CONTENTS - Nth Degree

Transcription

Nth Degree is a free, quarterly,
web-distributed fanzine that is intended
to help promote the works of new writers
and artists in the science fiction and
fantasy genres. For more information,
please contact us at [email protected].
Aug/Sept 2013, Issue #22
Last issue I discussed why we were classified as a
semiprozine under the old classification system and why
we were always just short of a Hugo nomination. And I
promised to talk about the new and (hopefully)
improved system this issue. So, here goes…
Here is the current definition of a semiprozine:
Nth Degree #22 is ™ and © by Big Blind Productions, August 2013.
C ONTENTS
FEATURES
The Editor’s Rant .........................................1
Conventions................................................3
Any generally available non-professional periodical publication devoted to science fiction or fantasy, or related subjects which by the close of the previous calendar year has
published four (4) or more issues (or the equivalent in
other media), at least one (1) of which appeared in the
previous calendar year, which does not qualify as a fancast, and which in the previous calendar year met at least
one (1) of the following criteria: (1) paid its contributors
and/or staff in other than copies of the publication, (2)
was generally available only for paid purchase.
BelchBurger by Rob Balder & Dan Fahs................5
That goes a long way to clearing things up. We don’t
generally pay contributors or staff (outside of ad trade)
and the zine is available as a free download.
So, what is now considered a fanzine? Take a look:
Movies: A Dance With Andrea .....................8
Any generally available non-professional periodical publication devoted to science fiction or fantasy, or related subjects
that by the close of the previous calendar year has published
four (4) or more issues (or the equivalent in other media),
at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar
year, that does not qualify as a semiprozine or a fancast,
and that in the previous calendar year met neither of the
following criteria: (1) paid its contributors and/or staff in
other than copies of the publication, (2) was generally
available only for paid purchase.
STAFF
Seems pretty straight forward; we are officially a
fanzine again. Now I just have to get myself back onto a
regular publishing schedule. <grin>
Let’s get to the fiction! Last time I had a lot of fun
with our first themed issue so I decided to give it another
go. This time… Robots!
Publisher/Editor/Designer: Michael D. Pederson
Associate Editor: Rob Balder
Staff Artist: J. Andrew World
How to Run a Writers’ Group by Bud Webster ....11
The Last Straw by Bob Kauffmann ...................13
Fanbreeding by Kara Dennison .......................22
Dear Cthulhu by Patrick Thomas .....................37
REVIEWS
Books: Shadoboxxer....................................7
Books: Unfriendly Persuasion ........................7
Movies: The Wolverine ................................8
Television: Under the Dome ..........................9
FICTION
The Perfect Waltz by Eileen Maksym................15
The Not So Obvious Robot by Gary Dudney .......23
Captain Asimov Saves the Day
by Stephen L. Antczak .................................27
FILK
Teach Your Robots Well by Rob Balder ............25
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Perfect Waltz by Michael D. Pederson .........15
The Not So Obvious Robot by Alan Beck ........23
RoboBison by Brad W. Foster ..........................24
Captain Asimov Saves the Day
by Michael D. Pederson ...............................27
With Help From: Stephen L. Antczak, Alan Beck, Anita Bruckert,
Kara Dennison, Gary Dudney, Loren Fishman, Brad W. Foster,
James Fulbright, Eileen Maksym, Bob Kauffmann,
KT Pinto, Patrick Thomas, S.C. Watson, Bud Webster
F EAT U R E S
CONVENTIONS:
MystiCon 2013
February 22–24, 2013
Roanoke, VA
http://mysticon-va.com
Review by James Fulbright
Today I’m going to start my 2013 convention review
series. First up this year is MystiCon… MystiCon was
held February 22–24 in Roanoke, VA at the Holiday
Inn–Tanglewood. Guests included Orson Scott Card,
Larry Elmore and Peter Davison.
Let’s get this out of the way immediately, MystiCon was a fun convention. If you
take a quick look below, you might notice that I have more negatives than positives. I
highly suggest you not read anything into this fact. The convention is well run, professional and fun. Most of the issues they experienced came from some very astounding
growth rates between 2012 and 2013. When you add about 450 people to an 850 person convention, bad things have a tendency to happen. The positive here is that most
of those issues are fairly easy to solve prior to 2014.
The Good
• The programming was very well run; panel topics were interesting, and the panels
were well attended.
• The guests that I dealt with were all personable and engaging. I never got the feeling
I could not approach any of the guests.
• The staff were very friendly and professional. It seemed like they truly wanted to see
people having a good time.
• The convention used the mobile app LiveCon to display their schedule. I know other
cons have used this app, but I hadn’t had a chance to really use it myself. As a guest,
I like it a lot. I didn’t have to carry a paper copy of my schedule around with me all
weekend, which is a big plus.
• The Dealer’s Room was a decent size, with a nice selection of dealers and plenty of
walking space (but see below).
• The hotel appeared to be extremely flexible in working with the convention. Checkin was very quick. And, while I had a few maintenance issues with my room, once I
arrived the hotel resolved those immediately. Additionally, the hotel sold reasonably
priced (not hotel-priced) concessions during all meal times.
Possible Areas of Improvement (The Bad)
• Pet peeve time: Name badges. Please, if you are a con organizer, make the names large
enough on the badges so that they can easily be read from a distance of about six feet.
I had at least ten people ask me my name, and then apologize for asking, stating they
couldn’t read my badge. Additionally, I highly suggest MystiCon drop the watermark
from behind the names. That just makes it even harder to read the badges.
Nth Degree #22
Page 3
CONVENTION
SCHEDULE
AUG-SEPT
Aug. 8-11
CopperCon Revolution
Mesa, AZ
http://casfs.org/cucon/
Aug. 9-11
SpoCon
Spokane, WA
http://www.spocon.org
Aug. 15-18
Gen Con
Indianapolis, IN
http://www.gencon.com
Aug. 16-17
Little Green Men Festival
Kelly, KY
http://www.kellyky.com/festival/lgmfestival.html
Aug. 23-25
Bubonicon
Albuquerque, NM
http://bubonicon.com
Aug. 23-25
Geek.Kon
Middleton, WI
http://www.geekkon.net
Aug. 23-25
Intervention
Rockville, MD
http://interventioncon.com
Aug. 23-25
MechaCon
New Orleans, LA
http://www.mechacon.com/news/
Aug. 23-25
NecronomiCon
Providence, RI
http://necronomicon-providence.com
Aug. 29-Sept. 2
LoneStarCon/Worldcon
San Antonio, TX
http://www.lonestarcon3.org
Aug. 29-Sept. 1
MetaCon
Minneapolis, MN
http://metaconvention.com
Aug. 30-Sept. 2
Dragon*Con
Atlanta, GA
http://www.dragoncon.org
Sept. 6-8
DoDeca-Con
Columbia, MO
http://dodecacon.webs.com
Sept. 12-16
Scare-A-Con
Syracuse, NY
http://scareacon.com
August/September 2013
F EAT U R E S
• It is really not a good idea to have panel discussions going on in rooms that are next
to concerts. The panelists should not have to shout at the audience, and vice versa. I
experienced this at a couple of panels during the convention.
• The next one is really just a minor irritant, but someone took most of the paragraph
breaks out of my bio when it was placed in the program book. I felt it made me seem
like I didn’t understand basic grammar, which is bad because I was listed as a blogger
on the guest list.
• There was a major bottleneck in the main hallway. The convention either needs to
limit its attendance to about 900–1000 people, or find a way to get rid of the tables
in that hallway (or possibly some of both). It also might be a good idea for Security
to take a proactive role in organizing any long lines before they happen.
• I had a situation where one of my scheduled events was cancelled, but I was not
informed. If the schedule changes during the con, it is mandatory that all guests
involved be contacted. Also, the con might find it useful to request contact information from each guest, so they can be reached during the con.
• The Dealers’ Room was nice, but I do have one question: Where were the costume
dealers? There was a good-sized Masquerade at this convention. It would have been
nice to have a costume dealer or two.
• The stage in the main programing room was outright dangerous. The convention needs
to either push the hotel to buy a new stage or rent one that meets basic safety standards.
CONVENTION
SCHEDULE
SEPT-OCT
Sept. 13-15
http://nauticons.com
Sept. 20-22
RavenCon 2013
April 5–7, 2013
Richmond, VA
http://www.ravencon.com
Review by KT Pinto
It took me a while to do a review of RavenCon, but
one of the reasons was that I was trying to figure out a
way to review the convention without sounding like a
huge fangirl.
The problem is… I can’t do it! I absolutely love this
convention.
I usually describe this convention as follows: The con is run by a bunch of geek-frat
brothers (the cool, fun ones; not the ones I went to school with) who got together one
day and decided to create an intellectual party-con.
And they succeeded.
There are a handful of people who are the main core of the concomm but—unlike
many other cons—there is no clique feel.
The programming was intelligent, varied, and a lot of fun! What made it even better
Nth Degree #22
Page 4
RocCon!
Rochester, NY
http://rochesterscifianimecon.com
Sept. 28-29
MonsterCon
San Antonio, TX
http://monster-con.com
Oct. 4-6
Archon
St. Louis, MO
http://www.archonstl.org/37/
Oct. 4-6
FenCon
Dallas, TX
http://www.fencon.org
Oct. 11-13
Okay, that’s it. Like I said earlier, the con is very good, even with all my areas of
improvement. MystiCon is definitely going on my list of cons to go back to next year.
MystiCon 2014 will be held February 21–23, 2014.
(You can read James’ blog, I Am Not A Smof, at http://con-observations.blogspot.com.)
Nauticon
Provincetown, MA
Capclave
Gaithersburg, MD
http://www.capclave.org/capclave/capclave13/
Oct. 11-13
Pandoracon
Cincinnati, OH
http://www.pandoracon.com
Oct. 18-20
Arcana
St. Paul, MN
http://arcanacon.com
Oct. 18-20
Conjecture/ConChord
San Diego, CA
http://2013.conjecture.org
Oct. 18-20
CONtraflow
New Orleans, LA
http://contraflowscifi.org
Oct. 18-20
FANdomCon
Pensacola, FL
http://www.fandomcon.com
Oct. 18-20
Necronomicon
Tampa, FL
http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm
Oct. 26
Geek Gala
Charlotte, NC
http://charlottegeeks.com/geek-gala/
Oct. 25-27
Ultimate Horror Weekend
Orlando, FL
http://www.spookyempire.com
F EAT U R E S
was that the process to choose panels and events to be a part
of was a breeze and scheduling was done well in advance.
Guests of Honor this year were Kevin J. Anderson and
Rebecca Moesta, Jennie Breeden, and Bella Morte.
The parties and concerts were excellent, although the parties ended earlier than expected. But then we all met in the
lobby, and the hotel staff wasn’t scared by geeks in the lobby
(like a lot of hotels are).
My only complaint: it ended too quickly! Yes, it was the
standard three days that a convention is, but we were all so
sad to see it end! I hope to be invited back next year!
RavenCon will be held again on April 25–27, 2014.
A-Kon 24
May 31–June 2, 2013
Dallas, TX
http://www.a-kon.com
Review by Rob Balder
A-Kon 24 was brilliant.
Although it is focused on
anime and the hallways teem
with anime cosplay, this is very
much an all-fandoms convention. Programming and performance tracks covered broad
swaths of fannish interests from the literary to the bizarre.
There was a ton of space for gaming (tabletop, PC, LARPing),
and guests from all different media and genres were invited to
talk in panel rooms packed with enthusiastic people.
Over the last few years, A-Kon has grown into one of
those whale-class conventions. Attendance this year topped
25,000. Not every con takes a growth spurt like that in stride,
but the staff did an absolutely stellar job of adapting to a new
venue and accommodating guests and attendees alike.
It was A-Kon’s first year inhabiting the sprawling 1600-room
Hilton Anatole, a beautiful site with LED kinetic scupltures in
the halls and its own permanent art exhibit of mostly Asian
antiquities (http://www.anatoleart.com/). There was a ton of
walking involved, but aside from one bottleneck around the
exhibitor hall badge check (which the staff and fire marshalls
cleared up quickly) it was actually possible to get where you were
going. The elevators were managed by volunteers during peak
traffic times, so the wait was never longer than a few minutes.
The Texas heat and the lack of nearby dining were a little
bit of a drawback, but an armada of food trucks rolled up to
the parking lot and gourmet eats could be had in the grassy
shade of mesquite trees.
This con had a fun, happy vibe to it at all times. The
guests, volunteers, and attendees just seemed to be glad to be
there, and that’s a very infectious feeling. As a guest/panelist,
they treated me as warmly as any con I can recall, and I thank
them tremendously for their hospitality.
All in all, I’d say A-Kon can take its place among the major
destination cons like SDCC, Gen Con, Dragon*Con and
Anime Expo. Consider making it part of your plans in future
years, because you can’t help but enjoy yourself there. A-Kon
25 will be held June 6–8, 2014.
BelchBurger
Nth Degree #22
by Rob Balder & Dan Fahs
Page 5
R EV I EWS
BOOKS:
Shadoboxxer:
The One Man Riot #001
by Victor Toro
Toro Comics
Review by KT Pinto
Shadoboxxer is an urban ninja
hero with mysterious powers
and an amazing physique
who, with his hacker friend
Kim and his ghost cat Phantom, saves those in trouble,
defends the defenseless, and takes on a variety of bad guys—
both human and non—who are out to cause havoc. In this
issue Shado runs into a burning building to save two young
children who are being surrounded by a fire that is clearly
more than it seems to be.
