by submission | Sep 27, 2018 | Story |
Author: Thomas Desrochers
Rebecca set her fork down. “Be honest with me. How is work going? I mean, really.”
He sighed, shoulders rolling forward. “It’s bad. Real bad.”
Damn, she hated to see that look in his eyes. She reached across the table and snaked her fingers through his. “Tell me about it. Please?”
“Alright.” He gave her a weak smile, looked at the wall behind her. “I’ve got eighty people under me, mostly slumcats from under the table. They’re not the smartest, but they work hard – we post the best numbers of any sump crew. Hasn’t been a flood in our section in thirty months, gotta be a record.”
He paused.
There it was again – his eyes going cloudy. He was tough. If he was showing this much, God, but he must be hurting. Rebecca squeezed his hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to bear this alone.”
The pressure, the words, both pulled him back just enough. He breathed in sharply. “They’re axing us, Bec.”
She couldn’t believe it. Her heart climbed into her throat. “But why? Your crew is the best, right?”
He shook his head. “Not just my crew. All of them. Corporate’s LawBrain found a loophole in the contract. We’re not required to maintain the sumps. Nobody is. They’re just gonna let them run until they fail.” He looked her in the eyes. “What am I going to tell them? They live down there, have families down there. God, what do I tell them?”
Rebecca swallowed hard. She came around the table and embraced him, ran her fingers through his hair. “Oh honey,” she crooned. “I wish I knew.” Tears were running down her face, hot and fast.
He let out a weak sob and clutched at her skirt. She had never seen him so broken. She took him to bed and comforted him, stroking his hair and singing the songs her mother had sung to her as a child.
He fell asleep just after eleven. Rebecca held him a little while longer as she watched the beads of rain gather on the bedroom window, feeling his heartbeat. She wished she could be there for him in the morning. A kiss, maybe. Breakfast. With enough time she might find the right words to help get him through the next day, the next week.
There was no time.
She wanted to cry. No time.
She slipped out of bed and tucked him in, kissed him on the cheek, left a note saying, ‘I love you.’ Out to the kitchen: put away the leftovers, do the dishes. Grab her bag, fix her skirt and makeup, head for the elevator. An auto-cab waited outside the lobby. She got in the front seat, half listening to the radio broadcast.
“…and for those just joining us, today we have our esteemed guest David Goldwater, founder, and CEO of Whole Life Industries.”
“Hello.”
“Now, David, the rise of Whole Life has been astounding, an unprecedented success in today’s market. Investors are wondering, what’s your secret?”
“Well, there isn’t much of a secret! I simply saw a need and moved to fill it. The continued improvements to the efficiency of our working class has led to increased consumer spending, but it has created holes that were traditionally filled outside the reach of the service industry. I felt this was a moral oversight – after all, everyone deserves to be loved, and modern robotics isn’t up to the job quite yet. We simply work to provide that necessary servi-”
Rebecca turned the radio off. Only five hours left on shift. She looked forward to her bed.
by submission | Sep 26, 2018 | Story |
Author: Ian Hill
The fat man sits in his high place. His presence is revealed by the twitch and wiggle of an oversized quill over the rim of his lectern. When not penning away, he’s spotted by the crunch of a nut in the jaws of his bearded cracking doll, by the discarded hulls and husks of foreign seeds as they go clattering across the marble. The fat man loves to sit atop his lofted throne, lounging into himself, idly popping kernels into the wild-eyed muncher and actuating its red lever. But, life for the wallowsome fatling is not all tranquil repose; no, he has a job, and it’s a foul one.
The dim chamber’s double doors part at the middle, letting in a dramatic shaft of orange firelight that widens and attenuates before reaching the plinth of his chair. In comes shuffling a tiny worm of a weakling. Here is a querulous man—that’s evident from mere posture alone, since he’s too far below to really see—and he has the nerve to wring his hands.
