Contributor: E.S. Wynn


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The moment I slip into the ocean, I know that I am home.

I wasn't born here, on Nereid IV-b. The colony is only a few years old, and most of the settlers are early-gen spacers, migrants who've seen a thousand worlds, elected for sterilization centuries ago. It's something else, something I can feel in my blood-- about the planet, the ocean, something I feel like I've been searching for my entire life, trying to get back to.

Something about the gravity, the planet's proximity to the three stars that hold it suspended in the most elegant orbit I've ever seen on an inter-system approach, gives it the most placid, most serene seas I've ever seen. Clean and clear, there are no tides or currents in the wide oceans of Nereid IV-b, nothing to wear down the smooth, gray-glassy stone that sprawls on across the bottom as far as the eye can see. No life-- nothing beyond a few simple mineral constructions that might become bacteria before the planet's three suns burn out.

All of my life, I've been afraid of oceans, but not the oceans here. Earth's oceans are dark and deadly, oppressive and thick with horrors both real and imagined. Some planets I've seen are worse, have thick, sludgy seas teeming with tiny, violent carnivores eager to seek out human flesh-- others are better, their seas more serene and silent.

But none of them have seas like Nereid IV-b.

There are no monsters here, nothing lurking or hunting in the darkness, no danger, no unseen movements of water waiting to pull you under. Open your eyes under the surface and you can see for miles, know that there is nothing but the seafloor, the shore and you, you floating there in the middle of it all. With the right gill-breather you can float there for hours, close your eyes, meditate, drop away into the pleasantly cool embrace of pure water held together by the most minimal gravity field you've ever felt. There is nothing like falling asleep in the oceans of Nereid IV-b, waking up again a few hours later and knowing that you are safe, that the sea has supported you softly while you've slept. It's an incredible feeling, trusting your existence to an ocean, to an entire planet's stretching seas, knowing that no matter how deep you go, no matter how far from shore you swim, you will always be safe, always be home.

The moment I slip into the ocean, I know that I am home, and for a while, at least, I know I can forget everything but the sea, the endless ocean I love, the silver, serene waters that seem to accept all that I am, man-- flawed and imperfect. Shore leave never lasts for more than a few days, but some day, some day, I'll come back to Nereid IV-b. I'll come back and I'll stay.

And I'll never leave the ocean again.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of more than 50 books.

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
These caves go on forever.

Be seated among the brethren, the memory of an absent light breathes, speaks in eldritch whispers which presuppose that God is not dead.

Be seated. We are at rest.

I avoid the caverns that scream, the caverns that lurk, the caverns that step through the darkness, hunting, waiting just beyond reach, waiting like sharks until a stumble, a blind groping. When they come, they come with teeth. They come to swallow. I flirt with the death therein, touch it, dance away.

I walk the dusty caverns. I pick the depths that open without footsteps, that offer unpolished stone and a gathering of shadows. On and on, these caverns roam, deeper and deeper, dropping into vistas, cities unlike anything on the surface, the sunlit structures that crumble with the slightest glance, prodding touch. There is more to see and understand in the depths than any one man could paw through in a lifetime. There is more in the depths than one mind could hope to hold, but all the cities hold the same statues, the same heroes. I give myself a glance at each, move on.

Occasionally, I find a box shuffled away in a crack, a fissure in the stone walls, and my hope surges. Most are empty. None of them hold water. None of them hold the water I need. None of them bring the manna I hunger for.

In the dark, I shape stones as I walk, drop them when they dull. In my mind, I draw pictures of caverns as they might progress, as they might meander, drop them when they turn to dust at the touch of shadow. Still I walk, still I hope, study, create, ignore the voices that whisper louder and louder with each passing day: you are a fool. Die, fool.

Die, fool!

