The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com Read online

  Table of Contents

  1. When We Were Heroes, by Daniel Abraham

  2. Olga, by C.T. Adams

  3. Foundation, by Ann Aguirre

  4. The Department of Alterations, by Gennifer Albin

  5. The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model, by Charlie Jane Anders

  6. Six Months, Three Days, by Charlie Jane Anders

  7. Intestate, by Charlie Jane Anders

  8. Legacy Lost, by Anna Banks

  9. The Witch of Duva, by Leigh Bardugo

  10. The Too-Clever Fox, by Leigh Bardugo

  11. The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder, by Elizabeth Bear

  12. The Horrid Glory of Its Wings, by Elizabeth Bear

  13. Faster Gun, by Elizabeth Bear

  14. The Final Now, by Gregory Benford

  15. Grace Immaculate, by Gregory Benford

  16. Backscatter, by Gregory Benford

  17. River of Souls, by Beth Bernobich

  18. A Window or a Small Box, by Jedediah Berry

  19. Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, by Michael Bishop

  20. Catch ‘Em in the Act, by Terry Bisson

  21. TVA Baby, by Terry Bisson

  22. The Cockroach Hat, by Terry Bisson

  23. Shall We Gather, by Alex Bledsoe

  24. Prophet, by Jennifer Bosworth

  25. The Ruined Queen of Harvest World, by Damien Broderick

  26. Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order, by Damien Broderick

