Wil Wheaton's Stories

An Unremarkable Factory

2008-05-06T21:18:59Z

There is a factory in Chongqing. It is unremarkable; there is nothing to distinguish it from the other factories nearby. Workers stream in every morning and out every evening. Smoke belches from its stacks, while trucks and trains trade raw materials for finished goods once a week. There is no reason for the ever-watchful eye of the Chinese government to give it more than a cursory glance.

But this unremarkable factory, which makes unremarkable plates and unremarkable cups, is the most remarkable factory in all of China. In fact, it is the most remarkable factory in all of the world.

Though the building was constructed in 1951, the people inside have been creating magical goods for thousands of years, serving a global clientèle.

For instance, if you needed a completely untraceable weapon, because you wanted to kill your worthless husband, but didn’t have the stomach to pull the trigger yourself, this factory could create for you, at great expense, of course, a hand and a gun for precisely this purpose.

Real Life

2008-04-17T17:56:38Z

Gary left Hollywood and drove up Laurel Canyon, like he’d done a hundred times before in another life.
It was a good life, one that he missed. A life filled with glorious uncertainty, excitement, and hope. A life he’d traded away . . . for what? He couldn’t remember.

It had been a good night. A night with people he missed, people who were once kindred spirits. Standing with them on Fairfax, he’d felt truly happy . . . and realized how profoundly unhappy he really was.

Gary envied them, and he hated himself for it. They were following the dream he’d given up.

He pulled his car up the hill, through the turns, past the houses he thought he’d be living in now. He crested Mulholland and began the long descent back home.

Wallace

2008-03-11T01:26:20Z

The pharmacy was uncharacteristically busy, and it was the first time in months – hell, maybe years – that he’d encountered a line: two people in front of him, three behind.

Wallace didn’t mind the wait. He had a cup of coffee and nowhere important to be.

The woman behind him, though, was another matter entirely. He smelled her before he heard her: cigarettes and booze, stale and sour, radiated off her and assaulted him.

Wallace frowned and took a small step forward. The woman edged up behind him, and began muttering complaints under her breath.

Wallace turned around. She looked like she smelled. Heavily-lined face. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes. Bleached blond hair, grown out and streaked with a nest of gray. Mouth sores. Meth teeth.

“Do you mind?” Wallace said.

“Fuck you, pal.” Her voice was a deep rattle.

Something in Wallace snapped. He dropped his cup, and in the time it took to fall and explode on the tiled floor, he punched her right in the mouth.

In retrospect, it wasn’t the wisest move.

A Godawful Small Affair

2008-01-30T18:55:26Z

“I want to move to Mars, and open up a bar,” Gregor said.

Matti inhaled deeply, and let a cloud of pale blue smoke surround his head.

“What would you call it?” Matti said.

“Moonage Daydream.” Gregor said.

They sat together on a crumbling balcony, exposed rebar and radioactive dust, and waited for the rocket, three miles distant, to launch.

“What’s it mean?” Matti said. He flicked the butt of his cigarette over the edge, and watched it fall out of sight.

“It’s the title of an old song,” Gregor looked past the rocket, to a horizon he knew he’d never cross, “from about a hundred years ago.”

“Nobody’s going to get it. Why would you pick something that old?”

“Because back then,” Gregor said, “people had hope.”

The ground shook, and they watched the rocket climb into the sky.

Snowfall

2007-11-28T03:04:07Z

Nina looked down from the 65th floor. The first snow of the year covered buildings, the walkways connecting them, and the empty streets below.

Nina probed the apartment until she found her granddaughter.

Arina, Nina psyked, look at the snow! Nina flashed her the view through the polyglass.

It just sits there, Arina replied. It looks boring.

Nina smiled sadly. Arina had never been outside and never would, but with no war to fight, nobody would ever take her from her father the way she’d been taken from her mother. At least they had that.

Her son called from the doorway. “Mom? Are you ready to go?”

“In a minute,” Nina said.

“We have to go,” he said, gently. “The ceremony starts in an hour.”

The snow began to fall again. It looked just like the ashes that fell on Minsk the last time Nina (or anyone still alive) had breathed unfiltered air.

“It’s silly,” she said.

“You’re a hero. It’s about time they recognized that.”

She flashed on Arina.

“I already have all the recognition I need.”

Nevermore

2007-10-27T23:07:31Z

The birds did not scatter as Roland expected. Instead, they fell silent and still.

Leaves crunched beneath his feet as he walked through the flock, each step marked by dozens of unblinking black eyes.

A gust of wind surrounded him as they beat their wings and took flight. They circled, and became a swarm.

Roland was about to learn why a flock of crows is called a murder.

They Don't Come Out at Night

2007-10-19T03:11:18Z

You know the well has to be close, but your lantern only makes the fog harder to penetrate.

You know there’s nothing but open field around you for hundreds of meters, but the fog is so thick, you could be buried alive. Claustrophobic panic threatens each step.

You have to keep moving. You have to get to the well and fill your skins, because the house is dry and the night is long.

You have to keep moving, because if you stop . . . no. “No!” You tell yourself. “They don’t come out at night! No one has ever seen them come out at night!”

No one who is still alive, that is.

You count your steps, to stay calm and focussed.

240, 241, 242

It’s 250 paces to the well, 250 paces back to momma.

243, 244

There it is! The well! A squat, grey shape, against the fog.

It moves.

Toward you.

You scream, and turn toward safety.

You drop your skins, you drop your torch, and you run.

“No! They don’t come out at night!” You think, as you turn your ankle, and fall. Tears turn dust to mud on your cheeks.

The Fifteenth

2007-10-16T20:35:57Z

Marten stayed low, and moved down the trench. Plasma beams streaked across the sky above him, a patchwork of colors that would have been beautiful if they weren’t trying to kill him and the entire fifteenth infantry.

Kravlik stopped him as he passed.

“Hey Anders,” he said, gesturing over the edge of the trench toward the enemy line, “I think I see your mo-”

A purple beam went through his outstretched hand, continued through his skull, and burned into the back wall of the trench. What little blood wasn’t cauterized splashed onto Marten’s face. He instinctively crouched lower.

“Man down!” He said into his comm. Nobody stopped to see which of their brothers had fallen. The mourning would come later, always later.

Marten pushed Kravlik’s body against the side of the trench. What was a soldier 5 seconds ago was just something else to trip over during a retreat.

An explosion shook him off his feet, and turned the sky white. An inhuman roar filled the air.

“Oh good,” he thought. “The psykers are here.”