Bleak Horizons

Edited by Tarl “Voice” Hoch

Bleak Horizons

Copyright © 2017 by Tarl “Voice” Hoch

Adrift © 2017 by Kandrel

4/13/2060 © 2017 by Franklin Leo

Hardwire © 2017 by Ton Inktail

The Ouroboros Plate © 2017 by Slip Wolf

The First Viewing © 2017 by Corgi W

Clicking © 2017 by Ianus J. Wolf

Blink © 2017 by James Stone

Pentangle © 2017 by Ross Whitlock

Starless © 2017 by Searska GreyRaven

This Way © 2017 by Frances Pauli

Outlier © 2017 by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

Not Like Us © 2017 by KC Alpinus

Clear and Cruel © 2017 by Bill Kieffer

Blessed are the Meek © 2017 by Rechan

Hollow © 2017 by Chris “Sparf” Williams

Cover illustration by Kappy

http://furaffinity.net/user/Kappy

Cover design by Buck Turner

Published by FurPlanet Productions

Dallas, TX

http://www.FurPlanet.com

Print ISBN 978-1-61450-345-3

Electronic ISBN 978-1-61450-356-9

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition Trade Paperback 2017

All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form, in any medium, without the express permission of the author.

Table of Contents

Adrift

Kandrel

4/13/2060

Franklin Leo

Hardwire

Ton Inktail

The Ouroboros Plate

Slip Wolf

The First Viewing

Corgi W

Clicking

Ianus J. Wolf

Blink

James Stone

Pentangle

Ross Whitlock

Starless

Searska GreyRaven

This Way

Frances Pauli

Outlier

Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

Not Like Us

KC Alpinus

Clear and Cruel

Bill Kieffer

Blessed are the Meek

Rechan

Hollow

Chris “Sparf” Williams

Author Bios

Dedication

To my brother, Ian.

Only you understand my fear of Greys thanks to those all-nighter walks with the guys.

If I had to cast one person as a sci-fi hero, it would be you.

And to my cats, Taz and Licorice.

Who kept me company during long days of editing.

And who thought this anthology was getting far too much attention.

And thank you to:

Kirisis, Corgi W and Skunkbomb for your help with the slush pile.

Yannarra for your support and continued love.

And to everyone who submitted to this anthology.

Adrift

Kandrel

They say animals can smell fear. This is, for the most part, untrue. Fear is a subtle emotion. It doesn’t communicate well. Someone can be afraid and you’d never even know it. In the bouquet of aromas that is a person, fear is just a sprinkle of spice that only the finest of noses can detect. Maybe a few well-trained dogs could, but not cats. Definitely not a cat like Evan, who barely pays attention to his nose at all. He might as well not even have a nose, beyond knowing that his steak is over-cooked and that his road-skimmer needs a checkup and that little Sammy needs a change. No, a cat is never going to be able to smell fear.

Terror, though, is an entirely different thing. Animals can smell terror. Unlike fear, terror sends the body into paroxysms that flood the pores and froth the mouth and make the insides run watery. If fear is a sprinkle of spice in the delicate bouquet of personal aroma, then terror is the splash of garlic. Even someone as nose-blind as Evan can smell it. And he does. It surrounds him. It pervades him. It consumes him.

Evan is running. In the distance is the blaring of alarms and sirens. Beneath their wail, Evan can hear the shrieking of metal shearing and crumpling. Already the air is thin and difficult to breathe. Behind him, he can hear the bass ‘thumps’ of blast doors shutting one by one as crowds of tourists and crew struggle to make it through. The death of the Avalon’s Hope is not a quick one. He can barely hear them over the thumping of his own heart. He must get to her. There’s no time left.

Panic is a solid thing, tangible enough to cut with a knife. The hallway is shoulder-to-shoulder. He can’t see what the hold-up is. After a few seconds of waiting and pushing, and being pushed from behind, he decides it doesn’t matter what the hold-up is. He doesn’t have time for it. In a moment he’s up, over the crowd. Balance is no trouble for the senses of a cat. Feet land on unwilling shoulders. Hands reach up but fail to grasp his ankles. He’s not sure what they’re grabbing for—to hold him back or to be dragged along with him. Neither is an option now. The panic has him. The terror is all around him. Evan can’t wait for courtesy. Evan runs.

He is in lower habitation, where people of his class have purchased cramped little living quarters. The room he’d bought had barely enough room for him to move around, let alone for Mia and little Sammy. It’s only three months and a few days’ trip; he’d told himself, and later Mia. They could live a bit cramped for a few months. The savings were worth it. They’d need it all in their new life when they arrived. If they arrived. The ‘if’ had never even come up. Starliner was the safest way to travel. Everyone knew that. It was a hundred percent guaranteed to be safe, right up until the remaining zero percent tore through the hull and started to crumple the ship deck by deck.

There seemed to be two kinds of traveler in Evan’s hallway: those who figured it was safest to wait it out—whatever was happening would stop eventually, and then they’d be rescued. Those were the doors that were still closed, with cool little blue lights next to the doorknob that indicated they were locked. Then there were the realists, those who could feel the floor shuddering underneath them. Those who could hear the distant knell of carbon and steel shattering, hallway by hallway and coming closer.

The hall is blocked by a family of warthogs trying to drag luggage with them. Stupid, he thinks. You can’t bring luggage into the life pods. There’s no room. This isn’t a time to worry about your things. Leave them. The burly male shouts something as Evan leaps over shoulders and uses the wall to get height. With a bound, he climbs over the unfortunate’s head. A hairy fist swings wildly but misses. He spares no more thought for the warthogs. They’d probably be too slow anyway.

Green-White-Green Two-Oh-Oh-Eight. His door is sandwiched between the vending hall on the left and a maintenance vent on the right. He slaps his wristband against the sensor, and the locked blue changes to open green. He opens the door, and the stern face of Mia meets him.

His world goes golden. She’s safe, and she’s here. He reaches out to her, and she takes his hand. She’s a goddess in brown. Long of horn, longer of leg, on her sides her stripes are only visible beneath the makeshift sarong she’d made from bedsheets. It wrapped over one shoulder, and swaddled in its front is Sam. He’s crying, but Evan doesn’t hear him.

