by submission | May 30, 2016 | Story |
Author : Tyra Tanner
It is the blue hour.
That space between twilight and full dark when night’s silhouettes press flat against the horizon. Pines stretch their jagged limbs blackly above eye level, like a claw-marked rip in the canvas of the coming night.
Sometimes, at this hour, I find myself wandering the forgotten roads near the observatory tower, its darkened windows and barred gates reminder of what was lost.
Sitting on the curb, I watch the stars emerge. One. Two. Three. Ten. The blue hour descends into darkness, night consuming it in a giant swallow, so that all at once, the sky is full of stars.
I imagine them, then.
Pretend I can see their star out of the thousands, millions, billions in the sky.
It would be a little above the horizon, somewhere to the right, and my eyes would scan, scan, until I would find it, there, glowing slightly blue, because it was so large and hot and ready to burst at the seams.
600 lightyears away.
But it’s not there.
Not anymore.
The star was how we found them, though. The others.
It was on the list of those ripe for supernova.
A small detour in my day’s agenda led me to tweak the VLT in the observatory tower to take note of the orbiting bodies that would be affected by the star’s demise.
Even as I jotted the planets down on a list, noting the predicted path of galactic destruction, I didn’t immediately recognize what I was seeing. It was only after multiple shots and comparisons that I knew what lay before my eyes.
Life.
The planet was smaller than Earth, farther from its star, and full of life.
From mighty trees that dwarfed the Redwoods to turbulent oceans that crashed against the shores, to sunbaked dunes that swallowed miles of land, the planet teemed with energy and movement.
And perhaps most interesting were the tall structures, sloping yet firm, that suggested a tool-making species walked the land.
357 days I had watched them.
That’s when the star exploded, taking the planet and all of its neighbors with it.
The clearest image we were able to retrieve before their demise suggested a six-limbed creature, tall and wide. I wish I could have seen its eyes, but the planet was too far, the telescope too weak.
What bothers me the most, when I wander outside of the closed observatory, the funding ceased after the others died and we lost hope of contact, was that they didn’t die recently. They died 600 years ago. That’s how long it took for the light to reach us and tell us their story.
But for 357 days, we weren’t alone in the universe. We were viewers from afar, witnesses of the limitless power of chemical composition to form intelligent life. They’ll never know I walk the blue hour and mourn them.
In the silence that pervades the night, I slip my old key from my pocket, enter the observatory grounds, and jog up the hill to the tower. On the balcony rim, I turn on my flashlight, my finger tapping against the switch, a simple morse code that brightens the metal dome behind me in flashes and spurts.
‘We wait for night,’ I tap. ‘From dawn to dusk, species to species. We are here. We are here. We are here.’
I can’t help but hope that someone is watching us right now.
by submission | May 29, 2016 | Story |
Author : Kate Runnels
Emi always looked them in the eyes – the poets knew them as the gateways to the soul – even though she plugged in and dove their mind. Dove their cybernetic link and into the electronic pathways. She always looked them in the eyes. There were green eyes with gold flecks. Deep dark brown with slashes of black; the palest of blue; to midnight black; those with old fashioned glasses; or the newer contacts so someone could watch shows even while walking.
Emi never remembered the eyes though as she dove into their memories.
Her specialty was to recover memories in mind wiped victims, TBI cases, alzheimer’s patients, to those with dementia; basically anyone who couldn’t remember who they were on their own.
What she found when she dove into others people’s memories wasn’t always pretty so she always looked them in their eyes.
The man seated before her fidgeted unto her regard – though she was far beyond the gateway now. She had entered through his brain port, and now she rode the pathways to the darkened segments of the mind. Those that had been forced into the dark recesses where only she could dig them out.
Emi could hardly comprehend a time before the melding of computers to the human body and brain. It was easier and easier all the time to mix the two. But for all the technology, the brain was still a fragile system and could be damaged. It was wonderful and frightening all at the same time. She saw glimpses of the wonderful and frightening within the mind.
As Emi worked to repair the damaged segments slowly and painstakingly, she also saw the memory that had been there, blocked and freed now by her. Sometimes they lingered, sometimes they hit into her own mind like a gale force wind and she couldn’t stop either from entering into her mind and entering into her own memory. It was like trying to push wisps of fog away from you and with about as much success it just kept coming on, until it dissipated past.
