by submission | Apr 12, 2014 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
Rachel closed her eyes to the grayness surrounding her. She shut out gray clouds overhanging the gray sky and gray broken concrete and the metallic landscape. Heavy eyelids shielded her green eyes from the present gray existence of hopeless humanity. Her gray filthy fingers picked at her ragged gray covering. She stood alone, a part of the scene.
Rachel shivered, opened her eyes, and searched the ground for gray treasure among the gray dirt.
All were gone. Radiation, disease, hate, and starvation had taken her family, friends, strangers, and enemies. She adjusted the torn scarf to hide her scant wisps of hair with her bony fingers covered with oozing sores.
She clutched her cavernous stomach and tried not to retch once again. She retched nothing but pain. Moaning softly she cried dry tears as she scratched through the gray clutter.
Then her fingers felt the smoothness of the treasure. She breathed in great gasps of poisoned air and smiled a toothless grin. She grasped it to her body as she fumbled to open her pocket. She tugged out the first treasure and placed the second treasure within it.
She pushed the treasure into her mouth and pulled the trigger.
by submission | Apr 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
I scared myself again. But only briefly.
Bored with routine, my mind zoned out. Wandering like a hungry dog. Dragging extraordinary notions to hell and back with me at the centre of it all. The snap-to was always a break in that routine and this morning it was when the door forgot who I was.
My working day started at the office. Not the morning shower or bus ride but that sand etched security glass door that led into the open plan tenancy. Everything before that moment was mine to ponder.
Thirty seconds before arriving at that door I zoned, my body mindlessly zombied past the carved monolith guarding our street-front, itself a party popper palimpsest of social commentary. Up the groaning federation stairs and across the worn half landing, landmarked by the fading odour of dead wall rat.
On autopilot, my body went through this daily routine, while within, my mind, as free as a three year old, dallied a thought stream that frightened me to the core. The fear that I never actually worked here.
Upstairs, face brick walls held the sand etched glass door hostage. Like every other day, I transmitted the door’s passcode early, to time it’s opening with my approach, only to slam face-first into the glass. Through gaps in the etching, my workmates turned towards me. Within a daydream of public humiliation, I snapped-to, humiliated. The transition was seamless.
The door remained closed. No salient tone. No sliding swish. I retransmitted the code, ran a diagnostic on my implant and then shouldered the door. Nothing.
Staring at my paper covered desk through the glass, I scratched the hairy bulge of my scalp implant dumbfounded. Fearful faces glared through the glass. Someone was yelling on the phone. No one recognised me. No one dared approach the door. I signalled for Jane the office manager to let me in. Seeing her confused face, I checked my sanity only to birth the notion that my imagination had in fact become reality.
A crash downstairs preceded heavy footfalls.Turning, I saw Jim, the security guard, lurch, puffing, into the lobby.
“Hey Jim! How’s it going? Can you help me, the door isn’t….”
Before I could finish, Jim had slammed me against the security door.
“You are not authorised to be here Sir”
Hot sprays of breath pulsed the back of my neck.
“Jim it’s me Dave! I work here. I lent you my music library yester……”
“Remain calm Sir. The police are enroute”
To Dave, I was a stranger and to the police who frog marched me out of the building, I was another lost soul.
At police headquarters mayhem reigned. The unstaffed charge desk meant that no one was interested in our identity. Not a good sign. Each cell held a dozen dazed citizens, each one sharing similar stories.
By midday, the sweating cell walls bulged from overcrowding and wheezed air thick with emotion. Like a football crowd, cellmates mentally journeyed from confusion through anger, finally settling on acceptance.
Late afternoon, a two tone warning sounded. A crowd of despair shushed, starving for the truth. A pre-recorded announcement rattled from a tinny cell speaker.
“Last night at 3:45am, a caching error within Central MEMbank deleted your identity from all implants and hardware infrastructure. Once backup have reinstated transient life data, you will be remembered by your family and friends. On behalf of the MEMbank, I apologise for the confusion”
For a moment I pondered the possibilities of being no one and scared myself again.
by submission | Apr 6, 2014 | Story |
Author : Kurt Hunt
“Failed,” said the ship. Its transmission burst into jagged waves, a white noise elegy.
But the station didn’t understand. “Greetings, Generation-32! Welcome to Centauri Colony!” It beamed yottabytes of data, everything from advertisements to statistics suggesting a critical population shortage. “Please share these exciting details with your passengers, and–”
The chirping auto-welcome fizzled. A tired voice interrupted: “G-32, clarify failure report.”
“Decompressed,” said Generation-32. “Long ago.”
“Cargo status?”
Generation-32 scanned again; same result. Cradled within, it found only ghosts, the hundred million phantom limbs it had carried through the dark.
“Alone,” it said. “I am sorry. I am alone.”
by submission | Apr 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The Agent established contact with the High Command and prepared to deliver his latest report. Nothing about his outward appearance betrayed what he was doing. The entire procedure was telepathic. There were hidden machines in the vicinity that were able to transduce his thoughts and then send them rippling across the quantum superfluid at many times the speed of light, arriving all but instantaneously at the High Command’s base of operations on the fifth planet of the Nu Phoenicis star system 49 light-years from Earth.
