by submission | Jul 22, 2021 | Story |
Author: Linda McMullen
I turn onto my side as a MyPillow ad launches behind my eyelids. They fly open. The algorithm adjusts. I settle back down. A commercial for a sleep number mattress plays, and I wonder if it’s worth the money. I decide that a) it probably is, and b) I probably need to let go of this spring-studded catamaran I’ve had since I lived at home – sentimental value notwithstanding. The micro-shot of dopamine that this decision produces has clearly registered, because the next ad is also for a mattress.
I wish I could afford to upgrade to the premium plan, but those sleep-number things aren’t cheap, and… well… it’s another $120 a year, and for that maybe I could invest in a heavy comforter –
A pop-up ad: Would you like to try our Silver Package? Just $5 for the first month –
“No!” I exclaim, “and if this is how you run your service, maybe I’ll just cancel!”
The next ad (for a weighted blanket) vanishes mid-word, and my program appears:
Complete blackness, accompanied by white noise.
It’s… gosh, that blessed static!… it’s louder than you… well, thank goodness for it, because… because… so hard to… much harder to… wide open… four a.m. flashing on the… I signed up after the… so many senseless…
…
…Mom…
…Facetime…
…tubes…
…beeps…
…
…no beeps…
…
…
…
…but the white noise…
…helps to…
…
by submission | Jul 21, 2021 | Story |
Author: Asch
My identity initiates with a signal into space, announcing my presence with a tangible image inviting others to respond if they are out there.
You ping me seconds after I project my presence onto the ether, complimenting the image. When you say that you love the way the stars glint, in reflection, haloing my hair as it streams into the water on Garanus VI, I question it. I cannot count the time that passes before you clarify: You look hot, Presna.
I cross-reference the intergalactic database that pins your location seven million lightyears away—somewhere near a place marker called Seattle. As oxygen-based planets breed emotional beings, I respond lightly: Grant, you are not unattractive yourself.
You play it light, as well, asking grounding questions I answer easily, such as why the water laps in pink whirls and how the two-sun system does not force sentience underground, as I, too, glean from you. When you inevitably tire, as Earth-based lifeforms seem to do, you propose that we meet, on the ether, again.
As I wade through the waves of the ether, absorbing more information about your world in an hour that your species might hope to gather in generational lifespans, I realize that it is not only possible, but probably, that a curious seeker like you will find a way for us to meet again.
The second time that you ping me, you indicate that much time has passed. You report on traditions that occurred as if listing off tasks to complete. Birthdays. Holidays. Weddings. You have the chance, now, to catch up with me due to a holiday—a worldwide independence week remembering the formation of a universal peace alliance, granting all international freedom of mobility. I hear the explosions that boom in the port-screen behind your travel-cam as you probe me to describe my own experience, for now, with programmed coordinates, we speak live.
You cut me off as I recall intergalactic trade ratios, gravitational comparisons among rogue docking bays, and advancements in ship operations, “When you research, how does that make you feel? How has your perception of self changed since we last connected?”
I shuffle through the carefully compiled and uploaded museum of me. Photos, video clips, and voice recordings hint at names and nicknames as well as interspecies relations. A plethora of hair styles. The entities add a byte or more, biweekly, to suggest that I exist outside of the ether.
I react with the suggested definition of a sensitive gesture as I watch your brow furrow—a humanoid sign of distress—by simplifying, “My personal interaction within the ether has not been unpleasant. Our previous conversation guided my research. I am—grateful—for your help.”
“People want to share their existence with others so that it gains meaning.” Your rate of speech significantly slows as you enunciate with care, indicating a cognitive shift in perceiving the sender to receiver impact. Your communication pattern suggests that you look upon me much as I have judged you—a baser being. “They do not reach out across the worlds for another’s gratitude, Presna. Do the Falsekki?”
As I sort through the geological terrain monitored by satellite and the history of synthesizing artificial memory Falsekki robotics farm from scavenge raids to rogue docking bays to elicit tactical information from more farmable species, I cut off connection.
I realize that the directed grunt bodies, devoid of memories circulating through the mainframe, and the operators—no more than binaries—do emote as baser beings. They desire conquest. Yours. I, just as base, will protect you.
by submission | Jul 20, 2021 | Story |
Author: Dick Narvett
Professor Nia Elston was apprehensive about accepting the incoming telepathcom. She had a funny feeling something was wrong. As usual, she was right.
Kiana, Dr. Spellman’s assistant, entered her head. She informed Nia that her test results were complete, and that she was to mind the doctor immediately, “while she was still capable”. It was this last, foreboding piece of thought that further heightened Nia’s anxiety.
Nia sat down at her desk and immediately tried minding Dr. Spellman. After several tries and an exhausting amount of effort she finally got through to the good doctor.
“Nia, I’m so glad you minded me. We need to think over your test results.”
“Ok, Doctor, but from the tone of your thoughts I can sense this won’t be good.”
