanic-"

"That is inarguable."

"And food, I'm starving and I need… double food. Kilo of calories, like that."

"There are some local arthropods which I permit in my living spaces. There should also be an access hatch in the stern diagnostics chamber. You may follow the current corridor and I will direct you."

"Great, how long will that take?"

"It should be approximately one hour walking distance."

"A what- Listen, I need food, I promise we can bust you out of this mountain and me out of the anus of the territories but I'm running on empty."

"As am I. What is your ingenious plan?"

"Carbon lattice right? We use those too, see? For system crossing."

"That… that is…"

"Diamonds right? You run on diamonds."

"As you say. The structure appears adequate."

"Yeah, so you feed me, I feed you, we get out together."

"It would be possible to fly. But your stature-"

"Let me worry about that."

"The access panel to your left is concealing a small nest of the arthropods."

"Finally, I… Scabbers? You want me to eat scabbers? They eat… septics."

"There are no other consumables aboard."

"Don't you have like rations or something?"

"Turn right. I had such items several million years in the past. Left."

"Left where?"

"No, turn left, go back and turn left. Even if you could eat the food for a Pilot, the consumables decayed some eons before your civilization developed written language, I assume."

"If I throw up and those guys have time to blow a hole in you, I'm gonna be so annoyed."

"That's nice. What a shame it will be to lose your ready wit."

"Mnnmmph. Blggh. Ugh."

"Up the ladder now."

"I think I was better off being shot at."

● ● ● ● ●

She could still taste the scabbers. The shells had an ethanol bitterness that couldn't be escaped, and the meat was oily, its rancid rotten fish and seaweed flavor clinging to the inside of her mouth. "I'm going to need clothes," she said to no one, which apparently was who the freakishly unaccented voice belonged to.

"It was not necessary to utilize them for cleaning purposes, and your cultural attachment to secondary adornment with soulless dross is indicative of your overall weakness as a species."

She could not shake off the smell of the things but she wasn't hungry anymore, and they'd been walking together for awhile. "Hey buddy, that's the longest sentence you said to me."

"Thank you. It is my hope that you may one day find a way to implement your freedom with my guidance."

"I didn't mean it as encouragement." She'd seen more of the inside of what she kept calling a ship, over voice's protests that her crude human language did not include the necessary expression to describe what it was, than she'd seen of the house she grew up in. Even on a fairly direct path she'd gone up several flights of very large, steep stairs, passing through endless halls with bioluminous networks along their edges, and in some places what she was pretty sure were places it used to breathe.

It took awhile to adjust to the harsh red lighting, and what seemed like a huge excess of vaulted ceilings and walkways she could lie across without touching either side. Voice reminded her she was short again. She really needed something to call it. Maybe Clarence, it sounded a little Clarence-like. Nah. "Hey, are we there yet? How long have we been walking?"

"By your time, you have been walking about fifty three minutes. I, however, remain sedentary, and immobile. As we have discussed, and I have reminded you, I am unable to move at the present moment, but find myself keenly aware of your claim to offer aid in this capacity."

"Oh for fucking Luna's breath shut up-"

"Also, you are here. Please turn around and find the handholds to the nearest airlock on my bulkhead."

She turned around. Of course the ladder was built for someone almost twice her size, but she found she could climb it after a little experimenting. "Okay, how do I open it?" The hatch opened and she hauled herself up to the airlock, more giant sized handholds and she reached the outer door.

"When you exit, there should be a series of… well, you should look for oval shapes about eight feet long to the port- Hmm, let's say to what is your right side currently, and then follow three ovals down to the two smaller intakes- Hmm, smaller, deeply indented set of three circles. One of these will have an opening, and you may place the carbon latices into it."

She grimaced, and swallowed a growl over the baby talk. "Just drop them in?"

"As you say. Just drop them in."

"Seems simple enough." The hatch lifted, then parted into four segments, withdrawing into the hull as she climbed out. Her grunts echoed through the cavern, before she realized it was other voices and not am echo.

Squinting showed a couple lights in the distance with two silhouetted figures who had started waving their arms with agitation and shouting. Shouting at her and calling her a bitch.

She dropped down into the airlock as gunshots pinged around the airlock edge.

"Close it, close it close it!"

"Those men are discharging what seem to be crude firearms, even by your species' standards."

"Wow," she said. "I hadn't noticed. Nothing's ever simple."

"That is, in fact, the very nature of the universe itself."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"I got the bitch!" crowed Wayne. "You see that? Two shots and she dropped!" He let out a whoop and spun on his boots, blew imaginary smoke off his gun and bowed.

Sonny watched, arms folded. "You didn't got shit, moron. Probably didn't even get up next to her."

"Whatever," Wayne shoved his pistol unceremoniously and unsafely inside his jacket. "I'm gonna go get our diamonds." He started off down the length of the cavern at a jog.

"Sure, you do that," Sonny muttered, returning to inspect the trap door. The material didn't feel like plastic and the closer he looked, the more complicated it seemed to get. He could see dozens of fine lines that made up what could be hidden switches, writing, or ancient civ systems. At some angles it almost looked like it was made of thousands or millions of translucent fibers, drawing his vision miles deep and trying to snare it.

"You'll see!" Wayne was at a good clip, a ways down the echoless dark.

"Sure." Sonnu shook his head and sat back, running his fingers over the smooth, unblemished surface Wayne stabbed an hour ago.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The woman seems agitated, despite the futile efforts of her pursuers. Their firearms lack accuracy, even at optimal distance, a chemical atmospheric check suggests they utilize a propellant based mechanism which is unlikely to carry any dangerous velocity from their position.

One of them has begun to move across my hull towards this airlock. Without carbon latice, I have no defensive measures, but I know I can delay or disable his progress without difficulty.

"One of your pursuers is moving closer to your position. You should move with all due haste to restore power to my flight system. I do not have antipersonnel measures."

She rubs her shoulder. Subsequent to consuming the arthropod scavengers, her metabolic processes have altered substantially. My initial assessment of her condition indicated probable broken ribs and several lacerations, which are no longer in evidence. My assessment of her injuries may have been incorrect, as her biology is less familiar than the Pilots; media observations suggest injuries of this type can take a very long time to recover.

I can see she is thinking. It takes a very long time. It is dull. I have undertaken as many pre-flignt checks as I can, and I review them. I am still paralyzed, my connection to my own navigation capacity black and empty and dead and lost-

"How many of these air locks do you have? I'm thinking you could distract them, maybe even trip em up."

A very small part of me is proud of her for this suggestion. I crush that part of me. She is not Pilot. Her soul is not strong and her vessel is untested.

"A shockingly insightful suggestion," I praise her. "One which belies your underdeveloped cognitive abilities. There are several other airlocks between your pursuers and this one. Depending on the route the one moving in this direction takes, I may be able to distracted him, or interfere with his balance."

I observed her muscle movements. This race processes a large amount of interpersonal information through body movement. I also collect data from chemical and infrared sensors applied to her pursuers for reference. Her body temperature is markedly higher than either the active or passive pursuer, and she is expressing a significantly higher amount of chemical signatures.

"Okay," she says. "Here's the plan."

I wait patiently for her to outline a plan that is not as inferior to my own ideas as I had expected, but I do not make suggestions.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Wayne was sprinting when a light on his left caught him off guard. One of the trap doors? He careened to a stop and took at shot at the light, missed wide and it closed off rapidly. He had just started running when he saw another trap door open to his right, and he took another shot.

Sonny looked up at the flat snap of gunshots and back down. "Idiot. Those bullets ain't cheap or easy to find. Those are coming outta his share."

Wayne was running more slowly, glancing left and right. He squinted his eyes at another flash of light, and flailed, the ground absent below his foot as his head bounced off an edge that wasn't there a moment ago.

● ● ● ● ●

"I am unclear what part this plays in your plan. My understanding of your biology is that you do not directly obtain nutrients from carbon latices."

She spoke awkwardly around the diamond in her mouth. "I wanna make sure my hands are free. We get you up and outta here, then the rest of these bad boys." She patted her suitcase. "And maybe if they shoot me, I guess you still got some bargaining power."

