Strange Economics: Economic Speculative Fiction by David Shultz

Author:David Shultz [Shultz, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, fantasy
Publisher: tdotspec
Published: 2018-08-29T21:00:00+00:00

The Short Soul

Jack Waddell

An indigo ray bit Rajas in his right buttock as he ran towards the ten-meter-wide eye of the Portal. At first it didn’t hurt, and he was more worried about the checkered marble floor rising up to slap him in the teeth. His phone bounced from his hand before he could hit send.

A loafer to the shoulder rolled him face up. In the ruddy glow of the abandoned suburban Portal, Gordon was a cartoon devil, only instead of a pitchfork, he held a ray gun with its barrel pointed at Rajas. Its sleek silver body gleamed in the red light, taunting Rajas with the escape the Portal promised, if only he could reach it.

“Time for your final performance review, Rajasino.” Gordon knelt and patted Rajas down with his off hand. “Let’s see. ‘Rajas is a brilliant analyst, but his lack of common sense and poor interpersonal skills will impede his advancement.’”

In his scorched rear, Rajas could just feel the nanite spores crawling towards the inch-wide hole. They itched.

Gordon pinched the data chit from where Rajas had hidden it in the lining of his sleeve cuff. He sat back on his haunches as he snapped the chit in his fingers.

“You always were the wrong kind of smart, Rajasinator.”

“There’s a backup,” Rajas said.

Gordon’s smile chilled Rajas’s spine more than the merciless marble floor did. “Oh, I’ve taken care of the backups, Rajasso.”

Across the floor, Rajas’s phone rang—Candice’s ringtone. If she was awake at two in the morning, she’d be in the studio in their attic. She probably had six months of work left on the sculpture she wouldn’t show him. Just enough time to finish before Alice came along.

They’d put off having a baby for so long, trying to figure out their own futures. His future, really.

By dying, he’d be letting her down again.

A scream bubbled out of him, echoing throughout the abandoned Portal platform.

He kicked out with his good leg, knocking the gun’s barrel high. Gordon stepped to the side as he brought his leg back down, but Rajas slipped out his other foot to trip him. Gordon stumbled and toppled onto him.

Both men lost their breath from the impact. The ray gun clattered when it fell from Gordon’s fingers, but not far. Gordon pushed Rajas’s face away while reaching for it with his other hand. Rajas felt around for something, anything, to defend himself with. When his fingers closed around something smooth and cool lying on the floor, he grabbed it and swung it into Gordon’s cheek.

The plastic bottle crunched loudly and folded over Rajas’s fingers. Gordon pushed him down and pressed the ray gun into Rajas’s eyebrow.

“Look at you!” Gordon’s eyes were wild. “Why do you get to be happy? A brilliant wife, a kid on the way? You don’t deserve it. Success is for wolves, Rajas, and you are a sheep. Do you know what happens to sheep?”

Rajas grabbed weakly for the ray gun but got his head thumped for his efforts.

“They get slaughtered.”

Rajas lay there, haloed in the red light of the Portal.

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