by Julian Miles | Oct 14, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Ten o’clock. Eight o’ clock. Nine. Left. Four. Tang dynasty.”
The wavelength goes to static and I roll off the bed, lean back to kiss Tamara, then carry my clothes out of the bedroom and dress in the lounge. My daughter, Sarah, is a light sleeper and if she wakes, Samson will too. My son may be only three, but I would back him in a noise-making contest against an F18 on takeoff.
Fifteen minutes later I’m on the road. The Landie may not be comfortable, but it can get to any place I need to go.
As ten o’clock arrives, I’m four miles down the first left turn that’s nine miles from my house in a vaguely south-westerly direction. I say vaguely because clock direction does not correspond exactly to compass points, and that’s the whole idea. Tonight, I am parked in a ploughed field, wet mud sucking so I am driving in slow circles to stop the Landie sinking beyond its own power to escape.
With a searing flash, the field has another occupant. It strolls over to the Landie and I wind down the passenger window.
“How old is the vase?” The check-in question.
“Tang dynasty.” I give the response that was given to me and it nods before opening the door and getting in. Something squeaks against the leather seats.
“Destination?”
It pauses, as if consulting an unseen guide.
“Taunton. Before dawn.”
Twenty minutes later I park at a service station and we transfer to a Maserati Quattroporte. All terrain capability is essential, but fast point to point is beyond the Landie.
As we accelerate, it looks about at the interior.
“The artisans of this are to be cherished.”
I nod. Every time I use this car, my passengers pass impressed comment.
Taunton at the cusp of dawn is ghostly in the fog that enshrouded us about five miles out.
“Stop by the next crossroads.”
I do so. The passenger door opens and closes. It is gone. Looking down, I see a teardrop cut star sapphire just under an inch long on the seat. Payment in excess, but that is why I do this. One day, I will have to leave. One day, the skies will fill with invaders. One day, I will have to tell my wife the truth and see if she loves me enough to take our half-breed children to another planet.
by Julian Miles | Oct 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The terrain is ideal for them, and they will take every advantage of the variegated cover: tiered platforms that scatter this little roomscape. Plus they have the advantage of looking like the indigenes. It is a good thing that I was tasked to interdict this zone. No other unit could handle this without resorting to terrain-ruining ordnance.
From the lampshade I spot movement. This gives the assembly nearest the target a bearing. No movement yet. Nothing to betray my presence. I have a potential target. Now for the thing I share with every soldier throughout history – the wait for the battle to commence.
My deployment of an overlook assembly is a strategic advantage that few of our kind have mastered. They cannot yet understand; I cannot understand why they do not. I can see the whole zone. Three distributed layers allow me to go from initial spotting to tactical view without movement. Nothing to warn hyperaware opponents.
The concept of dynamic assemblies is also foreign to my kind. Restructuring myself according to the dictates of terrain, opponent and opportunity. It is simple for me. I presume that is why I am moved so often, being assign to zones where my unique skillset bestows an insurmountable advantage.
The movement resolves itself into a scatter of arachnid hatchlings. I focus down to individual units, devolving the assembly that holds the contact zone into pairs assigned to each hatchling. Not long now.
Far to the left rear flank, an atypical movement: A hatchling flicks its rearmost right leg up and over to scratch behind its rightmost eye. That is not an arachnid move. It is a telltale of a covert drone. In a synaesthesic conflict, operators of drones that have more than two visual inputs experience a phantom ear-itch. So far it is incurable, cannot be trained out, and the movement to ‘scratch’ it is unconscious.
I flag that false arachnid and resume my waiting. There is never only one drone. They are suspicious and fear my kind, so they come in numbers. Within three minutes, I have acquired seven further targets.
A surprise sighting on the coving: eight arachnids moving in a single column along the ridges made by the decorative scrollwork. I am impressed. Apart from the giveaway formation, using the ceiling is something they had been remiss in adopting. It seems that their technology has finally proven artificial gecko traction pads, something I have had since awakening.
Another minute to confirm that every other moving thing in this zone is natural, then I assign kill flights to the portions of assemblies behind each target. With a flex of my will, the hammer falls: inanimate fixtures spread sixty-four pairs of wings and stoop down upon them where they struggle. The nanopolymer sprayed from the miniscule tangle rounds shot by tiny underarm grenade launchers, using the slack space in the forearm exoskeleton. The muzzles are still emitting ephemeral wisps of smoke as they swing up to support the claws in the classic poise.
