She takes another step, smiles another smile.
“The woman left the babe in the woods, for this is not a children’s story. Not all stories about children are for children, you understand, nor could they ever be. She left the babe in the woods, and it froze, and it cried, and the winter wrapped frozen arms around its tiny body, and carried it home. The babe became a child became a woman, and the kingdom fell and the story spread, and none of that mattered, for the winter held her heart. The winter always would.”
She has reached the first of the men. The kiss she presses to his cheek is a burning brand. He shatters from the force of it, falling in a cascade of frozen meat, glistening in the ever-present light. She kisses them each, one after the other, and they break, and she walks on, leaving cruel carnage in her wake.
“And they all lived happily ever after,” she murmurs, as her fingers brush the final door, as its hinges freeze in their sockets. The frame yields. The door falls before her, and she is through, she is inside, she is stepping out of the streets and into the hallway, where the light, the light, the light holds sway.
* * *
The house of the governor is clean and quiet: the house of the governor is tidy and true. These are necessary things, for how can one lead when one does not also follow? There are governors who feel themselves above the law, and they keep their constituencies as well as they can, but there is always and ever something missing in those places, where the laws are not fairly applied to all. Here, the laws apply. Here, the laws are understood, admired, held up as proof that the greater good will always conquer, in the end. The world will be true. The world will stand fast.
The governor and his wife sleep on the second floor, in a room where the lights have been dimmed to the acceptable twilight that eases slumber and keeps the heart from worrying over shadowy corners. There are no places in their private bower where the darkness can find a foothold: the closet is lit from within, and unlike the main lights, the closet lights never dull or dim. Their shoes and clothing remain safe from shadows. The bed is flush to the floor; smaller lights shine inside every drawer of their dressers and vanities. They are safe.
They believe they are safe.
The children sleep on the third floor, two girls and a boy, each in a room a little brighter than the room where their parents sleep, each accustomed to sleeping in the light. They stir, those children, when the lights flicker and dim. They wake, one after the other, when those same lights die entirely, throwing them into deep, unaccustomed darkness.
The younger girl begins to cry, the sound soft and terrified. She feels someone settle beside her on the bed; feels a hand caress her hair.
“What’s wrong, child?”
The voice is sweet, and she is young enough, as yet, to hear kindness in sweet things. She sniffles, turns her unseeing face toward the sound.
“It’s dark,” she says.
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
Suddenly shy, she nods, not considering the fact that if she can’t see her visitor, her visitor can’t see her.
But it seems her visitor can see her, because the hand caresses her hair again, and the same sweet voice asks, “Would you like to be safe in the dark? To see its secrets, to not be afraid? You can be, if you wish it.”
“Please,” she whispers.
“Here.”
The child doesn’t need to see to know what’s been placed in her hand: the weight of the apple is as familiar as a well-worn dream. Her fingers caress the skin, feeling the ripeness of it, the way the juice presses against the peel, begging to be freed.
“Eat,” says the voice, and the child—always obedient—does as she is told. The fruit is sweet. The fruit is cold.
She swallows, and her heart stops, and she is no longer afraid. When she opens her eyes, the darkness holds no fear, only a woman with skin as white as snow, sitting on the edge of the bed and smiling at her.
“Come,” says the woman, and the girl, newly reborn to winter, sees no reason to argue. There is so much to discover, on the other side of the frost. She wants to learn it all.
Together, they go to her brother, who sits wide-eyed in his bed, staring into the darkness and waiting for the lights to come back on. He sighs when his little sister kisses his cheek, when she puts the apple in his hand. He sighs, and he dies, and he rises again, as the frost-touched children always do.
Together, they go to the eldest daughter, who still wears ribbons in her hair, and offer her the bargain that has always been there, has always waited for the children of the light when the battle grows too close. She does not eat willingly, but her brother pries her mouth open, and her sister worries off little bites of apple with her teeth, transferring them into the elder girl’s mouth with all the delicacy of a bird feeding its nestlings. She swallows despite herself.
She is weeping when her heart stops, and the woman who has brought the cold here, to this safe, warm home, smiles. The ones who die crying always rise up stronger than the rest, white-haired and white-handed and tied to the snow in a way the frozen girls can only dream of. This girl will be a general, when she adjusts to her new reality.
Together, the four of them walk through the sleeping house, their feet leaving trails of ice behind them, and enter the room where the governor and his wife sleep. The lights flicker and die.
The screaming starts soon after.
* * *
The next day, there is a power outage. The lights go out across the city, creating shadows and silences where none have been before. The money for the forest project is mysteriously missing; the tree lights are abandoned, unlit. Bit by bit, the infrastructure that has illuminated a generation is chipped away.
Similar stories unfold in cities and states and capitols across the world. The lights flicker. The lights die. The winds blow colder and longer and wilder than before as slowly, so slowly, the cycle begins to turn.
