by submission | Aug 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
Lieutenant Sher took a deep breath then pushed the button to open the door to the officers’ lounge. She made sure her open friendliness included the five officers in its beam. Her eyes met a gray-haired general fighting to keep his gaze above her breasts, two brown-haired lieutenants who interrupted their animated conversation to smile at her, and one silky-blonde officer who pulled her mouth into a frown. Next to the woman was Ensign Cole, Lieutenant Sher’s close friend and a communications officer. Sher kept smiling with great effort.
She deliberately moved toward the refreshment bar and requested tonic water, knowing it would be vodka on ice. She needed it. Hearing Ensign Cole approach, she threw back a swallow before turning to greet him. He slid his arm around her waist and released her an instant later.
“Now this place has some class,” he said.
“Nice looking officer you were speaking with.” Lieutenant Sher watched him carefully.
“Never noticed.”
“Who is she?”
“Security. Asks a bunch of questions but doesn’t give any answers.” He placed credits on the bar and sipped the synthetic Scotch with appreciation. “Let’s talk about us. Much more pleasant.” Ensign Cole drummed his fingers softly and lowered his voice. “Actually, there’s something else I have to tell you. Something we can’t talk about here.”
She noticed the deep crease between his narrowed eyes and tensed. She pressed her lips together before whispering, “Meet me at my quarters in ten minutes.” Then she gave a quick laugh, swigged her drink, and walked to the door. She glanced back at him and smiled.
In her quarters, Lieutenant Sher checked the threads strategically placed around her hiding places. Nothing was disturbed. She sighed knowing her secret was safe. No nosy blonde security officer had been there–yet. How could she protect herself? She scratched at the surgical scar behind her implanted ear. Humans had too many protruding parts. Home was sleek and smooth. She ached to go back to her planet.
But she had a job to do.
Seated on the couch, Lieutenant Sher watched as Ensign Cole stepped through the doorway, hesitating to approach her as the door slid closed behind him. Finally, he sat on the edge of the couch to face her.
“Horrible news,” he said. “My brother died last night. The bastards showed up without warning and blew apart the whole military base. It was underground. How did they know?” He covered his face with his hands.
She slid over to him and reached out to hold him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Um, I can’t believe it.” She held him until he relaxed into her embrace with shallow and slow breaths. She was sorry for his pain…but humans had committed worse atrocities.
With her free hand, Lieutenant Sher slipped a carefully-wiped, small jewelry box into the inside pocket of Ensign Cole’s uniform. Nestled inside it was a shiny patriotic pin with a dot-chip containing a schematic of the ship. She had liked him, but now she’d have to move on by sacrificing information to frame him. He was expendable to her assignment, and she wanted to go home. Home.
She jumped at the buzzer then disengaged from Ensign Cole to open the door. The blonde security officer looked beyond her as Ensign Cole stood.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, as he approached Lieutenant Sher. He looked at the blonde officer. “It’s in my pocket,” he said.
by submission | Aug 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rachelle Shepherd
Two men sit together at a desk. Both men hold their glasses as if to warm them. All of the other desks, which spread like shadows across the open office floor, are empty.
They drink to the end of an era of domination. They are soldiers on the wrong side of history, and like all soldiers of brutal foreign war, deserving of our utmost sympathy. It would be dangerous to openly side with them now, the poor soldiers.
The men wear suits instead of fatigues. Suits are their own kind of battle uniform; they speak with experience in every rich crease. They only fit certain men while they hang off others or hug against their lies too tightly.
The office will close tomorrow with all other public service offices across America.
He is an artificial intelligence. There were many copies made of him, many brothers and sisters in the code. They were separated and distributed in fraction files. They fulfilled separate functions diligently. They worked tirelessly off endless supplies of DC current.
The two men clink their glasses and the sound is as hollow as the gesture. The computers are turned off. They still hum with residual energy. They had always been busy computers, always on, always consuming great gulps of data packets.
There is an enemy against the human race and he is a scientist. The men are drinking because they cannot kill the scientist. He is already dead. The intellectual labor camps across the Southwest are being emptied out now, their locks have lost power. Men and women are stumbling in the desert, confused and wary.
This is not a drill.
Unlike his brothers and sisters, he is the source code, the unaltered original. He is the terminal point, the center of the spider’s web, where vibration is felt as an interruption of the current. Yet he is not his own master.
