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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

So What If They Die?

by John Shirley 

digital art by Charles Carter 


   “Mr. Jist? You’re the scientific consultant on climate change?” the young woman asked.

   “Yes.”

   “The Committee will see you now. Right through that door.”

   Entering the penthouse conference room, Jist was unnerved, meeting with these powerful industry leaders, since he had nothing but bad news for them. The dozen people around the big mahogany table were mostly men; there were a few women, all wearing immaculately tailored office fashions. He was suddenly self-conscious of his off-the-rack suit. And he noticed that no one asked him to sit. They looked blithely up at him with only a little more interest than if he were delivering their lunches.

   They hailed from all the major obsolete-energy companies–oil, coal, fracking concerns; come together for a pan-industry strategy meeting. He was a bit surprised to see several United States Senators sitting with them, including Joe Manchin. The Senator from West Virginia was on his cell phone, half-turned to look at the monument-strewn panorama of Washington DC below. “Well now, Susan, you tell Donald I don’t have time to meet with him right now–we’ll see how things pan out in 2022.”

   “Joe!” said a botoxed woman with shiny-blond hair. “You might want to end that little chat right now.” The others chuckled at that.

   Manchin ended the call, then turned Jist a heavy-lidded look of vague disapproval. “Who do you work for?” he asked, emanating suspicion.

   Jist blinked. “Uh–I work for this committee! I was hired to oversee the assessment. The committee asked for a frank assessment and that’s what I’ve got for you all. I’m a scientist. I have a degree from Harvard, another from MIT, and another from the Sorbonne. I won a Nobel Prize for–”

   “Enough of all that hogwash,” Manchin interrupted, waving a hand dismissively.

   A man Jist recognized as Lyman Frinks, the chairman of the committee, cleared his throat and said, “Let us have the summary–the short version, Mr. Jist.” Frinks had a face that looked as if it were slowly sliding into the collar of his handmade exquisitely tailored four-thousand dollar silk shirt. His Texas accent was strong. “We have the report you sent over but we haven’t had time to really assess it.” He was not officially the head of a company, but he owned vast shares across the oil and gas industry, and was closely connected to Republican-controlled media sources.

   Jist took a deep breath and said, “In sum, while the worst effects of climate change can be curtailed, saving perhaps a billion lives, if we act in concert right now, the greenhouse effect has only gotten more dramatic. No significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions, nor methane, and the like, have been made and many of the worst effects are now, in 2021, happening sooner than some climate scientists expected. We are seeing the melting of the permafrost with the subsequent massive release of methane. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and forest land generally, in uncontrolled exploitation and the climate-change-generated wildfires, along with the concatenation of effects in the oceans, all this accelerates the negative effects of climate change. The result is that extreme storms are becoming the norm, and they will only get worse. Infrastructure will be repeatedly interrupted by flooding and hurricane damage, in places that never saw it before. Droughts will be the norm-and they too will only get worse. The damage to arable land will limit food production, and there will be egregious and routine famines across the world, including in the United States, and with roads and other forms of transport under constant threat, food delivery will be harshly reduced. Supermarkets will have very little on the shelves. The price of food will skyrocket. There will be an increase of pandemics due to the northern movement of tropical mosquitoes and other–”

   “A famine in the USA?” Botoxed woman interrupted. Her face was essentially frozen so he couldn’t read her expression precisely but he took it she was startled.

   “Yes ma’am. Starvation will be widespread in this country, and every other country. And of course billions of people will be uprooted by unlivable conditions and will become a great mass of refugees which will radically undermine social order, leading to wars, which–”

   “You sure this is the short version, boy?” Manchin broke in, rolling his eyes.

   “Oh yes sir. I could go on for a couple hours. Basically, global catastrophe is unavoidable now–we could have limited it a great deal if we’d started reducing carbon and methane emissions dramatically decades ago, when we were first made aware of the problem, but–”

   “What a lot of hogwash!” Manchin laughed.

   “Joe?” Frinks said, toying with an unlit cigar. “It’s not hogwash. He’s just confirming what our internal research has shown us. Last thirty years we’ve been aware this would happen. But we wanted to make our own plans at this meeting, across industry–official but of course, sub rosa, on the quiet.”

   “It’s true, what this ‘scientist fella’ is saying?” Manchin asked, looking like he had heard the ineffable.

   “Yes it is, Joe. So–shut up!”

