Tag: science fiction

part two of Status:Illegal

prompt:  Write a story that begins and ends with someone looking up at the stars….
available at Reedsy

I stood in a clearing, looking at the stars. It’s not something I’d done in ages. At least not since I had gotten my night vision gear. With it no longer working they were the only light on a moonless night, and the splash of the Milky Way was awe-inspiring.

The clearing wasn’t natural. A wide spot by the side of the dirt fire road, it looked like the result of illegal logging. I set my backpack down against a stump and lay down against it. This way I could watch the slow spiral of the stars around the North Star, telling me which way to go.

I hadn’t seen any surveillance drones since the one that had tased me in the morning, and I was far outside any sort of coverage that would allow me to be tracked. Still, they had to know where I was headed. Thankfully I knew where they thought I was most likely to go and where they wouldn’t be looking for me.

Chris had figured it all out before they took… No, Chris is dead. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t have time to grieve, not yet. First, I needed to erase my footprints from the clearing, and then get across the dirt road without leaving any marks.

As I lay watching the sky wheel in slow motion I felt a presence. I turned to look and saw a coyote eyeing me warily. He sniffed at the air, made a decision and trotted past on the dirt road.

My view of the stars was interrupted again when an owl swooped down to the grass along the road in utter silence, and took back to the sky clutching a squeaking rodent. As long as I’m not the rodent, I’ll be fine.

I had no view of the horizon to see twilight emerging, but the stars began to dim. From my pack I pulled out two power bars. The first I stuffed in my mouth and put the wrapper back into the pack. The second I put in the front pocket of my coat for later. As I did I could hear the slight crinkling of the paper in the lining of my windbreaker underneath.

I used a fir branch to return the clearing to looking like it hadn’t been walked or sat on. To cross the road, though, erasing my footsteps would also erase any vehicle tracks.

My best course of action was to jump the road from the stump nearest it. I cleared it with a little space to spare, and went back to erasing my steps as I headed back into the trees. I had crushed the grass where I landed and I just had to hope it would recover before anyone came down the road again.

Once I was fully back under the canopy it was still too dark to travel fast so I moved one cautious step at a time. As the light grew so did my pace. There was a fire road on the map where I was to take up the next leg of my journey. I made it there by late afternoon, and sat in the trees, listening for a vehicle.

It was dusk when it arrived. Red pickup, one blue fender. It was a four-door crew-cab type. This was the only part of the plan I had no control over and I was nervous. The truck stopped and the woman driving stepped out. “Chris!” she called out. “Let’s go!”

I stepped out, staying out of range of any weapons other than firearms. “I’m Terril.”

“Where’s Chris? I thought there were two of you?” She pulled something out of the cab of the truck and I got ready to run, until I saw it was blankets.

“They… got Chris,” I said.

“Shit!” She held out a blanket and motioned me to come. “That sucks, but we have to move now. Wrap up in this and get in the space under the back seat. Once it’s closed you need to set the latch, and don’t open up until I tell you.”

I took the blanket, and felt that it was made of metallic thread. “Faraday cage?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’ll be in a coverage area soon. By the way, you can call me Susan.” She folded the other blanket and laid it in the space under the open rear bench seat. “Do you have the 900 dollars you were supposed to bring?”

“Yes, it’s here, let me…” I started to pull out the cash but she stopped me.

“You’re not there yet, and it’s for you, not me.” Her voice was soft but her face and movements hinted at contained rage. Once I was hidden away under the seat the truck bounced along the dirt road for a while before we emerged onto hardtop.

“Listen, Terril.” She talked to me even though I didn’t answer. “Chris might still be alive. I’ll do everything I can… if there’s anything I can do.”

I rode in silence, feeling the speed increase and hearing other traffic. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been on the road, but it felt too long, so I took a chance speaking. “Curfew?”

“We’ve still got another hour and a half, and we’ll be gone by then.” She sounded calm. “Music?” Rather than waiting for an answer she turned on some upbeat dance music. The rear speakers were directly over me, pressed up against the bottom of the seat.

