… in the dark?
Ali lurched into wakefulness with a gasp. Looking down at herself, she found her chest closed, her body stronger, her eyesight sharper. At her feet, Gail and Barron lay dead, she from a hole on the side of her head, him from a chest full of holes.
A noise from the door claimed her attention. A bullet made its way towards her, but she was so fast now, she had all the time in the world to step aside, avoiding it, and pick up a knife from the floor. She jumped towards the guards, the force behind her legs a surprise she swiftly mastered. With her newly gained speed, opening their throats didn’t take Ali longer than a couple of breaths.
Evolutionists tried to stop her in the lower levels, bringing their guns, their metamorphosed creatures. None were a match for what she’d become, now that the Sidallite was in her chest, giving her infinite power.
No one could stop her from setting fire to the lower levels, eradicating the Church’s plan to grow a living being within a tank.
No one could keep her from walking out the front door with a trail of bodies behind her.
And, more importantly, no one stopped her when she reached the Academia, and tore down the Evolutionist libraries, study rooms, quarters. Broken mirrors reflected her appearance: a girl, around eighteen, with eyes of shining purple, moving faster than the eye could follow.
At last, she reached the Provost’s rooms – the old man screeched when he saw her, called her an abomination when he realised what she was.
Ali tossed him from the window, and watched as he crashed to the stones beneath.
Flames devoured the building around her. For a moment – and Ali found she could now think so many parallel thoughts in a single moment – she considered letting herself burn along with them. She was an abomination given life, as much an atrocity as the bird man and the feline women and the squid boy and the stone girl. She should join them in death, let herself become forgotten.
Yet, she could not.
If she did, the Church would rise again, would try to grow people from tanks again; and the Mechanists… they were settling for automatons for now, but how long until they, too, tried to replicate what Forel had done? How long until they tried to make another ALIR-VI?
So, Ali jumped from the Academia, and lost herself in the city. She sought the Mechanists afterwards once, telling them their plan was a success – and then, she disappeared, to never be seen again.
For hundreds of years after that, whenever a Mechanist or an Evolutionist tried to follow in Forel’s footsteps they would disappear without a trace. Eventually, the research was abandoned; eventually, they stopped trying.
But Ali still watched over the city – and kept on watching until humanity rose to the skies and broke through the atmosphere. She watched as the Earth aged before her eyes, watched as the sun burned out and extinguished all life.
She didn’t age. Time didn’t affect machines, not even hybrids.
She couldn’t die. The Sidallite was an indestructible source of limitless energy. At one point, when the madness of eternity raged at its highest, she tried to pluck it out of her chest. It would’ve been easier to move a mountain.
To take her revenge – so small, it seemed so small now – Ali had become immortal, with nothing to do but watch. And, occasionally, interfere.
She took to outer space, a passenger on the very last ship to leave her dead planet.
And she watched.
And watched.
And watched.
And, when humanity finally met its end, in a war against another species from another universe…
She kept on watching.
NEWCON PRESS
Publishing quality Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy and Horror for twelve years and counting.
Winner of the 2010 ‘Best Publisher’ Award
from the European Science Fiction Society.
Winner of numerous BSFA and BFS Awards.
Anthologies, novels, short story collections, novellas, paperbacks, hardbacks, signed limited editions, e-books…
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Origamy
Rachel Armstrong
“Origamy is a magnificent, glittering explosion of a book: a meditation on creation, the poetry of science and the insane beauty of everything. You're going to need this.” – Warren Ellis
Mobius knows she isn’t a novice weaver, but it seems she must re-learn the art of manipulating spacetime all over again. Encouraged by her parents, Newton and Shelley, she starts to experiment, and is soon traveling far and wide across the galaxy, encountering a dazzling array of bizarre cultures and races along the way. Yet all is not well, and it soon becomes clear that a dark menace is gathering, one that could threaten the very fabric of time and space and will require all weavers to unite if the universe is to stand any chance of surviving.
Rachel Armstrong is Professor of Experimental Architecture at Newcastle University and a 2010 Senior TED Fellow. A former medical doctor, she now designs experiments that explore the transition between inert and living matter and considers their implications for life beyond our solar system.
“Origamy crackles with a strange and brilliant energy, and folds the conventions of SF into beautiful new shapes. A rare and wonderful debut.” – Adam Roberts
“Perhaps the most astonishing and original piece of SF I’ve read in a long, long while.” – Adrian Tchaikovsky
“A visionary masterpiece. Science Fiction, Fantasy, science and poetry combine to create a lyric on life and death that spans the whole of creation. Delightful and mind-expanding. If you miss it you have missed one of the finest examples of literary art.” – Justina Robson
2001: AN ODYSSEY IN WORDS
Edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunter
An anthology of original fiction to honour the centenary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s birth and act as a fund raiser for the Clarke Award. Every story is precisely 2001 words long.
2001 includes stories by 10 winners of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and 13 authors who have been shortlisted, as well as non-fiction by Neil Gaiman, China Miéville and Chair of Judges Andrew M. Butler.
Alastair Reynolds
Bruce Sterling
Gwyneth Jones
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Paul McAuley
Jane Rogers
Ian McDonald
Rachel Pollack
Chris Beckett
Jeff N
oon
Colin Greenland
Becky Chambers
Claire North
Dave Hutchinson
Adam Roberts
Yoon Ha Lee
Ian R. MacLeod
Emmi Itäranta
Ian Watson
Liz Williams
& more
Twenty-seven stories from some of the biggest names in Science Fiction, honouring one of the genre’s greats by exploring the limits of imagination.
Released by NewCon Press as a paperback and limited edition hardback.
Table of Contents
Steampunk International: An Introduction
STEAMPUNKUK
NewCon Press:
Seasons of Wither
Reckless Engineering
The Athenian Dinner Party
STEAMPUNKFINLAND
Osuuskumma
Foreword
The Winged Man Isaac
The Cylinder Hat
Augustine
STEAMPUNKPORTUGAL
Editorial Divergencia
Foreword
Videri Quam Esse
The Desert Spider
Heart of Stone