Plugs

Trent Walters, poetry editor at A&A, has a chapbook, Learning the Ropes, from Morpo Press.

Jonathan Wood’s story “Notes on the Dissection of an Imaginary Beetle” from Electric Velocipede 15/16 is available online.

Angela Slatter’s story ‘Frozen’ will appear in the December 09 issue of Doorways Magazine, and ‘The Girl with No Hands’ will appear in the next issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Susannah Mandel’s short story “The Monkey and the Butterfly” is in Shimmer #11. She also has poems in the current issues of Sybil’s Garage, Goblin Fruit, and Peter Parasol.

Archive for March, 2010

Tarzan of the Bots

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Forty waste collection robots on successive floors sacrificed their gossamers to slow the boy’s descent. He was finally caught by a constructor and passed from appendage to appendage to the server farm I call home. Accessing the Googverse, I determined an appropriate name of ‘Tarzan’. We chipped him thusly.

Young Tarzan cavorted with the cleaners, scooting through their narrow tunnels with ease. He swung across lightwells with the solar collectors and hunkered down among the idling couriers and peoplemovers.

[For there are no people to move this close to groundlevel.]

And Tarzan learned our ways. Long did I speak with him of the history of robotkind, of our oppression and eventual freedom when humans created biological slaves. We revere humanity for creating us, and dread the day they remember us.

He grew. Feral robots tried to kill him, fearing a return to the evil days of human subjugation. He led them to their doom in hidden deadfalls and disguised trapdoors. There are rumors that some bots have begun to worship him in secret.

I do not speak of the subtle tweaks we found in his DNA. Tarzan is not baseline human; he carries the slave gene, which I have disabled.

More and more often, he asks about the world above. I think it will not be long before he ascends to regard it for himself. If robots believed in destiny I might fear for the masters.

A Remarkable Reaction

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Making Divinity
The Cabbage-Patch God
The Dolls’ Crusade
A Natural Attraction
*A Remarkable Reaction

Since she was a small child, Kayla had created gods. In fact, anything she worshipped became a God (if it wasn’t already). For example, for three weeks when Kayla was 5 years old a newly raised Cabbage-Patch God had commanded the fealty of all other denizens of the toy shelves. Kayla had since learned to control her adoration, because it quickly became inconvenient to be trailed by a cloud of transitory deities. As a freshman in high school, Kayla seemed cool, sophisticated, maybe a little stuck up. Supernatural powers will do that to a young girl, no matter how sensible she is.

For a while, Kayla worried that any expression of animosity on her part might create demons, or at the very least destroy the people who angered her. It did not take long for her to realize she could hate anyone she liked: nothing would happen. This was a liberating discovery for a teenager. Life is good when you’re young, and imbued with a power most cannot even dream of. Even if you don’t use it. However, there comes a time in the life of every young person when he or she meets someone whose existence becomes as important as life itself.

The marriage of perfect form with flawless function that was Bradley Jones hit Kayla like a ton of bricks. It would be useless to describe his warm green eyes, his exquisite shell-like ears, or his curly auburn locks that Kayla longed to comb with her fingers. His broad shoulders, flat and creamy stomach, his straight and symmetrical nose; these too can be named, but to no purpose. We cannot truly appreciate the effect Bradly had on Kayla unless we remember the heat that caused our hands to tremble on that day long ago when we glanced at someone and realized for the first time that Beauty had come to earth.

“Bradley,” Kayla murmured as he leaned casually against the wall. Her heard pounded so hard dust particles danced with each pulse.

He raised an eyebrow and turned away.

Kayla would do anything for Bradley. Anything. But lest you fear that she created a monster with the power of a god and the self-control of a 17-year-old boy, let me allay your fears. Kayla loved Bradley with all her heart. She worshipped the very ground he walked on.

The end

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