by admin | Aug 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Kate Runnels
“There,” said the doctor. “Try it now, agent Sasaki. The neural connection should be hooked in.”
Lia stared down at her cybernetic left arm, recently attached after a case went horribly wrong.
The murderer, after killing her last victim, sliced Lia’s arm, had nearly taken it off. If it hadn’t been for Ming, she’d be dead. It just didn’t feel like her limb, and yet her fingers clenched into a fist when she thought on it.
“Good.” The doctor beamed at her. “It’s responding well.”
Lia reached over with her organic right hand and felt along the seam that joined flesh to synthetic pseudo flesh material.
“That area should join and fuse together in the next few weeks. We’ll watch for any necrosis, but that shouldn’t happen. Things look good.”
Lia nodded at the doctor but her mind felt for the flesh that should be there, thinking it was there.
It wasn’t the same. It would never be the same.
Lia left the doctor’s office and went out onto the streets of Hong Kong, preoccupied- lost in her own thoughts: thoughts on the case; on her arm; on how close she had come to dying. She headed back toward the HK security agency she worked for, by routine alone. But pretty soon, she realized she was being followed. It was like an itch that wouldn’t leave and demanded attention. The person followed her.
Young, teenager, looked to be fully human without prosthetics. She turned into a coffee shop, and glanced over at him as she did so. He eyed her hungrily. No, not her, her arm. New prosthetics went for a premium on the black market.
She got her coffee and when she came out, he wasn’t in sight, but it didn’t take him long to drop on her tail. She kept walking through the streets of Hong Kong, heading in a roundabout way toward her office. She went toward the back of the building, and he came on eagerly, thinking her in his trap.
Around a corner and out of sight, she stopped and waited for him. He raced around, seeing her waiting too late to stop himself. About to run into her, he decided to tackle Lia. She swung her new left arm and it connected with his jaw.
She nimbly stepped out of the way as he hit the pavement, unconscious.
“Everything all right?” asked an Agent who had just stepped out of the building.
“Yeah. But I’ll need help taking him to lock up.”
The agent came over to help and asked, “Why’d he try to jump you?”
Lia raised her left arm. “New arm.”
“That’s right, you got cut up bad. How’s it working out?”
“Seems to be working out just fine.” Lia smiled as they hoisted the young man between them.
by submission | Aug 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Izabella Grace
Inside the smoky crystal, everything glows. I hang suspended in sunlight and tiny bubbles, like a fly trapped in amber. I scream for Mum or Tyler, but the crystal’s hum swallows my voice, like it swallowed me. My pale skin glows orange as the sunrise over their jagged, glass mountains. My ragged breaths whistle like the hot wind over their white deserts.
The Great Library’s twisted spire flashes into my mind. It glitters black as night and beckons like an outstretched finger. I try to resist its pull, like in my dreams, where I haunted its echoing, musty halls, where I studied dusty shelf after dusty shelf crammed with species-filled crystals.
A pulse beats, thrumming like an electronic drum. The crystal jolts and floats upwards, away from my scratched pine desk. It quivers, dipping beneath the purple lampshade, and buzzing louder than a wasp over my English Lit essay and chewed biro. Abduction hurts. It grinds you down, like a pestle grinds salt, and steals your flavour.
My bedroom door creaks ajar. Tyler’s Black-Jack-stained mouth drops open.
“In here!” I yell. “I’m in here!”
But he just stares at the hovering shard.
“Don’t stand there, Ty. Go tell Mum. Get a hammer. Do something.”
I punch and kick at the honeycomb walls, but my flesh peels and swirls like snowflakes. Tyler swipes a pudgy fist at the drifting crystal and misses. He climbs onto the bed and swipes again, his small fingers brushing the shard’s outer edge. He yelps, jumps back, his chocolate brown eyes widening in surprise. Then he bursts into tears.
Footsteps rush up the stairs. Mum stops in the doorway, her round face turning pale as milk.
“Oh, God, Hannah,” she says. “I told you to throw that thing away.”
The crystal glides across my cluttered bedroom, crashes through the bay window and rises up over our grimy north London street. People point and scream, and armed soldiers try to catch us, but the shards buzz louder. The hum slams into heads and scrambles brains. Bodies topple in waves like dominoes.
