by submission | Dec 8, 2020 | Story |
Author: Leo James Topp
Late night, deep in the Volkov Tower data-centre. I stand at one of the consoles, tapping furiously at the interface, hard drive’s smooth black casing jacked into the terminal.
Alex is taking cover behind a server bank, aiming the carbine down a row of blinking cabinets, blue LEDs the room’s only illumination.
The download 90% complete. 91%.
“Aral!” I look around and the doorway is occupied. A skinny middle-aged security guard, bored middle-of-shift expression turning wide-eyed. One hand pulling his radio to his mouth, the other reaching for his side-arm. Alex lets off a rattle of fire and he ducks behind the wall.
94%. A siren starts to wail overhead.
“All according to plan, right?” Alex shouts over his shoulder.
“All according to plan,” I reply.
95%. The blue progress bar on the interface agonisingly slow.
“I just need a couple of minutes,” I shout, as two helmeted Volkov Security heads pop around the doorway. Alex pulls the trigger and they snap back, only to reappear accompanied by rifle muzzles.
Alex jerks back behind the server bank as they let off a hail of fire, bullets ricocheting off consoles. Several sets of lights go dark.
96%.
“What do you want to do?”
“One more minute, or he’ll be corrupted.”
97%.
“OK, only ‘cause it’s you.” After another burst of fire from the doorway, he sticks his head around the corner, opens fire.
We both hear the click.
The guards dart into the passageway. Alex slams another clip in, aims downrange, and they slide behind one of the banks. Less than a dozen metres away.
98%.
“You have to go now, Aral.”
99%.
I stare at the interface. Bullets fly – I’ve lost track of direction.
99%.
I pull the hard drive, vault on top of the console, lift myself into the overhead duct. Spin around, stick my head out, reach down for Alex. But he isn’t there.
“Go!”
I hesitate. Another burst of fire.
“Go! Get him out of here!”
The copy of the Prince heavy in my pocket.
I push myself up, force the grate back into place, and head for the roof.
I’d hidden the two-seat glider behind a line of trees in the Volkov Tower’s rooftop gardens. I launch off the roof, leaving behind shouts and blasts of radio chatter from the stairwell, replacing them with wind whipping past my ears.
I pitch down, low over the peaks of domescrapers, weaving a path as clear as possible of what little traffic there is this late at night. The city lights stretch out below, the dome stretches out above, and there’s a moment of calm.
My earpiece buzzes, and I accept the call.
The Prince’s voice: “Did you get me?”
“You’re safe in my pocket as we speak.”
“That’s it then, nothing left for it.”
“You don’t have to go through with it, you know. Plenty of people live as two copies.”
“I want to be over there with you. How can I do that if I’m here?”
“I’ll see you on the other side, then. You’re going to love it over there.”
“Thank you, Aral, for everything.”
He hangs up. The last time I’ll ever hear the original Prince, the voice that promised me on the night we met that one day he’d sail away with me.
I clutch the copy’s hard, smooth casing in my pocket, and angle the glider for the final approach to the docks.
by submission | Dec 6, 2020 | Story |
Author: Kathleen Bryson
The moon was out that night and had turned to a slight pink. Taffy coloured, maybe cotton candy fresh from the sweating fairground. The moon was pastel. That is how one can be delicate about things; the moon can set a good example. I walked inside the house and there you were again. The whole world had died. And wasn’t it weird, I was always spitting at the end of us that I wouldn’t get together with you again even if you were the last person on Earth. We never get together again. Other than me, now you were the last person on Earth
I asked whether you had done the dishes yet because you hadn’t. And you never had done them when we were together either.
I want to work on the painting. You expressed this quite forcefully and threw a cup of coffee not in my direction but towards the door.
I really hoped it’s you that’s going to mop that up later, I was about to say to you. It doesn’t matter if you paint a masterpiece the only person that will ever see is me, I was about to say to you. I didn’t feel like having coffee thrown in my direction though. Our feral dog we had rescued three weeks ago had died, too.
I went out on the deck and stood barefoot on its slats. I had never thought about it before. Wood is organic but dead. We think it’s lively and natural foods but it’s dead. Our house here was on the tip of a field on the tip of the world. The fumes of the nucleovirus were salmon coloured and still some distance away. It was quite possible they would never reach us.
