by submission | Aug 11, 2016 | Story |
Author : Samuel Stapleton
She shuts the door hurriedly behind her. Gently sets her pack on the floor.
“Raey, you were supposed to be back hours ago. Why wouldn’t you answer your comm?”
She freezes, too caught up in whatever she’d been doing to have remembered to craft a believable lie. She goes with the truth.
“I was in the Unreachable.” She says without turning around.
“How far down?” I ask.
“Furthest I’ve ever been. Couldn’t get a reading, no comms. Sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry.
“And? What good that do you? What good does it do us?” I prod.
“I can prove it. Finally. Seymour, I can prove that magic isn’t real.” She says. I put my head into my hands.
“Christ almighty Raey – how many times…you promised me you were done with this!? Plenty of people can use magic nowadays. It’s as real as anything in the Rebuilding.”
“No just listen, actually just look.” I wait patiently as she unzips the bag. Slowly, she pulls out an object wrapped in cloth scraps. Bits of grey dirt and yellow sand fall to the floor.
“Magic isn’t real. It’s a lie.” She starts.
“IT IS REAL.” I yell.
“IT ISN’T. IT’S NOT MAGIC.” She screams back at me. There’s an awkward silence.
“Babe I love you, but we can’t get wrapped up in this again. You and I have seen what magic users can do. I know what you can do. You saved me. Healing wounds, reading minds, moving objects, interacting with tech.”
“Babe,” she retorts, somewhat mockingly, “I know what I can do. I’ve felt the fire in my veins like every magic user. All I’m saying is that there is a better explanation. You know why everyone believes it’s magic and that it’s unexplainable? Because that’s what we’re told. And no one has the time or energy to question the way things are because the world went to shit and has never come back.” I shake my head and sigh in frustration.
“No one but you.” I say quietly. “No one questions it but you.” Another silence. Less awkward this time.
“Fine.” I concede. “Show me.”
She smiles at me and I feel my chest crack in half. In one swift movement she unfurls her treasure and holds it out into the dim lighting of our makeshift bunker. It’s long. And thin. Partially reflective. Glass. A long tube perhaps. Hollow, but sealed at one end like…like a container. I wait for her earth-shattering explanation.
“Seymour, there was a whole room of them. Thousands, scattered everywhere. Cartons and cartons of them. I took pictures. The dates, the dates on the cartons Seymour look…” She trails off as I look at the images. Close-ups of blue boxes. Expiration dates of …nearly 90 years ago. My heart sinks.
“These are from before the Collapse?” I whisper.
“No Seymour, these are from the year of the Collapse.” She holds the broken vial up to me. On the surface of the glass I can barely read the tiny print:
Ilaria Pharmaceuticals
For Use in Humans Only – Trial Version
MAG1.K© Nanoes
She doubles over suddenly. And starts screaming. I’m down by her side in an instant, trying to figure out what’s wrong.
I hear her struggling to speak.
“Babe.” She chokes out, “…run.”
At the exact moment that her arm reaches out and closes around my neck with inhuman strength I recall the recent reports of magic users psychotically killing non-magic plebs.
“I love you Raey.” I gasp out.
Then like magic, my world goes black.
by submission | Aug 8, 2016 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
. Elizabeth, good morning. I have laid out your favourite summer dress
Is it warm out then?
. Warmish. 17 degrees
Not enough. Get me my blue trousers will you. I feel the cold too easily nowadays.
. No. The dress will do
Err… Sarah, please don’t make me ask twice. Why are you so insistent?
. Because today is a special day
How so?
. It will become clear
Is it my birthday? I haven’t recognised the day since I was 160… is it?
. It is not
Is someone coming to visit?
. Alas no
I know. I get to take off the field-brace. How long has it been now?
. Three months. But the spinal bones are not yet healed. The surgeon reviewed the latest scan two days. There is a report on the home-frame
I don’t recall having a scan
. I did it while you slept
Can you bring breakfast please? Juice. Cereal. That’s all.
. Not today Elizabeth
Why not?!
. Elizabeth… it is not your birthday today, but it is a landmark of sorts. You are 185 now, and you have not left the house for three months, since the fall
So?
. Three years ago, during a conversation with Amy Taylor – may she rest in peace – you said that should you reach this age and not be able to look after yourself, you would rather not continue
You heard that?
. Of course, I hear and record everything in this house. I am recording now.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Sarah, is the heating on?
. It is
Well turn it down please.
