by submission | Oct 19, 2018 | Story |
Author: Malcolm Carvalho
Pa is sleeping. It’s one of his intermittent naps. They said the meds would make him drowsy all day. He looks serene when he is asleep, even in these fifteen-minute sessions. Must be enough time to mine his memories, and perhaps a little of his subconscious. They’ve tested the program extensively. At least they claim that. I cannot do worse than believe them.
I look up the monitor. All the connections seem to be running fine. Will a few days of running the program image all of his persona? Again, I have no option but to rely on the tech.
I lean forward from my chair and hold his right wrist. I detect a feeble pulse, the beat like the slow drip from a shower. Maybe 45 per minute. I let go and interweave my fingers with his, trying to imprint his warmth onto my memory. I remember the time he held my hand as we walked down the beach. I must have been seven then, my little fingers caught in his firm but gentle grip. The sound of the horse’s hooves exciting and scary at the same time. Pa putting me in the saddle and walking beside the keeper. My heart jumping almost to my throat, and Pa’s voice reassuring me. “I’m right here, Rubu.” And all feels fine in my world. I feel a deep sense of gratitude. I pray these memories have the heaviest weight when the whole thing rolls out. After all, I would not want Pa to have a weaker experience.
I bend and kiss his forehead. I’m sorry, Pa. I need to go. Your medical bills are running too high. My job here can only pay so much. Mars will have better opportunities, and if the laws change, I might even get you there.
It may take a couple of years. I hope he can survive till then. The guilt rankles me. I quieten myself. How else can a planetary analyst pay for this without moving to another planet?
I hope the software makes his mind malleable enough to allow the virtual copy to sink in. I’m prepared to have trouble accepting his version, but I can handle that. There will be enough to do to distract me.
They have mapped my memories well, they said. I even had a quick look at the dry run. In some cases, I could not even figure out which was the real me.
His fingers twitch. Time to leave before he wakes up.
But I am not convinced enough yet. I walk out and pull the door closed leaving a small gap through which I can see him. I turn my hand towards the sensor and wave to turn on the simulation.
Pa wakes up, his eyes blank like life has been drained out from them. He turns to one side to get up. I look to the figure on the chair. He rushes to hold Pa by his arms and props him up.
“Time for our evening walk,” Pa says as he presses his toes to the floor. The simulation thrusts a hand, holds Pa’s elbow and helps him to his feet.
“Let’s skip the park and head to the lake today,” the simulation says. Exactly the same words, exactly the same tone. Or was it me talking?
Pa smiles and begins walking to the door.
My eyes are welling up. If I wait for longer, I might just change my mind.
I walk out, hoping his simulation will not make me miss him either. What the hell! I know the difference.
by submission | Oct 18, 2018 | Story |
Author: Thomas Desrochers
The sweaty politicians like to remind us that the EcoFasc League were monsters, especially before we do a round of flyovers. “Remember,” they scream at us, “remember the billions.”
We come in off the eastern seaboard. It’s lovely this time of year, stretching away, an infinite green carpet. Back home the trees are planted in rows. They’re big enough, but you’re always reminded that it’s an artificial thing. Here the trees fight and jostle, untamed.
Billions. Unbelievably large, except when you fly by the countless shattered wrecks of the cities. Just, enormous. Reminds me of home: crowded and gray. Every piece of land we can use, we do. Not many animals left.
Not like here. Here, plants and animals build up in the streets, on the floors and rooftops – the sheer weight of life bringing down steel and concrete. Untouched, though. In a hundred years we’ve seen people wandering these places a dozen times. Elderly, usually, on some final pilgrimage.
It’s beautiful, this endless forest broken up by quiet glades, teeming with wildlife. Don’t go down there. That’s the first thing they tell you in training. Don’t go down there – you’ll cook.
The people there don’t cook, for whatever reason. They live in small communities turned towards the sun, sheltered from the wind, surrounded by fields and gardens that my grandmother would envy and ponds teeming with so many fish my grandfather would cry. We get close enough to take a look. The other guys like to ignore them, but I wave. The kids always wave back. They look happy.
It was a fast affair, if you read between the lines. The books talk about the decades of build-up and turmoil, but it was the blink of an eye. One year the news teems with references to a grizzled man speaking at a pub rally, and the next Asia is coated in VX.
Bummer.
War for a week after we beat back their missiles, but then the League saved everyone the trouble: they cooked off all the New World’s nuclear piles. It was impressive, really (but don’t tell anyone that – you’ll regret it). Invade? Why bother? They paid special attention to their minerals, and the days of heartland grains were over. No more fish from the oceans either, unless you like them hot. My forefathers starved.
Double bummer.
They’ve got technology still, though we’re not sure what or how. We’ve never figured out how they didn’t die out down there. Higher-ups worry: how many, and who? I say, who cares? They’re friendly enough for me.