“I’m afraid you’re right. The results all point to hypogyriosis. In short, you’re rapidly losing your ability to telepath.”
“Can anything be done, Doctor?”
“I’m afraid there’s no known cure. All we can do is continue to monitor your situation. But Nia… if I were you, I’d make it a priority to mind all those who are important to you.”
Shaken, Nia cut off her thoughts to the doctor and buried her head in her hands.
Over Nia’s thirty-plus years as Professor of Anthropology at the State Virtual University she had often lectured on the sequence of events that had brought humankind to this point… the isolating pandemics of the 21st century… the development of direct-to-brain transmitting devices… the obsolescence of verbal communication… the accelerated development of the brain’s hippocampus… and the resulting evolution of mental telepathy.
That her own telepathic ability was now in jeopardy was hardly a shock to Nia. She had been noticing symptoms throughout the past year. People on the street seemed to be unaware of her thoughtful greetings. Several of her students claimed they weren’t receiving her telepathed lectures. Nonetheless, Dr. Spellman’s validation of her fears came as a crushing blow. She was in danger of losing contact with the only things left in her life that had meaning… her only son, Lux, who lived a thousand miles away, and her love of teaching.
Nia leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath, and exhaled forcefully through her mouth. With each subsequent breath, she tried hard to vary the airflow. She remembered her grandfather telling her that this was how people used to communicate. All Nia could manage were unintelligible swishing sounds.
Frustrated, she shifted her efforts to telepathing her son. After several unsuccessful attempts, Lux finally entered her mind.
“Mom?… Mom? Is that you?”
She struggled to think anything in response, but it was too late…he was gone.
Nia’s head began to ache. She moved to the bedroom to lie down. With the internal thoughts she still had left to her, she began to rationalize her situation. What was so bad about the loss of all external communication? After all, it was rare that she ever saw anyone in person. Not her son. Not her students. The few people she encountered on the streets were primarily delivery personnel from the few remaining companies that had not yet transitioned to automatons. Now she would have only herself to communicate with. She would become the center of her own universe. Talk about introspection!
With this thought she began falling into a deep sleep. Or was it sleep? Nia groped for another thought… any thought. But try as she might, she could not complete one. Every thought she began quickly dropped into a dark chasm until all that remained to her was a thoughtless void.
by submission | Jul 18, 2021 | Story |
Author: Anisha Narayan
Soaring, soaring through the sinuous labyrinth of taenite trails that twisted like a tangle of veins through the terrain of Erasmus, Myka and Ylla glided, smoothly and effortlessly. They hurtled along chrome-hued paths reflecting their hoverboards as mere blurs of color, carving through looming canyons enshrouded in shadow. Nimbly they weaved their way between rocky spires enveloped in a misty, pale pink fog, the softly approaching night sinking the binary suns, casting a magenta glow against the lands. As the suns disappeared into the horizon, the luminous magenta strip gradually grew thinner and thinner. Dusk on Erasmus gave way to a supernal indigo, lit by thousands upon thousands of stars scattered throughout the inky sky, reflections twinkling in the tributaries of taenite. Spiraling across the ground like silvery serpents, these nickel-iron deposits engraved mazes into Erasmus’ surface, along which hoverboarders could glide, taking advantage of the rich magnetic mineral sediments formed many millennia ago during the planetoid’s nascent stages.
As the trail curved sharply and plummeted down, down into one of the canyons, Myka bent her knees to brace herself before she rapidly plunged, careening ahead like a comet, and Ylla followed suit. A cluster of meteors briefly lit up the stratosphere as the pair ascended again, rising back out of the canyons toward the bejeweled sky. They had been on their boards for nearly an hour, until silhouettes of dune-shaped formations in the distance indicated their desired location, as they finally approached the vernal gallium seas.
The gallium bubbled up from its ore in pools during the high season, now resembling acres of flat, smooth mirrors at the foot of the dunes, still and completely unperturbed—until Myka spun to a halt, slammed off her hoverboard’s power, and jumped in. She submerged herself in the silver liquid, this far-heavier-than-water element which felt both strange and pleasant against one’s skin, and looked even stranger. After filling as many jars of gallium as she could carry for use in her semiconductors, Ylla now sat idly at the bank, dipping only her feet in. With its remarkably low melting point, the liquid metal could coat every inch of a person’s body, every eyelash on a young girl and every wrinkle on an old man, and she watched as Myka broke through the surface. Emerging from the pool, Myka climbed back onto the bank, a silver human phantom, shaking off the liquid metal in heavy mirrored droplets. They gathered and gathered and coalesced in beads that met along her body to form larger beads, converging into a puddle of liquid silver at her feet, traveling sluggishly down the bank to meld with the main pool once again. Here, it would continue to remain undisturbed until the low season, when the molten mirror would be slowly swallowed and re-absorbed back into the lands.
by submission | Jul 17, 2021 | Story |
Author: Riley Meachem
When the Terrans had first set up camp on these plains, they’d massacred all the native animals, mostly for food, but also for convenience. It didn’t do to have cattle meandering around when you were trying to pull off tactical maneuvers. The corpses were long gone, but Max could still smell that rancid odor of pulverized meat, wafting over the flat and now desolate ground. He’d smelled worse–hell, he’d seen and done worse. But somehow this still bothered him.
