An Absolute Knack

Miss Elsie Jefferson had an absolute knack for assembling IKEA furniture. Everything she assembled turned out wrong. When she bought a bed and put it together in her room, it somehow ended up taller than it was long and sloping at a rather uncomfortable angle. She bought a large bookcase, but when she was finished she had managed to put together three CD racks.

Even though the furniture never worked out, the prices were right, so she always came back. She purchased a set of kitchen drawers and wound up with a birdhouse, a mailbox, and a matryoshka doll of increasingly small Swedes. All with a simple Allen wrench.

The simpler the construction, the wilder her results. When she brought home a coathook, by the time she was finished screwing it into the wall it was a television. She bought a simple chair — just four screws! — and assembled it in the driveway, hoping for a car. She wound up with a chrome engine, pumping out energy with no discernible fuel.

The Department of Defense came and took it away. Then they came back and took Elsie away. A week later, the DoD placed a standing order with IKEA.

X-Files 2035

"Scully!" Mulder pounded on her door. "Scully! Scuuuulllll—" "What?" Scully yanked the door open in her bathrobe. "What's so important it can't wait for morning?"

"A conspiracy," Mulder whispered.

"It's always a conspiracy." Scully closed the door, but Mulder jammed it with his walker.

"But the truth. It's out there. Or, it's in here. Downstairs. In the kitchen."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll meet you down there."

"You're not coming with me?" He turned his walker toward the elevator.

"Stairs are good for my osteoporosis," she said.

Downstairs, Mulder pointed at a low cabinet. "The truth is in there." Scully looked at him. "When have I been wrong?"

"An answer would take all night." She bent down and opened the cabinet. "Mixing bowls, Mulder."

"Look deeper!"

"And a bag of... caramels?"

"Give 'em here!" She passed them up. "Skinner's been hiding them from me. Knows I can't bend these knees anymore. The truth is also in there." Mulder pointed at the fridge. "Krycek hid your pastrami."

"That bastard!" She ransacked the fridge and came out with meat. "Time for one more midnight autopsy." She got a knife from the drawer.

"It's good to be back," said Mulder, getting bread.

A Decent Lowlife

"Memchip, gimme." D-point-six held out an open palm. "Aw, man, c'mon. You don't need that shit, you know my rep, man." Detective Raoul Ramos knew his memchip was loaded with memories that would mark him a decent lowlife, memories borrowed from chips held in evidence for authenticity. He also knew that not whining about it would harm his cover as Papa Rox, petty dealer and part-time murderer.

"Fuck your rep," D.6 said. Rayza, D.6's right-hand girl, put her gun up to his head.

"Yeah, man, fine, whatever." He reached up to his temple and released the chip. As it unplugged, his port sealed up to prevent infection. "Here." He slapped it into D.6's hand.

D.6 put it in his own temple port and started accessing the stored memories. "Yeah." He nodded. "This is good stuff. This is real. Ooh," he flinched, grinning, "that shit's nasty. You're nasty." He laughed.

D.6 gave the memchip back and said, "Ain't no cop done these things. Know how I know?" He leaned in close as Raoul reinstalled the chip. "'Cause I done some of 'em."

The memories flooded into Raoul's brain with crystal clarity, followed closely by a bullet.

Like a Clipped Coin

"Go then," the king had said. "Gather your armies and carry our message to the Witch-Queen Malumbra. We shall resist her to our dying breaths!" At the head of her armies, the general marched on the Witch-Queen's horde. She used every tactic and trick, but the onslaught of ghouls, damned spirits, and twisted ogres overwhelmed her armies. Harsh months of campaigning left her with a single bloodied company, limping back to the castle to recommend capitulation.

No one challenged her at the city wall. No one greeted her at the castle gate. The throne room was vacant, its great fireplaces cold. She found the city abandoned, and found a notice declaring evacuation, dated after her departure.

She sent her soldiers on and waited in the castle. When Malumbra's monsters reached the city, they bore Malumbra by palanquin to the throne room. "Will you surrender?" asked the Witch-Queen.

"No." The general sounded tired. "My king spent me like a clipped coin. My people have mourned me. But I will never be yours."

"I'll rip your soul from the lands of the dead and enthrall you to my will," said Malumbra.

The general raised her sword. "Only if you can kill me."

Medulla Animus

"So, what are we seeing you for today?" Doctor Marta sat at her keyboard, ready to take notes. "Well, I think I strained my soul," Ophelia said. "It hurts when I try to learn new things or think about — ow — vegetables."

"Can you rate the pain on a scale of one to ten?"

"Maybe a three? Or a four?"

"How'd this happen?"

"Well, uh, I was helping my friend move furniture, and we tried, uh, working together to make it lighter."

"Okay, lie down on the table." Marta pulled on nitrile gloves with a red-ink pattern on the palm. "Tell me what hurts." She moved her palm over Ophelia's skin. "What were you moving?" she asked.

"Uh, chest of drawers, bed, things like that. My friend, uh, she's moving."

"Mmmm-hmmm. Well, you definitely have some inflammation in the medulla animus. I'm going to send you for an aura reading just to be sure, but it should clear up on its own. I'd like to give you this literature on safe soul-merging—"

Ophelia reddened.

"—and remind you about our free soul shield program. Do you want to take any?" She held out some individually-wrapped soul protection.

Ophelia took three.

The King's Wizard

The king's wizard sat in her tower, the tallest in the great castle, staring into the fire. She'd once thought the tower a sign of respect for her wisdom. Now, she wondered whether it was to keep the strangeness of magic as far away from the throne as possible. She stroked her beard. Why did she advise the king anyway? The king had many advisors: advisors for war and for commerce, for politics and for the harvest. He had a royal huntsman, official advisor of the hunt! He preferred not to think about magic, so the wizard had little to do.

And if the king didn't need her, why did the wizard stay? Why continue to think of herself as the king's wizard? Serving the king afforded her comfort and safety. Were those worth feeling so adrift, having command of great creative forces but having no use for them?

No. The wizard packed a few things: a change of robes, a comb for her beard, a week's food and water. She left all the gold and silver objects littering her chambers. She wouldn't be beholden to the king any longer than she must. She would be her own wizard now.

112 West Elm

"Oh, my God!" Jack hollered from the street. Ben leaned out the window of the garbage truck and looked back at his partner. "What?"

"It's, it's..." Jack's gorge rose and he fought off retching. You've gotta come see this.

Ben swung down out of the cab and walked toward Jack until he could see the arm dangling limply out of the waste bin. "Huh," he said. "I guess they didn't need him anymore."

"Who— who does that?" Jack demanded.

"The folks at one-twelve West Elm, I guess." Ben shrugged. "They should've used the yard waste bin, though. Compostable, right?"

"How can you be so, so calm about this? Someone put a body in the trash! We have to call the cops or, or something."

"No cops," Ben said. "They'll complicate everything, and the family will wonder why we didn't take care of it like we're supposed to, and—"

"Oh, hey." Jack had crept close and poked the arm. "It's fake, like one of those things they put out around Halloween. Thank God, right?"

"Yeah, man. Can we get on with it?" Ben headed back to the driver's seat.

"Uh, hey," Jack said. "What did you mean, 'like we're supposed to?'"