by submission | Mar 25, 2017 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
Before she went outside with her friends, the most she had ever seen of the Sun was the great gleam in the sky directly above the dome. Every twelve hours, the dome would shade itself from that light to make an artificial night. Then the screen would come off, and the unmoving star would shine in the sky again, giving life to the land under the dome.
Mama said the star was a statite reflecting sunlight on their dome so the plants could eat. She didn’t really understand, nor did she understand when Mama told her the moving gleams she saw were spaceships, headed to other planets. She didn’t much care; she just went back to playing with her friends.
As she grew older, she began to resent what she didn’t understand. Mama said she was only allowed to leave the domes every once in a while, and in certain directions that changed all the time. One day, she could only go out this door, and the next day it would be the door next to it. But Mama had also told her that you can’t make up the rules to a board game. There has to be structure, certain things that are always the same, always true. Mama was changing the rules. Mama was unfair.
She asked Mama what would happen if she stepped out the wrong door, and Mama just started babbling on about how the Sun on Mercury was too bright to survive. They were safe inside this crater, since it was at the north pole, and the Sun never rose above the crater wall, but once she left the crater, Mama said, she’d be cooked to a crisp.
What she could understand definitely wasn’t fair. She could go out this door sometimes, but not others? The Sun was good and warm in some places, but not others? It was stupid. She knew it, and her friends agreed with her. So one day, they went out a door they weren’t supposed to. They saw people coming back in through it, all dressed up in vac suits, and they weren’t cooked. So why not go through? Already dressed in their tailored vac suits, they snuck out the door, stood in the “waiting room” while the air did its thing, and then went outside.
It was the same as ever out here, no different than any other time she’d been outside. So she hopped and leaped with her friends, throwing rocks over bigger and bigger craters, making their own craters and naming them. Soon, though, the horizon started to glow. Mama said that you could see the Sun before it came up because dust flew above Mercury. That if she saw it, she should run home. But instead, her friends went to look at it. They stood on a hill for a few minutes, watching the dust get brighter. She started to feel the fear, thinking that the glow was like an intangible monster. She was scared, but she didn’t go back. She watched until her friends were touched by the sunlight, and died in a bright gleam of flesh. Then she ran.
But by then it was too late. The door was nearly a kilometer away, and it had taken her twenty minutes to walk out here. She was never going to make it back in time. Just as the Sun rose, she turned back to look at the monster coming to eat her. In her last instant, she was blinded, her world going dark even before she was destroyed by the brilliant, shining rays.
by submission | Mar 24, 2017 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
From the couch, engineer Stanislaw Hast looked past the grey-suited, female psychiatrist and through the broad window. The star, a long dying sub-giant, threw a dusk of burnt ochre over the orbiting city, its rays painting the sunward face of tall buildings into perpendicular fire blocks.
“I’ll make it easy for you doctor. I know what I’ve got,” said Stanislaw, snapping back.
“Tell me.” Her words were smooth, professional, complacent.
“Fregoli’s. I looked it up. I see them in crowded rooms, in the metro, in the hanging parks. In many forms, disguised as men and women. But when I ask – how do I know you, where did we meet, why are you following me? – they look blank.”
“Fregoli’s refers to the belief that the same person is disguising him or herself in many forms. He was an actor on Earth, famous for his quick changes of costume. But you see many pretenders, not one. It is different.”
“No! I see common features in each face… they trigger memories, places, times… enough to convince me that I knew them once. I did know them. I am convinced.”
“But not the same person Mr Hast. And you have insight. You cannot be truly deluded.”
“They are playing with me. Pushing me to the edge of sanity. It is very real.”
The psychiatrist rose from her seat, stood by the couch and looked down at him. Stanislaw shifted uncomfortably.
“Mr Hast. There is only one constant in this… experience.”
“What?”
“You, of course.”
“Then you do think I am mad.”
“That is not a word we use. No, like many of your generation, you are just…tired.”
“Generation? I’m young. I feel good, physically.”
“But your sensorium… is tired. Do you even know how old you are?”
“Fifty-five.”
“No Dr Hast. You are eight hundred and twenty-two. You came here when the city was established. You are a founder.”
