BLACK POWDER by M. Weisberg

The wooden planking felt slightly sticky under Captain Beckett’s boots as he boarded the pirate schooner; her entire crew had been hacked, shot, or bludgeoned to death, their blood staining the entire deck almost black. Judging by the state of the bodies, he thought that the ship must have drifted rudderless for days before they found her. His stomach knotted at the stink of it but he would show no visible sign of distress in front of his crew as they searched the battered schooner for any salvage they could bring back to England. First Lieutenant Rowland came up beside him and asked quietly, “What do you think happened?” “I expect they came to blows over the division of their booty,” Beckett said. “Like dogs squabbling over a scrap of meat.” “They saved us the trouble, then.” “That they did. Remarkably considerate, for pirates. I should have hated to keep Bonaparte waiting.” Beckett glanced to his trim little frigate and smiled sadly; they were merely a drop in the ocean of this war, and his Gallant was far better suited to hunting brigands than holding the Line, but still the Royal Navy had called them home early. They must be desperate. “It’s too bad she’s in such bad shape,” Rowland said, echoing his own thoughts. “Otherwise we could bring her with us.” “Pirates are not known for their care and responsibility,” Beckett said dryly. “Captain Beckett, sir,” called Second Lieutenant Hodge. “I think you’ll want to take a look at what we’ve found in the hold.” No hands had bailed the bilges, and Beckett slogged through knee-deep water, regretting the loss of the dead ship’s foodstuffs as he brushed past a rat that was paddling to safety. Hodge went before him and shoved at the tight huddle of men standing around the rear of the hold, clearing a space for Beckett to approach. Set atop a crate of root vegetables was a box, a cube perhaps two foot square. Hodge gave him a significant look and held his lantern closer to the box, and Beckett’s eyes widened as the firelight glinted on yellow metal. “I tried to lift it, sir, and I could barely slide it along,” Hodge said. “I reckon – I reckon it’s gold, sir. Solid gold.” “Well,” Beckett said, doing his best not to whoop with joy. What a prize! What a Godsend! Surely this would break the depression that had lain upon the crew since their last, disastrous engagement. “We’d best bring it aboard. See to it, Lieutenant.”

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Hey readers of Machine of Death stories —

Sorry for the hiatus. This is the time of year, I get wrapped up in the stresses of American Holidays!

Important updates: NEW SUBMISSION POLICY. Since I have to “edit” the posts anyway to make them post-able, go ahead and put your credit info AT THE START of your story. (I’ll post it as “Submitted By: ______” — Unless you’d rather a different introduction. If you don’t want your email posted, let me know, but from now on, I’m going to be posting e-mails as nameofperson [at] domainname [dot] com, to avoid spambots. (I’ll go back and retroactively edit the previous posts, but this may take some time.)

Also, we’re down to the point where I’m not getting many submissions, so it may be awhile before any more stories show up. They keep trickling in though, so hopefully, you’ve subscribed to the RSS or follow the Tumblr! I’ll try and get them posted as soon as I possibly can, but keep in mind if you don’t see your story right away, keep in mind I’m just doing this in my spare moments, and I’ve got other things going on too.

I hope you all keep writing, and keep reading! What a great group!

Thanks,

-M

Jorpho (kehander+NOSPAM+@yahoo.com) submitted:

Carla quietly took in the panorama before her.  It was a clear, moonless night, and someone far away was probably picking out familiar constellations in the sky.  But here on the fifty-first floor, she was, for now, making do quite nicely with the view of the sparkling, bustling city below.

 

George was typing.

 

“It’s going to be a beautiful weekend,” she said.  “Maybe we should go to the beach.”

 

George continued typing.

 

“I could wear that new swimsuit you got me a while ago.”

 

Tapatapatapatapa.

