by submission | Jan 8, 2023 | Story |
Author: Diego Lama, Translated by Rose Facchini
God called Alberto on his cell.
“Hey, it’s God,” He said. “I wanted to let you know that the world annoyed me, so I’m getting rid of everything except you, okay?”
“Okay,” Alberto responded. Then he added, “Thanks!”
“Now, let’s free you from all those non-essentials,” God said before getting to work. “Be with you in a few.”
“Okay.”
After a few minutes, twenty men in uniform entered Alberto’s apartment using the service key. They started to pack up chairs, paintings, glasses, books, rugs, computers…
“What are you doing?”
One of them motioned for him to look outside at the street where several other crews — hundreds of people — were dismantling and taking away everything that had at one time been his city: lampposts, traffic signals, sidewalks, manhole covers, cars, benches, statues, signs.
Within half an hour, the apartment was empty.
Alberto followed the workers to the ground floor where all his things, along with those of his neighbors and everyone else in the area, disappeared onto big trucks that were coming and going on the street. A deluge of rubble began to fall from atop the tallest structures; they were demolishing apartment buildings. Alberto set out along what was left of the road while thousands of workers continued to move in every direction with vans, cranes, wheelbarrows, and bulldozers, taking everything away.
Alberto took shelter in the park, but a crew soon arrived even there to uproot trees and bushes. The city had become one enormous dusty construction site.
He lay down in a ditch that had once been a fountain and dozed off into a strange and restless slumber. He woke up some hours later to utter silence. He climbed out of the ditch and looked around.
In place of the city, there was nothing but a vast expanse of gray, a desert of detritus.
In the distance, the few remaining groups of workers were loading rubble onto the trucks.
Alberto started walking around aimlessly.
After a few hours, he stopped. Everyone had gone. He was alone. There was nothing left.
Then the phone rang: It was God.
“You all right?” He asked. “In just a minute, I’m going to have the stars, then the Sun, and finally this planet taken away, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So, you’ll be free from your body. You’ll be able to move around at will in the great void for all eternity. Sound good?”
“Thanks!”
“Don’t mention it. See ya.”
by submission | Jan 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: Daniel P. Douglas
When a sleek and shiny bizbot from Rush, an upstart Venusian drift-pod vendor, showed up on the same mid-day shuttle to Godessa, Ogleblatt fumed. He glared at the bot’s silver and blue pinstriping and decided to call up Ortega on holo. He punched in her number and set the transceiver on the lopsided fold-down tray in front of him.
“If I could look miserable, I would,” Ogleblatt said. “But I chose the kind empathy theme for my default facial expression. Implants and lasers work miracles. Wearing the wavy brown hairpiece was my idea.”
Ortega mimicked a jovial chuckle. She’d heard Ogleblatt tell his plastic surgery and wig story at least ten times in the past month. “Just refer the bot to Hammer in Procurement,” Ortega replied. “Besides, what makes you think that business bot wants anything to do with you?”
“See, this is the part that kills me.” Ogleblatt slouched and whispered, “The bot is from Rush and they’ll stop at nothing to get control of our pod sailing lanes. How many times do I have to explain it to you?”
The cabin lights dimmed and Ogleblatt felt the shuttle liftoff from the Moon. He peered out the window and watched the lunar surface recede below. “Those Venusian lanes are Godessa’s most lucrative subsidiary,” he bragged. “We make billions off them.”
“Yes. People everywhere love those unpowered, untethered, high-altitude hypersonic thrill rides as much as Godessa’s unrivaled resort offerings.” Ortega’s holo flickered as she shifted the view from the one of her seated behind a large glass and chrome desk to a close-up of her young face. “Look, nothing bad is going to happen. Besides, your flight to Venus isn’t very long.”
“Long enough for me to fire you and promote that hellhound, Bachrus. Plus, we have a layover in Houston.” Frustrated, Ogleblatt fumbled with the tray table’s lopsided end, jiggling Ortega’s crooked holo.
“Oh, right. Sorry, when I booked your flight, Transia had the cheapest rates, and Hammer only—”
“Only approves the cheapest rates, I know. Acts like he owns the joint.” Ogleblatt bent forward, leaving mere inches between him and Ortega’s holo. “Lotta folks don’t like him. Maybe someday the Board will do something about it. They don’t like roadblocks or prima donnas, you know.”
Uncertain how to respond, Ortega held her breath, then sighed and smiled. “Personally, I always go comet class on Ajax. All direct and non-stop.” She wanted to keep him distracted.
Confusion shared space with some of Ogleblatt’s kind empathy. “Since when can you afford to fly Ajax?”
Ortega worked up a wide grin to charm and calm Ogleblatt. “I never pay full fare.” She licked and pursed her full, red lips and watched Ogleblatt slide back into his seat. “More to the point,” she said, trying to soothe him further, “I doubt this bot intends to do anything during the flight except maybe run a software update. So, all’s bueno bueno.”
“Ugh,” Ogleblatt murmured. “That sounds like something Hammer would tell you to say…. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two are plotting against me.”
Ortega glanced past her transceiver and waved, winked, and blew a kiss. She nodded and smiled. She spoke a few muffled words to her out-of-frame guests. A moment later, she turned to look at Ogleblatt, then widened the holo view to show her seated—along with Bachrus and a Cheshire-themed Hammer—at a large glass and chrome desk.
“You’ll never replace me!” Ogleblatt shouted.
“Take another peeky peeky at the bizbot, Oggy,” Hammer purred. “We already have.”
by submission | Jan 6, 2023 | Story |
Author: Deborah Coy
Clarise thumbed through the thick album on her lap. Her mother, sitting next to her, pointed to a rampant unicorn just like the one glowing a proud blue on her wrist.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome if we had legacy tats?”
