by Sam Clough | Oct 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
The best definition of ‘coincidence’ is ‘you weren’t paying attention to the other half of what was goin on.’ Related to this is the little-known fact that effect can predate cause. Me and Darien were an effect. The cause’s name was Milo.
“Time?” I shouted forward, struggling to match Darien’s pace. I saw him glance at his wrist.
“One minute twenty-six. Now shut up, and run!”
I redoubled my efforts, barely keeping my footing as I chased Dar around corners. He ducked through a gap in a broken chain-link fence. The sign on it read ‘Absolutely No Entry’. With fifty seconds to get into position, Darien certainly wasn’t bothered about trespassing, and so, neither was I. Darien shouldered his way past a flimsy door, and shuddered to a halt. I stepped after him.
“Six seconds. Hide.” Darien hissed, gesturing towards the stacked crates all around. I ducked between two particularly large boxes. Dar slipped behind the bulk of an offlined stacking robot.
Three.
Two.
One.
An access door at the far end of the warehouse began to roll up, letting light into the gloomy space. I glanced down towards the opening, and saw a double silhouette: one man and a general-purpose assistant-droid.
I was supposed to follow Darien’s lead: he would incapacitate the human target, I would take out the robot pet. Double footsteps, regular as clockwork, began to echo towards us. We were the self-styled magicians: agents of synchronicity. The subtle rearrangers of reality. A little nudge here and there so things happen…well, just so.
Milo and his robot stepped past my hiding place, apparently oblivious to my presence.
Darien moved. I covered the space between me and the pet in two steps. I hooked my foot around its ankles, and jerked it backwards. It toppled to the floor, and I slapped magnets to either side of it’s head, thoroughly disabling it. Darien had drawn a compact handgun, and was pressing it against the back of the Milo’s neck.
“We know what you’re thinking. And no, it wouldn’t work. Left pocket.” I obligingly reached into the target’s leftmost pocket, and drew out the small box. I worked the simplistic controls, and two barbed spikes slid out of one side. It buzzed gently as electricity arced across the gap.
“A little close defence? Nice, Milo.” I laughed, and carried on fiddling around with the device.
“Don’t chatter.” Dar hissed.
We held the tableau for another minute. I could see Darien counting the seconds. That’s the first thing they teach you – big events hinge on the smallest coincidences. One ‘disrupted schedule’ can throw the fate of nations one way or the other. Milo was on his knees, shaking violently. Obviously, and painfully afraid for his life.
“And, time.” Darien replaced his handgun in it’s hidden holster, grabbed the mark’s neck, and hauled him upright. I returned the shockbox to Milo’s pocket, and retrieved my magnets from the junked clanker.
“What the hell!” Milo growled, and scrambled to his feet.
“Veracity. You should go home, Milo. And don’t stop for anything.”
Just as Darien turned to walk away, the first of the klaxons sounded.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 15, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Truger loathed recreational narcotics; he could never understand the point. Hallucinogens, depressants, all of them ran completely counter to his personality.
This made his current situation unbearable.
He remembered the moments before the crash, the low orbit sky-fight, the enemy fighters he’d engaged and the victory that he’d been sure of, one snatched away in a hail of flak as they’d strayed too close to the anti-aircraft emplacements. His last memory was of the gaping hole in his cockpit, and the cauterized stumps of his freshly truncated arms and leg.
He remembered waking here.
The first hallucination had been the spiders. He hadn’t seen them as his eyes were bandaged, but he felt them navigate across his body, clicking and chattering, poking and prodding. He’d been trained to overcome foreign chemicals in his system, and he tried as best he could. The bandages were peeled back from his eyes, tiny metal appendages pulling away the mesh to let the light in. Somewhere far away, someone began screaming. His drug-enhanced imagination fed him back his own face reflected in a hundred shining facets. Seconds stretched into minutes before a sharp pain in his shoulder redirected his attention, and, as the light dimmed, he was aware that the screaming had stopped.
When next he awoke, the room had changed. The bugs were gone, and everything was bathed in a green white glow, it’s edges blurred and indistinct. Truger tried to sit upright, but his torso was too heavy. He concentrated instead on his drug-heavy hands, and as he struggled with them, the memory of cauterized limb fragments flashed back, vivid and real. The panicked surge of adrenaline helped him pull them into his line of sight but instead of familiar or even burnt flesh he found clear, crystalline limbs of stunning beauty. He marveled as the light refracted through their internal structures, until their weight finally overcame his strength.
He had to wake up. This hallucinogenic daydream was too much.
Somewhere, someone was screaming again.
