by submission | Dec 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steven M. Sloan
There is something out there stalking me. I can’t see it; but I know that it is there. I’ve been in the bush for nearly a month since the crash, and it’s been here all along, behind me all the way. I just can’t shake it. And now I am completely alone.
Capt. Richards died in the crash. He had seemed oddly puzzled about a power loss right before we went in. Well . . . can’t ask him about it now. The others disappeared one by one.
Harrison, the scientist, was the first to go. Curious to a fault, he wandered off the trail after quietly remarking, “How interesting,” and was never heard from again. His disappearance might have been laughable, if it hadn’t been so disquieting. Ya know – curiosity, the cat, and all o’that.
Lt. McNamara got it next. About two weeks ago he was there when we all went to sleep. But when the camp awoke, no trace of him remained.
Then Rasmussen, the engineer, fell to malign misfortune or malignant Fate. That was 3 or 4 days ago, maybe. I think I’m losing track of time. I had plotted a course for the coast and was breaking trail. At a certain point I paused to remark something trivial & negative about this blazing hot Hell-hole of leafless sticks in which we were marooned. I had done so more out of a need to stop and rest, rather than to impart any meaningful information to Rasmussen. But all of that was immediately forgotten in the aftermath of my far grimmer discovery. One minute he was there, & the next he was not. Just plain gone. And he was right behind me when it must have happened. The heat & quiet were intense. Yet, I’d heard not a sound & sensed no movement whatever. Talk about eerie. A thing like that can really make a guy twitchy.
I’m a big-city boy from down-town Milwaukee & I don’t know much about “spoor,” or tracking game. But I am learning what it feels like being tracked. For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. And it’s starting to look like it just might come to that if I can’t – “for the life of me.” I am afraid all of the time now, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
This morning I saw something move, just at the corner of my eye. I am being taunted, toyed with, and I don’t like it at all. Not. At. All. God I wish it would just finish me off & have done with it. All this waiting around is really getting to me. But then maybe that’s the point.
The food concentrate ran out days & days ago. Since then I’ve had my fill of adrenaline & fear, of hot rain & stale cigarettes. And I’ve seen nothing that I could get a shot at, including that murdering bastard. Why won’t it just finish me?
God I’m tired. Does this world even have a God? Does the thing that’s following me?
Finally! It’s time to put this tablet down & pick up a gun. I can hear it coming for me now
by submission | Dec 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
The short walk from the trees near the campus to the administration building winded him. The air was too thin for Linet. Once inside the conference room, Linet pushed the tall paperwork pile forward on the bare meeting table. He turned in his steel-backed chair to address the clicking of high heels on granite from the hallway. He gazed at Constance Hurley, a twenty-something dish-water blonde wearing a simple gray sweater and black slacks. She glared back through her horned-rim glasses. The thin, tawny-skinned senior sat upright, facing the human resources supervisor.
“You must be the one o’clock. You’re early. This just isn’t done. One o’clock means just that. I don’t particularly care for your type interrupting my lunch hour.” She huffed about, circling around the table to sit opposite the candidate.
“Is this how you always work with intruders, Miss Hurley?”
“When I said ‘type’, I meant manipulators. You think this early stuff is supposed to impress me? And when you land a job you never show on time, but you leave early. Huh?” She pointed her right index finger at him. She pushed aside the pen near the stack of forms and began scanning them. “You oldies should be rounded up and gassed.”
“Really?” Linet replied, pointing back at the mountain of documents. “Is all of this necessary?” Linet stared at her perusal of his work.
“Listen, buster, you either want to be here or you don’t. I wouldn’t have figured you for a candidate.” She looked him up and down. “Not like that. And you can’t be serious about these answers.”
“Like what?”
“Well, to be blunt, your age. And look at that bald head and those hideous clothes. Who dressed you, a funeral director? You didn’t answer the questions about ethnicity. If only you were Inuit. I still have a slot for one.”
Linet leaned back, smiling, revealing his lack of teeth. “It stated clearly those answers were voluntary. Do you mind if I ask your age and your dress size?”
Constance bellowed in shock. “How dare you? I could have you disqualified. But you’re a relic, no doubt. What could you possibly know about high tech? With my luck you’re an illegal. I need these I-9 forms completed. Are you an illegal alien?”
“Would that matter? Do I have to complete them all?”
“In triplicate. And I warn you, one lie…one falsehood, canard or exaggeration and you’ll be taken from your cubicle to the parking lot and terminated. Is that clear?”
“Wonderful. You are perfect.” He opened his jacket and extracted a gold cigarette case and a matching gold lighter. Even as his antagonist rose to protest he lighted the pencil-thin tube and blew a perfect circle of neon blue smoke around her.
“You can’t do that in here. I’ll have you arrested…I’ll” But that was the last word from Miss Hurley. The blue halo burst open like a burgeoning oyster shell and then wrapped tightly around her until she and the smoke disappeared in a black flash.
