"Lotería!" Jax couldn't have explained to anyone from the ship why the sight of the snow falling outside the window made him catch his breath in his throat, but it did. Maybe it was because the ship never had weather. Rain was like a water shower on the ship, which he had tried, but snow was different.

The flakes floating past the window mesmerized him. Where do they go? He wished he could see.

This metal blister on this nameless world gave him everything he needed to live while they he waited, but it was too late. Through his tiny window, he watched the creatures slide into oblivion as the microbes ate away at them, all of them. There weren't even puddles left where their bodies used to be.

Soon, his prison cell would finally die, too. The moon rotated so slowly that night lasted three years, and the life support system on the escape pod wouldn't take it.

But when it finally breathes it's last gasp, it will open the doors.

Marta rolled over in the bunk and draped her long leg over his. "Why do you have to go?"

Jax sighed and ran his fingers through her black hair. "Because everyone not as good as me failed. Because those creatures are the greatest challenge in the known galaxy. Because who knows what else they may find further on? Maybe nothing, and we might have to return with nothing unless I find a way to communicate with them. Because it's my job."

"I don't care." Her brown eyes burned. "Isn't there any way out? The center planets are so far from here, by the time the ship comes back to you, my dear Jacinto, you'll be old and gray. I want to have children. I am noble born. One of my sons could be the next Captain, but not without a father who is a senior officer to help him, to shield him from his rivals and enemies until he is strong, with many victories and great discoveries to his name. My girls will marry into strong houses, building the alliances we'll need. Together, we could forge a dynasty that lasts until we return to Earth, three centuries from now."

He lied, "It's my duty, alone."

Her eyes glared. "Esto es el colmo!" With that, she stormed out of the room.

At the edge of the window, Jax could still see the wreckage of the shuttle.

All antigualla. Maybe if they hadn't thought the wreckage was food, they might have ingested less human bacteria. I might have had someone to talk to.

"Hey, gorrón," his teacher used to say. "Is all you do stand around and gab all day?"

"Hell, yes," Jax would reply. "There isn't anything else to do unless I want to get in a fight or chase chicas."

The old man would smile. "You will. Your generation will get to do it all. I'll be long dead and you'll be standing on another planet, probably chasing alien chicas instead."

The thought made him laugh. The gray, shambling figures that roamed the surface never even reminded him of Marta. They barely took notice of him. He knew they were intelligent, to a point. They had a social order, and he identified leaders and took detailed notes, like a dutiful officer should, but he could never tell if they ever saw him or heard him screaming.

Then they all melted away and left him trapped inside the small pod.

"Hey, Jax!"

A face peeked out from the bunk above him. "Amigo. She left you, eh?"

Jax sighed at Rico, his roommate. "You know she did. You watched her leave."

Rico hopped down and sat on the side of the bed. "Whatcha gonna do? From hour 16 to hour 24 this is our room. We live together."

As if I could forget. "What do you want?"

"You sure you won't get back together?"

"No."

"You don't mind then, if I see her?"

Jax blinked at his thickheaded bunkmate. "Why her?"

Rico smiled. "Oh, c'mon! I hear you two all the time, almost every night. She really gets into it. A man would be a fool to not want that."

Jax headed for the door. "Be careful what you wish for."

In the corridor, he pushed past the Low Ones waiting to get into the washroom. Senior officers don't wait in lines, he reminded himself.

"Damn." Every urine receptacle was busy. An oral sanitizer was open, so he cleaned his teeth while he waited. It was just as packed in his deck's galley. At that hour they only had stimudrink #4, but at least he found the last spot near his favorite window where three seats were mounted a centimeter more apart than the others. The liquid made him feel awake as he stared out the window at the large, curved stretch of the outer hull in front of him.

If only something would break, I could go out there, but nothing ever broke down.

The light flickered. The time had to be soon. The food synthesizer was shut down and the temperature in the pod was dropping.

There! Faintly, Jax could hear the pins begin to retract inside the door. The pod is still obeying quarantine safety procedure, protecting my life until it can't anymore, then it will open the doors to give me one last chance to find my own way to survive instead of suffocating from carbon dioxide.

