by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 16, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Branson felt the rhythmic thrumming of the helio-copters long before he saw them, and instinctively he curled into a ball, pulling his hood over his head and pulling his hands up into his sleeves. There would be no heat trace when the copters passed by; no exposed flesh, and he wouldn’t breath for the minute or so they were overhead.
Behind him, tucked safely under the rocky overhang was the flyer he’d arrived in just a few hours ago, a polymer air-car stripped clean of everything non-essential, kitted out with a military grade chiller to keep the surface temperature equal to the ground below, and a powerful anti-mag drive that pushed against the iron rich crust of the planet to stay aloft and propel itself in any directly quickly and quietly. Trackless, traceless, for all intents non-existent.
That’s what the helio-copters were searching for now.
He closed his eyes and could hear as though he were back in those combat airframes the chatter of the gunners, amped up vision picking up the urine traces of the indigenous wildlife, the neon lines tracing days of animal traffic patterns across the sparse landscape. When they were fighting for this moss covered rocky shithole of a planet they would find their quarry by spotting the splatter patterns of the animals killed for food, work out how close and how many by the colour of the drying blood on the rocks. Now the gunners looked for other patterns on the ground, had other orders, other targets.
There was barely any disturbance on the ground as two aircraft crested the hill over the valley Branson crouched in, and he held his breath, willing his heartbeat to slow to almost a complete stop, and he waited.
There was a gentle tug at his sleeve as something left the ground and added its weight to the inside of the fabric. He felt crusty legs slowly pull a soft hairy body up between the back of his hand and the sleeve lining.
Stil he waited.
The copters slowly cruised the length of the valley, and Branson could smell the thick sweet smoke of the Granjee leaf that at least one of the gunners was smoking. He smiled despite himself. The narcotic effects of the plant had been the native’s best defense against the military intruders. The soldiers they were trying to kill, and that were trying to kill them became their best reluctant customers, many dying from overdoses, or being cut to ribbons as entire patrols ventured off on missions of bravado with all their senses torqued out of their control.
Branson learned an awful lot from the natives of this world.
As the copters cleared the ridge at the far end of the valley and dropped below the horizon, Branson allowed himself slow, easy breaths. When he could no longer sense the blades disrupting the air, he slowly peeled back the sleeve of his jacket, exposing the rock spider that had perched there for safety. Keeping that hand perfectly still, he slipped his k-bar from his thigh and gently slipped the blade between the spider and his skin, letting the creature readjust itself to the new perch before relocating it to a nearby plant. It would eat any smaller insect that might endanger his crop, and so as long as it didn’t bite him, they would remain friends. Survivors alike, adaptable.
Standing he checked again the woven camouflage netting he’d just repaired before he was disturbed. A razor beak, or maybe a tear wing had undoubtedly tried to land on it, leaving a large gash which he’d sown and repatched with moss and scrub.
Branson locked his hands behind his back and pulled against the stiffness of his shoulders until his spine cracked several satisfying times. Ahead of him stretched a deliberately stochastic pattern of Granjee plants, their long blue leaves curling in tight spirals around their trunks, reaching skyward toward the suns. The military trained him for combat, combat trained him for retirement.
Branson had learned an awful lot from the natives of this world.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Shadow coloured stones crush and scatter under boot heels. Their passage unheard, two figures have slipped silently across the rooftop expanse to its eastern face. Lumbering mechanicals presenting themselves at intervals, drinking heat from the spaces below to exhale in great humid sighs. These are the only sounds to disturb the pre morning air. There are no bird songs, no passing vehicles, no murmuring undercurrent of peripheral lives. It will be hours before the first ships climb to the stars.
This is the silence before the break of day.
Two figures sit, silent, legs dangling into space from the parapet, the last of the previous night’s beer in hand, each absently slaking the thirst neither of them feels anymore.
It’s not the night’s antics that make this moment memorable, indeed those memories are lost now. Not even the rise of the sun itself, though I’m sure as always it was worth the wait. The rising of this particular sun on this particular day was merely an ending, it had no significance beyond that.
