by submission | Sep 1, 2022 | Story |
Author: Andrew Dunn
We could hear the corn crop, yellowed in the field, rustle in a hot breeze as me and Will headed off on bicycles toward town. Mom was in the kitchen, wishing for rain from a cloudless sky, and that dad would give up on magic. Dad and Uncle Stephen had been heading off to different towns where dad performed as an escape artist – mom had given up fighting with him about, but still wished he’d stay home and tend to our corn and mustard crop.
Me and Will helped out as best we could, and once or twice a month, we clattered bicycles over a bridge into downtown, which was a world apart from crops languishing in summer swelter. All the shops were open. Street vendors were selling. In a park across from city hall, the sound of square dance music filled the air. All of it was fun, but we both knew what we really wanted to do.
We weaved our way among horse-drawn wagons and automobiles until we reached the penny arcade. Inside, there were dozens of games waiting to take our money, and we didn’t shy away from them. A new one in back, Three Wishes, drew us close.
I plunked in three pennies, turned the crank, then me and Will watched as a curtain inside glass squeaked open and a tin man in the moon jostled its way into place over a farm scene. A mechanical voice told me I’d won three wishes, one for each penny, before the curtains squealed closed.
“That was a waste.” I groused.
“My turn.” Will insisted, and plunked in three pennies. The machine whirred and clanked, then popped.
“Must’ve broken a spring or belt.” A man called out from the front counter. “I’ll make good on your three cents. It’ll take a few days at best to fix the machine though.”
Me and Will moved to other games, wasting much of what we had in our pockets, until there wasn’t enough left for what we both really wanted – ice cream. I wished we could have some, and a lady closing up the creamery offered us the last scoops of strawberry ice cream with blueberries blended in. On that hot summer night, that cold ice cream tasted better than any we’d ever had.
“Your wishes really work.” Will enthused.
I shrugged. “Maybe.” I said. Magic to me was far-fetched, when there were bigger things to wish for.
“What are you going to wish for next?”
“I don’t know. Rain maybe, for our fields? Or to keep dad and Uncle Stephen from heading off again with their show? Something else?”
Will shot me a curious glance.
“Which do you think mom would want more?” I asked.
The man in a full moon was shining down bright from above, almost as though he was taunting us with the answer me and Will wanted, but couldn’t understand in our youth.
by submission | Aug 31, 2022 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“Well?”
“You’re not going to believe this Chief. It’s nothing like the legends… not even close.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Other than some powerful pheromones that makes humans oversexed lunatics and putty in their hands… that and a hollow needle like organ in their tongue to ingest blood quickly and quietly, they got nothing.”
“No superhuman strength and speed?”
“When we first entered their lairs, we shot about a half dozen or so until we realized lethal force wasn’t necessary. Hell, after they saw all the carnage we caused, most surrendered. Those that didn’t we just tazed or punched their lights out”
“What about our Alpha theory?”
“No such thing. Their social structure is weak, no leaders or elders to speak of. They’re primarily solitary hunters who band together for socialization. I don’t know how to describe it. Imagine a group of mentally challenged cats trying to one up each other in tic tac toe. Yeah, that’s about their limit.”
“What about life span? The stories about them living centuries, amassing vast amounts of wealth and resources. Behind the scenes players, the real illuminati?
“Not even close. Their lifespan is marginally longer than humans. On average they live around 160 years if they’re careful. As for vast amounts of wealth our accounting division has raided their businesses, club houses and retreat centers. All but a few are burdened with debt, failing, or in foreclosure.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. Accounting thinks their dominant business model is something akin to by up a profitable business for too much money, overspend on salaries for friends, relatives, and renovations, have liens put on their assets by the banks and IRS and then leave the mess and run away.”
“What about all the reports of deaths by exsanguination?”
“Ah, yes, about that. Highly exaggerated. When we looked into it, we couldn’t verify any unexplainable causes. Most were clearly mob or gang related. Besides, these creatures’ maximum capacity is about a quarter of a pint per day, and doesn’t have to be human.”