Wintry sky wraps around me. It glints like a tropical sea, filled with sparkling fishes: creatures, like me, made of black rock and flecked orange-gold. We should’ve guessed they weren’t ships. We should’ve known they didn’t break up in our atmosphere by accident. We should’ve realised they were weapons. Grenades. Each glittering shard a potential trophy, catalogued and stored on a dusty shelf.
The afternoon trembles with silent screams. Then two helicopters rise up over dark rooftops, blades thudding, huge nets spilling from their underbellies. I shriek and wave. “Up here! Up here!” But they dip below me, scooping up dazzling shards, like whales feasting on plankton. The air thickens with cloud and confusion. I twist and turn, desperate to find the nets again, but fog hides everything.
The cloud cracks like an egg, and the sun’s glare hurts my eyes. I swipe away hot tears and scan the empty horizon. Beneath my bare feet, the grey cloud boils like thick soup and spits out another shard, which wobbles and dances like a honeybee. Inside it, a shadow shifts, too dark and blurry to make out any features. I fix my gaze on it.
Our crystals hum their intoxicating song and sail higher.
We soar out into open space.
by submission | Aug 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Izabella Grace
Inside the smoky crystal, everything glows. I hang suspended in sunlight and tiny bubbles, like a fly trapped in amber. I scream for Mum or Tyler, but the crystal’s hum swallows my voice, like it swallowed me. My pale skin glows orange as the sunrise over their jagged, glass mountains. My ragged breaths whistle like the hot wind over their white deserts.
The Great Library’s twisted spire flashes into my mind. It glitters black as night and beckons like an outstretched finger. I try to resist its pull, like in my dreams, where I haunted its echoing, musty halls, where I studied dusty shelf after dusty shelf crammed with species-filled crystals.
A pulse beats, thrumming like an electronic drum. The crystal jolts and floats upwards, away from my scratched pine desk. It quivers, dipping beneath the purple lampshade, and buzzing louder than a wasp over my English Lit essay and chewed biro. Abduction hurts. It grinds you down, like a pestle grinds salt, and steals your flavour.
My bedroom door creaks ajar. Tyler’s Black-Jack-stained mouth drops open.
“In here!” I yell. “I’m in here!”
But he just stares at the hovering shard.
“Don’t stand there, Ty. Go tell Mum. Get a hammer. Do something.”
I punch and kick at the honeycomb walls, but my flesh peels and swirls like snowflakes. Tyler swipes a pudgy fist at the drifting crystal and misses. He climbs onto the bed and swipes again, his small fingers brushing the shard’s outer edge. He yelps, jumps back, his chocolate brown eyes widening in surprise. Then he bursts into tears.
Footsteps rush up the stairs. Mum stops in the doorway, her round face turning pale as milk.
“Oh, God, Hannah,” she says. “I told you to throw that thing away.”
The crystal glides across my cluttered bedroom, crashes through the bay window and rises up over our grimy north London street. People point and scream, and armed soldiers try to catch us, but the shards buzz louder. The hum slams into heads and scrambles brains. Bodies topple in waves like dominoes.
Wintry sky wraps around me. It glints like a tropical sea, filled with sparkling fishes: creatures, like me, made of black rock and flecked orange-gold. We should’ve guessed they weren’t ships. We should’ve known they didn’t break up in our atmosphere by accident. We should’ve realised they were weapons. Grenades. Each glittering shard a potential trophy, catalogued and stored on a dusty shelf.
The afternoon trembles with silent screams. Then two helicopters rise up over dark rooftops, blades thudding, huge nets spilling from their underbellies. I shriek and wave. “Up here! Up here!” But they dip below me, scooping up dazzling shards, like whales feasting on plankton. The air thickens with cloud and confusion. I twist and turn, desperate to find the nets again, but fog hides everything.
The cloud cracks like an egg, and the sun’s glare hurts my eyes. I swipe away hot tears and scan the empty horizon. Beneath my bare feet, the grey cloud boils like thick soup and spits out another shard, which wobbles and dances like a honeybee. Inside it, a shadow shifts, too dark and blurry to make out any features. I fix my gaze on it.
Our crystals hum their intoxicating song and sail higher.
We soar out into open space.
