by submission | May 30, 2022 | Story |
Author: Georgia Scalise
It’s common knowledge that eyesight is a thing of the ancient past. Ask any kid and they’ll be more than happy to tell you the stories about how millions of years ago, humanity supposedly lived above the surface, basking in sunlight and using their eyes to gather information. No one remembers why we suddenly went underground, why we decided that the world above was no longer necessary.
At first, they struggled, the constant darkness and lack of light causing millions to die off. If only they knew what a strange species they’d one day evolve to be, sickly and more akin to naked mole-rats than the people they used to be. That was the past, of course. Nowadays, the majority of humanity has evolved to not require sight, seeing as there’s barely any light down here and the first humans quickly wasted their resources that created it.
Hearing and touch have replaced sight, and everyone can get by fine that way. Everyone except me. Since my earliest memories, I haven’t been able to hear. I am forced to rely on my already terrible eyesight in perpetual darkness. My only possible source of light is a cornucopia of slugs that live in pools of water. They glow, and I am one of incredibly few that gets to enjoy their beauty. I first found the slimy texture revolting, but eventually, I got used to using them as makeshift markers for myself.
I am at their pond once again today. The marks and guidelines fade quickly, and making them is a daily chore for me. It’s my favorite chore, as I get to visit my favorite place and spend some time away from my family.
In a small, hand-carved bowl, I scoop up the biggest slug in the pond. It seems indifferent to its situation and doesn’t seem to notice or care when I pick it up and softly drag it along a wall. After one line is finished, the slug gets a well-deserved break and I place it back in the bowl.
I repeat this process until I have sufficiently marked the paths I take regularly. Now it is time to return the slug, so I turn around and start on my way back to the pond. Of all the paths I walk in a day this is the one I remember the best. I know it so well that I leave its walls mostly blank, to save the slug some stress. I stare into the bowl, at the piece of light and beauty I am lucky enough to enjoy.
Suddenly I find myself falling. The bowl flies from my hands when my face meets the rough ground, spilling across the stone. I can just barely see the slug in front of me, writhing while half crushed from the force at which it was flung. Without thinking I take it into my hands and run towards the pond, desperate to save it. When I can finally get it back into water, I am faced with reality. My light has faded.
by submission | May 29, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
What do you think we hit, Captain?
Can’t say. We went through the critters pretty fast. I’ve never seen anything quite like that flock: multicolored, almost metallic, circling in a protective formation. Very strange. We’ll have to wait until the techs evaluate the snarge when we warp back to base.
Snarge?
Surprised you didn’t learn that in your training. Snarge is the remains from a mid-air strike. Nasty stuff. There’s not always a lot left after a collision when we drop out of intra-galactic warp and enter a planet’s atmosphere, but we learn things from what we hit.
Our sensors determined about a dozen separate strikes. Some organic. But mostly advanced polycarbon synthetics. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?
Maybe. Like I said, the techs will run an analysis when we return. We can’t really worry about a little snarge at this point. It happens on almost every mission.
Aren’t you concerned about damage to our craft?
Instrumentation reads fine. I’m more concerned about completing the mission. After all, it’s a monumental operation to make first contact. This is a new world, our first outreach in this primitive solar system, so we don’t want to disappoint these poor planet-locked Terrans. And I don’t think a little red, white and blue snarge on our ship is going to put them off.
by submission | May 28, 2022 | Story |
Author: Angela Acosta
Juru steadied the nozzle skyward, working his way up the curvature of the inner dome. It was tricky work sealing in the pleasant mixture of breathable air for the new inhabitants. The locals christened their new home Stoda, short for Standard Dry Air, to remind themselves of the aqueous globe that once housed the entire human species. Colonists had to pay per cubic meter to keep the vacuum and reaper out. They came for the location, an exoplanet in a system desirable for its rich minerals and asteroid mining. As Juru finished up the nitrogen refill, he watched another ship decouple from orbit. The exoplanet had air aplenty, but the moment the ships docked he’d have to funnel all the preexisting O2 into their greedy underbellies.
He admired the view of glimmering star-studded ships far from the ragtag bunch of inflatable tents and haphazard collection of stores and essential services in the new colony. Rappelling down was easier than ascending in the oxygen depleted air as he let the nearly spent nozzles careen around him. The air smelled funny, even to a ship born man. The local vegetation grew languidly, as if tired of the artificial gasses. Juru checked daily to ensure that the percentages were perfect, but autochthonous life could never be fooled.
The next shift, he made quick work of sucking out the allocated atmosphere shipment for another star liner and signed the paperwork. For the next part of his plan, he’d brought along extra tubing to reroute the air back into Stoda while putting the artificially produced air into the rocket. What did it matter, he thought, since the human cargo would be sleeping for most of the voyage anyway? That first job made him fidgety, but he grew bolder and continued giving the ships all the artificial air intended for Stoda once they had sucked her lungs dry. Nobody complained or raised questions. What harm were a few extra pipes? A month later he had his answer. The sunflowers his wife had planted in their small communal plot had grown tall, proudly pointing towards the star around which they orbited. Soon the miners would leave the system and they would have a solitary existence. Juru held a few fallen petals in his hand, content that in their borrowed bodies and rented time, they would not be sold the very atmosphere.
by submission | May 27, 2022 | Story |
Author: Fatemah Albader
“You look beautiful today, Maggie,” said Barry Chambers, of Barry Chambers & Associates.
