by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Tensevn broke cover on the fourth floor landing and sprinted flat out across the entire expanse of the building, hurdling the refuse of a hundred years of vacancy to take refuge in the fire escape on the South side. Beneath and behind him he could feel and hear his pursuer’s weapon reach through the concrete floor slabs, reducing the iron rebar inside to molten liquid and vapour.
“Quit running puppet, you’re only wasting my time.” The voice amplified, modulated, designed to strike fear into the enemy. It just pissed T off.
The fire escape still tenaciously gripped the exterior of the building. T wasn’t sure he’d reach the fifth floor before it too was dripping down to the broken asphalt below.
He found a fist sized chunk of rubble, tossed it far into the middle of the room then took the stairs three at a time to the next floor just as the trooper below realized the distraction and brought his cannon to bear on the space he’d just vacated. The metal sublimated in a hot mist, leaving T panting in an open doorway with reentry his only option.
“You’re fast, little puppet, unnaturally fast. It’s a shame I have to eliminate you, it would be interesting to take you apart and learn how you tick.”
T scanned the gloom of the floor in front of him, the middle littered with furniture and old filing cabinets, vacant desks lining the outside walls where windows, once filled with glass and sunshine were now just so many gaping wounds in the old corporate facade.
Taking a deep breath, he started a slow jog around the perimeter. Beneath him, the trooper’s weapon whined to life and started tracing his path just a few steps behind him. He could feel the energy, even through two floors and so many meters of concrete, the effect was painful. His heart fluttered, his breathing laboured as the weapon made it harder for his blood to move oxygen from his lungs. He sped up, trying to keep just ahead of the beam as he ran a complete lap of the floor, surveying the East and West fire escapes as he passed them, then half way around again to the same Northside stairwell he’d vacated on the floor below.
Here he waited and listened to the shuffle of heavy feet from the ground floor. His pursuer wasn’t following, just holding court in the atrium space turning slow circles, listening for any sign of his prey.
The building creaked and moaned, the stench of vapourized iron filling his nostrils.
“Why won’t you die, fucker? Why will you not die?” The voice was strained, T could hear the frustration even through the modulation. It made him smile.
He broke cover again and ran another lap, this time in the opposite direction. Again the rising whine, louder this time. The hunter turning up the output, no longer playing games. Behind him hot rivulets of orange metal burst steaming from the ceiling, above him sharp cracks as the superheated rebar shattered the concrete structure. T accelerated, then jumped through the opening onto the East side fire escape as the entire floor above sheared along the fault lines he’d tricked the trooper into tracing as he ran, the weapon weakening the structure until it could no longer hold its own weight. The sixth floor pancaked onto the fifth, tearing it free, then together they picked up the fourth floor, accelerating through the atrium space to crush the unprepared hunter into the basement below.
“Naturally fast, asshole. Naturally smart too. Comes from being a meat brain you metal headed fuck.”
Tensevn clung panting to the battered fire escape until the wind had cleared the dust and he could see the ground. He couldn’t afford to slip here, a fall would hurt like hell.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile.
“Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.”
Across the table, The Tsak-Tulian Envoy huffed in and out several times, expelling great gusts of pungent air as he did so. Those directly across from him shifted uncomfortably in their seats until he spoke.
“Ambassador, you speak of high costs, and yet you pay nothing for our goods and they command high prices amongst your buyers. You would appear to be taking…”, the envoy paused, waiting for the correct word to bubble up through his consciousness, “advantage of what you assume to be our ignorance.”
Shaylin raised his hands and eyebrows at the affront.
“Envoy, you insult us. We’ve opened your doors to interstellar trade, brought you cultural knowledge and business from outside your planetary boundaries and you repay us with accusations and insults?”
It was the Envoy’s turn to smile.
“Knowledge? You bring us stories, select fragments of your history, tales of your heroism in the stars, of your benevolence and grace. You feed us your stories of Matthew, John and Luke and yet your knowledge is so clearly…”, again he paused, waiting for the correct word to present itself.
“Fascinating?” Shaylin offered.
“Sanitary.” Tsak-tuk finished the thought. “Your history as you present it hides the contributions of your Napoleons, Sun Tzus and Ghengis Khans.”
Ambassador Shaylin sat straight up in his chair, listening intently to his earpiece for some explanation of this information breach and receiving only static.
Tsak-Tuk laughed, a low rolling belly laugh that Shaylin felt rumble through his ribcage.
