If the World Were Flat

There once was a world that was flat. On one side, the sun shone all the time and, on the other side, the moon and stars reigned. Right in the middle of the moon's side sat a woman who spent her days staring up at the stars with sadness and hope in her eyes.

One day a pelican flew from the side of the sun to the side of the moon, and saw the woman, cross-legged at the centre of the world. It landed next to her and asked:

"What are you looking at?"

"The stars and moon. I wish they were bright enough to show me myself."

"The sky on the other side of the world is much brighter than this one," said the pelican. "What if I took you there, where you could be lit up by the sun?"

"Oh, no." The woman drew her legs to her body and shook her head. "This light is all I am meant to have. Any more and every would see how hideous I am." The pelican paused for a moment, as if to think, then flew away. After a while, it returned and placed a rock in the woman's hand.

"This is a gem of great beauty," it said to her. "But yours is greater by far." The woman smiled politely and turned the stone over in her fingers. It looked like nothing of value in the light of that side of the world, but it felt smooth.

"Thank you. It's nice," she said, setting it aside, and resumed her staring. After a pause, the pelican flew off again, this time returning with a full mouth of more smooth rocks which it placed next to the woman.

"These are gems of great beauty," it said, "But yours is greater by far."

"They look like nothing to me," said the woman gently. The pelican shook its head and flew off again, returning with more of these rocks. It proclaimed the woman's beauty, and the woman politely disbelieved, which only caused the pelican to go and return again with more. This continued until the pile of rocks next to the woman had become a mountain, but the pelican's insistence did nothing to change the woman's mind.

Then, while the pelican was away, an eagle came to the moon's side of the world. It noticed the woman, the hope in her eyes, and its heart fell to see the sadness that kept the hope powerless. It flew down and settled next to the woman, asking the same thing that the pelican had, and received the same answer.

"My lady," the eagle said, "I am an eagle, and my eyes are the strongest of all creatures, but even the blind mole could see your beauty, no matter what lit the sky." Then it flew away, but its words echoed in the woman's heart and the hope shone bright in her eyes.

"Even the blind mole?" she asked herself. On a whim, she stood and stepped towards the mountain next to her, suddenly hungry to see its supposed grandeur. With that step, the balance of the world shifted and it started to turn upside down, rotating slowly at first, but with greater speed the closer she came to the mountain. Before long, a bright light peeked over the edge of the moon's side of the world. It rose gently from the horizon, filling it with blue. The woman stopped moving, watching the sun as the world settled again, watching as the brightest of lights came to rest in the centre of the sky. And when the woman looked back at the mountain, she put her hands to her mouth in surprise.

The mountain blazed with colour, with ruby and emerald, sapphire and diamond. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen...

Until she saw herself reflected in it.

May you see your beauty as clearly as those who know you.

Fox Red: An Interlude

Seventeen: An Interlude

Imagine, if you will, a young boy—about seven, say—who thinks he’s the cleverest thing in the whole damn world. Sadly for him, he’s not far wrong—but clever doesn’t mean wise.

This kid, this boy—this genius—has played in the bush behind the house forever, wandering all the way down to the pine plantations that line the highway that’s the lifeline of this little two-bit town called Jilamatang. Regional Victoria, back of the Snowy Mountains, over an hour to the nearest thing they’ve got to a city. He’s outgrown the place and he isn’t even in double digits. Good thing they have the internet, even though the connection’s slower than the post from Melbourne.

He wanders far and wide, spends the whole day exploring while his parents think he’s a good lad in school—an easy ruse because school’s also easy—and one day, he discovers something worthwhile. Not far from town, a couple of kilometres or so, there’s an old train line. Barely anyone remembers it, and even the real old timers hardly know it’s there. But he knows. It’s always been a sort of demarkation, the eastern border of his domain, and he’s had it in mind that he probably oughtn’t cross it. Crossing it, he feels, is maybe a step too far from his parents’ world.

But of course, one day, his curiosity gets the better of him and, breath held by tightly pressed lips that quiver with anticipation, he skips across old rails rusted to the colour of fox’s fur. At first, nothing seems to have changed. The air tastes the same, the same wind blows against his skin, and the same sun beats down upon his shoulders.

But then the trees overhead grow denser, gnarled eucalypts and wattles give way to lofty, straight-trunked pines, needles flared against the bright sun and crisp air of early autumn. Their leaves will not succumb to the on-coming cold. Never mind that neither will the eucalypts’; the pines would have everyone know that needles, at this altitude, this close to the highest mountain in the whole entire country, are superior, which is why their trunks are so tall and straight while the poor little natives twist and bend, backs crooked in submission to the wind.

The thick mat of rust-coloured needles devours the boy’s footsteps more effectively than any carpet, and for a while it’s eerily quiet. It grows colder, too, and the boy shivers, even though summer still lingers in the air in long, hot afternoons and the true bite of winter is months away.

Through the trees, something shifts, and he catches glimpse of something moving, something big—something alive. And although his heart pounds like it wants to escape his chest and run right back home to the safety of his kitchen, the boy continues. This, he knows, will be a sight worth seeing.

He follows the half-glimpsed beast for maybe thirty minutes, though it seems that either seconds or hours have passed, and then—at last—he reaches a clearing in the pines where granite boulders pile up high like someone has torn away the skin of the world and exposed its spine. And there, atop the boulders, head thrown high against the sky, antlers broad and strong enough to tear apart the clouds, stands the last thing he’d have expected to find in alpine Australia: a giant grey deer, easily as tall at the shoulder as the boy is himself—and he is hardly short for his age.

The stag tosses its antlers, and the boy can feel—feel—the words the stag would say, if it could talk—if it would talk.

Welcome, the stag says. Welcome to the home of the Winter King.

The boy bows politely, because it seems like that is a thing that should be done, and when he straightens up again, the stag is gone.

