by submission | Jan 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Geoffrey Cashmore
Regret. That was new.
My life had been built into a shape where regret had no place. I only had one purpose – my entire existence leading up to it – and it wasn’t just me – I couldn’t even guess how many others were involved; working behind the scenes so that everything came together at the right place. The right time. Just so I could say that one word…
You wouldn’t believe there was anything special about Lenko. Not to look at him, anyway. I actually thought he was a little too stupid, even for a Senate candidate, but that shows you how much I know.
Fifteen years in the satellites, ferrying him from one station to the next while he built his popularity. Stuck in that ugly Behemoth without even any view-screens except for the docking cam. Not that there’s anything to see up there. Black space. All the stations, one just like the next.
There wouldn’t have been any regret back then. Every time he came back on board Lenko would slap me on the shoulder as I secured the airlock and tell me “not long now, Cormac. Not long now until I’m in the Senate and we can finally go down to the surface. Then it will all have been worth it.”
I’d nod my head and smile like the loyal servant he’d always taken me for.
And then one day it finally happened. The vote came and Lenko was a Senator.
The transmission with the access codes arrived straight away and I docked the B at Threshold – the only station I’d never been to before. We stepped through; inside the atmosphere for the first time. It had actually worked.
There were a few technicalities to sort out but within an hour we were in the car pool – and there she was.
Lenko was saying something about the honour the people had bestowed upon him and the privilege of becoming the first off-worlder to make it to the highest level of the legislation, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the Zephyr. Perfect smooth lines, no jutting stabilizers or thrust pods. She gleamed in pale yellow – the first thing I’d ever seen that wasn’t the plain grey of spaceware.
The command centre was familiar – I’d done plenty of time in the simulators – but when we slipped out of the launch chamber and saw what seemed like the whole planet stretching around us on the view-screens, I could hardly breathe.
Even Lenko shut up for a minute to look out at it.
The low-level flight plan was pre-programmed for when we hit traffic closer to the surface but up there I could pull her in big banking arcs, punching the boosters just for the feel of it.
When we dropped in below the marker a little indicator on the panel started to blink and the automatics cut in. We drifted into the traffic flow and crossed the sprawling cityscape until the Senate building came into view. That was when I really started to feel it. All the years of preparation and biding my time, waiting.
I ran my fingers over the controls of the Zephyr.
Lenko was getting all choked up as we started final approach. We could see the Senators lining out in their bright blue robes on the docking point, and in the middle of them all – out there in broad daylight instead of hidden away in the depths of the palace – Garlania, the President. She was actually smiling as we touched down and the airlock opened.
Regret. It was the last thing I thought I’d ever have to deal with. Not for that fool Lenko, not for the bowing and scraping Senators who would inevitably be caught in the blast, and certainly not for the bitch Garlania.
As I speak the control word and feel the chemical reaction of the deadly device planted in my guts begin to mount, my one regret is that I only got to drive that beautiful car just once.
by submission | Jan 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Maria Coello
“The problem with sibes – the main problem with sibes – is that they won’t lie down when they’re dead,” Kirsten said three days ago, spitting bits of sausage across the dinner table. I ought to have told her years ago, of course, but it never seemed like the right moment. By the time it became an issue I didn’t know how she’d take the news. “Fuckers keep coming back for more. And then when you’ve shot them to bits, their mates come around and put them back together again, and they come right back at you.”
“That’s nice, dear,” I said vaguely. I never wanted her to join the cops, but after her father got killed by one of his own creations she seemed to want revenge. It’s not what he’d have wanted, but there’s no way I could make her understand that.
“Last night,” she continued, “me and Lenny were in a bar, you know, a metal poke joint. A sibe brothel.” She only said these things because she knew they’d upset me. I sometimes thought that she really hated me. “This fucking plastic prozzy came up to Lenny, trying it on. Lenny nearly puked. They say the things are supposed to look like us, but God knows who’d find that attractive. Anyway, we got the metal madam locked up and booked a couple of the punters. Some of the sibes got in the way. It’ll be a few weeks before they’re walking around dirtying up the place again.” She laughed. I’m not sure where my daughter picked up such repellent views. We were always such a moderate family and her father’s role in the CYBE program was important to him. I’d met my daughter’s partner Lenny; a tall tattooed Cro-Magnon with a bundle of second-hand prejudices where his brains should be. He and my daughter, though it shamed me to admit it, were quite well-suited.
“So anyway, Mom, tomorrow’s their stupid Kruppler day,” she got up from the table, sending crumbs all over the floor. “They’ll all be out on the streets, the disgusting bastards, demanding equal rights and all sorts of stupid shit like that. There’ll be trouble. I need some kip. Night.” She pecked me on the forehead and went up to her room, clearly relishing the prospect of ‘trouble’.
