Just Like the Jetsons (with linked TOC)

Introduction

I was fourteen when I realized that I was a writer. Not when I decided to become a writer, mind you, but when I realized that I was a writer. No one really decides to become a writer; you either are a writer or you aren’t. My earliest memory of writing stories dates back to kindergarten. I taught myself to read somewhere between the ages of three and four. When my mother read to me, she would point to each syllable as she pronounced it. Eventually I learned to recognize the letter groupings. I can still remember just how bemused my kindergarten teacher was when she discovered that obviously and demonstrably I could read, but that I didn’t know any of the letters of the alphabet. As far as I was concerned words broke down no further than three or four letter groups, and those groups were named by the sounds that they made. I first discovered that there was more to it than that when I was asked to spell penguin on my first day of school. I spelled it pen-guin, not p-e-n-g-u-i-n. I have no idea if this has had any lasting effect on me or my writing.

At any rate, I started putting stories down on paper almost as soon as I learned how to write. I remember in grade school, being told to write a one page story, I turned in twenty two pages. The story was essentially a travelog of the universe with detailed descriptions of alien worlds and their denizens. My penchant for genre was already developing. When I was ten I watched King Kong on television. As soon as it was over I sat down and wrote the story of King Kong’s brother. It came in at around forty pages. Even though I was writing almost every day, it never occurred to me that what I was doing is what people who wrote books did.

At the age of fourteen, I subscribed to Asimov’s through Publisher’s Clearing House. They sold my name to the Science Fiction Book Club, thereby sealing the direction of my life. In one weekend I read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern trilogy, Orson Scott Card’s Song Master, and all five of Roger Zelazny’s Amber novels. By Monday morning I was plotting out my writing career. I submitted my first short story to Asimov’s when I was seventeen. In my cover letter to George Scithers I boldly predicted that wether or not he purchased the story I’d submitted to him, he would be hearing from me again. Prophetic words, as twenty years later he’d be editing Weird Tales for me. The story was horrible and George rejected it with all the dignity that it deserved: a form letter.

Then the real world interjected, taking me away from fiction writing for close to a decade. My daughter Tiffany was born when I was eighteen, and within months I was a single father. For the next two years I worked in machine shops and construction crews to support myself and my daughter. It became clear to me that I was never going to be able to give my daughter the kind of life that I felt she deserved if I continued down that path. So I took a lower-paying job with flexible hours and enrolled in college. The juggling act that followed was difficult, but I was young and still immortal. After two semesters in college I managed to land a job as a counselor. The money was better than what I had been making and the company was more than happy to work around my college schedule. Around this time, I began playing bass guitar in a succession of local heavy metal bands, adding one more element to my juggling act. Fortunately I was too young to know that what I was doing wasn’t possible. School was Tuesday and Thursday, work was Monday, Wednesday, Friday; from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday were my daughter’s. The hours after she went to sleep and the sitter arrived belonged to rock’n’roll. I slept for about four hours a night during those years.

Majoring in English really managed to take the fun out of writing, and I turned all of my considerable creative urges to music. Even after I finished up at UMass I didn’t return to writing until fate intervened. One night after a gig I noticed that my fingers ached. It was only annoying at first, but over time it got worse. It turned out that I had carpal tunnel syndrome. My doctor told me that I had two choices: I could stop playing for six months and hope that the condition would clear up, or I could have an operation that would correct the problem but I’d probably never be able to play as quickly as I was accustomed to playing. And since grunge hadn’t yet popularized music for slow musicians, my only real option was to take time off and see if my fingers would recover on their own.

About three weeks went by before the event that brought me back to the path that I had charted out so many years ago. I found a first edition hardcover of L. Sprauge De Camp’s Science Fiction Handbook for $7.50 in a used bookstore. I purchased the book because I knew it was worth considerably more than the asking price to a collector. So of course, once I had it home I opened the book and read it. I read the entire thing in one sitting; I was transfixed. All my teenage passion for writing came flooding back. I pulled my Brother word processor out of the closet and began writing short stories.

