by submission | Oct 17, 2011 | Story |
Author : Isaac Archer
Dad brought me to his lab again today. I was really excited when he told me I could come help him with his work because I want to be a scientist too. He told me not to tell Mom, because it’s a secret, our secret.
“Some things are for sharing,” he said, “but some things are for keeping. Secrets are for keeping.”
He even called my teacher to tell her I was going to be out sick today from the car, so Mom wouldn’t hear. I like helping Dad and I like missing school even more. I haven’t been enjoying school since I got in trouble last week. Ms. Roberts said I skipped her class, but I told her I didn’t skip it, I’ve never skipped! She told me not to lie and said I was developing bad habits. Dad believed me though and he said we didn’t have to tell Mom either. He said we don’t need to worry her.
Dad works in his own private lab. It’s pretty messy – there’s not much space left because one big machine fills up most of the room. Dad can barely even get to his desk, let alone the shelves and piles of stuff, which is why I can help him. He spends all day doing experiments with the machine, except when somebody comes to talk to him. Those times are the worst because I have to be really quiet and go in the corner and it’s boring.
Today only one person comes to talk. He’s a bald man in a gray suit. The top of his head is so shiny I almost laugh, but I try my hardest to stay quiet. I’m not paying attention when the man and Dad start talking but then the man starts to yell.
“People are dead because of your shoddy work! This is the only project we have without any direct oversight and you’d quit over it? We’re fighting a war here. We can’t have our own weapons killing our soldiers.”
“There will always be risk involved, and you don’t have anybody capable of understanding, much less overseeing, my work.”
“Don’t give me that risk line! Genetic modification–”
“Is not what the implants do! Genes can’t subvert the laws of the universe, no matter how cleverly you configure aminos. The implants are produced by accessing properties that aren’t comprehensible to our physics, much less our biology. They translate those properties biologically, but the machine, the source… most of it is pure mathematics. And it’s probabilistic. I don’t know what a given implant will do. In fact it cannot be known with certainty. You just have to test them, see what each solution does.”
Dad turns away from the bald man. “You guys treat this like it’s magic, but expect it to operate with the consistency of science. Every council meeting, you chatter like little kids with comic books, arguing over whether you’d prefer flight or invisibility. Flight and invisibility! Listen to yourself. No, I won’t have someone in here looking over my shoulder.”
The bald man’s head is purple now, but he doesn’t say anything else, and after a while he leaves. He reminds me of Ms. Roberts.
I decide to ask Dad about it, so I hover over to him and flicker once to get his attention. “Dad,” I say, “Isn’t it wrong to lie? Why didn’t you tell him about my implant?”
He sighs and stares at the ceiling behind me.
“Some things are for sharing, son,” he says, “but some things are for keeping.”
by submission | Oct 16, 2011 | Story |
Author : Holly Day
The boy didn’t fly so much as claw his way up through the air, swinging first one arm, then the next, up over his head while he made his ascent. His arms and legs were twisted metal wrapped in plastic, and his face was completely covered with a clear plastic shield. The eyes that stared up at Valerie were bright and angry against a pallor of sagging, dying flesh.
Valerie eyed the boy coolly, automatically willing the projectiles in the palms of her hands to slide into place. It wouldn’t be any big deal to just circumvent the boy completely, but she hadn’t had a chance to try the tiny bombs out on anything yet. She sized up her opponent as he grew nearer, deciding that the large, clunky tube grenade launcher strapped to his forearms would be no threat to her.
Valerie slowed her decent until it was little more than a hover and waited for the deformed creature below her to draw close. It was funny, or ironic, how she felt right now—she wasn’t sure which. The short time she had spent in an adolescent, fully-human body, she had been riddled with insecurity about her body, her body language, what she was supposed to talk about with friends and what she was allowed to say to boys, and the whole experience had been just awful. But now, just weeks after officially joining the military as part of their Elite, she felt perfectly in control of everything around her. Everything. The boy below her posed no threat on any level. He could either attack her or try to kiss her, and she would have been able to deal with either situation perfectly.
“Wouldn’t it be strange if he did try to kiss me?” she marveled suddenly, almost laughing, then shuddered. The closer he drew, the more she could see how unlike her he, or at least his construction, was. He was a brutish pile of sharp metal parts and exposed tubes and wires, with bits of human flesh showing here and there as if left by accident. His mouth was an angry snarl of teeth, lips dry and split, gray. He probably would not try to kiss her.
