by submission | Mar 25, 2022 | Story |
Author: David Penn
On this world in the Pica region each house has a bell. It calls constantly to the families in every other house and the bells there call back. It is the business of all Tzogg-Charans to keep these bells ringing, and so sacred do they hold that duty that if one stops they will scythe off parts of their own glassy flesh to repair it.
The clamour of the bells is considered beautiful and something that must be allowed to grow to perfection. Over many decades the bells may be shaved, re-layered or otherwise modified, as households tune each to its own individual sound, or “ke-ra”, a term for which there is no adequate English translation.
The tone-field, shape, harmony, pitch and clarity of each bell must reach certain levels of perfection which are beyond the capacity of human ears to distinguish. An achieved perfection of tone-field is particularly important as it will please the whole household, with its many levels of occupants. It is intended that it will also please the community at large, though it is well understood that this is not easy, given the differences of tastes between households, which can be profound while at the same time subtle and hard to discern. Nevertheless, it is the avowed desire of every Tzogg-Charan community, however large, that one day all its bells will chime in harmony, and the highest and most skilled levels of tuning and re-tuning are dedicated to this probably impossible goal.
The tuning of the bells, however, cannot go on indefinitely. Though the bells are extremely long-lived, each one reaches a point after many decades when adjustments, modifications, grafts, and shavings and so on no longer have any effect, and at this point a bell is considered to be in decline, indeed “dying”.
Through some interior agency or process that no outside observer has ever understood, at a certain point the sounds of the bell will begin to convert to light, which pulses in a vast range of dazzling colours, many unknown to the human eye. When the bell is fully agreed by the whole household to be, now, a lamp – or a “krin-girri” (again, translation into English can only be very approximate for this term) – it is placed on a long, tough kind of Tzogg-Charan leaf, much like a banana leaf though gold in colour, and “given to the river”. This is floated gently and with much ceremony on the surface of any local flowing body of water and allowed to travel downstream.
Tzogg-Charans wear special metallic red and blue feathers for this occasion, giving their intricately plated armour a tinselly effect, which is a sign both of mourning and celebration.
Strangely, as the lamps float along the river – particularly after they reach the community’s outskirts or disappear out of sight of the mourners – they begin again to emit sounds, often more beautiful than they ever gave out during their whole life as bells. When this happens, the guardians of each bell-lamp will find each other and embrace, however estranged by distance or time they may have become over the course of their lives.
It is outlawed for any Tzogg-Charan to see what forms the bell-lamps have taken during this final transformation, an edict which all obey out of the deep respect they hold for their planet and the unseen ocean beyond the rivers, and so no living Tzogg-Charan has any idea what the bell-lamps in this last stage look like, though the flashing lights seen above the jungle in the distance, and the occasional clear, mesmerising note of music, provoke endless speculation.
by submission | Mar 24, 2022 | Story |
Author: Hunter Liguore
The doctor’s face grew worried. The mother glanced up between pushes, doubting her decision for a natural birth. The process was longer. More risks.
One cut, one stitch, one minute.
The jingle for Insta-Baby-Byrthing ran through her head, as she pushed and sweated it out. When the baby cried, she held her breath. “Tell me, doctor, is my baby normal?”
The doctor frowned. “I’d hoped for a better outcome.”
The mother squeezed the baby’s plump, fleshy hands and cried. “It’s all my fault.” She felt again for the built-in, mechanical Palm-Pilot, normally entwined with bones and tendons.
The doctor lifted the baby’s vacant hand. “It’s sturdy. An implant might function as good as a natural-born Pilot, but it’ll allow her to function in society.”
“Unlike me,” the mother said. “I wanted to die when I figured out I was different than the other children.”
The doctor gave her a Pilot-implant brochure. “The Pilot-0900 quality—almost like the real thing.”
“Are there risks?” asked the mother. “I’d tried an implant; it malfunctioned and shut down the left side of my brain for two days.”
“I see.” The doctor nodded. “Maybe your child isn’t a candidate.”
She squeezed the baby, lovingly. “You’ve no clue how hard her life will be. She’ll be isolated, forced to communicate only verbally. No Pilot Socials. She won’t find work, since every opportunity is wired to the Pilot. She’ll never get off this planet. She’ll be forced to live at home and resent me for having her—worst of all, wherever she goes, she’ll be taunted as a Flesh-Hand.”
“There’re two options.”
“Doctor, there are no options for a Pilotless baby!”
“You can try adoption,” said the doctor. “Give your baby to a family financially able to accommodate her handicap. There are schools now for the Pilotless.”
“I didn’t know.”
“The other option is to send her to a private commune for special children.”
