by submission | Nov 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Scott Shipp
Ian was cornered. He had run straight into a dead end alley. Right on his heels were two cyborg cops, and he had the money credits hacked from the bank all over his data stores. There was no escape. Lucky for him, he was augmented with an eye implant that drew his computer screen directly onto his retina. His brain had both a processor and an organic hard drive jacked directly into the basal ganglia. He checked his computer readout. No. He wasn’t going anywhere. The only way out was to climb up the walls. And they were smooth as silk.
Cursing, he opened the shutdown script. The shutdown script would encrypt and backup the data to a cloud drive, including his entire mind, then it would wipe everything, even his brain, and this would cause him to die.
He ran it.
“Stop right there!”
“Freeze!”
Both cyborg cops bore down on him, ready to scan his mind and prove his guilt. Then, death.
#
He awoke. Friends had told him rumors of what it was like, but he wasn’t prepared for this. Although there was no more body to care for, his mind, now digitized, still felt the existence of an entire phantom body, itching and burning and twitching. He screamed in agony, though there was no sound.
He closed his phantom eyes and tried to focus.
“Must get the credits to Amy, must get the credits to Amy.”
Through the burning, he tried to interface with the system around him. None of it made sense. Everything was unusual. He requested memory, and he saw purple. He tried to ask what data stores were available, and he tasted pineapple and smelled burning rubber.
“I need to learn this new language.”
But he was already exhausted. He slept.
Weeks and months went by. He learned the meaning of purple, and pineapple, and each sensation only by experimenting with each request. He feared accidentally closing his program, or, worse, deleting himself. Once, after he had felt something like vibrations in teeth, a sea of digits swam up before him. He learned it was a man page, a help file in the system that described one of the commands available. It took awhile to learn how to read the man files, but once he did, it was a huge leap forward.
Months more flew by. He learned that he was inside a web server. It was part of a web hosting company. He started to gain more confidence, learning more about each interface. He learned new protocols. He pinged the network. He spoke the language of routers and switches.
And one day he reached the outside world.
#
Amy sighed, pouring her tea and holding back her tears. The grief was still too much to bear.
“Oh, Ian,” she said to his picture on the wall. “It wasn’t worth it.”
She felt the familiar ache behind her eyes and in her heart and clamped down on it. No use crying any more, was there? Nothing could bring him back.
Her phone beeped. She took it out and looked at the text message.
“Deposit notification: 80,000,000 credits.”
Her eyes grew wide. She checked her bank account. Indeed, it was there. Was it Ian? She smiled a little. He must have somehow scheduled the money to be deposited before he died.
Her phone beeped again. She looked at it. The mug went tumbling across the floor, the phone followed. Tea splattered out.
On the phone, it said simply: “I’m alive.”
“I’m coming.”
by submission | Nov 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : Dina Leacock
I sat at the table for two and waited for my date to arrive.
We’d been emailing since we first “met” on “Find-True-Love.com and now we were finally going to meet. Taking the mirror from my purse I nervously adjusted my face.
Would he like me? Would I like him? Does he really look as good as the pictures he posted? How was I going to tell him my little secret. I was worried it would be the deal breaker and I knew, just knew, Jeremy was my real deal. I was in love.
I watched people enter the café and studied each one. None were right, and then there he was! Tall, dark, handsome. He looked around and then our eyes locked. He smiled, a devil-may-care, wolfish grin and my heart melted.
He rushed over to my table. “Luna Marie,” he said, reaching out and grasping my hands.
“Jeremy!” I replied and blushed.
We sat and both ordered cappuccinos and lemon cake, then laughed because our tastes were so perfectly matched. Then his smile faded. He looked at me with such a serious expression. “I am so excited to finally meet you, Luna Marie. I’ve been dying to see you since that first e-date. It’s hard to believe that we could be in love like this for three months and yet have never met face to face.”
I remembered Mama’s warning about computer dating, about the need to be with our own kind was more important than love, and I frowned realizing how mistaken she was.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked in alarm. “Did I say something wrong?”