As the boy drew nearer, Valerie coolly took survey of what she took to be vulnerable areas and aimed accordingly. She paused, not sure if she should just shoot the newcomer and get it over with, or if she should wait until he was within earshot and saw something menacing, or brave, or comic-book corny, like “Nice killing you!” or “Next time, make sure your arms match your feet before taking off, Lunkhead!”
It seemed as though her attacker was thinking the same thing. As she watched, the boy tried to shape his malformed mouth into words, finally settling on some sort of gesture which Valerie decided must be insulting. It had to be. She made a gesture of her own in return, then aimed carefully and fired.
by submission | Oct 15, 2011 | Story |
Author : Suzanne van Rooyen
The little girl, stained red by dust and blood, surveys the field beyond the fence. Perhaps a flutter of wings or chirp of crickets… Only dead-grass silence.
Her face twists into a rictus of pleasure as she skips hop-scotch over bleached skulls through the ruins of the farmstead — charred brick and splintered wood. The desiccated earth trembles beneath her feet.
Kicking aside rot-swollen limbs, she retrieves a teddy-bear from a child’s carcass; twin button-eyes like black holes. Holding the toy, she looks up at the sky with the eyes of a dead fish. Clouds shrivel and vanish in her gaze.
She waits, a cherub with blond-curl halo, for her starship companion.
The blue dome fractures in grotesque birth as the vessel breaches the firmament, slick with cosmic placenta.
The little girl turns and sets her sights on new quarry.
In the distant mirage, a city shimmers. She stalks towards the spires glinting sunset scarlet, soon to be eclipsed. Flowers wither in the wake of her desert touch, crows plummet on broken wings, and the coyote howl turns death-rattle.
The starship follows; a gargantuan balloon of mirror-surface metal, fastened by an invisible umbilical cord to her wrist, casting tridecagon shadows on the alien world.
Four million hearts beat a cacophony within the city. Her smile widens in hideous glee and she runs, arms outspread, heels flinging up hurricanes. The teddy-bear lies tossed and left abandoned as the little girl becomes a pinprick blemish on the horizon. The lethargic shadow of the ship extends like vulture wings.
Burgundy mist spewed from severed arteries, sets the skyline on fire as screams punctuate the darkening quietude, a sinister symphony. There’s laughter too; the volcanic eruptions of little girl giggles ricochet across the wasteland.
The teddy-bear lies forlorn in the dust, the only and silent witness to Earth’s demise.
by submission | Oct 9, 2011 | Story |
Author : S. Alessio Tummolillo
Year 3187
“This is Lieutenant Edge requesting docking permission from the I.S.S.” Aurelius brought his Q-Fighter to zero speed, floating before the massive space station. He focused on the dull stars in the distance.
He thought back to his visit to Earth, where the stars twinkled. He felt a pang in his chest. The intercom sprung to life, “This is the I.S.S., permission granted. Welcome back, Lieutenant.”
Aurelius breathed to himself, “Good to be back.”
He manoeuvred his spacecraft into the green glow of the docking bay and landed it. At the push of the button, the hatch opened and without waiting for a ladder he jumped to the ground.
“Won’t be needing that,” he said to a man rolling a ladder over.
“Yes sir,” the man saluted as Aurelius jogged by.
He reached the command center and as the doors sprung open two guards saluted, dropping their air rifles to their sides.
“At ease, Gentlemen,” Aurelius said as he walked into the room, doors closing behind him. The guards relaxed. The Commander stood at the control panel, staring out the window. He glanced over his shoulder at Aurelius.
“Lieutenant, welcome home! Privates, make your way outside. The Lieutenant and I have things to discuss.”
The doors sprung open again and the Privates left. The door closed.
“Did you find anything in the Hera System?”
“No, Sir.”
“Just as well. I knew if we waited those slimy bastards would slip by. We’ll get ‘em, though.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“On to business. We had a council while you were scouting.”
“Oh, Sir? Whose decision was that?”
“Mine.”
“Without me there? What was it about, Sir?”
“Earth. We’ve decided to…destroy it.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re blowing it up, Son. There’s nothing there but waste, cripples, and very revealing documents about us. We don’t need ‘em, but in the wrong hands…”
“But Sir, what about your wife! My mother! What are you thinking?” Aurelius stood there wide-eyed in shock.