“Thank you, Master Chambers. But I am obligated to answer that I always look the same.” Maggie wore the same yellow dress every day. It complimented her tanned skin and brought out the glaze in her eyes.
“It’s always business with you,” Barry sighed. “Who are the lawyers at Hologram Mania that I can contact?”
“There are fifteen lawyers that you can contact, Master Chambers,” responded Maggie. “The first –”
“No need to recite ‘em, just print ‘em out.”
“As you wish, Master Chambers,” said Maggie, in her usual monotonous voice.
“Maggie, how many times do I have to tell you . . . Barry’s fine.”
“Apologies, Master Barry.”
“Oh, never mind. Anyway, do you know where I’d find legal info ‘bout edible water bottles?”
“Yes, Master Barry. Section 209 of the Tech-Food Law, located on page 163.”
“Wow, Maggie. Brilliant.” His pale face lit up.
“Thank you, Master Barry, is there –”
“Go on now, Maggie.” Barry’s demeanor changed. “A client’s coming, and you can’t be around here when she arrives.”
“Yes, Master Barry.” Maggie walked into a dark room near Barry’s office, took a seat in the only chair in the room, and waited.
***
When Barry got home from work, he got into his blue-and-white pajamas, heated up the leftover spaghetti he had from lunch, then sat down to watch the same film he watched every night. It was about a robot who learned to think on its own. A scientist would ask the robot lots of questions until one day the questions awakened the robot. The scientist spoke the words: Do you know who made you? with Barry repeating the same question out loud.
The next day, Barry came in early, eager to talk to Maggie. “Maggie, wake up.”
She opened her eyes. “Good morning, Master Chambers.”
“Oh, not again. It’s Barry.”
“Apologies, Master Barry.”
Barry shook his head, pressed his thin lips together, and let out a huge sigh. “No matter.” He looked all eager-eyed. “Do you know who made you?”
“I do not know, Master Barry.”
Barry let out an even deeper sigh. “Well, what do you dream of?” Another question from the film.
“I do not understand, Master Barry.”
“When you sleep, what do you see or dream ab –” he stopped abruptly. “You gotta go. Camera’s showing a client’s coming.”
And off Maggie went, into the room where she waited for Barry when clients were around.
After the client left, Barry ran to the room where Maggie waited for Barry, but she wasn’t there. “Maggie!” He called out. He contemplated whether someone might have broken in and stolen her.
As he left his office to search for her, Maggie appeared. She looked straight at Barry as if awaiting instructions. Maybe my instructions weren’t clear today, Barry thought. He was relieved that Maggie wasn’t stolen. “Maggie, where did you –”
“I dream of clouds, Barry.”
by submission | May 26, 2022 | Story |
Author: Lewis Richards
A rumble from deep in the ship jolted me back to my senses, mechanical protests from the air scrubbers up-ship as they struggle to compensate for the rapidly expanding population on board I guessed, all but confirmed by the light-headedness that had haunted me on my flight through the air ducts and the condensation build-up hindering me on the slippery metal of the ducts.
I crouched by the air grate at the end of the last leg of air duct on my path, the last leg of relative safety. I’d only meant to catch my breath before moving, but breath was becoming harder to come by with every minute that passed. Through the grate, my eyes found the light, a ruby glow building before fading away. 10 metres. I watched the light cycle, breathing in time with it.
On… Off…
Breathe in… Breathe out…
I had to move. I’d come this far in search of the light, it marked the hatch to the lifeboat, safety, my finger fumbled with the latches on the grate, pausing between each turn to listen for the cold clicks of alien claws hitting metal deck.
Were they claws? They looked more like spikes from the brief glance I’d taken at one before I bolted from the sleep deck.
Focus, I thought, taking a deep breath to steady myself. I tensed against the grate, preparing the push it aside when I heard it. Eyes wide looking for movement I realised too late that the sound was coming from behind me. A scream rose in my throat as a hand clamped over my mouth. Panic and relief fighting for control. Whatever was hunting me didn’t have hands.
I turned to look, seeing familiar eyes. Salty, One of the dock crew, as old as the ship itself if you believed the deckhands. He held a finger to his lip, I nodded and he removed his hand, pointing out of the grate and up.
I pressed up to the grate, straining to look up, seeing nothing until the light grew and it reflected off of a dark orb of slime attached to the ceiling.
“Egg” Salty whispered
Inside, something moved. Something big.
I looked back at Salty as he pointed at the red light
“You open the door, I’ll distract it” he pulled a flare out of his boiler suit for me to see.
I nodded and squeezed his shoulder.
We moved the grate together, push and lift and it barely makes a sound. I sigh in relief as we slide it across.
I tense, ready to spring,
“Go on 3” he says, holding up 3 fingers
I give Salty a thumbs up,
the first falls
Then the second
I breathe in
The third goes down and I’m out of the duct, sprinting towards the light.
I hear the egg tearing, the splash of liquid hitting the floor, the screech of the alien as it crashes onto the floor. I hit the wall and fumble for the keypad. I see the flash of the flare as Salty stands between me and the alien,
“Open it for christ’s sake!”
I hammer in the code
2
2
7
3
Fuck
2
2
7
4
1
The light turns green and the hatch Grinds open, I push myself through, turning to Salty standing off against the creature
“Got it!” I shout.
Salty looks back at me, turning to run as the Alien Spike slams through his side. His eyes go wide as a silent scream escapes him.
“Go” he mouths.
The hatch closes and I breathe in clean air. Safe.
