Compelling Science Fiction Issue 5 by Joe Stech & Dustin Kennedy & Lars H. Hoffmann & Lynn Kilmore & Nathan Hillstrom & C.L. Kagmi

Author:Joe Stech & Dustin Kennedy & Lars H. Hoffmann & Lynn Kilmore & Nathan Hillstrom & C.L. Kagmi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Compelling Science Fiction Ltd.
Published: 2017-02-01T04:31:09+00:00

It actually took thirty minutes—instead of twenty—for Dr. Groesbeck to get through the verbal hurdles tossed in his way and reach the SFBRC's 16th floor to knock on the door to the makeshift apartment that Akira and his father shared.

Akira had had time in the tiny kitchen to scarf down a poached egg on wheat toast, followed by three ripe peaches, one after the other (unable to stop himself from licking his fingers for droplets of juice despite Dad seeing him do so). He had craved peaches morning, noon, and night since the seventh month of pregnancy; there was something about the moist yellow texture and sweet taste that made them irresistible to him.

The tales of pregnant women who would eat handfuls of dirt out of an uncontrollable craving for it were now all too believable.

After breakfast, he went into the living room to wait, and discovered that Dad had gone and hidden the good chair, leaving only the low saggy one behind.

"We will sit here," Dad said, indicating the couch. "Groesbeck can take the chair."

It was only with effort that Akira kept from laughing—Dad would fiercely deny it if accused, but he had gone and arranged things so that Groesbeck would have to look up at them.

Instead of immediately joining Dad to stand by the couch, Akira waddled over to the bookshelves. He pulled out his mother's rare print edition of her published All Their Silent Voices: A History of Asian-American Women, and laid it down on the coffee table where they'd all be able to see it.

("Your mother is dead." Dad's sobs were so loud that Akira could barely make out the words. "The plague got her in the first wave, I couldn't get home fast enough...she died alone.")

Dad blinked hard a couple of times at the sight of her book, but then pulled himself up military straight, chin high, shoulders back.

So when the knock from Groesbeck came, they were standing at the ready. "Come in," Dad said, and the door slid open.

Akira found himself looking at an old man in an expensive gray suit who was flustered and out-of-breath, and clearly resenting it. Groesbeck glared over his shoulder at Walcott behind him—the captain was a silent shadow he'd been unable to shake off.

"You can wait out here in the corridor, officer," Groesbeck said to him.

"No," Akira said in as loud and clear a voice as he could manage with his diaphragm squeezed up against his lungs. "Captain Walcott and Dr. Otani will remain with me."

Groesbeck turned his head back around from Walcott to face Akira, mouth opening, getting ready to object, but then his gaze became fixated on Akira's swollen belly under the lab coat. "Most definitively viable," he muttered. "Amazing."

As if hearing Groesbeck's words, Hoshi began to jostle around inside and kicked Akira in the bladder.

Not now, little one. I need to keep focused on the shark before us.

Groesbeck's lips spilt apart to show his yellowed teeth. "Dr. Akira Otani?"

The way he said "Dr." was a near insult, as if he either doubted Akira's right to the title by doing a Ph.

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