A buzzing sound rose at the side of Linet’s head. “Good, and keep her caged,” he commanded. “She’ll be perfect for our torture squads. We’ve worn out the teams we built from our last visit here during their Inquisition. I’m sure our enemies will agree to anything after an hour with her kind, and the other HR beasts we’ve captured. Keep the crew away from them on the flight home. Remember our leader’s motto, “An hour with a bureaucrat is a dreadful torture.”
by submission | Dec 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“To be or not to be.”
“Well, continue,” said the red, starfish-like alien to his compatriot.
“I don’t understand the line,” replied the tall being with twenty spindly tentacles. “What does ‘not to be’ mean?”
“Hamlet is considering life versus death.”
“Death?”
“It’s an irreversible loss of metabolic function resulting in the dissolution of the organism. All humans experience it. Let’s continue.”
The lanky green extraterrestrial got back into character. “To be, or not to be–that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous– What are slings and arrows?”
The red alien threw up two of his five limbs in exasperation. “They’re primitive human weapons. Shakespeare is using them as a metaphor for the suffering Hamlet is experiencing due to his situation. Now we really need to continue. Remember: We will be performing the play for a human audience. They will understand even if the words and concepts seem incomprehensible to us.”
The would-be thespian fluttered his tentacles, his people’s equivalent to a nod of the head, and resumed his lines.
“…The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to– Say, what does–”
“They lose consciousness! They call it ‘sleep’! Keep going!”
“Wait, why do they lose consciousness? Is it some kind of illness?”
“No, they spend about one-third of their lives asleep. Now we’ve only got a few more days to rehearse this before–”
“One-third of their lives?! Unconscious?! No wonder they took so long to become an interstellar species. That, and the fact that they have way too few arms.”
The red alien glared at his companion.
“…a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and–”
The tentacled alien said nothing but looked at the theatrical producer.
“It’s a muscular organ that pumps blood,” he said angrily.
“Okay,” replied the actor. “So ‘heart-ache’ means Hamlet is experiencing myocardial ischemia, right? Should I clutch my thorax when I say that line?”
The producer gripped the datapad which contained the Bard’s words with such fury that the device seemed on the verge of snapping in two. “He’s sad. That’s what ‘heart-ache’ means. Humans regard their blood-pumping organ as the seat of their emotions. Don’t try to understand it. Just keep reading.”
“… end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream.” The actor fell silent.
The starfish trembled. “Don’t ask it.”
“But I just–”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“But–”
The producer hurled the datapad to the floor. “Don’t you even think of doing it!”
The tentacled being remained silent. His stellate-arm associate calmly crawled over to where he had thrown the datapad and picked it up.
“Alright,” said the producer, “let’s pick up from where we left off.”
“Okay. But what’s a ‘dream’?”
Shortly thereafter, the actor finally understood what unconsciousness was.
by submission | Dec 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
Walking across the Caltech parking lot, Annika, a Swedish native, shivered beneath four layers of clothing, embarrassed to have lost her tolerance of cold weather after a decade in Pasadena. It was 2 degrees Celsius in July. She glanced at the afternoon Sun. Years ago, the ring was hardly noticeable in the bright light, but now a black band cut the Sun in two.
News of alien engineers mining Mercury and constructing something big midway between the orbits of Venus and Earth had generated excitement in the scientific community and terror among the populace. Now that Mercury was gone and Venus was disappearing, scientists, too, were terrified.
Flashing credentials to heavily armed security, she plunged into the crowded lobby, overhearing snippets of conversation.
“Really? THAT’S what you don’t understand? Only 21 million kilometers from Earth and yet they won’t COMMUNICATE with us? Look, when Consolidated Electric builds a new power plant, do they communicate with local ANT COLONIES?”
A former classmate from Uppsala…
“Hej, Annika,” and then he resumed, “No, it won’t set off Velikovsky’s planetary billiard balls. Matter that was Mercury and Venus has been redistributed to the ring, which is on the ecliptic plane. Remaining planets, including Earth, will be little affected. Minor adjustments to orbits, but no catastrophe.”
Moving on…
“…negligible gravity on the ring is irrelevant. They’re not building a ringworld. They’re collecting energy.”
Leaning left…
“After Venus, will Earth be next?” asked an American general.
“Perhaps not,” replied a Chinese scientist. “If they do not build out to a Dyson sphere, they will not need more yuanliao… uh, raw material. And they may have other plans for Earth.”
“Invasion?”
“Salvage. They could simply thaw out snowball Earth, dispose of surface fei wu… waste, then beam down all the energy needed to create the ecosystem and civilization they desire.”
Leaning right…
“…burning greenhouse gasses and blackening snow and ice to counteract the cooling, but the albedo is increasing too fast…”
The PA interrupted, “Attention. Please take your seats in the auditoruim. Quickly,” and she was swept along with the crowd.