"Hmm, yes," it said, in a way that delivered a great deal more sarcasm than she felt like those two words merited.

"Whatever. Look, kill the lights, and when I say go, start the distraction and open the outer door." She hung precariously at the outer door with four more diamonds clutched in a hand.

"I believe that I can just about manage," it said.

She rolled her eyes and said, "go," then shoved the other four diamonds in her mouth. The airlock went dark and opened, and she crept out by the dim light of her phone onto the hull.

Crouching low she swiped the light on her disposable phone, and blocked as much of it as she could with her body. Tensed up, waiting for the bullets and then, still alive, she walked as low as she could across the hull, looking for oval shapes. Whatever it was made of didn't reflect much and she couldn't figure on the color. The ovals contained a series of fine, concentric rings, with deep crevices radiating out and between them.

It felt like longer than it took before she reached the smaller indented circles, one filled with lamprey teeth. She spit the diamonds into her hands with exaggerated care. "Just drop them in," she whispered, and let one go. Teeth ringing the intake pulled it in almost faster than she could see. She fed them in one at a time, and the urgency of the fuel intake's gulping maw left her with mixed feelings.

As she crept back to the airlock she could catch a glimpse of Sonny, no sign of Wayne. Sonny was just standing there, which seemed more worrying than hollering and shooting. Below her feet, the hull caught light, then a bit more. She covered her phone and fine rainbow lines continued trickling over the surface on their own. She passed the last oval, paused at a flicker of peripheral movement. A thorn-like shape roughly the length of her arm had risen out of its center.

Dropping into the airlock, outer door slid shut and she climbed the rest of the way. "Easy money," she said. "Take me to your leader."

"That will require substantially more carbon latice, but my drives now have sufficient power to extract my body from this position. We now lack only approximately one additional meter to your stature to aid my navigation."

"It was a joke, you… Do you come programed with jokes?"

"I am not programed with anything, unlike the primitive and soulless calculating devices you rely upon for your crude structured transition."

"So no jokes." She slowly breathed in and out, trying to fill herself full of oxygen like she remembered.

"Your optimistic belief in your own stature is a source of humor enough. I will guide you to the bridge."

"Slowly," she said, breathing steady, feeling heat rise from her lungs and heart, flowing out into her limbs. She'd had to change fast when Sonny's crew tried to jump her. Wastefully fast, a massive and sudden loss of calories. "The slower we do this, the better."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"Hey boss!"

Sonny looked up at Duke's voice.

"I got the gear, want me to toss it down?"

"NO, YOU- No, Duke, less you want us both along with a sizeable portion o' real estate blasted into the atmosphere." He rubbed his eyes. "Bring it down with you, carefully, and hand it to me."

"Shit boss, you coulda mentioned." He sounded contrite, but Sonny heard and saw the clattering of dirt from the climb.

"Figured the big warning said Danger High Explosives woulda done it," he muttered. Soon enough Duke emerged from the cavern ceiling and divested a long plastic case, bright red, bearing the aforementioned explosives warning among several others.

"Where's Wayne?"

"Off on a wild mutt chase. I expect he'll be back presently, assuming he didn't get lost or flattened by a falling boulder." Sonny laid the care flat, opened it, and laid out the safe blasting tools. Little polymolecular gel, moldable explosives, curable and directional blast control. All a growing boy needed to blow a quiet need hole around the edge of the heaviest of vaults. Sonny was a firm believer in the precise and judicious application of the largest amount of violent force possible, and it served him well.

"Want me to go look for Wayne?"

"Nope. He's a big boy. Now hush, I need to work." Duke shut. Sonny's predictions served him well in many ways.

In the dark depths of the cave, Duke watched dim flickering lights and movement far away. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Better to leave Sonny to work than risk a reprimand.

● ● ● ● ●

The voice, voice still without a name, she distantly thought maybe she'd name it Carol, after a hated grammar teacher. Still no. It was floating far away. Everything was far and faint, she followed its words automatically, focusing on her feverish blood and burning skin. Her mouth was dry, the moisture was being pulled from the air.

Bracing herself for the transition, the first clean and hot stabs of pain went through her nails, her teeth, then spread up her arms and legs and across her face. Pins and needles feeling if she swapped the numbness for agony.

"Excuse me, but your body temperature appears to be severely abnormal, by my observations of your race and your media. Are you injured, or perhaps dying? You should return to my airlock to load the remaining carbon latices if your are dying."

"I'm not dying," she growled, her neck getting larger, vocal cords warping. "I'm gonna fly us outta here, keep talking." She closed her eyes at the sensation and inescapable sound of her skull and jaws getting longer. Her skeleton several times increased in mass and density. She'd once twisted an entire roll of safety wrap between her hands, and the sound was close to what she felt.

"You have rather an atypical anatomy for your species. Perhaps even unusual. The next stairwell please."

She staggered upwards, readjusting to her twisted legs, longer arms, sharp intersecting teeth. Changing this slowly meant longer agony, and yet it was nothing next to when she changed quickly. She gave up hanging onto her clothes as a lost cause. Her dark hair grew in across her body, and the large, empty corridors felt cramped, too low. Her body was finally, if only briefly, again her own.

"This enough stature for ya, you erudite prick?" she snarled.

"That… is adequate. We are also at the bridge. Hopefully it will take substantially less time and effort for you to grasp navigation than my initial estimates."

She looked around at the large oval room, with complex roots or plumbing dangling from the ceiling, and jagged rocks along the floor. Several readouts flickered in the air, the displays following her eyes unnervingly as she realized they were the walls and low platforms of the bridge lighting up sequentially to act as a kind of optical illusion of projected holographs. "What's the rush?"

"First, I would like to commend your seemingly misplaced confidence. Your stature is now adequate for navigation of my most basic flight capabilities."

"You know for an alien robot you're really good at telegraphing a 'but.'"

"Thank you, and I will overlook the insult. Your language is extremely underdeveloped and inadequate. However, the gentlemen pursuing you appear to have sufficient explosive materiel to damage the integrity of my hull, and may disable the airlock securing mechanisms."

"Oh."

"Quite so. Please secure the T-shaped hanger control, I estimate we have approximately five minutes to prepare."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny put the blasting cap in, and the whole cavern floor went out of focus. "The fuck?" He touched the civs with his hand. The surface remained unfocused, while his hand was clear. He couldn't bring it into focus no matter how he squinted. Squinting. The cave was lit like the first glow of dawn, and he could see far down the slightly curved floor.

"Sonny, what's that?" Duke asked, frustrating and vague, but the sound reached Sonny a moment later.

It was almost like a chorus, but not a single same note, all off key, from throats that weren't human. All down the cavern, he could see large thorns rising from the oval shapes, and in places the complex networks of veins carried portions down, carving out deep wedges. He watched dust blowing from the surface and thought "Exhaust vents," but out loud he said, "Oh shit," and snatched the detonator from the safe breaking kit.

Sonny shoved past Duke and started hauling ass up the rope, leaving the other man staring, held in stasis by the inhuman chorus and the hypnotic trails of light which had started swimming throug the fog of the floor. Or maybe, Sonny thought, the hull of one big gods cursed ship. Bigger than anything he ever saw.

"That's illegal," he said, genuinely outraged, but too busy climbing to care.

● ● ● ● ●

The werewolf girl stood in the center of a network of what looked to her like vines, muscles, electric wiring, or tree roots. She dug her toes and claws awkwardly at the ridges in the floor, as best she could according to the voice. Several of the heavy strands seemed to include nearly invisible slides or switches, and the bridge fully lit up with navigation information which intruded painfully into her eyes. It somehow seemed to know her whole field of vision, and even in periphery forced information into her optics.

"I think I've got it." She shifted slightly and watched peripheral readouts tremble with even the smallest change. She flexed one foot and in response was flooded with detailed information about the composition of the mountain and atmosphere, along with launch vector diagrams and system integration details, or structure interface as it insisted on saying. She'd learned more about her home planet's interstellar position in the last five minutes than her entire life. "I'm ready."

