From Alpha to Omega

One of the most beautiful things in the universe, is the universe itself. It's a dynamic thing, a body in motion, at the same time silent, volatile, vibrant and peaceful. For the twelfth time, Ricca Lipski woke from stasis to regard the silent burning gases that were stars and nebulae, and bask in their cool irradiation while waiting for his body to come up to the right temperature. He wouldn't be able to make this journey more than another two times; he was getting too old and heavy. Using Greene's String-Slice Travel, the trip was shortened to a phenomenal 5 gigaparsecs each way, from one end of the "coiled spine" of the universe to the other, and he had been making it ever since he had been old enough to finally leave the university with his own fellowship. His mission in life was to measure the rates and directions of the expansion of the universe. The continual trips from one end of the "spine" to the other were to re-measure these points over time, which allowed him to make corrections to his calculations, so that he could painstakingly piece together a map the universe in four dimensions. He was hoping that he could extrapolate from his data, the position of all mass in the universe at time zero, essentially providing the final evidence that the "Big Bang" theory was either true or a pile of bunk. It probably wouldn't earn him a Nobel Laureate, but it might get him published in Science. The concept of the universe having a coiled spine was his own, and his theory essentially stated that either one end of the spine or the other, called the Alpha and Omega points, respectively, had to be the centre of the universe, the initial position of the primordial bolus of matter that had exploded in the Big Bang, as these were the only two non-moving regions in all of existence. Once he had completed collecting his data between these two points, he could finalize his map and present his model of the origin of the universe. The initial concept had gotten him his doctorate, but Omnus was the only journal willing to accept the speculative manuscript without the completed model. Not bad for a start, but it wasn't really his idea of a serious publication.

His body hit 35°C and he began shivering. This was the unpleasant part, but it only lasted as long as it took for the freighter to dock momentarily with the hotel port and eject his stasis pod into the waiting arms of the concierge.

The hotel staff were exceedingly friendly and saw him to his room with an excess of inappropriate patting and smiling. It was funny, he mused, when he was young and gawky, the ladies wouldn't come near him, and now that he was growing portly . . . well, perhaps now they saw him as harmless. Or a complete quack. He had been interviewed by the National Enquirer just before he had gone into stasis, and forgetting himself once they got him going on his subject, had given one of the best lectures of his life. He had earned a standing ovation from the reporter, and regretted not having delivered that speech to the Discovery Channel instead.

It was when he was dressing for supper that he first noticed the cracks. Branching upwards from his waist, he saw a deep red fissure running up his right side and towards his back. He was completely shocked. He hadn't felt a thing, and it didn't hurt now. Not convinced that it was actually there, he ran his fingers over it, and was dismayed when the edge of the crack erupted into a series of blebs that protruded from under the skin.

"I need a doctor!" he called, and began to curse the freighter captain for not having frozen him properly.

Forty-five minutes later, in the infirmary, the fissure was still in his side, but the blebs had retracted. The doctor tried again to seal the rupture in his skin, and finally, at her wits end, used an old fashioned needle and thread to sew it shut. Ricca lay there on his good side, with one arm lifted over his head, listening to the doctor mutter over and over again, "I don't understand why it doesn't bleed!" That, thought Ricca, was completely irrelevant. The doctor should be putting her efforts into understanding how it had happened in the first place, so that she'd make a good expert witness at the freighter captain's trial.

The stitches pulled a bit, but otherwise were not uncomfortable and did not stop Ricca from enjoying his dinner. It turned out that the concierge was his great-great grand nephew, who had planned a surprise 250th birthday party for him (he had been frozen for 185 of those years), and sprung it on him once he had escaped from the doctor. There were many bottles of champagne, many balloons, and many polite people who seemed truly appreciative of the series of mini-lectures he delivered between refills of his glass. It was nice to still have family around, especially at the Alpha end of the spine, since he would most likely finish his travels at this end and settle here to write up his findings.

"So tell me, uncle," said the concierge, whose name was also Ricca, "which way is the universe expanding? Towards the Alpha end, or the Omega end?"

