Coin of Truth

Ka-clunk, chunk!

Farrah dug her change out of the coin return. "You sure you don't want anything?" She held out the handful of change.

"Nah," Ollie said. He leaned against the wall in his artfully ripped jean jacket and spiky blond hair with the smile that still made her bite her lip like it had two years ago. She almost lost herself in the way he looked at her as she pulled her handful of coins back, but one of the coins caught her eye. She looked closer.

"Biden... Impeached? Look at this dollar coin. It says Biden was impeached this year."

"He wasn't."

"I know he wasn't." She turned the coin over in her hand. "But this says it like it's celebrating something, and has this year in big letters."

"That's crazy." Ollie pulled out his phone while Farrah took a photo. "Hey, look at this. People are seeing these all over the country. Search for hashtag Biden impeached." They both focused on their phones for a full minute.

Farrah looked up, despair written on her face. "I guess it's true."

In a faraway office in Washington, DC, the Director of the US Mint steepled his fingers and smiled.

The Danger of Cats

Afterward, we lay in bed looking at each other's bodies. She traced a finger down a thin scar on my forearm. "What's this from?"

"Cat," I said, and we laughed. We'd both professed a feline affinity during our intense flirtation in the hotel pool. "He really didn't want to be picked up just then."

"This one?" She stroked a two-inch line on the back of my hand, along the meaty part between the finger and thumb.

"Also a cat." We laughed, but she stopped sooner. "I can't even remember which one."

"What about this?" She sounded uncertain as she touched a long scar just above my hip.

"Cat." This time she didn't laugh, and neither did I. The feeling in the bed had changed.

"This?" She touched my shoulder.

"Cat."

"This?"

"Cat."

"I... noticed your scars in the pool—"

"I noticed yours, too."

"—and I thought we'd have more in common."

"More than cats, you mean?"

"More like..." She bit her lip and turned away.

"Hey, it's okay. Here, what's this one from?" I pointed at a round, puckered scar under her breast, the sort movies told me came from bullets.

She looked at me with hope and doubt. "Cat?"

Metacoital

Gina was flying. She always did, after sleeping with Jefferson. She told him she wanted to take advantage of it while she could, just like he spent the time after sex speedreading his textbooks one page a second. Accepting her excuse made her suspicious, but mostly relieved.

Life was peaceful up here. Floating above the city, she felt removed from everything, safe from worries about her part-time job and her full-time job, and her on-the-job training, and her hypochondriac mother, and her sister who thought she deserved a better boyfriend. Up here, none of that mattered.

It almost felt like gravity didn't exist up here, but it did. She'd learned that the first time she'd brought her camera up here. She'd drop Jefferson just as fast if sex with someone else would let her fly. Once Jefferson was through with school, speedreading wouldn't keep him with her, either. He'd move on, find new powers with a new partner. She had to enjoy the flying while it lasted.

Gina drifted downward, gravity starting to remember she existed. She flew home. Maybe she could get another rise out of Jefferson before he fell asleep. She wanted to spend more time up here.

Alternate History Facts for June, 2020

June 1, 1773: Wolraad Woltemade, then 65, rode his spirit-horse to pull sailors from the De Jonge Thomas shipwreck in Table Bay. On his eighth venture out, the spirit-horse gave its last and discorporated; it and Wolraad died heroes.

June 2, 1098: Bohemond of Taranto dripped an ethereal poison, strained from the tears, blood, and semen of ninety-nine hanged betrayers, in the waters of Antioch on the Orontes. Before the next morning, a traitor had admitted the besieging crusaders.

June 3, 1839: Lin Zexu began the process of destroying 1.2 million kg of opium, throwing it into the ocean. Despite Lin's apology to the ocean spirits, they sped the approach of British warships and the punitive action of the First Opium War.

June 4, 1996: The first test flight of Ariane 5 self-destructed after 37 seconds. A catastrophic software error had begun rapidly draining data into an adjacent universe, a potential cataclysm stopped by an control-room engineer unafraid to hit the button.

June 5, 1995: Cornell and Wieman produced the first Bose-Einstein condensate in history. On the same day in 1832, the June Rebellion launched in Paris. This is not a coincidence.