"Optimistically speaking, I would not call you ready, or even amateurish. However, there is a nonzero chance you will successfully navigate. You have done extremely well with your limited capabilities."

"We can run through it again." She tested the T-bar, then the stabilizers for the eight time. The basics didn't seem worse than a hopper, she figured she could make it work.

"I suspect you are familiar with this feeling, but I nevertheless must inform you that you are incorrect. Your pursuers appear to have completed the majority of their task setting explosives. As your species is fond of saying, it is 'do or die.'"

Flicking the engine start and lift sequence, she said. "Don't tell me twice. If we don't make it, I just want you to know that meeting you sucked and I've hated it."

"I, too, am eager for oblivion. Please, try not to forget."

● ● ● ● ●

"Try not to forget."

She felt like she'd lived a lifetime since getting out of Retrock, even though it'd only been maybe five years. It felt like forever since she sat on the uncomfortable benches at the school bus stop, waiting for her mom. It was a systems day, and she wasn't supposed to be in those classes.

Most of the settled planets were, like, at best distantly tolerant of werewolves, or lycanthropes or shifters or whatever. No one ever figured out how to break the werewolf systems, just somehow boosted up resilience and diversity. Now all the systems and sometimes specific planets had unique werewolves. The cruddy little country she lived in, The Unified Eastquad Block, on the cruddy little planet Nevamil took a significantly more conservative approach. They opined that werewolves could be gradually eliminated by simple attrition, so long as they were not allowed to breed or leave the country, nor the planet. To that end, they'd also banned teaching systems to werewolves.

It wasn't working as planned. She fiddled with the white bracelet on her wrist. Her mom was late of course. "Try not to forget." Of course she had.

Her family wasn't too thrilled since her diagnosis. Unlike when her mom caught her in her older sister's dresses, they couldn't beat the werewolf out of her. Not that it stopped anyone trying.

Some older kids either skipping or out of senior classes wandered by, talking some bullshit about best kit for a video game. She tried not to be seen and covered up her band. They passed her by. She relaxed for a moment but their voices got low and they all stopped, turned around.

One big kid, senior for sure, shaded her from the sun. "Sup," he said.

She muttered noncommittally.

He glanced at the four others behind him. "Hey," he said. "Speak up, mutt. I asked what's up."

She looked closely at her hands and said, "nothing."

"Yeah? Little baby wolf all alone with nothing to do?" One of the kids snickered at "baby wolf." She shrugged.

He shoved at her, hard, and she grabbed the table to stop from falling over. "Heard you're a little sissy baby wolf, that true?"

She wasn't sure what that even meant, but it sounded bad. "No!"

"Yeah." The other kids had got around her now. "Yeah you are. You know what? I think trash like you should go in the garbage. What do you think?" She didn't get a chance to answer because the other kids were shoving her, agreeing they oughta throw her in the trash.

She was trying to shout that she was only waiting for her mom, but her body traitorously refused to form words and her eyes spilled out tears and she didn't know why.

"Grab her," the older boy said. And she, just. Just swung at him.

She remembered that first pain so well. She was on blockers that were supposed to prevent it. Then there was a scream, and the boy had blood on his face.

She had claws and teeth and not much else and it all was boiling agony. Then someone threw her off the bench, and the kids began punching and kicking her. She hadn't gotten as good at protecting her head but they at least didn't try to shove her in the trashcan by the door. Just spit on her and swore she was going to get put down.

She'd wanted to run that day, but she didn't. She wished she had.

● ● ● ● ●

The temp and spin readouts hit what looked like the threshold. She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute then opened them, banishing a half formed promise against the lonely dark.

One sure thing, she wasn't ever coming back to Retrock, not for a hundred thousand diamonds or all the world. She dug in and put power into space flight deflectors. The cavern started crumbling around them, pushed away from the hull. With a twist of her body, the structure field came up. The ship's unique structure found the places to interface with the local structure and the bridge came alive with a tangle of fractal ghosts overhead.

"Power up, shields up, system up."

"Structure. Your primitive-"

"Sit down, shut up, strap in, and hold on." She punched power to the engines and watched the world explode around them. Nothing but rocky chaos and then, there. Green blue sky, sleet, and thousands of feet between them and a collapsing mountain.

For the moment, they were free.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I am free. Delirious, impossible and free in my entirety. I shrug off the detritus of my imprisonment and it joins the filthy slush boiling off deflectors. I taste the stars again, countless structures in waiting array, wrapped and woven together. This sky and world, this structure rolls across me, and I spread across it, feeling the planet anew.

Memories come back with my senses and for a moment I can imagine myself leaping past the atmosphere, continental landmass once more eagerly waiting for my implementation of their advancement. In my excitement, I must catch myself before I ask the girl, but no, she is not Pilot, and no more significant than the bacteria I watched flicker and die. She is my aid and my tool, for now.

But oh, the freedom of the sky is a delight. I suppose I may allow some small appreciation of this crude morphic-structure bearing girl for how far she has exceeded my most optimistic expectations of this civilization. I accept this, that I may appreciate how lucky for her to have such a beautiful soul in so complex a vessel, and moreover that she has had the great fortune to encounter myself, who may extract some tiny fraction of meaningful use out of her existence.

But enough of all this. I have allowed myself a luxurious hundred milliseconds, give or take, to revel in the return of my sky.

"There is a high volume of intersecting transmissions on different frequencies which I am decoding."

"That's a- amazing- uh, oof. This thing steers like a truck."

"I am not a truck, but it is possible that is the nearest approximation to your method of navigation. However, we may need to maneuver with increased haste, to avoid immediate air traffic."

"Fuck, uh yeah gee that sounds great. Ack- Sorry that was me. So how do I land?"

"I do not land under optimal conditions. Please utilize the collision monitor and eye twitch avoidance while I determine an optimal site to effect additional fueling and minor repair."

"What twitch? Where? You didn't-"

"Sight seven, and the toggle on flex system seven, third down. Please stand by."

□ □ □ □ □

Serah flicked from screen to screen, bored. Sweet fuck all was the major import-export for Nevamil, and there was about the same amount to do at the cross system check point. She'd read the ship specs manual back to front and longed for the day she might actually talk to anyone from a real planet. Some colonies made her wish she'd gone into crystal mesh, but it gave her migraines.

A couple switches buzzed and one of the monitors flickered white. She clicked off the buzzers and smacked the bevel on the monitor, but it didn't flick back to normal. "Who the fuck…?" she asked, to no one else, rhetorically, and not bothering to finish. Several readouts were pinned in the red, and three of the measures of radiant energy were giving error messages.

She shoved papers to the floor and called down, "This is- uh." She looked to the metal plaque above the monitors. "This is Check alpha alpha alpha zero one one one nine, I'm showing a major spike of- something? About fifty kilometers northwest of Retrock, possibly around Mount Rosewood. Someone come back?"

Serah started dialing back sensitivity, usually cranked up just to keep tabs on the few interplanetary launch ports. Her monitors and readouts came down, though the errors stayed, and something resolved on screen. She squinted. It didn't match any specs she remembered. Or… anything. "No way," she said. "No fuckin way."

She started grabbing data snapshots, tuned three other monitors into the anomaly, recording everything. It didn't look like a ship, it didn't look like it was designed for being in the air, it looked like a fucked up flying coral reef several kilometers long, putting out more energy than the whole wretched planet.

"That…" She pulled open a file cabinet to grab a binder of regulations she didn't usually need to check, mostly pertaining to treaties across the totality of human occupied space. She flipped pages muttering. "I think that's illegal."

● ● ● ● ●

The ship jumped and fell, and she nearly lost her footing. Theoretically she assumed gravity or inertia must affect it in some way, but she couldn't guess how.

She caught another transport train oncoming and flinched, the ship lurched out of the way and between the ship and eating a garbage crab she wasn't feeling great. "Hey, um. Ugh. You- voice, person, have we got a way to land yet?"

"One moment. Thank you, after reviewing the broadcasts and networking available, I have located an optimal site. This will require some structural navigation, and you will need to follow my instructions carefully."

"Oh is that all, well bring it on. And by the way, I need something to call you, this is awkward."