At the edge of the wood, a little girl with hair that is already bleeding black, like ink through cotton, holds the hand of the woman who has become her new mother. The other two children remain with their puppet-parents, controlling them with a flick of their fingers, a whisper of ice, but she, this littlest jewel, is the hostage to their good behavior, taken with her full consent, kept willingly where the shadows fall.
“What comes next?” she asks. “Is it good?”
“The tide turns,” says the woman. “The monsters come out of our hiding places, and the balance shifts again. In a hundred years, two hundred, a thousand, the darkness will have consumed almost everything there is, and the light will rise up, will send tendrils of resistance into our homes, will steal our children away and thaw their frozen hearts. But that is in the future, and the sun is almost up. Come along, my dear. It’s almost dawn, and it’s time you were asleep.”
They turn together and walk into the shadows, and leave only the frost of their footprints to mark where they have been.
The Parallactic Soldier
Christopher Allenby
28 February 2022, 1430 hours.
Autonomous Assault Unit 423-H crept through the rubble-strewn street. Since the Global Positioning Satellite network had been down for some time, AAU/423-H could not be certain which street that was, but it was reasonably certain the street was in what remained of Charlotte, North Carolina. The robotic combat system was following its last received and authenticated mission order: SEEK AND DESTROY ENEMY ASSETS IN GRID SECTORS 39A AND 40B. That order had been received exactly 2,200 hours, 13 minutes, and 22.459 seconds ago. The order had been neither rescinded nor countermanded. In fact, AAU/423-H had received no authenticated communication from any command authority since that transmission had overwritten its previous mission, labeled SENTRY-A1 AT POST US-B1B, and significant portions of its operational parameters.
Debris in the street crunched under AAU/423-H’s wheels. Broken glass—presumably from bombed-out multi-level buildings—and the charred remains of civilian vehicles made the street both treacherous for nav
igation and ideal for concealing enemy assets. AAU/423-H was attempting to extricate itself from its present position and to achieve a redoubt that was both defensible and shadow-less; its batteries were low and it needed a safe place to deploy its solar panels for recharging.
AAU/423-H froze when its targeting system detected movement northeast of its position. Threat identification processors determined in 0.002 seconds that the potential threat was a non-combatant animal, canis lupis familiarus. AAU/423-H resumed its maneuver, idly noting that dogs often but not always accompanied human civilians and human combatants. Crossing an intersection, AAU/423-H exercised the extreme caution learned from experience and expended precious power reserves to quickly cross the open area of tarmac. It attracted no enemy fire.
28 February 2022, 1730 hours.
After three hours of meticulous maneuvering, AAU/423-H achieved a suitable position in a densely vegetated area on the south side of a multi-level building, a position it estimated could provide it with approximately nine hours of direct sunlight, assuming that the next day would be clear and not overcast. (The weather information network, too, had been inaccessible for some time.) It camouflaged itself among the remains of what it tentatively identified as a jungle gym and deployed its solar panels to collect late afternoon sunlight. It initiated a system check and then shut down all but its passive sentry system to preserve power.
28 February 2022, 2324 hours.
AAU/423-H awoke, its sentry program detecting a potential airborne threat. Comparing a real-time infrared image from the sentry program to data from US Army Intelligence report number 3254732.2#B, it identified the aircraft as a drone of the type used by enemy combatants in an attack near Lincoln, Nebraska, on 21 August 2021. AAU/423-H deployed its heaviest projectile weapon, the ASR-50 rifle, and fired a single round. Telemetry indicated the drone was losing altitude at a rate that conclusively (89.6457%) indicated critical damage, so AAH 423-H stowed the rifle, noting that only thirty-three rounds remained for that weapon. It attempted, again, to signal its designated ordnance depot to request Combat Resupply, but was unable to achieve an authenticated connection. It resumed low-power mode to await the dawn and the much-needed sunlight.
12 March 2022, 0545 hours.
AAU/423-H followed a highway eastward at the optimal power consumption rate of 22.175 KPH. It was relatively certain from its analysis of optical input that it was nearing the US Army base where it expected to find much-needed, mission-critical supplies. Most of its supplies had been exhausted in its months-long deployment and it calculated that without immediate resupply it would be unable to carry out its mission. In a series of brief engagements beginning at 1423 hours on 10 March 2022, it had destroyed four civilian vehicles that had been deployed by the enemy, the first of which had attempted to attack AAU/423-H directly. To neutralize the vehicles and the human combatants who crewed them, AAU/423-H had depleted its last three Rocket Propelled Grenades and thirty-seven 7.62X55 mm machine gun rounds, leaving only eighteen rounds for that weapon.
Two days earlier, on 08 March 2022, in a 7.342-minute engagement between 2322 and 2340 hours, AAU/423-H had been compelled to expend its last remaining ASR-50 rounds to incapacitate a fixed-wing aircraft that had launched from a small municipal airport. The condition of any human combatants inside the aircraft was unknown, but given its rate and angle of descent and the kinetic energy it released on impacting the ground, AAU/423-H had estimated the likelihood of humans retaining combat effectiveness at 12.436% and had disengaged rather than expending power to reconnoiter the crash site, which was 2.3 kilometers from its firing position.