  27. The Memory Coder, by Jessica Brody

  28. The Desecrator, by Steven Brust

  29. Brother. Prince. Snake., by Cecil Castellucci

  30. We Have Always Lived on Mars, by Cecil Castellucci

  31. Our Human, by Adam Troy Castro

  32. The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, by John Chu

  33. Fare Thee Well, by Cathy Clamp

  34. The Commonplace Book, by Jacob Clifton

  35. What Makes a River, by Deborah Coates

  36. The Ghosts of Christmas, by Paul Cornell

  37. The Elephant in the Room, by Paul Cornell

  38. Day One, by Matthew Costello

  39. Am I Free To Go?, by Kathryn Cramer

  40. Tourists, by Sean Craven

  41. Eve of Sin City, by S.J. Day

  42. The Cage, by A.M. Dellamonica

  43. Among the Silvering Herd, by A.M. Dellamonica

  44. Wild Things, by A.M. Dellamonica

  45. Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away, by Cory Doctorow

  46. On 20468 Petercook, by Andy Duncan

  47. The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday, by G.D. Falksen

  48. Men Who Wish to Drown, by Elizabeth Fama

  49. The Iron Shirts, by Michael Flynn

  50. A Clean Sweep With All the Trimmings, by James Alan Gardner

  51. Lightbringers and Rainmakers, by Felix Gilman

  52. Shade, by Steven Gould

  53. Bugs in the Arroyo, by Steven Gould

  54. Steampunk Quartet, by Eileen Gunn

  55. Mother, Crone, Maiden, by Cat Hellisen

  56. The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

  57. Too Fond, by Leanna Renee Hieber

  58. At the Foot of the Lighthouse, by Erin Hoffman

  59. Ghost Hedgehog, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  60. A Spell of Vengeance, by D.B. Jackson

  61. The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles, by Kij Johnson

  62. Ponies, by Kij Johnson

  63. Crazy Me, by James Patrick Kelly

  64. First Flight, by Mary Robinette Kowal

  65. How to Make a Triffid, by Kelly Lagor

  66. A Water Matter, by Jay Lake

  67. The Speed of Time, by Jay Lake

  68. The Starship Mechanic, by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes

  69. Dress Your Marines in White, by Emmy Laybourne

  70. A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel, by Yoon Ha Lee

  71. Uncle Flower's Homecoming Waltz, by Marissa Lingen

  72. Earth Hour, by Ken MacLeod

  73. Farewell Performance, by Nick Mamatas

  74. Though Smoke Shall Hide the Sun, by Brit Mandelo

  75. The Finite Canvas, by Brit Mandelo

  76. The Hanging Game, by Helen Marshall

  77. The Courtship of the Queen, by Bruce McAllister

  78. Heads Will Roll, by Lish McBride

  79. Swift, Brutal Retaliation, by Meghan McCarron

  80. Preparations, by Mark Mills

  81. About Fairies, by Pat Murphy

  82. Fire Above, Fire Below, by Garth Nix

  83. Ruled, by Caragh M. O'Brien

  84. Hello, Moto, by Nnedi Okorafor

  85. Sacrifice of the First Sheason, by Peter Orullian

  86. The Great Defense of Layosah, by Peter Orullian

  87. The Battle of the Round, by Peter Orullian

  88. Sweetheart, by Abbi Mei Otis

  89. Ragnarok, by Paul Park

  90. Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure, by Richard Parks

  91. The Rotten Beast, by Mary E. Pearson

  92. Angel Season, by J.T. Petty

  93. Silver Linings, by Tim Pratt

  94. The Button Man and the Murder Tree, by Cherie Priest

  95. Clockwork Fairies, by Cat Rambo

  96. The Next Invasion, by Robert Reed

  97. Our Candidate, by Robert Reed

  98. Swingers, by Robert Reed

  99. The Cairn in Slater Woods, by Gina Rosati

  100. Jack of Coins, by Christopher Rowe

  101. Jack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory, by Rudy Rucker

  102. Good Night, Moon, by Rudy Rucker

  103. Loco, by Rudy Rucker

  104. Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill, by Marie Rutkoski

  105. The Film-Makers of Mars, by Geoff Ryman

  106. Firstborn, by Brandon Sanderson

  107. After the Coup, by John Scalzi

  108. The President's Brain is Missing, by John Scalzi

  109. Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue, by John Scalzi

  110. A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon, by Ken Scholes

  111. Making My Entrance Again With My Usual Flair, by Ken Scholes

  112. Two Stories, by Ken Scholes

  113. If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear, by Ken Scholes

  114. Rag and Bone, by Priya Sharma

  115. Do Not Touch, by Prudence Shen

  116. The Night Children: An Escape From Furnace Story, by Alexander Gordon Smith

  117. King of Marbury, by Andrew Smith

  118. Beauty Belongs to the Flowers, by Matthew Sanborn Smith

  119. Overtime, by Charles Stross

  120. Down on the Farm, by Charles Stross

  121. A Tall Tail, by Charles Stross

  122. Zeppelin City, by Michael Swanwick

  123. The Trains That Climb the Winter Tree, by Michael Swanwick

  124. The Dala Horse, by Michael Swanwick

  125. The Mongolian Wizard, by Michael Swanwick

  126. The Fire Gown, by Michael Swanwick

  127. Day of the Kraken, by Michael Swanwick

  128. Eros, Philia, Agape, by Rachel Swirsky

  129. A Memory of Wind, by Rachel Swirsky

  130. The Monster's Million Faces, by Rachel Swirsky

  131. Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia, by Rachel Swirsky

  132. Sing, by Karin Tidbeck

  133. What Doctor Gottlieb Saw, by Ian Tregillis

  134. Vilcabamba, by Harry Turtledove

  135. The Star and the Rockets, by Harry Turtledove

 
136. The House That George Built, by Harry Turtledove

  137. We Haven't Got There Yet, by Harry Turtledove

  138. Shtetl Days, by Harry Turtledove

  139. Lee at the Alamo, by Harry Turtledove

  140. Running of the Bulls, by Harry Turtledove

  141. The City Quiet as Death, by Steven Utley

  142. The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While, by Catherynne M. Valente

  143. Terrain, by Genevieve Valentine

  144. Last Son of Tomorrow, by Greg van Eekhout

  145. Errata, by Jeff VanderMeer

  146. A Stroke of Dumb Luck, by Shiloh Walker

  147. Last Train to Jubilee Bay, by Kali Wallace

  148. Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction, by Jo Walton

  149. The Nostalgist, by Daniel H. Wilson

  150. Super Bass, by Kai Ashante Wilson

  151. The Palencar Project, by Gregory Benford, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., James Morrow, Michael Swanwick, and Gene Wolfe, Edited by David G. Hartwell

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  Manhattan smells like rain. The last drops fall from the sky or else the rooftops, drifting down through the high air. With every step, her dress shoes throw out splashes from the thin, oily puddles. It’s ruining the leather, and she doesn’t care. Her fingers, wrapped around her smartphone, ache, and she wants to throw it, to feel the power flow through her arm, down out along the flat, fast trajectory, and then detonate like a hand grenade. She could do it. It’s her wild card power. She’s not in the outfit she uses at the exhibitions and fund-raisers. She doesn’t look like a hero now. She doesn’t feel like one.