 

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Jaya Saxena submitted:

Compared to a majority of children born after 2035, Amethyst Levy and her friends were not normal. Not that words like “normal” and “average” can ever be applied with any sort of objectivity. But if they could, this would be the situation. The MATM (Mothers Against The Machine) campaign resulted in the famous “Right to Bliss” act that allowed parents to opt-out of mandatory death machine testing for their kids at birth. There was no question that the untested children were biologically the same as any other children, but there was also no question that they would now be looked at as freaks. So the law worked in something about “Enks” (from NK, short for “not-knower”) being afforded the same rights as anyone else, creating a civil rights hoopla with the words “separate” and “equal” getting thrown around a lot.

Even though the wording in the law officially required all public and private schools to accept students regardless of their death testing, Enk-only private schools quickly began popping up as parents called for “protection” for their children against the temptation of learning how one will die. This generally just made the Enks that much easier to find when the bullies came around, motivated by a classic sense of intolerance tinted with jealousy at the superior quality of education most Enk schools afforded. But most parents believed the emotional trauma of knowing how one will die outweighed the emotional (and often physical) trauma of being the weird kid.

Amethyst had avoided most of the bullying, and thus never considered herself weird. She had grown up going to the New Academy of Opposition (NAO), a K-12 Enk school in Manhattan. It was widely considered one of the best schools in the country, with graduation almost a guarantee to the college of your choice, Enk or not. There was also a focus on teaching things like urban farming and meditation. Basically, anything else they decided seemed part of a “natural” way of life, as parents were either Enks themselves or guilty at having gotten caught up in the testing craze when the machines were introduced, and eager to make up for their perceived crimes against nature. Since this was still high school, most kids hated it. They romanticized the stereotypical cafeteria slop and rowdy hallways of “normal” schools, but Amethyst never really thought about it. If she wasn’t proud of being an Enk, she was at least complacent.

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L’Auteur du Pouvoir Dépouillé Submitted:

At the end of my freshman year at Las Vegas Academy, a vending machine was removed.

At the beginning of sophomore year, a Machine of Death was put in its place.

The first several weeks of school at LVA that year, people crowded around the machine, watching the more adventurous — and possibly masochistic — students receive a small card from the machine after getting their fingers pricked with a tiny needle. They would always do the same thing after pulling their card out of the machine: hold it up in the air, grinning condescendingly as the faceless rabble around them cheered.

I stayed away.

Generally, as a Japanese language major, I was shunned by the performing arts major students; however, I stayed away from the machine of my own volition. I just didn’t get it. I had never understood these machines, nor did I see the reason for their popularity. Admittedly, the one at LVA had an austere charm about it; it was crafted of a metallic, silvery metal, the kind of silver that reminded me of the newer hotels on the Strip — the ones that tried much too hard to have a postmodern, “chic” feel to them. I despised those kinds of hotels, but I had to admit that that silver was a lovely color.

No one at the school knew the origins of the Machine of Death. Everyone had different theories. “It’s a sign from God,” my friend Alice said. “He’s telling us about our death, when we will ascend to His kingdom. You’d best heed His warning, Sidney.” I smiled when she told me that. She was a rather devout Christian; simply put, I wasn’t.

Another theory, coming from an overheard conversation between staff members, was that the Machine of Death was a new product of Apple Corporation that measured stress levels; according to them, it would give people either horribly dire or comparatively optimistic predictions, depending on their level of stress. To me, that sounded like putting too much hope in money — at the time of course, I didn’t voice my opinion.

The only theory I did believe was that it was like one of those carnival machines, the ones that tell you random, often incoherent predictions simply for gratification. That theory was cynical, yes, but the only one that made sense.

Given, it helped that I didn’t know what the machine predicted.

—-

“It’s a Machine of Death,” Marie said, biting into an apple. “What do you think it does?” She stared dully at me, her eyes telling me all of the wonderfully creative expletives she desperately wanted to use to describe my level of intelligence at that moment.

Marie was a visual art major. She was gifted in creating beauty with almost any artistic medium, and even more gifted with sarcasm. In retrospect, I didn’t really know why or how we became friends; we were practically nothing alike. It might have been the fact that we were both nihilists. It might also have been the fact that we lived five minutes from each other.

It also might have been the fact that she was a lesbian.

