by submission | Dec 4, 2013 | Story |
Author : Stefan Aeschbacher
The ancient city had been buried for over five thousand years. The digbots were digging at this spot for two hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-five seconds. They were making good progress. So far they had found three plates and a container of unknown purpose. Due to the ideal conditions at this location, most of the artefacts were exceptionally well preserved.
Suddenly the alarm sounded. Digbot #953 had found something unexpected. They had been cataloguing this era for quite some time; something new only popped up once every few months. The eagerness to see the new object was correspondingly high.
The probability of the new object being a weapon was estimated at 87%. It was therefore immediately put into an armoured storage container. Even though the bestial concept of warfare was something only known from history, they were well equipped to handle such dangerous goods.
The object shown on the holo-screen was cylindrical with a diameter of 6.7cm and a length of 11.5cm. It had been clearly marked as dangerous with red colour. One of the more experienced historians came to the conclusion that the object at hand was an item called “grenade”.
Immediately after securing the object, the historians started the in-depth analysis. Apparently the grenade was filled with a liquid. Not much was known about the race that had lived on earth in this epoch. They called themselves “humans”. It was not known how a “human” would react to the liquid in the grenade. Probably it was some kind of contact poison. Analysis showed it to be extremely sticky. A small lever on the top probably served as the trigger mechanism.
A so far unknown font had been used to mark the weapon. Probably to inform the reader of the extreme danger of the object. The historians were quite good at deciphering human scripture, but this one posed a riddle to them.
Due to the extremely dangerous nature of the object, they decided to store it away. It was put in a high security bunker on an uninhabited moon in the system. It had long ago been ruled, that the mere idea of a weapon had to be hidden from the general public.
Some years later a research team applied a new radiological technique which revealed two more text fragments on the grenade. They suggested that the object was really very dangerous and poisonous. They read: “Do not shake” and “contains caffeine”.
by submission | Dec 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : Andrew D. Murrell
I awoke.
I could still feel the remnants of foreign thoughts gently receding from my consciousness. Then I felt today’s check deposit into my account, twenty one thousand dollars. Minimum wage jobs just don’t pay like they used to do they? I waited to feel the disconnect signal and then opened my eyes. I breathed in deeply and coughed.
Life, I am getting old.
My bed stood me up and disappeared into the floor. A neural link transponder drifted towards me, eagerly offering its services.
“No, I’ve had enough of other people’s opinions for one day.” Ever since the distributed thoughtnet replaced the static web and our minds themselves became commodities for sale, I have yearned for three things in life above all else: stillness, simplicity, and silence.
But what can one do? Life is no longer simple, still, or quiet, it is complex, ever-changing, and constantly berating us with options, opinions, and each other. Even now, only seconds after leaving the thoughtnet I could feel the incoming interaction requests and updates from SocialLink and the AutoBillPay alerting me to the fact I would soon have no money, once again. If only I could just take a break, a real break.
I walked to an Autoportal wall and felt the breeze gently waft through it as the microfibers aligned themselves to direct wind from outside through the thin coating of electric generators. I gestured to the wall and it became transparent. The day was beautiful and sunny, but the infinite suburb of haphazardly colored and eclectic houses was the last thing I needed to be reminded of seeing. I turned away and the wall once again shifted to a shallow opaque green.
No, I don’t need a rest. Just the opposite, I need something to do. I turned inward and navigated through several thought-changing stations to the System Control Menu in my Neural OS. After reflecting on the oddity that one must authenticate to access one’s own brain, I found the most heavily guarded portion of my mind.
“System, go Offline,” a willful auditory confirmation and the system slowed to a halt. I felt blurry. Enhanced senses shut down and the hum of the dim house faded into the background. I stumbled around until I found the manual access panels and switched the house to full power. I knew that I couldn’t afford it, full lighting for even a few hours was prohibitively expensive as the house itself could not generate that much electricity and would have to buy some from our neighbors, but I had to do it. I could not live out my life from inside my head any longer. I needed reality.
Had I been younger I would have punched a hole in the wall. I would have broken some screens. I would have torn off all of my clothes and run down the streets of ugly houses until the community police managed to take me into custody kicking and screaming about the wrongness of it all. But no, it is much too late for that.
