by submission | Mar 24, 2014 | Story |
Author : Andrew Hawnt
Frozen in time behind the door to Vault Six is an explosion, and it talks to me.
How can an explosion talk to me? I don’t really know, but then again I’m just a guard. I sit next to the door to Vault Six and I read, or I clean the corridor, or I check and recheck the systems which keep the explosion imprisoned in a time bubble.
My name’s John Drake, but the explosion calls me Johnny Boy, or occasionally Drakey when it wants to wake me up. The explosion (or Bang, as I call it when we’re alone) even saved my skin last Friday when it woke me up just before Colonel Trent turned up unannounced.
Me and Bang are friends, even though it’s stuck in a cell and I’m guarding the door. We have an understanding. I don’t tell people it can talk to me, and Bang tells me stories to pass the time.
I thought I was going mad when Bang started talking to me, but hey, I have a mad job. This building is full of impossible things and a fair few staff have lost it over the years, but I can deal with Bang. It explains the monsters in other cells. The ghosts and the aliens and the sentient computer viruses and everything else.
But today, Bang told me a secret I didn’t want to hear. Where it came from. Where it began. I didn’t believe it at first, but then I remembered there’s a guy with horns claiming to be the devil in the next cell, so I figure there’s not all that much which is still impossible.
Bang is the end of this facility. This whole complex. Exploding. Bang told me the explosion was so powerful that it ruptured time and space and seeped through into the present. The department were able to imprison it using an experimental technique which bends time on itself into a loop, sealing whatever is inside it completely.
But the thing is, the thing that’s been making my head hurt all shift long, is that Bang says the explosion began when Bang gets released accidentally. But that means that Bang is both the cause and the result of the incident. An explosion from the future which detonates in the present, creating a paradox which can never end.
The thing that really freaked me out though was that Bang claimed to be me, John Drake, caught in the future explosion which created it and broke time. Bang’s voice in my head is me, my consciousness having become a part of the living explosion when the facility was, or will be, wiped out.
So that means I die here, I guess. Bang says that might not be the case. That I might get out. That it gets my voice because of all the time we spent talking in the past, or the present. That’s when my head hurts, thinking about that.
Get out, Bang tells me now. Get out quickly. It’s started.
Alarms start to chime, then the strip lights along the corridor go red and I hear commotion on the floor above and the floor below. An overlooked weakness in safety protocols. The corridor doors lock themselves. I could scream for help, but it wouldn’t do any good. Bang tells me it’s okay. Bang says it will look after me. Bang tells me in my own voice that this was always meant to be.
The protective bubble around Bang ruptures, and the building is consumed in blinding fire. I am taken away by the bubble’s broken science and the force of Bang’s unleashed energies swallows me whole. I am gone, but I am still here.
As quickly as it begins, it ends.
The bubble reverts to its previous state. Time realigns. I am Bang, and outside Vault Six there sits John Drake. He is a friend. Within the bubble which holds my fire imprisoned, I feel a sense of completion.
“Hello Drakey,” I say out loud, and the guard wakes up, staring at the door to Vault Six with eyes which are so very familiar.
by submission | Mar 23, 2014 | Story |
Author : Tyler Hawkins
“Well I think it’s safe to say this project was a monumental failure”
“Gee, you think?”
We sit in silence for a while. All that needed to be said has already been screamed, yelled or pleaded in the last 24 hours. It’s not like we haven’t tried to fix this massive failure but yet here we remain.
“Some locals are waking up and walking this way”
I look up. Sure enough, they come. Armed with what could only pass for technology on the most backwater of planetary systems, they start arriving and congregating around myself and my partner, T’Kam-Gin.
We wait quietly while the whole tribe wakes and trudges over to ogle us. We’ve resigned at this point, and now just patiently wait for it all to be over. We have already documented as much as we could before they confiscated our equipment, and it’ll be nearly four hundred thousand years before myself and my partner arrive in this timeline to find our chronospatial buoy and it will divulge the details of this horrid experience so at least they can learn from our mistakes.
One of them moves through the crowd, clearly the leader of this tribe. He speaks.
“On this day, June the second in the year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred and Ninety-Two, you all stand accused of witchcraft, a crime which will not go unpunished…”
by submission | Mar 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steven Holland
“What’s this?” asked Hoyt Pendergrass, glancing at the envelope that was just handed to him.
