by B. York | Oct 18, 2005 | Story |
I’m floating. Well, it seems like I’m more submerged at the moment. It takes me a moment to realize where I am and that still doesn’t make sense. Everything is dark, my body feels weightless but it is not peaceful. My lungs begin to realize; I’m not breathing. Suddenly, it’s panic. Arms start flailing; my mouth shuts hard and contains what oxygen I have left for some reason unknown to me.
This is when I’m looking around, blurs of the moments through corporeal space of matter filtering into my mind; the moments that may be my last. I stop to realize it for what it is; my last moments. No, I tell myself unable to accept what it might be for reality. The key is not to panic. My eyes start focusing as best as they can and I start pulling up the metaphorical anchor that’s tugging me down further.
Up, the only way out is up. My arms stop flailing and they start acting methodical. I’m swimming, I believe. Pulling myself from floating, I can see the edges of my vision blurring in darkness and my head begins to spin inside. Thinking of what I have to live for, it has to keep me going after all. Mother, Father, and my future come to mind. Particularly the future I’ve squandered, the future I refused to act on. Never applied to those colleges, never went to Australia, and never got to see what I thought I was destined to be witness to. I am getting older and I haven’t yet made a move forward. How old was I now and my dreams were still the same distance away from me?
The focus was keeping me awake enough to push myself through the liquid. I can see something just beyond the surface. I can’t die like this! It can’t end this way! It’s getting darker, but I can see light. It’s getting much darker, but I know with that last strain of strength that I can break the surface.
“Welcome to re-life, Abe.†The next thing I can hear is the doctor saying this to me. My eyes are focusing again and I’m hardly panting for air now. The off-white allure of an office, the sterile scent of medicine, it’s all coming to me very slowly. My parents are here, smiling proudly. They have tears in their eyes; tears of worry. What just happened? What accident was I in?
“You passed the test; you get to go home now.†I’m confused. I don’t understand and I’m looking towards my mother and father for guidance. This isn’t real, is it? What is real anymore? The doctor is handing me a plastic card. Sitting up, I start to read it.
Abe Carter
Certified to Live
Issue Date: 10/25/2050
It was then that I realized, life will be better from here on out.
by B. York | Oct 12, 2005 | Story
Marcus wiped blood from his chin. The thick red fluid stuck to his fingers. He stood slowly, pushing himself up off the ground with all the dignity he could muster as his foe stood proud and arrogant. Marcus’ feet were pressed into the soft Mars soil as he readied himself again.
“You fool!” Marcus screamed out across the yards between him and his adversary. “You do not comprehend how much more precious is my life than yours! I am Mars-born!”
Gaither kept his eyes on his quarry and turned his attention inward for a moment. Focus the rage. Do this professionally. It’s a high-profile case; lots of media attention. Don’t give them any reason to cry brutality. His fist ached from cracking into the Red Planet monster’s jaw. He shook it off and pushed the pain back down, eyes boiling with a deluvian hatred that conquered all other emotion. He knew that if he didn’t kill him today, Marcus would go on living for another four hundred years. All of the Mars-born did- at least the ones who could escape Marcus’ knife. This time, however, Gaither had to stop him. Ninety-seven murders, eighteen rapes, and so many robberies that NASA police were still piecing it all together; Marcus had outdone every other criminal in extra-Earth territory. It stopped here.
The fiend spat blood, shaking off the solid hit that jarred his jaw. His broad shoulders rose and his bleeding lips sneered at the NASA marshal. “You high-radiation types are all the same. What? You think you got time? Ha! A pathetic 75 years at best you filthy Earth-born. C’mon… you’re dealing with a deity here. Just walk away, boy.”
Gaither left his pistol in its holster, watching Marcus weigh his escape options across a skyline of yellow Mars soil. He had heard enough. “Under NASA law of the Solar System Peace Treaty Agreement, you are hereby ordered to surrender You will receive a fair trial.” The wind was blew holes in his words, but Gaither knew Marcus got the idea.
“Simpleton!†Marcus squealed. “You die today, Earth-born!” He charged the officer, but Gaither was ready. Dodging the first fist, he took a second in the ribs before he grabbed Marcus’ wrist and sent his own head cracking into the criminal’s fleshy face. The blood was thicker than Earth-blood; it had to be. The nose broken, and the man disoriented, Gaither snapped the cuffs on his left wrist.