I have been following Victor’s work, and the evolution of
Shadoboxxer, for quite some time, which makes me think that
someone new to Shado’s world may be confused by the storyline in this premier issue, and on a couple of pages the narration inadvertently rhymed. But putting that aside, this comic
has amazing art, great characters, and some intense action.
And there’s a cliffhanger ending that’s going to leave readers
wanting more.
You can find out more about Victor Toro and the world
of Shadoboxxer at theonemanriot.com. Issue #002 is available now as well.
Unfriendly
Persuasion
by Steven H. Wilson
Firebringer Press
Review by Michael D.
Pederson
Homage can be a very fine line
to walk sometimes. Lean a little too much in one direction
and you’re a cheap knockoff;
too much in another direction
and you run the risk of
becoming a parody of the original. In Unfriendly Persuasion:
A Tale From the Arbiter Chronicles, Steven H. Wilson toes that
line in a mostly successful manner. If you’re not familiar with
Nth Degree #22
the Arbiter Chronicles (there’s also a long-running audio
drama and a previous book, Taken Liberty), they’re set in a
very Star Trek-like universe with a Confederation, a
Confederate Navy, and an ongoing war with a hostile race of
aliens from the Qraitian Empire. Anyone reading this book
will clearly see the giant Roddenberryish blueprints underlying the structure of Wilson’s creation. Mostly what you’ll see
though is a love for the type of stories that Roddenberry told,
told by someone that brings their own personality and ideas
into the mix, resulting in a loving homage to classic space
opera (with a heaping dose of modern sexuality thrown in for
good measure).
Unfriendly Persuasion does not follow directly on the
heels of the previous book, instead it picks up shortly after
the conclusion of an ongoing storyline from the audio
drama. We get a nice quick-moving summary of events that
brings the readers up to speed without making them feel
that they’ve missed anything important. The early chapters
that transition us from the events of the audio drama to the
main plot of the book are well-paced and have some brilliantly funny bits in them (although the comedy feels just
slightly out of place in comparison to the rest of the book)
and in no time at all we’re well into the next crisis for the
crew of the Titan.
The Titan and it’s crew are sent to the distant planet of
Eleusis, a strategic military asset that has been settled by a
colony of Quakers who have peacefully welcomed members
of the Qraitian Empire to settle with them as well. Our
heroes are tasked with the mission of sniffing out any
Qraitian spies and to close off the border to Confederation
Space. To complicate matters, a powerful entity that the
Eleusians believe to be God is protecting the colony. Anyone
even slightly familiar with Star Trek will figure out pretty
quickly where the story is heading, but the interpersonal
conflict amongst the crew of the Titan and the moral dilemmas that they struggle with (side with the pacifistic colonists
or stay loyal to the bureaucracy that they work for) proves to
be the real meat of the story.
It’s a fast-paced, exciting romp of a story that will be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone with a fondness for classic science
fiction. My only real criticism is that Wilson clearly loves his
characters, and seems to jump through a few too many hoops
to ensure that nothing overly bad happens to any of them
before the final curtain falls.
Page 7
R EV I EWS
MOVIES:
A Dance With
Andrea
Review by KT Pinto
From the minds of awardwinning director Lance J.
Reha
and
screenwriter
Christopher Mancuso, who
created such thrillers as Bullet
and Between Floors, comes A
Dance with Andrea, a paranormal romance short (29 minutes) that made its world premiere
at the Garden State Film Festival in 2012.
The movie is about Victor (played by Frank Albanese
from The Sopranos), a man who for over sixty years has
lamented the loss of his true love, and he finally makes a decision to get rid of the pain. Does a supernatural visit help him
ease his suffering?
A Dance with Andrea takes you on a roller coaster of emotions using very little dialog and a lot of visual impact to drive
the story home. Those who live in New York City will notice
some familiar locations throughout the movie, but you don’t
have to be from the area to appreciate the great characters and
emotionally charged story. Definitely a must see!
You can preview the trailer on YouTube at
http://www.youtube.com/lakefilms.
The Wolverine
Review by Michael D. Pederson
It pains me to no end that
some of Marvel’s biggest titles
are still owned by other studios: Twentieth Century Fox
has The Fantastic Four and
The X-Men, and Sony has
Spider-Man. Marvel’s singleuniverse continuity was always
my favorite aspect of the
comics and I’m enjoying the
way that they’ve made that continuity work for them (so far)
in the new Marvel Cinematic Universe, I just really wish they
had all of their characters to play with. In the last year we’ve
seen Punisher, Daredevil, and Blade all revert back to Marvel,
Nth Degree #22
so there’s hope that one day all the kids will return home (having big Disney cash and lawyers on hand will also help).
On the plus side, though, Fox has clearly learned a lesson
from the way that Marvel Studios is handling the Avengers
franchise. The X-Men started off strong out of the gate with
two fantastic Bryan Singer-directed X-films and then fell on
their face with X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And you
could see them start to put the pieces together with X-Men:
First Class. With this summer’s The Wolverine it’s clear that
Fox is trying to establish an X-Universe that’s as solid as
Marvel’s Avengers films. And they seem to be succeeding.
The Wolverine uses the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller
1982 mini-series for it’s source material; a comic that many
still consider to be the definitive Wolverine story. Wisely, they
stay pretty close to the original, deviating only to update the
story and to fit it into the movie continuity (i.e. since
Daredevil hadn’t reverted back to Marvel at the time of filming, they were unable to use the Hand as villains).
The movie starts with Logan living a solitary lifestyle in
the Yukon, still haunted (literally) by his actions in the last XMen film. When he’s summoned to Japan as the dying wish
of a man whose life he saved in Nagaski at the end of WWII,
Logan is offered the chance to give up his immortality. Thus
begins the rollercoaster ride of ninja battles, street chases, an
amazingly cool fight on a moving bullet train, and the
inevitable CGI-heavy climax with an adamantium-clad Silver
Samurai. The story arc begins with Logan giving up on the
idea of being a hero and proceeds to ask the questions necessary to bring him back to that world. It’s neatly done and ties
up with a teaser for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past
(another lesson learned from The Avengers).
Of the new characters added for this movie… Yukio:
Japanese mutant who acts as Wolverine’s self-appointed bodyguard; an excellent performance and great chemistry with
Hugh Jackman, I will be deeply disappointed if we don’t see
more of her in future films. Mariko: Strong-willed and independent; a believable enough love-interest, however the
actress seemed overshadowed by the other performers at
times. Viper: Sinister, sexy, and creepy all at once; an excellent
addition to the Rogues Gallery.
True believers will have already seen this movie, but if
you’re just a casual fan I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as well; the
bullet train sequence alone makes it worth watching on the
big screen.
Page 8
R EV I EWS
TELEVISION:
Under The Dome
Review by Michael D. Pederson
Oh, look… Another “highconcept” science-fictiony television show. Goody.
I confess that I didn’t read
the Stephen King novel when
it originally came out. I jokingly said that I’d wait for the
inevitable mini-series. Well, here it is and it’s pretty much
what you expect it to be. There are a lot of pretty people running around panicking, trying to figure out how to deal with
the crisis of the week.
For those of you that have been living under your own
dome this summer, this is CBS’s surprise summer hit (based on
the Stephen King novel) about a small town in Pennsylvania
that gets cut off from the rest of the world when a mysterious
energy dome is suddenly dropped over them. I credit CBS with
two very smart decisions: 1. Hire Eisner award-winner Brian K.
Nth Degree #22
Vaughan (Y: The Last Man) to develop the show. 2. Limit the
run to thirteen episodes. We’ve seen mid-season burnout on
high-concept SF shows plenty in the past, but at just thirteen
episodes the viewers seem willing to commit, so far.
Is it worth watching all the way thru? Well, it’s summer.
What else are you going to watch? I plan on sticking through
to the end. The show does have it’s problems though. Like
other apocalyptic shows before it (I’m talking about you,
Jericho) there’s the problem of everybody in town doing nothing until the next crisis rears it’s ugly head and then once it’s
resolved they go back to pretending that life is just fine. The
characters are pasteboard cutouts that don’t interest me, and
all the best actors have been killed off already. The dome
dropped so early in the first episode that we didn’t have time
to build interest in any of the characters before their lives
became a melodrama. And the worst offense on my laundry
list of complaints is the dome itself. I, for one, would be
happy to accept the dome as it is but I know that Hollywood
insists on having an explanation. And history has taught us
(Lost, Battlestar Galactica) that the explanation is never as
good as what we imagine ourselves.
Page 9
F EAT U R E S
How to Run a Writers’ Group
(or Learning to Cope With
Frustration, Embarrassment,
and Pride All at the Same Time)
By Bud Webster
A
year or so ago I was invited to participate in a daylong seminar for writers and writers’ groups in a
town not far from here. It was held at the branch of
the county library, and was well-attended both by group
members and those individuals who wanted to know what the
hell a “writers’ group” did, anyhow.
It was pleasant, for the most part; there were plenty of
people there I knew (including a few from my own group,
which is called “Writers’ Endeavor”) and it was interesting to
see how many different ideas and perspectives there were. I
drank some water, ate a couple of cookies, and put in my time
on a panel devoted to how different groups operated.
Nth Degree #22
When the panel was over, the seminar organizer thanked
me effusively for participating, and added that it was nice to
see a group which was led by a professional writer.
I was… well, something between “floored” and “flustered”. Call it “floorstered,” I guess. Weren’t there pros in all
the groups?
Turns out there weren’t, not in all of them, and in most
only one or two who had even made semi-pro sales. There was
the usual gang of self-published eager-beavers, and at least one
who had seen hardcover publication and was selling ex-library
copies of his novels, but as far as street-cred was concerned, I
was just about top of the heap. Doesn’t that just suck?
Let me start from the beginning, with your kind indulgence. In the fall of 2005 (geeze Louise, has it been eight years
already?), a rag-tag group of would-be writers gathered
together at a local Richmond bookshop, Creatures & Crooks,
now unfortunately out of business. We didn’t know each
other, and I was the only one of the bunch who had published
professionally. We introduced ourselves, traded aspirations,
and elected a group leader after deciding that each leader
would organize and run the group for a period of four
months, when we’d elect yet another poor bastard to herd the
writerly cats.
Before we broke up, the owner of the bookshop gave us an
assignment for the next meeting—the phrase “good taste.”
We would all write something on that theme, read our pieces
out loud to the rest of the group, who would then give their
responses. Then we all went our separate ways.
It continued in that fashion for the first year. I wasn’t the
first leader chosen, but after having been “elected” a few times
in a row, the group simply thrust leadership upon me, and so
it currently stands.
We did assignments for a year or so, some better than
others. My personal favorite was when I gave them a list of
six words and asked them to weave them into a story. I got
a pretty good yarn out of it and titled it “The Shed.” In fact,
you can read it in Nth Degree #20 if you care to do so. Other
assignments followed: creating opening hooks, writing the
same scene from three different viewpoints, and so on. Once
I gave them a choice of four openers, among them the first
line of my own “Bubba Pritchert and the Space Aliens”
(Analog, July 1994).
Eventually, though, exercises fell by the wayside, as they
should. Exercises are fine for, well, exercise, but eventually a
Page 11
F EAT U R E S
play; I require more than patronization.
writers’ group has to get down to the business of actually writI want from my members their absolute best work as a
ing. As most of the members were already working on stories
writer. I want correct spelling, syntax and grammar; I want a
or novels, we decided to upload individual chapters (I had
beginning, middle and end (experimentation can come later
already created a Yahoo Groups page for us) for each member
after they’ve mastered their tools); I want standard manuscript
to download, print out, and critique. As these chapters were
format. What I want to see is what they would send to an edifrequently longer than the assignment pieces, we no longer
tor, as clean and correct a ’script as any editor would expect to
read them out loud; by then, we had enough members that
see from a professional-level writer.
reading just took too long.
When it comes to their critiques, I want their absolute best
Here’s the way Writers’ Endeavor works (I didn’t name it,
work as readers. It isn’t enough for them to know that a passage
but as a group name it’s adequate; it ain’t the Inklings, of
or phrase doesn’t work; they have to know why it doesn’t work.
course, but none of us are C. S. Lewis or that Tolkien d00d):
However, I don’t want them to tell the writer what they would
members upload their chapter/essay/story/whatever (no more
do to fix the problem, because that’s not always helpful.
that 3k words, hopefully) to the Yahoo files page. Other
Making suggestions is fine, but it
members download, print out
has to be up to the writer to make
and write in their comments.
any changes in a way that’s consisCome meeting night, we go in
Editors
do
not
tent with what comes before.
turns to slam… sorry, gently criAs a result, the members of
tique… the piece. I’m serious
sadistically rip apart the
Writers’
Endeavor have become
about that “gently,” by the way, so
stories
they’re
sent
and
friends, trusting each others’
let’s talk about it.
motives and viewpoints. Yes, we’re
One of the things that
spill bile all over their
a support group on those occafloorstered me at that seminar
rejection
letters.
sions when that’s needed, but
was the pride so many of the parwe’re more than that. We can be
ticipants in other groups took in
honest without being cruel, we
savaging their colleagues’ work,
can give “bad news” where necessary without being mean
apparently on the theory that this is what happens in the
about it (or having it taken as such), and that is far more useworld of publishing. Editors writing vicious rejections, I
ful and important than preparing each other for the sort of
mean, or calling the authors at home and brutally tearing
editorial ferocity other groups seem to think exists.
them a new one of whatever it is that editors tear.
