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You Are Two Point Three Meters from Your Destination

Commencing Route for Orpheus of Thrace.

Proceed from Ciconian Coast meadow south–southwest to mouth of Eurotas River in Laconia, approximately eight hundred kilometers. Travel time to waypoint: seven days at your current speed.

Head ninety–two kilometers south to Cape Taenarus, also known as Matapan. Find Taenarus Gate.

Recalculating. Find Taenarus Gate. Proceed to route.

Pass into Taenarus Gate and proceed to River Styx.

A toll is required. Exact change is required.

Proceed to route. Descend five thousand kilometers to throne room. Time to destination: unknown.

Arriving at throne room. Proceed five point two meters to throne. Avoid abyss. Make your request.

Receiving new information from satellites. Calculating return trip.

Exit throne room, follow northern path to Vale of Avernus, Cicero, Italy. Approximately six thousand kilometers.

Proceed up incline. No turns are permitted on this route.

Proceed up incline. You are five hundred meters from your destination.

No turns are permitted on this route. You are one hundred meters from your destination.

You are two point three meters from your destination. Proceed up…recalculating.

Recalculating. Proceed to route.

Proceed to… No crossing of the River Styx is possible at this time.

Proceed to route. Recalculating. Proceed ahead from River Styx, approximately five thousand kilometers to mouth of Acheron River.

Calculating new destination. Proceed six hundred kilometers north–northeast through forest to Rhodope Mountains. Time to destination, five days to three years. Several drinking establishments ahead on left.

New route selected.

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Fran Wilde

Fran Wilde

Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde has (so far) published nine novels, a poetry collection, and over 70 short stories for adults, teens, and kids. Her stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, four Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years’ best anthologies. “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” (Uncanny, 2017), was a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award, and won the 2018 Eugie Foster Memorial Award. “A Catalog of Storms” (Uncanny, 2019) was a 2020 Hugo and Locus finalist and a 2019 Nebula finalist, and “Unseelie Brothers Ltd.” (Uncanny, 2021) was a 2022 Hugo finalist.

The co-editor for The Sunday Morning Transport, Fran teaches or has taught for schools including Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She writes nonfiction for publications including The New York Times, NPR, and Tor.com. You can find her on Instagram, Bluesky, and at franwilde.net.

Photo credit: with reservation