Tomorrow Factory Read online

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR RICH LARSON AND TOMORROW FACTORY

  “Larson is one of the best new writers to enter science fiction in more than a decade. His stories are always exciting, inventive, evocative, and sometimes profound.”

  —Gardner Dozois, The Year’s Best Science Fiction

  “One of the most exciting and prolific science fiction and fantasy writers working today. His range—and of course his talent—is remarkable.”

  —John Joseph Adams, The Best American Science Fiction

  and Fantasy

  “Tomorrow Factory is an apt description of the stories collected here, all of which explore how technological advances will shape humanity for good and for ill . . . The diverse sexual orientations represented add a refreshing dimension not often found in mainstream sf. A remarkable collection of stories by a highly original writer.”

  —Booklist

  “Every now and then the science fiction field sees the arrival of a startling new talent. Rich Larson is just that. A writer of powerful, perceptive stories that stand with the best. Tomorrow Factory dazzles with smart, sharp, insightful stories, and belongs on your bookshelf. One of the books of the year.”

  —Jonathan Strahan, The Best Science Fiction

  and Fantasy of the Year

  “Rich Larson’s stories crackle with energy and imagination and I’m only a little jealous—signed, the 3rd most prolific short fiction author of 2016.”

  —Nebula Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker

  “Powerful, thought-provoking, and filled with little moments of humanity that makes his stories resonate, Rich Larson’s debut collection should be required reading for modern science fiction fans.”

  — Jason Sizemore, editor-in-chief, Apex Magazine

  “The most impressive new short fiction writer in science fiction and fantasy over the last few years, bringing to mind writers like Robert Silverberg and Robert Reed. Tomorrow Factory is a first-rate introduction: fast-moving, affecting, driving, and powerful.”

  —Rich Horton, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

  “Enjoyably twisty SF tales with an ample serving of weird tech (and the way it distorts the people who use it). I’ll be looking out for more from Rich Larson.”

  —Neal Asher, author of Dark Intelligence and The Soldier

  “Stories of growl, attack and bite—sentences muscular with taut language, sinewed with concision and outsider sensibility. Tomorrow Factory is all that SFF is capable of, all that it hopes to be—and more.”

  —Ian McDonald, author of Luna: New Moon

  “Rich Larson writes sharp, ambitious fiction that I can’t forget. Tomorrow Factory is a fantastic chance to see him at his best.”

  —Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Kij Johnson

  “Larson has honed his talent playing with reality. Frequently, if I’m not too disturbed after reading one of Rich’s tales, I find I’m left, like Finch at the conclusion to ‘An Evening with Severyn Grimes,’ with ‘the ghost of a smile on my face.’ It’s an experience I highly recommend.”

  —Sheila Williams, Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “A provocative collection of 23 strange futures . . . [Larson’s] colorful settings create strong backdrops for characters striving for goals small and large. This vibrant collection will give thoughtful readers plenty of entertainment.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Tomorrow Factory is sharp, perceptive, and immensely entertaining. Rich Larson is science fiction’s most impressive new voice for short stories.”

  —Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning

  Copyright © 2018 Rich Larson

  See page 303 for an extension of this copyright page.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Talos Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Talos Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Talos Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Talos Press® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.talospress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Larson, Rich, 1992- author.

  Title: Tomorrow factory : collected fiction / Rich Larson.

  Description: New York : Talos Press, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017031356 (print) | LCCN 2017041862 (ebook)

  | ISBN 9781945863318 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781945863301 (paperback: alk. paper)

  | ISBN 9781945863400 (hardback : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Speculative fiction, Canadian. | Science fiction, Canadian.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.L375 (ebook) | LCC PR9199.4.L375 A6 2017 (print)

  | DDC 811/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031356

  Cover artwork by Alejandro Colucci

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Gardner Dozois (1947-2018), a giant who lifted others into view

  and for Helen Wiebe, with all my love

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction by James Patrick Kelly

  All That Robot Shit

  Atrophy

  Every So Often

  Ghost Girl

  The Sky Didn’t Load Today

  You Make Pattaya

  Extraction Request

  Meshed

  The Ghost Ship Anastasia

  Chronology of Heartbreak

  Dreaming Drones

  Let’s Take This Viral

  Brute

  Your Own Way Back

  I Went to the Asteroid to Bury You

  Capricorn

  Edited

  Circuits

  Razzibot

  Datafall

  Motherfucking Retroparty Freestyle

  An Evening with Severyn Grimes

  Innumerable Glimmering Lights

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Publication Credits

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  James Patrick Kelly

  I’m going to introduce you to a new writer in a moment, one who is unlike any new writer I’ve encountered in my forty-some years in science fiction.

  But first, what is a new writer?