Stanislaw tried to swing a leg off the couch, but the psychiatrist held him with a casually extended hand.
“No. Stay. Listen to me.”
“You are the mad one!”
“I have the sad duty of holding your long and excellent life up for you to see. I am the mirror you have never glimpsed. Some of us believe you have been selfish. I disagree. I understand your motive. It is love, for the city you made. You wished to see it through, to ensure its safety.”
The flashes of history, the ancient odours, the familiar angles of light and shadow on old steel. All the deja-vu moments. He had been everywhere, seen everything. She spoke truth.
“But how have I lived… physically?”
“That’s the selfish part. You have moved into – possessed, essentially – a long series of innocents. The software you and your colleagues developed was sophisticated… it melded the two identities, maintaining the recipients’ sanity but preserving your essence. Time after time.”
“Who oversaw this?”
“Me and my type. There was a legal… arrangement. Unbreakable, until such time as…”
“…I began to break down, to taste the delusion. Why is it ending now?”
“You have wandered the towers, tunnels, tracks and skyways of this great city for almost a millennium. You have known every family from its establishment. You have grown with them, seen it all. When you recognize people, you are recognizing their ancestors, recalling ancient meetings, historic conversations in buildings that have been subsumed. Your memory is full. You who are the shape changer. You are Fregoli.”
“And now it ends?”
“Yes. We can let you go now.”
by submission | Mar 23, 2017 | Story |
Author : M. Irene Hill
“The Nation’s Ethics Commissioner has released her public disclosure statement after completing a probe into whether a company providing Assisted Ersatz-Suicide services has contravened laws in relation to assisted para-suicide. The Commissioner has concluded that individuals do have the right to para-suicide, within the parameters of Immersive Simulation in Virtual Reality, as outlined in the Right to Liberty and Life Acts.”
Para-Death doulas in the employ of Thanatos, Inc. clapped their hands when Rose finished reading the newspaper’s front-page story. They had a waitlist of clients wishing to procure their services.
First on the list, Collin Herschel – a thirty-seven year old arbitrarily successful writer from the west coast, diagnosed with several concurrent disorders, including depression, anxiety, and cannabis and alcohol dependence. Years of addictions counselling, biofeedback, medication and psychotherapy produced little to no improvement.
Collin paid Thanatos Inc. $879,000 for his right to have assisted ersatz-suicide.
Rose was Collin’s assisting para-death doula. She spent the last month counselling and preparing him to receive immersive simulation. He was now gowned and ready.
“Thanatos utilises the most technologically-advanced health-monitoring and support systems to keep your body at homeostasis. We will use established protocols to manage your body’s cannabis and alcohol withdrawals. You will receive the best medical care of your life.” She chuckled.
“You will be given a sedative, and then your brain will essentially go offline once you are hooked up to our VR system via a catheter in your spinal column. Immersive Simulation will ensure you experience a brief and pain-free symbolic death. We’ve discussed the procedure a number of times, Collin, so I know you’re prepared for what’s to come. As per your wishes, your cerebral cortex will be in a death-like state for six months, at which time we administer anti-simulation serum which will bring you back to Present Reality, then we will follow established procedures to coach you for your next level of emotional awareness.”
“Thank you, Rose. My death angel.”
“Thank me later, son. Okay, I need you to sign here and here first.”
She administered the sedative and inserted the catheter. Collin looked at Rose with child-like trust, before his eyes drifted closed. She prepared the intravenous ports for managing nutrition, electrolyte balance and hormonal levels.
Collin’s body was ready for the next six months, but nothing could have mentally prepared him for what happened in VR.
For the next six months, Collin’s cerebral cortex was assaulted with images of his sobbing, mournful family and friends. He saw the mortician preparing his cadaver for burial. He looked pale and gaudy in his casket. He saw his aging mother collapse during his funeral, and medics took her away in an ambulance. Collin’s distraught editor hung himself in his apartment. Collin’s part-time girlfriend, whom he truly cared for but didn’t know how to do it properly, took up full-time with his best friend. He saw them having sex, repeatedly. He felt the heartbreak of his mother’s passing, and his sister’s subsequent collapse into addiction. He was suffocated by darkness. Worms. Regret. Heart break. Eternal damnation.
