by submission | Mar 26, 2007 | Story
Author : Michael Herbaugh a.k.a. “Freeman”
I’m sitting
That’s my first thought
I can’t move my hands
That’s the next thought. Then like a lightning bolt, I’m fully conscious. I know where I am and I know why I am here.
“WAIT! I can prove I’m human! When I’m in bed I can’t sleep unless I have three points tucked in. Between my legs, under my shoulder and under the opposite arm. Surely, that’s something human? I’m human, you can’t kill meâ€
“All skin jobs think that.†The voice came from the darkness to my right. “See it’s genetic memory, you can’t help it. Your host had that predisposition so it’s been passed to you. It doesn’t change what you are.â€
“But, I know I’m human! I bleed like everyone else, I feel, I think!â€
“Look, kid. I didn’t wait for you to wake up so we can debate this. I just don’t like decommissioning skin jobs while they’re unconscious.â€
He levels the gun to my forehead.
“THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS GO IN MY DREAMS! THEY…â€
The plea was cut short by the gunshot’s thunderous finality.
“Wait, did he say drea…….?â€
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by submission | Mar 25, 2007 | Story
Author : Selena Thomason
Robbie woke to find himself in a strange room.
A man appeared at his side. “How are you feeling?” he asked, placing a hand on Robbie’s metal shoulder.
“Strange,” Robbie replied slowly.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“It’s not surprising you don’t remember me. I’m Dr. Vartan. Do you remember your name?”
Robbie thought it an odd question. “Of course. I am Robbie.”
“Interesting. I have long postulated that some knowledge was stored diffusely. Perhaps the upside of the accident is that I finally have some proof for my theory.”
“Accident?” Robbie had asked the question idly, but before the doctor could respond Robbie noticed a gaping hole in his silver, box-like chest. He reached a hand towards the strange sight. “What happened to me?” he exclaimed as fingers fell into the emptiness of his torso. “My…” Words failed him. “Where is it?”
Dr. Vartan gently pulled Robbie’s hand away from the wound. “It’s okay.”
“But it shouldn’t be…why is it black?”
“Don’t panic.” Dr. Vartan reached to a nearby table and pulled a sheet of thin metal off a roll. He placed the piece over Robbie’s wound and taped it in place. “There, is that better?”
Robbie inspected his torso. It was wholly silver now, as it should be, even though the patch was a different texture. He moved to touch the new skin.
“Careful. Don’t push on it. It’s only a temporary fix.”
The black gone, Robbie felt calmer. “What happened to me?”
“During your last programming upgrade a virus slipped past the sensors. We didn’t notice it until you developed aphasia.”
Robbie couldn’t make sense of the odd word.
“It means you would get your words mixed up, like if you meant ‘door,’ you would say ‘chair’.”
Robbie thought that would make being understood very difficult indeed.
“But we can fix it. We just had to remove your main memory so that we could remove the virus and repair the damage. We’re almost finished. It won’t be long now.”
“But I remember some things. I remember my name.”
“Yes, that is worth further study. I think you must be functioning on the fail-safe programming that is hard-coded into your network, plus a few memories that must be stored somewhere other than main memory. Frankly I’m not sure how you are functioning as well as you are.”
Another man came into the room, carrying a small package. “Here it is, Doc. Good as new.”
Vartan took the box and turned to Robbie. “Are you ready to have your main memory back?”
“Yes, please. I would like to remember my last birthday.”
Vartan peeled back the aluminum foil and replaced Robbie’s memory.
Robbie’s head jerked momentarily as the replaced memory caused his system to reboot. Then he looked again at Vartan.
“Doctor, thank you for your assistance. I feel much better now.”
“And your last birthday?”
“We went to the zoo. I especially liked the tigers. They were magnificent.”
“Yes, Robbie, they were.”
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by submission | Mar 24, 2007 | Story
Author : Kaj Sotala
On the remote planet of Niere IV, countless minds were constantly being played for a vast audience of listeners. Deep within the planet’s crust, the brains were enclosed in immense suprasteel vaults, floating in vast chambers of nutrient liquid. Protected day and night by thousands of fanatic warrior-monks, the brains bristled with wires, electrodes implanted near every center of thought or emotion. They had been stripped from all their sensing organs but with their mind’s eyes they still saw, the electric pulses dancing through them stimulating countless thoughts and memories.
Highest of all among the planet’s inhabitants were the composers, the black-suited aliens who’d dedicated their lives to their Art. Their intellect genetically and cybernetically enhanced, they sat fused to their giant keyboards, surrounded on all sides by black and white keys. With six arms and eight fingers on each, their thoughts and ideas would dance on the keyboards faster than any human could even imagine. The vast screens and speakers in their chambers lay dead – once they had needed them, but no more. By now they knew by heart the effect of each key, could even in their dreams name which press stimulated which electrode in which brain.
It was in the concert halls near the planet’s surface that the music would be heard. The chaotic patterns of neuronal firing in the brains being constantly recorded and reinterpreted into sounds in real time, played on all imaginable spectrums of hearing. The concert halls were the best places to listen, but they were not the only ones – all of the world’s surface was lined with speakers, so no inch of the barren world would miss the sensation of music. Few souls lived aboveground, with the entire civilization of the world living under the ground maintaining the machines and the music. They would not hear the sounds, nor did they care to – they were but humble caretakers of the Art, guardians of a holy process far more important than themselves. The vast concert halls lay nearly empty, the rocks of the surface being close to the only listeners of the songs.
