Machine Of Death (53 page)

As for me, administering electro-shock therapy to yourself isn’t easy, but I’m pretty sure my set-up will work. It’s amazing what you can find on iBay. Complete with manuals, even. This old Russian gear is supposed to be the best. 

I have it wired so there is a program of shocks that will be administered until I am unable to speak the pass-phrase, which is, as you might expect, “Global Thermonuclear War.” As soon as I say it I’ll be shocked again. Once an hour has passed with no shocks an automated email will alert the building super. Just one line: “Emergency. Send paramedics to Unit 10-C.” If that doesn’t work, my rent is due tomorrow, which will certainly bring him to the door soon enough. 

I don’t know why I’m writing this, even. Before I shock myself the first time I’ll scrub the drive and burn this machine. 

But I guess I wanted to review in my own mind what brought this to pass. Decades of knowing, or at least suspecting that I knew, how the world was going to end. With tensions rising again in Micronesia over thermo-electric rights to the Western Pacific Basin it is time to act. If I can disperse the knowledge in my mind, turn it back into a million random acts of a million anonymous human beings, put the world back into a superposition of possible futures, it might just be enough to prevent the end. 

The paramedics who are called to my side will be changed, however slightly, by responding to that call instead of some other. The doctors and nurses will have the course of their lives deflected. Perhaps I’ll even make the news, changing in some small way the minds of many thousands of people who will see a story about me instead of something else. In these things I still have a choice. If not in the manner of my passing, then at least in the manner of my living. 

There is no certainty I will succeed. Perhaps I am committing mental suicide for nothing. But I have to try. 

I have read a great deal on the effects of electro-shock, and there is a good chance I’ll be rehabilitated. I’ve given much thought to what I might do with the rest of my life, and concluded that the only way to avoid future disasters of this kind is for humanity to expand beyond just one world. We have been to Mars and back. It is time to go there and stay.  

The note beside my bed read simply: ”Only one Earth is not enough.” I’m afraid to say anything more, afraid I will give in to some subconscious temptation that would eventually lead me right back to this point. 

I have done what I can. If it works, I will have saved humanity. And no one, not even I, will ever know. 

Goodbye.

Story by T. J. Radcliffe

Illustration by Matt Haley

Camille Alexa lives with fossils, dried branches, pressed flowers, and other dead things in ¼ of an Edwardian house in the Pacific Northwest. She’s fond of big dogs, warm bread, post-apocalyptic love stories, and the serial comma. Her short fiction collection,
Push of the Sky,
earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and has been nominated for the Endeavour Award. More at [
camillealexa.com
].

John Allison lives near Manchester, UK and intends to keep positive despite all the evidence suggesting that he do otherwise. See his comics and his upbeat attitude at [
scarygoround.com
].

Kate Beaton draws men in fancy hats for a living. On an exciting day she’ll draw a character with epaulets. Her website is [
harkavagrant.com
].

Matthew Bennardo has lived in Cleveland, Ohio, for the past twenty years. His stories have previously been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Strange Horizons, among other markets. He can be contacted at: [
[email protected]
].

Brandon Bolt draws cartoon pictures in order to eat, and has made a variety of other unclever life decisions. Perhaps you will be affected by one of them one day. To start, read the cartoon he draws at [
nobodyscores.com
]. There is also a portfolio site at [
nobodyscores.com
] if perhaps you are interested in having some pictures drawn, which experts concede is possible.

Vera Brosgol spends her days drawing storyboards for animation in Portland, Oregon. At night she produces illustrations and comics, and her first book,
Anya’s Ghost,
will be published by First Second in Spring 2011. Her website is [
verabee.com
].

Jeffrey Brown is the author of numerous autobiographical graphic novels such as
Clumsy
and
Funny Misshapen Body
as well as humorous work including
Incredible Change-Bots
and
Cats Are Weird.
[
www.jeffreybrowncomics.com
]

Scott C. is Scott Campbell, art director for
Psychonauts
and
Brütal Legend
at Double Fine Productions. Scott has done numerous comics that have appeared in such anthologies as
Hickee
,
Flight
,
Beasts!
, and
Project: Superior.
He has also painted many clever little paintings that have shown in such places as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Montreal, and Japan. [
scott-c.blogspot.com
]

Mitch Clem has made a ton of comics, including
My Stupid Life
(published by New Reliable Press) and
Nothing Nice to Say
(published by Dark Horse Comics). Everything about him lives at [
mitchclem.com
].

Daliso Chaponda is a writer & comedian who writes fiction on trains as he travels to stand-up gigs. His fiction is often dark and depressing to compensate for the vacuousness of his night-job. He has been shortlisted for the Carl Brandon Society Award, Northwest Breakthrough Comedian Award, and so on. He likes strawberries.  [
www.daliso.com
]

John Chernega lives in southern Minnesota with his wife and sons. Aside from a few corporate catalogs, “Almond” is his first published work. You can read his blog at [
cherney.vox.com
]. He keeps a nondescript business card on his nightstand that says “Clumsy Hippopotamus”, but he refuses to divulge whether it’s from a machine of death, or if he’s been moonlighting as a clumsy hippopotamus.

Danielle Corsetto is the creator of the webcomic “Girls With Slingshots,” the comedic story about two girls, a bar, and a talking cactus, which can be found at [
girlswithslingshots.com
]. She lives with two cats and a 9-year-old goldfish in Shepherdstown, West Virginia in a very old house. These days she spends most of her time drinking alone and talking to herself.