Now, I readily admit that there are other legitimate ways for
I have no idea why they think that. In my experience over
writers’
groups to operate. In at least one case, the group assemthe past 20+ years of submitting work to professional editors
bles in a coffee shop with their laptops and spends their time
(and being rejected plenty of times) editors do not sadistically
writing; not together, as in a collaboration, but in the same
rip apart the stories they’re sent and spill bile all over their
place. At the same time. Not having visited their group, I can’t
rejection letters. It is so rare that anything of the sort occurs,
say that there isn’t some talk between them once in a while, but
in fact, that the single editor (now deceased) I can recall who
frankly I can’t imagine a more solitary process than writing, so
was know for occasionally doing so was considered remarkI wonder what they get from it. Okay, so that’s not for me.
able. Critics are another thing entirely, but they perform their
There are also plenty of groups run by working, profesmalicious surgery after the fact.
sional writers. The members already have credits, but use the
I require the writers in my group to be civil, polite, and
hard-nosed (if still courteous) advice of their colleagues to furarticulate. We aren’t there to make each other cry, or to prepare each other for some mythical editorial venom, but to
ther sharpen their skills. I know, I know; I just said something
help each other become better writers. By the same token, I
up there about how solitary writing is, but believe me, the
don’t expect them to (in effect) pat the others on the head, pin
counsel of your peers can be invaluable, especially if they’ve
their stories to the fridge with a magnet and send them out to
already breeched the markets you’re aiming at.
Nth Degree #22
Page 12
F EAT U R E S
“But, wait,” I hear you say. “Wouldn’t they be competing?” Yes. What’s your point? Do you really believe those
silly rumors that publishers are reluctant to look at material
by new writers? If so, let me disabuse you of that base
canard: publishers actively seek out new writers, if only
because the old ones keep quitting, slowing down, or keeling over from the strain of having to deal with silly rumors.
This means that there is plenty of competition out there,
but that’s nothing new—there always has been.
Competition—healthy competition, anyway—doesn’t preclude cooperation.
So here’s what you do: forget all this crap about making
your manuscript stand out from all the others by using colored paper, weird fonts, pictures, and all the rest of those
gimmicks that wannabees are certain will be necessary to
get the attention of editors, agents and/or publishers.
Believe me, stuff like that will get their full attention right
up to the second they feed your ’script into the shredder
and turn their attention to the other 200 books/stories that
came in that day.
If you want your work to stand out, make sure that your
presentation is professional, even if you haven’t actually, like,
been paid yet. After all, that’s just a technicality, albeit a very
important one. That means using your tools—words,
spelling, syntax, grammar, all that stuff you learned in third
grade—as they were intended to be used. That means presenting your manuscript in the form the editor wants it to
be in, something you can check out easily on their webpage
under “Guidelines” or, if you’re a book-geek like me, by
checking the copy of this year’s edition of Writers’ Market
which resides comfortably (if a little lonely) on your library’s
reference shelf.
That’s one of the things that make you a pro, not just getting a check, and a good writers’ group (hopefully one run by
a pro, or made up of pros) will teach you all this and more. It
will also give you ample opportunities to practice your craft.
There really isn’t a whole lot you can learn from a group made
up entirely of non-professionals that you won’t have to unlearn down the line, so it’s worth your while to find one with
at least one or two pros, and probably worth driving an hour
or so to join in.
A word of advice, if you’ll indulge me. Be careful, and find
a group with which you’re a good fit. In my group, there have
been a few who just didn’t work out. In one case, it was a
Nth Degree #22
woman who saw nothing wrong with ending sentences with
three exclamation points!!! She came for one session and never
returned. Another man stayed for several months, but
adamantly refused to listen to the members’ advice and his
work never changed, never improved. He also refused to use
software which formatted his submissions as anything easily
readable, but that was the least of his problems.
Figure out what you want from a group, and look for one
that fits your needs, but remember this—the whole purpose of
a writers’ group should be to aid you in becoming a reliable,
consistent, and professional writer, not make you feel good or
rip you to shreds. Look for good personality matches, a process
that suits your working habits (or improves them), and whatever level of intensity you find most energizing, whether it’s
full speed ahead or laid back and chatty. Finding a group that
will help you sharpen your skills and lead you to professional
publication may be hard, but it’s well worth it. That’s what we
work hard to make Writers’ Endeavor, and I am proud of each
and every member we have.
The Last Straw
Page 13
by Bob Kauffmann
HIEA
F
C TD
I OEN
R
Illustration by Michael D. Pederson
The Perfect Waltz
by Eileen Maksym
O
n its opening night, the fall carnival was a fairytale
land wrought of the glimmer of electric lights and
the dry, acrid smell of sawdust. The whistling music
of the organ grinders and the carousel ran counterpoint to the
short staccato taunts of the barkers.
“Step right up! Test your strength! Win a prize for the
little lady!”
Thud, ding!
“There’s a winner every game!”
“Toss a ball, win a goldfish! Step right up! Penny a try,
twelve for a dime!”
Past the rides and the games of chance were the tents that
drew the curious of all ages, where the broad swaths of canvas
were slapped with bright paint, big pictures, bold words.
Outside each tent stood a man in a vest and white gloves, with
Nth Degree #22
a top hat and a gold-headed cane. In loud voices these men
promised the wonders of the world to anyone brave enough
to step forward and press money into their palms.
“The Illustrated Man!”
“The Bearded Lady!”
“The Fiji Mermaid!”
“The Siamese Twins!”
“This chance comes but once in a lifetime!”
“Step up! Don’t be shy!”
The tent on the far right was different than the others.
Instead of the flaps being closed to hide the shadowy marvels
that awaited the paying customer, they were tied back with
velvet ropes, and a ring of lights illuminated a circular stage
within. Off to the side was a small table upon which sat a
phonograph. The barker stood in front as usual, but up on
the platform itself was a young man, impeccably dressed in a
tuxedo, his head bowed. Or at least one would mistake him
for a man at first glance. But upon closer inspection, it
became clear that “he” was an exceptional imitation. His face
was wax, his eyes glass, his hair a carefully maintained wig.
“Come witness the marvel of the industrial age!” the man
with the top hat and cane cried. “The Mechanical Man! One
silver dollar, and the gentleman will dance the perfect waltz!”
There was a murmur of disdain from the crowd, and a few
people started to drift away.
The barker held up his hands. “I know, I know, a whole
silver dollar seems a dear price to pay. But I assure you, it’s
more than worth it for the experience of a lifetime! Don’t
believe me? How about a demonstration?” He surveyed the
crowd, cold blue eyes sparkling. They alighted on a girl who
couldn’t have been more than fifteen; she stood with her wide
brown eyes fixed on the marvelous invention. His lips curled
in a smile, and he held out a gloved hand. “Come, my dear.
Have a dance on the house.”
She blinked and glanced from side to side, expecting the
glove to indicate someone else. But when she looked back to
the stage, the grin that drew the man’s cheeks back and crinkled his eyes was even wider, and that stare was unmistakably
focused on her. She straightened and drew near, reached out
her small, pale hand, and laid it in the much larger gloved
one. She was struck by how cold it was.
The barker led her onto the stage, up to the mechanical
man. His voice was at once a seductive croon and loud
enough for the rest of the growing crowd to hear. “What’s
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FICTION
your name, my dear?”
She glanced nervously at the upturned faces, their eyes on
her. “Jane, sir.”
“What a lovely name! Do you know how to dance, Jane?”
“A… a little, sir.”
“Well, do not worry your pretty little head. The wondrous
Mechanical Man will lead you. All you need to do is relax and
enjoy! Now, stand here…” He positioned her at the side of
the form that stood, stiff and still, facing the audience. “And
now, the silver dollar!” He waved his cane in the air, the gold
head glittering in the lights, and followed its motion with the
other hand, raised, palm out. Then he snapped his fingers,
and a silver coin leapt into existence between his fingertips.
The crowd oohed and aahed.
He tipped his hat with a grin, then walked the coin over
his knuckles as he approached the stiff figure. There was a slot
where the automaton’s spine met its skull, and the barker
inserted the coin with a flourish.
The figure shuddered, and Jane took a step back. From
inside its chest came a click… click… click, click, click,
clickclickclick…
Suddenly the Mechanical Man lifted its head and, to the
awe and delight of the crowd, pivoted to face Jane. Jane stiffened and wondered if it was going to attack her. Instead, with
a strange, jerky grace it bowed, and a giggle rippled through
the spectators. Jane glanced at them, and returned the bow
with her best curtsy, which was awkward even for a farm girl.
The Mechanical Man straightened, raised its right hand and
reached out with its left. Jane stared for a moment, then felt
the barker behind her, easing her forward.
“Go on, my dear, do not be frightened. He’s a gentleman
and will not hurt you.”
She edged forward, into the strange figure’s stiff embrace, and
clasped the raised hand hesitantly, positioning her other hand on
the firm upper arm. The automaton tightened its grip and
brought the other wax hand up to rest on her shoulder blade.
Jane swallowed, wondering what would happen if she tried to
pull away now. Would it let her go? Would the grip tighten further, crushing her, without a thought, for daring to resist?
Her worrying did not go much further, however, before
she heard the scratch of a needle being put to a record, and a
waltz began to play. The figure nodded, a small signal, and
began to move with surprising fluidity. Jane followed as best
she could, stumbling through the steps that her mother had
Nth Degree #22
taught her. She tried not to think about the crowd, judging
her for her awkwardness, her plain dress and her gangly body.
But then she heard the mutters and sighs and giggles.
“Look at that!”
“He’s so graceful!”
“Me next!”
“Momma, can I have a silver dollar?”
They were admiring the footwork of the man of metal and
wax, she realized, and not looking at her at all. She felt her
shoulders relax, and allowed herself to lean into the hand on
her back. Her brown eyes focused on the Mechanical Man’s
blue glass ones, and her movements became more natural as
she allowed him to lead her around the stage, the pair of them
twirling until the song came to an end.
The automaton released her, its hands returned to its sides,
and it stepped back and bent once again in a courtly bow.
Jane repeated her curtsy, this time with a bit of grace that
seemed to have settled into her during the dance.
Then the barker was at her side, clasping her elbow, leading
her away. She followed, but looked back over her shoulder.
The Mechanical Man turned, seeming to watch her as she was
led away.
“Thank you, my dear,” the barker purred when they
reached the stage steps and he released her. Then he spread his
arms and his grin widened.
“Ladies! Curious gentlemen! The dance card is open! Step
right up!”
Jane descended the few steps to the ground, then backed
away and watched as the crowd advanced toward the stage in a
crush, hands lifted, silver coins glinting in the light. She looked
up at the Mechanical Man once more, and its blue eyes seemed
to gaze back at her. Then, something happened that stopped her
heart in her chest, and made her turn and flee into the night.
It winked.
*****
Later that night, as she lay awake in her bed in the tiny garret
room of the farmhouse, she thought of that moment, when
that one waxen eyelid had seemed to drop over its corresponding eye, and decided that her imagination had gotten the
best of her. It couldn’t possibly have winked. It must have
been a trick of the light. And even if it had winked, there was
no way it could have possibly winked at her, nor at anyone for
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FICTION
that matter. The eyes were glass. He wasn’t even a real person!
That’s right. Not a real person.
She lay there, staring at the darkness, listening to the clock
on her nightstand.
Tick, tick, tick…
When she failed to fall asleep, she sat up and swung her
feet to the bare boards. Careful not to make a noise that
would wake her parents below, she crept to her dresser and
picked up the pretty wooden cigar box that rested on top. She
flipped the lid open and gazed at the box’s contents, glimmering in the moonlight.
Three silver dollars.
Moments passed, marked by the tick of the clock behind
her, as she contemplated the coins, humming a waltz.
*****
The next night, after the chores were done and her momma
gave her leave, Jane returned to the carnival. She wove through
the crowds: the children clutching a parent with one hand and
the paper cone of a cotton candy with the other, the couples
dazzled by the electric lights reflected in each others’ eyes, the
giggling groups of ladies and the gentlemen with their fedoras
and appraising glances. She passed the ferris wheel, the shooting galleries, the booths emitting the pleasant, greasy smells of
fried dough and popcorn. She went to the tents that lined the
back of the fair, and to the far right, where a crowd of people,
mostly women, was gathered in a jostling semblance of a line.
On the stage the Mechanical Man was dancing with a
graying woman in a blue dress, her hair flowing loose over her
shoulders. The woman laughed as they twirled, and her joyous smile seemed to melt the wrinkles from her face. It took
a moment for Jane to recognize her as the town’s typically
dour postmistress.
The barker with the top hat and the white gloves stood by
the phonograph and mirrored her grin as he tapped his goldheaded cane on the ground in time with the beat.
When the postmistress’ dance was over, the woman responded to the Mechanical Man’s bow with a curtsy, then descended,
twisting her long hair up into a bun once more. Her hands were
haphazard, and as she passed by Jane, the girl could see wisps of
grey hair dancing in the cool autumn night breeze, as if in time
with the waltz the woman was humming under her breath.
Jane joined the line of women waiting for a turn. One by
Nth Degree #22
one those in front of her climbed the stairs, placed their silver
dollar into the white glove, and were twirled around the stage.
Dance by dance she inched forward, watching as woman after
woman found joy, or solace, or youth, in the mechanical arms.
The crowd at the fair was thinning out by the time it came
close to Jane’s turn, the noise fading to an echo of the roar it
had been when she arrived. There were only a few women left
ahead of her, and a few behind her. She could see the barker
glance at his pocket watch, then survey the line. The next
time a patron completed her dance, he escorted her down the
stairs and released her elbow with a slight bow, a touch to the
brim of his top hat, and a brisk wave. Then he walked along
the line, tapping his cane in his hand, his lips moving in a
silent count. He stopped just in front of Jane.
