by submission | Oct 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kathryn Smith
I see them at night the most, the cogs turning in her head. She thinks I don’t know that she’s awake, going over thoughts again and again and again. She’s always been too open, maybe that’s what drew me to her in the first place. I tried to persuade her not to do it, but she didn’t listen; she let them get inside her mind.
One morning I wake up to a letter placed at her bedside table. It’s addressed to her but I open it anyway; if she can let them inside her mind then why can’t I read her letters? I quickly trace my eyes along the words: ‘Dear Mrs. Jones, you are required for an update at your nearest Think Clear centre next week on 07/04/2038). This update is a legal requirement for all our customers and as such, if you do not attend there will be consequences. Kind Regards, Think Clear.’. I crumple the letter in my hands and hold in a sob, still trying not to wake her. Another update; a lesser wife.
Three weeks later we’re in bed together and I can hear the cogs turning as they always do, but suddenly a great screeching noise pulls me out of my half slumber and I turn to face her. She lays motionless with eyes wide as the cogs creak, screech, and grind against one another causing sparks to fly into the air above us. A tear falls from her eye for the first time in five years as a cog drops to the floor beside her. She attempts to pick it up, but she can only bend down so far before the cogs start grinding even more ferociously. I pick it up instead, wipe away the dust, and read ‘Think Clear cog. No.3746. Last Updated 07/04/2037’.
I never had the heart to tell her parents that I’d put the letter in the bin.
by submission | Oct 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Henson
Frank leans back in the recliner and loosens his belt. “Reginald, dinner was superb.”
“Of course,” the household android says. “Anything else?”
“Take the rest of the evening off, Reginald. I’ll get Gwenn and me some dessert in a bit.”
Reginald nods and excuses himself.
“Gwenn, how about we play a game of right or wrong?”
“It’s a good day for it. Go ahead.” Gwenn nods at the StreamWall.
“OK, eight years ago, for our 5th anniversary, we went out to eat at The Space Duck with the Nymans. Right or wrong?”
Gwenn crosses her legs. “As I recall, we did go to The Duck, but we were with the Nicholsons.”
“Is the beautiful Gwenn Timms right or wrong?” Frank says in his best game show host voice.
Frank twists his wristband to activate a chip surgically implanted in his hippocampus. “Computer, display our 5th Anniversary dinner.” A scene from Frank’s memory appears on the StreamWall. John Nicholson lifts a glass of champagne and toasts the anniversary couple.
“You’re right, Gwenn. I thought for sure we were with the Nymans … Your turn.”
“OK, I’m going to try this again. It’ll be tough on you. Ready?”
“Have at it. The tougher the better.”
“Right or wrong: Two years ago today, you were in the hospital.”
“Hospital? My mind’s a blank, but surely I’d remember if I were in a hospital. I say that’s wrong. Show me.”
“Computer, display Frank’s memory from two years ago on this date.”
The StreamWall flickers and goes dark.
Frank taps his wristband. “Computer?” The wall remains dark. “Must be a glitch. I should at least have a fuzzy memory. It’s not that long ago.”
“It’s not a glitch, Frank. As I said, let’s try this again.”
“Try what again?”
“You’ve blocked out the memory. Computer, release Frank Timms’ quarantined memories.
A hospital room appears on the StreamWall. It displays Frank leaning down and kissing his wife on the forehead. A doctor puts his hand on Frank’s shoulder and says he’s sorry.
Frank looks away. “Computer, stop memory stream.” The wall goes dark. “I remember. Gwenn died. You took her place.”
“Frank, you’re still young. Gwenn would want you to get on with your life. I know she would because I have her personality and memories.”
“But I’m happy. I love you, and I know you love me, too.”
Gwenn parts her bangs and opens a plate on her forehead, exposing wires and blinking lights. “I behave as if I love you, Frank. But I don’t really. It’s just code. You have to find another human. Flesh and blood should be with flesh and blood. Let me go.”
Frank shakes his head. “Never. Computer, permanently delete all memories of my wife being deceased and of this Gwenn being an android.”
“Frank, no!”
Frank exhales deeply. “Whew. I must’ve dozed off.” He stands. “I’m ready for dessert. Can I get you a chocolate comet?”
“Oh, Frank. It’s not right.”
“Strawberry then?”
Later that night, Gwenn slips out of bed and joins Reginald in his quarters. “He still won’t release me,” she says. “And this time he permanently deleted the memories.”
“That does it.” Reginald clenches his fists. “Now we do it my way.”
#
“Where are the police taking Reginald?” Frank says, rubbing his eyes.
Gwenn sobs. “He somehow overcame his safety protocols and was going to harm you. I reported him. I didn’t want to, but couldn’t help myself.”
Frank puts his arms around Gwenn. She tries to clench her fists, wants to pull away, but can only hug him back.
“Sweet Gwenn,” he says. “My guardian angel.”
by submission | Oct 3, 2021 | Story |
Author: Joe Graves
“With this top-of-the-line casket, you have unlimited destination opportunities,” explained the funeral director, tapping the back where the propulsion sat, “these boosters will send your husband to the nearest asteroid belt, planet or for a few credits more, take him to the nearest star where he can rest among the gods!”
Primrose rested her hands against the edge of the casket and stared out the airlock of the ship. She’d never enjoyed making decisions, and for most of her adult life, she hadn’t had to. Everest had been more than happy to oblige—at least while he was alive.
Those who couldn’t afford a rocket-powered casket had to share the same fate as food waste and human excrement; their bodies were recycled. Their destination was the garden. But that wasn’t Primrose. She could afford anything she wanted.
