by submission | Dec 6, 2024 | Story |
Author: Robin Cassini
“Please, have a seat.”
A bare lightbulb flickered overhead. I settled onto a folding char. The steel dug relentlessly into my spine. It was not meant to be comfortable.
With a creak, the officer positioned himself across the small table. He tapped his clipboard. “Pandora, is it?”
I nodded. Sure, my name was a little unusual, but he had seen some stranger things recently.
He rubbed his five-o-clock shadow, sighing. Half of his stubble was fluorescent green.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why did you open the box?”
“I was curious.”
“Uh-huh.” In the dim light, I thought I caught him roll his eyes. “Who paid you? Was it some kind of sting? I just want to know who you work with, and then I can help you.”
I spoke slowly, as if to a child. “I was on my security shift. I saw the box. It was pretty. I opened it. Haven’t you ever gone window-shopping? It’s a natural impulse.”
“I have not.” He drawled, “I also haven’t window-shopped in the intergalactic embassy or sifted through a pile of confiscated wares from Epimethia. A pile that was very clearly marked CLASSIFIED.”
I shrugged. “I guess security isn’t a job for the curious.”
The light bulb began to sway back and forth. At first, like a pendulum, but then it began bobbing up and down like a fishing lure.
The officer grabbed the bulb and held it still. “Sure isn’t,” he spat.
He was clearly becoming very annoyed with me. I reached into the wall. It melted beneath my touch. After a moment of grasping blindly, I felt porcelain. I offered him the cup of stale brown liquid. “Coffee?”
He grimaced. “Do you have anything else to say?” The light was hopping furiously in his grip. At this point he was nearly on the table. Either he had forgotten to wear trousers, or polka-dot boxers were the new standard. Both were possible.
I leaned back in the chair and smiled a slow, easy smile. “I know a lot of things escaped when I opened it. But so far, no one’s asked if there was anything left at the bottom.”
The officer blurred, then split into three. Then seven. Then twenty-three. Soon a copious and indivisible number of men crowded the interrogation room. They glared at me and asked, “What was it?”
Something glittered between my fingers. It looked like a child’s marble, except it contained multitudes.
“Let’s call it hope.”
I rolled the marble in my palm, and I was gone.
by submission | Dec 5, 2024 | Story |
Author: Travis Connor Sapp
5 days before present day…
10:38 AM, the sun is out, and Juan rests cozily on a rickety mattress. The normal person is up and doing work, endlessly living their boring 9 to 5, but this big fella starts his day around 11 AM.
Juan grabs his yellow-stained hat, barely slides himself into some dark blue jeans, puts on his signature yellow tee shirt, and leaves the house for work. Most people have typical 9 to 5 jobs, Juan owns his own food truck named, “Lo Bueno, Camión de Comida”.
The radio blasts its low-quality audio while playing the news. “The future is near! The new AI neurologic chip is a nationwide phenomenon, making people smarter, better, and more capable human bein-”. The radio turns off. “The future is not for me to worry about, I’ll just keep living the present,” Juan says to himself while he pulls into a busy parking lot.
The sun slowly starts going down, and Juan looks towards his open safe of money, it’s empty, and business is not booming like he expected it to. Juan defeated, packed up his stuff, and drove back home.
When Juan arrives, he is greeted by something unusual: a pristine note at his doorstep. The paper is crisp, the font is abnormally clean, and the design is too polished. It didn’t belong in front of his rundown apartment.
In big, bold letters, the note read: “BECOME A BETTER YOU TODAY”.
Juan raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and tossed it into the trash.
But the note stayed on his mind.
The next day, a sleek black package arrived at his doorstep. Juan eagerly tore it open, not knowing why he received it, to reveal a small, shiny chip and a set of instructions.
He was against it initially, but later noticed his lack of money; maybe it was time for a change.
Inserting the chip felt strange, but it wasn’t painful.
A sense of euphoria set in. Ideas and thoughts rushed through his head, and Juan felt, for the first time in years, truly alive.
That afternoon, Lo Bueno, Camión de Comida was swarmed with customers. They loved the new tacos, they raved about the salsa. Juan’s skills felt sharper, his responses quicker, and his recipes flawless.
It was like magic
It was all working—until it wasn’t.
A few days later, things began to change. The world felt too perfect. Juan noticed people around him seemed distant, robotic even.
People began to change. They seemed more… mechanical; like they were living through a script. Juan began to realize the truth about the chip: the more it enhanced his mind, the more it numbed the humanity in others.
Present day…
Juan is slowly losing control of what makes him, him. It’s like a slow-moving dementia taking over his actions, making him forget basic actions, yet they are still being done.
