io9 is proud to current fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. As soon as a month, we function a narrative from LIGHTSPEED’s present difficulty. This month’s choice is “The Darkness Between the Stars” by Richard Thomas; you may hearken to an audio model here. Take pleasure in!
The Darkness Between the Stars
by Richard Thomas
Buddy and I deserted our hydrogen nomad on the fringe of the wastelands earlier than trudging across the rusted chain-link perimeter of the deserted fairgrounds, ready for the blast of steam and guttural earthly moan to flee from the fractured soil, signifying that it was clear to enter the realm. Remnants of outdated know-how lay scattered so far as the attention might see: tubes of corroded brass, mangled springs, and cracked gearwheels mingled with discarded water bottles and decomposing rubbish luggage—half-covered in mud and ash among the many weeds.
For a half-century, the unrelenting parts and cruel salvage crews had ravaged and plundered what was as soon as an impressive sight to behold. Each construction of the theme park had been lengthy since flattened, erased, torn down, or stolen, to the purpose that solely the legends and tales remained—mindblowing reveals and theme park amusements with a supernatural twist. We knew what these barren acres used to carry, however for those who didn’t know the historical past, it might be simple to overlook the patches of grey concrete hidden beneath the silt, the light numbers and directional arrows stenciled on the cracked pavement in a yellow so washed-out that it was virtually white, and the spotlight of our visits: a singular concrete obelisk with a pink steel door.
To us, it was a spot to flee—away from our helicopter moms, short-tempered fathers, and dead-eyed siblings all jacked into the similitude, too glued to their screens to ever enterprise out into this analog world.
Buddy and I have been the one kin both of us had left, actually, the one ones we might belief. The summer season days have been dwindling and the ultimate 12 months lay earlier than us. Past that, commerce colleges, and sorted employment, mundane duties, and a imprecise promise of marital bliss—an obvious assure of soppy flesh that we hardly understood. So we stood there, kids actually, this one nail head bursting up by the earth ready to be hammered down, a spot to fulfill within the wee hours, the countless nights, and the wet afternoons that by no means appeared too heat.
Buddy stood an excellent foot taller than me, and thicker in each method. It was as for those who had taken one in every of me, had me swallow one other me entire, after which had that mass develop in each route. With lengthy brown hair and a easy face, we generally referred to as him Conan, or Tarzan. We, being the jerks in his statistics class, or the jocks on the scatterball workforce. He was as loyal as a German shepherd, an excellent good friend, not an alarm bell or pink flag on him. He suspected nothing, and noticed no hazard on this second.
It didn’t matter what we did collectively—city spelunking, tunnel hacking, capturing wharf rats down by the contaminated river, or slingshotting rocks on the drones that crisscrossed the fields of rotting corn husks that surrounded this forsaken plot of land. We at all times had enjoyable collectively—because it was the corporate, the sincere dialog, the straightforward desires we shared—that made it definitely worth the journey.
We stopped subsequent to the pink door, its titanium body dinged and tarnished, historic chrome hinges straining to carry up its apparent weight. The concrete round it was chipped, however extraordinarily thick, and there was no seen deal with to be seen. Regardless of our willpower to get inside, three summers of our primitive efforts—hammers, crowbars, shovels, and sledges nicked from our fathers’ sheds—had yielded no progress and merely added to the already worn-out paint job of this mysterious entryway.
“Derek, have a look at that,” Buddy mentioned.
“I see it, I see it. That’s new.”
Subsequent to the door and brutalist outcropping was a steel field, like some outdated milk cooler, the lid open, and stuffed with padlocks. There have been keys scattered in there as nicely, lined in mud, mendacity there for hours or days, who knew.
“When have been we right here final?” I requested Buddy.
He scratched his head, “Weeks? Extra?”
I turned again to the door, and noticed that it was surprisingly ajar—seven latches, unlocked and bent. The hole within the doorway appeared to develop wider with each step nearer, as if welcoming us into its ready embrace, or maybe just like the mouth of an ideal beast making ready to devour us. Up shut, the blackness throughout the doorframe appeared to be undulating, viscous and impossibly darkish, and someway I knew, it was virtually sentient. I had been so targeted on the inside that I barely seen that Buddy, who stopped strolling sooner or later, was not beside me. A primal urge deep in my intestine screamed for my physique to cease transferring too, however I used to be floating away, untethered from the protection of my life into this darkness from between the celebrities, drawn in by the irresistible name of the void.
