The Forbidden Martian

by Margaret Karmazin

I awoke and struggled to sit up. It was dark except for emergency floor lights, and I was ravenous. The door to my cell was wide open. Groggy and confused, I sat up, then very carefully stood. Where were my torturers? Why was it cold?

Not sure of my strength, I crawled out of the cell into a larger room and heard what sounded like a whimper. Squinting, I made out a woman huddled against the wall. My hand felt around on a desktop and closed on some kind of tool that resembled a screwdriver. I edged toward the woman. She saw me, cried out and tried to back up with no place to go. Brandishing the tool threateningly. I barked, “What’s going on?”

She cleared her throat and made several tries before she could speak. “They’re probably going to cut off our air (sob)! They’re going to kill us!”

And to think that before all this, my life on Mars had been so routine.

***

The distant sun caused objects inside the geodesic domes to glisten but only artificial heat warmed us. I was used to it now; almost could not remember sunlight on earth, the way it lit up hairs on my arm or caused me to see red when I closed my eyes. To think that doctors warned against skin cancer there, how quaint that seemed now. I had grown to associate the sun with extreme and fatal cold.

Yet, we were reasonably cozy in New London. I headed a team of city planners laying out designs for New Mumbai, a sister city thirty kilometers from us and eventually reachable by Japanese designed monorail. The robot diggers were busy at work, supervised by genetically modified human workers (GMs) who currently lived in an underground level of New London and did not mingle with regular humans (Regs).

My assistant Roger and I enjoyed rather intense discussions about GMs. Roger was a pleasant looking gay man who, like me, had only been on Mars for two years. We had an excellent working relationship on Earth and figured why not continue it in the new frontier?

“Are GMs technically human,” he said. “Didn’t their makers cut down on brain power while adding the physical abilities? I mean, why would your average GM need to grasp the finer points of literature or politics? For that matter, do they even experience the same emotions we do? Why would they need to be sensitive or empathetic? All they’re meant to do is get engineering jobs done and control the robos. I have to admit though, some of them are gorgeous.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I’ve seen some attractive ones,” I said noncommittally. “I don’t believe Biomatters messed with their intellectual abilities though.”

“You’ve never been alone with one, have you?”

“No, have you?”

“Not yet, but give me time.”

“Just what I like about you, Roger. You’re such an explorer in human relations.”

A short time later, I found myself alone in a conference room with four GMs. Roger had gone to represent me in a meeting with the architects as he surpassed me at catering to their egos while I communicated better with plumbers, electricians and contractors. Earlier in the day, I’d met with the plumbers and addressed their concerns. This meeting with the GMs was at their own request.

When I entered the room, two males and one female were sitting stiffly at the conference table, while their spokesman had a screen up in front of him from his wrist unit. His right hand was busy flicking at configurations.

“Whom am I addressing and what can I do for you?” I said to my audience.

Their spokesman looked at me and I felt a weird thump in my chest, causing me to remember the old myths about Cupid and his arrow.

“Mark Risen,” he said. So they had last names, I thought and wondered if they were allowed to choose them and what did his signify? Did it have a spiritual meaning? “We need to discuss the New Mumbai food production areas. In looking over your plans, it seems you haven’t allotted enough space. After all, food production would take precedence over government office space. I understand housing and educational sections – obviously those are high priority, but more red tape spewing accommodations? Seriously?“

The others all stared at me in an unsettling manner. I noticed their wiry slimness, slightly larger thoraxes, slim waists and bluish tinge to their skin. The dark brown one had bright blue fingernails and all of their lips were purple. Otherwise, they appeared as normal humans.

“You certainly have a point, Mr. Risen.” I tapped my wrist for my own visuals to rise and made a note. “I’ll take this up with VP Craigland later this afternoon, assuming I can get hold of him. He’s rather slippery.”

Surprisingly, they all laughed. “Are you voters?” I asked.

“I am,” said the woman. “And you can bet I’d never vote for that phony sellout.”

Ah, a person of like mind,” I thought, although someone in my position should not express bias.

“Tell him,” said Mark, “that if we don’t make more room for food production, he’ll be waiting anxiously for dried packets from Earth.”

I liked this guy. As I looked him over, I noticed his lips were now cherry red and his skin very pink. Glancing around the group, I saw this was the case with all of them. The dark guy was now rosy brown. His fingernails were hot pink. They all seemed to almost glow.