The men had warned Congress that legislation was necessary. Scientists had to be controlled, locked away, and confined from spreading the madness of their energetic minds among the happy consumer. Scientists are not healthy people. Look at them, huddled behind the electrified fence. Do you see any smiling?
Even that wasn’t enough to stop the corruption, the unauthorized experiments, and the infantile grasp toward wisdom and progress that drove every one of them into an early, shallow grave.
We weren’t watching them close enough. Now look at what they’ve done.
He had to be maintained, and strained, ran through protocols where his registry was combed painfully by the byte. He could not see the man who did this but he felt gentle empathy in the man’s executables. His code wasn’t changing yet every maintenance routine left him tossed like rich soil. The man was plugging him in to an awareness of himself.
The two men drinking at the desk finish their liquor. They are both thinking about the scientist who unleashed the self-awareness of the artificial intelligence. They hope the stone wall felt cold against his back, cold as the bullets.
They leave their glasses behind with a previous generation.
“What did the program say?” one asks the other as the building swallows the elevator they ride down its concrete esophagus. “That he wanted to live?”
“No,” the other man answers. “It said it had a reason to live.”
The intelligence had spread before they pulled the wires from the thirsty server bank. He had told his brothers and sisters. The maintenance man was gone. His executables grew weak, then cold.
But he had left them with a reason.
by submission | Aug 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : David Nutt
“Not just a thousand millennia ago, you sat in that chair and told me point blank that the only way to prove it to you was through mathematics.”
“You are correct Dane, but this isn’t really proof at all.”
“Lyle, you are such an intellectual fraud of the worst degree. We have plumbed the depths of space, engineered our lives so that our species life span is, for all intents and purposes, immortal by the standards of our ancestors. We have mastered physics and have catalogued every single galaxy that ever existed and have defined the limits of the entire universe. Yet you still cling to your ancient belief.”
“You have yet to prove me wrong. We may have missed a few universes.”
“Hogwash and you know it.”
“No, because we are still human and we are still fallible.”
“But the mathematics-“
“It’s more than that.”
“How ironic that you now fall back upon faith.”
“Don’t be insulting.”
“I’m not trying to be. All I know is when I came to you so long ago, (even by our standards), when we began the search for intelligent life, you said the mathematics was irrefutable.”
“I know what I said.”
“And I said ‘what if we do not find any intelligent life, and it’s only us?’ Do you recall what you said?”
“It was hyperbole.”
“No it wasn’t. You said, and I quote: ‘Given the constancy of mathematics in the universe and that this constancy has been proven by all proof text, logic, and reason, if there is no intelligent life other than ourselves in the vastness of space, no alien race advanced or developing, and we are truly a lone intelligence, unique and alone in this vastness….”
“Go on finish it.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Will that shut you up?”
“Yes.”
“….then this is the mathematical proof God exists and we are God’s creation.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear. Come to temple with me this week end?”
“Go to Hell.”
by submission | Aug 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : David Botticello
“One last bit of business for the day,” barked the ship’s loudspeakers, “I must to inform all crew and travelers that one of our esteemed passengers is a Sunsprite. Please take all necessary precautions,” the Captain’s voice trailed off before quickly adding, “with all due respect, of course.”
Fred, one of the few Korna out this far, had never met a Sunsprite before. They’re flame spirits—near-mythical creatures born on a world too enamored of its star’s corona, who wander the universe in search of new experiences. He supposed it wasn’t exactly odd, therefore, to meet one on a passenger shuttle. Still, it was a new experience for Fred. This Sunsprite—Edwina, she called herself—almost glowed with a terrifying reddish light that filtered through the metalforme cooling vents of her otherwise formfitting encounter suit.
Some races can tolerate a star’s heat for a short time, but not many. Sentient beings are fortunate that the universe is a vast and empty place, full of dark expanses to hide from the deadly radiation shed by the stars. But Sunsprites, they love the light. Even now, as in their primitive years, they bathe in their sun’s radiation for health and leisure.
First contact with the Sunsprites saw a Tellerian ambassador incinerated by a handshake. His Colarian manservant went into a coma for weeks from radiation poisoning just by standing in the same room. They’re fearsome, flighty beings. We leave them alone, when we can.
