“The emperor lived in a great city”

—and there it was, gold and black, spread out beneath a jade windowsill, past gardens and fountains and a crenellated wall studded with soldiers and spears—

“so vast that he had not seen all its wonders”

—and I built the wonders, glittering gems that flashed and winked and beckoned—

“nor walked all its streets, nor visited—”

“That’s stupid,” said a little girl, and the hologram froze. Tiny lines spidered along the golden walls, splintered the bold black lines. Stress fractures that would shatter the entire image if I didn’t level it out, if I couldn’t pick up the story’s threads—

“Why doesn’t he just, you know, use satellites? Then he’d be able to see the whole thing.”

—if the little brat didn’t shut up. I hate test audiences.

“Eight years old and wiser than Buddha.” Sanji was smiling, all teeth and apple cheeks. “What a clever little girl.”

I hate my production manager only slightly less.

I could not match Sanji’s smile. My teeth stuck together like mud bricks. Snagged my lips and strained my voice through the mortar.

“There are no satellites.”

The little girl blinked. True astonishment, for the first time in the entire beta-run. “No satellites?”

“No satellites, no computers, no electricity.”

Silence. She stared at me. Her lips puckered into a singularity that pulled her whole face after it, all points converging to one disapproving moue.

“That’s boring.”

The edge of my hologram eroded. Whole streets crumbled away, that the emperor would never see. The borders contracted, ate one of the wonders whole and shat it out in glittering electron dust. The emperor wouldn’t see it, either. The emperor was next.

Sanji clamped a hand on my shoulder. Warning! Warning! Don’t offend the revenue stream.

There was cancellation in his smile.

*

This is an old story: a man desires something extraordinary. Fame, power, immortality. Something beyond his best efforts, something he simply can’t get on his own. And he wants it so badly, so very, very badly, that he’ll pay anything for it. Do anything. Trade anything. He seeks out someone, or something, that can grant him the miracle. He doesn’t ask about the price. Oh no. Desire is everything. So he steps beyond the rational, the sane, and he makes the bargain. He gets what he wants, no money down, cost deferred. And he doesn’t worry about the final payoff. There is only the now, and the sweetness of possession.

*

The man reflected in the high gloss real wood-why yes, this costs more than your year’s earnings-desk looked unwell. Hollow eyes with too much white, skin stretched over bones. I tried to remember the last time I ate. Tried to remember the last time I wanted to.

I put the tea cup down in the middle of my face and made myself focus on Sanji, who sat on the other side of that formidable desk. Sanji’s never missed a meal in his life. Has never worked his fingertips bloody, on quill and keyboard and holosketcher. He hasn’t ridden the Muse, either, but he’s gotten fat riding me.

“About this morning. I have to be honest with you, Carver. I don’t have a lot of faith in this project.”

“One little girl—”

Gentle headshake. Don’t interrupt your producer. Creators must be seen and not heard.

“I think it’s the subject matter. I think—well. I think it’s a little foreign for them. Perhaps we can think of something more accessible. You know. A little more realistic.”

I tried to keep all things unprofessional off my face. Made my voice as bland and casual. “I’m a fantasist.”

“A little less…moralistic, then. People want entertainment.”

I peeled him an insincere smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We go way back, Sanji and I. He was a production tech when I started. A dozen broadcast awards lined the walls behind him now. Four of them have my name on them, too. Creative consultant. Four seasons of acclaim and Sanji’s twenty-first floor office with its view of the Bay, because of my Muse.

But I’d overstepped. There are two hundred just like me, waiting for the callbacks and the blood tests. Sanji knew that. Sanji’s eyes were clear. Bright. Sharp as needles, above the honeyed velvet, “I’m concerned about you, Carver. You’re not looking well.”

Warning, warning: if producer expresses concern about health, when the consultant has failed to create, that isn’t friendship. That’s the start of the Speech. The first step to withdrawal and rehab and living off royalties.

Panic wiped the smile off my face. Honest fear filled in behind it, like blood in the wake of a razor. “An idea, Sanji. I have an idea.”

One eyebrow half-mooned. “Tell me about it.”

“It’s.” I waved my hands. The plugs winked in my wrists. Empty. Void. Useless, without my ‘sketcher. “It’s. I could show you.”

