Hybrid Fiction, Issue 6

Copyright Š 2020 Hybrid Fiction. All material appearing in Hybrid Fiction is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part is not permitted without permission in writing from the editor. All characters and events are fictitious. The publisher bears no responsibility and accepts no liability for the work herein.

Hybrid Fiction September 2020

Table of Contents Cover: Descent by Graham Kennedy “Ampu-Chic” by Michelle F. Goddard ................................................................................................................. 3 When Ronnie, an injured up-and-coming sculptor finds herself at the mercy of a skewed medical system, a fortuitous intervention reveals a more sinister agenda.

Project Auroral: Finale drawn by Marc Rene and written by Ben Pyle ............................................................. 12 The saga of superheroine Aryn comes to a thrilling close!* When Gods Sleep: Part I by Marco Cultrera ....................................................................................................... 18 The God-King, a brutal dictator has emerged and is waging a war of conquest without any regard for his subjects or life itself. It's up to Merad, last descendant of a long line of abused women, to stop him.

“Heroes Never Die” by Rickey Rivers, Jr. .......................................................................................................... 31 A superhero origin story with a supernatural twist.

“Machines in Motion” by Benjamin C. Kinney ..................................................................................................34 The discovery of new technologies has extended the Napoleonic Wars for forty years. In the war’s endless need for personnel, a Jewish refugee has a chance to become a military engineer, despite the restrictions against her religion and gender. To win her place among the engineers, she’ll need to outmaneuver all the officers and mentors who want to keep her under their control.

“Skin Deep” by Jasmine Arch ............................................................................................................................ 42 When Miach, a young selkie, wakes up sick in a strange cabin and without pelt, it's easy to draw conclusions about Hagan, the cabin's owner. But Hagan's kindness and unassuming manner succeed in winning Miach's trust.

“Law of Conservation of Baseball” by Stephen Case ...................................................................................... 51 Hunter handles her first love—and heartbreak—with a twist of magic and physics.

“Bodark” by Ryan Norman ................................................................................................................................62 A young man in a futuristic, medieval American South races to rescue his lover from a forced marriage to a gentryman. His success will depend on his ability to understand the messages of trees, a friendship with forest daemons, and whether he has the determination to pursue love without knowing whether it will be reciprocated.

About the authors and artists............................................................................................................................ 75

*

See Hybrid Fiction, Issues 2 through 4 for the rest of Aryn’s adventures.

Hybrid Fiction September 2020

AMPU-CHIC

By Michelle F. Goddard

There is a line. Not perhaps written on the floor plans but just as indelible. I sit on that line in the one stray chair, orphan now to both sides. I’ve been here at the clinic for over two hours, riding the line, like I do with everything, walking that narrow path and thinking that will keep me safe.

One foot rests on blue and white check linoleum that exudes a strong ammonia smell. This waiting area is designated for the ‘economically aided types.’ The EATs sit in their metal-framed navy upholstered chairs, reading out-of-date magazines, wiping their sniffling noses, and nursing the occasional cast worn by shabbily dressed children next to pinched-faced mothers. Seniors linger with the patience of those resigned to have no choice but to wait, idly knitting or staring off into space, while they stifle coughs into worn handkerchiefs. I cradle my poorly bandaged wrist as it throbs, but I’m not one of them.

My other foot rests on an exotic wood floor, the one wholly natural thing in the area. It’s buffed to a shine that almost reflects my pain etched face back at me. This lounge is more café than clinic.

Clients, not patients, sit in plush armchairs perusing e-magazines and books, or gather to gossip or check out the latest digital feed. A computer terminal displaying a very upscale homepage and an electronic bulletin board flashes with advertisements about new style yoga and recipes for ‘The Enhanced.’ One woman taps with a cyber-digit that sprouts from her nail and extends to a stylus point, downloading class times into her calendar.

Unlike me, I don’t think any of them are desperate to see a doctor. They seem pleased enough to chat with the cheerful brunette nurse as the red-headed one collates client data directly through her e-junkt, an implant alteration that links directly to the data stream. I had noticed the minute hole, a dark glittering spot positioned discreetly below her left ear, when I first arrived. Now, a spider-silk wire connects her to her workstation.