The mother gasped. “No!”
“She’d learn to cope with her handicap.”
“Handicap. I hate that word. Why not call us techno-cripple for god’s sake!”
“Look. I’m only trying to help. Once the birth certificate is reported with a deformity to the Government-Byrthing-Agency, she’ll be tagged as a hazard to society. It’s really your only option.” The doctor raised his Pilot to finalize the baby’s future.
“No implants, no donor-pilots,” said the mother. “No adoptive families. No communal, or disposal, which you didn’t mention—those black-social-sites that’ll do it in 24-hours. There’s always hope. So long as she has a loving mother that’s all that matters.”
The doctor finalized the baby’s chart. Baby’s hand—deformed. Parent denied customized methods of treatment.
Seconds later, the Government-Byrthing-Agency issued the baby a routing number that would keep her from entering the normal functions of society.
The mother watched it press into her baby’s hand, causing her to cry.
“It’ll be all right.” The mother soothed. She didn’t worry about the number. In time it would fade. Hers had faded years ago.
by submission | Mar 23, 2022 | Story |
Author: Josh Price
A loud crash woke Eve. She shook Adam and he rolled over, blinking, sleepy.
“Did you hear?”
He shook his head.
“There was a crash.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
Scowling, he nodded his head like he understood, but wouldn’t remember anything later. He could sleep through the beginning of the world.
The first tendrils of light were snaking their way into the garden, shining on tree leaves, illuminating the path leading to the gates in soft, warm glow. Eve knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep now, so she got up to investigate.
No one said they couldn’t go outside the gates, they just never did. The only rule was: don’t eat the fruit from the tree. She stood up, nudging Adam with her foot, smirking as he grumbled and rolled over.
Walking along the path, she made her way to the north edge of the garden—the sun warming her by the time she reached the gates.
She pushed them open, they made no noise.
She looked at the vast expanse of flatland outside the walls and felt very small; she had forgotten they persuaded themselves all that existed was Eden.
Eve looked south, seeing something she didn’t recognize. She walked toward it. The object was translucent and spherical, buried in a long trail in the dirt. It had come from the sky.
She stood before the sphere and it pulsed once; flashing red. Jumping back, she let out a fearful cry.
The sphere pulsed again—deeper red this time. She turned and ran back to the garden to wake Adam. She wanted him to see. When they got back to the sphere, it was completely deflated; a long tear across its surface.
“What do you think it is?” Eve asked.
“I don’t know,” Adam said.
“Do you think this is how we got here?” She asked, but Adam just stared at her.
“Let’s go back,” he said.
Eve didn’t know how she’d come to be, couldn’t remember. Adam said she was made from him, but she didn’t trust his memory either.
Adam was content to do nothing. She would go out of her mind if she stayed in this garden her whole life. Wasn’t there more than this? She didn’t know.
Later, she was standing by the tree, thinking about Adam, bored by his disinterest. Yet, she loved him, her love fueled her curiosity. Her curiosity was love.
Adam was approaching, staring at the tree, something different in his eyes. Eve felt excitement rushing through her. She wanted more of this curious Adam.
“You ever wish he’d just tell us?” He asked.
“Yeah, of course. Do you?”
“Not until today,” Adam said.
“What’s come over you?” Eve asked.
“Do it Eve; take one.”
She asked him: “Why me?”
Adam looked away, a flicker of hatred in his eyes.
Eve stomped over and plucked an apple from the tree.
“Here, you eat it,” she said.
He took the apple, bit it. Adam grabbed Eve and pulled her close, kissed her too hard, shoving the bit of apple into her mouth with his tongue.
Furious, she chewed it up and she swallowed it—daring him.
“Coward,” she hissed. Adam’s eyes turned red, smoke billowing from his mouth and racing through the air, serpentine. Eve chased the smoke to Eden’s gates—out to the deflated sphere near the east wall.
Pulsing red the smoke entered the flaccid skin, filling it whole again. For the first time, she realized she was naked.
“What are you?” she asked. But she already knew.
The End
by submission | Mar 22, 2022 | Story |
Author: Iain Macleod
Orbital mechanics was never my thing but this’ll be the last time I ever have to do the math so it’s all good. Unnamed asteroid floating in the belt around dwarf planet Estera is traveling at X velocity and ill be traveling at top speed once I pass the station at Esperia LaGrange one which means I’ll have to start my death playlist when I’m 138000km out so that I hit that mother fucker during the high point of Wild One by Suzi Quatro and leave this fuckin’ world behind for good. It was a toss-up between that or Jawbreaker by Cruel Intentions. Both fuckin ace songs.
