by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Captain Broahm hadn’t been asleep nearly long enough when he was dumped unceremoniously from his bunk onto the floor. Cursing, he’d barely gotten his bearings before the ship righted itself, tossing him backwards into the bulkhead, sending a blinding flash of lightning through his already aching head.
His left eye clouded, and he wiped at the blood that was pooling there from a fresh gash on his forehead.
“Bugger,” he grumbled, pulling himself upright with help from the cargo nets lining the sleeping quarters.
Staggering out of the still swaying cabin into the hallway, he climbed the ladder onto the bridge and found the first officer white knuckled at the wheel. Half the instrument lights were out or flickering and several of the windows were missing, broken glass scattered across the console and onto the floor.
“Grady, what the hell was that? You hit something?”
The startled first officer turned and stammered “Plane, I think, hit us. It’s out there in the water.” He pointed out the battered port side windows into the darkness. In the distance, lights flickered in and out of view as the waves rocked the ship.
“Any plane hit us like that would be in pieces at the bottom of the ocean by now.” Broahm shouldered open the door to get a clearer view from the deck. Both hands gripping the railing against the rocking of the ship, he could see clearly another vessel hanging just off their port side. Broahm blinked, and rubbed his eyes. The other vessel appeared to be sitting just above the water, the waves sliding harmlessly beneath its hull.
Broahm shook his head, wiping again at the blood trickling into his eye. Maybe he’d taken more of a bang than he’d realized.
“Must be a life raft,” he thought before yelling back into the cabin, “Grady, fetch us a flare and the glasses.”
The first officer appeared in the doorway moments later with a flare gun and a pair of binoculars.
“Sir,” he said, handing the equipment to the Captain.
Broahm took the gear from him, firing the flare into the night sky and scoping the other craft through the glasses as the pyrotechnic turned nighttime into midday.
The other craft sat still, featureless, long and narrow, hovering just above the water. As Broahm searched its length, he lit upon at a figure standing on a platform, partially submerged in the water off the side. It was looking up, watching the flare arc across the sky. Easily as tall as he was, perhaps taller with no visible clothing and a large blunt face split by the thin line of a mouth that wrapped nearly half way around its head. From where it’s ears should have been stared large unblinking eyes. Running down the side of its neck, ribbon like slits undulated as waves washed over them, its body slick and glistening in the artificial daylight.
“Grady, get us the bloody hell out of here.” Broahm yelled back into the cabin without looking.
He felt warmth tracing its way back down his forehead towards his eye, and absently wiped it away, flinging the fluid into the sea. As the red droplets hit the water, he caught a flurry of movement through the glasses. The creature was looking right at him now, lips peeled back revealing rows upon rows of jagged teeth. Broahm’s stomach knotted at the realization that whatever it was, it was smiling.
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Nick inhaled on his cigarette until the glowing ember reached the filter, then flicked it absently out the driver’s window. His younger brother James sat upright and fidgeting beside him, eyes wide trying to look at everything at once.
“Two hundred and forty meters. Turn left. Two twenty. Left.” James spoke outloud.
To Nick, James’ factual rambling had become background noise. James grew up locked inside his own head, overwhelmed by the world around him and unable to process any of it. When his doctors had wired him into the network, they’d armed him with everything he’d ever need.
James flinched as a police car screamed by in the opposite direction, lights bathing them for an instant in blue and red. “Metro pursuit, two one nine one four. Eric Waynes. Forty Two. Divorced. Two Children. Sixty meters, turn left.”
Nick saw the street as looming walkups and parked cars, but to James it was a seething mass of lines connecting objects and boxes containing datapoints; an infinite number of rabbit holes he could plumb for details ad infinitum.
When their parents had died, Nick had the hard line replaced with an array of wireless antennae woven into his brother’s dirty blond faux hawk. It was the only way he could get him out of the apartment.