“So I guess the whole undead or viral transformation of humans into the creatures is all nonsense too?
“Only when used by some of the clever ones to get a meal from some gullible Goth kid.”
“Threat level?”
“So low it does not merit our organization’s time, energy, or funding.”
“Further recommendations?”
“Yes, sir. Kick this over to the EPA. These things are definitely an endangered species that needs help.”
by submission | Aug 30, 2022 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
In a well organised world, Doug Williams thought, the proper venue for this conversation would have been a bunker deep below a heavily secured building somewhere in the world capital. Instead, they sat on a sunny balcony overlooking a pretty lake, their protection details discreetly invisible. A permanent secretary in the World Government’s Communications Bureau took his perks where he found them.
“Well,” sighed his guest, “there’s no hiding it. They came down slap in the middle of Europe, in front of God and everybody. The newscorps are having paroxysms, at least six major religions have declared a miracle, the military is petrified, and the conspiracy nuts are having a ‘we told you so’ field day.”
Jacques Perreault had spent the morning at the landing site, and his brown eyes looked worried. “And our lords and masters need a policy before they’ll stick their necks out.”
“Well nothing’s jumped out and started shooting, so we can presume they aren’t hostile.” Williams waved his fingers, “we come in peace, etcetera.”
Perrault grimaced. “Yes, but when they emerged briefly, we saw what they looked like. Tripedal. Blue skin covered in slime. Random appendages that might or might not be limbs. Or pseudopodia. Not exactly attractive. I have no idea how we’re going to spin this.”
“Obviously as a once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity. Interstellar travel! Imagine the possibilities!”
They sat and watched the water for a while, and began to smile.
* * *
Six months later, in a more appropriate, concrete-lined basement, they were no longer smiling.
“What do you mean, they’re leaving?” demanded Williams.
“Just what I say. Six of their forcefield ‘ships’ broke orbit this morning and are heading out of our system already. The other eight look like they’re powering up to go as well. Their shuttles or whatever have all gone – Buenos Aires, Osaka, Srinagar and Cape Town all report them closing up and taking off without warning about two hours ago.” The screen on the wall showed the first one, still sitting near Prague; for how long yet, nobody knew.
“But Jacques, we can’t let them do that! All that potential!”
“Doug, we can’t stop them, and we can’t talk to them. Hell, we don’t even know if they have sensory organs! Our best minds have tried interacting on more wavelengths than most of us even knew existed, and in more ways than we previously thought possible, and what’s the result? Nothing! Nada! Zilch! Nothing they do is comprehensible to us!”
“You think we should just give up then? Accept that we’re not smart enough to communicate?”
“I think we’ve proven that to ourselves, frankly. Imagine if it was us. We get to Mars, or Titan or wherever, and find intelligent life. We don’t know how they want to communicate, so we wait for them to make the effort. And they never do – or at least, if they do, we don’t recognise it. Maybe we reconsider their intelligence. Or maybe we just get bored, and leave. Perhaps we’ll send some biologists along later, get some universities involved. Maybe there’ll be academic papers. But for now, we’re out of there.”
“Put like that… I rather suspect that’s just what we’d do. Do you really suppose they think like us?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. None of us is, that’s the problem. But then again, perhaps they are more like us than we care to admit: only interested in finding someone they can relate to.”
They turned to the screen as the last of the visitors rose inexplicably into the once again empty sky.
by submission | Aug 29, 2022 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
There were others. Other Erasers and occasionally their paths crossed. Tanner always attempted to keep his distance and this hadn’t proved so difficult because each Eraser worked alone, forbidden from sharing information or collaborating even when their cases were connected and the names linked.
Tanner had always accepted this and never questioned its validity. In fact, it seemed right to him that just one Eraser be responsible for extracting a life, for changing its history and covering its tracks. It was respectful, he felt, and dignified. Although he wouldn’t ever have told anyone, Tanner believed that even rebels and dissidents deserved that.
