by Julian Miles | Jan 14, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It’s not like I meant to end the world. I was just scared.
“Mike! Another side of fries for table fifteen!”
He should be shouting for bread and cheese. It’s my fault that he isn’t an innkeeper.
I found it lying in a clearing, limbs turning from purple to grey in the fastest rotting I have ever seen. I didn’t mean to hurt it, but a movement in the undergrowth had to be a deer and we hadn’t eaten properly for weeks. So I shot blind and killed a monster. There was a satchel lying on the ground by it. Sticking out of it was a device that reminded me of a matchlock with extra cogs. So when another ‘demon’ charged into the clearing, as I hadn’t reloaded my rifle, I grabbed the device and ‘shot’ it between its gem-like eyes.
The world seemed to lurch and then tilt. The woodland about me withered to stumps and dust in the blink of an eye. My clothes unravelled and I felt stabbing pains as I drew breath. Around me, the world vanished in a kaleidoscopic tornado that had gaps that showed impossible views: cities that hung suspended over blue seas blew to dust to be replaced by oil rigs. Things that looked like metallic eagles of impossible size twisted to become ugly passenger jets. In my hand, the device shimmered between states, finally settling to look like a tin can with an array of lights on the top. I peered at it and the squiggles on the side resolved into a language I could read: ‘activation without boundary limitation fields may be hazardous to the reality instance surrounding the operator’ and ‘unconstrained use may cause manifestation of temporal resilience effects’.
When the whirling chaos faded, I stood on an expanse of waste ground between two tenements. Before me, a chain link fence sparkled briefly before fading to dull metallic grey. Then a rain of fire scoured my mind. I screamed and toppled to writhe on the ground, clutching my head. Of course, I dropped the device. There were three bass thuds, like a giant hand was knocking upon a vast door. I blacked out.
“Wake up.”
I woke. Crouching next to me was a young man in an expensive suit. He held the can in one hand. Seeing his gem-like eyes shocked me fully awake and then the realisation of new knowledge, the new history in my head, caused tears to cascade down my cheeks.
He nodded: “If you’re lucky, memories of your former instance will pass. If not…” He looked down at himself: “Seems like you remodelled me too.” Looking up, he smiled a wintry smile: “I’ll not lie. You’re a nuisance and you nearly killed me when you erased your timeline. I hope you can make something of yourself to offset the number of people you deleted.”
With that condemnation, he stood up and walked off, shrinking into a distance that meant he vanished before he reached the edge of the waste ground. I rolled over and vomited myself compos mentis.
A year has passed and I’ve adjusted to this terrible world of my own instigation. I’m studying the fundamentals of existence while working two jobs just to stay alive. The memories of hunting through verdant woodland to provide for the family I erased have not faded.
I have given myself ten years to achieve something of worth. If I do not and the memories remain undiminished, I will see if the afterlife from my previous time survives and hope that my family are there.
by Julian Miles | Jan 10, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“We are in so much drek.”
“Did I not say that you were to be nice to him?”
“Nice? Emmett, he had his cyberpaw so far up my skirt I thought he was a gynaecologist!”
“Easy, Celene. Watch the tollway.”
“We’re only doing two hundred. I can do this with my eyes closed.”
“Please don’t.”
“I love it when you plead.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Emmett, baby, could you tell the cops to frack off? Didn’t you pay them enough?”
“I did. These are hired ronin. You know, friends of the razorboy you performed balls-in-the-throatomy on.”
“He grabbed my-”
“I know, Celene. I’m just hopin’ they can get his cajones out of his oesophagus.”
“I’m not. Now. We cannot outrun the interceptor they have as top cover, and they’re running interference on our drive. Got any ideas? You are my spannerman, after all.”
“That’s ‘drives’, darlin’. I mounted an extra two in series. As for the jammin’, let me get my axe.”
“The last thing I need now is to listen to you murder ‘Roll on Down the Highway’.”
“Oh, that’s harsh.”
“Truth hurts. Stick to Reo Speedwagon, baby. It’s more your speed.”
“Harsher. Much, much harsher.”
“The first stage is acceptance. Now, about our imminent blazing death?”
“Like I said. My axe.”
“You really have lost it, haven’t you? There are nine raging razorboys across five speeders, backed by two mercs in a mil-spec interceptor that I didn’t think you could even have drawings of outside Level Eight clearance, and your best answer is to go Hendrix on their collective arses?”
“Darlin’, I am a lot of things, but losin’ it is no one of ‘em. Shut up an’ drive. An’ be ready to drive real fast. When the speeders go, we’ll have about three seconds while the mercs engage hind brain. If we ain’t going like a Lenkormian Devil at the end o’ that, you better kiss me quick, coz that’s all the time we’ll have left on this earth.”
“That’s the ugliest guitar I’ve ever seen.”
“Tollway! Watch the tollway! For the love of Senna, drive!”
“No need to get mean.”