The simulation looped until one day, it was interrupted by the following message:
“Thanatos Inc. is pleased to have fulfilled your deepest wish for Assisted Ersatz-Suicide. With your financial contribution and help from sponsors like Titan Pharmaceuticals, we were able to make your wish a reality. We hope that you enjoyed your time here as we have enjoyed serving you. Experienced counselors are ready to support you when you return to Present Reality. You will be disconnected from our VR server in 60 seconds, but first, another word from our sponsors.”
by submission | Mar 22, 2017 | Story |
Author : Joachim Heijndermans
Danny was convinced the moon was an eye. A single, blind eye that stared down at the world, slowly closing once a month. An eye that stared down at the little people, watching them with an intense hunger. He knew this was the truth, but no-one believed him, no matter how hard he tried to convince them.
“He’s a crazy man,” said the old woman down the street.
“He’s funny,” said the little girl. “’Specially when he’s telling us th’ eye’s watching us. He thinks it’s a big monster.”
“The guy’s a lunatic, shaking his fist at the sky all the livelong day. Always going on about his “eye” nonsense,” said the garbage man.
“Such a poor tortured soul, haunted by his delusions,” said the pastor.
“He is in denial. Does he not realize the moon is mostly made of anorthosite? It’s a round satellite going around and around our planet, that vanishes because the planet blocks the rays of the sun from hitting it. There’s nothing alien of monstrous about it. It’s basic science,” said the school teacher.
Yes, no-one ever believed Danny. For years, he went on and on how the blind eye was staring down at them. That it was some hideous beast that was abiding its time, letting its hunger grow until the time for it to feast was upon us. And every time, the people would laugh or brush him off, trying not to get close to the crazy man who shook his fist at the sky.
Then the second eye opened.
by submission | Mar 21, 2017 | Story |
Author : David C. Nutt
“I don’t need to explain it to you again Mr. Ambassador. There’s absolutely nothing you can do but accept our terms.”
“This is an outrage! It’s piracy! It’s –
“Yes, it’s all that and more- but it doesn’t alter the facts one little bit now does it?”
“No. It doesn’t. (Sigh) We had such hope. We thought it would be different.”
“Yeah I get it. It was the same for my people too. One day we thought we were alone in the universe and the next day they came out of the sky. We were awestruck by their technology. They ended world hunger, disease, our energy problems, made us instantly sustainable.”
“Then your bill came due.”
“Yup. Took almost all of our silicates. Most of our ferrous materials as well.”
“At least you didn’t lose two ice caps.”
“Hey, you can replace most of that with what’s floating around your asteroid belt. That will hold you until you can construct the fleet to siphon hydrogen and other easily convertibles from your gas giants. We gave you the technology to do it.”
“But it will take nearly everything we have! Assuming we can put aside our differences and cooperate on this, even with the tech you gave us it will be hundreds of years until we can replace the water from the ice you’re taking. Why didn’t you just go get the water from another gas giant? From one of your own stars?”
“Well, here’s where things get complicated. Our system doesn’t have any gas giants. The nearest star has another system that owns the rights to that star and the next three or four other stars in our neighborhood. You guys were our next stop after all that. You’ve got premium ice, readily available plus water, hydrogen, methane, ammonia and other resources to spare. We trade your ice for the rights to one of those stars a tad bit closer to our home world and we can replace the silicates and other materials we lost with our first contact.”
“There’s no one we can call for help is there?”
“Oh yeah, plenty! But if you think this is a raw deal try paying the bill for protection. Do the words ‘nitrogen and argon’ mean anything to you? Be thankful we found you first and only took what we did. We could have taken more but, well, my people have a soft spot for first contacts.”
“I’m moved. So what can we do to guard our resources from the next race that comes by?”
“Here’s where I get to ease your pain. Ten of your days after we leave your system and are long gone we will send you the blueprints for a planetary defense system that will keep just about every known race in the galaxy at bay.”
“How much is that gonna cost us?”
“Mr. Ambassador! I’m truly hurt.”
“I’d rather front load the pain than have you come back in two decades and take an ocean or two.”
“I assure you our terms are totally reasonable.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re going to ask me for the sun and the moon.”
“Nonsense. Just the moon.”
