by Julian Miles | Sep 9, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I can’t find the words to describe what Jerome is eating.
“How can you?”
He grins around a mouthful.
“Crash land on Lear II. Spend a month waiting for Integral Retrieval to realise your beacon is not a test, and a further six months waiting for the rescue ship to traverse a significant portion of the known universe to collect you. Started out there were six of us. Only me and Gerd made it, because we discovered that Alentl can be eaten raw. You cook them and these,” he flicks an off-white pod from the meat to land on a little pile of matching pods, “burst and drench the whole thing in poison.”
“I understand that. What I don’t understand is: you’re not on Lear II anymore. Why still eat this?”
He finishes his mouthful and grimaces at me.
“Like I said, we survived because we found we could eat Alentl raw. But, I’m still here because Gerd ate less Alentl than me.”
“Still don’t understand.”
He points to the pods.
“They’re the eggs of a critter the Contraxans have named ‘Jerochymia’. They’re also the reason Alentl can eat Posrium, the poisonous weeds that grow all over Lear II. The pods start off as microscopic spores, absorb the toxins, and grow. It seems to be an accident of nature, because while they absorb the toxins, the same toxins keep them from transforming into intermediate forms. When an Alentl dies, it stops eating, the toxin levels drop, and matured parasites eventually hatch from the corpse. They’re really pretty: like long-legged spider crabs made of amethysts and rubies.”
I reach a shaking hand for my drink.
“If you’re a human, when you eat Alentl, you ingest the tiny spores that will eventually grow into pods. When you stop eating Alentl, you stop getting the residual toxins that prevent those spores from transforming into the larval form of Jerochymia that will eat you from the inside out. They’re not so pretty. Look like sabre-toothed hagfish.”
Another pod is flicked from another chunk of flesh.
“I hate this stuff.”
He chews and swallows.
by Julian Miles | Aug 24, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The observation tower runs up through a hollow tree. Not sure which was here first, but it sure looks real. From the top, you can see damn near to the horizon in all directions.
A view which is, no matter where you look, shades of green spotted with the occasional gap or tall ruin. Makes me wonder why they put it in. Unless you like watching treetops, the only early warning you could get is of attack by aircraft or giants. I scramble back down.
“Could be an army coming at us under the trees, but looks calm.”
He nods and gestures toward the can of sliced peaches he’s set at my end of the table.
“Fill yer boots. We can weather the winter here, I reckon.”
I pull the ring on the can and lose myself in the flavour of something that tastes better and wetter than MREs. Draining the syrup to the last drop, I place the empty can back on the table and wave my eating knife about.
“How d’you find these places?”
It’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask for the last year or so, but never got up the courage. Guess I was still star-struck. After all, how many orphan kids running wild through a post-apocalyptic wasteland get partnered by Levi Skills? I used to watch his webshow about survival after the SHTF. I was never able to afford the fancy stuff he came up with, but his basic skills and mindset schooling went so deep it became instinctive.
He looks up and grins.
“Been wondering when you’d get round to that.” he puts his empty down, then stretches.
“Started to see the way things were going a good few years before it all went to hell. Like you, I came up through the foster system. Never had much that I couldn’t pick up and run with. Figured out to do anything except shelter in place or hunker down with neighbours, you needed money. Serious money. The sort of money I would never have.
“I spent what I had on a webcam, then started shooting what I knew in a copse out back of the garage where I worked. After a while, I picked up a reputation. Other survival sites started linking to me. So I started coming up with bigger projects, whole bolt-holes and hideaway builds. Got all my info off other people’s sites, just dressed it up for the videos using the back of a wall in the garage yard and some stuff stolen from a nearby building site. People started asking me for help, so I started advising them on sites and such. Got invited to a lot of them – always passed on the ones where the folks involved knew what they were doing. Just in case someone asked a question I couldn’t answer without access to real experts.
