by submission | Mar 31, 2016 | Story |
Author : Andreea Daia
Yesterday’s art show was a disaster. Again. No surprise that Howard was a jerk, but this time he called me a wuss in front of Aliena.
“Your solar system looks like it’s been blustered by a magnetic storm. Don’t tell me you think anything could live there. Aww… The wuss is going to cry.”
Liar. I didn’t cry. Nope. I waited until Mother’s friends started gorging on finger foods to throw my jar of supernova-red in his face. You should have seen the streaks of crimson dripping down the bully’s asymmetrical jaw. An improvement, if you ask me. Mother packed me home before cocktails, banishing me to my room for the rest of the day. No drawing allowed. Bummer, but it was all worth it.
Did I tell you I’m a sky painter? Howard is still jealous after I crushed him on Parents’ Day with my masterpiece—Orion Constellation. It snatched the Parents’ Award for the most promising cosmological rendition, the Sound Award for the most popular exhibit, and the Teachers’ Award for whoever pestered them least during the lunch breaks. Of course, the ninny dragged his bigwig father to class, to threaten the teachers. I think even Mr. Bigwig saw the truth—his son’s double pulsar sucked. Everyone smirked when Howard started boasting that life could flourish in his environment. The only thing that flourished in his painting was mold, after he had forgotten it outside in the rain.
Gosh, that guy hadn’t even learned the basic technique. You use brush #2 to fling big globs of paint, then leave them overnight to glide down the painting. Voila—instant asteroids. If you throw enough blobs of paint, some of them will collide with your planets. If you are very lucky, the impact will start a chain reaction and then you’ve created a system that supports life. If you are very very lucky, a teacher will suspend you for the rest of the day for being arrogant enough to believe you can create life.
No such luck so far, but maybe that’s about to change. Last night I was so furious with Howard that I sneaked out and smashed the entire jar of Sulfur-yellow on my latest painting. It looked like a smallish- planet crushed into a slightly bigger planet. I thought I ruined it. Wreckage everywhere. This morning though, the most awesome thing happened. The bigger planet has attracted most of the debris and turned into a blue wonder. The rest of the wreckage has blobbed into an ochre moon.
I nailed it this time—my planet is already teaming with simple lifeforms. I’m going to be suspended for at least a week. In your face, Howard!
by submission | Mar 30, 2016 | Story |
Author : Austen Woodward
It had been a normal Saturday, I’d got up, done my hair, my makeup, slipped on my dress and walked out of the house, making sure to lock the door behind me as my parents always sleep in and are worried about intruders. I turned the key in the ignition and set off for work.
At work, again, everything was normal, I smiled at Trisha the receptionist as I walked past her to the lift, and shortly I was sitting down at my desk.
About four hours in, I felt uneasy. For a split second I felt a shift, something transcendent washes over me, the clock in front of me skips a second. Despite the uneasy feeling I carry on with the day. At about ten to five, I had finished all of my calls to clients and decided to occupy the last ten minutes by checking my social media. I open my phone and I’m met by a sponsored miscarriage support page. I remember how my mother told me about her miscarriage, I was meant to have a twin, another girl, but complications meant that she died in birth. I vividly remember mother tearing up every time she spoke of her other little girl. It’s always hard on my birthday, because she gained a daughter and lost one, so she semi celebrates and then semi mourns. I always remember the name, Lizzie, a beautiful name, Lizzie and Liza. A terrible twosome, I often wonder how fun it would have been to have a sister the same age.
I look up at the clock, it’s five o’clock. I get up and leave, and as I drive home, sirens echo all around me. I slow down, just a precaution. I pull into the driveway and I’m met by a worried mother.
“Have you not seen the news? You didn’t even let us know you were on your way back or anything Liza, we’ve been worried sick!” she exclaims. I apologize and hug her. We move to the lounge where we sit down. She asks about my day, I say “it was alright”, and then a knock. A loud powerful knock on the front door. We look at each other as my father rushes to open it. Blue lights blaze through the doorway, two policemen, clad in black stand in the doorway holding a girl about my age, blonde hair.
“Are you Lizzie’s parents?” They ask.
I look at my mother, she gets up and sighs.
“Oh Lizzie what have you got yourself into now?” she asks, sounding disappointed.
I stand up, stunned by what I’m hearing. As I run to the doorway, I exclaim “Lizzie is dead, she died when she was born”. I grab my head as it starts to hurt, my world spinning, Lizzie cannot be alive, she is dead. Dead.
Dead.
The girl lifts up her face and smiles.
“No she’s not”.
by submission | Mar 29, 2016 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
When pigeons deviated in mid-air and windless leaves rustled, the hidden dreamers were about.
A detector notified me it had seen something, so I went to my balcony and tuned my visor to the corresponding wavelength.
Carpeted with warm dappled light, the Italian Piazza was filled with coffee drinkers, buzzing scooters and devoted artists.
An explosion of pigeons flew toward the red stone clock tower. Sharply and for no reason, they banked. I shifted my view to emptiness and saw them for the first time. A faint iridescent blue dot. Under magnification the dot became a ring of blue spheres orbiting a large glass orb. I blinked, flicked to naked eye, saw nothing and then returned. I had done it. I had finally found them.