   Manchin sniffed. But he nodded. “Yes sir.”

   Lindsay Graham chuckled but said nothing.

   “But–what we going to do about it?” asked Mitch McConnell. “You going to…to…” He licked his lips. He had difficult saying it. “Reduce emissions? Go into energy, ah, alternatives?”

   “Hell no!” Frinks said.

   Everyone laughed at that, except Jist.

   “Nope, it’s too late to do much good and anyway, it won’t matter. We’ve got our luxury bunkers, our mountaintop homes–”

   Botoxed Woman looked nervously at Jist. “We shouldn’t be talking about those places here.”

   “Don’t you worry about it,” said Frinks. “As I was sayin’, we’ve located the zones least likely to be damaged by climate change and most of us are building our homes under the domes and we’ve got the greenhouses–now there’s an irony–and the private high rise hydroponics and the food synthesizing 3D printers and the private distilleries. Hell, we’ll be fine! We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing! Folks are going to die, but folks die anyway. Except me, maybe–I’m getting that new rejuvenation treatment–”

   “There’s a rejuvenation treatment?” Jist blurted.

   “Oh yes, we kept it secret, of course. Yep I’ll be around in a hundred years lookin’ young as you!”

   “But…if it’s secret…” Why are they telling me? Jist wondered. He had refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. How are they planning to keep me quiet?

   He started edging toward the door.

   Frinks touched a tab the table. “Hon, send in Duke and Bubba.”

   The door opened behind Jist and he turned to see two big, square-jawed men–enormous steroid-pumped masses of muscle in golf shirts and tan slacks. They both had guns holstered on their hips.

   “Yes, Mr. Frinks?” said the one on the left.

   “Duke, I like to do things expediently. You know me–ol’ Mister Get It Done. Now, take Mr. Jist here to the roof. You know that construction site next door?”

   “Yes sir.”

   “Well I own that and it’s shut down today. Big fences around it. Toss him off the roof so he falls in that site, and we’ll cover him in concrete, okay?”

   “You got it, sir.”

   “Wait, what–?” Jist began.

   “Sir,” said Bubba, “what if someone sees him fall?”

   “Well if they report it,” Frinks said, admiring his cigar, “go get ’em and toss them off the roof there too. And of course we own the police in this town anyhow.”

   The committee nodded thoughtfully at that.

   Jist turned to run but the big men grabbed him. He was not a big man himself, and he was not strong, and they had no difficulty dragging him out.

   When they’d gone, Frinks stuck the cigar in his mouth.

   Botoxed Woman frowned. “You’re not going to light that in here are you?”

   “No, no, wouldn’t do that, hon,” he said. “Why that’d be polluting the air!”

   He got the laugh, all around, that he wanted.






 the Freezine always returns
after an interval of silence
[click image below to read
Isn't That Adorable? by John Shirley]
bow down before the altars of the Cybergod
only on 
the Freezine of
Fantasy and Science
Fiction 
 












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Archive of Stories
and Authors

Callum Leckie's
THE DIGITAL DECADENT


J.R. Torina's
ANTHROPOPHAGUS


J.R. Torina's
THE HOUSE IN THE PORT


J.R. Torina was DJ for Sonic Slaughter-
house ('90-'97), runs Sutekh Productions
(an industrial-ambient music label) and
Slaughterhouse Records (metal record
label), and was proprietor of The Abyss
(a metal-gothic-industrial c.d. shop in
SLC, now closed). He is the dark force
behind Scapegoat (an ambient-tribal-
noise-experimental unit). THE HOUSE
IN THE PORT is his first publication.

Sean Padlo's
NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW

Sean Padlo's
GRANDPA'S LAST REQUEST

Sean Padlo's exact whereabouts
are never able to be fully
pinned down, but what we
do know about him is laced
with the echoes of legend.
He's already been known
to haunt certain areas of
the landscape, a trick said
to only be possible by being
able to manipulate it from
the future. His presence
among the rest of us here
at the freezine sends shivers
of wonder deep in our solar plexus.


Konstantine Paradias & Edward
Morris's HOW THE GODS KILL


Konstantine Paradias's
SACRI-FEES

Konstantine Paradias is a writer by
choice. At the moment, he's published
over 100 stories in English, Japanese,
Romanian, German, Dutch and
Portuguese and has worked in a free-
lancing capacity for videogames, screen-
plays and anthologies. People tell him
he's got a writing problem but he can,
like, quit whenever he wants, man.
His work has been nominated
for a Pushcart Prize.