At that point, being an editor or a publisher really hadn’t occurred to me. My intention was to become a best-selling author. Since I needed to study the market, I went out and purchased all of the genre magazines that I could find. The year was 1992. I was immediately struck by how much the stories in the magazines had changed since my youth. They didn’t feel anything like the stories I remembered. No, they reminded me much more of the stories I’d read while majoring in English Lit. The amusing thing was that everyone was talking about pushing the envelope. I thought, oh come on, people have been doing this kind of thing outside of the field forever. This is new only in that, for the most part, only those of us who were forced to read this sort of crap for degree work were aware of it. To make sure that I wasn’t remembering the field through the lens of my childhood, I picked up some old copies of the magazines and found them to be exactly as I had remembered them.

That was both bad and good. It meant that the thing that I had loved and thought fondly of all these years had actually existed. It also meant that something had gone horribly wrong while I was away. It was clear to me that genre publishing wanted desperately to grow up and be taken seriously. I could understand that wish, but it seemed to me that as a field it was headed down the wrong path. We were desperately trying to impress people who would never be impressed by genre at the expense of those who loved it and supported it financially by buying the books and magazines.

I knew that I wanted to do something about this, but I didn’t know what, yet. So I began writing and sending the stories out. I discovered Scavenger’s Newsletter and the small press. Scavenger’s was a magazine with market listings, reviews, and letters from both writers and small press editors. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this magazine was pushing me in a new direction. I learned a lot about small press publishing there. My stories began to sell fairly quickly and I was gratified by this.

One day while browsing through the SF/Fantasy section at World Eye Book Shop in my hometown, Greenfield, Massachusetts, I struck up a conversation with the guy who was stocking the shelves. That guy was Tim Ballou, who turned out to be an aspiring writer and artist. I’ve always been a voracious reader. Over the years, I’d become accustom to meeting people who told me they were SF readers only to discover they’d never heard of half the writers I’d rattle off. Tim had not only read every single book I mentioned, but brought up scores of books that I hadn’t mentioned. I told Tim that I had been thinking about starting a writer’s group but hadn’t been able to find anyone I’d be willing to work with. He mentioned a friend of his whom he’d been writing stories with for a few years. His friend turned out to be Kevin Rogers. The three of us met a few days later and as it turned out, Kevin was as well read as Tim and I were. You’ be hard put to find a genre book published before 1980 that one of us hadn’t read. I showed them a couple of my stories and they showed me a couple of theirs and it was clear that we could work together.

All three of us were disenchanted with what was being published by the top magazines. I don’t remember which one of us first brought up the idea of publishing a magazine, but as soon as the idea was broached it was clear that that was what we wanted to do. We discussed how we would find writers and how we would finance this project. I explained that finding the writers would be the easy part. We could send guidelines to Scavenger’s Newsletter and from what I’d been reading we’d get more submissions than we’d know what to do with. To finance the project we decided to each chip in $30.00 per week. In retrospect, we had to have been out of our minds to think that there was any way this could have worked and yet it just made sense at the time.

Obviously, I’m better known for what I’ve accomplished as an editor and publisher than I am as a writer. I’m not really sure how I feel about this as writing is my first love. I’m proud of what I’ve managed to accomplish with my company DNA Publications. Over the years I’ve managed to publish hundreds of writers in DNA’s fiction magazines: Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Weird Tales, and Fantastic Stories: to say nothing of Chronicle and The Whole Cat Journal, and KISS: The Official Authorized Quarterly Magazine. Still, from time to time I wonder what I might have accomplished in the last ten years if I’d concentrated all of my efforts on writing fiction. I’ll never know what might have been, and it probably behooves me not to spend too much time dwelling on that. Being the publisher of DNA Publications has opened a lot of doors for me that I might otherwise have never opened.