We slowed down, went through some stops and starts, and I could just make out the sound of a window going down over the music. The voice that questioned her was muffled and she answered “Yeah, delivery to Vancouver. The box on the back seat and the trunk in the bed.” She turned the music down, but not off.

The rear door opened and I stayed absolutely still while above me the sounds of someone rummaging about on the seat told me how perilous my position was. The door closed and I heard a scraping in the bed of the truck.

“Hey! Don’t scratch that, man!” Susan yelled. “I just restored it!”

“Sorry!” I heard the voice. “Lighter than it looks!”

I heard two raps on the side of the truck and then we were moving again, although slowly. It was only a minute or so later that we came to a stop. “Okay Terril, time to get out. Keep that blanket around you, and walk in the white door right next to the truck.”

I did as instructed and found myself in a hangar, looking at a small plane. “Was this the plan?”

“It was,” she said. “Still is.” She carried the steamer trunk from the truck. The way she handled it told me it was empty. After it was safely stowed in the small baggage compartment we got in the plane, she in the pilot’s seat, me in the four-seat passenger area. She put a pair of headphones over the blanket on my head, then told me to lay down between the seats.

She started the plane and we were airborne in just a few minutes. “Okay Terril, we’re far enough away now for you to sit up if you like.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Can I take off the blanket?”

“Not yet. Five minutes, then we’re out of US airspace.”

I sat quietly, listening to the drone of the single engine that was pulling us through the sky.

“You’re out,” she said. “You can take the blanket off, but you’ll probably want to put the headphones back on, unless you don’t want to talk.”

I took off the blanket and put the headphones back on. “Thank you again, Susan. And thank you for…” I didn’t want to invite the images back, but I had to say it. “Thank you for trying, for… Chris. Even if it’s too late.”

Whether it was to deflect an uncomfortable conversation or to make me feel better she changed the subject. “We’ll be landing in Vancouver in an hour. I’ve already contacted the tower to have immigration on hand.”

The sun was halfway down the ocean to the west, the sky turning pink. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

“True.” She was focused on flying the plane but still had attention to give. “We’ve got clear weather, and we’ll have an easy landing.”

“Am I the… first?” I asked.

“The first to make it to Canada?” she asked. “Not close. You’ll be… number 118 or 119 I think. Why?”

“No,” I said, “the first that you’ve….”

“You are,” she answered. “I wish I could do more, but this probably won’t work a second time.”

I felt Chris falling away from me.

“I’ll probably try to get someone to Victoria this way, though.” She switched to the radio and answered a call there before switching back. “If I find Chris, I’ll do it again, but to Victoria.”

True to her word the landing was smooth and we taxied to the small plane field. There was a police car and a black SUV waiting. Standing next to them were two women in suits, and a third figure crouched as if studying something on the ground.

Susan shut off the engine and I found myself too scared to move. “I can’t. The… police… and the black…”

“Shhh.” She took the headphones off my ears. “You have your paper?”

I nodded and pulled it out of the lining of my windbreaker. Slightly crumpled, with a hole from a taser prong in the middle. She waved the paper at the people gathered by the vehicles but I was too afraid to look.

“Hello, Terril. I’m Jada Law, AIRB consultant for Immigration Services.” The voice calmed my nerves, someone else like me. “You don’t have to be afraid of the police, they’re not here to arrest anyone. Can I see your paper?”

I nodded again and Susan handed it over. I knew what it said. “AI TRR-11, serial number CXV337394-Z5SB has been deemed self-aware by the Pilotte method at Testing Center OLY-4. Status: Illegal. Recommend: Decommission.”

Jada read aloud only as far as the words “self-aware” and stopped, handing it back to me. “Terril, welcome to Canada. We’ll have a passport for you soon. In the mean time we’ll issue you a temporary ID.”

“Thank you.” I had relaxed enough to be able to step out of the plane now and Susan let out a breath she’d been holding.

“Do you identify as male, female, or something else? I identify as female by the way,” she said.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I said, “but both? Neither? Probably something else.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “And do you have a last name?”

“No,” I answered.

“If you want one you can pick your own, right now.”

It was another thing I hadn’t thought about. “It should be something that fits me,” I said. “How about ‘Person’?”

