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.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 13, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The Argon cruised through dense fog heading out to sea in weather most trawlers wouldn’t brave. She lined up between the marker buoys and throttled up, downwash from her propulsors kicking up spray from the water thirty meters below her hull.
“Full ahead, light the finder, kill the beacons.” Captain Creavy barked orders to the ready crew, “See that the nav gear is decoupled before we change course.”
The Argon took to sea weekly, bringing in a belly full of fresh fish none of the other locals could match. She was the largest of the fishing vessels by an order of magnitude and never came home empty.
“Captain,” the first mate finished wiping the ship off the Coastal Guardian network, “we’re clear for a new course.”
The Captain studied the maps he had before him, charts he’d bartered for along with this vessel. These maps were from a satellite’s vantage, the likes of which not even the Coastal Guardians could have seen. Creavy loved the advantage barter and off-worlders brought to his livelihood.
“Take us thirty minutes two seventy degrees then prepare to dive.” Creavy leaned on the console, staring with apparent lust at the thick concentrations of fish on the maps before him. They’d been systematically fishing these patches for most of the season while the smaller vessels pulled up empty on all their usual routes.
The vessel grumbled through the sky, lost in the low cloud until they reached their mark and the finders started sounding off the stragglers of the target school.
“Dive Mr. Finch, dive.” At the Captain’s orders the lumbering craft slowed and gave up altitude gradually until the waves beneath began to batter her hull, then she dropped heavily into the water and nosed down to plow beneath the waves. Once completely submerged the pilot adjusted depth until the massive craft was on level with the school advancing before them, then the nose of the Argon was peeled open and she drank deeply, accelerating through the water pulling everything in her path into her belly and filtering mercilessly to jettison nothing but water out the aft hatches. Within minutes the entire school was contained, the nose closed, ballast jettisoned and the Argon was airborne again.
“Mr. Finch, find us a masked trajectory to the upper atmosphere, we’ve a rendezvous to make.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Another thirty minutes passed before the freighter reached the point where the sky kissed space and where waited their buyer, the ship a dark stain against the otherwise star filled sky. Guardian law prohibited off-worlders from fishing the local oceans, but Creavy had had the good fortune of buying the Argon on advance credit with these traders along with his fishing charts in exchange for half his catch delivered to unregulated space. This was a deal far too good not to exploit.
While they docked and their cargo was transferred, Creavy waited, and as the last of the fish was offloaded the communicator crackled to life.
“Captain Creavy, we thank you for once again fulfilling your obligations, and hereby release you from our contract. The Argon is now yours, as are any future proceeds you may recover from your efforts.”
Creavy was first confused, then relieved. He’d gotten the long end of the stick on this for sure and wasn’t about to argue.
“I’d be happy to trade cargo in future for updated nautical charts…” He put the offer out tentatively.
The reply was terse. “That won’t be possible.”
With that the comm-link was broken and the dark craft began accelerating away from the planet.
“Mr. Finch, take us back down, follow a clean path out of sight back to the Loreanaz Trench and let’s load up and go home.
The Argon stayed at sea for three more weeks, trudging from one patch to the next following the old charts, but there were simply no fish to be found. Dangerously low on fuel the Argon lit it’s navigation beacons and reestablished itself on the Guardian’s grid.
Captain Creavy was starting to think perhaps he’d gotten the short end after all.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 5, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Tom fished through the basket of coffee pucks until he found one marked simply ‘Columbian’.
“Got a thing against coffee flavoured coffee do you Sam?” He couldn’t see his friend through the glare of the flood lamps, but he could hear him shuffling around in the shadows. “Sure I can’t make you one?” He lifted the lid on the battered stainless coffee machine, inserted the puck and picked through the assortment of mugs while the heater primed.
“No. I can’t…” Sam’s voice was different, deeper. “don’t want to mess with stimulants just yet.”
Tom laughed, slamming the lid and punching the button to begin brewing.
“When have you ever been one to not take anything?”
With a sharp click one end of the loft space became bathed in the cold glow of hanging sodium lights. Sam stood beneath the harsh glare and dropped the switch box to let it swing by its wire from the ceiling.
Tom forgot all about his coffee.
“Since I got here, Tom, this is what I wanted to show you.”
Tom’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly as he moved away from the makeshift kitchenette in the middle of the room to the open space where his friend now stood.
“Christ Sam, what the hell did you do?”
Sam stood, clad only in surfer shorts, his skin glistening chameleochrome over rippling chorded muscle. He’d become a caricature of the man Tom had known before. His hair was gone, his feet larger and more solid than Tom remembered from all the summers they’d barefooted at his uncle’s cottage. His hands, too, seemed larger, the fingers elongated and sinewy.
