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  Tanya watched in awe. Edward moved like a kung fu movie on fast forward. The monster had to be five times his size, but the orc didn’t seem to care. He was positively nonchalant, and he took it apart, piece by piece. It was raining fluorescent orange blood and Edward was as cool as a cucumber. He was as cold as ice. He was as cool as Elvis.

  But even as quick as Edward was, that was a whole lot of monster, and it finally managed to tag him with one of its human sized hands. His clothes ripped, knives went flying, and Edward was sent rolling across the dirt to end up by her sneakers. The blarg roared, one of its brains hanging off and dripping goop, and it came right at them.

  This time it was Tanya’s turn to save the day. She rolled over, scooped up the rifle, sort of aimed it, and pulled the trigger. Sadly, there was still no boom. “Stupid piece of—” Edward reached over and flipped the rifle’s safety lever to fire for her. “Oh . . . thanks.”

  This time when she pulled the trigger, the gun went off with the loudest BOOM she’d ever heard. It kicked her shoulder like a horse on steroids. She squealed and dropped the rifle. “Son of a bitch! That hurt!” But she’d hit the monster! The blarg made it a few more feet before it toppled over. She’d blown half its head off, and judging from the mess, the outside brains just did the magic, the inside brains worked just like everything else. And since those brains were sprayed all over the clearing . . .

  “Yay! I’m a Monster Hunter!” Edward gave her a thumbs-up. She got to her feet, rubbing her tender shoulder, and picked up the rifle. It had .416 Rigby engraved on the side. Whatever that was, it sure did pack a punch.

  Edward got to his feet and pulled off the shredded remains of his shirt. There was a big bloody scratch on his side and he used the rags to apply pressure. “Dayum . . .” Tanya couldn’t help but stare, because Edward was seriously the most buffed thing she’d ever seen. He made her favorite football players look like dainty ballerinas. He didn’t just have six-pack abs, his six pack had six packs. Edward may have been an odd grayish-green color, but homeboy was chiseled. He went over to the blarg, yanked his ax out of its stinky guts, and caught her looking. Edward didn’t so much as bat an eye. He was all, like, This? Whatever. Or at least that’s what she figured he would have said, if he’d bothered to talk.

  Damn. He was cool.

  She snapped out of his orcish spell, darn all those distracting muscles, and got back to Monster Hunting business. They had to rescue those human brats. Edward must have thought the same thing, since he’d already spotted the hole they were being kept in. The kids were alive and whining, probably being kept around for a snack later, and Edward began pulling them out.

  Tanya looked around. She could feel the impressive magic here and it was really too bad that she hadn’t been able to use her skills. She could totally have wrecked this place. That would have impressed Harbinger even more than her blowing some stupid blarg’s head off.

  There was a sudden rumble. “What was that?” she asked.

  Edward was dragging the kids along behind. He stopped and listened, then he lifted the ax. “More . . . for fight . . .” The sounds were coming from all around them now. The ground shifted under her feet and Tanya had to step back as the sleeping blargs buried beneath awoke. Mounds of dirt were shifting all over the clearing. There were dozens of them. She fumbled with the bolt handle until she managed to reload the elephant rifle.

  “He-he-he . . .” Edward had a very unnerving laugh. “Pinheads.” He actually sounded excited.

  They could never make it through that many monsters. Green claws burst from the soil. She was going to have to use her magic to try to break the pocket dimension. This whole place was going to fall apart when she did that. She was terrified, but she needed to think of something sufficiently badass to say like a Monster Hunter totally should . . . She couldn’t think of anything, though. In her defense, it was her first day on the job.

  Edward had a human child bouncing under each arm. He’d left his ax buried in one monster’s head, left one sword in a monster’s belly, broke the other over a monster’s head, and had managed to run through most of his knives. If he’d known there were going to be that many monsters, he would have brought more than seventeen weapons.

  The door was just ahead. The elf girl was running along behind. She kept shooting the big gun. She was also not a very good shot, but at least she was making lots of noise. Battle was always better with lots of noise. Her war cries were too high pitched though. If she was going to be a proper warrior, she was going to have to work on that.