“Naturally, a few people took issue with my shakier ideas. I took them down and pedalled them to the eager as ‘secret survival knowledge for the serious prepper’. My basics were as solid as any. The advanced stuff was theory, lies, and…”
He stops and looks at me.
“Those ‘secret survival tips’? A whole range of stupid things to do in confined spaces that will kill you and any who hide with you. That’s why the smart folk called me out. The smug folk thought the smart ones were only jealous, then spent their money building shelters that became caches for me after they died.”
Holy shit.
“The lower level that’s flooded?”
Levi nods.
“Full of drowned amateurs.”
by Julian Miles | Aug 17, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The view outside is breathtaking, one that many would pay to see. The lights of Xīn Xiānggǎng spread as far as the eye can see, both into the distance and up into the skies above: islands of light connected by the coruscating ribbons and kaleidoscopic fireflies of the ways and vehicles that link them.
Inside a room the size of a tennis court, the spectacle outside is ignored. Holoscreens bigger than luxury coupes are arrayed in a semicircle two deep and three high about a king-size chaise-longue.
Sprawled on that gigantic piece of furniture, looking like a child in an adult’s seat, Alois Jean Danube IV plays his fingers across the trio of holographic keyboards before him like some crazed organist at a recital.
“To complete the spaceport within eight hours will require 180,000,000N$.”
The fingers stop moving. Alois looks up and to the left, into the main focus of his AIPA.
“How much to do it in eleven?”
“147,600,000N$.”
“Do it in eleven. Divert unused resources to the reception dome.”
“Reception dome completion now expected in nine and one-half hours.”
He smiles: “Confirm colony ship arrival.”
The silence stretches for four minutes. Alois sits motionless.
“ETA for ECS Margaret Hamilton is sixteen hours twelve minutes.”
Alois nods.
“Subcontract residential builds on Tescona to tier one and two players. Ensure they receive a completion date that is one Terran month before the reception period completes.”
He’s made the mistake of trusting lower league members before. Now he always has a top-tier player stage a one-year ‘city life’ sim on any new build. They regard it as a recognition of their abilities and never let the slightest thing slip by. Fatalities due to infrastructure failure in colonies SIMbuilt by his company have dropped to 0.04% since he instigated the procedure.
“Next greenfield site?”
“Pethtornay. We have a NeoGenesis Explorer 4.0 in orbit. It has just confirmed that all initial assessments were correct. The planet is ideal. SIMbuild 1.1 will be sufficient.”
Alois sits up.
“We are Danube Planetary Development. ‘Sufficient’ is for other companies. Institute a SIMbuild 2.0 frame with luxury pack 12.”
“That will offer more accommodation than a single consignment can deliver.”
“Then notify both ECS Katherine Johnson and ECS JoAnn Morgan. Have them confirm our projection of their ETA being seven months.”
“Done. Reply will take nine minutes, give or take.”
“Give or take?”
“I have updated my interaction routines. I selected ‘give or take’ as a suitable conversational substitute for ‘deviance of less than eight percent’.”
“Valid, and I like it. Next item: order me a six-course meal with a Szechuan bias, but with wines from California. While I wait for that, give me a roster of the next ten brownfield sites. It’s been a while since we ran a competition for entry to the top tier. As the petty cash could do with a top-up, a premium entry contest with the usual paid viewer packages should get us a new recruit, pay for their induction, and fill the coffers.”
“Very well, Alois. Meal ETA is twenty-two minutes.”
“Wine ETA?”
“That request I was able to predict. Double decanted, chilled, and here in three minutes or less.”
“Excellent.”
by Julian Miles | Aug 10, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Nine years ago today, I think, is when my fervent wish came true: my mundane life was transformed into a thing of wonder.
Wonder… Plus confusion, pain, fear, grief, longing and, right now: abject terror.
The cause of that is crouching next to where I lie in the torn ruts of the field I’d been hoeing. It plummeted from the green clouds above, paused a few metres off the ground, then proceeded to float down.