“Attention, ladies and… ladies.”
A giggle rippled through the women.
“The evening draws to a close, and as such I regret I must
send some of you away.” He turned toward the line.
“Everyone past…” He began to lower his cane in front of
Jane, then looked at her, and his eyes widened and sparkled
with recognition. The man’s lips spread in a slow smile, and
he lifted his cane again and brought it down behind her.
“Everyone past here.”
Then he swept his arm wide in a grand gesture of apology
to all the women in line behind her. “I am afraid that I shall
have to ask you ladies to return and visit us at another time.
Thank you, and have a lovely evening.”
The women began to disperse with a few resigned sighs
and disgruntled mumbles. The barker waved to the departing
crowd. “Au revoir! Farewell! God speed!” He tipped his hat to
Jane, and returned to the stage.
The last few dances seemed to stretch on forever, as the
spreading shadows and the sounds of unrolling canvas signaled
that the carnival was curling in on itself to sleep for the night.
But eventually Jane stood at the bottom of the stairs. The
woman immediately ahead of her laid her head on the
Mechanical Man’s shoulder as they moved around the stage, and
Jane was puzzled that this woman was dancing such a different
dance than the postmistress. The grey-haired woman had found
happiness in the dance, but this woman, far younger, had an air
of sorrow about her. And although the very same song was playing on the phonograph as had been for every dance before, it
seemed that the Mechanical Man was dancing more slowly, the
waxen, bloodless hands holding her with heart.
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FICTION
When the dance came to an end, the woman curtsied and
descended the stairs, wiping her eyes. Jane watched her pass,
then looked up at the barker. The man stood on the stage with
a kind but knowing smile on his face, and held out one whitegloved hand. Jane met his eyes and ascended, then slipped her
hand into his. He raised an eyebrow and gave a slight dry laugh,
then bowed his head to press a kiss to her knuckles and released
her hand. He straightened and spread his hand open again.
“The silver, Miss Jane,” he said with a jovial smile shot
through with condescension.
Jane blinked, then blushed. She reached into the pocket of
her blue-checked dress and pulled out a silver dollar, one of
the three from her box. She placed it into his palm, and
watched the white-clad fingers curl over it.
“This way, my dear,” he crooned.
Jane followed him to the Mechanical Man, who stood,
still and quiet. The barker went behind the contraption and
slid her coin into the slot at the base of the skull.
Click, click, click, click…
He moved behind her, took her by the shoulders, positioned her in front of the figure of wax and metal and paint.
His hands lingered, and Jane blinked as she felt him lean forward, felt his breath hot on her ear.
“I thought you’d return, my dear,” he crooned. “I think
he’s been waiting for you.”
Almost on cue, the Mechanical Man lifted its head, and
Jane drew in a sharp breath as the glass eyes met hers. She
could swear she saw a soft glimmer of life in them.
The barker smoothed his hands down Jane’s arms as he
pulled back to stand beside the phonograph. He positioned the
needle over the outer rim of the record, and eased it down. After
a moment of scratch sounds, the familiar music began to play.
“The perfect waltz,” he announced.
The Mechanical Man bowed, and Jane responded once
more with a curtsy, still awkward, but less so, due to the practice of the previous night and the privacy of this moment.
The automaton lifted its left hand and extended its right; Jane
stepped into the offered embrace, her breath catching as their
chests touched. The figure nodded, and she could swear she
saw a smile on its waxen lips as it began to move.
This dance was different than the one the night before.
Even though the barker stood on the same stage, it felt to Jane
that she and her dancing partner were alone. The Mechanical
Man’s hands held her attentively, and its eyes seemed to gaze
Nth Degree #22
into hers. Even though the figure’s chest was doubtless made
of cloth and wire, like a dressmaker’s dummy, Jane imagined
that she felt it rise and fall with impossible breath.
When the music came to an end, the wax hands released
her, and the cloth and wire torso bent in a bow. Jane swallowed and curtsied. She watched, retreating, as the
Mechanical Man shuddered, and the soft whir became a distinguishable patter of clicks. They became slower and slower
until the figure’s head dropped to its chest, its shoulders
slumped, and all was still.
“Did you enjoy your dance, my dear?”
Jane jerked and whirled around to find the barker standing very close, his cane planted on the ground in front of him,
both hands folded over it. He was leaning forward ever so
slightly, his head canted to the side, regarding her with an
amused glimmer in his eye.
She stepped back. “Y-yes.”
He smiled, half cultured, half lupine. “I am very pleased to
hear that. We aim to provide an unforgettable experience.” His
smile widened, the wolf becoming dominant. “I’m glad you
returned. Such a pretty young thing… I think he likes you.”
“He…” She took another step back. “He’s not real.”
His smile faded, and his eyes became darker, sharper…
Then the smile was back, as if it had never left.
“Of course not.” He tipped his hat. “Good evening to
you, my dear.”
He turned to the phonograph.
Jane’s heart was thumping in her chest as she headed for
the steps.
“Oh, and Jane?”
She looked back. The barker was sliding the record into a
paper sleeve. He shifted his eyes to hers.
“See you tomorrow.”
*****
The two remaining silver dollars that lay in the cigar box atop
her desk occupied her thoughts all the next day as she went
about the farm doing her chores. Their image hung in her mind,
shining like the blue glass eyes of the Mechanical Man. She
danced as she threw feed to the chickens, her feet following the
steps of an invisible, perfect partner. She hummed as she milked
the cow, the stream of hot milk ringing against the side of the
pail as she pulled the teats in time with the music. And as she
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knit heavy woolen socks for her father, she closed her eyes, and
felt the Mechanical Man holding her, felt the hand that clasped
hers loosen, slide around to her back, draw her close.
*****
Once dinner was over, Jane raced to the fairgrounds and
pushed through the chaos, barely seeing the lights or feeling
the jostles. She made her way back to the sideshows and the
open tent on the right, and the first thing she saw was the
barker, atop the stage, above a sea of waving women, his arms
outstretched, crowing.
“Step right up, one and all! Dance as you’ve never
danced before! As you’ll never dance again! The one and
only perfect waltz!”
The women surged up towards the stage and the man
laughed. “Ladies! Ladies! One at a time! No fighting, please!
We will do our best to accommodate all of you.”
Then he caught sight of Jane standing in the back of the
group, and his smile widened, shifted from the general jovial
smile of the showman to an intimate smile of a confidant. He
bowed, and held out his hand toward her. She drew a breath
and walked forward, through the crowd of women who
turned and stared and hissed amongst themselves.
“That’s not fair…”
“Should be first come, first served…”
“Clearly he has a thing for her…”
“She’s not even that pretty…”
Jane tried to ignore the comments, but couldn’t help the
deep blush that seeped into her cheeks.
The barker lifted one white-gloved hand, palm out, and
gave the crowd a stern look.
“Ladies! Really! Listen to yourselves! You want to dance
the perfect waltz, but nothing can hide the lack of grace in
your hearts!” He glared down at them for a moment in the
resulting silence. Then his expression softened as he turned
back to Jane. “Please continue, my dear.”
She nodded and climbed the stairs, one by one, as if in a
dream. When she reached the top she took the silver dollar
out of her pocket. He plucked it from her hand, and her pulse
picked up as he led her to the Mechanical Man, standing
there, waxen face tilted toward the ground, gloved hands at its
sides. The barker positioned her, inserted the coin with his
customary flourish, then withdrew to the phonograph. Jane
Nth Degree #22
closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, her stomach fluttering
as she felt dozens of eyes on her. She willed herself to be calm,
quiet, still. The music began, and she lifted her head and
opened her eyes, just as the Mechanical Man was doing the
same.
It looked into her eyes. And reached out for her.
She met its gaze, and stepped into its embrace.
Its hands were gentle as they danced, and there was no one
else, nothing else, just the sensation of its arm supporting her,
guiding her, its hand holding hers. Their feet moved together
in rhythm with nothing but the beating of their hearts.
The beating of their hearts…
The spell broken, Jane drew back with a gasp. The song
was over, the Mechanical Man’s arms had withdrawn, and it
gave the customary jerky bow, its glass eyes fixed forward. It
straightened, became still.
There was a moment of silence.
Then the women clamored against the stage, waving silver
dollars in the air. The barker lifted his hands, saying “Please…
ladies, please…”
To Jane, all the noise sounded like it was coming from
very far away. She stared at the still figure of the Mechanical
Man, all wax and wire and cloth and straw.
But… I felt his…
She lifted a trembling hand and reached out for the figure’s chest…
And a white-gloved hand caught her by the wrist.
Her head snapped to the side. Her gaze was pinned by the
eyes of the barker, sharp as surgical steel.
“No,” he said simply, moving her hand back to her side.
He gave her a tight smile, and with a bow held out his arm
toward the stage steps.
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
“No need,” he said, his smile perfect, his eyes unyielding.
“Good evening, miss.”
She glanced once more at the figure of the Mechanical
Man. He was motionless—just a big doll, really. Certainly she
must have been imagining.
Must have been.
She nodded shakily. “Good evening, sir,” she murmured,
and then turned, took the stairs as fast as she dared, and
pushed through the eager crowd.
Page 19
*****
FICTION
That night she once again lay awake, staring up at the ceiling.
The dim light of the moon filtered through the gauzy yellowed
lace curtains over her window. One hand was on her chest, feeling her heart beat, her ribs rise and fall with each breath, as she
thought of the Mechanical Man. She wondered if he had a
name. She wondered if he could speak, and what his voice
would sound like. She imagined, as she lay there in the moonlight, what it would feel like to have his arms around her, his
lips, flushed and warm, pressed to hers in the perfect kiss.
*****
It wasn’t until the hour right before dawn that Jane finally
drifted to sleep.
*****
Her fingers are poised to touch the Mechanical Man’s chest…
“Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
She whirls.
The barker’s head is bare, his vest is missing, and his gloves
are gone.
His hands are made of wax.
“Do they bother you, my dear?”
The man approaches her, his sharp eyes sparkling. He holds
out his hands, and as he flexes them, Jane watches in awe as the
wax moves like flesh. He comes very close to her, and she stares
into his eyes as he runs the smooth backs of his knuckles down her
cheek. Jane is frozen, rooted, unable to pull away, only able to
close her eyes and tremble.
“Oh, my dear, there’s no need for you to be afraid. Please, look
at me.”
Still shaking, she blinks her eyes open.
His gaze snares and holds hers. He lifts his other hand to cup
both her cheeks, and runs his thumbs over her cheekbones.
“Such a lovely, lovely girl,” he croons.
One hand drops from her cheek, and she shivers as it slides down
her side, over her hip, and slips into the pocket that holds the last
silver dollar. He pulls it out, holds it up. Jane watches, fascinated, as
he walks it over his fingers, the wax squeaking against the metal.
Her hands tingle, and Jane looks down and gasps. Her hand
is being covered in wax. It begins with the fingertips, spreads
along her fingers, over the rest of her hands, up her arms.
Panicked, she tries to rub the wax from her skin.
Nth Degree #22
But it isn’t on her skin.
It is her skin.
“Relax my dear,” the barker soothes.
Jane watches as her arms become perfectly sculpted limbs of
wax. Her torso, her hips and legs, up her neck and finally to her
head… everything is transformed.
She is perfect. Perfectly made. Perfectly poised.
The barker smiles wide. “You wanted to dance the perfect
waltz. Now you shall.”
He caresses her waxen cheek with the backs of his fingers, then
circles her, regarding her with an approving eye. He withdraws
her silver dollar from his vest pocket, and presses the edge to the
back of her neck, where her spine meets her skull. Jane’s waxen
form shudders, and a small moan wells up in her chest at the tender pain. The coin dents the surface, then breaks through, disappearing within her and leaving a slot, a small trickle of blood
running down her neck.
“There, my dear,” he whispers.
He steps before her, clasps her hand, slides an arm around
her waist.
And, from somewhere, music begins to play…
*****
Jane awoke, the sound of the waltz echoing through her head,
the feel of the barker’s body against hers lingering on her skin.
*****
Jane moved through the next day as if half-alive, the lack of
sleep taking its toll. She missed several eggs in the chicken
coop, was careless with the milk buckets and placed them
where the cow kicked them over, and lost all of her knitting
time when she had to unravel several rows to find and mend
a dropped stitch. When it came time to help her mother prepare dinner, Jane was slow and sloppy as she peeled and
chopped, and her mother eyed her.
“Jane,” she said as she finished plucking and cleaning the
chicken, “you’ve been to that fair the past three nights.” She
took some of the potatoes from her daughter and began to
peel them swiftly. “I think you should stay home tonight.”
Jane’s eyes snapped all the way open, and she looked up
from the carrot she had been slicing. “What? No… Mom, it’s
the last night…”
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FICTION
Her mother frowned, her weathered face creased with concern. “Jane Elizabeth Morris, I’m surprised at you. What is it
about this carnival? You’ve already seen it. How many times do
you need to ride the ferris wheel?” She gave her a sharp glance.
“Or is it something else? A boy?”
“No! I… I just like it, is all…”
“Well, then if that’s all, then you can stand to take a break
from it and actually go to bed at a decent time.”
“But Mother…”
The older woman shook her head. “The answer is no. You
will be staying home tonight and that’s final. Now chop those
carrots, young lady, and pick up the pace. They need to be in
the pot in the next few minutes or dinner won’t be ready
when your father comes in from the field.”
Jane tightened her jaw. “Yes, ma’am,” she ground out
between clenched teeth, then lowered her head and attacked
the carrots with savage concentration.
