by submission | Oct 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
We were fifty light years beyond Tau Ceti when the screaming started. The sound came up from the open hatch at the back of the flight deck, and if I hadn’t been strapped in my head would have hit the ceiling. It was inhuman, a wailing that rose to a shriek as if there was a banshee in this old bucket with us – which should have been impossible, but this far out, who knew?
In the sensies, another ship would appear in the nick of time, its gorgeous captain floating over in person to deal with our sudden emergency… but believing in fantasies like that is for fools and dead men. The glossy travel mags never mention it, and the recruiters who dig up the crews for gas haulers like ours brush it aside, but the most terrifying thing about space is its sheer scale. Even the great miles-long pleasure cruisers are infinitesimal in the vastness of the Void. How many ships drift alone out here, never to be found in the cold blackness? How many mutinies and desperate acts of heroism have gone unnoticed and unknown in the immense depths of space?
Whatever was happening here, we would have to deal with it alone.
I tried raising Madison, our other notional officer, but there was no reply. The captain and I looked at each other, and she jerked her head at the bulkhead. I nodded. She couldn’t leave the bridge – trouble loves company, and Murphy would make sure something else went horribly wrong if she did. Plus, someone had to be here to answer the hailer if a gallant hero did defy the odds to swing by.
I unbuckled, and took the pistol from the bracket on the wall. Yeah, I know, use only in case of piracy – but something weird was going on, and I wasn’t about to take chances. Out here, you make your own luck.
I popped down the hatchway, and floated along the passageway beneath. We’re not like those fancy liners, we don’t have power to waste on maintaining gravity all the time – something else the sensies don’t tell you. The screeching was getting louder as I made my way aft, and I fancied there were words in it; or baby talk. But there were no kids aboard. I could see smears of what might have been blood on the walls. This didn’t look good at all.
I rounded the corner to the drive control room, and I could instantly see why Maddie hadn’t answered: she was huddled around our other crew member, Ali, the ship’s cat, as she struggled loudly to bring new kittens into the zero gee.
“Here,” I said, putting up the gun. “Let me help.” New lives in the enormous emptiness, and a whole new challenge.
by submission | Oct 19, 2022 | Story |
Author: Bryant Benson
Timothy sat in a brightly lit, featureless room. Across from him was a woman with thick glasses and a tight bun. She was as institutional as the room and had yet to look up from her clipboard. After an agonizing amount of time passed, she clicked her pen closed and spoke.
“Timothy, how long have you known Margaret?”
Timothy bolted awake and replied with a smile.
“Oh, we’ve been friends as far back as I can remember. Yes, we’re…well, we were quite close.”
His tone dropped as his smile dissipated.
“Friends? Close?” The woman glanced up at Timothy for the first time and raised an eyebrow.
“It’s okay. We expect you to care. That attention to detail is why we’re the best in the business.” She continued, without feeling, “So you do understand that Margaret is no longer with us?”
Timothy looked down at his fidgeting hands and breathed, “Yes.”
The woman clicked her pen open and scribbled on her clipboard before speaking again, “Now tell me Timothy, do you miss her?”
Timothy closed his eyes and thought back to Margaret’s fragile skin that would break often. He would tend to her tiny wounds while she told him of the concert halls her hands would fill when they were once capable of playing the piano. He remembered that she was afraid of thunder and would lay her graying head on his shoulder on rainy nights until she would fall asleep. He would stay there all night, wondering how it would feel to sleep like her.
He knew what he had to say. Timothy opened his eyes and replied, “No.”
She proceeded, “Excellent, we will have a new assignment for you tomorrow morning.”
She stood up and turned toward the door.
“Wait,” Timothy stammered, “So soon?”
She turned toward him with a perplexed look and spoke sternly, “Well yes, I didn’t think the time would be so relevant.”
Timothy hung his head and stared at his reflection in the cold metal table. The woman slid back into her chair and leaned forward.
Quietly, she asked, “Are you…sad?”
He nodded in agreement.
She glanced back at the large mirror behind her and raised one finger.
In the most sincere sounding voice she could muster, the woman asked, “Why are you sad Timothy?”
Timothy’s voice cracked as he spoke, “I loved her.”
The woman inhaled as she placed her hand on Timothy’s and whispered, “I know you did.”
The interviewer nodded toward the mirror. She let go of his hand, stood up, and walked out. Before the door closed behind her it was pushed open by three figures in bulky yellow hazmat suits. They grabbed Timothy as if they were simply moving furniture.
Timothy returned to his memories of Margaret. He saw her smile as she danced in her living quarters back when her legs still worked. She was all he ever wanted to care about.
He accepted his fate and was escorted out of the interview room. He was led into a much larger room with a massive exam table. Timothy was docile and silent as a long cylinder was driven through the base of his skull. His lifeless body was shoved into a chute where it landed atop a pile of other underperforming drones.
