Issue #2 - Nth Degree

June 2002 #2
w w w. n t h z i n e . c o m
PUBLISHER/EDITOR
Michael D. Pederson
SUBMISSIONS EDITOR
Robert Balder
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Catherine E. Twohill
WEB DEVELOPMENT
Brandon Blackmoor
CONVENTION LIAISONS
June 2002, Issue 2
Karen Edelstein
Lloyd Montgomery
CONTENTS
FEATURES
Conventions by Michael D. Pederson ...................................................................2
The Gaming Closet by Chris Tompkins .............................................................4
Conspiracy Theory by Sean Dylan Weir.............................................................6
FICTION
Question Everything by Catherine E. Twohill ....................................................8
Hector the H2O by Robert Balder .....................................................................10
POETRY/FILKS
Come Out and Play (Federation Style) by Talisman ..................................16
COMICS
BelchBurger by Dan Fahs and Robert Balder.......................................................5
Bob the Angry Flower by Stephen Notley .........................................................9
Cover Illustration by Doug Welsh
Nth Degree is a free publication and may be distributed by authorized distributors only. We encourage you to
submit your manuscripts, illustrations, or photographs, but cannot guarantee the return of any unsolicited materials.
All contributors retain individual rights to their contributions. Nth Degree, 1867 Ivystone Drive, Richmond VA
23233, 804-754-2301, Fax 804-754-2302, email [email protected]. Nth Degree #2 is ™ and © by Big
Blind Productions, June 2002.
June 2002
1
CONVENTIONS
CONVENTION
SCHEDULE
JUNE-AUGUST
June 1-2
ConCarolinas
Charlotte, NC
June 3-6
Frenzy Expo
Washington, DC
June 14-16
Heroes Con
Charlotte, NC
June 14-16
Anime Mid-Atlantic
Richmond, VA
June 14-16
DeepSouthCon
Huntsville, AL
June 21-23
Contata
South Plainfield, NJ
July 5-7
Toronto Trek
Toronto, Ontario
July 5-7
CastleCon
Washington, DC
July 12-14
Shore Leave
Baltimore, MD
July 12-14
Anthrocon
Philadelphia, PA
July 19-21
Queens Con
Charlotte, NC
July 26-28
Confluence
Pittsburgh, PA
July 26-28
LibertyCon
East Ridge, TN
August 8-11
GenCon
Milwaukee, WI
Aug. 29-Sept. 2
Con José
San Jose, CA
Aug. 30-Sept. 2
Dragon*Con
Atlanta, GA
2 Nth Degree
Michael D. Pederson
SheVaCon 10, February 22-24
Roanoke, VA
Attendance for this year’s SheVaCon was approximately 500. Guests of Honor
this year included David Drake and Daniel Horne. SheVaCon 11 is scheduled
for February 21-23, 2003; the location is still being determined.
Stellarcon 26, March
Greensboro, NC
Stellarcon is another mid-size winter convention, one of the last before we
start gearing up for the larger spring and summer cons. Though not a big
con, Stellarcon is definitely a fun ride—throwing a con on St. Patrick’s Day
weekend never hurts. Membership for this year’s
Stellarcon was approximately 500, with a slightly younger average age this year than in recent
years. This year’s Guests of Honor were Allen
Wold and Charles Keegan, with Timothy Zahn,
William R. Fortschen, and Simon Hawke also
serving as guests. Stellarcon’s first real Con Suite
was a major hit. They served sandwiches, chili,
spaghetti, hotdogs, and their signature
Cheerwine. On Saturday night, the Con Suite
also hosted a party for the upcoming
Dragon*Con that was very well attended. The dealers did well this year;
some of the dealers commented that they did more business on Friday than
they did all of Stellarcon 25. This bodes well for the economic situation at
cons. Stellarcon’s Charity Auction raised approximately $1,950 for Hospice
and Palliative Care of Greensboro. StellarCon 27 is scheduled for March 1416, 2003 in High Point, NC.
JerseyDevilCon 2, April 5-7
Edison, NJ
Another fun mid-size con. Incredible programming for a con of it’s size though—Terry
Pratchett, Jerry Pournelle, Charles Grant,
Michael Kaluta, Jeff Menges, and nearly one hundred scheduled events. Plus, a very full Dealer’s
Room; so full, in fact, that several dealers had to
be set up in a separate Dealer’s Row by the Con
Suite. Even more impressive when you consider
that this was only JDC #2. JerseyDevilCon 3 will
be held April 25-27, 2003.
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BLACKWATER FULL MOON & SABBAT CELEBRATIONS — FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Full Moon
FM/Litha
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May 24
June 22
July 25
August 8
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contact Dawn at (757) 393-1773 and she will put you on the schedule.
Fall Gathering of the Tribes
September 12-15, 2002
Special Guests Include:
Robin Wood, Trish Telesco, Dorothy Morrison, Arawn Machia,
Oxun Olakari’ Al’aye, Don and Daniella Waterhawk,
Isaac Bonewits, Dorothy Morrison, Ellen Cannon Reed,
and many, many more to be announced!
Contact us at:
email: [email protected]
website: outofthedark.com/gathering
Out of the Dark, Inc.
Pagan Resource Center
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Windsor, VA 23487
757-357-0664
CEREMONIES HELD AT BLACKWATER CAMPGROUND — ISLE OF WIGHT, VIRGINIA
June 2002
3
THE GAMING CLOSET
Chris Tompkins
Hey, those geeks are just like my roommate!
If you are like me (and unless you have a third nipple and a prehensile tail, you aren’t) you understand that
collectible card games are an over-marketed, indomitable
money-sink for the rich and the stupid. Yet, there is the
allure of a quick, fun, multi-player card game over soda
and pizza. What is the common gamer-on-a-budget to do?