  The brownstone huddles between two larger buildings, and she stops, checking the address. The east side, north of Gramercy Park, but walking distance. She always forgets that he comes from money.

  The steps leading to the vestibule are worn with time and dark green with the slime of decomposed leaves. An advertisement for a new season of American Hero covers the side of a bus with the soft-core come-ons of half a dozen young men and women. Sex sells. She walks up the steps and finds the apartment number.

  Jonathan Tipton-Clarke, handwritten in fading green ink. When he’s being an ace, he calls himself Jonathan Hive. No one else does. Everyone calls him Bugsy. She stabs in the code on the intercom’s worn steel keypad.

  For a moment, she thinks he’ll pretend he’s not there, and she wonders how far she’ll go. Rage and betrayal and embarrassment flow through her. Breaking down his door would be illegal. It would only make things worse.

  But still …

  “Hey, Kate,” Bugsy says from the intercom.

  “Are you looking at me right now?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got one on the wall. Just to your left.”

  A tiny, acid-green wasp stares at her. Its black eyes are empty as a camera. Its wings shift, catching the morning light. Jonathan Hive, who can turn his body into a swarm of wasps. Jonathan Hive, who was there when they stopped the genocide in Egypt. Who fought the Radical in Paris and then again during the final battle in the Congo. Kate lifts her brows at the wasp, and Bugsy’s sigh comes from the intercom. The buzzer sounds resigned, the bolt clicks open. She pulls the door open, pauses, and flicks a tiny wad of pocket lint from between her fingers. It speeds to the wall and detonates like a firecracker. She can’t tell whether the wasp escaped.

  His apartment is on the fourth floor and she takes the stairs three at a time. When she gets there, she’s not even winded. He’s waiting for her, the apartment door standing open. Hair wild from the pillow. Lichenous stubble. Bloodshot eyes. His bathrobe was white, is grey. Wasps shift under his skin they way they do when he’s nervous.

  “Come on in. I’ll make you some coffee.”

  She holds out her phone, and he takes it. The web browser is at the mobile site for Aces! magazine. In the image, she is standing on the street by a small park, kissing a man. His face is hard to make out. Hers is unmistakable. The headline is DANGEROUS CURVES.

  Underneath it, the byline is his name. And then the first few lines of text:

  There’s nothing more American than baseball, explosions, and first date hookups. Well lock up your sons, New York. Everyone’s sweetheart is on the town, and she’s looking for some man action!

  “What the hell is this?” she asks.

  “The end of a good night?” he says, and hands it back.

  * * *

  Twelve hours earlier, she’d stepped out of an off-off-Broadway theater onto the Sixth Avenue sidewalk. Traffic was stopped on Spring Street, and backed up for more than a block, the air filled with braying horns and the stink of exhaust. Clouds hung over the city so low, it seemed like someone on the Chrysler building could reach out a hand and scratch them. Above her, the marquee read MARAT/SADE, black letters on glowing white, then underneath it, NYC’S ONLY ALL-JOKER CAST! She paused on the sidewalk, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, cleared her throat. Outrage and disbelief warred in her mind, until she shook her head and started laughing.

  “It’s always kind of a confrontational play,” a man’s voice said. She’d been aware of someone coming out to the street behind her, but hadn’t particularly taken notice of him. Middle twenties. Dark hair that looked good unruly. Friendly smile.

  “Confrontational,” she said, laughing around the word.

  “Not always that confrontational. This production was a little … yeah.”

  Curveball pointed at the theater.

