THE MAN WAS tired, and alone. He was the last of his group, and as far as he knew, his species. He was realistic about his life expectancy, but had the habit of survival. He foraged through ruined buildings, moving slowly, frequently stopping to listen. The naked girl was too clean, too attractive, too unlikely to exist in this post-invasion world. She could only be bait. Her leg appeared to be pinned under collapsed ceiling rubble. She was wide-eyed and terrified. "Oh, thank God! Can you get me out?" He stopped moving and sniffed the air, expecting human spoor. Cephalopods didn't really have a detectable scent. He smelled dust and mold, and himself, but nothing else. Not even the girl. No sign of a trap, because he'd be able to smell any sufficiently large group of people to man a trap, and the Invader-modified mutants never worked with humans. Confusing. Unless the girl was really stuck as she appeared to be. The man remained still and considered circumstances. He looked at the girl again, and it seemed that she shook her head very slightly. There was something wrong here. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He retreated a slow, measured step and quietly drew his katana shaped sword. A collectible he had looted from an abandoned house in the suburbs, it was a cheap knockoff made from crap steel that wouldn't hold an edge. With frequent sharpening it was just barely sufficient for slicing mollusks. The guns he carried were for dealing with humans. Half a dozen chunks of concrete rubble flickered and it was suddenly obvious they had been cuttlefish the whole time. The girl screamed and they leapt, flashing colors in ripples that were intended to dazzle his senses and confuse his mind. He sliced and diced, carving pieces from his attackers. Several were able to get their arms on his limbs and torso, but the man was wearing paper armor made from old magazines. The suckers could attach to the outer sheets, but unless they wrapped all the way around he could jerk them off at the expense of a few pages. One cuttlefish grabbed his forearm and took a divot from the fleshy part of his palm with its beak before he shook it off. Dismembered arms, still fighting, managed to attach to his face and scalp and draw blood, but they were more annoyance than dire threat. A couple of piles of dirt turned into octopuses and scurried towards his feet. He sliced one open but the other was able to wrap arms around his left knee and began to squeeze and twist. The man felt a ligament tear as his knee torqued, and began desperately hacking at his assailant until he finally cut its mantle in two. An octopus is hard to kill with its three hearts and nine brains, but cut into pieces it fights with less coordination. The man staggered but kept moving and swinging his sword. The girl screamed, "Behind you!" and he spun on his good leg. A colossal squid was hanging from the ceiling with 8 arms and reaching for him with eight meter feeding tentacles. He chopped one of the tentacles off but the other wrapped around his waist and planted hooks that extended through paper and pierced his skin. The man howled in pain and drew a handgun, firing shot after shot into where he perceived its giant eye to be. The hooks loosened a bit and, gasping and panting, he chopped at the tentacle, finally pulling it free along with chunks of his own flesh. The squid pulled itself through a hole in the ceiling, trailing severed limbs that spilled gouts of blue blood. He took a couple of clumsy steps, blood dripping from his scalp and face, and pouring down his legs. He looked for more threats, but apart from writhing arm sections, there weren't any enemies left. Suddenly dizzy, he sat down hard. He wanted to reach the girl before losing conciousness, in case they came back while he was out, and crawled toward her while he could. HE WOKE UP an indeterminate time later, lying against a dusty wall. He wasn't wearing his paper or pants, though he still had his underwear and shirt on. The rags he used to secure the armor were tied around his knee, and someone had made an attempt to clean off some of the blood he had been covered in. The girl was wearing his other shirt like a poncho and sitting cross-legged with her back to him, cooking pieces of octopus and cuttlefish on sticks over a small fire. He could see her leg that had been pinned was bruised and scraped bloody, presumably from pulling it out in desperation once the attack had begun. She had two of his handguns in shirt pockets. The man quietly drew a dagger from the sheath between his shoulders, and lunged forward, putting an arm around her and the blade to her neck. She froze and said, "Calm down, mister. I borrowed your guns so we'd be safe while you were out. You take them back now, ok?" He didn't say anything. "Look, mister. If I wanted to hurt you I could have done it before you woke up." Keeping his arm around her chest and the knife in his hands he retrieved his firearms and felt down her body until he was sure she didn't have any other weapons in her possession. Then he released her and leaned back against the wall. "Can I turn around now?" The man grunted and pushed her with a foot. She turned around slowly and met his gaze. "Want your shirt back?" He stared at her until she became uncomfortable. "What, you don't talk?" When he did speak, his voice was a rough growl. He had to clear his throat and swallow to be understood. "Used to. Been a long time since I had anyone to talk to." His throat was dry and his lips stuck together in the corners. He looked around for his water bottle. Moving slowly she reached to her side and picked it up, and handed it to him. It was a one liter soda bottle and it was full of a murky liquid, which he drank carefully. Water. He capped it and set it down, then continued staring at her in silence. "I wish you would say something. You're making me nervous. Why are you staring like that?" Eventually he decided to answer. "You don't make sense. I'm trying to figure out what you are." She smiled slightly. "If I give you your shirt back, you'll see what I am." He shook his head in irritation. "Where did you come from? How can you be so healthy and well fed? Where are your scars?" He held out an arm covered with sucker marks, hook lines, and healed bites. "Why aren't you dead?" He repeated himself. "You don't make sense." She sighed and took a deep breath. "I'll try to explain." "Go ahead then." She appeared to take some time to figure out where to start. "Ok, you know what these things that attacked you are, right?" "Mutated cephalopods. Uplifted by the Invaders. Given a new way of breathing so they can live on land and intelligence so they can work together to hunt us." She nodded. "That's pretty much true. But how do you know this?" "I don't. It's what people say." "For once, people are mostly right." She started to turn back to the fire but stopped and asked permission. "I think the food is ready. Can I check it?" Now that she mentioned it he could smell the cooking meat and his mouth flooded with saliva. He jerked his head in assent. She turned her back to him and did something over the fire. After a minute she turned back with skewers of meat set on a relatively clean sheet of plywood, which she placed between them. He greedily grabbed one and started ripping octopus off the skewer with his teeth. He hadn't eaten in days. "Can I?" She pointed at the trencher. He grunted assent and took another stick for himself. She took one as well, and began eating, almost dainty compared to the way he wolfed his down. They ate in relative silence for a while. He had finished five sticks of meat and she two before she spoke again. "What do people say about why they did it?" He swallowed and wondered if he should save the last few skewers for later. With his knee he wouldn't be able to hunt for a while. If she tried to hunt she'd never make it back. "A bunch of crap. Guesses. Maybe they didn't like us eating calamari." She made a soft noise that he didn't recognize as laughter right away. He hadn't heard anyone laugh in so long that he couldn't remember it ever happening. "What's your guess?" "That they're evil bastards who want us dead. What fucking difference does it make? We're almost all dead anyway." She shook her head. "What you need to understand is, it's not about you. They didn't really even think about humans. You were just in the way." She spoke quietly. He stared at her for a long moment and placed his hand on the pistol in his lap. "You're going to have to explain how you know that." She nodded. "I'll explain everything." Again she thought for a while. "The Invaders are very intelligent, in a way that you, with your single brain, can't really understand. I'm not talking about their technology, the genetic engineering and faster than light drive. Humans could develop as much in time. They can control multiple limbs more precisely than you can control your hand. They can be any color or shape they choose. An Invader, any cephalopod, has abilities that humans can't even conceive. Even pre-Invasion cuttlefish and octopuses can do things you can't imagine." He thought about what she was saying. "We always suspected the Invaders were cephalopods. No one has ever seen them, though." "Some have." She paused. "I have." She waited for him to say something but he remained quiet. "They're not just cephalopods. They're directly related to the terrestrial species genetically." "You mean Panspermia." She looked surprised. He smiled bitterly. "I've neglected my academic studies somewhat since the Invasion, but I remember things. There was even a theory that cephalopods had extraterrestrial origin." His voice sounded more cultured and less brutish than it had