"I really don't know just yet. And it may be that the universe is not expanding infinitely, but expands and contracts rhythmically in a sine wave pattern, not moving continuously in one direction. This was difficult to measure for the longest time until cryogenics and light speed travel became a practical reality. But now, I think I'm really close. You know, it seems strange, but either this contraction cycle is approximately 13 years, or the universe really is expanding in only one direction, and just swirling by the Omega point. Each time I am here, the universe seems to be expanding. Each time I am at Omega, the universe seems to be contracting. Or perhaps my perception is biased, and what I'm really witnessing is the universe flowing around the Omega point, which perhaps creates an eddy, like a motionless rock in a stream. It just looks like a contraction. Oh! Once I have this model put together, it will be so much clearer."

Young Ricca grinned appreciatively, genuinely enjoying himself. "Perhaps, uncle, you have named the endpoints of the spine more aptly than you intended. Perhaps Alpha is the beginning of the universe, and Omega is the end. All matter is flowing from one to the other."

Ricca was momentarily flabbergasted. "How can that be?" he asked finally. "We'd see an increase in the mass of New Portugal, as it sits right next to the Omega point. Or it would be showered constantly with incoming meteorites, or something. It hasn't been observed!"

Young Ricca smiled and nodded considerately. "Of course. I'm only a poet, not a scientist. I think of things differently."

At the end of the party, Ricca returned to his rooms and was feeling quite tired, even after having slept for the last 13 years. He went straight to bed without giving much thought to his evening routine, rationalizing that he could take care of it in the morning. His dreams were filled with accolades and brown nosing as he presented his completed model to the Intergalactic Coalition for the Study of Quantum Mechanics (ICSQM). And then he saw it. In his dream, he held up the holoimage of the 4 dimensional model, turned it in his hands, played it back and forth through time, and watched, fascinated, as the flow of the universe moved past the limits of his data, showing him the origin of the universe . . . and then the end of it. And then he was distracted, as the butt-kissing president of ICSQM came to shake his hand in front of all the news media, and handed him a book.

"What is it?" Ricca asked in his dream.

"Your biography," was the answer. On the cover of the book was Ricca's name, and the exact date of his birth, followed by the exact date of his death.

He woke and sat up in a cold sweat.

In the dark of the hotel room, Ricca counted on his fingers the number of years of life his dream predicted he had left and came up with the number 13.

"Oh, you're being silly," he told himself. There were more important images in the dream, and he prodded his memory for the model he had seen ever so clearly. He replayed it in his mind, moving backwards in time, and then suddenly, when it reached the end of his data, he forgot what he had dreamt. Annoyed at the lapse and his own morbid fascination, he replayed the dream the other way, almost terrified that he would remember how he had seen the universe end. He reached the end of his data . . . and forgot. What had he seen?? It had been almost like a convoluted funnel, turning inwards on itself, folding inside out, but then what???

"Ah well," he sighed, and lay down again. Two more trips and then he would find out the proper way, with real data. The stitches along his side were a bit itchy, but he supposed that meant the crack was healing. If it went away quickly enough, he might not even bother suing the freighter captain.

Then next morning, he was delighted to find that young Ricca had arranged access to the Astronet Processor, which had been improved greatly during his last stasis sleep. He uploaded all of his data to the processor and began to construct his model, based on what he had so far. Astronet had several marvelous programs, including internal extrapolation functions, that allowed him to correct several of his vectors, and predict the best points of measurement for his next journey. Finally, he plugged in the last of the predictive algorithms, and with great relish, clicked on the function that would construct a graphical representation of the universe (making certain assumptions about the missing data). It did indeed look like a convoluted funnel that turned inwards on itself at the narrowed, farmost end (the Omega point), but the actual shape was difficult to discern. He removed the 4th dimension, and the model became a "snapshot" that was no longer in motion. Then he "sliced" through the 3-D construct to have a look at a cross section. The first horrifying realisation, was that he had completely miscalculated the location of the Omega point. He had been off by fifty three parsecs. How could he have been so wrong? He irrationally hoped that the National Enquirer would accept his apologies for having given them incorrect information. Ricca corrected the location, then clicked on the "linearize" function, to straighten out the structure and allow him to see what it looked like in only two dimensions. The structure was entirely too simplified and didn't make any sense. Keeping it linearized, he re-layered the 3rd dimension, and then stared at the graphic in disbelief. The second horrifying realisation, was that the Omega point wasn't the end of the universe at all. In fact it wasn't even the end of the coiled spine. He had a sudden creepy-crawling feeling ice its way over his skin, as he thought about having to retract his thesis. Don't be silly, he told himself. It was just a prediction, and still publishable. The modification of the theory will just show that I've made progress. What was the Omega point then? From the linear image, the universe appeared to be a long tube, with regularly spaced, periodic bulges, and the Omega point was like a constriction, that in four dimensions, would force the tube to convolute and fold into another set of directions, and then it would continue on with its periodic bulging. The predictive algorithms made it seem very likely that there were more than one set of Alpha and Omega points, each set demarcating discrete portions of the universe, and acting as anchors to seemingly hold the entire universe in place. Wondering why he had never found these points before, and where they might lie in the universe, he marked his original Alpha and Omega points with bright green, the others in bright red, and allowed the structure to fold back into its natural convolutions. He then set the whole thing in motion. The coiled spine reappeared, and the other points were nowhere in sight. Ricca sighed in exasperation and reset the model so that it would start at the beginning of his data, and move forwards only. The universe expanded, seemingly flowing in various directions, all eventually turning towards Omega. Then the entire universe imploded at point Omega and all matter clumped into one mass.

