Unidentified Funny Objects 2 by Robert Silverberg, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Esther Frisner Page A
Authors: Robert Silverberg, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Esther Frisner
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serve as thanks for your patience in this matter, and that you will continue to use Bid-o-Mancy to meet your needs for the dark arts. Your business is importance to us.
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Story notes:
As you may have guessed, I wrote this story after having a bad experience on e-bay. After several not-so-helpful exchanges with customer service, I began to imagine all the gruesome ways I'd like to see the seller meet his end. When I realized the laws of this world could not grant the level of justice I desired, I figured I might as well invent one that would.
STRANGER VS. THE MALEVOLENT MALIGNANCY
Jim C. Hines
Stranger shifted in the armchair and forced himself to make eye contact with his therapist: a decapitated head floating in an oversized jar of blue-tinged nutrient fluid. Long gray-blond hair drifted like tentacles. The base of the jar was decorated in a red and yellow floral pattern, reminiscent of the Hawaiian shirts Jarhead wore back in his full-bodied superhero days.
“In all my time on this planet, I’ve never killed anyone,” said Stranger. “I’ve never wanted to before.”
Jarhead’s voice emerged, slightly mechanical, from a speaker below his chin. “Given your history with Scaramouche, it’s no surprise she knows how to press your buttons.”
Jarhead was a former speedster, a superhero from the seventies whose career on the east coast had come to an abrupt end when his nemesis strung a high-tensile wire across the road at neck height. Only the hyperquick actions of Jarhead’s sidekick Robogirl had allowed him to survive… if you could call it survival.
“When do I get to talk? I’ve got traumas of my own, you know!”
Stranger did his best to ignore the taunts, which was difficult, considering they came from within his own bowel.
“It’s talking to you again, isn’t it?” asked Jarhead.
“It’s been particularly irate today.”
The blue-gray skin of Jarhead’s forehead crinkled in thought as his eyelids lowered, curtaining his colorless eyes. “A tumor with anger issues. You know, this would be easier if it would come out and talk to me directly.”
“Tell that hairy bowling ball that if I could uproot myself and move around, I wouldn’t still be living halfway up your alien ass!”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Stranger said.
“It was worth a shot.” Jarhead’s bubbling sigh filled the room. “Start at the beginning. You said you learned of Scaramouche’s escape at your press conference…”
STRANGER HAD LAIN AWAKE all night in his apartment, trying to find the right words for his announcement the next morning. And then someone—he didn’t know who or how—had broken the news online around 3:00 a.m.
The result was a crowd four times the size he had expected, pressing around the pavilion by the river in Lake City Central Park. Cameras and microphones tracked his descent like weapons, and the questions erupted before he finished climbing the makeshift stage.
One man managed to make his voice heard above the rest. “Your tumor currently has more than a dozen Twitter accounts. The most popular has sixty-thousand followers. Can you confirm whether any of these are official accounts?”
“What’s a Twitter?”
Stranger adjusted the polarization of his helmet’s faceplate to better block the afternoon sun. One of the experimental meds in his latest round of chemotherapy had induced extreme photosensitivity. Only two years earlier, he had gone toe-to-toe with a villain wielding a fusion-powered plasma blaster. Now, even five minutes in the sunlight was enough to make his skin blister and peel. “My most recent scan showed seven tumors. The largest and primary is located in the lower portion of my bowel. I assure you that none of them are on Twitter.”
“Don’t ignore me, dude! I want a Twitter! Where can I get one?”
Another
Thank you,
Bid-o-Mancy Customer Support
Twice Awarded "Best in Customer Service for the Dark Arts" by Yrrgoth and Associates
Story notes:
As you may have guessed, I wrote this story after having a bad experience on e-bay. After several not-so-helpful exchanges with customer service, I began to imagine all the gruesome ways I'd like to see the seller meet his end. When I realized the laws of this world could not grant the level of justice I desired, I figured I might as well invent one that would.
STRANGER VS. THE MALEVOLENT MALIGNANCY
Jim C. Hines
Stranger shifted in the armchair and forced himself to make eye contact with his therapist: a decapitated head floating in an oversized jar of blue-tinged nutrient fluid. Long gray-blond hair drifted like tentacles. The base of the jar was decorated in a red and yellow floral pattern, reminiscent of the Hawaiian shirts Jarhead wore back in his full-bodied superhero days.
“In all my time on this planet, I’ve never killed anyone,” said Stranger. “I’ve never wanted to before.”
Jarhead’s voice emerged, slightly mechanical, from a speaker below his chin. “Given your history with Scaramouche, it’s no surprise she knows how to press your buttons.”
Jarhead was a former speedster, a superhero from the seventies whose career on the east coast had come to an abrupt end when his nemesis strung a high-tensile wire across the road at neck height. Only the hyperquick actions of Jarhead’s sidekick Robogirl had allowed him to survive… if you could call it survival.
“When do I get to talk? I’ve got traumas of my own, you know!”
Stranger did his best to ignore the taunts, which was difficult, considering they came from within his own bowel.
“It’s talking to you again, isn’t it?” asked Jarhead.
“It’s been particularly irate today.”
The blue-gray skin of Jarhead’s forehead crinkled in thought as his eyelids lowered, curtaining his colorless eyes. “A tumor with anger issues. You know, this would be easier if it would come out and talk to me directly.”
“Tell that hairy bowling ball that if I could uproot myself and move around, I wouldn’t still be living halfway up your alien ass!”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Stranger said.
“It was worth a shot.” Jarhead’s bubbling sigh filled the room. “Start at the beginning. You said you learned of Scaramouche’s escape at your press conference…”
STRANGER HAD LAIN AWAKE all night in his apartment, trying to find the right words for his announcement the next morning. And then someone—he didn’t know who or how—had broken the news online around 3:00 a.m.
The result was a crowd four times the size he had expected, pressing around the pavilion by the river in Lake City Central Park. Cameras and microphones tracked his descent like weapons, and the questions erupted before he finished climbing the makeshift stage.
One man managed to make his voice heard above the rest. “Your tumor currently has more than a dozen Twitter accounts. The most popular has sixty-thousand followers. Can you confirm whether any of these are official accounts?”
“What’s a Twitter?”
Stranger adjusted the polarization of his helmet’s faceplate to better block the afternoon sun. One of the experimental meds in his latest round of chemotherapy had induced extreme photosensitivity. Only two years earlier, he had gone toe-to-toe with a villain wielding a fusion-powered plasma blaster. Now, even five minutes in the sunlight was enough to make his skin blister and peel. “My most recent scan showed seven tumors. The largest and primary is located in the lower portion of my bowel. I assure you that none of them are on Twitter.”
“Don’t ignore me, dude! I want a Twitter! Where can I get one?”
Another
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