“The U.S. Government has need of one of your organs. This is the necessary paperwork. Your operation is set to take place tomorrow.” These words came from one of the two suited men standing in front of him.
Hoyt quickly glanced through the papers, trying to focus his bleary eyes. I was 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday after all.
“What! My heart? You can’t take my heart!” he exclaimed when his eyes finally found the relevant information buried amongst all the legal babble.
“Actually, we can. By right of Eminent Domain, the U.S. Government is purchasing your heart for the immediate transplantation into the body of Senator Gershwin Wilkins.” The agent wore a bland, serene smile as he spoke these words.
Hoyt could only gape speechlessly as he listened.
“The government will of course reimburse you for your loss with a cash settlement and a TransverTech Vikus Mark III™ replacement heart. You must report to St. John’s Hospital by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning or be found in contempt of the law.”
“Why me? Get somebody else’s! I don’t want a tin can ticker!”
“Your heart has been deemed vital to the continued well being of the United States of America.” the agent said in well rehearsed words. “DNA Database of America and Citizen Tracker® found you to be the most suitable match for Senator Wilkins based on DNA similarity and lifestyle choice.”
“You’re not a fat, drunken druggie.” added the second agent – speaking for the first time.
“Do not run. You are being watched.” said the first agent. He then blinked twice, all the while, keeping the blank smile plastered on his face. The two men left, leaving Hoyt in his bathrobe and an expression of shock on his face.
Three days later Hoyt awoke, groggy and disoriented. The same two men were standing over his bed. The one still wore that insufferable, blank smile.
“Glad to see that you are awake Mr. Pendergrass. There were complications during your procedure. You died for five minutes during the operation, but the doctors don’t anticipate any significant loss of brain function.”
Hoyt blinked. “What?”
“Here is your compensation check.” Said the other man in the black suit, tossing an envelope on the bandages of Hoyt’s sawn through chest. “It’s more than you make in a year.”
“But I’m a janitor!” Hoyt protested, then seeing the futility, sighed. “Does senator what’s-his-face enjoy my heart?”
The smiling man shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, he never received the heart. Your heart was accidently shipped to Zimbabwe where apparently, a local tribe stole it and ate it during on of their annual rituals.”
Hoyt stared at the man, his expression shifting from shock to contempt to amusement.
“Anyway, enjoy your check from the government. Oh, and don’t do anything too strenuous – your pacemaker only has a five year warranty.” Turning to the other agent, smiley asked as they walked out the door, “So who’s second on the heart transplant list?”
The door closed with and click and silence flooded the room. Hoyt began thinking, thinking of new hobbies he should take up like smoking and drinking… or cocaine. After all, the good senator might be having another organ fail any day.
by submission | Mar 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Jake Christie
“Hundred and fifty bucks.”
Harry looked at the tiny vial in the clerk’s hand, filled with a slightly opaque purple liquid, then back at his face. “For that much?” he asked.
The clerk nodded. “This is the top of the line stuff, man,” he says. “The Jimi Hendrix. Nothing like it.” The door chimed, another customer coming in. There was a line starting to form. “If you don’t want it…”
“No, no, I do,” said Harry. He pulled his cash from his pocket and started peeling off bills. “How many, ah…”
The clerk held the vial close to his face and squinted in. “Three hits, I’d say. Unless you want, you know, an experience.”
Harry handed over the money and thanked the clerk. The vial felt cool in his fingertips, colder than the rest of the room, maybe colder than it should have been. Like it wanted out of that vial. “Is there a place here?”
“Sure,” said the clerk, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “In the back.”
The back room was like the other side of a coin, the complete inverse of the front. Where the front was all antiseptic and shiny, counters and vials and hard corners, the back room was soft and inviting. Lots of colors, lots of curves, and a lots of people in chairs and on mattresses, their heads lolled back, their eyes closed or looking at something that wasn’t there. There was no music, just the rhythmic sound of breathing.
Harry found a comfortable spot and rolled up his sleeve. He took out his syringe and poked it into the vial, then slowly pulled out the plunger. A third of the purple liquid disappeared from the vial. Then half. Then all of it. He tapped his finger against the needle, took a deep breath, and stuck it in his arm.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. Blackness enveloped him. He listened to the sound of his breathing – in and out, in and out. Then, even that faded away. He was left in darkness and silence, floating out of this specific place in space and time. No longer sitting in the back room. No longer himself.