“I’m stepping into,” I mentioned, glancing over my shoulder with a sly grin.
“Derek, no,” he yelled, taking one step towards me.
I wouldn’t see him once more for a number of years.
• • •
I don’t bear in mind being pulled in, solely the door snicking shut behind me, as if pulled tight within the wake of my motion. Inside, it was an eternity in a closet, each cavernous and claustrophobic, oppressively silent, like an anechoic chamber the place your individual heartbeat can drive you mad. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a console with varied levers and buttons revealed itself within the sourceless dim mild. The pungent scent of ozone pushed a metallic style deep into my throat.
Once I opened the door to share my discoveries with Buddy, a safety guard in a darkish blue uniform with a thick mustache and lengthy brown hair spilling out from below his cap sat along with his arms crossed, slumbering, in a steel folding chair. My good friend was nowhere to be discovered, and throughout us lay nothing however an countless sea of jet-black pavement. The fields of rotting corn have been gone, the chain hyperlink fence had vanished, together with each hint of the ruined park. It was as if an enormous steamroller had trundled throughout this plot of land—an enormous machine, a number of tales excessive, 100 ft throughout. On the distant edges of the asphalt stood towering partitions, topped with sweeping searchlights and barbed wire, simply twenty or thirty ft excessive. Up above a rocket ship headed to the house station on the moon—they’d lastly achieved it, the shuttles have been working now.
I will need to have made a noise—a whimper maybe, or a moan, the door squealing because it opened again up, my respiration louder than I believed.
The guard awoke and jumped to his ft.
“I can clarify, officer—” I began.
“Recover from right here,” he yelled.
I did the one factor I might consider in that second. I ran again inside. However earlier than the door closed, I heard his voice, panicked and acquainted.
“Derek, wait . . .” he screamed, lunging for the door, his eyes huge open.
After which I used to be gone.
This time, for for much longer.
• • •
Because the door slammed shut behind me, I stumbled ahead, banging into the management panel, my head careening off of one thing stable, and I began to go below.
The darkness pushed in on me, wrapping round me like a festering blanket as panic crushed me, time slipping ahead. I attempted to push upward, out of the depths, like a drowning diver struggling to search out the floor.
However I failed.
Mendacity on the chilly steel flooring, sweat coating my physique in a determined sheen, a bitter movie of remorse and despair, figuring out the time I used to be shedding, my friendship, my life.
How lengthy I used to be unconscious, I have no idea.
• • •
Once I opened my eyes, it was quiet, a dim mild throbbing in the dead of night. A pointy ache erupted from my left temple, a crust of blood flaking away below my delicately probing fingers. Groaning, I stood up, turned the latch, pushed on the door, and stumbled out into the chaos.
The warmth was the very first thing I seen. That and the fog. It was like stepping out of the frying pan and into the hearth—the scent of sulfur, wind gusting scorching and foul, because the land round me hid within the hazy mist. It was cloudy, smoky, laborious to see, moist and thick, the world round me out of focus. Panic danced throughout my goose-pebbled flesh in a wave of discomfort, my lungs resisting each breath. Sweat ran down my face in offended rivulets, my intestine clenched in knots.
I stood there, attempting to see, on the lookout for a landmark, any signal of the park I used to know. On the bottom in entrance of me a steel chair lay in destroy—bent, rusty, and damaged—items mendacity right here and there, indentations within the grime. Hoofprints, toe prints, a smattering of smaller ft working this fashion and that, after which a couple of that have been a lot bigger, larger than my head.
Past the dusky thick curtain of this actuality there have been unnerving sounds—nice heavy thuds that shook the earth, adopted by a high-pitched screech from someplace above me within the fog, after which offended, sharp barks within the distance. The air above my head swirled and a darkish presence flew over me, swooping left after which proper, solely a faint suggestion of motion, a swimming black on muted grey on soiled white.
A shiny object on the bottom by the chair acquired my consideration, as I questioned how lengthy I ought to stand out right here, how dangerous this actually was—predator or prey, eat or be eaten. So far as the meals chain, I felt smack within the center.