Alone, I carve my wooden pocket-wand. I shape it as my soul tells me to, cut it and bind it and burn it and etch it until there is nothing left but the wand I see in my mind. Chaos lives here, it whispers to me, and I know that the void which echoes in its voice is the darkness I must rise to avoid. Chaos lives here, it whispers, and I know that the void in its voice is the womb of creation, that birth lies in the hands of annihilation. All around me, the caverns yawn, open. To them, this is ancient knowledge. To them, it is a realization long past.

To me, the past is just beginning. The now is my forgotten sepia photograph.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books and chief editor of Thunderune Publishing. Find out more by visiting www.eswynn.com

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
“Doctor Williams!”

Gerald glances up from the ragged chunk of glassy-smooth sediment in his hand, lets it fall, unremembered. Eyes rise through the bioplastic of his helmet, focus on the distant silhouette of a figure waving arms where a dip, perhaps a crater, breaks the monotony of the stone-scattered wasteland.

“What is it, Dinsmore?”

“Something interesting,” comes the vague response.

“There's nothing interesting on this rock.” Williams grumbles, unwilling to budge. “Nano-survey said there would be fossils. All I see is a lot of pyroclastic breccia.”

“This is way more interesting than fossils.” Dinsmore persists, and the sound of the grin in his voice makes Williams squint. Briefly, Williams considers calling up to the orbiting ship, requesting a Q-anchor to portal them back to the gate-bay. Childlike curiosity keeps his finger hesitating at the panel on his hip, unwilling to tab the comm key.

“I'll bet you a hundred Creativity Units this is going to amaze you.”

A hundred CUs? Williams considers. Half a month's allotment. Enough to print the paint, brushes and vellum canvases he's been putting off in favor of bioprobes and testing rigs.

Bioprobes and testing rigs ultimately wasted on too many dead planets.

Williams lets his eyes fall to the ground. 100 CUs is enough to keep him sitting in orbit of KP-1138, playing chess against Dinsmore for sixteen more standard planetary rotations if he loses the bet.

In the end, he says nothing. KP-1138's weak gravity gives him a drifting, skipping gait as he crosses the wasteland to Dinsmore's dip. Overhead, one of the planet's twin moons races across the sun, drops a shadow over everything that leaves as quickly as it comes.

And then Williams sees it. He sees it, and his irritated features open in wonder. Dinsmore's laugh comes choppy, static-laced over the comm channel.

“Dismore. . .” Williams breathes, crouches where the dip drops away suddenly into sprawling, cavernous depths. Almost immediately his eyes find the glass spires, the glittering meshwork towers, the crystalline domes stretching endlessly into the darkness, impossibly huge, all glowing, all lit from within by some internal light source.

A city, Williams thinks. No, a nation.

A civilization.

A civilization, just beneath the surface.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books and chief editor of Thunderune Publishing. Find out more by visiting www.eswynn.com

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: E.S. Wynn
- -

Creak of tin as hinges bend against dust, against age. Silvered paint flakes, splinters, catches golden, attic light. Fragile crackle of faded paper, old hands trace folds, smooth them. Dear Robert, the letter reads.

I hope you are doing well. I'm eight. My name is also Robert.

I smile, no mention of a date, but I know when it was written. I know why, who's idea it was, how silly it seemed at the time, how necessary it became as I aged.

Mrs. Patterson says that I have to write you a letter. You're fifty eight years old now. I bet you look like Grandpa Irwin. Does he still have a swimming pool you can swim in?

“In heaven, maybe, if that's the way of things.” I whisper. “Grandpa Irwin died over forty years ago.”

I bet you have a flying car. I wish Dad had a flying car. We could go zooming in the clouds. We could fly to see Grandma Ethel and Aunt Ruth in Florida if we had a flying car!

I look out the window, eyes finding the sleek, pill-shaped box I call a car. Its usually vibrant ePaint soaks light with a dark, dull gray while the cells recharge in the afternoon sun. Automatic, fast, elegant, but not a flying car.

Or maybe you have a rocket pack. I'd like a rocket pack.

