by submission | Dec 23, 2017 | Story |
Author: Rollin T. Gentry
Moira-1403 awoke, eyes wide open, ignoring the slight feedback in her sensors. She stood next to General Sabatyn in a small cave of which she had no record. The last thing she remembered was helping the General select the Cadet of the Year in his office.
And now this. They were ghosts in an otherworldly scene. Moira could see straight through the General to a stalagmite at the opposite end of the cave.
A lantern-sphere floated in a nearby puddle, illuminating the blue-green crystals protruding from the pale rock walls. She noticed a man in a pressure suit lying unconscious on the ground. Even through the moisture beading on his face shield, she easily recognized the former Ganymedian Ambassador, Osbat Kurelle. A ragged bandage snaked its way around his abdomen, the sort of crude device one would find in a zero-g, first-aid kit.
A younger version of the General stood near the mouth of the cave, tapping the controls on the front of his suit. He leaned against a giant, cream-colored, billowing thing, his arms extended.
“Sir, where are we?” Moira asked. “Why do I have no record of this time and place?”
“It’s a recording from my private log. Do you remember thirty years ago when those Ammuran extremists tried to kill Ambassador Kurelle?”
Moira nodded.
When the General remained silent, she focused on his younger self for clues. Lieutenant Sabatyn had placed five decomposition grenades on the pale thing ballooning from the mouth of the cave. He ran a hand over the bulbous surface and whispered, “Forgive me, brother, but we’re out of time.”
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry, Moira. Sometimes I forget that this is new to you.” The General paused the scene with a tap on his forearm. “That thing blocking our only exit is a Banchu worm, a giant, carnivorous grub. Our fight with the Ammurans led us into this system of caves. The weapons fire must have attracted the worms.”
The General touched his ear and whispered, “Listen closely. How many heartbeats do you hear?”
Young Sabatyn — that was one. The Ambassador — that was two. And a third … “The Banchu worm lives?”
“No,” the General scowled. “The worm is quite dead. My brother, Django, made sure of that. How he managed to get swallowed up in the process I’ll never know. He’s inside that damned thing, unconscious, but very much alive in his pressure suit.”
The General pointed toward the Banchu worm. “This is why I’ve brought you here, Moira.” He tapped his forearm. The scene resumed in real-time. “A rescue party is searching for us, but our suits are running out of air. I know how good you are with puzzles. You have 30 seconds to save him.”
As the young Sabatyn dragged the Ambassador into a corner, shielding the old man with his own body, Moira focused all her resources. 30 seconds was more than sufficient.
Cycling through one million permutations, even examining ideas that seemed absurd, Moira stopped with 10 seconds to spare. “I cannot find a solution, sir. I am sorry…”
On the General’s forearm, words flashed red beside a checked box: Clear History for Last Hour.
Moira understood. Her failure was a favorable outcome. And she wouldn’t remember any this: not the cave, not the worm, not the tears welling up in the General’s eyes.
“We have done this many times before, have we not, sir?”
“Yes, and it’s always a great comfort.”
“I understand, sir.”
Around them, Ganymede flickered out of existence, and fading herself, Moira hoped that she never solved the General’s puzzle.
by submission | Dec 22, 2017 | Story |
Author: Kemal Onor
Arkwell sat at the kitchen table. He was looking down into his coffee cup, admiring the roll of clouds. It reminded him of fast-moving July storms, and of rain on grass fields in the country. He made no attempt to stir the liquid. The mug was still full but no longer hot. His son was in the playroom. He could hear his voice rise at an injustice from his oldest daughter. It was one of those muted nights in November. When the snow has begun to accumulate at the windows and doors. That muted blanket that swallows sounds.
“Do you really have to go?” said his wife. She was still only half dressed and her hair was not yet tamed. Arkwell knew he would be able to sit a moment on the porch while she was getting ready.
“Too late to back out now,” said Arkwell, taking the coffee cup with both hands.
“You don’t think we could do without it?” Again, the voices from the playroom rose in high-squeal laughter.
“We might, but do you really want that?” His voice hung in the air like a string that had been pulled tight, then flicked to dither a single note. He looked to the window. Outside, the lake was frozen. Shadows were falling in deep patterns, and bruises of purple and apricot were filling the evening sky.
“More coffee?” She got up from the table and returned with the pot.
“I haven’t touched this one.” She put a finger in the cup. “It’s cold,” she said, and she poured the cup into the sink, and filled it fresh.
“Does it have to be tonight?”
“It’s best they don’t know. Marty is still young.”
“He starts at the academy Monday.”
“Really, they’re starting younger and younger now.”
“It runs in the family.” She gave a weak smile. The two sat a while, allowing the silence to fill between them, allowing sadness to grip the edges of their voices, and to sit in the unknown. The hours passed in their unwatched fashion. Six following five, seven following six, until the clock and time lost all meaning. It was a night where time is to be measured in the number of times the coffee pot is filled. And even that is not so dutifully watched. At some point, Arkwell rose from the table.