The memory, rather, is of two accidental friends sharing the last moment they’d know together, in silence, waiting for the sun to rise and give them permission to leave one another, to leave home.
It is these few moments, this shared time of solitude so exquisitely inscribed upon which I now reflect. A time remarkable in its clarity, plucked from a sea of murky memories, of happenings that have long since faded from view. Brought forth by the thought of a sunrise I can’t remember watching, and will never see again.
by Stephen R. Smith | May 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Sergeant Gains got the call at four am; lone white male out on the Golden Gate Bridge about mid-span. He spent the twenty minutes on the Harley with the throttle pinned, the lights up and the siren silent wondering what he’d find when he got there and hoping he wouldn’t be too late.
The man was still pacing when Gains rolled up, but as Gains powered down the bike, killed the lights and slung his helmet on the handlebars, the man climbed out onto the cord. They regarded each other with mutual apparent uncertainty as the officer closed the gap between them on foot.
Gains stopped a few metres away and hitched his thumbs into his belt.
“Be careful, it gets slick out there this time of night.”
The man, still wearing the previous day’s office attire, collar undone, tie pulled aside, squatted and looked around before speaking.
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t waste your time. I’ll be gone in a minute.”
The Sergeant scrambled to remember his training, to remember the dozen or more men and women he’d been called down here before to talk out of ending their life. He always felt unprepared, like each was the first time.
“If you wanted to jump, you would be gone already, I think you really just want someone to listen to what you’re feeling.” Gains moved slowly to the edge and looked over the side into the darkness below. “What’s your name son?”
“David,” their eyes met for a minute before the young man looked away, “David Parker.”
“Well David, what brings you down here tonight?”
David sat for a minute before looking up, catching and holding Gains’ gaze.
“You have no idea what it’s like to never fit in. To be smart, but treated like a freak, to be funny but treated like a joke. To only be able to make friends with the other freakish jokes that are just like you, and to know everyone is talking about you behind your back all the time.” He spoke in a steady tone, barely pausing for breath. “I meet girls who like me until someone tells them about me, and then they stop returning my calls. Do you know what it’s like to know you’re always going to be alone? Truly, completely alone? Even in a world packed so tight with people that you can’t even breathe, to know you’ll always be alone?”
Gains started to move forward but paused as David tensed up.
“I know what it’s like being on the outside looking in. You don’t do what I do as long as I’ve done it without becoming a little detached from everyone around you,” he read David’s expression and changed his tone, “but no, I don’t know what you’re feeling exactly. But there are people that are going to miss you if you go.”
David looked at the dim steel of the chord for a while before answering.
“No. Nobody will. Sorry you wasted a trip.”
With that he leaned sideways and was gone.
The second David did, he knew he’d made a mistake. He thought of Becky Six in statistics, of her sad eyes each time he declined her invitation to join their group for lunch. He thought of the last glimpse of resigned horror on the policeman’s face, a horror he knew would wake the man up for countless nights in a cold sweat.
By the time his back and shoulders impacted the water a few seconds later, his body was travelling at nearly one hundred kilometers an hour. The water brought him to a very sudden, very painful stop, shattering his spine and ribs, puncturing organs and caving in the back of his skull. His arms and legs cut a graceful arc away from his body, snapping as they too impacted the water’s surface.
He realized he could no longer blink or close his eyes.
Secondary systems powered up to try and maintain his consciousness and preserve his memory for a rescue he knew would never come. Pain recepters amped up and closed down spasmodically, sending shockwaves of pain through him. Sea water slowly seeped into his control systems, shorting out and shutting down his fine motor controls so even the feeble twitching of his shattered limbs stopped. He slipped beneath the surface and the lighting bolts of pain dulled into a steady ache.
He watched the moon until the depth took even that ray of hope away.
It would be hours before his batteries would flood out completely and grant him final peace, his pain transferred to those who loved him.
by Stephen R. Smith | May 5, 2014 | Story |
The first inkling I had that something was up was when Dinah’s was out of bumble-berry pie. It don’t seem like much, but nobody in Clyville eats bumble-berry pie but me, and there’s always a pie made when I come in after work.
