by submission | Mar 26, 2013 | Story |
Author : Aaron Koelker
I had eaten a ham sandwich the morning we found God. It wasn’t exactly the foundation of great literature. Perhaps they would write in a great feast and how our crew was a likable bunch both humble and imperfect. You know, a “twelve apostles” sort of crew, all dedicated to our own view of a higher power. Which wasn’t too far from the truth. We were a pretty diverse crew, and whether it was planned that way or just poor luck I’ll never know.
The creature that floated before our bow was certainly god-like in scope, but little else. It looked like a planetoid gourd covered in warts and veins, gently pulsing in sync with the starry background.
“My God…” the co-pilot gasped, her eyes wide.
“Which one you talking to?” the engineer laughed.
“That thing is a monstrosity,” the co-pilot finished.
The engineer made way for the coffee machine, smiling to himself. “I don’t know”, he said. “I find it sort of humbling.”
The head science officer walked into the room.
“Well, the scanners confirm it,” he said. “That thing is expelling organic matter in every direction. A spore-like vessel; just like the ones we’ve been finding.” He stopped in front of the forward port and gazed upon the beast. “We’ll need more time to derive its age, composition, metabolism…and of course its origin.”
“The Panspermians are going to go nuts,” I said.
The science officer turned toward me.
“Granted we can prove it’s really the source.”
“Everything we’ve collected and studied; all the sleuth-work has brought us to this place. This backwater space on the edge of nowhere.” I paused as I watched the creature, not yet sure what to think of it, only that it existed. “It has to be.”
“We should leave it,” said the co-pilot. “We should get out of here. That thing,” spoken with the utmost disgust, “wasn’t meant to be found.”
“Oh don’t get all prophetic on us,” said the engineer. “Why the fuck would you sign onto this expedition?”
“I don’t know. But it wasn’t to find that.”
I saw her discreetly twiddling with the bracelet she wore under her sleeve, the one bearing the sign of her faith. She had shown it to me the night before.
“Where are the other three?” I asked.
“In their cabins, I believe.”
I left and found the medical officer sitting on his bunk, the door to his cabin ajar. There was a thick book in his hands from which he read aloud, fast and mumbling.
“You alright in here?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. I waited a moment longer before leaving to find the other two science officers. They weren’t in the lab, so I figured they must’ve been down in the cargo hold, looking over the collected spore samples.
The hold was dark, and upon entering a sharp acrid smell filled my nose.
“Anybody in here?” I called.
No answer. I ventured toward the back where the samples were kept. There, half-wedged onto the bottom shelf, was a makeshift chemical bomb thrown together with spare parts and lab supplies. A puddle of leaked fluid slicked the metal floor.
Beside the bomb lay one of the science officers, a long stain of blood running down his collar. In one hand he held a scalpel and the other a metal charm strung on a silver chain. I recognized the symbol; an extremist cult. One that lead a world power and over two billion people through its strict law; one that couldn’t afford to have that law grow fallacious.
Perhaps we hadn’t found God after all.
by submission | Mar 25, 2013 | Story |
Author : Isla Kay
We still thought about it. Dreamt about it. The idea would never escape us. Even if we’d never lived it.
I had been folding Kyle’s socks when I started hearing newscasts from the telesurfaces in the kitchen. A man had been found. He’d been living in Tazmania. His mother had kept him a secret when she started to realize, for fear he’d be hounded. But he wanted to be known, so he’d left for Sydney to claim his immediate idol status. The only man.
Since contamination (all that estrogen to curb the population coming back to haunt us), fewer and fewer males had become able to reach adolescence, until there were none—not a single man left.
The man on the telesurfaces was tall and had a deep voice. If there was only to be one, he was a good one. I picked up the astracom to call Jada next door, but my shaking hands dropped it into the washtube where it was surely sucked into the spin cycle. A man. I couldn’t look away. If there was one, there could be others.
