by submission | Dec 14, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The man and the machine surprised one another when they happened to both enter the half-destroyed and looted store from opposite sides. The human reflexively reached for a gun, his hand finding only an empty holster. The robot pointed an arm at the man despite the fact that the gun mounted on the arm had been without ammunition for almost a month.
The thin, sickly appearing soldier and the battered robot said nothing. There was neither the sound of gunfire nor of screams as there had been a few weeks earlier. Now the wind was all that was audible in what was left of Leshan in Sichuan, China.
“You are my prisoner!” the scarecrow of a man wearing the tattered military uniform said as he grabbed a broken lamp and brandished it as a makeshift club. He immediately went into a coughing fit.
“No, it is you who are my prisoner,” came a tinny voice from the automaton’s half-broken voice synthesizer. It slowly rolled forward half a meter and stopped.
Battery running down, thought the soldier. It could have rushed me as soon as it spotted me but is hasn’t the power. “The rest of my platoon will be here any moment,” wheezed the man. “They’ll destroy you unless you surrender yourself to me.”
“I do not believe there are any other human soldiers in this area,” the robot replied. “Moreover, you are obviously in ill-health. If you turn over to me a compatible power supply, I will accept your surrender and let you live. Otherwise, I will kill you.” The machine again moved forward but only about half a meter. The motors that propelled it forward groaned in protest.
It’s in terrible condition, thought the man. One good blow to its optical sensor and it would be utterly helpless. He tried to lift the lamp above his head but the torn supraspinatus muscle in his right shoulder made him wince and rapidly lower his improvised weapon.
Again, the two combatants stared at each other in silence. At last, the machine spoke: “I cannot kill you. My power is nearly gone. I’d hoped to find batteries in this building that might keep me functioning for a while longer.”
The man said nothing.
“If I surrender myself to you,” continued the robot, “will your platoon provide me with at least enough power to keep my metaprocessor running?” Its voice was getting slower and deeper in pitch like an ancient record album playing on a turntable set to too few RPMs.
“I have no platoon,” admitted the human. He set the lamp down. “I’ve had radiation sickness for weeks. But starvation will kill me faster than the radiation. And pneumonia faster than the starvation.” He went into another coughing fit, one that brought him to his knees.
“If…I…had…food…or…medicine,” spoke the robot very slowly, “I’d…give…it…to…”
The machine fell silent.
The man looked around the room for anything that might provide power for his adversary. He found nothing. He staggered toward the robot, coughing up copious amounts of blood as he shambled forward. He lay down on the floor in front of the dead machine. He thought he should make some philosophical observation about war or life or some such thing. But he could think of nothing but his labored breathing. A few minutes later, the man died.
In time the soldier decomposed and the war machine rusted. And the howl of the wind was again the only voice to challenge the dead city’s silence.
by submission | Dec 13, 2015 | Story |
Author : J G Pelling
My bedfellows’ laughter had followed me out of the room when I’d first mentioned my idea for a new career. Smarting, I’d gone to my appointment with Sirin. She hadn’t laughed. She’d spouted a bit of guff about ‘transferable skills’ post-navy, but she hadn’t laughed. And I need the money. I really, really need the money. Otherwise who’ll look after Thom? He can’t retrain, not like me.
And there were a few others who hadn’t thought it was an insane idea either, so here I am on Echo Station, going to meet a director for a chat. My exoskeleton leg is hidden by a passable suit and I’m carrying a portfolio of research under my arm, along with an essay I had a bash at (hardest thing I’ve done in the past year apart from, like, surviving).
I march down the corridor and turn right at the gravity drop, trying not to stumble. It seems the exoskeleton’s balancing mechanism isn’t quite bedded into my inner ear yet. Sitting down outside the director’s office is a relief.
“Warrant Officer Gresham?”
I stand up and just about resist the urge to salute. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. We shake hands. “I’m Dwayne Smith – I head up the local team. Come on through: I have some stuff to show you.”
The room beyond is somewhere between a regular office and the bridge of a ship, all big screens and data. The staff look surprisingly normal: not that I’d expected them to be little accounting trolls or anything, but they’re not exactly weedy. Maybe a few are re-trainees from the war too; I’ll have to find out.
Smith leads me into a huge office and offers me a coffee from a shiny espresso machine. I nod, and while he’s making it he points at the screen on his desk. “What do you think of that?”
I walk over and start to scroll through the data. It’s a manifest from some station way out in the Oort Cloud. At first glance it all looks normal, but there’s something nagging at the back of my mind. Smith brings the coffee over just as I work it out. I look up. “He hasn’t bought a single oxygen filter for that base in six years.”
“Which means…”
“Which means,” I reply, thinking quickly, “either he’s getting them buckshee for services rendered or he pays for them out of another account. The former’s probably more likely.”
“Exactly. He’s a producer, grows meth-6 in the low gravity. We followed the breadcrumbs and got him last month.”