I took a couple of hesitant steps earlier than a column of flame erupted with a poisonous belch within the distance, a maelstrom of warmth capturing excessive into the environment, pushing meager, russet mild by the grey fog.
I picked up the tarnished badge and turned it over in my palms.
It mentioned Buddy.
A chittering from behind me snapped my head in that route. Above the open door of the concrete closet that was my solely refuge got here a hiss adopted by a stream of white, sticky substance, encasing me in fibers that, inside moments, numbed my pores and skin and deadened my limbs. I fell to floor, unable to maneuver, my flesh spasming with ache.
From out of the gloom, eight disjointed legs appeared over the doorway, jet-black and blanketed in coarse hair and fibers, supporting a bulbous head lined in shiny black eyes. Its jagged, steel mandibles clicked collectively because it danced with rapturous glee—coming up and down, its pulsing underbelly glowing pink, because it got here nearer to my susceptible physique.
Its shadow engulfed me, a musky scent of bitter flesh and rotting meat filling my nostrils, overpowering my lungs and burning my throat, inflicting me to gnaw the within of my cheeks in a jabbering panic.
After which as rapidly because it arrived, the hideous creature disappeared, in a single whooshing motion, a harsh wind sweeping over me, a number of feathered legs reaching out, hooks pulling at me, tearing the net, and pulling it off of me in nice, sticky strands. It disappeared into the looming sky with hardly a sound, an ideal bellowing caw making my cranium ache. Oily black feathers crammed the air as steel gears and pins rained down round me, a melodic cacophony as they struck the laborious floor under me.
As I handed out, the toxins from the webbing lastly undertaking their job, the earth reverberated, shifting my physique in painful lurches towards the doorway, as 1,000,000 shiny beetles conveyed me to the opening, the door closing with a mild click on.
• • •
Once I awoke, a chilly certainty encased me. How lengthy had I been out this time? I stood within the darkness, the console black and quiet, after which I shoved the door open and was greeted by an ideal nothingness.
As if standing on the fringe of an empty elevator shaft, or the rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless evening, what lay under me was eternity. My thoughts reeled and I lurched ahead, greedy on the door body in desperation, one foot suspended over the chasm, my eyes straining for something recognizable within the darkness beneath it. Swimming within the pitch have been black currents, oily slicks that shifted their shapes, as right here and there a spark of sickly yellow mild exploded with a brilliance that dazzled me. I moaned gently, exhausted and bewildered, my eyes closing towards my will, leaving the afterimage of the flash burned into my retinas.
I attempted to see once more.
Twitching out and in of the darkness have been coils of phosphorescence, a muted sienna lined in a shiny pink with pinpricks of squirming black tadpoles dotted throughout its floor—none of it making sense. In a flash, I felt the entire of the void surge in the direction of me with a violent urgency, a starvation rippling throughout its murky substance, a determined shriek piercing my ears. I pulled on the door to close it out, however it resisted my efforts, the encroaching abyss relentless in its endlessness, tugging on the door, my flesh, my thoughts. With each ounce of my remaining power, muscle tissues burning, tendons straining, I ripped it free from the darkness and pulled it closed, tears streaming down my face, blood pooling in my eardrums.
After which a unique type of darkness wrapped round me, pulling me below.
• • •
Once I regained consciousness, the door hung open a crack, a sliver of ethereal mild leaking inward. Within the faint glow from the management panel, and in a rage of madness, I turned each knob I might see to the left, all the best way all the way down to zero. When my fumbling palms discovered the large lever on the far proper facet of the console, I yanked it downward after which slammed the door shut.
“Do what you’ll!” I yelled into the darkness.
After which I collapsed on the ground, and violently wept.
• • •
When it felt like the correct amount of time had handed, I barreled into the door, flinging it open huge, banging it towards an alley wall. Standing earlier than me was the OmniPark, in all its glory and prime. A Victorian mansion constructed of dense masonry in odd geometrical shapes and a glassy conservatory loomed close by, brick partitions rising up round it, and within the distance a botanical backyard, like none I’d ever seen. Statues of harmless cherubs mingled with a number of planting beds stuffed with vivid flowers, and thick, inexperienced decorative bushes trimmed into the form of hourglasses. A relentless ticking crammed the air, as an ideal many clocks have been displayed past the glass home windows, brass and metalwork all over the place. Above and into the space a monorail ran on a observe, gliding silently in a circuit across the park.