I look at the car again. It's a classic now, one of the older C23s from before the last major police action in the east. One of the few still left, now that the entanglement grid has replaced the old SmartWay road system. I haven't seen a rocket in decades. Orbital shuttles and 'breakers run under their own power now. Even model rockets have gone out of style.

Do you still have dogs and cats in the future? I want a puppy but dad says no.

I smile again as I remember. Dad managed to hold off the puppy until I was in sixth grade, but it was mom who finally brought home Spot. I still remember that face. Bull-terrier mix, beautiful brown-tan swirled fur mixing with white. I grew up with that dog, took him with me to college, had to take the pet deposit out of my student loan to keep him. If it wasn't for him, I probably never would have met Karen at the dog park. Never would have met Bruce. For fourteen years, Spot altered the course of my life, and when he finally passed, I couldn't imagine life without him.

I think writing you a letter would be cool if you could write me a letter back. It seems dumb that you can't. Mrs. Patterson says that time travel will always be impossible, even for letters.

That was the thinking then. Just like today, we thought we had it all figured out. I remember being fifteen, seeing the announcement of an accepted, grand “theory of everything.” Five years after that, large-scale, machine-assisted research at the Sagan Institute rewrote practically everything we knew about the universe. Now it's possible to manipulate time in ways that seemed like fantasy back then. Rules for past-time interaction are strict, but a few words of comfort or a vague letter rarely requires anything more than autonetwork approval these days.

Well, that's all I can think of to ask you.


Sincerely, Robert Era.

I blink, and the software in the modified lens of my eye comes alive with the colors and displays of the OverNet, interfaces at the speed of thought and pens the words of my mind onto a ready document already aimed for a family fax machine fifty years in the past. The letter my mind writes comes immediate, short, soft, vague.

Thank you for the letter, Robert. The letter says. No flying cars yet, but the puppy was worth the wait.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: E.S. Wynn
- -

You will find the box in the dust and webs at the far end of the attic– you know the one, crouching under a stained and moth-rotted rag that will disintegrate in your hands as you touch it. Eager fingers will trace the lines and sigils burnt into the lid, move along the sides, flow with the patterns of the arcane script, tracking each glyph, almost tasting them with your fingers as you absorb the antiquity of the ageless box. Lips will purse as levering thumbs are driven to find purchase, to free the secrets locked within. Your tongue will set between teeth as you work at the age-pitted and neglect-rusted hinges, the thickly swelled lid, ignoring the strange way that the entire box seems to reek of time’s own feeble attempt to keep it sealed, to rot the box into oblivion and cast into the void whatever is sealed within. Thumbs will flex and harden, work loose the cracking wax seal, forcing movement, prying and cracking. All around you, time will seem to slow, reality to tense, and then the final catch will gave way, lid coming free, hinges shattering in a flash of crimson light.

For one terrible moment, you will catch a supernatural inkling of what you have done, the brush of dread and fear that comes from some other, deeper sense still as yet undescribed by science. You will hesitate, your hands frozen, unmoving. Within the shattered box, a wad of impenetrable void will seethe and flex before your eyes, stirring and swallowing the light as it reaches out of its pitted prison in thick, ropy coils, bending and obliterating the very fabric of reality wherever it touches. Fingers will jerk involuntarily, spasm on the current of a pulse, a throbbing blast of vibration that will crack suddenly and roll through the air around you, raising the tiny hairs on the back of your neck. The call of potential and power eager to be released will thunder somewhere within your skull, move and spread steadily, sweeping through flesh like the touch of some cold, spectral hand. Electric chills will cascade across arms, charge the air with tingling bites that slice into nerves, spasm through fingers. All at once, your sight will begin to blur, to darken, to turn red at the edges and then burn to black again. You will draw one last deep, gasping breath, fighting it, fighting the darkness, the blurring, the cold spreading outward from your chest, sewing its way viciously through your arms. All at once, you will stand, try to put some distance between yourself and the box, the darkness, but even then you will not escape His grasp. Hands will raise, flex before searching, sightless eyes. Lips will part, quivering on an edge of growing fear. I cannot see, you will think, and the thought will drown as the tingling within you turns slowly to burning, a throbbing stitch of pain working its way through every limb, every vessel and vein in your body.