Those other memories weren’t hers and she didn’t want them. Any of them, be it laughter – aggression – sorrow – they weren’t hers; but they stayed with her long after the eyes she stared into were gone.
Had the fidgety man’s eyes been blue? She didn’t remember, and couldn’t see them as the man covered his face with his hands from the memory forced back into his mind. Emi tried not to feel sorry for him, but it was difficult at times, knowing what memory the other had just been forced to remember. As Emi disengaged her mind from out of the fidgety man’s mind, she nodded to the officer. “He’s your murderer. He wiped himself thinking he wouldn’t be found out. He went to the Crossed-den for the wipe.”
The officer nodded to Emi, even while he pulled the man’s hands from his face and cuffed him. He stared at Emi then.
Hmm, so he had hazel eyes.
by submission | May 27, 2016 | Story |
Author : John Tippett
Helen and James Abernathy exchanged an incredulous glance as the reporter on the car radio began to lose her composure.
“Turn it up”.
James complied.
“…must recognize that early reports during a crisis are often incorrect.”, the clearly shaken announcer was speaking in a voice that alternated between quavering and Walter Cronkite.
“You think this is some kind of jo-”
A searing flash of pure white intensity hit them both. It filled the car, their minds, and payed no heed to tightly closed eyelids, or the hands that covered them.
James reflexively slammed on the brakes, but it hardly mattered because the car had ceased running and was already halfway to a stop.
“James, JAMES!”, she was blind, at least for the moment.
“I’m here, it’s OK honey.” His hand groped out for her knee.
“My God James, what is HAPPENING”, now the quaver was in her voice. Her feet were on the dashboard, and James heard her mumbling a prayer, something he remembered from elementary school.
“I think that was an EMP, an electro-magnetic pulse. It can fry electronics.”, James said in his best professorial voice, trying not to convey his own emotions.
James looked at his watch, 5:01 now, and ticking. There was a reason he chose wind-ups.
“What do you mean? Are we under attack, James? Do you know what’s going on?”
He could tell her vision was returning. The gig would be over shortly. It has been 35 years of make-believe.
“James?”
35 years of waiting.
“JAMES!”
35 years of preparation.
“Everything is fine, Helen”. He had already retrieved the small pressurized can of gas from under the steering column, and was fiddling with the release. ‘Come ON!” he whispered.
He had grown to love her, or at least care deeply, although that wasn’t in the Plan. He felt a pang of sadness (or was it shame?) for refusing to give her children. That would have been wrong.
His false features had already begun to peel from his underlying self. He didn’t want her to see him like this; not in her last moments.
After all, it wasn’t her fault.
It wasn’t her fault they needed a new home.
by submission | May 26, 2016 | Story |
Author : Sharon Molloy
“That’s the surprise, Daddy?”
A family of four stood in the restaurant lobby, watching unfamiliar shapes moving in a huge tank.
They’re staring at me!”
“No, they’re not. They don’t have eyelids.”
“They have too many legs.”
“Those aren’t legs, and they need all of them.”
“Well, they’re ugly.”
The maître d’robots led them into a marine blue dining room, its walls softly lit by track lighting and water reflections. They sat at pier-shaped chairs around a table resembling a wharf built around a glass touchscreen showing rippling water. Touching the screen floated four menus to the surface as if the table was a glass-bottomed boat.
The mother had chosen the seat facing a loopicture showing the ocean currents flowing around raised areas representing the continents. Warm currents were yellowish green, cold ones, deep navy.
“Remember our spring break in California? These days, that’s when they start coming up here to cool off. The forecast says it’ll be even warmer this year.”
“When the radiation decays, we’ll even be able to swim in the ocean again on spring breaks… in 300 years or so.”
A robot, shaped like a small dory on a three-wheeled leg, came ferrying their orders, dodging the other robot dories until it docked at the edge of their table. Once the parents had distributed the food, the dory drifted away.
“Why is it white? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing.” The mother calmly cut a piece and lifted it to her mouth.
“How do you eat this stuff? It keeps falling off my spork.”
“Scoop it up like we showed you.”
“It falls apart.”
“Well, it’s not tofu. It’s fillet.”
“I can’t fill it.”
“Mom’s is orange!”
“If you wanted trout you should’ve asked for trout.”
“What’s this black stuff?”
“Skin, sweetie. You can eat that too. It’s tasty!”
“You can’t like this stuff? It’s gross!”