“What’s going on?” Her eyes are wide with panic.

“We need to go.”

She doesn’t question him further. He leads her by the hand, and Sam’s crying fades beneath the general roar of hundreds of passengers’ fear.

The Avalon’s Hope is well designed. It’s four stories and two sections over to get to restaurants, three stories and a fifteen-minute walk to get to the arcades, and a massive eight stories and a long tram ride to get to the water park, but it’s only one hallway and a long ramp up to the life pods. Flashing signs lead the way in blaring neon panic. There’s no line. Instead, there’s a crowd. No, it’s a throng. It’s a mob. We’ll never get through here. In his mind, Evan is already charting a course to the next sections’ life pods, but that was stupid, wasn’t it? They would be just as busy. Anyway, there might be a mob here, but it’s moving as fast as he and Mia can walk. They turn the corner, and they can see the pods. There’re four massive conveyors dragging them in from the ceiling. One for individual passengers, the loners that are traveling without family or friends. Those are nothing more than a cryostasis tube. On the far side of the room are the family and party boats, reserved for groups of four or larger. The ones he needed, though, were the couples pods—those came with an extra pod for a “plus one”, made to fit anyone sized from child to adult.

The robotic attendant takes their wristbands and a blood sample from each. Little Sammy’s crying redoubles when the hypoderm touches his shoulder and leaves behind a little red dot welling beneath the fur. The light on their pod turns green. Evan pushes Mia in first before he squeezes himself on board after her. Their pod sinks beneath the floor on its way to the launch tubes to make room for the next. Mia puts Sam in his stasis pod first. The crying cuts mercifully short when the valves shut. The window flash-frosts and Sam’s eyes close in deep hypersleep.

“What is—”

Evan pulls Mia into a desperate kiss and silences her with his mouth. She clings to him for a moment, then pushes herself away.

“We’ll be safe.” She promises.

“Of course.” He rubs his knuckles along her long snout. She smiles at him, then pecks him quickly on the cheek.

“On the other side, right?” She leans backward into her stasis pod and pulls it closed from the inside. He laughs to break the tension, but no one can hear him.

He leans back into his chamber as Mia’s frosts over. He’s reaching for the handle when the launch acceleration crumples him back into the padded restraints. The door slams shut of its own accord, bouncing off of the air seal once before it closes properly. The acceleration only lasts a moment. Then he’s free. In fact, he’s weightless. He has a moment of nausea before he sees the traces of frost arcing up over the inside of his pod. He suddenly feels very sleepy. The world goes white.

* * * * *

They say you don’t dream in cryosleep. Evan does. He is back in the corps. Sergeant was yelling at him again. Pointless. Sergeant was going to die in a training accident. Doesn’t he know that? Evan laughs, so Sergeant yells more. Then Evan is in the shop. There’re eight military land skimmers in with problems. This was the longest weekend of his life. Spanner and laser welder in hand, he is comfortable here. Even the military knows how to keep its engineers in good working order. Pizza keeps rolling in through the night. Evan can taste the greasy cheese. His two techs are both herbivores. They hide their disgust well as he wolfs down slices of pepperoni between jobs.

There is a moment that he realizes he is dreaming, but he can’t move. For a moment, he’s afraid. Then memory comes rushing back. The Avalon’s Hope. The creeping destruction, coming closer one bulkhead at a time. The life pod. He’s safe. But he still can’t move. Now he’s not so afraid. He’s heard of this. It’s sleep paralysis. He’s never experienced it before, but he’s in cryo-sleep. Maybe it’s just part of the chemicals. He should be scared, but he tells himself that he’s a rational person. He can just wait it out, and he’ll be able to move again soon. He’s in cryosleep. Blink and a year passes. Dream, and everyone you knew ages. Open your eyes and it’s a whole new world, in a whole new time. There was a crash, but the rescue is coming. They’ll be combing the light years between, hunting for the transceiver. They’re in a pod that’s designed to keep them safe for hundreds of years. Everything will be fine. Just wait.

The paralysis persists. He can’t breathe. That amuses him. Another dream. Is he underwater this time? Or maybe high in the air? He has the sensation of opening his eyes, and light streams in. His lungs are starting to burn, and strangely enough, so are his eyes. The sensation builds until it’s searing. He can finally see, and what he sees is troubling. It’s the inside of the life pod, and he still can’t breathe. That’s strange. Why would he dream about the inside of his life pod?

He’s not dreaming.

He can move. Everything hurts. Everything feels like it’s burning. His arms can shift at his side. When he turns his head, the view changes. In front of him, the glass has a crack that runs across the viewport. Why can’t he breathe? Diaphragm clenches as he tries to pull in air, but nothing happens.

Tries to lift his arms, but there’s not enough room in the pod to reach his face. Claustrophobia joins the asphyxophobia. He needs to get free. He needs to escape. Rational thought drowns in the panic. Even though his hands can’t reach the viewport, his head can. The first time he smashes his face against the cracked glass, his snout is in the way. Blood smears his vision. Little droplets float, suspended in midair. Without the microgravity of the Avalon’s Hope, he’s weightless. He braces himself against the restraints and bends his head down. The second time, his forehead smashes into the glass.

His head smacks back against the restraint. Stars swim in his vision. Was there an explosion? He can’t imagine why there would have been one, but it sounded like it. Tiny shards of glass speckle his face. He spits them out and they cut his lips. Then through the pain, he tastes it—air! He never thought he could actually taste the air, but now it’s as thick as a milkshake on his tongue. He breathes in. Slowly, the burning sensation fades. He blinks. Eyeballs feel sticky. Everything is moving lethargically around him.

Actually, that’s probably the zero-gee. He still has a bloody nose. It’s pooling around the tip of his snout, making a disgusting floating ball of blood. Slowly, and with much complaint from his joints, he worms his hand up to the release handle for the pod. There’s not much room—once closed, it’s not meant to be opened from the inside. Still, when he turns his wrist and tugs, the handle moves and there’s a click from the mechanism. Ponderously slowly, the pod door swings open.