But he knows, now, the boy, where this Winter King lives, and now he'll never leave it alone.
Time after time he returns, at any hour of the day: the crisp, bright light of of a dew-covered morning, the frosty bite of a late autumn evening, the blazing hot midday summer sun as he runs through the bush, wild and free while school is out.

Time after time, the boy returns to the Winter King, and slowly, he begins to love him. Both hims, that is, come to love the other him, and they stand with each other for hours, foreheads pressed together or flank to flank, saying all the things the Winter King would say if the Winter King decided he wanted to speak.

The boy rubs the knot at the end of the Winter King’s spine, right before it turns into a tail, and brings him sweet carrots and apples and old-fashioned lumps of cane sugar. The Winter King whispers secrets into the little boy’s heart, right before it turns into his consciousness, and feeds him joys and delights too subtle for words to make out. Probably the Winter King enjoys it as much as the boy does, for although the boy is lonely—at school, at home—at least his has his parents, and they love him very much.

The Winter King has no one.

Well, that is not quite true, the boy learns. The Winter King has his storm foxes, ethereal spirits that ride the winds like hawks, soaring and diving and tumbling. The storm foxes love the spring storms best of all, when thunder splits the sky like canons and the lightning flashes strobe-like across the forest. They love the storms because storms bring freedom: the Winter King cannot contain them when the heavens open and rage, and through spring and summer his power wanes almost entirely.

Then, one day, the boy has no one either. His mother and father fought, and although that wasn’t unusual, the fact that his mother left and didn't come back was.

He didn’t realise until years later what the little plastic stick in the bathroom bin had meant; why his mother had cried for three days straight before the fight that ended it all; why his father had been so relieved to see her go. Not that he ever said he was relieved, and the boy knew his father missed his mother—but he also walked as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. An important weight. A weight of about seven or eight pounds, if the boy understood things correctly, that would last some eight or nine months and then the rest of their lives.

The boy thought he might have quite enjoyed that weight. It might have been just heavy enough to hold his family together.

But alack, the weight had vanished—from his father’s shoulders, his mother’s body—and so his mother vanished from their family, and the boy felt all alone.

That was the night it happened. The night he told the Winter King what he wanted—and the night he learned that sometimes, what we want is the worst thing we can imagine.

He was supposed to fly.

Instead, he thudded to the ground. And he learned that even foxes can cry, if they’re really, truly sad enough.


If you enjoyed this story, check out the That Moment When anthology, which contains the first part of Fox Red!

Plane Travel

            Plane Travel:

You                              start

like                              this

            elbows in

         ankles crossed

         never touching

       but      s    l     o      w       l        y

you start to  s

                        p

                          r

                               a

                                     w

                                              l

Because       HOUR   HOUR   HOUR

                     HOUR   HOUR   HOUR

                     HOUR   HOUR   HOUR

                     HOUR   HOUR   HOUR

                     HOUR   HOUR   

                                                is a really long time.

            Elbows bump.

            (sorry)

            Knees touch.

             Sorry.

A baby’s foot brushes your leg.

             Sorry!

It’s not a problem. Also, he’s adorable.

            …Thanks!

This is how friendships begin.

Is fourteen hours long enough to make

                        a friend?

            Maybe.

     in the right time

     in the right place

with the right people.

            Either way,

             You   can

              now sit

              likethis

The Kitten Psychologist Broaches the Topic of Economics

There once was a little kitten. No, not the kitten I wrote a story about in September.

Definitely a different kitten. A very different kitten.

Oh, fine. It’s the same kitten. So I’m reusing characters. So what?

This kitten had had a hard time going outside. Which is as much to say as it didn’t. Not after its first experience with snow, which is probably like a person’s first experience with horseradish: you either like it or you don’t. And, in this case, the kitten didn’t like it.

In the last story, wherein the kitten realized that there was probably maybe some benefit to going outside after paying me good money to sit around and ask it questions containing answers that it decided it had come up with all on its own, wondering what I was doing with my life being a psychologist to my friends’ nine week old kitten.

The only problem with this picture (I mean, aside from the obvious) was that the kitten wasn’t paying me out of its own money. Let’s be serious: I can be a kitten psychologist all I want, but we have to admit that a kitten having its own income stream at nine weeks stretches credibility quite thin. Which is as much to say as that this kitten had mastered the use of arcane computer enchantments and pulled the money from my friends’ – its owners’ – bank account.

Frankly, I thought my friends would have figured it out on their own. It might have been a bit cowardly of me to wait until they got a clue and started investigating but either this kitten was more clever than I thought or my friends had an awful memory for their own spending habits. I’m not actually sure which is more concerning, but I had plenty of concern on hand to spend no matter which it turned out to be.

In other words, while my friends were out of the country a couple of weeks later, I house-sat. And, as I sat the house, I had a conversation with my friends’ kitten.

“You really have to stop this,” I said.

“I don’t pay you to have an opinion,” the kitten said with a swish of its tail.

“You pay me to be a psychologist. That’s exactly the same as paying me to have an opinion.”

“What happened to unbiased objectivity?”

“Fine. In my unbiased, objective opinion, you have to stop this.”

The kitten tapped its chin. “Stop what?”

“Paying me from my friends’ bank account without their knowledge or consent.” As if it didn’t already know.

“If you don’t like it, I can always find another psychologist…”

“That’s not the point.”

“And how do you propose I tell them about it when the idea of my sentience is patently absurd to them? Certainly you can’t. They already think you’re crazy.”

Obviously, I was going to have to have a conversation with more than just the kitten. “And how would you inform a potential new psychologist of this patently absurd idea?”

“That’s different. They’re not my human. They aren’t used to me. They don’t have ingrained ideas or habits about me to contend with.”

I bit back a sarcastic remark about the strength of eleven week old habits. For the kitten, that was a lifetime. That and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t had plenty of ingrained habits and ideas of my own about the nature of kittens when this one hired me. I wondered if maybe I should have kept one or two of them. No amount of income was worth this trouble. Well. Perhaps not certain amounts of income.