I rolled my eyes at her question. “I don’t know, Marie. Why do you think I asked you? You actually know.”

She chuckled dryly. “Fine, fine. It tells you — oh, look, it’s Carrie. See you later.” She stood quickly, the long blonde streak in her hair blocking her face from my view, and stalked off.

I shouldn’t fail to mention that Carrie, her girlfriend, was nowhere to be seen.

I sighed at Marie’s obvious avoidance of my questions. She knew what this machine did. She’d studied the damn thing! She held the thing at a level of near-obsession — practically reverence! All of freshman year, she’d ranted about it, always simply expecting me to know about it. “It’s amazing,” she’d always said. “It’s a great invention; it will change the world.” She had always wanted one to be placed somewhere in Vegas — Machines of Death were rather expensive, and even Vegas, with its many casinos and pointless attractions, was too frugal to want to buy one.

The bell rang for fifth period, interrupting my thoughts. I swore loudly, winning me a glare from a passing janitor, and headed to Knapp Hall. Compared to most of the halls at Las Vegas Academy, Knapp was open and comfortably social. It was the only hall that had classrooms exit directly outside, rather than into another building. It was also the hall that held the International Studies major classes — Spanish, French, and Japanese — one of which, of course, was mine.

From the Knapp courtyard, I entered my Japanese classroom, being invited in by a rush of warm air. The room was cluttered with desks and boxes, all of which had something atop them, be it student or student project. I quickly scrambled to the middle of the room and sat at my usual desk, directly in the front. I did my best to ignore the idle chatter around me; most of what my peers talked about was amusing from afar, but not so when involved. Therefore, I stayed out of most of the conversations.

As the second bell rang out, the bantering students gradually quieted down, retreating to their individual desks. Their smiles stayed plastered on their faces as our teacher, Jefferson-sensei, began speaking. “Shukudai o dashite kudasai,” she said, as she always did. The sentence translated to please pass up your homework. The class, as a unit, obeyed, whispering as the papers were passed up — to me. Being in the direct front of the class, I was the one that was subjected to organizing the hordes of homework papers shoved against my back.

I handed the assignments to Sensei, who placed them in a shallow wire basket on her desk. I absentmindedly played with my pencil as Sensei began teaching, tuning out her voice. Instead, the voices of the students behind me were clearly audible to me. The subjects of their conversations were always the same: “Machine of Death. Machine of Death. Machine of Death.”

—-

After Japanese, I was itching for answers and fed up with feeling clueless. I needed to know more about the machine. If I had to do something that was somewhat against my morals in my quest for knowledge, I most definitely would.

I sat in the Knapp courtyard, waiting for Marie to head this way, as I knew she would. The students soon became sparse and the passing period close to over. Just as I was about to give up and hurry off to World History, Marie rushed by, looking somewhat disheveled. I grabbed her arm as she sped past, causing her to yell out.

“Sidney,” she hissed, “what the hell?! I need to get to — ”

“No,” I interrupted. “No, you don’t. We’re ditching.”

She cocked her head in disbelief. “What?! You’re ditching next period? Dude, you’ve never even been sent to the Deans’ office, let alone cut class. Besides, we’re firing our projects in Ceramics today! I need to be there!”

I kept my expression calm. “I really, really don’t care. Come on.” I started off to the main courtyard from Knapp, dragging Marie along with me. Just as we reached the edge of the main courtyard, the last bell rang, cuing Marie to curse loudly.

Marie pouted. “Well, thank you, Sidney. Now I’m not going to get my project finished. You’re great. Love you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, get over it. Why do you look so frazzled, anyway?”

Marie rolled her eyes and stared at me as if I were the dumbest and most infantile creature the world had ever spawned. I took the innuendo as “Sidney, shut the hell up and don’t ask again.”

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Marie muttered, “Okay, well, where should we hide for the time being? Given the deans will probably be walking around, searching for ditching students….”

I sighed. “Where do you think, dude? The bathrooms!”

