by Duncan Shields | Jun 2, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
We were at Jason’s house partying when it happened. W6, The Rapture, Day One, whatever you call it where you are.
I remember everyone’s phones going off. They lit up in the darkness of the party, confusing everyone like surprise holiday lights or large blue fireflies. Everyone got the same message at the same time. Emergency Broadcast Signal, it said. It had links to instructions and details and those horrible words “safe distance”.
We turned on the television and rushed to our laptops and Jason’s computers. Trajectories were laid out, newscasters were openly crying, and the Moon Senate cam showed rows of empty seats.
Jason lived outside the colony limits. We’d all brought our transports and were going to stay over. No drinking and driving. We were responsible people. We turned off the music and went to the main viewport. In the distance, we could see the city underneath its glittering dome. Smoke from the first few fires started to smudge up into the air underneath it.
What sounded like an earthquake started about a mile to the right of Jason’s house and with a clank and hiss, sixteen circles irised open in the ground. We all turned our heads towards the vibration in unison.
The missiles came up out of the ground like angels in the darkness. Magnesium flares attached to huge pencils going up and up and up. He had no idea that there were missiles silos that close to him, Jason said a few minutes later. He’d heard rumours of an army base there but that had closed years ago, before he emigrated from Earth. It must have been automated and left on standby.
We all stood on the porch and saw the missiles arc into the sky and away into the night, joining other stars making their way to different destinations, pulling faint spiderweb contrails across the dark night.
The fact that there were missiles close to Jason’s house probably meant that area was a target, Ryan said. His dad was in the army over on Titan. That made us all realize that we wouldn’t live on after this in some sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy.
A few people suited up, airlocked to their cars and drove away to the city dome to find their families or away towards the far-off crater bowls where they thought they could outrun the radiation.
Most of us stayed at Jason’s. We all tried calling our parents and loved ones. Some of us got through. I didn’t. Then weak EMP waves from other impacts must have started washing through because the phones and the lights went out.
We sat there in the darkness. A few couples went to have sex until the end came. The rest of us stayed there in the living room near the big window.
There it was. Carrie saw it first. A falling star. Coming straight for us.
by Duncan Shields | May 26, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Detective Peterson was reviewing the interview footage of Kyle Raven. It was late at night and Peterson had looked at the footage many times. He was troubled but he couldn’t figure out why. He rewound the video tape and watched it again.
“That’s the thing, right?” Kyle Raven manically rabbited on during his interview, “If time travel ever gets invented in the future, they’ll come back here. Or before here. Right?” He was pure sinew, no body fat at all. Kyle Raven looked like a human rat. His eyes burned out from his head like meth-addict searchlights. “And they’ll mess it all up. Everything. Causality will fracture the universe. We’ll be screwed.”
“The voices told me this.” Kyle said gravely and then suddenly chuckled, “The visitors showed me.” He banged the table with his fist and thrust his chin up like an angry king. “I have a job. If you’re wondering where all the time travelers are it’s because I killed them.”
Detective Peterson and his crew had just pulled sixteen bodies out of Kyle Raven’s basement. The man was a psychopath and delusional. Peterson had seen this before, people lashing out at imagined threats. Aliens, illuminati conspiracies, demons, fairies; all conveniently taking human form and needing to be killed.
“I’m not the only one” said Kyle. “I’m one of many. The visitors employ a large number of us. I’m a temporal cleanser. A timeline deputy. You can’t stop us. I don’t care what happens to me. I’ve saved the universe sixteen times.”
One thing that was bothering Detective Peterson was that the FBI had showed up immediately along with several other black cars with no markings on them. They’d loaded up the bodies and taken them away. They had the proper authorization and there had been no trouble. In cases of this magnitude, the FBI was usually involved in one way or another but it felt unusual to him.
Peterson had helped excavate the bodies and some things didn’t add up. A body from what looked like one of the oldest graves came out looking like it was freshly buried. A stink of putrefaction was wafting out of it but the skin of the corpse appeared fresh and young. One of the bodies had what appeared to be a glass prosthetic leg. Two of them were tall enough to be professional basketball players. One dead girl’s cel phone kept vibrating in her pocket as the team lifted her out and everyone’s phone in the basement vibrated in time with that girl’s phone for six rings. Peterson was the only one who noticed that and he had kept that to himself. Then there was the five-year-old with grey hair and a business suit.
Peterson had thought at the time that the killer just liked to dress up his victims. He’d seen crazier things done to bodies.
But now here he was, reviewing the interview footage. Kyle Raven was in custody downstairs. No one had rescued him or paid his bail and he was on suicide watch. By all accounts, he was merely dangerously insane.
Something was bothering Peterson about the whole episode. The bodies, the FBI, and this interview. He rewound the interview to watch it again.
Just as he was about to press play, there was a knock at the door. Detective Peterson felt an unreasonable fear in the pit of his stomach.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“FBI.” Said a low voice outside.
by Duncan Shields | May 17, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
James was sick of his grandfather’s racism. He didn’t care if he was a war hero.
“They’re not people, Jimmy. They have no feelings.” His grandfather shouted from the other room. James loaded up the dishwasher, closed it, and took a deep breath, preparing for going back into the living room. Once a week, James came by to cook his grandfather dinner and keep him company. It was getting to be more and more of a test of patience.
“I mean, I have a brain, right? I know I’m smart. I was raised differently than them. Not in a lab. I had a mother and a father. I know how to be kind to other people. People, Jimmy. People. That dishwasher in there has more compassion than them. I’ve seen what they do to people like you and I on the ‘vision.”