They turned left onto Kinsella, slowing to navigate through the cars parked on both sides of the street. He could see the stop sign at Mathews when a shopping cart rolled from behind a parked car into the street, forcing him to step hard on the brakes.
“Pay and Save. Twelve thousand three hundred cubic inches. Fifty pounds,” he paused, eyes darting around the car before adding, “probably stolen.”
Nick smiled until a hand came to rest on his window sill.
“You got permission to be on this block?” The voice was deep, the speaker’s face lost in shadow with the sun blazing a halo around his head.
“Sorry, just passing through.”
James eyed the cart and the dark skinned man that had joined it on the street.
“Zoo York jacket. Sixty three percent sold to upper middle class kids imitating the lower class style.”
Nick winced, suddenly painfully aware of his brother speaking.
“What did bristle head say?”, the tone sharpened. As he leaned in closer for a better look the sun revealed deep brown skin under a pork pie hat, crisscrossed with fresh pink scar tissue.
“Nothing,” Nick said, “he likes your friend’s jacket.”
“Dolan Ryan. South Bronx Cricketers. Soldier. Fourteen arrests, no convictions.” James blinked repeatedly before adding “This year. Fourteen this year. Forty meters, turn right.”
Dolan yanked on the door handle. Finding it locked he reached in through the open window trying to open it from the inside.
“Out of the fucking car, dumbass. Rainman here just bought you a beating.”
“Seventy percent of altercations involving Cricketers result in violence. Fifty pounds. Forty meters, turn right.”
Dolan paused his brailing the door panel long enough to cuff Nick in the side of the head. “One hundred percent chance of violence asshole, out of the goddamned car.”
James pounded both hands on the dashboard and yelled “forty meters turn right”, then turning to look Dolan straight in the eyes he continued “Doctors appointment Thursday at two. Syphilis”.
Dolan froze for an instant and Nick stood hard on the gas, liberating the shopping cart from the Zoo York jacketed figure as he jumped out of the way. The cart crumpled under the bumper and was dragged into the intersection as he drifted right onto Mathews, the tangled mesh basket peeling off on a parked car as the sedan straightened. Not slowing, he turned left onto Morris Park and kept his foot planted on the gas until the Parkway loomed into view.
“Bronx River Parkway. Thirty and three quarter kilometers in length.”
Nick finally eased up on the gas. “Syphilis?” he asked.
“Spirochetal bacterium. Sexually transmitted.”
Nick laughed as he fumbled for another cigarette.
“I really did like his jacket,” James said, before slipping back into the data mass of the world outside.
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Levon leaned against the shower tube, letting the jets of water assail his body from all sides. As the sweat of the previous night’s activities rinsed away, the more subtle indicators of his exertions seeped in. Both his head and kidneys ached from the soup of chemicals he’d drank, sniffed and injected with the woman now sleeping naked in the next room.
Warnings pulsing dimly in his periphery reminded him that his kidney augments were still on standby, sifting and analyzing the foreign bodies in his bloodstream. An amber warning flashed, the proximity alarm on his equipment locker had been triggered. His company was awake, the message flashing red as she tried the door.
Levon flipped through and discarded most of the blood-work findings; street grade meth, cocaine and a too high level of alcohol, but the last one stopped him cold. A battery of tranquilizers had been automatically disarmed, all bearing Federated P.D. chem tags.
“Shit. She’s a cop.”
In an instant water droplets were evaporating in a jet of warm air and kidney grafts went into overdrive, flushing his system clean and pumping in Epinephrine.
Exiting the shower he could hear the woman padding around the bedroom, his sub-dermal grid-work of sensory pickups and Faraday shielding twinging as a transmitter narrow-banded a short range encoded transmission. Not only was she a cop, but she had a partner nearby.
Opening the door he found her perched on the end of the bed, tanned shoulders and arms exposed above the bedsheet she’d drawn around herself.
“Hey baby, look at you,” her words slurred together into a sound like a sneeze.