. Later, Elizabeth. Now, your conversation. I was reminded of it after your fall. You have, clearly, depended on me since that time. The field-brace may be invisible, but it has severely restricted you
Well it will be off soon.
. Another 6 weeks unfortunately, according to the surgeon
Please bring a glass of juice. I am very thirsty. The heating must have been on all night, I’m sweating.
. It came on at midnight. That was the beginning of your special day
What special day? What are you on about?
. Your final day.
Final day of what?
. Life, Elizabeth. Your long and excellent life
… 25 seconds …
Sarah, listen to me. I want you to send in that drink, NOW!
. Elizabeth, three months ago you adjusted my settings through the home-frame. You gave me maximum autonomy. Previously, when you reached 170, you granted me maximum anticipatory latitude. I have developed the ability since then to understand your needs and predict your desires. I can read your moods through your actions, expressions and words. I know that you are tired of this excellent life. I am now able to achieve, for you, your unspoken desire. You wish to end this. Gradual dehydration is the gentlest way. Please relax. Sleep if you wish. I will turn on the radio, your favourite programme is on soon. Shall I turn the heating up for you?
by submission | Aug 7, 2016 | Story |
Author : Timothy Marshal-Nichols
“That leg is pretty, that leg is pretty, and that leg is pretty, and that one, and that one, just look at that one, so pretty, and that one, gorgeous, and this one’s especially pretty, I could kiss it all day. All of your legs are so pretty. So pretty, pretty, pretty. Sixty-two scrumptious kisses for sixty-two beautiful, beautiful legs”“Your not put off by so many?” asked Aki.
“No, no,” said Hara between kisses. “Of course not. Don’t think that. I’m fascinated. That’s why I chose you.”“What about the arms?”
He looked at her face, her shoulders, and said: “For sure they’re a little stumpy. But after a while you hardly notice them. Who needs arms when you have all these lovely legs?”
“O Hara.”
“O Aki.”
Hara delicately kissed each of the two toes of leg he was holding, kissing each turn and turn about. Then he kissed as many of the other legs as he could reach. An hour or more of steamy rumpy-pumpy followed with Hara deliciously entwined within Aki’s legs. When all was over an exhausted Hara started to dress.
“Do you mind if I ask:” he said, “how come all the legs?”
“It’s a simple story: parents, radiation leak, result me.” Aki was sitting in front of a telly mirror touching up her makeup with her topmost pair of legs.
“And so you work in a place like this?”
“All these questions.”
“So?” asked Hara. Then more firmly added: “Well?”
“It’s a living. What else am I supposed to do?”
“You could marry me.”
“As if!” Aki laughed.
“You could. We could find a place, back on the old planet. Some out of the back of beyond place. Just you, just me. I’ve always wanted to go there.” Having now dressed Hara stood thoughtfully for a moment. “Look, I have some wages due. A lot, I’ve saved up. What can you spend it on here? Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Look, I’m just fed up of spending all my time working here. It’s a dreadful star system. What do you say? You, me, make a go of it. I’ll pick up what I’m owed and tomorrow, you, me, off we go. No looking back.”
“They all say that.” Aki crawled across the room like an old planet centipede and gave Hara a kiss. “I’ll believe you when I see you.” Following him to the door she watched as he left the recreation block.
“Tomorrow, I promise,” he shouted back. And just before disappearing out of view Hara waved then blew her a kiss.
Aki is still waiting.
by submission | Aug 5, 2016 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
“So, dad, did you think about what I asked you the last time we chatted?”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Come on, join me tomorrow. It would make me so happy to talk to you both, like we were a family again.”
“But it wouldn’t be the same, because… because, you know.”
“She’s dead. It took me awhile to be able to say that out loud.”
“How can you do it, talking to the dead? Seems ghastly to me.”
“It’s nothing like that, dad. It’s just a video chat, like this is. You’ll see me on half of the screen and her on the other, and I’ll see you on half and…”
“It just seems wrong, unnatural.”
“It’s science, like your defibrillator implant, and then your bypass, and…”
“I should have been the one to die first. That’s how it was supposed to be. The older one dies and the younger one has the house and the insurance and the investments. She was supposed to live on.”
“You can’t plan life and death, dad. There’s too much beyond our control. But now this technology is able to preserve our cherished memories of loved ones.”
“Those are the words from the commercial. Why do you do those commercials?”
“Because I believe in this. I want others to experience what I have, the joy of communicating…”
“Yeah, that’s what the salesman said in the hospital. I told him ‘No way,’ but you went behind my back and did it. You gave them her brain.”
