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.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 11, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Stuart lost his footing scrambling over the shattered garden wall and fell, hard. As he struggled to his feet, his head still ringing from the tumble his pursuer caught him up and knocked him back down harder still.
“You frickin bastard,” Stuart spat blood and dust, rolling away from a second blow as the infantryman swung the butt-end of his rifle down, narrowly missing him. Managing to get some traction in the rubble, he sat up as best he could and shuffled backwards, the seat of his pants dragging in the dirt, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase until his shoulders met the outer wall of the car shed, and there he stopped.
The soldier stayed still, its seven plus feet of arms and legs bent at obtuse angles as it crouched low to the ground, watching, waiting.
There was a throaty gargling noise, with a tinny mechanical voice following in broken English a few moments out of sync.
“Show other soldier units.” The tall figure leaned forward, shuffling its feet and free hand to keep balance, still leaning the butt end of its rifle in the dirt. “Show other soldier units to surrender.”
Stuart grinned, teeth red through a split and already swelling lower lip.
“You know, you’re really overestimating your chances here mate.” He watched as the creature cocked its head to one side, waiting no doubt for the translator to approximate Stuart’s language into something it could understand. “You seem wholly unaware of how much we like living on this rock, and we’re not going to just let you waltz in here and take it.”
The soldier advanced, raising its weapon first into a firing position, then above its head to bring it butt-end first down hard between Stuart’s legs: He narrowly avoiding the impact by yanking his knees up just in time. The soldier pulled its arms and weapon out of reach, perilously counterbalanced on its backwards bending knee joints to bring its face so close to Stuart as to make him nearly vomit.
“Prisoner shows soldier units or prisoner terminates.”
Stuart kept talking, noting the slight retreat as the soldier struggled to understand the translated dialogue.
“My great-grandfather fought the Nazis, nasty bunch of blokes as you’d ever want to meet. He fought them so his son, my grandfather could raise a family in a free country.” The creature clicked and gurgled as Stuart spoke, though the noises didn’t translate. “My grandfather fought the Viet Cong, a bunch that made the Nazis look like pussies. He didn’t have a family then, but after, when he raised my dad, and told us grandkids stories, he’d never speak of the war, just remind us never to take what we had for granted. Always respect our freedom. His friends died for it, he’d tell us, and we owed it to them to never forget that.”
The creature shook its large flat head violently from side to side, spit flying as it clacked its heavily toothed jaw open and shut repeatedly, shuffling with apparent agitation.
Stuart pressed his luck.
“My dad used to tell me that freedom and family were the two most important things a man could have, and you think we’re going to give that up without a fight?” Stuart drew up a mouthful of blood and saliva and spat at the looming creature, causing it to jerk back away from him.
“You know what I’m going to tell my son when this is all over?” Stuart pulled his lips back into a bloody smile.
“Prisoner shows soldier son…” The grating translated dialogue was cut short as Stuart Junior, having silently flanked his opponent, unloaded both barrels of his plasma cannon through the side of the enemy’s skull, scattering blood and bone across the back yard.
“I’m going to tell him to be a little quicker with the artillery in future,” he groaned, pulling himself to his feet, “and don’t ever let your enemy monologue, that shit can get you killed.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 7, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The Dean of Admissions flipped once again through the file in front of him. He’d memorized the contents, but hadn’t quite found a starting point. Pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat he regarded it solemnly over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t get on with it he’d miss afternoon tea.
“Mr. Sans,” he began.
“Horatio sir, if you please,” The man on the opposite side of the desk spoke calmly, enunciated perfectly, “call me Horatio.”
“Horatio Sans?” The Dean raised an eyebrow and studied the man’s plain grey suit, simple tie and generally unremarkable appearance. “Hmm, yes, completely without flourish. Of course.”
“Sir?” Horatio put his hands in his pockets, then removed them, straightened his jacket against his side then finally folded his hands together in front of him. He drew his shoulders back until he felt them pop slightly, then relaxed as much as he could, although he still fidgeted from foot to foot.
“Horatio,” the Dean started again with purpose, “there has been an issue brought to my attention with regards to one of your admission tests. The issue, specifically, is that you failed it quite completely.”
Horatio stood stunned, jaw hanging loose for a moment before he took notice and snapped it shut. “Failed? Good heavens, that’s not possible. Was it the English test? To be fair sir, the answers on any test like that one are purely subjective. If I didn’t capture the essence of…”
“No, no, no, not the English test.”
“Certainly not the maths, those are absolutely my strongest subjects. If there’s any question about the maths I’d have to ask that you…”
“No, your math test results were actually quite exemplary.” The Dean flipped through the sheaf of papers on his desk and whistled when he read the math scores again. “Quite exemplary.”
“For the life of me I can’t imagine any of the tests that I could have possibly failed on. I studied thoroughly for all of them; chemistry, physics, biology, I even ran laps and did calisthenics in preparation for the physical.” Horatio was becoming visibly upset, wringing his hands, his eyes imploring. “Please, tell me, what test was it?”
“The Turing test, Mr. Sans, I’m afraid you failed the Turing test.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 31, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Roscoe dimmed the lights in the living room and then powered up his suit. In the floor to ceiling mirror beside the stone fireplace he could admire how truly daunting a warrior he looked. From the heavy platform boots on his feet to the armored headgear, from the pipe lighting that traced each limb to the bandoliers criss-crossing his chest packed full of dangerous looking glowing ammo in a variety of colours and special purpose tips. He stood sideways to the mirror and, turning at the hip to face his reflection raised both eight barrel chain guns to the firing position.
“Kick ass mother,” he grinned around the cigar butt clenched between his eye teeth.
