by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 7, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Joseph stopped a few steps into the lab, the scuffing of his feet unusual against the normally pristine floor of the room.
“Sean, why is there sand all over the floor?”
His lab partner’s head poked out from behind the pile of boxes obscuring a bench top on the other side of the room.
“Hey Joseph, you’ve got to come see this. It’s making things out of sand.”
Joseph worked his way around the maze of tables and stools that had been haphazardly dragged out of the way to form a clearing at the center of the lab. As he neared his partner, he could make out piles of what looked like…
“Glass. It’s making glass things out of sand, actually. I’m not sure what the pattern is, maybe it’s all some kind of history lesson. Some of these appear to be knives, or swords and such. Some might be armor pieces, like this helmet.” Sean hoisted a large translucent dome shaped roughly like a helmet, but half again as large as either of them could fill with their own head. “The guy that wore this must have been a real fat head.” Sean laughed at his own joke, setting the helmet back on the floor, careful to avoid the numerous spines and fins that raked backwards along its top. “Damn near cut my hand off on one of those,” he said, pointing to a dorsal fin like protrusion, then to a bloodied gauze bandage wrapped around his forearm, “freakishly sharp. Strong too, I dropped it when it cut me, didn’t so much as scratch.”
Joseph stepped completely into the cleared space and studied the small strobing ball of light on the floor at its center.
“What is that, exactly, and where did it come from?” he asked, walking slowly around the object, careful to avoid the artifacts scattered around it.
“I was working on the thinning space problem, and had the test rig up and operating within spec when that dropped out of thin air onto the counter. It knocked over some of the samples, and when I scattered cat litter to clean them up, it started enveloping the litter and making things. The first thing was that spherical piece over there, ” he pointed to a opalescent ball with a dark smear down the middle of the side facing them, “I poured more, but it just pulsed at me.” I tried a bunch of different things, salt, sugar. Sweeping compound got a minor reaction, but it wasn’t until I dumped the sand from the old ant farm that it made something again. It made one of those knives, and then pulsed at me like crazy until I gave it more sand.
Joseph watched as Sean dragged a plastic bag of children’s play sand from a stack in the corner of the room, splitting the bottom open with a utility knife and letting it spill out, adding to the pile already on the floor. The glowing ball sat motionless, pulsing with a light almost too bright to look directly at.
“I’m not sure what it wants to make next. There’s five bags, thirty kilos apiece, that’s a hundred and fifty kilos of sand already. I’ve only got a couple more left and then I’ll have to go back to the hardware store for more.”
Joseph stuffed his hands deep into his lab coat pockets, absently shuffling his feet on the sandy floor as Sean tossed the empty bag aside and walked back to the pile for another. Niether of them noticed the smear on the opalescent sphere narrow from the bench on which it sat, nor the long form that was taking shape on the floor at their feet.
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Captain Broahm hadn’t been asleep nearly long enough when he was dumped unceremoniously from his bunk onto the floor. Cursing, he’d barely gotten his bearings before the ship righted itself, tossing him backwards into the bulkhead, sending a blinding flash of lightning through his already aching head.
His left eye clouded, and he wiped at the blood that was pooling there from a fresh gash on his forehead.
“Bugger,” he grumbled, pulling himself upright with help from the cargo nets lining the sleeping quarters.
Staggering out of the still swaying cabin into the hallway, he climbed the ladder onto the bridge and found the first officer white knuckled at the wheel. Half the instrument lights were out or flickering and several of the windows were missing, broken glass scattered across the console and onto the floor.
“Grady, what the hell was that? You hit something?”
The startled first officer turned and stammered “Plane, I think, hit us. It’s out there in the water.” He pointed out the battered port side windows into the darkness. In the distance, lights flickered in and out of view as the waves rocked the ship.
“Any plane hit us like that would be in pieces at the bottom of the ocean by now.” Broahm shouldered open the door to get a clearer view from the deck. Both hands gripping the railing against the rocking of the ship, he could see clearly another vessel hanging just off their port side. Broahm blinked, and rubbed his eyes. The other vessel appeared to be sitting just above the water, the waves sliding harmlessly beneath its hull.
Broahm shook his head, wiping again at the blood trickling into his eye. Maybe he’d taken more of a bang than he’d realized.
“Must be a life raft,” he thought before yelling back into the cabin, “Grady, fetch us a flare and the glasses.”
The first officer appeared in the doorway moments later with a flare gun and a pair of binoculars.
“Sir,” he said, handing the equipment to the Captain.
Broahm took the gear from him, firing the flare into the night sky and scoping the other craft through the glasses as the pyrotechnic turned nighttime into midday.
The other craft sat still, featureless, long and narrow, hovering just above the water. As Broahm searched its length, he lit upon at a figure standing on a platform, partially submerged in the water off the side. It was looking up, watching the flare arc across the sky. Easily as tall as he was, perhaps taller with no visible clothing and a large blunt face split by the thin line of a mouth that wrapped nearly half way around its head. From where it’s ears should have been stared large unblinking eyes. Running down the side of its neck, ribbon like slits undulated as waves washed over them, its body slick and glistening in the artificial daylight.
