Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer We should have given them feelings. It was decided in the beginning that to give Artificial Intelligences a baseline gamut of the twenty-seven identifiable human emotions would be a horrible mistake. Giving a robot the ability to love, to feel jealousy, to get angry, to be despondent or sullen [...]
Author : James McGrath “One of us is going to have to make a move, y’know?” I did know, but that didn’t make it any easier. We’d been in a stalemate for three minutes; our pistols pointed at them and theirs at us. However, the advantage lay with them, as while the two damned space-pirates [...]
Author : Adrian Berg A man and his son stood together on a mound, surrounded by a vast field of garbage. They were ragged, the boy with wild, uncut hair and the man with a knotted beard. The setting sun painted the sky red above them as they sorted through the junk. The boy picked [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer The troop ship hovers fifty feet above the drop zone under heavy fire from hostiles in the tree line. Low caliber bullets rattle harmlessly against the ship’s thick armor. I clip a rope into my belt carabineer, lean out the hatch and step off into the night. I hit [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer We first noticed it three days after we left the orbiting platform on our way to Mars. Initially, Tom and I thought it was just the years of extensive training. You know, you’re functioning so well as a team that you seem to know what the other person is [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The problem with early FTL journeys was the failure rate. Just like the first elevators, the disappearances were hidden from the public to prevent the rejection of the innovation. It was the mid twenty-second century before better understanding and implementation reduced the errors to less than one in a [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer I sat there pondering my sorry lot in life, wondering aloud, in a slurry voice, as I sloshed my glass of merlot around, “Why have I befallen such, hic! …circumstances? I don’t deserve this, sniff! All I want to do is give Tommy a good Christmas.” Another swig went [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer “You the new guy?” A massive Velorian Lobster asks me, a clawed hand over his head mic as I stand in the doorway of the busy office. There’s a muffled squawking coming from his headphones. I catch the hawkish profile of an elderly human female in his video globe. [...]
Author : Helstrom “Do you like them?” The voice snapped me out of my concentration. Things reverberated in my head. I turned it right and saw nothing. “Who said that?” “I did.” My eyes pivoted down and found a small girl looking up at me. “Oh. Hello. What?” “Do you like them?” “Yes.” They were [...]
Author : Bob Newbell It seems like it was only yesterday when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. From my perspective, of course, it literally was yesterday. July 20, 1969. But it shouldn’t have happened then. It was April 18, 1966 when Alan Shepard, not Neil Armstrong, became the first man to walk on [...]
Author : Kevin Crisp The segutar’s primary “facial” orifice oozed with puss and gurgled as it laboriously produced sounds that be interpreted by the translator unit. “We have some additional questions for you, Mr. Anderson. Many of your earthly artifacts and customs seem devoted to a concept that has no parallel among us.” “And what [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer “Not a single shot was fired during the Centauri Conquest.” General Kark says, stirring his cold narth-noodle soup. “Little known fact. They just rolled over as soon as our battle cruisers broke atmosphere. Signed the treaty before nightfall. Total subjugation. Easiest planetary occupation in the Hegemony’s history. Not a [...]
Author : Roi R. Cechvala, Alumnus Graham Banyon was enjoying a television retrospective, “2012: The Mayans Were Right and Other Crackpot Beliefs”, when a tremendous explosion rocked the house. “Damn kids,” he muttered. With a weary sigh he rose from his chair and walked to the back door. He looked up at the moon hanging [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The Neosatian hits me at the base of my spine so hard that I flip over backwards and land heavily, knocking the wind from me. By the time I get my breath, I cannot breathe properly because it’s sitting on me, front paws on my shoulders. I stare up [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer The red ball ricochets down the corridor before careening off a table leg into the kitchen. A trio of giggling children is in hot pursuit, but when the ball rolls silently across the kitchen floor and slips through the slim gap of an open doorway their laughter turns to [...]
Author : T. Gene Davis “Next up: the calendar,” droned the chairman over every speaker surface in the colonial ship. Sam yawned. “Excuse me,” she said though a second yawn that pushed its way past the first unfinished yawn. “Doesn’t get more exciting than this,” Rod commented feeling a yawn brought on by Sam’s yawn. [...]
