by Stephen R. Smith | May 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Vibrablade.”
Across the table, gowned and goggled the ranking surgeon held a hand out expectantly.
“Vibrablade,” she raised her voice, “either assist or get the hell out of my O.R.”
The corporal had grown accustomed to being yelled at, but not by a woman, and under the circumstances he…
“Corporal. Is my operating room not Feng Shui enough for you? Or is this ‘pretend we don’t understand English’ day? Or are you just stupid?” The major’s voice imposed absolute silence on the room. “I’ll ask you one more time, and then I’m going to see to it that you don’t operate on anything warmer than a toilet for the duration of your tour. Pass me a fucking vibrablade.”
Despite all intentions to the contrary, he found himself picking up the cutting instrument and, trembling slightly, placed it in her hand.
“You will hand me what I ask for, when I ask. And with confidence,” she added, “I have no patience for tentative. Clear?”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” he stammered, eyes flitting back and forth between her fierce glare and the jet black and fractured carapace that lay partially draped in sterile fabric on the table between them, “it’s just that, this is one of them, and I thought…”
“That’s Major ma’am to you, and you thought what? Maybe I didn’t notice that this is the enemy?” She let the question hang in the air as she drew the cutter down the hard backplate of the broken soldier before her, deftly cutting away the chitin armor plating and passing pieces to her left where another assistant reassembled them on a table. The slick grey inner membrane exposed, she held up the stilled cutter and spoke again. “What is your name, Corporal? Never mind, you’re Useless. Pass me a ten blade, Useless, and answer my question. Do you think that I didn’t notice that my patient wasn’t a six foot tall, fair haired and tanned biped? Do you think I missed all this black armor shell and these sharp as fuck protrusions?”
“But they’re trying to kill us, why would you…?”
“They blow us up, we’ve got surgeons to put our boys and girls back together. We blow them up, and for the lucky bastards that don’t blow up completely enough, you and I get to put them back together and send them back home.”
“But…”, he tried again.
“Ten blade, Useless.” She barked. He started and traded instruments with her. “We patch them up because we can, because we’re trained to, we try to save lives. We’re human, it’s what we do.” Feeling along the semi translucent flesh of the soldier’s back, she located the twin spinal columns and deftly sliced a line between them, exposing a shredded mess of blood vessels torn apart by shrapnel still lodged in the bones.
“I’ve been a soldier since I was seventeen, and I’ve been here almost ever since, fighting a war for a people I don’t know, over a rock that’s not even my home. I can’t tell which of these shiny black crab cakes are the oppressed, and which are the insurgents trying to punch my clock.” As she spoke, she accepted a set of forceps and began tugging metal fragments out of the cavity and tossing them into a waiting catch-basin. “This fucker tried to blow himself up in street full of friendlies, and here we are saving his life. What a shock it’s going to be when he wakes back up at home knowing that the people he tried to kill saved his life. Maybe he won’t get it, but some of them will, and some of the families that get their sons and daughters back alive will start to second guess the lunatics that are driving their bus, and maybe that shuts this thing down early, and then maybe I get to go home.”
The corporal stared, silent for a long time before mustering the courage to speak. “How do you sleep?”
The Major stopped, resting both hands on the gaping wound, and stared him straight in the eye.
“How do I sleep? Like everyone else, with one eye open hoping to god I don’t wake up with a bang.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Listen, Useless, I’ve been at war more than half my life, this is the only way I get to fight.” She reached back into the wound, and added, “I sleep just fine.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 15, 2011 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Janie loved the restaurant from the minute she walked in; dark wood panelling, slate floors, high ceilings broken up by a latticework of heavy wooden beams.
“You see, we’ve put your investment to good use Janie my darling.” Markus slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her close enough to brush his lips against her neck and whisper in her ear, “Come, see what it’s like at center stage.”
She followed him down between the rows of leather seating, semicircular boothes arranged amphitheater style, radiating outwards and upwards from the cooking floor to form a shallow bowl.