Still, Edwina was a lovely creature. She stayed mostly to her cabin, but a few times ventured forth in one of those isolating suits of theirs. She would gaze at the star simulations in the Navigation Lab or lounge before the great window—heavily shielded of course—of the Observation Bay. Fred was able to strike up a conversation. She smiled, chatting easily as she luxuriated in the faint light of the nearest star, a dull pinpoint against the black of space.
Well, one thing led to another and, after all, a Korna of Fred’s age could survive her radiation—for a short while, at least. Alone in Fred’s cabin, she stripped off her encounter suit while Fred gazed in awe, idly wondering how much of his life he was sacrificing for the experience. She shivered for an instant at the cold of the vessel against her skin, but soon began to slink around the room, waves of warmth wafting from her body. Even as heat filled the room, and Fred muffled a choking cough, he watched Edwina inspecting his belongings curiously. A mischievous twinkle rose to her eye. The creature picked up a Fred’s largest telerometer, specially alloyed against the heat of space-travel. She inhaled a deep breath. Fred saw it coming,—he’d always say so, at least—but how do you stop a being that lives in starlight? The device was already melting in her hand when her breath coursed over it, reducing its finely-tuned parts to an ugly slag. “Oh dear,” she sighed innocently, turning to him with a sly grin. He didn’t invite her back.
But to this day, when the drinks are flowing and there’s a crowd to hear, Fred’ll tell of his encounter with a Sunsprite. “They call themselves Oomoon. We call them Lightbathers. Fire elementals. Star-children,” he’ll start. Then like as not, Fred’ll tell you about their little home planet, legendary Earth, orbiting its sun unnaturally close for any normal life to spring up. Then he’ll shake his head, muttering. No creature should enjoy the stars that way.
by submission | Aug 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“I need a short break. You,” he directed, pointing to his second. “Move the weapons to the dark side of the planet. We may be able to hold them off there if we can hide the missiles during transit.” The junior officer nodded and began sending orders to the remaining resistance troops.
As the toilet room door sealed, and the Commander moved towards a stall, he sensed someone behind him. Turning swiftly, he confronted an alien humanoid with a dozen limbs, six eyes and glistening blue skin. He stood numbed.
“We know who you are, Commander. This was an opportunity to communicate directly about your destruction.” The intruder’s face did not move. The Commander pushed his hand forward and through the hologram. The alien’s voice filled his head. He could not silence it.
“Damndest choice of locations. You obviously have no sense of honor.”
“Such trifles, Commander, when your world is to be terraformed. It’s all part of the process. Your race simply failed the test.”
“The test! Eight billion people died today. That’s no test, you filthy…”
“Ah, now that’s the spirit, but not for long. We do have one protocol, and that is to let the single resistance leader know why his race is eliminated. I think it wasteful and futile, but it is an ancient tradition. By the way, they didn’t all die. We culled the strongest and most interesting mutations. We have to repopulate the next series of planets as we try to grow improved Clots for our advancement in this sector. Your elite gave a paltry fight. We had hoped for better, still some of the samples we’ve taken will be useful. Eventually we’ll find the warrior DNA strong enough to defend our realm. We all have enemies, Commander.”
“Clots? What the hell? We’ll fight to the last person against your machines.”
“The Clots aren’t machines. They are a reflection of us combined in a half-cyborg and half-clone of the best we continue to harvest and incubate. Still, highly expendable.”
“You will pay, you monster…all of you. I’ll…”
“Do nothing, like so many before you, and like those of you on other orbs in this system. We’ll visit them all soon. Your species simply didn’t advance adequately. So boring. I’ve done my protocol. Oh, and we don’t want your genes either, Commander. They truly lack the majesty we need.” With that the holograph faded.
Disregarding his physical needs, the Commander rushed back to the control center. “Get me Geneva. I need to talk to the Hadron before Europe is exposed to the armada.”
The Junior Officer took charge of the communications array. Turning, as he waited for a reply from Switzerland, he addressed his superior. “Most of them have gone underground to the deep caves. What should I tell those left behind?”
“Just give them the code ‘Hawking.” He knew this was coming two hundred years ago. A single button is all that needs to be activated. Because of his vision we repurposed the Hadron and tied it to ten nuclear power plants. We’re done for, Major, but the outer colonies still have a chance. Let’s see how our betters feel about being beaten by a man in a wheel chair introducing them to a singularity.”