Tanner is the oldest of the Erasers, the last of the ‘Old Guard’. When he is around the younger men sense his disapproval and yet they don’t hold back and talk openly about their cases. Tanner is shocked by this and also at how fiercely ambitious they are.
They moan about how antiquated the job has become and how they could be so much more effective if only they were allowed to work as a team.
‘There is still a place for the foot sloggers,’ they say, as they glance across at Tanner, ‘but we need our own offices, our own archives even.’
For them the job is simply a step up onto a ladder and one that they intend to climb. Tanner has often thought about reporting them to those above but the system is, of course, evolving, and these young men aren’t rebels. No, they are a part of its future.
It is not the Eraser’s job to make accusations, to point the finger as it were. But it is the duty of each and every citizen to be vigilant and able to recognise subversive behaviour. To be able to tell when it is happening right there in front of their faces. In the houses just across the street or that room at the back of a public house or in a unit on an industrial estate.
Those who conspire against the System are devious and they hide in plain sight, making leaflets and pamphlets, distributing their lies. And most people are unaware or they choose not to believe, not to see it.
The people had become complacent over the years and this made Tanner angry. It seemed to him that they had reached a certain level of acceptance, not of the Subversives of course but of their material. It had been a constant for so long and, as soon as the System had removed a particular pamphlet or magazine, another would emerge. There were differences of course but they were subtle and really nothing changed. The Subversives’ message, their falsities, remained.
by submission | Aug 28, 2022 | Story |
Author: Frances Koziar
My whole body felt warm as I closed the door to the bullet-proof training room—warmth like I hadn’t felt since my wife had died. It had only been tried unofficially—though successfully—in the field, but the new drug should sharpen my senses, they had said, and make me a better soldier.
I didn’t know about the sharpening my senses part—dulling my senses had been my goal for four months now—but I did want to be a better soldier. One who could take loss and keep going. One who didn’t talk to ghosts for her only comfort. One who wasn’t useless now that the love of her life was dead.
The targets appeared in a neat line at first, and then on the ceiling, the walls, the floor. I shot them faster than I ever had, a thrill coursing through my blood. My body, at least, remembered a life before my wife’s death. A life where I had been a rising star in the peacekeeping military. A life where I knew emotions other than devastation and heartbreak, loneliness and void.
Obstacles were added. I rolled behind a smashed truck and took out three more targets. Despite the weakness in my body from the ruin of the past few months, I could feel my old strength there too. I could feel the burn in muscles that not so long ago I had trained as hard and as carefully as the new recruits. I remembered when the questions of what I wanted and why I lived had had simple answers. I remembered even farther back, to a time—impossibly, incomprehensibly—when I had been happy without my wife.
I yanked some scrap metal out of the way, twisting it and pulling it to the side, surprised that the simulation was complex enough to make it feel smooth and solid in my hand. Behind it were moving targets: some frozen, some whizzing away from me into a tunnel. I followed, a humming energy a cross between desperation and joy spurring me on, and I threw debris out of my path as if throwing aside my past. My body felt feverish—was that a symptom of the drug they’d forgotten to mention, or the feverish touch of my own madness? The feverish release of too much crying, too much staring into memories, too much waiting for someone who would never come home?
My vision flickered—one, two—and the drug wore off.
My wild grin faded uncertainly. I was no longer in the room I had started in.
…Another phase of the simulation? I wondered at first, hoped, for a single inhale and exhale. Because what I saw now was what I had felt since my wife had died in the crash. Too much horror. Too much loss. Enough pain to drive me mad.
All around me, the people of the training facility lay dead.
by submission | Aug 27, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Honking, the geese fly overhead in a giant V as the sky reddens in the late September dawn. Tralley watches them for a moment before continuing to unload the pickup truck outside the transmission tower high on the hill. Rucker fixating on his smartphone in the cab looks up for a moment tracking the impressively precise formation.