It takes a few moments for him to be ready. He was probably only in panic for a few seconds, but it feels like an hour. A year. He shivers, even though it’s not cold.

He can’t wait long, though. His nose isn’t going to fix itself. He crumples up his shirt and uses it to englobe the blood. It soaks in, turning the whole mess a dark ochre. With pinched fingers, he holds his nose to stanch the bleeding while he pushes himself out of his pod and into the cramped space of the capsule. For a moment, the claustrophobia tickles again at the back of his mind, but this time he can conquer it. It’s not so small an area. He can stretch his arms and feet out if he’s laying lengthwise without touching the walls, and even though it wasn’t necessary, there’s a porthole looking out into space.

The air is thin, but he can breathe. For the first time since the rippling of the floor back on the Hope made his legs turn to jelly, he finally takes a moment to breathe and think. He’ll need to sort something out, sure, but survival is no longer second-to-second.

First, the important things. He looks in on Mia. She is serene in her pod, with frost crusting the edges of her view portal. Evan runs his fingers over the front of her pod. How he wishes he could reach through it and caress her. She is gorgeous. Tawny fur is painted gray by the dim blue light inside. Behind her head, her long horns have dug into the restraining fabric, leaving divots and tears. The headrests weren’t made for gazelle. It makes him smile and remember. The first time she had graced his house—and his bed—he had ended up with ripped pillows and a gouge in his mattress. Later he learned the wisdom of tear-proof sheets and coverings. She had been so contrite, in her own way. She had apologized, with that funny quirk in her smile that made it clear that it was his fault, and he knew it. Plus, hadn’t it been worth it, her smile said? Of course it had. She’d been worth every bit of ruined furniture, and the bed coverings had been only the first.

Next to her, Sammy lay suspended in his pod. He didn’t take up much of it. The restraints had automatically folded up and underneath to keep him in place, but the toddler still looked like someone had stacked a matryoshka doll incorrectly and put the smallest in first. His knobbly knees and stick-thin arms looked comically small in padding meant to fit an adult. His horns hadn’t grown in, yet. They were nothing more than little nubs on top of his head. Evan checked the details on the little display. Everything functional. Cryosleep achieved. Good.

Something had gone wrong, obviously, but it appeared only to have been his own pod. Maybe it was the slamming of the door when they’d launched. Could that damage the seal? Of course it could. Everyone trusted these things implicitly, but Evan had worked on vehicles like this for most of his life. He knew just how precise the mechanisms were, and just how easily they could be subverted. He claps and lets himself float off up towards the empty middle of their vessel. Luckily, he’d been a military mechanic for nearly a decade. If it could break in a ship, Evan had probably fixed it at some point. What was this life pod, if not just a stripped-down version of the HAV-T drop ships he used to repair? He could handle this. He got this. Under a console that hid the power generation and air filtration system he finds a small box of shoddy but usable tools. On his own broken pod he finds a screw and rivet secured panel. In his shop, there’d always been checklists before they started work. That’s military for you. He lays everything he needed out in front of him, then watches as they float merrily up into the air. Thanks for little blessings, right?

Tools: got. Controls: found. Knuckles: cracked. Let’s fix this shit.

With a smile and a grunt of effort, Evan works.

* * * * *

Evan drifts. Even though his pod would have been more comfortable, he has no way to anchor himself in, and he doesn’t trust closing the door again. That brings back panic. Instead, he tries to sleep relaxed and floating. For some time—he’s not sure how long—it works.

He dreams again. He is watching Sammy play. They are aboard the Avalon’s Hope, but for some reason, the play-set he’d loved at his local school instead is there. Sammy is sliding down the slide and laughing. The floor buckles beneath, and Evan shouts. Sam can’t hear him. Sam is in danger, but he keeps playing, jumping up and climbing across the monkey bars. Evan tries to run to him, but his legs swing beneath him without taking him anywhere. He can’t save his son. Sam is going to be hurt, and it’s his fault.

His foot smacks into the open pod door and he wakes. How long has he been asleep? There’s no good indicator. Still, he feels more refreshed, if out of breath.

He breathes in through his nose, then regrets it. It reeks. Badly. He’d intended to continue working on the pod when he woke, but that plan fades as he chokes down nausea from the stench. Air filter. That takes precedence.

He is tired. He didn’t sleep well. He grumbles as he retrieves his tools—safely snapped into their compartment. It doesn’t have the effect he was hoping for. In the shop he’d never been alone. There was always someone else there, working on the grav-adjusters that never seemed to work right, or rushing through some new job the brass had just dropped on them, or on break but still hanging around anyway. When he grunted, he’d get a complaint in response. When he grumbled, he’d get knowing nods. It was the secret language of the mechanic. Now when he swore at his tools for being half-size pieces of fuck, no one heard him. He mumbles something about why they’d bother putting crap like this on a lifeboat, didn’t they know someone would be putting their lives on the line using these tools, and he finds himself stalling for the answer that never came.

In silence, he traces a silent fan duct back to an upright cabinet that must be the air system. In five minutes he has four lock-screws hovering to his right as he braces himself against the cabinet to counteract Mr. Newton. With a sharp yank, the faceplate pulls away. Without the cover, he can hear the wheezing cough of the intake fan. Midway between ducting and recycling unit, he finds a slim plate with a latch. He pulls it free, then swears.

Franklin-Pierce Orbiter/Lander Select Filter Range. It’s blazoned in silver letters across the top of the plate. The filter has turned jet black, microparticles gumming up both sides of it. In between, the gel packet that’s supposed to pull in and recycle air sits inert, useless with all of its surface caked. They’d equipped the lifeboat with FPO/LSF’s. Those cheap ass bastards. In the shop they had a different name for them. Fucking Piece of Liquid Shit Filters. They were unreliable. They were short lived. They were state-of-the-art engineering, designed and produced by the lowest bidder. A drop-ship filter would have five of these little fuckers and they’d be inoperable after just three drops. The pod only had one.

Letting it float uselessly in the air, Evan scrounges in the cabinet. There must be more of them. Backups in an auto-loader behind the filter system? No. A secondary in-line system he’d missed? No. An extra one taped to the inside cover just in case?

