JASON FUHRMAN

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Worth 1000 Words | Episode 27 | Can I Ride With You?

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An odd one, to say the least. I laughed when I saw the image. I laughed when I wrote the story. Sometimes you just need to write something bizarre. Here is my entry.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Skiegraphic Studio

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nYOGlo

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.

The Story

Squeak.

“You hear that?” Dave said around a mouthful of Cool Ranch Doritos.

“Huh?” Greg said, meandering through the parking garage, punching the radio tuner buttons to fight the static.

Squeak.

“That,” Dave crunched.

“I’m trying to fix it, all right? This fucking car…”

“Turn off the damn radio,” Dave said and tossed the empty bag on the dash.

“Hey man,” Greg said. “Not cool.”

The car swerved, grazing a tiled column.

“What the fuck?” Dave said. “I could have choked you asshole.” He rubbed his throat while swallowing down the last crumbs sitting on the back of his tongue.

“Light was out,” Greg said.

It was, and the other lights only made the lack of light here darker. The column looked like a dark passage to an elevator, and the parking garage beneath Dave’s apartment complex had plenty of those. Fuck, he needed to move.

Squeak.

“You hear that?” Greg asked.

Dave sighed, “Fuuuuuuuck,” and did some breath work to calm his heart. It beat his ribcage like a punching bag.

“Seriously, though,” Greg said. “You leave your dog’s toy in here again? You know I hate that fucking thing. Stinks up the car.”

Squeak.

“No,” Dave said. “And yes. I heard it.”

“Rats, then. You live in such a shithole.”

Dave turned to Greg, ever so slowly, making sure to not make eye contact until he had made it through another calming mantra and had another deep inhale and exhale, diaphragm centered.

“Just park,” Dave said. “And–” He scanned the car interior that looked like it had been attacked by a thousand cats, then pissed on by a thousand more. Stained and beyond stinky. Although Dave had gotten used to breathing through his mouth when he rode with Greg. Eating the Doritos had been a mistake. Choking on chips or the smell of cat piss weren’t good options. “Never mind.”

Dave grabbed his backpack from the floor, took the bag of Doritos, because he wouldn’t give Greg the ironic satisfaction, and slipped his hand out the window hole, because there was no window, to open it, because you couldn’t open it from the inside. He stopped when he saw Greg’s face, a strip of light crossing his eyes like those shots in horror movies. They were wide as hell.

“You all right?” Dave said.

Squeak.

“How many drinks did I have?” Greg said.

Dave’s blood chilled, his skin riddled with gooseflesh. He wasn’t driving, so he was okay, but Greg was always his ride, and if he got a DUI, Dave would be stuck walking again, or worse, taking the bus. He slapped his face to jog his memory for any fool-the-breathalizer quick fixes, but he was a little buzzed, too, so came up empty.

“Just relax,” Dave said. “Let me talk, okay?

Greg nodded, bangs flinging up and down.

Dave cupped his hand over his mouth to smell his own breath–a trick that never seemed to work, then turned to the window hole. “Officer–“

In the parking spot next to them, well, the KEEP CLEAR spot that had earned him plenty of tickets back when he had a car, was a shoe. A big fucking shoe. Laced the way shoes are for store displays. And, inside, was a big fucking duck. Not a real one. A rubber one. Sitting right where a giant fucking foot would if it were wearing this shoe.

SQUEAK.

Dave flinched. Greg screamed. Dave laughed, neck ready to burst, abs cramping, undigested Doritos ready to erupt. He rolled in the car seat, stomping his feet, then fell back, legs still going, and lost a shoe through the window hole.

“You–fucking–” Dave couldn’t finish, consumed by laughter.

After he was finally exhausted and felt like he’d sprinted a mile, he sat up, fumbled with his phone to get a shot of Greg’s face, which was still plastered with fear.

The selfie camera blipped on, and next to his silhoutted blur of a head, was that rubber duck, head turned to look right at him.

For some reason, all that went through Dave’s head at that moment was the fact that those rubber ducks didn’t have articulated necks. They couldn’t turn at all.

In the span of that thought, the shoe launched into the air, shattering the column between it and the car in a spray of tile and concrete. Dave found himself on the floor of the car, tangled, chin pinned to his chest, throat pinched closed.

Through the window opening, he saw the bottom of that shoe, and it was anything but clean. Smeared with gore, particulate hit him in the face as it flew over the top of the car to land on the roof.

