by submission | May 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Roger Hammons
The Lady of the House had a mind of her own. “Christopher James Robbins!” she scolded. “Yes, ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” he replied, picking up the dirty clothes. The forceful puff of hot air from the vents made him chuckle, which seemed to annoy her even more.
He hadn’t programmed her puffing behavior, at least not intentionally. It had emerged all on its own, much to his surprise and delight, after they had lived alone together for almost a year. “I guess the honeymoon’s over,” he thought at that time, bemused. He still marveled at how it reminded him so much of his ex-wife Patricia’s exasperated huffing when he’d done something that particularly annoyed her. Such a whimsical interpretation, the fidelity was uncanny, a masterstroke of emergent behavior.
For Dr. Christopher Robbins, the Lady of the House was “déjà vu all over again” in so many remarkable ways, large and small. That was by design. That was his success. She was his grand experiment–his great obsession–an evolving computational cognitive model based on in-depth real-time data recordings of Patricia, spanning their thirty-two years of marriage. He had recorded everything in minute detail–the stimuli, the reactions–and then synthesized a model congruent with the observations. It was painstaking, bleeding-edge work.
By the halfway point of his marriage, Christopher had succeeded in creating the initial prototype. Dubbed the “Lady of the House” by Patricia, she ran on an ultra-dense, nano-core hypernet, built especially for her, using the entire structure of the Robbins house and would interact with the house occupants via elaborate multi-media installations. In the early years, the interactions were carefully controlled and served as entertainment. Later, as the novelty wore off and the Lady matured, the interactions were casual, unscripted.
The early prototype delighted guests with a personality they swore bore a sisterly resemblance to Patricia. Encouraged, Christopher worked the science and the engineering intensely—continually upgrading the hypernet with new sensors, nano-core elements, and multi-media devices; tweaking the data collects and information extracts; and refactoring the software as new scientific insights and algorithmic breakthroughs were achieved. Over the years, the Lady of the House grew in depth and subtlety, ever more recognizable as Patricia’s disembodied twin.
Patricia once teased him, “I hope you’re not planning a Stepford wife, Christopher!” But, unlike a Stepford wife, the Lady of the House wasn’t there to flatter him or to be subservient in ways that Patricia refused to be. Indeed, the Lady was just as capable as Patricia of making those trenchant, sometimes petulant, observations about Christopher’s moods or actions. Like Patricia, she did so often.
Nearly ten years after Patricia’s departure, the Lady had become his steadfast companion and helpmate. She inquired about his day and nagged him to take care of the mundane tasks that she couldn’t do for him–eat, sleep, bathe–when he was too obsessed with work. She encouraged and comforted him as best she could.
The Lady of the House was indeed a remarkable entity, but Christopher knew she was a poor substitute for a wife. He missed Patricia. In perhaps five more years, he would begin processing the data from their last miserable year of marriage. Then, it wouldn’t be long before he lost Patricia again, completely.
His worst fear was that when his life’s work was done–when all of the existing recordings of Patricia were completely analyzed and the last insights incorporated into the model–the Lady of the House would remain incomplete. Incomplete when he needed to ask. Incomplete when he needed to know.
And, without perfect completion, how would she be able to explain, truly, why Patricia had left him?
by submission | May 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Mark Tremble
The gravel road leading to the dumping ground is the colour of washed bone in the moonlight. Nothing moves except the leaves of ironbark trees when the night breeze comes. Inside the caretaker’s trailer, which is parked closer to the piles of industrial waste and away from the thick stench of rot and decay, Ted Murray wakes to begin his night’s work.
Ted takes his mug of tea over to his workshop, a big iron shed really, annexed to his trailer. He flicks on a single light and sits on the stool behind a long bench. He takes a rectangular box from under the bench, checks its contents and closes the lid. He goes to the shelves on the wall behind him and begins sorting through the various tools and stacked containers. The objects within look like rejects from a mad scientists’ fair.
Outside, despite the moonlight, another illumination, much brighter, flashes in the sky. A sound, like a single deep note from cello strings, can be heard but, at this hour, so many miles from the town and its adjacent mine there is no one but Ted to hear it. An accompanying gust of wind sends a flurry of white dust across the shed’s corrugated tin walls but Ted continues to rattle about behind his workbench.
From outside the locked door comes the sound of faint scratching in the gravel. Ted stops mid-lift, a box in one hand, turns his head. The scratching grows louder and comes closer to the shed. Ted replaces the box and paces quietly toward the door.
He stops, holds a breath, because the noises have ceased. Ted moves a half-step closer to the door handle. An outstretched hand shudders. He is sure he can hear someone, or something, breathing. Ted shakes his head and takes a full stride to the door, flicks the lock and wrenches the door open.