That was why the moon was pink though; it wasn’t for any beautiful reason. When we first got together you would sing corny songs to me like moon river or late at night when everything is still and the moon comes creeping over the hill but you know I never thought that it would be you when I was crawling across deserted streets in rags. I’ll be waiting patiently for you. Because I love you true. Oh yes, indeed I do. Oh baby come out, out, beneath the everglades. See the moon, see how she promenades… I had been realising for quite some time that I had been singularly, nightmarishly immune. I had seen a standing, walking person in the distance and honestly, at that point, I was not even fearful of attack by strange men the way I would normally and justifiably be. I was just grateful for another living person and I was so happy rising to my feet and walking towards the miracle and then my face fell. It had been fourteen years. Obviously, you weren’t too happy it was me either. But now we are stuck with us and there we are.
God, even when we were together we never had regular sex and now we’re not having sex at the end of the world either. I wonder whether I should go back inside the house which now stinks of weed from your artistic inspiration.
But I think I’m going to wait a little bit longer out here for a while. I’m looking at the moon and I wish it would turn some other colour. Blue moon maybe, that was always our song.
by submission | Dec 5, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Berger
They all lied.
The ones who went around suborbital and the first ones in orbit and the ones who went to the Moon and the ones who rode the space shuttle and lived on the Mir. They all must have felt it a little bit.
But they all lied.
They all talked about the silence and emptiness of Space, but that’s the most godawful lie in the history of Mankind. Space isn’t silent or empty. Space screams and is full of itself. Where are the aliens, you ask? Space itself is the alien! Space shouts at us: “Keep away! Get out! Stay away from me!”
And then it says something else.
You have to touch Space to hear it and know it. And I’m the one who did it. Actually. For how long? Long enough to hear and meet Space. Don’t laugh at me until you’ve heard me. Then lock me up; throw away the key. I don’t care because Space speaks to me, to me, now, twenty-four hours a day.
You all heard of the accident. You know how four systems failed simultaneously and I flew out, naked, into Space. For forty seconds, Space tore at me, ripped at me, screamed at me: “Keep away! Get out! Stay away from me!” Then, for five seconds more…
I was rescued, alive, from the noise and fullness of Space. Truth is, Space kept me alive. Kept me from boiling, freezing, exploding. For five seconds, Space talked to me, felt me.
Space loved me.
by submission | Dec 4, 2020 | Story |
Author: Stephen C. Curro
Clive Olsen reclined in his lounge chair with a sigh. It was past eight pm, and the city lights in the panorama window behind him glittered like a galaxy. Before him, a massive computer screen gave him a live god’s-eye-view of the factory floor of his new automotive plant.
Footsteps down the long hall grew louder until the door burst open. It was Clive’s ten-year-old son Maddox. “Hey, Dad. They said on the news that the aurora borealis is super strong this year!”
Clive nodded absently. “That’s nice, son.”
“Can we go see? We could fly to Alaska for Christmas!”
“Ask me again in an hour.”
Maddox left without a word. He knew that “an hour” meant “not tonight”.
Clive refocused on his new plant. Every second of every day, machines worked tirelessly to build, test and distribute the latest self-navigating cars. The plant’s AI had designed the cars, but Clive had designed the plant. Watching it work gave him such glee. It was one of many accomplishments that were nothing short of automated wizardry. Last year, Clive had designed the perfect drone delivery system for the Postal Service. Four years before that, he’d built an army of drones that now cultivated eighty percent of the country’s crops with only 0.01% waste. These were just a few of his company’s projects.
With his latest AI up and running, Clive was planning to celebrate by taking his family on a long vacation to Fiji. Though Maddox wanted to see the…what was it called? Aurora boreal? Bor-reelus? More like boredom, Clive thought. Still, if the kid wanted a trip to the Arctic for Christmas, it was just a matter of telling the family jet’s AI to set a flight plan north.
The walls chimed. “Tanaka Kasumi is calling,” a gentle voice said.
Clive growled. “Put her through.” There was another chime. “Hello, Kasumi.”
“Good evening,” an icy voice replied. “You finally got that automatic interpreter to work.”
Clive gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, sorry about last time. Thank God it’s working now. Did you know the UN uses the same software?”
“My employers are irritated, Mr. Olsen.”
He sighed. “Don’t tell me they sunk another drone boat.”
“Anti-fishing radicals fooled the radar. It crashed into a giant rock.”