“Grady, get us the bloody hell out of here.” Broahm yelled back into the cabin without looking.
He felt warmth tracing its way back down his forehead towards his eye, and absently wiped it away, flinging the fluid into the sea. As the red droplets hit the water, he caught a flurry of movement through the glasses. The creature was looking right at him now, lips peeled back revealing rows upon rows of jagged teeth. Broahm’s stomach knotted at the realization that whatever it was, it was smiling.
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Nick inhaled on his cigarette until the glowing ember reached the filter, then flicked it absently out the driver’s window. His younger brother James sat upright and fidgeting beside him, eyes wide trying to look at everything at once.
“Two hundred and forty meters. Turn left. Two twenty. Left.” James spoke outloud.
To Nick, James’ factual rambling had become background noise. James grew up locked inside his own head, overwhelmed by the world around him and unable to process any of it. When his doctors had wired him into the network, they’d armed him with everything he’d ever need.
James flinched as a police car screamed by in the opposite direction, lights bathing them for an instant in blue and red. “Metro pursuit, two one nine one four. Eric Waynes. Forty Two. Divorced. Two Children. Sixty meters, turn left.”
Nick saw the street as looming walkups and parked cars, but to James it was a seething mass of lines connecting objects and boxes containing datapoints; an infinite number of rabbit holes he could plumb for details ad infinitum.
When their parents had died, Nick had the hard line replaced with an array of wireless antennae woven into his brother’s dirty blond faux hawk. It was the only way he could get him out of the apartment.
They turned left onto Kinsella, slowing to navigate through the cars parked on both sides of the street. He could see the stop sign at Mathews when a shopping cart rolled from behind a parked car into the street, forcing him to step hard on the brakes.
“Pay and Save. Twelve thousand three hundred cubic inches. Fifty pounds,” he paused, eyes darting around the car before adding, “probably stolen.”
Nick smiled until a hand came to rest on his window sill.
“You got permission to be on this block?” The voice was deep, the speaker’s face lost in shadow with the sun blazing a halo around his head.
“Sorry, just passing through.”
James eyed the cart and the dark skinned man that had joined it on the street.
“Zoo York jacket. Sixty three percent sold to upper middle class kids imitating the lower class style.”
Nick winced, suddenly painfully aware of his brother speaking.
“What did bristle head say?”, the tone sharpened. As he leaned in closer for a better look the sun revealed deep brown skin under a pork pie hat, crisscrossed with fresh pink scar tissue.
“Nothing,” Nick said, “he likes your friend’s jacket.”
“Dolan Ryan. South Bronx Cricketers. Soldier. Fourteen arrests, no convictions.” James blinked repeatedly before adding “This year. Fourteen this year. Forty meters, turn right.”
Dolan yanked on the door handle. Finding it locked he reached in through the open window trying to open it from the inside.
“Out of the fucking car, dumbass. Rainman here just bought you a beating.”
“Seventy percent of altercations involving Cricketers result in violence. Fifty pounds. Forty meters, turn right.”
Dolan paused his brailing the door panel long enough to cuff Nick in the side of the head. “One hundred percent chance of violence asshole, out of the goddamned car.”
James pounded both hands on the dashboard and yelled “forty meters turn right”, then turning to look Dolan straight in the eyes he continued “Doctors appointment Thursday at two. Syphilis”.
Dolan froze for an instant and Nick stood hard on the gas, liberating the shopping cart from the Zoo York jacketed figure as he jumped out of the way. The cart crumpled under the bumper and was dragged into the intersection as he drifted right onto Mathews, the tangled mesh basket peeling off on a parked car as the sedan straightened. Not slowing, he turned left onto Morris Park and kept his foot planted on the gas until the Parkway loomed into view.
“Bronx River Parkway. Thirty and three quarter kilometers in length.”
Nick finally eased up on the gas. “Syphilis?” he asked.
“Spirochetal bacterium. Sexually transmitted.”
Nick laughed as he fumbled for another cigarette.
“I really did like his jacket,” James said, before slipping back into the data mass of the world outside.
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Levon leaned against the shower tube, letting the jets of water assail his body from all sides. As the sweat of the previous night’s activities rinsed away, the more subtle indicators of his exertions seeped in. Both his head and kidneys ached from the soup of chemicals he’d drank, sniffed and injected with the woman now sleeping naked in the next room.
Warnings pulsing dimly in his periphery reminded him that his kidney augments were still on standby, sifting and analyzing the foreign bodies in his bloodstream. An amber warning flashed, the proximity alarm on his equipment locker had been triggered. His company was awake, the message flashing red as she tried the door.
Levon flipped through and discarded most of the blood-work findings; street grade meth, cocaine and a too high level of alcohol, but the last one stopped him cold. A battery of tranquilizers had been automatically disarmed, all bearing Federated P.D. chem tags.
“Shit. She’s a cop.”
In an instant water droplets were evaporating in a jet of warm air and kidney grafts went into overdrive, flushing his system clean and pumping in Epinephrine.
Exiting the shower he could hear the woman padding around the bedroom, his sub-dermal grid-work of sensory pickups and Faraday shielding twinging as a transmitter narrow-banded a short range encoded transmission. Not only was she a cop, but she had a partner nearby.
