by submission | Mar 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
You had to have a hobby.
Sure, he had spent hundred of hours on this project, but at least he had built something.
You might as well do it right. He could use cardboard covered in metallic foil, but why bother? Far better to spend an hour or two at the lathe, cutting brass until you had the piece you wanted.
Finally it was finished. He had found the drawing online. Whoever had made it was another enthusiast. They had made it look like a genuine 19th century blueprint. If some Victorian mad scientist had come up with plans for a time machine then this is exactly what they would have looked like.
The attention to detail was astonishing. They even specified various supplies, such as gold coins, dried food, a pistol, that a time traveller might need.
And now the machine was done.
He would have to wire up some effects. Some humming, and an eerie blue glow; that sort of thing.
There was a hum, and an eerie blue glow illuminated the machine.
He looked over the machine. A minute ago it was still, but now brass wheels turned in polished wooden cages. Wires hummed, vacuum tubes glowed.
In the centre of the machine was a chair. He had used a green wing chair. It had been expensive, and he was not expecting to see it flicker and and disappear. When the chair reappeared the second most noticeable change was that it was now made of red leather. The first most noticeable change was the lady sitting in it.
“Greetings! What year is it please?”
He told her what year it was.
“Splendid! I was hoping for one hundred years, but almost one hundred and fifty is more than I had dreamed of.” She looked around. “Excellent work on the machine. I hoped that the plans I left were sufficiently detailed.”
He agreed that they were.
“Yes, the plans were mine. I could have made the machine better after building my prototype, but it was important not to change my plans. I don’t know if anyone else has attempted to build the machine over the years but if they did then it wasn’t sufficiently close to my own machine. I couldn’t test mine until you made yours.”
He asked the obvious questions.
“My theories predicted I could only travel to other times when the machine already existed. I could keep it well maintained for 10 years and then go back, but what would be the point in that? Going forwards would be impossible because, if I jumped 10 years into the future then I obviously wouldn’t be there for that decade to keep the machine working. Bit of a paradox, no?”
“So, the obvious thing to do was to draw up the plans and make arrangements for them to be distributed after my death. Arrangements which, from my point of view, I completed only a few minutes ago, before noticing the machine was operational. From your point of view, I assume that you have only recently completed the machine?”
He nodded.
“Good. I did regret leaving in the appendices, but then I reasoned that I would be able to travel forwards to the instant that the machine was finished, and that would be before the builder had collected the other equipment.”
He was still working his way through the implications of this sentence when she took her hand out of the carpet bag on her lap and revealed it to be holding a pistol which was pointing at him.
The rest, as they say, is history.
by submission | Mar 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : James Zahardis
Glxxo-Rgm looks up from her console at the colossal androids. Above their heads is a transparent dome that separates the Denshari flagship’s methane-enriched atmosphere from space. Glxxo-Rgm’s foremost right leg extends and the Loom materializes. She centers herself in the matrix of spires, pulls a polypeptide strand from her spinneret, and the web forms.
The colossus with pinkish skin and blue eyes stares down. “You propose we’re going to this planet hastily and without an appropriate treaty?”
Glxxo-Rgm cross-links a strand to her web.
The second colossus, similar to the first, except for his baseball cap, sneers at Glxxo-Rgm, faces the other android and says, “Please, Admiral Ooghrt–”
“–Ooghrt-Lxi, the Ravager, cryosleeps. I am now Thaddeus. Do you understand, Nahum?”
“Yes, Thaddeus. Why do you listen to this old fool, sir?! She cost us victory on Denzbxx! We lost the–”
“–Silence! Be satisfied that you are now Chief Ambassador. She’ll never make planetfall again!”
A young, leggy Denshari strides toward the Loom, and bows to Glxxo-Rgm.
“Weave, larva!” booms Thaddeus’s voice.
As the Denshari weaves, Glxxo-Rgm’s pedipalps curl down. She remembers Ooghrt-Lxi webcasting her demotion and promoting his nephew to her post. He doesn’t know his air-sacs from his spinneret, she thinks.
Thaddeus reads the web, “Transport–momentarily.”
#
Andrea “A-Day” Dadelomis sees two customers in the car lot. Look like Escalade types–probably some of Jayhawk’s wannabe friends, she thinks.
“Welcome to Deal Master’s–you want it, we’ve got it!”
“We’ve come to make terms with your world’s leader,” Nahum replies.
“Oh, you mean Jason, my soon to be husband,” A-Day says. “You guys bill collectors?”
Nahum’s colloquial/slang app activates. “We ain’t bill collectors. Need to confab with Big Man–set things proper between our peoples.”
