by submission | Feb 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“So, how many today?”
“Ummmmm, six. No. Seven.”
“Seven? Dude, that’s gotta be a record.”
“Nah. I did twelve in one day last quarter. It’s easy. Find their operational metaphor, login into their universe, use the behavior health override, eject them from the system. Easy-peasy.”
“How do you do it, man? I do any more than four and I am good for nothing for the next 24. All those egos, all that re-arrangement of reality… (sigh.) I gotta hang on tight each time I go in.”
“Your problem is you admire their creativity. You see the ornate world they’ve made for themselves, spend time in their harems, follow them for a while on their quest, kill some dinosaurs, whatever. You get sucked in.”
“How can you not? Just yesterday I was in a world so beautiful and peaceful I even wanted to believe it existed.”
“That’s your problem. You want to believe. Not our job. Our job is to bring reality crashing down on their universe. Make them give up the sword and sorcery and get back to the real world and help us make it a better place.”
“That is so square. Don’t you see what they are all trying to do? Is it their fault that they’re addicted to what could be rather than dealing with what is? Hell, some of our cases need to making decisions out here…oh. Wow.”
“You get it now don’t you? They have to be out here making it better. For every one of those VR dropouts, there’s six of us taking care of them. For every one we smack off-line three more go on.”
“So what do we do? How do we fight the fantasy?”
“Have one more powerful than theirs.”
“Huh?”
“More powerful. Me? I want to burn it all down man. I want to run wild with sledgehammers in the server farms. I want to throw acid on the data storage. I want to piss Hep C into their bio-computers. Every time I drop into one of those MF’s universes that’s what is locked into my mind, man. I’m the wrecking ball, freakin’ death and destroyer of virtual worlds.”
“Chill out! You’re scarin’ me bro.”
“Hey, just livin’ the dream.”
by submission | Feb 22, 2019 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Distant stars blinked over Buguma island in the lower southern delta of West Africa. Sea waves turned, crickets droned, and guinea fowl warbled. I was on a forest path, walking to my village, looking over my shoulder, for I could hear something lurking in the darkness. At first, I thought it was a stray dog, then a bush rat, but the stalking sounds were in the wrong order.
I stopped and turned around. A mosquito whispered in my ear. I strained my eyes. There was a bleak, low shape several meters away, slowly moving forward, and mutably, by some evil juju, it assumed the frame of a thick, squat, bald man. A fearful terror gripped me. I screamed and ran. I knew he was no normal man.
As I dashed, bewitched thoughts flashed in my mind of the juju man transforming into a giant insect, swooping down upon me with his gauzy wings, spindle legs, and needle bill, piercing my body, and sucking the blood dry from my veins. I ran faster and faster, screaming louder and louder for all my life was worth.
I came gasping and tumbling into my village, where amid the reddish-yellow glimmer of a kerosene lamp, comfortable loud men in singlets and wrappas were sitting on stools, laughing, chewing kola nuts, and drinking kai-kai and palm wine from tin cups and calabash gourds.
They saw me. I fell before them, shouting that a juju man on the forest path was chasing me for his beastly banquet. The happy men roused to their feet and became serious men. They murmured about witch doctors, magicians, and child snatchers, and they ran to their mud-and-thatch houses, where they grabbed more kerosene lamps, sharpened their matchets, and loaded their hunting muskets as their wives held and guarded small infants.
Hurriedly, I paced with the armed men to the path, and there in the shadows, we saw the form of the juju man prowling. I pointed, shivering. The village men demanded that the juju man stop. He did not yield. One of them fired his musket in the air, uttering a curse and a proverb. And the juju man retreated as swiftly as the horses of northern Kano land.
We pursued him under the moonless night. He ran into the bushes heedless of the venomous snakes, darted across the cassava and plantain farms, and passed the outlying river channel leading to the sea. He ran to the dark shore of the beach, and there was a splash.
Approaching the water, we heard a sound like the mighty engines of English merchant ships. And then, to our dismay, there was a fiery blaze rising like the broad-faced sun—and magnificent white rays that shone all around the earth and the waters before us—and a massive roar like a cannon blast—and a surging hot storm-wind—and afterward, all was dark again and still except for the disturbed water and the dead snappers and periwinkles that swept ashore.
We were awestruck. One of the men spoke: “Pikin, dis one na be pawaful juju, o.” That was eighty-five years ago. I was ten years old.