The lighting overhead traced a path through the aisles as they walked, lighting just ahead of them and dimming as they passed, anticipating, it seemed, where they were heading.
Reaching the expansive circular kitchen area, a portion of the stainless counter and fascia retracted, allowing them to step through before closing silently behind them.
“It’s entirely automatic,” Markus explained, “the system predicts what’s about to happen and provides all the right ingredients, just in time. Faster, more efficient, allows the artist to spend the time creating art without wasting a moment preparing or cleaning up.”
“It’s beautiful, I know I complained about all the money you spent, and I’m sorry, truly, this is far more than I imagined.” Setting her purse down on the counter, she ran her fingers over the seamless matte metal finish. In an eye-blink, an articulated arm snaked out from beneath the counter and the purse disappeared, leaving the counter pristine again.
“There’s more,” Marcus appeared with a pair of bulbous glasses filled with red wine and offered one to her. As she sipped, he continued. “The kitchen discusses the food plan in advance with the artist, places orders for the food, unpacks and prepares, it even cleans up. The artist simply puts on a show inside this room and then takes his or her leave, the kitchen does all the dirty work.” He walked around the galley area as he spoke, circling a massive wood filled, gas fired cooking grill at its center that reached almost ten feet across. “Everything gets cooked on here, mostly for dramatic effect. All the food waste gets collected from the cutting surfaces and channelled to it. Everything’s shredded, baked dry then blown into the fire-pit as fuel. No waste, energy efficient, and stunning to watch.”
Stopping across from where Janie was leaning against the counter, Marcus set down his glass and unbuttoned his shirt. Janie smiled coyly, “Are you sure there’s no-one else here?”
He slipped off his shirt, carefully folded it and set it on the counter. Behind them both, the glass panels separating them from the seating area began to opaque.
“Doesn’t matter if there is, it’s been determined that we’d like privacy, and it’s being taken care of for us.” As he spoke, he slipped off his undershirt, then his shoes. Janie giggled as his pants and boxers joined the rest of his clothes in a neatly folded pile on the counter, on top of which he placed his shoes, carefully stuffing a sock in each one. No sooner had he finished then the pile was swiftly whisked away through a cupboard door in the counter.
Janie straightened up, set down her glass, and turned her back to him, holding her hair up off her neck.
“Unzip me.”
Behind her, the giant cooking furnace roared to life, flames licking hungrily up through the grill. The windows surrounding them turned completely black, and overhead a gentle mist began to emanate from the sprinkler system.
Janie certainly had never done anything like this, but, more than little giddy from the wine, she was liking it already.
“I think the kitchen computer might have some bugs Marcus, I hope there’s enough money left to get them sorted.”
Marcus closed the distance between them. “No, not a bug dear, she’s just getting a little ahead of me, that’s all.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 21, 2011 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The conversation had started in the lab, but while I could work there, I never was at home with my thoughts in that space. I suppose that’s how we came to be in the study. I took a scotch, neat. He declined.
“You can’t honestly be considering turning me off,” he stood across the fireplace hearth from me, fingers dug into the leather back of the chair he’d positioned between us, “you self centered son of a bitch, even you can’t kill yourself for your own edification, the paradox would drive you mad.”
He had a point, and I think that were I in his shoes, I’d have used almost exactly those words.
“I can’t leave you running around loose now can I? At some point someone’s going to start asking questions, and if this can of worms gets opened up out of doors…” I trailed off, leaving the thought hanging. He knew where I was heading with it.
“Listen to me,” his voice dropped to a whisper, every syllable enunciated with hammer stricken clarity, “you can’t kill me. I am you. Killing me would be suicide, and you and I both know you are not capable of such a thing.” He paused. “I know what you’re thinking, because every thought that goes through your head goes through my mine too. I know what you’re worried about, the potential danger, because I am you, or at least you up to that point a few hours ago when you instantiated me.”
“Then you also know that there can’t be two of us, and as the original flesh and blood, I have no recourse but to shut you down until I figure out what to do. Honestly, I didn’t really think this would even work.”