Plains roll by, endless. I think the people here are obligated to feel free, but maybe they feel trapped. We cross over the continent in a day and it takes the riders and wagon trains half a week between settlements.
The mountains slide past. Before you know it you’ve hit the Pacific. Squalls roll under lingering clouds; it’s a rainforest down there, you’d better believe it. Our satellites watch as the forests grow back like hair on a ten year clear cancer patient – wild. The trees eats up our smog like candy.
I remember the billions. I shouldn’t be, it’s terrible that I am, but I’m grateful they’re gone and glad it happened. I love the flights. The doctors say flyover duty steals decades from us, but nobody’s ever quit.
We had an emergency put-down once – engine trouble. All I remember is the trees as big around as I am tall, wildflowers like scattered paint, and the choir of birds in time to the anxious whine of the geigers.
Paradise, I said. Who could disagree?
by submission | Oct 17, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Henson
“Hi, Dad, how are you today?”
“Same old, same old, Danny. Come in.”
Daniel and Stanley go into the kitchen, and the two sit at the table. Stanley begins scribbling in a notepad.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re writing about, Dad,” Stanley says.
“Just an idea … an invention I thought of.”
Daniel sighs. “Now what?”
“I call it a DRTS — a Dematerializing Rematerializing Transporation System. It’ll beam you anywhere in the blink of an eye. That’s how we’ll get from place to place in the future.”
“There you go again, Dad. Don’t you see how you’re … confused?”
“I’m never confused, Son.”
“My gosh, Dad, you told Billy last month, this —” Daniel raises an arm and sweeps it around him — “is all just a simulation.” He raps his knuckles on the table. “You told Billy nothing is real, Dad. He could’ve hurt himself when he tried to walk through his bedroom wall.”
“I’m really sorry about that, Danny. I gave it some deeper thought after reading about this ‘Occam’s razor’ thing. I don’t think everything’s a simulation anymore.”
“That’s a relief, Dad. How about what you told me the last time I was here — how we’ll all have computers in our heads? Years from now?”
“Son, it’s only logical. Computers keep getting smaller, right? It’s inevitable that sooner or later they’ll be implanted in humans to enhance our capabilities.”
“Dad, please. Don’t you realize —”
“And not just humans. In the future, we’ll put chips in the heads of animals. Their thoughts’ll be translated into human speech. Mainly your higher mammals — pigs, dogs, some horses. Computers,” Stanley continues, “eventually will lead to all kinds of amazing things — levitation belts, invisibility cloaks, time travel and —”
“Eventually time travel? Talking pigs? Oh, Dad.” Daniel takes his father’s hands in his. “I’m worried about you. I’ve got to run now, but we’re going to … fix this.”
Stanley pulls his hands away from Daniel. “I’m fine, Danny. You don’t have to worry about me.”
***
“How was your father today, Dan?” Lydia says.
Daniel shakes his head. “Well, he’s off the kick about nothing being real. But otherwise about the same, unfortunately. Where are the kids?”
“Billy will be home a little late today.” Lydia says. “Field trip to the Mesozoic. I —”
“Boo!” Sally yells, suddenly appearing next to her father, then rising to the ceiling.
“Young Lady,” Daniel says sternly, “how many times have I told you? No cloaking in the house. Now come down here. Then switch off that belt, too.”
Sally does as she’s told. “Never get to have any fun,” she mutters to herself.
“As I was saying,” Lydia continues, “I think before we go to Jupiter,” she nods toward the family’s teleportation chamber in the corner of the room, “we should take your father in like we talked about. I think he needs is his memory enhancement chip replaced.”
“I agree. I know older people sometimes tend to live in the past, but not like Dad.” As Daniel speaks, a pot-bellied pig saunters up to him. “How are you, Hamster?” Daniel says, scratching the pig between the eyes.
“Absolutely famished,” Hamster replies.
by submission | Oct 14, 2018 | Story |
Author: Joseph S. Pete
Clive never thought it would come back to haunt him, what he wrote for one of the more widely read zines on the punk scene, even if some disparaged it as “Big Brother’s Little Brother” or a “bullshit preacher of phony authenticity,” even if it were lashed for promoting a uniform sound both gospel and generic.
He contributed reviews decades ago back when he was looking to find outlets for his creativity, maybe become a writer and part of a scene bigger than himself. Clive wanted to drum up as much attention as possible, which he tried to do with throwaway jokes about euthanizing the poor, castrating CEOs, bathing toady congressmen in acid and smacking around Richie the Rich instigators of class warfare until they bled molten gold.
He never paused to think about such half-assed jokes and offhand musings might be received in the future. He never thought about the future at all.
As he understood it, Johnny Rotten was right. There was no future, no future for him.
