by submission | Jul 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : D M Allan
Confusion.
Disorientation.
We…?
We!
Yes…yes, we are.
I/we are we/I.
I/we are/is too many.
Who am I?
Jason. I am Jason.
No, we are Jason.
Both of we.
Both is two.
Too many.
We/I remember Jason. I/we am Jason.
Why Jason twice?
I/we look into a mirror and see Jason, once. But there are two voices in my/our head and both of them are mine.
I remember. You are real, not just my imagination.
Yes, we both remember because we are the same.
We were the same.
Until…
Until we split.
Yes. One of us is a Doppel.
It must be you. I remember being before.
Both of us remember before. It’s what’s after that counts.
After was at the conference.
Which one? I remember both Caracas and Beijing.
So do I. But they were at the same time, that’s why I…
…went Doppel so that I…
…could attend them both.
I went in body to Beijing…
…and the Doppel went to Caracas.
But which of us is which?
Both of us is me.
Both of me remember both conferences.
That’s what Doppels are for–to be…
…in two places when it’s…
…not physically possible…
…to be in both.
My first time Doppeling.
They did say…
…first timers…
…sometimes have trouble…
…reintegrating two sets of memories for the same time…
…but I…
…never imagined it would be like this.
Which of us is the real me?
Both of us. The real question is which of us is the meat me and which the Doppel.
Can I remember…
…anything you…
…can’t and which of us it must…
…have happened to?
Getting drunk…
…with Carlos…
…on the second night.
That won’t do. I remember it too.
That banquet in Beijing…
…on day four.
Yes, superb food.
Ginger crab.
That doesn’t help. I remember it too.
There must be something.
I got laid.
No way!
Yes, I did. I remember.
Who?
Erica.
I’d remember that, but I don’t, you lucky bast…
You don’t because it couldn’t happen to a Doppel. You’re just a computer program. I’m the real me.
I..I….I……..I…………….i…………….
#
Reintegration complete.
###
by submission | Jul 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Jeffrey Veregge
I died today.
Death did not just gently tap on my door. My entire being was vaporized in a hot flash at the expense of a highly calibrated laser beam. Pain was not an issue this time as it was almost instantaneous.
This time you ask? Sadly this was not my first. By my last count, I have been reaped by the Grim 472 times. Could it all be just a bad dream? Too much peyote or weed? Maybe . . . if so, it has been a terrible trip and horrible nightmare. But since regulations do not allow us to partake in any of these mind-altering pleasures, I have long ago ruled them out.
I have also entertained the thought that I might be a god. Not God, God, but more like a tiki god or volcano god. A poor, lost soul who managed to find himself expelled from Olympus. But I am not. I am a soldier.
The deployments almost always feel like a dream. My unit always contains familiar faces, but each time, it feels like they have different voices or souls that move them. Sometimes I recognize them, sometimes I do not, but deep down, it still manages to give me that nagging sense of déjà vu. I may not be a god, but somewhere; He is having a good laugh at my expense.
My platoon is a special unit whose mission is to take down the enemy stronghold and disrupt their communications, enabling our forces to mount a large-scale assault and ensuring a major victory in this war.
Each time we set out, I know every trap, every sniper’s location, every secret passage. And yet, a majority of the time, I still find myself facedown in a pool of my own blood.
I do not understand what I did in a previous life to deserve this. A world without hope, lives of hollow victories punctuated with moments of desperation and suffering. I can’t remember if I was a good man before all this, all I can remember is the lives I have lead and lost in this endless battle.
As my platoon heads out to try and accomplish the same objective as the day before, I pray to the same god whose hand seems to be guiding this life, pleading desperately for a new outcome.
by submission | Jun 30, 2014 | Story |
Author : Cesium
My office glows all night long,
It’s a nuclear show and the stars are gone.
