FutureShocks
by Rob - January 27th, 2006.Filed under: Uncategorized.
Received my contributor’s copy of the handsome new anthology FutureShocks, edited by Lou Anders and published by Roc. It contains my story “Flashes,” which begins thus:
My heart pounded as I surveyed the scene. It was a horrific, but oddly appropriate, image: a bright light pulsing on and off. The light was the setting sun, visible through the window, and the pulsing was caused by the rhythmic swaying of the corpse, dangling from a makeshift noose, as it passed in front of the blood-red disk.
“Another one, eh, Detective?” said Chiu, the campus security guard, from behind me. His tone was soft.
I looked around the office. The computer monitor was showing a virtual desktop with a panoramic view of a spiral galaxy as the wallpaper; no files were open. Nor was there any sheet of e-paper prominently displayed on the real desktop. The poor bastards didn’t even bother to leave suicide notes anymore. There was no point; it had all already been said.
“Yeah,” I said quietly, responding to Chiu. “Another one.”
The dead man was maybe sixty, scrawny, mostly bald. He was wearing black denim jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, the standard professorial look these days. His noose was fashioned out of fiber-optic cabling, giving it a pearlescent sheen in the sunlight. His eyes had bugged out, and his mouth was hanging open.
“I knew him a bit,” said Chiu. “Ethan McCharles. Nice guy — he always remembered my name. So many of the profs, they think they’re too important to say hi to a security guard. But not him.”
I nodded. It was as good a eulogy as one could hope for — honest, spontaneous, heartfelt.
Chiu went on. “He was married,” he said, pointing to the gold band on the corpse’s left hand. “I think his wife works here, too.”
I felt my stomach tightening, and I let out a sigh. My favorite thing: informing the spouse.