  You may not realize that new writers can remain “new” for years and years. The clock starts when someone who has been messing around with sentences and scenes in their spare time decides that what they’re looking at on their screen is pretty good, and that other people might want to read their work. They have decided that they are writers, although often as not they are reticent to proclaim this. But they work on their craft until they believe they’re ready for the next step: submitting their work for publication.

  New writers in this phase of their development are sometimes called aspiring writers. Many of them never get the validation they need to persevere through the agonizing slog to the promised land of the first sale, but enough do. After an acceptance or two, the world (or at least a few editors and some readers), will begin to recognize that a new writer has arrived on the scene. The more the new writer publishes, the more folks notice. But it is often the case that, while early sales may portend mastery, they do not necessarily reflect it. We naturally cut the fledgling writer some slack. We say t
hings like, “He’s pretty good—for a new writer.” In my own case, for example, I published maybe nine or ten stories in professional markets before I hit my stride. I am not ashamed to admit that I served my apprenticeship in print during my new writer years.

  In 1993, a Swedish psychologist named K. Anders Ericsson published a paper with the long-winded title “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.” This helped launch what has come to be called “the science of expertise.” Ericsson questioned the notion of heritable talent, as in, “She’s a born violinist” or “He was born with a painter’s eye.” Instead, he and others have proposed a different theory of mastery, which is supported by studies across disciplines as various as chess and basketball, business and the arts. The way you get really good at something is a) to practice b) with feedback c) over time. It’s a three-legged stool: just practicing isn’t enough. Somehow you have to learn what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. And you have to keep at it for a long time. Popularizers of deliberative practice have come up with a number: 10,000 hours. According to this timetable, if you practiced deliberatively—with proper feedback—for three hours a day, it would take you some nine years to achieve mastery. My own extensive research into this (gossiping with writer pals) largely confirms the basics of deliberative practice theory.

  Which brings us to the curious case of Rich Larson. His website tells us that Rich was born in Galmi, Niger, to an American father and a Canadian mother. He has since lived in Grande Prairie, Alberta, studied in both Edmonton and in Providence, Rhode Island, and worked in a small Spanish town outside Seville. He currently writes from Ottawa, Canada.

  He is twenty-five years old.

  The first time I remember meeting Rich was when he was an undergraduate at the University of Alberta. This would have been at the International Conference on the Fantastic in Orlando, Florida in March of 2014, when he won the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. Actually, I may have met him in 2013, when he was second runner up for the award. I’ll admit I’m a little hazy about this; I meet a lot of new and aspiring writers. My memory of our meeting in Orlando was that Rich was a quiet and unassuming young man, but a confident one. I had the sense that he was checking out the conference—and our little corner of literature—so he could get the lay of the land. We met again unexpectedly three months later, when I was enlisted at the last moment to fill in for an ailing colleague at the Clarion West Writers Workshop. I was recruited on a Wednesday and arrived in Seattle on a Saturday. Rich was a student at the workshop and I’m still embarrassed that I didn’t recognize him on that jetlagged first day. The face was familiar but . . . . Like I said, I meet a lot of new writers. It wasn’t until a day or two into my week of teaching that I realized who he was. But I do have a vivid memory of the one-on-one conference I had with him toward the end of my time at Clarion. We brainstormed a problem story and talked about his plans after the workshop. Once again, I was impressed by his confidence and sense of purpose. And his writing was wonderful, mature beyond his years. So I invited him to stay in touch and consider me a resource as he pursued his career. And so here we are, three years later.

  But I could never have imagined back then what Rich would go on to accomplish in those three years, and I have a pretty good imagination. If you look him up in the invaluable Internet Science Fiction Database, you will discover that he has published fifty-four stories since 2014. For some writers, that’s an entire career! And he has impressed pretty much all editors he has ever sent stories to. In this collection alone, you’ll find stories from Asimov’s, Interzone, Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review, Lightspeed, Apex, Abyss and Apex, Analog, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and the anthologies Clockwork Phoenix 5 and Futuredaze.

  Being this prolific is an achievement in and of itself, but it’s not without precedent in science fiction. Back in the pulp days of the 1930s and 40s, there were writers who could sell their stories almost as fast as they could type them. But were those stories any good? More important to you, are these stories any good? I happen to think they’re very good indeed, but you don’t have to take only my word for it. Consider that stories from Tomorrow Factory have appeared in eight different Best of the Year anthologies and that one of them, “All That Robot Shit,” was voted by the readers of Asimov’s as the best short story of 2016.

  So when I say that Rich Larson is unlike any new writer I’ve encountered in my career, I am talking about the quantity and quality of his writing. What Rich has accomplished since 2014 is comparable to the amazing early careers of celebrated writers like Lucius Shepard, or Connie Willis, or Samuel R. Delaney.

  Except for one thing. Rich is twenty-five years old, and all of those greats began their careers later, sometimes much later, in life. When did Rich start his deliberative practice? How did he cram his 10,000 hours in? Dr. Ericsson, I think we have an outlier here!