  “Did I miss something,” she said, “or were they actually throwing shit at us?”

  The man looked pained and amused at the same time.

  “Cow pats. I think that technically makes it manure,” he said. “It’s always rough when you’re trying to out-Brecht Brecht.”

  Tomorrow was her exhibition show, the last one on this leg of the tour. She’d been planning to go out with Ana as her local guide, but her friend had been called out of town on business at the last minute and wouldn’t be back until morning. Kate had decided to make it an adventure. Grab a cheap ticket from the same-day kiosk on Water Street, take herself out to dinner someplace, spend an evening on the town. She had enough money to splurge a little, and she wasn’t in Manhattan often enough anymore for it to seem normal. The title Marat/Sade had seemed interesting, probably because of the slash. She hadn’t known anything about it, going in. Then the lights had gone up, and things got weird fast. For instance, the Sade half was actually the Marquis de Sade.

  And it was a musical.

  “Was there a point to that?” Kate asked, leaning against the streetlamp.

  “The cow pats in particular?”

  “Any of it?”

  “Sure, if you look at the script,” he said. “Marat’s heading up the Terror after the French Revolution. De Sade’s … well, de Sade. They’re kind of the worst of political life and the worst of private life put together for comparison. I actually wrote a paper on Peter Weiss back in college.”

  “And the shit flinging?”

  “The deeper structural message can be lost, yes,” he said with a grin.

  From down the block, a young black man in a sand-colored shirt waved.

  “Tyler!”

  The dark-haired man turned and held up a finger in a just-a-minute gesture. Tyler. His smile was all apology.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, and
Curveball lifted a hand, half permission, half farewell. Tyler paused. She felt a moment’s tightness and the giddiness faded. She knew what came next. I’m a big fan. Can I get a picture with you? She’d say yes, because she always did because it was polite.

  “Some of us are heading over to Myko’s for drinks and cheap souvlaki,” Tyler said. “If you want to come hang out, you’d be welcome.”

  “Um.”

  “They don’t throw manure. That I’ve noticed.”

  Do you know who I am? slid to the back of her tongue and stopped there. He didn’t. Tyler’s friend called for him again.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  * * *

  Bugsy’s apartment smells stale. She wants to make the scent into old laundry or unwashed dishes, but it isn’t that. It’s air that has been still for too long. The kitchen is in the uncomfortable place between dirty and clean. A radio in a back room is tuned to NPR. In the main room, there are piles of books on the coffee table. Murder mysteries, crossword puzzles. The DVD of a ten-year-old romantic comedy perches on the armrest of the couch, neither box nor sleeve in sight. He starts a coffee grinder, and the high whining of hard beans being ripped apart makes speech impossible for a few seconds. The silence rushes in.

  “You’re working for Aces!,” she says, even though they both already know it.

  “I am. Reporting to the public at large which of their heroes are going commando to the Emmys. Keeping the world safe for amateur celebrity gynecologists.”

  “Does the Committee know?”

  The coffee machine burbles and steams. Bugsy grins.

  “You mean the Great and Glorious Committee to Save Everyone and Fix Everything? I kind of stepped back from that.”

  There is a pause. Just like you did hangs in the air like an accusation, but he doesn’t push it.

  “What happened?”

  She means What happened to you? but he seems to take it as What happened to your job? Maybe they’re the same question. He pours coffee into a black mug with the gold-embossed logo of a bank on the side and hands it to her. She takes it by reflex.

  “Well, there was this thing. It was about six months after we took out the Radical,” he says. “Lohengrin called me and a few other guys in for this sensitive Committee operation at this little pit outside Assab.”

  “I don’t know where Assab is,” she says. The coffee warms her hands.

  “So you get the general idea,” he says, leaning against the counter. His fingernails are dirty. She’s known him for years, but she can’t remember if it’s normal for him. “Idea was to get some kind of industrial base going. Fight poverty by getting someone a job. You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of push back on that, but there was. So essentially what you’ve got is this textile plant out in the middle of the desert with maybe two hundred guys working there, and five aces set up to do security until the locals can figure out what a police force would look like. I was half of the surveillance team.”