Clarise didn’t answer but quickly turned the page and paused over, “The Evil Eye”.
“No,” she thought, “a cliche.” Probably three students in her homeroom had that one.
“My little baby is growing up,” her mother prattled. “How about this heart? When I was a kid, everyone was getting hearts.”
Clarise refused to acknowledge her mother but noticed that her mother’s tattoo was turning a sickly maroon. Clarise knew she should pretend to listen.
The door of the clinic opened. Someone from Clarise’s school walked out. She couldn’t remember her name. A new tattoo, a bright red book with the word “truth” written on it.
“Just like a nerd to have a book. What was that snail reader trying to communicate?” Clarise thought. The girl glowered at her and everyone in the waiting room, her tattoo pulsing redder by the moment.
“Why do I have to do this?” Clarise whined.
“When I was your age, everyone wanted a mood tattoo.”
“Now, everyone has one. Thanks to that ridiculous law. It isn’t so crazy now, is it?”
Clarise looked down and saw the tattoo she wanted. She put her finger in the book to hold her place and closed it. She put a fake smile on her face, the last she would ever be able to pull off.
Suddenly Clarise heard her name called. “Let’s get this over with,” she sighed.
Clarise walked back into the waiting room. Her mother, whose tattoo was an anxious lavender, rushed to see Clarise’s choice.
Clarise held out her right wrist. A red pair of dice rested there like doom. Snake eyes!
Out of habit her mother asked, “Aren’t you happy to finally be grown up?”
Clarise answered, “Sure.”
The new tattoo turned liar yellow.
by submission | Jan 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: Jackson Lanzer
A man is silhouetted by a sunset, the heavenly light decorating him in immaculate golden armor and a tattered cape of shadows. His rusty hair flows in the wind, and his oak eyes stare into the celestial abyss.
“Just me, alone, suffering in paradise,” he mutters to himself, the only man in a tropical universe devoid of humanity.
A tear falls down the man’s face, a drop of golden ambrosia in the light.
As stars overtake the sky, the man’s knees shake, and he stumbles to the sandy ground. The beach is his bed, and he cradles seaweed as the evening fog cradles him. It reminds him of all he lost: his love, his life, and his happiness.
“I’ve been trapped on this Island for 8 years,” he tells the seaweed every day, but she never truly listens.
“I prayed to the sky to bring me to paradise. I’d kneel beneath the stars and plead my message before the gods: ‘save us from this apocalypse and bring your loyal herd to salvation.’
“But those creatures only took me. My family is still stuck, alone, suffocating on Earth’s fumes.”
The man trembles.
“I suppose, thanks to aliens, I have the luxury of ‘paradise’ for the rest of my years.”
He laughs. It is a laugh laced with pain.
“But can a man truly be happy when he is alone?”
He waits for the seaweed to answer.
Silence.
“Exactly. No one ever answers my questions. The gods, aliens, whatever they are, never truly return my pleas.”
Eventually, the gentle sound of falling tears lulls him to sleep.
Sleep is his only respite from the nightmare of paradise. Only in sleep can he glimpse his love again, his arms wrapping around the seaweed, imagining it is her soft skin.
And during the dream, he cries once more: fleeting tears of joy.
by submission | Jan 4, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
*Influence of the stars,* Breezy Hicks answered her daughter.
The teenager looked at her curiously. *The stars? Why would anyone think the the flu originated there?*
Breezy smiled. *They were literally medieval. Plagues. Pestilence. Why not blame the heavens? In an astrological sense, that is. Kind of miasma theory on a cosmological scale. It fit the logic of the time–and the poetry.*
*Well, I’d feel better knowing this pandemic was some space import rather than our own monumental stupidity.*
*How do you know it’s not?*
*From space? How could it be?*
*Meteorite. Asteroid, comet, moon, or Mars samples that probes have brought back here. Lots of possibilities for viral contamination. Always possibilities.*
Her daughter’s eyes narrowed. *You know something, mama?*
*Lots of things, my girl. I know lots of things.*
*Well, what are we gonna do? This bug is messing things up fast.*
*Drift and shift, baby. We’re gonna drift and shift. Just like this virus.*
Her daughter cocked her head and scrunched her lips and waited for the explanation.
*Antigenic drift is when a virus undergoes small incremental changes. Tiny mutations of the surface proteins to prevent an immune response from the host. Antigenic shift is a major change in the virus producing new proteins capable of infecting a wider variety of hosts. Nudges and leaps. Nudges and leaps.*
*So, what does that mean for us?*
Breezy Hicks’ eyes twinkled. *Adjustments.*
*Upgrades?* Her daughter pressed.
*If we can get to the lab. I can’t kludge this.*
*You’re the queen of biomech. Since when can’t Breezy Hicks just macgyver her way out of any mess?*
*When the stars send us a viral double whammy, attacking both our bio and mech systems, making our augs a liability. So we’ve got to start adapting. As in right now.*
Her daughter cleared her throat, the words coming out thick and croaky, “You mean like this?”
For the first time in weeks, Breezy Hicks answered her daughter out loud. “Good girl. Feels a bit clunky after subvocalization. But our implants are susceptible. Better to go old school. Besides, you have a sweet voice, my girl.”
“I sound like a frog.”
“You’ll turn into a princess. Give it time.”
“Aren’t we racing time, mama?”
“Always. Always. But that doesn’t mean we don’t ever slow down. Like the tide, like the wind. Drift and shift.”
“Well, mama, I guess I’ll have to be a lot more Breezy.”
“Thatta girl. Let’s blow.”