I shook my head and smiled. “Oh no, nothing’s wrong. Jeremy, you and I, we are soul mates. I can feel it. Our lives are going to be perfect!”
Now he frowned, “Luna Marie, I haven’t been totally honest with you. From the moment I met you, I fell in love and I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
His frown deepened and his grey eyes turned a stormy charcoal. “No don’t be so sure, I lied to you, lied by omission, I have a secret, one I fear will tear us apart.”
My smile froze and I suddenly felt scared. What could possibly be so bad, I wondered and remembered that I too harbored a secret, one possibly more horrific than his. “I’m sure it will be all right, Darling.” I assure him through trembling lips. “Tell me.”
He lowered his gaze, but I saw the pain in his eyes just as he broke our stare. “Luna Marie, please, I beg of you, forgive me but… but I’m a werewolf!”
I laughed and clapped my hands together in delight.
He looked up at me, puzzlement mixing with the pain in his gaze.
“Oh Jeremy, this is perfect. I knew we were destined to be together forever, because, you see, I lied by omission as well. I’m actually an alien to this world and, conveniently, my home planet doesn’t have a moon, full or otherwise!”
by submission | Nov 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Richard Halcomb
Life Itself…
The electrostatic bubble crackled to life around the travellers; two scientists, a politician and a pair of media photographers. Dr. Tim Bilcks, Team Leader of Project Tempus, held the controls of the Temporal Transport Platform, as the sphere of energy surrounded them. “My friends, we are making possibly the most astounding journey in human history; to the birth of Life on Earth itself!”
“Most previous time experiments failed to grasp that ANY Time Engine needs to be able to accurately navigate in the traditional three dimensions, as well as in the temporal fourth dimension. Destinations are constantly in a state of movement through time, and failure to consider this aspect cost us many great, pioneering minds.” Dr. Bilcks paused, to make sure that his genius was understood. “This device, the T.T.P., incorporates a navigational computer which ensures that you land on the coordinates of your destination, at the temporal coordinates of your choice. We also have a terrain scanner, to avoid appearing inside a rock, or a tree!”
“All very good, Doctor. How long will this take?” Science Magister Tompkins had an important meeting planned, with a blonde reporter of questionable morals. He had worn his best kilt suit for this journey, and hoped to be rid of it by 2pm.
“Technically, we won’t be gone at all. We arrive back a nanosecond after we leave. It’s all a part of the genius of the…”
“Excellent!” Magister Tomkins interrupted, “The beginning of life itself! I can’t wait to breathe the Ancient air!” Or, he thought to himself, to smell the cologne of that reporter, whose name he had momentarily forgotten. Steve? Sven? Something with an S…
“Ah, well… the air of the time that we are visiting would be highly toxic to our evolved lungs! My assistant will give you one of these filters to inhale.”
Bilcks’ long suffering assistant Penny Worthington handed out small, black marbles. “Once this lodges in your throat, it will filter out the toxins, and balance the remaining gases, to give you the air that you need.” she explained. Dutifully, the marbles were inhaled, feeling unnatural as they descended towards the trachea. Dr. Bilcks deftly flicked the transit switch; the T.T.P. crackled a crescendo, and flicked out of existence.
For the travellers, all they saw was a blur. Then their new reality solidified around them, the crackling subsiding. They had arrived. Primal Earth was strangely beautiful. Water covered most of the view around the rocky outcrop where the T.T.P had landed. Sol, Earth’s sun, was a deeper orange in this time, and the rocks reflected it as a red hue. The Magister admitted to himself that it had been worth the trip. He inhaled deeply, as the photographers stepped out to document the moment.
“Damn,” Magister Tomkins beamed, “I was saving this for later, but this seems much more auspicious!” He took the cigar and lighter from his sporran, inhaled deeply, and lit up.