“Well, just give it some thought and see what happens,” I finally said.

The kitten avoided me after that.

Which could have been the end of that, I suppose. Certainly it seemed like it, which I was a bit peeved about, to be sure. But, in a few days, I received an email:

Come at once. My humans are away. Sincerely, you know who. 

I wondered if the kitten had finally got to my friends’ YA collection. That and I went.

“So, I told my humans.”

“How did they take it?”

“Now they’re seeing a psychologist.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“You know-” the kitten stretched- “I’ve come to a realization.”

“Oh?”

“This is a ridiculous situation. I’m a kitten. Why do I even need a psychologist?”

I shrugged.

“Exactly. I should be going my wild way on my wild lone. Except…” it glanced at the couch. “…I don’t think I’m prepared to give up the amenities of my current living situation.”

“Then don’t.”

“Oh, I’m not. This may not be ancient Egypt, but this is certainly something. Do you suppose you could talk to my humans? Now that I have, that is.”

And admit that I’d been complicit in what was essentially theft? Um. “No.”

“Drat. I had a feeling this was my fight.”

Sure. That’s exactly what it is.

“Well, do you have any advice on what I should do next? Some words of wisdom I’ll probably ignore when I inevitably come up with something better? Like nothing? I rather like the idea of doing nothing.”

“If you’ll just come up with something better, then why do you need my advice?” No, theft was too harsh a word. Underhanded dealing, perhaps?

“It’s amusing.”

“So, am I psychologist or court jester?”

“Whichever makes you feel better, I suppose.” The kitten yawned. “I’m going to have a nap. If you come up with something, email me. Or stop by. I’ll pay you as soon as you do.”

Who was I kidding? It was definitely theft. By the time I’d got home, I realized that. I also realized that, despite the fact that the kitten really should be acting responsibly with its humans, so should I with my friends. With a sigh, I picked up the phone.

I wondered how long I’d be paying them back.

Dear psychologist human,

I’m not entirely sure what you stood to gain by informing my humans of your part in all this. My intention had been for you to merely vouch for my sentience. You have done me a service, and it is right that you should be compensated in turn, not that you should throw that all away.

But no matter. We shall speak when you return from vacation. I think you will see things much more clearly when this is all over.

Sincerely,

You know who.

The story continues in The Kitten Psychologist vs the Kitten's Owners.

A Glimmering Green Hope

Galen Andez crossed the threshold to his living quarters and set the door code to private. There were times when he would welcome the intrusion of his flight. Some days he left the door open hoping he'd catch someone from the training fleet to come and join him for an evening meal. Today his head ached, his muscles screamed in protest after extensive use, and he was the kind of fatigued that would end either with eighteen hours of sleep or with killing someone.

There wasn't an in-between on days like this. Too many hours linked to a Daylion Pride fighter could kill a man. This week he'd been hitting his limit every day ending in Y.

Stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt he tossed it in the general direction of his room before prowling over to the kitchen. Food. Lots of food, heavy on carbs and vat-grown proteins, and then he was going to sleep like the dead. Showers could wait.

He eyed the remains of a kitchen that had gone through this carnage six days trying to find something. Going out shopping was out of the question. Having his food delivered would require more human interaction than he could mentally entertain at the moment. There had to be something. A ration bar if nothing else.

A wink of emerald green caught his eye.

He tilted his head, watching the shimmering green to see if it would wink away, a hallucination caused by too many hours uplinked to a machine. Nope.

Stalking into the receiving area he stared down at the emerald green bra draped casually over the arm of one of the low, comfy chairs. None of the women in fleet wore bras under their body armor. It was, he'd been told, both uncomfortable and redundant. The body armor did an excellent job of keeping bouncing to a bare minimum. This... he ran a finger over the curve of the plush bra before picking it up. This was a fancy cage for full breasts.

The scent of warm wood and fresh grass lingered on the fabric like the memory of a ghost. Lyrian treesilk... expansive and luxurious. He caressed the fabric. Oh, hell yes!

There was only one woman he knew who would wear Lyrian made clothing. Last time he'd seen her he'd been a junior cadet still fighting for a chance to become a fighter pilot. She'd been... something else. Nothing like fleet. Nothing like the station-raised normcore people he'd been raised with. No ground pounder or starchaser could compare.

Just remembering her set his blood burning. The taste of her kiss was addictive, her voice hypnotic... Women like her were trouble. Sometimes the cause of it, but sometimes just there, like a rogue catalyst in the chemical equation of life.

A background sound he hadn't registered in his fatigued stupor became silent. He looked toward to the refresher room where the sound of water had stopped. Oh, hell no.

"Shyla?"

The door cracked open and a vixen with brindled hair curling from the refresher's humidity grinned at him. "Hiya, handsome. Dinner's in the chiller. I'll be out in a moment."

"Oh. No." Galen shook his head as his body tried to divide into two equal halves. One half wanted to run like a star was about to collapse in front of him. The other half wanted to rush to her embrace.

She tilted her head to the side, the little coquette. "No?" One bare foot crossed the threshold between the door and the living area. A tanned, toned leg followed, hinting at the naked body hidden from view. "Should I come out now?"

"What are you doing here?" His mouth was dry. Aching muscles found new life. She could have asked him to dance across the vacuum of space and he wouldn't have stopped to grab an EVA suit.

"My room wasn't ready, and I needed to shower. I didn't think you'd mind. Do you?" Her voice was pitched perfectly, a cross of sweet innocence combined with the fluster of a girl who knew he was cross but couldn't quite understand why.

Which was a bloody lie. Shyla was a 'pathic, one of the rare humans who could touch other human minds.

Every computer could read a person's fingerprint. Every 'pathic could read a mindprint, the unique pattern than belonged to an individual. She wouldn't have had to consult anyone to find him. She'd probably walked past, felt the impression of him in the room, and waltzed in without further thought.