“I’ve changed, Tom. I’ve taken everything I’ve studied, everything I’ve worked with in genetics, biomech, nano-tech and kinetic design and applied it to building a better me.” He smiled at this, revealing powerful looking teeth punctuated by gleaming fangs, wickedly curved and cat-like.
“Watch.”
Sam crouched, flattening himself almost to the floor, his legs coiled beneath him like springs and then erupted towards the ceiling, crossing the distance in a blink to hang, one handed from the steel structure twenty meters above his head. Noiselessly he swung his feet up and braced himself between two rows of girders, then spider crawled at alarming speed across the ceiling to the darkness at the far end of the room. Tom watched awestruck as Sam dropped to the floor and literally bounded across the space, covering ten meters in each step, clearing the entire kitchen counter and snatching up the forgotten mug of coffee, sealing the lid with one massive hand to cartwheel over Tom’s head and land mere inches in front of him.
“Your coffee Tom?” Sam grinned, barely breathing and not having broken a sweat, or spilled a drop.
“Holy shit Sam,” Tom took the mug and gaped. “Holy shit.”
“It’s been quite a ride, I made some mistakes earlier on, but nothing uncorrectable. I think I’ve got this pretty much figured out, now I just need to decide what to do next.”
“Next? Sam, you’re like…” he paused, his eyes wide and hand waving, “like freaking Superman.”
“Yes, I suppose I am in a way,” Sam crossed his arms, then stroked his chin, “but Superman was a good guy, wasn’t he?”
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 16, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Doctor Spake slipped the needle into the fatty flesh of the rat and depressed the plunger, then withdrew and watched.
“This rat is almost three years old,” the Doctor addressed the Senator standing opposite him, “virtually at the end of its lifespan as you can see by its appearance.
The Senator regarded the withered rat with distaste. The benefits of this science appealed to him, but the specifics and the dirty work was for others; he had no interest and little patience.
In the cage, the rat began to become noticeably more agitated, its sparse and flat fur visibly thickening, taking on a healthy looking sheen.
This the Senator took interest in.
“What’s happening to the rat? It looks like it’s getting…”
“Younger.” Spake cut him off. “The injected nano-tech has reverted the rat to roughly a third of its expired life.”
Senator Thrush looked back and forth between Spake and the rat, which was now feeding aggressively.
“You’re sure about this? Sure that this will work? I know what you said, but this…” Thrush regarded the Doctor as though seeing him for the first time. “Why haven’t you used this on yourself? You still look to be…” he paused, “sixty?”
“Eighty two, actually. Thank you. I installed an earlier version of the nano myself before I’d perfected the regression capabilities, and I’m afraid my installed version is incompatible with this one. It does have its benefits, for example I’m better at developing connections, if you know what I mean.” Spake smiled, a practiced, reassuring smile.
It took forty five more minutes to convince the Senator, and by morning Thrush left feeling and looking like a man half his age.
Months later Senator Thrush had achieved all but the most lofty of his personal goals, taking his party’s nomination from the incumbent in a landslide, his sights set firmly on The White House.
As he sat in his office late one evening, a warm summer breeze stirring the leaves of the tree outside, a fifteen year old bottle of Macallan disappearing one glass at a time, he found himself thinking of the Doctor. There had been messages that he’d been too busy to return, and he wondered if he should contract someone to keep an eye on the good Doctor, lest he forget his place.
Thrush suddenly felt ill, the room swimming around him. He pushed his glass away on the desk, trying without success to steady himself against the dark heavy expanse of mahogany.
“Senator Thrush. You’ve been negligent in fulfilling your end of our agreement.”
Thrush vomited on his desk, the voice coming from everywhere and nowhere, his head pounding.
“I told you my nano advantage was dependent on connections? Do you remember that Senator?”
Blood dripped from Thrush’s sinus, spattering on the desk.
“Specifically those connections are what you may know as quantum entanglements. They tie two distinct and different things together, like atoms, at a quantum level.”
Thrush felt his legs go numb, heavy and no longer under his control. Pins and needles itching his fingertips, crawling up his arms to his shoulders.
“While the good Doctor will have died of an apparent heart failure this evening in his lab, it wouldn’t be fair for a politician to never grow old, to benefit from the Doctor’s life work without having ever contributed anything himself. Would it?”
Thrush blinked, for a moment he could swear there were steel benches surrounding him, cool white tile against his cheek. Then blackness overtook him.
Spake flexed his limbs, massaging the numbness from his forearms and fingers.
Then he sat, removed a tissue from a box on the desktop and wiped absently at the blood on his upper lip.
“Senator ‘Spake’ Thrush, PhD.” The Doctor formed the words with his new mouth. As he poured himself another glass of Scotch he added “I rather like the sound of that.”