A low moan came from the ceiling above him, from pipes freezing and metal cooling, probably for the first time since the ship initialized in Earth orbit. He'd disabled the audio warnings.

A red light flashed next to the door, ticking away the moments until freedom could be his.

The door started to move.

Taking his last breath, Jax peacefully stepped out into the thick methane snow, into the wide open he'd always wished for.

Alone.

© N.J. Kailhofer, 2009

The End

Home

Winter Solstice week at the Central Deity Training Lyceum, in the Masters office:

"Mixx did what?!!!

"Where did this occur? "

"When, are you sure?"

"What were her instructions?"

"Independent study, go among the beings, and grant a wish." says a voice.

"She certainly did. Send her here, immediately!"

The Lyceum Master says to no one in particular. "Why I have all these gray hairs, they wonder. I can't believe they let HER loose down THERE. Senior project, independent study, and where was her mentor? Sometimes, I wish I were other than here."

"Sir, you wanted to see me?" A short skinny adept stands in front of the Master, thinking, What have I done this time? I stuck to the rules, for once.

"Mixx, please, I'm very interested in your senior project. It seems you completed it with results that are amazing, and, disturbing. Your mentor and others are surprised."

"Oh yes, that." She says, "I thought I screwed up, again."

"Well, yes and no. Just tell me the story as you have it. We're interested in this, Common Cause, as you titled it."

"Gladly."

"I went down to the place I was assigned, small planet, semi advanced in technology, but myth wise, kinda slow. I guess that's why we keep it as a training ground?"

"Yes, yes, go on."

"Well I found one monk and I took over his body, as per regulations."

"Where did you place his atman?" The master's eyes squint.

"It was wintry cold so I put it on ice. He's Okay, I checked before I left, a little confused but fine."

"As proposed, I spent some time listening to the inner workings of the beings. But ALL their thoughts revolved around, toys, sex, money, and power. They all wished for one or all of it."

"All of them?"

"Not all of them, most though, and monks were just as bad. I was about to give up, and ask to rewrite my thesis, when walking around a corner, I saw one being sitting in a café reading a magazine. It wasn't a sex magazine, that much I knew. His mind was foggy. I couldn't get into it. However, out of his mouth came my inspiration."

"He banged the magazine and said, 'Why don't people just have common sense?' "

"What a thought! What a wish! So I granted it, Common Sense, for every one! You should have seen the looks on all the people. Most stopped in their tracks, as if they ran into a wall. Some started crying; others started laughing. But there was calmness after a bit."

The Master, incredulous, asks, "Don't you see what you did?"

"Yeah, I granted a wish for common sense."

"No! We are out of business there because of you. No one is going to put up with the controls we have instituted on that training planet. We spent eons cultivating their fears and superstitions. In one wish granting session, you wiped it out. Would you believe that crap that we've been propagating?

If.
You.
Had.
Common.
Sense?"

The Master's eyes are red coals.

"No!" The adept is stunned. "What are you talking about? WE'RE cultivating fears and superstition? No one mentioned that to me." She says with hope, "Now maybe they can come up to a new level of belief. Something that matches reality?"

"Those monkeys? Not likely. They'll twist anything. We added that to their brain patterns when we made them."

"So you're saying my granting a Winter Solstice Wish for planetary common sense affected the celestial world order?"

The master growls, "In A word, Yes. I have no idea what the Big One's will do."

The student replies emphatically, "Not much as I understand. This is a lock. All independent study projects are kept as learning tutorials for follow-on adepts."

"It was common sense to keeping them in the circles they were going. Now there is no telling what they will do or become." Opinions the Master.

"Better I would hope."

"No, not better. They are a source of energy for us. I…I mean, we, get a lot of power from them. We derive energy from their prayers and gifts. And now you've basically ended it with the wish of common sense."

"Others planets have mythology…"

"They don't kill for it. We use them for games and amusement as well as power."

"I believe I did the correct action. And sir, you are mistaken and mislead."