I remember the sound of birds, but there are no birds outside anymore. I thought about that for a while. I thought about birds until the mood had passed. I don’t know if I’d even be capable of those things any more anyway, so no, I will stay inside. I will sit in my chair and wait for the government to say that I’m old enough to die. One day they will tell me that I have lived long enough, met the life expectancy and am permitted to leave. Until then, I will turn off the lights, reconnect to the thoughtnet and sell my mindspace to the rich young folks with new ideas. I don’t need to think anymore they said, our lives are perfect.
I awoke, but only for a moment.
by submission | Dec 1, 2013 | Story |
Author : Stivi Cooke
They didn’t think about that…
In all the plans, all the awesome designs, the mind blowing concepts, all the calculations, the deals, the engineering and finally the launch… they forgot that part…
As humanity reached out to the planets and the asteroids, landed and started to colonize the Moon (china), Mars (America), Titan and europa (India); we built bigger and better, faster and more powerful spaceships.
But time and distance still play god’s game…
Even at the speed of light and depending on the relative positions of Earth and Mars it would still take between 12 and 21 minutes to get there and Pluto would take about 23 years to reach at that ultimate speed.
Now we were stretching outward, past the solar boundaries, deep space… a emptiness equal only to death perhaps…
Oh, sure we knew people would have a lot of time on their hands, trapped in a steel can with no way to pop outside for a smoke, a fresh pizza or a long stress reliving soak in a bath. Moreover, we had great stores of entertainment – music from forgotten times, books from every genre imaginable – all of mankind’s knowledge and wisdom too.
We choose our crews carefully for compatibility. The accommodations like a five star hotel. Meals that were banquets. And oh! That exquisite music… always that music…
Now we were on the way to Alpha Centauri, the engines silently screaming at full ignition.
They forgot that… people’s favourite stuff… no-one listens to all the music in the world or reads all the books or watches all the movies… sooner or later, we prefer stuff… again… and again… and again…
I couldn’t listen to the captain’s David Bowie music anymore, the flight navigator’s hip-hop was the first to go, then the engineering boy’s reggie and samba collection was discreetly destroyed. The medical doctor and her nurse’s operatic themes were the worst… how many times could I listen to Aida?
And they forgot that as we travelled at the edge of light’s limit’s, any upgrades to our entertainment collections would never catch up until we reached landfall…4.3 light years away… always racing towards us with a gap between us and the music because they didn’t start sending the new stuff until we were clear of Mars…
To save space, the collections were implanted in our mind supplements, constantly linking to the ships computers and of course the sound systems. Well, who wants to wear headphones for four years? The music seeped out in spite of the soundproofing.
I loved it at first but a year later it started to grate on all our nerves… we stopped listening so often… then began to retreat into our private rooms but it was a big ship. You had to go out and do things so you couldn’t not notice the tunes. Unavoidable really, as we started to exhaust each other’s conversations and opinions, which we heard a million times before.
I snapped around October in the third year. Killed them all – had to, didn’t I? The music was in their heads.
Now I’ll arrive in a years time, serene, glowing, happy and comfortable in my work grooving to Grand Master Funk… and it’ll take them another eight years to come for me.
by submission | Nov 30, 2013 | Story |
Author : Denis Bell
Morbid fear, for God’s sake. Driving home from the shrink, Hugh turned on the car radio in an attempt to blot out the thoughts churning in his head. The radio was tuned to WPB. It was Science Monday and they were discussing Hugh’s least favorite subject in the whole world, that and some weird new invention. It sounded like something out of The Twilight Zone.
“… process is rather complicated. But I can describe the basic functioning. The machine takes in a few drops of the subject’s blood. Performing an analysis on the white cells, it is able to determine the precise moment of the subject’s death.”
“Remarkable! But is the machine reliable, Morty? It would be unfortunate if a person scheduled to die say, twenty years from now, were to take up bungee jumping then end up plunging to his or her death next week.”
“As it happens, the technology is far from new. It was developed by DSSR in the late fifties and been in use ever since. The point is that in almost sixty years there is not a single instance where a prediction made by the machine has turned out to be erroneous. It appears to be infallible.”