previously. "I … I didn't expect that you'd be educated." "Lot of fucking good that's done." When he didn't go on, she said, "So, you have to understand that, to the Invaders, humans didn't even seem sentient, at least not as they knew it. All intelligent life in the galaxy is like them. Of course it is. They seeded it." Again she waited for him to respond. When he didn't she went on. "Humans seem more like automa that can perform clever tricks. Like you would think of a virus. By the time they realised their error it was almost too late." "Almost." "Once they realised that humans were more than they thought, they decided to study us. To learn about us. Before we were all gone." He looked at her, suddenly intense. "Now we're getting to what you are." "I was an experiment. Raised by Invaders and exposed to captured humans, in the hope that I could form a bridge between the two. Able to understand both species." "Do I want to know what happened to those captured humans?" She looked away. "No." After a while, he asked her, "What are your plans for me?" "Why do you think I have plans for you? I could have escaped them." "Could you have? You would seem to be a valuable tool for them to lose track of. And our meeting sure seems to be a perfect set-up. You in distress, me your rescuer? You sympathetic and warning me of danger, then after, you my nurse and caretaker? Maybe I'll tell you about the Resistance?" When she didn't speak, he went on. "That attack should have killed me. They gave up pretty easily, didn't they? Leaving me crippled and unable to get away, stuck here with you. So I'd have to listen to your story, and then what? What do you want from me?" She reached out a hand and placed it on his good knee. "There aren't many of us left. We may be the last ones." He laughed bitterly. "I'm supposed to ask if you mean we'd be like Adam and Eve, right? Except we can't be, can we?" She stared at him, saying nothing. Then, "Why not?" "Because you're not human, are you? You're an Invader. You put on a good show, though." She looked at him, choosing her next move, and then just gave up. "What tipped you off?" "Your skin flickered a bit when you were trying to sell me. Your scraped leg is still wet." She looked at her leg and it scabbed over. "You've been watching my reactions and adjusting your appearance to suit me. You've been getting more and more beautiful the longer we've talked." "Eventually I'd be your perfect woman. I could make you happy." "Your happy slave, you mean." "Is that so bad? You'd still be happy." "I think I'll pass on the role of 'Slave to Alien Conquerors,' thank you." She leaned into him and he drew back. "It's not like you really have a choice, you know." Her limbs began to separate and become tentacles. He raised his pistol and she said, "You must know that won't do anything to me." He said, "It's not for you." He put the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He had the habit of survival, but he had secrets.


When I tried to leave for work, the front door was locked. I jiggled the handle up and down a couple of times while my brain caught up to my muscle memory. Huh. Patrick was supposed to unlock the door when my watch came within two metres. In the months since I upgraded, that feature had worked seamlessly. It was so slick that on the first day I questioned whether the door was locking at all. I had tried to open it with my watch off just to make sure. “Hey Patrick, unlock the front door,” I said softly in that flat way you talk to assistants. It felt odd to ask him that – I had gotten used to him being two steps ahead of me. I checked my watch. 9:35AM. “Sorry, Finn, there’s a safety threat outside. I’ll unlock the door as soon as it’s safe.” That delivered a tiny hit of adrenaline. A safety threat? I checked the door cam for signs of trouble, but didn’t see anything concerning. The screen showed the usual empty, less than clean hallway. Walking to the living room window, I peered down to the street. Everything seemed normal. People bustled by on their personal trajectories, forming a current in aggregate. Patrick could be overly cautious – a week ago he asked if he should call 911 because there was a drunk man in the hallway. He was still learning that humans, especially female humans, have to be comfortable in the omnipresence of danger. “What is it?” I asked. “A faulty cable.” A cable? He really was a nervous one… “…In the door?” I asked. “Your door doesn’t have a cable, Finn,” he chimed pleasantly. This has to be a bug, I thought. I wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom of it until after work though. It was 9:36, and I was officially running late. I decided to take my chances. “Open the door anyway, Patrick,” I muttered. “Sorry, Finn, I’m not allowed to do that. There’s a safety threat outside. I’ll unlock the door as soon as it’s safe.” His calming tone was patronizing. I was going to miss my bus. I pulled my phone out of my purse and tried manually unlocking the door. A popup on the screen echoed Patrick and wouldn’t let me proceed. I rattled the door handle in vain, letting out an audible moan. Patrick quietly turned on the Spa playlist I listen to when I read in the evenings. It helped, I admitted begrudgingly to myself, noticing my body relax. Then I saw 9:37 on my watch and retensed. If I missed my bus, I would miss the 9:50 subway and be late to the morning briefing. Gabriel would condescend, even though I hadn’t been late once in the two years since we joined the same management training cohort. “Override front door lock,” I said in a commanding tone, aping sci-fi movies I’d seen. I was pretty sure that real assistants didn’t work that way, but it was worth a try. Patrick repeated his spiel. I checked the door cam and window again. “There’s nothing out there, Patrick!” I whined. “I’m confident that there is a faulty cable,” he replied earnestly. How can computers be so smart and so stupid simultaneously? Regardless, I surrendered to the fact that I wouldn’t be leaving until his “threat” had dissipated. I marched over to the couch, threw myself down with a huff, and stared fixedly at the door. When I upgraded, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the new Patrick. He used a cutting edge “universal” algorithm, as opposed to the patchwork of specific task algorithms that make up other assistants. The new algorithm let him learn things without being explicitly programmed for them. He was simply integrated into your home and given the objective of making you comfortable (with some constraints, of course). It was a huge improvement from the previous version. Within a week, Patrick was brewing my morning coffee just in time for when I arrived in the kitchen, and responding to routine emails for me. He adapted to variations in my schedule deftly. The shower always turned on 30 seconds before I was ready to step in, even when I woke up late in the morning after a night out. The temperature as I moved from room to room was consistantly perfect, while my latest power bill had been much lower than usual. Until this morning I hadn’t encountered a single bug with Patrick. I was so impressed that I’d been preaching his merits to all my friends, pushing nobly past the point of becoming tiresome. But being locked in my apartment like this was unnerving. I knew it was unreasonable, but I detected a faint seed of panic in the back of my mind. I inhaled deeply and focused on the spa music. Patrick crossfaded in a guided meditation. \ At 9:41, I heard the mechanism of the lock move. “It’s safe again, Finn. Sorry about the wait,” Patrick announced. Before he finished his sentence I was out the door and half-running toward the stairwell. I didn’t have time to wait for the elevator. As I hurried down the stairs, I rummaged through my purse for my phone, found it, and held my thumb on the Trolley icon to summon a car. If I was going to make the subway, I’d have to pony up the cash to take the tunnels there. Underground highway robbery… I landed on the ground floor, crossed the lobby, and pushed out onto the street. The car was just pulling up, its door sliding open in time for me to step in without breaking my stride. I sat down in one of the forward facing seats and we glided into the flow of traffic. Breathing heavily, I set my route in the app – the arrival time read 9:50. If the traffic gods blessed me, I could still make it. As the car maneuvered towards the tunnel, I pulled up that week’s notes on my phone and started reviewing for the briefing. There had been some big developments over the last few days and I wasn’t sure how they would come together. I tried imagining the different scenarios, preparing as much as I could for each. I kept my head down like that until I sensed we were nearing the 12-car tunnel elevator, then looked out the window to size up the congestion. It was 9:46, but I could see one more spot on the platform as we approached. I was going to make it. But just as I started to relax in my seat, the car suddenly braked. Another Trolley car appeared out of nowhere and slid into the space. “Come on!” I yelled at the passenger, louder than I intended. They startled in their cabin and looked around for the source of the noise. Immediately embarrased, I looked down at my lap – they couldn’t control the fleet any more than I could. They obviously just had Plus. My heart sank as the elevator descended below street level. It would be about a minute before it came back up for the next batch – more time then I had. The Trolley app updated my ETA to 9:51. I could perfectly visualize Gabriel’s poorly contained grin. I wallowed in self-pity during the 10:00 trainride downtown, listening to my Sad playlist and watching the concrete