I now live on the seafront of Brittany with my retired son and his second wife. All the world has changed, and I have changed, yet some things remain the same in the tides of time, like the memories of childhood presentiments. So far away from Buguma island and in the late twilight of my life, I sometimes wonder when the stars blink in the night, “Was the juju man real, or was he something I dreamed, the fancy and the flight of childish fears?”
by submission | Feb 21, 2019 | Story |
Author: Suzanne Borchers
I’m one of three applying for the position of Assistant to the Chairman. Why me? My parents placed my application to the Great One.
Mother’s favorite story is about my birth. Daddy laughed, hugged me close to his chest, and called me his little lamb.
I grew up in Cumulous City, high above the drudges mining minerals and gems for our Chairman’s government. Daddy made sacrifices so my wardrobe was the finest in the city. He told me stories about our Chairman–his strength, his wealth, his love for his people.
And here I am awaiting his arrival. My parents told me not to worry, that I would be chosen. I am quiet, unrivaled in beauty, and mature for my thirteen years. Yet I shiver, knowing that if I’m not chosen, I could die.
We applicants stand before the throne and await the Great One. The Chairman’s Board circles us. The Followers stand off to the side, my parents in front.
On my left is Jax. My face heats at his beauty–his black curly hair and graceful curve of aquiline nose. He wears his planet’s tunic of silver. On my right is Aal. His appendages are placed without direction or order. Before I can lower my gaze, he smiles at me. My stomach heaves and I turn away.
With the sound of a gong, the Chairman enters. His unlined, clean-shaven face beams goodness. His large hands clasp together in our universal sign of peace. He radiates youth although he is old.
The Chairman sits and motions Jax forward. Jax’s fluid steps are confident. His tunic shimmers. He kneels. Of course, Jax will be chosen. Shaking, I glance at my parents. They smile at me.
A bolt of energy surges from the Great One’s hand.
“No!” I gasp.
Jax collapses and is dragged away by the Chairman’s guards.
The Chairman announces, “I knew Jax to be prideful and I felt his need to be purged of it.”
His Followers chant, “Our hearts and minds are yours!”
The Great One smiles and motions Aal forward. Aal’s eyes moisten and his appendages churn until he’s before the Chairman. His body shakes. His red tunic drips sweat.
He’s afraid like me! Tears fill my eyes.
Silence.
A bolt of energy surges into Aal’s body, twisting him around before he falls.
My eyes hold his until his eyes see nothing.
I breathe out a sob.
Aal is kicked from the room.
The Followers cheer.
The Chairman giggles. “I knew Aal’s embarrassment at ugliness and his need to be purged of it.”
I brush away a tear.
The Followers’ chants ring throughout the room until the Great One raises his impressive hand.
He crooks his finger at me. I turn toward my father, who motions me forward to the Great One.
I force my legs to move. My knees tremble as I stumble to the Chairman.
I bow my head and kneel, waiting for the arc of pain. It seems hours as I focus on his giant feet. His shoes glow black.
One hand caresses my scrubbed face before he lifts my chin, forcing me to face him.
His other hand cups one of my heavy breasts and squeezes it, hard. He whispers, “There is no need for an Assistant. I have just one need.” My breast throbs with pain. “You’ll learn.”
My father joins the Board Members’ circle. He doesn’t look back at me.
Moaning, I remember his words, “My little lamb.”
by submission | Feb 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Nova Education was paying Jacee Egan a pittance to interview famous scientists. Nova hoped the links would make their failing on-line physics course less dull. It’s not about the science, they insisted. Give it a human face.
Nobel-winner Darius Smalling was long dead, but this Blount woman had been a student of his. She seemed fascinated by the recorder on the table between them. Top of the range holographic. He’d still be paying for it when it was obsolete.
“Need a level check, Doctor.”
“Who did you say you worked for?”
“I work to free the facts, Doc. FTF.”
She was spry for her age, but tendons stood out on her neck, and her flesh was a map of wrinkles and age spots. A woman that old should cover up more.
Thought so, she sighed. Had to be sure.
The old girl was long past her sell-by date.
“So, Dr. Blount, you worked with Darius Smalling on the Quantum Hyperstate Project.”
“My Ph.D. supervisor, yes. A great man. Chen was brilliant too. I thought myself lucky.”