When Kyle came home from school, he didn’t say a word.
‘So you’ve heard?’ I asked him.
‘Duh,’ he replied, sitting at the counter for his snack.
Since the extinction, boy-husbands were appointed to all women. Usually the son of a neighbor, sometimes shipped from overseas. The boy-husbands would fulfill the former duties of men as best they could—yard work, repairs, lifting. It was the best arrangement, given the situation.
The boy-husbands weren’t happy about it either. They didn’t want mother-wives nagging them endlessly. They wanted to be out playing cyball. But it was their duty to at least try to fill the men’s shoes. They would even donate sperm, since sexual contact between mother-wives and boy-husbands was appropriately prohibited. They were children after all. Although sometimes, a woman did look for love in the wrong places. The boys were helpful in the face of hardship. Of course, often the women took on many of the men’s former duties. Boys could only do so much.
‘You probably think you have a shot with this clown,’ Kyle said, finishing his grapejuice.
‘And I suppose you think you have a chance of…’ I stopped mid-sentence. ‘It’s possible,’ I decided, excited for Kyle. ‘I just hope they don’t lock him up in a lab to find out how he got this way.’
‘He’s probably a jerk,’ Kyle said, hopping down from the counter. ‘And if he isn’t now, he will be.’
Sometimes the boy-husbands thought of themselves as men, acted like men so convincingly that it made the women think twice, but usually, they stuck to what they were good at—being boys.
‘Can I go play outside?’ Kyle asked.
I messed up his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Of course, sweetie. Don’t forget your coat.’
Poor Kyle. He’d always wanted to be a good boy-husband, but he knew he would never be enough. ‘I scored eighty points yesterday,’ he beamed, putting on his hood.
I kissed his soft cheek. Boys and men—as different as men and women. ‘That’s amazing, honey. Be home before dark.’
Watching him run into the street, I wondered if he were a man, if I’d worry about him less or more.
More images of the man appeared through the frosted glass on the counter, the walls, the mirrors. I sat and stared, but the celebration quickly became sad. The only thing worse than not having something, knowing that it exists, but you will still probably never have it.
by submission | Mar 24, 2013 | Story |
Author : Daniel Martin Fairbairn
Along the track the city slid past. Like an anamorphic visual soundtrack to the passing of time and past and present in his mind. The music from the earphones pulsing like some outer heart, reflecting the heat from the sun, and ejecting it from within through the tears stinging his eyes. The carriage rocked from side to side. The sound of the streets impinged into his insular void, sirens, yelling, trucks and music. All scratching at his mind.
A time ago, under a tree, he’d seen the truth. She’d held him in her hands, and awoken a being within him, that voice now clamoured in silence at the walls of his soul. An occasional disruption in the rythym of his heart. He felt like a double exposure. Two negatives exposed upon the photo paper of this skein of reality. Neither belonged, neither could break free. He closed his eyes and fought for the touch of the sun through those leaves once more.
Crowds. Bustle. Utter isolation within such diversity. Without warning he stopped and roared out loud, a primal gutteral pained screaming roar. Arms wide, people stopping, some just avoiding and rubber necking. Spittle issued forth from the back of his throat as he emptied his lungs and fell to his knees. Weep. Weep and be clean.
A month passed, and with it the seasons brightened. He found himself back in the mountains. The distance between him and the troubles of his concious mind was geographically tangible. His demons still haunted his dreams. Dreams that went untouched by his waking mind. The air racing up the mountain kept him wide and open. One day in late June, she returned. Early evening, as the mountain reflected the sunset off it’s shroud of snow, she settled onto the ground near his small fire. Wood crackled, and a kettle was knocked from it’s stand as she moved over the tundra towards him. Soundlessly. His breath caught in his chest, tongue moving without making noise. A terrific surge began in his chest and moved to his hands down his arms. Glowing gently. She reached out to him, and cast out a soft searching mist from her finger tips. It found his hands and they both rose up above the plateau.