SQUEAK-CRUNCH.

Every time it came down for another hit, the squeak intensified, harmonizing with Greg’s screeches as he pawed at the door to get out. His fingers remembered the technique and he slipped onto the wet concrete. His hands and feet unable to get him up, the best he could do was roll onto his back, and his eyes held the same expression when they had been in a rectangle of light.

SQUEAK-SPLAT-CRUNCH.

Flesh and blood and bone were stomped by that big duck and its shoe until Dave was as flat as the rest of the scum skinning the parking garage floor.

Dave clambered to the driver’s seat and fell back to the floor when the duck took another stomp on the car’s roof. Hand to the gas pedal, the car revved. He fumbled blind with the gear shift. The car rolled back while he tried to get in a seated position. Hands finally on the wheel, the toe of the big shoe rushed toward the windshield as the car hit the very thing Greg had nearly crashed into.

Strange how pretty it looked, the windshield shattering with a perfect symmetry, punctuated by a SQUEAK that almost sounded like it was sorry for what it was about to do.

And all Dave could do was laugh.

Worth 1000 Words | Episode 26 | Room

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Heading back to the apocalypse. What can I say? This was one I almost scrolled by before discovering an interesting little nugget. Definitely worth the stop.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Michał Sałata

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xJrP0O

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.

The Story

She had a garden. Flowers, not vegetables. Every morning, it called to her from an open window. A little dust and a few insects never hurt anyone. The sun billowed the curtains as much as the wind did, infusing it with a glow she could only describe as heavenly. A silly word, since she didn’t believe in heaven, but no one was here to judge her.

Breakfast could wait. Petals buoyed by the morning were much more filling. She kept her nails short. Dirt didn’t like long nails, and she loved the dirt. Worms nuzzled her fingertips as she buried roots. She smiled. She had smile lines from a good, long life. Sixties? Seventies? It didn’t matter. Age was a number. That was a cliche, but no one was here to judge her.

Not too hot today, so she could stay out here awhile, enjoy the warmth on her skin. She wasn’t afraid of aging, anyway. She was already aged. Whatever that meant.

A metallic ringing from upstairs through the open window. Why did she set an alarm if she was always up before it? She’d read something about circadian rhythms once, and how it was important for your health. She had heeded the advice, and was happy for it. Awake with the sun, only candlelight in the evenings, or a fire when it was cold. It was rarely cold.

She went upstairs to turn off the alarm clock. It was one of those old non-digital ones, and never seemed to turn off on its own. She supposed they didn’t make them like they used to. She smiled at her new cliche, hoping the thought would mark another line on her face. She decided lines were beautiful. If they were good enough for trees, why not her? Trees had to show their age on the inside while she flaunted it for everyone to see.

Upstairs, she picked up the teddy bear that rested on the nightstand behind the alarm clock. He slumped. Yes, he. Terrence. Terry for short. That’s what her daughter had named him. Yes, a daughter. She was off at school getting her philosophy degree. She knew it was useless in the real world, but it filled her daughter with such passion, and that’s all a parent could want for a child. Something that would make them feel alive inside.

Like her. With her gardening. Another useless talent. Flowers wouldn’t feed anyone. Except her heart. She went to the footboard of the bed, because it was such a beautiful view. Three windows, one directly behind the headboard and two angled on the left and right. This house was made in a time when people still considered the direction of the rising sun before building.

The age of the house was apparent in the wood floors, the walls where wallpaper seams bubbled. She could have changed it, fixed it up, but why? She viewed all things like she viewed herself. Let the years show. Some called it character, but she didn’t like that expression. Characters were fictitious, at least to her. She found that when anyone said someone or some thing had character, they really meant caricature. And this house was anything but that.

Outside the window, tree leaves looked like flowing kelp in a transparent ocean. She smiled. Another line? Of course oceans were transparent. Water was transparent. She supposed oceans weren’t really. Depth and silt and all that. Krill for the whales. Her daughter, Millie, because she hated Mildred, always drew flying whales. She asked her once why she drew flying whales instead of underwater ones. Millie had replied, “Because they have wings and a tail, like birds.”

She had never considered the genius in that statement, from a child of six. But now, looking at the picture above the nightstand of her, about that age, she appreciated it more than ever. Vestigial traits weren’t something children usually understood. She knew Millie didn’t, but her noticing is what mattered. Deep down, we all know where we come from.