He’d looked it up beforehand. Seemed like the famous Darius Smalling had been onto something. Physics beyond the Standard Model. Hints of faster than light. Hints of time-reversed particles. All a bust. Faulty concept. Faulty claims. Smalling retired under a cloud. Chen got religion. And young Blount switched to medicine.
“But wasn’t there a scandal?” Serious face for the edit. “Talk of fabricated results?” Then if she looks shifty, nice link to the issue of fraud in science today.
“No, it was a complete success. On the very first run, we got a signal from ten minutes into the future.”
His interview face slipped.
“In fact, Professor Smalling poisoned the well deliberately. To make sure nobody followed up his work. Because the signal contained information. You could picture the future.”
The old bird was rambling. The plot of some TV show from half a century ago.
“You could see yourself on screen, holding a coffee mug, ten minutes from now. First thing Chen asked. What happens to that future, if you don’t pick up the mug.”
How was he supposed to get anything useful out of this?
“What do you think would happen?” she asked sharply, catching him out.
He was busy nodding. Nodding was good for linking edits. “Well, if you saw him holding it, then…”
“A test of free will, yes.”
Jacee smiled uncertainly. The QHP had ruined several careers, but in her ramshackle memory everything turned out fine.
“I don’t think the Professor trusted Chen to keep quiet. So we checked ourselves out. Professor Smalling watched himself die in a car crash. And Chen’s retirement into obscurity. Only Doctor Blount, paediatrician, spills the beans fifty years on.”
“For a moment there, Doc…”
“Imagine if it became known. The kind of world where you’re not responsible for a crime because you couldn’t do any different.”
They stared at one another.
Useless for Nova maybe, but a nice piece for the Net.
The recorder had a good heft to it; lenses and batteries and so forth. It didn’t feel like she was being forced to act, any more than wanting to confess the truth at last. And she’d seen this before, the hack making a grab for his precious equipment.
She can never remember whether it takes four or five, so she goes for five whacks to be sure. Then she fries the recorder memory with mains AC.
It’s taken fifty years, but finally, she’s free. Finally, she doesn’t know what happens next.
by submission | Feb 17, 2019 | Story |
Author: Gerard Baars
Surging forward he crosses the sonic boom, his toned body unaffected by the turbulent forces. Accelerating he hits the second boom. Then the third, fourth… G-forces now threaten to rip his body to shreds, but his perfect physique shrugs it off. Hairless, naked except for the streamlined genital sack, he pushes on, emotionally dead, but mentally alert, consciously slips his mind into a higher sphere.
He skirts the wide circular arc, pushing his angular momentum to the max. Perfectly balanced between the competing circular forces he sails on. Aware of the approaching challenge he moulds his body into an extended pencil shape. Taking a deep breath he hurtles into the vacuum tube of the hadron collider. The magnetic fields increase his velocity the more. Homo sapiens has breached another evolutionary barrier. Aware of the laser photons speeding towards him from the left, he eggs his body on. Closing in on the collision point he blanks his mind and gains a few vital metres per second. Rushing forward, ever forward he senses the blinding light of the beam to his left and powers through with a few nanoseconds to spare. The laser beam hits the opposite wall, breaches the tube and the shock wave surges towards him. Mentally he has flattened his feet to receive the shock wave. It hits him and instead of engulfing him, forces his body forward even faster.
Now into free space again, he senses a dimensional portal ahead. Moving is right elbow millimetrically, he deviates into the new dimension. Not slowing his forward movement, his mind wallows in the peace, leaving the stress of his near annihilation behind. But he quickly recovers not allowing this ennui to slow him down, and takes the next portal back into his own dimension. An energy barrier approaches and he takes the jump. One, two, three levels higher. Yes, he is now more energetic than any other human body and hurtles forward at unprecedented speeds. Reaching beyond the mental state he nears nirvana. Another energy barrier overcome, he powers forward even faster.
He now hits the entropy barrier and is enthralled by the peace and ease of motion. He hurtles, surges, ever faster, ever freer. Somewhere way, way, behind the finishing bell tolls. Blissfully unaware, he knows without knowing that no bell tolls for him or ever will. Forward, ever forward, he hurtles on outrunning space. Even time now is no barrier. Forward, speed, acceleration, speed, hurtling, surging, powering, forward, forward, forw…….
