Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (45 page)

Something rubbery grabbed my bad ankle, squeezing tight. I jerked and kicked, but a tentacle caught my other leg and pinned me. I struggled but another wrapped my arm, squeezing so hard the knife fell from my grip.

Before they could catch my other hand, I went for my gun. A sudden pain cut through my right thigh. I screamed and fought their holds, but more tentacles wrapped me, pinning all my limbs, squeezing so tight that my fingers tingled and went numb.

Lightheaded with pain, I stopped fighting. The moment I went limp, the aliens started dragging me somewhere.

The nauseating taste of rotten eggs turned my stomach as I banged down the tunnel on my back. As my vision adapted, I saw dim outlines of tentacled forms crawling over and around me. There had to be a dozen of them, at least.

Just like everyone had said, I’d joined MilComm to die.

Poor thing,
they whispered when they thought I couldn’t hear.
Lost the audition because she’s disfigured.

Pain twisted my vision as the creatures dragged me toward the room with the vines. I couldn’t stop them.

I had danced as well as any applicant and better than most. One judge had taken me aside and told me I was the best she had seen. But she clucked her tongue and waggled her fingers. “You will never achieve true grace with such a handicap.”

My eyes watered, burning from sulfuric acid and helplessness. Dark blood welled from a cut on my thigh. With my skinsuit compromised, I had maybe a minute to get to my patch kit before the atmosphere poisoned me. But pinned by the aliens, I was as powerless as I’d been after the audition.

My MilComm training was as useless as my perfect
pliés.
I flexed my left hand, my forefinger digging into my palm, the stub of my middle finger barely brushing it.

I opened my hand and lifted it slowly—the alien had relaxed its death grip now that I’d stopped fighting. My two and a half digits made an awkward silhouette in the dim room, and I remembered Sergeant Miller’s gruff voice in that tiny office light-years away. “You’ve got seven and a half perfectly good ones.”

I couldn’t die here. MilComm needed the data I’d collected. And unlike on Hope’s Landing, in MilComm, I had people who cared if I made it back. I wouldn’t make Sergeant Miller blast back into orbit alone.

The aliens stopped dragging me. The creature holding my left wrist chittered loud enough that I heard it through the skinsuit; with another tentacle, it gestured with a blocky shape. I recognized that shape. That alien gun had slammed me to the ground and shorted out my HUD.

If I could bring the gun home, MilComm might unravel how the aliens slagged our electronics.

I twisted violently in my captors’ holds and grabbed the alien gun with my left hand, two and a half fingers perfectly sufficient to wrench it free of the tentacle. The creature screeched, distracting the others enough that I jerked my other hand free and pulled the slug thrower from its holster. I pressed it against a bulbous body and fired.

“I’m going home,” I yelled, rotten eggs thick on my tongue. I fired again, and the creature fell away. The tentacle around my right leg loosened, that creature reaching one arm out to its fallen comrade.

Had I killed it
?
The creatures screeched louder. I gripped the alien gun like a lifeline—MilComm needed this tech. Still firing, I kicked my legs free and stumbled to my feet. Agony shot down my leg.

An alien lunged down the wall, knife in its tentacle. My chest armor stopped the blade and I aimed dead center on its bulbous form and pulled the trigger. The creature fell from the wall like a heap of rubber hose.

I scrambled out of the room and down the passage-way, firing over my shoulder as several creatures scurried forward. I tripped and slipped along the angled crevice, bracing my shoulder against the wall to stabilize myself when I fired. The air tasted worse and worse, but my faceplate wasn’t fogging, so the weapon that shorted my HUD hadn’t compromised my breather.

Alien screeches penetrated my skinsuit, but after I picked off a few more of them, they stopped advancing. I holstered my gun and ran, sealing the alien weapon in a pocket, then fumbling for the patch kit strapped to my side.

Teeth gritted with pain and lurching on the awkward footing like a crazed drunk, I grabbed the largest patch, tore off the backing, and slapped it to my thigh. My lungs burned, each breath searing like acid as I gulped poisonous air.