  Edward was torn. The elf hadn’t died, and strangely enough, that made him happy . . . But then again, he hadn’t liked humans much either until MHI had adopted his clan. She hadn’t even tried to steal his soul once, and she’d saved his life by shooting a few monsters. Gnrwlz was probably displeased, but Edward had killed many monsters today, so they were even.

  The door was open and sunlight was coming through. Which was good, because the little world full of monsters was coming apart and with all the trees falling down, he might not have found his way. Harb Anger, Brother of the Great War Chief, and Trip Jones were in the doorway shouting for him. There was a scream from the elf, though this one was not a battle cry, and Edward turned to see that a monster had caught her by the foot and was dragging her away.

  Sadness. Edward had started liking the elf. Edward reached the door and shoved the human children at the Hunters. You know what? Edward decided that maybe he did like that elf just enough to not let her get eaten. Gnrwlz could suck it. Edward would save her, too. He turned and ran back through the shifting dirt and collapsing trees. He was out of proper urk weapons, but he still had something stabby, and that would do.

  Edward leapt over Tanya, landed on the monster’s wide lizard back, and scrambled up to its globular head. He drove Trip Jones’ Swiss Army corkscrew deep into the monster’s head, twisted it in, then ripped out a plug of skull. The monster gurgled and fell, making the Swiss Army knife one of the best presents ever. Edward jumped off, scooped up Tanya in his arms and ran for the doorway as the world around him collapsed into oblivion.

  “I like her,” Red Beard, or Milo it turned out he was called, was saying. “She’s certainly energetic.”

  “Crazy is more like it. Not that that’s necessarily a resume killer with this outfit,” Harbinger answered. “Skippy’s people won’t like it.”

  “Ed said he’d vouch for her,” Milo pointed out.

  Harbinger shook his head. “Hell . . . Trip hired a troll. How much worse could this be? Oh, look, pretty-pretty princess has decided to join us.”

  Tanya woke up in the arms of an orc barbarian. Now that would have really freaked Momma out . . . Orcs were like the ultimate bad boys, and there was something kind of exciting about that. She was on the ground and he was kneeling next to her. Edward’s goggled head was tilted to the side, like he was saying, I got you, baby. Don’t worry. I’m here. Or maybe not. It was kind of hard to tell. When Edward saw that she was conscious he unceremoniously dropped her and wandered off.

  “I got a headache,” Tanya said. The last time she’d felt this way was when she’d gotten into Elmo’s moonshine. “So, how was that? Pretty awesome, huh?”

  Harbinger sat down on the edge of an old piece of machinery and lit a cigarette. He took his time responding. “Not bad. Edward said you did okay. Were you actually telling the truth for once when you said your dream was to be a Hunter?”

  “It is. It really is, I swear. I’ll work hard. I want to be like you guys. I want to be somebody,” Tanya cried. “I’ll be the best Hunter you’ve ever seen.”

  Harbinger sighed. “I may regret this . . .” He took out a business card and wrote on the back of it. “This is the next Newbie class. And just because you’re royalty doesn’t mean you get any special treatment. Lie to me again and you’re toast. Got it?”

  “Serious? I can be a Hunter?” Tanya started to tear up. “I can’t believe this. I’ve still gotta tell Momma.”
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  Harbinger looked to the opposite end of the factory. “And speaking of which . . .”

  “Tanya!” The whole factory shook from the power of the queen’s voice and the thunder of her slippers. “Tanyalthus Enderminon! I’m gonna wring your scrawny neck! Comin’ all the way up here, thinkin’ you been kidnap stolen, and you done run off playin’ Hunter!” Momma was huffing and red-faced. This was the most exercise she’d gotten in a really long time. “Sorry ’bout this,” she told Harbinger.

  “It’s fine. In fact, I’d be interested in hiring Tanya for some other work.”

  “Really?” she asked suspiciously. “Pay good?”

  “Real good. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Better be good. You pay extra for the royal line!” The queen came over and grabbed Tanya by the end of one pointy ear and hauled her up. “We’re gettin’ you home right now, young lady!”