Author : Morrow Brady Like unfolding origami, my plan emerged making me swiftly forget what disappointed me in the first place. Then it came back. The glowing gold logo of my local planning department told me this email was pre-approved permission for my neighbour to NanoBuild anything he wanted. I cringed as I looked over [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer The cavernous chamber of the Galaxy Arcade is filled with phantasmagorical colors, super-nova bright and a deafening riot of beeps, blips and core shuddering rumbles. Most of the games – “6th Dimension”, “Quantum Exchange”, “The Abyss” – are tended by dedicated players striving to beat high scores, but most [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer There was one thing I missed more than anything else when I was planetside. A zero-g bath. I’d think back. I’d remember turning the taps on and seeing the water spill out in braids of steaming hot water, glittering in the light. Seeing it hit the tiled wall and [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer I wander the jungle alone as always. Ducking beneath thick vines and scrambling over massive fallen logs, some stories high. I do as always. I explore and I record. Earlier today a beast of which I have no file approached me. It was tiger-sized and with three mouths full [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer As far as pirates went, Jack Hoorn was not the brightest star in the constellation. To be sure, what he lacked in reason and forethought, he made up for with guile and spontaneity. Even as he presented his stolen security clearance to the guards at the Telsela Research Station [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer I hate psychologists with a passion, but when I saw the ad requesting lucid dreamers for research into the origin of dreams, I couldn’t resist. Besides, they’re offering stipends and I need the cash. I stub out my cigarette and suck back their crappy coffee from a tiny styrofoam [...]
Author : Bob Newbell “This time we’re done for. This is finally the end, I think,” said Triana. Of course, she didn’t really “say” anything. She communicated her thoughts to her husband, Loret, by modulating the zero-point energy that comprised her being. “You say that every time something like this comes up. ‘This is it. [...]
Author : Ian Florida Jack was grateful he had never been human. He was thankful that he’d skipped out on that entire sliver of Earth’s history. He knew humans: pink bundles of flesh with more emotional baggage then a type IV psychic could ever hope to unravel. That he didn’t want to be human wasn’t [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, Featured Writer “Good evening honored representatives of the World Coalition,” Dr. Dretch drones standing near an unconscious patient strapped to an inclined table. The top of the patient’s skull has been removed, revealing grey brain matter. A neural net, made of fine filament is stretched across the moist tissue, relaying relevant [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer “Indestructabuddies! They’re completely indestructible! Drop them from skyscrapers, throw them into traffic! Freeze them, burn them, blow them up reeeal good! Indestructabuddies, your new best friend who will last you forever and ever and ever and ever…….” On echoed the announcer’s blasting intrusive voice. And the middle and upper [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer My mount is about an acre across from wingtip to wingtip. I’m sitting between her eyes, up near the front. I have a windshield set up, sheltering my sleeping quarters, replicator, garden, fridge, toilet bag and pilot’s chair. She’s the colour of sand stretching away on either side of [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer I am a rifle. There are few like me, but I am unique. I will fire true. I will fire straighter than any other. I know that only hitting the target counts. I will maintain myself clean and ready. I will defend my country. I will master the enemy. [...]
Author : Desmond Hussey, Featured Writer “That’ll be two-thousand kilowatts,” the droopy eyed clerk said when he finished scanning Sarah’s purchase. She held out her debit battery, which was running depressingly low; prayed she had enough. The clerk barely looked at her as he snagged the black, glossy storage unit and slid it into the [...]
December has arrived, and we’re pleased to present you with a new featured writer! This month, for your reading enjoyment, we feature the work of Desmond Hussey, another great writer who’s known in the forums here at 365 as Buddhamind. Desmond’s been with us for some time now, and we’ve had the pleasure of publishing [...]
Desmond Hussey has spent his last decade as co-founder, writer, director, actor, designer and janitor of Spectral Theatre Society, a Vancouver based independent theatre company dedicated to producing short Horror, Science-fiction and Weird Tales for “People that don’t like theatre”. But not all stories are for the stage and he is thrilled to discover an [...]
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