by submission | Jul 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
For most the difference between being stranded on an island and being stranded on a distant planet is merely numerical. But while stranded on the planet Ergingad, I could feel it.
Probes had been there before, so it had been explored. We knew about the atmosphere, gravity, composition and anything else that there was to know. We also knew it was uninhabitable; there was no life, and terraforming it would be a waste. My crew and I went to establish an automated mining base. But when the ships boron-proton reaction chamber ruptured, nearly killing all of us, I didn’t think, “I’m stuck here.” I thought, “I’m stuck 2 quadrillion kilometers from civilization.”
You start to get the feeling that the galaxy isn’t that big, because anywhere you go, you can fly back from. But the instant that’s not true anymore, you realize that the scales you’re talking about are too big for any human mind to comprehend. But if you can comprehend it, you are utterly terrified.
I can see it in the others now. We’re all jumpy, depressed, irritable, and mistrustful. I don’t know if we’ll ever get rescued. I don’t know if we’ll let each other live long enough to find out.
by submission | Jul 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Amy Sutphin
Sargent Pedlson watched the foggy mass forming through the streets from his birds eye vantage in the radio tower. It was thinner than traditional fog, but behaved as though fluid. The ghost oozed through the streets, around the houses, creeping though any crack or crevice it found. Pedlson knew the chemical vapor wasn’t alive, but the way it was attracted to living things created a very eerie anthropomorphism.
“That,” Private Michael said beside him. “Is the biggest ghost I’ve ever seen.”
“They used to get five times that size during the war.” Pedlson said. “Engulfed entire battle fields.”
Pedlson had seen the end of the war, when the weapons were getting out of hand. He’d watched from evac helicopters as the chemicals engulfed those either too slow, or too unlucky to escape them.
“Good thing we were able to evacuate that district.” Michael said.
“Mhm.” Pedlson grunted. The naturally forming ghosts were much slower than the ghosts catalyzed for swift deployment. He doubted anyone had the technology to catalyze a ghost attack now.
“Sargent there’s a person down there!” Michael cried.
Pedlson, and the two enforcers on patrol with them peered over the platform. A lone figure was indeed, making its way through the fog.
“We have to get down there.” Michael said.
“No time. That’s a dead man.” Pedlson said, peering through his binoculars
“Doesn’t look dead.” Said one of the enforcers.
He was right, Pedlson saw. The figure should have keeled over by now, convulsing on the ground.
“Maybe he had a gas mask.” Michael ventured.
“Wouldn’t help, stuff gets into your cells.”
“That’s not a person.” The other enforcer said. He’d hardly said two words the whole night.”That’s a pest.”
Pedlson whistled.
“A stray from the attack yesterday?” He wondered.
“Could be.” The enforcer said.
“Better call it in.”
by submission | Jul 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Hey honey, come look at this.”
I took my bearings and found Samantha’s voice, drew a bead on it and pinched space in her direction. She was far out on the edge of the universe, casually riding the expanding frontier.
“What is it?”
“Have a look. Out there.”
“There’s nothing out there.”
“Well, don’t look then. Feel. Do you feel it?”
She got like this sometimes. I squeezed in close beside her and playfully arranged some photons into the shape of a heart.
“Oh you,” she giggled, drawing an arrow across the photons before they blinked off on their way, “Now really, focus and feel it.”
“What am I feeling for?”
“Not that,” she said as she pulled slightly away from me, “Feel what’s out there.”
“Alright, so I’m feeling…”
I felt it. There was something out there. It was subtle but it sort of bent the edge of the universe. There was nothing that could do that. There wasn’t supposed to be anything out there. The whole concept of ‘out there’ didn’t even make sense.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat there for an aeon or two peering into nothing. To our left a civilization of marsupials sprang up, spread across a few hundred thousand star systems and started to rip itself apart in a bloody conflict.
“Stop it,” said Samantha, briefly flashing an avatar before them.
I chuckled. Always the warden. Such an offhanded gesture for her, but to these creatures the universe would never be the same again. They suddenly realised they were not alone, that there was a great, powerful being watching over them who loved them and wanted them to be happy. There was a great potential for suffering among the stars. We had inherited enough memories from our progenitors to decide we were not going to allow that again, ever.
The edge began to buckle. The universe was no longer expanding in a uniform way. Something was pushing against it, into it, disrupting its fabric. Things started to go wrong. Time wasn’t spreading right, matter folded back in on itself, clusters formed in all kinds of grotesque ways.
Samantha got nervous: “Honey what’s going on?”
“I don’t know baby,” I said, drawing her close again, “I don’t know.”
It stopped in a singular instant. The buckle vanished. Galaxies were rattled like flakes in a snow-globe, shifting violently before finding new points of balance.
Something outside told us: “Sorry about that, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Neither of us knew what to say. I glanced over at the marsupials. They had been playing nice, building shining cities and many flattering monuments to what they called the Star Mother. But with their skies suddenly re-arranged they were having something of a panic.
I appeared before them: “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
A complimentary cult to the Star Father promptly appeared. Samantha and I pinched off in separate directions. There were a lot of scared species around that needed reassurance that their gods were still looking after them. It would only take a moment of negligence for them to feel abandoned and do all kinds of horrible things to themselves. That much we knew from experience.
by submission | Jul 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : Matthew Marchitto
The rain was heavy and it blurred the faces of the crowd on Main Street. Deb stood in an alley off to the side watching the people move like a herd of cattle. Neon signs for places like Rucker’s Bar and the Harlot Peepshow glowed with muted light. A billboard down on Second Street proclaimed the latest Han Dallaghan flick as the spectacle of the decade. Retro jazz was blaring from somewhere nearby.