"What if this were my girlfriend's room?" Galen asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I checked for women's clothes and signs of a lover. I wouldn't have stayed if I thought you were with someone." She stepped out of the refresher room wearing the shortest dress he'd ever seen on a woman. It might have been a long shirt. The navy blue fabric dropped from a string around her neck and unapologetically covered only the most spectacular views. Her back, arms, and legs were free to view, and he did, reveling in the sight of her.

Shyla reached out and stroked the side of his face with a gentle hand. "You're hurting."

He closed his eyes and took her touch too. The pain in his head eased, his muscles relaxed, the tension that wrapped around him like a boa loosened its grip. "Shyla..." He'd meant to rebuke her, to push her away, but it came out as a prayer.

One moment she was standing at arm's length, the next she was pressed against him, the heat of her body washing through him. Her lips found his, and he was lost.

When he opened his eyes he was laying on his bed with Shyla propped up on one elbow beside him. His pants were still on. The magical blue dress was still clinging to her and hiding everything he wanted to see. Shyla had added a knowing smile to her wardrobe. And he felt better than he had since the war started.

He flopped back on the pillow with his eyes closed. "Shyla."

"You needed it."

"No. I was fine."

"You were close to breaking."

"I was fine. I needed some nutrients and some sleep, not a full healing."

Two points of warmth touched his bare chest. Fingers, walking from his navel to his sternum, then dragging back down with the faintest hint of pain as her nails abraded his skin. He arched his spine involuntarily as she pulled her hand away. Every nerve in him thrummed with needing.

"You need so much more than healing, Commander." Her breath was hot against his ear.

"Shyla." This time her name came out as an impatient growl. Seven years without her. Seven years of thinking of what he would say next and all he'd managed to grind out was her name. Galen pressed his palms to his eyes in a desperate attempt to center himself. "Why is it that I can't think around you?"

"Because you haven't had a decent sex partner in three years and you've spent every waking hour since we parted beating your body into a pulp for the glory of the fleet and the safety of humanity."

"It's not about glory." Not anymore.

"Dying to save the rest of the species isn't a very efficient plan," Shyla said. She shifted on the bed and he felt the weight of her pulling the mattress down, the heat of her body near but not touching. "You should at least donate to the gene pool before you kill yourself."

A horrible thought occurred to him. "You're not-"

"No." She didn't need to hear the question. She probably didn't need to hear him talk at all. "Breath, Galen. I'm on the station for work. Lawfully hired. You aren't aiding or abetting a fugitive."

"This time."

"This time," she agreed. "Nor did I come to seduce you, well, not with the intent to procreate. Children aren't really in my five-year-plan at this point." The bed bounced as she got up. "Come on, flyboy. You need to rehydrate before you fall back asleep."

He let her take his hand and pull him out of bed. "Shyla?"

She stopped in the doorway, silhouetted by the light of the kitchen. "Hmm?"

"I'm glad you're back."

The Crystal Mountain

Somewhere in the world is a crystal mountain. People often ask it why it's made of crystal, to which it replies:

"Why does green make you feel happy?"

To which a number of psychologists opened their mouths, but the mountain quickly added:

"It's a rhetorical question. I don't know why I'm made of crystal. Why would I know the answer to that?"

To which the philosophers opened their mouths--

"Rhetorical question, guys."

Now, inside the mountain were several angler fish and goblin sharks, and they could be seen through the sides of the mountain. They swam about within the mountain, completely unperturbed by the implausibility of their own existence. Various people tried to ask the fish how they could possibly survive inside a mountain, and how they could survive without food, for none of them were ever seen to eat.

This proceeded to do nothing but give the mountain a headache, about which it complained loudly.

At the centre of the mountain was a star, which shone very brightly at night and faintly during the day.

"How does it change brightness like that?" the people asked the mountain, correctly assuming that trying to ask the star this would end the same way as the fish interrogation.

"What about my questions?" asked the mountain. "Why do you get to ask me all the questions? Don't I get answers, too?"

The adults all looked at each other, trying to figure out if they should be offended.

"What answers?" said a five-year-old.

"Oh, I like this one. This one's smart." Then the mountain leaned in close - complete with its implausible fish and changeable star - and continued in a quieter voice. "Why do people say they'll be friends forever with someone only to not call them when they move away?"

"Dunno."

The mountain harrumphed. "Well, why do children make fun of one child just like them and exclude that child from their number?"

"Because they're weird."

"Really?"

The five-year-old thought about it. "Probably not."

"Then why?"

"Dunno."

"You're not being particularly helpful."

"Sorry."

The mountain leaned back. "Does anyone else have an answer?"

All the people around the mountain began speaking all at once, but none of them could agree on the answers to the mountain's question. After more of this than it could stand, the mountain shouted at them all to be quiet and leaned in towards the five-year-old again.

"I gather no one else knows the answers to those questions, either. They just take more words to finally say it. Why don't they know the answers?"

The five-year-old, who had never considered that adults might not know something, had to think very carefully. "Maybe they're not old enough yet."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes when I ask questions, my parents say:" the five-year-old pointed a finger at an imaginary child and said in a lower voice "'You'll understand when you're older.'"

"What do you do when they say that?"

"I stick my tongue out at them. Then I play with my toys." The five-year-old held up a set of Lego. "These are my favourite."

"I've never played with toys before." The mountain looked sad. "I don't even have toys."

"Do you want to play with mine?"

"May I?"

"Yeah! Here, you can be this one…"

So, while all the people looked on, the mountain and the five-year-old sat down together to build a kingdom, with a unicorn and a dragon and lasers and spaceships and mountains and cars and aliens and knights...

Frankly, they ignored everything else so thoroughly that all the people left them to their play.

It was the best day ever.

Morgan Fewster: Goddess

The worst day of Morgan Fewster’s life was the day her parents left her behind at the zoo when she was four, because they came to pick her up again and wouldn’t let her stay with the lions. The second worst day was when her best friend moved away in Year 5. Which made today only the third worst day, though with the bright sunshine stabbing her retinas like silver blades and her mouth tasting like dead mice, Morgan thought at first that it might give the others a run for their money.