“You wonder how we know things you don’t show us? We have those among us for whom barriers and safeguards are of no consequence, you have your… John Drapers, we have ours.” He raised one worn appendage, noting how pitted and cracked the dermal plates were. Too long at work. “We have learned a great many things from you, about your ruthless subjugation of the weak, your wars, your failed societal systems, we’ve learned of your politics and insatiable lust for power.” He looked pointedly from delegate to delegate, weighing their discomfort. “Why don’t you provide us with your ships, and we’ll take our goods to the stars ourselves and broker our own deals?”
A melodic tone began sounding from outside, Shaylin recognizing it as the midday chiming of the towers in the city square.
Tsak-Tuk narrowed his eyes. “You come to us promising opportunity, your assistance and equal prosperity and yet you take advantage of us and seem intent on keeping us powerless. The time has come to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.”
The Ambassador moved forward in his seat, reddening in the face.
“How dare you…”, he started as Tsak-Tuk cut him off.
Shaylin, focused too on the envoys cracked and pitted appendage still held aloft suddenly realized the other held a short but impressive looking handgun.
“Today’s chiming unites all of our people against all of yours.” Around them, weapons appeared, amply covering the off-world delegation.”I believe it was your Mao Tse-Tung who said ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’?”
Shaylin shrunk back into his seat in a pool of his own sweat.
“He wasn’t ours, exactly.” Was all he could think to say.
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 21, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Eliot hunched his shoulders against the wind, the relentless sand picking at the seals of his gloves and headgear trying to find a way inside. He watched the glow of the sun disappear beyond the horizon, his waking period now fully begun.
It had been weeks since he’d seen another soul, perhaps years. Who kept count of such things anymore anyways?
The last city he’d abandoned to the ravages of this dust bowl planet had been a graveyard, he’d taken what he could carry, what little food and fresh water remained before the decay and vermin forced him back into the desert, back to his search for living humans.
There had to be more, they were so prolific on this rock before the coming, had spread so far, achieved so much. He’d visited countless monuments to the species’ achievement here, each sprawling steel and glass expanse a testament to human drive and ambition, each barren, vacant ghost-town a reminder that the planet doesn’t welcome strangers, doesn’t tolerate intrusion.
Midway through this day’s dark period, upon cresting a dune, Eliot found himself bathed in the glow of a distant settlement, one surrounded on three sides by mountainous ranges and shielded from the wind on the fourth side by the ragged standing wave of sand from which he now surveyed.
A few kilometers to either side and he would have walked right by, never knowing it was here. “How fortuitous,” his muffled voice strange inside the protective shell of his headgear.
It would take hours still to reach the city walls, and Eliot was tired and hungry. He slipped his backpack off his shoulders, careful not to catch a seam on the rigging and tear the fabric. The tiniest of holes in one’s armour out here could spell almost certain death. He dropped the pack to the ground, then sat cross legged with it before him and, unlatching the top, rummaged through the contents. He extracted a can of protein slurry, and another of complex carbs. These he attached to the receptors under the jawline of his helmet, one on either side. There was a rushing sound as the suit flushed the sand from within the joints, then made the connection and opened the seal. He closed his eyes and tolerated the thick fluid as the pressurized canisters forced it down his throat. It was best if one held their breath while eating.
Emptied, he ejected the spent cans and tossed them aside. By morning they would be just so much dust blowing in the wind.
He similarly attached and emptied a canister of fresh water into his suit, mixing it with the distilled sweat and urine of the past few weeks. He’d be resupplied soon, he could afford the luxury of fresh water.
Through a battered range finder he surveyed the walls of the city in the distance. Flood lights cast long shadows of the battlements and gun turrets that dotted the perimeter walls. They hurt his eyes if he looked directly at them. The city must be well stocked with battery stores if they could waste such energy through the night. Solar equipment perhaps, a rarity on a world where the very air worked tirelessly to reduce every exposed surface to grains of sand. Maybe nuclear. That would be a find indeed.
Fed and watered, Eliot shouldered his pack and began the long walk to this remains of civilization.
Inside, he could feel his contagion begin to boil. It knew as well as he that fresh meat awaited.
By the time the sun rose again, he’d have razed this city to the ground as he’d done so many times before.
His planet didn’t welcome strangers, didn’t tolerate intrusion.
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
They met at Darlington’s; exchanged glances, bought each other drinks and before the lights came up and the bar spilled out they were in the back of a taxi heading back to his flat.
He’d never done anything like this; ultraconservative, careful, cautious, but there was something about her he could simply not deny.
They kissed in the back of the cab, his hands rough against the silken skin of her back, her nails no doubt leaving marks on his neck, tearing through his hairline as she pulled his face closer to hers.
In the elevator she was relentless; animal fury and gymnastic fluidity, her body curved and curled around him, rubbing and clutching, grinding and immobilizing him as she explored his mouth with her tongue, his body with her own.