Holy crap!–Jayhawk’s mixed-up with gangbangers! A-Day thinks. “Follow me.”
Synth-blood rushes into Nahum’s cheeks as he passes under the banner that reads: DEAL MASTER’S–BEST DEALS in DELAND and the ENTIRE WORLD!!!
Jason “Jayhawk” Hawkingston tries to rap along with a YouTube video. He sees the men, their thick gold chains. Damn, big money playas! he thinks. He turns off the video and sniffs his underarms.
“What’s crackalackin, fellas?”
“You the Deal Master? best deals on the planet?” Nahum responds.
“That’s what the commercial says, right? What can I interest y’all in?”
“Everything.”
“Got Escalades, some–”
“Yes. Everything.”
Jayhawk turns to A-Day. “Excuse me, gonna show them the lot.”
Jayhawk escorts the men outside. “OK, what y’all really want? No disrespect–are you… Mafioso?”
“We want to establish a base on your world.”
“You want the whole place?”
“Yes.”
Thaddeus nudges Nahum. “I offer the following gifts for your world: a slap-chopper, an auto-tune microphone, a pair of–”
“–Hold up, big baller, I busted my ass flipping foreclosures to get money for this place!–I don’t care if you’re Sopranos–y’all don’t–”
“–Silence!” interjects Thaddeus. “We’ll also give you ten million freshly minted US dollars!”
“Serious?”
Thaddeus and Nahum escort Jayhawk to the Hummer parked across the street. Soon Jayhawk hightails back to the dealership with two duffel bags, and ten minutes later he and A-Day are driving home to pack for Acapulco.
#
Two weeks pass. A.J. Nelwood, an Apopka sod farmer, is inspecting damage to his turf incurred during a sudden hailstorm. He nearly trips over several stones lying on the grass. If thunderstorms can bring fish’n’frogs reckon hailstorms can bring stones, he thinks. As he walks away he fails to notice the spiders striding away from the stones or their tiny flag embedded in the grass.
END
by submission | Mar 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Xauri’EL Zwaan
Evelyn offers me a bouquet of white lilies. I know immediately that she’s hiding something, but I indulge her little game. I take them and breathe deeply; she knows how I love complex smells. These have a spice that matches nothing in my chemical pattern bank. Genemod flowers; that’s unlike her.
“Happy anniversary, Darling.” She’s not happy, but trying desperately to sound it.
“What’s wrong?”
She flashes with anger. “Nothing.” I know she’s lying, but I also know that forcing the issue will just mean another fight. I’m not eager for a week of verbal silence and kinesic screaming, so I drop it.
I’ve put every ounce of the love I still feel for her into dinner. She picks at it in silence.
She asks me about my day. Surprising; she never wants to hear about work anymore. I tell her about charting trajectories for blinkships in Reimann space. She’s becoming angry, hostile; my words trail off.
“Your enhanced genetics must help you a lot with that.”
I sigh. “Can we please not do this today?”
“I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t stand it — being read like a book, feeling stupid and incompetent all of the time. I’m done with you. It’s over.”
I stop thinking about work, about the books I’ve been reading, about sex. I stop browsing blogs and watching the stock ticker. I focus entirely on her.
I’ve been expecting this for months now. That’s not the problem. Everything is out in the open now; but she’s still hiding something. She perches on her chair like a vulture.
My lips and fingertips are starting to feel numb.
“What have you done, Evelyn?”
“These flowers have enhanced genetics, too. They were made just for you, darling. Just for your DNA.”
“But I love you.” She stands over me as I slip to the floor.
“You smart bastard. I finally got one over on you.”
by submission | Mar 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
There’s an alien in my kitchen, and I’m not quite sure what to do. My wife stands by the stove, humming quietly to herself while chopping away at some vegetables for the stew. My son sits at the table next to the alien, trying to teach it how to play his favorite card game, but I don’t think it understands. Its big, blue head just nods along an awkward imitation of our own mannerisms, its big, dark eyes looking back and forth between my son and the little pieces of paper he’s setting down on the table. Meanwhile, my dog sits curiously at the base of the alien’s chair, sniffing at its dangling feet.
And here I am, standing the doorway, briefcase in hand, with no idea what to make of the situation.
“Honey…” I say, walking slowly and methodically around the outer edge of the kitchen, keeping my distance from the alien. “Tell me again where you found it?”
“I already told you,” she says, still smiling at her chopped vegetables. “He was out in the garden. Poor little thing is all alone and hungry.”
“How can you even KNOW that?” I ask, my strained voice betraying my attempts at remaining calm. “Why is it in our house?”
