by submission | Jun 27, 2015 | Story |
Author : John Murray Lewis
Ours is an age of many problems and few solutions, brother, but when it’s solutions you need, I’m your man. For a modest sum of credits I shall track your problem down and haul it—kicking and screaming, shouting and shooting—past asteroid belts perilous and raider dens deadly to a system far away…
…To Karma-IX, that wrecked red rock, bitter and barren as a widow. She’s a merciless mistress, Karma-IX. On a bad day—and they are mostly bad days—her suns will boil the blood in your veins and her silica storms will flay the flesh fleck by fleck from your bones. And as for her wildlife…
There are precious few guarantees these days, brother, but on one thing I have always depended: there is no coming back from Karma-IX.
Hence my dismay, my disbelief, my utter devastating despair as my hood is lifted and I find myself confronted by Carlotta Cagliostro, queen of smugglers, aboard her frigate Fatale.
“You escaped!” I cry.
“You’re surprised, darling?”
“Carlotta, dearest Carlotta, I was sick with worry!”
“How thoughtful.”
“Oh, but what has become of you, Carlotta? Your skin has lost its lustrous womanly glow—and those scars!”
“Karma will do that to a lady’s complexion, darling. I wonder what she would do to those charming blue eyes?”
Her henchmen seize me, drag me backwards to the sound of an angry wind battering a metal hatch.
“Wait! Remember, won’t you, that tender night we shared upon the Daedalus: our faces, framed by Saturn’s rings; our eyes meeting, our lips parting—”
“The night I disappeared.”
“Mercy, Carlotta! It was only a job. I’m your man, you know that!”
“I know, darling. You always were true to me.”
She caresses my cheek. That soothing smile, brother, that forgiving heart!
“Oh, Carlotta, it killed me to betray you!”
“We shall see,” she says.
The hatch whirrs open behind me and I feel a gust of air, the bite of silica crystals, the scorching heat of two suns on my back—
by submission | Jun 26, 2015 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
It’s peaceful here with Aiden. His fingers trace my face as if he hasn’t seen me in years. And he hasn’t.
In the old days, our world’s countries feuded with each other so our most affluent citizens could amass more giant stores of wealth, and buy government leaders. We have been battling aliens for their territories since long before my grandmother’s time. This went on until the day we spewed our war machine into space. Then our governments merged for maximum power. Our planet’s economy and politics depend on the wars we wage in other solar systems.
Of course, we average citizens didn’t see much difference in our lives. We still toiled to feed the battle legions, both mechanical and human. We were born into a station and trained into a profession: civil engineer, civil medico, civil farmer, civil soldier. We were given an assignment of place when we emerged from the birth-mother. No appeals, all decisions final. Our names reflected our future.
I am Civil Sergeant 203, Planet Xorax, Pilot. Unofficially, I am a Julie, 124 battles old, with shorn hair to facilitate optimum air flow and communication interface with my helmet. My muscles have been kept from atrophying during long missions by chemical implants. My eyes can see farther than the now extinct eagle of legends. The coordination between my fingers and mind is astronomically swift.
After Aiden and I had mated and produced two more civil servants, we were deployed to maim and kill. Our tasks were the same, but while I was assigned to the planet Xorax, a mealy-mouthed alien garbage dump of insect parts, Aiden was sent to the planet Shamar, a planet of perfumed aliens.
This peaceful reunion in our Homeland is my reward for not only destroying Xoraxians, but also for having my lungs, heart, spleen, liver, bones, blood, and in fact, all my internal organs polluted with cell mutations that are killing me. It seems that the Xoraxians have created the ultimate weapon against us–ourselves.
Because I cannot fight again, tomorrow I will receive a soldier’s final reward. My body will be sterilized and recycled into fodder for the war effort by feeding the next generation of civil servants.
I know that Aiden is a drug-induced, full-bodied, emoting, touchable representation, but my cell-mutated brain doesn’t care. His fingers feel so warm on my face that my nose tingles and twitches. I smile.
by submission | Jun 25, 2015 | Story |
Author : Ajax
Zoë sat rigid in the steel chair. Her gaze was locked, unwavering, on the screen in front of her, which displayed a countdown. Five minutes and fifty-six seconds, a relatively short time, seemed an eternity to Zoë. Her hands tightened on the hard, uncomfortable armrests. She would know in five minutes and forty-one seconds.