"I am waiting on the decision to reverse your wish from the higher ups. And along with that, your banishment to that planet you so stupidly corrected. I will leave it up to you to straighten out on your own, with out celestial powers, if I get my wish."

"Sir, no disrespect, I believe you can't see the benefits."

"Benefits? Where? We will have to make a new world, and possibly destroy this one."

"Sir, why, since when?"

"I do it all the time."

"If WE believe that one group becomes a threat to our existence, I terminate their life forces and reapply those forces elsewhere."

Mixx says, "I grant a "common sense" wish There. And Now you and our people are threatened? Something is wrong Here."

The Master, composed, serenely states, "I would have granted common "base" intelligence. Nothing fancy, simple living, no great works, no high end science, nothing other than COMMON, Base, Simple, and not as you did."

"What am I doing…? HERE? What's happening?"

The powers that be speak:

"We granted you, OUR winter solstice gift wish that we grant to one of our own. You wished for a change, it's yours… as You would have."

"Not this… I was thinking… retirement and…"

"Oh, but you are retired. You will not be harmed. You can pick any monastery, ashram, temple, or a cave of your choice."

"Your adept did a good job. We were waiting for one of your students to show creativity, initiative, and spirit."

"She's your replacement."

"Good luck."

"Have a wonderful life."

© Richard Tornello, 2009

The End

Home

It was very cold, the worst winter Stutters had ever endured. He had gone away from his camp, looking for two flints useful to set fire. It wasn't an easy task to find the right ones and enough wood, too, for getting warm in 14,000 B.C. And fire was life, especially during this period. As a Cro-Magnon man, Stutters well knew that.

He had carried on too far today. So, when he began worrying for the considerable distance to be covered just to come back, he had eventually figured out that—unfortunately—he was lost.

Stutters had a huge forehead, an upright posture and was strong. Black curls, huge nose, long beard, bulging brown eyes and powerful arms, his body covered in fur and sealskin. In his thirties, he was very similar to a modern man—Homo sapiens sapiens—but, in a way, he wasn't at all. Evolution had still to go a long way to our present times.

Stutters kept moving just not to let the intense cold have a deadly grip on him, but the icy empty expanse that was Northern Europe by then—he was slowly walking on at present—gave him no help, as the wind had deleted his own steps which he could have easily retraced to go back home. Other than that, new difficulties were coming closer.

It was a not so rare meteorological event everyone in that area could have often encountered during the coldest months: ice mist, comprising thousands of ice crystals suspended in the air. The Cro- Magnon human didn't grasp at all the science reasons because that happened, but sufficed it to let him remember those weather conditions usually occurred only at very low temperatures, about -40°C, even though in an hypothetical scale of typical winter climates known to him he would simply have called it "very, very freezing".

Suddenly Stutters felt the precariousness of his situation, recalling that so many of his fellows had disappeared forever inside that impenetrable white haze. Indeed, death was a very frequent case during Ice Age.

Things were already bad, but soon they became getting even worse: walking on that hard ground, surrounded by that nippy whiteness in suspension, he run into some big footprints. Very wide. When Stutters' mind started thinking over it, trying to remember what they exactly indicated, he heard the horrifying cry in the distance: a Giant's voice!

Terrified , the human kept his eyes open, looking for a figure nearby… But the heavy mist didn't allow him to watch so far. He wished he only had some fire with him to keep the Giant away…! But he was alone, deep inside an undiscovered land and he couldn't even imagine where he himself was now, so escaping was the only option!

The Cro-Magnon man plucked up courage forcing his stiff legs to walk faster. But his running was difficult and the pursuer was following him around… Two hours after, Stutters' arms were so exhausted he could hold no more the fluttering sealskin hat on his head, his feet were dead tired and he just needed to eat. Then, as soon as the icy mist opened partially, his eyes started searching the area to find his bearings, but he had not enough time to look around: the Giant emerged from the unexpected hole in the bristly haze! His massive body wrapped in a polar bear skin, tough greyish beard mixed with some white snow. Four metres tall, double mandibles, muscles more considerable than a bear's, legs longer than two men's heights put together.