blur past the windows. When we pulled into the station, I stepped briskly off the train and up the stairs to street level. My office building was only a block away, and I closed the distance in record time. As I entered the lobby, the vintage elevator doors were just closing, forsaking me at ground level. I rolled my eyes at my luck and stood back, waiting for the carriage to climb it’s way up and back down the building. I watched the floor numbers light up in sequence above the safety doors. When it got to the 18th, I heard a heavy *SNAP* from inside the shaft, then another. Seconds later, a sickening impact that travelled through the concrete and shook my body. \ When I requested the logs, it took a couple weeks for the Patrick Company to get back to me, but eventually they did. The file was 31MB of plain text. The mass of activity Patrick did behind the scenes took me off guard. For every item that seemed directly linked to my interactions with him, there were a thousand more that didn’t. He crawled the social media pages of each of my contacts multiple times a day. He looked up the manufacturer of any new thing I bought. When I took a vacation to Spain last month, he went down a rabbit hole researching European history. He was constantly building out the context of my life in his model. At first, the only thing I could find related to my near death experience was Patrick accessing the Trolley API at 9:31 that morning, but it turned out I wasn’t looking far enough back. I had been combing through the logs for 3 hours when I finally found what I was looking for – 10 seconds of activity almost 4 months ago. Here’s what he did in that time: * Accessed the safety inspections for my office building on an unlisted page of the city’s website * Reviewed footage from the lobby and elevator’s CCTV streams (they were private but unencrypted) * Looked up the specific make of the elevator on a specialty site dedicated to vintage elevators * Researched woven steel cables * Looked at my historical location data and step count from 9:35AM (when I leave for work) to 9:56AM (when I get there) * Looked at my Trolley ride history * Performed a complex equation I couldn’t follow * Checked my calendar for 121 days in the future, March 4 * Looked up the subway schedule for March 4 * Scheduled the door to emergency lock on March 4 from 9:33:42AM to 9:41:11AM Note: *This story was inspired by something I read in Stuart Russell’s book, Human Compatible. He talks about how humans can’t behave rationally because life is too complex. We can’t truly optimize for our goals because it’s impossible for us to predict the way things will pan out with so many interacting factors. We can’t even predict the way a chess move will pan out. But computers are much better at chess than us. It’s a type of computation they are better suited for. So, I imagined a scenario where an AI assistant could accurately predict a catastrophe by modelling the interactions of different factors in a way our brains can’t. I think this would be possible for a specific type of situation with relatively few interacting factors, like in the story.


“Look at the ghost there,” the little girl thought to herself. If only the ghost could look down and see the girl, but he looked on. The girl knew he was a prop deep down… yet it was fun to pretend. She whispered to her brother sitting next to her later in the car, “the Window Ghost is in the car with us”. “The window ghost?” Bill asked. Bill was not totally on the same page as Shasta, but they were close enough in age he was willing to put up with her silliness. “Yeah, I saw a ghost sitting in the window way high up, higher than any of the decoration ghosts,” Shasta said matter-of-factly. “That sounds like it’s bad…”, Bill would often let Shasta finish his sentence. “News. No, he’s my friend”. The parents did not pay attention to the goings-on in the backseat, as the two were always up to some made up new game. They usually preferred guessing which cartoon character from one of their shows would make a good singer for the song playing on the car radio. The ghost in question, the Window Ghost, sat between the siblings in the family looking on. Bill continued playing his game. He was almost always playing a video game, which left Shasta to physically stare out the window but mentally be elsewhere. Today though, her new imaginary friend the Window Ghost was here to be a comforting friend… even if he was a ghost. No one would have guessed Shasta would befriend a ghost, she often got very scared during Halloween. This year might be different if she had a ghost with her she thought. Though she was the most intrigued by the things that scared her. She sure didn’t like getting scared and was often up for hours on end thinking of all the monsters making those noises in her house, but she often couldn’t resist the urge to look at scary things. As Shasta, the Window Ghost, and Bill zoomed over the highway, she remembered an earlier incident with a Halloween-themed flashlight that contained a plastic skull on the end of the flashlight that lit up. She was intrigued by the flashlight, being scared of it and all. She pierced through her anxieties and picked up the flashlight and turned it on. “The skeletons are pretty neat,” she thought to herself, which suddenly turned to horror when positioned the flashlight under her hand, lighting up the reddish glow of blood. “AH!” She thought to herself, putting the flashlight down gently. Remembering this moment now gave her some anxiety that turned into relief when she realized Window Ghost could protect her the next time something bad happened. The Window Ghost was now outside laying on the top of the car, ready to take a nap. Days had gone by and no sightings of Window Ghost. Shasta was sad but understood… “maybe he could only live in the haunted house,” she thought. She was mainly OK with this because her friend Sean was coming over to play that day. “He’s going to love the cheesecake, and we’re gonna have fun, and we can play video games..” Shasta thought about the endless possibilities of hanging out with a little boy her same age. Sean wasn’t nearly as enthused about this visit. For a girl Shasta was OK, but girls are lamer than his younger brothers even. Shasta, or more like Shasta’s brother, did have a gaming system though…. Shasta felt even more lonely during her visit with Sean than she felt earlier that day. She tried to get him to stop playing the single-player game for a moment and have cheesecake with her, but it turned out cheesecake was even lame to Sean for the stated reason “I don’t like cheese”. With Sean gone, Shasta lay alone in the living room soaking up the sun from the carpet. There were so many curtains, including a translucent one that seemed to be one with the dust illuminated by the rays of the sun. “Window Ghost!” Shasta gasped. Window Ghost nodded, barely visible to Shasta. He was well dressed for his era, which included dressing with items such as a newsboy hat and a dressy suit. Shasta thought they should get to know each other, but Window Ghost was quiet. That’s alright if he’s shy, she thought. She was similar, which made it hard to open up to Window Ghost even. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew Window Ghost was looking out for her. Window Ghost listened to her, but he mainly projected an air of clarity. “Coooooooollll dude” one of Shasta’s favorite children’s cartoon hum-animal regurgitated, much to the surprise of no one. This overly muscular barracuda-people wasn’t as awesome as some of the other “boys” cartoons, but Shasta liked it for its quirky ways. Who could blame her really? Shasta treasured her toys that were in her aquatic hero’s image. The fish was tough, and she wanted to be tough too… probably for as long as she could remember. This desire to act tough would sometimes end poorly for her later in life, such as the time she tried to give herself the nickname “Hooligan” on the junior girl's softball team without *really* knowing what it meant. She climbed into her bed hoping her parents would stop by to say goodnight, or I love you, but this didn’t happen. Window Ghost looked on, with much compassion for the girl. She fell asleep worried she would be cursed to nightmares if her parents didn’t express their affection. Darkness. She saw darkness darker than when you close your eyes. Then, all of a sudden faces! She could barely stand to see what was in front of her and yet she couldn’t close her eyes. Shasta often liked closing her eyes and pretending she had to pass a test to tell where the sun was with their eyes closed as if she was the only one to see light shining through her eyelids. There was no sun shining here. These were the faces of the selfish, those filled with rage, and those who try and take control of you. These were the scariest faces Shasta had ever seen. They were all 2-Dimensional, of different solid colors contrasting the darkness. Shasta started to cry uncontrollably, which jostled her from her sleep. When she woke up she was still yelling, “the faces, the faces!”