It started as a dull rumble, like a highway off in the distance, then grew louder and louder. It wasn’t a highway, it wasn’t an earthquake. The rumbling became more distinct, into voices – a sea of voices, all screaming.
In the darkness and the roar, Harry suddenly felt that he was no longer lying down. He was standing, there was a warm breeze blowing on his face. And there was something in his hands – left handed, even though he was a righty.
He opened his eyes and looked out over the crowd. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands. All staring right at the stage, right at him, and cheering. He heard one voice, close to the stage, say his name: “We love you, Jimi!”
Harry plucked the pick from his mouth and stretched his fingers around the neck of the guitar. He’d never learned how to play, but it had always been his dream to be a rock star. He always wondered what it would feel like. And now, he knew how to play. He knew how to play everything.
Somebody in the back room was playing a Stradivarius at the Met. Somebody else was playing trumpet with John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. Harry was holding Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, in Jimi Hendrix’s hands.
“I love you too,” he said. “We are the Jimi Hendrix Experience. This next one is called ‘Purple Haze.’”
by submission | Mar 20, 2014 | Story |
Author : Tom Coupland
Dropping from his vantage point, Sijen kicks out, snapping the neck of the first guard. Hearing his partner’s choked scream, the remaining patrolman swings about, weapon leveled. Rising from his landing crouch, Sijen’s blade like hands take the man below the rib cage. Intestines, stomach, lungs, burst in turn. Continuing the fatal movement, vaulting over the ruined body, Sijen sprints off down the corridor, followed closely by the two white shadows that are his brothers. Their goal is close, but time is short.
Passageways stretch out all around them; a trick of perspective making their target larger on the inside than it had looked on their approach. They takes turns at speed, navigating their way through the labyrinth, following the route etched into their minds. Drawing ever closer to their target.
Alarms ring out. Days of preparation at the monastery have reduced time to a crawl for the covert boarding team, high pitched alerts become deep undulations of sound. Even with their ear piercing intent removed, their meaning is clear, the time for subterfuge is over, but the team have nearly arrived. Signalling farewell, Biji breaks off to head towards the nearest power relay. Their aim, as for them all, clear in his mind.
A flash ahead. Sijen leaps towards the ceiling as the projectile whispers past, followed shortly by the dull crack of its firing charge. Beneath him now, Dijen snakes towards the hardened firing position protecting the hatch that leads to their target. Skin changing from ghostly white to burning red, Dijen unleashes the microfilm suit’s power supply as he closes. He is not the one that must reach their goal.
Sijen breathes a prayer for his brother, as the waves of heat and sound from his sacrifice wash over him. Reducing the magnetic output of his suit he returns to the floor and races to the breached hatch, diving through the smoke and flames onto the bridge. Operators nearest the door, incapacitated by his brothers sacrifice, can be ignored, but there remain three, lurching to their feet, hands grasping at holsters.
A tremor, signalling the loss of his remaining brother, vibrates through the ship. Darkness engulfs the room, confirming his success. The darkness is brief, yet still it is interrupted by three desperate flashes of light. Popping into life, the emergency lighting illuminates Sijen striding towards the central command chair. Lacking Sijen’s heightened vision and lethal speed, in the dark the three hadn’t stood a chance.
It’s time to perform his role. Jacking into the central pedestal he shifts into the realm of pure data that controls the ship. Nearing the engines representation the pressure on Sijen’s mind becomes close to unbearable, sweat beading on his brow as he wrestles with the ships systems for control, face contorting with effort for the first time during the operation to save his world. Breaking through he takes power from, the soon to be redundant, life support systems, forcing fuel regulators to open far beyond their safety limits.
Klaxons replace alarms. The ship simultaneously crying out for aid and warning any aboard to leave. Sijen, assuming a meditative pose before the viewing screen, bids his home farewell. His mission complete.
#
A new star pierces the darkness above and a moan passes through the vast congregation gathered before the grand cathedral, high on it’s hill at the centre of the capital. A soft lament for the fallen swells from the brethren. It rises and falls, drifting on the wind, out into the quiet of the night and the population of the city knows time has been bought, paid for with blood. Time it so desperately needs. Time to finish it’s preparations for what was to come.