In this issue I will review two non-collectible card games
from the genius that is Steve Jackson Games.
First up is a cute little number called Munchkin. The game
boasts to capture the essence of
the dungeon experience, without all of that tedious role-playing. The boast is well deserved,
as it is easy to play with a smattering of rules that are meant to
be open-ended and easily misinterpreted.
The fun begins with the players starting out as noclass, level one humans. The first player to become a level
ten character wins. After dealing two dungeon cards and
two treasure cards to each player (starting equipment),
play proceeds with the first player “kicking in the door.”
He flips the top card of the dungeon deck; if it is a monster, like the dreaded Mall Rat or the Ghoulfriends, the
player must then fight it. If the player holds cards for any
magic items, like the Horny Helmet or the Chainsaw of
Bloody Dismemberment, his
combat level increases. Winners
are determined by comparing the
player’s combat levels to the
monster’s—highest value wins. If
the player wins the fight, he gets
treasure; if he loses, he “dies” and
reverts to first level. At any time
he can ask other players for help.
Why would others want to help?
Usually, bribing them with a
One, two! And through and through,
share of the treasure works. As The vorpal duck went snicker-quack!
4 Nth Degree
you can tell, there is a great deal of table talk, negotiation,
and smack talking.
The genius and humor of the game come out in the
cards, illustrated by John Kovalic (creator of the online
comic, Dork Tower). RPGers will understand a good deal of
the jokes and non-RPGers will like the game for the social
aspects and fast play time. Each game lasts from twenty
minutes to an hour and is for 2-6 players. Like most Steve
Jackson games, the more people, the better!
Chez Geek is a
nifty little non-collectible card game
about life with roommates. Chances are, if
you’ve never rented an
apartment or house
with several of your
closest friends, you’ve thought about it. The more rational
of us understand that friends are best in small doses.
Others get that house or apartment and learn quickly what
the rational already knew. Remember that you can’t throw
them out, they live there!
The rules are printed on one large sheet of paper, front
and back. They’re easier than poker, but not as easy as
blackjack. There are nine job cards and a healthy stack of
other cards. Each player gets one job card, dealt face-up,
and five other cards, dealt face-down. Your job card tells
you your Income, how much Free Time you have, and
how much Slack you need to win the game. Play proceeds
as follows: you draw up to six cards, roll any dice you need
to roll, call people, do stuff, and discard back down to five
cards. The instant you get enough Slack to win, you win.
The cards (once again illustrated by John Kovalic) are
divided into four types. There are Activity cards (everything
from Mutant Olympics to Gaming Nookie); Thing cards
(Booze, Cigarettes, Weed, Pricey Electronics, etc.); Person
cards; and Whenever cards, which are events or dirty tricks
that you can play on your roommates. You only need one die
to play, a single six-sided. You’ll also need a heap of counters to
represent Slack. Pennies, dice, or poker chips work well.
compared to the folks like the Drummer and the Slacker. In
After drawing up to six cards, we come to the dice-rolling
one shopping trip, a Corporate Drone can, provided he has the
phase. Most commonly, you’ll be rolling for your income if
right cards in his hand, buy five or more points of Slack. The
you have an unsteady job like Temp or Waitstaff. You might
better your job, the more Slack you need to win, but it still
also roll to see if your car breaks down, or if a parseems like the Corporate Drone or Tech Support
asitic visitor leaves. All the rolls in this phase break
guys have the game in the bag; you can, however,
down to the 50/50 rule. 1-3: Bad Stuff happens
drag them down to your level. The Corporate
(the loser in your room doesn’t leave, you have the
Drone, for instance, has only one point of Free
lower income value for that turn), 4-6: Good
Time. If he announces he’s going shopping, you
Stuff happens (loser leaves, higher income value).
can cancel his action by playing a TV card, “Dude!
Next comes the “Calling People” phase. You
Check out this episode of Hitler Science Theater
can call as many people as you like in a turn, proY2K!” He still gets a point of Slack for watching
vided you have their cards in your hand. There are
TV, but he was going to get more than that by
two types of people: those that provide Slack and
shopping. You can send parasitic visitors to your
those that don’t. The people who don’t provide
opponent’s room to consume their Things. Of
Is that a Wand of Wonder
in your pocket…?
Slack will always come over. Usually you play
course, they can get back at you by making your
them on your roommates and they eat their Food, drink their
cat do it’s business in your bed, or playing Moron With A
Booze, smoke their Weed, disrupt their RPGs, or hog their
Chainsaw or Car Alarm to disrupt your precious Sleep. Before
computers. There are a few cards that allow you to get rid of
the game has ended, you might even murder their live-in sigannoying visitors (including Justifiable Homicide).
nificant other, or have a burglar break in and steal their stuff.
After you’re done attempting to get people to hang out
The game really captures the feel of college or post-college
in your room, we come to the “Free Time” phase. It is here
living and it only sets you back twenty bucks. A little more if
that the amount of free time your job affords comes into
you buy the two 55-card expansion sets, Chez Geek 2: Slack
play. You can play Activity cards like Sleep, getting Nookie
Attack and Chez Geek 3: Block Party, which add more jobs,
(a crowd favorite), or playing RPGs. You can also go shoppeople, and activities.
ping and buy Things like a Playstation, a bong, cigarettes,
If you now bask in the glow of the awesome brilliance
beer, even Harold the Hoopty Car!
that is Steve Jackson Games then I heartily suggest you
There’s a strategy element to the game that still manages to
check out his true glory at www.sjgames.com and see what
be comical. On the surface, the high-paying jobs have it all
you’ve been missing.