"What?" exclaimed Ricca angrily. The model was no longer moving, and he thought that the program had crashed. He hit a few keys, and the message popped up: "Continue simulation?" He clicked "Continue" and waited. After a few moments, the mass exploded, just like the Big Bang, and the universe re-expanded into a little bubble.

"Oh, this is entirely wrong!" He ran his hands over his face, and then pulled back in a fright. Had he felt cracks on the right side of his face? "Ricca!" he called his nephew. "Ricca, what's happened to my face?" The concierge came at once and took his uncle to the doctor. Neither one of them turned to see that on the graphic simulation, the debris of the universe had moved aside to reveal a bright red dot at the point of the explosion's origin, and after a few moments, as the universe unfolded a bit further, a second red dot winked into existence, right at the proper location to form a coiled spine between itself and its partner. All matter in the predicted universe was expanding outwards from Alpha2, and through convoluted, non-linear motions, was moving towards Omega2. Then it cycled again, imploding at Omega2 and re-expanding at Alpha3. A little while later, the housekeeping staff sympathetically shut down the simulation and logged off Astronet.

In the clinic, young Ricca was trying to soothe his apoplectic uncle who was inventing several methods of freighter captain torture and dismemberment. Instead of stitching the cracks shut, the doctor had filled them in with temporary synthetic tissue (unfortunately she only had it in purple), and had ordered Ricca to stay put until she had determined the cause of his rupturing skin, and why it did not bleed.

"Please be calm, uncle. You don't know whose fault it is, if anyone's. Your health is the most important thing now. Don't think of things that make you angry."

Ricca sat up again and pushed aside his nephew's arms. "I need to make sure my probes are recording properly. I don't have time to sit around here! In a few weeks I'll have to make my next journey back to Omega."

"You're too close to your work, uncle. It's affecting you badly. Take a step back from it, and I'm sure you'll be fine."

Ricca stood tried to ignore that last statement. Of course he was close to his work. That was his whole life! That was what he was, right down to the very core of his being. He was prevented from leaving by the doctor, who had just returned from her lab.

"Dr. Lipski, you've got a very unusual condition," she said. "I've never heard or seen anything like it. The strange blistering that you described when the cracks first appeared, it hasn't disappeared at all, just internalized. Here, you can see it on your body scan." The doctor pressed a key on her wristband and a hologram of Ricca's insides shot out from projectors in the wall. Indeed, several bulges were seen across the simulated peritoneum and muscle walls of the abdomen. "They appear to be migrating from your right side to your left. I would like to try magnetic resonance to prevent this from getting worse."

"What would that do?" Ricca asked.

The doctor looked sheepish as she replied, "Well, essentially I want to try to push everything back into place. I think I can do this with magnetic forces. I know it's a bit alternative, but it's worth a shot."

After twenty minutes in the magnetic chamber, Ricca's wounds began to bleed. He called this out to the doctor, who seemed pleased.

"That's a good sign that things are no longer being pulled to the left," she called back.

After forty minutes, the temporary tissue patch had been pushed out of place, and the stitches on his side no longer pulled. It took only a few minutes more for the doctor to seal up the cracks by conventional means. She seemed both relieved and satisfied as she released him.