Only a few decades later, haggard, saggy-eyed and tired all the time, finally realizing why dying young was romanticized, Clive took a long look at himself in the mirror early one morning, when the lack of sleep weighed heavy on his eyelids. He was headed off to direct an augmented reality tour for the City of Chicago, in which virtual reality would allow visitors to fight the Legion of Doom along with third-tier Justice League members, learn about architecture and delve into the depths of Chance the Mayor and Rapper’s discography while strolling around the Loop.
The phone on his dinner table buzzed. Ominously.
He was being let go. Clive had unthinkingly cut off the manager of a Moo & Oink in traffic after encouraging him to hurry up and ring up his groceries, and that neck-bearded mouth-breather had proceeded to dig up his past reviews and forward them to his employer.
Chicago had to maintain a family-friendly facade; that’s how it packed it 110 million international visitors a year, by offending no one, for any reason, ever. The corporation could not stand by the ideas of wanton violence or a revolutionary overthrow of the U.S. government. These tours were supposed to be devoid of any political content and Clive had become a liability, he was a professional and surely he understood.
Clive thought about using the virtual reality tech he used day in and day out to wow the unending stream of tourists to erase any memory of the untoward reviews that so nettled them now, to wipe his record clean. He had worked out a hack while playing around during his downtime and knew the VR could eradicate any recollection of this incident in the human executives’ minds. He could craft and implant alternate memories that would make this all go away.
But if anything, Clive realized, he should blank his own mind, eliminate any trace of selling out, of leading his creativity to such crass commercialism, of forsaking all his youthful ideals as he debased himself to make a buck.
He was once free and pure and radical, but now he just was.
He couldn’t help but to be bitter.
“No one ever read that crap,” he thought. “No one. Hardly anyone at all.”
He fired up his VR projector, maybe for the last time, and thought about what he should do.
A steely determination came over him.
“To hell with it.”
by submission | Oct 13, 2018 | Story |
Author: Katie Venit
It was a clear Tuesday in May at the Eden Garden Center when a new universe commenced between the petunias and marigolds, just left of the snapdragons. Initially the size of a speck, it was easily mistaken for atmospheric sparkle.
Within days, the speck had grown large enough for the owners—former hippies-turned entrepreneurial horticulturalists Stan and Frank Bern-Jones—to notice. Frank was watering the petunias, enjoying the sunlight streaming in through the greenhouse windows and planning the day’s mulching when he discovered himself on his backside, having been repelled by something. Rubbing his derriere, Frank realized he had bounced off an orb the circumference of a quarter, hovering three feet off the ground, incandescing and pulsing like a will-o’-the-wisp. When he tried to grab the orb, it seared his palm with the pattern of the firmament.
Leaning in as close as he dared, Frank discerned gauzy stellar nurseries of billowing gas and stardust, light years across and coalescing rapidly into primordial galaxies amassing along webs of gravity. The universe swelled slightly. Frank closed shop early.
###
By next morning, the wee bairn had laid waste to the petunias. Gamma waves blackened the leaves and crumpled their trumpets as though they had been held over a fire. Stan deadheaded while Frank called their insurance agent.
“Bad news,” Frank hung up the phone. “Our insurance doesn’t cover the birth of a multiverse in the nursery.”
“It covers Acts of God, doesn’t it? What is this if not an Act of God?” Stan shook a handful of dead petunias at Frank, releasing a stale aroma of funeral parlors.
“Not according to the insurance agent. Besides, wouldn’t you say this disproves the existence of God? I mean, if there were a God, and he were truly omnipotent, then this would be a pretty big goof. Sort of like planting kudzu in a terrarium,”
Stan stared at his husband. “You’re talking about divine ontology when our inventory is being destroyed.”
Frank shrugged. “I’m just saying, maybe we should call Father James instead of the insurance agent.”
“Does the insurance cover Hell, Frank? Because that’s where I am, in Hell!” Stan threw down the irradiated petals, which disintegrated in a tawny puff.
Frank held a hand to his mouth, thinking. It was a pose Stan usually found alluring but not at this moment.
“What if,” said Frank, “we move the petunias over with the impatiens.”
“Those are full shade, Frank. It’ll never work!”
“Daylilies, then.”
“Now you’re mixing annuals and perennials!” Stan took a steadying breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure what that did, but his father and grandfather had both done it in times of stress. “Obviously we’re not thinking clearly. I’m not worried about the damned petunias. I mean, just look at you.” He cradled Frank’s burnt hand. “We need to destroy this thing. Do you know what universes do? They expand.”
“Destroy it?” Frank pulled his hand away. “Stan, we’re horticulturalists. We’re in the creation business. Cosmology, not eschatology. What if we somehow conceived this universe? What if there are living beings? We can’t just exterminate them like aphids.”
“There’s no life there! Besides, what choice do we have? It’s us or th—”
“Shh, do you hear that?” Frank held up a finger. “Stan, listen.”
Stan leaned in close enough to singe the peach fuzz on his ears.
The tiny universe wailed.
