by submission | Aug 28, 2016 | Story |
Author : James Riser
Tetsuo kept a collection of five hundred yen and one hundred yen coins that was worth a lot of money to an antique dealer. Instead, he used them on a noodle vending machine set against the wall of a hollow, ancient building near, what history said, was Akita Port in Northern Japan.
The machine’s once colorful advertisements were yellowed and decayed by firestorms and nuclear winters, but still worked. It still dropped a small plastic bowl and a wax coated clump of noodles when prompted by the only working button. After the the bowl dropped, a stream of hot water poured down. It usually overflowed the bowl, diluting the flavor, but Tetsuo didn’t mind. He never saw the person who refilled the machine. It couldn’t be a vending bot, because the machine had a key lock and bots used infrared sensors to gain access and refill vending machines. New Light Technologies made everything from vending bots to Lovedolls, but could never bothered to make a robot that could use an ancient key lock.
He walked up to the machine, feet crunching over glass and gravel. Tetsuo pulled his windbreaker tighter over his body. Black smoke clogged the sky. The newspapers said that most of world looked like this. A gray metal bench sat around the corner of the building. He sat with his father there and ate noodles in the years before his father succumbed to thyroid cancer; Tetsuo watched his throat, swollen with cancerous tumors rise and fall. They sat at the bench and hated the government and the robots with infrared fingertips.
He took his first girlfriend to the vending machine to eat noodles and was also sitting there when he received the live text, sent to the Port connected to his brain, informing him of the termination of their relationship; it came from a third party service specializing in break up texts. He shrugged and ate his watery noodles.
This day, his back ached with the feeling of the weight of heavy factory boxes and the hard plastic chairs in the employee break room. The manager overheard him complaining to a co-worker. When the job termination text came, he wanted to be sitting at the bench eating noodles.
He inserted two silver, one hundred yen coins. The bowl dropped, but the noodles didn’t. The machine shook and sputtered out a small amount of cold water. Tetsuo took the bowl out and tossed it to the ground and inserted some more coins. The machine shook and sputtered again, no bowl dropped. Broken.
He produced a handful of coins and sighed. He thought of the antique dealer. A car pulled up behind him. Tetsuo turned to see a battered Honda civic, sighing in the streets. Every few minutes, the car coughed and threatened to die. An old man slid out from the doorless driver side. He took a box from the back seat and dropped the box in front of the machine. It landed with a dry thud, disturbing the dust on the sidewalk.
The old man came up to Tetsuo’s shoulders, and his entire body was wrapped in a parka and puffy black pants. Only his worn, leather face was exposed.
“Broken?” he asked.
Tetsuo nodded.
The man hit the machine and it shuttered.
“Broken.”
The pair stood there for a handful of silent moments. The wind howled and white dust washed through the streets. Tetsuo produced more coins from his other pocket. He forced the small fortune into the Noodle man’s hard, wrinkled hands. “I have more at home. Just fix it please.”
by submission | Aug 27, 2016 | Story |
Author : Callum Wallace
The heavy perfume of roses assaults my nostrils; the smell of youthful summers spent in glittering woodlands, diamond rivers, fields of grass blowing in the wind. I barely remember now.
I stink of my work; darkness, shit and fear. The rank taste sits heavily, squatting in my mouth.
I think I remember enjoying the sun.
Now the harsh rays smash down, flits spasmodically between steepled rooves and grotesque towers. Baked grass singes, crickets scratch. Dusty. Still.
Someone shouts. It isn’t friendly, but my mind flashes back anyway; barely remembered dreams of kids playing, carefree, all the time in the world.
No games now. No time.
Summers of childhood fly by; thanks for coming, good to meet you.
Summers crawl now; hang about, slow it down.
I read somewhere that time only passes if you have something to do. The more to do, the quicker it goes.
But I’m busy. Busier than ever.
Something about this tickles me, but I don’t laugh. Something about this injustice makes me want to cry out, but I make no noise.
Because I’m busy.
They take them young, once a year, when the sun returns in earnest, when the academy opens its doors. Education starts. Break them down, build them back up. It works. Just look at me.
Innocence is led in; happy, ready to learn, time flooding past. What comes out again is older, slower, busier.
The training is hard. Long days of physical exercise, martial practice. Longer nights of reading, schoolwork.
And if I’m struggling, imagine what they’re feeling. I try not to. Hell, I can’t. The Order won’t let me.
Like I said, busier than ever.
Those that fail are sent on their way; sad little plastic-wrap sacks thrown in the back of a truck. But that’s none of my business.
Mother says it’s necessary. I absolve myself of judgement; it doesn’t matter to me. I’m here for one thing and one thing only.