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! Okay! I’m coming!” Despite the aches and pains, being in torn and filthy clothing, and the embarrassment of being dragged by the ear, Tanya was happy as could be. She was going to be a Hunter. She still needed to talk Momma into it, but scary as Momma was, she was no monster. Elvis had smiled on her.

  “You’s in so much trouble.” Momma dragged her out to the old Buick station wagon in the parking lot. Elmo and several other elves were sitting in the car, giving the evil eye to Edward, who had wandered back to the van. It was an uneasy truce, only because of the presence of the Hunters.

  “Hang on a sec.” Tanya broke out of Momma’s grasp and ran over to Edward. The elves gasped, but they didn’t dare make a move. Edward tilted his head to the side, confused. There was a notebook in the back of the van. Tanya grabbed a pen, wrote on the paper, then tore it out and handed it over to Edward.

  “TAAANYAAAA!” the queen of the Elves screeched.

  Edward looked at the phone number and scratched his head.

  “Coming, Mother.” Tanya flounced back to the car, only turning long enough to pantomime talking on the phone and to mouth the words, “Call me.” The elves piled into the station wagon and it roared off in a cloud of oily smoke. The queen could be heard shouting until the car was out of view.

  Edward carefully folded the piece of paper and put it in his pocket for safekeeping.

  DEAD WAITS DREAMING

  This story was originally published in Space Eldritch II: The Haunted Stars by Cold Fusion Media, edited by Nathan Shumate, in 2013.

  WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I dreamed of the stars. When I was a man, the stars stole my dreams.

  A man who cannot dream becomes nothing but an empty shell, but the thing about empty shells, there’s nothing left inside to corrupt. Space ate my dreams, tore them right out of my head and left a gaping hole where my soul had been living. My life ended a long time ago.

  Which is why I was the only one who survived.

  “What happened on Atlas?”

  The question woke me up. It didn’t matter. As usual my sleep was empty. I wasn’t missing anything good.

  “Please, Mr. Chang, we have to know what happened on Atlas.”

  The desperate voice was coming out of the blank wall of my tiny cell. They thought I’d been exposed to a potential alien biohazard so I’d remained in quarantine. My clothing had been burned and my body had been scrubbed, attached to tubes and machines to be monitored in every way possible, isolated from the world of flesh and imprisoned in a totally sterile environment.

  The precautions wouldn’t do them any good.

  My words came out raspy and weak. “I don’t know.”

  “The survivor’s awake. He’s talking!” She forgot to turn off the intercom. “Get the captain. Hurry.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re onboard the Alert in orbit over Atlas. You’re safe now. Please, Mr. Chang, we need you to try and remember what happened to your colony.”

  I remembered, but remembering and understanding were two different things.

  It began with a news report.

  I didn’t know at the time that this particular blurb would mark the beginning of the end of the world but I followed a lot of news. Useless talking heads, pundits, bloggers, hoaxers, malcontents, and a handful of actual experts, millions of channels streaming in from two hundred solar systems and downloaded in the few seconds whenever the gate cycled open and we were briefly connected with the rest of the universe—even if it was all months out of date—and then I followed Atlas’ local streams when the gate was closed, which was the vast majority of the time.

  Galaxy, system, world, or local, I followed it. War, politics, business, science, sports, entertainment, it didn’t matter. I had nothing else to do, so I listened as other people actually did. I was a pensioner, a useless parasite on the system, popping crazy pills and streaming feeds. On more pragmatic or desperate colonies they would have recycled me. On Atlas, I wasted away in my apartment and filled my brain with other people’s lives.

  The local blurb had been an update on the Dark Side Dig, commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of the discovery of the ancient ruins that had changed Atlas from a backwoods mining colony to an archeological mecca. Even though the natives had been extinct for millions of years, humans had only discovered a handful of planets with life so far, so it had been a big deal, even if the odd winged cucumbers depicted in their carvings had been relative primitives compared to some of the species we’d found on other worlds.

  The Dig’s science team had found a new chamber to crack open. They’d dubbed it the Temple.