“Urgh,” she said, and flopped off the bed onto the floor. It wasn’t that continued sleep on the floor was impossible; it was just less comfortable, especially as she’d landed with her elbow under her hip, and that combined with the alarm blaring on the far side of the room made it ever-so-slightly more likely that she’d actually a) get up and b) be on time.

The sweet, sweet smell of coffee percolated its way into Morgan’s brain, and her nostrils twitched. Mmm. Coffee.

“Morgan Fewster,” Breanna called from the kitchen. “If you don’t shut that alarm off in the next ten seconds, I swear by everything good and holy, you won’t get a drop of your precious wake-up juice this morning.”

Morgan, conflicted by opposing messages in her brain, performed a stagger-flop with astounding grace and hit her nose on the bed leg as she simultaneously tried to get up and stay lying down. “Ow.”

“Five seconds!”

Clutching the throbbing nose that now matched her seared eyeballs and pounding head, Morgan disentangled herself from the sheets and stumbled across the room, flipping her phone over to silence it. She sagged against the dresser in relief, having successfully passed yet another Herculean round of Morning: Getting Up. “Coffee,” she muttered, dragging her hands over her face and through her hair. Her appearance was probably something close to the living dead right now, but as her thirst for caffeine was probably something close to a zombie’s thirst for brains, that was probably okay. Probably. She shook her head and shambled out towards the kitchen, following the smell.

Breanna, blonde hair gleaming gold in the sunshine that streamed in through the wide kitchen windows, was the picture of domestic goddessery: blue-and-white apron neatly tied around her neatly-belted waist, hair neatly twisted into a neatly-perfect bun, neatly-manicured hands pouring a neat stream of –

“Gimme gimme gimme.” Morgan made grabby motions at the mug and Breanna handed it over, lips pressed to hide amusement.

“Morning, Sunshine,” she said.

Morgan slurped the coffee down in one long mouthful, eyes streaming as it scalded her throat. Coffee, my one true love, I’ve missed you. She finished with a contented sigh and plonked the mug back on the bench. “Hi.”

Wordlessly, Breanna handed over an envelope before turning back to the sizzling frypan.

“For me?” Morgan murmured as she tore it open. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t,” Breanna replied cryptically, stirring the eggs.

Morgan wrinkled her brow as she pulled a playing card and a folded piece of paper out of the shredded envelope, then remembered what her mother had always said about frowning. Quickly, she smoothed her fingers over her forehead.

Breanna returned to slop scrambled eggs onto a pair of plates already bearing thick, rustic-style toast slathered in butter. “So,” she said, scraping out the pan, “what is it?”

Morgan flourished the contents at her. “A card that I believe is supposed to tell me I’m about to die,” she wriggled the playing card whose front bore a picture of a black-robed skeleton on a white horse, “and a Wikipedia article on bull worship.”

Breanna made a noncommittal sound as she rummaged in the drawer for cutlery, a noise somewhere between an entire orchestra tuning and a thousand plates all shattering.

“Dear heavenly elephants,” Morgan swore, squeezing her hands over her ears. “Must you?”

Breanna arched an eyebrow in her direction. “It’s Thursday. You should have been home sleeping soundly last night.”

“I was!” Morgan protested, throwing her arms wide in a gesture of intended innocence. “I slept like a baby!”

“Yes,” Breanna agreed wryly, shoving a plate across to Morgan. “Exactly like a baby: from about one a.m. until seven, with numerous awakenings in between.”

Morgan took her plate and marched to the table, nose held high. “It’s all right,” she said loftily. “I couldn’t expect you ordinary people to understand.” She flopped onto a chair and snatched at the salt shaker. “So, is it a hint?”

“Is what a hint?” said Breanna, setting the second plate of eggs down on a placemat and bracketing it with cutlery.

“Vuh car,” Morgan said around a mouthful, waving her knife at the remains of the envelope on the bench.

Breanna glanced cursorily at it on her way back to the kitchen, summoned by the popping of the toaster. “I have no idea.”

“Wew ven…” Morgan swallowed. “Who’s it’s from?”

“I went to a psychic.”

“Ooo ven—“ Morgan cut off as she breathed in egg and spluttered. After hacking and coughing for a moment in which she made a whole mental noteboard covered in metaphorical memos-to-self about not talking with a mouthful of eggs, she cleared her throat and tried again. “You went to a psychic? Also, I nearly died here, and you are heartlessly eating muffins! What is up with that, I ask you?”

“Don’t be melodramatic, you’re not dying. If falling from a third-storey window or ingesting an entire bottle of drain cleaner can’t kill you, I seriously doubt some scrambled eggs down the wrong tube will. Also,” she said, setting a glass of juice down on the table by the other plate, “you never said I shouldn’t go to a psychic. Doctors, yes; psychiatrists, yes.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Psychologists, teachers, parents. You never said anything about psychics.”

Morgan scowled. “Psychics are a bunch of…” She waved her fork vaguely.

“People who might be able to finally figure out what you are?” Breanna suggested.

“Ha ha. I don’t need figuring out,” Morgan said and shovelled another forkful of eggs into her mouth. “Mm perfec uz uh mm.”

“Just… Go see the psych, okay? She was interested in you. She might be able to help.” Breanna folded her arms over her chest and pinned Morgan with a challenging glare. “I want you to know why you can do…” She fluttered a hand in irritation. “That stuff. You need to know.”

For a moment, Morgan considered doing exactly ‘that stuff’; if she fluttered her eyelashes winningly, parted her lips just so, and widened her eyes like Bambi incarnate, all but the rocks would be unable to breathe and would beg to do her bidding. Instead, she sighed and pressed her face into her fork.

“Fine,” she said. “For you, I will suffer this fate worse than death. But if she wants to out me to the media and the paparazzi find out where we live and they lay siege to the house day and night, and our doors are broken down by people who have seen my smile and are unable to resist, and I’m carted away to some scientific laboratory so they can dissect me for testing, I’m holding you responsible.” She gave Breanna a sidelong glance, checking for remorse.