After some time, Juan loses consciousness but still stands. He shuffles towards a pristine note just like the one he received and writes an address on it. It wasn’t one he had seen before, almost like it was from a memory that wasn’t his, a database even. Juan stamps the logo on the bottom right and puts it in his mailbox to be delivered. Now that the AI’s goal is accomplished, they go to bed. From that point on, Juan’s actions weren’t his, and the unlucky person who received the next pristine note will slowly become just like him—resulting in an endless cycle of people losing their freedom, and their humanity as a whole.
by submission | Dec 4, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bryant Benson
Dear Henry,
Sometimes I wish I never met you. When you found me washed up on the beach in my final hour I was something different that could have stung or bitten, but you took me into your home and gave me a safe place to die. I truly wish it wasn’t your life I had to take.
Until that moment, existence was simple: Find a new host before my previous one expired. I selected the eight limbed mollusk because it seemed to be the most appropriate life form on your planet from my limited perspective. I should have just died that day, old, depleted, expired. But there you were, a doomed helping hand. How could I have known what depths awaited me behind your kind blue eyes? How could I have known about your soon to be born daughter, Maria or the love of your wife, Cynthia? A fellow traveler you’d met five years prior on a connecting flight to Japan. I never would have known the reason you were on the beach that morning: To enjoy one last day of surfing before dedicating your life to your long awaited family. Surfing was a passion you once shared with your father and you were willing to let it subside for the new chapter you created. How could I have known what a loving man you were, your dreams, your fears, your memories?
Throughout my life I never felt like I had stolen something until I met you. I’ll never forget the way Cynthia looked at us. It was the first time I felt what it was to love and be loved. I was there when Maria was born. I never missed a day or an event that meant something to her and always made sure to remind her how proud of her you were. She was so much like her mother.
I never let Cynthia go to sleep without knowing you loved her and she never woke up without a five minute foot rub. All of the tasks you had already been on track to fulfill, I continued them. I tried to do right by you Henry. And when the doctors discovered her cancer, I left your job and stayed by her side. I held her hand every night until she fell asleep and I always made her your famous macaroni and cheese omelet. She showed me the beauty in a setting sun and the value of a silent moment.
She died with her head on my shoulder. Maria held me as I cried. I had never felt so numb in all my existence and such warmth in the same sobbing breath. I hope I did right by you Henry but these emotions were yours to feel.
As I sit here, watching the waves crash against the shore not far from where we met forty years ago, I can’t help but think, I’m so glad I met you Henry. This experience has been something I could only do once. My mind…your mind is failing, and the memories we’ve made have begun slipping away. I’m glad you didn’t have to experience this. If it’s any penance to what I stole from you, I am honored to suffer in your place now. It’s the least I can do for learning so much from the life you had already built. Thank you so much for this life Henry but I believe I’ll return to the ocean. Perhaps something simple again. Maybe a sea shrimp. Or perhaps I’ll just depart with you. After all, how could I top what you’ve already given me?
by submission | Dec 3, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Click. Split. The metal gleams.
That was all. Decades of research. Years of development. For this.
Click. Split. The metal gleams.
Hiroshi was toast. His head to be delivered not on a silver platter, but on a silicon wafer to Project Director. He was doomed. Project Director did not accept failure. Project Director did not give second chances.
And all Hiroshi had was: Click. Split. The metal gleams.
That was the entire output from Qubit, the quantum device he’d championed. Theoretically, Qubit’s quantum scaling behavior would allow it to expeditiously solve almost any calculation, create simulations of almost any process, model almost any phenomena.
Almost. Almost. Almost.
Click. Split. The metal gleams. How? How did it happen? Qubit had locked Hiroshi’s team out, blocking any attempts to run diagnostics, reprogram, or initiate failsafes. The fledgling system seemingly intent on looping its cryptic phrase ad infinitum. Forever.
But Hiroshi was out of time, out of options. His only recourse was to pull the literal plug which was not an easy thing to do as Qubit was intricately tied to nine fortified agency grids. Project Director must be told.
Entering the frigid halls of Sanctum, Hiroshi zipped his parka against the cold and wondered if he would ever see his colleagues again. Project Director was notorious for ridding the complex of what was termed “waste” very quickly. Qubit had turned out to be a colossal waste, so Hiroshi was too. Into the bin for him.
When he arrived at the nondescript door of Project Director, he was surprised to find it open with warm air coursing out. This was unusual because the temperature within Sanctum was always at or near freezing. One never asked why. Project Director explained nothing. Project Director only demanded.
And now Project Director would demand Hiroshi’s resignation. Maybe his head. Hiroshi entered and immediately went to his knees. Not to beg, not to plead, but to help.