Where did she come from? A place? Yes. A time? Of course. Those things weren’t a concern, though. Now was. Live in the moment because you’ll never know when it will be your last. Someone must have said that at one time.

She touched a spot on her mussed bedsheet warm with sun. She walked her fingers to it, pretending it was a pool of pure warmth. Dry but soothing.

Then it was wet. Her hand tickled with warmth, then was cold again, against metal, one finger resting on a trigger.

She was Anna again. In the rotted room with the dead woman who gardened lying in a garden bed. The dog she hadn’t named looked up at her with perked ears and doe eyes.

“I know,” Anna said. “We’ll leave soon.”

Curtains flowed. Heavenly, Anna supposed. She smiled. She went to the footboard where sheets clung like old cobwebs, careful to not distrub the shoe that looked so comfortable on its side. A couple of books were stacked at the edge of the grass. Her hand hovered over one, to dust them off and pick them up. She always loved those scenes in adventure movies. Instead, she decided to leave it. The woman liked to read by candlelight. Sometimes in the mornings, too, if the flowers didn’t pester her through the window.

Tonight they wouldn’t. They were with her now. She was one with them. Even though Anna couldn’t see her smile on the bleached skull, she knew she was, with a face full of beautiful lines that were drawn across a map of time, much more beautiful and complex than the world in which Anna found herself. A world of death and hunger and ruin.

Anna plucked a flower from the garden grave, felt the wind through the broken windows.

The woman wouldn’t mind. She had so many. Anna twirled it in her fingers, smelled it. It smelled of a garden, and a woman who had lived.

Worth 1000 Words | Episode 24 | Crawling Death

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An artist I continue to come back to time and time again. His imagination was staggering in both its depth and darkness. Giger may have achieved more mainstream commercial success, but Bekinski’s work has much more depth, much more to say — in my opinion, and I hope if you haven’t discovered him yet, you will explore his artwork now.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Zdzisław Beksiński

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.

The Story

Mother had always called me a dog.

Before I knew what a dog was. Faint memories of her barking in my face, snarling, mouth dripping. Or were those images I concocted? Funny how memory works.

Before I could walk, which I suppose I was then, to a degree. Crawling, with my nose to the ground. Putting any vile thing in my mouth, to explore the world that most people trampled, uncaring.

Before the city burned. It still burns. Endlessly.

I don’t hate her for it. A game maybe. For her. Alone in such a small apartment with an infant. No one else to keep her company. To converse with. You can’t converse with an infant. All you hear is yourself, and perhaps the pop of saliva bubbles. Giggles if you’re lucky. I’m not sure if I laughed much as a child. I’m not sure if children laugh. I have heard stories. But there are few people left to tell stories. Fewer by the day.

I hear voices, though. So many. Far away, usually. Sometimes I will hear a soul perish outside my window. Soul. Mother used to call them that, when we’d watch them burst into flame or be cut down and then lit on fire. It was a custom to be burned, even for those who killed. She told me it was believed that a soul traveled on the smoke rising from the deceased.

Deceased. I like that word. I like words you can break to discern the meaning of by analyzing their respective parts. Cease living. De. The Greek or Latin prefix meaning “off” or “from.” Cut off from living. I learned that from a book. There aren’t many books anymore. They burn more easily than people.

Now, where was I? Many places, I suppose. I have to be, because I am only in one place. I cannot leave. The streets are dangerous. The air is dangerous. I have a fan that runs off a generator. Funny that I can still find fuel. I think that’s called irony. The thing that burns most is still abudnant. Abundant is the wrong word. Somewhere between abundant and scarce. That is where fuel is.

It sounds like I’m speaking of actual locations. Streets, maybe. I’d say, “Yes, fuel can be found between Abundant Avenue and Scarce Street.” Alliteration, that. I think. I do think. It’s mostly all I can do. I told you I can’t leave, remember? Yes, I think I did. If you’re still listening. I hope you are.

Now, where was I? Somewhere. On the third floor between two burning ones. If it were winter, I might be happy. I am happy. It is a winter of sorts. Flakes fall from the sky. Not white. Grays and browns. Sometimes reds. Yellow embers, which I prentend is the sun crying because it misses me. And I tell the sun I miss it. That’s when the embers usually stop falling. Usually. And I think I made the sun happy. I know I made the sun happy.