They look like ochre smoke captured in a human-shaped plastic bag. They smell like apple pie. They squeak when they move. They’re faceless, fingerless, and toeless – but have thumbs on all four limbs.
“Hello, Malcolm.”
I wet myself. Feeling the warmth spurs me to do something.
“H-Hi.”
The head moves like it’s looking about.
“I see you’ve got the settlement up and running. With an emphasis on running.”
I think that was a joke?
“N-not f-funny.”
It nods.
“I can understand that. Anyway: thought you’d like the explanation I promised.”
I remember. Amidst that whirl of light and sound, I’d screamed out, demanding of God why I’d been picked to die in a freak accident when there were so many bastards deserving of death still walking about. God didn’t answer. Something else did: ‘If you survive, I’ll come and tell you.’
I’d blacked out at that point.
“It was you?”
“Talking, yes. Picking you up, no. That was done using an energy field generated by one of our machines.”
I sit up.
“Go on, then. Tell me.”
“Nothing personal, I assure you. We just prefer your kind. The population of what you call Earth has a usefully delusional approach to anything outside the realms of their accepted beliefs, and if anyone does know about us, they’re too busy trying to find ways of exploiting the situation to their advantage. Either way, when we grab a few people, no-one investigates in any effective manner.”
“You prefer us?”
“Yes. Apart from the self-deluding aspects of your minds, you have a trait that is unique: you adapt and survive no matter what. It’s quite incredible to behold. Pick up a few hundred of you from Earth, fix that degenerative inbreeding thing – and slow your aging while we’re in there – then drop the lot of you on some appalling planet and leave you to it. We come back a century or so later and eight times out of ten you’ve sorted the place out enough for us to live there. There’s sometimes a bit of conflict over us moving in, but, like I said, you’re adaptable. Most of you make the switch to serfdom nicely.”
“What about those who don’t?”
It stands up.
“Those who want to serve usually make short work of them.”
“What about the unusual ones?”
The thing shrugs.
“We transplant hundreds of you between galaxies, modifying your bodies with barely any effort during the process. Updating those modifications is simple.”
“You force the uncooperative to comply?”
“No. We bring about their deaths. No resistant strain can be allowed to survive.”
It shrugs like it’s reluctantly acknowledging a point: “Infectious stubborn is the other thing humans do too well.”
We regard each other in our own ways, a metre and a vastness between us.
It nods to me, then rises into the sky.
by Julian Miles | Aug 3, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
A thousand droplets of unseen dread. The sudden transition from person to pariah. You see me wipe my eyes and tear the mask from my face with that same tissue, crumpling the lot and sending them with sure aim into a nearby bin.
Without bothering to look up to see your looks of condemnation, I pull another mask from my pocket, slip it from the wrapper and put it on. That done, I take the two steps to the bin so I can dispose of the wrapper as well.
I look about. You all look away. I turn and exit the store.
I’m a block away by the time the active component in the mask reacts to my saliva. The resulting compound combines with the one soaked into the tissue. The wrapper adds the final ingredient.
Two blocks away: I hear a scream from behind.
Three blocks away: I turn into an alley and use a tissue from a different pocket to remove mask and face. The pile they make is starting to smoke before I’ve taken three steps.
After reversing my jacket, I emerge from the other end of the alley, a cheerful smiley face mask concealing my features while the reflective weave in it ruins any attempt at facial image capture.
The autocar is waiting in the taxi bay, a private hire booked by someone who only exists for the next twelve hours, and answered by an autocar that isn’t on the company’s books.
As it takes me to the train station, I watch the news about an incident downtown. Something about a suspected gas leak at a convenience store. There are unsubstantiated rumours of it being an attack.
They won’t be confirmed before I exit the train with a different jacket and mask, and disappear into the evening of a nearby town riding another autocar that doesn’t exist, booked by a new temporary digital ghost.
Some pandemics actually walk amongst you, taking advantage of what you sacrifice in the name of a freedom you never actually had.