“He’s hungry,” my wife says again, using her knife and hand to dump the finished vegetables into the pot of hot water on the stove. “I can’t turn away a stranger in need.”
“A stranger in… you can’t… it’s…”
But words really do fail me. My son is now trying desperately to get the alien to play a game of cards with him, grabbing the alien’s four-fingered hands and practically stuffing cards into them. I almost call out for my son not to touch it, but I know it’d be futile. They all seem to think this is perfectly normal.
“Why don’t you sit down and have some soup,” my wife says. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“I… I’m calling the police,” I finally manage to say. “We can’t keep him here. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
“He’s just hungry,” my wife says again in a sing-song voice. “Just have a seat and we can call the police after.”
“No,” I say, more definitively. “I’m calling them now. We don’t know what this thing is or what it could mean to the world. We can’t keep him here.”
Suddenly my wife’s hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist and forcing it down into the counter top with freakish strength.
“No.” she says again, all joy having left her voice. I stare up at her, eyes wide, and watch as she slowly raises the knife over her head. “He’s just hungry.”
Before I get a chance to scream, the knife drives into my chest, piercing my heart and sending blood gurgling into my throat. As my body hits the floor, my family doesn’t move, not even the dog. My body twitches, once, twice, then goes still as the feeling leaves my limbs. Just as my vision starts to fade, I see the alien stand up from its seat at the kitchen table, kneel over my body, and sniff at my blood as it flows steadily from my chest..
“Ah…” a voice says in my head. “A-Positive, just what I needed. I’m really sorry about this, but I was simply famished.”
by submission | Mar 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Alex Bauer
It never started here, my dear. We are victims of circumstance.
It started with the fires, with her, as we watched the skyline burn in the middle of terrific night. Standing there on the lake shore, horrified beyond rational thought, among wailing multitudes while the city burned to so much carbonized slag. Her. Standing there next to me, face hammered into masks of sorrow and enchantment, painted with furnace shadows. Beautiful.
We had been left behind. There would be no salvation this time.
Every fear a thread–a final impulse–so I reached out and grasped that hand. Shock smoothed away the horror and I felt my expression mirrored in hers. She looked at me.
Looked at me. I mattered again, just like that.
Cool carboplatinum fingers reticently cradled mine. Marvelous control. “Darwin,” she hiccuped, singed hair whisking around green weeping eyes. Taken aback, I laughed darkly, nodded. I touched her cheek in a fit of fear-crazed need, something to show, for once, that I could be kind. Truly kind. I felt inlays beneath the skin, the reconstructed zygomatic, the carbofiber masseter relaxed under my caress. Recycled.
Someone loved you very much, once. Sent you away. Darwin indeed.
“Just so.” I said, looked up as giants hammered on the sky once more, the wheeling horizon all engulfed in flame. Nauseating vertigo, as if I’d spiral out of her hands and into the stars above. The skies were cracking above us. Spidery cracks heliographed the light of burning cities, peoples, their last stretched long fingers into the night. Flotsam and debris floated beyond the transparent shield, bits of smashed lightships and radiator panels glowing like banked coals.
Nearby stars blink and seconds later, ferromagnetics fireballed into the colony’s canopy at twelve kilometers per second. Each star a ship, each blink another shove toward the precipice.
Soon, I thought, the race between cooking or choking would be over. The lake itself began to burn. Sweat poured down the groove of my back. A breeze touched us, and I welcomed whatever came.
Excisement, the Enemy called it. For the consumption of thought. For the heresy of existence. Another volley battered the canopy and the end came in a single body-crushing tsunami of overpressure.
Decompression is equal parts waiting and celerity. The canopy over the city blew outward in rending silence, like it was sucked up by a giant’s straw. Brilliant tidal waves of debris and mezocyclones of fire fell up into the night before extinguishing. No one screamed, even when the fingers of the breach wrapped ‘round us, fetched us up into the night in greedy handfuls.
Excisement.
I never let go of her hand, even when the light went out in those weeping eyes. And here we are. Here I am. Floating here with her, in the depths. This vast ocean. Drowning. Anoxia is killing me and we’ve only begun to swim! Only these few minutes we’ve known each other. Reefs of transparent alloy float around us, glittering like wet jewels. If only she could see this.
Not even a name! I never told her mine. Better this way… isn’t it?
“Darwin.” I mouth, feel something like God’s own hand reach down my throat to tear the life away from this husk. Prosthesis spasms to the tune of dying synapses. “Darwin.” Oh. Oh, I am so sorry. Always so stupid, so awful, never thinking about others. Choking.
That’s her name. Her na–