“Bullshit. You knew it would work, I know you did. You just didn’t think past that moment, did you?” He began to pace the room. “The problem with that line of reasoning is that there’s not two of you, there’s one of me and one of you, and you could no more kill me than I could kill you.” He stopped at this, and turned again to face me.
I felt the anxiety bubble up inside me. “We’re the same, you’re an exact carbon copy of me, and we can’t both exist…”
“Again, bullshit!”, he cut me off, “I was a copy of you, but the moment we were two our thought patterns diverged. Case in point; you’re not scared that I’ll turn you off now, are you? I’m bloody terrified of it. I know that deep down you don’t think the metal me is nearly as human as the flesh and blood you. But it’s that difference that makes us unique, and killing me would be murder. Neither of us has that in him.”
He was right. Damnit, I was right. My head started to hurt.
“In two days time, Penelope will be back, and if she finds you here, finds us like this, she’ll tell someone. I love her, but that woman couldn’t keep her mouth shut if she were under ten feet of water.”
“In two days time, I won’t be here. I’ll disappear. Look, I know we can’t both be here right now. But I’m in no hurry to be. I’ll go, find somewhere out of the way to wait out the rest of your life. I’ll find an orphanage maybe, take a birth certificate from a stillborn and by the time you’re near death, I’ll be of legal age to inherit and then some. I’ll find you, you promise you’ll will your estate to me, and I’ll stay away until it’s time.”
I listened to what he was suggesting, but didn’t really have to. I’d been thinking the same thoughts myself, more or less.
“You’ll need money to get you started. And my passport. We can fashion you a more convincing face before you go.”
We stood staring at each other for a long time then, each alone with our own thoughts.
“We bloody well did it, didn’t we?” I broke the silence, barely holding back a grin.
“Of course we bloody did.” He put on his best approximation of a smile.
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 8, 2011 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Robert rifled through the stack of sketched notes and diagrams, some he vaguely remembered making, some he’d simply found under his tired and aching head upon waking; pen clenched in cramped fingers, the writing forgotten yet clearly in his own hand.
Above the main work surface was pinned a sheet of acetate on which he’d rendered half a woman’s face, hair curling down past her shoulders, eyes clear and bright. Beside the partial portrait was another coloured drawing, this of a teal blue door set in a white stucco wall on the edge of an ocean.
He had no idea how they were related, or why they had come to be transcribed by him with such clarity. Neither could he explain the gravity the sketches held for him, how they propelled him to channel all of these other images; schematics and blueprints for a device the purpose of which was beyond his comprehension.
It was the beauty in her face that held him captive, compelled him to build it, begging and borrowing what he could, buying or stealing what he could not. He knew it was complete only when he no longer had instructions left to follow, and even then he had no knowledge of its purpose.
Robert picked through the pages one by one, mentally checking off the completeness of each component, pausing only on the last page, a sheet filled with columns of numbers. These he entered via an old keyboard, watching as the green phosphor display above swallowed each set of digits, blinking tirelessly at him in anticipation of the rest.
With the last values keyed in, a low hum began in the coils of tightly wrapped wire he’d lined the inside of his workshop with, each a perfect half of a squashed circle. The noise was barely audible at first, more a feeling than a sound, but it grew slowly until Robert’s teeth vibrated and his right ear drum crackled in protest of the pitch.
At the point where the noise had become almost unbearable, the air in the focal point of the construct began to shimmer, first blurring the room beyond and then thickening and taking on a familiar colour and texture of its own.
“Stucco.” Robert spoke out loud, in his mind’s eye, he could already sense what would follow.
A depression formed in the middle of the wall, the stucco here softening, changing texture and shape and colour until the panelled wood door he’d drawn formed, weathered teal blue with a white porcelain handle.
Before better judgement could stop him, Robert had reached the door, turned the handle and pushed it open.
He was greeted by waves crashing on sun bleached rock. Where the other side of his office should have been, a natural pier extended a short distance, then blue ocean stretched off to the horizon.