BelchBurger
by Dan Fahs & Robert Balder
June 2002
5
CONSPIRACY THEORY
Sean Dylan Weir
E.T. phone lawyer…
human test subjects. Uncle Sam was in a real Catch-22. If
he said yes, the greys would have carte blanche to torture
U.S. civilians. If he said no, the greys would end up giving
tech to the Ruskies. Uncle Sam said yes and has been trying to cover it up ever since.
Some people claim to have been abducted by greys.
Maybe I’m a bit odd, but these horrific tales make me
laugh. They remind me of what the gazelles must have felt
like on “Wild Kingdom.” No wonder the greys think it’s
okay to capture and tag free-range humans.
Greys come in two types. One tall, thin, Marlin
Perkins “I’m in charge” type is usually seen with a bunch
of shorter, pixie-like “watch as Jim tries to insert the anal
probe into Cartman” types.
Illustration by Matt McIrvin
These days you can’t do anything without
running into an alien. Movies, television, websites,
bumper stickers, T-shirts, amusement parks, and even
bar motifs have bulbous heads and bulging black eyes
staring at you. I was flipping channels the other day
when I saw an ad for a “Welcome All Species” doormat.
If you bought one, I think you need to get out of the
house more often. And besides, last time I checked, these
sadistic bug-eyed freaks were sailing across the galaxy to
kidnap and torture hillbillies.
If one of them shows up at my house with an anal
probe, I’ll kick his ass.
But no matter how you feel about anal probes, media
attention is intense, and keeping your aliens straight can
be difficult. So, here is an Alien Field Guide; I hope it
will help.
R ETICULANS
Back in 1947, the Reticulans, commonly known as the
greys, landed in Florida and made a deal with Uncle Sam.
They would give us technology in exchange for access to
6 Nth Degree
P LEIADEANS
In 1948, the Pleiadeans landed in Florida and told Uncle
Sam that he had really screwed up. The greys were planning to take over the Earth. The Pleiadeans offered to get
rid of the infestation, but Uncle Sam had to lead a worldwide spiritual renaissance and dismantling of nukes. Uncle
Sam laughed, then said no.
But the Pleiadeans came back in 1972 and hung out
with a guy named Billy Meyers. The original Meyers material included audio recordings, metal samples, detailed star
charts, and thousands of photos and video frames that to
this day defy debunking. There is fake Meyers stuff out
there, so be careful.
The Pleiadeans have elfin features, with ears set low on
the skull, and small pointy chins. Unfortunately, they tend
toward long-winded diatribes on human spiritual development. But I’ll take that over an anal probe any day.
S IRI
Not much is known about these guys from the Dog Star.
What we do know is that they have been given credit for
Atlantis, the Pyramids, the Incan Highway, the Face on
Mars, and those really enormous line drawings of animals
that can only be seen from the air. The Atlantis thing is
kind of iffy, so we’ll have to wait until the Greeks release
their findings. If you hadn’t heard, Greek oceanographers
and archaeologists found Atlantis two years ago. Right
where Plato said it was.
And from what the history books say, Plato didn’t
frown on the occasional anal probe himself.
D EROS
Also known as the Nazi Hell Creatures From Below The
Hollow Earth. Rumor has it that Hitler and his Thule (pronounced tool) Society buddies tried to recruit the Deros as
allies prior to WWII. Representatives from both sides met
at a Hollow Earth entry point in northern Greenland,
where the Deros promptly announced themselves as the
master race, then killed and ate Hitler’s hand-picked envoy.
I’ve always thought the whole Dero thing was just so
much garbage. They’re supposed to be ultra-violent,
hideously ugly munchkins that live in a vast underground
maze, hating the humans that infest the uberworld.
Whatever, Deros don’t worry me.
But I am concerned about Greenland. Does the government really expect us to believe this island is perfectly
flat? No geographical features at all? And why is it always
distorted, made to look so big when it really isn’t?
I LLEGAL
Most people are familiar with illegal aliens from Mexico.
But what about the hundreds of Canadians that sneak
across our northern border every year?
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE ABDUCTED
Shoot first and ask questions later. If you blow an alien’s
brains out, the corpse could be used to confirm everyone’s
worst nightmare. There really are extra-terrestrial sadistic
proctologists. Countless thousands of everyday citizens
have suffered a brutal backdoor defilement and then had
all memory of the event erased.
If you are being abducted, chances are pretty good that
something really uncomfortable is about to happen. If this
sounds like your idea of a good time, then by all means,
order yourself a doormat.
The editor believes that aliens have been sampling the shallow end of
the gene pool for too long and would like to offer them Mr. Weir as a
better example of what they can learn from human anal probing.
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Images © 2002 Doug Welsh, Richmond, VA.
June 2002
7
Question Everything
by Catherine E. Twohill
Waiting. Shifting from one foot to the other. Leaning
against the cold tile walls, my backside is growing numb.
Come to think of it, my hands are, too.
Originally, I was only here to be a spectator. A witness.
You know, everyone loves to see what’s going on—better
than the evening news. The naked eye beats the electronic eye any day. Rubberneckers. Slowing down in false
tribute to safety. We only get peeved when
we’re in a hurry, otherwise, we’ll slow
down, too. Just for a glimpse. Is it
gruesome? Is it bloody? Do I
know anyone?
But now I’m not so sure
I’m a spectator any longer.
I’ve been waiting too long
and have seen nothing
that should be seen. By
definition then, I’m a
“waiter.” Would you care
for fresh ground pepper, sir?
Just say when.
Concentration camp detainee
is the mood of the moment. It’s part
of the fashion scene and reflected in the
eyes of my fellow waiters. Unable to feel.
Uncertain of the future. Unaware of our fate. Oh
wait—we’re moving. Our hollow line marches forward and
the doorway ahead becomes clearer. As does the sound.