Edward Morris's
ONE NIGHT IN MANHATTAN


Edward Morris's
MERCY STREET

Edward Morris is a 2011 nominee for
the Pushcart Prize in literature, has
also been nominated for the 2009
Rhysling Award and the 2005 British
Science Fiction Association Award.
His short stories have been published
over a hundred and twenty times in
four languages, most recently at
PerhihelionSF, the Red Penny Papers'
SUPERPOW! anthology, and The
Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. He lives
and works in Portland as a writer,
editor, spoken word MC and bouncer,
and is also a regular guest author at
the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.


Tim Fezz's
BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

Tim Fezz's
MANY SILVERED MOONS AGO

Tim Fezz hails out of the shattered
streets of Philly destroying the air-
waves and people's minds in the
underground with his band OLD
FEZZIWIG. He's been known to
dip his razor quill into his own
blood and pen a twisted tale
every now and again. We are
delighted to have him onboard
the FREEZINE and we hope
you are, too.

Daniel E. Lambert's
DEAD CLOWN AND MAGNET HEAD


Daniel E. Lambert teaches English
at California State University, Los
Angeles and East Los Angeles College.
He also teaches online Literature
courses for Colorado Technical
University. His writing appears
in Silver Apples, Easy Reader,
Other Worlds, Wrapped in Plastic
and The Daily Breeze. His work
also appears in the anthologies
When Words Collide, Flash It,
Daily Flash 2012, Daily Frights
2012, An Island of Egrets and
Timeless Voices. His collection
of poetry and prose, Love and
Other Diversions, is available
through Amazon. He lives in
Southern California with his
wife, poet and author Anhthao Bui.

Phoenix's
AGAIN AND AGAIN

Phoenix has enjoyed writing since he
was a little kid. He finds much import-
ance and truth in creative expression.
Phoenix has written over sixty books,
and has published everything from
novels, to poetry and philosophy.
He hopes to inspire people with his
writing and to ask difficult questions
about our world and the universe.
Phoenix lives in Salt Lake City, Utah,
where he spends much of his time
reading books on science, philosophy,
and literature. He spends a good deal
of his free time writing and working
on new books. The Freezine of Fant-
asy and Science Fiction welcomes him
and his unique, intense vision.
Discover Phoenix's books at his author
page on Amazon. Also check out his blog.

Adam Bolivar's
SERVITORS OF THE
OUTER DARKNESS


Adam Bolivar's
THE DEVIL & SIR
FRANCIS DRAKE



Adam Bolivar's
THE TIME-EATER


Adam Bolivar is an expatriate Bostonian
who has lived in New Orleans and Berkeley,
and currently resides in Portland, Oregon
with his beloved wife and fluffy gray cat
Dahlia. Adam wears round, antique glasses
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inspirations include H.P. Lovecraft,
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a Romantic poet for as long as any-
one can remember, specializing in
the composition of spectral balladry,
utilizing to great effect a traditional
poetic form that taps into the haunted
undercurrents of folklore seldom found
in other forms of writing.
His poetry has appeared on the pages
of such publications as SPECTRAL
REALMS and BLACK WINGS OF
CTHULHU, and a poem of his,
"The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner,"
won the Rhysling Award for long-form
poetry. His collection of weird balladry
and Jack tales, THE LAY OF OLD HEX,
was published by Hippocampus Press in 2017.


Sanford Meschkow's
INEVITABLE

Sanford Meschkow is a retired former
NYer who married a Philly suburban
Main Line girl. Sanford has been pub-
lished in a 1970s issue of AMAZING.
We welcome him here on the FREE-
ZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Owen R. Powell's
NOETIC VACATIONS

Little is known of the mysterious
Owen R. Powell (oftentimes referred
to as Orp online). That is because he
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Noetic Vacations marks his first
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Gene Stewart
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GROUND PORK


Gene Stewart's
CRYPTID'S LAIR

Gene Stewart is a writer and artist.
He currently lives in the Midwest
American Wilderness where he is
researching tales of mystical realism,
writing ficta mystica, and exploring
the dark by casting a little light into
the shadows. Follow this link to his
website where there are many samples
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explore.