Sanji hates raw narrative. Says it gives him a headache. I know this. He knows I know. His face creased and his hands joined mine in the air above the desk. Cutting motion, clip-snip, and I went limp and terrified in the chair.

He knows I’m lying he’s going to send me to rehab he’s

“So tell me about it.”

Going to call my bluff.

“I can’t. Yet. It’s right up here, but…”

“But?”

They used to call it writer’s block. Now it’s called increased tolerance. “I need more Muse to make it work.”

Sanji leaned back and spun his own cup in fat manicured fingers. “We’ve already increased your allotment twice since January.”

“It worked. We got Dancing with Stalin and The Wild Horses.”

“Hm.” Sanji gathered his lips into a bow. “Those were solid. But they never broke the top ten.”

“Please.” I pressed my fingers white on the desk. Leaving fingerprints on the finish, sure, but Sanji wouldn’t mind that. All is forgiven when the ratings climb high enough. “Just a little more. I know—I know it’s in there. The next big one. The next hit.”

Sanji leaned away from me. Maybe he thought he could catch my desperation. Maybe he’d just noticed I’d forgotten to bathe when I’d forgotten to eat. He spun his own cup in manicured fingers. Took a ten second sip and said through the steam:

“Fine. We’ll up the dose. And then I want to see prelims on this idea you’ve got. Something better than raw.”

That was dismissal. That was last chance and don’t fuck this up. I nodded. Stood up fast.

“Thanks, Sanji. I mean it. You won’t regret this.” I didn’t try to shake his hand. Waited as long as his insincere, “Don’t mention it,” before I fled for the door.

“Carver.”

He caught me in the back, with my fingers smearing the polished brass handle.

“You’ve got to take care of yourself, all right? Have a sandwich. And a shower.”

*

The Devil, as the old cliché goes, lies in the details. In the fine print. At the end of the story and in the payback. So the man makes his bargain, and he gets what he wants, but he doesn’t realize how much it will cost. And at the end, when it’s time to pay, he regrets. But this realization always comes too late to save him.

I never felt sorry for them, those merchant damned. They knew what they were selling all along.

We all do.

*

I stopped for the sandwich, but only because the elevator and the vending machine share an alcove and I had to wait. I charged it to Sanji’s account. Left the wrapper crumpled on the expensive, inoffensive professional carpet in front of the machine like a discarded chrysalis. Cardboard bread and ink mayonnaise, something salty in the middle. The wrapper claimed tuna, but I had doubts. I ate it anyway, one-handed, propped in the surgical steel corner of the lift, and watched the numbers drop below zero. LL-1. LL-2. LL-3, last stop.

Very fancy, these elevators. Perfectly balanced. You can’t tell you’re going down until the jolt at the bottom, unless you watch the numbers.

There’s no view of the Bay down here. No windows. Production keeps the creative consultants in the vaults below the parking level, in concrete boxes with a built-in access to total darkness, with keypads and quills and holosketcher, with bed and bath and whatever else the Muse requires. More secure than most financial institutions. But then, that’s what we are. Assets. Sanji may look out at the Bay now, but he’s only a VP’s disapproval from picking up wrappers in front of the vending machines.

I had to pass through a series of checkpoints to get to my apartment, each guarded by a pair of stern-faced handlers. I’ve been here longer than most of them. They waved me through wearing expressions that ranged from bored to twitching disgust.

Only Maggie smiled. Red-haired Maggie, with her violin curves and her constellation of freckles and her black coffee eyes.

“Carver! How are you?”

Maggie was one of my fans. My biggest, she’d said once, with nothing but skin and wine between us. Told me that I was the reason she’d gotten a job here, because she’d seen Winter Crossing and just had to meet me, had to. Told me: “Only I can’t do what you do, Carver. I wish I could.”

I didn’t think Maggie had come here to stand behind ballistic glass and watch the monitors. I figured she wanted a little magic to rub off, so that maybe she’d move out of checkpoints and into an office like Sanji’s. I think she has a better chance of making Sanji’s tea for him, but I let her keep the dream. There’s no magic to the Muse. It doesn’t work for everyone. You’ve got to have the ideas, first, the basic urge to create. The vision. The Muse facilitates the process, unlocks the pathways. Streamlines the process. Ensures consistent products and a black bottom line.