The interviewer audibly gasped. “But the implications of such a device are… staggering! It will change the world. Why haven’t heard about it until now?”
“The project was highly classified until very recently. A group of us felt that– I’d prefer not to comment further on this.”
Hugh had heard enough. A machine that tells you when you’re going to die. Just what he needed. Hugh knew his own make-up and constitution only too well. He knew with the certainty of roast beef that if he ever encountered one of these contraptions it would be the end of him. Hugh suffered from hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, weakened arteries, a genetic predisposition to stroke and seizures… news of his imminent death would surely kill him. Right there and then. Right on schedule.
It seemed impossible, though. A blood test? It had to be some sort of joke. But the radio, why would they–
He almost laughed out loud when he cottoned to it. Almost, but not quite. Today’s date – April 1, 2013. Morty.
Last year was that report of life discovered on the dark side of the moon. He’d just seen Independence Day and lay awake night after night for a week worrying about an alien invasion. The previous year saw him peeling rubber along 90 East. Half of California had fallen into the Pacific. All those calls from people with family in LA and Frisco…
What a day! First a condescending little weasel of a shrink, now bozo radio pranksters. Hugh felt that he could kick their asses all over town. Felt light and heavy at the same time. This time next year he was going to be in bed with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.
In the studio, the interview was winding down. Richard Morton nodded apprehensively as the interviewer thanked him. It seemed they’d done a dangerous thing going public with this. Intimidation … threats … Dr. Morton was a bold thinker but not a bold man. He never would have had the nerve except for one thing – he wasn’t due for another thirty years.
by submission | Nov 27, 2013 | Story |
Author : Britny Musson
I was singing in my sleep again.
“And then there was none, and then there was all.”
My throat is dry but the words still manage to croak out. Something is different, today. My sleep is being compromised, my mood is shuddering under the weight of my transition. I try to stretch against the small space, pressed my limbs in every direction. It feels good to move again. It was sweltering last time. I breathe deep and watch as my day of blinking lights begins.
My stomach takes a dip, the room brightens for a moment, blinding me. They like to catch me off guard through transport. Its safer that way, they say. That weak feeling gnaws at my stomach and behind my eyes, I can feel the nausea building.
The tubes are snaking in, the speaker crackling to life, repeating its usual greeting.
“Good morning, Madeline.”
I know time frames don’t matter here. I need to work through the feelings they are inserting but the sleep keeps trying to jump in front, asking for more. I’m ravenous inside and I can barely manage to keep anything sated. The energy is festering in my veins, seeping into my bones like acid, making them pliable and complacent.
Something changes, moves just out of the corner of my eye. I hold my breath, listening to the clicks. There are too many and they are uneven. He’s home. I tried to feel for his name, my tongue rolling dryly over my teeth. Travis, they called him. I think that’s right.
I can hear the voices now. Murmurs growling against the metal. I settle into the vibrations as the volume rises.
“You have visitors today,” says the voice from the speaker. I chuckle, the sound rattling in my ribcage. They always made it sound like a vacation. The few times I get brought forward. Sometimes it was a group but other days there is only one. Travis is there most times.
“Why?” I asked, shifting uncomfortable. The bottom of the capsule dip. There is a silence for a moment. A gentle static before the last of the adjustments settle.
“They like honesty. Be a good girl this time…please.”
The screen powers on and I can see them standing there. There are five of them, the uneven clicks make sense. Honesty is supposed to be the most desired of concepts, the most delectable of situations. It hurts, stinging like lemon juice in cuts you didn’t know existed. It thrums against the surface, scratching at itself and everything around it.
They visit us because they want that pain. So they keep us as we are. Be a good girl? I forgot how to be quiet, to be still and calm. Even now, I can feel the anxiety rushing into me. The words are forming a queue in my brain, bursting and crashing against each other with frivolity, blocking the gloom that hovers around the corners.
“If I was a good girl, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
The screen powers off. I can feel the air shifting around the chamber as the first half slides open.
Travis stalks forward, the sharp snap of metal jarring my heartbeat. His hair is darker today. He smiles as they bring in the table.
“Are we ready?”
I feel the pinch as the needle slides in. The room sinks and sparkles as the metals grow brighter. I wonder what they are upgrading this time. It never takes. I’m always the same.