The passage forked and I turned right. Sprinting, I mouthed the words “Make it out, make it out” to the slap of my feet on the angled ground.

I pictured Sergeant Miller’s pale face as he rapped his knuckles on my helmet for luck. The alien gun banged against my thigh, and I smiled through gritted teeth. That gun was intel gold.

If I made it out.

A quick glance behind me: no creatures. Had I scared them off
?
Were they too slow to give chase
?
I tried not to question my luck.

Another fork, turn left. The passageway descended, then climbed. Right then left, I retraced my route, fighting not to second guess myself or worry that I’d missed a turn.

More creatures appeared as I rounded a bend. I drew and fired, emptying my clip before one shot me in the leg. I turned the fall into a roll, hands already chambering another clip as I leaped to my feet. My aim would have made Corporal White proud as I brought down the one that had shot me, before picking off a couple of its friends. Still firing, I dove through the ambush, sprinting across twitching tentacles.

They must not have expected a fight, I decided, lungs burning as I raced back the way I had come. Blood slicked the inside of my skinsuit from the cut on my thigh, but I gritted my teeth and kept going, slug thrower in hand. I kept expecting another ambush, but it seemed I must have outrun them.

Daylight pierced the darkness as I rounded a bend, and seeing that sulfur-gas sunlight felt like winning the lottery. A muzzle-flash made me jerk to the side, and I stumbled. A handful of creatures blocked my exit. I kept running, firing as I did, their shots slapping me around like giant fists. But their weapons didn’t penetrate my armor, and my slug thrower dropped them from the walls like rain.

Chanting a MilComm marching song under my breath, I sprinted past the ambush and leaped from the tunnel into open space.

I hit the ground with my hands, tucking around my gun and rolling to my feet, running for the vines. A few creatures streamed down the giant tree behind me, swarming across the forest floor. I holstered my gun and clawed through the thick web of vines at the forest’s edge.

A tentacle wrapped my ankle, but I shot it and dragged myself fully into the vines.

When the vines thinned, I crouched, turning to face my pursuers. But no tentacles wavered through, and I didn’t stop to worry why. I had the intel I’d come for.

My breath rasped in my ears as I pulled the backup scanner off my calf. I tore open its casing and stripped away the shielding, tossing it aside as I ran. Slipping on metal berries and tripping over vines, I pressed the scanner’s power button. “Come on,” I said as I shouldered through a thicket of yellow fronds.

A green light blinked on, and if it weren’t for my faceplate, I would have kissed it.

I stopped, leaning against the rough bark of an iron-cored tree, chest screaming with every rapid breath. Pain lancing my leg, I glanced back the way I had come. Still no sign of pursuit. I held my breath, but couldn’t hear anything through the skinsuit.

The scanner flashed red. I thumbed it off and dropped to my knees, arms and forehead resting on the ground. I chinned off my breather, sparing one glance back as I stopped my heart, wondering if I would come back from this shutdown, or if the aliens would lead the cutter-bugs straight to me.

S
trong hands held me as I convulsed, and over the rushing in my ears and jumble of torn scrapbook images flashing past my eyes, Sergeant Miller smiled at me. Sucking air reminded me how dry my mouth was, and God did I feel like I needed to puke.

“How long
?
” I choked out. The ailing tree outside our practice room window wavered in the wind.

“Twelve minutes—exactly,” Miller said, gruff voice at odds with the grin that split his face. “I knew you could do it.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, assessing my body the way Miller had taught us. My first shutdown, and I’d come back right on time.

A babble of voices burst over my tenuous understanding of the world, and more faces grinned at me past the wires and tubes sprouting from my body.

“Guess you won the bet, Amaechi,” Obasanjo said.

“I was going to be first, damn you,” Yaradua said, her voice light and her teeth shining white against skin almost as dark as mine.

“I guess we don’t have an excuse anymore, do we, Sarge
?
” Tamunosaki said. “We can’t let Amaechi show us up.”

