by featured writer | Sep 10, 2007 | Story
Author : Todd Keisling, featured writer
Colt was a block from his apartment when the curfew alarms went off. The firing klaxon startled him, and he dropped his smokes. Heart pounding, he retrieved them and ducked into a nearby alley.
It wasn’t long before the first patrol sped by, its rifles poised and searchlights tracking the darkened streets ahead.
He curled up beside a dumpster, flipped his collar and tried to keep warm. The smokes helped. He scolded himself for losing track of time. The bookstore down by the square had enticed him yet again. It wasn’t until the owner, Mr. Drabury, pulled the shades that he realized what time it was. Drabury told him the local alarm was damaged in a riot a couple of days prior.
Gunshots echoed from somewhere farther down the street. Colt wasn’t alone in breaking the curfew.
More shots. Then again, he supposed, maybe he was.
After the hum of the patrol’s engine grew distant, Colt rose to his feet, lifted the lid of the dumpster and climbed in. The smell was horrid and he fought the urge to retch. The feeling of nausea passed after a few minutes, and he reminded himself that spending the night there was safer than trying to dodge the patrols for that last, crucial city block.
Not that it mattered. The master locks in his apartment promptly engaged at curfew. All of his neighbors were safe inside their homes, spending time with their families and worshiping Channel Zero for the required two hours.
Colt reached into his pocket and pulled out the FM transmitter. He affixed it to his ear and thumbed the dial in search of the right frequency. Suddenly his head was filled with the rants of the self-proclaimed Mad Man.
Authorities were still trying to track him down. Rumors circulated that he never transmitted from the same location, and never with the same encryption. After the collapse of the nationwide radio network twenty years ago upon federal implementation of the FCSA and SmartCam installations, the “Mad Man” set up a single broadcast. He brought back the music of the previous century, before it was “tainted by lack of creativity.” He preached, he hounded, he ridiculed the Network and the Government and the apathy created by both.
Colt liked him. He took a drag from his cigarette and lifted up the lid to exhale the smoke.
The Mad Man screeched in his ear.
“–and what do they do for ya, people? You sit at home at night, after you’ve worked yer ass off for the man all damn day, and they expect you to watch this so-called ‘Channel Zero’. They say you’re doing the country a favor. Well I say you’re spying for the man. You’re spyin’ on yer fellow countrymen. It’s sick. It’s disgusting. And if you agree with it, then you’re no fuckin’ different.”
Colt bit his cheeks and fought back laughter. He wanted to cheer on the Mad Man, but the dumpster was already vibrating from a nearby patrol.
“And speaking of spying, people, did any of you catch the broadcast over a Network secure channel a few hours ago? They say there was a murder on Grid Four. Guy knifed to death right there while everybody wat–”
A series of pops erupted in the background. The Mad Man gasped.
“Looks like my cover’s up, ladies and gentlemen. ‘Till next time, I bid you all adieu—and wake the fuck up!.”
The frequency went dead. Colt sighed, finished his cigarette and put it out against the wall of the dumpster. He wrapped his arms around himself, positioned himself as comfortably as possible amid the bags of rotting garbage, and closed his eyes.
Without the voice of the Mad Man in his ears, it would be a very long night.
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by submission | Sep 9, 2007 | Story
Author : Michael Varian Daly
Paln gently cupped the small green vegetable in the attachment designed for its harvesting. The steel segmented orb closed – a soft ‘snick’ – cutting the stem. Paln carefully placed the hard round vegetable among its brethren in the bin strapped to his midsection…and felt Pleasure.
“Brussels sprout,†he sub-vocalized. He knew what they were, the perfect conditions for growing them, but he would never eat one, had no concept of what a ‘brussles’ was, nor cared.
His universe contracted, focused totally upon the next small green vegetable. Cupping. ‘Snick’. Bin. Pleasure.
Internal sensors told him the bin was At Capacity, though Paln knew that already. That made him feel Satisfaction. He stopped harvesting, smelling the rich loam of the field. He could analyze the chemical components to the millionth part, but organic senses came first.
Paln was the perfect blend of the organic and the cybernetic. He looked around at his Pod Brothers, felt Connection. They were all Type 26 General Purpose Agricultural Mandriods. He was officially PLN-161697434, but the Mother/Master/Ruler who hatched his brood from the uterine replicator had called him Paln, his first moment of Pleasure.
He put the full bin on the field cart, retrieved an empty one. He was still human enough to sense the beauty of the day. The sun. The fields. The easy sloshing of the nutrient tank on his Feeder nozzle. The quiet hum of the vaporizer on his Bleeder nozzle. His Brothers harvesting. The grace of the dark skinned, yellow eyed, Mother/ Master/Ruler upon her horse, overseeing their work. The Fear/Awe of seeing her shambok, long hard leather hanging lazily from her saddle horn, the Symbol of Overseeing.
Tonight, when Paln was reclining in his cradle, the Bleeder-Feeder tubes hooked up, toxins draining, body healing, he would dream of the day, sun, fields, smells, sounds.