Chris Cox is a deranged, one-eyed hunchback wandering by night through the wastelands of Pawtucket. His age isn’t known, but sightings go back three hundred years and he’s generally believed to be a cannibal. Author of one and a half phenomalous black comedy novels, he’s represented by ParkEast Literary Agency, with whom he only communicates via cryptic notes written on apples injected with larvae. Needless to say, he’s a tricky one. [
[email protected]
]

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw was born and raised in England but now lives in Australia. Primarily a gaming writer, he is responsible for the “Zero Punctuation” video reviews at The Escapist online magazine. His first novel,
Mogworld
, has been published by Dark Horse Books. He can be reached through his personal site at [
fullyramblomatic.com
].

Alexander Danner writes and teaches comics. His most recent series is “Gingerbread Houses,” a retelling of Hansel and Gretel illustrated by Edward J. Grug
III
. “Gingerbread Houses” and other fairy tales can be found at [
picturestorytheater.com
]. More of Danner’s stories and experiments can also be found at [
twentysevenletters.com
]. He is co-author of the textbook
Character Design for Graphic Novels,
and he teaches Writing the Graphic Novel at Emerson College.

Aaron Diaz gave up a life of professional science to draw comics on the internet. He shares a name with a Mexican pop star. [
dresdencodak.com
]

Rene Engström is a cartoonist and illustrator living and working out of Östersund and Malmö, Sweden. She has just wrapped up the 300-page online graphic novel
Anders Loves Maria
. [
reneengstrom.com
]

Jess Fink is the author of
We Can Fix It: A Time Travel Memoir,
published by Top Shelf. She has seen the all-knowing Space Rainbow and eaten its gummy heart. She also makes T-shirts. Her erotic webcomic about a Victorian robot is at: [
jessfink.com/Chester5000XYV
]

James Foreman lives in Pittsburgh and is probably drinking coffee. He blogs about his life’s esoterica at: [
jamesforeman.com
].

Tom Francis is a writer and editor for PC Gamer magazine and PCGamer.com. He keeps a pet blog called James at [
pentadact.com
], and you can e-mail him at [
pentadact.com
]

Rafa Franco was born on a wee town in Argentina 27 years ago. Graphic designer by trade, he has had some art and a couple of articles published where you will never find them, and has managed to unwillingly produce some small-time freelance graphic design work. Like an idiot savant, he roams the muddy slime of mediocrity and has the common sense to let the occasional spark of creativity out to the world. If you feel like traveling fifteen thousand miles south to the city of La Plata near Buenos Aires, you may catch him starring in a play as a 70-year-old backwater whore. Or you can reach him at [
[email protected]
]. It’s okay.

Dorothy Gambrell is the last living American to enjoy listening to the radio. She draws unfortunate cartoons on a regular basis at [
catandgirl.com
].

Shaenon K. Garrity is the creator of the daily webstrips “Narbonic” and “Skin Horse” (the latter co-written with fellow contributor Jeffrey Wells), as well as many other comics both on- and offline. She occasionally writes scripts for Marvel Comics, a disproportionate number of which involve department-store Santas. She also works as a freelance manga editor for VIZ Media and teaches at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Andrew Farago, and their neurotic cat Tesla.

KC Green does comics online and off. He did some comics for Nickelodeon magazine and then they closed their doors. He blames himself every day. Currently he does the webcomic “Gunshow” at [
gunshowcomic.com
], but for how long until his unfocused, child-like mind wanders on to something else? You can try to find more of his work, old and new, at his unfinished website [
gunshowcomic.com
].

William Grallo is the son of Lou. He was the winner of the Will Inman Award for Poetry and a runner-up for the Ursula K. LeGuin Award for Imaginative Fiction. He has had fiction published in Rosebud magazine and online at [
alwaysblack.com
].

C. E. Guimont lives in Berlin, Germany. His previous two novels,
The Ten Lies She Told Me and The One or Two I Told Her
and
That Business With the Rabbit
are in Staten Island’s Fresh Kills dark archive.

Matt Haley is best known as a comic-book illustrator for DC, Dark Horse and Marvel. Currently drawing the sequel to
Badass
(Harper), he directs film and watches Japanese kids’ shows when sober. [
matthaley.com
]

Christopher Hastings is the creator of
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.
He lives in Brooklyn with his fiancée, Carly, and their dog, Commissioner Gordon. You can read his comic for free at [
drmcninja.com
], and you can email him for free at [
drmcninja.com
]

Paul Horn is an infographics journalist, illustrator and man-about-town. His comic “Cool Jerk” is found in finer comics shops and at [
cooljerk.com
]. He and his wife Darlene live in San Diego and enjoy writing blurbs in the third person.

Sherri Jacobsen writes copy for movie marketing by day, and rewrites copy for finicky movie marketing executives by night. This is her first appearance in a publication not bound by staples.

John Keogh is an itinerant rambler with fists of steel and a nose for trouble, currently roughhousing his way through New England. You can see him try to do right by his kin on [
lucid-tv.com
].

Karl Kerschl has been drawing comics professionally for 15 years. He has worked on
Superman, The Flash, Robin
and
The Teen Titans
, among other heroic things, and is the author of the Eisner-nominated webcomic “The Abominable Charles Christopher.” More of his work can be found at [
karlkerschl.com
].

Kazu Kibuishi is the creator of the
Amulet
graphic novel series for Scholastic Graphix and the
Flight
comics anthology for Villard Books. He lives and works in Alhambra, California. [
boltcity.com
]

Adam Koford is the creator of a book called
The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out.
During the day he works for a video game company making secret things he’s not allowed to talk about unless there’s an official public relations envoy present. [
adamkoford.com
]

Douglas J Lane’s narrative weirdness has appeared in
Tales of the Unanticipated
and
Pure Francis
, and can be found in the forthcoming anthology
Seasons In The Abyss.
He currently juggles his day job with his work on a novel and a flaming chainsaw. He can be reached—and might even reply—at [
[email protected]
].