It was already time to feed the nightshift. I could see, on the far side of the checkpoint, the white-coated techs shuffling from apartment to apartment. Knock, wait, enter, pushing the little draped tray. I’m a nightshifter. Sanji knew it. Sanji might’ve called down the prescription already, along with my bluff. Create, Carver, or else. My Muse might be there already, waiting, on the tray by the door.

Like Maggie was waiting for me to answer, her smile cooling in her coffee eyes, with her hand going limp on the switch. “Carver?”

“Don’t bother,” said the other handler. Scarza, I thought his name was. Or Scarlatti. Something that sounded like disfigured pasta. “He’s got his crazy-face.”

Which I did, I knew I did. There was Muse waiting for me, and a checkpoint meat-monkey wouldn’t understand that. But I could still manage a civilized, “Fine thanks, Maggie. How’re you?”

I even waited through her answer, whatever it was.

“I’ve got a story to tell,” I blurted, when I thought she’d finished. And in a spasm of inspiration, because it would annoy Scarza: “It’s going to be for you.”

Her mouth made a pretty O. She had freckles on her lips. Tiny spots of darker rose, blossoms under the resident pink. “Me? But—”

And then I wriggled past her, shuffle-dashing toward my room, my ‘sketcher. My Muse.

Scarza’s voice followed me, sharp and deliberate. “Don’t believe him, Mags. Fuckin’ burnout. He’s got no idea what he’s saying.”

*

This is the new twist on the old tale. We sign our contracts in unimaginative black ink now, and there are no mysteries. Everything is legally sanitized. There are all the usual provisions and disclaimers. All the standard legal equipment. Services rendered, costs and salaries, mutual responsibilities. There’s the small print that details all the risks involved in what we’re about to do, and do we understand that?

Of course we do.

This is about markets, and chemical enhancements, and creating consistent output. This is about seeing your work recognized, instead of a lifetime of romantic obscurity alone with your fickle muse. Hell doesn’t wait at the far side of our contract, and our producers don’t ask for our souls.

Everyone wins, in the end.

*

I found the Muse already waiting. Ten ampoules neatly arranged on the tray, clear whiskey gold inspiration. It’s very nearly that expensive. Gold, I mean, not whiskey. Muse is a controlled substance. Addictive and licensed, much like its end product.

Time is money, and Sanji doesn’t like to waste either one.

I wiped the last of the sandwich on my trousers. Rolled up a sleeve. Sanji had said, shower first, but he’d sent me the Muse and I’m a nightshifter and I could bathe afterwards, in a morning or two, when I had the next project imaged and written.
The first few times you inject, there’s no blood. After you’ve ridden often enough, the skin thickens. The scars loo
k like tiny white freckles, little spots where the melanin won’t return. Pinprick inconvenience, the little price we pay for the ride.

And then I hesitated. Blood studded my forearm in a lucky number line, wrist to elbow. I’d worked successfully on five hits for years. A lot of begging, to get numbers six and seven. I dimly recalled the warnings, small-print that I’d dutifully skimmed while the legal rep tapped her pen on the table. A dire lists of consequences, when the body can’t ride any more. Rehab and a chemical full-stop guarantee that you’d never create again.

Consultant understands and accepts the risks and absolves the Company from all responsibility associated with any lasting ill-effects which may result from this employment. Initial here, please.

Maybe I didn’t need all ten. Maybe I could get by on eight. Or nine. This could be a test. Sanji couldn’t justify a repeated ten-ampoule dose unless my work was superb. That he’d done it even once—meant this was my very last chance.

Subject understands that s/he may be reassigned if his/her work does not meet specifications.

Sweat prickled and cooled on all my exposed surfaces. One wave. Another that streaked the spots on my arms to pink and left my clothes damp in the creases. My heartbeat accelerated and my lungs rushed to keep up. Riding the Muse requires a running jump. Any more hesitation and I wouldn’t have enough motor control left to inject.

Do you understand the risks, Mr. Carver?

Yes ma’am. I understand perfectly.

I’d already lost most of my balance. My hands shook as I sprang the needles and added three new wounds to my arm. Had to hurry. Stagger and bounce to the wall switch, to black the overheads. A short crawl from there to the holosketcher. I crouched and arranged my knees on the padding, my shoulders and elbows in the slings. Sometimes you rode the Muse, and sometimes she rode you. Old joke. But I didn’t want broken bones for a punchline. I had just enough coordination left to plug the
‘sketcher’s feeds into my wrists.

Interface. Enjoy the ride.