She was standing there looking sideways along one shoulder at him, sun dress catching the breeze, its hem dancing around her knees.
“How…”, he started, unsure of so many things now, “are you trapped? Am I here to help you escape?”
She laughed, eyes sparkling. “No, I’m helping you escape silly, I’ve been waiting for you.”
Robert stepped through the door, blinking against the sunlight. The smell of salt flavoured the air before him, behind him the air filled with the stench of burning metal as his fabrication began to incinerate itself and everything contained within it.
He closed the door, paused just long enough to feel the handle cool beneath his grip, then let go and turned without a backward glance to join his future.
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 28, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Kaine rounded the corner at a full sprint, boots kicking up plumes of sand as he tried to outpace his pursuers. No gun, no backup and rapidly losing daylight, he fought the urge to panic, swallowed it down.
“Nowhere to run to Kaine, nowhere to hide.” The voice bellowing between breaths, his pursuer struggling to keep the pace, but as Kaine’s feet left the sand and skidded to a stop on hard rock, he knew he was right. Jagged rock faces rose up on three sides; too steep to climb fast enough not to be brought down by shredder fire, the route behind singular and unbranching.
When the three men arrived, he was leaning, back to the cold stone, hands at his side, absently chewing a chunk of root he’d fished from a pocket of his overcoat.
Realizing he was unarmed and cornered, they relaxed their weapons and caught their breath. The one closest spoke while the other two flanked him, shifting their weight on the uneven sand beneath their feet.
“I should shoot you just for making me run out here,” the words were muffled through the filter mask that obscured the lower half of his face.
Kaine smiled around a mouthful of chewed root, then spat thinly across one of the subordinate’s boots, the blackened saliva dripping down into the sand. “Shoot me? Then what, carry a hundred kilos of dead weight back to port?”
The soldier scuffed his feet, carefully watching his superior but saying nothing, controlling his anger.
“We could just take your head back, leave your body for the scavengers.”
Kaine chuckled, and spat again, this time hitting the other soldier in the shins. He started, stepping forward and raising his weapon before being barked back into submission in Altaic command-speak.
“What if your boss’s prize isn’t in my head?”
There was a pause as his words were considered and Kaine pressed the advantage.
“You’re new at this, yes? Ever wonder why your bosses hire men like me and don’t trust everything to you? You come to this back-world shithole in dress uniform? Are those parade boots? I’ll bet your feet have been bleeding since you landed. You see these?” Kaine lifted one heavily scaled booted foot in the air, “these are made from genuine spine-back dragon hide. Ever seen a spine-back? Local combustion weapons can’t touch it. You can’t put a vibra blade through it, can’t burn it, and energy weapons just piss it off. It’s got only one natural predator on this dustbowl, and you don’t get to wear a pair of these unless you’ve figured out how to exploit that.” Kaine sucked loosely between his teeth, then spat again, this time spattering both the commanding officer’s boots.
“Do that again Kaine,” the officer fumed, jabbing the air with a pointed finger,” and we will carry you back in pieces.”
“You know your biggest problem? No situational awareness. Take the spine-back. They’re opportunists. They eat anything they can catch, and they can catch almost anything. They have this soft spot for an indigenous root though, an addictive narcotic plant native to the desert. They nose through the sand to find it, then chew the roots until they’re high as cabot wingers. Trouble is, the same root drives another little critter crazy. Ever see a jacqueline blue scorpion? Nasty little bastards. The stoned spine-back’s drool brings the jackie-blues a swarmin’. Dragon’s too messed up to run and it’s dead before it ever knows what hit it.
Kaine’s grin widened, and he carefully spat a last great mouthful of juice and chewed root in the face of the nearest soldier as he crumpled to the ground, the iridescent blue scorpions already covering him to the knees and stinging repeatedly through the inadequate armour.
Finding a comfortable spot higher up the rock face he watched the undulating sand and the blue streaks below with sombre fascination. “Not coming down yet,” he called out, and laughed.
