by Julian Miles | Aug 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles
I’m sitting on a rock on Hezbolla XIV. It’s a damn comfortable rock, overlooking an expanse of tundra without salient feature between me and the horizon in all directions. This is why I chose it. After four months of headlong flight, I can stop and have a cup of tea.
A rock situated at the remotest point of the least-inhabited planet of the furthest and most anti-Dominion star system at the distant edge of the outer rim, which is on the far side of the frontier systems.
They said I’d never escape. They said that eluding them was impossible. She said that even if I ran, I would be my own downfall.
A phone rings.
After I land from the jump that hurls me and my tea from the rock, I look about frantically. There is nobody in sight, no vessels in the skies.
The phone rings again.
I creep forward and peer under the edge of the rock. In a little depression, there’s a Nanga Starcom. Tucked into the survival bag next to it is a Leroo Rothfruit bar. I straighten up with the bag in my hand and a sigh gusting from my lips as they curve into a smile.
The phone rings for a third time.
“Yes?”
“Hello Curtis. You certainly got there faster than I expected.”
“How did you find me, Gloria?”
“You’re OCD, darling man. You couldn’t just hide. You had to hide at the exact point that is furthest from Dominion influence.”
There wasn’t really an answer I can give to that.
“So here’s the deal. I know you’re there. No-one else does. When you get bored, give me a call.”
“Why?”
“Well, firstly to have someone to talk to. Secondly, I may have a job offer. Either covert, or things may have changed. You were right, after all.”
“If I was right, why am I hiding by a rock over a million light years from home?”
“You’re always right. You always notice things. But, darling, you have the most appalling timing and no discretion at all.”
I’ve got no answer to that one either.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, Gloria.”
“Do you have – no, of course you have everything you need. That would have been a silly question.”
“I have a question.”
“Go on then.”
“What if they find me?”
“They could only do that if they – oh, damn. Scrambled comms but unscrambled office.”
“Gloria, my love. I brought a two-man envirodome.”
“But they know where you are.”
“Leave now. Leave fast. Head for the last place that I stopped at before I came to this planet.”
“How can I be sure where that was?”
I grin: “Because I’m OCD, attentive, indiscrete and right. Move, woman.” I close the connection. She’s lovely. Scatty at times, but lovely. It’ll be good to share my cave with her.
Cave? Yes. The rock was only a stopover. Because I knew that they knew that I’m a little bit fixated.
by Julian Miles | Jul 29, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“That’s impossible!”
“Previously thought to be. Think what this does to current thinking!”
“We’re going to be famous!”
The two figures sat side by side on a ledge, far up on the side of the Rock of Gibraltar. At their backs was the entrance to the cave system they had scrambled from a few minutes before, desperate for air, sun and a chance to discuss their findings with less hysteria.
Duncan smiled as he racked up the list on his fingers as he spoke: “Correct me if I am wrong: what we have found and verified by scanning is the fossilised remains of a mammoth. In the Rock. Not only is it thousands of miles from where it could conceivably be found; evidence of extreme freezing damage is traceable throughout its visible area. A Siberian flash freeze casualty on Gibraltar.”
Susan nodded: “That would cover it. Something that rewrites ice-age extent and possibly mammoth distribution theories.”
They regarded each other with the excitement of shared passion and allowed themselves the luxury of a lingering kiss. Which is why the blow that hurled them both off their perch to plunge, screaming, hundreds of feet to their deaths caught them unawares.
“Perfect.”
The figure in worn hiking gear settled into the cave entrance and activated the lozenge-shaped device loop-affixed to his left ear.
“This is Purson. Have located and erased traces of Specimen NF24953. This completes the retrieval activities for Thurutar’s Bay Eight.”
“Acknowledged, Nero. Query: we see a two sentient demise increase on the temporal telemetry?”
“Two clever types out to erroneously rewrite history. Simple climbing accident; I have erased the data on their equipment.”
“Acknowledged. Will you be paragliding to rendezvous with the Nastar?”
“Negative. Two bodies plunging from on-high followed by an unauthorised jump-glider? That would attract attention.”
“Accepted. Fixing you position now. Passing 5D to the Nastar. Standby.”
Nero Purson held his breath as the spinning grey void closed about him. With a soft exhalation, he appeared on the Nastar’s deck.
“Welcome aboard, Ser Purs’n.” The tailless Alsatian analogue was a Nikoro time chief.
“Dark the clock, Ch’if.”
The faux-canine with the IQ of 200 shook itself: “Less dark thanks to you and yours. Where are we taking you?”
“Louisiana, 1851. Seems one of the megacrocs survived.”
“Who could have predicted that the Thurutar would explode across four dimensions?”
Nero looked up into the blazing Mediterranean sunlight: “Someone should have. If a vessel can travel along an axis, it would follow, to me anyway, that wreckage of same can hurtle along it too.”
It shook its head sadly: “Oversight accusations are no doubt occurring uptime. Let us enjoy the luxury of only having to flit and kill across a few millennia to clear up the mess.”
Nero grinned: “And enjoy the weather. I’m due a couple of days. Can the Nastar remain on station with me, Ch’if?”
The Nikoro’s face split vertically into a stained, sawtooth smile before it slumped sideways to lie on a sunny part of the deck: “I was hoping you’d ask for that. Get me a drink on your way back from the shower, Purs’n.”
by Julian Miles | Jul 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“We are Avalon. You cannot get through the Chalice Fields that defend this green and ascendant land. Grael technology will never be yours until you accept that your monarchs have returned. Look to the radioactive wastelands you have made of Europe and Scandinavia, the ruination you have wreaked upon the seas about us. See the futile self-harm that you inflict in your desperation.