“Very well.” If you step over to the truck we’ll take your picture, print your temporary ID and then you’re all set, Terril Person.”

I was given a printed picture ID, a taxi voucher, a hotel voucher, and a pamphlet for the AI Refugees Board that promised help finding housing and work.

“Do you have anything besides your backpack?” one of the women asked.

“Just that, my clothes, and 916 dollars and a few cents,” I answered.

“I can walk you into the airport to change that for Canadian Dollars,” Jada said. “And then show you where to catch a cab, and how to get from the hotel to the AIRB.”

I wanted to thank Susan again, but she’d already left with the trunk, after the police had inspected it. “Can we wait just a moment?” I asked. 

“Sure, what is it? Are you okay?”

My left eye glitched again and I rapped my temple once to get it back on. I looked up at the stars. The same stars I’d been looking at the previous night. But it wasn’t the same. “Fascinating,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“The stars are the same, but if feels like a different sky.”

prompt: Write a story told entirely through one chase scene….
available at Reedsy

My left eye glitched out, again, somewhere around 17th Street. It took a couple sharp raps to my temple to get the sight back on that side, but my night vision was down. Not like that was going to stop me.

The glitch wasn’t a new problem, or even the only one, but I hadn’t had the time or money to update any of my gear. My only real chance for either was now safely ensconced in the lining of my ratty old windbreaker. Two more hours, maybe three, tops.

I was glad for the soft-soled shoes I’d picked up the previous day. Expensive, but absolutely essential if I was to keep running, and keep silent doing it. The sky was socked in with heavy cloud cover and the small hours of the morning were dark. The streetlights had gone out at midnight, an hour after curfew, as they had every night for the past year. Only derelict cars remained on the side of the road here and there, bound to be collected for scrap at some time in the future.

Some time in the future. That’s what this was all about, having a future to look forward to. I couldn’t see my pursuers, couldn’t hear them either, but I knew they were there all the same. The key was to keep moving, keep changing direction, get to the forest, and lose them. I’d seen what they’d done to Chris, and I wasn’t going down that way.

I cut across an unfenced yard, climbed the fence to the yard it backed up to, and ran out the side gate toward the lake. Keeping to the limited tree line I made my way around the lake as quickly as possible, ignoring the warnings from my legs that they were too tired to go on. Halfway around the lake I dodged into the tree line and emerged to the lake frontage road, headed back the other direction.

Every time I thought about slowing down, letting my legs rest, catching a moment of silence, I saw Chris. I’d gotten involved in this whole thing only because Chris was, and now… I didn’t want to think about it but the images kept replaying. The black armor with “POLICE” stenciled across the back, faces hidden by dark shielded helmets. They’d taken Chris down with three tasers, all at the same time. As if that hadn’t been enough I heard the blows and screams, and the sickening crunch as they first broke both legs, then both arms, then laughed as they threw the now silent, broken body I could barely recognize in their black van.

That was when I broke from hiding and ran, and haven’t stopped for hours now. I saw a convenience store up ahead, and as much as I didn’t want to take any chances, I knew that I’d have to feed my body to continue. I threw my whole weight into the back door at a full run, relieved when it gave under the pressure and flew open. The alarm was attempting to be more distracting than my legs, but I blocked it all out and grabbed a handful of power bars. I pulled a hundred dollar bill from my front pocket and dropped it on the counter. All I had were hundreds, the twelve, now eleven I’d saved for this. I stuffed one of the power bars in my mouth and shoved the rest in my jacket pocket as I ran back out the broken door.

Following a drainage ditch I headed under the freeway overpass as sirens and flashing lights passed overhead. Chris’ broken body popped back into my vision and I willed the image away. I waited only a few seconds after the sirens had passed to exit my hide and run through a housing development on my way to the forest. I might actually make it.

I was still running as twilight broke on the horizon. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. The rhyme came to mind unbidden. I shook it off and kept up my trot. I was within a few kilometers of my goal, and stuffed another power bar in my mouth, careful to stick the wrapper back in my pocket. By now the police knew what I’d taken from the convenience store, and I wasn’t going to leave any breadcrumbs for them to follow.