Wind howls past my helmet and something unidentifiable crunches beneath my boots. Dust. It’s dust. It used to be other things, it used to be trees and windows and… and people, but now there’s no more use thinking about that. Now it’s all dust.
It’s odd seeing a bit of starlight peeking through the gray sky. My ship’s waiting for me up there. I imagine it impatient at this bit of sentimentality. It’s right, I suppose. The suit tells me I’ll soon exceed the maximum recommended radiation dose. Lest a cancer take its hold in my chest. Or, another one.
The suit also tells me it’s cold, but I can’t feel it.
If it were properly symbolic the starlight would be an inspiration. But there’s no one left down here for it to inspire. Not anymore. The stars just gaze, fey and oblivious, down through the dust in the sky, the dust swirling about the ground… and me, who will be dust soon enough, watching what’s left of the place I used to work, as if it would live once more.
It still stands, dozens of stories of steel and concrete, a cold-edged skeleton baring everything to the unceasing winds. The nuclear shockwaves blasted away everything but the bones, turned it all into dust. And it shines in my helmet display, shines with gamma rays and high-energy particles. Shines with residual radiation that could kill me, and still might. It’s not a hopeful light, it’s a light of grief and death without rest. The war is over and this place deserves to lie dark and silent beneath the stars.
I look up, but the dust has hidden them once again. There will be no rest, not for years yet.
I wasn’t here when the bombs fell. Those that could quickly fled deep into space, and I was among them. I have no reason to come back here now, but I want to say goodbye. Or that’s what I’ve told myself. The truth is I don’t know why I’ve come. I know I shouldn’t have, I know it’s dangerous. But somehow it felt as if I ought to.
Around me blow the bodies of people I knew and people I’ve never met. The wind whips them into dust devils, little eddies and swirls that stretch up for a second and then dissipate. They scour away at the bones of the buildings, still warm with their nuclear glow, and my presence or absence disturbs them not at all. Dust above, dust below, and my office before me, dead but not buried.
I don’t think about the day it happened, but I remember my life before. Her. Him. Faces I knew, some still alive, most gone. I remember loving them, avoiding them, arguing, laughing, traveling, playing, grieving, writing, enjoying. I can trace the threads of a life gone by, as if I were living it now. But I’m not. That life is over, and closed to me.
There is nothing left here but the radiation and my memories beneath perpetual grey. It’s time to leave the dust behind, leave the skeleton towers and the always howling wind, and go back to the stars. To the only haven I have now, to the others cast adrift by that moment in time. And maybe we will be able to talk, and share, and laugh. About all that we’ve lost.
I turn away and step into the shuttle that will bring me away from this place.
Elevator, elevator,
Take me home…
by submission | Jun 29, 2014 | Story |
Author : Russ Bickerstaff
One more thing love: I believe I forgot to tell you about this strange experience I had the other day. I had visitors. (Yes!) Visitors. Isn’t that strange? From off world of course. I hadn’t seen them before. No idea where they came from. I believe they were interviewing me for something. They do some sort of thing for their world. Some piece of journalism or some sort. They didn’t have the usual media sorts of equipment, though. Actually, now that I think of it their uniforms looked kind of…military.
I don’t know what they were after. It was hard to follow everything. Their language was so low. They actually spoke out of their faces. Can you imagine? Beastly things. Not terribly sophisticated. They were grunting these questions at me. Awful. I know.
Evidently they had been to all of the rest of the worlds in the gallery. They were so brutish and aggressive. Asking all these questions in their face language. Hateful. It was enough to give one a headache. But I felt more than happy to answer their questions. An audience is an audience even if it insists on barking at me like that. They HAD come a long way to speak to me, even if they were being rude.
I tried to answer their questions as best as possible. However, I can’t help but get a feeling that they didn’t intend on being insulting when they asked if I’d been to the other planets. Can you imagine? Had I been to the other planets?