Click click click click click click thwump
Brows furrow. Heads turn sideways, swiveling question
marks.
Click click click click click click thwump
Straining toe-to-nose to see above the crowd, I catch
sight of the source. A large bull’s eye with a wooden arm
resting in the center hangs on the far wall visible through
the doorway. An attendant stands beside it. Respectfully
solemn. Robotically, he turns toward the device and pulls
the arm downward in one fluid movement. He’s well practiced. The arm locks into its own mechanism and, after a
moment’s hesitation, begins its methodical trip upward,
one click at a time.
THWUMP
To the average spectator, the sound means nothing but
to me, the waiter, it now means everything. This is it. This
is how it happens. Accidents don’t do it. Cancer doesn’t
either. Neither do guns, suicide, AIDS, or bad shellfish. When it’s your time, you’re herded into
a great line and forced to stand in a
dark clammy corridor—not unlike
the hall leading to your high
school
gymnasium—and
made to wait. Wait for the
thwump.
I wonder if everyone
else in this line knows why
they’re here. Probably not.
After all, I’m pretty darn
clever. More clever than
most. But I suppose if I
were truly clever, I wouldn’t
be here in the first place.
Or perhaps I’m mistaken.
How could this be right? Why would
I be here? I’m young, strong, and healthy.
My number cannot possibly be up. I’ve got way
too much going on to be here right now. Is this like jury
duty? Can I get a waiver or something?
Excuse me, but who might be in charge? I believe a terrible mistake has been made. You see, my life is finally on
the right track, things are going very well and I’d like a little more time to see how everything turns out.
Damn it! Who is responsible for this? I promise you,
heads will roll. You have NO idea who you’re dealing with,
here. Don’t make me come back there.
Okay, I’ll make you a deal. If you let me step outside
for some fresh air, I promise I’ll come back. Really. I just
have some unfinished business to attend to. My mother
always said, “When you start something, you’d best be pre-
No
matter how
you look at it,
death is the final
reality.
8 Nth Degree
pared to finish it.” So, how come I can’t?
No one’s listening. No one cares.
The line is narrowing and dwindling down to just me.
I’m not sure now if I’m going with the flow or if I really
want this to happen. Rapid eye movement is a tricky
state—is it a somnambulist’s bliss or cold, hard reality? We
all want to know what happens when we die. Will we
remain cognizant of the world around us or will we be
thrust into a world beyond our own in sound, smell, and
touch. What about those who die and return to their corporeal state to tell tales? Are those stories only so because
they came back? Is the experience different if your ticket is
punched for a return trip? And what if it happens within
a dream? I’ve heard that if you experience death during
sleep, you will die in reality.
The room is much too bright. The blinding fluorescent
light descends from massive fixtures flooding it into a sterile
cube. Dozens of men without faces line the cinder block and
tile walls, politely whispering their condolences to anyone
who will tolerate their banality. They are the disposers; cleanly and efficiently ridding society of the festering remains.
In the center of the room sits a large wooden chair connected by overhead wires to the bull’s eye on the far wall.
As I walk to the chair, one irony-laden thought exists: I’m
going to remember this for the rest of my life. What a
story this is going to make!
Do I subconsciously know that this is not really happening? Am I dreaming? It’s all so real, I’m not certain any
longer.
Oh my God, he’s just pulled the arm down. Why is
everyone staring at me? Don’t you all have something better to do? Go rubberneck somewhere else and leave me
alone. This is my moment; let me experience it in its finality.
Click click
Death. I’m not sure that I’m ready to embrace it yet.
This is unbelievable—it’s happening so fast and there’s no
time left to stop it.
Click click click
Life. No matter how you look at it, death is the final
reality. So, go with the flow, huh?
Click click thwump
Cold. Like a dry ice fog on a warm summer’s day. Am
I floating? I can’t tell. Perhaps I’m only riding on a cloud
of percale and down. A 200-thread count nimbus to call
my very own.
If you enjoyed this story, please contact the author through [email protected]
June 2002
9
Hector the H2O
by Robert Balder
A
hundred and nine thousand years passed relatively quickly for Hector the H2O. That’s the mercy of being solid;
you are in a low-energy state so you sleep most of the time.
He had been bouncing and singing in the troposphere,
enjoying all of the interesting molecules he was meeting on a
millisecond basis. But as he slid into a low-pressure system
over what would become Newfoundland, he started to slow
down. Molecules he met began to hang around for socially
uncomfortable spans of time. Eventually he met Brenda, who
wouldn’t go away no matter how often he mentioned how late
it was getting. Phil and Delilah soon followed, bringing
Habib, Jermaine and Cassie with them. Hector couldn’t get
rid of any of them.
But he was getting too tired to care. The snowflake they
were forming coalesced and fell onto the white wastes of
Greenland. A week later, a second snowstorm covered them.
Over the millennia, the weight of subsequent snowfalls would
squeeze them into the densest ice pack on Earth. Hector took
the first of many long naps.
Spend a thousand-odd centuries with any six other people
and you are going to get tired of their stories, no matter how
much you sleep. Brenda had one about the time she came out
in a stream of urine from a lioness on the Serengeti, was assimilated into a growing strand of grass, got eaten by a wildebeest
and absorbed into a fat cell, then the wildebeest was hunted
down and eaten…and she found herself back in the
exact same lioness. The times Hector had heard
this gripping story numbered in the seven figures.
Phil had one about being inside an overripe
berry, one of a patch that was eaten by some
passing macaques. The macaques were so intoxicated by the berries that the whole tribe followed their leader off a sixty-foot cliff and into
the Mekong River. After a thousand centuries, he still couldn’t quite get through this
story without cracking up.