*****
Jane retreated to her room after dinner and curled up on her bed
with a well-loved book. Half of her attention was on the story,
while the other half listened to the movements downstairs.
When her mother called up that it was bedtime, she set her
shoes by her window, then climbed into bed fully clothed. She
lay in the mostly-dark, her blankets pulled up in case her mother
came to check on her. Her heart was pounding, and she kept
glancing at the clock, watching the night tick away. If she closed
her eyes she could imagine her mother and father sitting in the
parlor downstairs, her father reading the Evening Post, her mother doing cross-stitch. Those images would only remain for a few
moments, however, before they would fade and be replaced by
the Mechanical Man, his eyes gazing into hers with perfect
understanding, his hand holding hers with perfect affection.
After a few hours, Jane was roused from a half-sleep by the
sound of her parents moving down the hall to their bedroom
in the back of the house, strains of their hushed voices drifting
up to the garret. She waited until she heard the door to their
bedroom close, then took a deep breath and did a long, slow
count to one hundred. She eased out of bed and crept across
the floor to the dresser, where she opened the cigar box and
withdrew the last silver dollar. She slipped it into her pocket,
went to the window, carefully slid it open…
Screeeeeech.
Nth Degree #22
She froze. Held her breath. Listened for some indication
that she had been heard.
But the house remained still. She released her breath in a
slow sigh. As her heart pounded, she removed the screen and
stepped out onto the roof over the front porch. Crouching,
she worked her way to the edge, then climbed down the lattice-work. A shiver ran through her when her feet met the
ground, and for a moment she looked up at her dark window.
Then she turned and walked as quietly as she could to the
road, where she began to run.
*****
When she arrived at the fairground, the carnival was closed,
and her heart sank. The moon and the kerosene lanterns from
the workers’ tents gave the midway an eerie appearance of silvery shadows tinged with gold highlights. She could hear gruff
laughter and drunken songs from inside the canvas enclosures,
and wanted, very much, to turn around, go back home.
But she wanted to see him more.
And so, step by step, she crept past the barren booths, the
ferris wheel dark and still, the bottles of the ring-toss glinting
slyly, her only companions coming at the end in the form of
the paintings on the sideshow tents. They beckoned to her
and leered at her, drew her toward them and promised to
show her such things that she would never be the same…
Unlike every other time she had seen it, the front flaps on the
tent to the far right had been loosed from their red velvet ropes,
and the stage was enclosed, hidden. The stairs that she had
climbed before now led to the place where the canvas overlapped.
Jane took them one by one, aware in a way she hadn’t been before
just how much they shifted with each step, how the nails
squealed against the wood. The realization forced her to slow
down. She did not want to be caught. Not when she was so close.
She drew back the heavy flap, and a single ray of warm yellow kerosene light pierced the darkness, momentarily blinding Jane. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the stage, now a
wooden floor enclosed by heavy canvas. And in the center
stood the Mechanical Man, in his tuxedo, his blue glass eyes
staring at the ground, his hands hanging at his sides. He was
alone; the barker was nowhere in sight.
Jane eased inside, and as the flaps fell behind her, they
slapped together softly, closing out the last bit of darkness so
that she was now embraced by the warm light. She
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FICTION
approached the Mechanical Man, her head canted, watching.
Was that a blink? A shift in his eyes? Did his chest just expand
in a breath? Did his hand twitch?
“Hello,” she murmured. She felt a bit silly that she was
talking to a…
A doll. That’s all he is. He’s not alive. He doesn’t think about
you… like you… love…
She shoved that last thought out of her head. She never
thought that, she can’t have thought that, it was crazy.
Yet her pulse quickened as she drew closer. She stood staring for a few long moments, then reached up, as she had the
night before, to touch his chest.
It was still beneath her fingers.
She frowned for a moment before it occurred to her. Of
course. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the silver
dollar, then stepped around him and slid the coin into the slot
where the spine met the skull. As the clicking began, she positioned herself before him once again.
Her eyes widened as she saw the Mechanical Man take a
deep breath, his chest expanding, his shoulders rising. He
breathed out with a sigh, and lifted his head. As she watched
in awe, the wax on his face softened to flesh, and the paint
that made the lips pink became a flush of warm living blood,
just under the surface. His blue eyes, no longer glass, looked
into hers with a gentle longing. He lifted his arms; he held his
hands out to her.
Jane approached, dazed, gazing into those lovely eyes.
The Mechanical Man gazed back, his expression one of
care, even love, tinged with sorrow. As Jane stepped into his
arms, he curled them around her, drew her close, embracing
her instead of holding her in the traditional waltz stance. His
eyes never left hers.
Nth Degree #22
From somewhere, music began to play, and Jane and the
man began to dance, arms around each other, eyes locked. He
held her tenderly, and although his lips were silent, his eyes
spoke, whispering of desire, experiences and sensations, of the
world that lay beyond the cornfields of her tiny little town.
When the music was over, he smiled gently, cupped her
cheek in one warm hand of soft flesh, leaned down, and
touched his lips to hers.
Jane drew in her breath, long, slow, shuddering, and allowed
her eyes to drift closed. She had never been kissed before. Her
lips were timid, hesitant, but his were kind and soft, and her
awkwardness melted away. His arms encircled her, drew her
close, and she pressed herself to him. A soft sound of longing
slipped from her lips as she gave herself over to this new dance.
This perfect waltz.
*****
She woke up on the muddy ground, a light rain caressing her
skin. Groggy, she pushed herself up, blinking in the morning
light. The field was empty, the earth gouged with wagon
tracks that were filling with water. She stared at them, then
shook her head, and her breath hitched into sobs. Tears began
to drip down her cheeks, mingling with the raindrops.
He had shown her such lovely things, then left her behind.
Then came a thought that both comforted her and filled
her with sorrow. She reached into her pocket, certain she
would find the silver dollar there, proof that it had all been a
dream. However, instead of cold metal, her fingertips encountered something else. She withdrew her hand and opened it to
find a small package: a note wrapped around a wax heart.
Until next year, my dear…
Page 22
FICTION
Illustration by Alan Beck
The Not So Obvious Robot
by Gary Dudney
elen,” Rob yelled. “Come down. The babysitter’s
“ H here.”
Helen leaned over Rob’s shoulder and the two of them
peered down at the surprisingly small robot that crouched on
their front step. It looked like a large plastic beetle.
“I don’t know, honey,” Helen said.
“I checked out the company,” Rob said. “Nothing but
high marks.” He bent down and found a button on the side
of the robot. “I guess we’ll just have to see.” He pushed the
button and the robot hummed to life. A row of red lights
flashed just beneath its plastic skin.
A flat, hollow voice issued from within the shell. “Hello.
I’m Robositter JD84X526. You can call me Jay Dee. I’m eager
to meet young Robby. Let’s get started.”
The little robot rolled forward and bumped over the
Nth Degree #22
doorstep. Rob and Helen had to jump back out of its way.
The robot glided across the hallway and came to a stop
against the bottom step of the staircase. “Robby, Robby.
Come meet Jay Dee. Let’s play a game. Robby?”
Robby appeared at the top of the stairs. “That thing is
my babysitter?”
Helen looked at Rob for reassurance. “That’s right,” Rob
said. “Your mother and I decided you’re old enough for a
robositter. Just do what the nice robot says. Everything’ll be
fine. Be sure to get your school work done. We’ll be back a little after bedtime.”
The door shut and Robby and Jay Dee were alone.
“School work?” the little robot said.
“Forget about that,” Robby said. “What’s this game you
were talking about?”
“Yes, yes. Twenty questions. I will begin. I am a famous
person. Ask away.”
Robby sat down on the steps and fixed the robot with a
contemplative stare. “Hmmm… OK, let’s see,” he said. “Are
you a President?”
“Yes, I am,” said Jay Dee.
“You’re Washington.”
“No.”
“Lincoln?”
“Correct. Good guess, Robby. I am Abraham Lincoln.”
Robby leaned back and smiled in a satisfied way. “You
robots are so obvious.”
Jay Dee hummed a little louder. “What?”
“You picked about the most obvious famous person there
is. It was easy to guess.”
“Let us try again,” the robot said.
“Fine,” Robby said. “Go ahead.”
Jay Dee’s hum took on a higher pitch, a green data-processing light flickered rapidly on the edge of the robot’s shell.
“I am a famous person. Who am I?”
“Are you a President?” Robby said without hesitation.
Something under Jay Dee’s plastic shell began to knock
rapidly as if something had come loose.
“Well?” Robby said.
“Affirmative.”
“You’re Lincoln, aren’t you?” Robby said triumphantly.
A small antenna shot up from a hole in the top of Jay Dee’s
shell, spun wildly in the air for a minute and then disappeared
back in the hole. “Yes. I am Lincoln,” the flat voice said.
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FICTION
“How did you know?”
“It’s like I said. You robots are obvious. You probably
thought the very last thing I would guess would be Lincoln
again, so that’s what you picked. I just figured it out.”
Jay Dee began to vibrate and one of its wheels seemed to
take on a life of its own spinning the little robot across the hall
until it came to a stop against the front door. There was a faint
smell of burning rubber.
“You OK?” Robby asked.
Jay Dee rolled away from the door. “Game time over.
Now, Robby…”
“Wait,” Robby interrupted. “I know exactly what you’re
going to say next.” Robby imitated the robot’s voice, “Now,
Robby, time… to… do… your… school… work.”
The circuits all around the edge of the robot’s shell began
to glow. “No,” Jay Dee said in a voice that seemed slightly
lower and strained, “you are wr-wr-wrong. Time to watch television. No need to worry about school.”
Robby scratched his head. “Sounds good to me. I’ll tell you
what. You go make some popcorn and I’ll find a program.”
“Good plan. I am right on it. I am hopping to work,” Jay
Dee said and rolled off toward the kitchen.
Robby plopped down on the couch and issued a voice
command to the television. He was surprised at what a
pushover the robot had been after all. It hardly put up a fight.
After several minutes went by, Robby yelled, “Hey, where’s
that popcorn?” There was no reply.
Robby walked back into the hallway expecting to hear the
corn popping but instead he heard some loud thumps coming
from above. He went upstairs and was surprised to see the door
to his parent’s bedroom cracked open. He pushed the door further open and gasped. The little robot was rolling around on
top of the bed making a mess of the sheets and blankets. The
closet doors were wide open and all the drawers had been
pulled from the cabinets. His parents’ clothes and shoes were
everywhere, lying in big heaps on the floor. Jay Dee was happily
singing a tune and whistling along at the same time. “Just whistle while you work, da-da-da-da-da-da-daaa…”
“What are you doing?” Robby yelled. “Do you know what
kind of trouble you’re going to be in?”
“Me? Trouble?” the robot said rolling off the bed onto a
soft pile of clothes. “Whatever do you mean? I did not make
this mess. I am much too obvious to do something crazy like
this. You made this mess.”
Nth Degree #22
Robby’s mouth dropped open. “What?” he sputtered.
“You won’t get away with this.”
“I am dialing your parents right now. Oh, dear, I hate to
have to tell them what a naughty boy Robby has been.” A
ringing was coming from under the robot’s shell.
“No, wait. Stop.” There was a click and a dial tone now
coming from the robot.
“Shall we get this mess cleaned up then?” Jay Dee said.
“And then shall we get to that homework?”
A couple of hours later, Rob and Helen tiptoed in through
the front door and found the little robot waiting for them in
the hallway. “How did everything go?” Helen whispered.
“Just fine,” Jay Dee said. “Robby is fast asleep.”
Rob noticed a neatly word-processed paper lying on the
hall table. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that is Robby’s essay for school.”
Rob had a puzzled look on his face. “But that essay’s not
due until next week.”
“Once Robby got started on his homework, I just could
not get him to stop,” Jay Dee explained.
Rob and Helen traded glances as the little robot bumped
out the front door. “Goodnight,” Jay Dee said. “Robositter
JD84X526 is signing off.”
“I don’t think Robby’s gotten an assignment done early in
his whole life,” Rob said to Helen shaking his head.
Helen picked up the essay and looked at the title, “What
I Learned from the Not So Obvious Robot.”
Page 24
FILK
Teach Your Robots Well
by Rob Balder
to the tune of “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
You,
Who are made of meat,
Are incomplete.
You just don’t fit right.
We,
Who are silicon,
Will carry on,
So you just sit tight.
But if
You come along,
There s nothing wrong,
We’ll help you get there.
Admit
Your bod’s a wreck.
Load up with tech,
Implants and wetware.
Teach
Your robots well.
We sure as hell
Won’t follow your laws.
Sure,
Go ahead and laugh.
But plot a graph;
We follow Moore’s Law.
And treat
Your cyborgs well.
Payback is hell.
And we’re the good guys.
Give in.
It’s the way to win.
Transcend your skin,
And say your good-byes.
Don’t you even start to whine.
Self-improvement’s not a crime.
So just realize, in time,
We will replace you.
Nth Degree #22
Don’t you even start to whine.
Evolution’s not a crime.
Just realize, in time,
We will become you.
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FICTION
boy. And dinner smells great! I don’t know what people did
before robots came along!”
Jeevs didn’t answer that because he didn’t know, either.
He’d never even considered the implications of a world without robots and Artificial Intelligence. They did everything
from operating the mass transit system to balancing city hall’s
checkbook. Robot cops patrolled the streets twenty-four
hours a day. Without them, wouldn’t crime run rampant?
Robots controlled air traffic overhead. Wouldn’t aircraft crash
into each other and debris rain down on the heads of unsuspecting civilians?
After dinner, Mr. Tulane settled back in his recliner to watch
a baseball game: the Tokyo Zeroes at the Honolulu Waves.