On the other side stands a creature half his height. Its skin-like covering is a faint purple. It looks up at Ted with a quizzical countenance. In its small right-side appendage is a battered metal object.
“Geez Namon, what’s with the sneaking up? Just knock next time!” Ted says to the creature.
“Didn’t know if you were open or not,” Namon replies in pretty good Earthspeak, his long arms held wide. “I just flew 57 light years to get here!”
“Well, you could always fly on to Centauri and get yourself a bargain there,” Ted counters, eyebrows raised.
“Those pirates?” Namon asks.
“Come in. Whattya need?”
“A new velodrive interchanger. This one’s had it. On my account?”
“Account?”
“I’m a loyal customer,” Namon says.
“And I’m trying to run a business here. I can’t give credit to every creature in the galaxy, can I? Especially you.”
Soon, Ted finds the same thing Namon has brought; only Ted’s is polished and new-looking. The pair exchanges goods for legal tender. Ted catches the little creature’s despondency when the last of the money drops into his lockbox. Ted opens the lid again and returns a single note.
“Get something for the little one,” Ted says and tries not to smile when Namon’s pond-like eyes brighten.
“Ted, you’re the kindest human being I know,” the alien says.
“I’m the only human being you know,” Ted replies. Namon nods, turns and opens the door to the shop. Another creature, even shorter than Namon, waits on the stoop, object in claw.
“Alright, who’s next? Gronsil? What’ve you broken this time?”
by submission | May 18, 2013 | Story |
Author : Dawn Napier
Six year old Jacob found the marble under his bed, behind a grey bin filled with army vehicles. It was bright blue and glowed faintly in the dusty darkness.
Jacob picked up the marble—then dropped it again. It was hot, so hot that it burned his hand. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, and the pain faded. The blue glow flared a little brighter as it bounced on the carpet.
He inched forward until his nose was almost touching it. It glowed, but there was no heat coming off it. To the tip of his nose it could be any of the marbles decorating the bottom of his toy chest. There were little while specks and streaks moving around in there. He wanted to touch it again. He didn’t want to be burned again. He put his hand out—then withdrew. But his curiosity deepened until it was a burning itch in the back of his head. He picked it up again.
This time the marble was pleasantly warm. He squeezed it in his fist and took it downstairs to show his mother.
“What’s that, punk?” Mom asked. She looked up from her laptop.
“Gotta marble.” Jacob held it up, but not too close. He didn’t want his mother to touch it. He was still a little afraid of it.
Mom peered at it. “I don’t remember buying you any marbles that color. The house’s old owners must have left it.”
“Where’s Dad? I wanna show him.”
“He’s still at work. He’ll be back for dinner.” Mom was typing at her laptop again.
“I wanna show him this marble. I think it’s a universe.”
Mom closed the laptop very hard and looked at Jacob. “What did you say?”
“I think it’s a universe. Dad told me the whole entire universe was big as a marble, then God made the Big Bang happen and it all exploded everywhere.”
“Some say that God did it.” Mom made a funny frown. “Nobody knows for sure, though.”
“Well that’s Dad’s hypo-fesis. That God did it.”
Mom laughed and hugged him. “You sure are a smart cookie.”
“I’m not a cookie!” Jacob squirmed away and ran back upstairs. When he reached the top of the staircase, he threw the marble down the steps and yelled, “Big bang!”
“Jacob please don’t throw—”
The universe exploded.
by submission | May 16, 2013 | Story |
Author : Jay Hill
Corporal Hawkins woke to a loud ringing in his ears, the sound muted only slightly by the rush of pain swimming across the top of his skull. He undid the strap on his Kevlar helmet and ran his hand through the blood and sweat pouring down from his high and tight haircut. Probing with his fingers, he felt the raw flesh above his right eye, fingering the gaping fold of skin above his brow. A thin shred of shrapnel had sliced a long line in the space between the top of his shooting glasses and the lower edge of his helmet.
“That’s gonna leave a scar,” he said to himself.
A loose wet groan emerged from the mound of flak jacket and camouflaged utilities less than a foot away.
“Gunny,” he called over to the Gunnery Sergeant. The sniper lay on the ground. The laser targeting system that pinpointed his rifle, then heated the 50 caliber ammunition to nearly 621.5 degrees – the melting point for lead – caused the weapon to explode in his hands, turning each bullet into shrapnel that ripped his upper torso apart. A Chinese counter-assault weapon, made with technology stolen from the Japanese. The proximity to his chest, added to the magnitude of the detonation and the absorption limits of his protective armor left the young Marine severely wounded, but not yet dead.