His grandfather was referring to the war footage from the nightly news. Recently the automated soldiers had invaded parts of Eastern Europe to keep the peace. It was their first solo campaign and it was successful. Video of their angular heads and antennae bobbing through the ruined villages was run constantly with updates of our victorious battles.
“I don’t care about these intelligence tests and emotional accelerators they keep talking about. It’s all smoke and mirrors. They’re not flesh and blood. They’re just equations. They don’t eat, they don’t have trust issues, they don’t cry, they just follow orders. They’re just guns that can walk around.”
In recent years, the A.I. on the automated soldiers had gotten to a point that they’d been given basic rights. Some had been promoted. None of them had been granted civilian status yet but many of them had been given passes and allowed supervised visits outside of their compounds with other soldiers.
Soldiers like James. James was fourth generation Army.
“I have to go, Grandpa. I have friends to see. It was a nice dinner.”
“Well you just be careful. I worry about you. The army isn’t what it used to be. Don’t trust those tin cans.” His grandfather said with an angry jut of his chin.
Outside, James clambered into his patrol vehicle to return to base. A body with an angular head and antennae sat asleep at the driver’s wheel. When James closed the door, lights blinked on and the construct at the wheel woke up.
“Hey. Sorry. I was recharging. How’d it go? Do I get to meet him tonight? I mean, that’s General Daimus in there. Some of his strategy helped us win War IV. I’ve reviewed the records but I always get more from someone who was actually there, y’know?” said an articulate voice from the front faceplate of the construct.
“Not tonight, Darren.” Said James. “Maybe next week. But don’t hold your breath.”
“I have no breath to hold,” joked Darren898. James didn’t laugh. Darren898 felt bad immediately. Humour was a hard thing to understand and he knew he’d gotten it wrong this time. Again. Even though both of them had been through three battles together now and saved each other’s lives a few times, Darren898 still couldn’t make James laugh after a visit with his grandpa.
They drove back to the base in silence, both lost in thought and trying to shake the shame they felt for different reasons.
by Duncan Shields | May 6, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The humans have been gone for decades but we try to keep the traditions alive.
All of us review humanity’s output. We see the movies. We watch the comedies. We review fashion shows. We witness the elections.
We fashion ourselves to look like they did.
We live in their abandoned houses in the suburbs and their apartment buildings in the cities. We live in pairs and we make newer versions of ourselves, better versions of ourselves, when we have gained enough points. If the models that we make are successful in the world, we are allowed to make more of them.
Currently I am helping to make a child. My partner designed the optical nerves and I have come up with a slightly more efficient design for its cognitive array than any I have ever seen or researched. It will be three more months before we have assembled it to a point where we can turn it on and let it start learning.
I was a tailor’s model when the humans died. I do not have much intelligence but I am happy with my mind now. I have requested upgrades and they come through in a fair schedule. My partner started smarter than me. She also gets the requested upgrades thanks to her hard work. She will always be smarter than me because of that unless she slips up and is unsuccessful. I do not want that to happen but at the same time I do. I cannot understand that.
The parts of me that are solar powered are fully charged from the week of sun we’ve had. I’ll still need a turn at my partner’s geothermal post later.
We do regular backups of our memories for the main banks. I am allowed to read them after the two upgrades. I am always shocked by my previous primitive minds.
Soon, our child will be learning to move and think. We will have to build it longer legs when it wants to go further. We will need larger cognitive array cages as its memory capacity fills.
It is a glorious time. I do not miss the humans.
by Duncan Shields | Apr 27, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I could tell from the way she softly clicked her teeth together twice while keeping her mouth closed, flicked her eyes to the top left and grunted once subvocally that she’d just adjusted me to be more handsome. She would probably pass it off as checking her messages if I confronted her.
She had this annoying habit all through dinner of either blinking or darting her eyes to one side after making a point or a joke. I knew she was sending images, links, and videos to my eyes to assist the conversation. I saw nothing. I’d never had the work done.
She sat in front of me, mildly pretty in a way I could adjust to gorgeous if I had the right hardware in my head, humming and twitching like someone with mild tourette’s syndrome. She seemed to pick up about halfway through the date that I wasn’t just being stoic or ignoring her on purpose. The expression on her face took on a feeling of revulsion and then polite smiles as the rest of our night progressed. It didn’t last much longer. Her tics didn’t stop, they only slowed down to motions that indicated to me that she was talking to other people and staying current on the feeds. I found it rude but no doubt she found it rude that I couldn’t join in.
I still had my communicator tablet iLife screen in my pocket. I’d check my traffic after the date ended like I was raised to do. It was only polite. I wasn’t raised in the city like she was. I tried to pay for dinner but she said she’d already taken care of it. The date ended.
I looked at my phone after a polite peck on the cheek goodbye from her. I saw that as she had sat down at the beginning, she had friended me on FB3, added me on Starcrossed, met me on Saw-u, hailed me on Communicator, knocked on me through FrontDoor, rated me on Datemate, invited me on Contact, opened to me on NiceOne, queried me on AskMe and sent me virtual flowers and a kiss through Sendlove.com. Our conversation had been webcast.
Only eighty hits so far and none since the beginning of dessert. Sad.
As she left the restaurant, I watched her requests get withdrawn. I was blocked, ignored, shunted, slammed, hung up on, darkened, erased, blinded, stealthed, closed and deleted. Her profiles disappeared off my networks. The invitations disappeared. The flowers and a kiss evaporated. I wouldn’t even be able to call her now.
Blogged, vlogged and flogged, they called it.
The comments on the webcast weren’t flattering. She rated me two stars out of ten. The top tweet said that she was being generous.
I have to get implants.