A girl with a pierced nose leans against one of the nearby terminal kiosks, chin in one hand as the other guides a mouse. The girl stands with her hip cocked so hard it looks like it doesn’t belong to her, like it’s already Enhanced. Probably mimicking the latest model pose from an advert. On the screen, a model struts with a herky-jerky motion up a catwalk and then poses in a stance impossible for only the most devout masochistic yogi. The audience rises to their feet applauding as she Hybrid Fiction September 2020

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Clydesdale-clomps off the stage. The girl’s gaze slides away from the screen toward me. I don’t look away fast enough. Shit.

She nods her chin in the general direction of my arm. “In here for a tweak?”

“Just a sprain” I say. I give her my best dismissive half-smile, hoping she gets the hint.

“Sprain?” the girl asks. She stares at me, delight and horror flicker like a strobe across her face. Is she tasting the macabre, swishing it around in her mouth and deciding whether or not to swallow?

My gaze flits over the girl, taking in every detail. Early teens. Even the black clothes with their preworn and pre-ripped stamp of street-legit history, dark lips and night-clubbing raccoon eye makeup, isn’t enough to hide that. And by the sound of that slight lisp, she has a new tongue piercing. I listen and catch the tell-tale clickity-click the newly adorned always make when playing with the stud.

“So, it’s not Enhanced?”

I pretend not to hear as I stare down at my arm. My fingers delicately explore the muscles and tendons hidden beneath my desperate one-handed bandaging. Certainly a break would be more painful but what if it’s a fracture? Days of healing, hours of work delayed; the calculations run through my brain. A sprain. Please let it be just a sprain.

“What were you doing when you hurt it?” the girl asks loud enough that I would have to be deaf and sitting in another district not to hear.

“Working.” I adjust my posture to give my left butt cheek a chance to get the feeling back into it.

Tucking my arm tight against my chest, I re-cross my legs, completely turning my body away from the girl in my ‘do not disturb’ posture.

“Working how,” the girl says. Again she uses that impossible-to-feign-deafness volume.

My vibrating cell rescues me. I retrieve it from my jacket pocket and read the text. It is terse and terminal. Deadline can’t be moved. Please confirm installation is on track. I can barely hold my phone and I’m supposed to finish the sculpture? My fingers freeze, suspended over the keypad. I put it away without answering. I can’t give them any answer. I can’t know for sure. Not until I see a doctor.

“What kind of job uses no Enhancements,” the girl says.

An older nurse passes me, the gentle hiss of her hydraulics accompanying her gait. “That’s enough questions from you,” she says. The girl makes a face but then continues to scroll down the page, watching it through half-lidded eyes that seem to drift as if pulled by a magnet in my direction.

“Excuse me?” I say, waving at the nurse. “Hello?” Her name tag says Sinclair RN. Sinclair has been back and forth all morning seeing to the EATs, escorting them into examination rooms and in some cases, wheeling them through the large double doors that lead out into the hall and to the elevators for lab work. She has been diligent and efficient, and I hate to bother her, but I do. “Nurse Sinclair?

I’ve been waiting quite a while. I was wondering—” “We’ll be right with you,” Nurse Sinclair says not breaking stride.

It is not the first time I’ve heard this. The two younger nurses at reception have both uttered the same. Sinclair stops in front of a heavy-set senior. After a few words, she gingerly helps him to his feet. Her Enhanced legs hold most of his weight as she guides him across the linoleum. “Janelle,” Sinclair says, summoning the brunette with a wave. Janelle pushes a wheelchair to her, wrinkling her nose as the elderly man is lowered into the chair. She wheels him away down the hall as if he’s on fire.

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Sinclair slips behind the desk and calls up something on the terminal. With a nod in my direction, she walks across the wood floor, her thick soled nurse’s shoes making no sound at all. “Ms. Taylor?”

“Yes,” I say jerking to my feet. I jostle my wrist in my eagerness, unable to quell the wince and hiss of pain.

Sinclair takes my wrist in a firm grip. Her ministrations send me jerking out of her grasp. “That hurts?” the nurse asks. I nod my head, pain robbing me of speech. The throbbing in my wrist sends tendrils of fire up my arm and into a spot deep in my shoulder. Not for the first time this long morning I think, I should have let that sculpture fall.