“Let’s walk to the water.” The two wrapped their bathrobes tight around them and put on their boots. Stepping outside, they found a cool evening. The snow was crisp to the touch, and it broke and crumbled under their weight. The two walked the path down to the water, and up the small hill where the dock would be on the other side in the summer. The night was clear, and all the stars of the universe unrolled before them, like a black carpet laid with hundreds of thousands of jewels. There Arkwell pointed to the brightest star in the sky. “See that star? Its name is Sirius. That’s where I’ll be going.
by submission | Dec 20, 2017 | Story |
Author: Vanessa Kittle
Robert Stolz looked at the body on the table. The problem seemed simple. He had to get into that thing. It was only centimeters away. The best scientists in the Solar System had been working on this problem for two decades, and now Stolz was ready to try the procedure. His body was so frail he could blink out into nothingness at any moment. So much work wasted. To no longer be… that was not going to happen. He had devoted billions of dollars to ensure his survival. The last human test was very promising. The subject survived with his memories intact, though they lacked the data to assess personality changes.
He looked again at the body. It was a clone of himself, though nearly 70 years younger, and without any memories. The clone never had a conscious thought during its five years of growth in the lab. It would be nice to get around again easily in a fit body, but Stolz didn’t care much about that. It was his mind – whatever made him himself – that is what he needed to survive. Stolz looked up to see the lead scientist enter the room. He announced, “We are ready, sir, if you are.” Stolz nodded yes and lay down on the table next to the blank. During the process, they would record every atom in his brain, store the data in the computer, then make a copy into his blank. As they put the mask, he looked down at his shriveled hand and made a fist. Before he could release it, he was unconscious.
Robert Stolz opened his eyes. He looked down at his hands. They were young and strong. He sat up swiftly and without pain. He remembered everything. He tested himself, picturing his childhood home of Dresden. He could almost feel the cobblestone streets beneath his feet. He could almost smell his mother’s Dresdener Stollen baking. He had come through the fire and made it safely to the other side. It was as if he had visited a sorcerer who had waved his wand and turned him forever young, for he knew his backup was now safely stored away on the computer.
Stolz looked over at the next table. Why should he be afraid to see himself? Those sorts of feelings were for lesser men. And there he was – the old Robert Stolz – just waking up from the anesthesia. The broken body was no longer useful. The old man sat up very slowly and turned his head to look at Stolz. The old man’s eyes were glazed, but suddenly they came into focus. Stolz could see what he was thinking. He leapt from the table and stumbled to the floor. His legs did not work properly. They did not know how to walk. But he forced himself up and closed the distance. He seized the old man by the throat and squeezed with all of his strength. The old man struggled and flailed at him pathetically, then he went limp.
Stolz looked down at the corpse. Was that really me? What was it that made him himself? Was it just the memories and choices? There was so little to that. Most virtual characters had stories just as rich. Then he had a warm and wonderful thought. Even if a man was only a collection of memories and thoughts, likes and desires, he was more than that now. He was in the computer, too. He could always come back. And next time there would be no old man to kill.
by submission | Dec 19, 2017 | Story |
Author: David Henson
*The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion.*
A stranger is standing on the stoop. Ben lifts the ax and pulls it down in a smooth arc. “Cup of coffee for a wanderer?” the stranger says. As the couple eats, there’s a knock. Ben goes to the door.
“I’m afraid your illusion of time is malfunctioning. Probably a quantum black hole in the area,” the stranger says.
“Do you Benjamin Knudsen, take Flory Johansson…” Ben can’t believe how lucky he is.
The blade slices cleanly through the log, the two halves clunking to the ground on either side of the chopping block. Ben gathers an armful of wood and walks toward the small house, his footsteps crunching in the frost-covered grass.
“Now you.” Ben pulls the cow’s teat as his father just showed him. Milk squirts Ben in the face. “Aim at the pail, boy.”
Ben gently pats the mounded soil with the shovel. He closes his eyes and feels Flory burrow her hand in his, her weight slumping against him.
“Sure, come in out of the chill,” Ben says to the stranger. “Take a seat.” He motions toward the table.
The egg rises from the spattering bacon grease and into the shell, which becomes whole in Flory’s hand.
“What brings you to our parts, Magnus?” Ben says.
Ben runs into the house carrying Walter. “What happened?” Flory gasps.
“He fell off Nelly and hit his head.”
“I’m Ben. There’s Flory.”
“Call me Magnus.”
“What a little breath of a thing,” Ben says, looking down with a vague feeling of sadness as Flory cradles their newborn son, Walter, in her arms.
“I have something to show you,” Magnus says.