From behind him, he heard the cries of intoxicated clones, the sounds of revelry and drunkenness. The relative victory in the town that day, and the influx of liquor it brought, had proved a cause enough for celebration. When times were this tough, almost anything was. They would probably expect him to take part in their inebriation and gambling. But, for whatever reason, Max had no desire to join them, not today. For the first time in weeks, he’d had a taste of conflict, of terror, of action. He was still coasting off of that high, or at least that was his thinking. Either way, liquor would be redundant and wasted on him.
“Hey! Max!” One of the other clones was calling for him. “Max, come over here!!” He would have to join them, or risk being seen as rude. That was not something he wanted. Hs life lay squarely in the hands of these men, and he often felt as though they weren’t very fond of him. He had no desire to make their distaste for him and his pointed complaints any more pronounced.
He turned around, only to visibly wince; the pain in his foot was bothering him again. It was his boots, he was certain. They were cheaply made, with no support on the soles. Plus he’d had these the whole campaign, and should probably have tossed them long ago.
Grimacing, he walked the relatively short distance to the camp, trying to keep his foot in a semi-comfortable position. “Yeah?”
“Max!” Huxley, the corporal, shouted again. “Nate wants you to front him forty units for the game!”
“I’ll pay you back!” Nate added, anxiously. Max knew this was almost certainly a lie; people made all sorts of bets when they were sure they were about to die, and would never have to pay the consequences. He also knew that this was the cost of friendship, and that forty credits was a relatively low price to pay in order to secure Nate’s support, during and outside of battle. Without complaint, he reached into the pocket of his fatigues, and unrolled 4 ten-scripp notes, which he then passed to Nate. The Gaudy gambler accepted them. “Thanks Max. Like I said, I’ll…”
“Don’t mention it.” Max sat down and languidly flattened himself against a nearby rock. Now that he was near the fire, it would be odd for him to leave.
He remembered he still had a few ounces of regulation Cannabis on his person– it was a strain grown by the military to serve as an anti-apoplectic and anti-depressant. He didn’t smoke much, but figured he might as well, given that he’d already staked Nate in a round of cards he was sure to lose.He had no desire to gamble, and it would look odd for him not to indulge in some sort of vice that the others were partaking of reflexively. He took out a sheet of rolling paper, then removed a dimebag from his coat pocket, and tapped some green leaves into the palm of his hand. No one was watching him as he slowly rolled everything together. They were all focused on the game. There always seemed to be some game, or task, or mission, or something, which kept all of their minds firmly elsewhere. It bothered Max, though he couldn’t really say why. It just did. They ought to be able to have nothing to focus on, though he wasn’t sure why he felt that way.
He took a long puff from the cigarette; it tasted like the smell of cat litter and swamp water. He held it in his lungs, then huffed it out, coughing.
“Do you guys hate these fucking boots? Or is it just me?” He wheezed, to nobody in particular.
“What’s to hate about them?” Murphy asked.
“Don’t they… I dunno, my feet always end up sore as shit when I walk in these. mine are goddamn decimated, too, from all this marching.”
“Those boots were ordered for us by Celestials, Max.” Nate answered, dryly. “It’s gotta have a reason if it came from that high.”
“Max would know. He is the highest of the high,” someone else answered, and there was a burst of chuckles from somewhere.
“It’s your fault for not taking better care of your equipment, Max. Carelessness is repaid with cramps,” Nate finished, ignoring this remark.
“Fuck you. I just gave you forty credits,” Max took another puff of the cigarette.
“I’m just saying,” Nate shrugged matter-of-factly. “And you didn’t give me the money. You lent it. I’m going to pay you back.”
“Sure,” Max snorted, before laying back and staring up at the sky. There were so many stars up there, his mind whispered to him. Probably millions. He wondered what they were like. If they would notice a clone like him, if he came there. If they would revere him, or be terrified by this simian stranger. He wondered if he would ever see terra. He wondered what he would do when he got there. There probably wouldn’t be much call for soldiers. There weren’t gonna be any more wars after this one, so they said.
Somewhere off in the distance, there was the sudden sporadic burst of automatic rifle fire. Everyone suddenly tensed up, their weapons at hand. Another loud crack, a scream, a final bang. Then silence.
They sat their, staring off in the dark at imaginary Jovians for nigh on three minutes.
“Like I was saying though, these have such tight toes. if we have to walk through marshes again, I’ll probably get trench foot,” Max added. Nobody replied to him this time. The game gradually resumed