Occasionally visitors from other worlds arrived, attracted by the harmonies constantly being fired off into space by radio arrays powered by a thousand fusion generators. They were all led to the concert halls to listen, to stay for as long as they’d like and to leave freely whenever they so felt. Most of them left eventually, but few of them went unchanged, all strangely touched by the eerie and unique melodies of Niere IV. An even smaller group chose to stay, choosing to join their souls into the Art and subject themselves into the surgeons’ knives. One by one they were transformed into instruments of the Sacred Music, to have electrodes inserted into them and be used as the composers willed.
Can there be any sacrifice holier than that?
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by submission | Mar 23, 2007 | Story
Author : Debbie Mac Rory
Daniel fell to the grass so that the air from his lungs exited with a whoosh. He closed his eyes and let the cool of the earth leach the tension from his shoulders. When he opened them again, clouds drifted serenely by, lit by the twin moons and the gentle glimmer of distant stars.
He turned his head for a moment as a slide of gravel announced the arrival of Finn. The two companions lay in silence for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts and the rasp of their labouring lungs.
“I can’t remember the last time I looked at them?â€
Finn’s voice sounded distant and hoarse, as if he was making conversation merely to stop the momentary quiet from silencing them both completely.
“I can’t even tell which one is home any more†he continued, “I used to know. I’d set my nav by it every morning, so I always knew which way to look… “
Daniel closed his eyes as Finn talked on. He let his mind wander back to thoughts of home. He remembered forests and trees. Green for as far as the eye could see. Racing through those hills with the cross country team, and in his final year, beating the Titan and Mars teams. It had been the first time an earth man had won in years.
The brief smile that had come to his lips as he remembered the parties that followed, being carried through the college grounds faded as the ground trembled beneath him. He realised Finn had fallen silent, and turned his head towards him. His own helmet and visor was reflected back to him in the mirrored finish of Finn’s own cover. He knew that behind the distorted image of his own visor Finn’s grey eyes were looking back to him, asking the same unspoken questions.
A brief flash lit up the sky, and as one, they adjusted their guns on their laps.
“We’ll be home soon enough†Daniel murmured.
A stirring moved along the trench as a second and then a third flash lit up the sky. Soldiers began to prepare as the tremors in the earth joined the discord in the sky above them.
“One way or another, we’ll get homeâ€
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by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 22, 2007 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“You know, puny human, you’re about to die?” The voice reverberated off the store fronts, assailing the ears like broken glass. “You think you’re faster? That you can outgun me?” The biped stood stoic, unusually tall and peculiarly proportioned, bellowing down the dusty thoroughfare.
“Can’t say that I’m faster, and I’ve not got a gun quite like your cannon there, but I don’t plan on letting you kill me.” The retort came from a man not two thirds the height or weight of his rival, fidgeting uneasily at the other end of the street. Behind closed doors and shuttered windows, the townspeople sheltered themselves but, unable to let the showdown pass without witness, many could be seen peering cautiously through cracks. “The name’s Zigg. If you do intend to kill me, the least you could do is learn my name.”
“High noon, Ssegg.” Indifference slurred it, as much as the reptilian mouth did. “That’ss when I’ll kill you.” There was laughter beneath the words this time, one sound layered over the other. Zigg suddenly recalled his breakfast, and struggled to swallow it back down.
The clock tower ticked the minutes away before noon as horses shuffled uneasily at the hitch-post. Wind blew tumbleweeds past, and set the weathervane squealing on a nearby rooftop. The clock struck the first midday bell. Zigg studied the street carefully. Two bells, then three. Four bells, five.
“You know who’s going to be the death of you?” His lips slowly pulled back into a wide white grin. “Rube Goldberg.” The clock struck its sixth time.
The towering gunman cupped both hands behind his ear-vents, and bellowed back at him. “What? Rube who?” He slowly studied the doorways and closed windows, as though at any moment this ‘Rube’ would step from the shadows. Seven bells.
Zigg pinned the tall creature with an icy stare as he reached slowly down to the ground and plucked a fist sized rock from the dust at his feet. The alien watched with peripheral interest as he carefully drew back his arm and pitched the rock up at the creaking weathervane, the impact echoed in the eighth bell of twelve.
The weather vane spun wildly and broke loose, caterwauled down the corrugated steel roof, to alight on the rump of the closest tethered horse. The ninth bell struck as the horse reared, tearing the hitch-post off its mooring, and setting its three companions to bucking in unison. As one, they galloped up the main street, still attached to the length of railing. The horses passed the general store, two to either side of the sign post, as the clock struck for the tenth time, the impact snapping the post clean off at its base. The alien gunman stood fixated as the post was dragged towards the open street, propelled by the horsedrawn length of railing. The horses veered in opposite directions, slipping free of the rail, to race away through the city streets. The signpost dug into the dirt, then cart-wheeled end over end up the street past the gunman, to come to rest a dozen or so meters beyond him in a cloud of dust.
“That’ss your Rube Goldberg?” The question barely escaped his mouth as the clock struck twelve, and an explosion echoed down the street. The alien turned to face the smiling visage of his opponent behind the smoking barrel of a gun. He willed himself to try to speak, to move, but he couldn’t. Thick fluid oozed from his throat as he fell to his knees.
Zigg turned his gun to the sky, blew softly across the barrel-mouth, enjoying the sound for a moment before he continued. “You just gotta have a little imagination.” He tipped his hat as he slipped his gun back into its holster, turned and walked away.
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