by submission | Dec 14, 2017 | Story |
Author: Marcel Barker
Rrrtx class destroyer Ssstnbrx hung high over Earth’s southern pole, invisible and silent. Commander Tttx read from the onyx screen in front of him.
10 Facts About Bananas Doctors Don’t Want You To Know
Beneath the English text, the display conveniently translated to Krgg ideograms.
Mother Theresa’s Dark Legacy
Why You’ve Been Eating Bananas Wrong This Whole Time
“What’s a banana?” Tttx asked.
Vvvtx, Tttx’s second-in-command, gestured with two pseudopods. The screen showed an image of a long yellow fruit.
“Earth food. The exterior is inedible and peeled off in strips before consuming the soft interior.”
“Ugh. It looks just like an Yyyrg larva. So how have they been eaten wrong ‘this whole time’?”
“Wwwrn has written an article suggesting they should be eaten upside-down instead.”
“I see.” Tttx said. His mottled blue skin coloration indicated that he did not. “Show me the other ones.”
Is Banana Toast the New Avocado Toast?
“Wwwrn seems to have developed a bit of a fondness for them,” Tttx observed.
Vvvtx made a noncommittal gesture. For a moment there was silence.
Finally, Tttx sighed, sending ochre waves undulating down his dorsal polyps.
“This makes little sense to me, Vvvtx. Our mission is to conquer this backward planet, harvest the Earthling’s life-forces. We have one million face-huggers, three orbital phaser platform, and two million shock troops ready to deploy. Why waste our time and resources on these bananas? I have been patient with you, Vvvtx, but now it’s time to end… whatever you call this project.”
“I call it Weaponized Iconoclasm.” Vvvtx’s outer membrane grew stiff and angular. “It’s about planting doubt. In the first phase of my plan, we tell them that their medical professionals don’t want them to know about bananas, that the history they’ve been told is wrong. We tell them even the simplest things they have always done are being done incorrectly. We make them question everything.”
Tttx began to speak, but Vvvtx continued.
“And it’s working! We’ve helped the Earthlings establish a group to spread the idea that their planet is completely flat.”
“What?” Tttx pointed out the viewport. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
“Exactly. They are convinced that their space program is lying to them about how gravity works. Once Earthlings are confused enough and have learned to doubt everything, then we begin the second phase of the plan. We’ve begun influencing their leaders, having them make erratic and destructive choices.”
“To what end?”
“How will they be able to trust themselves enough to choose their own leaders? Instead of having to fight them, they will celebrate the Krgg for taking control! Furthermore, we’ve required only a few hundred propagandists; Earth already has an infrastructure for this sort of thing that we’ve been able to use directly.”
“Wait.” Tttx’s colouring turned a dark, deep crimson. “We have been leaving this strategy in the hands of the enemy?”
“You’re missing the point, sir. We can conquer these Earthlings with minimum effort. With no loss of troops! Besides, what could they possibly do with it?”
Tttx faded. Vvvtx had a valid point.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, and motioned Vvvtx out of the room.
When he was finally alone, Tttx melted into a thoughtful iridescent puddle. Could Vvvtx be right?
He poured a decanter of nutrient fluid, turned on his personal console, updated ship operations. Status nominal.
Tttx switched to the Krgg news feed, skimming article synopses as they scrolled by.
Then Tttx stopped. Scrolled back. Stared at the screen, blanching.
The Weird Trick for Consuming Life-Force High Council Doesn’t Want You To Know
by submission | Dec 13, 2017 | Story |
Author: Kevin P Michaels
George Tompkins hated almost everything. He hated buildings for being too tall, he hated cars for being too loud, he hated animals for being wild, and most of all he hated people for being . . . people.
George yearned for a time when things were less complicated and the world was a bit smaller. Most of all he yearned for peace and quiet, a silencing to the pointless yammering of all people.
The one thing George Tompkins did like was flying. The speed, the view, the freedom, but most of all he loved the solitude. Up in the sky away from everyone and everything George Tompkins found peace.
The flight was wonderful at first, white clouds above, stretching green fields leading into dense forests below. George’s troubles were finally beginning to fade when air traffic control radioed, instructing him to drop a few thousand feet to safely avoid an oncoming plane.
Lowering his altitude George found himself level with the city, the sight of which brought back his anxieties. Oh how he wished to be in a different time when man was not so complicated and annoying, a time when people respected one another and called each other neighbor, a time when technology served a purpose rather than as a distraction.