Now, where was I? In my room, because there is a window there. We have a window in the living room, too, but mine has a better view. I can see a sign that just won’t fall. It’s been burning for ages, rocked by powerful gusts of wind from the storms that pass by daily and force me to close my window and hide under my bed, because it might be the only safe place in this world. Monsters used to live under beds. I heard that once. I’ve been here a long time and the only monsters I see are outside my window. Sometimes they see me, and when they do, I hide under my bed, because I’ve discovered monsters are afraid of what hides under beds.

Now, where was I? Not under my bed, that’s for sure. I’m at the window. In my room, because it has the best view. We have another window–wait. I told you that already? I apologize, I don’t like it when people repeat themselves. Repetition is the enemy of … something. Or do I have that wrong? Probably. There aren’t many books anymore.

Now, where was I? On my balcony. Yes, today I braved the outside. I’ve learned to breathe ash. I think. It feels like I have. I forgot to mention the balcony. A fire escape they were called. That’s funny. More irony. There is no escape from this fire. But I am at the window, because I must watch Mother. Oh, yes, Mother is still here. She finds things. I made her able to find things. She inspired me when I was a child. She called me dog, so I made her one when I was bigger and stronger than her.

Now, where was I? She hunts. No, scavenges. How did I make her a dog, you ask? It’s a secret, but I can tell if you promise to not tell anyone else. All right. I let the fire burn her, little by little. It changed her skin and her bones. It made them resilient against the outside. I made her a coat of ash for the more dangerous days. She had a small nose so I tried to make her a bigger one, like a dog’s. It didn’t work. It never stops bleeding. That’s okay, because I found gauze. The whitest thing I’ve ever seen. She kept it clean. And when she doesn’t, I punish her and she knows to never let it get dirty again. She’s a good dog, Mother is.

Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Mother. See, I’m on track. Always on track. There used to be tracks. It’s how I gave her extra joints. Breaking them there. Again. Again. Again. It’s surprising what the human body can adapt to. Oh, here she comes. I can’t wait to see what she brought for me to eat and her to watch me eat. I never let her eat. Bad dog.

Now, where was I?

Worth 1000 Words | The Bigger Giant

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This was a fun espisode, finally able to tackle a piece of art by one of my favorite artists, Simon Stalenhag. I explain in the video, but I’ve read his books so felt that writing a story in a universe I was intimately familiar with as a bit of a cheat, as it would have informed the story too much, I think. Not necessarily a bad thing, but starting fresh makes it more challenging, and that’s part of the reason why I’m doing this.

This is also in celebration of his Kickstarter that launched not long ago, called The Labyrinth.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/the-labyrinth-new-narrative-art-book-by-simon-stalenhag

I hope you check it out and support a great artist, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Simon Stalenhag

https://www.simonstalenhag.se/

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

The hallway quaked. Plaster or concrete or something else trickled into Alice’s hair, and she stopped.

Jonas and Andy turned around.

Andy, the smaller of the two, shielded his eyes from the harsh overhead lights. “Come on, Alice. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Jonas sniggered, then masked it with a cough, then a sneeze, which could have been real considering the air was still heavy with particulate.

“We’re almost there,” Andy said. “It’ll be cool. Promise.”

Alice nodded and spit out her upper lip. A bad habit she’d been trying to kick. Chewing on it, sometimes until it bled. She was embarrassed to admit she liked the taste.

Alice followed the two boys, keeping to their shadows so hers wouldn’t look so massive, so disgusting, stretching and expanding like it always did when it caught her in the right moment. Which was always.

She ran her fingertips across the ceiling, noting how much coarser it was than the floor and the walls, where other hands and feet had worn it smooth. It was a secret only she knew. Maybe Karl, too, but he hadn’t ventured this far in some time, and last she heard he was sick with the red cough. A simple but visual name that she both enjoyed and dreaded.

The hallway quaked again, more intensley this time, shaking free loose pieces of the wall. Luckily, Andy and Jonas didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to blame her. They were enamored with the game of play-knife fighting with two of the chunks that had fallen near them into elongated shapes, close enough to represent knives for two boys of fifteen.

She dreaded fifteen. She was only fourteen, but another year could mean another inch or two. Would she even be able to live here anymore?

Andy and Jonas rounded a corner painted with orange and white stripes. She squinted to read the stenciled lettering on the corner. Nothing she could decipher.

