by submission | Mar 10, 2015 | Story |
Author : David Atos
The man was sitting at Donald Thompson’s kitchen table when he got home, reading a file.
“Right on time, Mister Thompson.”
Donald jumped back against the wall in alarm.
“Who are you, and how the hell did you get into my apartment?” he shouted.
“I suppose the short answer is that I am a Time Agent, and I got here by time travel.”
“Time travel?”
“Technically, we’re supposed to call it the Quantum Entanglement C-P-T Modulation Transfer, but that’s quite a mouthful. Time travel.”
Donald let out a single barking laugh. “And I suppose you’re here because I’m going to become a horrible serial killer, and you’re going to stop me before I can claim my first victim?”
“Oh, no, Mister Thompson. Donald. Don, if I may? Quite the opposite. You’ve lived a life that is, overall, full of kindness. You’re not a criminal. And even if you were, I couldn’t come back here to kill you.” He shook his head, “No, Don, I’m here because you’re about to die.”
“What?”
“That’s right, Don.” The man consulted the file and his watch. “In twelve minutes’ time, a small aneurysm in the motor cortex of your brain will rupture. Your downstairs neighbour will hear you fall and come up to investigate. The ambulance will take you to the hospital, but the doctors won’t be able to help you. You’ll persist in a vegetative state for five hundred twenty three days, sixteen hours, and thirty two minutes, then pass away. It’s all here in your file.” He slid the folder across the table towards Donald.
Donald snatched at the file. The front page was a cranial MRI. His name on it, and a date two days from now. In the middle of the image was an ugly solid white stain. Donald sat heavily down on the chair opposite the intruder.
“So, are you here to save me, then?”
The man in the white coat smiled ruefully. “I am truly sorry, Don. I’m not here for that either. Time is . . . not robust. It cannot heal changes. The ripples, the perturbations, they expand exponentially. We cannot kill those who deserve to die, nor can we save those who deserve to live.”
“You can’t kill people, you can’t save people. Why are you even here?”
The Time Agent stood up, and began pacing. “All that we can do, Don, is offer . . . small mercies. An extra styrette of morphine for the soldier bleeding out on the battlefield. A few words of love carried from a husband to his dying wife. We help — where we can. For you, we can offer . . . oblivion.” He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a single clear capsule, filled with tiny red and white balls.
“Oblivion?” asked Donald, confusion in his voice.
“Yes, Don. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The ruptured aneurysm destroys your motor cortex, but the rest of your brain remains completely undamaged. You remain fully aware for all five hundred twenty three days, sixteen hours, and thirty two minutes. And, again, I’m sorry, in significant pain the entire time.”
“But . . . but, you said you can’t kill me either.”
“No, Don. We can’t. This pill,” he holds up the capsule, “is nothing more than a measured dose of Aspirin. A blood thinner. If you take this pill, the bleeding in your brain will be ever so slightly worse. Not only will your motor cortex be destroyed, there will also be irreparable damage to your cerebrum. Your body will continue to live, but your consciousness, your sense of self, that will be gone the instant you drop to the floor in,” he glances again at his watch, “seven and one-half minutes.”
“So, that’s the choice you’re giving me? Take this pill, and instead of a year and a half of agony, I just pop straight off to Heaven?”
The man in the white coat laughed. “Oh, Don! If only we could answer that question for you. For all of our advances, we still don’t know what happens to the consciousness, to the soul, after death. A dozen dozen religions argue just as passionately about that in the future as they do now. I can’t offer you any assurances, Don. I can only offer you a chance to avoid suffering.”
Donald slammed the file sitting in front of him and stood up, pointing an accusatory finger at the stranger. “Why should I believe you at all? Huh? You’re just some guy who got into my apartment somehow!”
“Well, it’s a bit like Pascal’s wager, isn’t it?” replied the stranger. “If I’m lying, all you’ve done is taken some painkillers. But if I’m telling the truth . . . Look, I’ll even make it simpler. If you don’t trust this pill,” he placed the capsule on the table, “you need to take two extra strength Aspirins. But you’ll have to hurry. You are running out of time.”
Donald slumped down into the chair at his kitchen table again. He stared mutely at the file in front of him. Slowly, he reached out and picked up the capsule.
The stranger walked around the table and sat next to Donald, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t promise you much, Don. But I can promise you this: You won’t die alone.”
Donald lifted the capsule for a closer look, and inspected the tiny printing on the side. Two words, in simple, black lettering:
small mercies
by submission | Mar 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
The old man watched red-orange dust rise from the trail. Perks of living up on this promontory, only one way to come in. He filled his pipe again and leaned back in the rocking chair. The visitor would be here soon enough.
The visitor dismounted his hoverbike and strode up to the porch. He pulled off the rebreather and pushed the goggles away from his eyes before addressing the old man.
“Are you Packard?”