So lost in his own thoughts George is caught off guard as his plane enters a dark cloud. Thunder rumbles as hard rain pelts his windshield. A bolt of lightning strikes the plane. George fears it will explode. Instead an electric blue glow wraps around the plane. The glow fades away as George’s plane exits the dark cloud back to clearer skies.
Exhausted from all the excitement George turns toward home. Flying back he notices something strange, the city is regressing through time. Buildings and the surrounding landscapes grow younger with every passing moment. Time is reversing, everything within view is changing, the new replacing the old.
George, giddy with excitement at the sight of his dreams coming true, fails to notice the subtle changes happening around him. The gauges in the cockpit are first, regressing through time changing as the years past. Next his steering yolk regresses, constantly changing to earlier versions, as does everything else in the plane.
George’s clothes change as well. Now his clothing consists of an aviator hat and goggles, a leather coat, and a white scarf around his neck.
George ponders what life will be like in a different time until the steering yolk in his hand fades away. He watches with surprise as pieces of the plane disappear: gauges, buttons, seats, and so forth fade from existence until the entire plane vanishes completely, leaving poor George Tompkins free falling toward the Earth.
Luckily George always wears a parachute. He grabs the ripcord, yanking with all his might.
. . . Nothing happens.
George watches the ripcord in his hand fade away, realizing he has traveled back to a time before parachutes were created.
Plummeting toward the ground George thinks, “Perhaps if I fall long enough I’ll travel back to a time before the Earth existed and not hit the ground.”
He had no such luck.
by submission | Dec 10, 2017 | Story |
Author: Vivienne Burgess
I remember Agni on your lap, myself on the faded mat in the mess hall, practicing knots. Agni couldn’t keep his head on his shoulders, but I was listening. You started with the small things, shutting your eyes to speak, said it was important to pass on the details. In the middle of the year, you’d go camping in the forest with your friends. Trees blooming purple-white and you’d lie under them early in the early morning, listening to the bees. Before we lost the seasons there were distinct feelings outside, the cold was very sharp and the light was easy to be in. Sometimes, vehicles went by overhead, narrowly missing each other, to the tune of some elaborate clock that was just as far away. These were huge, huge machines as small as fingernails, leaving white trails of smoke that from below, you said, could have been speed boats on the ocean. Depending on the time of day these trails would be orange or pink or bright, bright yellow. And in the evening, the sun might catch the metal underside of the carriage and force a glint into your eye. This was when you could look at the sky without goggles. When there was more land to the country than there is now. Not enough people noticed at first. Then one day there was significantly less distance between the coasts, you found you had more neighbours in less space, and the problems that seemed far away were all around you and impossible to avoid. After the heat came the cold. Rinsed the sky of colour. Some people despaired; found cliffs, bought rope, didn’t bother with a note. Others took it on the chin. Agni was in a deep sleep so you carried him to the children’s tent, lay him down among his brothers and sisters. Penguins do this, come together to keep warm. Penguins also steal each other’s children. You talked about things like they still exist. On purpose, I don’t know. In this place it doesn’t matter whose blood is whose. Agni is all of our sons, like I am all of your daughters. You had darker hair when Agni came along. He was so warm everyone came to put a hand on him. Telling this one always made you smile, eyes still closed. There was a bad, bad cough going round and most of those people are gone now. You tucked me in beside Agni and I showed you my knot. You said it was perfect, best knot you’d ever seen, looking down at me like I was someone you didn’t know. Next morning I had my first bleed. A beginning and the end. We carried you far from camp, the earth anywhere too hard to dig. We made a circle, holding hands. A song was sung. Agni and I stayed the latest. He wanted to be near you and I noticed a shadow on his chin, the first of dark hairs. That day is very small now. I’m scared I’ll lose it inside all the others. I am learning to skin rats with the older girls and make a spit for roasting. When I have the energy I walk out to the mound of bodies and touch your grey face, preserved in ice. I try to hear the bees. My stomach is very big with Agni’s child, feels like another warm one to me, and I am in pain getting to sleep. To relax I think of penguins, a big warm ball in the cold; think, in certain lights, colour might be coming back to the sky. But how would I know. You took all of that with you. At night I dream of dust.
by submission | Dec 9, 2017 | Story |
Author: Anthony Rove
I am sorry, Samuel. You are thirteen and a man. Today, we go to The Grid.