â€No,†Marcus frothed as he spoke. “I won’t be defeated by a weak-muscled Earth-boy! I live forever!” He wouldn’t shut up, so Gaither exercised his militaristic rights: he expertly administered a slam of his fist into the yet undamaged side of Marcus’ jaw, precisely as per the diagram in the Academy’s text books.
“Under NASA law, you are under arrest.†For the first time in days, Gaither smiled. “Point of interest: I’m from Pluto, asshole… I’m the one that’s immortal.”
by B. York | Oct 2, 2005 | Story |
Talia looked out over the cacophonous melee of engineers in the warehouse. Each of them bustled about; porcupines of fused wiring and welding tools. It made her so proud. A rapid metallic pounding announced the arrival of a messenger.
“Take it easy, Dobs. What ya got for me?” Talia brushed her fingers back through curly white hair, curiously awaiting his news.
“Tex says there’s been another breach. Some knucklehead dropped an X33 flyer on the Italy. Accounts say it was witnessed by a whole village.” Dobs made no effort to conceal his stare. It wasn’t necessary. Talia’s eyes became unfocused and eventually closed. Dobs had heard of this before but had never actually seen the progenitor at work.
Slowly one hand made its way to her abdomen. After a few seconds her body snapped to attention. Her eyes opened and Dobs noticed for the first time that they were the precise green of new leaves in springtime.
“I got an idea.†She said, incandescent with excitement. “Have Fells and Watson make up an architect mold, have this one be a genius, draw with one hand, write with the other at the same time sort-of-thing.†Dobs turned to carry out her order. “But we need to have him be subtle.” She turned and watched the engineers working, piecing together life-like models of individuals from all manner of places and times.
“Call it DaVinci. He’ll be a jack-of-all-trades. But for God’s sake make sure his work is programmed to invent the X33 flier. Some crude form of it.” Dobs’ face showed his amazement. Standing up he wiped off his greasy hands and regained his professional composure. “I don’t know how you do it, Tal. Government asks us to fix problems left and right and you just keep coming up with ideas. Ancient Rome, Middle Ages, hell, even 20th century. How?”
Her glance up at the dome roof, the way it curved and rounded out, gave her away. “We’re Patchers, Dobs. When they make a mistake, no matter what time or era, it’s my job to ensure we don’t mess it all up. Now, get the message to Tex.” Dobs nodded and began to trek back down to the main floor.
“Oh, and Dobs? Give it to Leon for inspection before we ship it out. Have him give it a first name.”
“You got it, Tal.” Dobs saluted and went on his way.
by B. York | Sep 25, 2005 | Story |
The officer approached, hands clasped behind his back, staring unabashedly at the young astronaut, raising his slender brow in cynical awareness of the situation. He reached across the stark white table and clicked the record button on the small tape recorder. His voice was deep and disturbingly serene for the nature of the interrogation, “Why don’t you tell us that, again?”
Johnnie sighed and wiped his sweaty hands on his knees. He was nervous, but that was all relative now. “It was like I said. Routine mission, you know, standard stuff. We were unloading an empty O-2 tank to refuel at the space station. It was Bucks, Johnston and I carrying the load, out there in harsh space in our suits. And, like I said–” The military official interrupted Johnnie.
“You do know that the vacuum of space will kill a human being, don’t you?”
“That’s what we were meant to think.”
“What do you mean? Go on.”
Johnnie nodded, “I was curious, I mean… no one has ever died in space before and I really wondered how they knew. I wondered how they could possibly know what could happen. It’s like Columbus…”
“Stick to the subject.”
“I was having trouble with my girlfriend back home, things were just, I don’t know… bland. So I did it.”
The interrogator sat forward, “Did what?”
“I took the suit off.”
“That’s impossible. I just told you the physics of it all. No air, no moisture, hell, let’s not forget the hard radiation from direct exposure.”
The young astronaut had the look of frustration on his face, “I already told you this! I took it off and I floated around. There is no air but you don’t need it up there. There’s no radiation because, I don’t know, because you don’t need to believe in it. I floated around and laughed. The others guys were panicking but they kept asking me how I felt. So I told them… it felt great.”
A fist slammed onto the table, the white room seemed to vibrate with the anger now resonating from the eyes of the interrogator. “You’re either covering up for something or you’re just trying to be famous. Either way, we’re going to find out. You do understand that you will go to jail.”