There was not much Stutters could do, but looking at him in awe: that would have been the ancestor of the present-day abominable snow creature, like living in the Himalayas now, if you believe in it… At that time Giants still ran on Earth, a variation from Meganthropus, or Gigantopithecus, an extinct genus of primate, long departed from the evolutionary branch that eventually brought to Man.

The creature looked at him, opened his enormous mouth and went for the poor Cro-Magnon." If only I could have some fire…" Stutters thought again.

Unexpectedly, a gleaming fire erupted from the mist, burning the Giant's butt. Then the same powerful fire erupted again, from the Giant's back and hit the creature, wounding him painfully. Soon after a figure, the hunter's hunter, emerged from a breach along the covering haze: a strange guy, with a mysterious thing in his hands and a long—too long—face enveloped in a glass-like pot.

The figure fired again that sort of weapon and the Giant fell on the ground, helpless and quite dead… The face of the stranger had a look at Stutters through that glassy head covering, his bulb pupils resembled some precious stones, bigger than any other man's eyes he had ever encountered before on those ice plains, then the figure put something on the Giant's body, waved and the corpse started flying, following his command.

Good Heavens! The man thought that—only one minute ago—he was fearing for his life, and now there was a real god before his own eyes. He prostrated to worship him, but the god showed little interest in the human and turned, going away, the Giant's body following him in flight…

Stutters spoke with a lisp "I asked for fire. And I was given fire. Thank Gods!"

So, wish granted.

Ways, inside the spacepod, the tall First Alien - just arrived- looked at the Other Alien, removed the glassy helmet and said -KRTRTSTYSD SDL DR FDYTRT-

(Translation from alien language)

-The next Meganthropus we are looking for is going eastwards…so, we may stay and get warm or… what about a fast hunting? I ran into one of those insignificant furry hominids, not a big prey anyway… do you want it in the meantime…?-

The Other Alien replied -Yeah, why not…? Let's hunt him, too. It would be a fair addition to my collection…-

So the tall First Alien reached his helmet again.

-As you wish…-

© Sergio Palumbo, 2009

The End

Home

Konosar's readouts were no longer spinning wildly. Which was good. The bad part was that the explorer ship Yan was almost totally gone, the reactor was flat, and the hulk of the spaceship was headed straight at a blue-green sapphire of a planet. The long range sensors were out, but they were close enough for the short range sensors anyway. Hell, it was close enough to see out the window!

Konosar looked over his shoulder at what was left of the bridge. Captain Godoras was slumped over dead in his chair, a long shard of steel pinning him down like an exotic species of bug. Science Officer Bikk was resting his face on his station, one arm dangling towards the floor. The blood had long since stopped dripping down his sleeve.

The ship had been attacked by something days ago. Whoever it was left the ship adrift without any motive power. Konosar's helm station was one of the only things left working on the ship. It was a pity that there wasn't really anything left to run.

At least the fires were out. The aft compartments had run out of oxygen after the first day. The second day Konosar had turned the ship inside out looking for survivors. There were only twenty people in the crew, and they knew each other like family. Five years they'd been out there scanning planets and watching for alien life.

And they'd found it. But the unknown attacker hadn't said a word, just sent light beams and balls of energy through the Yan's lightly armored hull. And left them coasting towards the blue planet ahead.

Konosar had made circuits of the ship every day after that. By day three he'd quit looking for the other half of Rixion's body, and fat Chassarat's body wasn't looking any better as it swelled. So he'd turned the onboard heat down to minimum. To conserve power. Or maybe it was just to conserve the bodies of his friends.

By day six he was spending his time on the bridge. The air was cold, but breathable. The helmet on his survival suit was lying against his back, unused. It would only take a moment to seal it against his neck. But there wasn't any emergency now. The attacker was long gone, and it was just Konosar, the good old spaceship Yan, and that blue planet ahead.

