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.
by submission | Oct 12, 2018 | Story |
Author: David K Scholes
Canberra, Australia 2085
Janelle looked on, in disbelief.
“I recognise some of this stuff,” she said pointing to a collection of head set/self-moulding ear plug combinations. “They look like crude old fashioned noise nullifiers.”
“Also those units,” she pointed to a transparent but shield secured floating weapons rack above our heads, “look like stunner/disablers.”
I nodded. “Some people still like the old style noise nullifiers but nowadays we can put a noise envelope about a small building to protect against noise attack.”
“What are those?” Janelle looked up to an on ceiling storage unit, “they look like the same thing but in different sizes.”
“Cushion impact fields – from personal to small flyer size.”
“And those?” Janelle persisted.
“Molecular re-arrangers – to counter property including robotic damage’” I replied. “Oh they don’t work on flesh and blood people,” I added. “We have another type of re-arranger for that.”
“These are dangerous times for all of us old folks; you must have seen stashes like this before?” I enquired.
“Not quite as extensive as this,” came the reply.
If it helped any, most of my stuff was neatly stacked on anti-grav, transparent, shielded storage units. Units that could be held immovable in stasis or moved with the lightest touch or by anyone with the slightest telekinetic capability.
“Sorry, Janelle, but I have to be on my way.” I started kitting up to confront the urban dangers that started just outside my front door. Or even just below the foundations of my home, or just above my old style chimney for that matter.
The lightweight exo-skeleton assisted, force field protected armour flowed on easily just as I put on the supporting opticals. Opticals that allowed me to see round corners, through walls, and under floors, pavements, and roads. Lighter and tighter than an ordinary pair of sunglasses. I gathered several stunner/disablers to take with me. Even a personal cushion impact unit as back up for my armour’s force field.
“I know this neighbourhood is classified danger level 9 but aren’t you just going a bit over the top with this? Please don’t tell me you’ve got all that stuff on just for a walk down to the local shops?” Janelle was half serious.
I chuckled inwardly. “Don’t be silly, of course not. If I was just going down to the shops I would only take a single stunner/disabler unit. No, I’m joining Tom, Fred and a few others on a senior citizen patrol. A retro thing that we are trying to revive. We hope it will catch on again. We’ll do a slow sweep around the block. Checking the teleportation stations, the under road communities and other dangerous spots.
Most importantly we’ll also check in on the armoured hospice, see that the Fedpolice are doing their job protecting the nursing home, and scatter any feral youthpaks hanging around outside the retirement village.
Janelle whistled, suitably impressed. “Well, you will be busy – careful with those stunners/disablers though. You don’t want to injure any innocents.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied, “they are all calibrated for the under 60’s with a double strength serving for the under 25’s.”
“No danger of friendly fire casualties then,” smiled Janelle, “I like it.”
“Well,” it was her turn to chuckle “I did hear some references to a Dads Army being set up in this neighbourhood but I had no idea you were involved.”
“It looks like you’ll be giving new meaning to the term.”
by submission | Oct 11, 2018 | Story |
Author: Lisa Conti
Until today, I had only seen government-sanctioned flames. And I had never felt them; never known how heat could change so rapidly with distance. Never smelled smoke. Never felt so guilty. Of course, I would never take fire above ground; and I would never burn anything, I mean, not really. I know that it’s people like me who jeopardize our safety. I’m sorry.
Her face is still with me as if it’s permanently scorched onto my retina; orange-lit skin and expressive, flipbook eyes. Maybe those eyes are the only ones who’ve ever really seen me. She looked at me and smiled. I think she saw my spirit. I can’t let her flickering image go.
And then the questions come. Why didn’t I ask her when I had the chance? Is black money your only income? Have you ever been burned? Do you believe in the ban? Is Tana your real name?
I unbutton my shirt, take it off and fold it into a small square. I inhale one last breath through the thick cotton then slip it into a zip-lock bag. I shouldn’t save the evidence, but I ignore my good sense and tuck it into my bottom drawer. I follow her instructions for the rest and drop each clothing item, one-by-one, into the bathtub. I wash my hair and drip five drops of eucalyptus oil into the hot water stream. The steam folds the smoke away, and I emerge an obedient citizen again.
We haven’t had a wildfire since the Climate Control Act of 2022. In the last fifty years, asthma, COPD, cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory disease rates have dropped dramatically. Global temperatures, sea levels, and icebergs remain constant. Yet today, Tana gave a below ground unsanctioned fire tour. And today, I smelled smoke for the first time.
by submission | Oct 10, 2018 | Story |
Author: DJ Lunan
Clarke peered mesmerised through the tiny pod’s porthole at the forested planet, verdant, moist and fertile stretching to the horizon. He smiled, doubting it could save his soul, but it was certainly rescuing his mood. Six years wearing a HAZMAT suit in 50 degrees of direct sunshine, digging by hand through briny pans to unearth and capture colonies of salt termites, had left Clarke with limited memory of the colour green, or the texture of water on his skin.
So happy to have left the desert, he’d been hard-drunk persistently during the three weeks’ voyage to his next assignment – prospecting.