June 6, 1749: An improperly-bound messenger imp divulged critical information about the planned slave revolt in Malta, resulting in over a hundred executions.

June 7, 1991: A smart-aleck traveler lost a riddle contest with Mount Pinatubo but refused to honor the terms. This began the process that culminated in a massive eruption eight days later.

June 8, 1906: Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act in an effort to preserve and protect certain fonts of magical power across the continent.

June 9, 1996: The French Open tennis tournament did not take place, though thousands remember it and many more watched something they *thought* was the French Open on television.

June 10, 1868: Prince Michael Obrenović III of Serbia was assassinated by a robot from the future.

June 11, 786: Idris ibn Abdallah, struck by an enemy soldier with a magic weapon during the Battle of Fakhkh, disappeared from space-time, reappearing in northwest Africa a year later.

June 12, 1240: The Catholic Church sponsored the Disputation of Paris, wherein one Franciscan monk used logic and spells against four rabbis in a public spectacle. The rabbis defended themselves ably, but the French predictably turned on them anyway.

June 13, 1514: King Henry VIII dedicated the ship Henry Grace à Dieu at Woolwich Dockyard. Then the most massive ship known, the dedication laid spells to protect the ship... which unintentionally functioned by keeping it from seeing action.

June 14, 1966: Pope Paul VI ended the 400 year-old Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of banned books and an ancient spell inhibiting the spread of information in Catholics. Learning a wide variety of topics became suddenly easier for adherents.

June 15, 763 BC: The Bur-Sagale eclipse dimmed Assyria briefly, releasing the demon Gorizd from its nearly three-century imprisonment.

June 16, 1819: The Rann of Kutch earthquake triggered a tsunami, killed thousands, and formed Sindri Lake and a natural, 80 km long dam. All so the giant Urvi could take a bath.

June 17, 1631: Mumtaz Mahal died. An otherworldly deity offered Shah Jahan a bargain: if Jahan built Mumtaz a mausoleum too perfect to alter by interring a body, they would return her to life rather than let her be interred. The result was the Taj Mahal.

June 18, 1972: A spiteful sorcerer channeled the emotional power of thousands of rioting fans to teleport Led Zeppelin from Vancouver to Seattle. Unfazed, the band performed there instead.

June 19, 1927: A feline soul reincarnated into the body of Henry Spira, who would go on to be an important animal rights advocate.

June 20, 1667: A changeling impostor was elected Pope Clement IX. Though he intended to simply enjoy Giulio Rospigliosi's retirement, his unintended elevation let him do many good works.

June 21, 1582: Akechi Mitsuhide betrayed the daimyō Oda Nobunaga, forcing Nobunaga to commit suicide. This stopped Nobunaga from conquering Japan with the power of the spirit possessing him... but his body was also never found.

June 22, 1783: Poisonous clouds from the Laki eruption in Iceland reached the shores of Le Havre, where French aeromancers promptly warded them away.

June 23, 1926: The College Entrance Examination Board administered the first Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) with an enchantment to make schools believe the results were important. Even today, few schools have sorcerous wards effective against the charm.

June 24, 1374: St John's Dance overwhelmed the people of Aachen, Germany after the inconspicuous death of one of the gods of joy, a now-extinct spirit. The god's energy flowed out into the city, causing the frenzied dancing.

June 25, 1786: Gavriil Pribylov raised the Pribilof Islands from the Bering Sea by sacrificing the Aleut memories and stories of similar islands to the thoughtvoid god.

June 26, 699: The Imperial Court confronted the ascetic and mystic En no Ozunu. After a battle between their various bound demons, En no Ozunu succumbed, accepting banishment to Izu Ōshima in consequence.

June 27, 2007: Tony Blair capitulated to diplomatic pressure from an adjacent dimension and resigned as British Prime Minister to become ambassador to the Ensthans.

June 28, 1911: The Nakhla meteorite landed in Egypt. Originally thought to be ejected by an asteroid impact on Mars, it's now known to be an attack on a psychic entity that was hiding in the mind of a dog, believed killed.

June 29, 1613: A command performance of Henry VIII so displeased the crown prince of the Fire Court that said esteemed person burned the theater to the ground. The court paid recompense to the one person injured in the act, whose trousers caught fire.