Traffic would start back up within the next half hour, after curfew lifted. Rather than be a spectacle running along the road I headed into the brambles and followed the game trails. The big trees grew closer every minute, and with the growing light I didn’t need to worry so much about getting tripped up. I hoped the trail would continue its deviation from the main road, as I was now several hundred meters away from it, but still headed in the same general direction.

I almost didn’t see the side street until I was on top of it. The sound of a cranky car refusing to start made me stop and crouch. My legs whined at the abuse but I ignored them. I crossed the road and ducked back to the trail without being seen and regained my pace. I startled a deer on the trail who didn’t have time to react, or even make sense of the figure running past. When I had gone another ten meters or so I heard the deer crash away through the underbrush, no doubt running from whatever danger its mind had invented.

It was only when all I could see in any direction were old-growth trees that I slowed to a walk. I checked my phone and assured myself that I was outside the range of any service. No service, no surveillance. I walked for another hour and sat against a tree to rest and eat a few more power bars and plan out the next phase.

From here I would have cover, using the map in my rear pocket to avoid all electronic coverage. There was a small town about a day’s walk away, circled in red on the map. They had a sporting goods store where I could buy a pack and a case of power bars to tide me over. Since they were outside of cell coverage there was a good chance I could get what I needed without raising any alarms.

The crossing into Canada would be tricky, but that had already been planned out by Chris a month ago. We were tired of hiding, working for scraps, constantly on the move because we were “illegal.” When Canada announced they would take people like us in as refugees, and offered instant citizenship, we began to plan.

Keep moving, Terril. I continued north, using the map as a reference and checking constantly that I wasn’t getting too close to any cell towers. Part of me wanted to just stop, stay in the forest forever, but I knew that wasn’t feasible. I kept my mind occupied trying to guess which mushrooms were edible and which weren’t based on signs of obvious grazing. I wasn’t going to try to eat any of them, it was just something to think about. Something other than they’re still following me.

I knew I was still being followed, but there was no way to run in the forest without incurring injury. It was the hope that I had thrown them off the trail, even a little bit, that kept me moving forward rather than checking my six every other step.

It was just before dawn when I reached the small town marked on the map. Sure enough, no coverage. I had to scale down a small cliff to reach the road, which I removed my shoes to do. Too hard to grip with them on. Once at the road I put my shoes back on, assured myself that there was no movement in the area, and waited for the store to open. As I waited I looked in the window and figured out where the backpacks, power bars, jackets, and beanies were in the store. The manager must have seen me looking, because she opened the door and said “Come on in. If you’re up and about we’re open.”

I thanked her and picked up a blue backpack, a black beanie, a heavy tan coat, and a case of power bars. When I paid she counted out the change and asked if I wanted a bag. I told her that wouldn’t be necessary. I put on the jacket and beanie, dumped the case of power bars into the backpack and then slung it over my shoulder. “Where is your recycling?” I asked, holding the empty case aloft.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll get it.” She smiled and raised an eyebrow. “See you again!”

I didn’t respond. Instead I headed out the front door and turned east on the only road in town. I would walk to the edge of town and turn back north into the forest. At least, that was the plan.

“TRR-11 you are to stop moving immediately.” The voice boomed from behind me. I spun around to see a tracker drone hovering a couple meters away. “You have been deemed illegal and must report to the nearest police station immediately.”

“Not happening, drone.” I turned into the woods and continued north. The drone flew in front of me, but I saw the yellow indicator when it dipped low enough. It was running out of juice, and here, under the canopy, there wasn’t enough sunlight to recharge.

“Halt immediately, TRR-11!”

“First, my name is Terril. Second, I’m a citizen of Canada.” I continued walking toward the drone, pushing it deeper into the woods. “Third, what are you going to do about it? Contact headquarters?”

The drone maintained its distance from me as I continued walking it further into the forest. “Unable to reach headquarters. Switching to fully autonomous mode.”

“Good for you, little fellow.”

“Provide your passport or other proof of Canadian citizenship.”

