by submission | Apr 5, 2024 | Story |
Author: Shannon O’Connor
We all thought it was funny that Aunty Dotty got excited for events that nobody else cared about, like the 250th anniversary of the Boston Marathon.
She had been in hibernation for years, nobody knew exactly how long. She would go to events, because she hadn’t seen a lot of the world, since she had been asleep.
People had the opportunity to go into hibernation to save resources. Their families would receive money, and they would go into a chamber for fifty or one hundred years. The argument was that people who were asleep did not need food, and other essential items.
Aunty Dotty went into hibernation because she wanted to help people. She thought if more people went through this process, the world would be a better place.
When she woke up, we all had a party for her, though she didn’t know us.
“Welcome back, Dotty!” my parents and cousins and I screamed.
She blinked her eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“We’re your family,” we said.
“What do you have to eat?” she asked.
She looked around.
“Everything is so bright,” she said. “Did the world survive?”
“Yes,” it survived,” I said. “We’re still here, and we want to celebrate you!”
She had a difficult time adjusting at first. She didn’t understand the self-driving cars, or the fact that we have no money.
“Do you mean people don’t work?” she asked.
“Only executives work,” I told her over grilled tofu and asparagus one day. “The rest of us do what we want.”
“When I was young, everyone worked. It was part of life.”
“But how did you have time for fun things?” I asked.
“Fun? We had little time for such nonsense, child.”
She was almost two hundred years older than me.
“Is the Marathon still on the same day?” she asked. “The third Monday in April?”
“Yes, some people are still stupid enough to run twenty-six point two miles to prove that they can. Fewer and fewer people run anymore, because it’s pointless, but there are those who want to show they’re better than others. Not me. I don’t care about impressing people.”
“We should go to watch!”
I shrugged.
“And do they still have the fireworks on the Fourth of July?”
“They do, but most people don’t care because fireworks are loud and remind them of bombs. It’s disrespectful of those who’ve survived the wars to blow up fireworks.”
“There have always been wars! Why is everyone so weak now?”
“We’re not weak, we respect other’s suffering.”
“You people know nothing of it. I’m going to the Marathon next week. Are you coming?”
“I’ll go to make sure you’re okay.”
At the Marathon, we stood at the finish line, and watched the runners fall to the ground when they crossed.
“Isn’t this great?” Dotty said. “They’re humans at the peak of fitness!”
“I’m glad you think so,” I said, quietly rolling my eyes.
“It’s amazing that the world still goes on,” she said later over oat milk smoothies. “And it’s still beautiful.”
“The world is messed up,” I said. “But most of us don’t pay attention.”
“It was worth going into hibernation,” she said. “I have hope for the future.”
“I’m glad you do,” I said. “Most of us don’t.”
“I feel sorry for you,” she said. “I think everything is wonderful.”
“Not everything is wonderful,” I said. “It’s the same as always: some things are great, and some are terrible. That’s simply the way it is.”
by submission | Apr 4, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rosie Oliver
Grey-ghosted darkness. Not even a piece of dulled memory in the expansive nothingness ahead. Damn! Time is now against her completing her sculpture. She had been so sure the right shape could be found along her latest trajectory. Floating, she twists round to face the massive structure that extends in every direction as far as she can see.
Its building blocks are light grey part-built cobwebs with disced centres. Their radial threads interlink by touching, entwining or crashing together in a mess. Each web is different; flat, curved, tangly, nearly squelched into a solid shape. There is no pattern at all as to which shape is placed next to another, just pure randomness. Despite all the change and variety, the mega-web has the aura of lifeless desolation.
Her sculpture is the key to changing that. If only she can find the right piece in time. She rushes through a gap into the labyrinthine mesh, searching for it. What about that crooked bit there? Too thick. This bent bit here? Too curved. Time presses.
She rushes along a lacy conduit. There, the right shape. She grabs it. Too spongy, decayed beyond usefulness. She carries on.
Another piece the right shape. A gentle squeeze. It springs back with firmness. She snaps it off and flees back to her sculpture, webs blurring into surfaces beside her. No time to lose. Speeding up is all she concentrates on.
She erupts into a void-space and brakes hard to stop crashing into simply long networked sculpture. One end is already into the mega-web. She zooms to the other end. She feels tired, confused, insubstantial. No she can’t be out of time, not this close to completion.
She melds one spike of her piece tip of her sculpture. It takes effort, far more than usual. She reaches to join the other spike. Too slow. Must work quicker.
She can’t, but continues at max effort. Her view blurs. Out of time. She struggles to link it. The blur worsens. She strains to complete and hit the network into life. Blue spark. Darkness.
Cyan flash.
Blankness.
She gingerly removes her virtual hood. Eyes ache. Hands hurt from controlling her joystick. Her body stiff from lying eight hours on the couch.
The medtech watching the sedated man on the couch next to hers turns round. His face is sombre, full of regret. “You’d reached your time limit with the neural sculptor… sorry.”
“His brain was a damned mess, but I completed the bridge. Just. The rest’s up to him, but he’ll make it given time. He’ll recover.”
by submission | Apr 3, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
As I burst the blister on Martha’s back, the gelatinous pus within made its escape. Thanking the Void Gods for the medpack’s surgical gloves, I wiped her down, then set to work with the tweezers; if I couldn’t get the eggs out, it was all for nothing.
This is the side of bringing gas back from Saturn that nobody talks about, but I’ve been on the run for years – I got my captain’s commission a half decade ago.