“Hey,” Levon moved to the closet, the auto-bolts retracting as he reached for the handle, “back in a sec.” He slipped through the door, closing and letting it lock securely behind him.
He’d converted the walk-in to a safe room when he’d started renting the sixth floor apartment. The low level lighting reflected dimly back at him from the kevmesh that coated the inside of the cramped space, uneven thicknesses of the dark green ultraweeve armor pooled on the floor where it had run as he’d sprayed the layers on.
He could feel a mass of people thundering up the stairwell at the end of the hall.
He pulled on overalls and a jacket and jammed his feet into a pair of Magnum Ions. Overturning a crate in the middle of the room he slung his shoulder holster and perched in a squat on the box like a bird, face down to his knees. He thumbed the release tabs on two canisters glued into the floor on either side of him and covered his face with his hands. The canisters ticked a few seconds before geysering upwards, thick jets of liquid spattering off the ceiling, foaming and filling the space, securing his hunched form in a bubble of packing foam.
He felt his cocoon shake, knowing that his bathroom had just been blown out the side of the building. A second set of explosions tipped his pod sideways, and Levon braced himself as a final eruption jettisoned the entire closet shell out the newly formed hole in the building, launching it through the window of the much nicer lofts across the street.
Levon had barely stopped moving before he blew the cocoon seals and stood up, the force separating the two halves neatly, leaving a man shaped impression in each.
Stepping through the broken glass and window frame, he surveyed the damage outside, his apartment now just a jagged tear in the brick facade of the building. Below, his shower poked out the side of a cargo van, vaguely phallic in a glittering mess of LED advertising and shredded metal.
Turning, Levon faced a startled couple sitting up in bed. Stepping past them, he helped himself to a piece of toast and a slice of bacon from the breakfast tray forgotten at their feet.
“Don’t get up,” he grinned, “I’ll see myself out.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 15, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“I don’t care if it’s selfish, I don’t want you to go.” Sam stood halfway between the doorway and the foot of the bed, caught between staying and walking away.
“It is selfish, but I understand. I’m tired Sam, I’m worn out and it’s time for me to give in to the natural order of things.” The older man’s voice was slow, patient but firm. “No man was ever meant to see as much as I’ve seen in my life, and a man can only take so much.”
Sam wiped moisture from one cheek, quickly as though it might not be noticed. “Whatever it is that’s broken, get it fixed. We’ve got lots of money…”
Jacob cut the sentence short. “It’s not about money. There’s nothing to fix, no worn out part to replace. My body’s working just fine, it’s me that’s broken. This body and all its incarnations has allowed me the lifetime of four ordinary men. I’ve seen three partners age and wear out of their own accord and you, well it has seen you grow from a nervous youth into the poised and confident professional that another much younger man will take his turn caring for in my absence. I’ve had enough, done enough and seen enough. God damn it I’ve felt more than enough and it’s time to move on.”
Sam moved to the side of the bed and reached for Jacob’s hand. The flesh was warm, almost real. Jacob closed his hand around Sam’s tightly. Sam could feel tears welling up again, and through clouding eyes looked at everything but the man propped up in the hospital bed. Monitors tracked vital signs, the numbers exactly to spec. Diagnostics scrolled past on a pair of displays to one side, mechanical equipment passing test after test, repeating ad infinitum. Sam finally met Jacob’s gaze, friend and lover for longer than either of them had imagined possible. Jacob’s eyes burned with a crystalline intensity that, while artificial, shone with an inner light that was purely his own.
“I don’t understand Jacob, if everything’s working, then why? What is it that’s so bad about staying alive? Is it me? If it’s me Jacob, say so and I’ll let you find someone else. I don’t want to be the thing…”
“Sam,” Jacob interrupted again, “it’s not you Sam, trust me, you’re the only thing that’s kept me here this long.” Jacob raised one permanently manicured hand and pondered it, flexing the fingers and turning it to study the hairs on its back. “I can’t remember a time when I was really real. I’ve forgotten what touching real flesh with real flesh feels like, and I don’t believe anymore that what I feel now is the same. I can’t remember what my first lover liked for breakfast. I can’t feel the warmth of the sunrise on my face, the magic of being underwater or the thrill that comes with being out of breath. I’ve been living for so damn long, and I can’t remember what it feels like to really be alive.”