“Flory, Ellinor wants me to move in with her and Franklin,” Ben says. He kneels and pulls weeds from the two graves. “But I told her I’d sooner stay here with you and Walter.” He braces himself on his wife’s stone and slowly pushes himself to his feet. “Wish you could’ve known her, Flory. She looks just like you now.”
Magnus reaches into his pocket, takes out a large gold watch, and dangles it from a chain. “Look closely.” Ben and Flory lean in.
Magnus presses a button on the watch casing and a red beam of light streams out of the sweeping second hand and into the eyes of Ben and Flory. Magnus finishes his coffee, then presses the button again, killing the light. “There we are,” he says. “Things’ll be straighter now — at least they’ll seem to be. Open your eyes.”
“You sure you don’t want something to eat, Magnus?” Flory says.
“Not — now.” Magnus says. “I ate—earlier. I might have something—later.” Magnus looks carefully at the couple. “Understand?”
“Sure, Magnus,” Flory says.
“Suit yourself,” Ben adds.
“That’s better, folks,” Magnus says. “I’ll be moving on.”
Ben and Flory walk to the door with Magnus, who presses a button on the side of his watch. “Illusion restored here. Where next?” he says.
A voice comes out of the watch. “True nature of time manifesting at coordinates 23759.56. Year 2482.”
“You’ll forget all this,” Magnus tells the couple, then twists the watch casing. A blue light envelopes him, and he disappears.
Ben goes to the fireplace. “I feel chilled to the bone.”
“I’ve been thinking some more about names,” Flory says, putting her hands on her belly. “Walter if a boy and Ellinor a girl.”
“Fine names both. I wish we knew.”
“Now, Ben. The future’s not for us to see.”
Ben shivers. “Probably for the best.”
by submission | Dec 17, 2017 | Story |
Author: David Barber
The new doctor mangles my name. “What is that, Iranian? Arabic?”
I have learned to be still while their thoughts congeal into language. To slow the movements they mistook for nervous tics.
“Is this part of the review?”
Speak slowly, so they can understand. This one reeks of nicotine and burned animal flesh. They have no idea how much they offend.
The doctor has been tasked to cut long-stay numbers by a quarter. Each patient gets ten minutes. He turns pages in a folder that lists the potions they put such faith in; documents my unusual resistance to drugs. The doctor blinks at the doses of Thorazine.
“Hmm. Says you were found wandering round Malmstrom Air Force Base. What were you doing there?”
“The silos hold missiles.”
A contest to see who can suffer silence the longest. He correctly suspects he achieves nothing worthwhile here, that his skills have the same pedigree as blood-letting and trepanation.
“Hmm. You say you’re from the future. Tell me about that.”
“I was given the chance to go back and see the Treasure of the Kut.”
“Kut, what’s that?”
“You are the Kut. It is what you are called in my time. What is the word for two people who repeatedly shoot each other?”
He takes off his glass prosthetics and rubs his eyes. They display their disabilities, their sores and blemishes openly. Unashamedly. Without nanoflora I would be crawling with their parasites.
“I don’t think there is a word for that.”
“Kut. Feel free to use it.”
This one is an improvement on the female doctor, who casually flaunted bare limbs. A wonder they don’t just copulate in public.
“In my time, archaeologists uncovered the ruins of missile sites. Robbed out long ago of course, but they were the wonder of your age. Those few missiles alone could kill tens of millions. Each crammed with a fabulous wealth of transuranics and beautifully crafted electronics; all brought together in devices of baroque complexity and lethal purpose.”
He purses his lips. I am not yet sure how he will decide about my release from this place.
“As you might feel about cathedrals of an earlier age,” I add. “Or the tombs of the Pharaohs.”
“But the military thought you were a spy?”
“I told them the truth. Eventually, they decided I was mad.”
“And you ended up here. That was in…” He flicks pages. “Hmm, you don’t look that old.”
“Something went wrong. My visit was supposed to go unnoticed. But the time engine will retrieve me, I need only wait.”
Exploring a delusional construct has no therapeutic value, yet many of my doctors have done so. This one has long exceeded my allotted time. I intrigue him more than the florid schizophrenics and catatonics filling this Bedlam.
“No futuristic gadgets?”
“You would not even recognise our technology.”
“How about predicting the future then? Our future, I mean. Your past.”
“Who remembers current affairs in Babylon?”
In my first years here, there was a doctor who played chess. The natural procrastination of the game disguised the slowness of his mind. It was almost like confronting an equal.
“If discharged, what would you do?”
“Return to the silos where they will come for me.”
The doctor scribbles something. I’m sorry, he says. “I’m not recommending you for release.”
You are the Kut, it is what we call you. I have experienced the world beyond these walls and it is a vast reeking abattoir inhabited by savages. I must continue to manipulate you until rescue arrives, sheltering here while the Kut remain safely locked outside.