The fat man peers down the plump hills of his cheeks. “What have we here? Oh me, oh my! A petty little fool doth I descry?”
The timorous supplicant smiles. “A fine rhyme, my Lord.”
“Speak up!”
The namby-pamby milksop pulls a pained expression and clears his throat. “I said your rhyme was fine, my Lord.”
“Fine, eh?” The fat man licks his gums, sucks his teeth. “Fine doesn’t account for a half of it. A third of it, I say!” He blinks rapidly but soon stops; the weight of his lids fatigues. “I’ll have you know it was not premeditated,” he murmurs half to himself. His piggish hands flutter indecisively on his paunch. One goes for the feather of his quill, the other for a slumping sack of nuts.
“I came to request a thing of you, my Lord,” the cringing doormat declares.
The fat man’s eyes bulge, but his expression quickly shifts to one of delight. “A thing, hm?” He strokes his prolific pillow of a chin. “What sort of a thing? Out with it, knave!”
The cowardly milquetoast gathers enough nerve to raise his chicken’s neck and cast a single wary eye’s gaze up the looming height to the grinning cherub in his kingdom of vaults and cobwebs. “I would have a bountiful harvest for my family.”
The fat man’s guffaw is broken only by the resounding crunch of a thick-shelled kernel. Dust and hard chips rain down and scatter at the mendicant’s feet. “A bounty? For you? And your—” his left hand flips through the pages of a book, “—and your family of nine starving, ill-begotten field mice?”
The weepy beggar somehow manages a stiff jaw. “Aye.”
The fat man giggles and kicks his vestigial feet, loosening one of his fluffy socks. He wipes a tear from his deep-set eyes. “Oh my. No, no, no. Ha!” He clutches his gut. “Ha-ha, I say! You,” he motions down with his nutcracker, making its jaw rattle, “you are too far behind, my agrarian munchkin. Just today I blessed three spacefaring frigates, a research station full of engineered posies, and—listen to this—a computer bigger than a moon!”
“Impressive, my Lord,” the shrinking wretch mumbles, not sure what any of the words mean.
“Impressive! Ha! Yes, you’re right; it is impressive.” The fat man pauses as if lost in thought. After a second, he waves his hand. “Have your harvest. But! If you don’t pick up the pace and develop lasers or reactors soon, I’ll send a blight to drive you into better days. Understand?”
The bewildered rascal nods, loving eyes full of tears. “Of course, Lord.”
“Very good.” The fat man scribbles a note as he chews. “Begone!”
by submission | Sep 23, 2018 | Story |
Author: John McLaughlin
“Christ, this place is a dump.”
Paul Braun glanced around the offices of Organic Transport, Columbus branch. Dust-streaked fliers pepper the walls:
Fifty-Thousand Credit Reward for Water Smugglers…
“Food Rioters To Be Shot On Sight,” says UN Commissioner…
A single clerk stood behind the counter, fidgeting nervously. “Good morning, sir,” the man greeted. He reached automatically for a brochure, the OT logo casting red flickers across his face. “How about an overview?”
“Yes, I think I’ll need one,” Paul said, fingering his sandy beard.
The man unfurled one leaflet for review, a list of transport options three feet in length. For the discerning refugee, a Platinum Organics plan was hard to beat: sentry guarded full-body transport through fifty years of spaceflight; thawing and reanimation at destination; and nano-repairs for any damaged goods. Paul didn’t even waste a glance at those.
Unfazed, he jumped ahead to the skimpiest Basic option: one and a half kilos of biomass, whatever you could fit in the canister. Just enough room for a brain and some spinal fluid to keep it happy. For an additional fee, the brain would be transplanted into a cloned body at destination.
Perfect. Paul had just enough to cover three Basics.
He opened his wallet to pluck out a credit chip, his last one, and shoved it into the clerk’s waiting hand.
A moment passed. The man frowned, knitting caterpillar eyebrows. “Mr. Braun, I’m afraid we can accept only one cephalon.”