“No wonder you’re not in the system. I assumed when you walked in that you were Enhanced.”

She releases my wrist and folds her arms over her stomach as she squares her shoulders and pulls herself up tall. “But painful as this is, it is also a wonderful opportunity. I’m sure you’re considering Enhancements.”

“It’s just a sprain.”

“I know the accepted belief is that a break is best for the alteration. The shock helps the ‘Enhancement’ to take. But really a sprain like this would do just fine. After all, ‘Enhancements; The Last Pain You’ll Ever Feel’.”

“No. I mean it’s just a sprain.” I ease my arm forward, revealing more of my poorly wrapped bandage around my wrist. “I just need a doctor to have a look. Maybe put my wrist in a temporary cast, perhaps a prescription for pain-killers...”

Sinclair stares, shock and disbelief flashing on her face before her considerable discipline schools it back into its usual blank pleasantness. “You are not registered as an EAT.” I shake my head. Sinclair glances back toward the main desk. She takes my wrist and more gently this time examines it. “Yes, this is just a sprain. A bad sprain,” she says as I moan. “Nothing broken. That’s some good news.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time and I really have to get back to work.”

Sinclair sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, but you will have to be patient.” Sinclair shakes her head. “You know it’s a shame. A minor cybernetic alteration with a minute introduction of nano-bots would have already fixed this right up for you. It really is the way of the future. I couldn’t do my job without it.”

And I can’t do my job with it. But I say nothing. I’ve had this argument before, and pain and desperation won’t make my debating skills any better.

The girl sneers at my bandaged wrist. “What. Can’t afford it?”

“Enough of that, young lady,” Sinclair says to the girl. “If you can’t be civil, you can’t be here.” She rests her hand on the girl’s back and guides her away from me and toward the main doors. The girl slouches out of the clinic, shoulders hunched, boot heels slapping against the floor.

Most of the people have come and gone. Even the EATs were rushed through as if poverty is contagious and the staff has to minimize exposure. The only exception other than me is an elderly East Indian woman. She sits across from me, on the same invisible line separating the waiting rooms.

She has been there since I arrived, walking around the room, checking out billboards and the computer, sitting amicably, watching people coming and going with a simple placid smile on her face, her wrinkles making her eyes into bright emeralds that glitter within the coppery tissue-paper folds of her face.

She’s dressed in a simple yet elegant Selwar Kameez. The soft, blue silk tunic and pants are plain,

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but she has a tasteful and intricately embroidered scarf in the same blue silk, thrown back across her neck. Her grey hair has a few black strands and is swept back into a long braid that shows elegant jewelry dangling from her ears. She does not appear to be in pain, but if she were here for a checkup, surely she would have been seen to by now. So, what is she doing here?

I abandon the pale distraction of my curiosity. I cross my legs, rest my forearm gently on my raised knee and examine my wrist. I carefully open and close my fingers, but even that little feat sends another wave of bright pain radiating up my arm, making me hiss and grimace. My uninjured hand closes in a fist that is sure to leave little half moon indentations in my palm.

The red-headed nurse looks over at me with one of those smiles that isn’t really a smile. She tilts her head in a practiced sympathetic manner. “Thank you so much for your patience.” I nod with a stiff smile to hide my surprise. What. Are they telepathic? Does she have some sort of antennae linked into the e-junkt at the base of her neck that gauges the patience of their patients? Increase in heartbeat, perspiration, something that tracks your eye movements? Rates of eye-rolls per second?

I’m trying to keep my sense of humor, but the thought sort of creeps me out.

I flinch at a shadow and the feeling of someone too close. I look up to see the wrinkled, smiling face of the old Indian woman. She is standing right beside me.

“May I?” she asks.

I barely acknowledge her before she sits down, but I force myself not to show the irritation I’m feeling. It’s not her fault I’m in pain and miserable and freaking out a little bit. The smell is getting to me. I have run out of sitting positions for my poor numb behind and pacing isn’t any more comfortable, especially because I have to keep my wrist immobile.

“My name is Dharma,” the old woman says. “You’re Veronica Taylor, aren’t you? The artist?”