Dinah said I’d eaten the entire thing that afternoon with a half dozen cups of coffee. Thing is, I was stacking pallets at the warehouse until seven pm without a break, so I know it weren’t me what ate the pie.
I had to settle for cherry. It was ok, I guess.
On Tuesday I went to pickup my truck from Lou’s. He’d put a new water pump in it, and said it would be ready anytime after lunch. I got there at three, and Lou says “How’s she running?” I’m a little confused, and I ask him “You tell me, is she ready to go?”
Lou just stands there, slack jawed and says “You picked it up two hours ago, aren’t you back to pay for that pump?”
Somebody picked up my truck, stole it, and had the balls to leave me to pay the bill. Lou was beside himself. He figured I was pulling his leg at first, and he got mad for a bit and then just got all quiet. I paid him. Wasn’t his fault, and he did fix the truck like he said he would.
Now I’ve got no pie, and no truck. The week’s not looking good at all.
On Thursday, I show up for work only to be sent home. I’d apparently worked eight hours on the night shift, and they’ve got safety rules that say I’ve got to sleep for eight hours before I can work again. I’m not sure what the hell’s going on by now, but at least the bastard that stole my truck’s starting to pull his own weight.
On Saturday, I wake up to the cold blade of an axe against my throat. Blinking against the morning light, there’s something familiar about the silhouette at the other end of the handle.
“You’ve got a nice life here in Clyville,” the voice rings a bell, “too bad you can’t stay and enjoy it.”
He couldn’t kill me, I understand that now. After all, he’s me.
No matter, I’ve put that behind me and I’ll stay here in Strewson for as long as I can. I expect he’ll get bored and come find me again. When he does, I’ll move on, but until then, can you cut me another slice of that bumble-berry pie? And top up my coffee? It really is delicious.
by Stephen R. Smith | May 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Tomas entered the sushi bar ten minutes before noon, ten minutes before his assignment would arrive. The restaurant was busy, not packed, and there were a few vacant tables along one side. His assignment would take the one closest to the kitchen, as he always did. Tomas left his jacket on the chair back of his own table, where the maitre’d had left him with a disinterested wave, and walked back towards the kitchen, pausing only long enough to lay a new QR code sticker over the one on his assignment’s table before continuing on into the bathroom.
He rinsed his hands, waited a few minutes and then returned to his seat to wait.
At noon his assignment walked through the door, an imposing man in an electric blue suit, double chins cleanly shaven, hair perfect.
The maitre’d showed much more interest in this man, and ushered him excitedly to his usual seat.
The man produced his phone and scanned the QR code on the table to begin his order.
Tomas heard an annoyed grunt. The menu app that would normally have launched immediately was now asking him to download an upgrade. Hungry and annoyed, he typed his passcode with fat well manicured fingers to remove this obstacle to his gluttony.
Moments later Blue Suit was ordering, and before long food was arriving. Tomas sat with his back to the man, listening to him wolf down plate after plate of sushi, sashimi and all sorts of dim sum. The sound made him nauseous, and any interest he had in eating faded quickly away, his own meal now abandoned before him.
At twenty minutes past the hour he heard the phone ring behind him, and for the next hour and forty minutes between gulps of green tea and around mouthfuls of raw fish, Blue Suit talked to nearly every politician in the city, most of the construction union leaders and several members of the local organized crime rings.
While they talked, Tomas’ modified menu app whispered from a list of NSA hot codes into the line, burying phrases under the conversations, painting targets under the noses of a very specifically targeted group of men.
Shortly after two Tomas had checked off all the names on his mental list from the conversations he had overheard. He left several bills on the table to cover his food and an allow for an unremarkable tip, and then slipped quietly out of the restaurant without a backwards glance.
On his way to the subway Tomas made one call.
“It’s done,” there would be no response he knew, “they’re all as good as dead.”