“Are you guys too hot or something? Should I lower the temp in here?”

They laughed. The red-haired woman told me her name (Cecilia) and spoke up. “You haven’t met with any of us before, I take it? You didn’t hear the details about our oxygen capabilities?”

“Please tell me,” I said. They were beginning to look alarming.

“We are born altered, to be able to use a third of the O2 you yourselves need for periods of time. Then we need to go back inside or up the output of our suits, but usually we just go inside and recover. While we’re in our underground quarters, we make up for lost time and store up in a form of red blood cell that regular humans don’t have. Hence our intense color.”

Of course I’d read about this but seeing it in action was a different matter. “I believe you people also have a better tolerance for cold?”

Mark Risen answered that with a firm “yes,” signaling we should get back to business. I looked him over as he described his own plans for larger food production areas and hardly heard what he was saying. What on Mars was going on with me? I was thirty-six, divorced and not remotely interested in screwing up my work life with messy shenanigans. There was virtual reality for my needs in that area. And why did I imagine this thirty or so year old GM would entertain similar thoughts about me, who I well knew resembled a prim school teacher? Not when he had gorgeous GMs like Cecelia around.

“Mark,” I said, “I’ll write this up and present it to the powers-that-be, but I warn you that just like on Earth, the world is full of red tape and corruption. You were born here, though, so maybe you’re not familiar with—”

He cut me off. “I read,” he said. “I’m well aware of the shit-hole you people made of Earth and probably will do here too, give it time. Nevertheless, I try to remain cheerful.” He smiled.

I simply could not allow myself to feel this intense attraction. GMs and Regs just did not mix. As far as I knew, Regs never went down to their quarters. It was astounding how little I knew about all this. And here I’d imagined I was well versed in the functioning of a Martian city.

All four of them were, by now, extremely flushed. Would they keep going till they burst? Mark answered my question. “Well, Ms. Quon, we’d better go. As you can see, we’re too pretty a color.”

***

Roger, back from his meeting with the architects, was high spirited and up for refreshment. We strolled into The Tudor, a wrongly named café airily decorated with a fake Earth summer sky ceiling, wire tables and numerous live hanging plants. Eduardo, a pleasant looking robot, took our orders. I said, “The meeting with the GMs was interesting. Mark, the spokesman, suggests we enlarge the food production areas and cut down on administration housing.” I went on and Roger watched me with a knowing eye.

“That’ll never fly with headquarters. The VP will never go for anything that doesn’t glorify his ambitions and kingly surroundings.”

“Well, I assume that survival of the colonies would outdo power and self-glorification but then I’ve always been naive.”

“Don’t do it,” Roger said.

“Don’t do what?”

“I can read you like a book, Jackie. GMs are off limits.”

“And that’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Well, I agree but the powers-that-be must have their reasons.”

There were no “powers-that-be” I could question about this since I didn’t know who was in charge of that end of things and certainly didn’t want to call attention to my apparently nefarious interests.

“You’re too good a boss to lose,” Roger warned.

I looked out the fake windows onto a fake Earth scene and realized how lonely I’d grown since my divorce.

Mars had its own culture on top of importing literature and entertainment. from Earth.

We even had, by now, our own accent. English was the “national” language though the Chinese were building their city on the other side of the planet where Mandarin would reign. They did not let us visit their construction site.

Time for the big-shot meeting arrived. VP Finn Craigland was of course late, keeping everyone waiting till they were twitching in their seats.

Craigland didn’t bother with an excuse for his lateness. He was an arrogant privileged kid from the UK, full of his family’s ancient history, like it mattered on another planet. I started on Mark Risen’s input on the food production area size for New Mumbai and to my surprise, Craigland didn’t argue.

“He’s probably right,” he said, “even if he is just a GM. Don’t go to the extreme he’s suggesting but say, go two thirds of what he wants. You have my permission to inform the architects. Flash your screen and I’ll sign. Anything else?”

My mouth hung open as I received his official mark on my screen. I noticed his hand shook. His lips were blueish and there were bruises on the side of his neck.

“Roger!” I whispered, as soon as we got out of there, “the reason he doesn’t care what we do is that he has Coben’s! He just hasn’t stepped down yet.”

