by submission | Jan 13, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Henson
Hurry, Trixie, I say to our Yorkie. As she squats behind me, I notice a bright light above the horizon. I figure it must be a freighter coming back from the mines, but something doesn’t look right.
Lilly, I say to my wife, let’s go out back. I want to show you something.
I don’t have time, Tom, Lilly says. I need to go in early today.
Tom?
Hi, I’m Tom. I couldn’t help but notice that book you’re reading.
Nice to meet you, Thomas. I’m Lilly.
Thomas. Lilly’s called me Thomas from the day we met.
Besides, Lilly says, if you want to show me a winged splendid, it’s probably hopped away already. Hopped? Before I can say anything, she gives me a quick kiss and heads for the door. Don’t forget we’re having dinner with Garlund and Judy tonight, she says. Judy’s with Ralph not Garland, I want to say, but I’ve got to get to work.
Tom, Sanders says, float that tote of nails to aisle 12 and shelf them. The hardware store? I haven’t worked there since high school summers. We didn’t even have levitrons then. Backbreaking work on delivery days.
It’s backbreaking, the tough-looking guy tells Jelly Jean. People think mining on another planet is sexy, but it’s hard work. I coulda’ been a reporter like Jelly Jean. Coulda’ been a contender. Even on a planet with lower gravity, the boxer says, an uppercut is still gonna rock your world. Bobbing and weaving. The Washoe were great basket weavers. Can you weave in weightlessness? Jelly Jean asks.
Do you Thomas take Lilly, Thomas take Lilly. “Thomas? Thomas, do you hear me? You’re trapped in our SimReal. It has a virus. Thomas, do you hear me? Focus on my voice, Honey. Thomas? Thomas?” Of course. Virus. Fever. Venus fever. No, Venus blues. No, Mercury blues. Crazy ’bout a Mercury.
Come on Trixie. Time to go out. The light’s closer. The fiery Draco swoops down and lands with a thud. Its breath burns the grass. Trixie dances in a circle behind me. How can I see behind me? No time for that. I pick up the sword and edge toward the beast. I feel wings. Gonna fly now. Watch this, Jelly Jean. “Thomas? Thomas?”
by submission | Jan 12, 2017 | Story |
Author : Mark Thomas
The blues singer hung his head, sad and mystified. “But the oscillator confirms perfect pitch.” He looked directly into his band leader’s eyes, and noted a slight dilation in Bob’s pupils, but no sympathy. “Perhaps,” the singer suggested meekly, “if I adjusted the raspiness factor.”
Bob sighed. “Raspiness isn’t the problem, Fysh. You’ve already set it to three unfiltered packs. There’s nowhere else to go.” They both knew what the fundamental problem was. In an age where raw emotion in live musical performance was valued far above technical perfection, highly-skilled entertainment robots were being steadily replaced by human musicians. It was both unfair and inevitable.
“But we’re scheduled to play The Dungeon this Thursday…” Fysh said weakly.
“I’ve already found a replacement.” Bob waved a hand dismissively and the robot picked up his guitar case and shuffled out of the hotel lobby.
Fysh was worried that his girlfriend, Heathen, would be unreasonably disappointed. Her self-esteem was knitted into her association with the successful band. But the robot received a surprisingly sympathetic reaction. “You poor dear,” she said, throwing her white arms around his neck cables. “It’s been coming a long time, though. I’ve seen the little gears turning in Bob’s skull.” She pulled away and hung onto Fysh’s elongated metal fingers. “Everything will work out. You take a shower, and I’ll run out for some coffee, then we’ll have a long talk.” She kissed Fysh on the zygomatic arch.
The robot walked into the bathroom and adjusted nozzles for a wash and light lubrication. He raised his arms and felt jets of hot air penetrate the folds of his carapace. As a silicon mist coated his outer plates and wires, Fysh heard the doorbell.
The robot quickly dressed as he walked towards the apartment entrance. When he pulled the door open, he was surprised to see his landlord standing there with two surly uniformed men. “Come in,” Fysh said.
“Get out,” the landlord said. “You’re being evicted.” He passed a sheaf of papers to the robot who quickly scanned them. A series of dated notices and final warnings were all signed by his girlfriend.
“This is the first I’ve heard of this. I’ve been sending all my money to Heathen while we were on our last tour.”
The three men in the hall laughed loudly. “You sap. That tramp hasn’t paid a nickel since you went on the road. You should have seen what she was up to while you were gone.” The landlord leered unpleasantly.