“You just insulted my vintage BC Rich Draco. Count y’self lucky I’m not tannin’ your butt instead of savin’ it.”
“Newsflash. Those are not custard pies they have started shooting at us.”
“Noted. Now pop my side of the targa.”
“What the hell is that?”
“A phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range, built into the back of my Draco. Sometimes audiences get real critical.”
“I’m not saying a thing.”
“Get ready to hit the ‘go’ buttons.”
“Snapline!”
“Wup! Yeah, would be embarrassin’ fallin’ off the back.”
“And then some. I’m ready, babe.”
“It’s time to rock ‘n’ roll, then.”
“Kick their arses, Emmett.”
“Hello, you ugly mofo’s. Meet my lil’ friend.”
“Frack but that’s bright!”
“Tell me ‘bout it. Slipstream took me shades.”
“Louder! I can’t hear you over the wind!”
“Five down! GO!”
“I hear that! Wheeeeee!”
“B’garkuph!”
“You okay, baby?”
“Snapline was fine. Nearly becomin’ twins on the back edge of the door wasn’t.”
“I’ll kiss it all better later. After we finish selling the data.”
“Yeah, that stuff always has a short sell-by. Hang a left at Capella, kid. The Geek’s hangin’ off Auriga. We’re goin’ to be rich.”
“Amen to that. Play me something.”
“Roll on Dow-”
“Emmett! I have the passenger ejector seat button under my thumb.”
“Gimme Shelter?”
“Better. Sing me away, spannerman.”
by Julian Miles | Dec 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They came from heaven, or hell, or outer space, or under the sea. Earth has been invaded in every way imaginable, thanks to the imaginations of authors over the last three centuries. You would have thought, with such a rich base from which to draw inspirational tactics, that mankind would have done better when it finally happened.
“Commander! They’re reinforcing on the left flank!”
“Captain Yaeger, abandon the dugouts and trenches. Return to the bastion with everyone you have, bringing everything you can.”
They came from a long way away, arriving without warning. It was midday on a beautiful summer day. By three minutes past, most of our continents were in the shadow of spaceships of every imaginable shape and size. Their bombardment was swift, devastating and surprisingly inaccurate. They missed military bases and levelled universities. Warships were ignored while schools and libraries vanished in waves of searing energy. Hospitals were reduced to craters while missile silos stood untouched.
“Commander! They’ve brought up snipers! We’re getting murdered here!”
“Captain Durov, abandon your positions. Withdraw to the bastion with as much gear as your people can carry.”
It took us a few days to realise that they had obliterated ninety percent of humanity between the ages of four and seventeen. They had removed generations of prospective resistance fighters along with our advanced medical capabilities. The strategic analyses turned from bleak to grim.
The raids to take infants and babies were something the analysts didn’t predict. Caught by surprise, our hopes for the future were whisked away. It was a devastating blow. Suicides peaked during the subsequent week.
“Commander! Looks like they’re massing for something!”
“Captain Sung, abandon your positions. Retire to the bastion with your troops and as much gear as they can manage.”
Then the invasion started. They used no area-effect weapons. They came without mercy, solely for the surviving humans. Professor Grey of Roehampton produced and circulated a document after the first week that may as well have been humanity’s epitaph. I remember the final paragraph so well:
‘Our stolen children will be vassals, without history
or knowledge. Our civilisation may form part of the
mythology that they tell each other around the cooking
fires of their simple culture. Apart from that, the
works of man will be forgotten.’
They stalk through this world, killing everyone who remains. You can see how careful they are with the environment, and how uncaring they are of anything created by us.
“Commander. Everyone is here.”
I turn from the bar and drop my cigarette end into the empty shot glass. The last of the Lagavulin is inside me. The Captains of every group are here: the finest, and the last, soldiers in the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Eight months ago they came to take our planet. It swiftly became inevitable. We have been fighting desperate battles and saving nothing. So, I propose an all-out attack. Simply because my dear, departed grandfather would be gutted if his bonny lad didn’t go out moving forward with a whiskey inside him, a smoke between his lips and a blazing automatic in his hand. Who’s with me?”
They looked at each other.
Captain Brewster stepped forward: “My dad always said that when it all goes to Hell, you want a Tommy at your side. While everyone else is getting weepy, he’ll be the one having a brew, checking his weapon and lighting a smoke, before asking when we’re going to stop pussyfooting about and get stuck in.”
There were nods and grins. Hands started to rise.
Pour me a shot, grandpa. I’ll be there soon.
by Julian Miles | Dec 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The lights reflect from the gleaming chrome and glossy Union Jacks on the lines of matt black all-terrain cars. Typical over-indulgence: four-wheel drive is hardly necessary to drive down a thirty-mile, two-lane strip of tarmac.
They sent me down ten days before it all went to hell, not because they thought I was worth saving, but because I was the mechanic. They wanted their fleet of getaway vehicles ready to go.