In his bedroom she was insatiable, tearing at his clothes, shedding her own like a second skin to grind against him, bury his body in hers, work him like a stud horse until he could barely breathe, then curl against him like a cat, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours before exploding in a physical force again taking him to a limit of physicality he’d never experienced in his wildest dreams.
When he finally broke, practically begging her to stop, she relented, only to lie languid and brooding beside him, watching his chest heave as he struggled to regain some composure, unsure if he would be allowed to sleep.
When she mounted him next, he found himself unable to move.
She watched him, motionless at first, simply sitting astride him and studying his features as a cat might watch a bird. When she finally stirred, it was to cup his face in her hands and slowly lower her own until their noses touched, her eyes bright and wide, his glassy and unmoving. There was something unsettling about the way she stared into him, but as alert as his mind was, his body was simply too over-exerted to move.
He felt his lips part as her tongue pushed inside, then a sudden feeling of fear as he felt her touch the back of his throat and push on, flooding his sinus and lungs with an unimaginable pressure of flesh.
His eyes widened, and he could tell from the wrinkles around her own that she was smiling, and whatever it was she was doing he was powerless to comprehend or stop it.
The strange sensation continued, and he knew that she was filling his body far more completely than he had only recently filled hers.
There was a sudden flood of thoughts in his head, feelings that were foreign, a presence that was not his own, and as it overtook him he caught his last glimpse of her as she seemed to disappear inside him, following the path her tongue had started. He was no more.
She flexed, pushing outwards inside the new form she had appropriated. It had been a fascinating experience, him sharing the pleasure rituals she was becoming more enamoured with each passing companion. Alternating genders was indeed appearing to be a much more effective means of securing a partner, her first few encounters resisting her before she eventually found those receptive to her charms.
Padding to the bathroom, she regarded herself in the mirror.
“Himself,” his voice different now heard from within.
In the kitchen he found food and drink in the refrigerator and consumed slowly, savouring each bite, each sip, enjoying the new sensations offered by the familiar sampled through this new vessel.
Sated, he returned to the empty bed to sleep away the day and replenish the body’s energy reserves.
He’d need them for the coming night.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 25, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Major retrieved the chewed tennis ball Max had laid at his feet and loaded it back in the meter long, ice-cream scoop of a throwing arm he was using to launch it. Max bowed and jumped, eyeing the ball with keen interest as Major cocked the stick behind one shoulder, and stepping into the throw launched the ball a hundred meters or more down the field.
Max took off, tracking the ball as he raced, legs a blur of motion until he leapt, coordinating perfectly the point at which gravity brought the ball close enough to the earth for him to intercept it, landing gracefully and decelerating in an easy fluid motion. Giving the ball a few idle chews, he loped back to where Major waited.
“Good boy Max,” the dog having dropped the ball again at Major’s feet, he now sat dutifully while Major scratched behind his ears. His tongue lolled, he panted and watched for signals as to what to do next. All of this he’d been designed to do, the scratching didn’t give him actual feelings of joy or pleasure, but he’d been programmed with the appropriate feedback responses so that, if Major hadn’t been the one to build him, the man petting him wouldn’t have known any different.
“Good boy Max,” Major kneeled down and looked the faux Shepherd in the eyes, cradling the big dog’s head in his liver spotted hands as he scratched behind both ears. “Maggie would have loved you to bits. Such a pity she passed before you were ready.” Major stared past Max watching a plane paint fluffy white lines across the sky far off in the distance. “I wish she was still here Max, I miss her, you know?” He brought his attention back to the dog, still panting, still waiting.
Major smiled. Max would never leave him, he’d never run away, never grow old and die. He’d play ball, go for walks and lay at Major’s feet with him forever. He’d built him just so.
The wind began to pick up, and Major pulled his jacket collar up against the cold.
“Come on boy,” he patted his hip as he turned to walk back across the property to the house. If they hurried they could get back before the weather turned and the sun dipped below the horizon. Max dropped obediently in step beside Major, loping easily through the grass as they made their way back to the forest trail.
As they reached the edge of the woods, Major slowed, and Max waited patiently for him, walking ahead and then doubling back to the slower moving older man.
“Not feeling too well I’m afraid Max,” he slurred, his left foot dragging slightly in the dirt of the trail. He reached out for a tree to steady himself, missing by a wide margin and fell in a heap on the ground, a thick layer of pine needles cushioning his fall only slightly.
Max turned and padded back, then lay down to where he could make eye contact with his master.
“Max,” Major wheezed out the words, “Good boy Max. Don’t leave me…”
Max lay still, his tongue lolled, he panted and watched for signals as to what to do next.
