Lightspeed Magazine Issue 19 by Vylar Kaftan;Pat Cadigan;Jeff Lester;Andrew Penn Romine;Nigel Watson;Arthur C. Clarke;Alan Smale

Author:Vylar Kaftan;Pat Cadigan;Jeff Lester;Andrew Penn Romine;Nigel Watson;Arthur C. Clarke;Alan Smale
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: science fiction magazine, science fiction, short story, short stories
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2011-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Jeff Lester has written for io9, Newsarama, and Comix Experience’s Savage Critic website, as well as for Telltale Games’ Sam & Max and CSI series of video games. With Graeme McMillan, he co-hosts Wait, What?, a podcast reviewing comics, graphic novels, and the latest developments in the comics industry. He currently divides his time between San Francisco and the amorphous internal landscape of his own head.

The Parting Glass

Andrew Penn Romine

I gulp the whiskey and it burns my plastic throat, sets my nutrient sac on fire. I’ve got filters, but they haven’t been changed in six months. Too expensive. It takes a lot of alcohol to saturate them, and I tax my system beyond specifications.

Finnegan’s is my favorite bar on Pontianak Station, a wreck of plastic furniture and faux shamrocks designed to appeal to the hardworking Euros and Northos who do the dirty work that drives Pontianak’s port industry. Django, the proprietor, haunts the deck behind the bar molded to look like beams of wood and dispenses me another Santiago single-malt. He doesn’t say anything but makes a face as I pour it down.

I’ve been gulping Hermán Santiago’s shit all my life. His bad whiskey pales in comparison.

The vid hanging over the bar spatters my retina with frenetic grav-ball action: Titanics versus Icers. Icers don’t stand a chance, but I root for them anyway. I like the underdog.

“Jake, you got company,” Django warns in Tagalog, breaking his considerate silence.

I see their reflections in the amber mirror of my whiskey—a pair of thick goons in classic black jumpsuits, a flare of white at the collar.

Trinity thugs. Both wear the same impassive squarish face. Probably clones, certainly augments.

The meatwall parts like a pair of cathedral doors and she steps through, haloed by cheesy stained glass panels of leprechauns and Stonehenge. She’s wearing clerical black, too, but the crosses on her lapels are red.

Terah Castillo. Red Priest, 1.5 meters, compact. Definitely an augie, like me. I should know. I’ve seen most of her wetware.

“Terah.” I haven’t seen her in twenty years; she looks the same—great. Rejuve treatments. I ignore my thumping mechanical heart. It isn’t supposed to notice things like that anymore.

“You look—different, Jake. Took me awhile to track you down,” she speaks in Spanish. She never much liked English, and saves the Tagalog for cursing.

“I didn’t want to be found. Five points to the Trinity mob.” If she has found me, it means he has, too.

“I thought you stopped keeping score,” she says.

“No, I just stopped paying attention to the clock. Why are you here?” I finish my whiskey and signal to Django for another. Terah shakes her head when I offer her one. She knows the old man’s stuff is crap, too.

She scowls, face scrunching like a kid’s. Fans the flames of my chemical passion. You have to work hard to feel anything when so much of yourself is mechanical. Humanity fades, you know?

“He wants to see you again.”

I’m almost disappointed she isn’t trying to kill me. That, I could handle.

Terah’s glance flicks to the meatshields, and they back away.

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