The God Equation and Other Stories by Michael A.R. Co Read Free Book Online Page A

media.”
    “Pigafetta,” said Tomas.
    “Actually, I think it was Juan de Zubileta, the ship ’ s page, who was listed among the eighteen names. He was barely out of his teens.”
    “So you shot him?”
    “I couldn ’ t.”
    “Because you realized he was just a boy.”
    “No, I couldn ’ t decide whether to aim for his head or his heart.”
    “That ’ s cold.”
    “He and I just stared at each other until I woke up.”
    “Ah, the burden of choice. Too bad it didn ’ t happen.”
    “Probably did, in another lifetime. Dreams can be windows to possible futures.”
    “I ’ ve always wanted to visit Guam. You think the natives will welcome us there?”
    “It ’ s too far, but there are dozens of other islands that we can reach with the extra fuel we have. Let ’ s island hop. We could head south, toward the Gambier Islands, or north to the Marquesas.”
    “Yes, ma ’ am.”
    “Call me Fatima. The mission was a failure. We ’ re civilians now.”
    He loaded the last piece of equipment, an unused rocket launcher, into their boat. “Fatima?”
    “Yes?”
    “Honestly, do you think our mission was a failure? What if by landing on this deserted island, even without encountering or interacting with any other soul, we still managed to make the right ripples.”
    “Tomas,” she said, “I hope you ’ re right. I mean it. Given the circumstances, I ’ d rather imagine, or better yet, believe, that space-time is filled with the flapping wings of butterflies.”
    The two marines launched themselves out to sea. They threw their weapons and munitions overboard as they passed through deep waters. They rode into the west but away from the sunrise.
    Captain Rodriguez and Lieutenant Estregan were never heard from again for the next five hundred years. Their place in history occurred only at the end of the year 2020 when they unwittingly volunteered to sit in a rubber boat, oddly placed in the middle of a spherical chamber, in the heart of a nuclear submarine.
    Things get repetitiously tedious and tediously repetitious from that point on in very much the same way the human story tends to repeat itself not in clean cycles but in convoluted knots of well-meant plans, disastrous failures, and sincere ignorance, all the while bobbing in an ocean of impudence and inevitability. So their story ends here, in 1521.
    They waited for as long as they could. Victoria never came to meet them.
     
     
    “Waiting for Victory” copyright © 2006 by Michael A.R. Co. First published in Philippine Speculative Fiction vol. 2, 2006.

THE OFF SEASON
     
    I was young then, so long ago. I had just turned twenty-one. Friends threw me a little late night party and after a few rounds of beer and smokes, Boyet — or maybe Fred — led me to the upstairs bedroom.
    "The guys have arranged a little surprise for you," said Boyet/Fred. He opened the door and switched on the lights. Lying on the bed was the cutest piss drunk chick I ever saw.
    "She ’ s all yours buddy," said Boyet/Fred. "You get dibs, it being your birthday and all. But I ’ m next, okay?" He shook my hand, patted me on the arm, and I found a condom in my palm. When he smiled I noticed his ill-fitting dentures, so maybe it was Fred. He locked the door on his way out. Thoughtful bastards.
    She wore a black tank top, a micro mini, and shoes with platform heels. She was like a limp doll, I thought at the time, probably in her teens. Was she really a pro? Her arms were folded above her head, and one of her long spread-eagled legs was hanging off the edge of the bed. Her face isn ’ t too clear to me now, but she had full lips, a straight nose, and was pretty hot enough to be someone ’ s girlfriend, you know, the ones with the face of an angel and the body of a whore. She smelled good, like sweet dessert, cinnamon or taffy. I raised her skirt, pulled her black thong to one side, and slowly inched my protected member into her. It was over in five minutes. She didn ’ t make a