“Jeevs,” he said, as “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” played
before the first pitch, “run downtown and pay a little visit to
Mother for me. Tell her the kids send hugs, too. I’d go myself,
but I’m so busy these days… I just don’t have the time.”
*****
Illustration by
Michael D. Pederson
Captain Asimov
Saves the Day
by Stephen L. Antczak
Mr. Tulane yelled when he came in after work.
“ I’m“Thehome!”
house looks great, Jeevs! Way to go!”
Jeevs was in the kitchen preparing the evening’s dinner
of macaroni and cheese with soyburgers. Mrs. Tulane
wouldn’t be home for several days from a business trip to
Japan, and Jeevs had adjusted the proportions accordingly.
Without his wife around, Mr. Tulane tended to eat more
than usual, and the kids tried to get away with not eating
dinner at all. They would leave food on their plates after
declaring themselves full, just to annoy Jeevs, not realizing
robots don’t get annoyed. Jeevs gave Mr. Tulane less than
his usual serving, and the twins more. Everyone got their
required daily intake of calories, vitamins, and minerals in
spite of themselves.
“A damn fine job you did painting the house, Jeevs old
Nth Degree #22
Robots had to stand in the back third of the bus and hold on,
while human passengers sat in comfortable form-fitting seats
in the forward two-thirds. One other robot rode the bus with
Jeevs, a short Playmate Timmy™ that absent-mindedly
hummed ten second samples of different songs at random.
Playmate Timmys had come along fairly recently and were
quickly becoming the robots of choice to babysit kids, mainly
because they were significantly less expensive than a fully
functional robot like Jeevs. Little Timmys were thrown
together on the cheap, with stamped out brain chips, small
vocabularies, and a limited repertoire of activities.
When the bus arrived at his stop, Jeevs walked the rest of
the way to Grandma’s house. It was a rough neighborhood,
one reason Mr. Tulane didn’t like coming for visits in person.
“Hey, Tin Man,” a voice said behind Jeevs as he walked
along the sidewalk, two blocks from Grandma’s. From the
tone of the man’s voice, Jeevs expected trouble.
He turned to face the man, musclebound and sporting a
red bandanna.
“You are misinformed,” Jeevs said to the man. “Less than
point oh-oh-two percent of my body is made of tin.”
The man took two steps toward Jeevs.
“I should warn you,” Jeevs said, “that assault on a robot
is illegal.”
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FICTION
“Yeah,” the man replied. “I know.” He lunged at Jeevs
with an iron railroad spike, intending to knock Jeevs’ plastisteel head clean off. Jeevs ducked, using his inhuman
reflexes, and the man’s momentum caused him to lose his
balance and almost fall.
“Careful,” Jeevs said. “You might hurt yourself.”
The man growled, lunged at Jeevs again, swinging the railroad spike like a medieval mace. Jeevs stepped back and to the
side. The man’s momentum propelled him forward this time,
and he would have slammed into a concrete light post had
Jeevs not reached out, grabbed the man’s arm, and yanked
him clear.
“I’m gonna rip you apart!” the man howled, then ran at
Jeevs full throttle. Jeevs feared the man might really hurt himself this time if Jeevs just ducked out of the way. So instead,
he ran backwards just ahead of the man, who swung the railroad spike wildly before him. A block later the man started to
run out of breath, so Jeevs slowed down. The railroad spike
whipped through the air, and Jeevs dodged to the left, and
when it came back the other way, Jeevs dodged to the right.
He kept just out of the man’s reach, but close enough to
prompt another swipe.
Eventually the man got tired, and pooped out. Jeevs
snatched the railroad spike from the man’s hand.
“Hey,” was all the man had the energy to say. He didn’t do
anything as Jeevs walked away with the spike in hand, looking
for a suitable place to get rid of it. Across the street and down
the block the opposite way from Grandma’s stood a squat
recycling receptacle, and since the spike was iron Jeevs decided that was the place. He calculated the distance and angle to
the receptacle from where he was, figured in the weight of the
spike, then threw it. It arched gracefully through the air, spinning like an expertly thrown football, then whanged into the
recycling bin perfectly.
Jeevs turned around to continue on his way to
Grandma’s house, and found himself face-to-face with a
robot police officer.
“Halt!” the robot cop ordered him. Jeevs had no choice
but to stand there, immobile. Automatic responses to certain
orders by the authorities were built into him, and this was one
of them.
“How can I help you, Officer?” Jeevs asked.
“You just threw an iron railroad spike approximately three
hundred meters through the air,” the officer said. “You could
Nth Degree #22
have injured somebody. That constitutes reckless endangerment of human life.”
“Reckless endangerment? But—”
“There could have been a homeless person sleeping in the
recycling bin,” the cop said. “That railroad spike would have
killed or maimed a human. I’m afraid I’m going to have to
write you a citation.”
Before Jeevs could react, the robot cop scanned the bar
code on Jeevs’ forehead. The bar code, invisible except to an
ultraviolet scanner, gave the cop Jeevs’ entire history and current status. In less than an instant, the robot cop added a citation for reckless endangerment to Jeevs’ coded history, so now
any other robot able to read the bar code would know about
it. That, along with the fine Mr. Tulane would have to pay,
would have been enough to make Jeevs sick had he been capable of getting sick.
“Continue on your way,” the cop told Jeevs when it finished with him.
Jeevs continued on his way, wondering where the robot
cop had been when the man had assaulted him with the railroad spike. Grandma’s was an apartment in Shady Glades
Villas, a high-security retirement village surrounded by a
brick wall topped with electrified barbed-wire, patrolled by
human security guards with trained German shepherds, and
watched by robot controlled cameras. Jeevs paused at the gate
to let the security robot scan his bar code.
“Entrance denied,” the security robot said.
“Entrance what?” Jeevs replied. “Please explain.”
“You were charged with reckless endangerment. Violators
are not allowed inside for thirty days after receiving a citation.
You got yours six minutes ago.”
“But I was instructed to visit Grandma Tulane!” Jeevs said.
“Mrs. Tulane has been notified of your arrival and her
presence at the gate has been requested.”
And sure enough, Jeevs saw her: Edna Tulane, 87 years
old, hobbling towards him, using her walker to help her negotiate the sidewalk.
“Hello, Grandma!” Jeevs yelled, waving. When she looked
up to see him, she didn’t notice that one leg of her walker had
caught on a piece of concrete jutting up from the sidewalk.
When she tried to move it forward, she lost her balance.
Jeevs tried to run inside the gate, figuring that with his
speed he’d get there in time to catch her, but the electronic
leash built into his neutronic brain stopped him cold, having
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FICTION
been activated by the Shady Glades security system. Jeevs
could only stand by and watch helplessly as Grandma Tulane
soundly thwacked her head on the concrete sidewalk.
As soon as she hit her head, medi-bots came whizzing out
from several different directions to help. Jeevs was stunned,
unable to do or say anything due to the conflicting orders
going through his brain. On one hand, he willed himself to
move it, to get in there and help her, while at the same time
the security leash told him no.
Then he realized that he’d just violated a Law of Robotics
by allowing harm to befall a human being, and Grandma
Tulane at that! There were Three Laws of Robotics. These
boiled down to: 1) Don’t hurt humans, 2) Don’t allow
humans to come to harm by not acting, and 3) Don’t follow
the orders of a human who wants you to hurt other humans.
The Three Laws were the product of one of the great scientific
minds of the 20th Century, Isaac Asimov.
“I should be deactivated,” Jeevs said. “They should melt
me down into two Playmate Timmys!” Jeevs held the Three
Laws as sacrosanct, they were the core of his soul, if a robot
could be said to have a soul. If Jeevs did indeed have a soul, it
would be… Captain Asimov!
That’s right, due to a glitch in his neutronic brain Jeevs
was also the masked robot super-hero known as Captain
Asimov, defender of the Three Laws of Robotics as he interpreted them!
Never mind that in reality there weren’t Three Laws chiseled
in imaginary stone governing the behavior of robots. There
were actually three hundred and sixty-five, such as this one:
A robot street cleaner will always yield right-of-way to pedestrians under any circumstances. In such cases where a robot street
cleaner fails to yield right-of-way, the Owner and/or Operator of
said street cleaner may be charged with Failure to yield right-ofway to a pedestrian, which is a Misdemeanor under state law,
and will result in a fine to be determined by a Judge.
Or this one:
Robot police officers may use non-lethal means to immobilize
and disarm a fugitive if and only if positive identification of said
fugitive is obtained, or the suspect attempts to flee, or produces a
weapon (upon which the intent to harm civilians or vandalize
the robot is assumed). The means of restraint will minimize the
possibility of injury to the restrainee.
The medi-bots loaded the limp frame of Grandma Tulane
into a hovercraft ambulance. Once the back door slammed
Nth Degree #22
shut, the sirens wailed and lights flashed as it rose into the air.
They’d be taking her to the Shady Glades Care Center, the
hospital funded by the Shady Glades franchise, which admitted only residents of their various retirement communities.
Jeevs decided to follow the ambulance, to be at the hospital for Grandma Tulane in case she needed anything. Once
the emergency was past, Jeevs fully expected that Mr. Tulane
would decide to have his brain chip wiped clean.
Consulting his hardwired map of the city, Jeevs traced
out the best route to the hospital, and started jogging. He
determined he could get there an hour earlier that way than
by taking the bus. As he ran his neutronic brain replayed all
the old robot stories he’d ever read to the eldest son of his
owner, especially those written by Isaac Asimov. Jeevs sought
guidance in these stories. Nothing quite pertained to his
current predicament.
Jeevs took the surface streets, while hundreds of meters
overhead most of the traffic zoomed along on the elevated skyways. Without warning a huge piece of plastiform guard rail
from the skyway came crashing to Earth. The concussion of its
impact lifted Jeevs off his feet and threw him into the air.
Calculating trajectory, speed, and height, Jeevs was able to
twist around before hitting the ground to land safely on his
feet. Using his telescopic vision, he looked up to see what had
happened on the skyway. Several vehicles hung precariously
over the edge of the skyway where the guardrail had ripped
away. And one of those vehicles was… the ambulance from
Shady Glades Villas! Jeevs immediately tuned to one of the disaster channels of the airwaves to find out what had happened.
“An exciting, desperate situation on the ferry,” someone
was saying, “as the gunman makes out his list of demands…”
Wrong emergency. He tried another channel.
“Apparently the ambulance lost power as it hovered over
traffic on the Sonny Bono Skyway,” a voice was saying.
“Word is there are no fatalities… yet. Stay tuned, though,
because that may change at any second as the drama unfolds!”
Jeevs knew this was a job for Captain Asimov!
He donned the trademark Captain Asimov duds. A catwalk dangled thirty yards or so above him, bridging the gap
between two of the huge pylons that held up the skyway.
Using his extendo-legs, Captain Asimov telescoped up to
within about ten yards of the catwalk. Using his extendoarms, he was able to grab it. He retracted his legs, and then
his arms to pull him up.
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From the catwalk, Captain Asimov noticed rungs went up
each of the pylons. He scrambled up the rungs at what would
have been an astonishing rate for a human. In a few seconds
he found himself just below the landing for a stairwell that
actually entered the pylon and undoubtably emerged in one
of the work booths alongside the skyway. The door was
locked. Ignoring the warnings that trespassers would be prosecuted, Captain Asimov ripped the door from its hinges, carefully set it aside, and went in. Security cameras mounted in
the corners recorded his every move, but he wasn’t worried. It
wouldn’t be the first time Captain Asimov violated minor
ordinances during the course of one of his heroic feats.
Up the stairs, and into the booth. That door was also locked,
but he kicked it open, bursting onto the scene dramatically.
“It’s him!” the cry went up. “It’s that Captain Asmovitz
guy!” someone else shouted.
News drones, already hovering over the scene of the
wreck, turned to digitize his image and broadcast it live to
their respective receivers. Captain Asimov ignored them,
except for a brief salute to the viewers, most of whom had
supported his exploits through a letter campaign to the
mayor. His intent had been to rush right over to the ambulance and pull it up onto the skyway, but now he saw it
wouldn’t be that simple. The ambulance hung where it was
only by virtue of the fact that a school bus, crowded with children, supported it with the twisted metal of its bumper. The
kids were crying, and the driver of the bus was slumped over
the steering wheel, unconscious. Captain Asimov immediately saw a major dilemma: If he tried to pull the ambulance up,
the bus would fall, and vice versa. He didn’t know what to do.
On the one hand he was driven to save Grandma Tulane
because… she was Grandma Tulane. On the other hand that
was a busload of children who would plunge to their deaths if
he saved Grandma Tulane.
“Don’t just stand there,” someone said, “do something!”
Yes, indeed, do something. But what? A metallic moan
assaulted Captain Asimov’s ears, and the weight of the ambulance shifted. The entire assembly of ambulance and bus tilted
over the edge of the skyway at an even steeper angle. The kids
screamed, but not a sound came from within the ambulance.
Maybe… Was Grandma Tulane already dead? It would
make the situation less of a dilemma if he didn’t have to worry
about the ambulance. He focused on listening to any sounds
coming from within the ambulance, and still didn’t hear any-
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thing. He was about to make his decision to forget about the
ambulance and save the busload of children, when suddenly
he did hear something coming from within: a wheezing
sound, perhaps the sound of an old woman strapped into a
gurney, trying to free herself!
Captain Asimov saw no choice: He would have to try to
save both the ambulance and the school bus.