“Might be. Who’s asking?”
“I represent the board of Maxicorp United.”
“Hm.” Packard recognized the logo, though back in is day the company didn’t have the scratch to send someone all the way out here. Part of the reason he’d picked this planet.
“Yes, it seems there was an irregularity when you abruptly left the company. Twenty years ago, it says. A sizable chunk of money disappeared right around the time you quit.”
“Do I look like I have a ‘sizable chunk of money’ to you?”
“Well, no, not really. But our intelligence division tracked you down to this planet. Your homestead is the only one I found on this continent.”
“Intelligence division? Lordy, my old bosses have been busy. You seem like a nice kid, so I won’t waste your time.” The visitor’s face lit up.
“So you’ll tell me what happened to the money? I can file the report right away and…”
“There’s no money left, son.”
“I don’t understand. What did you do with it?”
“Look around you. I made a ‘sizable’ real estate purchase.”
“This planet?”
“Now you’re catching on. Reminded me of Mars, where I grew up. Plus it was far away from the likes of you. At least it used to be.”
“Maxicorp United will have to repossess this planet, in addition to anything else you may have purchased with the stolen funds.”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry, what? If you don’t surrender any property that rightfully belongs to Maxicorp United, we will be forced to take drastic measures.”
“Hm.” Packard was getting tired. He wasn’t young like he used to be. This visitor was boring him. Packard slowly reached into his pocket and clicked a button on a remote. Seconds later there was only a pile of ash where the visitor had stood.
A flock of battle drones rose around the house, waiting for their next instructions. Real estate wasn’t the only thing Packard had bought. He looked forward to the next visit from the company.
by submission | Mar 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
The sand got everywhere.
Lieutenant Sawyer cursed her luck. Others from her Academy class had postings all over the galaxy, on exotic planets and flashy space stations. Only she was stuck here on this assignment.
Aurelia IV was her home for the foreseeable future. Its nickname was ‘The Beach’, but no beach Sawyer had ever visited hosted Aurelia’s killer sandstorms, boiling temperatures, and obstinate insurgents.
Aurelia’s colonial government had been overthrown in a bloody coup. Now the Sawyer and the other marines had reestablished order in a few large cities, but the outlying areas remained unsecured. Countless patrols through rural towns and villages did nothing to improve their situation, though each mission did seem to require a blood toll from the marines passing through.
The locals always unnerved Sawyer when she marched through their homes. They’d stare at her and the other marines with dark, sunken eyes. The eyes told one story; submission. These were not insurgents. Those “freedom fighters” lived in caves out in the desert, not in the towns.
There was one villager, in one nameless cluster of mud huts, who Sawyer couldn’t get out of her mind. A boy, or a man really, with startlingly blue eyes. Through the visor of her power armor those eyes jumped out at Sawyer. There was fire in those eyes.
Sawyer spotted those eyes half concealed in the shade of an alleyway during the next sweep of the village. She broke from the column to investigate.
Down the alley and around a corner, through the back streets of the village the boy with the blue eyes was always just out of reach. Finally he ducked into a hut and she followed him.
Even their bedrooms were sandy, Sawyer noted with disdain. When this assignment was over she never wanted to see sand again. The blue eyes hung there in the gloom, boring into her.
Those eyes proved more adept at getting past power armor than any insurgent’s IED. Soon Sawyer was stepping out of her shell, feeling truly vulnerable for the first time in months. The eyes appeared to glow in the dim hut interior. As they approached Sawyer could swear the two bright blue orbs grew, until they dominated her vision.
Sawyer let out a small gasp at his thrust. Then there was warmth. Wetness. She smelled iron, and tasted it too. As Sawyer’s vision faded, the last thing she saw was those two bright blue eyes, shining in triumph.
by submission | Mar 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Joe Essid
The air felt greasy as Shane climbed off his Harley into a tropical Virginia July evening.
Even shirtless, in ruined jeans and a leather vest, Shane felt clammy. Only the wind, all the way from Leavenworth and freedom, had kept him from melting.
Above him The Grateful Dead boomed from an apartment’s stereo. A little chill shook him, a cool draft and a spear of light far brighter than the glare off the windshield of a parked GTO nearby.
Laughter slipping over the music helped him shake off the spooky chill. He looked up at curtains in an Arabesque print.
Ignoring sly looks from a couple of lovely coeds, Shane mounted the cement steps and opened the building’s front door. He took his sweet time, engineer’s boots thudding. Maybe Carla would hear them, but he doubted it over Phil Lesh’s hypnotic bass line.
An icy breeze tickled Shane’s back between the top of his vest and the hair growing long again. He smelled disinfectant, saw another spear of light, shuddered for a moment.
He threw open Carla’s door.
The warm haze of music and pot smoke was dense. For a moment, no one noticed. Then a man’s voice, warped by his buzz, croaked out “It’s Shane!” He came for a bear hug, but Shane put out a hand and looked for her.