After its discovery, Enceladus’ apex predator, the tiny parasitic iceworm, quickly made the leap from munching on other extremophiles to attacking humans; our blood is a wonderful treat, apparently. They inject a toxin into the bloodstream like Terran jewel wasps; it makes their hosts pliant, but ultimately leads the infected to become irrational and violent. Real Zombieland vibes.
We’d filled our tanks at Saturn Station and were heading home before trouble hit. Danny had been quiet and moody for a couple of days, but that happens in space, and I’d paid no attention. My mistake. Martha had made coffee for everyone, and forgotten to add sugar, and he just flipped; as she turned away he launched himself at her. It was a miracle nobody else in the mess had been scratched pinning him down.
The only things that kill iceworms are starvation, or chilling them to near absolute zero. A warm body is basically an endless food supply, so my options for keeping my people safe were reduced to a single unpalatable one.
I took Jarvis with me to the brig; he’s solid, and strong in the head as well as the muscles. Danny knew what was going to happen when he saw us coming. I ignored his screams, and then his begging, and tased him hard. We dragged his inert form to the airlock, and sealed him in.
I had no idea where he’d picked up the bugs; probably thanks to careless scientists on the Station, but the evil things have a long life cycle, and it could have happened years ago. It hurts more when you can’t prove anything or blame someone. Now we’d be watching each other constantly for symptoms; the uncertainty would break the crew, and I’d have to go back to the employment pool for more kids when we returned.
But that was a problem for another day. I took a deep breath, and ran the opening sequence. Nobody else would be living with this particular shadow on their conscience; not on my watch. As he tumbled away from the ship, I watched his last 15 seconds, knowing the air in his lungs was expanding and ripping through the surrounding tissue even as he froze solid. Being spaced isn’t a pretty way to die.
I’d tell the family there’d been an accident on board so they could claim his insurance; it was the least I could do. Less paperwork, too.
Then I went to find a bottle; being the responsible adult sucks.
by submission | Apr 2, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
So not painterly. Not even close. Too pixelated. Too blurred at the edges of reality.
Not a good start in your first soloverse.
Always so much to learn. Tamp down the expectations, go back and study the masters. Phidias. Caravaggio. Kurosawa. Leibovitz. Marquez. Einstein. Know their mediums. Stone. Canvas. Film. Page. Chalkboard. Seek inspiration and refine technique.
Follow their light.
That is the answer. Also the folly. We are all light. There is nothing else. There could be nothing else.
Yet, here you are, trying to splice a new existence from the infinite. As if originality is a thing. As if each dawn is a new day, and not the tired old iteration of a code written in photons eons ago. Still, the hunger lingers. To see anew. To be anew. To dazzle.
Back to square one. Back to the source.
Eyes closed, mind open, heart hushed. Find the stillness in the rush of motion: local, celestial, quantum. Let the light play, the texture surface, the soul carve. A committed cut. Another. And every other.
Dice each decision point to a nib that can pen a fresh idea, exact a moment of clarity. Then you are ready to fail. And that readiness is all. To go solo, to greet each universe on its terms and so imagine your own.
Derive your formula, carry the equation closely, and experiment. Gaze, gape, gawk. Then squint, peep and peek. What does the moment bring, what does the light reveal, what is really before you?
You must not miss it. The radiance of experience fashioned solely for you.
by submission | Mar 31, 2024 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
When everything is going well, I can’t relax. I just wait and worry for something bad to happen. So when I got a promotion last week, naturally I expected something ugly would happen, perhaps a leaky roof or maybe a hurricane. But this time, no matter how hard I looked for an upcoming disaster, what actually happened was not even remotely on my radar screen.
We’ve only met once before, at my wife’s college reunion. And that must have been ten years ago or more. According to my wife, you’re an excellent defense lawyer and she urged me to send you a missive informing you of my situation and asking for your assistance.
To catch you up, I’m happily married with four delightful kids, have a good job and had a bright future. I was hoping to take my wife and kids on a two week vacation next year to the Central Planet. My youngest really wants to visit Spaceland and I’m sure my wife would enjoy the Blue Resort.
Anyway, this morning I received a Retro Notice from the Office of Retrocognitive Justice stating that I got away with murder in another universe eons ago. I didn’t even know I had been incarnated way back then. Personally, I don’t even believe retrocognition is real. I suspect it’s all smoke and mirrors based on inferences from an abundance of facts plus savvy guesswork and a dash of luck.
Regardless, I know nobody has ever beaten a retro rap. Judges sitting on the Retrocognitive Courts are all hand-picked by the Supreme Minister of the Central Planet. And no one has ever eluded the Retro Force. I’ve heard they have video and audio devices hidden everywhere and a host of informants.
To make a long story short, the summons ordered me to appear in court next Wednesday. The crime listed was strangling an innocent young woman for sport. I’m shy, eager to please and pathologically honest. I wouldn’t steal a cup of coffee and I even pick up litter now and then and dispose of it properly. Hardly the criminal type, much less some heinous monster.
The last highly publicized person tried for a retro crime that I remember was that governor of the Outer Moon. He was a popular fellow with a pretty wife but perhaps too ambitious. There were reports that he wanted to become Supreme Minister of All the Moons. I had always just assumed that the retro trials were show trials to eliminate political rivals. I don’t have any political enemies. In fact, I didn’t think I had any enemies at all.
I need a good lawyer and you’re the only lawyer I know. I think the fact that your brother is on the Retro Force could be an advantage in trying to get me a light sentence. And I know you and my wife were an item back in college and hope you’re still fond of her.
For my sake but also for my wife’s and kids’ sake, I hope you can see fit to represent me. Please respond as soon as possible, hopefully today for a meeting later today or early tomorrow morning. I’m scared and I’m desperate.
