Страница 15 из 54
Another small panel opened up. From it Alkirin took a cup and a blue pill, both of which had been replaced regularly for the last six years for just this moment. The pill contained an untraceable, flavor-less, and above all, painless poison. Alkirin put the pill on his tongue and washed it down with the excellent brandy in the glass. A fitting end, he thought, sensing the torpor begi
“And on the final day, I created Man in my own image, and I saw that it was good. And then,” Alkirin murmured, as the darkness began to gather in his vision, “I rested.”
THE LIFE & DEATH OF FORTUNE COOKIE TYRANT by Dean Wesley Smith
You will live your life by direct instructions.
– Chinese fortune cookie
The origin of a tyrant is often a mixture of common sense, wild strangeness, and a lot of luck. Those three factors led to the creation of one of the world’s most feared and misunderstood dictators, Fortune Cookie Tyrant, or just FC among his minions when speaking of him in private.
Every great ruler’s story usually starts with a single event. Seven-month-old Fortune Cookie Tyrant, then named Steven, had just soiled his diaper while strapped into his high chair near his mother, Betty, at the end of the table at Fon Wong’s Emporium and Lounge. The smell of Steven’s little event mixed well with the smell of the last few bites of fried rice and overcooked chow mein, so, for a while, no one noticed.
Steven’s dad, Frank, burped, pushed his plate aside, and leaned back, patting his growing beer gut. “Good food.”
Every Wednesday night he said the same thing after eating the same di
Steven, being somewhat uncomfortable with the nature call, started to “fuss,” as his mother called it.
Sensing that Steven was going to be a problem, and wanting to just finish the last few mouthfuls of her di
Distracted for the moment from the loaded diaper, Steven played with the cookie, finally managing to crack it open before putting it in his mouth, fortune and all.
“Whoa there, big fella,” his dad said, reaching over and pulling the paper and most of the cookie from Steven’s mouth. “You gotta read the fortune before eating it.”
Betty laughed and just kept eating, glad for the few extra moments, as Frank opened the fortune and read it aloud. “Big fella, it says you will live your life by direct instructions.”
Steven’s father grunted and glanced at Betty before tossing the slip of paper on the table between the dirty plates. “What kinda stupid fortune is that?”
Actually, unknown to either Frank or Betty or the growingly more uncomfortable Fortune Cookie Tyrant, it was a charmed fortune, cursed by the magic of an angry Chinese man whose brother had slept with his wife.
The cookie had been specially made for the man’s brother, with the curse on the fortune intended to let the angry man push his brother around and pay him back for his deed by giving him fortune cookies with really nasty instructions inside. But as luck would have it, the charmed cookie that was to set the entire process in motion was lost in the packing process. Instead of being sent to the angry man who could then give it to his brother, it was added to a shipment headed for the United States, where it ended up in Steven’s hands at Fo Wong’s Emporium and Lounge.
Common sense, wild luck, and a strange curse had come together to change Steven into Fortune Cookie Tyrant, a man whose entire life and therefore the future of the entire world was to be steered by the fortunes included in small desserts.
As life would have it, Steven’s parents were killed the following weekend in a tragic deer hunting accident. Steven was sent to live with his wicked and uncaring aunt who hated Chinese food. Thus it was twenty years and five months before Steven got his next “fortune” and came to realize his true powers for evil.
The date with Amy wasn’t going well. They had met in a freshman United States history class at the university and smiled at each other for a few classes before Steven had had the courage to talk to her, and eventually ask her for a date. Steven, at this point in his life, was not an attractive man. He looked like a bad cross between a nerdy scientist in a movie and Ichabod Crane. He had just finished into his last growth spurt and had the social skills of a stumbling tenth grader, even though he was in college.
Amy was no real catch, either, but for Steven, any woman who agreed to go out with him was someone special. He had fantasized for days about making love to her.
Now, sitting in Amy’s favorite Chinese restaurant, the conversation had lagged and become strained toward the end of di
She picked up the tray holding the two fortune cookies, smiled at him from behind her thick glasses, and said, “You first.”
He took the small cookie, she handed him the tray, then she took the second. He was about to pop the entire thing into his mouth when she broke hers open and took out the little slip of paper.
He did the same, puzzling at the strange feeling that came over him when he read the words, “Intuition will help you solve puzzling problems.”
He glanced up at her as she shook her head at her fortune and then flipped it toward him. “Dumb, really dumb. I’m supposed to come into money shortly. Yeah, that’s going to happen. Why can’t they ever do anything original with these cookies?”
Steven wasn’t listening. He knew instantly how to solve his problem, how to get her back to his dorm room, and into a position they might both enjoy. He didn’t know how he knew, but with one look at her, he just knew.
Not allowing himself to stop and think about what he was doing, he reached his hand past the half-eaten plate of pork fried rice and touched her hand, looking into her startled eyes.
“I’ve got a confession to make,” he said, letting himself smile just a little to not make his words seem threatening, “I’ve been sitting here this entire di
His words were smooth, smoother than he had ever spoken in his life, his voice deeper, his tone perfect, his eyes focused and caring. Steven marveled at himself as this new power took over his body, smoothly talking to Amy, making her laugh, making her squeeze his hand with the promise of the night.
From that moment on, he said the exact right thing at every exact right moment.
And considering that he had never been with a woman his entire life, and had only watched a few porn films, he was a perfect lover as well. It seemed that the power to know how to solve her needs, as well as his own, stuck with him long after the di
The next morning, after she had left with a long kiss and a hope for more time with him, the power didn’t go with her. He just sort of knew how to solve problems, how to deal with things that just the day before would have left him puzzled and lost.