. Her parents woke and asked what was happening. Shasta tried to explain it was definitely a nightmare… and she felt she knew why she had a nightmare, but didn’t want to hurt her parent's feelings. “It’s these toys,” Shasta’s mom said not believing the little girl. In one night, Shasta lost her favorite toys and her courage against evil things. The next day the wind began to blow cold into Shasta’s bones, despite the dutiful desert sun shining as ever. “I wonder what we’ll be for Halloween”? Billy asked his sister as they played in the backyard. “Don’t know, maybe a ghost so I can talk to Window Ghost”, Shasta replied thoughtfully. “Is he still around?” Billy said, not hearing of Window Ghost since the original car ride home. “Yup!” Shasta said excitedly. “I heard there’s a huge haunted house a few streets over,” Billy said teasing his sister. Billy continued despite fear creeping onto Shasta’s face, “this guy has a scary demon voice who makes his whole garage and backyard like a haunted house”. “I hope we don’t go there,” Shasta thought to herself. Shasta mainly talked to Window Ghost about how she was sad about her toys being gone, but Window Ghost knew the real reason was she was upset. She was upset because no one cared about what she had to say… she *knew* the faces were just a nightmare and that the barracuda-people toys weren’t the real culprits here. A loss of control. Window Ghost knew this feeling well, but also somehow tried to let Shasta know one day she’d have more control. Window Ghost also knew a secret no child could comprehend, a secret about those demon faces. Halloween night was as crisp as crunching into a fragile lollipop, which Billy and Shasta hoped to do plenty of after trick-or-treating. Billy and Shasta were made to be an angel and a devil, respectively. Shasta’s face appeared to glow bright red due to the excessive amount of face paint. Why Billy was the angel and Shasta was the devil was unclear to the siblings… she didn’t particularly like evil things after her nightmare. Alas, it is Halloween and, is time for fun! The kids had a wonderful night together. It seemed the candy was flowing out of people’s hands like gasoline getting pumped from a hose. Suddenly though, near the dead of night, Shasta noticed their van was pulling up to a very popular place. She and Billy got out of the car and simultaneously realized where they were. “That Devil is larger than a swing-set”, thought Shasta to herself too scared to move. The last time she was this taken aback was in a dream, where she stumbled upon a magical floating orb in the middle of a fast-food ball pit. “Helllloooo,” said the Devil in a deep booming voice, not of a man’s. Even Billy was scared, especially after peeking into the garage that appeared to have a series of corpses spread eerily. Billy inched away from the Devil, hoping if he moved slow enough the Devil would not notice him. Much to Billy’s relief, the Devil declared how scared he was of the Angel… but the little devil? What of her? “I like you,” said the Devil to Shasta. Shasta didn’t know what to say so she just stood there, scared, unable to process why this was happening to her. Window Ghost looked on sitting with the girl in the family van as they drove off. “The Devil was not so bad, despite him being as tall as tree” Shasta explained to Window Ghost later that night. Window ghost looked on. “I was still scared though… some reason lately” Shasta muttered. Window Ghost looked on. “UGGG, WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BE REAL?? REAL PEOPLE CAN PAY ATTENTION!” Shasta yelled with a wave of anger that resounded in the Window Ghost. Window Ghost was real though, but Shasta didn’t know it at the time. He’d come a long way to be here, and it was very painful for him every minute he stayed. He knew though. He knew to lift his curse he had to make things clear for this little girl, otherwise, he’d be floating around forever. “She may have to wait and see one day that I am real” Window Ghost thought, trying to remember when that would start to happen. Somewhere around 16, or 17, that poor dear, if she could only see now. Window Ghost knew that wasn’t possible though. He hated the very atoms of the universe for it, that you can’t change the past. He wouldn’t be here if he could change the past, and yet here he was in the past. He came to realize looking onward was the only thing he could do to give the girl clarity. ‘Til she was older and wise, could she really beat the demons inside.


Prologue  *Come one, come all! Come to the Circus of Fools!* *Feast your eyes on amusing antics and freaks of nature!* *From towering giants to twins combined!* *See God’s rejects and they will send a shiver!*  *Divas and starlets of the stage that will amaze you!* *Magicians and clowns that captures the imagination!* *Behold them all and feel the unholy sensation!* *Fun for everyone and for the whole family!*  *After all, the circus family awaits your arrival!* \- A flyer from the circus  It was June 15, 1933 on a humid Saturday in the city of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, that the circus came to town. The citizens gathered around the city square to take a peek of the exotic oddities and attractions.  Eliza, a little girl of seven, was walking on the city streets. She wore a red pinafore dress and ribbons of the same color, set on her curly brown hair. She had a large swirly lollipop in one hand and a balloon in the other. She came to venture the circus, out of boredom, in hopes of seeing fun and wondrous things.  Her parents did not know that, she left the house when no one was looking.  It wasn’t long when the streets became flooded with people. They stood by the side of the road as a circus wagon crossed by, followed by a troupe of performers. Tall clowns, colorful harlequins, and other attractions caught the audience’s eye. They were all scattering flyers and confetti to the crowd.  However, the ones that stole the spotlight, are the circus freaks.  Bearded ladies, tattooed men, deformed bodies and broken minds, captured the attention of every passerby. An old man who is covered in scales like a croc, a diva wearing a blindfold with goat legs like that of a satyr’s, a clown with two painted faces, and many more. The people laughed and mocked the performers, but they didn’t seem to mind the flurry of insults thrown at them.  They seem to be… happy?  They were smiling amidst the jeering crowd. They looked onward with bright eyes and kept marching on.  Eliza was amazed as she picked up a flyer. It was painted in bright colors, bold letters, and fancy designs that pleased the eye. While she was engrossed on it, a performer passed by her field of vision. She immediately looked up and saw a twin-headed blonde, clothed in a yellow and orange diamond-checkered clown attire, beckoning her to follow them.  She followed while dropping all the things she was holding in the process. Along the winding roads and streets did she walk, she eventually reached their destination; the Circus of Fools.  It’s all colorful and festive. The main tent is painted in bright red and yellow, there are multicolored stalls that sold food in colored paper bags, game booths that gave out wondrous prizes, and sideshow attractions like magic acts and freak shows.  It all amazed little Eliza. The splendor of the circus filled her heart with joy.  And to the man who was watching her.  She peeked into one of the sideshow tents. Inside, she saw the diva from earlier. She stood on a dark, curtain-covered stage with a single spotlight shining on her. She donned a black dress, adorned with dark blue flowers and laced with teal ribbons. A black ornate blindfold covered her eyes, and it appeared to be wet.  The diva had a beautiful voice, clear as crystal and pure as a brook, she sung a wonderful song that Eliza nor the audience could understand. But something felt off, Eliza felt it. There was a hint of sadness that can be heard from the singer’s voice.  \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* *Je m'appelle Margherita.* *La diva des perdus.* *Écoutez mon récit de malheurs,* *pourquoi mes larmes ont coulé.*  *La fille d'un commerçant,* *qui s'est écarté de son chemin,* *un jour, il est venu au cirque.*  *Elle a entendu une dame,* *chanter si calmement* *alors qu'elle sentait la pluie brûlante.*  *Elle regardait avec horreur,* *alors que les lumières s'affaiblissaient,* *jusqu'à ce qu'il la trouve.*  *La potion du maître de cérémonie,* *un mélange de douleur et de feu,* *a été renversé dans ses yeux,* *et cela l'a fait pleurer.*  *Il l'a volée,* *fait avec ses jambes,* *a ensuite remplacé celle d'une chèvre.*  *Elle va maintenant nous rejoindre,* *la mascarade maudite* *avec le Diable qui l'a laissée mutilée.*  *Forcée de chanter,* *forcé à danser,* *avec les pattes crochues d'une bête.*  *Voici cette chanson, pour tous ceux qui l'entendent.* *Le plaidoyer d'une âme pitoyable.* *Jusqu'à ce que nous dépérissions,* *nous verrons la lumière du jour.* \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  This song did she sing, captivated them all. The audience, enthralled by the voice of the dame, never cared for the words but cheered as she disappeared from the stage. Eliza was about to leave when the twin-headed blonde popped their heads underneath the velvet curtains.  She could see them clearly now under the spotlight. One head is that of a girl’s, grinning mischievously; the other is a boy’s, frowning in sorrow.  “C’mere with us, luv,” the girl beckoned. “Come with us if you want to see more what we have to offer. You might even want to stay.”  “Don’t listen to her,” spoke the boy. “Leave us and return to your loved ones before he finds you.”  The sister clobbered her twin on the head, silencing him. Before the brother could speak again, they vanished underneath the heavy curtains.  Curious of what the twins have said, she followed them as she did before. Pushing through the velvet, she found herself outside the tent. Confused on where they’ve gone, Eliza aimlessly wandered the circus grounds. It was already dusk, where the last rays of the sun are slowly waning and the full moon is steadily shining.  She stumbled upon another tent. It seems to be closed.  But that didn’t stop her from looking at the hole. There was a hole in the tent’s canvas, enough for her to squeeze in.  