The tingle started at the skin and bubbled down. Acid bath ecstasy that took my consciousness with it. By the time it reached bone, I was wholly inside, spectator on a velvet cushion looking up at the vault of my skull. Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Chinese New Year—the fireworks bloomed like flowers. I saw potential inside every flash. Most of the explosions vignettes with no future. Flash and fizzle and forgotten. But a fractured handful of them lingered, fireworks become stars, their sparks raining kisses on the backside of my eyelids.

I held my imaginary breath and divided, mental mitosis, sent my daughter-selves out on reconnaissance. The Muse guarantees us a pathway, nothing more. The consultant’s job is to follow the paths and choose the most viable. It’s a combination of talent and practice. Luck, too, in the beginning, until you learn your markets. I hadn’t needed luck in a long time.

I discarded three of them immediately. Impossible. Done before. Too strange. But two remained, bright novae on the dome of my skull. I plunged a self into each of them and pulled, stretched, shaped. The stars became ribbons, thick and slick. Sometimes the ends are frayed, but these were perfect. Complete. And I’d have to waste one of them. You can’t pull two stories back from one ride.

Sanji wanted something accessible. I wanted an audience. We had the same goals. I imagined another plaque with my name on it and another season. I imagined the price of my failure. Once upon a time I wouldn’t have hesitated. Would’ve known which narrative to pick. Red. Blue. Red. Blue.

The ribbons whipped and spiraled, caught in the currents of my indecision. Sanji saved me. He sauntered out of a subconscious corner, fat-man graceful. He stood beside the ribbons. Ran his fingers the length of both, end to end.

This one, he told me. The red one, lucky color. War/love/violence, all the old clichés that never fail to please. No moralistic tales for me, no fantasies, not now and never again.

Ten ampoules. Last chance.

I chose the red. My inner Sanji beamed.

The rejected blue ribbon drifted on subconscious breezes. As I began my retreat, it descended and draped itself around Sanji. Wrapped and constricted and squeezed, until his head and his smile burst like a bubble. Blood and brains dripped down the back of my eyelids.

My heart stutter-skipped. Caught its balance.

Keep your mind inside the vehicle until the ride comes to a complete halt.

I caught my imaginary breath and pulled my selves together. Dragged the red ribbon behind me and fled.

Sanji’s dying scream followed me. It clung to the whisper-scratch of my quill on the panels. It tangled with the ‘sketcher’s subliminal hum. It filled the space between molecules and vibrated against my skin like sand inside of a shoe.

Ten ampoules. Well. There were bound to be side-effects.

I built my images in the ‘sketcher’s RAM and projected them onto the panels. Static now, translucent, until I quilled them solid. Some of us hear the Muse, rather than see it, and for them the pictures come second. But I always start with the visuals. They’re my breadcrumbs in the forest. The ball of string I follow through the labyrinth. Picture, thousand words, all that.

First: my hero-protagonist, square-jawed and predictably handsome. He wouldn’t be, when I’d finished. Two-hundred seventy degrees around the room’s perimeter, he’d be scarred and broken. Striking a final bargain with the lover he’d jilted two images further to my left, to save his true lady-love in panel four, who’d understand his sacrifice only in the end.

I scooped up a fistful of quills. I poked the first one into the panel, up to my wrist in heroic holoflesh. The ‘sketcher moaned a protest.

And out of the darkness and nowhere:

“I expected your last story to be good, Carver. This is disappointing.”

My quill-tip slipped, snagged, snapped. I dropped the broken halves and rubbed the panel smooth. Self-healing membrane. No harm done.

Laughter like an interstate fatality, a dozen notes welded in discord. “That’s not true, either.”

Toss the ruined quill. Pull another one. This is normal. Just because I’ve never heard voices before doesn’t mean anything. Ten ampoules, sure, maybe now I get audio.

“Carver. I am not one of your chemical inspirations. Look at me.”

I turned around. A stray ‘sketcher image had assembled itself, a fragment from the other story, the one I wasn’t showing to Sanji, the one that had strangled him in a fit of rejected pique.

Something more realistic, Carver.

Which she wasn’t. Wild black hair. Electric irises. And her hands, her hands, red past the wrists. Pixel blood beaded and dripped off her fingers, like she’d drawn a razor from wrist to elbow. A really good image, really clear. Maybe that was something I could salvage. My ending could use a little more drama. Maybe the heroine can’t live with her grief. Maybe she tries suicide.