Three weeks later, his data and new calculations carefully stored in his media case, Ricca bade a teary farewell to his nephew. The next time they would meet the concierge would be in his late fifties, and the relationship would necessarily be different. He didn't tell his nephew this, but before getting into his stasis chamber (first class this time), he had fired off a message to his lawyer to begin proceedings against the freighter captain. Hopefully, there would be a settlement waiting for him the next time he was at the Alpha point, and he could buy his nephew some new suits.

Upon arrival at New Portugal, 13 years later, Ricca's stasis chamber was automatically re-routed to the secondary destination, Arbitan, three parsecs away. The transport captain duly logged the vital signs of his passenger before sending him off, and other than noting that the metabolic activity was a bit higher than it should be, there were no abnormalities.

Arbitan was a pacifist colony, and while they tried to keep their technology up to date, they felt a bit backwards in terms of worldliness, and thus were confused when they thawed out Ricca's stasis chamber and attempted to wake him up. The window plate was frosted up from the inside, which prevented them from seeing through it. A passenger was there all right, all the sensors said so, but there was a strange vacuum inside that made it difficult to lift the lid. Worried that he might suffocate, they pierced the gasket and equalized the pressure before manually overriding the locking mechanism. The chamber seemed empty except for a thin rod of some strange, compact material. They were about to contact the transport captain, and ask what he had meant to ship in this chamber, when the rod suddenly unfolded, and expanded from left to right into a human being: male, thin, about 25 or 26 and completely speechless. He didn't seem to know who or where he was. The documentation didn't help, it obviously had gotten switched. There was no way this boy could be Dr. R. Lipski, unfrozen age of 65. They ran the recording logs on the freezer which spat out a hologram outlined in green light, of a rather portly, older gentleman going through the freezing process. Over the course of the 13 year journey, cracks appeared along his right side, and his entire body pulled all the way to the left, the movement of pixels on the hologram seeming to flow through an invisible funnel, until they formed the thin rod they had seen on opening the casket. The simulation continued, showing that after the vacuum had been released, the pixels reappeared, and flowed outward from whatever unseen dimension they had been in, now moving towards the right until the new body had been formed.

"Well, I've never seen that before," commented the Arbitan mayor. "Must be some kind of new shipping technology that rejuvenates you as you sleep. We don't have anything like that! I expect we'll be needing to get our systems updated again."

"Orlan!" said his wife. "You've just been through an update. Remember the doctor told you not to become your work. It'll be the death of you!"

"Sweetheart," the mayor responded, "sometimes my work makes me feel like a new man."

THE END

An Interview With My Next Door Neighbour

Bobby, who lives in 7B across the hall, is a vampire. He was born as Roberto Santiago Amar del Imiani, about 850 years ago. I had slipped him a note under his door the previous week, hoping that he would grant me an interview, since vampires are very much in vogue these days, and I was in desperate need of a sale. He had left me a voice mail message last night, saying that he would see me this evening, as soon as he woke. That was quite all right with me, since as a writer, I was a nocturnal creature myself.

He arrived at my door dressed in a splendid evening robe of dark red velvet, and sporting a longish coif that must have required more than a handful of styling gel. I invited him in and offered him a chair, which he declined, and a glass of red wine, which he graciously accepted. As I sat at my desk, I took a while fiddling with pens and paper, in order to give myself an opportunity to steal furtive glances at him, trying to remember each shadow and line of his jaw, and the elegance of his movements, as he paced wretchedly in front of my mantelpiece, letting me see how tormented he was. I suppose, if you like men, he was beautiful. His skin was a translucent alabaster that showed the delicate pulsing of blood at his throat, and every feature was like a classic chisel cut, as though Michealangelo himself had formed this creature. His dark hair was cut just so it could droop wantonly into his dark violet eyes, giving him that boyish come-hither charm, which was so useful in luring his victims.

I finally pulled my favourite pen, which I had isolated earlier, from my pocket and cleared my throat. He looked up at me, those great, wide eyes glossy and almost weeping with his inner pain.

"I am glad you asked for this interview, Simon," he said. "I feel that unburdening myself to you will ease me greatly. I only ask that you do not reveal my true name in your article."

"Of course, of course," I crooned solicitously, and begged him to begin. He told me of his victims, and how he had taken each of them, and how some had been willing, and how some had cursed him even as they died, yada yada yada, until I felt I simply had to interrupt.

