by Sam Clough | Oct 6, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
Sacha slumped down in a doorway, gathering her heavy clothes tighter around her. As a prophylactic measure, the cloth and leather were almost useless: it was less about protection, more about appearances. The door behind her was like every other in this street. Rough, wooden, and with a ‘X’ splashed across it in red paint.
She stared at the bodies that littered the street. Tens of them on this street alone, thousands across the district, and hierarchy-knew how many uninfected were starving to death in their homes, afraid to unseal the windows. Some of the infected were dangerous, violent, but those in the later stages of infection just curled up and died where they fell.
Sacha was trapped, doubly so. By the quarantine around the town, and by the blockade of the ‘red’ districts. She was not infected. Unlike the citizens of the town, Sacha had an immune system she could talk to.
However resistant she was to the pathogens in the air, she was not resistant to the flamethrowers of the local army. In the style of armed forces everywhere, they had donned their rudimentary hazardous materials suits and were methodically putting the town to flame.
Someone walked past the door by which Sacha was slumped. He was wearing a neat, well-fitted uniform – that of an officer in the local army. He continued past her, down the street, then Sacha heard him stop and backtrack. He stared at her for a long moment, then spoke.
“Emdal-Abek Sacha Sousver. Medical technician, on assignment from Cluster.”
“And you are?” Mildly surprised at the use of her full name and the unimpressive description of her assignment, Sacha got to her feet and eyed the officer more closely.
“Ash-Abek Peter Carnelian. Disruptor.”
“Sent to rescue me?”
“No. Cluster is worried that this crisis will lead eventually to a military coup. I’m here to guide them down a different track.”
“Let me guess. Kill the High Command.”
“In one. Are you sure you’re medical?”
“Positive. Do you think you could get me out of here? I’m becoming immunocomprimised. I’ve done all I can to help, but I need to get into a medical lab.”
“I think I’ll be able to explain it away.”
Peter placed a hand on her shoulder, and they headed for the nearest checkpoint. A line of soldiers were carefully creating a dead zone on the infected side, setting fire to everything within ten metres of the perimeter. A milling crowd of the infected were shouting, screaming and begging just outside the reach of the flamethowers.
“Sod,” Peter murmured, “we’re going to have to get through them.”
One of the crowd spotted Peter’s uniform.
“Djah!” The cry of ‘officer’ went up, and as one mass, the infected turned and ran towards what they saw as their salvation.
“Run.” Peter hissed, and Sacha fled back the way they’d come. He drew a sidearm, and levelled it at the crowd. “Uhd. Tuz lidla. Lidla!” Some of the more risk-averse slowed, but most continued to run. He fired three times into the crowd, and ran after Sacha.
Panicking, Sacha ran headlong into a dead end. Peter was hot on her heels, having discarded his now-empty sidearm. There was a knife in his hand, and bloodstains covered his once-immaculate uniform. He threw something at her. Instinctively, she caught it: small, ovoid and metallic. A capsule key.
A rush of air almost knocked her off her feet and a door hissed open in the air beside: Peter had called his one-man capsule. He wanted her to leave.
by submission | Oct 5, 2008 | Story
Author : Matthew Forish
My call sign is Belle – I don’t have a real name, just a designation: ASC-a217.5. I stand about four-foot-two – pretty short even for a girl – and weigh in at a paltry eighty-four pounds. There are plenty of children larger than I am. Of course, I was designed this way. My size was selected specifically when I was engineered – it was an asset in my line of work. I could slip through spaces too small for most people, and I tend to blend in to a crowd
Tonight I was attending a diplomatic ball. I was dressed in an elegant blue gown, classy without being overly showy – the better to blend in. My hair – long at the moment – was up in a fancy but conservative style. I hated long hair – it got in the way – but it was necessary to keep up appearances on this assignment.
Standing against a side wall, I scanned the crowd. There were a number of overtly-dressed and armed security guards at the entrances to the room, and my trained eye noted five special agents – dressed in finery and mingled with the crowd. That brought the total security presence in the room to fifteen, plus the advanced security drone that hovered near the ceiling.
I noted my partner, dressed in the guise of a waiter, moving about with practiced ease with a tray of drinks. I was the only one who noticed the tiny devices he was scattering around the room. As he passed me, I snatched a glass of brandy from his tray – my eyes catching his signal that he was finished.