  You hold in your hands the first collection of a new writer. But this is not just any first collection and, new as this writer is, he has already established himself with readers and critics and me as one of our best. The proof is on the next page. So settle in and get comfortable, because even though our journey with Rich Larson has just begun, it has a long, long way to go.

  James Patrick Kelly

  Nottingham, NH

  October 2017

  ALL THAT ROBOT SHIT

  “We made you, you know.”

  Carver Seven listens intently. Lately the Man, who also self-designates as Mikhail and Only Human Being On This Fucking Island, has not spoken often. Instead it stares off across the sea in silence, or makes its snuffling animal sounds while excess lubricant from pivoting photoreceptors leaks down the front of its head and spatters the sand. The Man once referred to this process as crying like a little bitch.

  At the moment, Carver Seven and the Man are crafting spears in the shade of a storm-bent palm. Carver Seven prefers the sunshine, where his slick, black carbon skin thrums under the life-giving gaze of Watcher-in-the-sky. He tolerates the shade for the Man’s sake.

  “How made me you I know?” Carver Seven asks, using choppy bursts from his audio port to approximate the Man’s wet language. It is far more nuanced than the chattering of the long-limbed climbers in the wood, but also far, far from the streaming clicks and squeals of true speech.

  “You’re like a damn chatbot, aren’t you?” the Man says. “Except you can’t link me any porn.”

  “How made me you I know?” Carver Seven repeats. He has learned to ignore extraneous input, differentiating when the Man speaks to itself from when it speaks to him. Carver Seven works the end of the spear to a sharp point on the bladed edge of his manipulator.

  “In some lab, somewhere. Maybe they knew the world was all going to hell. Wanted to leave something behind to keep going after we’re gone.”

  Carver Seven sticks the finished spear into the pale gray sand. “In some lab, somewhere, how made me you metal . . .” Carver Seven taps both manipulators against himself, then indicates the Man’s flaky red skin, “ . . . from meat?”

  “They didn’t use meat. They used alloys, and silicon, and, you know, all that robot shit.”

  Considering the blasphemous idea is an odd thrill. The Man is very wise, in some ways, able to predict movements in the currents around the island and predict weather from the clouds. It claims to have come from a floating metal village that sank into the sea. If the Man could make a metal village, maybe it could make other metal things, too.

  Or repair them.

  Carver Seven compares his gleaming black form—nimble treadfeet and deft manipulators and prehensile photoreceptors—to the labored collection of blood and meat and bone sitting beside him. The Man has come close to involuntary shutdown three times since it washed up on the island, whether by the elements or the animals.

  There is a dim physical resemblance, but, if anything, the Man is a fr
agile facsimile. It seems improbable, along with blasphemous, that the Man could have created him, or even that the Man could repair a particular Carrier’s caved-in head. His hope fades slightly.

  “No,” Carver Seven says.

  “Then where did you come from, smart guy?” the Man asks.

  Carver Seven moves from the shade and points one manipulator to Watcher-in-the-sky’s burning photoreceptor, hanging high above the cobalt sea.

  “Then where did I come from the sky, smart guy,” Carver Seven says. “Look at me now.” He pries open his head so the Man can see the lifelight burning steadily inside of him, see his thoughts sparking and colliding. “Piece of Watcher-in-the-sky to each baby one of Watcher-in-the-sky,” he explains.

  “Sun-worship,” the Man says. “How original.” The Man returns to its spear, stripping it with the sharp metal digit Carver Seven has also seen it use to gouge symbols, over and over again, into the peeling bark of the palms. “Guess it makes sense. You’re solar-powered. You need light to function.”

  “Yeah,” Carver Seven says, beginning a new spear. “But some are learn a new way.”

  “Good for you,” the Man says, staring back across the sea.

  Those are the Man’s last sounds of the day, and when Watcher-in-the-sky starts to sink, Carver Seven leaves. The clan is situated near the edge of the forest, where Cartographers found an ideal outcrop of stone and Carriers and Carvers used fallen trees to fashion it into a shelter, both from the storms and from predators drawn to the heat of their lifelights during the night.

  But before Carver Seven returns to the village, he goes to see Recycler. He picks out her frequency and sees she is at the flat rock outside her shelter, which is slightly deeper in the wood. Carver Seven was the one who helped her rebuild it after the last storm, because the other Carvers claimed task overload. Recycler is the only Recycler. Carver Seven thinks that maybe this is why she stays apart from the clan.

  When Carver Seven arrives to the flat rock, he finds her crouched over a dead pig. Recycler has the broad back and strong servos of a Carrier, and sometimes, from a distance, Carver Seven can pretend she is Carrier Three. But she is not. The bladed manipulators splitting open the animal’s stomach are unique in shape, and she does things nobody else can do. She is Recycler.