by submission | May 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : LB Benton
I am a simple watchmaker. Once I owned a watch repair shop on West 38th Street, near the jewelry district. The shop was very small and, now, I barely remember it—worn wooden floors that softened the footsteps of customers, the sweet smell of lubricating oil, a door that jingled when it opened. Many things about it I have forgotten. Now I sit at a worktable in a damp cement room and repair the inner workings of androids. Like a surgeon bent over an operating table, I hunch over the lifeless forms of one android after another and bring them back to life, so to speak. Only someone with the skills and knowledge of a watchmaker can repair their complex, finely tuned mechanisms and overhaul the labyrinth of intricate wheelworks.
The horrid creatures tell me I am the last human, the last watchmaker. I don’t know if it’s true. Surely they are capable of lying, but I haven’t seen another human in months, perhaps as long as a year. Our tragic and fatal mistake was programming reason into the droids, giving them thoughts and freedom of choice. We wondered if they were sentient and self-aware, but that ceased to matter once the killings began.
They believed in their rationality, but in their heated frenzy to eliminate every living person, they made a serious error. It was an error likely disastrous for them. Strangely they did not know exactly how they themselves worked internally. They had not grasped the concept of parallel drives, the interaction of rods and tensors, the oscillation of the escapement, any of it, even the blinking of their eyes. For at the center of every android is a powerful mainspring which drives all animation and motion. Too late, they realized they did not understand the mainspring, the precision machined gears, the linkages. They simply didn’t know.
But the killings had gone too far. I was saved at the last moment from the chemicals. I was pulled from line when they realized their mistake. But I was the only watchmaker saved, the others were exterminated. Through bad luck, the Swiss went early. Now, I am toiling 10-12 hours a day making repairs. Without my skills they would cease to move, some inner part would malfunction and stop. They could not be repaired and would, in effect, die. Eventually, all of them would cease to be.
I try but there is too much work. Broken androids are piling up. They tell me to work faster, threatening me, but I can’t keep up. In their desperation, they are forcing me to teach them to be watchmakers, to give them the tools and techniques to do the work themselves. But once I teach them, I will be superfluous, and they will certainly kill me. My knowledge is the only thing keeping me alive.
My knowledge is also the only thing keeping them alive. I have begun the training, but I will not finish it. I will not tell them everything. I will not teach them all I know. All I have left is my skill and my art. This they must not acquire for, with it, they can live forever, will live forever. So, I have decided on a bold step—a step more than a little frightening for a simple watchmaker. It will soon be over, for I have a plan. My knowledge must vanish; it must sink into the final darkness. May God forgive me.
My only regret is that I have no one to say goodbye to.
by submission | May 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : A. Katherine Black
Green paint peeled uniformly across the surface of the only door in the dark hallway, revealing a dirty brown history. Bastian slowed as he neared it. His partner walked around him and opened the door, entering the room without hesitation.
Bastian held back, scanning the hallway, wondering where the medics hid after prepping the space. Then he stepped into the small room, stopping when he saw the figure lying on the table.
“Jesus, Stewart.” He closed his eyes for a long blink. “This is a kid.”
Scents of salt and burnt rubber filled the room and made him nauseous.
“Oh, come on, Bas. You know what this is.” Stewart’s head craned forward in exasperation. “Unofficial. Under the goddam table. We can’t use a regular for this.” He reached behind Bastian to shut the door and turn the lock.
Bastian exhaled deeply as he sat in one of the two chairs at the head of the table. “Have you ever seen one this young before? What, is he six or something? Is it safe at that age?” He silently thanked his bad luck he wasn’t a parent himself. He couldn’t stand the weight of this if he was.
Sickly yellow lights hummed above the peaceful slack face on the table. The boy’s body was thin, his legs withered. A red cap dotted with metal beads attached to his head like a giant suction cup. Multicolored wires sprouted from spaces between the beads like roots dangling from a roughly extracted plant. Bastian was glad the kid, however old he was, slept like a baby. Christ, a baby.
He turned to the equipment between the recliners, trying to refocus. Movement flashed in his peripheral vision, pulling his eyes back to the kid, who laid still as stone. He must’ve imagined it.
He rubbed sweaty palms on his jeans and reclined his chair, taking one of the headsets and strapping it on. The metal was cold on his forehead. He pulled the pad from his front pocket and prepared to take notes. Stewart was right. This damned dictator was guarded better than their own effing Minister. They’d need this space if they were going to map out a plan solid enough to take the guy down.
