3 Futures by Peter T. McQueeny (2014, 199 pages) – This is a collection of three novellas of the future. It starts off with a bang when we’re introduced to Father Frankenstein (come on, the name alone gets your attention) in “Hidden Deeds” as the space-traveling priest assigned to disprove a young woman’s been possessed. In his job, he mostly finds what psychological ailment they have that looks like possession.
To add a bit of stickiness to the situation, the young woman is married to the senior administrator on the moon, a young man on his way up – no matter what. He thinks his wife is just having a nervous breakdown caused by her being kidnapped for a few days while on vacation in New Orleans.
After his interview with the subject, Father Frankenstein is confused. Not only does the sudden seductress make a pass at him, but she invites the priest, her doctor, and her husband to a night club she frequents and tries to seduce every man in the place. Needless to say, that is not typical behavior for Mrs. Administrator, nor is it typical for a demon.
During the day, she’s an empty shell, reacting only to holy water and the crucifix. At night, Father Frankenstein thinks she might be a succubus. He changes his mind when she attacks him and is institutionalized.
Cleverly wrapped around this story is the murder trial of the father, recounting how he sought to save the young woman but only contributed to her death. The father and the doctor succeeded in checking the patient out for a brief ride on the surface of the moon.
As Father Frankenstein suspected, sunlight is the key to who the young woman really is. Nicely done.
“Walker, the Prophet,” the second tale is a bit more expected but still a nice story. A young girl and her grandfather are undertaking The Walk with their tribe on a post-apocalyptic world. Once a year, they travel out of the sun (they see dark tans and wrinkles as a sign of prosperity) to the chasm from which they came. The grandfather has been chosen to tell the tale of his people’s beginnings deep underground. He reminds them of how they lost all knowledge, barely retaining the ability to speak and reason. A man named Walker was spoken to by Teachers from the stars to lead his people out of the dark and wait in the light until the Teachers arrive. Not much happens, but it is a pleasant creation story.
“Upon the Summit of the City, a Colonist Saga Story” has enough action for two or three stories. In the future, a young man who watched his wife jump from a high-rise balcony has fought off sleep for several years by using drugs, coffee, blood replacement, and electronic stimulants. He works three jobs to fill his waking time, afraid if he falls asleep he will relive that horrible moment of his wife’s death over and over.
In one of his jobs, he overhears some engineers discussing a new piece of machinery they’re working on – an Android from Earth found frozen in ice in the North Pole for a thousand years. Androids, or any AI apparently, are outlawed on this world and must be destroyed, but this one is being examined first.
Intrigued, our hero sneaks into the lab where the beautiful android is lying unresponsive and somehow activates her as he’s discovered where he shouldn’t be. The situation turns insane when the android awakens and the hero tries to save her. In gratitude, she kills the scientists and crashes through the wall with her accidental savior. A wanted man, he hides in the sewers trying to help the Android to her ancient ship in the center of the city.
Along the way, she discloses that her appearance is not recent. The government has been making copies of her for years and lying to people about the evilness of intelligent machines.
They manage to sneak in to the city center by altering their faces, and almost make it to the ancient ship when he’s captured. She evidently dies, in a way disturbingly similar to his wife’s death, but he’s thrown into a cell where he is forced to sleep.
And awakes on a beach with his wife, convinced he’s a teleporter and has fled the city and imprisonment.
Or he’s still asleep.