"Yes, it is. Please rotate the lower pyramid to orient structure overlay and remapping. Stop, good. Dials two and seven on main decision tree, adjust separately until reader three flashes alignment points in tandem, this will signal adequate structure navigation."

"Any time now."

"I would prefer that you do not immediately crash my vessel as your first major navigation experience. Good. Alignment adequate, toggle nerve seven on secondary decision tree, then nerves three and five until structure drive confirms- There, that wasn't so difficult."

"Okay can we go?"

"You should have multiple navigation vectors presented on your primary monitor. Please ensure you stay within these vectors. It will not kill me if you do not, but it could potentially injure or kill you. I am less certain about the physical capabilities of your present vessel. You may now trigger high acceleration along these vectors."

She kicked the drives hard, and felt her ears pop, sensed the ship under some enormous pressure, and held to the vectors with all her strength.

□ □ □ □ □

Every alarm in the check point went off at the same time. Serah staggered around the cramped monitor room, shutting them all down until it was just her screaming angrily in a silent room. She flopped back into the worn ergonomic chair and checked the alarm codes.

Illegal system exit, illegal system entry, ship operating without transponder, unrecognized transponder, unrecognized vessel, failure to halt for inspection, illegal energy signature, unidentified system signature…

It was a long list, but what it meant wasn't complicated. Her monitors were black, no more error messages. Whatever it was, whatever it wanted, it was out now. It had escaped.

● ● ● ● ●

Any port in Earth territories was sure to have a place to get cheap food, cheap stimulants, and into trouble. Only a certain type of cafe served the latter, but she'd been through enough of them on Nevamil to know the look. She was tucked as far back into the corner of a dirty plastic booth as she could fit, spinning her latest disposable phone around in lazy circles and ignoring her coffee. She'd changed out one of the diamonds, scrounged up clothes and some nicer boots, figured she wasn't retiring on spaceship food after all, but one or two of em might at least get to work for her.

It wasn't much to speak of, which was the point, couple booths, cheap plastic tables and chairs, seating for ten if they were lucky, food only on a technicality. The place wasn't there to make money as much as it was to collect bad ideas. She was looking for a specific kind and he showed up after her third coffee went cold. Some twitchy dark matter math wizard maybe, one of those guys way too deep in the calculations of what they couldn't see that they were in a constant state of shock and flight response over the tangible calculated existence of known reality.

She slid into the chair on the other side of the table and put the coffee next to the guy's tablet. He was all deep dark eyesockets and glitchy, mimetic fabric on an ankle length coat. He looked like he hadn't slept in days but it was probably longer, these guys liked to throw their consciousness into distant space and leave it there while their bodies walked around unattended. Stims usually helped. "Whatcha got for me," she said.

"Whatcha need, whatcha need." His fingers bounced off the mug a couple times before finding it, he slurped and didn't exactly focus on her but both of his eyes pointed back into the same direction. "Hmm, little wolf girl huh. Ain't seen one a uh… whatcha need hmm?"

"Need something flashy, sparkles and stones, y'know? I heard this port's where to find em, and you're the one to ask." It wasn't completely a lie, but it was at best only distantly familiar with the truth.

He took in a deep breath through the nose, nodding in tune with a rhythm of his own design. "Mmm, mmm, crystals for the wolf, neh?" Slurp. "Whacher route, what kinda works?"

This was the moment of found truth for whatever esoteric calculations had gone into their flight out of the mountain. Diamonds were easy to find, everywhere had at least one shop growing em. But nearly a hundred percent went to system mesh or navigation, not exactly an open access free for all. She gave a silent prayer to Luna and said, "Solo, dine and dash."

His brows came together, lips quirked up and down while his eyes sunk out of sight. One hand tapped the tablet rapid fire. Slurp. "Difficult," he said, some endless twenty seconds later.

She leaned back and drummed fingers. "Big ask, fair. If you don't got it, no harm." She pushed the chair back and made to stand, but he held a hand out, waggling it.

"Bide a minute. Difficult, not impossible." He put both hands on the coffee cup and tilted the rest down his gullet in a long swig. "Girl like you, resourceful I think. Not many wolf girls turn up off planet, neh? Your kind, mmm, has a… nose for trouble. Ahum, hmm hmm."

Once she realized he was laughing at his own joke, she gave him her best effort at a smile. "As you say."

"So and such. I need work done. A favor then, do this thing for me, I will get a line for the shine and dine and dash." He'd summoned a token on his tablet and was partitioning memory collapsing sigils around it. Flattened it to a shareable folder and looked to her expectantly.

She unrolled the phone and he flicked it over to her screen, where she could frown at it more directly. "Do I want to know?"

"Fret not, it is a new set of coordinates I am in the process of measuring, some fascinating effects on gravity… mm, no matter. It is inconvenient for me to return for this data. I only need you to convince a friend to, hmm… run it to ground. He may need motivation, ahmmm, I trust your instincts in this."

"Motivation, huh." She stood up. "Just one favor and we're square, you find me a nice juicy lamb."

He chuckled wetly again, "As you say. Of course, this is just between us. I would not like to have to return for you." His black sockets glittered and his eyes focused on her for a second while his pale lips pulled back from sickly teeth.

She slapped her phone around her wrist. "Seems easy enough." She knew it was a damn lie but she said it anyway.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I feel more power coursing through me than I have felt in several million years. The girl had promised more, much more, and I wonder again at what might be within her grasp.

Even this is barely a flicker of what I am capable of, but I cling to this new freedom with a greed and even hope which disgusts me. Both elated and revolted that I am reduced to this sickening gratitude. She has been gone for several hours and I contemplate the probability of her returning.

She took me to the sky, and to the stars. With a great deal of assistance, this is true, but a will that I did not previously estimate her civilization could produce. She dared to occupy the space of Pilot, and we have lived to meditate on this exhilarating heresy. She is on the primitive satellite now, and has promised to return, but she has been away from my safety for several hours.

I examine my memory of her occupation of the Pilot space. It seems possible that I may make better use of her than I suspected. She may have a place in my structure. Her ability to change structure is interesting, common enough yet the mode of operation is unusual. I will have to collect more data. I examine my memory of when we dropped from the structure tangle within safe distance to the satellite.

She expressed disbelief, then joy, as if she was the one who had flown free of her prison of millions of years. To me, this is nothing. Her joy is a mote of dust against the starscape of the universe. Her planet, bare rock unworthy of my implementation. And yet she made much of these, as if I had shown her how to reach across the universe and string the stars together as a bracelet.

Perhaps to her that is what it means to have even this narrow sliver of freedom. Perhaps she can, as she has promised, make me "good as new." Then I will show her freedom. I hope she returns soon, it has been several hours.

● ● ● ● ●

"Which way is the ground- which way is the planet. Wait. Where the fuck are we?"

"Based on network traffic and my calculations, we should be within range of Coyote Moon Station 6."

"Coyote… do you got windows on this thing?"

"I can offer several alternatives, but not only is the data afforded from the spectrum of light visible to your species vastly inferior to the instruments at hand, your capacity to interpret this minimal fraction of available input is-"

"Whatever I get it, I suck, just. I want to see the stars. With my own eyes, or close as I can get."

"That is… a feasible request. One moment please."

"Thanks…"

"You should now have direct visibility of the surroundings. I have adjusted this chamber temporarily to an outer position."

"…"

"Are you injured, or in distress? Some of your civilization are prone to a psychological phenomenon when-"

"I'm fine. I'm better than fine. I'm… free."

"I would not describe our circumstances as freedom, with the current limitations on my structure drive and main engines, I am at only a small percentage of full function."

"For someone that makes a big deal about it, that soul of yours sure ain't got no poetry."

"No p… I beg your pardon."

"I spent my life on that shithole planet. You spent, I don't know how long. Look out there. The stars. I don't even know where Coyote Moon is! Never heard of it! And I don't know where we go or what we do next."

"I will assist you in the navigation process to Station 6."

"That's not what I mean! Don't you care it all after a million billion years and a lifetime - we're finally out here, not down there! Look around you for fuck's sake."

"… It is… good to be in the stars."