“There are indications that the Enemy is preparing to establish one or more bases in this solar system,” the agent said in his head.
“They’ve made no move to reveal themselves to the human race?” asked a silent voice.
“They haven’t,” said the agent with equal silence. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if half a dozen of their ships jumped out of hyperspace and into Earth orbit any day now. Perhaps the time has come to reveal ourselves to the human race.”
“Your assignment is to observe and report, Agent.”
“I meant no disrespect, Command. But the Enemy’s mission is the same as ours: To win hearts and minds. And they’ve made quite a bit of progress.”
As the Agent was issuing his report, one of the Enemy entered the room and sat down a few feet away. The Agent and his Enemy pretended not to notice one another. Amazing, thought the Agent, that this subtle game of spy versus spy had been going on for thousands of Earth years. Over the millennia, relations between the two sides had taken many forms, ranging from open hostility to detente to peaceful and even amicable coexistence. And during all these centuries, two great and terrible empires battled each other among the stars. The tide of battle had once brought the conflict as close as the Alpha Centauri system. Now, Earth itself was probably going to be the next killing field.
“Is the Enemy’s position on Earth strong enough to recruit the human race to their side?” asked the voice of the High Command.
“I suspect mankind would be divided as to which side to support. A majority of the humans would doubtless side with us. But the enemy has made significant inroads.”
For long seconds the High Command said nothing. Finally, a voice in the Agent’s head said, “Perhaps you’re right after all. If what you say is true, the longer we delay the weaker our position. We have ten capital ships holding at their fail safe positions in the Oort Cloud at the periphery of the star system. We will order them to prepare to jump into Earth orbit. Review the open contact protocols. We will be sending the signal to all of our operatives on Earth to reveal themselves simultaneously within the hour. The Enemy will doubtless follow suit.”
“There will be global pandemonium,” thought the Agent.
“We know. It will be up to Agents like yourself to manage humanity’s initial shock.”
“Understood.”
The Agent looked over at the Enemy who was trying to act bored and nonchalant. Probably in contact with his own superiors right now. The Agent then looked at the human to whom he’d been assigned, picked up a ball in his mouth, and dropped it at the human’s feet. One last game of fetch before you find out the truth, the Agent thought with some nostalgia. The Enemy abruptly stopped licking his paw, glared at his rival, and purred with contempt.
by submission | Apr 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Jay Haytch
“So I walk into the warehouse, right? Was just looking for a quiet place to have a smoke – and it’s full of the damned things!”
“Wait, full of what things?”
“Of them. Of… robots. Must’ve been thirty-five or forty of ’em in there. Dead quiet, just liftin’ boxes and moving them and putting them back down again. Was like a, a, hive of insects. I tell ya, Mitch, it was creepy as hell. Creepy as hell. Hey Barman!”
“They were probably sorting the supplies that just came in on the Corsica. That’s their job.”
“Well I just stood there for a minute – hell, I didn’t have half a clue what I’d just wandered into. Then one of them – get this – the one right up by the door, where I was standing, turns and talks to me. Just like that. Barman! Two more beers over here.”
“(Sigh.) What did he say?”
“He said… Hello Jason.”
“Hello Jason?”
“Yeah, but just – completely deadpan. He didn’t even try to put some emotion into it. The rest of them just kept on doing what they were already doing, like I wasn’t even there.”
“Well I wasn’t exactly gushing with enthusiasm when you came in here, either, but here we are.”
“Mitch, I swear, it was Commander Hendrickson’s voice comin’ outta that tin box. Why did he sound like the Commander?”
“That’s “male voice #73”. A bunch of them are going around using it. Mostly to annoy him.”
“Ah, here’s our beers. Look, you know what I think?”
“Yes, but you’re going to tell me anyway aren’t you?”
“I think the Commander’s gone and up-loaded his brain into the robot network. Hell, he’s probably that central mainframe thing that they all talk to with their wireless gear. And he’s slowly workin’ to make all of us into his own robot platoon.”
“Hendrickson gave the briefing yesterday morning! If you hadn’t been so plastered Thursday night you would’ve been there to see him with your own eyes.”
“He’s making his image with the holo-projector! Next time we’re in there, just throw your jacket over it. He’ll disappear just like the briefing does.”
“You try it if you’re so worried. I’m not going on kitchen duty ’cause I listened to one of your loonie-bin ideas again.”
“I’m telling you, when the robots come to make you one of theirs you’ll wish you’d listened to me.”
“If they were making everyone into robots, don’t you think we’d have noticed by now?”
“Of course not, we’d be programmed not to!”
“But you somehow did.”
“Well they haven’t got me yet. Hey, when was the last time you saw Callie? Or John?”
“Callie went on maternity leave. And John was discharged after that helicopter incident. I was there.”
“That’s what they want you to think.”
“Heh, of course. You want a tequila Jason?”
“Nah, that stuff screws with my actuator motors.”
“Man, I know what you mean but it’s worth it.”
“Aww, I should probably go home early tonight. I’m still in hot water for missing that briefing, and I never put my other battery on the charger.”
“Well, suit yourself. I’ll tell you what: I’m going to go pump out my liquid waste accumulator, and if you’re still here when I get back we’re doing some shots.”
“Hell, Mitch, you’re a bad influence, you know that?”
