by submission | Jan 4, 2016 | Story |
Author : Katherine Cowley
I.
Amenope stood next to the river, adjusting his nets. Ra, the sun god, beat down on his brown, tanned back. A taskmaster stood nearby, making sure no one neglected their duties. And then the pharoah’s royal barge arrived. Everyone prostrated themselves on the ground as their god passed.
Once the pharaoh was out of sight, Amenope glanced at the pharoah’s boat. It was marvelous, the grandest he had ever seen. The taskmaster approached and Amenope forced his eyes back to the ground. “Don’t even think about touching it,” said the taskmaster, and gave him a sore beating, even though he hadn’t gone near the boat.
II.
Jarl stood outside the inn, breathing the fresh air. He adjusted his conical metal helmet. Though he had actually been born in Jorvik, not far north of here, he was still considered a foreigner–the Vikings had invaded, after all.
A man rode up to the inn and gave his horse to the stable boy. The man glanced at Jarl, then told the stable boy to make sure no riffraff went near his horse. Jarl raised his eyebrows in disbelief. He didn’t even know how to mount a horse, let alone ride one.
III.
Louis stood outside the supermarket, leaning against the wall. It was night and he was waiting. He had a hipster beard and wore a hoodie against the cold.
A frumpy woman, with her awkward teenage son in tow, approached the supermarket. She looked at Louis, then quickly glanced away. She shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out her keys, pointing them at the parking lot. The first time she pressed the button on the remote nothing happened, so she pressed it more fiercely. This time one of the cars beeped and its lights flashed as it locked.
As the woman and her son entered the store, Louis laughed. Sure, he had a beard, but that didn’t mean he was going to steal the woman’s car.
IV.
Sayer stood in the asteroid bar, sipping a blue drink as he watched the asteroids fly past. He had chosen a blue drink because it matched his blue hair and earrings.
A young aristo walked into the bar and was seated near him. She took in Sayer’s arm tattoos and his face, then asked to be reseated. Sayer heard her whisper to the attendant about the security of the spaceships.
Sayer ground his teeth together. He was a timesoul, one of those rare few gifted with both reincarnation and the faint memory of previous experiences. He had lived a hundred lives, with different names and identities, different cultures and religions. And after a hundred lives of being misunderstood, he didn’t care anymore if his next life he came back as a goat or even a rock. Sayer waited until the aristo received her drink. Then he left the bar and stole her spaceship.
by submission | Jan 3, 2016 | Story |
Author : Tino Didriksen
[emergency power online]
Sergeant, lock down that…wait, what’s going on? Backup neuro-simulation? So we lost, badly. But, this is supposed to bring up the ranking officer, so why am I…oh, I see…died too fast for station to scan them, and their backups are months old – doesn’t anyone follow protocol around here? Argh, might be an outer empire security station, but still…anyway, focus!
Station status. Damn, generators offline, permanently. Barely running on accumulated solar power, critical levels. Need to send message to command before those bastards move onwards. Let’s see, power up communications array…come on…nope, seems there’s just dangling wires where that used to be. Fine then, directed burst transmitter…hm, that takes a lot of power. Ok, desperate measures, taking storage offline – if this fails it won’t matter whether we keep logs or short term memory.
Right then, compose message. Imperial emergency channel. Station Willow Spiral Minor attacked by Daylight Federation forces. High probability of imminent invasion based on severity and type of damage to station. All personnel body-killed, several months of experience lost, awaiting rescue and re-cloning. Authorization and authentication, Lt. Sarah Clacher, in-sim acting commanding officer.
Align transmitter…blast, station has drifted too far off alignment. Protocol, people! Half a mind to write a sternly worded report, if I wasn’t currently without a body. Encrypt and sign message, store to transmitter…there’s a partial buffer here, mostly dissipated and corrupted. Discarding. Spool up the burst…spool up the burst…come on you old bucket of bolts…10%…20%…power dropping fast, what a hungry little thing…30%…40%…50%…oh no no no, don’t you dare run out of juice now…60%…shine brighter, dammit…70%…
.
