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.
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.”