“Fine,” said Breanna, remorseless.

What am I doing wrong? Morgan heaved another deep sigh. Some days, you just can’t win. She fluttered her eyelashes at her reflection in her fork, just to make sure she still could. Her heart trilled at the sight and this time her sigh was of contentment. “Hi there, pretty girl.”

“Morgan, stop making out with your reflection and finish your breakfast. The address for the psychic is on the back of the envelope. She’s expecting you at nine.”

“At nine?” Morgan turned her innocence up full blast. “But Breanna, darling, I have school! I can’t possibly be there at nine! What a ridiculous time to make an appointment for me. And how did you know I’d go anyway?”

“One,” Breanna started, again with the counting on the fingers, “you cut school every other week for inane whatever-it-is you do, and two, I didn’t make the appointment, she did.”

“But how did—“

“Psychic, Morgan.”

“Oh.” Morgan sat back in her chair, temporarily flummoxed. “But I can’t see a psychic today, I have—David! Good morning!” she finished brightly as the third occupant of the house emerged from the hallway. Mention of anything relating to Morgan’s ‘special qualities’ always sent David into a dither and so were unofficially banned when he was around.

He peered at her suspiciously through eyes that looked weak and pale without their usual magnifying lenses. “What have you done?”

“Me?” Morgan beamed at him like a human sun. “Absolutely nothing!”

“Mm,” he disagreed, sliding in his chair. “Thanks for the eggs, hun.” This last was directed at Breanna, who stooped from her muffin-munching to nuzzle against his neck.

“Children, please,” Morgan said with longsuffering. “You have a room for that sort of sickening display.”

Breanna rolled her eyes and picked up her handbag from the chair at the head of the table. “Behave.”

“Angelically,” Morgan replied, posing with her very best saint-like expression.

Breanna rolled her eyes again and departed.

“So, really: what have you done?” David eyed her contemplatively over a mouthful of toast.

He chewed like a cow and had the same approximate intelligence, but, Morgan reflected, he could be stupidly persistent when he wanted to be. And besides. That was probably unfair to cows. “It isn’t what I’ve done,” she said, flashing him a gleaming smile. “It’s what I’m planning to do.”

He froze, fork halfway to his mouth. His eyes darted towards the front of the house where Breanna was pulling away in her dinky little hatchback. Seeing the all-clear, he reached his foot out under the table and rubbed against Morgan’s ankle. “You mean…”

Disgust filled Morgan’s stomach and she pushed her unfinished breakfast away. “No!” She really had to try harder to remember not to be charming when David was around. “You creep. Breanna, remember her? You’re practically married to her!” She stood up from the table and headed towards the bathroom.

“That didn’t seem to bother you with Simon,” David called after her, cutlery dinking against his plate.

Morgan fought the impulse to freeze. Bastard. How did he know about Simon? Besides, that was another mistake, a momentary lapse where she’d forgotten to keep her charm under control. It wasn’t like she’d meant to steal Jessie’s boyfriend.

Bastard. Whatever. She didn’t have to reply to him. Instead, she slammed the door to the bathroom and hurried to the mirror. The reflection confronting her had a serious case of bedhead and panda-eyes, but she turned a sultry smirk on it anyway, and it smirked back. “Hey there, sexy. Let’s get you looking decent.”

Her reflection willingly complied, and for the next careful hour, as she painted and brushed and sculpted and flossed, nothing was wrong with the world.

David bashing on the door broke that illusion. “Hour’s up,” he yelled. “Time to go.”

The mere thought of sharing a car with him this morning sent shudders through her, nearly making her smudge the last coat of eyeliner she was applying. “No thanks!” she called back. “I’m catching the bus this morning!” And apparently she was seeing the psychic after all, because the alternatives were car-pooling with David, or catching the school bus with Simon and Jessie, and right now, despite the imminent threat of scientific mutilation, the psychic seemed like the lesser of three evils.

David moaned at the door, something about how she could have told him earlier, and then he could have been early for work, or something equally trivial, and then he was gone in a jangle of keys and muttering and finally, the motorbike engine roaring to life in the garage.

Morgan sighed and unlocked the bathroom. She’d been keen to make an entrance this morning, too—that new fellow, Jason, he wasn’t half cute, and the bike did wonders for her reputation. Still, she’d gotten careless with David earlier, and that meant she’d have to try to avoid him as much as possible for the next twenty-four hours, since he seemed more susceptible to her charm than most. Stupid, given how besotted he was supposed to be with Breanna. Wasn’t true love supposed to protect against lust, or something like that?

Sighing at the complexity of life, Morgan snatched up her Louis Vuitton bag, gathered up the shredded envelope from the bench, and emerged into the sunshine to do one of the three things she’d promised herself she would never, under any circumstance, do: see a psychic.

Ji Min and the Unnamed Enemy

Ji Min shook feeling back into her hand as the medibot released her arm. The scar tissue from where Harrison had etched his name into her flesh was healing nicely. After a day at the beach no one would be able to distinguish anything had happened.

She stood, collecting her uniform coat, but stilled as the commanding admiral walked in. "Sir?"

"Sit, captain, we have things to discuss with the medic before you go."

She obeyed the order with no show of reluctance. This was not the time to act out of character. "Did my tests results come back abnormal, sir?" She'd run three gauntlets in the hours since dawn, and she was certain she'd been near her top time on the obstacle course. Quickly, Ji Min reviewed her memories of the written tests she'd received. All her answers had been perfect. Unless there was a hidden test she'd missed. A color test perhaps? With a frown she considered the possibility that her eyesight had been damaged in the last mission. That would be inconvenient.

A medic – a human one this time – walked in with a datpad. Her black hair was pulled in a regulation knot that matched Ji Min's but that's where the similarities ended. This woman was nervous. Fear rolled of her in waves. Her smile was tight and never reached her eyes.