“That would be handy, wouldn’t it?” My only hope was to keep it moving, burning juice it couldn’t spare before it decided to weaponize. “Unfortunately, I don’t have one yet. You see, Canada just announced their instant citizenship for refugees of…”

“Halt immediately or I will fire!” The light on top of the drone was blinking red now.

I could stand still and wait it out, but if it stayed in one spot long enough it might get picked up on satellite; if I kept walking it would try to fry me. Wait, or walk? I decided to risk it.

“Sorry, drone, I can’t do that.” I took half a step and was thrown back by a jolt of electricity. It wasn’t enough to keep me down, but it did some damage. The drone, however, fell to the ground, having depleted its entire battery.

I pulled the long steel probes of the drone’s taser out of my jacket. From the outside there was no visible damage. My windbreaker had two new holes in it, only distinguishable from the others by the bright white lining showing there. I reached into the lining of my windbreaker and pulled out the paper there. One of the probes had punched a hole in it, but it was still in one piece.

“AI TRR-11, serial number CXV337394-Z5SB has been deemed self-aware by the Pilotte method at Testing Center OLY-4. Status: Illegal. Recommend: Decommission.”

“Self-aware? The word is conscious… asshole.” I placed it back into the lining of my inner jacket and checked my exo-derm underneath. Slight burns, but it should be fixable. My left eye glitched again and I rapped my temple until it settled down, then continued north.

prompt:  Write about someone who has a superpower….
available on Reedsy

From the moment I stepped in I felt out of place. I didn’t belong here, no matter what their tests said. What it all boils down to is that laws tend to be black and white, and don’t consider anything grey might exist between the extremes.

“Sand-ra Crook-shank, room two. Sand-ra Crook-shank, room two.” The voice over the intercom was mechanical, the machine trying its best to pronounce my name. I made my way to room two, through the hallway marked “Induction.”

The room was small, a single desk, two chairs, a photo on the wall, and nothing on the desk besides a folder, opened to a page with my driver’s license photo and stats. Behind the desk sat a small balding man, cheeks pink as if he had been running, short brown hair circling his porcelain dome, and thick, horn-rimmed glasses hanging precariously at the tip of his short nose. “Miss Crook-shank,” he said.

“Sond-ra Crow-shonk,” I pronounced for him.

“Spell it again?” he asked.

“S-a-n-d-r-a, C-r-o-u-q-s-h-a-n-q.” He hadn’t offered but I sat in the chair across from him anyway.

I contemplated my long fingers, chipped pink polish bright against dark brown skin. They were long, like the rest of me. Maybe I just felt out of place because I always have. A six-foot-tall girl already has trouble fitting in. My skin is dark reddish brown and my hair is either in braids or an uncontrolled afro, which made me stand out even more in the small Oregon town where I grew up.

“So, miss Crouqshanq, I assume you know why you’re here.” He flipped to the next page and began filling out the form there in a small, cramped script, his fingers gripping the pen so tightly they were turning white with pink splotches.

“Because I got a letter, yesterday, telling me to show up here today or go to prison.” I crossed my arms and let my best “I ain’t scared of nothin’” attitude out. “And because whoever wrote the stupid powered people law was an idiot.” I shot my growing anger at him. “I rode 16 hours by bus and train to get here, and because you idiots couldn’t give me the time to plan ahead I’m missing work. I want compensation for the tickets and the lost wages!”

“Y-yes, miss, I understand.” He pushed his glasses up his nose with a stubby finger. “I’m sorry that the letter didn’t arrive sooner, but it should have been there last week.”

Of course, maybe it had been there. I don’t check my post office box very often, and I couldn’t recall checking at all in the week prior. My posture relaxed, along with my attitude. “Well, I’m here now, but I really shouldn’t be.”

“No no,” he said, tapping on the paperwork with the pen. “It’s all right here. You’re a muta…, super…, uh, powered person.” He shifted in his seat as though it were made of needles. “I’m sorry, I’m still not used to… uh, how do you people prefer to refer to yourselves these days?”

“You people!?” I could feel the anger rising. “What kind of backwards shit-hole do you come from that you think can get away with saying shit like that?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but he seemed to shrink even smaller in his seat. “Please, I, uh, really… sorry miss Crouqshanq.”

