Grimdark Magazine Issue #2 Read online

  Contents

  The Line

  By T. R. Napper

  Grimdark Onscreen

  Article by Layla Cummins & Kyle Massa

  Interview With Kameron Hurley

  Kameron shows us how far we have to go as a genre.

  Review: The Heresy Within

  Author: Rob J. Hayes

  Review by Cheresse Burke

  Drone Strikes for Fun and Profit

  By Aaron Fox-Lerner

  Review: The Falcon Throne

  Author: Karen Miller

  Review by Jeremy Szal

  Interview With Richard K. Morgan

  Richard launches himself into the grimdark debate.

  Excerpt: The Dark Defiles

  By Richard K. Morgan

  The Knife of Many Hands

  A Second Apocalypse Story

  By R. Scott Bakker

  Grimdark Magazine’s issue #2 cover art is a commissioned piece from Julian De Lio, an Australian artist working out of Melbourne. You can find more of Julian’s work over at www.artbydeputee.com -- including links to his social media and DeviantArt accounts.

  From The Editor

  The grimdark subgenre is really taking off, and we here at Grimdark Magazine are ecstatic to be a part of it. Authors far and wide have been fantastic, getting involved with interviews, submitting short stories and—for the first time in issue #2—providing excerpts of their most recent novels. The generosity of both authors and artists with their time, efforts, and willingness to work within our financial capabilities has far exceeded anything we could have hoped for.

  I’d also like to send a shout out to Andy over at the R. Scott Bakker fan group for pro-actively jumping in to help market this issue.

  Thank you for buying Grimdark Magazine’s second issue. I’m really excited to have gotten this issue out to you all, despite having put away so much ham and beer this festive season that I can barely function. The team and I can’t wait to hear your feedback. I hope you enjoy reading it as much Cheresse, Layla, Kyle, Mike, Tom, Jewel, Joey, Rob and I enjoyed putting it together for you.

  Adrian Collins

  Founder

  Connect with the Grimdark Magazine team at:

  facebook.com/grimdarkmagazine

  twitter.com/AdrianGdMag

  grimdarkmagazine.com

  plus.google.com/+AdrianCollinsGdM/

  pinterest.com/AdrianGdM/

  The Line

  T. R. NAPPER

  ‘This is going to hurt.’

  George held the goateed man in an arm-bar, face down on the canvas. The man managed to turn his head to one side and gasp, ‘No.’

  George bent down, easing the strain on the arm for a moment. Sweat rolled down his brow, from the tip of his nose onto the man’s back. He whispered, ’Yes.’

  ‘BREAKER… BREAKER… BREAKER…’

  The waves of the chant broke across his concentration. The floodlights centred on the cage burned his eyes. But beyond, in the twilight of the stadium, he could see it was packed, as usual. Most had come straight from work, wearing the red and fluorescent yellow coveralls of the operators, or the blue and yellow of the mine technicians. There were a smattering of brown faces in the crowd, but that mob usually stayed away from fight night. Understandable. Emotions always got a little high by the end.

  In the front row were the dark-suited executives, on their feet with the rest of the crowd, punching their fists in the air. A glassteel partition separated their comfortable faux leather seats from the plastic provided to the rest of the crowd. The redhead—Langer—was there of course, in his regular front-row spot, his white shirt soaked through with sweat. He pointed his rust-red akubra at George’s opponent, bringing it up and down, like he was trying to break the man’s arm himself.

  George shook his head against the noise, against the heat of the room. The air conditioners were on full blast, but five thousand sweating, jostling bodies made the atmosphere dense, inescapable.

  George looked down at his opponent.

  Fight Night couldn’t end with a submission. One fighter had to be unconscious, incapacitated, or dead. George ended most fights by breaking his opponent’s arm. The Corporation gave a medical exemption for injuries received on Fight Night, fixed the fighter free of charge. Even used nanotech to knit the bones, have them back at work in a couple of days. A break was the easy way out. Merciful even.