Delilah had unfortunately spent the
better part of four billion years trapped in porous
seabed rock, until gradual upthrusting finally released her in a
cloud of steam from an Andean volcano. She was socially
hopeless. Her stories mostly involved the subtle societal inter10 Nth Degree
actions among colonies of anaerobic bacteria. Normally silent,
when she got to the end of a story she would bust out in snorts
and giggles, while the six of them looked at each other and
rolled their hydrogens.
Butch was snotty, Jermaine was aloof, and Habib was so eager
to agree with everyone that everybody wanted to choke him.
Cassie… Well, Cassie was actually a D2O; her hydrogens were
deuterium isotopes. But God forbid you’d use the term “heavy
water” around her. She would launch into a diatribe about stereotyping people based solely on their physical appearance. One of
her monologues could go on for a week, and usually ended with
her bawling inconsolably, while the six of them tried vainly to
reassure her that she really “didn’t look all that heavy.”
Then the day came when Hector awoke to the crash of a
drill bit. A phalanx of diamond molecules, rude and cliquish
as always, plowed through their little social circle without so
much as an excuse-me. Phil, Brenda, Delilah, Habib,
Jermaine, and Cassie were gone. Hector knew he would probably never see them again. As he tumbled along a groove in
the stainless-steel coring bit, he did a happy, happy dance.
H
ector emerged from the tube into light, the first he had
seen since his imprisonment. It excited him. A parkaclad researcher lopped off a section of core sample with a finetoothed diamond handsaw and laid the piece beside three others in an insulated carrying case. Hector was right on the surface of the core sample, and struggled to wiggle free and sublimate into the surrounding air. It was too cold in the tent enclosure, though. The case lid slammed shut, leaving Hector stuck
to three strange molecules named Sanjay, Patsy, and Spike.
D
uring the fifteen weeks they spent in
storage, Hector kept his new friends
endlessly amused. The others had not been
separated in the drilling, except to lose somebody named Oliver, whom they couldn’t stand
anyway. He regaled them with stories of his
time in the seas of the Cambrian Era, explaining
the more sordid aspects of trilobite reproductive
habits with wicked comic timing.
At least, Hector felt they were amused. After
a while he began to suspect that Sanjay was
humoring him, and the others were going along.
So it was with relief that when the case was opened, a gust
of warm breath provided all the energy Hector needed to
escape the uncomfortable social confines of ice.
“Um, bye guys,” he said. He was pretty sure they snickered.
T
he breath which freed him had been expelled by Dr.
Noel Gatlin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute, the very individual who had ordered the core samples to be taken. The senior climatologist was leaning over and
closely examining the cylinders of ice, and on his subsequent
intake of breath, Hector was sucked into his sinus cavity and
firmly plastered to a wall of mucus.
Hector was in warm, gooey ecstasy. Only a few times in his
long life had he enjoyed the sensation of being mucous. It gave
him the freedom of being liquid without the hectic bumpand-grind. It was warmer than almost any lake or ocean, but
without the spastic pace of being steam. He sighed, and slowly circulated through the glorious layer of slime.
H
ector spent the day in Dr. Gatlin’s sinuses, bumping
around and chatting with any molecule who’d even say
hi to him. Most of the proteins he ran into were too wrapped
up in their complex agendas to even notice him. He ran into
a couple of enzymes who picked him up and tossed him
around like a Frisbee™. After so many centuries of having to
keep still, this was actually a lot of fun.
But all good things must end eventually. There are two
major exits from the human sinus, and Hector was ejected at
200 MPH out the most obvious one. Dr. Gatlin, allergic to
dust mites, had sneezed while standing in line at a neighborhood McDonald’s restaurant.
Released as part of a droplet into the warm, moist indoor
air, Hector was a little disappointed but still happy to be free.
He exchanged brief goodbyes with the other H2Os as their
droplet evaporated a few centimeters before it reached the
floor behind the register.
Swept up in the rising air from the floor heater, Hector
swirled around behind the counter, was inhaled and immediately exhaled by two different employees, and then was drawn
near the shake machine.
In one sudden and unpleasant moment, Hector came in
contact with the frigid nozzle and immediately condensed.
Suddenly he felt cold and sluggish, and couldn’t think straight.
Over the next minute or so, countless other water molecules
experienced the same problem and began collecting on the nozzle, slowly forming a drop. It seemed that they were fated to fall
the 15 inches to the drainage pan, but at that moment someone
ordered a strawberry shake. As the shake was dispensed,
Hector’s droplet of condensation fell right into the cup.
The shake was a
special treat for Jimmy
French, age 3, who had
finally demonstrated to
his parents his mastery
of the flush toilet.
McDonald’s is the universal place to celebrate
such an accomplishment. Jimmy happily
consumed about half
of his shake by drinking out of the cup with
both hands and the lid
off. The other half
ended up on the table, the floor, the high chair, Jimmy’s
clothes, and Jimmy’s face.
As fate would have it, Hector was in the half of the shake
which made it into Jimmy’s gastrointestinal tract. Hector
found himself being churned around the little stomach with a
thick crowd of other water molecules, plus a large number of
sugars, fats, and proteins. The enzymes in Jimmy’s stomach
borrowed him in a number of different chemical operations.
Hector thought it was all very interesting.
Before too long, Hector was ushered by peristalsis past the
pylorus and into the small intestine. He made it about four
feet before he started feeling uncomfortable with how many
other waters were around him. He had an overwhelming urge
to move himself somewhere where water was less concentrated. As soon as he had a chance, he shouldered his way through
the semipermeable membrane of one of Jimmy’s intestinal
villi. Hector was now part of Jimmy’s bloodstream.
I
f the pace in the GI tract was brisk, in the bloodstream it was
absolutely frantic. Hydrostatic pressure first forced him into
small veins, then larger ones. He was jostled along until he
reached the vena cava, then the right atrium of Jimmy’s heart.
