by submission | Apr 23, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi
Important information for all Galpasorean invaders!
It is imperative that you read this entire message before invading this human-occupied quadrant. Following the initial provocation that concluded with the deaths and consequent consumption of more than half of the Earth’s animal population, there has been new information released regarding the trends of the human race.
Please continue to the adjacent wall, as that information will be disseminated after these declarations of paramount importance are read and understood in full. It is unorthodox to be reading this message written on the walls of this building, but be sure to continue moving forward, and most importantly, don’t stop reading!
The humans now know that Galpasoreans are capable of decoding human language and writing. After witnessing the full-scale assault and devouring the United Nations’ representatives, it is evident that the preliminary objectives set forth by Galpasorean leadership have deceived the public. Your objectives were never peace nor prosperity; you came to dominate. Earth became your sandbox, and humans—your toys. How predictable of human nature, for us to open our doors to the invaders standing on our footsteps.
Is this message boring you? Just wait! Walk past this next wall and you’ll receive all the information you need to know—faster than a bullet! But don’t look away! There are still more declarations to be made!
I had a family. I had a husband, three kids, a dog, and a cat. I watched you take them and shove them into your cages floating high above our atmosphere. God can only tell what you did with their poor souls—yes God! Are you familiar? I don’t think you’ve grasped the concept of religion yet; it’s uniquely human. He’ll have his vengeance though—just you wait!
It’s almost time to share the information regarding the recent developments in human activity and behavior. Please continue reading, as this will be relayed momentarily! Gather your comrades and squeeze together! This message might be washed away by dawn!
Humans are curious creatures, aren’t they? Solitary, but organized in communities, and naive yet so cunning! I know you’ve scoured our history and are aware that we began in caves. We dwelled in the dark, exiting only when necessary, in search for food, water and knowledge, and sometimes, for other reasons…
You’ve made it to the final wall!
Amid your domination, you must realize that we—just like you, can wait in the shadows…
You must continue reading! It is very important that you realize…
That as you finish this sentence…
we are taking aim …
right…
now.
by submission | Apr 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi
The last man on earth to beat a cyborg on the track? That would be Galen Ryan, of course. To this day I don’t remember why he did it, or rather, what point he was trying to prove; he wasn’t any good, at least in the professional sense. He had only won five times during his professional running career. From the time he started racing his own flesh-and-blood, until the time he took his last steps—literally (he lost his damn legs) against those souped-up bucket-of-bolts, he was a lane one, or lane six starter at best. He went out too slow and had too much pride. With that goofy mustache and bulky build; he looked more like a wrestler.
But that fifth win—there won’t be anything like that, ever again. It definitely started the great ‘conversion,’ or ‘purge,’ depending on who you ask.
Play dirty! That just wasn’t in the cyborgs’ wheel-house. When you’re built on efficiency, it’s tough to pull off something that’s considered ‘illogical.’ But Galen did it anyway—thoroughly embarrassed the suckers too.
We were in Vegas. The cybies loved the dryness and the sun beating down; any moisture would rot them to the core. Galen was the only person entered in the 1,500 that didn’t have a chunk of metal replacing his limbs. And it was a damn-talented field: National champions with robotic legs, decision-enhancing chips implanted in their cerebellums, robotic spines—the list goes on.
The media pounced on Galen. The Vegas odds screamed against him. But he had an ace in the hole. He visited Myron Partridge Stadium the night before the race, broke into the ruined pump house, and tinkered with the pipes. In the locker room the day of, he shared that tidbit with me, telling me to bet big on him winning. I sensed he was up to something but went along with it anyway—put what I had on a first-place win for Galen Ryan, much to the bewilderment of the odds bots.
The stadium roared when he stepped on the line. Thousands of folks were here to witness, what they expected to be, the nail in the coffin for humans in athletics. The gun went off and the cyborgs lurched off the line. Galen did his usual trailing game but seemed unusually comfortable sitting in last place. I shook my head and turned away. My money was gone and Galen was toast—that stubborn pride.
As if from God himself, rain spurted up from the ground. Galen turned on the sprinklers, somehow still installed beneath the turf. The runners sparked and collapsed, and the crowd—mostly cyborgs—panicked and stormed the field.