She crawled in…  And was met with a horrifying sight. A corpse was hanging from the rafters with a rope rung around its neck. A stool was inches away from the body as if it was kicked off and an empty bottle of acid was found under it. The tent reeked of burnt flesh and hair, it clung on to the rough cloth of the tent and the clothes of the clown.  Before she could even do anything, a pair of gloved heavy hands sprouted from the dark. One hand had a rag that was doused in chloroform and pressed it against her nose while the other hand held her body tightly.  Before her vision fades, she saw her captor. A large man dressed like a ringmaster, grinning at her with malicious intent. Then everything went dark.  \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  A week passed by ever since that fateful night.  There was a new attraction that was to be unveiled in the circus. The posters of the upcoming event obscured a missing person’s flyer and the shouts of the performers drowned out the worries of two people.  Hundreds of curious watchers gathered in front of the new sideshow’s tent. The twin-headed clown was selling tickets out the front while the people clamored for seats. The show was about to begin.  The ringmaster, a stout man in a red suit and black top hat with a gold monocle in his eye, made his entrance.  “Ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “We have a new show for you all tonight! Avert your eyes if you can’t handle the horror, I give you…”  Drumroll plays as the audience held their breath.  “No Face!”  The curtains were drawn as they all cheered. It revealed a man with dark hair. However, his face was literally blank. His face is pale as the moon, he had no eyes nor eyelids and his nose gone aside from the two nostrils like a snake’s. The only thing left untouched was his mouth, and it was grinning.  While the audience was watching, a couple could be seen wandering in the circus grounds. Weary and heartsick for their daughter, they decided to search the circus. They have turned the town upside down to find her, but they found not a trace.  The twins caught sight of them. The brother tried walking to them, but the sister stopped him. This time, he fought back and punched his sister’s head. That was enough to knock her out of cold.  He approached the couple. “Excuse me, sir and ma’am.”  The couple turned around. The husband was the first to speak. “Yes?”  “Are you,” the blonde awkwardly asked. “I mean, do you have a daughter by chance?”  “Yes,” the wife immediately replied. “Have you seen our Eliza?” she asked hastily.  “We have, but please forgive me and my sister. We didn’t want to, but we had to. If we don’t, he’ll slaughter us too.”  The twin-headed clown urged them to follow him. The parents could only hope that their precious girl is all and well.  But it was all in vain.  A little girl is singing an upbeat tune of circuses and flowers. Her short brown hair barely covering her face, revealing a large burnt scar on the right side. In her left hand was a pouch full of colored dust and a bouquet of white mums and red lycoris.  Their daughter is gone.  (Have a happy Halloween everyone, it is time for scares.


Someone was watching Renee Aljour. The latest package, if nothing else, established that much. She thumbed through the latest set of photographs while sitting on her hotel room sofa, but she was unsure what she was supposed to be seeing. This was the third time in a week she received a similar delivery but was still to make any sense of them. The first set was waiting at the front desk for her when she first checked in but could only be considered benign. They had to be publicity shots that needed approval or maybe cancelled ones that were sent to her by mistake, she reasoned. The second envelope was stuffed with photographs of Renee Aljour as well, but these were no longer canned poses. These were snapshots of her in public, candid shots of the young actress on location, stepping into a café, buying roses from the corner stand, petting a stray cat, scratching her wrist while she waited for cab. The work of local paparazzi, she told herself. She reminded herself that it was far from a secret that she was staying there. Someone tracking her down was no reason for any immediate concern. It wasn’t anything the cast and crew looked forward to but they had come to expect set-crashers. Renee spotted a green cardigan she was wearing in one of the pictures that she liked. She didn’t remember bringing with her, let alone owning it. She was rapping the stack of images against her knee wondering if the sweater was something lying around set that she could ‘borrow’ when a slip of paper fell out from between the photographs. A phrase was scrawled across the torn scrap of paper. “*Make her listen*.” She ran her fingers over the back of the paper where the author had all but scratched through in their crude urgency. Was it a reminder for the courier that delivered the package? Were they supposed to have left something more behind? She picked through the rest of the photos but found only more reflections captured in time and space. She considered calling her agent, but at best the protracted dialogue would result in his half-hearted attempt to hire a bodyguard. Not that she would have taken him up on the offer. The thought of someone following her every step, watching her ever motion was the last thing she needed. Instead, she took to triple-checking her locks and walking around her hotel room with an empty bottle of cabernet, just in case. Curious mailings or not, she was going to have to leave for work soon, especially if she wanted to visit with Abby at the University. Before their reunion earlier this week it had seven years since the friends had last seen one another. The pair that was inseparable in high school discovered life had diverging plans for them not long after graduation. Renee entered into acting with the same affable disinterest she glided through the early half of her life with, but for Abbey it was different. She had all the determination for the two of them. She was always dead set on her objectives, whatever they were, and obsessive until they were realized. Renee once joked Abby would be terrifying if she wasn’t so damn boring. Renee could tell the intervening years had been good to Abby. She was still her bookish, gray self but now she brimmed with an assured fulfillment that her estranged friend admired. Academics were clearly her calling, not that Renee could pretend to understand a fraction of the studies Abby described over coffee, but she smiled and nodded through the conversation, just happy her friend had found her place in the world. Abby leaned forward after Renee told her about the confusing packages. She was hardwired to interpret everything as an equation to solve. Plug in enough factors and the strangest of scenarios suddenly begins to provide their own answers. At least, that’s what Abby told her when Renee tried changing conversation to the weather. “Where did they come from?” she asked. Renee shrugged. “I don’t know. No return address. I asked the receptionist but they haven’t noticed anyone, not that I knew what to ask them to look for.” “What do you think it means?” “Couldn’t say,” Renee downplayed the event, feeling silly mentioning it in the first place. “Maybe nothing. People are weird.” Abby placed her hand on Renee’s. “People are also creepy, Ren. There’s a difference. Can’t you, I don’t know, call the cops, or something?” “Not really. It’s not a crime to leave mail for someone. It’s not like there was any actual threats of violence or any mention of anything illegal.” “Yeah, but these are not regular press photos or fan pics. These are personal.” Abby picked out a snapshot from the stack Renee brought with her. “This one is of you walking into your hotel. The thought that at any time there could be someone out there, watching us, looking right at us. It’s just awful. I know you’re just in town for a few more days, but have you thought about changing hotels just in case?” Renee suddenly became very aware of their presence in the center of the campus courtyard. She felt exposed, vulnerable, even with her friend. The others walking past, standing in the distance, where were their wayward glances going? Were they watching her right now? Was it one of them? She would never be able to tell. “I should probably get going. I have to get back to the set.” “You could stay with me, if you like. It’s not every day we get bona fide movie stars crashing with us, after all.” “I’m a glorified extra, Abs. I just stand in for the actual movie star while they’re blocking the shots and setting up for the real thing.” She realized she hadn’t answered her question and felt her cheeks flush red. “And, no. Thanks, but no. I’ll be fine.” Abby walked with her to the parking lot and waited until her cab came. She could tell the mailings were troubling Renee no matter how aloof she tried to play it. “Listen, I’m sure it’s nothing. Like you said, people are weird. You should come by later tonight. We’ll get take out and watching dumb movies or something.” “Maybe. My ride’s here. I’ll see you around.” Work was tediously present for Renee the rest of the day. The bulk of her time was spent standing within shouting range of the assistant camera director while they positioned and repositioned lighting for several hours. After returning to the hotel she held her breath while passing the front desk receptionist but there were no packages this time. She could exhale. Renee took a long shower and slipped into her sweats eager just to relax in sequestered anonymity for a change. She would text Abby in a bit, thanking her for the movie night invitation but saying she got held