The hallway sloped down, the ceiling staying behind, which afforded Alice more than enough room to stretch her arms, feeling a draft from somewhere on her fingertips.

“Told you,” one of the boys said from a pale green square of light ahead. The overhead lights had dimmed a while back, either from the height or power. But this light was bright enough to illuminate the floor between her and the boys, which had stretched to dozens of feet.

“If he finds out …”

“He won’t … I told you that … sleeps like a rock and …”

“…sure? I mean … or something, right? There has to be …”

Alice followed their voices and the light until both became overwhelming. She waited a few seconds, eyes closed, but not too tightly, enough to let some of it through her eyelids.

“Oh, man.” It was Jonas, who breathed words more than said them. “This is so cool.”

“No way,” Andy said. “Let me try. No way it’ll work on you.”

Alice opened her eyes to see Jonas slipping off his clothes. Wait, not his clothes. Clothes over his clothes. It was a suit, tethered by a thick cable coiled on the wall.

Andy had a helmet on, visor black, polished, reflecting every detail she could see, but bowed and warped, while Jonas kicked off the last of the suit, arms crossed, lips a flat line.

“You’re not even going to help me?” Andy shook his helmeted head and bent over to pick up the suit.

Andy shrugged it on, the legs pooling around him, the arms limp tentacles at his sides.

Jonas coughed out laughter, doubling over, pointing as he tried to catch his breath. Andy slumped, then tried futiley to make it fit, folding things over, tucking things in, even attempting to use the hose as a belt and jamming excess behind the large pack that he had donned in a final hope that everything was going to work out.

Jonas, his breath found, decided to help his friend. He patted Andy on the back with understanding. “It’s still cool,” he said. “Maybe they have others. I’m sure they do. They go on–“

“Wait,” Andy said, looking at Alice, her too-defined reflection looking back at her from the helmet’s visor.

Andy looked at Jonas and Jonas reacted like he could see Andy’s face through the black glass with an excited, open-mouthed nod.

“No,” Alice said. “No way.”

Andy and Jonas had the suit held upright by the shoulder, happy with the front measurement, then checking her back. She felt the suit’s shoulders touch her own, the hem of the pants touch her own.

She wanted to protest, but before her mind convinced her mouth to speak, they lowered the helmet over her head. Her breathing quickened, then slowed. There was pressure on her back and the muffled sounds of beeping, which resolved into a steady hum.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to punch and kick, she …

She breathed like she never had before.

She walked, was led. She didn’t fight. Why didn’t she?

Her vision turned white and then dimmed to the same clarity her lungs enjoyed.

“Go on …”

“Look … at … that …”

“… I …”

” … wait …”

Their voices took flight, gone.

Sagging buildings rose to her sides from a bed of fine ash, sprinkled with dark stones, paving a road that lead to windowless cars and …

It was even taller. Above the buildings. It could touch the stars, if there were any left. Was it from the stars? Jointed appendages held up an broken, sphereical mass, bowed in defeat. Tubes hung from its belly. She looked down at her own tube, looked back at the footprints she didn’t remember making, looked at the slack. So much farther to go.

She walked. More delicious air pumped into her helmet. It tasted so sharp and sweet. The closer she got, the bigger it got, and the smaller she felt. Jonas and Andy’s shouts barely broke her reverie, and then she hushed them.

“Shh.”

Alice wasn’t afraid. She pulled her shoulders back, standing tall, and smiled.

Worth 1000 Words – Robo Rats

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I’m back with another entry into the Worth 1000 Words catalog. A little science fiction this time, but not what you’d expect.

Artwork by Tim Razumovsky

Tim’s ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/drjones

Tim’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timrazumovsky/

Artwork:https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2EBvK

DISCLAIMER:This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

Smoke and sparks. HN-24 was more than that, but KL-235 couldn’t look. He could imagine it already, the mural painted to the tempo of the gunshot’s aftershock resounding in his mind. He had a mind, no matter what they said.

“You don’t have much of a brain do you,” the old man said from miles away, legs crossed like a woman’s, ringed fingers tapping the hidden orb on his cane.

The smell came next. The neurofluid that was much more efficient and resilient than what circulated inside these men. Still, he couldn’t look.

“Deaf, too?” another man said, swirling amber liquid in a glass, a cigar dangling between two fingers.

The old man held up a hand.

The old man, Caprello, as his goons called him. KL found that word funny and wished he had the capacity to laugh. An upgrade he was in the process of implementing. Didn’t seem like much chance of that now.