At some point in the chaos, Galen got his legs blown clean off. Cauterized! Right above the knees.
Galen’s career was over, his final bout ending with a ‘W,’ by default. And the cyborgs learned how to play dirty. Considering I was the only one to bet against the cybies, I purchased myself the best protection dome a homeowner could buy with the winnings. Galen became public enemy no. 1, but I made sure he got a piece of the pie. He lives comfortably, just with two fewer legs.
They watch us every day though. I’m just counting down the days until they finally learn to commit to their new-found logic and play dirty. That day is yet to come. And Galen Ryan is still alive—for now. There are a lot of shadows gathered outside my dome. They’ve been listening.
Better grab the hose again!
by submission | Apr 21, 2020 | Story |
Author: Irene Montaner
I take one last look around the beauty aisle. Combs, hairbrushes, face creams and cleansers, body moisturisers, shampoos and conditioners, bath foams, hand soaps – empty racks by the way – ear buds and cotton pads. And then, black ragged plastic bags where makeup used to be on display and a paper that reads ‘Item temporarily not for sale’. No foundations, concealers or mascaras. Damn it! Whoever thought that makeup was not an essential.
A mirror still shows between the makeup stands. I glance at my reflection. The purple beneath my eyes no longer passes for dark circles. And I’m already sporting a mauve sheer glow on my skin. I clearly have two options here. Commit to lockdown and hide. Or show my true colours. My people are still far away. One point two light-years away, to be precise, and at their cruising speed of twenty-five percent the speed of light it would take them another five years to reach Earth, give or take a month or two considering the time spent in deceleration and approximation manoeuvres. And there are only four hundred seventeen thousand fifty-nine of us on site carrying out different undercover experiments and investigations on the human folk. A lot, I know you’re thinking, and you hadn’t even noticed. Until now.
“Mwahaha,” I laugh as I glide on my tentacles along the stranded corridors of the supermarket. The few cashiers on duty scream and run, just like everyone else who had ventured outside on this sunny day to shop for groceries. I make myself comfortable at the customer service booth and begin my broadcast. “This is a call to all earthlings. Stay home, stay safe. That’s what your authorities are telling you. And that’s what we, the people of Rigel, will tell you. Because we, Rigelians, are the new authority on Earth. Do not fight, do not fear. Stay home, stay safe. And we may allow the few survivors of this pandemic to live a quiet life of servitude for the rest of your days. Mwahaha.”
I delight in the unfolding chaos. People circling around, not knowing where to hide. Children crying and cars crashing. A few ones getting out their guns and aiming at me and then panicking because they realise that bullets don’t get me – they’re actually being refracted by my personal and transparent defensive shell. Smart, ha! It takes approximately half an hour Earth time for the folly to be over. No more shootings or yelling. All is quiet and there’s no one around. At least no one alive. Time for the next step in the first phase of Rigel’s plan for Earth domination.
I close my eyes and synch my brainwaves with those of my comrades. I transmit coordinates, details of my situation and the information we’re allowed to share at this stage. The message spreads quickly through every country and continent. Confinement becomes even more real. The future is here and the future is purple. Rigellian purple.
by submission | Apr 19, 2020 | Story |
Author: Mike McMaster
“South.” said the captain.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” complained his crew. “There are no magnetic poles here, so there is no North or South.”
“When you travel and everything cools and then chills and then bites into your very bones, when the sun sinks from view and doesn’t come back up, and every step moves you back in time through undisturbed, unchanging, frozen eternity then, ah then, you are far, far South. Scott knew it, and it cost him his life. Shackleton knew it, and he had to claw his way back in an open boat and across unclimbed mountains. South.”
The crew were right, of course. The Luna Nova was rushing low over the Moon’s surface on a polar orbit, and any compass would have been swinging wildly as the lunar magnetic field was weak and unfocussed, with no strong Pole to draw the needle-point.
“South,” said the captain, “is not a direction. It is a temperature.”
Right on cue, the laser-thermometer chimed “Surface temperature minus 220 degrees.”