He was then drawn into the right ventricle, where he was forcefully pumped out the pulmonary artery and into Jimmy’s lungs.
Before long, he reached an alveolus, a tiny sac where
gasses are exchanged. This was an opportunity for Hector to
escape back into the surrounding air as Jimmy exhaled. But
like most of the water in the bloodstream, Hector stayed put
June 2002
11
and continued to circulate.
Still, Hector was not fated to remain in Jimmy’s bloodstream for long. Less than two days after he was part of that
strawberry shake, Hector’s “fantastic voyage” took him
through the convolutions of a nephron in Jimmy’s right kidney. Suddenly, a pair of sodium ions grabbed him like military
police and escorted him across a membrane and into a
glomerular capsule. Hector asked if they were sure they knew
what they were doing.
“We’re positive,” they replied.
S
o from the nephron, Hector passed from the collecting
duct through the renal papillae and into the renal pelvis,
another collection point. Hector had been turned into urine a
few times before, and he always took it hard, like he was being
kicked out of an amusement park. He was forced down a
ureter and into Jimmy’s bladder, which was already full and
making Jimmy start to get fussy.
This was problematic for Jimmy’s parents, because the family
was returning to their home in the Massachusetts countryside
after spending a very full day at the Franklin Park Zoo. They were
almost there, with no convenient toilet stops remaining. As new
as Jimmy was to the mastery of the toilet procedure, they knew
that failing to get him to one before he let fly could become a
trauma he’d be discussing with a therapist in thirty years’ time.
Jimmy’s dad took up the banner. Stomping the minivan’s
pedal, he tore ass over the gravel road which led to their driveway. He was in a race against time.
If anything, the race ended in a tie. Somewhere around
half of those unfortunate molecules in Jimmy’s urine ended up
in the toilet. Jimmy’s parents had a lot of work to do.
But Hector left them behind with a single flush. He had
ended up in the bowl, and now he raced down the pipes. In a
couple of minutes, he was dumped into the septic tank.
T
here were any number of fascinating organic molecules
to meet in the tank, but Hector didn’t stay long. The system pumped him out into the septic field in the yard, where
he sank quickly into the soil.
Being in soil was always interesting to him. It was a game
to see how he could find the quickest and shortest route
through the mineral boulders and other particles, like rockclimbing in reverse.
Since the Frenches’ house sat low in a valley, it was only a
few days before he had made it into the water table. Pressure
12 Nth Degree
from all of the waters seeping in behind him pushed him along.
Eventually he rose up through a spring and into a little stream.
In a moment he was moving very fast, with a lot of liquid
water. They bounced and swirled and babbled down over the
stones of the stream bed. It was the most fun he’d had in a
good part of an eon.
The stream joined a brook, and the brook met the
Quinapoxett River. At the river’s mouth near Oakdale, Hector
passed through a hydroelectric generator. This was confusing
and turbulent, but it didn’t hurt or anything. When it was over,
he was in the still, fresh waters of the Wachusett Reservoir.
H
ector spent eight happy months circulating slowly
through the fresh water. It was good to feel natural
again, to feel that he was among his own people, in his own
element. He blended right back into the water community. It
was almost as good as being the ocean.
But to be water on the planet Earth is to cycle and to
move. Hector’s moving day came when a stray current
brought him by the intake at the hydroelectric plant at the
opposite end of the reservoir, near Clinton. He was drawn
through the turbines once more, and then suddenly there
were miles and miles of pipes to travel.
The pipes led to a plant in Southborough, where suddenly a whole load of fluoride, sodium carbonate, and CO2 were
dumped in with them. The fluoride molecules were apologetic, seeking to bridge the divide between the molecules. The
sodium carbonates and CO2s couldn’t care less.
After crossing the many miles of the Hultman Aqueduct,
they all ended up at the hard-to-pronounce Weston Reservoir.
There they were filtered and, disgustingly, chlorinated. Hector
had actually been enjoying all of the bacteria. They were full
of fascinating organic molecules who were working on various
complicated tasks that he could help with. Nothing kills that
kind of party like a bunch of chlorines crashing it. Just to
express his annoyance, he helped some vandals corrode a pipe.
“The Universal Solvent Rules!” they wrote in rust.
More pipes and holding tanks shuffled him around, until
he was finally released from the plant and sent down a water
main toward who-knew-what.
For many days, Hector flowed along an ever narrowing system of pipes. Each junction and pumping substation he passed
was a decision point, a logical OR-gate which led him inexorably to his unknown destination. It was not like anything that
had ever happened to him. Hector’s whole life had been spent
in little cracks and crannies in Nature. This whole trip he was
on was not natural; it was about civilization. Civilization hadn’t
even existed when he’d snowed on Greenland.
Eventually Hector passed into some truly strange plumbing. He was inside a narrow coil of copper tubing. He came to
a stop, and waited patiently.
All around him were fellow H2Os, jostling around at a
comfortable room-temperature pace. He had time to briefly
meet thousands and thousands of others, exchanging pleasantries and instantly forgetting names, the way he imagined
only water molecules must do.
There were a few minerals and impurities in the mixture,
most of which bobbed around miserably, like retired bookkeepers in a mosh pit. Hector gleefully joined a bunch who
were knocking around a big fleck of charcoal in a pick-up
game of Brownianball. The charcoal attempted to preserve the
remainder of its dignity with a glum silence.
Every few minutes there would be a sudden rush of
pressure and they would all move along the tube
at once. Hector didn’t know what all of this
was about, but he figured he would find
out in due time.
He did, and it wasn’t pleasant.
On the last rush, the copper tube
emptied into a small chamber surrounded by a heating element. A
wave of searing heat stabbed into the
water, and pandemonium broke out.