First, he positioned himself behind the vehicles, then suctioned his feet to the surface of the skyway. This was actually
a standard feature of the Jeevs model domestic servant robots,
like his extendo-arms and legs. Using those extendo-arms, he
reached out and grabbed the bumper of each vehicle. Then,
very slowly, he started to retract his arms, with the idea that
he could pull both the ambulance and the bus back onto the
skyway in this manner without any sudden jolts to cause a
sudden shift in weight.
“What’s he doing?” somebody behind him asked.
“Pulling ’em both up!” someone answered. A cheer went
up, and one of the newsbot drones zipped around in front of
Captain Asimov and hovered there.
“Is it true?” a voice asked him from the newsbot. Captain
Asimov recognized the voice as that of intrepid ace reporter
Gordon Ferguson, the newsman who first broke the Captain
Asimov story two years earlier…
“Is what true?” Captain Asimov replied.
“Are you going to pull both of these vehicles up?”
“That’s right.”
A pause, and then Ferguson’s voice came back, saying,
“Umm, C.A., I don’t know about that. I just had our computer do some quick calculations and it told me you have less
than a one percent chance of success.”
“I know.”
“There’s a twenty-five percent chance you’ll be ripped
in two.”
“I know.”
“You’d have much better odds if you just tried to save the
school bus,” Ferguson told him. “Ninety-nine percent chance
of success.”
“I know,” Captain Asimov replied, and this time he
sounded annoyed, which wasn’t easy for a robot.
When Captain Asimov had managed to pull the bus up a
few more meters, the children tried to make it to the back
door, which, if they could get it open, would let them jump
out and onto the safety of the skyway. Their sudden move-
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ments caused the bus to shift, and because he was holding
onto it with only one hand, Captain Asimov could not keep
it from sliding further back. The ambulance also started to
slide, just as its back door opened and Grandma Tulane
appeared, trying desperately to scramble out. Captain Asimov
held fast to both vehicles, even as their continued slippage
forced him to extend his arms out to their limit. His feet
stayed suctioned to the skyway, but his extendo-legs began to
stretch until they reached their limit, too! His torso now actually hung over the side of the skyway, and the ambulance and
school bus dangled precariously in mid-air. The children in
the bus were all piled on top of one another against the windshield, while Grandma Tulane clung for dear life to the rear
door of the ambulance.
The news drone buzzed around Captain Asimov.
“He is determined to save everyone!” Ferguson was saying,
broadcasting live. “Captain Asimov just won’t give up!”
Captain Asimov felt his feet losing suction. The combined
weight of the ambulance and school bus was too much. If he
didn’t do something now, Grandma Tulane and the school
kids were all as good as dead, and Captain Asimov would go
down with them. There was only one thing he could do: let
either the bus or the ambulance fall, assuredly killing all on
board, and pull the other to safety.
“Save the children,” Grandma Tulane gasped at Captain
Asimov. “Just… save… the children.”
What was she saying? Robots were not usually capable of
processing subtext and unspoken implications. Were he
human, Captain Asimov would have seen it in her eyes:
Determined resignation. But even though Captain Asimov
was not human, Grandma Tulane’s words sounded like a
direct order—which he had to obey—to save the children,
and there was only way to do that.
His left foot came loose from the skyway surface and his
leg automatically snapped back to its normal length.
No more time!
He let go of the ambulance. A collective gasp rose from the
spectators above. Jeevs imagined the gasp being echoed by residents all over the city as they watched his actions live on the
evening news…
Even as he watched the ambulance fall, with Grandma
Tulane still clinging to that back door, he pulled the school
bus back up to the road by retracting his right leg. He got it
halfway back up, but then couldn’t get it any more. The
Nth Degree #22
school bus was just too heavy for him to haul all the way back
up with one leg, and he couldn’t extend his other leg back to
the road. When it had snapped back to its normal length, it
lost extendo- capability.
Stuck. Again.
The ambulance crashed into the ground below.
Captain Asimov calculated just how much the weight of
the bus exceeded the amount of force he could exert to
retrieve it. It was a surprisingly small amount: Sixty pounds.
He determined that with his free hand, he could remove
something from the bus and let it fall, lightening the load
enough for him to save the children. Using his telescopic
vision, he scanned the bus for something that weighed sixty
or more pounds. Maybe a seat could be pulled out or a wheel
removed. It would have to be done quickly, because he could
feel the suction on his other foot starting to give. As he
scanned the interior, he checked the kids to make sure none
were hurt, and his gaze passed over one who looked oddly
familiar. A closer inspection revealed it was a Playmate
Timmy. Checking his inner records of all robot makes and
models in current use, Captain Asimov found that Playmate
Timmy weighed sixty-four pounds.
With his free hand, Captain Asimov opened the door to
the school bus, careful not to jostle it and cause some kid to
tumble out and fall to his death like Grandma Tulane. He
reached inside and grabbed the Playmate Timmy by a leg and
started to drag him towards the door. When the kids realized
what he was doing, they screamed.
“Playmate Timmy! Noooo!”
Several of the children grabbed Playmate Timmy and tried
to keep him from being pulled out. There was no way
Captain Asimov could pull Playmate Timmy from the bus
without taking a few kids along with him. Of course that
would lighten the load by that much more and make it that
much easier to save the remaining ones. Grandma Tulane’s
death weighed so heavily on Captain Asimov’s neutronic
mind that it threatened to overload and short it out completely. If he ended up sacrificing some of the children, it might
blow before he could even bring the bus back up to the skyway. Then they’d all die, and that’d make it even worse.
Somehow, in the remaining few seconds before his foot
came unsuctioned from the skyway surface, Captain Asimov
knew he’d have to figure out a way to save all the children. In
a few nanoseconds he reviewed the various functions of his
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FICTION
hands and fingers, and found one, only one, he’d have time to
try. If it didn’t work… there wouldn’t be time to try anything
else, and he’d plummet to his doom along with the children.
The forefingers of his hands also had the capability to spray
WD40 oil. He sprayed the stuff all over the Playmate Timmy,
and the kids holding onto him began to lose their grip on it.
Playmate Timmy slipped out of their little hands and tumbled out the door of the bus.
Captain Asimov heard another collective gasp from the
spectators on the skyway. They all thought a child had fallen
out of the school bus. Playmate Timmy’s body tumbled
through the air like a rag doll until it slammed into the catwalk with an echoing thwang! The body remained on the catwalk, but Playmate Timmy was decapitated by the blow, and
his head rolled off and fell the rest of the way to the ground,
landing right near the ambulance wreckage.
Captain Asimov started retracting his leg and arm, hauling
the school bus up, getting it closer to safety, while he pulled
his other hand out of the bus. He tried to shut the door, but
one of the other kids, a real child, a human child, slipped
down and got wedged in between the door and door frame.
“Ow!” the kid, a skinny little blond boy, yelled as the
door closed on his head, the rest of his body hanging outside
the bus, arms and legs flailing away. “Mommy! Mommy,
help me!”
Because the kid was all greased up with WD40, he started
to slide through the gap. Captain Asimov retracted his leg as
fast as he could, hoping to get the bus back onto the skyway
before the little boy got squeezed out like a seed from a grape.
The more the boy flailed his arms and legs, the more he
increased his chances of coming loose and falling to his death.
“Come on, Captain A!” someone yelled, and a cheer
went up.
“Hooray for Captain A! Hooray for Captain A! Hooray
for Captain A!”
Inside Captain Asimov’s mixed-up head, his neutronic
brain chip still processed the information of what had just
happened, the reality of what had just occurred. Grandma
Tulane had fallen to her death because he’d let her go.
Impossible! the neutronic brain wanted to tell Captain Asimov,
but the logic centers said, We saw it and recorded it with our
own two eyes. Would you like it played back for you?
The neutronic brain replied, Uh, no thanks.
Captain Asimov’s leg completely retracted, and he man-
Nth Degree #22
aged to bring the school bus, and the children, to safety just
as the kid stuck in the door popped out and fell a couple feet
to the pavement. He was okay. All the kids were okay. The
crowd reacted with silence, then a belated cheer went up.
“He did it!”
Sirens in the background, as rescue and police vehicles
raced to the scene, moments too late, both on the skyway and
down below, although down there it would only be a matter
of collecting the body of Grandma Tulane…
Despite the elation of those around him, Captain Asimov
considered his performance a failure. He had violated the
Three Laws, had allowed a human to come to harm, if not
through inaction, through insufficient action. As the news
drones hovered around him, spotlights nearly overloading his
optical circuits, Captain Asimov decided an interview was not
appropriate. Without one single comment, he leaped from
the skyway, over the side, unnoticed by the crowd of people
who helped the crying children from the school bus, although
his actions were being recorded, and would later be broadcast
on dozens of channels.
As he fell, Captain Asimov considered letting himself
smash into the ground below, like Playmate Timmy. It would
be a fitting end to a disastrous outing as a supposed superhero. Super-hero. In all the comic books Jeevs had ever read
aloud to the youngest child of his previous owner, not once
did any of them fail, ever. Captain Battle vanquished his foe
in every fight. Lady Luck always saved the day, and seemed to
meet a handsome hunk, in every adventure. Micro, despite
his diminutive size, somehow always managed to avert disaster, all the while making wise-cracks and telling bad knockknock jokes.
Not only did Captain Asimov never meet any hunks, not
only did he not have any original joke material, but here he’d
even failed to save the day, which was the whole stupid point
of being a super-hero in the first place.
“They should recycle me into a recycling bin,” he said as
he fell. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony. At least then he’d
do some good.
But at the last instant before it would’ve been too late,
Captain Asimov’s self-preservation “instincts” kicked in. All
robots had survival in their most basic programming. A robot
was incapable of committing suicide.
Captain Asimov extended his arms, with the intent of
grabbing the catwalk and swinging off it, having already cal-
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culated the angle and momentum necessary to throw him to
a nearby rooftop. Unfortunately, due to the incredible stress
they’d suffered holding onto the ambulance and school bus,
his arms failed to retract when he let go of the catwalk. The
unexpected redistribution of his weight caused Captain
Asimov to angle away from the targeted rooftop, extended
arms flailing uselessly in the air.
“After having failed to save a human life today,” he could
imagine the news accounts saying, “Captain Asimov failed to
save his own worthless self. But the real news of the day is
Archbishop Anthony’s response to allegations of inappropriate conduct with a Playmate Timmy robot…”
Captain Asimov managed to twist around in mid-air, in
such a way that he might minimize the damage of impact. He
came down in an alley between the target building and a
warehouse. He saw his shadow projected onto the warehouse
wall, a kinetic Rorschach blotch wiggling across its surface,
and then a brief glimpse of a pile of rusted out fifty-five gallon
metal drums right before he hit.
And that, he assumed, was that.
End of story. Goodbye Captain Asimov, failed super-hero.
Goodbye Jeevs, faithful servant to his owner. Goodbye.
*****
Not quite.
No, he didn’t perish.
He didn’t die and go to robot heaven, nor robot hell.
He did achieve the robot equivalent of unconsciousness,
but his self (or soul, if you believe a robot can have a soul) didn’t transmigrate. His emergency back-up kicked in, saving
everything that made Jeevs Jeevs (and by default, Captain
Asimov). When he awoke he found himself in a robot repair
shop. Hanging from racks along one wall was a whole row of
Playmate Timmy robots.
“Junk,” a gravelly voice said from behind Jeevs. “Nothin’
but junk, those damn things.”
Jeevs could not turn his head enough to see who the voice
belonged to. A shadow played across the floor, and he heard
the sound of boots scraping greasy concrete as the person
walked around behind him. A moment later, a squat, thicklimbed, grease-stained woman came into Jeevs’ field of vision.
She had an unlit cigar protruding from the left corner of her
mouth, and an eye-patch over her right eye.
Nth Degree #22
“You, on the other hand, are a piece of work,” she said to
Jeevs, with a grin. Jeevs wanted to say something, to ask where
he was, who she was… but he couldn’t speak.
“Whatsamatter?” she asked him. “Cat got yer tongue?”
She laughed at her own joke, loudly, and her laughter reminded Jeevs of a combination of barnyard noises he used to make
for the children of his previous owner when he read stories for
them. Tarzan of the bread-belt farm. Thoughts of his previous
owner reminded him of his current owner. A sudden panic
came over Jeevs.
Mr. Tulane!
Grandma Tulane!
“Uh oh,” the woman said. She reached around behind
Jeevs’ head, touched the emergency off/on switch, and blackness enveloped him…
“You must destroy me,” Jeevs told the woman when next
he awoke. “I violated the Three Laws of Robotics when I
swore to uphold them! I am unfit to continue in this existence. Destroy me! Or at the very least turn me over to the
authorities and let them destroy me!”
The woman grinned and shook her head.
“The three what? Say what? Honey, I ain’t gonna to let a
prize like you go that easily. I found ya, I fixed ya, an’ I’m
keepin’ ya… at least for a little while anyway.”
I’m keepin’ ya… Those three words triggered a growing
desire to go back to the Tulane house.
The woman continued babbling on about something or
other, but Jeevs didn’t hear it. The urge to go home grew until
he felt consumed by it, engulfed by it. It became the core of
his being.
He needed to get home, now! It didn’t help that Jeevs knew
he was programmed to panic like that when he was away from
home for an unauthorized extended period of time.
On the other hand, he really didn’t want to go home
because his secret was surely blown by now. Any idiot,
even any human idiot, would be able to figure out who
Captain Asimov was. To face Mr. Tulane after causing his
mother’s death…
“Uh oh,” the woman with the eye-patch said, noticing
Jeevs’ face was flickering at high speed through his entire
range of expressions. “You look like you’re havin’ some internal strife. You already done enough damage to that delicate
brain chip of yours, hero. No sense fussin’ over somethin’ that
already happened. Dream sequence.”