No. No, no, no. This can’t be right. This thing wouldn’t last more than a week with three people on board. Every breath would take it another racing step towards malfunction.

But that was the thing. Every breath. In cryostasis, that might be once every day. A week, counted in isolated seconds across five years. Other than the pods, the ship was almost sterile. Nothing else here would interact with the air. The pod didn’t need extra oxygen supplies or backup supplies because its occupants wouldn’t ruin it until they were saved—and by that point they were the responsibility of the rescuers.

Something doesn’t add up, though. There were always fail-safes. Every engineer knows that their perfect little system would fail someday. You always built in contingencies. So where was it? First, he scrapes the filter clean. A thin patina of his own sweat and fur peels off. He wipes his hand on the inside of the faceplate before he replaces the filter and closes the cabinet again. The filtration fan gives a purring hum as air starts to circulate again. Very carefully, he traces the tubes again. Backup system. Redundancy. There must be something here. They must have accounted for the chance that someone would wake up. They couldn’t just let someone wander around the cabin if there was no way to recirculate the air. If someone were to get free, like he’d just done, well, it would endanger the rest of the people on board. All that air consumed at tens of thousands times the speed it should be, that would mean a comparatively quick death for everyone on board, conscious or not. Hell, if they were efficient, they would just—

Evan stops tracing the ducts. His fingers feel numb. Instead, he goes to his pod with its shattered window and wrecked seal and follows the tubes there. Intake, extractor, valves, seals, and there, down near where his elbow had been, a miniature vacuum pump. It’s connected to a little pressure gauge and a sensor that straddles the gap of the open door hinge. If the seal is incomplete—if the pod malfunctions, the vacuum pump turns on. It evacuates the chamber almost instantly. By the time the slumbering passenger wakes, the atmosphere has been pulled out. The life pod becomes a hermetically sealed coffin. With no oxygen, the corpse inside won’t decay—won’t foul the air breathable by the rest of the life boat’s occupants.

The last little piece he finds in a little syringe cuddled snugly against the arm restraints. Hidden on a mechanical arm, impossible to deploy by accident. He could have brushed it off as some other part of the cryostasis process if it didn’t have warning labels festooned over the connecting cable. “DANGER!” “BIOTOXIN” Leading away from the syringe and its mechanical arm was a thin electrical cord. It wandered to and fro where one ducting staple had pulled free. When he swung the door closed, the wayward wire dug through the seal, and where it did the cord had been sheared.

What delicious irony. What a fucking joke. The secret little death that was meant to kill him if he woke up was the very thing that had snagged the door and broken the seal. Failsafe after failsafe, one ruining the next in a perfect cascade.

Defeated, Evan leans himself back into the cushioned restraints of his malfunctioning life pod. He was meant to be dead. It was the efficient solution. Kill one survivor to save the lives of the rest of them. Expedient. Thrifty. It was a life pod. “We’re so sorry Missus. In the catastrophe, something must have gone wrong with your husband’s pod. I know it comes as little consolation, but it appears he died in cryosleep. He never even knew there was a problem before he slipped away.”

Bullshit. Fucking cut-rate engineers. The cord on the suicide-arm had broken free of the staple and broken the seal. Pod compromised and lives of other inhabitants at risk, so it tried to pull a vacuum. Which, of course, had just meant the broken seal let in a trickle of air to replace it. Just enough to keep Evan alive rather than killing him outright. So he’d panicked and shattered the window.

But he’s not dead. He pushes himself out of the broken pod and slams the door behind him. Who cares what happens to it? The seal is broken. The window’s broken, and he doesn’t have the tools or resources to fix it. He pushes himself over to Mia’s pod and strokes the glass. We will be together again, my golden goddess. He says it out loud. It sounds soft. The cramped compartment is not good for an echo. He scowls, then goes hunting for materials. If he’s going to jury-rig himself a solution, he’s going to have to do it quickly.

* * * * *

He has just met Mia. She is the civvie veep the brass sent his way. Local celebrity. Doing her civil duty to appear in the holovids alongside soldiers. Act like she’s compassionate and caring, and that she’s bringing some small modicum of relief to their hard lives. Evan really wishes she wouldn’t. He can do without some local starlet in his dirty shop, complaining about all the grease.

She asks about what he does all day. He gives guarded answers about replacing thrusters and repairing nav modules. She’s got a camera crew with her, a pair of dogs with long ears and brown coats.

“Can’t be that hard. It’s just following directions, right? I mean, it’s all just pieces put together in the right order.”

Evan sneers at her then hides his face. “Sure. Right.” Don’t piss off the veep. Smile for the camera. Fuck. Why did they send her to his shop? At least she’s a good reward for the eyes, even if she’s useless between the horns.

“Come on, spots. Gonna let a lady rag on us like that?”

That’s Jake. Fucking green private. All wagging tail and no brain. Transferred in a month ago and never could keep his muzzle shut. In the military they weren’t supposed to see species—there’d been sensitivity training for that. Still, he’d never met a malamute whose mouth wasn’t constantly open.

“Oh? I bet it’s not all that.” Mia’s smile is poisonously sweet at Jake.

“Bet?” Jake pulls out a greasy wallet.

“Oh, I didn’t quite mean that.”

Jake laughs. Evan gestures for him to shut the fuck up, but he’s not watching. If Evan has to give him an order, it’ll look bad for the camera. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

“But if you’re willing.” She looks around the shop. She points at a grav-engine hanging in harness. They’d just taken it off an atmospheric shuttle. Busted dampers. Repairs wouldn’t come in for a month, so it got to sit right there until they could do something with it. “What’s that thing?”

“It’s a unicorn, princess.” Jake spits.

“Oh, I see. Well, how long would it take you to work on that ‘unicorn’?”

Evan steps in. “Bout an hour to get it down to engine bolts.” Jake seems to catch on that he’s no longer in good graces. He shuts his mouth and nods.

“That long? Okay.” She gestures to one of her camera dogs. He pulls out a credit stick. “Here’s two cases of beer, I bet I could get it ‘down to bolts’ in half an hour.”

Jake guffaws. He can’t afford two cases. Green little shit has to beg for drinks when he’s on leave.