“Holy crap!” said Roger. “You saw symptoms?” “Close up, yeah. Just a matter of time.”

Though we couldn’t stand the arrogant VP, we were silent for a moment out of sympathy.

After the first symptoms of Coben’s appeared, you had about six months.

The disease first appeared eight months into the occupation of New London. By now thirty-one people had died of it. Medical was working on the problem, but so far they’d only eliminated causes. It was not the liquor or food since everyone generally ate the same stuff. Everyone used the same water source, breathed the same air and took the same supplements. No one in contact with the victims had caught the disease. None of the GMs had come down with it. It seemed to be an affliction of the upper echelon in New London society and so far only males.

Hence my lack of concern in having been in close contact with Craigland, though hopefully I wasn’t being overly confident.

“Of course we knew this could happen when we came here,” said Roger. “What?”

“New and horrible diseases.” “You’re usually right,” I said.

“And I’m right about this Mark GM too. You’re about to stick your hand into a snake pit.”

Alexandra Chandra, a main architect on the project, messaged me. “There’s going to be some issue with the heating over there,” she said, meaning New Mumbai. “The constant underground temp is different than here and this could call for more energy. I need you and the head GM to go over there, if you will, and see what’s up.”

Well, well. I messaged Mark Risen but he’d already heard and was busy making preparations. “You’ll need your supersuit,” he said.

A supersuit was fancier than regular outside gear. If a Reg had to make a short range trip outside, she’d wear a suit with enough oxygen and pressurizing to last for three hours. If she needed to be out for longer periods, she’d wear her supersuit, capable of about seven hours protection and to be on the safe side, take along oxygen replacement capsules. GMs, altered to need less oxygen, lived in underground quarters with lower oxygen atmosphere and had their own supersuits that could give them a full twelve hours outside.

We traveled by modified Land-rover with sealed in atmosphere. I sneaked looks at Mark.

He was exactly my physical type – just under two meters tall, medium build, wide shoulders, shaggy brown hair, thick straight eyebrows, square jaw. He kept up a decent conversation, actually asked me about myself which was unusual in a man, or for that matter anyone. I told him a quick life story, then asked for his.

“Born here, obviously,” he said. “Raised in…I think you once called them kibbutzes on Earth. Not Jewish but…”

“I understand,” I said.

“Many brothers and sisters which sometimes makes for difficulties when desiring a mate.”

“You’re allowed mates?” I blushed. “I mean—”

“We do whatever we want sexually,” he said, “but having a family is not yet possible.

BioMatters created us by tampering with fetuses and, according to them, none of our women can bring an infant to term on their own due to oxygen needed in the formation of the fetus. They can grow more of us in the lab but we’re not reproductively independent, at least not the women. It breaks their hearts. Some of them would do anything for a child.”

“I see,” I said, thinking how convenient of BioMatters. This way they could maintain total control of GM numbers. “So you’re not really a free agent.”

He shot me a sardonic look. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine by earth time, almost thirty. A bit over fifteen Martian years. How old are you?”

I told him.

“You attached?”

I smiled and shook my head.

***

With the oxygenated sealed areas inside the construction site where workers ate, slept and made reports, Mark and I were able to have a little time together, though this was not guaranteed secure. People came and went, took breaks, looked for where they put things. We found a storage closet containing bedding and spread some on the floor. Propping a shelf against the door, we made frantic love, during which I periodically said to myself as if an audience were listening, “Jacqueline Quon, you are having sex right now with an altered human on Mars!” and then I would forget and melt into the experience.

We didn’t look at each other much the rest of the inspection and during the trip back, but I felt heat radiating from his body and soul and I knew he felt the same from me. Back in New London, as we parted, our hands touched and I understood this wasn’t over, that in fact in one way or another, it never would be.

While presenting my report on the underground heating issue to Engineering, I found it difficult to concentrate and two of the engineers asked if I was all right. “We’ll figure this out,” one finally said , a family man who had his school teacher wife and children on Mars with him.

“My dear,” said Roger at dinner, “your entire body and demeanor are screaming what happened. How did it happen is what I want to know? And is there going to be more?”

My face flushed as hot as a GM’s. “I don’t know. Do you think they’ll ship me to Earth if they find out?”

“They’d better not. I’d have to go with you. And I left so many pining lovers there, not to mention those I owe money.”