The mainly methane proto-atmosphere flared around the Magister. None of them had time to feel a thing. The T.T.P. was torn apart by the force of the explosion, and the five temporal travellers were ripped into millions of their composite pieces.
Quiet resumed, Earth’s natural soundtrack. In the surrounding puddles, the small carbon-based molecules scattered around started to change. They had a very long journey ahead of them.
by submission | Oct 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan
Scarlet wings aflutter, painted faces twisted into masks of hate, the pixies descend. Their prey writhes on the ground, eyes bulging in terror as the tiny carnivores begin their feast.
Fluorescent light filters through golden pixie dust, casting an eerie haze over the scene. Crimson blood stains a concrete floor. Screams of terror fill the soundproof room, reaching no ears but tiny pointed ones.
Their only thought – to kill. Their victim – a human soldier, now a living skeleton. Flesh hangs torn from skeletal cheeks, ripped away by tiny teeth.
Behind shatter-proof glass, men and women in lab coats watch with satisfied faces. One breaks the silence, speaking to a stern-faced companion.
“So, General. I expect we will get the contract?”
by submission | Oct 30, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Kavanaugh
The projectionist’s nimble hands slid the reel into the side of the old machine. The switch was flipped and a cone of illuminated dust particles appeared in the theater outside the tiny window.
In the seats below, the scattered audience members settled back, putting their little conversations on hold as the feature began.
At first, the screen was black but for a bit of deep, dark, throbbing grayness in the very center. Then suddenly there was a collective gasp of breath and more than one audience member jumped in their seat as the dot on the screen suddenly glowed white hot and inflated. It stretched out and out, blinding them with its brilliance. It filled the screen, pulsing and twirling with ripples of electric blue. The speakers grumbled out a roar of sound, like living thunder.
Then, as the liquid fire began to calm, the scene changed. The perspective zoomed in on a little ripple of gold, closer and closer until the audience was watching tiny mites of energy shudder and clash. They began to evolve into bits of color, and the opposing shades collided and burst like firecrackers. The speakers sent out sizzling sounds as the particles appeared and disappeared.
The light softened, and the screen became a hazy scene of drifting clouds. The clouds began to squeeze inward and take the shapes of disks and skirts and hats and hoops. Stars in the newly formed galaxies twinkled and blinked. The big ones were the prettiest, but they only lasted a few seconds before flashing out in rainbow gusts.
It zoomed in on a little tornado of silver glitter. The galaxy spun through the darkness until it happened upon another galaxy, this one a smaller disc the color of blood. The whirlwind of stars swept across the red galaxy, swallowing up the colors and hiccupping a flash of orange before moving on.
There were some random shots of rocky worlds and gas giants rotating around their parent suns, and after a few minutes the scenes of life began. Quark warriors swarmed in the molecular castles on a scrap of frozen iron. An ooze of black silicone sludge rose up in a great wave and battled a thorny beast as big as a mountain. Sentient souls in a methane sea slashed at the seafloor and turned the ore into shiny metals. They built vessels like golden spears and hurled themselves through the cosmos, forming an empire dozens of galaxies across. Buzzing pools of electrons bickered over philosophy. A small, wet planet featured scenes of jellyfish and fungi and a single frame of a hairless ape driving a Volkswagen. Gray-green clouds made love and gave birth to raindrop children. There were monsters and angels and artists. There was a stone dragon snacking on stars and belching out hydrogen fumes.
The flickering scenes of life came to a close, and the screen showed black and white once more. The pop and crackle of starry lives. The heavy breathing of nebula. The grinding, angry music of pulsars.
The specks of light went out, one by one, and the speakers grew silent.
Some of the audience clapped politely, but there was a general feeling of anticlimax. They began to rise from their seats, yawning. Someone spilled a soft drink. Someone forgot their keys.
Above them, the projectionist carefully inserted the reel back into its container and set it on the cart beside the others. As the gods tottered from the dingy theater below, the projectionist blinked its many, glistening eyes and glanced at the fading label. It read: The Universe.