Two years had changed nothing. She swayed toward him with a tinkling of the many bangles and a swishing of a gypsy’s skirt over the tops of her bare feet. Her exposed midriff flashed at him.
“Like that belly jewel, Carla.” A bad first line, but she hugged Shane until the air left him, as the others watched, stoned and amused.
She whipped off his aviator sunglasses, her long blonde hair framing his face for a kiss.
“You owe me a dance, Shane. C’mon.” Someone put The Stones’ Exile on Main Street on the turntable and, as if on cue, set the needle down on “Torn and Frayed.”
Carla led, as any Queen would at a ball. She twirled her man around.
“You were framed, but now you’re home.” She whispered into his ear as they swayed. “You won’t leave again, lover?”
“Never,” Shane answered. “Never.”
They kissed again. And the air grew very cold.
Shane sat up, nutrient tubes and Dream wires jangling in a plastic echo of Carla’s bangles. Beside him, evacuation tubes removed piss and shit.
He struggled up, looking across the ward to the other Dreamers, all smiling with eyes closed. Which of them was at the party? Was a woman named Carla there? What algorithm brought them together?
Shane’s liver-spotted hand quivered over the Dream wires, now crimped under his body.
“Mr. DuBois needs a reboot, Padmini.”
A dark-skinned woman with kindly eyes was already reaching for him.
“Just light off the parking lot,” she said, adjusting a heavy window shade to block a spear of whiteness reflecting off a slab of pavement. For just a second, Shane glimpsed hazy air and dead tree trunks beyond the glistening shells of the ground cars.
“Shane, You tugged your Dream wires loose. I’ll turn you, then back to the fun. I’ve been watching your party” She kissed his paper-thin forehead, where only a few white hairs remained. “Bad boy. She’s there, waiting.”
Padmini ignored Shane’s feeble protests and eased the Dream out from under him. With hands as strong as Carla’s she twirled him back into a grateful sleep.
“Wish I’d lived then.” She cut sad eyes toward the drawn shades.
Carla pulled Shane close again.
by submission | Mar 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Decater Collins
Two years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to afford such a house. Debra didn’t like thinking about before.
“We can afford it now. That’s all that should matter.”
“You’re not worried about it being too remote?”
“Look at this bay window.”
The house was lovely. A dream home, the brochure said. Get it while it’s still here.
“Okay, we’ll buy it.” Stephen reached for his checkbook then remembered no one took checks anymore. He grabbed his phone instead.
Debra huddled excitedly with the agent, forcing Stephen to wander his new house alone. He’d never owned anything so expensive before. But then again, money didn’t mean what it used to.
They agreed on minimal decoration. The fewer possessions the better, at this point. Stephen was reading a new bestseller on the Buddhist rejection of attachment. All Debra said she needed was a television.
“Does that mean you don’t need me?” They both laughed awkwardly.
“Stop teasing, silly.” But he noticed she didn’t contradict him.
Every week, Debra came home with a different car. She said her old ones kept slipping but Stephen wondered if that were true. He knew a thing or two about statistics and, though it was possible she was just incredibly unlucky with her car choices, the scientists kept saying that everything was random. Debra’s cars shouldn’t be more likely to slip than anyone else’s. If anything, these days it seemed there were more cars than people. He wished she’d pick a car and keep it. At least for a month. Some consistency would help him pretend that everything was normal.
Stephen brought home a dog from next door. “The neighbors slipped.”
“As long as you clean up all the poop,” was Debra’s only comment on the matter. She had never liked dogs, even before.
“Maybe I won’t have to if it just slips.” She gave him a look that said she didn’t appreciate the joke.
“Just make sure you clean it up, okay?”
They’d lived in the house about six months when the foundation slipped. Sometimes it was hard to know where the boundaries were. One page out of a book might slip, or an entire city block, like what had happened in Florida. At the office, he’d heard about a guy who’d lost just one eye, but otherwise was fine.
The house was no good without the foundation, so they picked up and moved next door. Except there was no bed, just a bunch of sofas. Debra and Checkers didn’t seem to mind.
“Why are you always so hung up on everything? At least we haven’t slipped.”
“Aren’t you scared?” He’d never asked her about it before. He wasn’t frightened of her answer so much as her asking him in return.
“A little. What if it hurts? What if only a part of me slips? What’s it going to be like on the other side?”
“The scientists still don’t know if there is another side.”
“I read they are sure. They just don’t know if we’ll survive the slip or not.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m scared I’m going to be the last one to slip. I don’t think I could stand being here alone.”
The next day, Debra didn’t come home. He tried calling her phone but the number was out of service. He knew she was probably just tired of being with him, the same way she got tired of a new car in less than a week, but it was easier to tell people that she’d slipped.
With Checkers around, he didn’t miss her so much.
