As the Moon Climbs

She had been lucky. In her homeland, Marik was a loman, a step up from casteless. Here, in the famed city of Gilnair, her merit was judged by her deeds rather than the misfortune of her birth.

She prayed to mighty Tosh to grant her strength and speed, then ran to the end of the roof and leaped, flying through the window of her mark’s home and landing in a tight roll that brought her to her feet. She had not so much as disturbed the curtains that waved in the light breeze.

Still, her arrival was not unnoticed. Two guards who flanked the window had just enough time to raise their curved swords before they fell, knives buried to the hilt in their necks. Two more guards rushed into the room and met the same fate. Downstairs, she heard people moving around and knew it was time to act.

Marik bowed deeply and formally to the man in the bed. “May Tosh make me worthy of your death,” she said in her own tongue. The man’s cry became a gurgle as her blade sliced his throat open.

She bowed again, and was gone.

Mike was so excited about his first real dive that he sat on the boat in full gear for a half hour while the other divers finished preparing.

“You sure you’re ready, Mike?” Steve quipped. “The sink is still in the galley.”

Mike rolled his eyes.

“Stick with me,” Steve continued. “You probably won’t get lost, but better safe than sorry.”

The divers assembled and one by one fell backwards into the gently rolling waves. Mike obediently followed Steve around the reef for a while, admiring brightly colored fish darting about and anemones undulating in the current. Eventually, he drifted off to follow a school of parrotfish into open water.

He saw Steve in the distance, waving at him. He waved back. Steve waved again, swimming away, too far for Mike to see anything but his arm swinging back and forth.

Then he remembered that divers didn’t wave to say hello, but to signal danger. Mike turned to see a mass of delicate pink balloons floating a few yards away, their tentacles already reaching out to greet him.

Calliope Cervantes slammed the man’s face against the ground, twice. His nose bled profusely, but she didn’t feel sorry for him; he HAD tried to slice her arm off with a nanofilament sword.

“A sword,” she muttered. “I mean, come on.”

She slipped restraining cuffs over his hands, activating the antigrav so that he was pulled up to hang in mid-air like some ancient religious icon. Normally she would have used a belt, but this was more uncomfortable.

She left him, grumbling about his rights, with the indenture agent at the nearest IRS office.

“Have fun terraforming Titan, you miserable twat,” she cooed, wiggling her fingers at him in a mocking wave.

“You don’t have to be a bitch, Cal,” a voice said behind her.

“That’s like saying you don’t have to be a robot, Mack,” she replied, turning to face him. “We can’t help what we are.”

“Doing this job every day has made you a hard woman.”

“I was already the hardest, that’s why they gave me the job.” She yawned. “Now who do I have to shoot to get some coffee?”

“Smoking is prohibited in this area, sir.”

Lars glared at the security bot, its too-human face emotionless. Barricaded in a stairwell of the Corporation headquarters, they waited for the rebels to break through to their position.

“Shove it,” he said. “I’m in charge here. There’s rules, and then there’s rules.”

“That is a tautology.”

“Some rules can be broken.” He took a deep drag of the cigarette, savoring the fullness in his lungs.

“Rules exist for a reason.” The bot’s tone was almost questioning.

“Probably to stop the alarms from going off,” Lars said, gesturing at a blue light on the wall. “With all the other fires in the building, they’re deactivated, so—”

“But if one rule can be broken, then any can.”

Lars snorted in derision. “Some rules are more important than others.”

“Ah,” the robot said. “Hierarchy. But must there not be a conflict between rules for that to—”

“There’s going to be plenty conflict in a second,” Lars snapped. “Let me finish my damn cigarette. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

It started with Agnes Carruthers, or rather with her cat, Pickles. He looked her calmly in the eyes and said, “They are coming,” then went back to washing his pink nether bits. She tried to warn her children, but they thought she was going senile and ignored her.

Then there was the sudden appearance of several hundred bicycles at the top of the Eiffel Tower. They were all lime green with battery-operated lights and squeeze horns. The monument was shut down for hours as the police removed the offending conveyances, to the dismay and confusion of tourists.

Other nuisances major and minor presented themselves, but no concerted effort was made to discover their source until the destruction of Tokyo by Godzilla. That the monster was supposed to be fictional did not escape the notice of the global community, who demanded answers.

Agnes had the answers, because Pickles had given them to her, but she kept them to herself. How could you explain to an entire planet that their only salvation was to stop dreaming?