  Except for this moment.

  George levered the arm until he felt the snap vibrate through his hands, sharp and final. He let the limb drop. The goateed man writhed on the canvas, clutching at his elbow.

  George stood to his full height, his lean muscles coated with sweat. He looked around at the crowd, faces all in shadow.

  ‘BREAKER… BREAKER… BREAKER…’

  The tumult grew; they chanted his name over and again. George didn’t acknowledge them. He walked to the side of the cage.

  His corner man passed him a towel and water bottle over the top.

  ‘Too easy.’

  George drank deeply then handed the bottle back. ‘Yes.’

  He mopped his face with the towel and waited for the announcer to make it official. Then he walked over to the steel gate. It clicked open. He ducked his head as he stepped out. Two fighters, stripped to the waist, waited to enter for the next bout. George moved quickly up the stairs between the stands, away from the cage. The crowd reached out to him, patted him on the back, called out his name. He let the sound wash over him. The hands he brushed aside.

  The Cochlear Glyph implant behind his left ear—silent during the bout—started broadcasting as soon as he left the cage. As he glanced up at the giant scoreboard above the stands, the c-glyph whispered the odds for the next fight. When he looked away, the feed switched to the murmurs of the commentators discussing the match. The only time the implant was silent was in the ring. How he looked forward to those rare minutes, when the itching in his mind finally ceased.

  George made his way to the change room and sat heavily on a hard-plastic bench. He held out his arm while his corner man undid the bindings on his fist.

  ‘Know what that fight was, George?’

  ‘I wouldn’t really call it a fight.’

  Burgess smiled. He had a round face. Pleasant, some would say, if not for the tell-tale redness of his neck and bloodshot eyes. ‘Not many would.’ He threw the first wrap away and begun work on the second. ‘That victory made you the most successful cage fighter in the free zones.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘They’ve been talking about it through the Interwave all week.’ Burgess tapped his finger behind his left ear, against his own c-glyph implant. ‘Haven’t you been watching? You certainly can’t help listening to it.’

  ‘I’ve learned to tune it out.’

  His corner man laughed. ‘No wonder you’re still sane.’ He paused, pulling a small capsule out of his shirt pocket. ‘Different strokes.’

  George pointed his chin at the pill. ‘That shit will rot your brain.’

  ‘Probably.’ Burgess shrugged. ‘But what difference does it make here?’

  ‘All the difference in the world.’

  Burgess raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I’m not the one spending all my spare time getting kicked in the head.’

  George smiled. ‘I’ll kick you in the head free of charge. You’ll get the same result as that shit,’ he pointed at the powder, ‘and save yourself some money.’

  Burgess returned the smile. ‘And you wonder why you don’t have any friends.’

  ‘I never wonder. Friends are a liability.’

  ‘So is having broken the arm of half the people you work with.’

  George grunted. ‘Ha. True enough, true
enough.’

  His corner-man cracked the capsule between his teeth, closing his eyes for a few moments. When he opened them again he seemed to find it hard to focus. ‘This can’t last forever George.’

  ‘What?’

  Burgess scratched the side of his face slowly, pointed vaguely at the room. ‘This.’

  George looked at his fist, flexing it. ‘Yeah. I know, Burgess. I know.’

  * * *

  George sat alone at one of the long tables in the mess hall. A score of rows were in the hall. Each could seat more than a hundred. The morning diners moved around him quickly, ate quickly, departed quickly. No-one wanted to be late. In the distance were the cyclical tunes and bells of the slot machines.

  George took a bite of corn bread and scooped some beans. He grunted. Not much flavour in either. The entertainment screen built into the breakfast counter murmured at him through his implant. He ignored it. The endless stories of imminent war bored him. He didn’t want to look at the betting markets either: the line on live female births next year in Sichuan Province, or the line on soya tonnage harvested in Hunan for June. Nor was he interested in placing a few credits on the temperature range down in Perth on the next Wednesday, or the odds of rain falling in the Free Economic Zone any time in the next six months. Weather investments weren’t his thing. None of the markets were for that matter. All except for one. Fight Night.