The newest intake comes. The smarter of the group are sullen, even tearful, but some of the kids wave, smiling up at me. They don’t know what’s coming. I do not smile back, wave them up the steps.
The smiles will be gone soon. The memories of summers will be just that: memories. They’ll be too busy to remember what we don’t teach them. Anything unnecessary is culled, cut away, left to die along with those children who fail the Order’s rigorous practices.
The stink of roses weighs heavily on my conscious.
I think I remember enjoying the sun. But not today.
That time went too fast. I can’t remember. None of us can.
And neither will they.
Too busy.
by submission | Aug 26, 2016 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
The organic machine hobbled unsteadily on the shoreline, leaving wet tracks in the sand. The gelatinous-lensed camera gazed up and the blue sky, and noticed a strange crescent, apparently far above, lit by the Sun. This was a surprise to the remote operators deep in the ocean behind the robot.
“What could it possibly be?” asked a shiny-scaled, broad-finned technician, turning his armored head to the mission commander. “Is there yet another world, above this new one we’re exploring?”
“Irrelevant,” the commander replied. “Our machine cannot swim up in the thin gas of the Highworld, so we should focus on what we can reach. Move forward.”
On badly jointed, uncertainly constructed legs, the spidery robot responded to its command, limping uphill, away from home, into the arid Highworld.
For a long time, there was nothing to be seen but a rocky, unworn landscape. Away from shore, the rocks enlarged and sharpened, gradually giving the rover a harder and harder time. It took around an hour for the clumsy assemblage to clear the rise that had been visible ever since it scrambled from the waves, which was farther than any other of the explorers had ever gone. Its high vantage point gave it a wide, clear view of the much wider Highworld, apparently stretching on for leagues.
The machine saw movement.
“What could that have been?” one of the scientists asked, more to herself than anyone else. Nobody could answer her question.
“Is it possible that there’s life up there?” a journalist asked.
“I don’t see how,” the commander said. “How could they move? It’s unlikely that they could float up there. And how could anything survive without water?”
“Isn’t that what our machine is doing?” an engineer refuted.
“Right, yes” he said sarcastically. “Some fish decided to take a trip onto land and turn into robots.”
The crowd gathered at the event released bubbles of amusement. They were silenced when an armored, six-legged monster landed in front of the robot.
“By the Shimmer!” someone said. “What the hell is that!?”
A segmented tail curved above the beast, before lashing at the camera, blurring the image in the lower-left corner. Then the front claws took care of all four of the explorer’s legs, while the tail repeatedly sunk into the stone-and-seaweed exoskeleton of the rover until the camera went dark.
“The Project’s been completely destroyed,” said the head engineer, mourning the loss of his brainchild. “Hundreds of days of work, destroyed in instants. Torn completely apart.”
“By life,” a biologist chimed in. “Life in the Highworld. Life on land.”
“Did you see that thing’s legs!?” another technician said excitedly. “They absorbed all that impact force on the jump, and it walked circles around the rover like it was nothing! Imagine making a machine with those legs!”
“How could it live without water?” someone else wondered. “Wait… could it be holding it inside itself? That armor looked pretty sturdy.”
“All we know,” the commander said, “Is that we have a lot to learn. Now make preparations for another rover. We’re going again. And this time it’ll be really fun.”
by submission | Aug 25, 2016 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
It had been nearly a year since he’d brought a girl home, and his heart raced as he fumbled in his pocket for keys.
“Need help?” she asked, groping in the general area of his pocket.
Her face so close, he couldn’t help but say, “You’re beautiful.”
“You don’t have to say that, hon, I’m already here.”
“No, really,” leaning in for a kiss.
Backing away, “Not yet, mister, not until I see some green.”
“Right, of course.”
Inside the door, pulling off each other’s clothes, they stumbled onto the couch.
“Mine or yours?” he asked.
“I only trust mine.”
Opening her bag, she removed a device about the size and shape of a hair dryer.
“Better do me first, while you can,” he said.
She pressed the icon for Male on the touch screen, and a concave-sided probe emerged from the business-end of the device. Placing it on his…
“Ouch,” he said, as it pricked and captured a sample of blood along with flora and fauna on his skin.
“Poor baby.”
At the tone, she lifted the probe, which retracted, and seconds later Decider Headquarters transmitted a 24-hour clearance for his DNA, signified by a green light.
He was relieved, too relieved, it turned out.
She pressed the Female icon, and a smooth-sided probe emerged.
Reaching for the device, he offered, “Do you want me to…”
“NO! I’ll do it,” she said, carefully inserting it.
She gasped as the samples were obtained. At the tone, she withdrew the probe, which retracted, and this time a flashing green light conveyed both her clearance and DHQ approval for the couple to have coitus.