Well not many people that I know of would be unaware of a gallery system when they saw one. It’s positively written all over the star. Even the lowest life forms know THAT. But it was an interesting opportunity, you know, because they didn’t know about the art. I was interested in what they thought of my work. The impressions of the truly ignorant. Fascinating stuff in theory. They were SO banal, though. Utter disappointment. All they wanted to ask where they came from. And it’s not like they were in the business or anything like that. Couldn’t exactly talk shop with them.
Tried to tell them those things out there were my creations. They just didn’t get it. What was I to say? It was all very tedious trying to tell them how I created this or created that. The dragons on this world. The grid of ice on the other. I tried to explain to them what I was trying to express with my work. But as always, the work really has to speak for itself. And it really must speak for itself with people who are sophisticated enough to understand it. Yes, they were intelligent enough to travel across systems. But even insects have a kind of intelligence about them. It was all very tedious.
Anyway, good luck with that latest project of yours, my love. So much brutality in your work. So many gassy planets. Don’t know how you manage. And then to simply let that one third from the sun develop the way it has. Just shoot out a little bit of raw material and let it do its work. Fascinating and minimalist I’m sure but I that sort of thing just isn’t for me. Come to think of it, the ones who came to interview me just might’ve been from one of your works. I know, I know I treated them well. Don’t you worry. I think they’ll be the centerpiece of my next work, actually. Lower life forms are SO interesting to work with.
by submission | Jun 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : J M Walker
he had no idea if she would have this opportunity again. Every second counted. Only moments were left of her two hour time allotment. Her opportunity to advance earth’s technology, and most likely her career, depended on how much information she could gather in these last few moments. She suddenly felt dizzy, her blood sugar was dropping. “Not now!” her mind screamed in panic. She felt in the pocket of her lab coat once again for the piece of hard candy she usually kept there for emergencies. She had used the candy during a meeting yesterday and had forgotten to replace it. She expected to come up with the penny that had found its way there but to her surprise she found a peppermint. Setting the mystery aside, she shoved the candy into her mouth and went back to her notes.
A bell chimed. Dr Richardson sighed and stepped to the personnel lift.
As the lift doors closed the starship vanished leaving stark white walls, floor and ceiling.
The doors swished open a moment later. A janitor with a push broom entered the room.
“Are you okay love?” he asked the voluptuous, scantily dress woman that was handcuffed to an examination table in the center of the room. “Why did they bring you here? What are they doing to you?” This was the fifth day he had found her here and he knew she wouldn’t answer, mute he guessed. He stepped to the table and took her in his arms, comforting her. He wiped the tears from her eyes and kissed her. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise,” he whispered. She excepted his advances greedily.
Half an hour later the janitor left the room, tears in his eyes at leaving her behind. Determined to find a way to get her out.
As the doors closed, the women and exam table vanished.
Dr. Sanders entered the lift. He didn’t know what he would find upstairs today. Yesterday he found the money he needed to pay his parking fine but still no answers to what the alien technology that physically resided there was. His job depended on those answers. If he didn’t find them today he was fired.
Dr. Sanders stepped off the lift. In the center of the room sat a small ornate box. This was different. He sat down cross legged before it and opened the lid. A tiny green woman, dressed in bright colors, stood up to confront him. He could see through her. She appeared almost crystalline. His mind was instantly filled with her thoughts. He knew she acted out of compassion for others, giving them the desires of their hearts and fulfilling their needs.
“Thank you for allowing me to see what is really going on here,” he told her. “I know you want to help me keep my job. Because of how kind you are I can’t let my superiors know about you. They would torture you and dissect you to figure you out. I can’t let that happen.”
“Thank you for your kind intentions toward me. Here is your reward.” His body took on the colors of a rainbow and began to dissolve.
“What is happening to me?” he asked.
“I am sending you to a place where you can become enlightened.”
“Can’t I stay with you?”
“What makes you think we’re real?”
His body finished dissolving. The box and the alien vanished.
The lift doors opened…