June 30, 1973: Nancy Mitford wrote herself a glorious life of joy and romance, and disappeared into it entirely, never to be seen again.

One For Him and One For Me

Only two bullets. One for him, and one for me if the first doesn't work out. If he lets me. There's every chance he won't, and I can't think of any other way this ends well. This doesn't end well.

That's the thought I'm deep inside when he walks in. The small bedroom is the space he lets me pretend is my own, so of course I leave the comforter rumpled just to spite him, and my hand buried in it is no concern. So he doesn't see the gun, and for a second I think I have a chance.

Maybe it was that thought, but he recognizes my intent the moment I move. I immediately feel his mind seize mine. It's arm wrestling but with raw will, and he's the champ. His will countermands my muscles, barely able to twitch against his command, dragging my thumb up to the clip release, dropping out my precious, so-important second bullet. He doesn't stop my tears. He never has.

Despite the futility, I drag the muzzle of the gun toward my own head. His mind forbids my muscles to do it, and it's like pushing a mountain. My muscles grind themselves to a halt, the unyielding strength of his will pulling my arm away.

He doesn't make me drop the gun. Maybe he knows that dropping it feels as much like death as eating the bullet. Maybe he feels safe because in my head, that bullet is for me. So when I give in and his mind yanks my arm away from me, it points straight at him. A finger twitch gives him the bullet meant for me.

I hadn't expected freedom at all. Somehow, in chasing the freedom I thought I could get, I managed to get the freedom I deserved.

The Expert and the Authority

"We're going to have more cases," said the Expert. "More cases means more death."

"This is bad," cried the Citizen. "We want less cases and less deaths!"

"Fewer," muttered the Pedant.

"What if we had less cases?" asked the Authority.

"Then we'd have fewer deaths," said the Expert.

"That's what I want," said the Citizen.

"Let's do that, then." The Authority nodded decisively.

"We can't just 'do that,' Mr Authority," said the Expert.

"Why not?" asked the Authority.

The Economist whispered, "If we don't, it'll be expensive."

"We need to take action that will produce fewer cases," the Expert explained.

"Then we're taking action by having less cases," declared the Authority.

"Fewer," muttered the Pedant.

"Yay!" The Citizen cheered. The Economist smiled.

"No," insisted the Expert, "having fewer cases is the consequence of an action, a result, not an action itself!"

"What kind of action?" asked the Authority. The Economist perked their ears.

"Expensive ones." The Economist booed. "Actions that aren't fun." The Citizen booed. "Ones that make important numbers go down." The Authority looked puzzled. "Down is bad," added the Expert. The Authority frowned.

"No, we'll do my thing instead," said the Authority. The Expert sighed.

The Citizen died.

Alternate History Facts for May, 2020

May 1, 1876: Queen Victoria of England officially acquired the style "Empress of India" at the end of a three-day ritual that siphoned authority and arcane power from the subcontinent's natives.

May 2, 1808: After more than a month of occupation, the people of Madrid used ancient incantations to manifest their resentments to fight beside them in an attack known as the Dos de Mayos Uprising.

May 3, 1715: The great celestomancer Edmond Halley caused a total solar eclipse over London to impress the public, cow his enemies, and stymie the ritual summonings of his rivals.

May 4, 1519: Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici died of a misfired curse from across the ocean. Sheer cussedness kept his body moving and ruling Florence for months more, leaving behind orders that would see his will done for years longer.

May 5, 1821: Napoleon accepted the commission of aliens from a distant galaxy to lead interstellar wars for them. Dying after centuries of warfare, Napoleon was then returned by the aliens, preserved in his old form.

May 6, 1682: King Louis XIV of France officially moved the royal court to Versailles to take advantage of hundreds of expensive spells of social and political influence, which he had commissioned over the previous two decades.

May 7, 1920: Soviet Russia and the Democratic Republic of Georgia signed the Treaty of Moscow, a magically-binding oath to respect Georgian independence. Georgia's unskilled (or perhaps suborned) oath-binders meant the binding wore off in nine months.

May 8, 1980: The World Health Organization officially announced the eradication of smallpox, resulting in the departure of aliens from orbit around Jupiter. The disease somehow powered their ship, which left before draining its final reserves.