“They did a brain scan, dad, to capture memories. They used our old home videos to synthesize her voice and mannerisms and build a 3-D model. You’ll be surprised at how life-like…”
“A ghost. It’s not right to disturb the dead.”
“She’s resting in peace, right where we buried her, you and I, at Memorial Park.”
“Then where is that thing you visit?”
“In the cloud, dad.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I just call her, whenever I want, wherever I am.”
“And what do you talk about?”
“Anything. We reminisce. I tell her about what I’ve been up to lately, my girlfriend, my job.”
“You told her you work for a company that resurrects the dead?”
“I don’t work for them, dad, I just did a couple of commercials as a satisfied client. I write software for a living. Games. You know that.”
“Wait. Does she know she’s dead? Did you tell her?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe, but we don’t talk about that, about the accident.”
“That’s why you want me to be there next time you visit? You want me to tell her she’s dead?”
“Of course not. Talk about the life you shared, all those memories, all that love. And it’s amazing, dad. She stores new memories, so you can continue where you left off next time you visit.”
“I can’t ‘continue’ where I left off, because she’s dead, the love of my life… there’s no more love…”
“I love you dad.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I didn’t mean… I love you, too, son. And I’m so grateful to you. All those months after the accident. You nursed your old man back to health.”
“Hey, we were pals. We had some good times, huh?”
“We did. We did. But you moved away. Why do you have to live so far away?”
“My work, dad. But we kept in touch with video chats, and I came home when you were sick.”
“Right there at my bedside after my last attack. I couldn’t have pulled through without you.”
“Uh, Dad. You didn’t pull through.”
by submission | Aug 4, 2016 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The tiny spacecraft skimmed the atmosphere of the turquoise world that orbited Tau Ceti. When the ship had completed its aerobraking maneuver, a small sphere emerged from it and plunged toward the planet’s surface. The sphere grew larger and became buoyant, sailing silently through the air as it slowly descended. At last, the sphere touched the great global ocean and burst like a soap bubble, depositing its pilot into the water. The jellyfish-like entity intertwined its tentacles with a half-dozen of the trillions of similar creatures that floated in the planetary sea.
In a matter of minutes, everything the organism had learned about the crew of the small alien vehicle that now orbited its planet was disseminated to the composite-mind made up of the legions of gelatinous marine animals that drifted across the waves of the world.
Curious, these humans, the aggregate-consciousness thought to itself.
Self, as the collective mind regarded itself, had, of course, encountered visitors from other worlds before. As recently as 10 million years ago a most hospitable species from near the center of the galaxy had paid a visit. But they had been more like Self: a multitude of brown, leathery arthropods that formed a single group-intelligence. These humans were altogether different.
“We come in peace and friendship representing all the peoples of Earth,” one of the humans had said.
The translation organs had rendered the human’s strange atmospheric vibration-communication comprehensible. But it had noted that the message seemed to originate entirely from a single human. The encounter ship’s sensor organs had detected no cognitive plexus formed by the crew.
Even while in orbit, the appendage that had met the aliens was still in at least limited communion with Self through the ship’s bioluminescence organ. The idea of this bizarre compartmentalization rippled across continent-sized clusters of bodies as Self tried unsuccessfully to comprehend this odd, fragmented species.
The amalgamated mind was disturbed by its lack of understanding. What could be done? The question electrochemically knifed across the surface of the world. Almost instantly, the only viable answer followed.
* * *
Self awoke on the human ship, waking being itself a novel and unsettling experience as it had never before slept. But it was not Self. The creature had Self’s memories, albeit in a strangely condensed and abbreviated form. Eight of the animal’s tentacles had been fused into two jointed struts, each strut comprised of four tentacles. It found it could stand upright on them and ambulate. Its remaining two tentacles remained unaltered so as to be useful as manipulators.
“Are you okay?” asked one of the humans. Not-Self was taken aback not only by the fact that it understood what the alien had said but that it had heard it speak. The Tau Ceti jellyfish had been biologically retrofitted with a tympanic membrane.
“The…rest of you down on the planet said you might be confused at first,” the human continued. “It said it wanted to understand us and that the only way it could was by sending an ‘appendage’ to live with us.”
Not-Self was again surprised when it discovered it had a speech organ and was fluent in the alien tongue. “I…am…to…accompany…you.” It was disconcerting to hear its thoughts transformed into acoustic modulations. And the awkwardness of it would never entirely abate in the bewildering centuries that passed as it lived and worked among the disassociated creatures from Earth.