“I was floating above heaven; I think that’s why nothing made sense.”
“Do you hear yourself? You’re not making any sense!”
“I know, it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you, the only reason we didn’t know is because we brought it with us.”
“What?” His fists had unclenched he was interested again.
Johnnie just smiled, ” Earth.”
There was a long pause, the interrogation had to have a break, and the officer just paced the room looking around, thinking hard, as one does when given a paradox of their reality. He turned, curious as ever, and began again. “Why did you do it, then? Why would anyone do it, Johnnie?”
Johnnie just shrugged and grinned, as he was prone to do since he got back. “Because we can.”
by B. York | Sep 22, 2005 | Story
Radiation Levels: Acceptable. “Okay, lads, we’re good. Let’s not mosh this up, right?” Lars, encased in a plastisteel suit, stepped his near-weightless form through the breached opening of the hull. The three stripes indicative of a mission commander on his right bicep stood out against the off-white hue of his shell. He glanced back at the three others behind him; his accompaniment on this rubbish of a mission.
The Mir space station had been a pillar of international space relations for decades. It was the meeting place for any mission consisting of combined efforts from more than fifteen countries. Now it was a decayed shell of an old empire. Science couldn’t explain the station’s rapid decay in the recent years past, only that a hull breach had killed the remaining officers, and put to rest a monument of space-exploration. Rumors would still persist that the ghosts of the crew haunted the wreckage, and the reasons why it hadn’t yet been salvaged after fifteen years.
Lars could feel the chill running up his spine as he hooked up the feed-line to the wreckage. He waved his squad in, taking the time to tug his own floating form inside. The dank, bleak interior washed over him. The luminescent-application on his arm glowed like a night-light, illuminating a floating beverage package, and a few loose wires. The rest of the corridors remained encased in shadow.
“Commander, I’m getting an infrared read off this puppy.” The American, Dotson was always scared of naked space missions.
Lars rolled his eyes and just spoke into the com, “Are you sure ’bout that, private? We are in a vacuum. Best to check your readings, again.”
Dotson pulled himself up closer to Lars, “No, not heat sir… I’m picking up a fluctuating, moving cold.” The scanner he held was showing the appropriate readings.
Lars would rub his chin, but that bulky suit made his common tics impossible. “Hm, take Rustokov and Feugo with you to the core room, I’ll check the science panels around here.”
Private Dotson nodded and was off with the others, three glowing bulbs of arm-light floating down a corridor into the depths of darkness. Lars was left alone. That’s how he preferred to operate, though the hair standing up on the back of his neck was telling him that man should not tread here. The astromarine commander saw a panel up ahead on the right, and began his trek towards it. A low rumble came from around him. The hull seemed to still be collapsing slowly, even after the initial wreckage and ten years of dormancy. “Lads, keep your coms on the ready, I want us out of here in 15, Command Out.” Better safe than sorry, he thought.
Tapping the panel to life, Commander Lars Gallows floated in the center of a tunnel, watching the green menu of a boot-up system.
>>>Mir Core System Reboot
>>>System Functioning at 32%
>>>Enter Authorization Key…
Usually his crew wasn’t this quiet. But Lars was too transfixed to notice they hadn’t come back with anything and were sure to have reached the core room by now. Entering an old military key, the screen came to life with documentation of science research and files damaged from the system shock. His brows came together. He’d hardly realized now that the emergency lights had flickered out.
>>>Science File 0042: We’ve discovered an anomoly on tbrrrrrr zzzzz##%%$^^&. The readings are faulty, we will check them again tomorrow.
The feed-line silently became unlatched, and his craft floated off towards Earth. Lars’ crew had gone missing, and Lars was soon to follow.
>>>Science Files 0101: We’ve been fooled! We have to get out of here! It’s all around us, it seeps in through the hulls and tries to make us kill one-another. We’re staring out into a .. a ghost. My God… it haunts existence. We hav—ddhhfffffggggg@@@###$$$ FILE ERROR
“Private! Dotson! Get your arses back here, on the double, lads. We’re aborting this mission!” There was no answer, only the hull creaking again. Lars looked down the corridor, and was horrified. Space was creeping in, the blackness from it was seeping down the corridor towards him. His eyes could only widen in horror, as the truth became abundantly clear to him, and the world would go on… blissfully ignorant.