Truger couldn’t remember falling asleep, or being awoken again. The light had changed, and a flurry of activity in his peripheral vision begged for his attention. His head was too leaden to move, so he strained his eyes to the left and wished he hadn’t. A doctor, resplendent in his gown, moved in and out of his field of view conversing with a nurse. Their heads both stretched impossibly in the dim light, elongated and flailing whip-like at the air. The doctor’s arms tapered off into slender, excessively jointed digits which undulated as he spoke. Their words were no more than melodic chirps to Truger’s intoxicated mind. That people took these chemicals into their system willingly and for entertainment was beyond his comprehension. The images they superimposed on his reality terrified him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as though willing the distorted shapes to disappear.
He felt something in his personal space, and opened his eyes to the faces of the medical staff, pressed close and staring, eyes now faceted and double lidded, mouths a quivering mass of vertical fleshy strips.
“Stop giving me drugs,” he screamed into their startled faces, the force of his words driving them back. “I can suffer the pain, but these drugs, you’re driving me out of my mind.” The effort taxed him to near unconsciousness. As his awareness slipped away into blackness, he whispered simply “no drugs”, a series of sound-waves the doctors chirped and clicked about for some time, trying to decipher what these noises could possibly mean.
by submission | Oct 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Chris Sharkey
“Call it,” Doctor Knight instructed excitedly.
“Call it?” Han replied inquisitively.
“Yeah, call it. Heads or tails?”
“You asked me to come down here for a coin toss?” Han was skeptical. Doctor Knight almost always had some ulterior motive.
“Of course not,” replied Knight, “I’m trying to demonstrate my latest scientific breakthrough. Come on, call it, heads or tails?” he repeated, lifting his right hand to view the quarter sitting on top of his left.
Han hesitated. The doctor’s insistence worried him. Having known Bishop Knight, PhD for almost five years, Han had come to appreciate his penchant for brilliant discoveries. Of course, the good doctor’s cunning intellect came with the usual eccentricities exhibited by the extraordinarily brilliant, but Han had never seen him get this excited over something so trivial as a simple coin toss.
“Heads or tails?” Doctor Knight started growing impatient.
“Fine, tails.”
The doctor grinned.
“What do you suppose your chances of being right are?” He asked without revealing the coin.
“I dunno, fifty-fifty?”
“Hm, not quite,” said Knight,”But close enough for the purposes of this demonstration.”
Lifting his right hand, Doctor Knight revealed the quarter, laying face up. Han just stared, waiting for the doctor to explain his demonstration.
“As you can see,” said Knight, “this coin is not on tails. If we had set a wager, you could have lost something of significant value.”
“Well, fortunately for me, I’m not a gambling man,” Han replied sarcastically.
“Of course you aren’t, and neither am I, which is why I asked you to come here. What if I told you it were possible to increase your chances beyond fifty-fifty?”
Han blinked, not certain he had heard the doctor correctly.
“I don’t follow,” he said simply.
“Assume, for a moment,” continued the doctor, “that your odds of correctly guessing which side the coin lands are fifty-fifty. Without manipulating the coin in some fashion, those odds will never tip in your favor. What if I told you that your chances could be increased without doing anything to the coin?”
“Enough with the hypotheticals, doctor. What are you getting at?”
“Luck, my dear friend,” Knight said with a smile, “I’ve discovered a way to manipulate a person’s luck.”
“Manipulate?”
“Yes, as in increase or decrease the amount of luck any one person has.”
“But that’s impossible,” exclaimed Han, “Luck is not a quantifiable attribute. Hell, it’s not even scientifically possible to prove luck exists. It just a term, used by the superstitious to explain the unexplainable events in their lives.”
“Those are the kind of assumptions that prevent scientists from making breakthroughs such as these,” countered Knight, “If your mind is already closed to the possibility, why would you explore it. I, however, was not so deterred and posited that luck can be quantified, and ultimately, manipulated. It took years of dedicated research, but a last I have a breakthrough. Allow me to demonstrate.”
With the last sentence, Doctor Knight handed Han the coin.
“Toss it,” he instructed.
Han wasn’t sure if he was impressed or bewildered. After an hour of coin-tossing, Knight hadn’t been wrong once. After the first thirty, Han had started using the change in his own pocket and had even moved to the other side of the room, just to make sure the good doctor wasn’t playing a practical joke.
“Okay,” Han said finally, “Now will you show me how you did it?”
“Of course,” said Knight with a grin, “Just after I return from my vacation.”
“I see,” said Han disappointedly. “Where are you going?”
“Vegas, my dear friend.”
by submission | Oct 13, 2008 | Story
Author : Brian Armitage
Iskerreth stood before the assembly, manacled. The humans looked on, waiting. Listening. All was imminently silent. The Korrosk soldier straightened his back, his muscles shifting under his scales, his head quills flat against his scalp. He pressed his elbows together in a show of humility, and spoke.
“I have fought against and killed your brothers. I deserve death, and am… dumbfounded that I am here, alive. Even to speak before you, humans of authority.”