I jerk back, surprised that this woman would know who I am or care. A buzz of conversation blooms in the area around the desk, behind raised hands and into eager ears. The brunette nudges the redhead as she stares at me. “I told you so, Monique. That sculpture in the midtown mall. The big one. Right at the entrance. That’s yours,” she says.

“Well not anymore, of course,” I say trying to interject a little levity as those in the clinic turn and stare at me. Sinclair joins them at the desk, her blank gaze flitting between us.

“People pay a lot of money to buy her work,” Janelle says to the nurses. She turns to me. “And is it true you do everything by hand. Real hands?”

I rise from my chair and approach the desk, preferring more discretion. I can feel the eyes of everyone near the desk on me watching me like I’m a dangerous animal. A fully natural animal. I could be capable of anything. I was tempted to growl just to see what would happen. Someone might actually scream. Instead, I stay civil. “Well, yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s what they’re buying.”

Janelle leans across the desk. “There’s some controversy about that isn’t there? The whole organic versus cybernetic. Where does the art lie? That whole debate.”

“I just make sculptures. I leave politics to other people.”

“But can anyone really do that?” Janelle asks.

Sinclair smiles a tight line of skepticism under narrowed eyes. I doubt she’ll ever check the inscription on the mid-town mall scultpure. Even if she did, she probably wouldn’t believe that I’m

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the sculptor. It would be hard to envision this unassuming woman the soul behind that monstrosity.

It’s even harder to believe that anyone would choose not to be ‘Enhanced.’

“You really should have told us who you were when you first came in,” Monique says. “We might have been able to do something about the queue. But as it is, our hands are tied.” She glances down at my wrist and makes a face. “Sorry.” Monique shrugs, a soft movement of her shoulders used to smooth over difficult matters. Me, being the difficult matter.

“Thought it was first come, first serve for walk-ins. I mean it’s not like I staggered in here having a heart attack.”

“Heart attack. Oh you’re funny too,” Monique says with the appropriate giggle, socially defined by pitch and duration. “Would you like a coffee?”

“I would really like to see the doctor so that I can get back to work.”

“Of course, of course,” Monique says. “While we’re waiting, we can fill out some forms—” “I’ve already done that—” “Then you can give us your credit card, and we’ll calculate your installments.” Monique sits at her computer and readies her fingers over the keyboard.

“I’ll be paying in a cash-transfer,” I say.

Monique cocks her head to one side. “Perhaps you should check our rates, before you…” She leaves the implication dangling, her eyes subtly measuring me up against what must be the exorbitant sum on the screen in front of her.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, matching her tone for tone and enjoying the subtle lift of her eyebrows.

I head back to my chair that straddles two worlds. Show no fear. This is a game of poker.

Monique is used to people who have nothing in their hand. Nothing in their hand. The bitter irony is not lost on me as I pull my arm tighter into my body. Ahead, Dharma sits smiling up at me. I change trajectory to the chair across from her. I try to get comfortable shifting from one cheek to the other as I uncross and cross my legs. Again.

Unfortunately, like the teenager earlier, the old woman does not get the hint either. “I’m sorry,” she says sitting down beside me. “I didn’t mean to make this uncomfortable.”

I hold out my wrist. “Something beat you to it.”

“I think I can help you with that.”

“You a doctor?”

My phone rings. A call this time. “Excuse me.” I retrieve my cell from my pocket as I shoulder my way through the main door. I listen to the message. No text to misunderstand its meaning. The tone is clear. I have to give them an answer. I turn to the door to find Nurse Sinclair staring at me from the other side. She slips through. “Can the doctor see me now?”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but he won’t be able to see you today.” Her gaze flickers over her shoulder. Through the transparent glass I see the young nurses laughing with a client, as they have been doing for most of my time in the waiting room, leaving the real work to the capable and dedicated Nurse Sinclair.

“Can you help me?” I ask. “Please.”

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“It’s against the rules. There are procedures.”

“Anything you can do. Anything. I’ll pay.” She pulls at her lip. I reach for my i-dent card. “I’d have to pay anyway. I may as well pay you.”

“I might be able to, but you have to do exactly what I tell you.” She holds the door open for me.

“Of course,” I say rushing through the door.

