Shine (32 page)

"Don't those guys usually
outgrow
them by then?" I was as nonchalant as I could be against a slowly rising tide of vestigial AFEC paranoia.

"Think you've outgrown me?" she said, one nail scratching my hairline. It felt good, especially with her eyes on mine, her voice echoing in my mind. I thought of her on my couch, and remembered she'd done this then, too. Scratched one nail along my hairline.

Fuck. She'd seduced
me
that night?

"We'll see," she said. "I haven't given up on you yet," she said with a sharp little grin, and smoothed the back of my neck with one soft hand. Then she leaned into me, touched my chin, and I felt my eyes close reflexively.

Then nothing. When I opened my eyes, she was smiling at me, and Bagheera and Bamboo Grove were there, too, by her side, eyeing me with amused smiles.

"There's hope for you yet, kiddo," Estraven said. "See you around. If you've manned up enough." Then she threw me a look that was pure seduction.

On my left comptact, a window popped open.

It was the second invite, the one that followed up Echewo's. And it was signed: Love, Estraven.

And then she was gone.

I minimised the invite window. I was surrounded by suits drinking and dancing. Once again alone. My wingmen were gone, my overpriced drink--a Scotch older than I was--wasn't doing anything for me, and Estraven, which was what I had to call her, since I couldn't call this glorious woman Monica, still was right there in my head.

Was this some sort of counter-game? Was I being mindfucked? Maybe it was some kind of cognitive virus or something? But that feeling Estraven gave off, that intense attraction... it felt
real
. Were she and I really on the same side?

A red light went off in the upper left corner of my left comptact. It was a call from Biosfear, probably a status update on Hunter. A patch of window opened up automatically, though the call wouldn't be opened till I approved it. Biosfear was looking sidelong, his expression bored, his peacocky shades perched on the top of his authority-evoking brush cut. And as good a wingman as he was, I wondered if he would have done any better than I had if Estraven had scratched the back of his neck.

I thought then--and I know now, though that's another story--that he would've crumbled. She had game...
monster
game. She was my equal. And that pulled some tiny, deep trigger somewhere in my mind. I felt something. I didn't know what, at first, because for me, that feeling was something I'd had to train myself to feel. I'd played so much fake-it-till-you-make-it that I barely recognised the real thing when it swept through me.

It was faith. Faith in myself, faith in her. Faith that in this random world, in this senseless universe, despite my blunders and mistakes and successes and despite all the chaos and cynicism that had soaked into everything and everyone, I'd found my way right where I needed to be: on the doorstep to the underworld where people really were saving the world from itself.

And what I did next is why this will be my last posting on this board, guys. Because, yeah, it's been great, but I have better things to do.

Yeah. I maximised the second invite message, took a deep breath, and accepted.

Scheherazade Cast in Starlight

Jason Andrew

I
n one of my many attempts to inspire writers, I started a series of 'Crazy Story Ideas' on the
Shine
blog. In part 3, posted on May 23, 2009, I mused about positive developments in Islamic countries, and wrote:

'
Maybe this could take place in Iran?'

and

'
A quiet revolution needs power to grow, and free power from the Sun, and subtle power in the form of Facebook and other modern forms of communication might just provide that extra push towards a change, a non-violent one.'

Then--on June 12, 2009--the elections in Iran, with its well-known protests took place, which took even me by surprise. Yes, I was predicting something of the sort (and wish I had written 'Twitter' instead of 'Facebook' and was certainly wrong on the non-violent part), but did not expect it so soon. I was thinking about at least ten years in the future. Which goes to show that with near-future SF, sometimes you're too fast (working nuclear fusion, anyone?) and sometimes you're too slow.

All part of the game. Anyway, inspired by recent events (I suppose, and maybe a tiny bit by my crazy musings), Jason Andrew conjures up a modern-day Scheherazade, one that might haunt the Iranian-powers-that-be even more than Neda Agha-Soltan...