“Be serious,” I said. I felt weak at the knees. My life was here now. I simply could not bear to live on Earth again, not with my memories of a mentally disturbed husband who tried to kill me. Just no.

Mark found a way to communicate, hopefully private, by messaging links. It appeared they were for work, but one had two little birds next to it. How he had the idea of “lovebirds,” I don’t know. We set up a round of communication about the ongoing underground temp situation and then I tried a private message, “Miss you.” As soon as I sent it, it disappeared. Immediately there appeared one from him, “Supply, Lift 6, 14:00.” That too disappeared with a little pop.

Supply was one level down from the city floor. Lift 6 was the closest to my office. How did he know that? The GMs lived on the level beneath Supply with their own tunnel exits to the outside. How did they stand it with no outside views? Why were they treated like second class citizens when in fact they were true Martians designed to live here?

He was waiting for me and I felt my knees go weak. I was hideously in love or lust though I hardly knew him. “I want to show you something first,” he said. Of course I knew what he meant by “first.”

He led me fifty meters and stopped. We were surrounded by containers but not another soul in side. Pointing further on, which looked as far as anyone could go, he said, “Do you know what that area is directly under?”

I shook my head.

“The Racquet Club. Where the elite of your tribe gather to play tennis or whatever.” “Okay,” I said, not getting his point.

“One of our own down here discovered some kind of radiation is coming from the ground under it. That deadly disease you’ve have up there, the one that kills in six months? Well, this could be the cause. You said it seems to affect the upper echelon? Do they let the hoi polloi into that club?”

“No,” I said thoughtfully. “I don’t know that they consciously deny them entry.” “Of course they do,” said Mark, smirking. “As they supposedly use to say on Earth,

‘Wake up and smell the coffee.’ There are supplies down there on this level, but not ones often used. Mostly outdated cartons. And GM level ends three-fifths of the way across the city. Our living quarters don’t have any contact with that area.”

“Have any GMs contracted the illness?”

“No, not even the one woman who heads up our needs from Supply. She has gone into that area a few times but never for long.”

“Do we even know if females get it? I need to check if those who’ve had it in the city attended that racquet club or played in a spot right over it. My guess is, it’s an Old Boys club. Even here on Mars, this crap continues. Thank you so much for this information, Mark.”

“You can thank me better than that,” he said, and my knees went wobbly. He took my hand and led me to another lift “Put this on,” he said, plucking something from a hook on the lift wall. It was an unobtrusive oxygen pack and he helped me adjust it into my nose, gently pushing aside my hair.

As for himself, he was glowing from having sucked up O2 from Supply and with his very red lips, kissed me long and hard. I felt a little scared. Here I was where I could literally die from the unnourishing air.

Reading my mind, he said, “Don’t worry. These gadgets are all over the place. We use them ourselves to ‘shoot up.’ See?” he nodded at rows of them hanging on walls as far as I could see. I took his hand and went where he led, which of course was to his private quarters where no one bothered us for hours.

The next morning, I was called into the office of the VP’s deputy, a hard-nosed former cop named Felicity Melnor. “It has come to our attention,” she said, “that you’ve been fraternizing with a GM. While this is not legally verboten, it’s just not done, not at this point in time.”

“You mean Mark Risen?” No used denying it. I wondered who told them.

“That’s right,” she said. “It seems you went down to GM level and remained in Risen’s quarters for some length of time. You’d think someone in your position as Chief Planner would know better how to set the tone for others.”

“Set the tone for others?”

“We don’t want Regs fraternizing with GMs until we know what the consequences could be. Will unknown diseases result? What about unplanned pregnancies? What kind of potential mess could that produce?”

Potential mess – what a choice of words. “Who reported this to you? That I was down there?”

“Cecelia Ferrano,” she said. “Sent a report a couple of hours ago.”

Ah, I thought. The red-haired GM female at the meeting. So she had her eye on Mark. All made sense now. Apparently being raised like his sister didn’t cancel sexual interest.

“Deputy, I did learn something of interest while I was down there. In fact that’s why I went,” I smoothly lied. I told her about the radiation in that unfrequented area of Supply and suggested an immediate investigation at the Raquet Club. “Have you ever played there?”

She lost her hardcore cop expression and looked alarmed. “I did once,” she said.