Nurse Sinclair guides me back inside. She walks me past the waiting room and into an examination room. “You’ll have to wait here until I can see to you. You understand?” I nod. “You said you can do a cash transfer?”

Again, I nod. “What’s your bank information?”

Sinclair cocks an eyebrow. “They can trace that. You’ll have to send it to a blank account. You know what that is, don’t you?” I nod, desperation making my head move before reason can step in.

“You’ll have to make the payment before I can help you, you understand that?” I nod and this time my head feels as if it isn’t mine, as if I’m nodding from habit, nodding in time with the heartbeat of pain in my wrist.

Sinclair slips from the room. I retrieve my phone. When I swipe it open, the committee’s text runs across the screen. My hand trembles, but I search for a place to make my deposit. I jump when the door opens and take a step back when Dharma rushes inside and closes the door behind her and locks it.

“What are you doing?”

“I was worried,” Dharma says. “I thought it was going to be the girl.”

“What about the girl?”

“We’ve heard of an unusual statistical anomaly at this clinic. A surprising number of emergency alterations, not full-blown Enhancements but then again not everyone can opt for that.”

“This is just a sprain. I’m being seen for a sprain. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t know you. You need to leave.”

“Yes. That’s true. You don’t know anyone here.”

Monique enters with a cup in her hand, steam rising lazily from it. She glares at Dharma. “What are you doing back here?”

“Washroom?” Dharma asks, flashing an innocent smile.

Monique shakes her head and rolls her eyes. She thrusts the drink in my direction.

“I said I didn’t want anything to drink,” I say.

“Nurse Sinclair wants you to drink this.” I stare at the cup. Monique purses her lips. “The sooner you drink, the sooner you can feel better.”

I reach for the cup, an automatic response. Dharma stumbles forward and jostles our hands. The cup tumbles. Some of the contents spray me. Most of it falls on the old woman. She cries out with pain as the liquid splashes on her bare arm and through the delicate fabric of her tunic. I see Monique shoot her a venomous look, quickly veiled, as she picks up the cup and hurries out the door. I hear her call for Janelle and a towel before the door swishes shut.

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“Are you okay?” I ask Dharma. “What just happened?” Even through the darkness of her skin, I can see her arm beginning to redden. I wonder how bad the burns are beneath her tunic. “Shouldn’t you let someone see to you?”

“I’ll be fine once I get home,” the old woman says as she quickly sops up the liquid with her long neck scarf. “Please. I could use an escort home.” Dharma leans heavily on my shoulder as she holds the wet fabric from her skin. She stares up at me. “It’s not far.”

I hesitate, but there is something about Monique’s eagerness to return not with first-aid but with another drink that just pisses me off. I stare at her as she stands in the doorway and realize I want to leave. I’ve wanted to leave from the moment I stepped into this place. Up to this point I had tried reasoning it away as the nervousness of being in a strange doctor’s office or my eagerness to get back to the work. The fear that this injury may put a delay on my art that I can ill afford both financially and professionally. There are lots of logical reasons for this apprehension. Still, some part of me has been sounding a warning that has nothing to do with logic. “I have to go,” I say.

“Unfortunately, when you come back, you’ll have to join the queue again,” Monique says. ”And there is a risk that you might seriously injure that wrist without medical attention. I would not advise this, especially as the doctor is prepared to see you next.”

More lies.

“I’ll just have to take that risk,” I say as I link arms with Dharma. She takes my arm in a manner so gentle that at first I don’t even realize it’s my sprained wrist that she holds. At least it would be protected from the crowd as we walk together.

“And really,” I say, as we make our way slowly toward the glass sliding doors, “should you be serving such hot beverages? People have been known to sue over something like that.”

The doors slid shut behind us, and I feel the old woman begin to shake with laughter.

“That was brilliant. They probably couldn’t have you leave quick enough after that subtle threat.”

The old woman cocks her head up at me and grins. “I’ll have to remember that for next time.”

Next time? Who is this woman?

“Though I probably shouldn’t show my face there for a while.”

We walk out of the clinic and onto the street arm in arm and in silence. My injured wrist has become suddenly warm. The painful tension has loosened. It must be the way I’m holding it, must be taking the pressure off the nerve.