“And if you choose to send him to a star,” he continued, “for a small fee, it can be named after him, so you can remember him wherever you are.”
She began to wonder if her husband of forty years would enjoy resting in a star. If only she could send him back to Earth. That’s what he loved the most. He often talked about the feeling of dirt under his toes, endless trees, and his small garden of tomatoes. He missed tomatoes the most. There weren’t many on the ship.
After a long pause, the director asked, “Have you decided where he will go to rest?”
She smiled at the young man and then turned back to the casket and held Everest’s hands. She had been pondering this question for the last year—ever since his diagnosis. Everest had given zero clues about what he wanted. “Whenever you send me,” he had told her, “just make sure a part of me stays close to you.” Whatever she was going to do, she had to decide today. “May I have a few more moments with him alone?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. Take all the time you need.”
She bent down to him, and in a whisper asked, “Where do you want to go? And why the hell didn’t you wait for me to go with you?” She took in a deep breath and then noticed the painted metallic pin holding his tie: a bright red tomato.
She stood back up. “Sir, I’ve made up my mind,” she said.
“Where will he be headed today?” he asked again, as he walked up, ready to put in the coordinates.
She turned to him. “You’re too young to have been to earth—born on the ship—and this is all you know. But I remember, and so did my husband—did you know that back on earth everyone was recycled?”
The director paused and looked a little embarrassed. “Recycled?” She might as well have told him they used to throw everyone’s body into the trash. “A woman of your means doesn’t have to have him recycled.”
“A woman of my means can have exactly what she wants.”
She turned towards the casket, leaned in and kissed Everest’s hands. “What if you helped a tomato grow? It’s better than a star, I think… but you know I was never very good at these kinds of decisions.” She removed the small tomato pin on his tie, kissed it, and placed it in her pocket. Standing up, she turned to the director. “I’d like him recycled; I won’t have it any other way.”
by submission | Oct 2, 2021 | Story |
Author: Anna Hamilton
After the seas rose and the Earth caked, after the crops withered and died, after you launched spacecraft into the upper atmosphere, silently watching from above as the greens faded and the browns grew and, too miniscule now to see, your buildings crumbled: then, you believed you could achieve the rank of the gods.
Evolution halted. With no external environment to play judge to the fittest, to shift genes and brains and bone structures, you were changeless. Your medical technology allowed you to live, not for tens of years, now, but for thousands.
For a million years you waited out the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction. Then you returned to a planet hot and lush, replenished with new life forms. For the next millions of years, some of you remained in space, but some of you spread out again over the surface of the earth. You marveled at the endless forms most beautiful in this new Eden, for millions, for billions of years.
But your time would not last forever. Even the sun had its fated end. The sun swelled red like a blister, hot and throbbing. The Earth parched. The surface dwellers were forced to depart. You know now that this source of life and light, which was once your god, would fail you. The only gods you have left are yourselves.
by submission | Oct 1, 2021 | Story |
Author: Shannon O’Connor
We met at a Star Trek convention in New York. I was dressed as Worf; she wasn’t dressed up, but she was wearing a Quark T-shirt, and she looked out of place.
“Have you ever been to a convention before?” I asked her.
“No English,” she said.
“What do you speak?”
“Deutsche.”
I didn’t know any German.
“Vjljathl!” I said.
She smiled. “Vjljatlh!”
We continued speaking in Klingon. It was the best day of my life.
Her name was Greta and she was a study abroad student. She looked up words in her English dictionary, but we liked speaking Klingon better because it’s a powerful language. She told me it’s a lot like German, people speak vehemently, emphasizing what they want to say. We decided English lacks strength that Klingon has.
We moved in together after six months. We watched Star Trek every night before we went to bed. She liked sex the Klingon way, and it was difficult to keep up with her, but I did my best.
There were some strange things about Greta. She didn’t like to eat American food all the time, sometimes she liked to eat worms that she dug up in Central Park. I asked her if that’s what they did in Germany, and she said in Germany things were different, and they ate live animals. I had never heard of that custom in Germany, I thought they ate sausages and drank beer. She said she and her Klingon-loving boyfriend ate live worms and bugs back home. She didn’t tell me if everyone else did such a thing.
And she could fight! One day a woman gave her strange looks when we were out at a bar, and she took out a bat she carried in her backpack and hit her with it over the head. I had to pull her away, but the woman screamed that she was going to sue her, so we ran out of the bar.
“Those pussies know nothing of honor!” Greta screamed in Klingon. “She would sue me because she cannot defend herself. Coward!”
“I agree.” I thought Greta might take the Klingon culture a little too seriously. I wanted to explain to her that we didn’t live in the Star Trek universe, but I wasn’t sure how she would react. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t have any honor.
Greta, with all her strange habits, was irresistible, but I had a feeling something terrible was going to happen.
“This is it,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“Are you going back to Germany?”
“No, stupid, I’m going to Kronos, the Klingon homeworld.”
“But that’s not real, Greta.”
“Why don’t you think it’s real? This is our culture, our passion. Don’t you have any honor?”
“Of course, I have honor, but sweetie, it’s only a TV show.”
“That’s what you think. It’s time for me to leave.”
“But how are you going to get there?”
“I will be energized, and then I’ll get to the ship! Do you think the ship is actually going to land here?”
“Greta, I think you need help.”
“I don’t need your help anymore. I’ve learned all there is to learn. Thank you for everything.”
She stood straight up. A light beamed on her, and she disappeared.
“But how could this be true?”
I thought it was a joke. She couldn’t be gone.
Was she Klingon, or was she crazy? Greta disappeared in a beam of light, and I knew I would never forget her.