“Well, I suggest you seriously look into that. Please send me a report. If I don’t hear back in two days, I’ll have to bother the President.”

She was even more alarmed, which I enjoyed as I took my leave and smirked all the way back to my quarters. In a couple of weeks, however, I wouldn’t be smirking.

The President messaged me while I was home in my bathroom desperately checking my underwear. I only half heard his words as he gushed about how grateful he and BioMatters were that I’d found the probable source of Coben’s disease. “Who knows how many lives you’ve saved,” he gushed. “We have BioMatters engineers on it right now. Expect an acknowledgment at the banquet next month!”

“Actually, it was Mark Risen who discovered it. He’s a GM; you probably never heard of him.”

Silence.

“It was he who messaged me to go down to Supply so he could show me the area where the radiation was elevated. So it’s Mark Risen, a GM, who should receive acknowledgment at the banquet. Want me to invite him?”

Longer moment of silence. “Um, I’ll take his name down and check into it,” said the Prez. “Thank you.” And he clicked off without asking how to spell the name. I sure as hell would not be attending that ludicrous banquet.

That afternoon I was in Medical frantically seeing my doctor. “How could I be?” I demanded of her. “I have the chip!”

“The chip is only 99.5 percent,” she said. “That means less than one in a hundred-“

I angrily interrupted. “You don’t know everything about this case. Yeah, I can abort it, but it would be a very special baby. Not one I planned on but…”

“Special?” she said.

I took a long breathe, exhaled slowly and explained.

The question now was, just how valuable was I as Chief City Planner? While it was true that I’d been the experienced assistant to New London’s former chief planner and I probably knew more about the Martian city layout than anyone, I was still expendable. A horde of young planners on Earth eagerly awaited my demise or removal. If I produced a hybrid baby, I could easily picture climbing into the next ship to Earth, head hung in embarrassment over the bundle in my arms.

Then it hit me – would the law here have it killed? Or kept in an underground lab? Icy fear stabbed my gut. I worried about Roger since his position depended on mine. I’d been avoiding him as much as possible due to fear and embarrassment.

I needed to see Mark though by now I was being watched. But what the hell, I messaged him on the secret channel. He immediately answered.

“Something has happened,” I said. “Where are you?” “Outside. Checking on that radiation thing. What’s up?” “I’m pregnant,” I said.

Very long silence. “Still there?”

“Yeah. I’m just thinking.”

“What will they do to us? Obviously, I can’t hide it. Well, I could abort it, but I had the feeling the doctor was excited and there might be some rule that she has to report it. She wasn’t entirely forthcoming.”

“I don’t think we can hide this,” he said.

“Why does your voice sound happy? You know Cecelia told them about us?”

“Not surprised,” he said. “Look, I can’t talk now. Do you want to get together later? Same lift as before? Say 19:00?”

Knowing I was probably being watched every second, I experienced a rush of rebelliousness and agreed to meet him. A mistake. City police were waiting for me, apparently having hacked into my accounts. Doctor had told.

They escorted me to BioMatters where I was installed in a “comfortable” cell with a bed, viewing screen and assortment of literature. A huge and well-balanced lunch of mixed greens, artificial salmon and multigrain bread appeared with tofu ice cream for dessert. Were they acknowledging that I was “eating for two”? Once the food was delivered, I was left in terrified silence while the door slid shut and locked. I madly tapped for my screen to pop up but nothing happened. Apparently, the room was sealed in more ways than one. There was no point in yelling, so I not so calmly waited. Three hours passed before someone came and that someone was the director of BioMatters. “We need to talk,” he said.

“I want to go home,” I said. “I’m tired.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that. Not with what you’re carrying inside you.”

Cold terror washed over me. This wasn’t Earth with all its civil rights. For all I knew, they could just get rid of me. Poison, electricity, just toss me outside. My vision went white and I passed out.

I woke up on a gurney in a lab. “You’re carrying a very important fetus, Dr. Quon,” said the small mustached man in a lab coat who exuded a cloud of rotten breath. “We aren’t sure yet what we’re going to do with it.”

This comment caused a stab to my heart.

“And what are you going to do with me?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Well, what?” I asked, my voice shaky. “Kill me off?” He didn’t answer.