At the podium, NASA’s lead ring scientist abruptly began, “The aliens are stealing the Sun’s energy from us and using it as a weapon when we try to stop them.”
On a screen behind, looped a clip of missile fusillades approaching the ring and rays of white light vaporizing them.
Someone in the noisy crowd shouted angrily, “We already know this. Why are we here?”
“So, the Russians created a device to use the Sun’s energy against them. We learned about it this morning. It’s risky, but they calculated that we’re past the tipping point to a frozen and uninhabitable Earth. Something drastic had to be done, but their device could potentially destroy…” reconsidering his words, “…the ring.”
The crowd was silent. Comet photos appeared.
“You’ve all seen photos of comet Lichtenstein. But you haven’t seen this.”
Video of a craft landing on the comet.
“Eleven months ago, Russia placed their device on comet Lichtenstein, a long period comet, a natural phenomenon, approaching at an angle posing no threat to the ring. The aliens will likely ignore it as it falls into the Sun, in about ten hours. It will trigger unprecedented magnetic disruption, incalculable releases of energy… Electromagnetic rays will reach Earth in eight minutes, a coronal mass ejection could take two or three days.”
In the following hours, in precaution, power grids shut down, communication systems went silent, aircraft were grounded, satellites turned from the Sun.
Annika was giving her infant daughter a two o’clock feeding when everything vanished in the white light of a supernova.
by submission | Dec 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Ephrat Livni
Probably in most situations it’s bad news bears when the boss asks you to supply drugs. But in this case, it’s alright. First, we’re talking weeds. And second, Ellipsis has been reviewing biz docs for said boss, so she knows investments are risky and the question is potential return on investment, or ROI in bizspeak. If anything, she feels favored, not burdened, by the request — and favored is what you need to be if you are going to compete. Ellipsis wants to compete. Well, she doesn’t really want to. But it’s a competitive time and she doesn’t lack drive, so she says it can be sorted.
“Awesome. Cuz this project plushellasux.” Boss slides away, enjoying the admiring glances of pale, haggard, underpaid Metropolitans, wishing they too had that magical MoreCorp Silicon glow.
Ellipsis is not immune, even if she is wary. She also believes. How could you not? MoreCorp rules the interwebs and the inters rule all. Who is she to disdain? If there is a game, she wants to play, and people say there is, the Lovesport, like an employment Olympics in the time of permatemping. But no one knows much.
The next day she makes her offering and is surprised at ROI. Yields are immediate. The manager wanders over after finding herb in her purse. “Hey koolio, move near me. I’m lonely. This project superplusmegasux.” Boss extends a hand.
“Daisy.”
“Ellipsis.” She follows the manager.
Reader resentment is palpable as they pass. It’s a small group, mostly vets doing the minimum, which is what’s considered maximization. See, Too Long Don’t Read (TLDR) is a bizdev thought leader innovation, a text reduction method that’s plus-what’s-up-minus-space-waste, part of the Prose Control Project. It’s a spawn of MoreCorp’s algorithmic perfect, Near Zero, or N0. But corp reverence for N0 has bred reader contempt for yes, and most try to do near zero, reviewing as few comps as possible.
Comps are texts to be eliminated. They vary in length, quality, and subject — law, lit, medi, philo, tax, tek. Each presents a unique challenge to thoughtful readers.
The thoughtless dismiss all the writings of yore with a cursory NR, nonresponsive, expendable data in an age of limited storage. Readers relieve the world of works; the gist gets aggregated in spreadsheets.
“Brainstorm for us. Reduction’s production for you fux!” Daisy shouts at admirers as she heads outside with Ellipsis, explaining that she’s growing sexpertise to monetize on it if MoreCorp ends up a no-go.
“Stripping? Are you serious?”
The brainstorm amounts to boss smoking a spliff in a snowy alley. “I’m never serious.” Daisy smirks, tiny, tense, huddled in a hoodie, wrapped in a scarf, hidden under a hat, and stuffed in silver tektights, for running, not an office, unless it’s in Silicon where garb is not a signifier. “But yes.”
“Don’t you make bank at the world’s best corp?”
“I do. But maybe not for long.” Daisy smiles mysteriously.
“What,” El asks. “The Lovesport?”
“Ahh! The Lovesport, that’s what everyone always wants to know.” Boss throws the roach into a filthy snowbank. She turns back toward the office, stops before thumbing the vidgard, and whispers, quietly this time. “I’m in it. Muthahellaplusfrigginsux.”
They slide straight into their slots. Nothing to talk about but much to consider! El is inspired.
If the Lovesport is real, maybe she’ll play — her metrics are meteoric. Or maybe Daisy’s playing her. Everyone’s got an angle and a need. That’s why bizdev-ers like to say that a project is like a microcosm of the universe, with everyone interconnected and dependent and working under a corp executive.