  George tapped the scratched touchscreen, flicking past the markets and newsfeeds until he found the icon for solitaire. George was halfway through his second game when three ascending tones sounded in his ear. The voice of the c-glyph, flat and uninflected, followed. ‘Probationary Citizen George Duulngari. You are required at an executive meeting in the gaming hall in three minutes.’

  George glanced down at the time-stamp on the counter screen. ‘If I do that, I’ll be late for my shift.’

  ‘Your shift has been cancelled, courtesy of Vice President Langer.’

  George raised an eyebrow. ‘The redhead himself? I’m honoured.’

  ‘An understandable reaction.’

  George returned to tapping his finger on the solitaire game, sipping at a cup filled with a thin, bitter liquid they insisted on calling coffee.

  After a minute: ‘Mister Duulngari. Why are you not proceeding to your meeting?’

  George indicated the entertainment screen with his hand. ‘Just savouring my day off.’

  The c-glyph Artificial Intelligence couldn’t see him gesture, of course, just force of habit. He’d never got used to having conversations with voices inside his head since arriving in the zones.

  ‘For every minute you are late to a meeting with an executive, you will be given a productivity penalty,’ said the voice, with the rhythm of a metronome.

  ‘Cheers. You’re very efficient.’

  ‘Efficiency is productivity’s midwife,’ quoted the voice.

  ‘So is the whip.’

  The usual response from the AI when perplexed by a statement was to act as if it hadn’t heard it—pretty human in that regard as well. ‘You are now one minute late for your meeting. A productivity penalty has been applied to this quarter’s pay.’

  George sighed and stood, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  * * *

  The sound of the slots was deafening as he entered the large archway at the rear of the cafeteria. Five thousand machines spewed sound and fury into the dark, cavernous hall. To one side of the door, an image of Langer shimmered into life. He was half a head shorter than George, and nearly a full body wider. He wore his usual tailored black suit and rust-red akubra. His trousers were a couple of inches too high, the grin on his face a little too wide.

  ‘Breaker, so glad you could join me.’

  George walked over. ‘Are you a projection of the actual Langer, or are you one of his day copies?’

  The simulation of the man shrugged. ‘Not relevant. If you’re speaking to me, you’re speaking to Langer. We carry the same authority.’

  ‘So you’re a day copy.’

  The too-wide grin was shortening. ‘The vice president receives a download directly from his day copies every twenty-four hours, summarizing all our decisions. In the five years he has been in his position, he is yet to change or even question one of those decisions.’

  George looked him up and down. ‘They certainly feed you well in the executive.’

  Langer’s eyes flashed. ‘You want to play it that way,’ he said. ‘That suits me fine. I’m here to discuss business, not enjoy the stellar conversational skills of a cage fighter.’ He pointed at one of the aisles between the slots. ‘Let’s walk.’

  The vice president moved into the gloom. George hesitated for a moment before falling into step.

  ‘You’re the most successful fighter in the history of the free zones, Breaker,’ he said, though his tone didn’t make it sound like a compliment.

  George said nothing.

  ‘You’ve become something of a legend here in Free Zone Three. But this success has its consequences. The odds for your fights have left you almost unbackable these days. Pretty soon no-one left will bet on you.’

  ‘I will.’

  Langer nodded, but not in agreement. ‘Sure. I’ve seen your record, same as everyone. You’ve made good money on yourself, especially at the start. But these days you face diminishing returns.’ He stopped, lifted his akubra up with one hand and wiped a gleam of sweat on his forehead with a white handkerchief.

  He pointed at George with a closed fist. ‘How’d you like to make some real money?’