As with anyone whose been writing since an early age, I’ve written a lot of bad stories. So obviously, I had to be selective as to what I included in this collection. Other than an academic interested in a developing writer, no one would be interested in my early work, so I left most of it out. The only stories from my teen years to make the transition were Raw Energy and The End of Old Age. They’re probably the weakest stories here, but I thought they still merited inclusion. I decided against some stories that had seen publication as they just didn’t pass muster. I also left out six stories in an ongoing fantasy series, as I might one day turn them into a novel. I’d originally written two of them and pitched them as a series to The Poetic Knight. The Poetic Knight purchased the two and asked for more. I wrote four more and sent them off. The magazine published the first two and promptly went out of business. Someday I’ll get back to those stories, but for now I’ve decided to hold off on them. I also included a few newer unpublished stories. In recent years I’ve found the time to write a story here and there, but I haven’t really had the time to market them properly, so this collection offered me a perfect venue to get them to publication.

As both a writer and a reader, I’ve always been fascinated by what writers have to say about their own work. Because of this fascination I decided to comment on each story. Originally, I’d planned on writing introductions, but I found that much of what I had to say would give away the story. So ultimately I decided to place the comment after the stories. Read them if you find such commentary interesting, ignore them if you don’t. I hope you enjoy the collection, I had fun putting it together and I have fond memories of writing each and every one of the stories before you.

Warren Lapine

Radford, VA, 2006

The Cyber Way

Shea broke the interface with the computer and looked up at his two employers. You’re all set. Now, about my fee.

Yes, about your fee . . .

The fuckers were going to stiff him, Shea could see it in their eyes. He took a step forward; if things got nasty he needed to be close enough for his enhanced nervous system’s speed to be a factor. Look, guys, I delivered as promised. You’re going to make millions of units out of this. Don’t get greedy, it’s not worth it. Think about it, you only owe me twenty thousand units. If you stiff me you’ll never get another cyborg to work for you, and that’s suicide in your line of business.

Morton smiled. If anyone finds out that we stiffed you.

I’m sure as hell not going to be quiet about it, Shea said with more than just a little heat.

That’s what we figured, Morton’s partner Trask said, reaching into his suit jacket.

Shea stepped forward and slammed his hand, fingers forward, into the son-of-a-bitch’s chest. Shea’s finger bones had been replaced with titanium steel, so he had no trouble smashing through the moron’s rib cage, crushing his heart. Shea watched the look of astonishment on Trask’s face. It was funny, they always looked so damn surprised, stupid shits. Shea let the body fall to the floor and then he reached into the suit jacket. He came away with a military battle pistol. This guy had been serious heat; he was no partner. Shea turned back to Morton and pointed the weapon at him. Now, about my fee?

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. . .

I don’t give a shit about your god, I just want my money.

Please, please don’t kill me.

Twenty thousand units.

I haven’t got it.

Shea shook his head. Fucking lightweight. What do you have?

I’ve got five with me, but I can get you the rest.

Yeah right, Shea thought. I’m not sure why I’m going to tell you this, since it won’t do you any good, but I am. When you play with the big boys, you either need to be honest or you need to be very good, and, friend, you’re neither. Shea pulled the trigger and watched as red splotches erupted on Morton’s chest. It took him three minutes to find the five thousand units and then let himself out of the hotel room.

This was not good, he’d been counting on that money. He wished to hell he could use the little banking scam that he had just set up for Morton, but he couldn’t. You had to work at the bank to be able to use that little scam, and Shea was never going to work that side of the street. No, he didn’t need that. But still, his next payment was due and he was now ten thousand units short. Hell, he didn’t even have the money to make the rent. Even so, he was doing better than most cyborgs: after five years he was still a free agent. By this time, most cyborgs had fallen behind on their payments and had indentured themselves to The Consortium. That was not for Shea. The jobs were dangerous and the pay was for shit. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be glamorous, he was supposed to rich, people he didn’t even know were supposed to love him. Damn, damn, damn!

His cellular phone began to ring.