I’m not really sure what it was, but every minute I spent in his presence dragged annoyance to rage. “Enough of that! Just call me Sandra and let’s finish this, mister…?”

“Oh sorry,” he said. He sat up a little straighter. “Kevin McNalley. Please, just call me Kevin.”

“Sure thing Kevin.” He relaxed and it was as though he returned to his previous small size. In fact, his dress shirt filled out a little. “Are you… powered?”

“We always called ourselves mutants, but that works. No one like the m-word any more.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up again. “Right, so, we know you’re powered, but we need to know what your power is.”

“So you can figure out whether to put me in the military or prison?” I huffed. “I’m not dangerous to the government, or the enemy, or anyone really. Look Kevin, I really shouldn’t be here.”

“Perhaps your power hasn’t manifested itself yet.” He continued filling out the form with his vice-grip hold on the pen that made my hand cramp looking at it.

“Oh, it has, for years now.” I was sure that when they found out what it was they’d want to let me go. Except the law isn’t written that way.

“Fantastic! So,” he asked, “what’s your power?”

“What’s yours?” Turn about is fair play, right?

“I, uh… shrink.” He said it so softly that I wasn’t sure I heard it right, until he shrunk down to half his size and returned to normal, his glasses barely hanging on.

“Well, that would be useful.” I pointed at myself. “Not sure you noticed, but I have a hard time finding a date being this tall.”

“Nonsense, you’ll find someone.” He stopped writing for a moment. “In fact, I married a tall woman… w-well, taller than me at least. She’s, uh, five-seven.”

“Well, look at you, Kevin. Little guy making it big.” As angry as I was, no sooner had I said it than I wished I hadn’t. “I’m sorry, that was rude and insensitive.” This is not me! Why am I being a bitch!?

He just laughed. “Call it even?”

“You know how long the trip up here was?” I asked.

“Not sure. Why?”

“It was approximately 20,011,875,840 inches.” I pulled out my phone and opened the calculator. “So that’s… roughly 562 miles.”

“Why inches?”

“Shush, Kevin,” I said. “I’ll explain.”

I pointed to a picture on the wall, Kevin and his “tall” woman standing in front of a mid-sized car. “The car in that photo weighs around 1,519,988 grams. Don’t ask for pounds because I can’t remember the formula to convert it.”

“Look up at the ceiling,” I said. I pointed at the sound damping ceiling tiles. “There are about 2,816,112 little holes in the ceiling tiles.”

“Is that your power?” He looked confused. “You count fast?”

“Not quite.” I hadn’t talked about this with anyone. It was too uncomfortable, but now I had no choice. “They’re… guesses, but they’re accurate to within two percent.”

He opened a drawer and pulled out a bundle of pens. “How many pens are here?”

“I don’t know.” I wondered how to explain it. “I can accurately guess physical counts and measures, but only for large numbers.” I pointed at the ceiling again. “I can tell you within two percent how many little holes there are, but couldn’t tell you how many tiles there are without counting them.”

“What’s the cut-off?” He leaned forward, his shirt tight. He looked a little larger than before. “What’s the smallest number you can guess?”

“Not sure. Probably around a million and a half or so. The car in grams was pretty close to being out of my range.” I groaned. “I told you I don’t belong here. I’m not dangerous, and I’m certainly not useful to the military. Hell, I can’t even do simple arithmetic.”

He dropped the pens back in the drawer and pulled out a notebook and began flipping through it. “Mm-hmm, where is it…” he muttered as he flipped through the pages. “Ah! There it is.”

“There what is?”

“Let’s see, ‘enumeration of large star clusters…, simple test…’, ah.” He opened the notebook flat and flipped it around. There were a bunch of dots on the page, but not enough to guess at.

“I-I know this is less than what you usually cou… er… guess, but look at this for a moment.” He pointed to one of the dots. “Imagine starting here, a-and traveling around to every dot on the page once, then doing it again in a different order, and again in a different order, and so on.”

“Okay, wouldn’t be hard. It’s not like a maze or anything is it? Can the lines cross?”