  It should have pissed me off, because that was supposed to have been my job before a quirk of interstellar travel had ripped out all the creative parts of my mind and left me a useless, drug addled husk, but anger just got in the way of my news addiction, so I kept listening. The report closed with an interview, just some puffery with one of the newly arrived archeologists, about how the weird geometry favored in the alien architecture had given a few of them nightmares.

  Nightmares . . . I would have killed for a nightmare.

  Captain Hartono brought up the hologram. It showed a nearly skeletal man sitting on a slab, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth, slowly muttering to himself. “What do we have on the survivor?”

  “All colonists’ DNA is on file. His name is Leland Chang, contract transfer from Calhoun, been on Atlas for fifteen years.” As Dr. Riady spoke, all of the pertinent tabs came up on the edge of the hologram.

  The captain opened the career data. “Xenoanthropologist, supposed to be brilliant.” He went back to the holo. “The guy looks awful.”

  “Malnutrition and dehydration mostly. The servitors found some other minor injuries, but no serious trauma.”

  “I listened in while the drop team lifted him out, lots of crazy babbling. Whatever happened down there drove him batshit insane. I need you to get his head straight fast.”

  “I don’t know if that’ll be possible.”

  “Make it possible, Doc. The evidence the drop teams have recovered so far doesn’t make any sense. Command needs to know who did this and he’s our only witness.”

  “I’m afraid Chang wouldn’t have made a very credible witness even before whatever happened down there.”

  Hartono brought up the medical history tab. He swore under his breath. “Keziah’s Disorder? That poor bastard . . .”

  “It’s extremely rare.”

  “Thank God for that,” the captain muttered. “It doesn’t matter. Get him talking. I don’t care what you have to do. We need information and we need it now. Crack him and do a memory lift if you need to.”

  “That’s not exactly ethical, sir.”

  “At the last gate cycle, Atlas was a thriving colony. Thirty days later, it’s back online, we cycle through and somehow six hundred thousand colonists have gone missing and we don’t know why. So right now I don’t particularly give a shit about ethics.”

  “I can’t memory lift an innocent man, Captain,” Riady stammered. “That’s—”

  �
�There’s no messages, no recordings, no notes, no vids. Nothing. Every AI on the planet is crashed. We’ve got ghost ships in orbit with their systems scrubbed. The forensic evidence doesn’t make sense. There’s battle damage, but no invaders. Over half a million humans vanished in thirty days, Doctor, and the only living thing we’ve found more advanced than a house plant is your survivor.”

  “Give me a chance,” she begged.

  Hartono frowned. They were stuck for now anyway. “The next available gate cycle isn’t for two days. You’ve got one.”

  I was an artist once. I could take raw materials and scrape and twist them into beauty. I can still understand the fundamental techniques, but it turns out that when you are incapable of dreaming, you are incapable of creating. You can no longer reach your full potential.

  What a blessing that turned out to be.

  Before Atlas became a galactic tourist attraction—witness the wonder of an ancient alien civilization—it was simply the boring second planet in the Chameleon 110913-773444 system. When I got the contract offer the 26-hour days and 1.02% standard gravity made it sound pretty nice. The downside was the average temperature of 120 C combined with the 300 kilometer an hour winds made most of the planet a giant sandblaster. There was one colony and it was mostly underground, so Atlas wasn’t exactly a draw for the outdoorsy types.

  The contract specified that I would be studying the ancient inhabitants, using my expertise to reconstruct their culture. It takes a certain kind of mind to be able to imagine an alien lifestyle. I signed on. I severed my existing contract on Calhoun and embarked on a great adventure. Of course I did. This was a scholar’s dream job.

  Unless your scholar can no longer dream, because then he can’t keep a job.

  Star travel is relatively safe, considering that your frail body is being hurled across the universe through an in-between space that mankind barely comprehends, using math which shouldn’t work, yet somehow does. Since our brains didn’t evolve in a fashion that could handle the strange physics of null space, hypersleep was invented. They advertise that hypersleep was so that humans could travel between gates in complete comfort. Go to sleep in one system, wake up in another one on the opposite end of the Milky Way. No problem, and you especially don’t have to worry about any of those pesky psychoses that all the early interstellar travelers developed.