Tinder

            The world was never quite right. Things never worked out for the ones who needed them. Ellee was one of those for whom nothing worked out.

How else does a young woman find herself standing guard outside at night, with nothing but a stick to guard herself. The stick was sharp, but that was about all it had going for it. It wasn’t even that long.

Something heavy walked through the night. The something heavy. No one in the village knew what it was. It took each sacrifice silently, beyond the sight of people.

Ellee wasn’t angry that it was her turn to be sacrificed. She couldn’t be. She had been more than happy to stand on the side and watch the others go, glad that she hadn’t been picked. There was no use in pointing out the moral failings of the sacrifices.

The village got to sleep safe for a year. That’s all they cared about. Hard to blame them, on the other side of the wall.

Ellee shivered as the night grew dark around her. No one had ever survived the night they were sacrificed on. She knew that she wasn’t about to be the first. If she could score a wound on the thing, that would be victory.

The heavy thing grew closer. She tightened her grip on the spear. Then a light appeared in the distance, near where the trees stopped.

Ellee snorted. This beast was going to have to do more than turn on a light to get her to leave the safety of the walls.

The light came closer, not bobbing as it was but approaching straight. Ellee held fast.

A voice called out to her, loud enough that she could here, but not carry over the walls. “Are you the sacrifice?”

Ellee looked over the walls. How could they not know who this was? There was only one answer. They didn’t want to know. Every other sacrifice, Ellee had been fast asleep before dusk, trying not to think about it.

“Yeah,” she said as confidently as she could.

The light paused, shifting back and forth. “Okay. I accept. I think they did well this year.”

“Who?” Ellee asked.

The light advanced again. “I don’t know, whoever does the picking. I like short girls with fire in them. You fit the bill. I hope I’m what you were looking for.”

Ellee growled and threw her spear.

“Woah,” the voice said. “That was so cool. Like a real Amazon.”

“Who are you?”

The figure paused. She could just make out his figure. “I’m the dragon from the distant hills.” He pointed off to the east. “All my friends swear by this dating service. They all met their spouses here, and well, there I am, like a doofus at their parties, watching them all with their wives and I’m still single so I said ‘hey, what the heck, might as well give it a go.’ You know? So I fill out a questionnaire and showed up when they told me to. I realize this must look a little weird.” The figure laughed weakly. “This is dumb. I’m sorry, you’re probably into vampires or something.”

(Sorry I’m late on this one.)

Tech Support

“Life Support, failing,” said the too calm robotic voice. There was no blaring alarm, no flashing red lights. It was just that voice, saying over and over for hours. It spoke over a tone of bland hold music.

Her crew was buried deep in the wiring, trying to find what was going wrong, but they couldn’t find anything. Kiki sniffed the air. Nothing wrong with it, excluding the feel of air that had been recycled for months. It smelled of stale farts.

She looked out the window at the grungy little world below. Eighty thousand tons of terraforming equipment and medicine, desperately needed on the planet below. Two years traveling the stars to fail now. Typical.

“How are we?” she shouted down into the wires.

Her crew answered with a series of grunts and complaints. They were all still alive, at least. “Have you gotten through to them?”

“Still on hold,” Kiki said. She held up the com and let the music drift down the holes. They groaned some more. She put away the com with a grim sense of schadenfreude.

“Have the computers told you anything?” The question came from Dern, chief mechanic. Today was a waking nightmare for him.

Kiki looked over the computers, considering each screen. Every single one of them was nominal. They didn’t think anything was wrong. Landing systems were all green. Fuel was fine. Hull integrity, everything.

“Life Support, failing.”

“I know. I know,” she said. Apart from that, and the hold music, everything was fine. The tension of living under the alarm was too much. She expected for everything to go dark any second. For there to be a bang and then nothing.

They had tested the air. Nitrogen, oxygen. One atmosphere. Everything was fine. They had hunted down the sensors and cleaned them. Fine. Commanding the computer to relax and worry about it later resulted in the message being repeated twice as fast.

“Hello, Strawberry Systems, tech support for your ships. This is Tmothy speaking, how can I help?”

Kiki dove on the com and held it up. She quickly explained the problem, trying to remain calm. It was the first outside voice they had heard in two years. Timothy didn’t speak, but listened respectfully.

When she finished, he took a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

Assassin

Wind whispered through the room, touching the drapes. A shiver passed through the room. Laying on the large sumptuous bed, an elderly woman rose her elbows and peered into the dark room. The room was silent, but she was certain.

“Who are you?” she whispered into the darkness.

No one moved. The darkness remained absolute. A response came back to her through the room, so quiet that she thought she imagined it. “You’re reckoning.” 

She sat up, resting against head of the bed. “An assassin?”

“Yes.”

“Who sent you?” she growled. There were plenty of people who wanted her dead. Nobles and foreigners alike.

“It doesn’t matter,” the voice whispered. “They will never be linked to your death.”

She had more questions, but the voice felt near. Her heart constricted with primal fear. She had to know how she would die. The rest could be worried about later. “How will you kill me.”

“I’ve already killed you.”

She shivered beneath her blankets. “How?”

“Anaphylactic shock,” the voice said. “I injected a solution of peanuts into you. And I put some around your bed.”

She stiffened. A hand searched her blankets and found the peanuts. She held one between her fingers. “This isn’t public knowledge, but I’ve been receiving allergy shots. I’ve been responding well to the peanut ones. I only get a mild reaction now. Not life threatening. I can even eat them now.”

Silence stretched across the darkness. She thought she could see a figure by the drapes. Their head hung low.

“Huh,” the voice whispered back at her. “I don’t really have much on me. Just some peanuts. I was going to snack on them on the way home. This needle isn’t much. I could strangle you with the pull cords. Would that work for you?”

She frowned. “I’d rather not have the room pulled apart if you don’t mind. I don’t want to be difficult, but…”

“No, no. This is your death. Can only imagine how much you spent on the room. I’ll just pop into the kitchen and get a knife.”

“Down the hall and to the left,” she said. She could feel a heat on her skin from the peanuts. The coroners would be puzzled.

“Thanks, be right back.” The door opened and soft foot steps padded down the hall.

As they left, she reached a hand under her pillow for the gun she kept there. It should at least be sporting.