Past the fences of the backyard and previous the partitions of the mansion I might hear revelry, the scent of grilled meat and fried meals, the laughter of kids combined with the shouts of parental steerage, and the clanking of metallic rides. There was half a glass dome to at least one facet, and past it a sequence of caves, with monumental mammoth tusks over the principle entrance. On the farthest level was an area station, with its chrome-topped rocket ships gleaming within the daylight. And to the opposite facet, two completely different paths prolonged into their reveals—one made out of stone, and the opposite grime. The previous appeared to be constructed out of cells and membranes, microscopic creatures as massive as folks, and automobiles. The latter some type of primordial forest, with prehistoric timber and ferns, an enormous dragonfly mounted over some eating corridor, its translucent wings refracting mild.
I took this all in as if my thoughts was a digicam set on long-exposure, absorbing an amazing quantity of colours, sounds, smells, and sensations.
The maelstrom of stimulation made my head swim.
All I wished to do was go residence.
I struggled to catch my breath, as two people engaged in an animated dialog on the different finish of the alley—a lanky man in an impeccable go well with, hair slicked over, glasses perched on his nostril, and a girl with darkish hair, in a trendy costume, a large number of brass pendants and charms encircling her neck. From this distance it was laborious to inform in the event that they have been combating or simply excited, a clipboard in her left hand, the person glancing at his watch. After which they embraced in a kiss, fast and passionate, earlier than parting, glancing towards a door behind the mansion, after which in my route.
Their gaze held, each of them frozen for a second, after which they walked my method.
If I’d had the power, I might need climbed again inside, however the exhaustion of my travels solely made me weep silently, as they approached me, grins sliding throughout their faces.
“Son, are you okay? You look matted and misplaced. I’m Dalton, and that is my spouse, Evelyn. That is our park. And from the seems to be of the open door right here, you appear to have stumbled throughout one thing that I believed was locked and secured.”
I might solely nod, his face type and beaming, her eyes glowing with pleasure.
“How did you get again right here? Can we take you residence? You from round right here?”
They continued to stare at me, after which his spouse elbowed him, and whispered in his ear. They appeared me up and down, taking in my classic denim denims, my mycelium leather-based high-tops, and my t-shirt with the phrase SUPREME on it, biking by its preset loop of colours and patterns.
“On second thought,” Dalton mentioned, “I don’t know if the place you’re from is the proper query.”
“Too true. Extra like when are you from, my expensive?” Evelyn requested earlier than smiling, clutching her clipboard to her chest, pink lipstick framing her white enamel.
I instructed them in regards to the destruction of the park, the best way I’d gone ahead, after which again, the issues I’d seen alongside the best way, and what I’d left behind. They nodded at each unbelievable element and not using a trace of skepticism. Evelyn retrieved her purse and withdrew a field of Animal Crackers, the lions and elephants inside their cages a welcome snack. This was adopted by a big plastic bottle stuffed with an oversweet orange liquid that would solely have been Tang.
When Dalton stepped contained in the steel door with a small flashlight in his enamel, I didn’t have the power to warn him, not to mention cease him. I might hear him clicking buttons, cranking dials, and the unmistakable sound of the big lever being pushed again up once more, pointing up towards the celebrities.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been by,” Evelyn mentioned, her hand on my shoulder a comforting presence whereas we waited for Dalton to emerge. The gardens loomed past her shoulder, however it was as if I have been mendacity down in these kaleidoscopic flower beds as her fragrance drifted over me—hypnotic jasmine and gardenia with delicate violet and sandalwood beneath. I knew that scent, as my grandmother used to put on it.
They name it . . . Chaaaaarlieeeeee!
And I smiled for the primary time in hours, days, eons.
“Whenever you get again, Derek, you will need to destroy it. It’s a harmful invention that we haven’t found out tips on how to wrangle but,” Dalton mentioned as he stepped out of the machine.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Do your greatest,” Evelyn chimed in.
