#sf

The old pier was a little way outside of the modern harbour, a leftover from the days of sail. These days it was popular with swimmers more than boats. At night, though, it was unlit and very lonely.

Detective Lieutenant Dave Chandler looked around the dark beach. No-one. It seemed unlikely that someone would bomb the pier, and it would take a professional sniper to hit him from the nearest cover - and if that was the threat, he was already dead. He pulled his windbreaker closed, and started up the wooden stairs.

The old pier was nearly three hundred metres long, and it was distinctly odd to be walking it at night, with no-one around. He reached the end, checked his watch, and looked around. No-one. No boats, nothing.

"Down here" came a voice, a familiar one, if only heard in passing. He looked down, and there was Iris, in the water.
"Iris? Here, let me give you a "
She cut him off with "No, I'm better off here for now," and then pointed "Come around to the swim deck so we can talk."
He walked back to the steps down, and then sat at the edge of the deck.
"Hello, Dave. Sorry I've not been able to come by like usual."
"Iris, why don't you come out? It must be freezing in there."
"That's part of what I have to talk to you about. Look down into the water."
He started to look down, and snapped his eyes back to her face, blushing. "Err, Iris, you're, um" he stuttered.

She giggled, sounding years younger.. "I know, go on, look. It is important."
He looked down again, and then stared. And kept staring. Halfway down her naked breasts, just where the water met them, they vanished. Like there was only half a torso bobbing on the surface.
"Now watch carefully" as she spoke, the rest of her body faded into view below the water, and then faded away again.
"What...how...Wait! You're not human! That's how you survived! But why are you not coming out of the water?" He paused. "Actually, what are you?"
"Turns out being half naiad is still a naiad."
"A naiad?"
"A water nymph. My mother is one. As for why I'm not coming out, that's a bit more complicated. I will be able to in a few weeks, but I'm really going to be stuck here for a good few years."
Dave frowned, clearly not following.
"I can't leave the water because it would hurt the baby."
He stared again.
"They won't be like me. They'll be a merperson, and I'll have to take care of them full time."
"A merperson?" he asked, bewildered.
"You know how fish spawn? Well, fish like to spawn near naiads. The offspring are lucky or something. I was unconscious after getting shot in the face, and some of what was going on ended up in me."
Dave didn't know if he should be horrified.
"I'm fine with it, but it is going to make it hard to keep the mob under control" Iris continued "and I had hoped we'd get a chance to date."
He ran out of surprise at that and squeaked "Me?"

3rd and final part of https://aus.social/@rdm/114704704529092909
#SF #microfiction #SFF #microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting.

Detective Lieutenant Dave Chandler never forgot the day he first met Iris. He'd only just made Detective, and was doing a coffee run for the 'pit and this girl - no young woman - bumped into him, quite deliberately, and made a big to-do about him walking into her. And in the middle of it all, he felt her hand go into his shirt pocket, so slickly and smoothly, he was certain she was a pro. But a shirt pocket? So when she'd moved on, and he was in the queue for the coffee, he'd checked it. And there was a folded note with times, dates, and what looked like cargo manifests with ship names.

It took some convincing of his then boss, but he got permission to do a stakeout. And it had all checked out.

With the photos he'd taken that night, they'd made quite a hit on the local drug smugglers.

It had stayed like that for a few years, this pretty woman with blue-green hair would bump into him somewhere, and he'd find a note.

So he'd asked around, and found out her name, and that she was actually a year older than him. The daughter of a fisherman who'd disappeared the day she turned eighteen. No one knew who her mother was. She had a small fishing shack and a boat.

Then one night he saw her get shot, and fall into the harbour.

He'd almost gone charging in, but there were far more of the mobsters than there were of him and his partner. So they called for backup, and by the time they got there it was all too late.

But the next day, Iris had bumped into him again, and this time softly said "I'm fine." She'd known he was staking out the scene. And somehow managed to not only survive, but dodge the sweep they did to try and find her body! He'd tried to grab her, but she'd given him the slip in seconds - despite the distinctive hair.

That was the first time. Over the past year, he'd seen her shot, clubbed, stabbed and run down at least eight times. Every single time ending up in the harbour, and each time she'd bump into him the next day as if nothing had happened.

This last time, though, she'd not been back.

And now there was this letter. Telling him to look after the shack and the boat. And to go out to the old pier tonight. Alone. He had not planned on following those instructions, except for two things. A single strand of blue-green hair folded into the letter. And another list.

#microfiction #SFF #SF #Microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting

A companion to https://aus.social/@rdm/114676145868865943

I live in a small country town. We don't rate a university, the best we manage is an agricultural college. One of the ecology lecturers is an amateur astronomer though, and when a meteor landed near town, he was the first one there.

When he came back, he said it looked more like a big lump of space junk had come down - and he'd found what looked like one of the on-board experiments had survived the reentry and impact. He said it was frozen, so he took it to one of the freezer rooms at the college so it would stay safe.

It took a couple of days, but eventually some bigwigs from the national research organisation finally rocked up, and boy, was there a to-do! There was nothing in the freezer room. Literally nothing. It was as clean as the day it had been installed.

So he took them out to the impact site, and they boxed it all up and drove off.

A few days later people started noticing that the stray animals around town had vanished. A couple of days later, so had the scattering of homeless and vagrant folks. That's when the police started looking around. They really got serious when Mr Antony vanished. He was like a hundred and five, and had served on the other side in the second world war. He'd been a POW, but decided he liked it here more than his home, and stayed. He'd been really sick, with a stroke and cancer and all that, but he'd built a little farming empire, and was a big deal.

Then came the really scary stories - people vanishing from their houses. And then all the patients in our little hospital. One of the nurses said she saw what happened to the last one, and it was really horrible - something had come up out of the drain in the bathroom, engulfed the woman she'd been helping, and dragged her down into the drain like she was made of putty.

That's when the army moved in and started looking for whatever it was.

But I'd been watching and taking notes. Everyone who'd vanished had been sick. Really sick. Me? I was in perfect health, so I snuck down into the storm drains one night. And I found them. Every person, every animal that had vanished. All lined up, covered in a yellow-green goo. And this big blob of the goo nearby. It reached a tendril over, ran it over my hand, and withdrew.

As I watched, I saw the goo ooze away from one of the dogs that had gone missing. It shook itself, barked at me, and then bounded over and gave me a big lick. It looked like it was in perfect health. A week ago it was missing an ear, an eye, and a leg.

I looked at old Mr Antony - the side of his face that had hung loose after the stroke was normal again.

So now I have a problem. How do I stop the army finding this place or trying to make off with this alien healing goo? Or worse still, just torching everyone down here?

#SF #SFF #microfiction #microfic #tootfic

art announcement: i'm very happy to announce that i have graduated from zine to MEGA-zine!

"keep dreaming of structured settings" is a 44 page full-color magazine of original collages on the theme of living in space and living under the ocean.

from the back cover:

"The year is 2025. The Amazon burns. Time is running out. How will humans live? The world is desperate for solutions.

In this magazine, you'll discover wondrous new opportunities for continued human life! Living with the dolphins, your own personal pool on Mars, exploration without limits, and so much more.

Join artist Marina Kukso on this new visual/textual adventure into the possible and ask yourself: is this a world you want to inhabit?"

it's available on etsy right now for only $10, so please consider getting one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4316916338/mega-zine-keep-dreaming-of-structured

❤️ 🌌 🌊

#art #collage #space #solarpunk #SF #scifi #clifi #fiction #dystopia #environmentalism #zines