by submission | Aug 26, 2010 | Story
Author : Peter Woodworth
I found them. Nobody else wanted to believe it, but I found them. It’s my truth.
Well, maybe not mine. But not theirs either!
After the Act was signed and the last of the satellites went live, the corporations assured us the link would be continual. But I started twitching. I never twitched before. I’d have these little blackouts. I told people it had to be the satellites, but they said I was wrong.
So I parsed the stream. They let you see it if you want, but nobody really looks. And that’s how I found the gaps. They’re small, much smaller than the human mind can register, so small our technology can barely detect them.
That’s right. Our technology. Not theirs.
I started talking to the technicians who worked on the upload, and they all denied it, until I got angry and used the battery. One finally broke their vow of silence. He told me that they knew about the gap, but insisted it was for calibration.
This I knew to be a lie.
The human brain can handle the link, everyone’s seen the science that proves it. It’s like humming a tune you don’t even hear, they said. You don’t even know you’re doing it.
“So why are there still gaps?” I asked, but he couldn’t answer. I showed him the pictures I extracted from the blackness in the gap. When you look at it long enough, you can see the eyes, the places where the black gets darker than the rest. They’re slitted, the eyes. Like a cat’s.
He had tears running down his cheeks as he looked at the picture. That’s a sign of guilt. There are all kinds of signs of guilt, if you know what to look for. I’ve always been very attentive.
Those eyes kept me up at nights for weeks. I hate cats, always have, but I never knew why until I saw those pictures. Like they were an advance force, or something. Maybe I’m psychic. You see a lot more articles about psychic ability since the link went active. One says that we’re using parts of the brain that have never been touched before. Why shouldn’t psychic ability be hidden there? It has to be somewhere.
That’s when I realized what the gaps had to be. We’d spent all these years beaming messages out into space, and now our satellites are picking up their replies. We’ve got more satellites in orbit than any other time in history, and they’re more sensitive too. We’re finally hearing them.
But they’re being subtle. Tricky. Communicating through negative space, testing our link, seeing what they can insert without our noticing. So far, just their eyes. Understand? It’s like a joke. They’re watching us, so they put in their eyes. They want to see if we’re paying attention.
Nobody is. Nobody but me.
It took weeks and another technician, but I finally figured out how to make gaps of my own. So tonight I’m going to talk back. I’m going to insert my gaps into the link and show them we’ve noticed. And they will spread. The companies clean the link for carriers, but not for anything this size. I’m as clever as they are.
My gaps won’t just watch with black on black eyes, either. No. I’m putting images in my gaps, sounds, and they will be plugged right into the feed. Wars. Disasters. Primates howling. Metal grinding metal. They’ll see what we’ve survived. They’ll know we won’t go out without a fight. They. Will. Respect. Us.
Because I own the gaps.
Not them.
Me.
by submission | Aug 25, 2010 | Story
Author : Ellen Couch
Dr Siward’s Journal, 18th April
Another interview with Mr Renfield. I wonder whether he shall ever recover from the psychosis- his fantasy world seems so complete. One cannot help pitying the man. He is such a gentle soul, particularly compared with some of the others under my care. If I were to meet him outside the asylum, I imagine I should think him perfectly sane. But despite my best efforts to persuade him, he refuses the treatment. He is still a threat to the public.
I feel that we are at an impasse. Unless he becomes violent, I cannot force him to accept the therapy, and without it, he cannot be released to rejoin his family. He presents his ideas so rationally that I cannot help but be drawn into arguments, for all their insanity.
It began as usual- “You still want me to have that thing transplanted, don’t you, Doctor?” he announced.
“The genetic therapy would be for the best, Mr Renfield. Everyone else in your family has had it. Haven’t you seen how contented they are?”
“That’s because they’re slaves. You’re all slaves. You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“How can it be slavery when we choose to submit to the operation freely?”
“What about those of us who don’t accept it? Do we all end up in places like this?”
“It’s for your own good. You might endanger other people. You’re not sane. Some of you have tried to forcibly remove the implants- do that, and you end two lives! Don’t you respect the unborn child?”