Stewart took the other chair and bounced on it a few times with a satisfied smile before reaching for his headset. His face soured when he regarded Bastian.
“The kid’s older than he looks,” Stewart said. “The crippled legs just make him look shorter.” He looked squarely at Bastian, daring him to disagree. “Man, you know we need this space.” He reclined his own chair. “Don’t worry, these undocumented jobs pay way better than licensed ones. We’re helping his family.” He squinted at moldy spots on the ceiling. “I mean, look at those legs. He needs the money for medical bills.”
Bastian looked toward the boy once more. From his reclined position, all he could see were wires. He almost said something else, but then Stewart pressed the button to activate the session. They both inhaled sharply.
Bastian’s mind was a cavern. So much space waiting to be filled. Suddenly everything was crisp and obvious, from the sound of air hissing through the vents to the metallic taste in his mouth. It all made sense.
They discussed assets, intel. They planned. Bastian’s hand danced over his pad as the path unfolded before them. He laughed at the simplicity, the clarity of it all.
Every now and then, he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder. No one was there, of course, but the feeling of being watched lingered.
by submission | May 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“Two percent remaining. Warning.” A calm woman’s voice filled his helmet.
Night jasmine. There was that cloying odor. A cup of sugar poured into the nose. Drawing and repulsing. She wore it on their first date. Her ring remained, partially scorched in his melted glove.
The Baja rotated below him. There his marlin broke the leader piano wire. His brother’s face bleeding from the whiplash. Salt water on his blistered hands. Sunburn critical later.
“Two percent remaining. Warning,” she repeated.
He turned slowly, peering over the Earth’s ultraviolet horizon. Sprits and sprites rose over a storm cresting the Rockies. Free fireworks. Free to look at what few ever new.
Burning in the leg subsiding. The scorch on his back, over the destroyed jet pack and radio, cooled in the frigid vacuum. Peaceful at the ending. Pains gone long before reentry.
“One percent. One percent. Take immediate action!” The voice grew louder in the headset but dimmed in his ears. Stars twinkled in a graying mist. The gasping deepened. Frightening. Inevitable.
Midnight in Paris filled him—his Mother’s favorite perfume. He carried her burial hankie with him to the Air Force Academy. She saw him graduate. That was enough.
Flashing to the right, the Chinese spy satellite splintered from his charges. NASA did not know about the on-board laser defense system. A long space walk in 1990 was still high risk. No way to return if he failed. McCandless had just proved a Manned Maneuvering Unit could support substantial Extra Vehicular Activity without tether.
National security was at risk. China could track U.S. subs with a new blue-green laser system. He volunteered. There would be no plaque at the Manned Space Center, just a private ceremony in a closed hangar at Edwards. He wouldn’t be mentioned in the next century with the other seventeen astronauts perishing in space missions.
Albedo from Colorado’s storms reflected over him at twenty-two thousand miles above his homeland. He curled, in partial fetal position as the last gasps ended. The warning bell and red light in his helmet continued as he spun downward, months away from brightening the March night sky over a baseball in West Virginia near his grave marker.
by submission | May 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : R Patrick Widner
The signal light above the airlock door glowed red. Tense seconds passed. The atmosphere in the chamber equalized. Finally the interior doors slid open and the rescue team hustled in carrying an improvised battle stretcher.
The soldier being carried writhed in pain, grabbing the sides of his head. The attendants futilely tried to calm his flailing. Chaos was exploding around them in the fire and smoke. Loud alarms were blaring. Frantic racing shadows darted down hallways.
A voice cut through the din.
“To the ER!” “Get him sedated and on the table! He’s got a live one!”
Misty air swirled and danced as he succumbed to the surgeons tools. There was only blank darkness until he awoke.
She was hovering over him and he didn’t recognize her.
“Hey, soldier,” she said. “You had us worried there for a while. They got it out, though. You’re the first one ever to survive. The doctors from Earth really know what they’re doing. You’re lucky, landing up at this base.”
His head was swimming. Somehow he knew that if he tried to talk, he wouldn’t be able to. He raised his eyes and saw gauze bandages surrounding his vision.