Oh, nephew. Shed your tears in here with me. You are a man now. And, as a man, it is okay to be frightened. It is okay to cry. I cry sometimes too. Sometimes, I am so scared that I press my palms against my ears until I can’t hear anything except my own blood pumping away.
But we men must always cry in secret. Don’t ever let anyone else see you cry. As of today, it is up to you to protect your mother and your sister and everyone else. The women have enough to worry about, eh? They worry about the food, and the shelter, and the tribunal, and the disgusting heretics. That is a lot to worry about. They don’t need to worry about the ‘tons as well. We protect them from the ‘tons. And we do our best to protect them from the fear, too. So finish crying before we leave. Fear is an infection. Don’t contaminate them.
I know you’ve heard stories about the ‘tons. I know because, when I was a boy, other boys would drive me crazy with these tales. My friends would insist that some ‘tons are over fifty feet tall—as big as a pre-incident building! They would tell me that some ‘tons are so small that they could crawl into a man’s ear without him even realizing it. There is truth to these stories, nephew. But do not dwell on them. Instead, reflect on your catechism.
In the beginning, God made the world and God made man. And man lived in harmony with the world. As long as God played the role of the creator, and mankind played the role of the created, it was good. But Samuel, you know that mankind is too arrogant for such an arrangement to last. Mankind insisted on becoming the creator. And mankind created its monstrosities—the ‘tons.
The first ‘ton’s which mankind made were small, no bigger than a man’s fist. They were metal, but not particularly hearty. However, mankind had foolishly endowed them with the four essential qualities of life: movement, discernment, aggression, and reproduction.
The ‘tons were meant to be weapons—attack dogs. Once released, they could topple entire nations in a matter of weeks. By design, they were supposed to move only in certain places; to find only certain kinds of people; to kill only a certain number; to build new ‘tons only a finite number of times.
But the ‘tons slipped the leash. It took only one error. A single ‘ton refused to stop reproducing when it was supposed to. It kept assembling more ‘tons in its own image. Its children began building more in turn. Once they could repopulate unchecked, the ‘tons evolved just like any other living thing. Now they have no artificial limits. They kill indiscriminately and without limit. Today, there are no more nations to topple.
Just when the end seemed inevitable, God once again became flesh. In the Second Coming, Christ did not die to atone for our sins. No, we must atone for our own sins by living in this broken world. Instead, Christ built The Grid: that divine work of technology which keeps the ‘tons away.
In exchange, Christ commanded humanity to stop tinkering with its petty machines. Your brother, Levi, broke this covenant. Attempting to harness electricity in any fashion is unforgivable.
Today, you expel your brother from The Grid and watch the ‘tons devour his body. Today, you see the price of sin.
by submission | Dec 8, 2017 | Story |
Author: Kate Runnels
Ara studied the Avatar for a moment, liking what she saw. It wasn’t enough like her to raise suspicions if anyone she knew played the game, but she would be comfortable playing in this body she had tweaked from the stock body given by the game developers.
Especially when she hooked into the game in the fully immersive world with the new sensory impressions. Not death, obviously, but so many other aspects from taste to the feel of wind and water and other sensations.
A clone you control in a world vastly different from the megacities of Earth. An escape from the pollution, continual terror attacks, food shortages, water shortages, and rampant crime on the street in every megacity.
Ara and countless other gamers had been waiting for years for this MMO RPG; the launch of Avalon. This resonated with her coming from London and seeing Stonehenge through protective glass. And many other English historical sights. She could touch grass, feel stone, pet a horse. And then she caught a glimpse of her real body in the reflection of an opaqued window. This wasn’t her true body, this weak flabby body, but that of her Avatar.
At first, after the release date, it was easy to leave the world of Avalon, but she did leave it, to go to her crap job. But for many, it became an addition. Even Ara succumbed, losing weight. Not even leaving the game to eat or shower or change. The world of the megacity was so grey and blah. Ara soon lost her job.
But she couldn’t stop. Like any addict, she needed that great and greater bit to feel anything- needing more to experience that rush from her first high.
Erik, a first responder, shook his head at his partner. “Another one, huh?”
“Do you play Avalon,” asked Michelle.
“No. What about her?”
“The brain gives a response similar to dreaming. She just won’t wake up.”
Erik scowled. “So what?”
“The game has become her reality now. This-” Michelle pointed to the rundown cramped apartment – “is her nightmare. We’ll process her like the rest and see if we can revive her. It’s a shame she has to hide in a game.”
Erik smiled. “She your type?”
Michelle shrugged without answering.