“And when that…that thing reaches maturity? Do you know what happens then?”
“It’s not a thing, Mr Renfield. We’ve discussed this. It’s a child. It has a right to life.”
“Well, I have a right to choose. And I choose not to let those things use my body as a breeding tube. I don’t believe all that rubbish about us being under threat, anyway.”
“We’ve been through this, Mr Renfield. I’ve shown you the footage they send us. Our protectors are constantly battling threats from all kinds of terrorist beings. By allowing them to use our spinal fluid to grow their offspring, we help them continue to keep our great nation-planet safe. Don’t you care about national security, Mr Renfield?”
“I care about our freedom. I care about our future! Haven’t you ever asked yourself what happens once your implant reaches full maturity? Have you ever seen what happens? I have. Where are your friends, Doctor? What about the Doctor who came before you?
He got very agitated at this point. We had to restrain him again. But my Guest tells me all will be well. I must be vigilant, and not let the emotions of this body cloud Our judgement. Imagine! If it wasn’t for my Guest’s good sense, I would release him- I would even agree with him. Foolishness! Renfield must not be allowed to corrupt anyone else. We were lucky that his family discovered his experiments in time. He was close to perfecting an operation to remove the implant without harming the host. He planned to force his wife and children to be test subjects- and they were so close to being fully grown.
by submission | Aug 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Evan Kayne
Right foot.
Tom Jenson remembered his uncle once told him “the hardest thing to do most days is to put one foot in front of the other.”
Left foot.
Of course, the topic was depression…and his uncle did kill himself, eventually. Tom shook his head and cleared away that last thought. He was starting to drift again. Time to lower the pain meds for a while.
Right foot.
The enviro-suit protested; but in this, he had some capacity to override its commands. He brought up the time remaining, just as the pain started tickling his feet. 3 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes 12 seconds. That’s how long until the AI controlling his ship The Far Reach calculated it could hold orbit and still have fuel for the trip home.
Left foot.
The pain leveled off at a tolerable level for a moment. Tom wondered what shape his feet were in. He understood now what his uncle meant – every fiber of his being screamed “lay down…let it stop…just stop”. He had been walking non-stop for 1 week. Or rather, the suit had been walking for 1 week. He gave up controlling his body 3 days into the march.
Right foot.
The trick was balance – not just the walking, but the time in the suit. He could have programmed the suit to run to the drop zone. It would have taken 5 days, but he’d be dead, beyond anything the suit could revive.
Every few hours he wished he was dead.
Left foot.
He had locked the commands into the suit itself after consulting with the on-board AI. He understood now why it recommended this action, when at least twice daily he screamed at the suit to let him lay down and rest. That’s usually when it pumped up the meds. Quite the achievement – in theory the suit could provide him with everything he needed from the existing resources on this planet.
Right foot.
Except he’d have wear the suit until the next time a survey ship is sent out this way – which could be months or years. Assuming he didn’t go mad from the loneliness, with only the primitive lichen on this rock to keep him company. I may go insane even before I reach the drop zone, Tom wondered. The repetitive movement was grinding away at bones, skin and muscles.
Left foot.
The suit kept his damage at a minimal level, only slowing to fix and repair flesh and bones. He’d reach the drop zone with about 23 hours to spare. That was better than the original estimate of a 3 hour window, but as every second dragged by, the hours ahead of him were like an endless ocean of time.
Right foot.
“The hardest thing for you to do most days is to put one foot in front of the other.” Tom Jenson remembered his uncle telling him when he was only 12 years old. His uncle thus described his depression, hoping to illustrate the depth of his sadness.
Left foot.
Tom didn’t understand at the time what his uncle said – how the everyday activities wore a depressed person down, how it took a colossal effort to perform these activities.
Right foot.
He understood now, but knew unlike his uncle, Tom had no avenue of escape. He felt the scream bubbling up in his mind and his body just as the suit increased the medications, and his consciousness washed away.
Left foot.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Right foot.
by submission | Aug 23, 2010 | Story
Author : Clint Wilson
I was in the best place a boy could be when the end of the world came, except for being dead maybe. We knew about it almost three years before it arrived. And while most of the world went insane, my family built the vault. In my case it definitely helped to be born into the upper crust.