Above the rioters' ruinous flames, a holoPhoenix shone. Hope rose like Holy Fire. The Rocking Raven Brigade beat chaos and despair.

--Gillian Gray--

T
he Qur'an says that all people are a single nation.

It has always been the will of man to separate us in thought, in clothing, in language. Separate, we can be controlled. Separate, we can be killed in the quiet of the night and disappear into myth. Separate, we forget that in the end we have the power.

I was five when my mother was cast into a cell. Her alleged crime? Selling narcotics. Her real crime? She had been elected to parliament. The Iranian Assembly of Experts declared that all women candidates for parliament were disqualified in the year 2006. In the shadow of night, men with masks took her and none even whispered her name in fear of retribution. I never saw her again. But I kept her in my heart and mind. Remembering her courage to defy a government that wanted to oppress its citizens.

My eldest brother died three years later in the protests over the Presidential election. He wore a regal green jacket and marched in protest over the fraud that kept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. He died from a blow to the head in the middle of the street. He was not forgotten. A girl only a few years older than myself captured his image. Tweets of protests were sent across the world. We protested in the light of the world broadcast to any that wished to see. No man worthy of the name can withstand the suffering of another if it is within his sight. And we showed that day that such deeds can never again be done in secret, can never be hidden in the shadows.

The Qur'an says that all people are a single nation. Though we failed that day, we were shown the way by the will of Allah. Globalization has been a dirty word for oppressive governments. They want to keep their borders clearly defined with walls of stone and barbed wire and land mines. They want their citizens to think only of what happens in their lands, to their familes. They want us to forget that we all are one family.

Technology blurs those borders. It allows information to flow freely. It is the bane of any oppressive government. There were no more barriers to hide us away from the rest of the world. No firewalls that could keep out our stories. The world hungered for reality entertainment. When I was ready, I stepped into the starlight.

My v-casts are circulated around the world. Every action recorded and captured in amber for the world to study. Anyone in the world can watch me. I am Scheherazade cast in starlight, telling a story each night to keep my head. I competed against drunken bears roaming free in Butte, Montana. I told the world of the food shortages, the war, tragedies, and love against the tale of seven strangers trapped in a house forced to live together. I battled against Big Brother by showing stories about all of our brothers and sisters. We showed the world that the greatest stories come not from forced drama, but from life and living despite the darkness.

Each night before I slept, I checked my ranking. I was safe as long I had eyes upon me. Or so I believed. I am shamed to admit that I was drunk with my new celebrity. I had messages from foreign leaders, proud mothers, and little girls seeking a role-model. I thought that I had made a difference.

And then the men with black masks came for me. I was drinking coffee in a cafÈ on a unseasonably warm winter day. I heard the screeching of the truck before they slipped the hood over my head. The hard barrel of their guns poked into my back as I desperately tried to gasp for air. They threw me onto the bed on the truck and held me down. I was so terrified that I could not even scream.

I had no voice, but others screamed for me. The Qur'an says that paradise lies at the feet of mothers. I waited, held down, but the truck did not move. I heard a swarm of voices around me. The death squad had come for me, but you stopped them. No man wishes his mother to see his darkness. The women took me from the death squad with violence. My bonds were cut and the hood removed. And then we cried.

That moment our country changed.

My youngest brother was taken one thousand nights ago; almost three years ago. This night he was returned to me. He is thinner than I remember, but tall and strong. I am told that it is a symbol of the new government. A time of hope. A bridge to help unite a desperate people. That is a lie.

My brother's freedom is a symbol of your power. It is your will that brought him to the light. It is your will that won the parliament election. Your will that convinced the Guardian Council to validate the elections.

And tomorrow will be my one thousand and first broadcast, and on that day I will be sworn in to parliament. I will take the office for which my mother died and thus Scheherazade must complete her own tale. To you mothers and daughters of Iran, to you I leave the stories. It is only in silence do we lose the spark that Allah has breathed into each of us.

The Qur'an says that all people are a single nation. I believe that this is a statement of universal truth. The world has grown too small to ignore our neighbors. We are one family.