Through the bay window a streak of light cut the sky, followed by a ground shaking impact somewhere between the farmhouse and the corn fields.
“Fecking kids,” he swore out loud before storming off through the back door and out under the evening moonlight.
He’d crossed nearly half the distance to the fields when two short figures in dark jumpsuits appeared out of the shadows, their heads encased in tall conical reflective helmets.
Instinctively, he raised both weapons. It was likely similarly instinctive that the figures abruptly halted their advance.
“You’ve no business on my land, ” his voice was raised as he assumed the helmets would impair their hearing somewhat. “Get back in your vehicle and mosey the hell on out of here.” He peeled his lip back in a lopsided snarl. “Now,” he added for effect.
The two figures turned to face one another, the reflective surfaces of their visors rippling and changing colours rapidly for several minutes before they turned back to face Roscoe.
“We are come to be your land master.” The sound was tinny and artificial, and he wasn’t quite sure which of them it originated from, but Roscoe was having none of it.
“You can go and stuff peppers, now get the hell off my property.” Roscoe drew himself up to his full height, appreciative of the extra few inches his boots added. “Git. Skedaddle.”
The figures turned again to one another, but Roscoe was starting to lose his cool. He stepped forward and jammed the barrel of a weapon against the side of each of the small figure’s heads.
“You gotta ask yourselves, do you feel lucky?” He put on his best Eastwood, but something about this situation was starting to make him uncomfortable.
The figures froze, their features shimmering uncertainly. Roscoe pushed once, sharply.
The two figures slipped silently sideways, their shapes darting and blending with the landscape under the moonlight such that Roscoe had to look away in order to actually see them in his peripheral vision. As they reached the edge of the corn field, a fox burst out from between the rows of six foot tall stalks. There was a burst of light from one of the figures, and the fox was instantly spattered across the crops. The figures didn’t break stride, and no sooner had they disappeared from sight than a blast of light erupted from the ground towards the star filled sky with a rumble every bit as powerful as that which had brought Roscoe from the safety of his living room in the first place.
Roscoe felt an uncomfortable warmth spreading down one trouser leg as he stood frozen to the spot. Breaking the silence, a chorus of ‘Trick or Treat’ erupted from the side-door of the farmhouse, and a startled Roscoe squeezed both triggers, sending a volley of luminescent Nerf darts off into the darkness. He laughed, a nervous uncertain laugh before turning to head back inside.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 18, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The police bulletins all called him ‘Pretty Boy’, but those that preferred their atoms in the form they were currently coalesced called him ‘Mr. Floyd’, or simply ‘Sir’.
His reputation had followed him from planet to planet, system to system, but out here, out on the rim, the frontier, only the greedy interested themselves with his capture. Perhaps he couldn’t report a crime, but he could order breakfast, have a suit tailored and share a drink without fear.
On this evening he was hidden in the shadows across the street from the gated mansion of Marco Fitzsimmons, the owner of the only bank on this backwater rock. Floyd was looking to make a withdrawal.
At ten thirty, right on schedule, a police cruiser glided past on a skirted cushion of air. Floyd waited until the whine receded into the distance before crossing the street and striding up to the gatehouse.
Two men stood on the far side of the gate, weapons holstered, and one more perched on a high chair in the guardhouse itself, scattergun laid across his lap. None of them spoke, and none spared Floyd a second glance as the gate opened and he walked past them towards the main house.
This scenario repeated several times as guards at the house entrance, in the foyer and again in the hall outside the bank manager’s study stared ahead with disinterest as the criminal passed by them all on his way into the heart of the banker’s inner sanctum.
Fitzsimmons on the other hand had quite a different reaction.
“Pretty Boy, how did you…?” He started, spilling a drink as he stood up quickly behind the deep polished expanse of his desk. “Guards!” He bellowed, regaining some composure.
Floyd pulled an ugly looking blaster from inside his jacket, the barrel short and fat. “Stow it fella, nobody’s coming.” He pushed the study door closed behind him with a heavy clunk.
“What the hell do you want you thug? When the police get here you’ll…”
Floyd cut him off. “The police aren’t coming. They don’t know because nobody called, and if they do happen by your security team will tell them everything’s just fine.”
Fitzsimmons’ mouth opened and closed several times.
“You call me a thug, you who’ve corrupted the lawmakers, the peacekeepers. You who hold the purse strings and use them to bully people from their homes. Do you know how I got in here?” He lowered the gun only slightly, keeping a bead on the banker from his hip.
The banker swallowed hard. “You must have promised them more money than you could possibly have. When you don’t deliver they’ll cut you up and feed you to the livestock.”
Floyd laughed. “No, actually I walked in here without offering anyone a single credit. Last week you foreclosed a number of mortgages to make way for new construction. Those homes belonged to the aunts and uncles of the men you underpay to keep you safe.”
The banker paled. “I’ll move them, give them new homes.”
“It’s a little late for that. They’ve got no use for you. I on the other hand,” he paused, “I think you may be partially useful.”
Fitzsimmons straightened, sensing an opportunity to save himself. “What can I do?”
Floyd sang a quiet verse, “Through all the worlds you travel, through all the worlds you roam, you’ll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home.”
With that he raised his weapon. The banker managed to get one hand in front of his face before the beam tore through his midsection, atomizing him from the neck to the waist and sending his head and raised arm flying to the wall behind him, before they came to rest in a smoking pile of cauterized flesh on the floor.
Floyd recovered them both, laying the hand on the palm scanner and holding the head, eyes wide and staring up to the retinal scanner.
“These are the parts I’ll find useful,” he chuckled as the system unlocked the accounts management console and he began to make amends.