The loose and friendly crowd suddenly
became a panicked, screaming mob, shoving and trampling, punching and kicking and
elbowing each other in a vain attempt to get anywhere but right where they were.
But nobody got anywhere. The heat and the pressure just
kept building. Hector had not experienced anything this profoundly unpleasant in all his four billion years on Earth. It
reminded him of his earliest memory, when he’d arrived as part
of the cometary bombardment. All those ages ago, he had awakened from the mindless cold sleep of deep space to find himself
instantly boiled away into the thin and nasty atmosphere of the
primordial planet. It hurt like being born, and perhaps that’s
when he had been. Prior to that, he had no clear memory at all.
The hellish riot in the chamber went on and on. In this
high-energy state, Hector crashed around like a cannonball,
slamming everyone with all his weight, and taking a beating
right back. The pressure rose to an excruciating 220 PSI. His
time sense was distorted. In some ways, the few moments he
was there seemed to last longer than all of his recent millennia
in Greenland. But it did end.
A
fter finishing up a conference call, Kenneth Czonka decided to grab a cup of coffee. He worked for a successful little
research and consulting firm which specialized in helping major
construction companies write their environmental impact statements. Their well-appointed corporate offices were stocked with
expensive gadgetry, and the employee break room even had an
espresso machine. Kenneth absently fixed himself a hazelnut
latte, while mulling over a tricky bit of language in an email he
was composing to a deputy undersecretary at the EPA.
H
ector was confused and agitated, and not at all pleased to be
part of a hot beverage. The espresso grounds he had been
forced through had released all kinds of freaky molecules
into their water-only party. There were tannins and
essential oils and amino acids and some really
bizarre ones that Hector couldn’t identify
but who muttered incomprehensibly in
thick accents. The lot of them had been
dumped into a Styrofoam cup, and
then suddenly had to deal with a whole
crowd of obnoxious lactoses and fats
from a swirling vortex of steamed milk.
After that, the simple carbohydrates
showed up, babbling dimwits that they
are, in the form of the hazelnut syrup. It was
like a billion busloads of special-ed students
simultaneously arriving at the zoo.
Hector decided it was time to be elsewhere.
As convection brought him around again to the surface, he
put all of his angry energy to use and heaved himself into the
air, evaporating out of the cup in a peal of steam. All of the
H2Os in the steam screamed together in triumph. Their mass
prison break was a success!
It took him almost no time to calm down and relax again.
He drifted and bobbed in the air of the break room for an hour
or two, thinking about everything he had been through since
getting free of the ice pack. He’d certainly have some more stories for Cassie and the others if he ever ran into them again.
He considered the mind-walloping odds against that possibility and surprised himself by feeling a little sad. The bonds
June 2002
13
between water molecules are chemical and made to be broken,
he supposed.
H
e was very swiftly reminded that new bonds will form.
Jenny Gumble, personal assistant to the CIO, opened
the door to the office freezer to grab her Healthy Choice™
turkey dinner. Hector swirled inside and before he knew what
had happened he found himself stuck. He was now a freezerburn crystal on the part of a fried chicken drumstick that was
not well-covered by its aluminum foil. He fell asleep at once.
A
little flame-war developed in the office around the subject of the chicken drumstick in the freezer, and the
many other leftovers “from home” which had been orphaned
in the office fridge. The emails were variously snide, passionate, dramatic, bombastic, resentful, subversive, and even mutinous. There were dark implications: hints at class warfare, suggestions of blackmail, and aspersions on character and personal habits. The drama played itself out over 18 grueling
days. It ended in one dismissal, one resignation, one spontaneous affair, and the mortal wounding of the young company’s entire corporate culture. As a snowflake forms around a
speck of dust, this drama formed around that drumstick.
Frozen and sleepy as he was, Hector hardly even noticed
the 18 days as they passed. He barely got the names of the
other waters next to him in the freezer-burn crystal.
As the War of the Drumstick reached its climax, technical
writer Angelie Bauman emptied the entire contents of the
refrigerator into the trash can, including at least $30 worth of
her own food. The drumstick she grabbed and marched out of
the break room.
Shrieking a surprisingly coherent and pointed string of
obscenities, she flung it overhand. It sailed over the heads of
her cube-mates, in the general direction of her email archnemesis Denny Plimpton’s corner office. In midair, the foil
came off and fluttered on top of the monitor of an astonished
temp. The frozen drumstick missed the office door by several
feet and hit the window with a loud “pung!”
L
ife as a freezer-burn crystal had been dull, but life as a
window-glass fried-chicken smudge wasn’t much more
interesting. Hector was warm and awake again, but found he
couldn’t move around a lot. This was because a whole bunch
of lipids, those greasy types who like to shove little waters
around, had formed a blocking layer. Like heavy security at a
14 Nth Degree
concert, they wouldn’t let anybody through to evaporate.
Hector bobbed over to one of them. “Um, excuse me,” he
said, “but could I just—”
“Ah!” it interrupted. “LIPID!”
“But I just need to—”
“LIPID!”
“C’mon I just—”
“LIPID!”
“But—”
“Www.LIPID.com!”
Hector stared at the lipid for a long, tense moment.
“Listen. I—”
“WHEN a problem comes along, yoooou must LIPID!”
the lipid sang.
“Oh, never mind,” muttered Hector, and wandered off.
“LIPID good!” taunted the lipid after him. Hector heard
him high-fiving the other lipids.
Opposite the lipid cordon, Hector bumped into an even
denser and more antisocial bunch — the silicons of the glass. You
couldn’t talk to them, and you couldn’t budge them. There was
just no getting through silicons when they were being a pane.
So he waited there until late at night, when a man on the
cleaning staff came and cleaned the smudge off the window.
