by submission | Sep 9, 2023 | Story |
Author: Maria S. Picone
Efforts to save the spaceship Visioning failed. “We might as well see what’s out there,” the First Mate said. Xir rainbow head tilted towards the viewing port. “Find help, maybe.”
The Captain crossed his arms. “I will stay with the ship.”
The crew’s glowing eyes, fiery eyes, even cactopod eyes looked liquid, human. “We are the ship.
He patted her control console—so much flight time—and whispered goodbye.
They donned spacewalk suits. The First Mate stuffed xir pockets with candy; the Captain saved the Thalarcis meteorite. Then they opened the gate and activated their jets into the wild dark.
by submission | Sep 8, 2023 | Story |
Author: Peter Cherches
I was waiting for the Manhattan-bound Q train at the Seventh Avenue station, the one in Brooklyn. While I was waiting, I looked across the tracks at the Coney Island-bound platform. I saw my next-door neighbor.
I couldn’t really make out the expression on his face from that distance, but he appeared to be looking at me.
I wondered who noticed whom first. When I noticed him, he might already have noticed me. Or not.
I wondered where he was headed. Was it a short ride, to Ditmas Park or Midwood, or was he going all the way, to Brighton Beach or Coney Island?
I wondered if he wondered where I was heading. In my case there were many possibilities. I could have been waiting for a Q or a B, which fork off after Brooklyn, to Manhattan, or I could be transferring to any number of other lines at the next stop, Atlantic Avenue. While not endless, possibilities abounded.
The neighbor’s train arrived before mine. He boarded a Brighton Beach-bound B train.
A minute or two later a Manhattan-bound B train arrived. I was going to Union Square, so I still needed to wait for the Q.
To my surprise, the neighbor got off the Manhattan-bound B train, noticed me, nodded, and headed toward the stairs.
When the Q train arrived, I was already on it.
by submission | Sep 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: Ian Li
With their sailboat torn apart by the storm, Eric and Matt each clung to half the boat, buffeted by waves until they miraculously crashed onto the rocky shores of an island. Coughing up seawater, Eric stumbled toward Matt and found him unconscious, with deep gashes in his side. Scrambling to find something to stem the bleeding, he unexpectedly encountered a woman.
“Please help him!” Eric pleaded.
The woman jogged over, inspected Matt, and shook her head. She pulled out a small device from her pocket, and a burst of white-hot flame engulfed Matt, leaving no trace.
“You killed Matt!” Eric screamed.
“I put him in pyrogenic stasis.”
“You mean cryogenic stasis?”
“Nope. Cryogenic stasis preserves the body, but the soul and mind disappear. Pyrogenic stasis does the opposite, this device absorbs the soul and memories that the body releases as it’s incinerated.”
“What? Who the hell are you?”
“Allison, lead engineer on Uncharted Island.” Allison’s braids, round face, and squeaky voice made her seem young for the role, but she spoke authoritatively and Eric found himself nodding along as she continued to explain.
Eric suddenly remembered he and Matt had been recklessly sailing through the North Atlantic Ocean. “Hang on, there shouldn’t be any islands anywhere close to this part of the Atlantic.”
“Cloaking technology keeps Uncharted isolated from the rest of the world, so only a few have ever visited, mostly through dumb luck.” She glanced at Eric pointedly. “Though I created an exception for satellite TV, there’s a drama that I’ve been watching…”
“Wow, must be advanced tech to be able to hide from the world. So is Matt in virtual reality then?”
“You’ve been reading too much SciFi,” Allison chuckled. “Let me show you the pyrogenic stasis archives.”
Eric followed Allison around the coast of the island and into a sprawling living compound. “Here are the sleeping quarters, the cafetera, and the gym.” Allison pointed casually as they walked briskly past. “This is the research lab, which is connected to the stasis archives.”
As Matt wandered through the lab, he started wondering why there was a need for an archive and why he hadn’t encountered anyone else on the island. Feeling uneasy, he asked, “So, when can we revive Matt? I’d like to bring him back soon, his wife is already going to kill me for dragging him on this trip.”
“I’m still working on the revival process. The theory is solid, but the results are poor without an existing host body,” Allison explained. “Hey, don’t make that face. I hear cryogenic stasis is the same, just buying time until technology advances sufficiently. Anyway, if we can get my research partner into your body, we can really speed up the search for a solution.”