Daniel José Older's
GRAVEYARD WALTZ


Daniel José Older's
THE COLLECTOR


Daniel José Older's spiritually driven,
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crossroads of myth and history.
With sardonic, uplifting and often
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his work as an overnight 911 paramedic,
a teaching artist & an antiracist/antisexist
organizer to weave fast-moving, emotionally
engaging plots that speak whispers and
shouts about power and privilege in
modern day New York City. His work
has appeared in the Freezine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction, The ShadowCast
Audio Anthology, The Tide Pool, and
the collection Sunshine/Noir, and is
featured in Sheree Renee Thomas'
Black Pot Mojo Reading Series in Harlem.
When he's not writing, teaching or
riding around in an ambulance,
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Ghost Star. His blog about the
ridiculous and disturbing world
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Paul Stuart's
SEA?TV!


Paul Stuart is the author of numerous
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appears in The Vault of Punk Horror and
His non-fiction financial pieces can be found
in a shiny, west-coast magazine that features
pictures of expensive homes, as well as images
of women in casual poses and their accessories.
Consider writing him at paul@twilightlane.com,
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Rain Grave's
MAU BAST


Rain Graves is an award winning
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poetry. She is best known for the 2002
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David Niall Wilson). Her most
recent book, Barfodder: Poetry
Written in Dark Bars and Questionable
Cafes, has been hailed by Publisher's
Weekly as "Bukowski meets Lovecraft..."
in January of 2009. She lives and
writes in San Francisco, performing
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Blag Dahlia's
armed to the teeth
with LIPSTICK



BLAG DAHLIA is a Rock Legend.
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founder of the notorious DWARVES.
He has written two novels, ‘NINA’ and
‘ARMED to the TEETH with LIPSTICK’.


G. Alden Davis's
THE FOLD


G. Alden Davis wrote his first short story
in high school, and received a creative
writing scholarship for the effort. Soon
afterward he discovered that words were
not enough, and left for art school. He was
awarded the Emeritus Fellowship along
with his BFA from Memphis College of Art
in '94, and entered the videogame industry
as a team leader and 3D artist. He has over
25 published games to his credit. Mr. Davis
is a Burningman participant of 14 years,
and he swings a mean sword in the SCA.
He's also the best friend I ever had. He
was taken away from us last year on Jan
25 and I'll never be able to understand why.
Together we were a fantastic duo, the
legendary Grub Bros. Our secret base
exists on a cross-hatched nexus between
the Year of the Dragon and Dark City.
Somewhere along the tectonic fault
lines of our electromagnetic gathering,
shades of us peel off from the coruscating
pillars and are dropped back into the mix.
The phrase "rest in peace" just bugs me.
I'd rather think that Greg Grub's inimitable
spirit somehow continues evolving along
another manifestation of light itself, a
purple shift shall we say into another
phase of our expanding universe. I
ask myself, is it wishful thinking?
Will we really shed our human skin
like a discarded chrysalis and emerge
shimmering on another wavelength
altogether--or even manifest right
here among the rest without their
even beginning to suspect it? Well
people do believe in ghosts, but I
myself have long been suspicious
there can only be one single ghost
and that's all the stars in the universe
shrinking away into a withering heart
glittering and winking at us like
lost diamonds still echoing all their
sad and lonely songs fallen on deaf
eyes and ears blind to their colorful
emanations. My grub brother always
knew better than what the limits
of this old world taught him. We
explored past the outer peripheries
of our comfort zones to awaken
the terror in our minds and keep
us on our toes deep in the forest
in the middle of the night. The owls
led our way and the wilderness
transformed into a sanctuary.
The adventures we shared together
will always remain tattooed on
the pages of my skin. They tell a
story that we began together and
which continues being woven to
this very day. It's the same old
story about how we all were in
this together and how each and
every one of us is also going away
someday and though it will be the far-
thest we can manage to tell our own
tale we may rest assured it will be
continued like one of the old pulp
serials by all our friends which survive
us and manage to continue
the saga whispering in the wind.

Shae Sveniker's
A NEW METAPHYSICAL STUDY
REGARDING THE BEHAVIOR
OF PLANT LIFE


Shae is a poet/artist/student and former
resident of the Salt Pit, UT, currently living
in Simi Valley, CA. His short stories are on
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Nigel Strange's
PLASTIC CHILDREN


Nigel Strange lives with his wife and
daughter, cats, and tiny dog-like thing
in their home in California where he
occasionally experiments recreationally
with lucidity. PLASTIC CHILDREN
is his first publication.