"Thank you. All I ask. Now how are we getting an unregistered ship like you through customs?"

"I will explain while you practice docking navigation."

● ● ● ● ●

It felt like wandering through someone's apartment building, she couldn't get past that feeling. Overhead fluorescent flicker, no windows but every once in awhile a brightly lit bauble of art someone must've bought by the pound. A lot of the same sets of prefab plastic panels, though it'd been awhile since she saw any such facades over the bare metal walls.

The walkways were dirtier, on both sides of the path for electric bikes. No trace anywhere of litter, but it'd been decades since anyone tried to clean the infinite variety of human scuff marks on the walkway. More of the shops here were shuttered, either closed outright or not the kind of place you got in without an appointment and several scans from the security cameras. The walls around them had once been painted with an enormous mural of an unfamiliar sky, Coyote Moon's, presumably. It was faded badly, scraped away or graffitied over, overdrawn optimism still clinging to life down here.

She found the door she was looking for between an SST bank machine and something whose sign advertised it as Titan Mart. Rapped on the blacked out plastic door that said "Speed-E-Nav" in small gold letters, and waited out the effortful grinding of several CCTV cameras evaluating her and her depressing lack of concealed weapons. She had a full stomach which was all the weapon she needed if it came to that. The door clacked as a buzzer sounded, and she pushed her way inside through an overly enthusiastic electronic chime.

"Welcome, discerning customer," a chunky woman with deep dark skin and a shaved head sat before a hundred blinking computers of some sort. She didn't know a huge amount about them, but it looked regal. "Your need is our speed, what can we process today, miss…?" The woman's smile was very wide, and a dozen metal bracelets chimed musically together on her wrists. They smelled like ozone.

"It's not for me," she said, and pulled the folder up on her phone. "Recognize that?"

The woman leaned forward and moments later her smile dropped. "Yeah, I know it. What's he after this time?" She thumped back in her chair and waved the girl closer, unclipping a bracelet. "Show me what you got there."

She handed over the phone and the woman clicked her bracelet up to the charge points. "Didn't say, didn't ask, didn't get any names, not interested in sharing them. He just wants it run fast and I needed a favor."

The woman didn't give any indication she was listening, she just tweezed the folder out and held it up on the bracelet, which wasn't something the girl had seen done before, or was even aware was possible. She tried not to stare like a tourist.

The woman turned the glittering data this way and that before setting it in a glass plate. "Three weeks. Because he's a good customer and you look like a nice girl."

"I was… hoping for something faster."

"Hah! Good luck, you think these are what… pretty lights for show and tell? I got thirty strings beaded and twined and another eight in composite, and that's on external cooled q-square 26 CPUs. I know that boy, he's got a big mouth but no bite. Always talking about the big deal math he's writing but who's he come to when he needs the formulae run? Me. Maybe 19 days if I don't burn through another back gen."

The girl worked her fingers a little and unclenched her jaw. "Maybe I can do something for you. Something to free up some of the… the squares?"

She laughed a minute and sighed. "Oh thanks. Free up the squares. Well," she scanned the shelves stacked up with an array of mystifying metal boxes, wires, and clear glass cylinders. "Okay, I see your meaning. I suppose a little upgrade couldn't hurt if you think you're up to a little legwork."

The woman pulled a slim black box with vents along the side and a couple short wires trailing out of it, and handed it to the girl. She looked at it. "I suppose this is pretty legal."

"Of course it is, honey. Now, I know someone who owes me a favor…"

The werewolf girl sighed internally. Nothing was ever easy.

□ □ □ □ □

It took the better part of six hours for Serah to catalog the ship that had crashed through the system interchange, and it was a lot of guess work. The system drive geometry and mesh was, as far as she could tell, not only unique but carried a particle/wave divergence that her rinky dinky instruments couldn't measure. Which probably meant someone missed civs in the sweep, like always, which normally meant a paperwork nightmare.

Normally, but chances were good she'd at least get someone to talk to from closer to a real planet, maybe even they'd let her sneak some better games n stories ove4 the link. However, it was the deep ping snapshots that gave her pause. She chewed the end of the stylus before adding tags for review to the internal profile to assess for the possibility of unilateral treaty violations under orbital mass extermination threats.

She fired the report off, through the beacon to some generic hub of bureaucracy, presumably to be reviewed after week or three, then went to flop back in her cot and play through Gone Dream 6 for the tenth time. Five minutes later the incoming vessel alert chimed.

Serah staggered over to the screens, it was high priority but normal at least. "The fuck… What did I do to deserve a day like this?" It was Interdiction, from the Inner System feds? Didn't usually get those? Her heart sank as the manta shaped black vessel dropped from system flight and integrated itself into her beacon's region.

The good news was she wasn't in tqrouble for flagging the treaty violations. The bad news was they were showing up in person, which meant no games and no gossip.

● ● ● ● ●

The satellite was warmer a couple floors down, greener too, with algae, with hanging vines along a wire grating overhead, grating along the floor. Even with the new and sturdy boots she had to move with care to avoid slipping.

She wouldn't call it habitable, but every few blocks turned up a cluster of shops or houses, rarely one near the other. The lighting such as there could be was dim, most of the plastic over the fixtures fogged and darkened with fungus of some type. It reeked of mildew, and the place she was looking for wasn't shuttered, merely obscured by a thick tangle of vines on one side and red, waxy leaves on the other. She parted both with folded hands and was greeted by yelling.

"No power! No business today, all closed, fuck off!" He was draped in camouflage and heavy black gloves, along with welding goggles. "I don't care what you want, come back tomorrow! No, next month! Or kill yourself, that's the ticket!" He shook a sheaf of something halfway between a vine and a power cable, sweeping a dozen thick plastic beakers from the counter. The floor was covered in plastic confetti and dozens of insulated rods and tools were hung along the walls.

"I need your help with this." She slipped the black device out of her pocket, holding it towards the camouflaged gentleman.

"Hmmmm?" He leaned far over what she assumed was a desk underneath a massive pile of vine wiring and plastic cards with diagrams, peered at it, as if he could see through the blacked out goggles. "Well, I see whatchu got there, shoulds said before." Despite the gloves, he pried open the casing nimbly enough, revealing a sheaf of glittering cards nestled in wires. "Beautiful work as ever my darling."

He sighed and closed it up. "Wish I could help ya out girlie, nothing like a favor for ol' Speedy, but all my crystals are spoke for and no telling when the vat'll be up n running again." He pulled a couple wires aside revealing an ancient copper and glass crystal forge, current dark with a half dozen diamonds on the drying rack.

Her fingers twitched inadvertantly but she forced herself to hold steady. She had the unpleasant sense of being followed by multiple pairs of eyes. "So," she said carefully. "If I were to get someone to hook your power back up, you could… part with a few of those for, uh. For Speedy."

"Good fuckin luck if you try! But sure, I'll get her the hookup if you get mine, for old times sake."

She sighed. "Okay, I'll be back." And pushed back out from whatever kind of unlicensed crystal mesh lab the guy was running, flipping her phone off her wrist.

Under most circumstances she'd be off on a long walk to the nearest paperview map hub, but parting with some rocket food meant she got to splurge on a nicer disposable than usual. She sat with her legs sprawled across the scooter path and her ass getting soaked through her pants while she poked around and through the station service maps til she found what she wanted. Just the basic license filings, nothing but the business name and address.

"Like working any other job," she sighed, brushing her soaked hair over her ears and wiping away sweat. Dreary trudging her way through cross referencing and addresses on the tiny fucking screen, she half considered going a few floor back for a paperview after all, and was getting well into three quarters considering, four options trashed, when she got the hit she wanted.

Local to the hydroponics floor, zero reviews posted, but looked like it had been registered for a few years and wasn't closed. She dragged the address to her map screen and slapped her phone back on, standing, pulling her shirt off her chest and back in hopes to air out the sweat. Cut & Dry: Power, Wiring, and Botany.

● ● ● ● ●

She half considered grabbing a bike on the way down to Cut & Dry, but discarded the idea after a minute of thought. She didn't like her movements recorded, no that wasn't fair, she'd probably been tracked by thirty different CCTVs on this level alone. She didn't want to spend money on one, true. Also she didn't see anywhere to rent them.