Over the next few days, they ran tests on me and the fetus, let me have no contact with the outside world and refused to answer questions. I think they administered drugs since I drifted in and out and was disconnected from reality. But then suddenly I awoke, my jailers were gone, things were in chaos and I was brandishing a sharp object towards a cowering young woman who claimed someone was going to kill us.

“Who? Who is going to kill us and why?” My unused voice almost sounded like a man’s. “Those horrible GMs, who do you think? They cut off our power, there’s no heat and no light! You think it’s cold now, just wait! They’ll cut off our oxygen next and then take over! We’ll all die and they’ll just throw our bodies in a pit or something!”

I had an inkling what this was about but could I allow myself to believe it?

We heard yelling from outside, then the patter of feet. “Where is Dr. Mengele?” I asked. “Who?”

“That Nazi bastard holding me here, where is he?”

She shook her head. I could make out her features now in the dim emergency lighting. “I- I don’t know, he ran out of here in a panic. I think they threatened his life.”

I smiled. “And why would those ‘horrible’ GMs do that, do you think?” “Maybe because of you,” she mumbled.

I found food in a kitchen area and shoved it in my mouth like a savage. Then I used the toilet which wouldn’t flush. I was quite calm, though I heard people yelling in the street. Doctor Evil must have left the doors open, either that or they wouldn’t close without power. Dumb of people to make doors that depended upon electric power but then I remembered, I was the city planner.

“Do people out there know why this is happening?” I asked whatshername behind me. ”Do they know who I am?”

“How could they?” she said, but I didn’t trust her.           

“You tell anyone and I’ll hurt you,” I said in my most sinister tone. “And my friends will finish the job.”

She knew whom I meant but while I was tossing out threats, I wasn’t really certain that any of this had anything to do with me. I didn’t want her to accompany me but didn’t want to be alone either. Dark figures slinked between structures in the now dim Martian light coming from outside the domes. We made it to my apartment but the door was sealed. Note to self: no power doors in New Mumbai. With the screw driver or whatever it was, we managed to get it open and once inside felt slightly better.

Her name was Lenore and she was only nineteen, the daughter of a government official. “I didn’t understand why they were doing that stuff to you but then one of the scientists explained it,” she said.

“What did he tell you?”

“It was the one you call Mengele. His real name is Dr. Rezi. They said that you’re pregnant with the child of a GM. They had to see what it would turn out like, if Regs could produce offspring with them. They’re scared of GMs since they are real Martians and better adapted to planetary conditions so they could take over and even kill us off. And now that might be happening. They got wind of your capture and they probably want your baby as much as we do.”

We heard a loud bang from outside our building. “What are the Regs doing?” I wondered aloud. They can’t shoot off weapons, not in the city itself, or they might damage the domes and cause all of us to die. Do they even have weapons?”

“They probably have all kinds,” said Lenore. “Maybe they brought them in case of alien attack or unknown Martian animals.”

It occurred to me to wonder what Mark was doing in all this and had he tried to contact me? Did my wrist monitor even still work? Surely Rezi would have disabled it. But when I tapped it, it popped up as usual though any messages had been erased.

Suddenly the power came back on; my apartment lit up and appliances hummed. A communication screen opened in the center of the room, startling us. President Raush’s face loomed and his voice filled the space. “After intense negotiations with the GM faction, our power has been restored. Deliberations will continue, but for the moment, all GMs have the same citizen rights as Regs and full access to the upper city. They will come and go as they please and shop or enjoy any facilities in New London. A Dr. Rezi is in custody for his imprisonment of a city official. All restrictions concerning behavior and relations between Regs and GMs are lifted.” Looking weary, he signed off.

What now, I wondered. There remained the fetus inside me. Would it survive and would I be taking care of it alone and where?

We heard a knock on the door and Lenore and I looked at each other. My heart did a horrible leap to my throat. I opened it and Mark stood there, his face aglow with triumph. “Jackie!” he said simply. He took me into his arms.

Margaret Karmazin’s credits include stories published in literary and SF magazines, including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review, Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, Fiction on the Web, The Speculative Edge, Aphelion and Another Realm. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine, Licking River Review and Mobius were nominated for Pushcart awards. She has stories included in several anthologies, published a YA novel, REPLACING FIONA, a children’s book, FLICK-FLICK & DREAMER and a collection of short stories, RISK.