In the days that followed, his synthetic skin was melted down to be recycled as a cost saving measure. The device that pumped circulatory fluid through his veins was disassembled to be refurbished. His brain was incinerated along with whatever belongings Margaret left behind that went unclaimed by her surviving family.
by submission | Oct 18, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“You’re a what?”
“A panpsychist.”
“Whoa. Trippy. You psychoanalyze cookware or something?”
“In a way.”
“Really? Double trippy.”
“Panpsychists study consciousness with the belief that all matter is conscious. From a frying pan to an amoeba to a rock to a duck-billed platypus to that joint you’re smoking.”
“So, I can talk to my doobie? Triple trippy. It is truly a Doobie Brother!”
“Unlikely. Remember, consciousness has nothing to do with intelligence or the ability to communicate. It’s all about resonance, oscillations between two states, and the ability for the right type of vibrations to sync. Shared resonances that expand to more and more constituents can achieve greater complexities—especially in the gamma, theta and beta waves of human neuro-electric activity. So, I don’t think your doobie will be talking to you anytime soon.”
“Oh, man, but it has lots to say. Smokin’ A.”
“I’m sure. But I really need you to focus on this next part.”
“Is this the test?”
“It’s all just a test that we’re really here. Consciousness is our quantum check on reality, and reality is simply all the observable possibilities combined into a single wave function.”
“Surf’s up, dude. Cowabunga. Quatro trippy. Quatro trippy.”
“Indeed. Are you ready?”
“First, take a hit with me, man. We gotta generate some good vibes.”
“Now you’re seeing it. That’s what it’s all about. Good vibrations. Shared and shared alike. So, give me that hit. And talk into the lava lamp.”
by submission | Oct 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: Ken Poyner
The robot has seen his finger smashed by the iron press. His job is to slide uncoiled metal plates into place for the iron press to complete flattening them. But the press came down while the target was still being settled into its brackets. He has to report to the maintenance supervisor, suffer damage assessment, be queued for repair. The maintenance supervisor has seen this before. It is a regular fault. He could order a recalibration of production floor timing, ensure this stops happening. But he is an older model, and not all of his grievances have been zeroed out.
by submission | Oct 15, 2022 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Look, dying on Mars is easy. Equipment failure, sudden illness, inability to follow the safety instructions, they can all lead to the same (you must excuse the phrase) dead end. Making something look like a genuine accident is tricky, but it’s doable, especially with practice.
Oh, that won’t do? Okay, I understand. The body might contain something it shouldn’t, like a microdot or a traceable enhancement. Or there needs to be some strategic ambiguity about their status for while, because other matters need to be cleared up. Hey, it happens, I get it. Oh, it’s the insurance policy? I see.
Well, you need to understand, evading the Watchers can be tricky. Ah, I thought you might suggest that, but getting to the people in the monitoring stations is never as easy as the sensies pretend. The folks there are regularly vetted; if they’re even remotely compromisable, they’re shunted elsewhere. Worse, they’re well paid, which makes bribery extremely expensive; and even then they might turn around and hand you in anyway. Too risky. You can end up having to dispose of multiple bodies to cover your trail, which is kind of meta and self-defeating.
But if you know where to look, there are blind spots in the surveillance nets, and as a last resort there are ways of getting electronics to fritz while avoiding the kind of critical system damage that gets a Response Team on your neck in five minutes flat.
So the real problem is getting rid of the body. You can’t bury it, because there’s no vegetation: cuts in the ground are really obvious. You can’t leave it out for scavengers, because there aren’t any. You can’t just abandon it a long way outside town, either, because there’s no oxygen out there, which means no microbes, which means the stiff just waits there failing to decompose until someone inevitably comes across it. Most inconvenient.
Getting it into the organic recycling plant is next to impossible, because the Powers That Be aren’t stupid. They keep a close eye on all the messiness that’s sent for processing; even corpses need the official paperwork before they’ll let the machines touch them. False paperwork, you say? There are no good forgers on Mars, my friend; it’s not one of the skills on the Wanted Immigrants list. Plus everything’s coded for scanning, and there’s no way to fake that.
But the right combination of industrial chemicals can dissolve a body, given time. No, I’m not telling you what that combination is; trade secret. Getting hold of the stuff isn’t easy, but that’s not your problem, is it? All you need to know is that it can be done safely and cleanly, with no comebacks.
So, from my point of view, we can do business; you’ll just need to tell me which piece of grit we’re removing from the well-oiled machinery of your life. Your wife? Ah, a classic. Almost as popular a choice as a lover.
Thank you for confirming that. Now, as you can see, this is a blaster. Just stand up and we’ll make our way slowly to the exit; no need to disturb the other drinkers. My colleague at the door will take you into custody. Conspiracy to murder, tut tut, very naughty; you’ll be wanting a lawyer. Yes, I’m a Watcher; yes, I’ve been recording all this. Now come along; fortunately for your better half, death in Marsport really is far harder to arrange that people realise.