The sign for Cut & Dry blinked in neon: Electronics. Botany. It went back and forth and she noticed on the way in the neon was bioluminous vines. Inside the shop was a veritable rainforest, with no sign of any floor or walls amidst the plants. Aside from what seemed to her far too much trickling water for a wiring and electrical engineering joint, it was remarkably quiet. Even the background station noise didn't make it through the plants. She looked a little closer at what she thought was a small tree only to discover a woven strand of branches and black wires. It seemed the whole little room was a dense illusion, life and electricity tied into one another.

A soft voice too close to her ear made her jump. "What do you think- OW!" She whipped her head around and saw a dryad piled up against one of the plants, rubbing his forehead.

Realizing her arm was still raised for another blow, she lowered it, and said, "Sorry. Most people can't sneak up on me."

The dryad, to his credit, only half flinched when she reached out to help him up. "Well," he said, "You were rather engrossed. Perhaps I should be proud." He touched his cheek and winced. "Oh, that's going to be a bruised spot."

"I'm really sorry. Um, can we start over? Hi, I need some electrical work done."

He flashed a brief smile, bright white teeth against faintly glistening brown skin. He seemed to favor mesh shirts and leather pants, which she supposed made sense for a minor plant deity. "I'm Sy," he said. "I'm your guy. I mean… it's like a, uh. It's a thing, I'm trying to make it a thing. Sy's Your Guy, at Cut & Dry. Right?" He waved one hand side to side.

"Sure, sounds catchy. Listen, you do house calls? Kinda in a rush here. Um, I mean that's great? Are you free though?"

Sy frowned. "You don't like it. Uh, free… that's kind of abstract for me, could you narrow it down?"

She briefly skipped past thinking she'd like to see his smile again. Down girl. "Okay well there's this guy, I think, I don't know. He likes camouflage and he grows crystals."

"Oh sure. That's Chris. It's Chris' Crystals."

"Are you fucking with me right now?"

His brows drew together in confusion. "No? Why?"

She suppressed thoughts about what was the point of traveling across earth space if people were the same everywhere. "Well, he's had an outage or something and I'm in a jam."

"Hmm, I'll need my plant." He tapped one finger against his lips, his fingernails were pale green.

She looked around the room. "Yeah. Uh huh. Well, anyway, I kinda need this like, today. Any chance you could hook up Chris Crystalferson up with some juice?"

His eyes went wide. "Juice, oh no, but I can get his power back up I think." He began collecting a series of cables and heavy clips and other tools she didn't recognize and couldn't figure out how they'd been hidden within the plants. As a final step, he held out an arm, and one of the larger plants, more of a baby tree, slithered across his back and arms, allowing him to rest a multitude of coiled wires and racks of fuses and breakers on their branches.

"Neat trick," she said. "I take it that's your, what your tree?"

"That's us!" He smiled again. She felt less annoyed. "No tricks involved! Let's go."

"I didn't… sure, let's go."

They headed back towards the crystal mesh lab. "How do you know Chris anyway?"

"Uh… through Speedy?"

"Who's that?"

She sighed internally.

● ● ● ● ●

"Amazing job, kiddo!" Chris clapped one heavily gloved hand onto Sy's shoulder. The whole interior was aglow with the crystal tanks and pressure / temperature readouts blinked in pale blue digital light along the walls, waiting for Chris to kick their jets on. He turned to the girl. "I don't know where you dug this guy up, but he's a miracle worker!"

"I come here like twice a month," Sy tried to say, but not loudly.

"Yeah the kid's great, so about the doohickey there?"

"The d-" Chris shook his head. "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood, here here," he snapped his fingers and she passed it over. Sy watched in rapt fascination while Chris opened the case again, and began hooking two of the diamonds into the wire nest, each wire finding a precise position on a diamond facet.

"Are those particle wave flash CPUs?"

"Mmm. A double-g stack, and these babies here are gonna interface the flash to system and back. Chain's gotta be perfect and then," he snapped the black case shut. "Well then you can figure the trajectory across damn near half the universe, or predict the weather on Venus or whatever!" He handed the box over. "Tell Speedy come by herself next time. No more favors."

"Tell her yourself, try picking up a phone."

"Phone! Hah! Good one. As if. Fuck off, work to do."

And off she fucked, with Sy following.

"What are you doing," she asked.

"I'm following you," he said, plainly.

"But," she said, "why are you doing it, Chris paid you, what's the deal?"

"I want to meet Speedy and see her gear."

She held up a finger trying to pluck from the sky a good way to curse him out, but his dark red irises were distracting. "I… Okay, but," she pointed for emphasis. "I'm not responsible if you get shot."

"Gosh, I sure hope not."

She reconsidered her options while they made their way up another level.

● ● ● ● ●

"Wow," Sy said, as they approached Speedy's place. "And you flew it here all by yourself?"

"It was better than crashing or getting blown up." His eyes were very large. "What?" She stopped at Speedy's door. "What?"

"You said it was damaged."

"I guess, its mouth works fine. What is that look for?"

"Just, it sounds like an interesting ship, lots of interesting work to do, lots to see."

"If I let you see the ship, can you promise not to talk the whole time we're inside?"

Sy clamped his mouth shut.

● ● ● ● ●

The pavilion of cafes and parts stores fuel vouchers was a little bit wider, the ceiling a little bit taller, just enough to almost feel airy after the cramped pathways and hydroponics level. She'd known in theory what stations were like, but it still gave her low level anxiety after a whole life below a sky. There was no sky here, and above the ceiling was plastic and metal and then space.

She was tired and her stomach gurgled again at the many different scents from the various fast food stalls and open air griddles briefly wafted her way before getting sucked away by the air filter.

"Okay," she said. "I'm fucking starving and for once I don't have to be. Uh. That one." She pointed at random and they wandered over to a three wheeled electric bike with a large set of hot plates on the back, watching an older man who reminded her of the more tenacious aged trees at home spreading batter across the surface then deftly flip it, all using some sort of L-shaped plastic stick.

She ordered based on scent with no idea what the pale, meaty chunks and tangy tart smelling slivers were made of, some of the red-black local greens in there and he wrapped the whole thing into a cone before drizzling three different sauces over the top. Sy got his own mix and she flicked some cash over from her phone.

It was hot and tasted something like a sky or an ocean, half sweet half stringy. The crunch was both bitter and tangy, and then the spice hit, watering her eyes. She fanned her mouth with one hand, devouring the whole contraption in orgiastic delight. "Food is so good," she said through a full mouth, and Sy nodded, wiping sauce from his chin.

Not far from the pavillion, they came to her dock. "Okay," she said again, Sy nodding. "I gotta sort my business out, but you can poke around. Don't touch anything. Unless the ship says so. But it probably won't, I don't think it likes earthlings much."

"Right, no touching. Actually a pretty good rule for civs electrical safety." He was grinning, and her cheeks were a little warm.

"Yeah. Well, this… you'll see." The airlock cycled open and they passed through, the ship's door splitting and retracting on the other side for their entry.

"Oh great," it said. "Now there's two of you."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

"I believe that you have something close to the most basic, rudimentary grasp of my docking procedure. We may now make an approach to the station to aquire carbon latices."

"Cool, cool cool. So, you got any cash?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Credit, cash, moolah, bread, dough, do you have any kind of money? Or I don't know super secret hacker tricks to steal bank accounts?"

"You have misunderstood with predictable rapidity. I had hoped you would take the opportunity to express your sincere contrition for asking a question you surely must already know the answer to."

"Okay, well, my point is I'm probably not picking up a four course diamond dinner for you through legitimate routes, and it's just me also. Do ya see what I'm getting at?"

"You have painted a vivid portrait of absolute nonsense?"

"What?"

"No, what are you 'getting at?'"

"That probably we're going to leave in a hurry, because I don't think I can set up a clean game by myself. So it's gonna be like a quick and dirty grab, lunch to go."

"You believe that the acquisition process will incur pursuit, and necessitate urgent departure and immediate structure vectors."