It wasn't fair. On Konosar's homeworld it was wintertime. He'd missed five seasons of Midwinter Festivals, where his mother would bake cakes and cook the sweet soup his father loved. His little sister would be off with that archeologist his senior uncle couldn't stand, and the temperature would be cold enough that the rain would turn to thin ice crystals. The winds would send them swirling along the streets and everyone was happy.

He brushed ice crystals off his console. That wasn't fair either. The surfaces were covered in frozen condensate. Leaking circuits had left long icicles over open hatchways. Little flakes of ice blew out of the air vents, and with a few colorful ribbons and bells, it was practically home.

In a little over a dozen hours the Yan would land on a city on the planet ahead. A tower of smoke would rise up, and night would never end there. Konosar didn't know their names, didn't know their names for the city. He didn't even know the planet's name.

Konosar walked over dead Bikk at the science station. He wished desperately that Bikk hadn't been killed. He'd probably have the exact solution on how to change the ship's vector the tiniest fraction of a degree to miss the city.

He turned around and made his way down to the engine room. It was cold and dead. Just like the crew. Just once, Konosar wished for something. Anything to kick the reactor alive and move the ship just a little bit. Anything to keep the city's lights on. He shoved Chief Engineer Essari's body off the engineering console and slammed a fist on the dead panel. Again. And again. And again. His hand started to hurt, and he scrabbled at his communicator on his hip. He slammed it against the panel, cracking the readouts, slamming it with all the rage and helplessness that he had in him.

Then suddenly the device cracked, and blue lightning arced all over the station. Konosar was thrown away against a wall. He shook his head as the communicator's energy pack crackled and fed back into the panel's sensitive electronics. A harsh buzzer sounded. Explosions shook the engine room.

Explosions! The emergency scuttling charges! And then Konosar remembered why the reactor hadn't been scuttled in the first place. The reactor sailed into space, and swirls of snow roared around him as the Yan's air rushed out through the cracks in the reactor housing. He scrabbled at his emergency helmet, as a blizzard of snow threw him through the air and up against the bulkhead. He bounced off, leaving a green stain on the wall.

And the ship began to turn.

30 June 1908: Tunguska, Russia

"I was sitting on the porch of the house at the trading station, looking north. Suddenly in the north…the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire. I felt a great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire… At that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash… I was thrown twenty feet from the porch and lost consciousness for a moment…. The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled…. At the moment when the sky opened, a hot wind, as if from a cannon, blew past the huts from the north. It damaged the onion plants. Later, we found that many panes in the windows had been blown out and the iron hasp in the barn door had been broken."

© B.H. Marks, 2009

The End

Home

"What's the next star system, Saltz?" asked the Captain to his helmsman.

"17XE23. I hate these check-up missions," answered the tall, veiny, male, his angst barely hidden below his respect for the commander. "I just always wish that we'll find a product of a seeding mission that is prospering."

"You know the directive – seed what seems to be an up-and-coming planet, leave it for a few million of their years, then slip back through the portal to see what happened. Non-interference, you know. Let civilizations develop as they will." The commander looked out through the transparent sides of their bubble of a star-ship, to see a star-system racing towards them. "Which planet was it?"

"Fourth one from the star, sir," reported the onboard ship historian, leaning forward a little towards his holographic console, to get a better view of the system's chart and historical information.

The bubble-ship flew through a spherical cloud of stardust and debris; past orbiting balls of rock and ice; on past giant balls of swirling gases

"There it is sir. Fourth planet from the star…" Saltz's voice trailed off a little as he listened to the ship's detectors. Silence, silence – eventually only a sigh. "I'm sorry, but it looks like another dud, Captain."

The historian began to expound upon facts and calculations now. "The loss of life was probably due to the loss of the planet's molten core. We've been seeing this a lot. The core goes down, the planet loses its magnetic shields, the star's radiation blows away what atmosphere the planet had." He sat back in his seat with a sigh, as the lifeless, red sphere below him slowly rotated on its axis.

"Maybe they moved inward," ventured the Captain with a shrug. "Saltz - any artificial energy readings coming from the third planet?"