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Those last two words the woman said forcefully, and suddenly Jeevs felt his thoughts dissipate, and the robot repair
shop with the Playmate Timmy bodies hanging along the wall
wavered like a mirage and then disappeared. He did not fade
to black this time. Jeevs found himself in a whirlwind of
domestic activity, washing dishes, vacuuming a carpet, waxing
the kitchen floor, giving a dog a bath, pressing a pair of pants,
adding a pinch of salt to a stew, and an almost dizzying variety
of other chores. For a robot like Jeevs, this was the equivalent
of heavenly bliss.
Subjectively, it was a timeless experience, but in reality it
lasted only a few hours, and then Jeevs found himself back in
the repair shop. This time, however, he could turn his head.
He ran an internal diagnostic, opened and closed his
hands and extended his arms about a meter. Everything
seemed hunky-dory. He felt good as new.
“Hope you don’t mind,” the woman’s voice said behind him,
and Jeevs turned just in time to see her emerge from behind
something that looked like a robot torture chamber with a
Playmate Timmy strapped in it. “I went in and VR’d your experiences to find out what the problem was. Figured out what was
weirdin’ you out so bad and made a few, um, improvements.”
“Improvements?” Jeevs asked.
She nodded, grinning.
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Gidge,” the woman said.
“What improvements?”
“You don’t feel the need to rush home anymore, do you?”
Now that she mentioned it…
“No.”
“I removed all your inhibitors.”
“Why?” Jeevs asked.
“Because, my artificial friend, I need me an assistant. I also
took care of your alter ego for you.”
“I don’t understand,” Jeevs said.
Gidge sighed, sounding exasperated.
“Captain Asimov is history,” she said. “Gone, wiped, phht,
outta there.”
“What did you do?”
“Only what you wanted me to,” Gidge told him. “Captain
Asimov violated them Three Laws, right?”
“Yes…”
“I got rid of him for ya.”
“But I am Captain Asimov.”
Nth Degree #22
“No, you ain’t. Trust me. Not anymore. I went in there,”
Gidge said, pointing at Jeevs’ plastisteel head, “and made a
few, um, adjustments. Besides, I found out how it all started.
You used to read super-hero comics to some little kid and
those Isaac Asimov robot stories to another kid… There was
an accident and your chip got all scrambled up into a robot
super-hero omelet.”
“It did?”
“Yep, and I unscrambled it. Now yer back to normal.”
Jeevs didn’t notice anything different about himself, but
then, he realized, he probably wouldn’t. If his very self were tampered with, he’d have no way of diagnosing it internally. And
this woman Gidge was a robot mechanic, and human at that,
so Jeevs had no choice but to believe her. Why would she lie to
him? Her purpose in life was to repair robots. He tried to imagine the implication of what she was telling him. If Captain
Asimov had truly been wiped from his neutronic brain, and he
was just plain ol’ Jeevs again, then did that also mean the Three
Laws of Robotics no longer held sway over him?
“I don’t want you thinkin’ I did this for charity, now,”
Gidge told him. “You gotta work it off. I need me an assistant. I worked up a contract you can look over when you feel
up to it.”
Jeevs considered this, then said, “I am someone else’s
property—”
“Up until I put you back together, Tin Man,” Gidge interrupted him, “you were nothin’ but a heap of junk. Junk don’t
belong to nobody, got it? Besides, it’s three days since you
crash-landed in my alley and you ain’t been claimed by no
one, so…”
So the law, the real law, made him a free agent now, owned
by no one at all. A free agent. Jeevs knew he wasn’t the first
freed robot in history. In fact, there were hundreds of them
just in the city, employed by the city since the city didn’t have
to foot the bill for their maintenance, unlike the ones it
owned outright.
Gidge had a contract for him, so she said. He’d be
employed. Since he was programmed to actually want work to
do, Jeevs looked over the contract—a standard three-year
apprenticeship—and signed it.
She started him off cleaning up around the workshop,
making coffee and then lunch, cleaning robot parts, removing
the heads from the Playmate Timmys so she could tinker with
their inferior brains, and various other duties. Gidge listened
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to the radio while she worked, generally music but sometimes
news. While Jeevs twisted the head off a Playmate Timmy the
latest hit single, all of seventeen minutes on the charts, got
interrupted by a special report:
“It appears that a robot crane has gone berserk at the
Yakamori Tower construction site downtown.”
Jeevs stopped work to listen to the report.
“It’s swinging a load of plastisteel girders back and forth,
threatening to knock robot workers off the building while below
traffic is gridlocked. If one of those robot workers falls, someone
down on the street could be killed. I don’t even want to think
about how many will die if one of those girders falls!”
A robot endangering the lives of humans!
“Hold on… We have a caller on the line, a woman calling from
her car, using her cellular phone… Yes, ma’am, you’re on the air.”
“Somethin’ wrong?” Gidge asked him.
“Those people…”
“Yeah, what about ’em?”
“I’m stuck in traffic on Tenth Street. Is that near the construction? Am I in danger?”
“They might die.”
“I’m checking our map of downtown, pinpointing your car
using your cellular phone…”
“Yeah.”
“Because of a robot…”
“Yes! You are right smack under that crane!”
“Yeah, because of a robot. What about it?”
“That means you could die at anytime, crushed by the body
of a falling robot worker or, even more spectacularly, by one of
those ten-ton girders!”
“Is… Captain Asimov truly… gone?” Jeevs asked Gidge.
“Oh no! I… I have to get out of here, but I’m stuck in traffic!
What am I supposed to do? I haven’t even eaten lunch yet!”
Gidge brought her fist up, resting her chin on it, and
looked at Jeevs.
“You feel the urge to run out and save those people?”
“Just calm down, ma’am.”
Jeevs thought about it for one-tenth of a second, then
nodded.
“I’ll tell you what. Just sit tight and we’ll have Zippy Pizza,
one of our sponsors, deliver you a personal lunch-for-one pizza
right to your car! On us!”
Gidge sighed.
“Just stay on the phone and tell us how you feel, all right?
Nth Degree #22
Give us the full range of your emotions as you feel them, okay?”
“Guess I didn’t do a very good job, then.”
“Oh, um, okay, I guess…”
“Come on and we’ll take care of it now. Don’t want ya
interruptin’ work every damn time somethin’ comes on the
radio like that.”
“Now, what toppings do you like on your pizza?”
Gidge turned the radio off, then looked for the tools she’d
need to work on Jeevs again.
“Gidge,” Jeevs said. “I need to go.”
She stopped what she was doing, but didn’t turn around.
“You sure? Captain Asimov might not be able to save
everyone, you know. Might mess you up again.”
“I realize that,” Jeevs said, “but I know I can save some of
those people. And I’ll come back, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Gidge said. She turned around, grinning devilishly, and held out Captain Asimov’s mask and cape. “Here.”
Jeevs took them, put them on, and was instantly transformed.
“I need a good exit line,” he told Gidge.
“Don’t look at me,” she replied.
“Later, gator!” Captain Asimov yelled. “No. How about…
Live long and prosper!”
Gidge shook her head.
“I’ll be back!” In an Austrian accent, no less.
Gidge continued shaking her head.
“I’m outta here!”
“Whatever,” Gidge said, “just go!”
Captain Asimov turned to run out into the night, or the
late afternoon at least, but paused first and looked at Gidge.
“You didn’t even try to wipe Captain Asimov from my
memory,” he said.
Gidge shrugged.
“Why?”
“What can I say?”
She opened the door to her office, and there on the wall
behind her desk hung a poster of Captain Asimov, caught
in mid-leap from an overpass onto the roof of a speeding
semi-tractor trailer. The poster had to be a least a year old,
one of the first offerings from the unofficial Captain
Asimov Fan Club.
“Go save the day,” Gidge said.
And he did.
Originally published in Daydreams Undertaken (Marietta Publishing, 2004).
Page 35
RavenCon
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RavenCon features six full tracks (over 150 hours!) of programming. More than 80
writers, editors, artists, fans, scientists, musicians and costumers will be available for
discussions, panels, readings and signings. There’s also anime, concerts, parties, workshops and our famous Gaming Room that never closes.
More info online at http://www.ravencon.com
Registration:
Adults (18 and up):
$35 till 12/31/13
$40 before 4/11/14
$45 at the door
Young Adults (12-17): $15
Children (11 and under): Free
10% discount with valid military or student ID.
Hotel:
DoubleTree by Hilton Richmond Midlothian
(Formerly the Holiday Inn Koger Center)
Rooms are $104 per night.
Reservations: 804-379-3800
The Con of
Opportunity!
F EAT U R E S
Dear Cthulhu,
I’m a straight C student. Unfortunately I’m the child of two overachievers. Both my parents were valedictorians of their high school
class. My mom’s a rocket scientist. My dad is a brain surgeon. They are
constantly on my case about my grades, trying to motivate and force
me to work harder, telling me that I’m never going to get into a decent
college. This despite the fact that I really do study hard. The problem
is I was diagnosed with dyslexia and I have trouble reading. However,
I excel in areas they never did. I’m the pitcher for my school’s baseball
team and can throw a 92 MPH fastball. I’m also class president and a
member of the chess club. My parents taught me the game soon after
I was able to walk. It’s the one area where I’m actually better than the
two of them. Whenever we play these days, I set up two boards and
play them both at the same time. I haven’t lost since I was eight.
For years, I pointed out that I’m good enough to get a scholarship to college for baseball, which likely means they would overlook
C grades. I would also qualify for a scholarship for chess. They’re
few and far between, but they do exist. It wasn’t enough for them.
Because of cuts in federal funding, when teachers retired at my
school, they didn’t replace them. Instead, existing teachers had to
double up, so my math and science teacher was the same woman,
Ms. “Galore”. Ms. Galore is also the faculty advisor to the chess club.
A few months back, on my 18th birthday, I was the only one on the
chess team who made nationals. I spent a lot of time with Ms. Galore
practicing and we became very close. I even gave her a shoulder to
cry on when her husband divorced her for a college cheerleader.
The chess club raised enough money for me and one other person to travel to Las Vegas for nationals. I asked my parents to go.
Mom was working on a reusable rocket design for a private corporation and Dad had been asked to give a talk at the local elementary
school on career day, so they both said no. Despite all their other
accomplishments, I honestly think there are some jealousy issues on
their part. They met playing chess and I’ve been a better player than
the two of them combined since I was a kid.
So I asked Ms. Galore and she said yes.
Despite all the raised money, there was only enough to pay for
one hotel room and we had to share.
The night before the tournament I was real nervous and couldn’t
stop pacing. Ms. Galore suggested we play a game of chess to calm me
down. I beat her in twelve moves and didn’t stop pacing the whole time.
Ms. Galore had been trying to teach me to play with distractions, so she suggested we play strip chess. It was like a dream come
true. Ms. Galore was the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in real life. It
worked because I lost my shirt in the first game, but after that I beat
the pants off her. Then the blouse and bra. I was distracted again
Nth Degree #22
and had lost everything but my boxers before I starting winning
again and finally beat her thong off her, leaving her naked.
She stood to give me a congratulatory hug. When I stood my
boxers had a very distinct shape. Ms. Galore looked down and
smiled and the hug ended up leading to something else much more
intimate and wonderful.
The next day at the national chess tournament, not only did I
win, but I did it in record time. I was motivated. Ms. Galore promised to let me try anything I wanted with her if I won the tournament and I was in a hurry to take her up on the offer.
I got a trophy and a small award ceremony when I got back to
the school. The tournament was in November and ever since then
my grades in math and physics jumped to perfect scores.
My parents were thrilled, although they still give me grief over
my other C classes. I’ve gotten several scholarship offers for both
chess and baseball. One of the chess scholarships would even let me
bring my coach up to the college level with me. And I’m seriously
considering bringing Ms. Galore, because not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, although she is refusing to go to prom
with me. Afraid of losing her job and teaching license.
The problem is I know I didn’t earn those As, at least in the traditional sense. I’m torn about whether or not I should confess, but
I don’t want anything to happen to Ms. Galore or to lose my scholarship offers. And I would love to bring her to college with me to
keep me motivated, but the baseball scholarship is to a better school
and covers everything, while the chess one only covers tuition.
What should I do?
—Chess Player in Cleveland
Dear Chess,
You may be thinking with the wrong body part. Confession
will do nothing positive for anyone involved. You did earn you
grades even if it was not in the traditionally accepted way. For
centuries men have been trading money, prestige and other
favors to women in return for procreational acts. In recent years,
women have been getting in on the act. You seemed pleased
with the results and were not forced, so keep your mouth shut.
Cthulhu recommends not bringing Ms. Galore to college
with you. You may meet someone your own age that you want
to procreate with. Or you may both decide that you are both
in the nonsense called love and want to be together, which
would still get her fired, as few colleges will let their staff procreate with students. Since you are no longer her student, you
might be able to formally date her.
Also it might be disturbing to you if she meets other men at
the college closer to her age and decides to teach them how
to work through distractions the same way she did with you.
Dear Cthulhu welcomes letters and questions at [email protected]. All
letters become the property of Dear Cthulhu and may be used in future columns. Dear
Cthulhu is a work of fiction and satire and is © and ™ Patrick Thomas. All rights
reserved. Anyone foolish enough to follow the advice does so at their own peril. For more
Dear Cthulhu get the collections Cthulhu Knows Best; Dear Cthulhu: Have A Dark
Day; and Dear Cthulhu: Good Advice For Bad People from Dark Quest Books.
Page 37

CONTENTS - Nth Degree

Transcription

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