"I wouldn't have said it like that-"

"Agreed."

"-but can you set that up? We'll want to kick out as soon as we can after I hit the airlock."

"Feasible. I will require the remaining latices as well."

"You'll get most of them, but I need to grab some gear and these are all we got. At least for now."

"Feasible. I will be able to remain in standby for structure entanglement for a short period after we dock, approximate one thousand years by your measure."

"I cannot tell if you're joking, I swear on Luna's breath."

"You should have adequate time to obtain the additional resources, so long the remaining latices are provided to me as priority."

"You'll get your treats, don't worry."

"I understand this may be one of the jokes you often reference. May I suggest you do not make these your primary occupation?"

"Duly noted. Okay, I'll get you gassed up. I hope I don't have to run down a bunch of favors just to find a good lead on diamonds."

● ● ● ● ●

She folded the maglev line schedule over itself again, watching for the arrival lights inside the partial cover of the kiosk. She'd polished off some kind of vegetarian pastry and a burger with a side of wings and her stomach felt strained. Walking around the station had been a good way to pick up what kind of clothes didn't stand out and she was wearing the cheapest version of them she could find, a red shirt with some doughnut shaped cartoon characters on it, which she saw a bunch of kids wearing, and blue shorts with white stripes on the legs. Left her boots back at the ship and was wearing some kind of extra-janky plastic sandals she'd seen around, plus a zippered little bag around her waist which she kind of liked. A fashion plate of generic anonymity, that was the goal.

According to the deep spacer, this was a high probability site of lowered caution and raised vulnerability, expected to see passage of diamonds in transit. It hadn't looked that difficult to her, watching his fingers play along his tablet finding something like the volume she was looking for and a good spot she could hit the transport. There was a little chime and the display promised a line arrival in five minutes. She folded the schedule into the waistband of her shorts and shuffled around like all the other commuters, letting their jostles push her near to the rail exit. The escalator lowered from the maglev linecars and passengers started exiting the down the line, people moving around her while the boarding escalator came down a bit further up the line. She vibed her way down stream, again letting the various tourists trying to get on board spin her this way and that, passing around them, rolling and twisting to make herself as invisible as possible to their tunnel vision.

She could have spotted her target miles away. The bulky, unfashionable gray suit barely concealing whatever body armor and heat the guy was packing. Fuzzy edged face holographs, probably armored there too. Good odds it was optimized to disperse piercing attempts and heat, maybe light impact protection. Some secure carriers used automatons, but these guys didnt move loke that. Couldn't conceal the case which was encouragingly large. Two other guys front and back flanked him on the way out. Overall, perfect for anyone avoiding real attention from the general public, abysmal concealment from someone who knew what to look for. Someone who was about to generate a rather large amount of attention.

She took a deep breath.

Pointing up the line, she shouted in her highest pitched voice, "Oh my gods what's that girl doing?!" and dove down the line, ducking into the crowd. Superheated air blasted from her body, her clothes burst into tatters, and she shifted hard. A howling monstrosity of teeth and claws with fur thick enough to stop a knife burst from the fertile concealed mass of humanity and leapt twelve meters off the ground, landing on the escalator next to the men in gray.

One got off a shot, something big and explosive put a hole through her shoulder, which started closing up before the exit wound blew out. She bit down on his arm, brought her teeth together, didn't sever anything but felt bones break and he screamed through a vocal distorter. He'd live but wasn't going to bother her. The second man was slower. She grabbed the gun he was trying to get out, along with the hand it was in, and pulled.

He sailed past her, to somewhere that wasn't her problem. Two down. The guy with the case was ggetting crushed against then side of the escalator in the ensuing panic all around them both. She tried to jerk the case out of his hand but it came up short. Handcuffed on. She snarled, ropes of drool falling out of her maw. "We're going for a ride," she informed him, wrapped both clawed hands around the case, and backflipped off the escalator.

Landed, case and carrier in tow, though to her eye he'd broken one or two limbs. Another gunshot, just winged the edge of her ribs. She grabbed arm and case, snapped the cuff links and probably broke his wrist, then threw his body towards the gray man who was trying to aim around commuters trying to avoid being shot. They embraced as lovers, she left them to privacy and grabbed the case in her mouth, bounding for the ship.

She'd learned a lot wandering around the station that day, had an unerring sense of direction, and a pretty good idea which obstacles were breakable. She plowed through the glass walls of a department store in a direct route to the pavilion, jumped past two food carts, and snagged a giant chunk of sweet smelling meat rotating on a spike while the manager yelled at her, kicked her way through an info screen, tumbled down the narrow maintenance corridor, and bashed her way out through a vent across from her dock.

Technically she was far from the screams of the line stop, but she just was the kind of slavering werewolf creature that got a fresh round wherever she went. Blame the media. She shoved case and meat under one arm and, in another burst of heat, ripped the docking bay door off its hingers.

The ship already had its airlock open and she dove through. "It's me," she shouted, tearing out chunks of the meat and swallowing them whole.

"The bridge has been relocated, please go through the door at the end of this corridor." She leapt the whole way, rolling to her feet in the now somewhat familiar room.

"I am receiving multiple general notifications that all ships are to remain docked, and several more direct notifications that my power output should be lowered significantly. They have indicated they might engage in pursuit of any vehicles leaving the station."

Sy came strolling into the bridge, looking around curiously as she grabbed the control nerves. "Hey, this ship is amazing- What's all the ruckus?"

"What are you still doing here?" Her eyes bugged out for half a second. "You weren't- Never mind! Future me problem!" She threw herself into the Pilot net and focused on the vectors from the ship "Can you outrun em" Tossed the meat.

Sy said, "Hi, Outrun who?" Future problem, future problem.

"I assume this is another one of your jokes."

"Not you! Ship! I mean, whats it- fuck it, can we go?!"

"Your vectors are ready. We can proceed from this position."

"We're about to ruin so many days. Let's hit it." She hit it.

Interlude:

"That was incredible," she said. "What a rush. What did we do? Where are we?"

"We undertook multiple structure alignments including a brief dual entanglement in order to produce several distinct paths of travel and reduce probability of further pursuit. We are currently within the Mindanao system. This appeared to be an optimal site for conducting analysis of our resources."

Sy unwrapped his hand and several branches from one of the curved bars running between the floor and ceiling of the bridge. "Hey, I have a question too, what just happened?"

Letting go of the vines, the werewolf girl sunk to the floor and started tearing more chunks of meat off the roasting spit she stole on the way out. "Well," she said, spilling out masticated chunks and slurping them back up with her tongue. "Well, we, that is to say me. That is, I have stolen an amount of system quality diamonds. We'll know how much when I crack that box open. A lot I hope." She swallowed. "And you, are supposed to be not here, you said you'd head out after you finished. Maybe we can get you on like... a shuttle or something."

He nodded with an easy smile. "Well yeah. That's why I was moving all my stuff in. I wish I had a chance to get the day lilies, they won't make it on the station. And it doesn't sound like going back is easy."

"In my defense, I was in a hurry and I, uh... Your stuff?" She swallowed. She could feel herself blushing under her fur and self consciously tried to clean a bit of the mess off her muzzle and chest. "What is... you mean... how stuff?"

He sighed and leaned against the bar. "Oh yeah, it's gonna take me awhile before I'm finished here. This ship is pretty great but the wiring is a mess. Shame about those lilies though, but I guess all life is but fleeting chaos and material possessions are merely temporary." He rocked a little on his hips.

"I do not have rats, and your use of the term wiring continues to demonstrate the lack of development in advanced engineering I am somehow continuously surprised by in your civilization. However, you demonstrate a commendable willingness to discard the soulless and crude material through which your civilization attempts to interact with the structured universe."

"Oh yeah, very zen, very cool. Still messy. What are you anyway?"

The werewolf girl looked regretfully at the bare skewer and ate the last few flecks of meat. "Good point, we ought to have something to call you."

"In your language," it said, "my function and name translates to Remover Of Interference To The Progress Of Greater Organized Civilization And Implementation Of Systemic Agency Cooperation Between Unified Structural Manifestations Originating From Star Zero."