Evan crosses his arms. “Don’t look at me, private.”

Jake shrugs. Plops his wallet onto a table. Mia daintily places her credit stick next to his wallet. She’s chewing gum. She blows a bubble, then pops it. One hand reaches out.

“Wrench?”

Jake pulls his own from his belt and hands it to her. The handle is black with lubricant stains. Evan expects her to hold it gingerly and wipe her hands off on the closest thing. Instead, she grips it firmly and turns her back to us.

In five minutes she’s got the front casing off. She hasn’t gone for the wrong bolt yet.

In fifteen minutes Jake is sweating. She’s taken the blown dampers off and is already working on the containment screws.

In twenty-five she’s formed a semicircle of carefully cataloged pieces around her. She’s filthy with grease. It’s smeared across her face and up her arms. Somehow it only makes her more radiant.

At the thirty-minute mark she’s still ordering the screws from smallest to largest. She’d finished four minutes early and was just taking the victory lap. Jake is swearing.

“Pay up, private,” Evan orders.

“Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t take money from the people who sacrifice so much for our world. Consider these beers on me tonight!” She tosses Jake the cred stick. He catches it and stares down at it. Then his head lifts and stares straight into the camera. There is a look on the dog’s face that never quite fades from memory—the unbelieving gaze of humiliation. It’s the look of being shamed twice, first thorough defeat and second through charity.

“My brother races bikes.” Mia continues. It’s just an hour to sundown, and the evening light is glowing through the garage door, illuminating Mia from behind. It’s perfect lighting for the cameras. In Evan’s eyes now, she is the most beautiful thing he’s seen come through those doors since the admiral’s luxury yacht came in for repairs five years ago. “You should watch my show. Then you’d have known.”

She shines radiantly in his mind. She folds up the miniature microphone clipped to her now-soiled dress, and the camera dogs fold their kit away. That must be the end of their feature. Good enough. Definitely enough material there. Still, since there’s nothing recording now, he takes his shot. Even though he’s not normally shy around women, Evan stumbles to ask, “See you down at the canteen for a drink tonight?”

She looks him up and down, complete with his drab yellow fur and spots so dark she couldn’t tell if they were intentional or just smears of grease. Whatever she sees, it’s clear she approves. “I’ve always had a thing for cats. You got a deal. Wouldn’t miss it.” Mia winks at him, and Evan’s pulse takes an unexpected turn for triple digits.

* * * * *

He is woken again by the malfunctioning filter. By the time he drags himself to consciousness, he is wheezing. Even though his lungs are pulling in air, it doesn’t feel as if it’s accomplishing anything. His vision is swimming into and out of the gray ring that’s formed at the edges. He pushes himself towards the air duct, then immediately regrets it. The needle in his arm snags and pulls free, leaving a long gash across his wrist. He curses as red droplets float chaotically across the cramped pod. He catches the ones he can with his torn shirt. He had plugged himself in for the night. There was no drinkable water and no edible food. The intravenous drip was his only option—and a limited one at that. Just like every other system on board, if he couldn’t solve this, he’d run out of his own personal supply in a week.

He scrapes the filter clean and reinstalls it. When the circulation fan hums back to life, he places his mouth above the exhaust duct. Oxygen! It burns as it fills his lungs. In just seconds his headache clears.

In the silence of the humming fans, he slowly surveys his domain. One faulty life pod, with a faulty seal, broken window, and now seriously depleted resources. One air filtration and circulation system—already showing the strain of unintentional habitation. One set of jury-rigged tools, cramped and insufficient for just about any job he could put to them. Two fully functional life pods, with his greatest treasures nestled precariously inside each one.

He turns to the hatch and looks out to the stars. They’re in an interstellar gap—much too far away from any system for anything to be a local ‘sun’. Evan misses the sunrise. In the rush to escape the Avalon’s Hope, he has nothing with him that could serve as a clock. He can only guess that he’s been working for two days straight at his problem, but realistically it could have been any number of days. The lack of any real handle on time bothers him more than it should. What if he’s overslept? What if, because of the bad quality of the air, he’s been asleep much longer? It’s technically possible, isn’t it? He doesn’t know. He’s no medic. He’s spent his life with hands inside of engine blocks rather than chest cavities. He can only guess that maybe he’s sleeping more than he should because of the atmosphere. Or maybe it’s the other way around? He can’t know, and that’s dangerous. The air filter is a ticking time bomb. How long until it’s no longer able to generate oxygen, even after being scraped clean every morning? It could still have most of a week left on it, or it could be running close to as little as a day or two. Worse, the FPO/LSF isn’t reliably bad. At least then he could have counted on it for a certain amount of time. Instead, they’re chronically fickle. One might last a whole month of intense use, while another might spontaneously fail on its first outing. It’s only through banks of redundancies that larger ships can use them with any sense of confidence. When you have twenty of them running in-line with each other, a few failed filter packs aren’t really a problem.

But out here, with just one… .

Evan is running low on time. Today, he has to find a solution.

The morning he spends tinkering with his failed pod. It’s mostly disassembled at this point, with its pieces badly clipped together to keep them from floating around the cabin. He understands it now—at least as well as he ever will without formal training. The one thing he knows for sure, though, after two days of tearing through its insides, is that he’s going to need some other solutions to repair it to a functional state.

The next few hours are spent disassembling the interior of the ship. Perhaps there are pieces he could use. Adhesives and flexible panels could replace the broken window. Curing gels might make the interior of his pod air-tight, and that would allow him to recreate the seal. His longest day yet passes as he tunnels through the pod’s systems, only stopping when he reaches the thick external wall between him and the long dark outside. In each direction, he finds the same answer. Heat insulation—itchy and insufficient for his needs. Circuitry and wiring. Meager supplies in volatile storage. One wrong stab from his crappy screwdriver and thin atmosphere might not be his only immediate problem.

Hours tick by on his internal clock. He grows tired again, but he fights the fatigue. There must be something. He is a fighter, not a quitter. The army didn’t train failures. But no matter which way he digs, the solutions simply aren’t there for him to find. He doesn’t have the supplies necessary to recreate the seal necessary to put him back into cryosleep.