The stray ‘sketcher image shook its—her—head. “This”—she swung her arm in a wide arc—”needs far more than a new ending. It needs a funeral. A pyre.”

The Muse doesn’t carry on conversations. I wasn’t crazy unless I talked back to the voice—

“It’s not my last story.”

—and it answered me.

“It is, and it’s terrible, and it’s going to kill you.”

I wrapped a fist around my quill. “What do you mean?”

“You took ten hits. That’s well above the safe dosage—”

“No. Why is this terrible?”

The wild black hair snapped in a gale only she could feel. “It’s predictable.”

“It’s what Sanji wants.”

The hum had gotten louder. More shrill. Maybe it was a glitch in the boards, some slow climb to overload. Surely the ‘sketcher would explode in a shower of sparks. I crabbed toward it. Sanji would be angry, if I wasted this ride, but I couldn’t work with damaged equipment. It wasn’t safe.

“A little late to think about safety, Car—”

I flipped the ‘sketcher’s power switch and she vanished. All my images died with her, instant black extinction. I was left with a circumference of blank walls, marred only by the first lines of the narrative that still glowed on the panel-screens. But the humming didn’t stop. It spread out beyond the ‘sketcher, invaded the black until the walls echoed with it.

Keening now. A mourning dirge. A bean sidhe’s prophetic howl. Appropriate. My last chance was already dead, its threads unraveling as the Muse abandoned me. I was going to fall off this ride with nothing to show for it. I was cancelled, finished, on a short path to reassignment and rehab. Perhaps I could emulate the hallucination, open my wrists and leave a present for the handlers when they checked on me. That would be better than a quiet spiral into last year and obscurity. Maggie would cry, but at least she’d remember me.

The tingle warned me, tactile accompaniment to the rising feedback screech. The static charge built against my skin until each follicle stood stiff and expectant. For a half-beat I thought about scrambling for the door, throwing myself into the hallway, onto Maggie’s sympathy and Sanji’s mercy.

I stared at the ‘sketcher and waited and hummed along.

She reappeared in stages. First the black sketch outline. Then the details. Color, last and finally. Black hair. Bloody hands. I wasn’t surprised when she stepped off the ‘sketcher.

“You’re wasting time, Carver.”

She didn’t cast any shadows. Threw off enough light to pick out her details, just like a real holosketch image. I studied the afterthought glow on my skin. A little bit blue, like skim milk.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. The ozone taste of her coated my tongue. “The story’s gone.”

Her eyes sparked and left tiny burns on my cheeks. The keening hitched into something brief and ugly. She made a fist and punched through my forehead. White noise bloomed on both sides of my eyelids. I squinted through the static snow and watched as she poked at Sanji’s broken remains, at the story still knotted around him. She shook it loose, and I heard the murmur of other voices. Narration. Characters. Ideas, alive and still speaking.

“You have this one.”

The ribbon hung in her hands, pristine and undamaged and perfect. A promise. A challenge. I could take it. I could write it, without the ‘sketcher’s help, and fill in the images later. Break all my patterns.

But: “It isn’t what Sanji wants.”

“Who cares what Sanji wants? What do you want?”

Renewal for another season. My name on awards.

“For you to go away.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Locked myself in.

She stepped carefully around Sanji’s remains and ran sanguine hands along the inner curves of my skull. Her fingers dragged silence behind them that lingered for a crystal-cool heartbeat. She took a double handful of me, as if I was no more than the story wrapped around her wrist, and pulled me back into the meat. I spilled out into a darkness lit only by electric eyes and wild hair and the crimson afterimage wherever her hands touched. The story, my story, dangled from her hand.

“I can’t do that, Carver. Not until you’re finished.”

Which wouldn’t be long. The ride was over, as the Muse and I broke down together. She was, herself, no more than a biochemical malfunction. My dying vision.

Who offered me a quill, that somehow wasn’t stained, that somehow didn’t slide through her skin like my own fingers did. I took it and felt the Muse ripple-dance on my nerves. The blue ribbon flared and dissolved and sank all the way into my marrow. It was a brilliant story. Maybe the best thing I’d ever conceived.

“One more chance,” she murmured.

I stabbed my quill into the panel.

