by submission | Jan 26, 2009 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
People sometimes look at me weirdly when they first see me, and after all this time I can’t really blame them that much. I’m disabled. They see me with the goggles and the earpieces and they wonder what’s going on. Then they check the nets to see what it could be, and their faces get the same uniform look of pity and contempt. How tragic it must be, they think, not to have infoplants; way worse than being blind or deaf, because missing senses can be replaced by impants. How wretched not to have lucid dreaming or radiotelepathy.
My parents didn’t find out about it until I was four, when they took me to get the usual edutainment wetware. My body rejected the spinal grafts, rejected them with such savagery that it nearly killed me. The doctors refused to try again, saying that another rejection would kill me.
To my parents’ credit, they never made me feel different. They got me as unobtrusive a headset as they could, got me gloves so I could take part in sensationals with them. My elder brother, Troy, once beat up a kid at school for calling me a “limp”. I’ve never minded the names, though. They can call me a limp or a flatline or a blackout. They can even pity me for my disability, and I con’t care, because there’s one thing I can do that they can’t.
I can turn it off.
I can take off the sensation gloves, the goggles, and the earphones. I can unclip the belt pack and leave my computer in my room. I can be alone if I want to be. I look at people my own age and I know they’ve never had a night’s sleep where their dreams weren’t sponsored by Toyota or Burger King. They’ve never wanted to know something and had to work at finding it out. They’ve never laid out in an empty field under an infinite sky, alone but for their thoughts, knowing that no popups or instant messages will ever spoil the view.
They look at me and they feel pity.
I look at them, and I feel lucky.
by submission | Jan 25, 2009 | Story
Author : Sikko Boersma
I made the rounds like a sergeant – tapping a dozing sentry here, putting out a cigarette there. Greetings were muttered, barely understandable. The men were caked in mud. Some had blood on their trench coats. I joked with a young corporal in particularly bad shape – “your uniform is a disgrace, corporal – polish those buttons”. He pulled what was left of his face into a grimace and replied – “yes sir, no excuse sir”.
The officers’ bunker was further back, dug deep. The door opened smoothly to a scene that seemed to be completely out of place. Soft lighting, comfortable chairs. Friends sitting around a darkwood table. Music. Jeffrey grabbed the bottle of amber liquor and had a solid drink ready at my place before I even sat down.
“About time Alec, dragging your heels?“
“Had to make the round,” I replied, and took the glass, “Make sure they’re all ready for the main event.”
“Hear hear. To the big one.”
We raised our glasses, emptied them, slammed them back on the table. We drank the next round without a toast. Strong drink, good year.
“God, we’re in a rotten mood tonight,” bawled Jeff, “This is an oh-nine, have a heart! You’d think we’re getting ready for a funeral!”
Grim chuckles went up around the table. Lars raised his glass: “To us, then!”
The glasses met in a ringing cascade, got emptied, back on the table – next round.
“What do you think, Christian?” Asked Jeff, “Are we really the last?”
Chris took his glass: “Well, I haven’t heard from anyone in a while.”
“I’m shocked, Chris – not even from the girls?”
“No, Peter, not even from the girls – but your sister says hello.”
Soon the night was going by at a furious pace. We recalled stories of a past that seemed almost as distant as the ancient history our dusty teachers had once tried to imprint upon us. But our past was different – who cares about the moldy figures of old? The past we lived, that’s what’s important, that’s what brings back the memories of all the things we left behind when we went into these Goddamn trenches. Remember that guy in fifteenth grade, with the white hair? He went into music, then he painted it black – haha! Man, I’ll never forget that girl I dated in one-seven. You never dated her, you had a date with her, it’s not the same! Fuck you Jeff, let’s have another. To dates, and the mess we made of them! Hear hear!
The night wore long. Jeff, having exhausted his bravura fast as usual, fell asleep in his chair. Chris became sentimental. Eventually the talk died down and we just sat there, looking at the empty bottles, trying not to make sense of anything.