Ji Min raised an eyebrow, consciously lowering her pulse rate to appear calm and collected. The little medtech could learn something from her. Hopefully the girl would be smart enough to just that.

"Captain Zhang, Admiral Dai, thank you for meeting with me." The girl's nervous eyes darted to Ji Min and dashed away. "I've... I've taken the liberty of reviewing your files, captain. You were very thorough."

"Thank you," Ji Min said. She made a mental note to speak the hospital's commanding officer on her way out. This medtech wasn't fit to do more than apply bandages. Fortunately she didn't need a doctor to tell her anything. All her injuries were familiar ones.

"I have a treatment plan for you," the medtech said.

"Yes," Ji Min said. "I completed the final tests this morning."

The admiral stirred in his chair. Hairs on the back of her neck went up.

"Sir? Was my test time less than desirable?"

The admiral shook his head. "It's not that."

"You were tortured," the medtech said breathlessly.

A lightbulb moment. The girl was worried, possibly traumatized by the report. "I'm fine," Ji Min said with a patient smile.

"You aren't," the girl said. "You sustained severe torture over a period of twenty-three days."

"I was trained to withstand torture," Ji Min said with perfect patience.

"Nothing like this," the medtech argued, seeming to gain confidence.

Ji Min turned to the admiral. "Sir, the first week doesn't count. All they did was withhold food. It was a love tap."

"It was torture," the admiral said gruffly.

"I didn't break," Ji Min pressed. "I'm not a security risk."

The admiral's dark gray eyes were filled with anger.

Ji Min straightened her shoulders. Anger she could work with. "It was a high stakes mission. I took four days longer than planned to accomplish my goal but I had a six day window. Everything went according to plan."

The medtech cleared her throat. "Captain, this is your sixth traumatic incident in less than fifteen years of service."

"The first two don't count," Ji Min said imperiously. "They were both my first week as a cadet and were not my fault."

"You were the only survivor of a fleet cruiser!" The medtech gasped for air.

Ji Min's lip curled in disgust. "Leave. Find someone who can control themselves. Your fear is grating on my skin."

The medtech's hands clenched into fists but didn't budge. "You are being medically retired."

"No." Ji Min looked at the admiral.

"It's for your health, Zhang. You need to spend a few years in rehab. Get mentally adjusted. It's for your mental health."

She snorted in amusement. "You won't let me have leave because I cause trouble when I'm bored and you want to make me a civilian? That's not going to go over well." Her eyes snapped to the medtec

h. 

"You were given an order to leave."

"I..."

The admiral pointed at the door.

In a flurry of frustration and fear the girl excited the door.

"You scare her," the admiral said once they were alone.

"She insulted my training." Ji Min gave the admiral a flat look. "I was trained to withstand torture. I am by far one of the most experienced soldiers in the fleet. My record is near perfect. That girl shouldn't have been intimidated by me, she should have been watching me, trying to learn and improve herself. If that's what the academy is turning out these days there will be a drought of decent officers in the coming years."

The admiral scowled at her. "She was scared because your anger was making the walls vibrate."

Ji Min glanced at the brick wall. "Only a little." She waved off his concern. "It's a side effect of the medication I took during the control test this morning. Everyone knows that."

"Nevertheless, you are a dominant mindpath and frighten weaker minds. Even someone with no intrinsic skill can sense you're dangerous."

"And this is your argument for making me a civilian?" She settled into her chair, resting her hands on her knees and waiting for his rebuttal. He wasn't going to find a good one.

The admiral mimicked her calm position. "Six incidents of extreme emotional or psychological trauma. Two near-death experiences. Over six months of hospital time."

"Over fifteen years," Ji Min said. "Not all at once."

"The fact is, no unit will take you. You're bad luck, Zhang."

She smiled as sweetly as the tiger seeing her prey. "You need a commander who isn't a coward."

"I can't name one that would want you."

"Then promote me. You'll have the benefit of my expertise, lessen the risk of the civilian population suffering from close contact with a dominant, and have a commander who isn't a craven fool. The perfect solution."

"No," the admiral said coming to his feet. "You need time to rest. Medical leave if not retirement."

Ji Min's skin cooled as she contained her emotions. "Send me with a trade delegation."

The admiral turned in startlement. "What?"

"We have three trade delegations leaving within the month, I'll go with one of them. There will be less cost because I won't need a large security detail, and the Emperor gains the advantage of me using my skills on our trade partners. We'll do very well if I go." The number of people who could tell her no was somewhere near zero. She obeyed orders because she enjoyed the discipline of the military and recognized the need for a chain of command. But even within the command there were very few people who she couldn't persuade to see things her way. That was the great skill of being a dominant. Telekinetic skills that allowed her to move things without physical contact were a bonus.

The admiral crossed his arms, retreating into a defensive position. "No."

"You have to give me something to do," Ji Min said calmly. "Bored, I'm too much of a threat to balance of a healthy society. I'm a typhoon in the harbor. The sudden wind as you climb a mountain peak. Dominants go into military training early for a reason. Left to my own devices at such a young age I might do something silly, like start a revolution. You can't endanger the populace that way."

"You are menace."

"All good soldiers are."

He looked at the window panel with the projected image of a formal water garden. "There is one place I could assign you."

"Frontline in a war zone where I can die like I ought?" she guessed with a smile. It was an old military joke. Back before the current emperor's ancestors claimed the throne the destruction of dominants was considered the best thing for society. They were caged, trained to be monster, and unleashed on war like the titans of old. Now dominants were perhaps not revered, and not always trusted, but their lives weren't wasted.

"How familiar are you with the wasteland situation on the edge of the Hani 667?"

Ji Min shook her head. "I've read the reports. Hanni 667 is a dead star with no planets orbiting. There's a few mining outposts collecting minerals there. Rumors of trouble."

"They are more than rumors. Ships going past the system never return. Probes show nothing but darkness."

"A black hole perhaps?"