She stared at me in disbelief. If facial expressions could wound, I’d have received a large gash on my face, courtesy of Marie. “You do realize that I’m a girl, right?” she said flatly.

I chuckled. “As if it matters — everyone’s sexually ambiguous at LVA. Just come on.” I grabbed her hand before she could protest and dashed into the closest building: the main hall. The boys’ bathroom on the first floor was directly to the right of the door we entered through. I grinned, forcing Marie through the bathroom door and following her in.

The boys’ bathroom on the first floor of the building was a dingy and cramped space, often likened by the students to a renovated hall closet. The stalls were small enough with a single person in them; unfortunately, what Marie and I were about to do required two. “Okay,” I muttered, hurriedly shoving open the nearest stall door. “Get in.”

Marie glared. “Sidney… I am not getting into a stall in the boys’ bathroom!”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Yes, you are. We need to talk.”

“And we can’t do that out here?!” she retorted. “Look, I’m all for privacy, but don’t you think hiding in a bathroom stall is a bit extreme?”

I considered this. “…Yes, but it’s necessary. Come on.” As had become habitual, I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the stall with me. She simply sighed as I wrenched the stall door closed and latched it.

“Now,” she whispered, “what is all of this about?!”

“Three words,” I said calmly. “Machine. Of. Death.”

She was silent for several seconds before bursting into laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re pathetic! You could have just, I don’t know, called me after school, you idiot!” Her raucous laughter echoed throughout the bathroom, and probably into the hallway. I winced and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Marie, are you insane?!” I hissed. “We’re going to get caught if you keep yelling!”

She gave me a look that said “Sidney, I’m going to kill you one day.”

Her face could say some very mean things.

“Whatever, Marie,” I muttered. “Now, just tell me what I want to know. I want to know how the machine works, what it does… I want to know everything.”

Marie smiled sarcastically. “Well, what better way to find out what something does than to use it?”

“Marie — no, I — OH, GOD, MARIE, JUST TELL ME ALREADY!” I fumed, punching the door of the stall in anger. Marie, in response, grabbed my arm and shot me a death glare.

“Sidney,” she growled poisonously. “I was making a joke.”

I paused, mulling this over. “…Well, actually… maybe your ‘joke’ wasn’t a bad idea. We could both go use it, right now.”

“What?!” she hissed. “You were incoherently ranting about not wanting to ten seconds ago!”

“And now I’ve thought about it and changed my mind,” I said proudly.

Marie put her face in her hands. “You’re so stupid.”

I grinned, my conceit showing through. “Whatever, Marie,” I sang, unlatching the stall door and skipping out of the bathroom. I entered the deserted first-floor hallway as Marie grumbled to herself and followed. The hallway was long and rather foreboding; given the fact that the building had been constructed in the 1920’s, the students had for many years passed around rumors of ghosts. “You know,” I wondered out loud, “I sometimes think: Did the so-called LVA ghosts have Machines of Death that foretold their times of death?”

She grinned. “That maneuver was really bad.”

I stared innocently at her. “What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “You slipped in a clever reference to what you think the machine might do, only because you thought that I’d be headstrong enough to contradict you and tell you what it really does. Oh, by the way, you were wrong. It doesn’t tell you when you die.”

I pouted. “I hate you.”

She smiled widely, her demeanor literally becoming brighter from the ground up. “Good. Now come on.” Marie headed towards the doors leading outside, skipping just as I had done several minutes ago. She was probably just making fun of me by skipping, but I’ll admit it was somewhat amusing.

We exited the building, emerging on the far left side of the main courtyard. Unfortunately, the Machine of Death was on the far right of the opposite building (that being the cafeteria). I shot a glance at Marie. She replied with a shrug and an exasperated look that said “Go for it already.” I nodded, mustering up all my courage before starting a mad dash through the courtyard.

I sped past the large planters of trees and flowers decorating the courtyard; they all blurred together into a simple myriad of shades of green. I didn’t know if Marie was behind me. At this point, I didn’t care. I needed to get through the courtyard, and to the machine. The beautiful, silvery machine….