A
waterfall roared in my ears. Reds and yellows, blues and purples flashed past my eyes. Faces fleeted by, and bulbous creatures scurried, chittering like insects.

I cried out and flailed back, away from the creatures. They retreated into the shadows. Panicked, my head whipped around, seeking pursuers.

But I crouched alone in that dimly lit forest. “Memories,” I told myself, “that’s all.” The jumble of reboot.

Gripping the scanner, I punched its power button and chinned my breather on. Air hissed around me, tasting faintly of rotten eggs. I was alive. Somehow, the creatures hadn’t followed me. The defenses must attack them, too. And who knew if they could shut them down—or how long that would take.

I didn’t waste time thinking about it. I had to get out, get my intel to MilComm, get home. I remembered last night like it was an eternity ago, sitting around drinking with Yaradua, Balogun, Obasanjo and Tamunosaki. Had Tamunosaki gotten out after his two shutdowns
?
Had the others made it to the tree-building like I had
?

I swallowed hard and prayed that I’d see their faces on the other side. With whatever bonus MilComm gave me, I wanted to drink with Yaradua and have Bologun teach me to throw knives. Even Obasanjo, who managed to effortlessly piss me off every time he opened his mouth—even him I wanted to see on the other side. I’d never felt like that about anyone on Hope’s Landing.

Before MilComm, I’d pushed away everyone I knew. Other dancers were always the competition, and nothing mattered but dancing. To make it in that world, you couldn’t care about anyone else.

I flexed the two and a half fingers on my left hand. Sergeant Miller had been right. Those fingers didn’t matter. I had an alien gun in my pocket and a dozen kilometers to cover before I was back with the people I loved.

Screw dancing. I was Private Adanna Amaechi, and MilComm had worlds to save.

While Ireland Holds These Graves

written by

Tom Doyle

illustrated by

FIONA MENG

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Doyle grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, so when he attended the Clarion Writers’ Workshop there in 2003, it was like coming home. His love of written science fiction and fantasy started in the second grade when he read
The Andromeda Strain
.

Tom lived in Japan for over a year and has traveled widely. In 2004, he visited Ireland for the celebrations of the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday, and that experience contributed greatly to this Writers of the Future story.

Tom won the 2008 WSFA Small Press Award for “The Wizard of Macatawa” (
Paradox
#11). He has published stories in
Strange Horizons, Futurismic, Aeon
and
Ideomancer
. His essays on science fiction and millennialism have appeared in
Fictitious Force
and
Strange Horizons,
and in the book
The End That Does
. He has recently completed a novel-length extension of “The Wizard of Macatawa.” Paper Golem Press plans to publish a collection of his short fiction. This story is his third professional sale.

Tom has appeared on the
Hour of the Wolf
radio program and the
Fast Forward
TV show, and he has given a presentation on L. Frank Baum at the Library of Congress. The audio versions of many of his stories are available on his website.

Tom attended Harvard University and Stanford Law School. He used to work for an international law firm, but quit to pursue various dreams. Before focusing on writing, he traveled to Rio for Carnival, stayed in a Zen monastery, interned at the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, ran a marathon and formed a Guided by Voices cover band. He wants to continue to write full time in his spooky turret in Washington, DC. He holds a rock-and-roll jam session in his house each week, runs a lot of miles a day and listens to dozens of books a year.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Canadian artist Fiona Meng has always had a knack for drawing. One of her very first memories is waking up early on a beautiful sunny morning, still in diapers, filling the clean white walls of her bedroom with beautifully colored crayons. Though her medium of choice has changed, her love of art has not faded.

Working mainly with pen and ink and digital media, Fiona has always striven to push herself out of her comfort zone and create art that connects the viewer to a world beyond reality. It is her desire to create illustrations people may interpret with ideas and creative dialogues of their own.

Though Fiona chose to not study visual art in university and instead opted for general arts, illustration has always been her career of choice, on the side or as a full-time professional. She has an older brother, and an identical twin sister who is also an artist.