I had just finished servicing the one-hundred and twentieth car, making sure it’s batteries were charged from the reactor far below, its petrol engine was functioning and its heated leather seats were perfectly aligned. The onboard computer was fully up and running too. I was doing my last check by lying in the fully reclined rear seat and playing solitaire on screen when I felt a tremor. Then eight more.
I jogged down the line of vehicles to the master board. As I hit the ‘prepare’ button, I saw the lights flash on the platform of the evacuation line. Minutes later, as I covered the other duties that a team of eight should have been here to do, a single four-unit train whistled in and came to a standstill. The doors remained closed, each with the hackle-raising red glow of a contamination light above it.
After five minutes, I dared to go up onto the carpet of the platform and investigate. Inside the first carriage the floor was covered in sludge. It soaked the thousand-pound suits and lapped against the briefcases locked to skeletal wrists. The government and their favourites were chunky soup.
The vomiting fit passed and I went along the carriages, looking for any signs of life. I couldn’t have got in, even if I wanted to. The override codes for the doors were above my clearance.
In the last carriage, a single man sat by the window, dried blood under his nose, ears and mouth. He looked at me and shouted, blood flecking the glass.
“Can you get me out?”
I shook my head.
He smiled. “Can’t or won’t?”
I shouted back. “I don’t have the codes.”
He nodded. “Anyone else make it?”
I shook my head again.
“Guess you’re it, then. What section are you with?”
“Secure vehicles, engineering unit four.”
He laughed; more blood on the window. “Typical. A mechanic is the only one we save.”
With one hand, he wrote a sequence of numbers and letters on the glass.
“That’s the access code. Select ‘untrained’ from the menu and the system will run in idiot mode.”
With that, he coughed hard and most of his face came off. I backed away quickly and sprinted to the main board. The code got me a lot of functions that the ‘idiot mode’ helped me with. I sent the train back out into the tunnel, then retracted the rail and closed the steel and cement iris doors. Straight away I fired up a car and headed for the sanctuary.
After six miles the downward slope of the road ended in a tunnel-shaped lake of still, dark water. So I drove back.
I’ve got a hundred and twenty cars, each stocked to keep six people alive for a month. I have access to thousands of books, films, games and music tracks, but it is a closed system with no access to the outside – that was available from the sanctuary; this was just a stopover.
Once a week I play thrash metal really loud for as long as I can stand it. Hopefully someone will hear before I die of old age or go insane.
by Julian Miles | Dec 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They never understood how I could be so smart when it came to food. Of course, when I was rushed into hospital and they found Deke, it all came out. He’d started out as one of the things that lives in our guts, but he either evolved or was a mutant or something. ‘Or something’ being the winner of the vote, I was told.
Anyway, he got big and his smarts came from me. Funny, we never talked about him because he had no history apart from suddenly waking up in me. Took him a while to work out what he was and trawl my memories to get real words and pick himself a name.
I’d been having tummy trouble for a couple of days; there I am, sitting on the throne and this voice in my head says. “Hi. I’m Deke. Sorry about the pain, just moving myself out the way.”
Well, I fell off the toilet and just about brought the place down screaming. Thankfully, Dad wasn’t home. All the time, Deke’s talking to me, explaining, calming. In the end, I could either go to the doc’s and get carted off in a long-sleeved T-shirt with buckles up the back, or I could get to know Deke.
So I got to know him-it. Within a few months, I was a lot smarter (two minds are better than one) and my ability to detect stuff in foods was attracting attention. Give Deke a ‘taste’ and he could recognise it in any food I ate.
That was the problem. Some protesting people found out about me and asked for my help. Since Deke and I liked the idea of good food, we helped. A lot of corporations got to look silly and got fined heaps of cash.
The next thing I know, blokes in black suits and doctors in white suits turn up at my Dad’s place, all wearing masks. They said I’d been ‘invaded’ by an ‘organism of unknown origin’. Dad never liked my habit of talking to Deke. So he let them take me away. As the mask came down and the men made reassuring noises, Deke said to me: “I’ll be back.”
After they let me out of the special hospital, I wasn’t so good at stuff. Things didn’t make sense anymore and most food I ate made me hurl. I ended up racking carts at my local supermarket.
Then early one morning, there was banging on my door. Dad went downstairs all fired up, opened the door shouting and then went quiet. So I got up and went downstairs, cricket bat at the ready.
She was standing in the hall; Dad was laying on the floor behind her with a silly look on his face. She looked up at me and smiled. I recognised that smile. I saw it in the mirror every morning.
“Deke? What did you do to Dad?”
“Gave him something to help him understand, Eddie.”
“How did you – what are you doing in – How?”
“Found out something new, Eddie. I can split off little me’s. But I wasn’t happy with the bloke they put me in. This is his daughter. I’m just hitching a ride with Linea in Julie’s body for now.”
“Until when?”
“Until I can come back to you.”
“How?”
“Kiss us, Eddie.”