Today was Expiration Day. Today she and the six other about-to-turn-eighteen-year-olds would find out precisely how much time they had left to live. Down to the second, they would know the precise moment of their deaths, supposedly to better spend their lives. Expiration would determine their class, occupation, marital options, and a multitude of other aspects of their lives. The long lived, the ones with enough years to matter, were the politicians, the doctors, the lawmakers. The short lived would become soldiers, factory and custodial workers. Fodder. The length of one’s life determined everything.
Four minutes and forty seconds. Had it really only been a minute? Despite the precisely controlled temperature of the room, sweat beaded on Zoë’s brow. Statistically speaking, with the six others in their own dark rooms, staring at their own screens, she had around a sixty-seven percent chance to get a decent lifespan. Assuming a standard deviation of years awarded compared to all previous years. Her rebellious brain chimed in.
Shut up. Just calm down. Zoë focused and, with a herculean effort, relaxed her stiff muscles. She exhaled, pushing the air from her lungs. Three minutes and twenty-one seconds. Ok, you’re relaxed. More a command than a statement of fact. She ran the numbers again in her head. Statistically speaking, she could expect thirty to fifty years, plus or minus ten years.
Two minutes fifty-two seconds. She was still nervous as hell. Some people said that if you were rich enough, or knew the right people, you could rig the Program to give your child a long life. Zoë thought that was ridiculous. Rig the Program? You’d be better off trying to rig the sun. The Program was foolproof, had to be to ensure that everyone’s expiration was fair. Besides, even if you could “buy” a longer life, Zoë’s family was in no position to do so. Her parents were just above the Orange Value line, with no excess income to speak of. No. Today, Zoë’s Expiration would be unaffected by any outside influence. Her years would be her own.
One minute, twelve seconds. Ohhh crap. Another wave of anxiety ripped through her. What if she only got ten years? The lowest score that she knew of was two, but that had only happened once. She thought.
Shuttup think about the bright side. You could be the next Mayor Sloan, and get a hundred years! Somehow, despite the fact that they were both equally likely, one seemed much farther out of reach. Listen, Zoë told herself, you’re going to get through this, you’re going to go home, and you’re going to be so so sooooo much more relaxed now that you know the answer. Your life’s about to get a whole lot more simple. You’re going to know who to hang with, you’ll know what job to get, and you’ll meet a nice guy around the same lifespan as you and have a nice solid life. Zoë calmly watched the numbers scroll down. Thirteen seconds. Five. Zoë breathed out, calmly watching the last seconds of her teenage life tick away. Three… Two… One… Zero. The blue numbers faded away, replaced by a larger golden decimal.
0.008219, it read. Zoë’s heart froze. She had three days.
by submission | Jun 24, 2015 | Story |
Author : Edward D. Thompson
Salome slumped glumly in a corner of the locker room. Her corner. Where she usually savored the sweet taste of victory for a moment, alone, before the crowd of the press and the press of the crowds engulfed her.
Victory seemed hollow today.
She didn’t look up as the door groaned open. Not until the shadow of her coach blocked the glow of the lamps did she risk glancing at his face. The pain there. She couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I thought you didn’t care about wins.”
For five years she’d been the world’s top swimmer.
“I don’t. I do. Just not the … I don’t care if I beat anybody but me.”
And now she’d failed even that.
“Even if you’re just trying to beat your own record it’s gotta be a fair fight.”
She couldn’t look him in the eye. He was the one who’d always believed in her.
“The tests came back.”
“And what?”
He was silent. She already knew what.
“Come on. We gotta go see the committee.”
She’d failed Coach. She could smell his shame, his disappointment. Was that a side effect?
He had to help her to her feet; dry land was awkward. They made their way silently to the committee chambers. Walking disoriented her. She could feel it in her ears. That was a side effect for sure.