“We’re good to go, hon,” returning the device to her bag.
Looking down, “Uh, how ’bout we just snuggle awhile?” he said.
At DHQ headquarters across town, a prisoner peered out of a window to a chamber within which he was strapped to a chair.
A technician made final adjustments. “It’s calibrated. We’re good to go.”
An interrogator looked in, “For the last time, did you murder your mother-in-law?”
Desperately, via a tinny speaker, “Like I told you a million times, no, NO!”
They all looked toward a panel on the opposite wall. Seconds later, a red light shone brightly.
“Sorry, pal, it’s out of our hands,” the interrogator said, covering his eyes as a white flash rendered the prisoner’s body lifeless and smoldering.
Elsewhere in the capital, deep below the White House in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, two dozen people sat in silence, staring at a green light flashing on a device at the center of a conference table.
“We cannot… I cannot allow a computer to make this decision, to send us into all-out nuclear war.”
“But, Mr. President,” reminded the Secretary of Defense, “Congress has explicitly ceded to this computer the responsibility to analyze data, to declare an existential threat to our country, and to decide when and how our military should respond. It is your responsibility as Commander in Chief to carry out that response.”
“Not when it means the mutual destruction and death of…”
“We’ve gone over this for hours,” interrupted the Vice President, “and all of your points have been thoughtfully considered by us and by the The Decider. I regret to inform you that it has declared you mentally impaired and that I am assuming your powers and duties as Acting President.”
He motioned Secret Service agents to remove the President from the PEOC.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, green flashes reflecting in his eyes, rose to his feet.
“Mr. President, are we…?”
“Yes, we’re good to go.”
by submission | Aug 22, 2016 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“You, Mister…” The pause came as the micro servers moved quietly in the administrator, shiny and stoic, with a mere chest and head. Minute flashes drifted over hardened aluminum oxide in ever flitting artificial eyes. Arms were unnecessary. Improved perforated urethane from the ancient artists of Kao Corporation provided just enough false humanity on its face to reduce interface stress—still a common condition for those remaining on Earth.
“That’s Kelso, with a K, not a C.” His overbite impeded his diction, but there was no distinct accent. Speech patterns were awash with sand from world travels.
“Yes, well, you are what we call in this bureau an accidental.” Mouth elements moved the straight, strict lips under a static set of nostrils.
“A what?” Grizzled, worn and filthy from the abandoned streets, John Kelso leaned forward toward his caseworker. His right hand wore the scars of loose ropes let wild on the last tuna boat to sail from Tuvalu in the Pacific. The left hand was short a pinky finger from his act of attrition for sleeping with a Yakuza’s wife.
“An unregistered birth that was probably unplanned and therefore unreported.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you are privy to no rights for support from the Society.”
“That makes no sense. My parents were both full citizens. You have their registration in front of you, on screen.” He leaned back, fuming, against his long coat made from a water buffalo hide prepared after a hunt in Thailand.
“I have the records of a couple from Indiana who had three registered children who are now meaningful and productive full citizens. Their records show no familiarity or acknowledgement of your existence.”
“Why should they? I was the oldest when my parents died. None of them were older than three. At twelve I was abandoned by my blood relatives and left to wander and survive in Indianapolis on my own.”
“Unlikely. No child could survive that.” The worker remained motionless.
“False, again. I found many like myself. I’ve since traveled much of this planet and made, I believe, a better place of it, which is more than I can say for many of your registered patrons.”
“Rumor, innuendo and slander—all useless attempts at your concept of validation. They have no effect on me.” Its face turned away from the applicant, fulfilling an algorithm to reduce conflict.
“I tell you I have a right to basic life support until I can get financially stable. My parents left a large estate behind. I’ve checked.” Kelso rubbed his arm where splintered bone ached during the changing weather. A fall in the Andes left a reminder of soroche and failed climbing ropes.
“Only for registered citizens. The Society only sets aside support for those registered. It has been that way since 2130. You are an accidental. There is no further action to take, but you have an alternative.”
“Such as?”
“Off world transport from Earth to one of the newer colonies on the created moons in the Kuiper Belt. There you would be assigned appropriate labor, food and housing.”
“You mean a prison sentence for simply existing. No thanks to that. I like sunlight and air that doesn’t come out of a recycle cartridge. I’d starve first.”
“There are hospice beds available down the street.”
“Does this mean nothing to you? Do you even care?”
“I am not programmed to care. I simply state facts based on evidence.”
“Oh, and how did you get your cushy assignment, sitting here all day, throwing those with real skin out the door?”
“Well, Mr. Kelso, it was not by accident.”