Now AAU/423-H slipped into a roadside ditch. Its batteries were nearly depleted and sunrise was only minutes away. It would spend the day charging its batteries and, if its estimates were correct, would reach Fort Bragg before the next sunrise.
13 March 2022, 1215 hours.
Sentry protocols powered up AAU/423-H’s defensive system before its core program was fully aware of the threat. This turned out to be a trio of civilian vehicles, three four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks, approaching its position from the southwest at 125 KPH. Quickly re-assessing its inventory, AAU/423-H estimated its odds of successfully fending off an attack and surviving to achieve its resupply objective and resume primary-mission operations at less than 1 in 5. It therefore crouched low in the ditch in an attempt to evade notice. When the vehicles began slowing as they neared its position, however, AAU/423-H surmised that its position was known and that these vehicles presented a direct threat. It deployed its last effective weapon, the 7.62 mm machine gun with eighteen rounds remaining, and maneuvered itself out of the ditch. As the enemy vehicles bore down upon it and their crews became perceptible, AAU/423-H executed the command that—of all its Standard Operating Procedures—was most difficult to comprehend, if a machine could be said to comprehend anything (which was itself an existential musing that core programming discouraged as non-productive). It had been unable to discern any operational advantage in the tactic, which seemed rather to increase enemy resolve if anecdotal evidence from its current deployment could be considered reliable. That command was this: any time AAU/423-H engaged human enemy combatants, it must emit at very high volume a digitally recorded audio signal, an inarticulate, ululating cry interspersed periodically with the shouted phrase “Allahu-Akbar!”
With the strange phrase and warbling cries reverberant among the nearby pines, AAU/423-H attacked the nearest targets one by one, depleted its rounds, and was soon overrun.
Freedom!
Chris Kennedy
Sergeant John Simmons felt the blast of the missile through the hull of the dropship and knew he was going to die.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had the feeling—the life of a mercenary is often fraught with peril—but this time he was sure.
Blam!
A second missile hit the dropship and the shuddering it had developed after the first near miss intensified. He could see daylight through several new holes on the far side of the craft and he looked longingly at his CASPer secured to the far bulkhead. If he and the remainder of his platoon had been wearing the giant suits of armor and weapons, they could have put down the back ramp and jumped out of this rattling deathtrap, but the new lieutenant hadn’t wanted to listen.
“Treat every deployment like a combat deployment,” Simmons had advised, but the colonel had obviously stressed the importance of a sound bottom line to the lieutenant and the officer had decided not to wear the CASPers when they deployed ‘to save fuel.’
Save fuel? Simmons was more worried about saving his ass; they could have billed him for the hydrogen it saved.
The dropship picked up a weird side-to-side, cyclical motion, and one of the privates down the row threw up. The sideways g-forces made the vomit arc all the way across the bay, and it splattered across several of the CASPers. At least it wasn’t his, Simmons thought, as his stomach threatened to revolt. He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side to avoid the smell before he lost it, too.
The g-forces came on suddenly, hard, in a 6-g pull. Simmons gritted his teeth, trying to keep from graying out, as the dropship maneuvered. The g-forces let up for a moment, and the dropship crashed.
* * *
Simmons hurt everywhere. Although it sucked, he knew from past experience that meant he had, at least, lived through whatever had been trying to kill them. Mostly. He could feel his fingers and toes on both sides, although his left arm hurt so badly he would have been happy to cut it off and be done with it. Still, movement in the extremities was a good start.
With a tremendous force of will, he opened one eye; his left eyelid refused to budge.
“Hi, Sarge,” a voice said. “Welcome back.”
He struggled to place the voice. New guy. His brain didn’t want to work. A face leaned in. Oh. Private Cardelli. “Grompf,” Simmons said. He tried again. “Wha … hap …”
“What happened?” Cardelli asked.
Simmons tried to no
d and only succeeded in inclining his head slightly.
“The dropship crashed. Do you remember that?”
Simmons considered, then almost achieved a full nod. Mobility was returning.
“After the crash,” Cardelli continued, “the only ones functional were Corporal Ramirez and I. The lieutenant and Top were both dead and most of our shit was on fire. We started trying to pull the folks who were still living out of what was left of the dropship, although a lot of our shit got spread all over creation when the dropship came apart in the crash. Sorry about the burn on your left arm; I thought you were dead and didn’t get you until you screamed.”
Simmons couldn’t remember waking up on fire, but as badly as his left arm hurt, he could well imagine screaming. His arm still felt like he’d reached into a fire ant nest.
“How many … else?”
“How many made it?” Cardelli asked. “Just Ramirez, you, and me. There were others who survived the crash, but the dumbass MinSha killed them.”
Simmons guessed he had a concussion, but that still didn’t make sense. Why would the aliens that had transported their mercenary company to the planet, the MinSha, have killed everyone? The MinSha were supposed to be supporting them. “Why?” Simmons finally asked.