Clive suppressed a snarl. “So a vegan lunatic outsmarted you. Who’s to say they couldn’t do the same to a standard ship?”
“Perhaps your automated systems are not as functional as advertised?”
Clive gritted his teeth. “If you’re not maintaining the ships properly, that’s on you. I have changed the world forever!”
Maddox opened the door again. “Dad, the news said the sun is—”
“Not now.”
“But Dad—”
“I’m working!”
“Look!” the boy pointed to the window.
Clive wheeled around. The rage on his face evaporated.
The entire night sky was glowing. Brilliant green and red lights danced over the city, outshining the brightest building. Clive was so shocked that he almost forgot to breathe.
Then the lights intensified. The aurora borealis fell from the sky and dispersed over the city like a divine cloud. Simultaneously, the call with Kasumi dropped, the great computer screen winked out, and the lights died. Seconds later, the whole city was submerged in darkness.
The father and son stood in the ghostly light of the aurora. Maddox checked his phone, but it was as lifeless as a rock. In the distance, Clive could make out the shape of a self-nav jetliner careening to the ground.
For the first time in his life, Clive hated being right.
He had changed the world. Forever.
by submission | Dec 3, 2020 | Story |
Author: Tim Goodwin
Rosetta found herself with some downtime between contracts, and was within shuttle-distance: why not see mom? In person? Why not see Earth?
Her mother, bikinied and martinied, was polite, but opted for air kisses in lieu of hugging her dirty spacer daughter (still hoping all this was a phase) and invited her to the guest room to change for the pool and a welcome home cocktail.
“‘Guest room?’”
“Your old room, dear,” her mother said. “It has been two years. And please, don’t put any of…” she waved her undrinked hand at Rosetta’s spacesuit, “…on the bed.”
The room was now taupe. All. Taupe. And conspicuously devoid of Rosetta’s Star Trek models and posters of (hunky) solar-racer Traskor Sir Nadjal.
Rosetta dropped her helmet and duffel on the bed and saw her old bathing suit that her mother had dug out.
She had completely forgotten this bathing suit. It was, once, her second skin.
Then she disassembled her suit while pondering the tiny garment: the Yorklaussen, her coveted orange-and-white outer suit, still looking kinda new, although its finger tips were singed from underestimating an electrical panel on Phobos, and its boot latches were starting to slip. She unhooked the mini-PLSS, then her IRP. She shook out of the bulky temp suit. All of it stickered with the dust and grease and scrapes of Rosetta’s new life Out There.
“I hope your suit still fits,” she heard her mother sing-song out.
Rosetta undid her lucky neckerchief as she looked outside. The lawn was still travel brochure-green, the sky still cartoon-blue, the pool still reflected the sun, looking electrified.
It all somehow seemed…smaller.
And of course, her mother was lounging in that same beach chair, as manicured as always. Her skin was (cosmetically) luminous and (synthetically) taut, her hat ridiculously oversized, her sunglasses ridiculously bejeweled. She swiped, lazily, at the pages of a holobloid suspended in front of her, the occasional ad sounding like a musical trinket.
Rosetta remembered laying on her back out there, in this very bathing suit, watching the evening turn on the stars and planets, one by one, while her mother swiped pages or complained about whatever boyfriend she currently hated.
She needs to look up more, Rosetta thought, surprising herself with the revelation.
The last bit of her space suit to take off was her red Skinsuit: the micron-thin, skin-tight base layer that, amongst other magic tricks of science, sent the body’s own electrical output back into the muscles to keep them from atrophying in zero-G. A bacterial layer ate your stink; its picoskeleton kept your organs from wandering. Plus, it had a flap for “undercarriage business” of any and all sorts, so you never had to take it off (although the company that made Skinsuits strongly discouraged this).
The Skinsuit was her spacer body, she joked; taking it off meant being an Earther again.
She looked at all the taupe. Her childhood suddenly felt so far away. Tiny. Two years in space seemed to weigh so much more, it seemed, than eighteen years here.
Another ad chimed outside.
Rosetta put her hand to her collarbone, and made the motion that unlocked her Skinsuit. It whispered to the floor like a spider’s web.
She picked up the bathing suit, stumbled into it with some vigorous swearing, then looked at herself in the mirror and laughed.
Ridiculous.
It didn’t fit. But Rosetta didn’t mind; it wasn’t the only thing she had outgrown.