Shea reached into his leather duster and took out the phone. Shea here, he said, hoping that the call didn’t have anything to do with the death of his former employer.

Mr. Shea, this is Shelly and I’m calling for Mr. McCormick. He has some work for you. How soon can you be here?

Shea smiled. I’ll be there in ten minutes.

Very good. The connection broke.

This was indeed good. McCormick’s work was usually dull, but it paid well and McCormick was dependable. Shea might make it one more month without becoming indentured. Maybe.

Ten minutes later Shea was in McCormick’s office waiting for him. The office was spacious and tastefully decorated. Deeply polished mahoganies dominated the room. Five minutes later McCormick and another man arrived. The two looked to be of a kind, clean shaven, military hair cuts, and even though they were both in street clothes it was clear that they would be more comfortable in uniforms. These weren’t guys that you wanted to cross.

Thanks for getting here on such short notice. I’ve got an interesting project for you. It should be much more challenging than your usual fare.

Shea brightened. This is what I need. Great, what do you have in mind?

Shea, this is Tom Anderson. He’s one of my closest friends. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about him. Someone’s trying to kill him. We need you to help us find out who that someone is. I’m willing to give you double your normal fee.

Thank God! Sounds good, Shea said to McCormick. Of Anderson he asked, How do you know that someone is trying to kill you?

There’s been an attempt on my life on each of the last two planets I’ve been to. I captured the first assassin. He told me that he was a member of The Consortium and that I was fair game. The second assassin was a cyborg, I had one hell of a time killing him.

Shea took another look at Anderson. Real men weren’t supposed to be that dangerous. This guy should only exist in a holo-vision program. Jesus Christ, what do you need my help for?

I want to stop the attempts on my life. If you find out who’s offering the contract, then I can find the responsible party and convince them to cancel it.

God, I hope I’m not getting in over my head. Okay. Where did the attacks happen?

The first one was on Eden, the second was on Tristan.

You killed the man on Tristan?

I killed a cyborg on Tristan.

Just what I fucking need, a killer with an attitude. Well, Eden’s too far away for me to find anything out via the computer. But Tristan’s within my range. Mind if I interface with your computer, McCormick?

Please do.

Shea took a small clear unit from his jacket and plugged it into McCormick’s mobile computer. He saw Anderson go white. The man was visibly shaken and clenching his chair for all he was worth. Fucking mundane. As the interface completed Shea felt the flow of the matrix envelop him. The temptation to let himself be swallowed up in the energy current was a strong one. No matter how frequently he moved along the net, that temptation never weakened. He focused his awareness on the grid that spread out before him. McCormick’s system was a good one; it dumped Shea several layers below where most systems would have. He was able to avoid a lot of the menial hacking that one normally had to do to get to the more interesting parts of the net. Shea found the energy flow that would lead him to the news reports on Tristan and followed it. Once there, the raw data flooded his senses. He let it wash through his mind and then he picked out the meaningful parts.

According to the report, Lem Detrick had been the assailant. Two police officers had died, and in a bizarre accident Detrick had been hit by a subway train. Looking for more helpful information, Shea moved along the net until he found a way into Tristan’s police records. He circumnavigated three levels of security almost effortlessly and immersed himself in the police report. Officers Burke and Tereshko had been killed. Burke had definitely been killed by the cyborg, but it was unclear who had killed Tereshko. An unidentified male had been seen running from the scene, but it was unknown if that man had been involved with the killings. Further, Tereshko’s vehicle had turned up in a subway station outside of the port. The unidentified man was being sought for questioning. At the moment they had no leads as to his whereabouts or his identity. Shea backed out, leaving no trail, and exited the matrix. He’d been there less than a minute.

He looked at Anderson. Do you have any idea who that cyborg you killed was?

None.

You killed Lem Detrick.

So?

So, he’s probably the best hit man in the sector. I mean he was. He had this thing about killing at close range. I guess that’s what did him in. How did you get him?

"In the end, I didn’t. He