He would dream of Selt’s funeral. The Pod gathered at dusk. Selt’s body on the field cart. Mother/Master/Rulers down from The House, bearing torches. The yellow eyed one anointing Selt’s forehead with oil. The prayers as the black bag was…
Niniskil sat up with a start, breathless and sweaty. That chingado dream again!
She glanced around to find her Sisters, saw Rhea on one side, Tzisoc on the other, both still out cold. She quickly looked between her legs, sighed with relief. At least she had detached the bioform phallus before she passed out. It had been a serious Bacchanal. But after ten months on deep space patrol, they’d earned it.
She crawled out of bed, went to the window, looked outside.
The gorgeous vista of Sylph looked back at her as if designed to be perfect, which, of course, it was, from its core outward. Nothing, but jeweled archipelagos strung across warm azure seas without predators, skies painted with wispy clouds, all under the multicolored rings that crowned this princess of worlds.
A few yards away, just up from the white beach, a group of Sisters rested upon loungers in glistening nakedness, while a tall, lean Harlequin, a Mandroid pleasure server, offered them cold drinks.
She drew back, light suddenly like daggers in her skull.
“Ugh!†she grunted. That was definitely a Past Life dream. Too much detail…that yellow eyed Sister!
“Chingos!†she spat. What Sister wants to remember an Incarnation as a AgroDriod? But there it was. Time to see the Priestesses of Eriskegal for Regression Therapy. But not today.
She crawled back into bed. “The Wheel Turns,†she muttered, snuggling close to Rhea.
Drifting off, she thought, “Be extra nice to the servants today.â€
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by submission | Sep 8, 2007 | Story
Author : Grady Hendrix
Danny Leeds really wanted to punch his wife in the mouth. Over the last two years she had managed to cast their relationship as one where he was constantly the oppressor and she was eternally the victim. If he said anything she didn’t like, it was an attack. If he told her something she was doing that bothered him, she wound up crying in the bathroom. Christ! All he was doing was trying to communicate, but now he was at the end of his rope. He was a nice guy, but if she wanted abuse, he’d give her abuse.
He made an appointment with his doctor, sat down and explained the situation. His physical results were all on file from last time so this was mostly a psychiatric evaluation.
“You really want to do this, Danny?†his doctor asked.
“Absolutely. I’ve thought about it calmly and I think it’s the only solution.â€
“Okay, but I can’t sign you up for anything in the face. And I can’t write you a prescription for kicking. Once she’s down, she’s down and you need to back off.â€
“I understand, doc. I don’t want to hurt her, I just want her to know how much pain I’m feeling inside. I can’t seem to communicate it to her with words, so this is all I can think of.â€
His doctor wrote out the prescription, filed a copy with the local police and Danny went home.
He stopped off at the gym to limber up first. The last time he’d had a physical therapy/psychiatric prescription he’d stressed his rotator cuff and he didn’t want to be back at the doctor’s first thing in the morning. Once he’d worked up a good sweat, he showered off, got dressed and went home. As soon as he walked in the door his wife shot him.
“Huh – ?†he said, stupidly, looking down at the hole in his chest.
“I’ve got a prescription,†his wife said, waving the piece of paper. Sure she did – Danny recognized the signature.
“Dr. Harris,†he gasped. “That hack.â€
Danny slid down the wall and sat in a pile of his own blood.
“Don’t undermine my therapy,†his wife said.
Danny coughed up a gout of black blood and died before he could tell her that, once again, she was completely misinterpreting what he was saying and making him feel really, really bad and that maybe she should think about how the problems in their relationship might be partially her fault.
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by B. York | Sep 7, 2007 | Story
Author : B.York, Staff Writer
Kale made a habit of playing only in his backyard. The public display of toying with small action figures in the park or at a friends house made Kale a shy boy indeed. Instead, he would enjoy the comfort of solitary imagination in his backyard. The young boy, only eleven in age, could play with plastic soldiers from sunrise until the dusk of the evening. Though even in his wildest dreams he could never fulfill the true desire to have his imaginings come true.
One day in the fall, Kale took to digging in the back yard. He dug mounds for his action figures to battle upon and pits for them to die in. Kale made very deep pits for the figures to die in to make it that much more dramatic. It was only with this digging that Kale found the hole that day.
The hole was a thing not so much larger than his head and black with no light penetrating. Kale looked at it, he poked at it and the darkness within the hole swallowed his finger until he pulled it back. It was a peculiar thing this hole. He had decided that he would see just how deep the hole would go. He sacrificed an action figure to the depths of the hole and nothing happened. Kale covered up the hole and went inside.
The next day, Kale woke up and went outside to play but not before his mother gave him some purified water to stay hydrated in the intense heat outside. He quickly made his way to the hole which was still there beneath the dirt. Kale was not willing to sacrifice any more figures to the hole so he decided to take something from the house instead. Yes, his father’s electronic measuring tape would do nicely. He sunk the measuring end into the hole and eventually ran out of tape! Shrugging, the young boy dropped the rest of the electronic tool into the hole and waited. Nothing happened so Kale covered up the hole and went inside.