"Er, Bobby," I said, "this is all very interesting, but it's a bit disjointed. I don't suppose you have one particular story you'd like to tell, perhaps something dashing and exciting, like almost getting caught by the Inquisition, or something like that?"

"I don't think you even begin to understand me," he protested. "I loved each and every person I took, whether male or female, adult or child. I must tell you this, in order for me to reveal my innermost soul to you."

"Hem. I see." I clicked my pen a few times and looked up to see him glaring at my hesitation, his skin turning a dangerous mottled purple. I sought to console him: "Perhaps we can work on your autobiography later, it's just that I have a shot at a feature article, and it has got to grab the reader instantaneously. I'm afraid the editor won't tolerate a long introduction to your innermost soul. I've got to sum it up in a sentence or two, and then get on to a pointed episode of your life, one that will hook the reader, and then, bam! Out comes the book revealing the entire story."

He seemed to accept that, and relaxed again, making it clear that his continued co-operation was dependent upon my refilling his glass.

"Now then, Bobby," I said.

"Roberto," he corrected me.

"Forgive me, Roberto. Let's focus on one particular event in your life. Have you ever been caught while devouring one of your victims? Nearly staked through the heart, had Holy Water strewn on you, lost track of time and got home just before sunrise, anything like that?"

He chuckled at that and smiled at me with the patronising tolerance one gives to a convivial but stupid host.

"I am but a myth, Simon. Nobody believes in me enough to actually go after me in such a fashion. I've become the stuff of pop fantasy. No, I'm afraid not."

"Hmm. No one has ever shot at you with silver bullets?"

"No, that wouldn't be my department." He looked at me pointedly.

I sat back, somewhat frustrated and perplexed, scratching at an itchy spot on my scalp with the pen.

"Well, all right then. You've had many loves. Let's pick one and work with that."

"Ah yes, Amanita Dela Champagne. She was my fourth. I knew her when I was still very new to my immortal life . . ."

He rambled on again, completely losing focus and telling me irrelevant details of what colour Amanita's dress was and her cup size, yada yada yada, until I was forced to interrupt him again.

"So what happened to Amanita?" I asked. "Is she now a vampire roaming New York City? An undead prostitute horrifying her clients into never coming back, anything Oprahish like that?"

Roberto paused for a moment, blinking rapidly. Apparently I had completely derailed his thoughts.

"Er, no. Actually she died. I would have made her a vampire, but she was shot through the heart with a silver-tipped crossbow bolt before the transformation could be made complete."

"Ah! Now we're getting somewhere! So, you were in love with her, but you couldn't save her! You knew she was being hunted, but could not reach her in time, and warn her of her impending doom! I love it! This is going to work quite nicely!" I said.

Roberto turned his back on me.

"No. I did not try to save her."

I paused to let that one sink in.

"So she dumped you? Say, if silver-tipped crossbow bolts work, why not silver bullets? I mean --"

Roberto whirled around and cut me off.

"God! Enough with your silver bullets already! And she did not dump me!"

"All right, all right," I said, and waved him back soothingly. "Let's pick someone different and try that."

Roberto humphed and crossed his arms, one hand reaching up to rub at his nose. After a moment, he sighed and said, "David of Rimms."

"All right, David." I paused to write this down. "What did you do to David?"

"Well, as I said before, I was in love with him."

"You realise that I will only be able to sell this to a liberal sort of magazine," I said mildly.

"Look, do you want the story or not?" he demanded.

"Yes, I do. Please continue."

"And NO silver bullets!"

"Of course not. No more of that."

This time his monologue was definitely better, and I believe he was beginning to understand what it was that I wanted from him. As he spoke, I jotted down quite a luscious love story of forbidden behaviours and desperate joy as he and David roamed the French countryside together for over 50 years, until in a fit of jealousy over one of Roberto's casual lovers, David left him for a woman who was actually a decoy from the Catholic Church, and who had led David to his tragic death.

It was a fabulous piece.

I was intrigued by the roaming bit, and wanted to get some more detail, to give the reader a heightened sense of really being there. I think Roberto was flattered that I truly loved his story, and wanted to get it just right. He co-operated in answering my questions, only giving me an annoyed glance once when I asked if he and David had ever howled at the moon. I backed off of that topic, sensing I might lose him and got more detail on blood sucking and flying at night, which he revelled in, then forgot myself and made a bit of a mistake, by asking if he could only fly when there was a full moon.