His bright orange eyes with their horizontal slit pupils scanned the Solar Congress, his audience. The gills on Iskerreth’s neck, bright purple when they opened, fluttered with anxiety.
“A slave is sold, and goes to his death. Korrosk are bred for numbers, not for strength. Our lives have little meaning, and our deaths none. We have fought and died without honor for… too many generations. The Veleura command, and the Korrosk obey.
“So many that we have fought are slaves, as we are.” The alien stopped suddenly. His tail came to rest, and his gills stilled. His head bowed low. “We were not prepared for Earth.” It was a moment before he spoke again.
“Our masters gave us your communications. We listened to you as we fought. As I… shot down your fighters, I heard one of your commanders.” With a deep breath, Ishkerreth raised his head. “For a moment, he sounded like our masters, saying, ‘Do you want them to die for nothing? Fight on!’ But when he spoke again, I was shaken. He said…” The warrior’s shoulders began to shake.
“He said, ‘they volunteered for this.’”
The Korrosk soldier shuddered, tilted back his head, and roared, a deep vibrato from the depth of his chest. Only barely audible was the gasp from the crowd. He clutched his head in his hands.
“They chose the fight! They chose! A choice the Korrosk have never been given. And we never shall, unless…”
Iskerreth’s quills rattled against his scaled head. The Korrosk lifted his eyes to his audience, and dropped to his knees. His gills again began to flutter.
“We beg you. We beg you… give us the choice. Only allow us the chance to choose, and we will serve you. Never have we chosen our fight. Never have we died with honor. Allow us… the choice. If you do… I offer you the oath. The oath we are made to swear to our masters.”
He raised a clenched fist to the very center of his chest, above his heart. His entire body shook. Then, Ishkerreth opened his mouth and bellowed the oath, with zeal:
“We will trade the years of our lives for a moment of yours! We will trade a sea of our blood for a drop of yours! We fight at your pleasure! We die at your wish! Send us, and we will go! For…” For a moment, he choked. His breath heaved once, and he shouted ever louder, “For the honor of the fallen!”
And he fell quiet, head bowed. Silence. The warrior sobbed once, and was still. He slowly regained his feet and lifted his head.
“If any of you would stoop low and stand alongside us, I-”
The entire audience rose to its feet. 80,000 humans and Korrosk stood, just as the Solar Congress had stood together those hundred years ago. The great hologram of Ishkerreth in the center of the stadium looked around on all sides, awestruck.
From his private booth, Moshkerreth raised a clenched fist to his heart. His wife squeezed his hand, her pink skin soft against his scaled fingers.
“Happy Allegiance Day, Mr. President,” she said.
by submission | Oct 12, 2008 | Story
Author : B. Zedan
Periodically, the pilot wished he had company. There were some things that were just more enjoyable with another being around. Besides the obvious, there was chess. The ship’s helpful AI, such a benefit when it came to the obvious, just didn’t cut it at chess. Not that it was stupid, of course. It was quite exactly the opposite.
“You’re a thrice-damned son of a bitch.” The pilot chucked one of his pawns at the holo he’d picked for the ship to wear when they played chess. Only certain parts of the form were dense enough to interact with objects. The pawn shot harmlessly through the faintly shimmering torso and clattered unfulfillingly on the deck. The pilot began to sulk. “Damn sonofabitch bastard.”
“Would you have preferred the pawn to hit me? If this is your preference, I can generate solidity at whichever part you wish to next target.” The ship, through the holo’s face, displayed the practised concern of a head waiter dealing with a difficult customer. The face then lit with a degree of helpfulness. “I also could display pain or discomfort when struck, if you’d like.” The pilot wondered if there was an algorithm to degrees of helpfulness.
“What I would like you to do is stop letting me win.” He paused, as though a computer needed a moment of contemplation. “I left my king wide open, just there for you to take. But you didn’t. You messed around with the same dumb, obvious moves you’ve been making since the first time we played and you won.”
The ship didn’t say anything. It seemed to think he wasn’t quite done. The pilot found that he wasn’t.
“I mean, if you’re doing this because you think I’d prefer it then you’re off your deck. Letting me win like that only reminds me how easy it’d be for you to kick my ass at this game.”
The ship remained quiet.
For the briefest moment, the pilot worried he’d hurt the ship’s feelings.
“Listen—” he began. The holo shook its head.
“No, it is all right. You have a very valid point. I thought you would prefer to win, but I did not factor that you might also like to work for the win.” The pilot was a little startled.
“Yeah, that’s—that’s pretty much it.”
“I had not taken into consideration that your kind reveres the concept of hardship and looks down on success unless there is at least a token struggle in achieving it.”
“I just didn’t want you to make it so easy.”
“I understand.”
The pilot shifted in his chair uncomfortably. He wondered about the connections being made in that giant, unfathomable brain. He wished he had company.