  George winced and started moving again down the aisle. Rows upon rows of faces, brown and white, sat at the machines with eyes glazed. Or closed. The players held one thumb out, pressed on a glowing red pad on the front of the slot, making the reels spin and spin again. George felt a tugging on his implant as he passed each machine, each one reaching out, asking him to play: the familiar ache returning for a moment.

  Here in the hall, if he closed his eyes the nanos attached to his optic nerves would activate. A perfect, three dimensional image of each machine would appear in the darkness behind his eyelids. A few lines of script would provide the current jackpot on the machine, the comps accrued from playing. A woman, chosen by complex algorithm to appeal to George’s tastes, would sit smiling in front of the glittering, hypnotic pattern of the wheels. The vision of the room would be crystal clear, clean and bright, with smiling patrons and carpet that didn’t stick to the soles of the shoe. No wonder so many played with their eyes closed.

  George waved a hand at the banks of machines. ‘This was all I did when I first arrived, got into it real quick. But that’s the way the Corporation set it all up, right? It’s just this or the dope.’

  Langer placed his handkerchief back in the top pocket of his jacket. ‘We’re in the middle of the desert. People need to be entertained.’

  George stared straight ahead as he walked. ‘I’d work twelve hours, come back and play for four more, then collapse into my bunk. I’d wake up in the morning and my implant would be urging me to play. I’d see the slots behind my eyelids, floating, waiting. But I didn’t need any encouragement: I’d always get an hour in before work. I could never stop thinking about it when I wasn’t playing and I never wanted to stop when I’d started. It got to the point where winning or losing didn’t matter anymore. Even though, of course, I was losing everything. In the first two years here I never slept with a woman, got in a fight, or popped an ice-nine.’

  Langer shrugged, glancing over the machines as they passed. ‘This isn’t a nanny state. People’s personal choices are their own.’

  George stopped and looked at the man. ‘Then it got really bad. I went at it for three days straight, lost for three days straight. Missing work. I couldn’t distinguish between playing the slots and dreaming about them. What was real, what was imagined. So exhausted I had some sort of seizure, thrashing around on the floor until they sedated me and put me in the infirmary. I remember how the Corporat
ion gave me a few days off to “recuperate”. You know where your mob sent me?’ George clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking.

  Langer’s eyes had glazed over. ‘I don’t know where we send the addicts and the weak. And I really don’t care.’

  ‘You piece of shit!’ George threw the punch he had wanted to throw for six years, his fist driving into Langer’s face. His hand, of course, passed clean through, hitting the face of the slot behind. The machine rocked, a crack appearing across the screen.

  Though a simulation, Langer jumped back a step, mouth parted in surprise. George stepped close, his voice low. ‘You gave me a free hotel room. At a casino in the rec-quad: a fucking casino.’ He pointed a bloodied fist at Langer. ‘You want me to throw the fight?’

  The surprise had already slipped Langer’s face. His eyes went hard, like water over smooth stone. ‘In the third minute of the second round.’

  ‘Why? Hope Corporation owns every slot machine in the free zone, half your workers go broke on them before their contracts are up, and then you own them, too. You are the book for Fight Night. So you’re winning every time I win anyway. You don’t need the money. Even a big score on this fight is trivial, for the Corporation.’

  ‘Nothing is trivial, here.’

  ‘What does that mean? Why this fight?’

  Langer looked him over, eyes shining in the reflected glow of the machines. It really was a very good day copy. ‘I might be a vice president, Breaker, but in the end I’m just a company man. I’m a company man because I always put the Corporation first. It’d be smart to show everyone that you can too.’

  ‘Yeah, it would,’ said George, looking down at his hand. One of his knuckles was split and bleeding.

  There are a hundred types of pain in the world; it’s impossible to avoid them all. As far as George could figure, the only choice you had about it was which one you’d embrace. He looked up. ‘Here’s your answer. Fuck you.’