"Of course not!" he retorted hotly. "You're getting us mixed up again."

"Sorry, sorry."

"Look, Simon, it's almost dawn. Is there anything else you need?"

I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and indeed, it was almost dawn. I stretched and resisted scratching myself, just now realising how tired the wine and interviewing all night had left me. I suppose my brain was not functioning quite right, as I searched it clumsily for any last questions I might have, and supplied the following: "Did you and David ever transform into hounds or bears or anything, when chasing down your victims? Kinda like that movie version of Dracula with Winona Ryder in it?"

I knew I had lost him for sure then. Roberto's shoulders sagged, his mouth hung open, and the wine glass dangled from loose fingertips. He certainly wasn't posing for me anymore. No more strutting and elegant hand waves, he just stared at me with disbelief and utter disgust.

"Piss off!" Bobby said finally. "If werewolves were so hot, why is it that no one has ever tried to interview you!"

The End.

The Game (An Interview with Jeff)

I needed some distraction in the worst way, so I called my bud Nina and had her drop me off at The Texan Lounge on the Karnellian Lunar Base. Nina's usually pretty busy, what with saving the Earth and all, but she's the only person I know in Canada who has a spaceship, and as always, she was happy to oblige.

Once past the decontam lock, I was very relieved to be able to shuck my space suit and pull in a few lungfuls of recycled air. They weren't bad at the Texan. Their filters were changed regularly, and they put a hint of mesquite in the atmosphere. At any rate, it was way better than what the suit could offer me. They also scan you on the way in, eliminating passport checks and the rest of it.

The other thing I really liked about the Texan was the way they had the place lit, so that the lighting didn't interfere with the spectacular view of the Shoshuma Nebula that slowly spiralled 30 million light years outside the transplex windows of the lounge. They had the outfit the main structure with metal reinforcements, all grey and pocked with rivets, but otherwise the joint was decorated with wooden siding and bull skulls complete with horns. The staff all wore their long hair in ponytails, strutted about in jeans, sometimes under chaps, and white shirts with string ties. Guillaume, the bartender, doesn't really fit in a Texan bar, but he knows how to make just about any drink you can imagine, so they hired him anyway. He already had a lime margarita waiting for me when I walked in.

"Salut, Chérie," he greeted me. "Ça va?"

"Hey Guillaume. Not bad. You?"

"Ah, tout va bien. Comme toujours. Hé, there is a – comment dit on? A sheark, here. Maybe you want to play against 'im? I've watched 'im win the last 9 games 'e's played. You like a challenge, non?"

I turned to follow Guillaume's line of sight, and saw a figure sitting in a dusky corner of the lounge, wearing a long, brown coat with a shoulder cape, his face covered by the wide brim of a Stetson, and a Jack and Coke in one hand. No one was in a game with him now. I noticed that Daniel Craig was sitting at a different table, taking in some other suckers. I guessed the "sheark" was too much even for him.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"All dat I know, is 'e is called 'Jeff'. 'E says 'e is from San Diego, but 'e talks like 'e is from New York." Guillaume grinned at me and pushed a set of cards and chips across the bar. He knew I couldn’t resist a good round of Hold 'Em. "Apparently, 'e is also a member of dat writers' group you used to be with. Creeters."

"Oh, Critters? Cool. Thanks, Guillaume." I picked up the card set and walked over to the table.

"Hi!" I said when I reached where he sat. "You Jeff?"

Dude looked up and a slow grin stretched across his face when he saw the silver case of chips. He kicked out a chair for me.

"Have a seat," he said. "You can deal first."

The tables at the Texan automatically link your bank account to the chips you toss onto the surface. Depending on how much you have, the chips change colour. If you're out of cash, they remain clear. My chips started staying clear alarmingly quickly. I tried to discretely scoop half of them back into the case, checking to see if Jeff had noticed. Of course he had. I pretended not to care and counted out an equal number for him. All his remained coloured. We threw in the ante, and he posted a blind as I dealt and put down the flop.

"So I hear you're with Critters," I began conversationally.

"Yeah," said Jeff. So far he seemed like a pretty relaxed guy. "I'm just in the process of shopping short stories around now, so there's nothing that I can really promote just yet. I do have – what I've been told by my readers – a twisted, little fairy tale called 'Prodigy' that I'm shopping around. Another, 'Flashpoint', is currently in edit."