I was snapped out of my reverie by a small stair in the middle of the courtyard. I tripped over the two lone steps, falling flat on my face. My glasses skidded off to God-knows-where, and I could feel about three places where I could tell I was going to be quite painfully bruised. I heard dry laughter behind me — Marie, of course.

“Sidney,” she chided sardonically, “you should’ve watched where you were going. Bad boy.”

I rolled my eyes and scrambled to my feet. “Oh, shut up, Marie! Come on!” I stalked off to the machine, hearing her chuckling directly behind me. As I came close, I saw an odd glimmer on the ground in front of it and realized that my glasses had skidded off and hit the Machine of Death. I sighed. “Ooh, look, symbolism. With the glasses, and the machine, and the falling… you know, Marie, this could all come together to make a great psychological horror story.”

I heard her mutter “What’s psychological about falling?”, but I decided to ignore it.

The Machine of Death was silver, contoured and subtly beautiful. Up close, you could see your reflection, albeit a bit warped. There was an almost foreboding air about it, probably caused by the lack of features other than two small blood-drawing stations. The stations themselves only consisted of an indent into the machine, about the size of a restaurant soft-drink fountain, that had only a small needle, a speaker, and a small slot at the bottom to speak of.

“The Machine of Death,” Marie whispered. “I’ve been waiting to get tested….”

I shot her a quizzical sidelong glance. “You mean you haven’t used it yet?”

She shook her head in awe. “No. I’ve been trying to wait to get the prediction with someone special….” She glanced at me. “Unfortunately, though, I’m stuck with your sorry ass.”

Ouch.

“Gee, thanks, Marie,” I grunted.

She smirked. “Anytime. Now… to finally shed some light on your dim ignorance,” she said, tapping the side of my head, “the Machine of Death tells you not when, not where, but how you die.”

I blinked. “…Seriously?”

She crinkled her eyebrows. “What, is that not exciting enough for you?”

“No, no, it’s not that it isn’t exciting, per se,” I said quickly. “I just… didn’t expect it to be something that… stupid. I mean, this could just be a piece of crap with a label on it — ”

“Sidney,” she interrupted threateningly, “it’s not. I know it’s not. Trust me. It is literally never wrong. There has not been one single time when it has been wrong.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, unconvinced. “Marie, I — ”

“SIDNEY,” she hissed. “Just – just go over there, to that side, and get your finger pricked. My God.”

I sighed, walking to the right blood-drawing station, and swallowed heavily. “And you’re sure this is safe?”

She ignored me. “Prick your goddamn finger.”

I bit my lip. My hand shaking, I moved my right index finger near the needle. It seemed to be motion-activated, for when I did, a sanitizing spray was automatically administered onto my fingertip and the needle was jabbed in. I winced in pain, but the needle was almost immediately removed. A quiet curse from Marie told me that she’d just gotten her finger pricked, as well. I heard the machine humming softly as both of our predictions were calculated.

“Hey!” a loud voice yelled, breaking our trance. “What are you two doing outside of class?!”

My only coherent thought in the next several seconds was “Shit.”

Marie and I stole split-second glances at each other and dashed off in opposite directions without another word, leaving our unread predictions to be thrown out. I was not about to get caught ditching class.

—-

“Unclaimed”.

That was what the box was labeled. Unclaimed.

After seventh period, Marie and I met up in the courtyard and made a beeline for the Machine of Death. Our cards weren’t in the machine; however, there was a small shoebox beside the machine labeled Unclaimed. That box held two cards, both facing down. We stared silently into the box for about ten minutes before either of us spoke.

“So which is which?” I whispered.

“I… I don’t know,” Marie admitted. “Maybe we could just… take one and hope…?”

“No,” I sighed. “I’ll just get tested again.” I braced myself, then stuck my hand under the needle once more. Before the needle even drew blood, a robotic voice emanated from the speaker.

“Subject has already been tested,” the voice stated. “Subject cannot be tested again.”

“Damn it!” I roared, kicking the machine in anger. I turned to Marie, my expression frenzied. “So whose is whose?! Which is which?! How the hell am I going to die?!”