up on set. It was sympathy. She could see it on her face when she first made the offer. She was concerned, just being nice. It’s what friends were supposed to do for one another but it left Renee uneasy. Abby was the practical one. That much had stayed the same since their time apart. If she thought there was something to worry about then that made it real. She was settling in for a marathon of competitive cooking shows when a knock at the door froze her in place. She waited for a beat, then another, and another. Nothing. Room service, she told herself. Besides, the packages had been left with the front desk. They knew the hotel she was staying, but they didn’t know which room, right? She took the empty wine bottle from the stand and let the door swing open. She was alone. Down both ends of the hall she saw no one and took relief it was just room service or maybe a guest who had the wrong door number. She felt silly that she let her imagination run away with her until she saw the photograph taped to the other side of her door. There was no package this time. There was only one photo. It was another image of Renee Aljour, but something had happened. She was the same, but different. Her hair was bone white and much longer than she had ever grown hers. She turned the sheet over. This time in red marker and underlined— “HETONTBREKENDECIJFER Make her listen.” *They were here*, she thought in a swelling panic. *They were right on the other side of the door while I was showering*. She tossed her phone in her bag, took the keys off the counter and rushed from the room. He didn’t know what her next step would be but knew that she could no longer remain there. She was peeling around the corner of her floor trying to remember Renee’s address when she crashed into someone heading the opposite direction. The jolt toppled her backward. When she looked up Abby was reaching out her hand. Her hair was a mess. There was dirt on her face and dried blood smeared along the back her arm. Fire had burned a hole through the shoulder of her jacket which now draped over her bandaged shoulder. “Jesus, Abby, what happened?” She was stammering, fending off shock through sheer force of will. “I-I-I- didn’t know where to go. My lab. They attacked. Burned it to the ground. Tried to do me. Burn me too. It all happened so fast, but I was moving so slow. I was watching everything, but I couldn’t do anything.” Renee got her feet and wrapped her arms around Abby. “My god, Abs. Are you okay?” Abby’s attention had already drifted, studying the overturned photograph lying at their feet. “Het ontbrekende cijfer. They were here.” She followed her eyes back to the photograph. “What are you saying, Abby? Who was here?” Abby pulled away from their embrace and looked her old friend in the eyes, fighting against her better judgment before relenting. “Renee, there’s something I need to show you.” The facility was at the far end of the industry park away from the rest of the world. The windowless one-room building was efficient and utterly unremarkable. Its immediate secrets revealed nothing more than ordinary research materials and dusted over laboratory equipment. Abby locked the door behind them after they entered. The florescent lights were still flickering to life as she pulled up a chair to a computer console. “I thought you said they trashed your place?” “They did,” she answered. “This is a backup location. I set it up a few months ago for situations like tonight. The incidents are escalating, but if they knew how close I actually am then they wouldn’t have quit until they stopped me permanently.” Renee’s head was spinning. The photographs were bad enough, but Abby was supposed to be her constant. “Abby, please, you have to slow down. I don’t understand. You said you had something to show me?” By way of explanation, Abby crouched down to pull away the rug in the center of the floor. A hatch door which sat flush with the concrete had been hiding underneath. There was no door handle and the hinges sat in recessed channels carved out of the ground. Abby slipped a pry bar between the frame and wooden door until she could slip in a single finger, then her hand, to pull it open. Inside, metal scaffolding served as a worker’s stairwell that spiraled out of sight. Intuition told Renee to leave, that she should not have come here. A part of her knew she should have just turned around and gone back to the hotel, back to her unfulfilling job standing in for other people, go back to the pissy production assistant who only ever called her ‘that one’ and act like none of this was happening. Maybe then she could return to a time before her best friend had that manic glint to her unblinking stare, back to before the marking on her door and Abby waiting right around the corner, back before she dragged her here, alone together. “Abby. What is this?” Even swept in her passions, Abby could read Renee. She had to give her more. Finally, she relented. “The message on the back of that photo- it’s not HETONTBREKENDECIJFER*.* It’s ‘Het ontbrekende cijfer*.* It’s Dutch. It means ‘the missing digit.’” “*Dutch*? How would you know that?” Another set of switches along the wall activated a string of track lights that guided commuters deeper into the awaiting unknown. Abby took the first steps into the basement and held her hand out for Renee to follow. “That’s part of the reason we’re here. I’m asking you to trust me, Renee.” Whether she did or not, they were still friends. What choice did she have in the matter? After the first few unsteady steps down the metal scaffolding she was able to balance herself and risk a glimpse at the world she was entering. There should have been a level between the two stories but the floor just beneath the lab was missing. Instead the support beams ran deeper, into an unfinished subbasement. Aside from its depth and lack of access, Renee didn’t notice much immediate difference from the floor above. The walls were unfinished bedrock with planks of thin plywood laid across a dirt floor. Instead of the random assortment of consoles and laptops like the previous room, this floor housed a single machine, one large computer bolted in the place to the subterranean earth. Renee was still taking in her new surroundings as Abby strode to a power cable grafted onto a collection of car batteries. After connecting the current she ran to other side of the room to kick start the gas generator. An engine whirred to life and a globe of pink and gold light materialized, throbbing a meter above a white porcelain platform on the other end of the chamber. The light’s power was redoubling on itself by the instant and was soon blinding even in periphery. Abby had come to expect the brilliance and was already wearing heavily tinted glasses. She handed Renee a pair and warned her not to get too close. “You asked where I picked up Dutch. Geneva really is a beautiful in the springtime. I studied there for quite a while. I was working there for three years until I had to come back here. ‘*Misappropriation of funds.’* ” She spat the accusation from her mouth. “If they even had a fraction of the sense of what we were going to discover if they let me push a little further. If they weren’t all so damned frightened of the future all the time we could finally get there.” “What *exactly* do you study, Abs?” Renee asked while keeping the rungs along the scaffolding back to the first floor in sight. “I can’t get into specifics, for both our safety. Suffice to say, I’m on the verge of something groundbreaking and there are people who are trying to stop me.” “Stop you from what?” Abby punched in lines of code and the console clicked and chirped in response. The pink and gold light hummed at her side like a house broken ball of lightning. “This machine computes chronal-spatial relationships and reintegrates the assets into practical applications. At least, that’s the idea.” “English, Abby. What is all that supposed to mean?” She declared in victory, “Time and space. I’ve cracked them both. I’ve figured out ways to reinterpret their interactions on a quantum level. And before you start, need I remind you: Everything is impossible until someone does it. Admittedly, I would like to run the data a little while longer before we fire live tests but if the attack at my lab was any indication we’re out of time.” She embraced Renee, unchecked ambition leaping from her pores. “Everything is going to be okay. It only has to run once and then we’ll show them I’m right, that my numbers are sound.” “Numbers?” Abby went back to her keyboard, anxiously hammering home the final lines of code. “Hmm? Numbers? Yes, of course. It’s not exactly long division, but it’s a living.” There was a single, intimate moment of reflection that overcame Renee. She understood the message. It wasn’t about her at all, it was *to* her. It was a command, a request, a desperate plea. One last warning. She shouted over the whine of the gas generator. “Wait! The packages, the attack, the missing digit, everything, all of it leads to this.” Abby wasn’t listening. Not now, not after she had already gone so far, not when they were so close. A few more keystrokes and it would all be over. Renee tried wrenching her away from the console. “You have to stop this. Whatever you’re doing, it’s wrong. Something’s gone wrong, or will go wrong, or I don’t know, but you have to listen, damn it.” “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” “None whatsoever,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t change anything. The missing digit. It’s in your math. It’s in the machine. Somewhere in this byzantine labyrinth a brick was laid out of sorts and now the whole thing is going to topple.” She shook her