SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

WHITLOCK 1: Which future?

WHITLOCK 3: I confess, Lady Cadence, I share my confusion. Perhaps you could use an analogy from Geometry?

LADY CADENCE 2: Once and for all, I loathe Geometry.

(All three WHITLOCKS gasp.)

LADY CADENCE 1: Quite.

JACQUENETTE: (aside) But the mathematics are such the delight!

LADY CADENCE 2: However, one could conceive us each as traversing an independent, though often intersecting, vector of chronology.

ALL WHITLOCKS: Ahh!

LADY CADENCE 2: Do you recall when Vril’s minions dragged you to prison?

WHITLOCKS 1 and 2, LADY CADENCE 1, and JACQUENETTE: Prison ?

WHITLOCK 3: Indeed.

LADY CADENCE 2: Your original vector led not to release at my hands, but to a final appearance at the Court of Vril.

WHITLOCK 3: His Court?

LADY CADENCE 2: Due to redecorations of his star vessel, necessitated by our impending nuptials, he had temporarily established his Court in my parlour, to the great detriment of my ancestral carpet.

JACQUENETTE: Ah, no!

LADY CADENCE 2: When he gave you one last chance to grovel, you instead professed your love for me.

WHITLOCK 3: I have no memory of this.

LADY CADENCE 2: I shall never forget it! It was most affecting. A woman could scarcely ask for a more romantic declaration. Of course, you were promptly disintegrated, which somewhat lessened my elation.

WHITLOCK 3: How unfortunate!

LADY CADENCE 2: That night, seeking some appropriate and tasteful memento of your person, I slipped out to your workshop. There, I discovered your device. With it, I returned to the past, intersected your vector several hours before your execution, and released you from your cell.

WHITLOCK 3: Of course! In the prison, you spoke of my machine! But why the pretence of such a monstrous affection?

LADY CADENCE 2: Since I had precluded your future declaration in the face of death, I felt that a certain… urgency… might encourage a similar declaration in your cell. Alas, I miscalculated, and I fled in confusion. But on consideration, I resolved that, if I could not win your open affection, I could at least return to this temporal juncture and ensure the departure of those odious Vrillians.

(WHITLOCK 3 takes the hands of LADY CADENCE 2.)

WHITLOCK 3: Oh, Your Ladyship.

LADY CADENCE 2: (softly) Cadence.

LADY CADENCE 1: Yes?

(WHITLOCK 3 bends to kiss LADY CADENCE 2. WHITLOCK 2 kisses LADY CADENCE 1.)

WHITLOCK 1: And what of me?

JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright—

WHITLOCK 1: Not a chance.

(The VILLAGERS lock ARMS around the COUPLES and sing.)

(with finality)

VILLAGERS:

Osculation confirms that these Loves must be True!

With relief, we’ll avert this device’s début —

empty::[]

WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE 2) But if no one invents the Punctuality Machine in the future, we won’t be together now!

WHITLOCK 2: You’re already together now! If a full repetition of events is required, what of your disintegration?

WHITLOCK 3: You were the one disintegrated—

(Both CADENCES kiss their WHITLOCKS quiet.)

WHITLOCK 1: (aside) Ah! What man of honour can but rejoice, to see his lady doubly belovèd? And by suitors so superb!

(With a happy SHRUG, he joins the CIRCLE of spinning VILLAGERS as they finish the SONG.)

VILLAGERS:

For cantankerous chaos will always ensue

When attempting a tempting temporal redo!

empty::[]

First published in Nature, volume 524, page 130, 2015 by Nature Publishing Group

I don’t know why we bother waiting on the stoop. After an hour I grab Tommy’s Caillou backpack and reach for his hand. He tucks it against his chest. It kills me, but I can’t blame him. I’d call his mother if Karen would carry a phone. Or answer if she did.

Tommy follows me inside and says, “Do I still get chips for being good?”

“Sure," I say, turning, "if you can beat me. Go!"

We race across the lobby and down a hall to the 24Shop, a small room lined with video displays. I let him dart in just ahead of me, and the shop says, "Good morning, Tommy."

“How does she always know my name, Daddy?”

I shrug. To a four-year-old, even the most mundane technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The shop has a woman’s voice, soft and warm. I imagine her kneeling when she asks him, “What would you like, Tommy?”

He looks from screen to screen. Dancing chips. Splashing sodas. Cookies, ice cream and comfort foods. The shop says, “How about corn flakes with milk?” A bowl of cereal appears.

“No, chips,” he says.

“It’s much too early. Oatmeal with cinnamon?” Steaming oatmeal appears.

“No, chips! Daddy…”

Stupid nutrition protocols. “He can have a snack.”

The shop says nothing. Instead, images flow down a screen like a slot machine before settling on a MoonPie.

“Yes!”

“And a coke?”

“Why not?” I say.

A red light blinks above the bill slot. Standing behind Tommy, I nod, and the light turns green. A MoonPie tumbles into one tray, a can of RC into another.

“What do you want, Henry?”

Tommy takes my hand. "Nothing,” I say. “I’m good."

Upstairs, Tommy turns on the TV and tears into his food. He’s promptly shown commercials for MoonPies and RC. This he thinks nothing of.

I head for my reading room and find Karen sitting on the toilet tank. The mirror’s unplugged and draped with towels.

I close the door. "What are you doing in here? How did you even get in?"

"I spoofed a pass card."

"I’d get you a real card."

"Worse than phones." She glances through the high, small window.

“He waited an hour for you."

"I know. I watched."

"From the shadows? Jesus. He can’t remember most of your shit, but it’s starting to stick.”

“It’s not shit.”

I hold up my hands. “Look. He misses you. Come on out. I’ll tell him you—"

"Don’t make excuses for me. And I’m not going near that TV. This toilet’s bad enough. Probably reporting my weight.” She lifts her boots off the lid.

“Fine. I’ll call him.”

“No.”

“Then why get his hopes up? Why…this?”

“I wanted to see him, but I needed to speak with you.”

She slides down and stands close. She seems taller. And thinner. Probably the boots.

“I’m leaving,” she says. "For good. I won’t be coded anymore. I won’t be tagged. It’s killing me.”

“So you’ll kill him instead.”

“He’s another tag, Henry.”

"He’s a little boy."

"No. We’re just data sets here. Why can’t you see that? Is that all you want him to be?"

Now I get it. “You’re not taking him.”

“We could live clean. Stripped to zero. Anonymous. This place I’m going—"

“I’ll get him to his room,” I say and grip the door knob. “Slither out, and the TV won’t see you either.”

I don’t worry about her snatching Tommy. It’d be easier for her disappear if no one wanted to find her, and I would.

“Then tell him,” she says, “when he’s old enough, that I’m not crazy.”

“He’ll never be that old.”

My watch screen flares. Tommy knocks. "Daddy, I don’t feel well."

I look at Karen. She’s already ducking behind the black shower curtain.

I open the door. Tommy’s face is pale, sweaty and smeared with MoonPie. With a whir, the toilet lifts its lid.

“Quickly.” We kneel together on the mat, and Tommy spews brown black vomit.