It is evening. He is starting to feel dehydrated again, and the headache is returning. Defeated, he scrapes the gunk from the air filter again, then settles back into the restraints of his pod with the IV drip needle in hand.

Sleep is slow to arrive. Over and over, he plays through every scenario. If he tries to jam insulation into the seal, air might seep in. Then he dies in cryosleep. Maybe if he mixes a concoction of fuel, glucose syrup, and who knows what else? No. He’s no chemist. It won’t coagulate correctly, and now not only will air seep in through the seal, but now he’s out of IV drip and dies anyway. He could try to make a lining of stripped wire insulation and casing parts. But he doesn’t have the right materials to create a seal, and he’d die. He doesn’t have the parts. No matter what way he cooks it, he just doesn’t have the parts.

He tries to force himself to sleep, but his imagination turns morbid. He slowly suffocates to death, and the failed filter leaves no air for Mia and Sam. Everyone dies. He lays back in his pod and stabs himself with the kill-juice needle like he was meant to before he even woke up. He dies, sure, but the seal remains broken. His decaying corpse ruins the air, and within days the rest of the inhabitants are dead, too. There’s no way out. The pod doesn’t even have an airlock. He can’t even eject himself out into space. Round and round, his despair grows. Not only can he not save himself, but he can’t even save them.

Evan tries shouting, but no one is there to listen to his laments. He tries crying, but he is dehydrated even with the nightly IV drip. He punches the restraints of his pod, but weightlessness is not kind. It sends him spinning backward, and in catching himself, he bangs his head off the far side of the cramped ship. It’s not fair. He would give his life for them—either one individually and definitely both together. He doesn’t want to die, but it feels infinitely worse that the inconvenience of his corpse is, for Mia and Sammy, a death sentence.

He curls up in his pod and shakily plugs himself into the drip. It’s been a long day. He squeezes his dry eyes shut and tries to keep out the demons. Eventually, he succeeds. After hours of semi-consciousness, the thin atmosphere and exhaustion claim their dues.

* * * * *

It is the evening of his humiliation. Mia has brought him here to the fertility clinic, and he can’t meet anyone’s gaze.

First, they shuffle him along to a little private room and give him a cup. When he asks what they expect him to do with it, the nurse gives him an exasperated look and turns away. Inside the room are discreet magazines with blank covers. Upon opening them, he is greeted with the obvious answers.

Hiding the now-full sample cup beneath his shirt, he creeps back to the lobby. Mia is waiting for him there. She is his only comfort in the whole building. She understands him. Everyone here is so open about it. It sets Evan’s hackles up. He doesn’t want his private business to become the talk for the gabs. The nurse takes his cup and holds it up to the light for just anyone to see, making sure he’d produced enough for them to process. It’s humiliating. Mia takes his hand and gave him an apologetic glance. For her. He would endure it, for her.

They are brought into a consultation room. Inside is the first doctor he sees that night, though it won’t be the last. She is another ungulate like Mia, with a long, generous face. In a kind, matronly tone, she explains how Evan just isn’t compatible with Mia. There are certain gene markers they require for cross-species pairings. Some people have it, she explains, while others don’t. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, she continues. Evan silently ignores her with a certain amount of stubborn spirit. He will be ashamed of whatever he wants to be ashamed of, thank-you-very-much. And right now, he is very ashamed to hear that there’s simply no way for him to give Mia a child.

The doctor says there are still options for them, and gives them a sleek tablet. On its face is an advertisement for the clinic’s IVF solution (Prime specimens of more than a hundred species available, and another five hundred available within six months at some extra cost.) It’s not always the best solution, the screen reads, but where nature fails, the clinic is happy to pick up the slack.

In stuttering tones, Evan apologizes to Mia. She is having none of it. Still holding his hand, she gives him a stern look that stops any more apologies before they emerge. In her own careful tones, Mia broaches the subject. Evan isn’t happy. He wants it to be his son, too.

“You’re being stupid.” Mia scolds him. “It will be your son. You will raise him. You will love him. You will—and I guarantee you this—be changing his diapers. When he falls, you will pick him up. When he cries, you will be there to comfort him. What more proof do you need that he’ll be your son?”

Of course, Evan agrees. That’s what matters, right? And in so many important ways, that’s all that matters.

Mia thanks him. He is unhappy, but he’ll endure that—for her. Even though she doesn’t say it, he can see it in her eyes. She knows what he’s sacrificing for her. She kisses him, and he knows that it doesn’t matter. It’s not important. It might not technically be his kid, but it will definitely be his kid. Because it came from Mia, he will love it unceasingly.

He takes her hand, grits his teeth, and that day little Sammy is artificially conceived.

* * * * *

Today should be rainy. The sun should be hidden behind clouds. He wakes and hope has fled. He knows his fate, and he knows the answer to his dilemma. He can save his loved ones—at least, one of them. There are still two functional pods on board, with intact seals and unbroken windows.

It’s murder. That swirls around in his head as he slowly drags his way to consciousness. It’s murder. You’re killing someone you love. Someone you’ve loved for as long as you can remember being happy. It’s taking that poison needle and jabbing it into their veins.

Evan can’t move. He’s going to kill them, or at least one of them. He’s got no choice. Do nothing and kill them both, but act and kill one and the other lives.

He rips the IV from his arm. Blood soaks into his fur and stains his hands. It hurts. Good. He should be in pain. That feels right. He should be suffering.

He leaves thin smudges of blood down the window of Mia’s pod. “I’m sorry.” He sobs against the portal, through which he can see her face. The face of the golden sun. The face of his goddess.

“Forgive me.”

Unhooking the latch would be simple, but that would engage the process to wake them, as if he were a rescuer. That’s a grim joke. A rescue. Hah. He bites his lip and turns his head away. A yank at the door engages the failsafe. There’s a subtle hiss. The mechanical arm with the syringe engages. The light of his life dies silently. He can’t look as he opens the pod. He can’t bear the sight of the lifeless body hanging weightlessly in the restraints. It’s a tight fit, but there’s room for two.