"Awesome." My hand sucked, but I didn't want to let on this early, so I matched his bet and dealt the turn. "Any novels in the works?"

"I really like creating something that someone can enjoy in a short amount of time. I have more than a few novels in me, but for now I'm focused on shorter works."

Things were looking up with the turn. I matched again and put down the river. "Any super deep messages in your stuff?"

"I write to entertain. There are times when the topics are heavier, but if someone says of my work: 'that was great/fun/scary/thought provoking/etc.' then I've done my job. I'm not out to write something clever just for the sake of being clever."

Split pot. I was nervous, but at least I was still in the game. I discretely wiped my hands on my jeans as Jeff collected the cards.

"Kinda sounds like you're more into fantasy than SF."

"Yeah, dark fantasy. I really enjoy starting out with something grounded in reality and then taking it a bit off center. The 'dark' part comes in why people make the easy decision instead of the right one. I'm doing some research on a science fiction novel that has been chasing around in my brain for a while, but I'll let you know once I get to the writing on that one." He looked up and winked.

As Jeff shuffled, Daniel Craig's cell phone rang and I flinched. It was the James Bond theme. While he was talking, two more of his phones sounded off. Man, the guy had, like, five cell phones. All at once, his cell phones seemed to feed back into each other and two of them blew up, setting Daniel's white suit on fire.

Jeff laughed. "Here's to a world without cell phones!" he crowed. "You know, I tried to win those off him, just so I could smash them, but he got all offended and walked off."

The next hand proceeded. Things were looking pretty good for me after the flop, so I raised the bet. Jeff eyed me speculatively, then said, "You know, I see you haven't got much cash, but I'm sure we can make this more interesting. How 'bout I throw in the best car in the universe? My Ford Mustang."

I gave a tell when my fingers started tapping the table. I pretended I was sizing him up, when I already knew he was, how did Guillaume say? A shark. I tried to pry some information out of him, and ended up asking a really stupid question.

"A Mustang, huh? You got some kind of superpowers to go along with that?"

"Sure," said Jeff. "The ability to find a path to the best possible outcome in all situations. Nothing too big, just the sort of thing that makes people smack their head and say 'Damn, why didn't I think of that?' Just call me Captain Obvious."

Geez, this guy was good. He wasn't giving anything away.

"Well, I haven't got a fancy car. How about a really good character. Those are always useful to a writer."

Jeff shrugged. "Depends what it is."

"What kind of D&D character would you prefer?"

"One of my favorites was a hunchback thief who used to work in the circus and used to get in trouble for sticking up for the underdog."

"Uh, haven't got one of those. How about a villain?"

"It would have to be cross between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Neither are villains, but a driven, charming, uncle/mentor character that has dreams of world domination and a rubber chicken fetish. That and a monkey henchman – Henchmonkey? – that he's always admonishing for smoking."

"Huh. Haven't got one of those either."

"How about an extra publishing contract?" countered Jeff. "I'd like to be with Simon & Shuster. I've got Stef Penney's 'Tenderness of Wolves' sitting right next to me. This is her first novel and they've done a great job at getting the word out and producing it."

"I wish. Nope, haven't got that either. I do have a small moon out in the Toopa System. Haven't seen it yet, but the agent told me it has terellium deposits."

Jeff considered. "OK," he finally said, and the turn was tossed on the table. It was not good. Jeff was calm and relaxed. Smiling slightly. I bet he had a straight. I tried to distract him.

"So which authors are you into the most?"

"Oh, I like Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, Raymond Chandler, and James Morrow. Although the book that impressed me the most in my life was 'The Big Sleep' by Raymond Chandler. Great characters, awesome plot, and plenty of sharp dialog. He had me at: 'dead men are heavier than broken hearts.'"

"Wow. That does sound good."

"So does this," said Jeff as the river hit the table. Maybe good for him. I was one card short of a flush and didn't even have a pair. There went my moon. I stood up.

"Hey, no hard feelings?" asked Jeff. He held out his hand. He really was an OK guy.

"No, of course not. I'm just cleaned out. Good luck with the writing, eh?" I shook his hand.

As I walked out, Guillaume gave me a commiserating smile and said, "Dommage, Chérie. Meilleur chance la prochaine fois!"

You can visit Jeff (and maybe test his poker skills) at his MySpace page.