The helmsman refocused his search. "I may have something. It's very faint – but probably worth a look."

"That's what we're here for," said the commander as the bubble began to speed towards the next planet in. "Description of overall planetary environment?"

A lavender colored female, a little thicker than the others, brought up equations before summarizing. "There are three land masses separating liquid water. The entire planet seems to be buried beneath a thick layer of ice."

The historian piped up, beginning to get excited. "That's probably why your reading is so slight, Saltz – the signal may be coming from a source beneath the ice – perhaps within the water."

Within ten minutes the galaxy traveling bubble was heat-blasting its way through the frozen cover. Suddenly a plume of steam rose up, encircling the ship as liquid water turned to gas. "Moving towards signal," said Saltz as the orb shot downwards, into the depths. As they descended, odd lifeforms floated past, all being recorded by the historian.

"Could we take in some of these for observation?" asked the historian.

"Let's keep on track for now," answered the Captain. "I want to see what's making that artificial signal. The finding of intelligent life is our primary directive. We can always come back to this."

They were hovering now, the alien bubble floating over six metallic tubes, all of them partially covered with eons of silt from the ocean bottom. "The signal is very clear now, Captain. In one moment, we'll have the translation. It seems to be a loop."

The crew waited silently until a mechanized voice began the translation. "To whoever finds this signal – know that we have been waiting for you. We hope these tubes will not be caskets, but rather sarcophaguses – a mechanism of bringing us or our DNA descendents back to life…To whoever finds this signal – know…" The translator shut off.

"That must be the total of the loop," ventured the historian.

"Is there anything within those tubes able to be re-animated, Merly?" asked the commander turning towards the female.

A moment passed and then, "Nothing, Captain. The time has just been too long. There's just dust left by now."

The historian's shoulders sagged a little now. "I guess we could take back one of the tubes as an artifact. I just wish there would have been someone left."

Suddenly there was a small voice coming over the translator. "Have you come to visit the grave-tubes of the surface dwellers?" it asked quietly.

All on board came to attention. "Yes – yes we have!" answered the Captain, stumbling over his words.

"These surface dwellers had always hoped someone would come. It is good to know you finally came back."

The historian could not help but jump in. "How do you know we have been here before?"

By now, outside the star-bubble, there were thousands of soft lights, as if someone had walked into their backyard on a summer's night to watch fireflies pour down from the hills. "We have always been here, in the deepest depths, watching, far away from the surface dwellers and the devastation they wrecked upon themselves. We are as much children of the molten core beneath us as they were the children of stardust."

"Would you like to come with us, into the heavens?" rushed the historian, overwhelmed. "We could build an environ for some of you aboard our ship."

There was a moment of quiet as a wave of light went through those assembled outside, and then the light washed back towards the starship. "We are content to remain where we have always been."

"Then we'll eventually go on our way without you," said the Captain. "But we'd like to stay for a while and document your world and your culture."

"As you wish." There was silence now, as though the two cultures were resting in the knowledge they were no longer alone. "We have only one request: after you leave, don't wait so long to come back."

Both groups smiled.

© Michele Dutcher, 2009

The End

Home

Samantha held a cup of cocoa under her nose and blew steam from its frothy surface. Despite the aroma, she found she had no real desire for the stuff. After two mugs the third was just a brace against the cold. It was either this or the bourbon, and she knew what lay at the end of that road.

Hoarfrost coated her apartment's one tiny window, nearly occluding its view of Sixth Avenue traffic as it muddled through the Village, churning last night's snow into gray-black muck.

Samantha ignored it. The cold outside was the last thing she wanted to think about. She wrapped a free hand about her middle, took a hot sip of chocolate, and turned to consider the cerebral-net system occupying an entire wall of her Spartan living room.

It was the only piece of furniture left in the place, save the secondhand couch balanced on one side by a cinderblock, and an air mattress. She had sold everything else.

At some level Samantha supposed she should be concerned about her preoccupation with the bral-net – she spent most of her free waking hours there – but really, what did that matter? She was three months a widow, and if this was her only way to see Upton, so be it.