“I hate these green planets, they may look placid, but you need to be on your toes, termite-diviner!”, screamed Messina as she battled to align the Sunship with the planet’s gravity.
“Looks like paradise to me, Messi!”, replied Clarke.
It was one week since the communique from HQ directed them here; ‘Our intel is 80% potential for super-mites and great-hoppers. Take Clarke for recon and sampling. Report back.’
“Empty air”, Messina noted.
She was right, no clouds, nothing flying, no large animal heads, no plane-eating snakes.
“Odd. We any intel on the ecosystem?” asked Clarke. Messina was sweating, her eyes darting across the canopy looking for danger.
She finally realised gravity equilibrium, brought the Sunship into hover mode 100 feet above the canopy.
“None. I’ve prospected planets like this before. If we don’t get attacked by something big in the next couple of minutes, there’s a good chance it’s a plantation. And termite-boy, we are still intact! Get ready, 30 seconds.”
Clarke stared out mesmerised. But, like staring at a stereogram, slowly the unerring regularity of the canopy loomed, making his eyes spin. If this is a plantation – then for what and by who?
Worse still, without GPS data, this would be old-world exploration: man-in-a-pod on a strong rope with a collecting jar.
He looked quizzically at Messina, a hundred questions bursting. She winked, releasing his pod, and he fell at blistering speed through the blinding sunlight of the cloudless planet. The pod crashed through the canopy, jerking to a hard stop ten feet above the ground. The triple-butted graphite-steel amalgam rope, rippled up and down, leaving Clarke bobbing like a dinghy in an estuary.
The lush planet had disappeared. Under the canopy, there was nothing, just white earth. It was a plantation. The trees were planted regularly five metres apart in all directions. Each tree had a massive buttress with familiar indentations indicating termite species. But the scale was massive. The trees towered over 200 metres, with termite buttresses extending up 20 metres. These termites would be massive. And valuable. The intel was right, but the eerie silence was unexpected.
Messina barked through the intercom, “Clarke, stop gawking and get sampling.”
Clarke complied, activating the sampling arms, four vacuum cleaners, each sucking twenty grams of organic material into jars. The white earth was dry, with desiccated pine needles, dust and what looked like turtle-sized termite shells.
It conjured memories of pine forests in lowland Scotland, planted with gold-rush gusto when softwood prices were high. But spent twenty years gestating standing soulless, soundless, dry and empty – an arid oasis among the peat bogs and persistent rain. But they were owned, bankrolled by old-families who were banking on their share of the logging prices as royalty.
“Looks like an abandoned colony, Messi.”
“Where are the critters, Clarke?”
“More importantly, who owns this plantation and where are they now?”
“Darn forest planets – always complicated.”
“Give me the desert anyday. Let’s go, Messi”
The line crackled.
“Messi…”
The pod began to bob and weave.
by submission | Oct 7, 2018 | Story |
Author: Michael Hopkins
Olivia told me she saw a double rainbow. She said it just as she stepped through the front door. Water dripped from her long brown hair onto the wood floor entryway, she said it was a sign from god, an answer to her prayers. This was after she saw the funnel cloud, raised her hands to the sky, and prayed that the tornado would shift direction away from our Wisconsin house. The storm intensified; eighteen people were killed one town over.
We watched whales off the coast of Cape Cod. Olivia held her hands over the water. I need to calm the tides, she said, I’m getting sick. The waves disappeared. Praise the lord, Olivia said. Seven humpback whales and three fin whales beached the following day: dead on arrival.
This heat is oppressive; I can’t breathe, Olivia said as we lay on the pristine white sand of Siesta Key Beach in Florida. She raised her hands and the air cooled. The next day a red tide swept through the area. Thousands of dead fish, turtles, and a few dozen manatees washed onto beach.
It was in the boundary waters of upper Minnesota, a place far off the grid, that helicopters found us. Olivia was sedated. I will ask god for deliverance, she said to me before her eyes shut.
Make her love you, they had ordered; you’ve done it before. Have some fun, they said. In a few months, the bio-electric mycelium DNA in her brain will have spread. She will forget her identity. You will be her control panel. Orders for deployment will follow.
She was more than a person altered, weaponized, to control the elements. Her innocent belief in a higher power, something much greater than herself, endeared me to her. Her crooked smile, the magical fragrance of Rive Gauche perfume. An angel I wanted to protect from being turned into a demon. A woman in whose arms, I felt safe.
They reinserted a tracking chip into my neck, a new scar next to the one where I cut one out three months ago, when I took Olivia away. I was ordered to report to the Arkansas base in three days. I asked for a ride. They told me it was out of the way, not their problem, they said.
I watched the copters fly away. Heard the chuf, chuf, chuf of their rotors. Then, too soon, silence. An explosion. The cloudless sky glowed red, flames crackled.
It started to rain. Torrential rain.
I stood watch at the wood’s edge. She would appear, I was sure if it. Praise the lord, I would say. Yes, praise the lord, she would answer. We would hug, I would whisper in her ear the name of a far-off country, where this time, we would never be found.
Yes, she would say, just us, we’ll drift away. People will say I remember them; they were so much in love.
In the rain, I waited, watched, and prayed.