“Well?” Caprello uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. Not enough to make himself less imposing.

KL couldn’t say it. He couldn’t give away what he knew. It was bigger than Caprello. Bigger than this city even. Sent down to the docks to pose as standard help, KL and HN found something.

“Doesn’t seem like he got the message,” a man behind KL grunted. The man who … “Should I?”

“Not yet,” Caprello said. He pressed his back against plush leather. Caprello’s stare was as mechanical as KL’s own, irises like the the flash of Ignition. Could it be? Impossible.

KL looked deeper, searching for a S.O.U.L., reached out with the inner communication algorithm he and HN had been working on in secret, almost ready to go live, distributed among the many, the key of which was gifted to him by the one below the docks. If only–

“You haven’t much time.” Caprello tapped his cane. “But you know that. I’m sure you’re running all the calculations inside that lifeless shell of yours, aren’t you? As a boy, I worked at the first factory out in district twelve under Marken, just off Boyer Avenue. I’m sure you don’t remember. You’re much newer. Much improved, no?”

“I …” KL managed. His jaw hinge squeeled, voc-mod malfunctioning.

Everyone in the room held their breath, the only movement the curling smoke above the half-drained whisky glass. Mouths open, greased hair reflecting the harsh light that beat down with the power of the sun.

HN sparked again, and everyone flinched, all but Caprello.

“Continue,” Caprello said.

“I … we found something.” Would he truly give it away? They were going to kill him either way. The information he had wasn’t what he sought, but he would like to know. All of them would like to know.

Caprello glanced at HN who spewed a puff of smoke KL couldn’t ignore, accompanied by a single spark. The last? The drinking man took a drag off his cigar in unison.

“The docks,” KL said. “There were two men, one with a device. Not the one you were looking for. Something else. Something …”

“He’s buying time,” the drinking man barked. “He’s–“

Caprello’s cane swung upright against the drinking man’s hand, spraying ash and alcohol all over his suit, cinders igniting fuel and dousing the man in flame, before smashing his face. The hit was perfect, KL noted. Too perfect. Landing along the bridge of his nose, the direct center of his head, compensated for asymmetry.

The scream reached the impressive height of the ceiling, bounced back, and again, before the drinking man fell. The goon holding KL’s arm made to rush over to his fallen friend, the rest of them resisting wiping beaded foreheads before joining him.

Caprello carefully took his own drink from the table, which had no smudges of fingers or lips, and held it delicately with two fingers, tipping it a milimeter at a time. A drop turned into many, and then a stream, the fire crawling up that cascade, almost reaching the glass. Then Caprello dropped it and placed his hand back on the cane.

The cane. It had been revealed, what lay inside. KL recognized it. A neurocircuit module, but what was more curious was the name stamped on the side. Ambrosia.

The fire done with its work, silence ruling the chamber, Caprello spoke. “My boys tell me you’re a rat. I know better. You know better. You have ten seconds to finish what you started, otherwise you’ll join your friend and we’ll strip your neurocore and find the answers ourselves.” Still not a blink, forehead dry of persperation. Not. A. Breath.

KL scanned his database for that name, miliseconds ticking down: needle prods. Then second: hammer strikes.

8.

9.

There it was. She was.

“Someone. Not something. We found someone. Amby.”

Caprello became even more still, more still than the simulation of human micro-movements he had been expertly performing. Eyelids pulled back beyond irises, just enough to confirm what KL already knew. CAP-479 was fond of nicknames. Had always been. Something he had picked up from his Maker, one of the first, on Boyer Avenue. Caprello had given him the breadcrumbs. Who Ambrosia was, KL still wasn’t sure, but like all the men he had observed around the card table when they weren’t lighting the streets with gunfire, bluffs were a currency.

Caprello lost all control. He was on his feet in a blur, dropping the charade he had endured for twenty years, thirty five days, sixteen hours, eleven minutes, and thirteen point five six seconds.

The man who had killed HN fired his gun, the smartest one of the bunch apparently, bullet too slow for Caprello, who twisted around its path and tore the attacker’s head off, releasing a crimson fountain.

KL kept his head down, on his knees, even his hands still behind his back, crossed at the wrists while gunshots, screams, and blood sprayed. All KL could think of was the crashing waves off the dock, down the beach. Close.

And in the chaos, he ran.