The spheres fired tiny jets to stabilise the orb and through glass, I saw two naked beings seated cross-legged. In deep meditation, they were motionless except for an elongated object, bobbing rhythmically on top of their heads.
Seefers had evolved into a race so indoctrinated with rationality that they had forgotten how to dream. When they discovered the Stem and then Earth, their whole society changed forever. The Stem pilgrimage to Earth was a journey of meditative discovery. The Stem’s unique capacity to read real-time or historic intent and deliver it to a host’s mind like a real life experience gave Seefers their dreams back. Even if it was someone elses.
Earthlings were an open-minded race, fearlessly free to be carelessly ingenious. Earth was rich with theories, ideas and notions. From the design studios of great artists, to experimental think-tanks and war-rooms where success and failures were forged. It was a place where countless utopian dreams were found and lost and outlandish imaginations were born and died. Everywhere, hidden Seefers hovered, mesmerised in a waking dream.
I watched for hours until a blue glow from behind caught my eye. Removing the visor, I turned and threw myself against the railing at the sight. An orb being with an outstretched arm stood beside me, offering one of the elongated objects. Following its subtle trusting gesture, I lifted it, reeling slightly at its warm fleshy surface and felt it cling to my head.
I turned, subconsciously drawn to a commotion in the Piazza and saw the chaos of a thousand films playing on one screen. A blue hand gently closed my eyelids and clarity instantly appeared in sensuous dream state.
Sitting at the table in the Piazza, I watched as Elia’s delicate fingers sketched the idea for the first warp engine and then across months, watched as it matured into a robust design. I smelt the acrid fumes of the toxin that the short man slipped into Elia’s drink and watched him steal away with the the leather bound notebook as Elia lay slumped in his chair.
This was better than dreaming. It was tangible, it was real and it changed everything.
Humankind’s deepest secrets were out there ready to be rediscovered.
by submission | Mar 28, 2016 | Story |
Author : JWH
Gobbin hated this place. It stank of death and soldered metal. But then again, so did everywhere else in the belt these days.
Resulta, as the locals now called it, was originally settled as part of the water-ice mining boom in Orkon Crater, the only remaining traces of which were the scores of gaping rig-pits where iron fires now burned. Gobbin’s family once owned a drill lot here, but that was generations ago, long before the Burst.
“Help you, sir?”
Gobbin was still eyeing the smoke when he heard the old rock-breaker’s voice. He was brittle and bent, as though he hadn’t set foot off the asteroid in centuries.
“I’m looking for Dekar,” Gobbin said. “Or someone who knows where he is.”
“Never heard of him,” the old man wheezed. “But further down you may have more luck. That’s where the unseemlies tend to congregate. Figure it’s one of them you’re after.”
Gobbin placed a water pill in the man’s hand and walked toward the descendor. He could feel the searing heat through his suit, but inside he was calm. He was closer than ever to finding him. And this time, not even the Burst could save that son-of-a-bitch.
by submission | Mar 27, 2016 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Queen Chandrietta VI motioned for her Prime Minister to stop speaking while she gave instructions to the royal hairdresser. Her majesty was only one point nine three meters tall, fairly short by the standards of a native of Earth’s Moon. After thirty six generations, the human beings who inhabited Luna were much taller and thinner than their terrestrial ancestors. It wouldn’t do for the Moon’s monarch to appear too short. The Queen’s hair would need to be styled to aid the vertical lines of her dress and the high heels she wore to give the illusion of greater height.
“Continue,” she said to the nervous Prime Minister.
“Your majesty,” said the anxious man whose features suggested an East Asian ancestry, “the Royal Family, yourself excluded, have escaped. Their craft exited the rail launcher just before it was struck by a missile launched from lunar orbit. The New Zealand consulate on Lagrange V has offered them asylum and they are even now despinning their ring down to simulate lunar gravity.”
The Queen stood and faced the Prime Minister. “Shouldn’t the Combat Minister be handling this inconvenience?” she said with annoyance.
“My Queen, the Combat Minister says preventing Luna from being occupied is no longer an option. His strategy is to lure the enemy into the heart of Armstrong City and then to destroy the city’s supporting structures burying the enemy soldiers under tons of rocks and regolith.”
Chandrietta VI sighed as if she were conversing with a child. “You’re telling me, Mr. Prime Minister, that the man charged with protecting my kingdom plans to do so by annihilating its capital city?”
“Your majesty, the Russian Navy are too powerful. We have no choice but to make their assault so costly that it will force them to the negotiating table at which time we–”
This time the Queen silenced the Prime Minister with a look.
“Prime Minister, if I asked you to put me in communication with the Speaker of the Pan-American Senate and the President of China do you think that might be within your power?”
“Of course, your majesty.”
Three hours later, the Prime Minister of Luna again came before the Queen.
“Your majesty, the enemy have ceased their orbital bombardment and the few troops they’ve landed are lifting off from Luna. The enemy fleet is on a trajectory that will take it back to Earth. How–”
“Helium-3,” said the Queen. “For the next five years, China and Pan-America will get our helium-3 to power their fusion reactors for thirty percent under market price in exchange for their threatening to go to war with Russia on our behalf.”
“My Queen, you have saved–”
But the Queen was already walking away from her Prime Minister. This coiffure looks ridiculous, she thought to herself and sighed. I’ll simply have to get the royal orthopedist to extend my legs.