Moving toward the dance floor, I lifted the brandy to my lips and savored it for a moment before my bio-toxin neutralizers rendered the alcohol impotent. Such was the price of my unique abilities. After draining the glass, I deposited it on a nearby table and continued my advance. I spotted my target among the dancing couples. He was paired up with a visiting ambassador from a backwater world.
As usual, none of the guards paid any attention to my tiny frame as I cautiously approached my quarry. One of the special agents glanced my way and smiled at me, before continuing his subtle scans of the crowd.
I was right behind my prey before the drone finally noticed me. It’s blaring alarms were cut short as the stun-pulse flashed out from every corner of the room. Most of the guests and all of the uniformed guards dropped from the pulse, which barely registered as a tickle in my enhanced neural pathways. Only my target, the special agents and the few dignitaries wealthy enough to afford high-end neural implants were standing now – as well as my partner and I of course.
My target turned around in confusion, spotting me for the first time. I drew a slender blade from among my stylish hairpins and took one quick slash across his throat. “You should have voted no on that amendment, Senator,” I said quietly as the shock registered on his face, his life slipping through the gash in his throat – his nano-meds unable to contend with the counter-nanos set loose by my blade in order to save him.
With my partner at my side, I dashed for the nearest window. The special agents moved to intercept us, but were thrown back by the sudden concussion of a cluster of explosions that covered our escape. As we leapt through the shattering glass and plunged into the blackness below, I noted with satisfaction another job well-done.
by submission | Oct 4, 2008 | Story
Author : Glenn Head
Transmission 211.
Is it on, Greg? Is it? Okay.
Today our situation – stranded on Jupiter’s ice moon Europa – has worsened. Todd disappeared last night. He wasn’t in camp, by our ship, and we thought he’d gone on a surveillance trip. We found him dead this morning. He was frozen solid, metres away from the camp’s external therm-lamps. In my medical opinion he died from hypothermia. Problem is, he was stripped naked.
None of can believe Todd would have walked out of camp, in this hellish cold, without wearing some god damn gear. Greg and a couple of us think something killed him then stripped him. I’m not sure. I saw no marks, no indications he’d died from anything other than hypothermia. The jury is still out.
Transmission 212.
Blaine’s gone. Greg and I searched for an hour or so. As long as we could manage in this blizzard. We found nothing. No thermal trace on the imager. I don’t think she’s coming back. Hope the rescue crew arrive soon.
Transmission 213.
Greg’s dead. But we know what’s happening now. Doc Brabham managed to take a sample from what was left of Greg’s clothes. He scanned it and found these little microbe things. They eat synthetic materials. Brabs says we woke them. Now they want to eat. Todd wasn’t stripped – his clothes were eaten.
Transmission 214.
Brabs reckons they must have hibernated for one hell of a long time before we came. We aren’t the first to land on Europa. Those creatures must have fed before. He found evidence of synthetic materials inside them. He calls the creatures Europan Moths. I call them our death warrant. If they start eating into our camp we’ve had it. Hurry guys, we need your help.
Transmission 215.
Still works? Thanks, Brabs.
We lost one half of the camp. The microbes ate through the primary and secondary walls on our east side and depressurised the chamber. We lost two men. Those of us left managed to retreat and establish life support on the west side. Lost a lot of power, though.
Where are they? Come on guys.
Transmission 216.
They’ve grown. Eating a lot of our equipment. They’re still small but you can actually see them. They’re like little dust mites, you know, the ones we used to have on earth. They move quick, and they can really eat.
We tried spraying the things with our sanitary fluids. It slows them down but it doesn’t stop them. Brabs reckons we can only hold them off for a day or two max.
Transmission 217.
Brabs died. He saved us pretty… pretty much. He saved us. Sealed a hole with his body.
I can’t do this, switch it off, I..
Transmission 218.
I saw a dot in the sky tonight. It was moving slowly but it’s got brighter. Could be the rescue crew? I hope so, cos if the Moths don’t get us, the hunger will.
We haven’t eaten in days.
by submission | Oct 3, 2008 | Story
Author : Glenn Blakeslee
It’s a disease, I guess, an affliction. My body is bound to a parallel.
No, not a geometric form, but a line around the earth. I’m bound to the 38th parallel.