Opening the door he found her perched on the end of the bed, tanned shoulders and arms exposed above the bedsheet she’d drawn around herself.
“Hey baby, look at you,” her words slurred together into a sound like a sneeze.
“Hey,” Levon moved to the closet, the auto-bolts retracting as he reached for the handle, “back in a sec.” He slipped through the door, closing and letting it lock securely behind him.
He’d converted the walk-in to a safe room when he’d started renting the sixth floor apartment. The low level lighting reflected dimly back at him from the kevmesh that coated the inside of the cramped space, uneven thicknesses of the dark green ultraweeve armor pooled on the floor where it had run as he’d sprayed the layers on.
He could feel a mass of people thundering up the stairwell at the end of the hall.
He pulled on overalls and a jacket and jammed his feet into a pair of Magnum Ions. Overturning a crate in the middle of the room he slung his shoulder holster and perched in a squat on the box like a bird, face down to his knees. He thumbed the release tabs on two canisters glued into the floor on either side of him and covered his face with his hands. The canisters ticked a few seconds before geysering upwards, thick jets of liquid spattering off the ceiling, foaming and filling the space, securing his hunched form in a bubble of packing foam.
He felt his cocoon shake, knowing that his bathroom had just been blown out the side of the building. A second set of explosions tipped his pod sideways, and Levon braced himself as a final eruption jettisoned the entire closet shell out the newly formed hole in the building, launching it through the window of the much nicer lofts across the street.
Levon had barely stopped moving before he blew the cocoon seals and stood up, the force separating the two halves neatly, leaving a man shaped impression in each.
Stepping through the broken glass and window frame, he surveyed the damage outside, his apartment now just a jagged tear in the brick facade of the building. Below, his shower poked out the side of a cargo van, vaguely phallic in a glittering mess of LED advertising and shredded metal.
Turning, Levon faced a startled couple sitting up in bed. Stepping past them, he helped himself to a piece of toast and a slice of bacon from the breakfast tray forgotten at their feet.
“Don’t get up,” he grinned, “I’ll see myself out.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 15, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“I don’t care if it’s selfish, I don’t want you to go.” Sam stood halfway between the doorway and the foot of the bed, caught between staying and walking away.
“It is selfish, but I understand. I’m tired Sam, I’m worn out and it’s time for me to give in to the natural order of things.” The older man’s voice was slow, patient but firm. “No man was ever meant to see as much as I’ve seen in my life, and a man can only take so much.”
Sam wiped moisture from one cheek, quickly as though it might not be noticed. “Whatever it is that’s broken, get it fixed. We’ve got lots of money…”
Jacob cut the sentence short. “It’s not about money. There’s nothing to fix, no worn out part to replace. My body’s working just fine, it’s me that’s broken. This body and all its incarnations has allowed me the lifetime of four ordinary men. I’ve seen three partners age and wear out of their own accord and you, well it has seen you grow from a nervous youth into the poised and confident professional that another much younger man will take his turn caring for in my absence. I’ve had enough, done enough and seen enough. God damn it I’ve felt more than enough and it’s time to move on.”
Sam moved to the side of the bed and reached for Jacob’s hand. The flesh was warm, almost real. Jacob closed his hand around Sam’s tightly. Sam could feel tears welling up again, and through clouding eyes looked at everything but the man propped up in the hospital bed. Monitors tracked vital signs, the numbers exactly to spec. Diagnostics scrolled past on a pair of displays to one side, mechanical equipment passing test after test, repeating ad infinitum. Sam finally met Jacob’s gaze, friend and lover for longer than either of them had imagined possible. Jacob’s eyes burned with a crystalline intensity that, while artificial, shone with an inner light that was purely his own.
“I don’t understand Jacob, if everything’s working, then why? What is it that’s so bad about staying alive? Is it me? If it’s me Jacob, say so and I’ll let you find someone else. I don’t want to be the thing…”
“Sam,” Jacob interrupted again, “it’s not you Sam, trust me, you’re the only thing that’s kept me here this long.” Jacob raised one permanently manicured hand and pondered it, flexing the fingers and turning it to study the hairs on its back. “I can’t remember a time when I was really real. I’ve forgotten what touching real flesh with real flesh feels like, and I don’t believe anymore that what I feel now is the same. I can’t remember what my first lover liked for breakfast. I can’t feel the warmth of the sunrise on my face, the magic of being underwater or the thrill that comes with being out of breath. I’ve been living for so damn long, and I can’t remember what it feels like to really be alive.”
Sam’s cheeks were wet now, and no effort was made to conceal the tears.
“I can’t even cry anymore. I’ve loved and lost so much and I can’t even shed a tear.”
Sam stood stoic, this argument had gone on before but this time there was no fighting back.
Jacob held Sam’s hands, and locking eyes said, “When I’m gone, have whatever flesh of mine remains cremated, then cast me into the wind. In the mornings, look to the east as the day breaks and feel my warmth there. In the darkness know that I’m never far away.” Jacob settled back into the pillows on the bed, and said simply, “I love you” before closing his eyes for the last time.