When Kale woke up his vitamins and morning supplements were fed to him through the bio-water he drank before ever leaving his room. His mother made him wear the anti-irradiation overcoat and sent him out back to play. Kale uncovered the hole and began to ponder about what to put inside it today. He’d assumed that whatever he had put in it the day before had not worked to its desired effect. Today Kale went inside and retrieved a toy of his meant to play 1.2 million songs from the 21st Century. He slipped it easily into the hole and waited. Nothing happened and so like before, Kale went back inside.
The very next day Kale’s meditation was ending and he told his mother he’d be going outside. Everything he needed was already injected through nano-machines into his body. The boy went outside and took to using a displacer wand to move the dirt from the hole without ever touching it. Today, Kale decided, he would truly experiment with what the hole meant. Sifting through the junk in their metallic recycling console, he’d found an old relic of his grandfather’s belongings from after the war. Taking the object out back he dropped it into the hole and waited for a long while. Nothing occurred so Kale had the event recorded in his brain then went inside.
His mouth tasted like ash and his lungs filled with soot and dirt. The boy opened his eyes to the same landscape he’d fallen asleep in yesterday. The sounds of bombs going off in the distance couldn’t wake him after all that he’d heard and witnessed in his life. He had no parents to ask to play, no brothers or sisters alive to help him through the day. He coughed heavily and stood up, stumbling through the black smoke with the smell of decay and the heat of radiation about him. His foot hit something. Staring down, the boys pained eyes could make out what looked to be a hole but one blacker than any he’d ever seen. An object as pristine as the sky had been once laid next to the hole. It appeared to be a shiny metallic object; one with a handle and a barrel and even a trigger. It had been polished and kept well and for some reason it filled the boy with a sense of familiarity.
He reached down, gripping it by the handle and noting a small parchment slipped just under the trigger. He unfolded it and read what seemed to be ancient calligraphy, yet in astonishing clear English, “Reload, Pleaseâ€.
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by featured writer | Sep 6, 2007 | Story
Author : Todd Keisling, featured writer
From: Mason, Ed
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2154 8:02 AM
To: Mason, Brandy
Subject: RE: When are you coming home?
Dear Brandy,
I told them this was a bad idea.
After over a hundred years of planning, the eggheads in Houston finally sent us to Mars. We get there, set up a solid base, and conduct tests. Then some genius decides to go dig at one of the ice caps. You know, to see if they can find some kind of geological evidence of extraterrestrial life.
They expected to find some frozen microbes, bacteria, or even a frozen bipedal creature at best. What they did find, though, wasn’t in the guidebook.
When I was a kid I thought Mars looked like this giant ball of rust and dirt. And, to be honest, that’s what it is—rust and dirt. On the surface, anyway. Go about a mile below ground, and you’ll stumble upon an intricate network of metallic tunnels and tubes. You’ll find what looks to be an intricate propulsion system powered by an advanced form of fusion.
Or something like that. This was twenty years ago. I’m just one of the gearheads they shot out here to get it working.
Most things were up and running by the time I got here. The only thing they hadn’t figured out was how an advanced civilization had managed to construct—and move—a craft the size of a planet. Something so large it has its own moons. To be honest, I really don’t give a damn. I’m just here to do my job and get back home.
There’s a single chamber a few hundred clicks from the first entrance point. The eggheads have dubbed it the “control room†due to a large panel with several asymmetric shapes that glow in the presence of an EMP charge.
So when I took a look at the crude drawings and blueprints they’d provided and came to the conclusion that none of us had a single clue as to how to operate this thing, I told them that maybe we shouldn’t mess with it.
Maybe we should just let Mars be a planet. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
They didn’t listen. Instead they told me to press the big oblong-shaped thing on the panel with an EMP emitter. Since these guys are signing my paychecks, I figure hey, what the hell, you know?
So I push the button.
That was four hours ago. Reports came in from several other outposts that some volcanoes spewed to life around the same time they made me push the button. That solved the exhaust enigma.
Now the eggheads are running around, barking orders and figures and trajectories and shit. Now they say planet-side effects of this sudden gain in momentum is going to screw with the gravity and cause surface-wide destruction.
They’re telling all surface-dwelling associates to head underground.
So all that rust and dirt, well, it kind of makes sense to me. Let’s say some advanced species built a big spaceship. They took it out for a joyride several billion years ago and ran out of gas. There sure as hell wasn’t any AAA back then.
Anyway, from the looks of things, these intergalactic geniuses didn’t understand the concept of brakes, because the eggheads can’t figure out a way to slow it down.
Looks like I’ll make it home in time for Jimmy’s birthday after all. I know he wanted a hovercar, but you tell him Dad’s bringing him something even better. He doesn’t even need keys to turn it on.
Love you,
Ed
[-MESSAGE DELIVERED-]
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