She pulled out a cigarette, whistling as a fight broke out in front of Rucker’s. A man went down with a shattered jaw and everybody on Main kept walking like nothing happened.
The city was like a sewage pipe that never clogged. She couldn’t imagined what it must have felt like being a straight staring down the barrel of a place like Main.
She flicked the cigarette into a dumpster, and then let the cattle on Main take her. Pushing her down the street like a ripple in a pond.
She spied the alley she needed and broke off from the crowd. A few shapeless forms huddled against the walls. She moved fast, making her way through the cities arteries like no one else could. A spotlight beamed down from the sky and she ducked behind a dumpster. The Stinger hovered over the alleyway searching for something to shoot. Its propellers sent rain spraying like a whirlwind. Homeless ran from the searching light, finding even deeper arteries to hide in.
Deb watched the drone round a corner and disappear. She waited until the whirring of its propellers faded away. Then she made her way to a forgotten tenement.
A faint light was coming from one of the apartment windows, that was the one she needed. She climbed the fire escape and slid a cracked window open. The first thing that struck her was the odour of something like sweat and mold congealed together. The second was the man sitting on the floor with dead eyes. A too-large-to-carry camera was on a hog thighed tripod snapping pictures through the window. It was connected to a laptop and she saw two people on the screen rolling around each other on a not so distant bed. A thick wire ran from the laptop into the base of the sitting man’s skull.
It was odd for a husband to be so keen on watching his wife cheat him.
Deb snapped her fingers in front him. He didn’t move. She felt his pulse. Alive. That was good, it meant she was going to earn her pay.
A plastic countertop and soiled mattress made up the one room apartment. The walls were thin, sound could go far even with the thumping rain. A smile teased the corners of her lips, she couldn’t have set up the scene better. Deb took out a pistol and wrapped the husband’s hand around the grip, brought his arm up to press the gun to his own temple, and then she grabbed the cable at the back of his skull. It would look sketchy if he was still linked when the deed was done, but that was only part of it.
She pulled the cord. His head jolted backward, and it took him a second to feel Deb pressing a gun barrel to his head. Fear registered in his eyes. That’s what she wanted to see.
Deb pulled the trigger.
She liked her job too much.
The computer screen flashed as the camera’s automatic shutter continued to snap away. The wife and her lover looked out their window—straight at the camera.
Deb winked at the screen.
by submission | Jul 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Thomas Desrochers
Tomov couldn’t help but climb up to the marble altar. It was underwhelming: red shroud embroidered with a white shepherd, a single candle, an offering of roses. A quiet place, hidden from the world by the rows of towering quartz, the vast and ancient ceiling hidden by their upper reaches. The southern edges of the silent worshipers glowed red and blue in the stained glass light.
“It used to look much different.”
Tomov jumped at the priest’s voice, turning to find her standing beside him, naked body glittering as the living memory drifted down her skin.
“Instead of stones there were benches,” she continued. “Instead of interning themselves after death, the flock would gather once a week in life to worship.”
“That’s not what my mother told me,” Tomov said. “She told me the church has always been this way.”
“Oh no,” the priest said, smiling. “Heaven on Earth has only existed for four hundred years. The church is almost two and a half thousand years old.”
Tomov frowned. “Is that even possible? What happened to all the people from before?”
“They died, just like we will. Their memories were scattered to dust.”
“Then they couldn’t exist after death?”
The priest laid a hand on Tomov’s head. “Do we exist after death?”
“That’s what my mother told me,” Tomov replied. “She said that we put our memories into the pews so that we can be with the flock forever. In this manner the essence of our ego can persist beyond the dissolution of our corporeal selves.”
The priest turned to Tomov, taking his hands in her own. Tomov watched the endless scripture as it slid down her hands, his eyes catching
how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?
before it slipped away between two knuckles.
“Tell me,” the priest said. “What do you remember of your own life?”
“Well.” Tomov paused. “I remember getting into a fight with another boy because he didn’t like my metal hands.”
The priest shook her head. “That’s your great-grandfather’s memory.”
“Wait.” Tomov frowned, trying to make sense of what he remembered. “I- I remember Job’s face when his heart fractured, the sound of it ringing in my ears as he stumbled. Wait, no…” Tomov shook his head, his eyes bright with tears. “That’s not who I am.”
He watched
away with those prophets who say to christ’s people “peace, peace,” where in there is no peace
crawl down the priest’s stomach.
“You are Tomov,” the priest said. “You are thirteen. You wanted to stargaze, but the stars were clouded by smoke and the horizon was lit with the fires of the Sixth Cleaning. Do you remember?”
Tomov was still for a moment. Tears began to move. “I remember it was so hot,” he said. “I remember the fires, and I didn’t see the scrappers until they were on me, with their masks and tools.”
“And they shattered you,” the priest said. “They were afraid of you.”
“I’m dead, aren’t I,” Tomov said. “I remember it now.”
“Yes,” the priest said. “You died out there. Which is why you’re here, among family.” The priest knelt down, looking Tomov in the eye. “Would you like to enter into heaven?”
Tomov nodded.
“Welcome,” the priest said. She kissed Tomov’s forehead, sending his essence off into the milky stones of home.