“Excuse me?”
“One brain, sir.”
“How’s that possible?” Paul demanded.
“It appears that BC Ranger will be the last Basic cargo haul out of North America,” the clerk said, “and totally filled to capacity. In fact, I’ll be onboard as well.”
He smiled, punched another key. “You’re quite lucky. This spot opened up just yesterday. Passenger accident–antifreeze failure during the cooldown phase.”
“What good does one spot do me?” Paul grated. “There’s myself and my two daughters.”
“Ah-h-h.” The man dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry but there’s a strict first come, first serve policy. Only a limited amount of tissue can be supported by the coolant system, you see.”
“There must be a way,” Paul mumbled to himself, voice trailing into silence. “Emma and Janice…”
Something came to him just then, a flicker of memory from a high school lecture–the classic case of split personalities. He could hear Mr. Sorrano pontificating: It is a curious fact of human psychology, that an entirely distinct persona can inhabit each hemisphere of the brain…
—
Paul stands in the immense shadow of the cargo liner, squints up at its frame. The few blackbirds left in the sky are drawing slow circles.
When the Ranger’s fusion jet finally kicks in, he turns and winds a path back through the empty lot.
He imagines the human diaspora hurtling towards interstellar space–an expanding sphere of fireflies fleeing a broken homeworld. There would be chaos; war and privation were almost ensured. Whatever fate brought next, the girls would need each other to survive.
He smiled. The bio-canister had been small indeed; small, but with room enough for its precious cargo. Two lifetimes woven through fourteen hundred grams.
Paul steals a last glance at the ship as it burns an arc over the horizon. One thought gave him solace: At least I know you’ll stick together.
by submission | Sep 22, 2018 | Story |
Author: Mark Joseph Kevlock
The metaphysical archive didn’t have as many visitors as it used to. Satch understood that. Still, he treated each one with all the kindness he could muster. The past was important to keep alive.
Round about six-thirty on Saturday night, a young couple came in. Nervous and fumbling in their attitudes toward one another, they must’ve been on only their third or fourth date, Satch could tell.
“A pleasant good evenin’ ta’ you,” he ushered them into the lobby and took their coats. “Welcome to the North American substation J2, of the metaphysical archive of planet Earth and its inhabitants. My name is Satchel Johnson. What can I show ya’?”
“This is Ellen. I’m Tom,” the young man said. “We’d like to start off with a personal tour.”
“Sure thing,” Satch said. “We’ll get you to the screening room right away. Just need your full names, dates of birth, and DNA profiles.”
Satch scanned their I.D. cards into the system and went up to the control booth. Ellen and Tom sat down holding hands in the darkened personal theatre and shared a kiss.
“Ready?” Tom asked his date.
“Sure,” Ellen replied.
“Okay, let’s start with the moment I decided to be conceived…”
Up in the booth, Satch located the appropriate recording and ran it for the youngsters.
Tom lent narration to the footage.
“There I am without form in the void. You can tell that my soul-self had grown restless with the lack of physicality.”
“You had such a cute soul,” Ellen commented.
“Watch now, here it comes,” Tom said. “There! There I go into Earthly reality, right into that egg inside my mother.”
“That was adorable,” Ellen said.
Tom shouted additional directions to Satch in the booth: “Okay, could you fast forward nine months, please?” Then to his date: “I want to show you the moment I decided to be born.”
Ellen squeezed Tom’s hand. “Lucky for me you did,” she said, playfully.
Satch grew a smile on his old face. Forty years and nothing changed. Young men still courted potential brides with revelations of vulnerability shared.
Tom toured Ellen through his birth footage and several key moments from his life afterward.
“What shall we view next?” he asked.
“How about the dawn of Man?” Ellen chose. “I haven’t seen that since I was six years old.”
“Comin’ right up,” Satch told them. He didn’t have to search for this footage; it was among the most popular in the archive. Satch marveled again at Humanity’s good fortune, that the Lagonians happened to be traveling past our planet at just the right moment to capture such monumental events as part of their galactic research.