Marie slapped me.

I recoiled, but my breathing returned to normal and my head was cleared. “Okay, yeah, I needed that. But how are we going to know which card is which?!”

Marie pondered this. “Well, theoretically, the person would have probably picked up the right card first, and then grabbed the left with the same hand….” She walked over to the box. “So, since you were on the right, yours would be on top and mine would be the one on the bottom.” She picked up the cards, giving me the top one and keeping the bottom for herself. They were both still facedown.

I swallowed heavily. “Should we look together?”

Marie nodded. “One… two… three.”

On three, we flipped our cards over. I crinkled my eyebrows. “…What?” I whispered, my heart pounding.

Marie glanced over at me. “What? What does your card say?”

I sighed. “It says… HIT BY A CAR.”

Marie raised her eyebrows. “Damn. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“What does yours say, then?” I asked, attempting to change the subject.

She sighed. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Before I could do anything about it, she crumpled up her card and put it in her pocket.

“Marie,” I whined indignantly, “I want to know! Come on, I told you mine!”

She glared. “Just forget it,” she hissed. “It’s not that interesting, anyway.” She stalked off in the direction of the visitors’ parking lot. “I’m going to go find Mom. Come on.”

—-

Marie’s mother gave the both of us a ride to the entrance of our neighborhood before driving off to the grocery store. All throughout the ride, awkwardness penetrated every conversation punctuated with the Machine of Death.

“So,” Marie’s mom had said, “did you get your prediction today?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marie snapped. “Ask Sidney.”

At the next stoplight, Marie’s mom stared quizzically at me, as if asking for an answer. I shrugged, my eyes wide with confusion. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” I mouthed.

After being dropped off, Marie grudgingly agreed to walk me home. “I hope you realize I’m only doing this to make sure you don’t die,” she muttered.

I rolled my eyes. “These streets are never busy.”

She smacked me softly in the arm. “Yeah, but you can never be too careful.”

We walked in awkward silence for several more minutes. I wanted to know why she was so agitated about what her card said. I had to know. I mean, it couldn’t be that bad. What could be so bad that it would scare off the ever-apathetic Marie?

“Let’s cross here,” Marie said suddenly. Still deep in thought, I blindly followed her, looking down at the ground.

I was still thinking hard when Marie shoved me backwards, causing me to fall onto the tar of the street and hit my head. Still, even with my ears ringing, I could recognize the sound of Marie’s screaming, the crunch of bone, and the splatter of blood.

The next few moments played out in slow motion. I didn’t react immediately. I simply scooted back to the sidewalk, my brain swimming with anything but Marie and what had just happened. I could feel my pants soaked with blood, but I ignored the feeling. It took me almost ten seconds to stand up and look at the scene of disaster in the middle of the street.

Marie’s body was crushed to the point of not being able to recognize it. The remains looked face-down, but it was hard to tell with her destroyed frame. I could smell nothing but blood; the sharp, metallic smell invaded my nostrils. I normally would have gagged at the scent, but in this situation, I was too distracted trying not to scream.

She had to have pushed me out of the way of that car. She pushed me away from my death — my destiny, even. I whipped my head back and forth, looking for the car that could have possibly hit her. There was no one in sight. I would have bellowed out an insult to the long-gone speed demon, but my voice was gone. I could not speak; I was in complete and total shock.

My brain was at a loss for an explanation. Marie got hit by a car? No. No way. It was your card that said that, not Marie’s. She can’t have just changed your death. That’s impossible. Unless….

My breath caught as the epiphany hit. Marie’s haunting words from earlier in the day came back to me: It is literally never wrong. There has not been one single time when it has been wrong.

Of course the machine hadn’t been wrong. Marie hadn’t changed my prediction; she’d simply gotten my card in the first place. We’d picked incorrectly. I picked up her card, and she picked up my card.

The card that now lay in tatters in the pants pocket of Marie’s strawberry-jelly remains.

And I never got to see what it said.

Psychological horror, indeed.