before. I got this kid, this little girl, much younger than me, she reminded me of myself when I was just starting out. I Twelved her. Took a big dose of baby. It was too soft; the shoggoths came and almost melted me. The brain slag turned all bubbly and hardened like molten glass plunged in icewater; cracks shot all through me. Thought to recapture something but I nearly exploded from the softness. All I could do to drag myself out here to R’lyeh Shores. Got a condo—bought the whole complex and had it all to myself. Corinne came out to visit on her way to disappearing. She brought a vial of brainsap, unlabeled, said this was what I was looking for, when I shot it I’d see. Then she went away. I waited a long time. I didn’t want another personality at this late stage. Twelve. Killed me to think that I was—finally—twelve myself. And that’s what I did. I Twelved Myself. I took the dose Corrine had brought—just this morning—and first I got the old urge to write as it came on, but then the shock was too great and I could only sit there hang-jawed. It was Me. A younger me. They must have drawn and stored the stuff before the first experiment—a control/led/ling substance, innocent unpolluted Me. The rush made me sick so sick. Like going back in time, seeing exactly what would become of me. Like being three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve all at once. Like being a baby and having some decrepit old hag come up to me and say, this is what you’re going to do to yourself, what do you have to live for anyway? See how awful it’s going to be? you think you’re cute but everyone will know how ugly you really are, here, why don’t you just come understand everything? And baby just drools and starts to cry because she knows the truth is exactly what she’s being told by the stinky old hag who is herself. Is Me. All at once and forever. This is final. What I was looking for—and I’ve ruined it. Nowhere newer; no escape hatch; no greener garden. Only one way to fix what they broke so long ago. I loved to hate; I built to wreck; I lived to die. All the injections they doped and roped me into, not a single one of them convinced me I should cry.
Marc Laidlaw is the author of six novels, including the International Horror Guild Award-winning, The 37th Mandala. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies since the 1970s. In 1997, he joined Valve Software as a writer and creator of Half-Life, which has become one of the most popular videogame series of all time. In recent years he has been contributing lore and one-liners to the competitive online game, Dota 2.
Paedomorphosis
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Nasty cold for late May, rain like March; Annie sat on one of the scrungy old sofas at the front of the coffeehouse, sipping at her cappuccino, milkpale bittersweet and savoring the warmth bleeding into her hands from the tall mug. The warmth really better than the coffee, which always made her shaky, queasy stomach if she wasn’t careful to eat something first. Beyond the plate glass, Athens gray enough for London or Dublin, wet Georgia spring hanging on, Washington Street asphalt shimmering wet and rough and iridescent stains from the cars passing by or parked out front. The rest of the band late as usual and no point getting pissed over it, baby dykes living in their own private time zone. Annie lit another cigarette and reminded herself that she really was cutting back, too expensive and no good for her voice, besides.
The door opened, then, and the cold rushing in, sudden rainsmell clean to mix with the caffeinated atmosphere of Bean Soup, air forever thick with the brown aroma of roasting beans and fresh brewing. Jingled cowbell shut again, Ginger and Mary and Cooper in one soggy clump, stupid happy grin on Mary’s face and Cooper sulking, wet-hen disgust and she set her guitar case down beside Annie.
“What’s with this fucking weather, man, that’s what I want to know? I think my socks have fucking mildewed.”
“Maybe if you changed them every now and then,” Ginger sniggered and Mary giggled; Cooper groaned, shook her head and “These two have been sucking at the weed all afternoon, Annie,” she said. “It’s a wonder I finally pried them away from the bong.” Mary and Ginger