“Look at that primordial soup,” Ellen said. “I’ve never seen a color like that!”
“Wait, there’s the spark!” Tom pointed across the interactive landscape. “The first thought created by what would someday become a human being — just a flash of electricity, that’s it.”
“And everything after has led to us,” Ellen gave herself over to a long, passionate kiss.
Satch grinned, over the wonderful self-centeredness of youth. He closed up the archive after ten, sensing that no other customers would visit tonight. He remembered when the concept was new: Man’s fascination with the notion that each of us created our own reality. Now it had become merely accepted fact. But for those who still felt the wonder of it all, Satch would be there, tonight and every night.
by submission | Sep 19, 2018 | Story |
Author: Ian Hill
Affin slipped and slid over the lumpy white slopes. Her hair hung clotted with curdy chunks, and irritating crescents of tallow lingered under her fingernails; most of her skin was hidden under smeared wax; her clothes were heavy with clinging runoff. After so much climbing and stumbling, she finally rested and looked back at her sister, who was struggling over greasy wavelets of semi-hardened suet a few meters away.
“They must have used a lot of candles, huh?” Affin called, perching on a rounded knob and crossing her legs.
Pari, one arm outstretched for balance, clambered over a molded timber that had been caught in the sluggish seep years ago. Her long hair swayed heavily in front of her face, and when she tossed it back the weight nearly jerked her over. She was like an all-white specter navigating a surreal, flowing landscape with layers and bumps and licks and flows, all oozed and clodded and whimsical like the congealed ice cream slopes of a child’s dream.
Affin winced as she carved stinging wax from under her nails. “With all the nighttime studying they were doing, you’d think they would have invented a less wasteful light source.”
Pari heaved herself onto a wind-scraped shelf of tallow and ground her eye sockets clean with her wrists. Blinking, she peered down the oily heights they had scaled. The landslide of wax swept lower and lower, like a river of thickened milk, before spilling out and spreading into the foggy fields from whence she and her sister had come.
“Welp,” Affin jumped up and turned her attention forward, up the remainder of the steep, caked-over incline. “Better be going, huh?”
“A minute,” Pari croaked. The inside of her mouth was white, and she winced at the soapy taste.
Affin looked at her pitiful sister and sighed. The former was excited to reach that looming, pinnacled tower whose southern flank vomited molten spillage and whose northern flank blew off equal quantities of handwritten papers. What wonders she would find on those sheets—the recorded thoughts and discoveries of a community of lofty thinkers who, as the waxen wasteland attested, spent so long shut up in their high, windowless chamber, considering, writing. She could see the gray turret now, rising solemnly over its mounded heaps of grossly discharged wax. No warm light came from the coagulate-rimmed vent.
“What’s this?” Pari asked.
Affin turned at her sister’s voice and found her holding a half-charred scrap of parchment in sticky fingers. Affin’s eyes widened and she rushed over.
“Could it be from the tower?” Pari wondered.
Affin snatched the paper and greedily held it up. It was globbed with wax, and, curiously, much of it had burnt away, but she could still make out one passage. She read, “No great breakthroughs have transpired since the mishap. It seems the boys are disheartened. ‘Tis a shame what happened—a mean, crippling shame. We fritter away most of our time at the northern chute, inhaling the crisp fumes of a million million burnt pages. Ah, what cruelty. To think so much and never realize the fool’s game we played until, as was inevitable, one of our candles fell from a table and rolled the wrong way. A single little flame in the wrong place, and poof, our efforts but ashes. A true shame.”
Pari looked at her sister, aghast.
Affin stood still for a while, crumpling and uncrumpling the scrap in her hands. Her expression was unreadable. Then, with a slow exhale, she opened her eyes and smiled. “Oh well. The air in there was probably funny anyway.” She helped her sister up. “Let’s go home.”