That was the last time I saw my daughter until today. I watched the Kruppler Riots on the news. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but it seems to me that if you create a bunch of, well, people, as intelligent as humans, and expect them to knuckle down and do the dirty jobs with no rights, no pay and no representation, you’re asking for trouble. And they got it that night. Lenny came round to the house afterwards, his cap in his stupid great hands. I almost laughed in his face when he told me my daughter was dead.
So now I’m here at the morgue. I always said I was going to tell my daughter one day. I ask the usher for some privacy.
There is good news and bad news, I tell her as I reactivate her. The good news is that you aren’t dead.
I hope she sees things my way eventually.
by submission | Jan 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson
The herd of Separable Hybrates fed veraciously on the nutritious fungus. You had to get your fill when you could and patches like this didn’t usually strike up so abundantly this early on.
The old matriarch was larger than the rest, and her feeding tubes liquefied and drew in more fungus than most. As she cleared patches and clumps, her four main legs carried her slowly along toward more and more of the delicious food. Ahead of her six forelegs — which had long since stopped detaching for mating purposes- stood her head, which contained her forebrain and four thinner appendages.
As her six fore, four main and six aft load-bearing legs provided all the support, her quartet of head appendages typically hung limply, until they were needed of course, which was suddenly now.
As her mid body continued to feed hungrily, her head appendages straightened and made contact with the ground. As if on cue the matriarch’s wide face grimaced and her head detached from the rest of her body with a wet sound, millions of tiny nerve endings and muscles releasing their miniscule handshakes simultaneously. And away her crown bobbed across the field on those four spindly legs. This part handled all communications and upper level decision making, and there was business afoot with neighboring herds, important business regarding territory agreements, pasture sharing and the like. The head would be back again soon enough. A neighboring animal’s crown also detached and joined the matriarch’s, and as the two disembodied heads trundled off toward the neighboring ridge their host bodies continued to feed, their aft brains handling all necessary functions.
Nearby the sextet of another creature’s aft legs wandered by, returning a posterior section back to its host after a necessary bit of waste dumping in the nearby pit. And so did the animals function, their efficient bodies gaining maximum nourishment while detachable parts carried on about other important business.
The matriarch had now cleared an area of fungus twice the size of her home cave and it wasn’t even midday yet. Suddenly her head appeared on the ridge. Her aft brain was vaguely aware of its missing part’s proximity and imminent return through mild telekinesis, yet on it fed unwavering.
Soon enough the head returned and replaced itself onto the matriarch’s body without ceremony. Suddenly turned around in the other direction her face showed instant surprise and alarm as she spied the returning head of her advisor that had fallen quite far behind on its shorter and weaker limbs. But what had the old leader so concerned was the diving Skyrat.
For once the matriarch stopped eating, and turned all bladder valves skyward. She trumpeted a deafening call meant to both warn her wayward companion and possibly scare off the approaching marauder as well.
Skyrats were too small to lift one of her species whole but a separated head was relatively easy pickings for one of the strong predators. Sadly the attacker was not deterred in the least by her warning and the next thing she knew, the head and forebrain of her trusted advisor were picked up and carried off into the sky to be devoured.
Full of melancholy the matriarch went over to console the body of her now headless companion. She rubbed against it, sending thoughts through nerve endings. “Don’t worry,” she thought. “Maybe one day we’ll find you a stray,” knowing full well that stray heads were as rare as stray posteriors were plentiful. She then added a thoughtful gesture, “If you need to talk with your family at all, you can borrow my head.”
by submission | Jan 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : A. R. Coy
A fine layer of crimson dust covered the streets and filled the transporter with a red haze. Freetown claimed to be the finest of the planet’s three cities, which only made the scene drearier. Deals were made here that were banned throughout the galaxy. Josiah and Brent, smugglers, felt right at home.
Fronting each building were strung-out stoners, panhandlers, and hookers trying to catch their eye. Children – dressed in scraps, covered in dirt – stretched their emaciated arms into the windows begging. Most sniffed rags drenched in cheap intoxicants. The smugglers gave each hand a meal ration, a day’s supply of nutrition. Nothing more could be done. This planet offered no hope, no future.
They were to rendezvous with Chyna to exchange cargo. She had come before the great revolt and refused to leave after. Hundreds had passed through her school — trained as teachers, leaders, and medics. The overthrow of the planet’s Tribunal changed all that. Humanitarian groups had been ordered to leave; Chyna had gone underground.