“That’s about the temperature of little Charon. All the way out there, the chilly boatman sailing round Pluto. Not bad, but not cold enough for us. Not close enough.”
Below them, the grey moonscape changed and craters slide into view. Ancient craters named in arrogance after mere human astronomers. Faustini. Shoemaker. Haworth. How can a crater that has seen a billion years be named for a fleeting eyeblink of a creature? Might as well name men after mayflies.
“Surface temperature minus 224 degrees.”
“Ah – that could be Uranus. Clouds of frozen ammonia and methane roll blue as a winter sea. Ice-giant. Frozen god of the sky. We are getting closer. ”
Now a new darkness slides into view. A crater within a crater. A primeval impact digging into the Moon’s crust right at the pole, casting a shadow deeper than any earth-bound trench. Here was dark even when life on earth was crawling from the slime. This dark has outlived glaciers and mountains, outlived every species on the neighbouring planet. It has never known sunlight.
“Surface temperature minus 228 degrees.”
“Ah.” The captain sighed. “Mark that. We have found it, and next orbit we’ll pop down and have a little look. We’ve visited every planet and moon from Earth to Pluto, and in the end, the coldest place in the Solar System has waited an eternity for us, just next door.”
by submission | Apr 18, 2020 | Story |
Author: Baishampayan Seal
The yellow two-rotor postal-drone comes down to me as I walk down the pavement with the whole week’s grocery. Generally, these drones are Prussian blue, with no biohazard symbol like it has of course; so this one must have something to do with the ongoing pandemic, I guess. I remember the death toll on the TV outside the television shop on my way home, and a prolonged sigh comes out of my within. Or a prolonged hiss of micro-hydraulics, so to speak.
The drone runs its face-recognition on me, and a green light blinks. A human lady detected. A pamphlet drops right on my left foot, and the drone moves on for another human citizen.
I pick up that crimson paper. “Everyone of us at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to thank you for staying at home. The doctors and nurses are staying at work for you–you stay at home for them,” the black letters in Times New Roman read. “While you stay safe in your home’s comfort, please consider donating to our Geminivirus Emergency Fund (PayPal: donations [at] peace-be.org). With the number of infected soaring toward 5 million nationwide, any amount from you–however small–is gratefully accepted. This fund will help prepare us for properly detecting and isolating cases, protecting our healthcare workers, and treating patients with dignity and appropriate care on a much wider scale.
Heartiest appreciation for all our human citizens who are joining hands. Together, we shall beat this crisis.
Peace Be,
Boris Johnston, Director, CDC.”
‘Human citizens’ only? Funny!
I crumble the pamphlet the worst way possible, and toss it into the next litter bin I encounter.
Upon returning home, a strange blob of dilemma envelops me. That’s not reasonable to happen, but that does. For one whole hour, I sit before the TV news, where the latest updates on the Geminivirus outbreak are running in caption. 56,043 new cases today. Death count: New York–29,835; Louisiana–17,840; California–16,681; Washington–10,530; Idaho–10,027; Rhode Island–8,063…
I inattentively take out my morning meal from the grocery package– alkaline cells. A light press on an unseen button on my left breast, and three battery compartments pop open. True, I am a gynoid AI; but should that fact make me turn my back on humans?
Maybe yes. There was a time when their whole blood-and-flesh world was inclined toward exploiting us in automobile, construction, agriculture and healthcare industries–with no credit in our names, as modern slaves.
Don’t they deserve karma?
Or maybe not. For decades, they’ve striven to give us more and more sentience as well, so we can be better than the mere sum of some soulless functions.
Don’t they deserve karma?
Should I donate?
My machine-self keeps saying No…
When I had to find a job, I faked my identity documents to appear as a human for a better-paying one; that postal-drone recognized me as a human; and even though we haven’t achieved racial equality with the humans yet, man and machine are somewhat peacefully coexisting in today’s America.
Would it be rightfully wrong to act more like a human?
The question keeps pricking me for the rest of the day.
At night, I open PayPal in my head, and enter ‘donations [at] peace-be.org’.
Somewhere deep inside, the machine within me still keeps saying No.
I don’t know how to smother that voice.