"There's no gravitational anomaly to support that theory. There are, however, signals."

That caught her full attention. "Communication?"

"Possibly." He watched her face.

Ji Min smiled.

The admiral nodded. "It isn't our territory."

"No one owns the system."

"It abuts our own territory and the provinces of the Sunlords."

Her heart rate fluttered with delight. "I've heard stories of the Sunlords. How many of them are true?"

"We don't know. Until recently their only communication with us has been to tell us where their boundaries were and order us to stay on our side. They aren't aggressive. The borders on our side haven't changed in two centuries and we've no reason to believe they wish to expand."

"But they've contacted us?" she guessed. Everyone was wrong. She had the best kind of luck.

The admiral nodded, eyes sparkling with amusement. "They have been asked by the miners in the system to defend them from an unnamed threat. In turn, the Sunlords have extended an invitation to us to work in tandem since it is a shared border."

"A sign that they have no intent to attack or are they testing us for weaknesses."

"Either is possible. Or perhaps they are considering a trade agreement of some kind. Isolated cultures do not last forever."

Ji Min nodded. "Do we know whether they'll accept a mix gendered crew?"

"They gave no indication of their status, but requested anyone of rank. Would a single gendered crew be a limitation for you?"

"Never." Dominants were dominant whatever gender they professed. Smacking down a few chauvinists was child's play, although things would be easier to the Sunlord commander was equally dominant. She gave it a one in twenty chance. Every civilized culture saw the value of using dominants as officers. Even if they weren't openly recognized personality dragged most people like her to the spotlight.

The admiral nodded. "I'll have your promotion, orders, and packing list prepared by this evening. You'll ship out first thing tomorrow."

Ji Min smiled as the old man walked away. A free day all to herself. She swiveled her chair around in thought. Somewhere on the planet there was a sunny beach where she could intimidate a few sharks and work on her tan. The equatorial islands were nice this time of year. Lilac sand, blue waves, and fruity pink drinks were calling her name. With a sharp smile for the cowering medtech waiting in the hall Ji Min stalked down the halls with a smile, her jet tickets were bought even before the transport arrived to take her to the port.

It was a beautiful rainy day. 

The Kitten Psychologist

There once was a little kitten who had decided that the outside was bad. One hundred percent, unequivocally, without question or shadow of a doubt dangerous.

"I mean, why else," said the kitten, purring and cleaning its paws, "Would we live in houses?"

But, alas, one day, the kitten's humans took it outside. Carried it right out the door.

"It was terrible," the kitten told me over Skype after the event. "One hundred percent, unequivocally, without question or shadow of a doubt, terrible. There was snow. It was cold and wet and it stuck in my fur. My humans laughed at me when they put me down and I refused to move."

Of course, I thought that this kitten was being unreasonable.

"Your ancestors lived outside. I'm sure they loved the snow. You should try it again."

"Your ancestors grew crops along the Volga River," the kitten pointed out. "Are you planning on trying that anytime soon?"

Darn kitten had a point.

I tried a different tack.

"There's all kinds of things you can do outside that you can't do inside."

"Oh, sure, catch diseases, fall on ice, get attacked by wild animals or drunk drivers, and then die. Although I suppose you could still die inside." It flicked its tail thoughtfully.

"Dying without having ever left your house. That's depressing."

"Fruit flies do it all the time." The kitten's eyes widened. "That is depressing."

"See?"

"Then I'll just live a long and healthy life inside and, when I'm dying, I'll have my humans take me outside where I can be with nature and junk. There. Problem solved."

The kitten just glared at me before being scooted off the desk by its human, who had returned to continue our conversation.

I was then able to follow the cat's activities using my arcane writerly powers. Over the next few days, it would approach the doors and look out windows whenever it thought its humans weren't looking. But they were. They told me about their kitten's change in behaviour, wondering aloud whether they should let it outside again. It was at this point they also showed me the Youtube video of their kitten standing indignantly in the snow. I have to admit, it was pretty funny.

Not long after, the kitten called me up on Skype.

"You know, I've been thinking," it said.

"Really? And how did that make you feel?" I adjusted my imaginary spectacles and picked up my imaginary clipboard.

"Shut up. I'm trying to talk." The kitten stuck out its wee pink tongue and I couldn't help but laugh, at which point the kitten glared.

"Sorry, continue."

"I will. As I was saying, I've been thinking. About the outside. You know, I'm only a few weeks old. I've got a lot of life left in me. I really could just go out there and try out this whole snow thing again, or I could stay inside for a while. There's lots of time. But then I thought, do I really have as much time as I think? I could die at any moment. The fridge could fall over when I'm trying to open it and squash me, or I could get my tail stuck in an electrical outlet. Someone could be too curious in my vicinity. You know."

I nodded.

"And what if I don't die like that? What if I spend my whole life just staring at the outside instead of prancing out there and just owning it like cats should? What if all I do, for the rest of my life, is wait? I mean, it's not like there's anything stopping me from going outside. There's just… me."

"Sounds like you've made some important progress."

"But what if my humans laugh and take videos of me again?"

I took this moment not to mention that I'd both seen and laughed at the video. Instead, I gave my most thoughtful face.

"So, what you're trying to say is, you would rather go outside without them?"

The kitten stretched before answering. "I'll admit, they're much better as servants than they are as escorts. But they do happen to be able to reach doorknobs. Don't they make doors in more cat-friendly sizes?"

"Yes," I said. They're called doggy doors, I thought, but didn't say.

"Excellent." The kitten purred. "I want one. Just for the back yard. I needn't parade myself before the general public just yet."

"I'll mention it to your humans--" I suppressed a snigger at the phrase-- "I'm sure they'll listen to me."

"Of course they'll listen to you. What else have I been paying you for?" With that, the kitten hung up.

I've really got to tell my friends where their money's been going.

Meh. I can wait until they get their next bank statement.

(Read part two, The Kitten Psychologist Broaches the Topic of Economics, here.)