“We can’t bring all those damned cripples here, Son. We gotta let them go.” The Commander had yet to turn around, but in his voice Aurelius heard indifference. No sign of remorse or hesitance.
“When do you plan on destroying it, Sir?”
“Right now. We have the coordinates set. I’m sending the order now.” With deft hands, Aurelius unclipped his air pistol from his waist and aimed it at the Commander’s head.
“Send the order and I’ll kill you,” Aurelius said, his own voice now cold and indifferent.
The Commander stood there, finger just over the intercom, uncertainty as to whether or not Aurelius would actually shoot held his hand.
“You realize if I send this order and you kill me, you’d be parentless.”
“A man willing to kill his wife is no father of mine. Get away from the control panel.”
“OK, Son. Turning around slowly.” The Commander started a slow rotation, but then finished it quickly, drawing his own air pistol and blowing Aurelius’s out of his hand. Aurelius gripped his hand in pain.
“Think you can out-fox your own Father?” The Commander shook his head and turned around and pressed his finger to the intercom.
“Yes Commander?”
“We’re all goo-“
“NO!” Aurelius jumped onto his father, the Commander’s elbow hitting two switches. A soft, pleasant ding rang out, and then a female A.I. voice: “Hyper Drive activated. 10 seconds until departure. 10…9…”
“…Looks like you got what you wanted, Kid,” The Commander stated.
“6…5…”
“Where are we going?”
“3…2..”
“Who knows.”
“…1.”
With a twinkle, the I.S.S. disappeared.
by submission | Oct 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
“John, I asked you a question.”
I shake the images from my head as quickly as I can. It can sometimes be hard to concentrate after engaging the interface. For some reason I always thought I’d get used to transitioning in and out like this, but she’s starting to suspect.
“Every time you space out like that I worry that you’re…”
“That I’m what?” I ask, trying my best to look incredulous.
She hesitates before continuing. “That you’re… going somewhere else.”
“You know I’m not,” I reassure her, subtly preparing the interface in my pocket again. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“How can I tell, when you’re~”
A flash of light, and she’s gone. In her place stands a busty blonde in sepia-tone. She tells me her husband is missing. The police have no leads. I’m the only one who can help her. I straighten my fedora and get on the case. Two informant meetings, three firefights, and a dead husband later, and I have that pretty blonde thing in my arms. Case solved. Day saved. Tomorrow a distant, future thing. Her perfume is so sweet.
“~always spacing out like that.”
I shake my head again. Gotta get quicker with this.
“You know I only use the interface sparingly,” I say. “I’m not addict.”
“God, I’m not saying that you are!” she says, for once looking genuinely concerned. “I just don’t like what it does to you. It’s like you’re not even you anymore. You’re someone else. Or lots of people. Or something…”
“Lucy, you know it’s me,” I smile, pressing the main switch again. “I’m John. You have nothing to~”
Flash. The dragon bears down on me, full of elemental rage. I raise my shield, buckle under the force of its breath, feel the heat, smell the smoke. The stream of fire ends for a moment as the dragon takes another breath. I strike, sword meeting scaly flesh. Sparks fly. Blood gushes. The huddled masses exit their smoking huts to thank their hero. Their cheers fill my ears.
“To ah… worry about… milady.”
“Milady?”
“What?” I’m struggling for an objection. “I can’t be chivalrous?”
“This is what I’m talking about, John. Your vocabulary changes daily. It’s not normal! How can I keep up with something like this?”
“You could always come with me from time to time.”
“Where? To your fantasy worlds?” she asks, looking disgusted. “To your 15 seconds of fame? It’s not real, John! How can I live in a world that isn’t real?”
Flash. The zombies amass around the compound. We level round and round into them, but the bullets have no effect. As we continue to fire, the stench of rotting flesh gets stronger and stronger, closer and closer. My left flank falls. The zombies swarm in. My leg gets bitten. My vision starts to fail. My only thought is to spare myself the dishonor of joining the zombie hoards. I put my gun to my mouth and pull the trigger. Before I die, I feel the odd sensation of the discharged ash tickling the back of my throat.
She stares at my blankly. She knows. She’s known all along, I guess.
“That’s it,” she says, standing and gathering her things. “I can’t take this anymore. When you’re ready for a REAL relationship, call me.”
I say nothing as she marches off. I don’t go after her. She’s inconsequential, the empty filler between the thousand adventures I live daily. It looks like I won’t be having her as a partner after all. Maybe I should just create one…