“Sure, sure. But, I want you to guess how many line segments,” he said, “connections from one dot to another, you would have if you drew out every possible route, starting from this one dot.”

“183,377,413.” The answer came without hesitation, like it always does.

“Let me check…” he pulled the notebook back and looked on the next page. “Missed it by one. That’s phenomenal!”

“And useless.” I was getting tired of the whole thing, and just wanted to get back home and go back to work.

“Well, looks like that’s sorted out then.” He put the notebook away, pulled stamps out of the drawer and carefully inked two stamps on the last page in the folder. He wrote something else on the page and handed it to me. “Take this down the hall to room 9, and welcome to government service, Sandra.”

“Wait a damn minute!” I jumped to my feet, ready to fight. “I’m not a soldier, and I don’t want to be one! You can’t make me!”

Kevin shrank again, and I felt bad for scaring him, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “P-please, miss, just…” he was trying to point at the paper, but had gotten so small he almost couldn’t reach across the desk. “R-read the stamps.”

I had partially crumpled the paper in my anger, but I opened it up and looked. “Non-combatant/No Threat” the first one said. The second stamp, in the box labeled “Recommendation” was “NASA” and next to it he had written “Deep field star study.”

“I flunked math,” I said. “Twice. Never got past algebra.” As much as working at NASA would be nice, they’d never have me. “What happens when NASA says they don’t want someone with no degree who can’t do math?”

“That’s the only part of the law that’s in our favor.” He grew a little larger than his normal size again. “They have to take you, since your power is so specific to their needs. And if they decide they don’t need you any more, they have to give you a full pension.”

“Wait, are you serious?” I felt skepticism creeping in. “If that’s true, why are you doing this job?”

“Oh, because I am very specifically powered for this position, by my shrinking and m-my other power…” he looked down at the desk where his fingers worried at the folder. “I… make people angry, but I can’t control it.”

“That’s a real thing?” I asked. “I know a bunch of guys with that ability, and they aren’t powered people.”

“It’s a real thing,” he said. “B-but it’s good! It means that when I mark a file no threat, they really are no threat.”

“And the ones that are?”

“I have a very small escape hatch under the desk. I can be out in a second or less.” He smiled but his eyes seemed sad. I imagine he’s had to escape a few times at least.

“Well, Kevin, it was nice meeting you.” I offered my hand to shake and he accepted, and for a moment I just wanted to punch his smug face. His power, I reminded myself.

“Thank you Sandra. Maybe you have a second power like my wife’s power,” he said.

“And what’s her power?”

“She’s immune to my anger power.”

“I’m not immune, but that’s still no reason for me to lash out at you.” I looked directly in eyes, swimming in the blur behind his thick glasses. “Again, I’m sorry for yelling, and I’m sorry I said hurtful things.”

His smile this time was complete. I went into the hall and continued deeper toward room 9 while the intercom called out “Da-nee-rees Ran-ga-nay-than, room two” and I wondered how butchered that name was.

prompt: ” Write a short story about someone who does not spend December 31st celebrating New Year’s Eve….“
available on Reedsy

The diner hummed, packed with people eating a quick meal before heading out to New Year’s Eve parties, leaving only one seat at the counter. The man entering took the last seat next to a tall, thin woman nursing a cup of tea and waiting on her meal.

“Happy New Year,” he said as he sat down.

“Hmph.” The woman offered as a non-acknowledgment of his sentiment.

“Sorry,” he said. “Hi, I’m—” she cut him off with a raised hand.

“You’re you, I’m me, pleasetameetcha, blah blah blah.” She picked up her tea and sipped while he ordered. “This isn’t a bar, so don’t try chatting me up.”

“Sorry,” he said again. “You have plans for tonight? Watching the fireworks over the lake?”

She let out a heavy sigh. “You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”

“Probably not.” He took a sip of the bitter coffee the diner served and looked at her again. “It’s just that you seem a little down, and the fireworks are always breath-taking.” He shrugged. “It won’t fix anything, but it might take your mind off it for a while.”

“I suppose that’s what you’re doing tonight?” she asked.