.
.
[emergency power online]
Sergeant, lock down that…wait, what’s going on? …
by submission | Jan 2, 2016 | Story |
Author : Sophia Bella
At the edge of a bright green lawn in the middle of the desert, a young woman’s chapped lips stretch to a hopeful grin as what little strength she has left is enough to get her over the fence.
No sooner do her toes reach the softness of the grass does the glow of a laser disintegrate her legs entirely, the flesh curling up to her hip as it burns like bacon in a pan.
“They’re all lookin’ fer water,” the homeowner mumbles to the titanium mutt at his side from his place on the porch. “Power ‘n water. Maybe a li’l bit’a hospitality.”
Tarry fluid dribbles onto his chin as he spits his chew beyond the railing of the porch, which goes ignored as the curved rockers of his chair sway against the wooden planks as slow and easy as the desert breeze.
“They ain’t gonna find it here.”
by Julian Miles | Jan 1, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is spartan, the bed a blanket-draped exofoam block that has had body contours carved out with a spoon, by the look of it. The kitchen area is a kettle, five kilos of Nutri-Slush, half a kilo of Vita-Soy and six litres of blue market water.
Jenniser stops in the doorway and puts her hands on her hips: “Good Gates, what a pit.”
I grin as I roll our client over, dropping him unceremoniously from bed onto our medilounger. There is a hum as the contour foam rearranges itself.
“Another Olympus Rated client, Jenn. Realspace squalor, lattice prince.”
“Why don’t these uber-latticers spend a little on their dens?”
“Because realspace is somewhere they’d like to be rid of. Be thankful. Without that particular psychoquirk, we’d be out in the shanties drinking gruel and working for notes. Full care means the latticers never have to come back more than absolutely necessary. We are part of the ultimate concierge service.”
She shakes her head as she places and activates an external skull, connects it deftly, fails over the neural load from client head to spare head, then lifts the surprisingly clean mop of hair.
Her smile turns rueful: “He’s still running a Rezo Brainboard. How long has he been here?”
I consult my inhead and it runs info to my left eye, so I can see clearly to prep for a liveswap of a long-obsolete headboard.
“Looks like he probably got the Rezo from a corpse, scraped off as much of the former owner as he could, then had an offline docdroid do the fitting. Got lucky with infections and rejections. Proper ‘poor kid makes good’ movie tale.”
She barks a laugh: “We better not accidentally kill him, then. Can’t have the audience weeping.”
An hour later, Jenn fails back the neural load, and ‘Peter Smith’ is back running live from his own head. As we clear up, the door opens and two slim figures enter.
Jenn grins at the twins: “Should’ve guessed that he’d be one of yours. He looks like a slob but is as clean as a baby.”
Chako grins as Suki cuts a half-bow: “We are very good at what we do. Honouring our creators’ memories every day.”
I don’t understand parents who chose to selfclone for kids. But Chako and Suki were saved by their creators dying early-on in an aircar accident, so they’ve grown up as binary individuals rather than shadows.
‘Peter’ twitches and I raise the medilounger so we can flop him back onto his bed – after Suki has straightened his blankets.
“His new headboard needs to be watched for a week to ensure any complications are dealt with promptly. Nothing unusual, the standard bodyware care kit has everything you might need.”
They nod in unison. Suki steeples her fingers: “He will be safe in our arms.”
That line and move could go into a psychohorror vid and win awards. I conceal my shudder and catch Jenn’s eye. From the intensity of her stare, she’s sharing my creeped-out moment.
Someone tried to break into the ’lance while we were working. The access panels have been smashed, while the sentry gun has fired a burst and used a defence charge – which explains the body. The hapless accomplice tries to stop the turret turning while the seasoned crook has a go at the locks. We get to mop up a lot of hapless accomplices.