I appeared again down the alleyway, and there stood two unusually acquainted folks—a buzzcut man in slacks and a striped shirt speaking to a girl with a little bit of bob in a peach pantsuit. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, and but, I wasn’t positive why. He provided her an ice cream cone and she or he leaned in to lick the highest scoop. He smirked beneath his aviator glasses, they usually each laughed. They have been virtually unrecognizable after which all of it slammed into focus.
“My mother and father . . .” I started.
“This second in time was chosen,” Dalton mentioned, as I pulled my gaze from the alien model of my mother and father I’d simply seen. “Time beats us all down, son. Your mother and father have been as soon as younger and important. However it is best to get going, I’m afraid. Ripples will be made.”
He was proper—I needed to depart. Earlier than issues got here undone.
Evelyn gave me a mild hug earlier than Dalton shook my hand with authority and ushered me again by that pink steel door. It took all of my braveness to seal it once more behind me, frightened of the place the infernal system may take me, however the very last thing I noticed gave me a second of peace. Dalton and Evelyn smiled arm in arm, their eyes twinkling with tears, beaming with satisfaction for what they’d constructed, burdened by unhappiness for what had failed. They now had affirmation of one thing past their park, one thing larger than us all. Their life’s work had led to one thing extraordinary, and that appeared to fill them with hope.
I’d take it.
• • •
Once I stepped outdoors once more, Buddy was smoking a cigarette and tapping his foot, trying pissed off and impatient.
“Dude, what the hell,” he mentioned, dropping the butt, and stamping it out. “You have been in there an hour! I attempted tugging and banging on the door, however it wouldn’t open. I virtually referred to as the . . .”
I rushed ahead and threw my arms round him as if to stop myself from being pulled again into the machine. He didn’t hug me again, remaining stiff as a board, in shock, however I wouldn’t let him go. He will need to have seen the desperation in my eyes the second I had stepped outdoors as a result of he didn’t say a phrase till I launched him.
“Hey . . .” he began with a mixture of confusion and anger in his options.
I gripped him by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s size, tears welling in my eyes. He softened on the sight of my pained expression, recognizing in me a deep terror, having been shaken to my core, and in a feverish panic I recounted all of the issues I’d seen, each visceral element oozing out of me into the current second—bitter, and shiny, virtually sticky to the contact.
“I must see it,” he mentioned, stepping previous me towards the gaping maw that had almost swallowed me without end.
“No! Buddy, no!” I yelled, and he stopped lifeless in his tracks. The curious grin on his face rapidly washed away, blood draining from his face as he acknowledged the barely-contained madness in my eyes.
“We have to lock this up, instantly,” I mentioned. “Now.”
I grabbed the door and slammed it shut, a whimper that begged to show right into a crying jag, sliding the latches over the hooks, one by one. Whoever had opened this door earlier than us, wherever they have been now, this portal needed to be closed.
“Hand me the locks,” I mentioned. And he did.
One after the other, I locked it shut, spinning the dials on some, clicking the others shut as we gathered the keys out of the bin.
On the gap within the chain-link fence, we bent the wire mesh again into place, securing it to the put up as greatest we might so it appeared intact from a distance. There wasn’t rather more we might do, besides inform everybody that there was nothing right here, nothing value exploring, discouraging them from going inside, hoping that the dried-up, drifting topsoil may quickly cowl the place utterly.
Two keys have been in his pockets, and two in mine. And as we walked residence in silence, the nomad’s battery lifeless, I dropped one in a sewer grate, a plink down under, adopted by a whining of gears as an automatic sewer bot investigated the noise. Later, he’d toss one in a dumpster behind the cosmetic surgery mall, the sickly candy scent of liposuction waste filling the air. I instructed him to lose the opposite one, and to by no means inform me what he did with it. I’d flush mine down the bathroom, later that evening, wrapped in a bit of bathroom paper, as I watched the water swirl hypnotically into oblivion.
Earlier than we parted, on the intersection on the highest of the hill, the place north was his home, and south was mine, I attempted to elucidate.
“Buddy, I . . .”
“It’s okay, man. I get it. And truthfully? I don’t actually need to know. Some issues, as soon as they’ve been seen? They will’t be unseen.”
“As soon as they’re identified,” I continued, “they’ll’t be unknown.”
We stood with our palms stuffed within the pockets of our denims.