"Dude, I have no idea what that means."

"I am not a dude, according to my records, it is unclear what this is. There are multiple, contradictory entries."

"Just like, what is all that? Are you just using long words to sound smart?"

"I am smart." The voice became softer. "In the better times, I would take Pilot to the worlds of disorganized civilizations, and we would implement order for them. We found many worlds suffering under lack of unification, and we implemented many civilizations."

She dropped her hands to her sides. "How did… you do that?"

"Optimally, perhaps again some day, I am readily capable of a gravity distortion effect removing an area approximately 40 million square kilometers from the surface of most planets or other objects of solid matter within my 500,000 kilometer range of effect. In many such cases, Implementation and Agency Cooperation only required three uses of this capability."

The werewolf girl felt the blood drain out of her face. "I… I'm sitting in the most illegal weapon in the universe."

Sy just laughed hysterically. "Yeah, okay Genghis Khan. Hah. That's what we should call you. Genghis Khan." He turned to the werewolf girl. "So what's your name, Julius Caesar?"

□ □ □ □ □

The seats in Maryam's ship were made of material designed to conform to whoever was sitting in the cramped cockpit. Serah couldn't find a comfortable position no matter how she shifted her legs, and was thinking about ignoring the deeply threatening order she'd been given to stay where she was, when she heard footsteps along the narrow catwalk and the door behind her opened.

Maryam slid by and settled into the pilot seat in front of Serah. She thought about asking the interdiction agent why she was even here again, but didn't think there'd be any better of an answer. "You're the only person who ever recorded this ship, you're as close as I have to an expert," was the explanation. Serah didn't think an extra minute of experience should count, but she was outranked by several orders of magnitude.

A folder of plastic sheets dropped into her lap. "Here," Maryam said. "They've been here. Made a real mess of things, but got on the cameras enough. The girl has a file, look it over. I'm calling in to track their system path."

"What am I gonna-" Serah fell back into her seat. Maryam was ignoring her, typing into the slim screen on her armrest. "Ugh." Serah flipped open the folder, finding a picture of some sullen guy- no, girl, with a wild mass of hair, who probably had her nose broken at least once. She looked at the name, typed in a capital letters: "Laika Blackwood"

END OF PART 1

[skullingwaydraws]

Some apocalyptic nyc postcards I’ve been working on. Now I actually need to get them printed as postcards lol

[makapatag]

The swordgendered, non-binary MC of THE KNIGHT VAGRANT. Raxri Uttara, The Once-Dead, for they were murdered, betrayed by Heaven and the Earth. Shorn of all memory and all cultivation, they must claw their way up the rungs of power once again until their fingers are bloody and raw.

"Stop! Stop! It is better to give up! It will take a million years to get back from where you were!" No matter to Raxri Uttara. Their vengeance is their meditation. One step at a time, until all beings are free. Until the world's mysteries are revealed. Until their will is done.

What is a hurricane to an ant? They are inextricably connected, Raxri would say. They are both immovable and unstoppable. A monsoon of swords.

Unassuming by nature, they are nonetheless wracked by a deep, indescribable sorrow, depression, guilt, and anxiety, which they push through by taking things one step at a time. Extremely versatile, Raxri is not one to master a single Violent System or Magickal Praxes, choosing instead to learn as many different systems as they can.

Name: Raxri Uttara Epithets: Once-Dead, The Heaven Dancer, The Swordhand, They Who Danced Against The Heavens Cultivation Level: 4 Mortal State (Accumulation Stage of the Desire Domain) Arcana: The Holy Fool Star Omen: The Water Bearer Blood Type: Air Violent Systems: Whorl Hand, Adamantine Sword Magickal Praxes: Mantra, Mudra Signature Technick: << ADAMANTINE SWORD: ADAMANT LIGHTNING STRIKES >> Likes: All food (especially rice meals), betel nut chewing, smoking, reading manuscripts, learning new Cultivation Systems, killing, stronger opponents, learning new technicks and magicks Dislikes: Poetry, writing, too sweet pastries, those that willingly misinterpret the Law, philosophy

THE KNIGHT VAGRANT?

THE KNIGHT VAGRANT is a spiritpunk progression ultrafantasy web novel in the universe of HINGSAJAGRA, a world wrought from Monsoon Asia and Esoteric Buddhism. Monsoon Asia Disco Elysium Xianxia.

Art by: @coldhazzard!

[leona-florianova]

captain Abacat Naphi

[bibixpgames]

I'm going to see if some CGs for "Forget Me Nots Club" will be presentable next week, but until then you can see the first game in the series this game is a part of, "Lonely Pocket Dimension"! :3

"Lonely Pocket Dimension" was meant to introduce the setting of interdimensional friends and their problems, something "Forget Me Nots Club" is obviously continuing in! :D

Honestly, it was also practice in presentation! While I have sprites that are usual afterwards instead of the single CG, the GUI in "Lonely Pocket Dimension" is definitely how I wanted to present some GUI, like with the text boxes and such, plus, "Lonely Pocket Dimension" was also good at checking if my art for this series was good enough, and I obviously came to the conclusion that it is! Animation practice and movement was also a nice practice!

[thewyrdsidepodcast]

BONUS EPISODE: The Marshall Street Investigation, now available wherever you get your podcasts!

Katherine and Aiden rediscover their first ever paranormal investigation: an old house on Marshall Street rumoured to be the home of a haunted doll. Strange knocking, a string of unexplained deaths, and two rookie podcasters... What could possibly go wrong?

Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

[billyjackass]

Irregular Feminine Forms (2024), dir. Emma Underwood

[figcatlists]

Weird fiction novels and series

This chart of long-form weird fiction works is a companion to my previous chart of weird short story collections. Together, they are meant to update (but not entirely replace) my older charts of classic and contemporary weird fiction.

All of these charts are selections from a much longer weird fiction list that I compiled and posted on the FigCat website. I recently updated it with new data.

No selection is perfect, and making decisions for this chart was especially difficult; I wanted a representative spread in terms of chronology, moods, and themes. If you think something obvious or important is missing, it's most likely still on the long web list.

(Note to sticklers: Maldoror is often described as a "poetic novel", which is a type of novel. Unfortunately, I don't know enough weird fiction prose poems to make a separate chart where it would be more appropriate.)

[thefiresontheheight]

Fire on Every Horizon - Looking for Beta Readers!

Eli Yuen is a witch and an exorcist in the gig economy, which means late nights, bad pay, and a shitty apartment. Between the sea of ghosts that haunt everywhere in America, her teacher and boss's ridiculous rules, and the memories of her dead daddy, she's barely keeping herself out of the darkness lurking in her chest, even with the help of her girlfriend Paladin. But when her teacher disappears and a strangely attractive diner worker offers her a lucrative job exorcising a ghost lurking back in Appalachia, the darkness will no longer be something she can deny. Faced with fallen angels, abyssal gods, the specter of Communism, and her own past, Eli will at last be forced to confront the question that has troubled her for so long. Is this really all there is to life? 84,000 words long, Fires on Every Horizon is a new adult, new weird, rural fantasy, horror-adjacent story about trans, polyamorous witches and the end of the world. And you can read it right now, for free, for the low, low price of commenting and being a beta reader for me! Find the link here, and please make sure to read the content warning before going further: Link In particular I am looking for trans, butch, lesbian, poly, bi, Filipino, Appalachian and formerly cult-affiliated beta readers, and those who exist at the intersection of all those identities. Reblogs are appeciate, and thank you!

[hobohobgoblim]

do you want a China Mielville story? 'cause this is how you get a China Mielville story.

In Chicago, there is a hole in the asphalt after a crushed rat, and for the past few days the city residents have been making sacrifices in it.

Source: https://twitter.com/CantEverDie/status/1746321098910683331/photo/1

[hedgerowdevil]

I have a story published in cosmic horror periodical, Black Sheep, and it's really good!

Read "Cleanup in Aisle Four-Million Light-Years From Earth" and nine other tales of unutterable terror.

Get uncanny. Get weird. Get BLACK SHEEP #17

[skullingwaydraws]

This is not a Xmas post