head, refusing to hear the warning. “Impossible. I’ve been writing these algorithms for the past three years. It’s all I’ve thought of. You’re not going to take that away from me. No one is going to take this away from me.” The two fought for control of the console. Renee snagged Abby’s hand again, refusing to let it go. “You asked me to trust you. Now you need to trust me.” The cold calculation of hard science cut across Abby’s face just before she swept Renee’s legs out from under her. “There’s not enough time.” Renee was falling backward, her arms flailing as she tried gain her balance. Abby extended her hand, this time to shove her backwards onto the porcelain dais where the light was still shining. Everything was happening so fast for her. She expected the light to burn, some effect of electricity or radiation. Instead, a prickly chill swelled at her heels before rushing up her spine to the ends of the hair on her head. Renee shrieked over the howls of beast gearing up around her. “Something’s wrong in the numbers, you missed something. The missing digit! You have to listen. Abby, please. This is it.” “You can’t possibly know that, Renee. Neither of us can until one of us tries.” Renee shot an arm free of the neutralizing light that was ensconcing her. She was desperate to make it to her wayward friend. If she could just reach her, a hand, a single finger even. Abby exhaled and allowed herself a silent prayer before throwing the switch. That’s when the wall of light rose up. Renee Aljour was on one side, Abby and her missing digit on the other. It became brighter, whiter, until she could hear it, taste it, feel it filling her every cell. Then the light began to fade and the world fell back into place, but the pieces were all wrong. It was the fire she saw first; smoldering in on itself, impossibly falling and rising at the same time. The figure of Abby’s body stood amid the inferno, at first no more than a black outline after reintegrating from a flurry of spent cinders. A moment later, her face returned. It was screaming, wailing in pain. “.thgir erew uoY” A hole was taken out of the side of Abby’s body and then the explosion that caused it followed afterward. A cloud of fire and wild arcing sparks of electricity shrunk, retreating away from Abby’s face and back into the side of the machine from where it erupted. The images were coming faster now, becoming part of the light fuzzing in around the corners of her sight. A few more faces flickered past. Snatches of conversation and smells of places she had forgotten she had ever been flowed back at her. She was being suspended for pulling that fire alarm all over again. Paul McCartney was talking about LSD. Genghis Khan was eating a goat leg. A giant lizard howled in charnel death throes before the first final light swelled and took them all. Someone was watching Renee Aljour. The latest package, if nothing else, established that much. She thumbed through the latest set of photographs while sitting on her hotel room sofa, but she was unsure what she was supposed to be seeing. This was the second time in a week she received a similar delivery but was still to make any sense of them. Candid shots of the young actress on location, stepping into a café, buying roses from the corner stand, petting a stray cat, scratching her wrist while she waited for cab; the work of local paparazzi, she told herself. Three stories below her, a woman in a green cardigan and bone white hair was stepping from the lobby of the hotel out onto the street. The other remainders would be waiting for her to return. They were always short on time. There were real hopes they had gotten through in their latest attempt, that they could finally put this behind them. It was the closest they had come, but still just as short. They would try again. They had to. If they could just get through to her, if they could just get her to listen before she throws that switch and leaves them to less than nothing all over again. She had to hold out hope on herself to see this to its end, not that she was in short supply at this point. She stepped to the curb and waved down a cab as the world sped on around her, never accounting for a woman with a missing digit.


(1,805 words - ie only 6 minutes!) The Tipping Point “But, Dad, you said that the virus was only mild when it started?” “Yes, yes, indeed I did, son. And I was wrong. When the experts got together and sorted through the information, it became clear that, without specialist help, it would almost always result in certain death.” “But you had the Gravida Virus, and you survived it,” said the boy with pride in his voice. “I did survive – yes,” added the man, “but it was only through the specialist help that I came through… thank god I am a party member, and they treated me so well. non-party members fare very badly.” He shook his head and stared sadly at the floor. “Even so,” he said looking up, “the virus did damage my heart valves and the future is not good.” Robert had never seen his father look so sad, nor indeed drink beer like this. “Is it serious?” he asked concerned. “Yes, I’m afraid it is” was the reply, “I could even die in the near future” he added, putting the most optimistic and brave face on the “truth”. The “experts” had told him of the realistic and grim prognosis. “Have you told mum?” he asked with tears in his eyes. “No, I cannot bother your mum with things like this and, actually, I wouldn’t know how to tell her.” After a silence: \-“Will the virus kill me and mum if we get it?” “No, not at all,” said the father shaking his head and smiling: “Because all our family are party members, we will get the best treatment and you and mum will be just fine.” “… otherwise, we would die?” “Yes – for certain. I spoke to my friend Leon, sorry, I should now call him Commander Leon, who is the top doctor in the city, and his instructions are that every one with the virus must go to the “Healing Unit” to have a chance of saving their lives.” “What if they are not party members and they refuse?” asked the boy. “Well,” said the father looking serious, “we must then insist that they go into the unit – if required, with the help of the police!” He paused, aware that there were problems in what he was about to say, “I saw my friend, Martin today who has the virus and he refused to be admitted… he is an old friend, and though I could be in trouble, I could not bring myself to call in the police… I will go and see him again tomorrow, but he will certainly be dead.” “Oh,” said Robert as he had fond memories of Martin, a close family friend, “You often told me he was a genius.” “Yes, yes,” said Anthony slightly testily, “but that was last year, and that has all changed… he has not updated his views and does not follow the party guidelines. He would be in real trouble now if he had not received the gold ribband for saving the life of Brother-Commander Edward.” “Wow!” said the boy as this was a famous household name. After a pause, Anthony continued, “And even though that diagnosis has been overturned by the committee, his special dispension continues. “Does truth ever change then, Dad?” Robert asked thoughtfully. Anthony remained quiet for a while. “It’s called the narrative,” he finally said, “Sometimes, facts must be altered to fit the needs of the people – that is the wise web which the party weaves to explain everything to our citizens.” The two sat in silence, hoping there would be other times together. \*\*\* This was no time for tears; Martin had disobeyed the guidelines and must pay the price. Anthony drove sombrely with the death certificate book ready on the passenger seat. He pulled up at the little country cottage; Martin had never received the money and acclaim he deserved as he had never been a successful “committee-man”. He let himself in through the front door to find a man, who looked just like the late Martin, sitting in an old rocking chair reading a book. “Martin?” asked Anthony in astonishment, “is that really you? I can’t believe it!” Martin smiled. “But how? I brought your death certificate with me!” he added with a note of delight in his voice. Martin closed the book and put it to one side. “There are more things in heaven and earth than have entered your committee rooms” he chuckled. “I would share them with you, but the truth might get you into trouble… Hospitals can sometimes be machines of death themselves.” Martin seemed really quite fit and, although severely disabled with arthritis was able to make some tea as the two friends spoke of wonderful times gone by; as always, Anthony was struck by the incisive, questioning mind of Martin and his company was compelling as always. But Anthony had a busy work schedule and was soon making his leave. “Before you leave,” said Martin, writing on a piece of paper, “here is a number which you must memorize and then destroy.” He looked almost menacingly at his friend. “Promise me that!” Anthony promised faithfully. “And the password is ‘The Tipping Point.’” “OK,” said Anthony, “OK, I can remember that.” \*\*\* “Commander Leon, Sir, you sent for me.” “Yes, Tony, and this is a very unpleasant business.” The (very) senior doctor looked grave: “It has come to my attention that you have been treating Martin Slavic.” He held his hand up to forbid interruption. “And we suspect that you have broken our protocols and guidelines.” He shook his head and sighed in total disbelief. Anthony opened his mouth to speak, but was gestured into silence. “There is concern that you may have been contaminated!” continued Commander Leon “But I have already had the virus,” said Anthony innocently, “I am immune!” “You misunderstand me,” continued Leon, observing in detail every movement on the face of Anthony