Fysh glanced around the almost-empty apartment. He hadn’t noticed that most of their personal belongings had been removed. And his guitar was no longer by the door. Heathen must have taken it as she left.
“Ah,” Fysh sighed, accepting the inevitable. “But I have no place to go.”
The landlord shrugged. “You’re a CT model. You can survive outside until you find another place.
“Alright,” Fysh said. He shuffled out of the apartment.
The robot walked aimlessly for hours, and found himself underneath the Coulter street bridge. Homeless men and machines tended to congregate there, near the giant exhaust vent from the obsidian polishing plant. Fysh picked his way through living and synthetic detritus and sat on a blackened fragment of concrete right in front of the massive industrial grill.
As night descended, the sad menagerie powered down. Fysh’s head slumped between his knees as a super-heated current of air was expelled from the tunnel and penetrated the layered sheets and looped cables of the robot’s dorsal quadrant.
A soulful harmonic resonance was created, although no one was awake to hear it.
by submission | Jan 8, 2017 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
My eyechip surprised me while I was eating breakfast by telling me about the traffic on Bernadette. There was a parade blocking the street, and I needed to use Bernadette to get to the grocery store.
“Oh.” My wife looked up from her eggs. She’d just gotten the same notification.
“Yeah. No using the car.”
“So… you’ll go tomorrow?”
“Store’s closed on Sundays. You know that.”
“Monday?”
I gave her a look.
“Please no,” she said. “Don’t take the hover.”
“We’re out of milk.”
“And butter,” my son said. “And chips.”
“All right,” she sighed. “But no chips.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said, picking up the keys and walking out the back door. To my right was a car-sized metal pad, the hover parked on top. I hopped in and started the engine, feeling the hoverbeam emitters lift me up. I started the vehicle toward the grocery store, coming over the top of my house to see my disapproving neighbors shaking their heads and urging their kids inside.
Whatever. They’re all paranoid.
Making my way to the store, the whole city had the same attitude as my neighborhood. Rarely-used anti-aircraft turrets unfolded, but they didn’t aim at me. They wouldn’t do that unless I got within 300 feet of their premises. Too many 9/11 repeats had occurred at the hands of malicious drivers, or drunk ones, when hovers first came out, so one building every half-mile armed itself. Well, they needn’t worry about me.
When I arrived, I could see employees below freaking out. The instant they saw me, they ran inside. I knew they were telling their superiors, and I was ready when I got the call on my dashboard.
“Hello? Is this the hover driver?”
“Yep. You wanna take control of my car?”
“Yes. You understand, we can’t trust just anyone to, um… to land on our store.”
“I understand. It’s not my first time.” Though it had been a while.
“Okay. Well, a very important man is coming in on a helicopter later, so we can’t let you use the main pad. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just take me to the secondary one.”
I pressed the button on my dashboard, giving consent to let the store take control of my hover. They drifted me a few hundred feet to the backmost part of the store’s roof, where they started talking to me again. “Unfortunately, close-up, the hoverbeams on your car damage the store, so the secondary pad has an inflatable platform. Which we’re going to drop you on.”
“Wait, what?”
Too late. I lifted out of my seat, fell for probably half a second, though it felt like thirty minutes, then slammed back into my chair.
“Ohmygod ohmygod! Ugh!” I was kind-of pissed for them surprising me like that, but my anger had cooled off once I stepped out of the hover and onto their giant balloon. I decided to get this shopping trip over with and go home.
Midway through my shopping trip, my hover sent me a notification. It was being stolen.
“What!?” Without another word, I ran out and climbed back up to the roof. Instead of my car, I found a couple of uniformed employees, one with a radio in his hand. The other one came to me and said, “Sir, your car was stolen by a thief fleeing the store. You can understand his choice of vehicle. Anyway, he was too dangerous in your hover, so we had no choice. We radioed one of the nearby buildings to shoot your car down.”
Oh, God dammit.
by submission | Jan 7, 2017 | Story |
Author : Tony Sandy
‘Get out and stay out!’
Robert looked out of his window. His neighbor was in his drive, surrounded by suitcases and other personal paraphernalia. He leaned out of the window.
‘Thrown you out again?’ He said, not so much as a question but as a statement of relentless fact. Bill was always getting thrown out of his own house and this was just another instance.
‘I’d ask you in Bill but you know how it is?’
‘Yes, I know.’ (Silence followed). ‘How’s Kate?’
‘At her mother’s. How’s Sally?’
‘At her mother’s with the kids. I’ll come out.’
They talked on Robert’s drive.
‘Damn these robot houses – who do they think they are?’
‘Yes but what can you do about it?’
