by submission | Feb 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: Mattia Ravasi
They came out of mirrors. Out of shop windows. Out of lakes and ponds, if the water was clear and still enough.
Our doubles. Identical, but opposite. Indistinguishable from us except for that look in their eyes, the look that people like my mom (mired in horrid prejudice) still believe to be proof that they are not the same as us, not truly human.
A defiant look. Unapologetic.
There were accidents at first, bursts of spontaneous or organized violence, but it is hard to harm yourself – and almost as hard to harm your anti-self. It feels wrong at a deep, primeval level.
Looking back at the panic of those early days, it is astonishing to realize how smoothly the world adapted when the Earth’s population doubled in a single day.
It turned out that overpopulation was a lie. There is enough Earth for everybody, as long as people stop eating for ten, and taking up land for a hundred. It wasn’t difficult, after that point, to shrug off Power’s other lies. If we don’t build these weapons, our enemies will kill us in our sleep. If you don’t work hard, our competitors will put us out of business, and you’ll go hungry.
(I lie. It was difficult. It took blood, sweat, and years, both ours and theirs, our doubles’.)
*
I live in the same city as mine. Apparently this is very common: people residing quite close to their double. It might be that we don’t trust them, and prefer to keep an eye on them. It might be that it’s as hard to give them up as it is to avoid looking at yourself when you pass your reflection in a car window.
The idea that they might harbor the same feeling, an unquestionable urge to check on us from time to time, never crossed my mind until now – perhaps because I am not as different from my mom as I like to think.
I have never spoken to him. He ran out of my house the second he emerged from my bathroom mirror, not without first giving me that look. We don’t say hi, or even nod, when we meet around town. And yet I somehow know quite a lot about him.
He does not feel the cold. Even in Winter, he rides his bike in short sleeves.
He never smiles at passersby, never moves out of the way to let pensioners or couples or groups of teenagers walk past him, but I’ve seen him run to the rescue of an old man who’d slipped on ice, and try to talk down a homeless man who was having a fit.
He eats with great gusto. He belches openly, unthinkingly.
He married a woman with black hair and a penchant for flowery dresses. I have seen them walk hand in hand, and I have seen them having loud arguments at café tables. I get the sense that he would rather call her out on the things he disagrees with, rather than stifle his opinion for the sake of a peaceful afternoon.
I doubt he ever read a single book, but he discusses the local soccer team loudly and jovially with strangers on the bus.
He is too distracted to send token texts to his aging parents – how are you today, I had pizza for lunch. He does make a point to travel to see them as often as he can.
The reason why I hate him so much is that I cannot shake the feeling that he is a better person than I am.
by submission | Feb 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: Sophie Villalobos
Phyllis was carrying in a three-tiered sponge cake. Her hips ticked one way and the cake the other. She lifted the party hat that was perched on top of Brain’s tank and set it down on the table beside him.
‘Happy birthday, Brain!’
A lacklustre stream of bubbles rose from beneath Brain’s frontal lobe. ‘Alas, another year,’ he said. His voice crackled in the speaker system.
Phyllis ignored him and started to cut the cake. ‘A slice for me,’ she said, removing a perfect wedge, ‘and a slice for you.’ She cradled a second wedge over to him, uncovered his tank, and sprinkled a few crumbs into the water. They fluttered down like fish food.
‘How’s about a little champagne to soften the blow?’ Brain said.
She licked the frosting from her fingers. ‘Okay, but just a drop. You know what alcohol does to your grey matter.’
Phyllis retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator and added a splash to his water. She replaced the lid of his tank and balanced the party hat jauntily on top of it. ‘I also got you a present. Any idea what it might be?’
‘It’s another hat.’
She dropped her arms by her sides and moaned. ‘Have a little imagination!’
‘Phil, darling, I’ve been stuck in this jar for forty years. There aren’t many other options.’
She stifled a squeal. ‘Oh, shush!’ Her shoes slipped over the floor tiles and when they reappeared, she was nudging a wrapped box with the point of her toe.
Brain drew behind a curtain of bubbles. Phyllis tore off the paper and heaved the contents out of the box. Brain heard her groan. The bubbles parted and he moved forward, rising a little like a cloud.
‘Lift with your back, not your arms!’ he said.
‘Easy for you to say.’
She rolled the gift onto her knees and lugged it over to the table. The cake jumped into the air as she dropped the object down beside it.
‘Well, it’s not another Panama, that’s for sure.’
‘Do you like it? It’s a diving helmet. But wait, that’s not all!’ She turned a key and the helmet began to whir. Cogs rode up behind the eyeholes and spun like pinwheels—a click—then six metal legs shot out from underneath it. Phyllis reached inside and tripped a switch. The helmet took a step forward. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ She grabbed a handful of electrodes from inside it. They hung between her fingers from a tangle of blue wires.
Brain fizzed with joy. ‘I can’t believe it! A brain-machine interface?’
‘Yup! Adapted from old Soviet gear. All we do now is pop you in here and you’re off! You can operate it without a body!’ Phyllis was about to attach the syphoning hose to Brain’s tank but she stopped herself.
‘What? What are you waiting for?’