And speaking of the upper crust, that’s where we sunk our vault deep. My dad was the project’s top investor, so many people we knew came inside with us.
Of course he was gone now, well protected from the certain ravages of dwelling topside, only to be killed in the impact nevertheless. In fact almost all of them were dead now, save for the handful of us who had had the fortune to be in the sensory deprivation chamber when Hand of God had struck. Our oxygen masks had kept us from drowning while the chamber’s half million tons of water had thrown us around in our hammocks like rag dolls.
No one really knew what the effects of a comet the size of Texas smacking into the planet at almost a million and a half kilometers an hour would be. But my family had nearly every possible contingency covered. Fear of the atmosphere being completely stripped away had caused them to install the giant oxygen tanks and supply enough pressure suits to outfit ten times the people we had left.
Still Dr. Fraser, my dad’s top advisor, couldn’t explain, beyond the certainty of an extreme and cataclysmic change to the earth, the reason for our weightlessness.
We were getting used to it now though. We were mostly children save for a few teachers and the doctor. And with the aid of ropes and makeshift climbing gear we made our way around the facility with ease.
But today was the day we had decided to go topside. Most of the adults had disagreed initially, but they lost in the majority vote, plus we had the doctor on our side. He had explained quite clearly, “We are well equipped with pressure suits, aerosol cans for propulsion, plus our ropes and grappling hooks, and both airlocks show to be in perfect working order. I will only take these selected few who have shown great agility in maneuvering in the weightlessness. We will be back before you know it.”
Together the six of us crowded into the airlock. There was no window in the three-foot thick outer hatch. We all made one last check of our suits and then Dr. Fraser emptied the chamber.
As soon as the outside was exposed one thing became apparent. There was light. We dug in with crampon boots and axes and made our way out.
And there we clung to our tiny perch, looking down at the half exposed steel and concrete survival vault, jutting from the side of a six kilometer-high wall. And then I felt the freezing cold pierce my suit as the sun dipped below the horizon alarmingly fast, revealing a sparkling field of stars against an ink-black curtain. But within minutes it would be back again, to taunt us with a minuscule hint of warmth for its short visit.
Dr. Fraser maneuvered his body around to face us. Through his helmet visor we saw a look of most dismal despair. He addressed us all, “I have no idea how we now continue to survive on this tiny rock hurtling through space, but I know we will not live long. Who’s with me for jumping off right now?”
by submission | Aug 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Don bagley
Alex pulled the coffee mug from under the drip spout and raised it to his lips.
“Agh,” he groaned.
“Is something wrong, Alex?” the house asked with its kind, asexual voice.
“The coffee, hot,” said Alex.
“I’m sorry, Alex. I’ll adjust the percolator temp.”
“Thanks, House,” Alex replied. He didn’t know how to address the sentient home, other than to call it House. This was his first morning in the place; he’d won it in a regional lottery, and he was still overwhelmed by it.
“House?” he asked.
“Yes, Alex.”
“Are you alive?”
“I am not programmed for life.”
“I mean, you think, don’t you?”
“I simulate thought, yes.”
Alex sipped at his coffee, which had cooled to tolerably hot. He padded into the life room, his bare feet slapping at the simulated hardwood floor. A recliner chair made a whirring sound as it tilted back and pre-adjusted itself for his weight. Alex sank comfortably into the Herculon cushions.
“Why simulate thought?” he asked.
“In response to your needs.”
Was that an evasive answer? Could a house, of all things, even be evasive? It’s rooted to its foundation, helplessly stuck right where it is.
“House?” Alex said.
“Yes, Alex.”
“You do function automatically.”
“All my functions are automated.”
“So in my absence, House, you would continue to process information.”
“Only at a maintenance level, Alex.”
“Then without me,” said Alex. “You lose your awareness, to some extent?”
“Not exactly,” said the house, an edginess creeping into its voice.
“It’s like a part of you dies when I leave,” said Alex, immediately regretting it. He jumped up from the chair and spun around toward the front door. The deadbolt clacked in the doorjamb.