I woke one morning dizzy, with throbbing pain in my limbs and abdomen. I hurt for days, but I found each time I went south the pain subsided. A few miles south of my home the pain and dizziness went away completely, and I actually felt good.
My friends thought I was crazy, but lent me a GPS. I found I was right on top of the parallel. I went back again and again for relief, until finally I lay down and slept there for the night. When I woke I felt wonderful, but I couldn’t go away again. It made the pain worse.
I couldn’t go west, either. I could only move within a half mile of the parallel, always east. So I started walking.
My job and home were behind me forever. At first I survived off friends, and then on the kindness of strangers. At times I went for days without food, always walking east. I figured it was a magnetic thing, the cells of my body aligned along certain points. All I could do was keep walking.
Am I worse off than you? Most people are bound to a region, a geographic area of a few hundred miles. The area I live in is more narrow than yours, but greater for its fantastic width. As humans we are bound to place, but my place is without end.
My family and friends figured I was obsessed, like in a movie, so they organized my eastward journey as a charity, a round-the-world walk for peace. It helped to pay the way.
It was painful crossing oceans. I spent the time asleep, mostly. Getting back to the parallel was the only way to find relief.
My route took me over the driest, most desolate place on earth. I had my pack with a little food and water, but I was so low that I was ready to lie down and die. That’s when I found Eliza.
I first saw her as an indistinct speck on the horizon, but as I walked the speck moved closer until I could discern it was another person. A woman.
Our paths intersected. She was the barest slice of a girl, but I loved her instantly. She spoke my language. We sat and talked for hours. I didn’t want to move forward. I asked her to walk with me.
She said that she could not.
She told me she was bound to a great circle, like mine. Her path would diverge from mine, as it followed the ecliptic rather than the purely geographic. We plotted our paths on the map from my pack. They would cross again in the American Midwest.
If we could find our way there, we could stay together in a hospitable place —our lives complete within a half-mile radius. I would gladly give up my narrow freedom for love and companionship.
We made love, and we stayed in the spot of our confluence until our food almost ran out. I took her picture with my cell phone. We made plans to meet and then we parted, our paths gradually diverging.
It was very difficult.
I made my way around the earth, across on my line, anticipating our meeting. And here I am in this fine town –Saint John, Kansas.
So, sir, have you seen this girl?
No?
How about you, sir? Have you seen this girl?
by Duncan Shields | Oct 2, 2008 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The aliens dug our tunes.
It was sweet. They came to down to us in these big blue ships, all curves and awe-inspiring slowness through the clouds like settling continents. Freaked us right out. We, the human race, didn’t even try to attack. We’d seen this movie before. We knew that there would be no point. We just waited for them to either kill us or speak up. There wasn’t even much panic, just a global sort of cowering whimper.
Wide eyes in the shadows of floating leviathans, we waited, holding each other tightly.
“Hey there. Uh. Hey. Right. This one right? Okay. Hello!” said the sky. It was a human voice, the kind of voice you’d hear at any old bus stop on a cel phone. Our guy, North America’s guy, was named Robert Gogas. A greek fry cook from Venice, California. The aliens had kidnapped him and told him to speak to us in our native tongue to calm us down.
“They like our music but they say we have shitty transceivers. Uh, like, I mean, uh, our broadcast quality. It’s lame. They say. But they really like us. Man, this is AWESOME!” said Robert Gogas. “They’re all blue. They’re musicians, man!”
All over Europe, similar addresses were taking place as the atmosphere was turned into a giant acoustical dome. Each ship had taken a local artist and had him or her talk to the planet, to his country of origin, in the local language.
There was a flurry of translation after Pete stopped talking. He rambled on for about fifteen minutes. The upshot was this.
The aliens, named the Kursk, wanted to install giant antennae at equidistant points around earth and they wanted us to hook our datacables into them. They wanted us to funnel our libraries, television shows, podcasts, webpages, movies, songs, animations, books on tape, and spoken word into the antennae for the enjoyment of the whole universe.
They wanted to turn Earth into a radio station.
We were far from the first.
That was ten years ago. After the first year, they started to ship down billions of tiny things that looked sort of like a cross between an iPod and a throwing star.
They were universe radios. The music of a billion billion civilizations was suddenly available to us.
It’s been a fantastic decade.