It began just before dawn with the waxing and waning shrieks we knew so well. Jeff woke up: “Looks like this is it, then.”
We got to our feet, picked our insignia off the table. The report of rifles began to swell. Now that we wore rank, it fell upon lieutenant-colonel Christopher Stanford to say something profound. He poured a round of drinks – we took them.
“Gentlemen… It’s been an honor.”
We raised our glasses, emptied them, slammed them back on the table, and took out our service pistols. The barrel, predictably, tasted like metal, and in the last instant I wondered if we really were the last.
by submission | Jan 24, 2009 | Story
Author : Skyler Heathwaite
Its illegal, but I love mind-surfing. I don’t even bother with TV anymore. I just go for a walk around town, see what I can find. Its a real gas to pick out the hidden truths in polite conversation.
For example, I sat a booth down from a really cute couple in this diner the other day. They looked nice enough, smiled a lot, held hands across the table. All of a sudden, real genuine like he says “Becky, I love you.” She lit right up, bright as Christmas.
I lace my fingers around my fork and press my thumb against the teeth. I get an image of her kissing another guy. Tall, scruffy, well muscled. The thought came before the words, a strange kind of stereo effect “I love you too.” I fight back a grin and leave a big tip.
From there I take the subway. Once I’m on I just close my eyes and drift, a sea of thought laid out before me. I don’t go for anything specific, no dirty secrets or credit card numbers. I just take what nature is kind enough to bring me.
A man three seats down and across the isle is drawing up plans in his head for a new apartment complex. Blond girl, just stepped off is worried she’s at the wrong stop. Little kid, no more than seven is dreaming about being an astronaut. The old woman next to me misses her husband John. I’d look just like him if I shaved a little closer.
My stop is up, and I walk up to the street. The constant babble used to drive me mad, now it comforts me. I go to my crappy hardware store job and start another day. I never had much of a plan, nothing like being an astronaut anyway.
I guess I could join the Psychic Studies Division, get registered and start doing government work. They’d teach me how to use my gifts, how to pick out a single private thought on a crowded street. I’d get a nice government loft in a nice part of town, with a nice paycheck and probably a nice woman to pair up with. The guys in long coats wouldn’t scare me out of my boots anymore.
But then I wouldn’t be me. I’d be a government man, no matter what they taught me. A fat woman walks up and asks if we can fix her husband’s power drill. She wants to surprise him for his birthday. This time the smile wins.
This is enough.
by submission | Jan 23, 2009 | Story
Author : Kile Marshall
As soon as the package popped down into the gravity sink I pulled out a saber and slashed through the heavy framing. For the most part it came away and dissolved into the recycle chutes quickly, so I slowed and steadied my hand. There were only a few remaining chunks and I didn’t want to disturb the contents. I’m not sure what risk there was, but I’ve always been overcautious when it comes to precious things.
“Vlad, I don’t see purpose here.” Musaf was staring at me with the usual distrust in his eyes—distrust not of my intentions but of my ideas.
“That’s because you’ve all silicon ’ware for brains,” I mumbled. “No soul or such, just fat lines and margins of black and red.”
“Red now,” he grumbled. “Money wasted!”
“My money,” I replied. “You only helped, just held the threads. I had to input and pathogenize the memes, I claim the gainings.”
“You are obsessed with archaic foolishness! Anachronite!” He swiveled his face from a pissed-off avi to mild irritation and turned to absorb some data stream surging past.
“Here, come,” I said. “You see it too.”
I reached the final box, old plastics textured to look like real uso wood. A little glimmering hook with a digilock based around an exponentially-vertexed manifold.
“You still won’t tell me costs,” said Musaf, weaving his way into the gravity sink.
“Pascal’s gambit,” I said, beginning to stream the framing code to the lock. “The reward is infinite.”
“Why?” asked Musaf. “You already know what cheese tastes like.”
“Do you believe the synthes?” I asked. “Really? They refuse to acknowledge umami or ottslich. Who knows what else they’ve lost.”