through the magnifying “protective” shield. “This man has been a dangerous subversive, who threatens the security of our state; if he had not saved the life of brother-commander Edward, we would have dealt with his problem comprehensively…” He paused. “Did he ever show you copies of his “Alternative” and, by the way, I know the answer to that.” “Well, yes,” mumbled Anthony, “but that was long, long ago.” The “Alternative” was a very subversive pamphlet which Anthony had scarcely read, as it was full of dangerous heresies. “We also have reason to believe that he may have contact with,” Leon paused and his voice dropped to a whisper, “…The Outreaches.” Anthony’s jaw dropped; no-one even mentioned that place of horrors where only sub-humans dwelt. “We think you may be in danger,” continued the commander, “and we will be committing you to hospital on section 94 to get you sorted out!” He looked angry and, obviously, the conversation brooked no appeal. “You have a psychiatric history and we are convinced that the Gravida Virus has impacted your mind; if you refuse to comply, then this would denote a more severe psychiatric case which would mandate expelling you from the party with all that entails.” Leon looked rather menacingly into the eyes of Anthony. Anthony did not have a psychiatric history, but was he really sure..?. Had his mind been damaged by the Gravida virus…? There was no choice but to comply. \*\*\* The hospital admission procedure was very straightforward, though it struck Anthony as rather odd that this erstwhile Medical Unit had been filled with psychiatry patients. The staff looked very young and inexperienced. “Is it Commander Anthony?” asked the junior in charge. “No,” smiled Anthony, “I am not a commander, only a doctor.” “Only!” exclaimed the junior and ex-student of his. “You taught me so much… it is a privilege to treat you, Sir, but I must give you your injection to help you settle in.” “Of course,” acquiesced Anthony. “But you look rather nervous; would you like me to give myself the injection?” “Please, please do that, Sir. I would hate to be reported for giving a clumsy injection to someone as senior as you!” Anthony smiled. “OK, look away” he replied as he plunged the injection into the mattress. “I feel better already,” he said. \*\*\* The next morning, the junior from the day before came with some students. How are you feeling today?” he asked. “So much better,” lied Anthony, “I just feel totally committed to helping all our citizens and the party. They began to talk informally, and Anthony soon lapsed into his teaching manner. The group was a mixed bunch with nursing and medical students on ward experience. Soon they began to talk about cardiology, about how to take a history and examine the heart. It was so nice to speak with these enthusiastic students. Eventually, Anthony confided that he, himself, had heart valve problems from the Gravida virus. He went on to explain about Echocardiography and how bouncing sound waves off the heart could give a clear picture of the heart and valves. “We have an ECHO machine here on the ward,” said one of the students excitedly. “Do you know how to work it?” Anthony did, having spent a year on a cardiology unit. Soon he had a full picture of his own heart to show the students. “So, as you can see, I have severe heart disease and have no more than a few months to live.” The students were in tears as they left the room; losing this great teacher would be a severe loss. But Anthony had covered up the truth. The ECHO had clearly shown that his heart and valves were normal… why had the experts lied to him? His mind raced as he continued to act like a medicated patient. \*\*\* The ward was totally silent; it was dead of night, and Anthony’s mind was in turmoil. Finally, he knew with total certainty what was to be done. He put on his outdoor clothes which were surprisingly easy to find. He had always been a good climber and now – reassured that his heart was strong – made his escape through a small window. He stepped outside, and breathed the fresh air of freedom. “Better a few days of freedom than a life of mental imprisonment,” he mused, for he had always believed that there could be no life outside the party-state. The very idea of the “hell-on-earth” of The Outreaches had always made him shudder, but now he wondered what he truly knew about them. He reached into his pocket, and there he found his cell-pager.


Once upon a time, there was a slice of bread that had its own empire. It was a very big empire, bigger than the holy roman empire. As a matter of fact, it was the holy roman empire of sliced bread. It was the Holy Bread Empire. The emperor of this empire was Bread The Great. Just like many emperors, Bread the Great was very corrupt. One example was the Flour Famine of 1223. During the flour famine, there was a shortage of…flour. The bread population couldn’t repopulate themselves using regular flour so they had to recreate flour using fine wood shavings. Since the texture of fine wood shavings had a texture similar to flour, the bread people thought, “Hey, we don’t need flour. As long as we have our yeast and wood we’re good.” For the next five years, well, the bread people chopped down all the trees that surrounded their empire. Even though bread made from wood shavings was crumbly and had a stench of pine, the bread population went through the roof. The problem was The Holy Bread Empire couldn’t sustain the population growth so Bread The Great, instead of addressing the flour famine and deforestation around his empire, when the empire reached its maximum capacity, he got rid of excess population. He fed the excess slices of bread to his human servants. Eventually, the excess bread became so much that not even his human servants couldn’t handle it. They were fed bread and only bread. They are so much bread that the human servants died thanks to severe malnutrition. The trees on the other hand acted as a barrier to keep the nearby enemies from finding the bread empire easily. Since all the trees that surrounded and even protected them were gone, the nearby enemies could spot them from many many miles away. That meant more wars. Especially wars against the potatoes. For many centuries, there have been many conflicts between the bread and the potatoes. The bread people were on potato land. The potato emperor kindly asked the bread emperor to buzz off but Bread the Great ignored him. The increased bread population and bread activity affected the potato people. They couldn’t grow and raise healthy and happy potatoes and build a thriving potato community without those dumb slices of bread taking up their space. The conflict escalated and turned into many wars that led nowhere for the potato people but they continue to start wars against the bread people anyways. After the bread people chopped down all the surrounding trees, the potato emperor saw that as the perfect moment to take down the bread empire. The potatoes gathered in thousands around the bread empire’s fortification. Bread the Great ordered his army to throw fiery cannons at the potatoes. Some of the flames from the cannon cooked the potatoes. Sometimes the bread army would take the injured potatoes to Bread the Great’s palace where he would consume them for dinner. Since his servants were dead, he had the potatoes all to himself to make fries. But there was a problem. There was still a shortage of flour and since every slice of bread in his empire (including his army) was made of wood shavings, they were a walking fire hazard. When the potato army started throwing fiery cannons back at the empire, all the bread people easily ignited into flames. The entire empire was doomed. The flames spread and spread. Bread the great was the only slice of bread made of genuine flour and not wood. When over 85% of his population (and his empire) turned into charcoal, Bread the Great had to save his empire. What did he do? He fled. He left to create another empire thousands of miles away. He left his old empire and the remaining bread people to sit in flames while the potatoes invaded and took over everything. Since the Flour Famine of 1223 and the Potato War of 1225, the bread population slowly returned to normal and with normal flour instead of wood shavings. As for Bread the Great, he continued to rule the empire until 1295. On September 23, 1295, Bread the Great made his usual biannual speech to all of the empire. He spoke about how amazing he was and how the empire was in great care. Completely ignoring everything about the flour famine, the trees, the burning bread people, and an army of invading angry potatoes. In the middle of his speech, a group of moldy wheat bread men sprayed hot water at him. Bread the Great was soggy and greatly injured. The blast was so hot and strong, it knocked him off his high podium. When he landed, all of the bread citizens ran to him and tore him to pieces. It was a gory sight, but since Bread the Great never married and had bread children, there was no one to take his place and rule the empire. Following his assassination, the empire was in much worse shape. There was more chaos, more famines, and more wars from more angry potatoes. The bread people weren’t prepared. They thought they could operate the empire as a collective but everyone was greedy, stubborn, and never listened to each other. No one could agree with anyone about anything. The Holy Bread Empire eventually collapsed. As for the bread people, they were either captured by the potato army and were used to make potato flour bread rolls for the potato people or they fled the empire and were never heard from again. And that is the tale of Bread the Great and the fall of the Holy Bread Empire.