May 9, 1450: Abdal-Latif Mirza died trying to conquer one of the spirit realms as he had conquered Mā Warāʾ an-Nahr (Transoxiana). Coincidentally, an assassin came for him the same day and, finding him dead, took credit.

May 10, 946: A literal puppet was elected Pope Agapetus II. Animated by shadow sorcery, it fooled no one but provided enough of an excuse for political business as usual.

May 11, 1997: Chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue finally defeated reigning champion Garry Kasparov, winning the right to become a real boy.

May 12, 1510: Prince of Anhua Zhu Zhifan launched a rebellion by massacring all imperial officials at a banquet and using their blood to fuel his magical offensive against the Zhengde Emperor. Liu Jin's sorcery was weaker but more subtle, and Zhu failed.

May 13, 1958: Ben Carlin completed the first amphibious circumnavigation of the globe—also the last, thanks to treaties forged with the Sunken People during the journey.

May 14, 1868: Magnus Hirschfeld was born with his full intellect and making immediate observations on the fluid nature of human sexuality.

May 15, 1850: After the appearance of a previously unknown master aeromancer among Argentine forces, France and Britain signed the Arana-Southern Treaty with Argentine Confederation, a great South American victory.

May 16, 1920: Pope Benedict XV canonized Jeanne d'Arc as a saint of the Catholic Church, binding her spiritual essence in service of the Church and its adherents. She has not answered a prayer since June of 1940.

May 17, 1875: Aristides won the first Kentucky Derby, ridden by Oliver Lewis. Their victory provoked new rules in the coming years against extraterrestrial bloodlines in horse racing.

May 18, 872: Louis II of Italy was crowned Holy Roman Emperor for a second time, to replenish the magic that had faded since his first coronation. He expended it unwisely and died just over three years later.

May 19, 1950: An incursion of Old Gods burst through into realspace by South Amboy, New Jersey. The National Guard fought them off with artillery, which fueled the cover-up: an ammunition explosion instead of a tentacle invasion.

May 20, 2019: The General Conference on Weights and Measures redefined the kilogram to rely on the Planck constant rather than the international prototype of the kilogram, abruptly robbing France of its power to control mass through the prototype.

May 21, 1792: About 30 tons of rock disappeared from Mount Unzen, causing a landslide and megatsunami that killed approximately 15,000. Historians are unsure where the stolen rock went, or whether the process of taking it caused prior local earthquakes.

May 22, 1246: The prince-electors raised Henry Raspe as the Anti-king of Germany in opposition to Conrad IV of Germany. The two met once in battle, and the resulting annihilation reaction wounded Raspe mortally, though Conrad survived.

May 23, 826: Michael of Synnada died in exile, suffered after defending the practice of rune wizardry to Emperor Leo V the Armenian, who wanted to destroy such runes and prohibit their study as ungodly.

May 24, 1976: In the famed "Judgment of Paris," Steven Spurrier rated a Californian wine above French wines. The victory drained spiritual energy from Paris, channeling it across the ocean to infuse California's soil with greater life.

May 25, 2011: Bound by her agreement with the genie, Oprah Winfrey ended The Oprah Winfrey Show.

May 26, 1644: A timeline where the Spanish won the Battle of Montijo and one where the Portuguese won entangled. Both sides won the engagement, and somewhere exists a timeline where both sides lost.

May 27, 1644: Wu Sangui intentionally angered panda gods, whose indiscriminate rampage undermined the rebel Shun army, giving Wu Sangui victory in the Battle of Shanhai Pass.

May 28, 1999: Having failed to restore The Last Supper, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon instead called in a favor from travelers from our far future and swapped the contemporary The Last Supper with the version from the 1550s.

May 29, 1973: British industrialist Sir George William Harriman defeated the devil in a one-on-one game of rugby, but due to the contract's fine print, he still had to leave this plane of existence.

May 30, 1806: Future president Andrew Jackson killed Charles Dickinson in a duel after cursing his opponent's pistol not to kill him. His unfair plot worked, but the nonlethal bullet could not be removed from his chest and tormented him his entire life.

May 31, 1879: Frederic Moore joined the East India Company Museum London as an assistant, where he learned forbidden South Asian sorceries, which he used largely to better catalogue butterflies.