*

In the old stories, the bargainer always repents. He always claims he’s been cheated, or duped, or that what he’s paid is worth so much more than what he got in return. The audience is supposed to pity him as the devil drags him to hell. And they’re supposed to turn to each other afterwards, and nod and murmur:

Poor bastard, but that’s what he gets.

They’re supposed to feel smug and satisfied, even lucky, that they themselves don’t want something that badly. That they’re too smart to enter into a bargain like that. People shouldn’t overreach. Let this be a lesson to you.

And that’s how I know those stories aren’t true. It’s not intellect, or prudence, or superior morality that keeps more people from making deals with metaphorical devils. It’s a lack of opportunity. And it’s a lack of courage.

*

Metal rattled against itself, keys and lock. I used to think it was funny that corporate millions couldn’t buy a silent door. Now I know they do it on purpose. A courtesy, in case we’re so deep in a project we don’t notice the time.

And oh, I hadn’t. My skull felt too small, my mouth too dry, and I had pain that started at the base of my neck and spiraled all the way into my fingertips. My back ached all the way through to my stomach. My eyes wouldn’t quite focus. I recognized the symptoms. Tendon, muscle, a body shriveled dry with neglect. The words blurred and smeared on the panels. Had to remember to blink, sometimes. Had to remember to swallow.

“Time’s up, Carver,” the Muse whispered.

God, “Not yet, wait, just a second…”

I knew how the story ended. All I needed was a working quill, a little more ink to finish. I dropped one quill and snatched up another. A batch of defectives, like all the other equipment this ride, with ink that dried too fast, with tips that gouged barren marks on the panel unless I paid close attention. I shook out the new quill. Pressed the tip hard into the membrane and smiled when the ink welled and beaded on the tip.

Gentler this time, a murmur that slid under my skin like a razor, flensing membrane from muscle. “Carver. It’s time.”

“Almost there,” I whispered. “Almost, almost.”

The door ceased its protest. Like everything else around here, it learns to get along. A crack of light split the dim. Invaded, spread, and was filled in turn by a pair of uneven body-shaped shadows.

“Carver?” Maggie.

And Scarza’s deeper rumble, sotto-subtle: “Christ, it stinks in here. How the hell’s he work in the dark?”

“Carver! Where are you?” Maggie’s shadow swelled against the wall. “There you are. You had me—oh my God. Scarza!”

Light gushed down from the overheads and spilled across the panels, across me. I flinched and squeezed my eyes into slits. I tried to stand, and couldn’t, no, too many hours at work, and my body wouldn’t obey. I rolled my back against the panel and shielded my eyes with my hands.

“It’s fine, I’m working, it’s almost done…”

“Jesus.” Scarza’s stare ricocheted between the panels and my pile of broken quills. “I’ll call medi—”

He fled, his jacket flapping like a wounded crow. Maggie remained, with her fingers laced over her mouth. A thin cry escaped between her fingers.

Of course. I must look awful, after so long, after one sandwich and no shower. I tried to tell her it wasn’t that bad, that I’d clean up okay, I’d get right on that once I—

—looked down at my fingers and forgot about Maggie. The quill must have broken again. Ink spilled over my hand and dripped between my fingers. I’d never really looked at the ink before. When had Sanji ordered red?

Static-flash, the smell of ozone and sticky metal.

“Carver.” Third time, final summoning. The Muse crossed in front of me, pulled my gaze with her. The lights tunneled down to bearable, dark except for the holosketch glow. My Muse. My bloody-handed Muse.

“I’m not—” Finished. But of course I was.

Her eyes dimmed and surged in an inconstant current. “I waited as long as I could.”

And she had warned me first. I hadn’t expected that kindness. I glanced back at Maggie. Tried to summon regret and couldn’t.

The Muse came between us. Touched my lips with bloody fingers. Another offer, with no contracts and no promises.

“Come with me, Carver.”

I took her hand.

---

.

About the Author

K. Eason started telling stories (to pets, stuffed animals, and anyone who might listen) in her early childhood. She ended up with two degrees in English literature before she decided that she needed to stop writing about everyone else’s stories and get back to telling her own. She lives with her husband and three black cats in Southern California, where she teaches first-year college students about zombies and cyborgs. Her short fiction has appeared in Cabinet-des-Fées, Postcards from Hell: The First Thirteen, and Jabberwocky 4.

K. can be contacted at kathryneason@yahoo.com.