Rucker turns his attention back to his phone. Tralley sighs. Who knows what Rucker is doing in there. Gaming. Texting. Posting. Shopping. Streaming. Or maybe all of them. The screen’s the thing.
Tralley bangs on the bed of the truck with his toolbox and Rucker nods holding up a finger. Not the middle one. It’s his be-with-you-in-a-sec signal. Surprisingly, he is gently natured and loosely cerebral for a guy wedded to his smartphone.
Rucker finally joins Tralley at the back of the pickup. “Beautiful morning,” Rucker says taking a deep breath.
“Get that information from Google?”
Not acknowledging the sarcasm, Rucker replies, “Naw, direct from the photons on yonder horizon transmitting that info. You gotta get the soup wherever it’s dished, my man.”
In spite of his earlier irritation, Tralley laughs. “You are a philosopher-king, Rucker. The world is your oyster—or at least your trail mix.”
“I’ll take whatever is in my line of sight. Front and center.”
“Never look back?”
“Got to at times. Safety, ya know.” Rucker starts taking the equipment to the squat, bunker-like building next to the tower. “You think these new relays are going to dampen the noise?”
“They’ll do some good,” Tralley answers. “But, they’ll always be noise. We just want it far in the background. Keep things as harmonious as possible. Folks don’t want to hear their own blood circulating.”
Rucker nods. “Got no problems with that. But noise is information too. Everything is information. Sometimes listening to the noise reminds us that reality is just a strange mix of uncertainty, randomness and probability. Position, time and energy. Source, medium and destination. It’s all about the bit. We are the signal, my man, and it’s a beautiful morning.”
“This esoteric before 7AM, Rucker? Even for you that’s early.”
Rucker sets his load down by the heavy metal door and holds his phone to the entry pad. From inside, locks click and unlatch. Rucker pulls the door slightly ajar. “Might as well tell you,” he says. “I just found out that I’ve been approved for encoding.”
Tralley eyes widen momentarily and then quickly narrow. “You’re not going to do that!” It comes out like a command.
“Course I am.”
“Become a walking relay station? A human piece of infrastructure?” Tralley almost yells.
“Why not? The company hires folks to do it with external hardware. This is just embedded. To my way of thinking it’s building a network no one can take down. Relay towers like this are outdated targets fast becoming relics.” Rucker fully faces Tralley, grinning. “We’re already the information. Now we become the channel.”
“You mean a cog in the machine, a chip on the circuit board,” Tralley pleads. “Don’t you know you’ll always be connected. Always locatable.”
“Yeah, I’ll be integral. Information that can’t be lost. I kinda of like that. The hive doesn’t scare me. Mutual dependence is not a bad thing. Openness and transparency are the way forward. I’m more wary of lone wolves. Isolation and secrets create miscreants.”
Tralley looks to the east where the sun is peeping over the top of the distant peaks, some already tipped with snow. “I just don’t get it, Rucker. You’re so easy going. So grounded and damn smart. Why would you let your person be compromised to become part of the company machine?”
“Really, Tralley? You think this is compromise? You think this is unexamined? Impetuous? Childish?”
Tralley does not answer.
“This is transcendence. This is how it starts. You saw that flock of geese. Someone has to take the point. Maybe it won’t work out like I thought. Maybe I’ll rue the day I got encoded, but I’m thinking of a very different tomorrow from you. Information is all about position, and I’m putting myself front and center. In a decade, this transmission tower will be obsolete, but I will be sitting like a lotus on a mountaintop and what makes humanity hum will be passing directly through me. I dig that idea.”
“Could be you’re digging your own grave.”
“Could be. It’s all heat death to me.”
The two men face each other, across a load of electronics, a gulf of uncertainty. “Let’s get our job done,” Tralley finally says.
“That’s what we do,” Rucker agrees and holds the thick metal door open for Tralley. “After you.”