“Of all writ, this sensophilia of yours costs us more than market flux.” He glared.
I unlocked the box and flipped it back. Musaf peered over my shoulder at the pale, damp slab concealed within. Some white powdery stuff drifted up into the air; the slab was covered with it.
“This?” asked Musaf incredulously. “I’ve seen five-unit synth that looked more appetizing. Sensors say it’s rotten, too.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s verdad, supposed to be. That’s how it’s fabricated, how they’ve been doing it for… ever.”
“Like vint-malt?” asked Musaf “Live germs?”
“I suppose,” I said. I dissolved a wrapper and produced a couple of carb wafers. Using a knife, scavenged from an antique dealer a few moons back, I carefully carved into the waxy bulk and spread it out onto two of the wafers. I gave one to Musaf, the other for myself. He stared at it angrily and then engulfed it whole. I let the taste hang in my mouth for a moment.
Musaf stared at me, and his face crossfaded into disgust. “Of all things! Vlad, what of! It tastes atrocious!”
I grinned. “Exactly! It’s even better than I imagined.”
by submission | Jan 22, 2009 | Story
Author : Benjamin Fischer
The alert came abruptly.
“INCOMING INCOMING INCOMING!” blared the base PA speakers. Laeta was face-first in the damp, rich earth of the outpost’s central parade ground before the echoes of the announcement had died. The speakers squawked again, but they were drowned out by the earsplitting CRACKCRACKCRACK of the base defense lasers lighting up.
The rolling, popping detonations that followed a moment later were almost an anticlimax, the blasts resembling firecrackers compared to the thunderous report of the HEL. But Laeta still felt her back and sides peppered by dirt, wood chips and tiny stones. Some fraction of a rocket’s micromunition payload had penetrated.
The screaming started a few seconds later.
“Medic! Medic!” a man was shouting.
“Stay down!” someone else yelled.
Behind them came the labored, high-pitched squealing of someone stricken.
Laeta didn’t dare look. The forward operating base had taken a few bombardments in the three weeks she’d been stationed inside its walls, wires, moats and broad killzones, and she already knew that the locals liked to mix it up by throwing in a few more bombs after the initial chaos had died down. Hands over her head to protect her face, she cursed the fact that her helmet’s straps were digging into her chin.
The commotion continued for the few minutes it took for the satellites overhead to search the misty hills surrounding Procyon. Situated out on a low spread of farmland at the foot of the Cascades, the FOB typically had to rely on sky surveillance rather than line-of-sight from its spidery signal tower.
The all-clear finally sounded after what seemed like hours in the dirt.
The Ranger was soaked in blood, but he was making far too much noise for most of it to be his. The tall Lunie had been reporting in for a routine physical–Earth normal gravity was absolutely punishing to those who hadn’t been raised under its stresses–and he’d already loudly voiced his opinion that he was far safer out amongst the locals than in the squat concrete bunkers at Procyon.
He had evidently been proven correct.
“She’s dying, god damn it! Somebody get a medic!” he shouted, tears smearing the gore splattered across his face.
One of the medics–Marcus–was already on the scene, but it was painfully obvious that there was nothing he could do.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his arms dripping with viscera. His patient’s abdomen had been shredded, and barring the immediate attention of a surgical trauma unit, she was good as dead.
She whinnied softly, blood loss quickly sapping her strength.
“Please, do something, Marcus,” said Laeta. “She’s in pain.”
The medic caught the intel officer’s eyes.
He dug in his combat lifesaver kit, his fingers clumsy and wet.
“No,” said the Ranger. “I’ll do it.”
He wiped his hands on his backside, pulled his sidearm, and standing astride his comrade, shot her between the eyes.
His pistol brought base defense troops running.
The Ranger safed his weapon, holstered it, and bent down to kiss his horse goodbye.
He started sobbing again.
“You,” he cried into the mare’s lifeless muzzle, “were the best Earthling I ever met.”