He points at a glossy brochure. “And what does this one look like to you, Mandy?” We both sit down at the conference table in the middle of his office while I sip the coffee – real coffee! – and have a read.
“Looks like a boiler room scam on exploration companies. A pyramid scheme. Get in early, you get your money back. Get in late, you’re screwed. Nothing new under any sun, it appears.”
He gestures at the wall of screens and the rather quaint piles of papers and folders. “Enjoying this?”
I nod. “Catching bad people with an overlay of maths and logic problems. Definitely.”
“Any questions?”
“Yes–” I somehow manage to avoid saying ‘sir’ again, “I guess I qualify for an interview. Who’ll be on the panel?”
He laughs at that. “I am the panel.” He sticks out his hand. “Welcome to Extrapol Customs and Crime.”
by submission | Dec 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Solar flares were partially blocked from pillaging the threatened planet below the behemoth spacecraft. The Bohemia created a cascading, billowing shadow across the Jagron’s continents. Crimson pillars of feathery forests pulled their leaves to sleep as the false night blanketed the starward side of Jagron’s equator and its northern hemisphere. The floating ice beds of Nivonia fell back to the black seas to rest before their iridescent salts would free them to nestle skyward with purple clouds, after the blue star beyond reanimated their life. No life form on Jagron could ignore the silhouette from the black and white rescue vessel hovering in orbit.
Bohemia’s Captain, Egan Palton, communicated through a holographic projector to the central capital, Razic, where the Council of Five gathered to address the visitors in their skies.
“Chancellor Grimmott, you have received our offer. Are you prepared to agree to terms?” Palton’s cold, mechanical tones left no room for interpretation by the Council’s imperial soul quester.
“Captain, we are many peoples and species, all cursed to perish without your assistance, but your price is simply unacceptable to the Council. Taking half of all our wealth and a third of our children…it is simply outrageous.” The soul quester held the wrist of the Chancellor to maintain his emotional equilibrium.
“Very well, Chancellor, but know that you will perish. Jagron is doomed. Biana, the blue star you worship, will turn you all into space dust with one burst from her angry face. You have known this, but you have no technology to evacuate your world. The Bohemia was constructed for that purpose long ago. There is none other like her in this galaxy. There is no one else in your solar system to save you. Perhaps you are depending on some ethereal force to save you, as the Zeboton believed when we abandoned them after unsuccessful negotiations, just before arriving here. Experience what their reluctance cost.” The holographic display widened across the Council chamber. Detailed scenes appeared of absolute destruction of the Zeboton home world. Vistas portrayed cataclysmic onslaughts from a rogue comet. Screams of slaughtered Zebotons sliced through the chamber as the Council watched the planet’s flammable atmosphere savage cities, continents and then the entire outer mantle until the sphere ripped into six large sections and thousands of smaller shards, leaving a glowing core to drift aimlessly in a new, unstable orbit.
“Enough,” Grimmott cried out, lacing his six slender hands over his filigree horns, high above his red, encrusted forehead. “As you command. We have no choice. We will prepare but know there will be no joy in our coming to your ship…even with the promise of safe passage to a new world. We are at your mercy.”
Palton stopped the transmission. He pointed to the dozens of alien forms working in the command center to ready the evacuation craft. It would take three months to move three billion onto the Bohemia while sorting out the loot and the new crew members. Children were a critical part of refreshing the ship’s crew as radiation sickness, accidents and disease took their toll over the millennia. External repairs were the largest culprits as some evacuations were precipitously close to a planet’s demise. It was the legacy of the Bohemia since its first voyage, evacuating Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy ten thousand years before Zeboton’s destruction.
by submission | Dec 10, 2015 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Wilma’s Pass, a single stitch in the gaping wound that was the M1 Motorway, was popular with dairy farmers because of its cow content.
Conceived on environmental guilt and funded by the local council’s surplus budget, it was a bridge designed to be organic in shape and bejewelled with rich landscapes. The idea being that the peaceful gardens above would greatly contrast the frenetic arterial route below with its speeding commuters and smoky emissions.
Construction work on the bridge commenced after the winning contractor’s matchbox flyer sprinkled a pinch of tiny founder robots. Overnight, the founders made kennel sized botforges erupt from the dirt like steampunk mushrooms. By morning tea, the botforges were creating and releasing clouds of nanoscopic robots called scavs.
Scavs were so named because of the way they were coded to scavenge detritus found within the vicinity of the construction site and convert them into construction materials at a nano-scale. Scavs had proven themselves to be a trustworthy tool and were the modern contractor’s preferred method of construction. They worked 24 hours a day, they were quiet, they never took any sick days and most importantly built something from nothing.
Intelligently, the scavs onsite progressed the construction by spreading outward from the motorway to seek old leaves and twigs, buried toxic waste, rubbish, smog and even cow dung from the adjacent fields. The local council was encouraged by the contractor to dump community waste nearby so that it too could be converted.