Sam’s cheeks were wet now, and no effort was made to conceal the tears.
“I can’t even cry anymore. I’ve loved and lost so much and I can’t even shed a tear.”
Sam stood stoic, this argument had gone on before but this time there was no fighting back.
Jacob held Sam’s hands, and locking eyes said, “When I’m gone, have whatever flesh of mine remains cremated, then cast me into the wind. In the mornings, look to the east as the day breaks and feel my warmth there. In the darkness know that I’m never far away.” Jacob settled back into the pillows on the bed, and said simply, “I love you” before closing his eyes for the last time.
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 18, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Andy knew he was a relic. He used to violently object when it was suggested that he was past his prime, but after a while the reality was too apparent to ignore.
It had been years, maybe decades since he’d been able to find factory fresh parts. Most of his equipment now was made up from bits scavenged and scrounged, then adapted as best he could.
Sometimes there would be an accident in the construction projects, and if he was lucky, and quick, he could tear off whole limbs or liberate power cells before the maintenance crews arrived to chase him away.
Most of these parts were too new, but some could be modified to fit, the rest traded away.
Andy found himself wandering through a section of the city that he remembered as it had been, vibrant and alive, but as he trudged down the streets and through the alleys, he found the roads in disrepair and littered with rubble and refuse. The once tall and gleaming buildings that reached skyward were now bent and broken, some leaning across the street on a neighbor, as if seeking comfort from the overwhelming decay.
This part of the city too, it seemed, had outlived its usefulness, now just awaiting its turn to be torn down and born again.
His head turned skyward, marveling at the battered structures holding each other aloft, Andy didn’t notice the road had given away before him until his weight had shifted too far over the empty space to recover.
Safety systems gone out of alignment and a battered gyroscopic guidance system struggled to orient him for a favorable landing, but Andy hit hard, scrambling circuits already oxidized to the point of being barely functional.
For a while, Andy was still, his world dark.
When he regained motor control, Andy pulled himself roughly and unsteadily upright. He was aware that he’d fallen, but could not recall the events preceding it. Around him he could make out the rough structure of a transit tunnel. Metal rails reached off in either direction in triplicate, no longer shiny from use but rather tarnished and pitted with age. Andy knew how they felt.
Andy picked a direction at random, and had trudged for some time before the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern on one side. In the middle, a pile of refuse burned surrounded by a cluster of shadowy figures who scattered into the darkness as he approached.
“Derelict maintenance droids, ” Andy muttered to himself, then loudly at the retreating figures, “if you were working for me I’d have your parts.”
Andy pulled himself up on the platform, then trundled to the fire, carefully stamping it out.
As he stood surveying the scene, he noticed one of the droids had not left, but rather was lying in a heap on the ground. Andy nudged its head with the toe of one large foot.
Nothing.
Excited, Andy pulled the droid into the middle of the platform where he had room to work. The droid was relatively small, but no doubt useful. As carefully as his tools would allow, Andy set to work disassembling the wiry unit.
Hydraulic fluid spilled everywhere, it’s plumbing obviously ruptured internally having no doubt resulted in overheating or loss of motor control.
Andy marveled at the delicacy of the inner workings of the unit, but was frustrated and confused that there didn’t seem to be a single part compatible with his own chassis.
Arriving back at the head, he examined the dent his foot had left in the casing. It was at this point that his headlights fell full on the droids eyes.
Andy paused, awestruck by the workmanship of these white and colored orbs staring back at him. They truly would be beautiful, Andy thought, if they weren’t so vacant.