‘Not much.’ Silence fell again.
‘I’d heard that there was a revolt in Forbes Town.’
‘Feeble. Waste of time.’
‘What can we do about the situation?’
‘Nothing it seems. They’ve taken over everywhere. They were meant to be our servants, not our masters.’
‘Isn’t that the problem though? We thought we could opt our of responsibility, by getting them to run everything for us and now they have, including us.’
‘Ain’t that the truth!’
‘We’ll take care of you, they said and did. Free will is dangerous in the hands of children, who don’t understand it. We’ll protect you – save you from yourselves.’
‘Citizen, is everything okay?’ A robotic black and white car had pulled up beside them, silently.
‘You know the congregation of two or more human beings is prohibited by law?’ It continued.
‘Yes officer but my friend has just been thrown out of his house as you can see.’
A laser beam scanned the suitcases.
‘Even so that is no excuse.’
‘I was offering to let him stay at my house, temporarily.’ Robert said, trying not to let any emotion show because as he knew once registered as hostility, that would be it. Arrested as a subversive, taken into custody, questioned and ‘altered’ to make him a model citizen again. They’d seen it with Frank – taken away screaming and shouting one night,by the robotic police. Now he was back with a permanent smile on his face and no temper tantrums. No house would throw him out, ever. He was the perfect law abiding citizen since they’d messed around with his amygdala, the emotional center of his brain.
‘God,why do they keep us alive? Why do they need us?’ he thought to himself and went back into his house with Bill.
‘Billeting is allowed by law but only temporarily, remember citizens.’ The hollow, metallic voice reminded them, with all the concern of, well, a robot. All must be controlled, was the hive mind prime directive and all would be, eternally.
by submission | Jan 6, 2017 | Story |
Author : John Pedersen
I do beg your pardon, sir. Please forgive the inconvenience.
Oh, no sir, I assure you we are not out of anything.
Well, sir, the National Weather Service has issued an atomic advisory, and we must insist all our customers move away from the windows at this time.
I know it’s dreadfully inconvenient, sir, but I am afraid we must insist. It’s national safety code.
Oh no, sir, I do assure you that our windows meet all the regulations and are of the highest quality.
I’m not sure what mesh our windows are constructed with sir, but they do meet the regulations, and when combined with the other building requirements, your safety is most assuredly guaranteed.
Because sir, it’s national safety code that you move away from the windows.
No, sir, I don’t think they will blow out, I’m just following the proper protocol.
There’s the first of them, sir, I’m going to move over that direction. I must ask you again to come with me.
I have noticed that, yes sir. The colors do look a bit like a sunset. A cloudy one, perhaps?
I’ve never been to a beach, no sir. But I do imagine the sunset over the ocean is a stunning sight.
Bright orange clouds you say? I can see how you’d make that comparison.
I’ve never really seen the ‘mushroom’ in a mushroom cloud either, sir, tell you the truth.
You’ll know when the blast wave hits, sir. The whole building rumbles.
No, we do have shock absorbers built into the foundation. It’s still a pretty big rumble.
No, I’ve never been in an earthquake either sir, but that does sound like what we’ll feel here in a few moments.
No, I’ve never been to the coast at all, sir.
I’ll bet the buildings there are of the highest-quality construction, sir. Do you mind me asking how frequent the bombings are out there, sir?
I do believe a gentleman of your caliber, sir, is quite experienced with all this nonsense.
I see what you’re saying about the sunset now, especially seeing several of them together. It really is a very pretty shade of orange. There’s some deep reds in there too.
There’s the rumble. You can hear the glassware vibrating behind the bar. You should hear it in our kitchen! All the pots and pans start shaking, the cooks reach up and grab them and scowl until it’s over.
If I can speak freely sir, and maybe a little crassly, I think they are targeting us. They never give up, and we’re well-shielded, we spared no expense, so I think it’s a little stupid that they’re so persistent.
It does sound like an exercise in futility, sir. Well-stated.
Honestly? Someone told me once that they used atomic explosions to propel their ships through space, and that’s how they got to our planet, but I don’t know much about that.
No, the rumbling never lasts very long, We’ll just have to see if there’s a third volley of explosions.
I do believe that was the worst of it, sir.
Yes sir, you were right, we didn’t need to move away from the windows,
No sir, I’m not sure why the government feels the need to make so many regulations either. I’m sure there’s a bean-counter out there somewhere who thinks he knows better than anyone else.
Yes, sir, everything does seem to work out for the best.
Your martini looks a little low, sir. May I fetch you another?
Very good, sir.