Things progressed well, meeting the short programme timeline without any hitches. As the bridge progressed, the scav’s search radius slowly increased, cleaning up the surrounding countryside as they ventured further and further afield in search of humanity’s waste. They soon reached the property of dairy farmer Joseph Hays.
As the scav’s spread out, scouring Farmer Hays’ lower field clean, they were in the process of cleaning muck from the hooves of Wilma, Joseph’s prized milking cow, when she became startled and bolted. Crossing a swarm of airborne scavs, Wilma temporarily lost her sight, ran through an old boundary fence and fell fatally into a concrete drainage culvert. Her carcass instantly became a viable source for the scavs and over 4 hours, she was steadily devoured until nothing remained.
Work proceeded onsite, as did an investigation into the whereabouts of Wilma the cow.
Eight weeks passed and local drone feeds revealed an elegantly styled bridge with flowing muscular-like supports that merged naturally into the flowing topography. Undulating grassed banks enriched with perfectly balanced topsoil revealed seductive landscaped gardens, arbored picnic areas and timber gazebos – ornate with beautiful fenestration.
Data recovered from the scav recorders revealed the demise of Wilma, triggering Joseph to take the local council to court. The data also revealed the location of Wilma’s mortal remains. She was everywhere throughout the bridge. Converted into the sinewy carbocrete matrix, entrapped within the steelhex reinforcement and entwined into the fibretites of the faux-timber ornamentation. The scavs had successfully turned a cow into a bridge.
Judge Sale McKintyre ruled in favour of Joseph’s prosecution team, in that as Wilma was equally anywhere within the bridge at any time, there was no way of distinguishing Wilma from the bridge. Wilma by definition was also the bridge. And as Wilma was owned by Joseph, so too was the bridge.
As new owner, Joseph saw no way of unmaking Wilma from the bridge, so after a dedication ceremony, he named the bridge Wilma’s Pass and allowed its ground to be of use to all dairy farmers across the land.
by submission | Dec 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : N. R. Crowningshield
Vanessa let the shower water flow over her hand. The old pipes moaned and shrieked as the shower head spewed into the white pedestal tub. The temperature of the of liquid changed from cool to warm to hot. Steam pillowed out of the tub.
Gingerly, she stepped into the hot shower and pulled the curtain closed. The warm water blanketed her body in a warm sheen. Her auburn hair clung to her neck and shoulders. Inhaling steam she let out a sigh of relief.
“Sunshine Scent,” Vanessa read out loud to herself. She flipped the cap open and picked up a citrus essence with a light touch of honey. Squeezing out the bright pink shampoo into her palm, she brought her hair to a thick lather. Vanessa closed her eyes and submerged her head in the water. Creamy pink bubbles ran down her body and swirled at her feet. Wringing her hair clean of the soap, she brought her head out of the water and wiped her eyes clear. Steven was standing in the tub.
“Steven!” Vanessa shrieked. “We talked about this. We had an agreement!” She covered breasts and womanhood as best she could.
“I’m sorry. I just… I dunno.” Steven looked down at his feet. He wore red sneakers and blue jeans as he always did.
“I need you to respect my privacy if you want this to work.”
“What about when I needed you?” Steven snapped.
Vanessa expression darkened. She stepped out of the tub, and attempting to keep herself covered, she wrapped a seafoam green towel around her torso.
“What’s bothering you?” Vanessa questioned as she reached in the tub and silenced the shower. She grabbed a matching towel and wrapped her hair in a makeshift hat.
“Why were those kids so mean to me?”
“It’s because you’re different.” Vanessa made her way into the adjacent bedroom. She took a seat on her bed and patted the mattress. “Come take a seat.”
“Is it because I’m albino?” Steven appeared, sitting on the bed beside her. He watched his feet as he bounced his heels off the side of the bed frame.
“Unfortunately, yes. Kids have a hard time looking at what matters on the inside. They can’t get past the surface.”
Steven stopped his feet and looked Vanessa in the eyes. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
“Believe me buddy, if I could go back and do it again, I would have.” Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears. A single drop streamed down her cheek. Steven reached a hand up and failed to dry her face. His hand went through her cheek. She felt nothing and wiped the tear for him.
—
“Alright, I’m heading off to work. Behave yourself. We’ll finish up your physics lesson tonight.” Vanessa sat on the bench in living room. She slid on a pair of black heels over her nylon covered feet.
“Okay. Can we play a game or two of chess after you eat?” Steven blurted in excitement.
“Absolutely.” Vanessa smiled as she watched Steven’s quiet celebration.
The apparition of Steven walked through the living room wall into Vanessa’s bedroom. She knew he would watch her pull out of the driveway as he always did.
She reached for the front door. Before turning the brass door knob, she paused as she always did. There on the white door written in marker read, “Live with it.” Underneath her hand writing a news article was taped in place. In bold print, “TEACHER TO BLAME FOR STEVEN ST. CLAIR SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.”
Vanessa took in a deep breath and stepped through the door.