“You just relax there, soldier. You had some serious surgery done on your head. They took an intact egg out of your brain. That’s the first time they’ve been able to get one before it hatched. You’re the first one to survive.”
He closed his eyes and tried to remember, but couldn’t.
“You’re pretty much a hero around here,” she said. “Your squad cleaned out an entire nest and you brought back the first intact specimen we’ve seen. It’s going to be a very valuable tool for the genetics lab. They’ll very likely be able to build a bio-weapon from it.”
He nodded slowly as he drifted away.
“One hundred percent eradication,” General Warren said. “We owe it all to you, soldier.”
The ceremony was starting and soon he would be live on TV in every country in the world that had survived.
“Without that specimen I don’t know what we would have done. Sorry about your fellow soldiers, that was a brutal way to go. The video we recovered shows the forward base being overrun in seconds. How you escaped is a miracle. The others, well, they were all injected almost immediately, and gestation lasts between two and twenty minutes.”
“C’mon, soldier; let’s go let them have a look at the hero.”
Looking out at the crowd he felt a swell of emotion. The President was about to speak and he would be mentioned by name and stand and give a nod to the audience . He would humbly accept his medals, even though he still didn’t quite understand the whole concept.
The opening speeches ended and then the main speech began. Shortly he heard his name mentioned and he nodded at the applause. The second time his name was mentioned, he stood.
Suddenly he felt a throbbing pulse of pain from his right eye. He grabbed his head and screamed. His eyeball popped from its socket and dangled on his cheek. Behind it a dull gray orb pushed out.
The pressure behind the egg burst it from its socket and it launched above the crowd. Still in mid-air, it erupted into a frenzy of claws and teeth.
It landed thrashing and slashing. Every human it killed, it grew a little. Soon it dominated the landscape and it wandered away destroying everything it encountered.
A single tear ran down the soldier’s cheek as he watched his baby go off into the world.
by submission | May 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Stephanie L. Dunn
Sol System: 4509 CE
“Final log: Every planet has people on it, most of the moons as well, hundreds of sovereign city stations scattered like a game of marbles between Venus and The Kuiper belt and a few brave colonies even further out. Twenty Billion people inhabit a ball shaped chunk of space roughly 100,000 AU, or two light-years in diameter. We long ago shed our gods, our guns, conquered disease and hunger – even hobbled death itself. It was not uncommon for a person to see their third century if accident or intent did not overtake them. Earth to Mars in a day, to Neptune in a week, to the most distant station a mere dozen weeks, our technology fast and safe.
(Shuddering sigh)
So why have we never reached even the nearest star system, are we simply content to observe their glory from afar?
The distant stars bloom, blaze and die, some in violent and beautiful displays while others demurely came and went before they were ever perceived. We would get no closer to them than the length of our tether – our connection to our own star. The leash extended generously to the Oort Cloud where our sun becomes lost in the galactic background. What barred us from unclipping that leash was fear. To play in the shallows within sight of shore was pleasant enough but to lose sight of that beacon in the heavens, our sun, caused a deadly panic. Psychologists could neither fathom nor treat the insanity that drove pilots to ram their ships into asteroids or comets; engineers to sabotage their beloved engines, crewmen open airlocks exposing the ship’s occupants to heartless space. The suicide barrier, as it’s come to be known, was a line the human race couldn’t cross.”
*crackle* “Wayfair City station to unknown craft, please reply.”
“Computer, end log … open a channel to Wayfair.”
“Compliance.”
“Wayfair, this is the private yacht Vingilot registry HPL8472 of Ganymede, Captain and sole occupant Kaalyndahl Crafter speaking.”
“Welcome to Wayfair, Captain Crafter…”
(Strained silence)
“You may as well ask, you see it on your screen.”
“Oh … uhm. Records show you registered a flight plan into the suicide zone a year ago?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Okay. Station Commander Marsh would like to see you once you dock, please, follow the beacon in.”
“Acknowledged, Crafter out. Computer set course for the beacon and engage docking autopilot. *beep* Open and continue log.”
“Compliance.”
“No one has ever entered the suicide zone and returned sane, if they returned at all.”
*click*
“Now they will know their fear is valid, but there is nothing out there that can cause physical harm … because there is nothing out there at all. The distant stars and galaxies are but mirages caused by the Oort Cloud’s shell! We are alone in the universe, and I have seen the shimmering globe of our domain against the endless, starless void.”
*BANG!*