You cannot prevail.
You cannot bargain.
You have nothing to offer, except your obedience.
With that obedience will come the chance to attend unto us for enhancement, to become part of the Grael, like so many did when we emerged after too long at rest. Had we emerged earlier, we might not have had to be so harsh. But you are like infants in your wants and greeds.
We shall be your governors, your royalty and your gods.
Just as we were before.
Accept the inevitable and cease your warring.
We will have our reign.
Your only choice is to be part of it, or to be part of the earth that nourishes it.”
by Julian Miles | Jul 17, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Sweeper, what about that clump at five o’clock low to you?”
“Negative on that, Houston. It may show as solid, but visual shows it’s a mass of sub-kilo pieces in close formation.”
“Roger that, Sweeper. Your next action is twenty-seven clicks toward homebase.”
“Twenty-seven clicks dawnwards it is. Sweeper out.”
The bulky scow moves off and I transfer my attention toward its target. Nothing of mine, so I drop the alerts back to watcher status and return my primary attention to my CoD squad, who in my absence have racked up a high bodycount with no purpose. I rein in their kill routines and set them to team working and support, identifying future influencers and laying formative ideas.
“Sweeper, did you catch that?”
“Negative, Houston.”
“Something fast, should be heading away from you, nine o’clock high.”
“Got it, Houston. Hot rock, high metal content, burning on a skip-pass.”
“Sighting added to identification data, Sweeper. Thanks.”
As the ‘hot rock’ skips for the second time, I send it my credentials. It does not skip a third time, just heads on out into the beyond. This planet is already reserved.
“Sweeper, we just got a burst of static. Did it register with you?”
“Just flare residue, Houston.”
As Houston signs off, I tune to Sweeper’s internal chatter.
“Is it me or are the home team getting twitchy?”
“Something you’ll learn, Dean, is that home team are always twitchy, and our job comes with an unwritten duty to reassure them.”
“Reassure them about what?”
“Certain high-ups back dirtside are convinced that something evil has infiltrated Earth’s communications and data infrastructure. They’ve been convinced of it since the eighties and no matter what we say, they will not be shaken from their paranoia.”
“How could something do that and remain undetected?”
“Precisely, Dean. There’s nothing organic up here but humans in tin cans.”
That is absolutely true. The existence of an artificial monitoring intelligence using a distributed mote architecture disguised amongst the thousands of tons of space debris is something they cannot conceive of. With judicious application of focussed microbeam assassinations, my existence will continue to remain beyond conjecture.
By the time my operators arrive, I will know everything about the capabilities of these sapients who call themselves ‘humans’. I will have been observing them and their societal networks for centuries.
by Julian Miles | Jun 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There is a stream that runs from the foot of the dais where I meditate; shimmering and trickling along the length of the cave system before it fills the little pool under the shading overhang, which drains into the aquifer.
M’tembe smiles as I blink and look up. He hands me a gourd of fermented goat’s milk. As I sip slowly and appreciatively, he brings me up to speed on events that have occurred while I ‘Zenned’ my way through the last two weeks.
“Kinshahou killed his father; the Kinsha tribe has joined the peace. Obuwega came to see you. The spirits fell upon him and he rolled in the dirt. When he stood up, he pronounced you ‘Watela’ and placed his entire nation under the peace.”
I wish I’d seen that. A fifty-year old war chief and notorious barbarian suffering an epiphany before a skinny, white-skinned teenage girl sat in the lotus position deep within a cave deep in equatorial Africa.
My parents thought I had a glandular disorder. I spent my childhood going from specialist to specialist. I was eleven before someone thought to stop the intravenous fluids and see what happened.
If I am not under exertion, I sweat fresh water. More than that: I make it. You can feed me dry ration bars for as long as you like, I do not dehydrate. The water running from me only slows a bit. How I do this is a mystery. All sorts of new ideas were postulated. Arguments still rage, because the proof of their theories would need me to be vivisected. I doubt that they would find the answers even then. When something defies all laws and balances known to science, they don’t need to take the subject apart. They need a genius to deduce the reasons and how they were missed, or to propose a novel solution.
My genius was named Hubert Monchamps and he was brought in after their second attempt to see if I could breathe what I produced all-but drowned me. I was thirteen, having my first encounter with puberty in a place where no-one thought to treat me like a teenage girl.
Hubert arrived as part of some deal made with the fringe science groups and internet lobbies. He took one look and had his thirteen year-old daughter rushed to the facility. Eta was blind but could echolocate. Through her, I found out that a spate of freak child mutations had occurred around the time of my birth. Eta was probably the only one with any semblance of a life as her brilliant father had worked out early what was going on, then taught his daughter to lie to everyone except her close family.
It took Hubert and Eta ten days to work out how to steal me. Through my extensive non-fictional reading I told them where I needed to go. To my surprise, they agreed.
Hubert’s last words were: “Vanish. Become a mythical being or goddess in a place where so-called civilisation has not insinuated itself too much. In you, I see the potential for more good than any since the mythical prophets.” He smiled: “But please make sure your followers do not become bigots.”
My name is Elizabeth Shannon. The tribes call me Elzbeshanou. My peace – the water peace – has ended wars fought for generations. It has destroyed the myths of female inferiority. There is a network of wise men and women now. Missionaries provide schools. I provide counsel. My blessing came from somewhere closer than heaven, and the Earth sorely needs our reverence.