This lounge is mine. I am Mantid Swarm 35, and I will be the standard for the next generation of my kind. Over a thousand bodies allow me to include specialisations such as grenade-launching and functional wings without degrading my tactical effectiveness. From formicid drones to human troops, I have never met a problem that I could not kill.
by Julian Miles | Sep 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Why are we all the way out here? If we had taken the Rigel mission, I could have been home for mid-winter revel.”
Chapni sighed. That was the problem with the Urulaunk; they had this thing about partying. Preferably with as many like-minded multi-limbed beings as possible. For the rest of their year, they were fun people to be around. But come the two Great Revels, every Urulaunk not on Nicto Urula turned into a whinging child for a period equal to the time it would have taken them to get home for the festival.
With a flick of his vestigial groinwings, he brought himself back to being a tutor: “This is the Cradle. When you gaze upon the third planet from the recently subgiant sun, you are gazing at the world that gave us life. That is Earth, and although it is long dead, it is a worthy thing to meditate upon.”
“All the way out here? Only one planet? How, without the Perspicacity of Icto, did they manage to accomplish so much?”
“They were an emotive race. Driven by intense passion to achieve things we would deem impossible. Now, it is time.”
“What am I to learn?”
“You will tell me. Or you will fail this qualification sector.”
Chapni waited as they approached the system. He’d deliberately dropped them from Supra outside the system to give his student a better chance.
“Poshtor Chapni, the system has too many planets.”
“Quantify.”
“The archaeological treatises disagree on exact number, but the low bound is eight and the high bound is ten. There are forty here.”
“And how would you resolve this conflict of data?”
The Urulaunk brought its entire thirty-five digits to bear on the consoles and Chapni allowed a shudder to run up his dorsal ridge. An Urulaunk totally committed to something outside of inebriated joymaking. It was a first, and vindicated his faith in the race’s potential.
“Thirty-two of the planets maintain an atypical orbit, yet are equidistant upon the same track. Therefore, I deem them to be foreign bodies.”
“A fair initial postulation. Now granularise it.”
The fingers flew and the thumbs tapped and the rhythm was a frenetic, tribal thing. Chapni smiled. Even during data interrogation, an Urulaunk was primal.
“The thirty-two identified are orbital, but my predictions state they are on the cusp of escaping. They are artificial, being dense mass without variance for mantle, core or similar. There are no artefacts. I do not understand.”
“Persevere.”
The rhythm resumed.
“Poshtor Chapni. The worlds comprise synthetic organic polymers of varying exact composition. From what I have gleaned from the history and legendry, I would state that they are composed entirely of detritus. I postulate that humans resorted to this drastic measure when planetary storage threatened to overwhelm thier biosphere.”
Chapni allowed his horns to flush scarlet in approval: “Urulaunk Takton, I deem you to have passed this sector’s requirements. Now, for extra credit, why do you think we are here?”
Takton reflectively scratched his armpits, an unconscious movement of joint-popping speed and complexity.
“The thirty-two will soon become free-space objects. By the time the first one becomes a nuisance, the rest may be scattered across the universe. Dealing with them here and now is the best remedial action.”
Chapni’s horns almost glowed: “Correct.”
“Poshtor Chapni, a further deduction?”
“Proceed.”
“Nicto Urula is dependent on similar polymers. You are endeavouring to lay a warning upon me.”
Chapni let his proboscis dance across the control console: “Now that the lesson is installed, let us set about destroying the Polystars of Sol.”
by Julian Miles | Sep 10, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Dad said that the nannybots inside would stop the monsters from getting me. I liked that. The first night after the injection, I slept with the lights off. My nannybots would protect me. Even when mum died the next day, I knew that bad things couldn’t get me and only cried a little.
There’s a knock on the door. I know who it is before the voice comes.
“Chloe? It’s Pietro. Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
Pietro is bigger than dad ever was, and has a physique like my dad thought he had. But the main reason I like Pietro is because my nannybots like him. Having someone who can hold me without going into spasms or being turned to sludge is wonderful.
“How are things today?”
“Better. My arm has stopped itching.”
“Can I see?”
I emerge from under the sheet and hold my arm out, smiling as his eyes widen. My skin is like the softest silver-grey silk, with purple filigree patterns that change colour with my mood. Dad’s notes called them ‘nanotattoos’.
Pietro takes my arm so gently. His touch makes my skin tingle and the filigree flushes a sparkling violet. He smiles.
“You’re complete.”
I nod: “Do you think that now it’s over, we could get a pet?”
His expression drops into a frown and my filigree goes dark.
“It’ll be the same, Chloe. Your nannybots wouldn’t like it.”