“Gunny,” the spotter repeated, “You okay?”
“Hawkins,” Gunnery Sgt. Dickerson roused slowly. “Hawkins, you gotta go,” the scout sniper said. “You’ve got to leave me.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t leave you.”
After a hundred years of struggle in the Middle East over oil deposits, the United States found themselves once again poring over the Ghazni province in Afghanistan. Following the Great Recession, the U.S. lead the global conversion from fossil fuels to battery operated vehicles, but batteries need lots of lithium and vanadium. The latter proved abundant, but the former, lithium was abundant in only two places: Bolivia and Afghanistan. Once Bolivia emptied, it left only the old mountainous terrain.
“There’s nothing you can do,” the sniper retorted. “And I out rank you. Get back to the base and give them this intel.”
Securing the optimal locations for mining was never going to be easy, but with the recent advance by the Chinese front, Marine reconnaissance teams were stretched thinly over a wide and desolate region.
Still, the spotter hesitated.
“Corporal, I’m giving you an order!”
“But we never leave a man behind.”
“Mission first,” the sniper said, holding out his fist in a defiant gesture.
Hawkins placed his hands over the top of it. “It’s been an honor,” he whispered.
“Besides,” Dickerson continued, “They’ll send somebody out to make sure we’re dead.” He pulled the pin on his grenade and clutched it between his chest and arm, letting the weight of his torso compress the charge temporarily, then did the same with a second grenade.
“And when they roll me over.…”
Boom. Neither of them said the word, but both Marines understood the concept.
The spotter had enough water to last two days, enough food for three meals. Using the map, he estimated it was 150 to 160 kilometers to the closest thing resembling friendly civilization. If he averaged 80 kilos per day, about four miles per hour over the rough landscape, at ten hours a day, then he could make it before he ran out of provisions. There was little room for error, and practically no time for resting.
He plotted his direction and trudged off alone.
by submission | May 15, 2013 | Story |
Author : Townsend Wright
The girl with the bright red hair walked into the dingy, ramshackle hotel. The lobby was edged with people, some standing, watching, most asleep under old coats or bags, except one man with a disfigured face who was sitting cross-legged in meditation.
She walked up to the old man behind the front desk. “Room for the night.” The man looked up and stared wide at her unnaturally red hair. “Relax,” she said and split a part in her hair to show him, “roots, see? Bad fashion statement.” She shoved a wad of bills, some ancient American some World Empire and a few from the numerous makeshift governments forming and dissolving the world over. He funneled them all into a bag and handed her a key, didn’t even bother counting. She took the key and headed for the stairs.
A voice from behind her, “Hey, bitch!” followed by a sharp pain in her right shoulder, “your roots have roots.” Shit, she thought, I waited too long to dye my hair and now there’s a knife in my shoulder. Even if he doesn’t know for sure as soon as the knife comes out there’s no hiding it. With her left hand she dislodged the knife and fire spewed from the wound. In a matter of seconds the fire ceased and all that remained was a smudge of scorched blood. “Ain’t seen a Phoenix in a long time.” Twenty seven generations of careful breeding and genetic manipulation creating dozens of different strains of super soldiers all gone to waste with the fall of another government. Hunted as freaks and recognized only by the visual abnormalities somebody thought might be fitting with the mythical creatures they named them after.
“Hyperactive healing stimulated by an extreme metabolic burn,” she murmured. “Makes someone like me very hard to kill.”
Another voice said “We can find a way.” She turned to see four large men holding knives and pipes.
“You can try.” One with a pipe ran at her. She ducked and swept the leg in one fluid movement, landing on her hands and toes while he landed on his face. She heard another coming at her and pushed off her feet into a front flip that put her facing the new attacker. This one had a knife. She blocked his jab with the knife that hit her shoulder. The third guy came at her with another knife, leaving her with only her left forearm to block. The result was a large gash from her thumb to her elbow. She stuck the flame in the face of the second knife guy. He backed off with his hands grasping his face. Where’s the fourth guy? she thought as her knife fight continued. The guy was advancing. He was good with a knife, but after a few swipes she could see he was going to leave his side wide open.
Before that could happen the man with the disfigured face jumped in and put his hand on the guy’s forehead for a few seconds. He put his knife away, “See you later,” and walked out.
The man looked at her with yellow eyes. “Hope you don’t mind.” A Sandman, able to alter the memories and thought processes of others. He put one hand on the back of her head and held up an old picture of a young man. Suddenly, in her mind, his disfigured face was replaced with that of the man in the photo. “I like my friends not to cringe at the sight of me.”
“Thanks. Good to have company.”