The stars brightened as they welcomed home a pair of their own Kin. And somewhere above a silent mountain, a man wept with joy.
by submission | Mar 23, 2013 | Story |
Author : Javen J.
1:10. Three fingers of vodka were left; two in the bottle and one in a tumbler. He had never drunk so much before; and never would again. At least there would be no record breaking hangover. He chased the tumbler with a sharp inhale. He looked down at his mangled knee. It was bloody and useless; but he had nowhere to go.
1:02. He had a hyper-rifle, two fingers of vodka and one minute to live. The countdown continued as feverish crashing reverberated through the makeshift barricade. He erected it to isolate himself in the orbital laboratory’s control center.
:55. He poured himself the rest of the vodka and sat the glass between his legs on the ground. He hoisted up the hyper-rifle and checked its charge. The rifle grew exponentially heavier as he lost more blood. Charge at four percent; about fourteen bursts of fire left.
:42. More than enough. He fingered the sight. It took him roughly fifty bursts to put down seven of the freaks and erect the barricade. However, there was no need to kill them all; only to preserve the countdown.
:38. He took a long deep breath and held up the vodka. He would not let it go to waste, like his research. He chased the vodka with a few tears and warm thoughts of his young lass.
:30. He heard metal twisting as the barricade began to give way. He figured the hatch must be cracking open because he could hear the creatures’ audible throat growls.
:24. Once friends and colleagues; now mindless victims of a botched experiment.
:20. The barricaded hatch crashed open and the howling abominations rushed into the control room.
:16. He delayed the stampede by hitting the first intruders in the knees with several rifle bursts.
:11. Suddenly the room was filled with creatures.
:08. Half of the freaks charged for the control panel behind him and the others began clawing at his already mangled body.
:05. He ignored the immense pain and fired his remaining bursts in defense of the panel.
:02. When his charge was depleted he used the butt of the rifle to shove one creature away from interface.
:00. The countdown terminated. He writhed in agony hoping the infliction was contained. Without warning the station’s grav-drive reached critical mass and vaporized the station and every piece of dust and particulate matter within a mile.
by submission | Mar 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Michael F. da Silva
“I didn’t know you were such a fight fan!” he said with a huge, dumb grin on his face. He couldn’t believe his luck.
“Oh, totally!” she beamed. “I got really into it because of my Dad. We’ve watched the Pan-Orion Championships every year together since I was little.”
“That’s awesome!”
Andre could hardly pry his eyes away from Julia’s perfect oval face. He led the way to their seats nearly tripping twice over groups of short, stocky Dokiads. She giggled each time making the lanky young man begin to shrink out of self-consciousness. As if to reassure him she moved close enough to wrap a hand around his bicep and helped him find their seats.
“Here we are!” he said, leading her around the torso-head of a ten-legged Thronumite.
Andre had spent two weeks’ wages on these seats in hopes of impressing her. They were close enough to smell the musk coming off a confident-looking horned gastropod waiting for its opponent across the tower cage.
“So, how long have you been a fan?” she asked as she put on a cute pair of pink-rimmed safety glasses.
“Pretty much since they divided up the fighters into divisions.” He said as he put on his own eye protection. “There wasn’t much point in watching Humans getting pounded by three-hundred-plus-kilo fighters. They might have a better chance now that the POC are letting fighters keep their military augs, I think.”
They talked excitedly about their favourite fights in between matches and cheered when a massive Stranoterste knocked the fangs out of a Sknenian’s outer jaws.
Summing up all of his courage, he slipped his hand into hers. She looked up and gave him a warm smile while she squeezed his hand in return before looking back at the action in the cage.
By the beginning of the main event, the much anticipated Carreira versus Fl’rk’k, they had fallen into each other’s eyes again. The thunderous roar of the crowd seemed to push them slowly into each other’s arms. The green blood spray across their faces was a distant sensation as they shared their first kiss.