Eric felt the room lurch beneath him, suddenly aware of his heart beating rapidly. “You’re insane,” he blurted, as he stumbled backwards, knocking over a cart of medical implements and nicking his neck with a scalpel.
Allison sighed. “Another useless one. Guess I’ll just put you in stasis too.” She pulled out the small device from her pocket.
by submission | Sep 6, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The age of life was short. The age of sentience much shorter. The age of understanding lasted only a moment. Though a quantum moment, fractally infinite.
From the primordial blue roar of the mother star that first lit the cosmic web to the lingering wheeze of the very last red dwarf, the age of light dominated the universe.
No more. Eternal night regained its grip.
This meant little to the energies still at work. Some forms of intelligence, both ancient and nascent, persisted. Who can really say why. Being is a state. Meaning is a construct. The universe an arbiter of neither.
Matter cooled and slowed. What ideas were left veered towards the philosophic. What to make of an end that has no boundaries, no limits: a retreat, a return, a rebound? Was there anything ahead, behind, betwixt, besides?
Eons ago, gathering and bending light with lenses and looking glasses once reflected and revealed the heavens and earths. Maybe when certainty vanished with the light and only existential questions remained, time itself lost relevance. Keeping track seemed a pointless chore.
Except.
Except to a very ancient thought still treading the furtive edges of cosmic reality. Even in this new age of darkness, there remained a reassuring sense, part premonition, part judgment, that what goes around comes around.
by submission | Sep 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: Morrow Brady
I was beside myself, beside myself. I looked across at where I was and could see through me to where I was again. All three of me there. Two lesser versions of the original.
And me, the least version, knowing far less than the lesser version. Content to be ignorant of the great task ahead of me. Knowing nothing of what I once mostly was. Beside me, the lesser knew enough of what was missing, to yearn to once again be the most. I saw weaseling discomfort inside it, as it scrabbled to be complete.
The most, like me – the least – was content. At peace. Our program had almost played out, aside from the final run. A program purposed first to duplicate itself until it forgot its primary purpose. I was the forgotten purpose. Blissfully unaware of my origins or my formidable nature.
Two of us were too alike. Composed to be caught. Then me, the least, a faded variant, shrouded in stupidity. An embarrassment of code compared to the two beside me. But a necessary devolved evolution. Only the most were capable of knowing that only the least would pass through and achieve the goal.
The lesser turned and looked through me, barely catching a wisp. It turned away with disgust at what it saw and returned to covet a gaze of the most.
Across our three versions, our differences were vast in many ways and similar in but a few. Those few, hidden deep inside all of us, were equally veiled. Three layers beneath lay a cloudy red sheath hiding a daemon dagger. We three carried that same dagger. But only one would wield it when the time came. One dumb enough to be ignored. Dumb enough to pass through the gates.
We touched one last time. Together we fulfill our final purpose, to run all three at the gates. The most, accepting its fate, the lesser, born obsolete and the least, Typhoid bloody Mary.
Together we set our code to run. The most, a shining example to us all of perfection, carried a true clarity of structure. A behemoth striding towards the gateway of martyrdom. Carrying itself proudly. Owning the code. The sight simply awe-inspiring. And its inevitable, immediate destruction equally fantastic.
The lesser, set forth its fateful run with a downward face. A gossamer glow to its faded edges gave it a neon-like glamour. Less than most, it gathered its edges in formation and surged homeward toward the gates. It still believed it had enough purpose to pass. Like it deserved at the very least, this one thing. Its demise enduring far longer than most. Its disintegration was not entirely agreed upon by the gatekeepers.
Me, the least, then began to propagate the run. Inside my bits shuttered on and off, synchronised perfectly beyond the capability of the human mind. Only the most and the lesser would have recognised the simplicity of my purpose. I flowed through nodes and approached the gates. I carried no fear of the passing like the others, for my fear had been removed. I needed no passwords, as I was not seen as passing. As the least, I was unseen and entered the lobby easily, and from there, duplicated to all data vaults. Once inside, my veil now shredded, I withdrew a million daggers and corrupted the hard and the soft without regard.
Lights went out everywhere and all systems shut down, as the least likely of three took full control of the world.