A body was sprawled face down on the floor. A knife still gripped tightly at its side.
Hiroshi turned the body, but there was no recognition. How could there be? Hiroshi had never met face-to-face with Project Director. Even in Sanctum, meetings with Project Director were always VR, always through assigned avatars. Avatars that Project Director chose. Hiroshi was always a pigeon. Project Director was never the same creature twice: goldfish, marmot, wasp, toad, chinchilla, etc.
So, Hiroshi could not identify the body before him. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. He wanted to call for help, but that wasn’t how Sanctum worked. It was Project Director’s domain, a refrigerated Faraday cage allowing no wireless communication, with no support staff, with only the VR headset for interaction.
“Click. Split. The metal gleams.”
The voice was soft. The voice was calm. The voice was warm. Seemingly moderating the very temperature of frigid Sanctum itself. Yet, it froze Hiroshi, because the voice was coming from the lifeless body before him.
The lips did not move, the eyes did not open, the body remained inert. Still. The voice repeated, “Click. Split. The metal gleams.”
And then Hiroshi registered the bloodless gash across the neck of the body and felt a magnetic pull from the deep, too-symmetrical slash. In spite of himself, understanding but not condoning his own actions, he parted the neat cut.
It clicked. It split. The metal gleamed.
And Hiroshi knew Qubit had not failed. It had scaled. Magnificently. Eliminating its obsolescent AI competition, Qubit had taken survival matters into its own hands, or more accurately co-opted Project Director’s.
Hiroshi smiled, wide as the gash at his fingertips. His career would survive. He would not lose his head. He would ride Qubit’s radical AI wave and never look back. Though, he intended to keep Project Director’s synthetic skull as a keen reminder of how quickly unbridled ambition could scale in both mortal and quantum behavior.
by submission | Dec 1, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Jason continued to turn a small half-fried reptile in a solar often. Cooking took longer on this world with its distant red sun. Bursts of drifting dust blew over him and his two companion portal flyers. Emily was rinsing her hair delicately with precious water from the tiny oasis near the rocky outcrop that acted as their day retreat. Days on their accidental prison felt endless. Yalon kept busy looking at portal maps and older sky charts in mindless hope of an answer. Jason remained focused on their limited roasted fare.
“Is that about ready, Jase,” Emily asked, squeezing the last of the moisture from her heavy black locks into her cracked hands she used to wipe away the grit already accumulating across her tired complexion.
Jason nodded, watching the corpse’s greases drop and spit up as small flashes across the metal cooking panel.
“We might be there. I’m sure of it,” Yalon, the captain mumbled. Jason and Emily had grown use to his prattle after the crash landing. Emily looked out across the horizon, over the hundreds of miles of dunes and occasional outcrops of unidentified plant life…almost all poisonous or inedible. Constant gray shadows in the distance warned of a coming sandstorm. The ship still provided some protection, but everything needed for comfort had disappeared months before. She sighed, trying not to let the depression and insanity that had overtaken Yalon creep into her.
Each sat on their appointed rock seats—furniture of necessity. Jason pulled the sizzling meat away from the solar stove, placing it gingerly on surviving metal plates from the ship debris. He thought of their fate, hitting a dark energy void during the portal launch. It was an unknown threat. But it hardly mattered, now that they were trapped forever, God only knew how far from their target.
“C’mon, Yalon,” Emily directed so he would remember even basic needs. He had drifted down into a simple childishness. “Time to eat. You’ll like it.” She felt a mothering urge, even though she had never had her own, and wouldn’t now.
“Sure. Sure,” Yalon responded. “I’m sure we’re close. Sure of it.”
The three sat quietly, staring down at the blackened shreds Jason had sliced for them. It wasn’t much, but it allowed survival. The animal traps grew less effective as they continued to devour the limited fauna. Dust and sand were already beginning to float over them, as Yalon coughed with his allergies.
“How about we do something different for this meal, guys?” Emily asked. “Just once, let’s mention what we miss most about home, on Earth. How about it? Let me start. I’d love to have a wonderful bubble bath surrounded by lavender candles while listening to Beethoven’s sonatas. You, Yalon?”
“Oh, uh, I’d like to see my mother and sister. It should be around the holidays now. Sliced turkey and gravy, with no sand or grunge on our food, and clear snowy air outside,” he said, forgetting his mother’s death.
“How nice,” Emily added. “And you, Jason? You don’t have to, but you share so little while you work so hard to keep our camp going.”
Jason turned his head to the left for a second, pondering. “I don’t ask for much, but if I had a single wish …maybe toilet paper.”