"Power," she said. One blue, three-dimensional word appeared, floating and slowly rotating before her: Standby.

Then a feminine voice said, "Hello, Samantha."

"Hello, Rose."

"Shall I cast file Upton-three?"

Sam smiled, nodding.

"Please put down the hot chocolate," said the computer woman.

Samantha placed it on the floor near the couch.

"Casting," said Rose.

Summer light spilled from the apartment window, bringing with it June heat. Passersby on the street traipsed along in shorts and T-shirts.

Upton lay on the couch, pretending sleep, his lithe form stretching from one armrest to the other. No matter how many times Samantha played this disc, she always felt a little thrill of happiness pass through her middle when saw him there.

He peeked at her through one half-lidded eye, and a grin spread his lips.

"You're a horrible liar," said Sam. "That's why you can't act for beans."

He chuckled, opening his dark green eyes.

"Writers don't have to act, sweetness. We do it on the page."

"You should write bumper stickers."

He laughed again, the rolling sound making Sam's heart beat hard with longing and regret. She knelt beside him, running her fingers through his hair, and across his thick chest. At moments like this it was hard to disbelieve her eyes, her hands, her nose. With Rose's help, Sam had reconstructed her husband down to his scent, that slight alkaline aroma that reminded her of fresh spring air along mountain trails.

He was perfect.

"Affection in the afternoon?" he asked. "I feel like the benefactor of government largesse."

A certain knowing smile played across her husband's lips, and Sam said, "If you make that large ass joke again I'm walking out."

He started to laugh, but she stopped him with a kiss, pressing hard against his warm, full lips. When she pulled away Upton had an entirely different look on his face.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

He gave her an indulgent smile, his eyelids drooping in that way they did when he was randy.

"You know I do."

She rested her head on his chest, hiding her face, and began to softly cry.

Upton's hand pressed into her hair and she felt him sit up.

"Babe, what's wrong?"

She couldn't tell him he wasn't real. She couldn't tell him he died and left her alone. Cerebral Upton believed in himself, in his make-believe world.

"I wish we had gotten pregnant," she said instead. "I wish we had shared that."

He was silent for a long moment, the sound of traffic filling the gap. Then Upton whispered, "It's not too late, Sam. You know I love kids. We don't make a lot of money, but hell, who does anymore?"

Samantha smiled. It was bitter, and wry, but somehow happy despite that. Upton would have said the same when he lived. He would have given her a baby anytime she wanted, but she had insisted on waiting until…what? More money? More stability? Since Upton passed she had less of both. Whatever she had been waiting for hadn't come.

"You're right," she said, rubbing the tears away, giving herself back to the computerized dream – playing her part to perpetuate the fantasy.

"And there's no time like the present," said Upton, pulling her atop him. He sank one strong hand into her black hair and kissed her thoroughly.

Doctor Morris stepped into the tiny examination room, a file in his hand, a smile on his lips.

"Well, it's official," he said.

Samantha swallowed, her eyes wide, bulging even.

"You're joking."

Morris looked taken aback for a moment, as if he were instantly changing gears in his head. He knew Samantha as a newlywed – she had never bothered to tell her GP about Upton's death – and probably assumed his news was confirmation of a planned pregnancy. Now the look on his face said he might have just given a cheating bride some very bad news indeed.

"No joke," he said. "You're about two months along." He paused, watching her expression. "Is something wrong?"

"I haven't had sex in nearly six months. My husband died." Sam hated being so blunt, but it saved further explanation.

Morris thought she was lying; she saw it in his eyes.

Sam shook her head. It didn't matter. She was pregnant.

"That's wonderful, babe!" said Upton, swinging her in circle.

"It's nuts," said Sam. "You aren't real, Upton. You're a computer image in my brain."

Upton tilted his head. "It's all a story, Sam. And I'm a writer."

"The hell does that mean?"

When next he spoke, Upton's voice lifted, taking on a familiar, feminine tone. "It means, Samantha, that you get your wish."

© David Alan Jones, 2009

The End

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