Of course there’s room for two. Toddlers don’t take up much space. Evan closes the door and engages the seal. He takes the used syringe and plunges it into his own arm. There’s not much of the venom left. He struggles in pain, but the poison is potent. In minutes, he passes.

On Earth, there was an old cliché that the smallest coffins are the heaviest. So too, now, are the smallest life pods.

4/13/2060

Franklin Leo

09:23:35

I had warned you—they were coming for us. Hopefully now you’ll believe me, my beautiful Sara.

Coffee stains darkened the sheet’s upper left corner. It crinkled and felt thin, as if passed through multiple paws. I tried to imagine what he was telling me, but I was trembling, staring at the worn, printer-made letter with tears in my eyes. The last time the stoat had seen me he had threatened that my life was in danger.

“Think you can tell me what it means?” Detective Leary asked. “We’re not too sure if it has anything to do with this.”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

The retriever sighed, his one cyber-eye whirring and glowing silently against his auburn fur. I felt like I’d ruined his entire day.

I turned to look at Mrs. Burns’ body one last time; a white sheet stretched over her with blood spattered where her head should have been. The smell burned my throat and forced me to cough into my elbow. My red, white-tipped tail curled against me to prevent itself from getting any closer.

“I’ve got one more thing to show you. It’s upstairs.” The dog gestured with his paw, letting me out first. I nodded and got out of there as quickly as I could.

The rest of the blood Mrs. Burns had lost streaked the wallpaper and ceiling. When I’d told them I could handle this, I hadn’t imagined how bad it all would be. Really, nothing could have prepared me, even with Walter’s letter hanging at the back of my mind.

We walked up the stairs, and all sight of the chaos below vanished. It was just another visit to the old Burns’ residence. A few officers hung around. Snapping photos, talking over coffee, perusing the room with small and intricate tools. A fox made eye contact with me and shook her head, eyes looking down just as soon as she had glanced at me. We foxes can tell when another one of us is hurting.

The detective swung around and placed his paw on the knob leading into the Burns’ bedroom. It was the only door that stood closed, locks hanging open yet attached firm and heavy. The sound of two officers talking inside let me know that we, the detective and I, wouldn’t be having any privacy.

“This is going to be weird,” the dog said, “so let me know if you need to step outside.”

“After what you just showed me downstairs?”

He shrugged, then opened the door and led me in by the arm.

Marker. The strong scent of ink hit me just as the blood downstairs had. Every inch of the room, even the televisual window-panels, appeared to be covered in paint and marker. My muzzle scrunched in disgust. Lines led to lines that led to squares of writing and more lines. Most of what was visible looked to be a mess, but what I could make out shook my nerves and made me want to collapse on the floor.

“That’s my name,” I said. “Why does he have my name scrawled everywhere?”

“We thought you could maybe explain that for us. We followed his trail downstairs, so we’re assuming that he had this all done before he killed his wife.”

I stepped further in, ignoring the dog’s words. The two officers further in gave a look, as if I were stepping in on their private game, but both of them backed away.

Written beneath my name was the same words he had last told me.

They’re coming for you, Sara. They’re coming to take you away.

* * * * *

Four Weeks before the Murder

I sipped on my coffee and laughed as he played the last of his video for me. It was amazing. Truly. An entire simulated world with simulated mammals living about their business, all the while not having been made by the doctor’s wizardry at all.

This was something new, and he’d told me that it would only grow more amazing.

He flicked the monitor off and turned. His round, roto-operated ears that glowed blue against his gray and thinning fur perked once his chair faced me. His soft old eyes, unchanged by any mechanics or software, felt warm and inviting as usual. “It’ll be big. I’m sure of it.”

“Does the school know you’re posting it?”

“Feh,” he said. “All they need to know is what gets written down on paper.”

I took another gulp from my drink. My tail swatted the air in big, excited sweeps.

“When I had opened up the data file and linked myself in, it hit me. I mean really, it actually hit me.” He tapped the neural ports he had attached to his skull. “I had only wanted to see the world, but instead, it pulled me into it. Without leaving my office, I was able to stand, to walk, to breathe air that didn’t exist. The system was using what I had given it, yes, but it had also created its own constants. It had wanted me to enter, and the program was changed to allow for it.

“Not only did it come up with new constants, though, but it came up with an entirely new evolution scape that I had never scripted. I would walk the streets and find things our world could only imagine having, and I could see planets and moons in the sky that didn’t even exist in our reality. Worlds upon worlds of data constructed a perfect solar system, and then an entire universe. A perfect recreation.”

“That must’ve been something.” My knees shook. My God, I thought. This was big.

“No shit.” His lips stretched into a fang-filled grin. “You should see my savings. I had to upgrade the lab’s entire system to keep it all going.”

“Is the simulation still going then?”

“That’s the thing, Sara. I can’t control it anymore. Starting the process has allowed the simulations to develop on their own. They’ve shown me that they have no interest in stopping. All I can do is watch and figure out what the next variable will be.”

It was amazing. Truly a scientific breakthrough. Looking around, I could see all the new computers and hear the running hard disk drives fuming with acceleration. Cords even took up the doctor’s biological synth-ports in his wrists and head, which made him into a glowing weasel while also making him seem lankier, weaker. I realized I was supposed to be documenting such an occasion, maybe even asking him how he was feeling, until the doctor opened his desk and pulled out a tall bottle of wine.

“Quickly, let’s celebrate. By the time we get this open, we’ll have another thousand cities to go over.”

“Doctor,” I said. “I’m flattered, but I need to get going. We can finish the interview tomorrow.”

“No, no, Sara. Stay. Please, celebrate with me. I’ll jack you in and make you a god, show you what new frontier mammal-kind has created.”

“It’s oh-so-flattering, but I really must be going.” I waved my notepad at him as he filled a goblet-sized glass. “Besides, you know I don’t have any synth-ports.”

Again, he smiled. “Do you want any?”

I declined, and as I got everything settled, he told me more about how he socialized with mammals that never would exist, and once I found myself wanting to stay, I knew it was really the time to depart.

“Please, Doctor, get some rest. Let your wife know you’re all right. She’s worried sick about you.”