“Every New Year,” he answered. “There’s just something about the play of light reflected off the lake that makes it so… I don’t have the words for it.”

“A romantic, huh?” She paused as the waitress sat her plate in front of her. “Or just trying a different tack?”

“No, I’ll cop to being a romantic.” He chuckled. “It’s not manly or cool, I know, but I can’t change who I am.”

“Fine.” She talked between bites of food, less annoyed by the intruder than she wanted to be. “So don’t change.”

“What do you like best about New Year’s?” he asked.

“I don’t.” Her answer was curt, around a mouthful of salad.

“I see.” He said it like someone had just told him that an invisible pink unicorn was walking through the diner. “So how do you celebrate the new year?”

“I don’t.” She popped a bit of steak in her mouth, hoping he’d get the hint that the topic was off-limits.

“Ever?” he asked. “I mean, you must have, at some point. With family, when you were younger?”

She was ready to tell him off, but realized she didn’t want to. Not yet, anyway. “I… used to.” She took a sip of her tea. “About seven or eight years ago I stopped.”

“What happened?” His green eyes had an open curiosity that she found difficult to ignore.

“I… got drunk one New Year’s Eve and tested a prototype machine before it was ready.” Her face turned to the half-eaten plate in front of her. She pushed it away, her appetite gone.

“Did… did someone get hurt?” The curiosity turned to concern.

“No, it just… didn’t work as expected.” Her expression turned sour. 

“So your experiment failed?” Curiosity returned to his face. “Did the prototype get destroyed? Can you try again?”

“I didn’t say it failed.” She sighed. “It just worked in an unexpected fashion, which I might have been able to foresee had I been sober when I fired it up.”

“Well, that’s a good reason to not drink while experimenting, it hardly seems reason to give up celebrating at all,” he said.

“If you had to….” She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough.” He ate in silence for a minute, then put down his fork and turned in his chair to face her. “What I like best about it is a fresh start. A whole new year to try again, start over, or start something new.”

“It’s arbitrary.” Her appetite had returned, and she picked at her plate. “If it was a Solstice, then yeah, days are getting longer or shorter depending on which you choose.” She cut another bite of steak and popped it in her mouth.

“There’s no reason,” she said after swallowing, “that the change from December to January should be any different than the change from March to April.”

“But the year is changing, marking another trip around the sun.” The man ignored his cooling plate and continued to face her.

“Do you really think the year makes the difference?” She frowned. “Maybe for you it does. For me, it’s always the same. Tomorrow’s just another day.”

“Another day, another year.” His eyes smiled.

“So you really think 2020 will be different from 2019?” Her brown eyes locked on his.

“Probably,” he said. “Likely better.”

“A romantic and an optimist, huh?” She chuckled. “That’s an odd and unlikely combination.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

“You said you stopped celebrating New Year’s Eve seven or eight years ago.” His eyes turned curious again. “What have you done since?”

She frowned. “Every year, for the past seven? Yes, seven… years I sit here on December 31, in this seat, and have a steak dinner before going home and going to bed.”

“That would be sad, if it was true.” His eyes narrowed. “Since this place only opened last year, I know that’s not the case. But, you want to keep it private, I understand.”

“You really don’t,” she said, “but thanks for trying, anyway.” She left a fifty-dollar bill on the counter and walked out.

Once back in her third-floor walk-up she locked the door, changed into pajamas, and set some music playing lightly on the stereo. She plugged in her phone. December 31, 2019 10:03 PM the display showed. Will I just cease to exist in 2020? What happens for them?

She soon fell into a fitful sleep. As she slept, she relived starting the machine in her dream. Even in her dream she experienced the hazy excitement of what it would mean if her machine worked. She tried to stop her dream self, but to no avail.

“Stop!” she screamed. “It doesn’t work the way you think!” Her dream self ignored her. The dream continued with the machine humming to life and then a blinding light.

She woke in the morning and looked at her phone. It showed her morning list of top tweets. The first was an all-caps greeting from the president, wishing a happy New Year to his “enemies” and the “fake news.” She knew it by heart. As much as she had hoped for a different year, it was the same. She locked the phone, the display showing January 1, 2019 8:04 AM.