Shoreline of Infinity 21 by Noel Chidwick

Author:Noel Chidwick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The New Curiosity Shop
Published: 2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Robert Runté, PhD, is Senior Editor with EssentialEdits.ca and has edited over thirty traditionally published books, mostly SF&F. A former professor, he has three Aurora Awards for his literary criticism and three of his own stories have been reprinted in “best of” collections. He lives in Lethbridge, Canada.

Art: Andrew Owens

Infinite Runtime

Laura Duerr

When I was a child, we played a game in which we counted the seconds between thunderclaps. Now, we count the seconds between footsteps, and it is not a game. The earlier you hear them coming, the sooner you can determine how far away they are, and the more lives you can save.

We taught it to the children. Elena taught her boys; Austin taught his daughter’s whole class, while there were still schools. I had no children, only the legacy of the marching machines, so I taught any child who hadn’t yet learned. First we taught them to distinguish between thunder – random, infrequent – and the footsteps: a rhythmic crescendo, repetitive as a heartbeat and ruthless as a rising tide. Then we taught them the possibility of escape – of hope.

I don’t know how many of them we saved. Ultimately they were all left behind with Elena, who did not die with us. Ever since, there’s been no need to teach the counting. Every world we’re Reborn into, the machines are there, so everyone already knows how to count their footsteps. In that respect, each world is just like home.

The machines always find us. It is their purpose, after all. Eleven times they’ve killed me. Home is eleven worlds behind, lost, along with the children. Each new world, I hope, will be the one we save, the one that becomes our new home; the one where we can rest, and wait for our bodies, not the machines, to decide when our lives end. We chose to let them kill us, that first time: we had to be sure it worked. And if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

When we woke from the nothingness between universes, the giants were elsewhere, the far-off rumble of their footsteps muffled by distance. This version of our lab was deserted, our equipment mangled. The smashed-in roof opened to a smoke-rusted sky. They’d attacked here earlier than they had back home; it felt less like jumping worlds and more like skipping a few weeks into the future.

Mel found the fragments of other-her’s coffee cup on the floor by her work station. Back home there had been no way to know, before we did it, how we would feel after our first Rebirth. Accepting immortality but losing everything and everyone precious; survivor’s guilt; the universal trauma of dying, and knowing it; all combined into a psychological maelstrom whose effects were impossible to predict. Mel, holding the handle of a shattered mug that was hers, yet not hers, threw up, sobbing. Kamala and Austin tried to reassure her, but they were in shock themselves.

Jim stared at other-his keyboard. He kept his passwords under it. We

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