By coincidence, his name was also Hector. Hector the janitor
sprayed an ammonia cleaner onto the glass, which wasn’t
pleasant for Hector the water. And it was absolute murder on
the lipids. Hector the water watched in horror as they died by
the billions at the hands of vicious ammonia molecules. Then
he was wiped up into Hector the janitor’s grimy paper towel,
and thrown into a plastic trash bag.
The towel was awful for Hector, and there was nowhere he
could go. The fibers just kept clutching and groping at him with
their thirsty capillary action. He was drawn along a long channel,
filled to capacity with unfortunate water molecules like himself.
They formed a seemingly endless queue, each waiting to reach the
edge of the paper and evaporate. Hector’s turn never came.
I
t was five years of Hell before an advanced team of seepage
managed to breach the bag, now buried under a hundred
tons of garbage in a major landfill, and rescue Hector from his
cell by helping bacteria dissolve the last of the towel. When
they reached him he was babbling and had the shakes. The
seepage took him along, squeezing through the cracks
between soil particles and dripping, dripping down into the
earth. By the time Hector reached the water table, he almost
remembered who and what he was.
He had a long, slow convalescence in the water table.
There were endless refugees from the landfill, some of whom
had been trapped for much longer than he had. For months,
the lot of them trudged along slowly through the institutional gray corridors of porous bedrock, wailing and muttering.
After a while, Hector began talking to some of the waters
who were worse off than he was, helping them work through
it. He was finally starting to recover.
A
nd then one day he bumped into something that was not
rock, but organic. With a horrible flashback to the paper
towel, he was grabbed and yanked through a pore in the thing,
then drawn ever inward by that same sinister capillary action.
He screamed, despite himself.
But before long he realized where he was. He knew that he
had been here many times before. The thing which had
absorbed him was a taproot, which belonged to a 2-month old
maple sapling. As he squeezed along slowly, he began to feel
the life around him, to feel a part of the whole living system.
He knew that if he could reach a leaf, he would probably
evaporate through a pore and be free to roam the atmosphere,
free to be rain, or even ocean again. As much as he wanted these
things, he realized that he needed something more right now.
And so, before he had even reached a branch, Hector
shouldered his way into a crack in a cell wall, and faced a cell
membrane.
“LIPID!” said the lipids of the membrane.
“Screw you,” said Hector. They were much weaker than
the lipids of the grease smudge had been, and he rammed his
way past them. On the other side, inside the tree cell, there
were lipids who were just as interested in keeping him in.
He made his way through the cytoplasm, past various molecules more complex than a simple H2O, and who seemed perplexed by his sense of purpose. Near the nucleus, he found an
RNA and told it respectfully that he was reporting for work.
“I want to be a part of this tree, sir,” said Hector. “I want
it to grow, and thrive, and grow old…as trees go. It’s crazy out
there. I need to be a part of something stable, but not stable
like the ice pack, stable but growing and improving, alive and
beneficial. Do you understand, sir?”
The huge RNA nodded sagely, and put him to work.
If you enjoyed this story, please contact the author through [email protected]
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June 2002
15
Come Out and Play (Federation Style)
by Talisman
Tune: “Come Out And Play” by The Offspring
(Spoken words in italics)
[Long musical intro]
I wrote this filk for a group of men and women who just
don’t seem to get the amount of respect they deserve.
They’re out there every day, putting their lives on the line,
exploring strange new worlds that try to kill them, seeking
out new life that tries to kill them, and new civilizations
that try to kill them, but they really have an image problem. I think a tough new theme song is just the thing to
help them shake that wimpy image. This is for Starfleet.
By the time you see em decloak,
It’s already too late.
Got a main hull breach, decks seven and eight.
Yer shields are dead, you can’t compensate.
We had our Prime Directive.
Made an exception this time. [cap-in-their-ass gesture]
The warp core’s hot, so we’ll lay in a course.
With tech like this, who the hell needs The Force?
I’m married to my ship, but she wants a divorce.
You gotta beam me up, Chief. Beam me up. Beam me
up, Chief! HEY!
Get the sensors back online, check it out.
You gotta keep em Federated.
Now we’re goin back in time, check it out.
You gotta keep em Federated.
HEY! In our Galaxy Class,
We can’t quit now, cause we’re kickin too much ass.
Hey HEY! Come out and PLAY.
[Musical bridge. More Vulcan hand jive.]
A crack-shot crew, we’re a long way from home.
Get an itchy trigger finger when you’re out here alone.
Shoot anything that moves in the Neutral Zone.
You gotta light it up, light it up, light it up, light it up
HEY!
Man, the Romulans encroach, you take em out.
You gotta keep em Federated.
You see something weird approach, take it out.
You gotta keep em Federated.
HEY! In our Galaxy Class,
We can’t quit now, cause we’re kickin too much ass.
Hey HEY! Come out and PLAY.
[Musical bridge, do Vulcan hand jive]
Let’s see a little of this. Yeah, for the Vulcans in da house.
We met the Borg Collective,
At Wolf 3-5-9.
Okay one more time. Put your hands in the air. Like it
would be illogical to care.
We’ll fire all guns and we’ll have us some fun
On the N-C-C-1-7-0-1,
Cause you can’t get the chicks when your phaser’s on stun
You gotta shoot-it-up! Shoot! Shoot-it-up, shoot-it-allup, HEY!
When the Klingons go berserk, you take em out.
You gotta keep em Federated.
Hey, did I hear a red alert? Take em out.
You gotta keep em Federated!
Hey HEY! You can’t deny,
The captain ain’t whack, he’s pretty fly for a bald guy.
Hey HEY! Come out and PLAY!
Make it so, yo.
Illustration by Michael D. Pederson
16 Nth Degree
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