Brent pointed to a Xv spraypainted over a door. The building changed each visit, the symbol — a Greek twist on her name – was always the same. Josiah nodded and after a quick look around, backed the transporter into the loading bay.
Chyna walked out of the darkness. “Any trouble?”
“No. Where do you want the crates?” Josiah said.
“The corner is fine. We’ll move them later.”
They unloaded four large, unmarked crates.
“Is the return cargo ready?”
Chyna nodded. With a quick wave seven women shuffled out — no, girls really – none appeared older than fourteen. As she spoke their name they hurried into the transporter.
“Meena, Velria, Tinah, Joni, Aprela, Kinndra, Rondeen — they were purchased from brothels across town. They have started detox, but will need to continue the process. Got it?” Then more to herself she said, “Or they’ll be so desperate they’ll just return to trouble. An endless trap.”
“Any others?” Josiah asked.
“All this information needs to be passed along, understand?”
“We’ve done this before Chyna,” Josiah responded tempering the annoyance he felt.
“I know.” Sighing, she continued. “Twenty in all.” She called to the dark, “Reid, Fuun, Gooty, Baln, Vinter, Garret, Timo, San.”
Eight boys under the age of ten walked out hesitantly.
“Shoo, shoo. Load quickly.” Brent led them onto the transporter and left Josiah to get the details.
“They all came from the scavenger blocks and one kidnapping away from the slave mines. They are all clean, luckily the sniffing has less of a hold. I have great hopes for them.”
Josiah nodded. He hated this part; hearing their stories. He would just as soon be off.
“Just five more…Suzza, Breesh, Kendy, Neena, Pahla.” These were women, but no older than early twenties. “Runaways. They are your greatest risk. They were given as gifts by their fathers to powerful men in exchange for favor. These men will be looking for them.”
Josiah swore. “Then I’d better be off.” He turned, but Chyna grabbed his arm.
“I am trusting you. You will get them to the refugee transitional safely? I know there is not profit in this.”
“Sis, I may be a smuggler, but I’m not a human trafficker. Think of me as a smuggler with a conscience. Besides, I’m your big brother. You would think that would count for something.” He flashed her a large grin. “I’ll get them there.”
With a quick squeeze of his arm she faded back into her underground world.
Josiah stared into the darkness for a moment, turned and boarded his ship.
“Everyone buckle up. Next stop freedom.”
by submission | Jan 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Jeremy Herman
Did you know coal can be reduced to liquid? With enough heat and pressure it’s possible. The government discovered this once they ran out of oil but they still needed to power their war machines. Right now Coleman felt like one of those dull pieces of rock. He felt like the world around him was squeezing the life out of him. Soon he would get relief. Coleman walked past smudged faces as he entered the lab building. He worked in a coal mining town now, but the images from the war still hung with him.
He had served 4 tours overseas and he only had scars to prove he was there, no medals. The things he witnessed still haunted him. The screams. The smells. Some nights he would wake up in pools of sweat. It had been weeks since he had a good sleep. He felt like a reanimated corpse in the mines trying to operate off just a few hours.
That would all be over soon though. He was in the waiting room of the government sponsored lab that would help him with his PTSD. He had an honorable discharge after his service and decided to settle in this small mining town. Here the pay was minimal but he could still scrape by. He actually had joined the army because he thought he would be able to get ahead in life. Save some money, maybe find a wife. Little did he know the price he would pay with reoccurring nightmares each night. Now the small nest egg he had would go to help defer the cost of treating his stress disorder.
He was called into the back office and the doc looked at him with kind eyes. The doctor said he was grateful for his service to the nation. Coleman nodded slowly still feeling the effects of nights without sleep. The doctor told him he had a new way to treat soldiers that had only been tried on a few patients. It was experimental but ten times more effective then any of the current ways to treat his disorder.
“What if I could help you forget everything. What would you say to that?”
“You have my attention doc. Give me the details.”
“The process is quite complex and involves selective neural destruction. We will use dyes to map the connections in your brain associated with the war and destroy them. It will be as if you never had fought.” Coleman stared ahead dumbly trying to comprehend the magnitude of this decision.
“You don’t have to respond right now. I can understand if you need time to think it over.” Coleman turned to face the doctor and stared into both his eyes. “I can’t keep living this way. My memories are killing me. Do what you have to do and make it fast.” Hours later Coleman was discharged from the lab with a new neural map.
Weeks passed and it was work as usual. The mines churned out loads of coal to support the war effort. Coleman worked with renewed vitality but no one ever got rich from the work. As soon as the money came in it flowed out again for rent and food. What a dismal way for anyone to live! If only there was a way to get ahead. On the way to work Coleman saw a recruitment poster and paused to write down the number. Maybe they would take him?