“Like my grandfather’s funeral,” Buddy mentioned with out taking his eyes off the horizon. “He appeared so grey within the casket, like an affordable wax dummy of the person I cherished. Then, afterward, within the alley behind the funeral residence, I noticed my aunt kissing some employees member, half her age. On the journey residence, my father pulled over and vomited on the facet of the freeway. Simply left the automobile door open, bent over within the weeds like some child at a frat social gathering. His face was like he’d seen a ghost and he couldn’t cease trembling so I needed to drive the remainder of the best way.” He slipped a cigarette out of the crumpled pack and lit it, letting that first exhale drift up into the evening sky earlier than he spoke once more. “I might have achieved with out that day solely.”
I took the cigarette from him, inhaled deeply, and handed it again. As I exhaled it up into the evening sky, my ordeal appeared so far-off now. Fading already.
“Tomorrow we discover a new interest,” I mentioned, and we managed to share a half-hearted chortle.
That fall, and into the spring, we’d hack our encephalobots for extra credit, rig the evaluations for our future employment, take a bullet prepare to the west coast, and kiss some artificial ladies. We’d lastly take a shuttle to the moon, the Earth and our issues right here diminishing in dimension with each mile of journey into the good past. We’d yell at one another, beat one another mindless, then finish our friendship over slights and betrayals, each actual and imagined, earlier than choosing it up the subsequent day, or the day after, as if nothing ever occurred.
• • •
Once I acquired residence that evening, I crept by the facet door, ready to listen to the scolding voice of my father, or confront the fearful face of my mom. However neither occurred. They hadn’t even seen I’d been gone.
I handed my outdated man in the lounge stuffed with cigarette smoke and canine hair, slumped in his light brown leather-based recliner, sporting his perpetual scowl whereas engrossed in a documentary on historic Egypt. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence standing out past the sunshine of the tv.
“Dad, I simply wished to say thanks for your entire laborious work, for the whole lot you do for this household.”
I left it at that, undecided if he was able to listening to me. As I climbed the steps out of view, glancing again for only a second, his eyes met mine, and I swore for only a second he softened. He didn’t reply, earlier than returning to his present, however his expression had mentioned greater than sufficient.
I handed my mom, hunched over the fragile glow of the magnifying lamp in her stitching room, buzzing alongside at her workbench, surrounded by cluttered cabinets of sample books, piles of vivid materials, and countless spools of thread in each attainable coloration.
“What are you engaged on, Mother?” I requested.
She raised her head, mouth open barely, pausing in mid-stitch.
“Fixing a hem in your favourite denims. You’re so tough on them.”
“I like these denims,” I mentioned. “Thanks for taking such nice care of me.”
She stopped working for a second, a twinkle in her eye, biting her decrease lip, the needle catching a gleam of sunshine.
Earlier than she might reply, I shuffled down the corridor, so keen to search out my mattress, and collapsed on high of the covers to the acquainted sound of the heater downstairs kicking in. A lingering scent of fried rooster drifted up by the ground vents, paired with vanilla from a close-by candle, and a faint trace of lemon-scented cleaner.
I closed my heavy eyelids and slipped right into a ready dream.
As a result of I nonetheless might.
Concerning the Writer
Richard Thomas is the award-winning writer of 9 books: 4 novels—Incarnate, Breaker, Disintegration, and Transubstantiate; 4 collections—Spontaneous Human Combustion, Tribulations, Staring Into the Abyss, and Herniated Roots; and one novella of The Soul Customary. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker (twice), Shirley Jackson, Thriller, and Audie awards. His over 175 tales in print embrace The Finest Horror of the Yr (Quantity Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker Award winner), The Hideous Guide of Hidden Horrors (Shirley Jackson Award winner), Bizarre Fiction Overview, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Stunning Horror Tales, Qualia Nous (#1&2), Chiral Mad (#2-4), PRISMS, and Shivers VI. He has additionally edited 5 anthologies. Go to whatdoesnotkillme.com for extra info.
Please go to LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the August 2024 difficulty, which additionally options work by Okay.A. Wiggins, Dominique Dickey, Cat Rambo, Matthew Hughes, Archita Mittra, Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe, Deborah L. Davitt and extra. You may await this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire difficulty proper now in handy e book format for simply $3.99, or subscribe to the e book version here.
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