‘It’s just,’ she pointed to the bottle of champagne, ‘You aren’t really supposed to drink and drive.’
by submission | Feb 4, 2023 | Story |
Author: A. C. Weaver
The Franz Josef Glacier has a smoky flavor and a granular texture. The Mendenhall glacier is gamey, with notes of musk and vetiver. The Greenland Ice Sheet has a powdery sweetness to it, like fine sugar. Ice of the Baltoro Glacier — which I enjoyed cubed in a Macallan single-malt — has a subtle, earthy bouquet. I have a close personal friend with access to an extensive cold storage facility in Svalbard; he often invites me there to indulge in rare or extinct ice. He chipped me off a serving of his collection from the Cook Ice Cap. It was the deepest blue I’ve ever seen, bluer than you could possibly imagine, you would weep to see it. We glutted on it, had it straight, shaved into shards to melt on the tongue.
The highly praised Perito Moreno Glacier has cores of bright green and even purple ice. But in color and flavor, I find them gauche. Very popular with the influencer crowd, and unfortunately, easily faked.
An acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a food journalist for the Times, took me out to dinner on the roof of the Hotel Angelique for a rare indulgence in rough-cut core of the Antarctic Shackleton Ice Shelf — one of the last places you can get it, outside of private collections — , on a bed of heather and garnished with arctic thyme. Exquisite, pure as water.
by submission | Feb 3, 2023 | Story |
Author: Brooks C. Mendell
Victoria remembered when, as a girl, she walked through Wellington Wood with her father. They listened to woodpeckers banging their heads for bugs and looked for promising oak trees to climb. The arrival of the Grafters and their technological efficiencies changed work and this way of life.
“They will try to replace us,” said Father, following an orientation session. “But it will be difficult.”
Wellington Wood, the vast forest covering half of the continent, had long supplied natural resources to families and businesses: wood for lumber, furniture and fuel; animals for food and leather; roots and plants for medicine and spices. While the Governors bickered over taxes and boundary lines, they faithfully observed the Wellington Wood tradition of sustainable rule: balance harvest with growth.
The Grafters arrived on gleaming metal ships that hovered across the water. Their representatives, dressed in collarless uniforms, visited the Governors and proposed new arrangements to increase production and revenues.
After the signing of Pact, the Grafters sent the massive, dull industrial ships loaded with equipment and their humanoid Fortechs.
“We have no interest in replacing the human workers,” said a Fortech, “but to make your work safer. This will increase our efficiency metrics.”
During weekly orientation sessions, Fortechs introduced new processes to increase volume and improve quality. The goals centered on numbers agreed to by the Grafters and our Governors. Each month, Father came home with less energy, less humor, less patience. He stooped.
Bit by bit, the Grafters bought the lawmakers and the courts and reporters. Our lives became less about walking in the woods and more about supplying energy and labor to the economic machines of our overlords.
The days of Victoria climbing in the woods with friends and family were no more. Now, she lived in a barrack with a nutrition muzzle strapped to her head and a fecal harness strapped to her hips that piped waste to the fertilizer distributors.
Humans always have a use.
by submission | Feb 2, 2023 | Story |
Author: Igor Dyachishin
More than thirty years have passed since we were made sure that we were not alone in the universe.
Aliens appeared unexpectedly in Jupiter’s orbit. Huge space fleet with unknown intentions.
Our governments, of course, did not immediately tell us about this. But they could not remain silent for a long time in principle.
Then the aliens contacted us.
Messages in several world languages were sent on different radio frequencies.
They said they would not harm us.
They said they would leave after a while.
And most importantly, they said:
“Please don’t interfere with us.”
As if we could do much!
“YOU ARE NOT INTERESTING TO US.”
That was all.
Of course, people are people. The sensation was accompanied by the fuss of politicians, covered by the media. Not without loud statements, of course:
“Aliens are preparing for an invasion!”
“The government is secretly negotiating with the aliens!”
Funny.
We were simply shown our place.
They even said something to us. I would say they showed remarkable generosity.
The fleet moved around the solar system for three decades. During this time, they managed to recycle Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and many main belt asteroids. Then they headed straight for the sun.
We were afraid. We trembled. We had our hopes.
And so they just disappeared, taking the resources they needed.
But the talking heads in the media and various interpreters have not calmed down so far.
It is so difficult for many of us to accept the truth.
We invented fairy tales in which kind aliens help humanity. We made up horror stories about invasion, enslavement, or destruction. We considered ourselves worthy of close attention. But the real aliens just glimpsed at us. What a blow to human pride!
My father was one of those who hoped. He had a reputation for being eccentric even before the aliens came. With the first news, he firmly believed that the aliens would save us. I remember he did not show even a shadow of fear, which was very strange. Personally, I was afraid. And not only me: probably, most of the population of Earth, who did not know what to expect, was at least somewhat afraid of the terrible scenarios drawn by the imagination.
Dad always, for as long as I can remember, took the suffering of humankind to heart. And he sincerely hoped aliens would help us.
But space travelers destroyed all illusions with their messages, and he could not live as before. He could not live anymore at all.
The night after the messages, he left home. Later, it turned out that he climbed to the fifteenth floor of an unfinished building and jumped out of the window.
Indeed, he was a strange man. He worried about humanity but did not think about loved ones. How many were like him on this planet?
Most of my life took place during the stay of aliens in the solar system.
Scientists have achieved little in their research (we are told so, at least). They say alien technologies are simply unimaginable for us.
Aliens just left.
A final shot to the head. The second blow to our ego.
They did not find anything interesting in us. If they were looking for it at all, of course.