Sweet. Coords plotted, autopilot programmed and whiskey poured.
What most people don’t know about this particular asteroid is that it’s loaded with the highly profitable and very extremely unstable substance Lithiterium, known to you and me as cold gold or to the soulless bloodsucking corp that took over this system as cash fucking money.
Engines firing full blast feels like being pushed back into the seat hard and is still a hell of a thrill after all these years. Guess I never grew up. G forces ease up as we reach max velocity and I hit play. Monster by Reckless love. Volume up volume up volume up. Knock back the whiskey and pour another.
Picture of Kate, my kid, above the main control panel. She died about two years ago after the corp refused our insurance. Twenty-three fucking years I worked for those bastards. A pre-existing condition they said, as if the lung condition she and half the population had wasn’t directly related to the pollution they pumped into the atmosphere. I tried taking it to court. They fired me then sued me and won. I tried appealing, they bought the court and it went nowhere. I tried to kill some executives but I couldn’t even get near them. Guess I can’t hit them directly but I can cost them a fuck lot of money and go out with a bang. ZZ Top blares out of the speakers, fuckin’ legends.
The emergency override light starts blinking. I disconnected the actual overrides from the nav circuits before I even left orbit, but the light coming on is a nice reassurance that my math ain’t wrong.
Knock back the last whiskey. Picture of Kate in my hand. Suzi Q fucking blasting out of the speakers.
I’m the wild one, motherfuckers.
by submission | Mar 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Kathy LaFollett
“Screeeet!” His name. In another’s voice. From a hallway he wasn’t looking down. Screet was looking down at his lunch. Sitting down at a table in the SpacePort Employee Sustenance and Snacks, or SPESS. Acronyms in space save time. Space is time, therefore saving time saves space. He fumbled hot crinkle fries nestled in food papers imprinted with the SpacePort TransPortation and HubEarth logo that lined a crinkle fries basket. The logo was blue. Not the blue of the sky if you were standing on earth looking up. The blue of the sky that is space seen from a SpacePort TransPort Ship, which is not blue but black. He wrestled a ketchup bottle. Screet had grown fond of ketchup while training on earth for his job at SPTPHE.
“Screeeeet!” His name tumbled down the hallway into the SPESS the same time the ketchup bottle belched a sweet mass next to his crinkle fries. He ignored his name and ate. Screet chewed and sighed thinking on the unfortunate truth that when pronounced correctly, his name became the most irritating sound on any planet in any galaxy. Surely the Hive Vicars could have put a bit more work into naming him the day he was decoupled from his insulate. “ScrEEET! Finish up! Flight 107 just inverted! I’m not throwing alone down here!”
Screet sighed and chewed. Crinkle fries. Ketchup. Glorious snacks invented by an inglorious species. His co-worker yelled again while throwing luggage, off-piling from servobots, onto the luggage conveyor leading to the transporter that broke the luggage down into transmittable molecules to reassemble at baggage claim three Earth miles away at Arrivals Lane. Screet sighed and listened to the transporter breaking down luggage. It sounded like a bug zapper he’d seen on earth. Which forced SPTPHE to redesign Travelers Transport into a hover floor. Walking through a door that lit up blue and sounded like a bug zapper was off-putting to Earthlings. Interstellar SpacePort TransPortation modified operations for the comfort of the planet nearest. Beings had issues. All of them. This universal truth kept SPTP Information and Suggestions Department busy creating signage explaining the off-putting things. They found that explanations with blinking lights and short words helped travelers negotiate what put them off.
The bug zapping sound turned into one long zap as luggage items flew into the transporting net array. “Screet! I am not kidding. Get down here! Your lunch ended when Flight 107 inverted!” Daniel grabbed luggage from the servobots and tossed the payload into the net array. There was no time to aim. “SCREEEET!”
Their shift ended after Flight 312 to Vogt transposed. Daniel and Screet headed to their resident quarters. Employees of SPTP lived on Hub as long as they were employed. They could choose Earth vacations, but few did. Earth had lost its appeal three hundred years back when one Earthling hated another Earthling and pushed one button that made a mess of things. Employees chose to TransPort Vacate to other systems by way of the Employee Exchange Program. Spend a few weeks working in a new stellar system connection, take a few days to visit the near planet. Screet had done a time flip at HubVogt. Daniel, being an Earthling, hadn’t used the Employee Exchange Program. Earthlings didn’t like change. It had taken a good Gliese year to convince Earthlings that space travel was safe thanks to the bug zapper transporter fiasco. If Earth hadn’t been at the perfect vector for the Orion Connection, Interstellar would have gladly shut it down. But location is everything. Even in space.
