Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 135 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short fiction, short stories, short story
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2017-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Cassandra Khaw writes horror, video games, tweets for money, articles about video games, and tabletop RPGs. These are not necessarily unrelated items. Her work can be found in professional short story magazines such as Clarkesworld, Fireside Fiction, Uncanny, and Shimmer. Cassandra’s first paranormal rom-com Bearly a Lady released this year. Her recent Lovecraftian Southern Gothic, A Song for Quiet, is a considerably different animal.

Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359

Ken MacLeod

When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space Age, when people lived in caves on the Moon. My trouble is that I’ve gained memories, and I don’t know which of them are real. I was very casual about memory storage back then, I seem to recall. This could happen to you too, if you’re not careful. So be warned. Do as I say, not as I did.

Some of the tales about me contradict each other, or couldn’t possibly have happened, because that’s how I told them in the first place. Others I blame on the writers and tellers. They make things up. I’ve never done that. If I’ve told stories that couldn’t be true, it’s because that’s how I remember them.

Here’s one.

I ran naked through the Long Station, throwing my smart clothes away to distract the Tycoon’s dogs. Breeks, shirt, cravat, jacket, waistcoat, stockings, various undergarments—one by one they ran, flapped, slithered, danced, or scurried off, and after every one of them raced a scent-seeking but mercifully stupid hound. But the Tycoon had more dogs in his pack than I had clothes in my bundle. I was down to my shoes and the baying continued. I glanced over my shoulder. Two dogs were just ten meters behind me. I hurled a shoe at each of them, hitting both animals right on their genetically modified noses. The dogs skidded to a halt, yelping and howling. A few meters away was a jewelry booth. I sprinted for it, vaulted the counter, grabbed a recycler, and bashed at the display cabinet. An alarm brayed and the security mesh rattled down behind me. The dogs, recovered and furious, hurled themselves against it. The rest of the pack pelted into view and joined them. Paws, jaws, barking, you get the picture.

“Put your hands up,” said a voice above the din.

I turned and looked into the bell-shaped muzzle of a Norton held in the hands of a sweet-looking lass wearing a sample of the stall’s stock. I raised my hands, wishing I could put them somewhere else. In those days, I had some vestige of modesty.

“I’m human,” I said. “That can’t hurt me.”

She allowed herself the smallest flicker of a glance at the EMP weapon’s sighting screen.

“It could give you quite a headache,” she said.

“It could that,” I admitted, my bluff called. I’d been half hoping she wouldn’t know how to interpret the readouts.

“Security’s on its way,” she said.

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