And then a chorus of a thousand voices will call out as one, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once, rising on a rapturous howl that pounds inside your head like the throaty call of the hollow and formless depths of some forgotten, otherworldly hell.

Hic iacet L’Thaaun. Rex L’Thaaun! They will cry out, and the sound will freeze your skin, turn your blood to jagged ice. Forgotten instincts will awaken, the overwhelming urge to cower, to contort your body into a fetal ball and scream, to rip at skin and slash flesh, letting the blood flow, letting it run free to coat the unseen world with viscous crimson. The chorus of voices will rise in a terrifying cry, almost screaming for the spill, clamoring for the sacrifice until a single voice rises above them like the embodiment of a moldering plague, a breath that rots flesh and turns bone to ash and sand. The words will have no sound, no meaning your ears can grasp, but to some forgotten part of your mind, some fragment of instinct passed on through untold eons, the words will come as unignorable instructions, instructions whose execution only that darkened vestigial corner of a forgotten past will understand how to perform.

Mortal anchor: Receive your god.

And then. . . nothing.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books and chief editor of Thunderune Publishing.

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: E.S. Wynn
- -

Already, you know that you are destined to win.

It’s real. You smile as the thought trickles through the meaty elements of your heavily augmented mind, carries you like light to the edge of the pit. Your victory has already been decreed by the seraphim of Solomon’s high holy financial cabinet. Ten corporations are backing you in this fight. The networks have all laid bets on you. 97% of remote-wielding couch-jockeys with subscriptions to the VR feed of the upcoming fight have cast the votes that prove even the mass of the public has laid odds in your favor.

Already, millions of jobs have been staked on your fate. Already, the nanoprinter factories in the industrial districts of China, Nigeria and India are stenciling your name into the overpriced athletic shoes that will flood the reactive social ad-feeds of every high school student in the world the instant you land the first punch, swell in budget bid and keyword spread as you bathe yourself in your opponent's blood. You are the name on every social comment feed, every pair of recorded Vidvoice lips. You are the one who will bring the next splash of hollow gratification to the masses, herald the next tide of cheap, glossy merchandise to wash through the marketplace. You are the messiah who holds the teat of an economy fed by your violence, your hollow successes.

It comes as a surprise to everyone when your opponent lands the first punch, dislocates your jaw with a single crack from his steel-plated knuckles. Three factories file bankruptcy, retool and suck up acres of social ad-space in the same instant that teeth splinter and break. Money flies from betting rings as the blood flies from your mouth, and then he is on you, hurling hydraulic fists at you, cracking open bone and steel with effortless aggression. Conglomerates collapse and are gutted with the same speed and efficacy that your opponent drops you, rips into the meaty elements of your mind and tears them free. In the space of a breath, it is over. Hundreds of accounts sputter brokenly, as hopelessly ruined as your flesh, your armored body. The crowd of subscribers roar with the fury of the fresh kill, the unexpected turn of events. The corporations backing you scatter before bill collectors like roaches, fleas, gather themselves and hide behind the walls of bankruptcy before they are swallowed utterly.

Like a monolithic icon of commerce, your opponent stands above you, victorious, and as the moment of interest passes, he finds himself alone again, no longer the star in the center of the world’s eye. Like a child with a broken doll, he drops you, lets you fall to the floor like refuse, and as the bots patrolling the pit gather your fragments and push you into the nano-recycler for reconstitution into something useful, the world moves on, finds a new messiah to hold the teat of a new economy, one as violent and momentary as you were, as your opponent now is.

As the countless others that have come before you were.

As the countless others that will come after will be.


- - -
E.S. Wynn swims in the mind of the machine

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Author: E.S. Wynn