I feel a tear slip down my cheek. Of all the things that my nannybots don’t like, cute furry animals are the thing we disagree about.
What dad did to me made him rich and famous. He spent a lot of that money hiding the fact that my nannybots had only one response to things they didn’t like: they killed them. Didn’t matter if it was a common cold bug or the lady hired to teach me to play piano.
On my fifteenth birthday, Pietro came into my life, cameraman for a sneaky reporter. He picked me up from the floor where I cried over the puddle that the reporter had become when he tried to stop me calling my dad. My nannybots hadn’t liked that. I waited for Pietro to scream and die, but he didn’t. His words were kind, but his touch was like what mum described as ‘cool water in the desert’. I never knew that I desperately needed to touch someone, until that moment.
Then dad rushed in shouting, before falling silent as he saw me cradled in Pietro’s arms.
“Young man, you should leave.”
I felt the arms around me turned steely: “Sir, I don’t think I’ll be doing that until this lady sends me away.”
He called me a lady. Dads face flushed red and he grabbed Pietro’s arm. I saw the purple flash that travelled from me, through Pietro, to dad. Then dad went all stiff. He looked at me, nodded, and fell backwards.
My dad’s last words were: “Time to pay the piper.”
Since then, we’ve been together. Pietro taught me to laugh, fight, love, hide and lie. He also taught me to meditate, and that let me engage with my nannybots. They wanted to make me better. After Pietro and I talked, I let them. Today, they finished.
Something makes a noise. I see Pietro has his other hand behind his back. I grin: “Show me.”
His arm comes forward. In his hand is an Alsatian puppy. I can see the smoky grey filigree patterns on its skin.
“Happy Rebirthday, beautiful. From me and your nannybots.”
by Julian Miles | Sep 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The metro swishes past while I tap my fingers in frustration on the dashboard. I may have priority, but nothing out-prioritises fifty tons of autotram.
“Where are you, Lime?”
“Watching the metro. The collision avoidance system in my car decided that playing chicken was a losing game.”
“They’ve brought down the SWAT drones. No jokes.”
“I had no intention of mentioning swatting.”
There were collective groans over the airwave. Tony had company.
“What’s the book say?”
“What book?” Tony’s voice radiated innocence.
“You know, the one where the audience around you bets on how long it takes the thuglifes to realise that they’ve left toytown.”
“Oh, that one. Current favourite is two minutes and one magazine.”
“From sidearm or main?”
“Main.”
“Oh, ye of little faith. Oop! Metro’s gone, taking emergency measures. Route me a waiver.”
“Chief says to keep the damage under six figures.”
He would. They need me to catch these bad guys, so I need to do something they won’t – manual driving at excessive speeds. As a getaway car is only a vampire conversion on a standard grid runner, they can’t do what I’m about to. I hang a left through an advertising display and cut across the rough ground behind, collecting bruises as the suspension they upgraded for me proves to be as crappy as the last set they did. Next time, I’m doing it. My granddad taught me how to fettle cars. Time for me to revive another redundant art.
Exploding through a vending kiosk – showering seven people with Instablend gel as a side effect – I reach the on-ramp for the interstate. Slewing the car sideways, I exit and retrieve Gertrude from the rear seat.
“Lime, that’s not a service piece.”
“No, Tony. It’s something a bit older and a lot more effective.” A hybrid of Anzio 20 and 20/50, to be precise.
“I’ll get another waiver en route.”
“Cheers, buddy.”
Down the road comes my target, feeling smug now that they’ve EMP’d all the drones for six blocks, crashed the city grid, all local CCTV and jammed the air-op frequencies. Unless their pursers are using off-grid vehicles and personally present to drive, they’re clear. Which is why I am tolerated in a police force my granddad would have ridiculed.
My first shot would have won me a shooting competition a century ago. It enters the front of their vehicle, taking out their frontal interference unit. After passing through the central power core of the car, it enters the passenger compartment through the centre-console display, spraying hot LED shards everywhere as it disappears through suspect number four and comes to rest in the trading system core they dropped into the boot after their raid.
The car comes to a smoking, sparking halt and all four doors open. Suspects one, two, three and five throw themselves face down.
Across the road, an old man pauses his exo and shouts: “Ya gottem’ Sheriff! Good goin’!”
I wave and grin. At least the older folk appreciate what I do. Everyone else seems intent on suing me for contraventions of noise, weapons, vehicle, and ‘humanitarian rehabilitation of criminals’ statutes.
The four I didn’t shoot are rehabilitating just fine. I can hear them from here.