“All new food is gross, son. Just keep eating, and it’ll stop being gross.”
“Ugh, gross!”
“Everybody… please stop saying that word.”
“Why? Because its… ‘gross’?”
The children began giggling.
“Mmmm… I haven’t tasted this in years! Where did you ever get such a great idea?”
“Oh… guy talk.”
“My grandfather used to fish, and even caught a few, but he never ate any. The river was already too polluted. So where did this come from?”
“They raise them in tanks, bigger than that one of course, built in underground caves, so they don’t need refrigeration,” the father explained. “Must be why it doesn’t cost a mint,” he muttered to himself.
“We gotta eat this new stuff all the time now??”
“It’s not new, it’s old. We used to eat it every week when we were your age, but it’s hard to get now.”
“Good. It’s yucky.”
“And it tastes all weird. I can’t eat this.”
“Well, try. Not all children get to go to a fish restaurant. They’re expensive.”
“Kids don’t appreciate that, dear. They will after they grow up. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you.”
“Happy birthday, honey.”
“I want dessert.”
“I’m still hungry.”
“No dessert. You both need protein.”
“I want a burger! Let’s stop at – ”
“That’s enough restaurants for one day. I’ll wifi the kitchen so something will be ready when we get home. What would you like?”
“3-S! 3-S!” they both shouted.
“Silkworms are just a snack, soy sauce or no. I’m adding locust patties.”
“And cricket-flour bread. I still want a burger.”
“Then chocolate-covered ants for dessert!”
“Honey, remember when you vowed no such thing would ever come home in our groceries?”
by submission | May 25, 2016 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
I’m going to die here, thought Or’Vykl to himself.
Or’Vykl stared out through the visor in his helmet at what had been a residential suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. The area showed little evidence of the orbital bombardment that had fallen upon more strategically important areas of North America. Or’Vykl looked from one house to the next. So many places to hide, he thought. He imagined a sniper shooting him dead from some second story window. Or maybe one of the houses is boobytrapped and an explosive device would kill him as soon as he entered. He forced himself to walk on.
Or’Vykl thought about the atmosphere on the other side of his faceplate. It was a lethal cocktail of nitrogen and oxygen and the pressure was one-fifth of what it was back home. He looked up. Even after all this time on Earth he had never gotten used to seeing a blue sky. Worse still, the star this planet orbited was a sickly yellow color, not the warm and reassuring red sun under which he had been hatched.
Suddenly, a sound came from the house on his left. Or’Vykl jumped behind a car and leveled his rifle at the house. For five solid minutes he crouched, ready to run if he could, ready to fight if he had to. At last, he convinced himself the sound had been a cat or the wind rattling a loose shutter or some such thing. He slowly got up and proceeded down the street.
Why are we even here, he thought. Why travel dozens of light-years to fight these people? They didn’t know we existed much less posed a threat until we bombed and invaded them. If this war had never started, right now I’d be back home sunning myself on a lounge rock and drinking a tall glass of–
A shot rang out. Or’Vykl froze. His helmet’s faceplate’s display showed a flashing blue dot annotating where his battlesuit’s sensors determined the shot originated. He aimed his rifle, shot three times, and then ran behind a trash dumpster.
“Or’Vykl to Enforcement! Sector 795, grid–” He consulted his display. “Grid 44! Taking fire! Request support!” He waited for a response. None came. “Enforcement, are you receiving? Request support in Sector 795, grid 44!” His helmet’s display showed he wasn’t even getting a synchronize-acknowledgment from Enforcement. His transmission was being blocked. The humans must have gotten their hands on a subspace transceiver and repurposed it into a jamming device.
Suddenly, he heard another shot and instantly felt searing pain in his back. “Warning!” said a synthetic voice in his ears, “Containment failure!” His battlesuit was venting chlorine. He had to get to safety and try to seal the breach. There was a large truck a short distance to the right. If I can get underneath it, I might have a chance, he thought.
He positioned himself to make a sprint for the truck, then he paused. What if he was being set up? Had the first shot been intended to make him run for the dumpster so he could be shot in the back? Was the apparent safety of the truck a subterfuge?
He ran. It was time for action, not second guessing, he thought. A moment later, he was flying through the air. He had run over an explosive device. His left leg was gone. He heard a voice in the distance say, “Got the son of a bitch!”
Or’Vykl was surprised by how little pain or fear he felt now. His last thought was his distaste for that blue alien sky.