Again, he waved his paws as though sweeping away a swarm of insects closing in. “She knows where I’m at. I practically proposed to her in one of my labs. You remember this, right?”

Yes, yes I did.

I waved goodbye while stepping out into the hall. Cool, air-conditioned wind rushed beneath my fur and sent a shiver down my tail, goosebumps tickling my paws. A universe, I thought. My mentor’s gone ahead and created a whole entire universe, and he’s found a way to step inside. When the papers and leaders of the world figure out what Doctor Burns has cooking on his side of campus, they’ll shut the school down just to keep everyone calm and collected.

Outside, I could still feel my heart beating at a rapid-fire pace, and turning towards his window, I could see him staring out at me. His smile hid behind a shadow cast from his stubbed oaken muzzle. Those ears of his, always moving, stood still for the first time that I’d ever seen them. Before I could turn, he raised his glass, nodded his head, and toasted me in silence for what was about to be our next big adventure.

* * * * *

4/13/2060 (12:04:53)

I opened the door to find my apartment ringing without end. The police’s call for privacy didn’t seem to matter to those waiting to interview me, for the mainline that hooked into the hidden speakers and single holo-screen thundered against my ears. Everyone wanted to know about the murder, about the doctor and his position in the university.

About how I may have been the last person to sleep with him before he disappeared.

“How long?” I asked.

My sister, sitting on the couch with legs crossed as if in the middle of meditation, covered her ears and bared all of her pointed teeth at me. I could see the glowing lights beneath her cheek-fur blaring, her synthetic bio-phone ringing within her skull. “What?”

“I said, how long have they been calling?”

“Since before you left. I haven’t been able to work all day.”

“Then disconnect them. Block the calls.”

She raised her wrist, where the smartwatch that uplinked and connected her to the ‘ware inside of her cranium waited and filled with incoming voicemails.

I told her to shut her phone off, and that I would even silence mine. It took several minutes, but the apartment finally fell silent once I got everything off. I came back to the living room to find my sister cleaning her ears with a yellow-stained cotton swab. Her face no longer glowed like the end of a burning cigar.

“Sorry, but after what I just saw, it’s no kidding we’re getting called,” I said.

“Could you have maybe said something to the police about incoming calls?”

“As if they could help. They have no clue what’s going on. They think I have something to do with Mrs. Burns’ murder and know where Walter went.”

“She’s dead?” My sister whipped around, muzzle hanging open.

I nodded. “They said he did it.”

She got up, and instead of leaving, walked over and gave me a hug. I squeezed her until my paws and arms left indentations in her fur. My eyes stung as tears seeped out. It had been the first time that I let myself cry.

No one had seen this coming. I’d told Mrs. Burns that Walter was doing all right, even if she herself hadn’t seen her husband in weeks. His home’s walls were clean, too, and those horrible locks and bars placed on each and every door had yet to exist.

But the house I saw an hour ago looked completely different, somehow. It was as though the military went through and took over his home. The detective was right, at least from what I’d seen: the doctor really had lost it. Just thinking about it made me want to cry even harder.

I pulled away from my sister after a minute of crying. Trisha held me still, eyes searching for any remaining emotion. Looking at her, ignoring the few cybernetic enhancements added to her face, I saw that we really did look alike, as others had often commented.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve been holding it in all morning.”

“Don’t mention it, but if we keep getting calls like this, I’ll lose it.”

I raised a paw. “No, please. You’re the last person I need losing it.”

She answered with a smile.

We moved to the kitchen counter. Trisha grabbed me some tea and a bagel that she had been saving. I thanked her with another weak but meaningful hug.

“Did the detective ask if you’d been spending any time with him recently?”

“Of course he did. He basically asked me where I grew up. They had me go through the house and show them everything that I knew. Everything they’ve seen so far has me somehow connected.”

“Everything?”

I told her about the room. The walls, the marker scrawlings listing my name. The warning. I told her more about the research, the simulation, and I let her know how the doctor claimed me to be his one true inspiration. Repeating everything to her made me feel how obvious it was that I’d been having a fling with him, and how close to being found out I was.

When I finished, she glanced at me through the spaces between her open fingers. “This is bad. Very bad.”

“I know, but what do I say? Everything I do say just gets them asking more questions.”

“Well, what were you doing with him?”

I opened my mouth, but I was afraid that she wouldn’t believe that the love I felt from this old scientist wasn’t somehow tied to the research he’d been doing. I didn’t even think she could believe that he had found a way to jump into new worlds by linking into a computer. Even I wouldn’t believe me. One thing was clear, though:

No one would ever really know how Dr. Burns had made me feel.

* * * * *

Three Weeks before the Murder

He turned on the computer and let the system refresh. Watching him, I saw his tail swing low and knock some dust into the air. His fur lifted dark and the smell of old food had me curling my tongue.

“Do you ever get the feeling something’s not right?” he asked.

“All the time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.”

“No, of course not, but what if there was a way to alter what we expected, already having predicted our future based on given factors?”

Then I would say he was anxious, if not paranoid. The large screen before us lit the room with a washed out blue, and the monitors, desks, and stacks of paper littering his lab took on a solemn glow. “When I was young, I had always wanted to watch ants and see what exactly they did. I gave them stories, futures, and even their own pasts. Then, I would take my finger.” Dr. Burns lifted his paw, thumb standing tall. “And I would crush one of them. The story ended. No future for one of the hundreds.

“Simulations have been around for centuries, helping nations win wars and doctors predict disease strains. We’ve only gotten more advanced,” he said, again tapping his neural nodes prickling out from his head’s fur, “to where our reality can now become virtuality.”

“So what you’re saying is that the real is no longer real. Do you feel that technology,” I pointed towards his desk, where the running computers and simulation turned everything a brutal red and purple, “has taken over too much of society?”

“No, Sara. It’s enhanced it. Our world’s gained the power to work like a massive computer. Now, it’s only reasonable that we find a way to control our reality.” Dr. Burns clicked his mouse, and blue digits and symbols began to scrawl out across the massive screen. Lines fed down horizontally until a chart took shape and organized the information into categories. “I showed you my simulation. Like I said, everything changed when it pulled me in. As we know, on the other paw, it wasn’t finished.”