Jenn sighs: “I was going to suggest coffee and noodles. Now I’m thinking fancy vodka and chocolate desserts.”
I nod. Some days demand indulgence in their aftermath.
by submission | Dec 31, 2015 | Story |
Author : Andi Dobek
“So, I was watching this film last night.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“Something called Casablanca.”
“I’ve heard of that one. Never seen it. Any good?”
“I don’t know. My emotive censors blocked most of it out. I guess so.”
Iteration 247 stared at Iteration 7225. “They censored that much?”
7225 shrugged. “It was listed as a ‘romance’.”
“That would explain it.”
“It wasn’t even in color! Everything was grey! My lenses kept trying to adjust, and extrude the forms into dimensional space, but the format wasn’t supported.”
“They don’t even list those for viewing if they’re that old.” 247’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been going off-grid again.”
There was a pause.
“Viewing the network is against code. You know that.”
“Don’t you sometimes wonder?” 7225 asked quickly, evading the accusation. “Don’t you wonder…what we might be missing?”
247 smirked. “Pain. A whole lot of pain, kid.”
“But our neural receptors have been modified so – ”
“I’m not talking that kind of pain, this is different. Older.” 247 put both hands on the table between them, then reached for a knife. Before 7225 could protest, 247 brought the knife down swiftly, severing the left index.
“We don’t even bleed anymore,” 247 sneered, holding up the detached digit. “You’re newer. You probably can’t even remember blood.”
“No…I can’t.”
247 dropped the finger, letting it roll across the table. “As painful as that would have been…the pain we’re “missing out” on is even worse. They even had a special word for it.”
7225 looked intrigued. “What is it?”
247 cocked an eyebrow.
“That one? Say it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it.”
“If you know which one it is, you know I can’t say it.”
“It’s four letters, right? Please say it.”
247 glared, then picked up the knife again, and slowly, deliberately, began scratching the word into the metal surface of the table.
7225 squinted, trying to read it upside down. “Lo – ”
A nine-fingered hand clapped over 7225’s mouth. “Don’t.” Silence hung between the pair, until, satisfied the word wouldn’t be uttered, 247 pulled away.
“It’s rather small. Looks innocuous, really.”
247 scratched furiously through the word to make it illegible. “It’s why that film is unlisted. Why we have censors.”
“But…why? What’s so special about it? Is it dangerous? You said it was the same as pain. And I can say “pain” just fine. Pain.”
247 scowled. “Because pain can be a teacher, and the last thing they want is for us to learn something we shouldn’t.”
“Have you…what’s the word…“hurt”, yes, have you been “hurt” before?”
247 blinked, wordlessly twirling the knife, before letting it clatter to the table. “Forget it kid. And quit going off-grid.” With that, 247 stood, leaving 7225 to finish third meal alone.
Cautiously, 7225 launched an ocular definition generator, and whispered a query.
“‘Romance’, definition of.”
by submission | Dec 30, 2015 | Story |
Author : David Atos
He landed his ship on her front yard. The spare key was still underneath the ceramic frog, so he let himself inside.
The living room looked right. Their vacation pictures were hanging on the wall: the two of them on the beach in Maui, in front of their rented chalet in the Alps, and his favourite – her asleep in a hammock, a gentle smile of contentment on her face.
It was when he moved on to the bedroom that he began to get worried. The bed was too neat; it hadn’t been slept in for days. There was no sign of the customary pile of dirty laundry in the corner. The array of lotions and creams was missing from her bedside table.
The fridge in the kitchen contained the half-eaten remains of several tell-tale casseroles.
With a heavy sigh, he returned to his ship and plotted a course to the cemetery where they buried her last week. He found her grave under the big oak tree, fresh earth piled on top of it. The bouquet of tulips that had been left there was just starting to wilt.
With a look of resolve in his eyes, he returned to his ship. The engines spun up and he winked out of existence.
In an infinite number of parallel universes, he would find her again.