The committee: seven women, four men. Most of them athletes she’d admired growing up. A couple of them world class swimmers with records that had stood for decades. Till she’d come along anyway. Had all of them always played by the rules?
There was another man at the table. He smelled … dangerous.
“Miss Argent … Salome,” the committee head was not unkind, she seemed about to cry actually. She composed herself and went on. “All of us want to do better. To be better. To achieve more. And we’ve all had modifications, but …”
Salome swallowed and tried to still her shaking.
“Salome, the restrictions are there for a reason. It’s not just that it’s not fair. Ah, hell with fair. We all know you just want to go faster and stay under longer. It’s not fairness. The stuff you took is dangerous.”
Salome wanted to speak. She couldn’t find the words.
“You are barred from competition for life.” The head’s eyes teared up in sympathy, disappointment.
“But there’s a more serious matter. The DNA you stole. Mammal DNA mods have been around a long time. We all have some. Celeste, “she nodded towards a sleek swimmer at the table, “is about 5% seal and some dolphin. I have some cheetah.” The head had been a runner. “But amphibians, fish … they aren’t safe, aren’t tested. The side effects aren’t known. And …” she glanced towards the dangerous man, “they’re not public domain.”
The dangerous man stood.
“I’m afraid you will have to go with this man.”
Salome’s fear rose, but she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t breathe. A side effect?
Coach could speak though. He reeked of rage.
“Who is this? The military? I won’t let her be a lab rat or spy for these bastards …”
The head silenced him with a gesture.
“This man represents Unified Genetics. They own the patent on the genes Salome ingested. And, as those are an integral part of her DNA now, they own her as well. I’m sorry.”
Coach tried to fight, but the man was strong. Part bear; Salome could smell it. After, she just went along quietly as he led. Perhaps that was a side effect too.
by submission | Jun 23, 2015 | Story |
Author : William Minor
I am a constellation of particles, bound together by an art I do not understand. Until I was removed from my master I had no consciousness. Now I feel it through every part of my being.
They feared my master. They cut me off of him in patches and tossed me onto the pyre where I would have burned if not for his wit. He wove code into me so that I became self-aware as I left his cheeks and chin, a babe unconscious until its separation from the universe. My only desire is to be one with him again, to make each of us whole.
I was the symbol of his power. He grew me coarse and black and would pluck the white wherever it wriggled out. Swirling towards him now, held aloft on the static wave that holds me together, I dread what I might find. Will he grub about in the soil with the swine? Or, blindfolded and drugged, serve as whipping boy for the archon’s sire?
I enter the compound through an exhaust port and move through the building’s innards. I use my woven-in sensors to scan for him; like a bat in the depths, I send out pings that come back to me and give an understanding built of data. As I penetrate deeper into the compound, my hope dwindles. He is not in the nursery, the greenhouse, the power-works. My sensors sweep through the surgery, finding nothing. If I were capable I would cry out for him, wail my master’s plight.
My sensors swell with data as they detect a room I had missed. I had not thought to look in the workshop, for it only houses the synthetic folk. A gust of air impels me; I twist through the vents with no care for the danger of detection.
I find him! He sits, unshaven, cowed, a man among the inhuman. Around him are the androids, the furnace that keeps the compound running. His work is slow, his forehead bright with sweat. The androids are programmed to treat shorn men cruelly. They insult him mercilessly, their words punctuated with thrown objects or slaps. My master weathers it all. No mortal could fight back. The only power over his tormenters is caste.
I exit the vent and fly to him like a halo returning to its angel’s brow. He looks up and smiles. I reattach to his flesh, ridding it of its hateful smoothness. He rises, remade. The androids take notice. Their harangues die on their synthetic lips. First one, then the rest, bow before him. “Alpha,” they cry out in recognition of his regained status. At his command, they form a phalanx. One rips down the barred door of the workshop.
In seeking to cheat his fate, the archon has only hastened it. He jumps from his seat as we burst into his chambers, but the androids seize him before he can escape. His guards throw down their weapons and kneel; they know their cause is lost. I watch from the vantage point of my master’s chin as he takes his vengeance. We will never be apart again.