And I wait. I wait for your stories to change the world.

Russian Roulette
2020

Eva Maria Chapman

E
va is another writer I met over the internet. She posted regularly on the
Shine
blog, and submitted tweets for @outshine (of which I published a few, one of them right after receiving this story).

While the main intent of the
Shine
anthology presence on social sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter is promotion (get the word out), so far it has also been instrumental in bringing me into contact with a number of writers I might never have found in the SF community. Eva has written a memoir about her Russian ÈmigrÈ family in Australia and a historic fantasy involving Kaurna Aborigines.

Her enthusiasm for
Shine
is so great she decided to turn her hand to SF, and if "Russian Roulette 2020" is any indication, I hope that she will write much more of it.

In these modern days, it seems that maximum cynicism equals great coolness. As this high-spirited and spiritual story shows, it's high time to exorcise those nihilistic spirits...

She spoke for the first time. Roses fell from her lips. Pearls. Her body turned into luminescence and butterflies. It surprised no one.

--Mercedes M. Yardley--

"T
ake it off?" Wingnut was incredulous. "What do you mean, take it off? Hey, MV, Colleen's telling us to take off our ZiSleeves!"

MV was distracted by the Russian girl in the blue dress. Dazzled. Who did she remind him of? A little Amish looking, perhaps. Hair in a braid. No makeup. And her arm didn't glow with LED lights. His own ZiSleeve bleeped at him. It was Jeezbob from New York. "Come on man, your move." They were in the middle of an exciting game of Robodroids. MV was cornered in a hell-hole by vicious robots, with no way out.

Wingnut poked him sharply. "Hey dude, listen up, this is serious shit!"

MV reluctantly disconnected his earchip and put his attention on his teacher. Was she saying: "Take your ZiSleeves off?"

Colleen knew she had a rebellion on her hands. Like when the school banned earchips during assembly. Trying to tear this lot away from their ZiSleeves was tantamount to gouging out their livers. These kids were truly in the grip of what psychologists called weblock.

"This is dogshit," whined Wingnut. "Let's get back in the Solaritza and skedaddle back to the plane."

"You know we can't do that--we don't have permission to land in LA before schedule." Flights were severely restricted, not only to cut emissions, but to curtail the spread of rapidly mutating viruses.

Wingnut looked horrorstruck. "Then let's go back to the Expo in Moscow." Wingnut had loved Crystal Island--the largest solar powered building in the world, full of avant-garde technology and newly launched Web 4.0 applications. He had purchased 3D glasses and 3D Sims for his ZiSleeve and was dying to immerse himself in juicy porn world. He'd had a peek on the bus and immediately experienced being slammed between bouncing tits and arses. God it was good.

"What kind of backward crap dive have you brought us to?" snapped Rachel. She objected to being wrenched from her avatar, Astrid, who had just purchased a castle (charging it to Daddy's account of course). She was looking forward to buying outfits that befitted being Queen of such a castle. Her IMVU playmate had just bought a black steed and looked fabulous on it! The unfortunate fact that in her first life, Rachel could warm her hands between the fat folds on her stomach, made it even more imperative to buy the gold bikini for her gloriously slim, Second Life self.

"Do we really have to?" whined Enrita, looking like the spoilt Brazilian princess she was, zapping microbes with her nano-wand. Her wealthy family had exchanged the gated suburbia of Rio for Los Angeles when food riots had got out of control. Not that LA didn't have food riots. Plenty of them. It was just that LA cops had more sophisticated weaponry--like ray guns to paralyse the starving mobs. "Mamae will freak out if she can't get hold of me."

Colleen sighed. She knew it would do them all good to extricate themselves from the Controller, as she called it--so like Big Brother it was scary.

"We want a reason!"

Colleen approached Rada, the girl in the blue dress, who had met them off the Solaritza. "Could you explain why they have to take their ZiSleeves off? They're like a third arm. They won't take them off for even a moment."