“What happened in there?” I ask.

“You tell me. You have good instincts, don’t you?” Dharma says. “Not dulled by synthetics. Still something of the animal in you. Enough to know when something doesn’t smell right. Some people don’t like people like that. They’re threatened by it.”

I resist saying anything for another block but finally curiosity gets the better of me. “I’m nobody.”

“Really? Successful artist snubbing her nose at the status quo? Can’t have stories about successful naturals living off the grid,” Dharma answers good-naturedly while she tenderly changes the position of her brown hand wrapped around my wrist. “Living proof that there’s another way.

Some would find that threatening.” Dharma sighs and pats my arm gently. Surprisingly, there is no pain. That morning, a touch like that, would have had me jumping out of my skin. “A way without Enhancements and nutritional supplements and continual maintenance and built in obsolescence?”

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She grins, her eyes narrowing as she re-grips my arm, further up this time. “No, can’t have that at all.”

“What are you saying?” I ask. I try to laugh but it sounds a little too tight. “What could they do about it?” The warmth in my forearm increases. I’m not usually comfortable with physical contact, but Dharma puts me at ease, and besides, she does seem to need the help walking.

“Something could go wrong during the exam,” the old woman says. “Sometimes these things happen. Something small. Something not even that serious, but something only someone in your unique situation would find…” she pauses. “Life changing.”

We walk like ghosts, steering clear of the more populated spots on the sidewalk to occupy the shadows. Her words are like fingers of ice walking slowly up my back. “They could be sued,” I whisper during a break in the crowd. “There would be an investigation. Charges.”

“And in the end, you would still be a cripple or dependent on their Enhancements.”

“What do you base this conspiracy theory on?”

“Fair enough,” the old woman barks with a harsh laugh. “A healthy skepticism. Perhaps I speak from firsthand experience.”

She leads me out of the pedestrian traffic. On a secluded corner, she looks up at me brazenly.

There is a moment of silence as we stare at each other, but then the sun dips behind a cloud, causing an odd dimming in one of the woman’s emerald eyes. I wait for a nod of permission before taking the woman’s chin in my hand and gently turning her face. The light glints ominously in her right eye.

“Your eye sight must be perfect to do surgery,” the old woman says softly, “and strangely, there was no cure or optic component that would fit my particular case.” She pulls back, removing her face from my hand. She turns back to the street. I follow.

“There was a court case,” the old woman says, as we fall in step. “But of course these things happen and after giving me a nominal monetary fee to discourage any further legal action, it was done.” She wraps her arm in mine, holding my wrist gingerly in her wrinkled hand.

We walk in silence. I am stunned by what she says, and the old woman is obviously giving me time to digest it. We turn the corner onto one of the older streets of the city.

“You have no reason to trust me,” Dharma says. “Fair enough, my dear.” She removes the scarf from around her neck. “There’s enough here to have it tested. What did they say? Something to make you comfortable while they examined your wrist?” She takes a slow breath before continuing in a forceful voice. “Do you think you should need to be unconscious for that?”

Dharma stops in front of an old, but freshly painted, building. The sign overhead reads Organic Tea Shop in gold lettering, tastefully decorative in an Art Nouveau style. She hands me the scarf. “I would suggest you go to a police station. They are unbiased, and their lab would tell you if an innocent seeming date had other plans for you. If you have any further questions, for example, why your wrist feels so much better and why in a few days it’s almost good as new, drop by to return my scarf.” The old woman puts her hand on the doorknob. “And for a cup of tea. You do drink tea, don’t you, dear? I promise there will be nothing in it but tea.” She gives me a mischievous wink, the twinkle in her eye devoid of sharp edges. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions then.”

She disappears inside. I’m tempted to force the issue. Instead I take off in the other direction, my arm hanging, for the first time today, comfortably at my side.

An hour later I am standing, trembling, outside the precinct. They asked if I wanted to press

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charges. They asked for a description of the man who had given me the drink. I apologized, saying I was pretty drunk at the time and thanked them for their help. I told them I have learned a valuable lesson; I will be more suspicious of strangers offering me drinks. Well, perhaps not all. Perhaps in a few days I’ll be in the mood for a nice cup of tea.

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