by submission | Dec 4, 2011 | Story |
Author : Donovan Pruitt
“It itches,” the soldier complained, scratching at the data socket on the back of his neck.
Seated across the table, the doctor offered a sympathetic smile. “That’s normal for a new download, Sergeant Jax. Just don’t think about it. Think about something else.”
“Like what? I wasn’t recruited for my thinking.” Jax continued to fidget.
“Why don’t you tell me the last thing you remember?”
Jax pondered briefly. “Inter-continental orbit hop between Houston and Moscow. Cargo transfer for the space program. I don’t remember the ship name.”
“The download is intermittent,” the doctor explained. “If we dropped everything in at once, your mind would, well, explode.” His eyes darted aside as he solemnly reflected on this concept with apparent regret. “The name will come to you.”
Jax’s face turned uneasy as more memories downloaded. “Did I crash?”
“You did.” The reply was hesitant. They didn’t tend to react favorably to the news.
“Well, shit,” Jax replied unexpectedly, chuckling after a few moments. “So how am I alive?”
It was a fair question. “Technically, you’re not, yet,” the doctor admitted, though he looked pleased. “We downloaded your brain and are attempting to parse it correctly so you can be re-appropriated.”
“Re-appropriated, huh?” Jax repeated the clinical term. “That would explain this tan,” he joked, raising his foreign arm into the light. His personality was returning. “So technically, I’m not alive?”
“Not exactly.”
“But I’m not dead?”
“Well, no.”
“So I guess, scientifically speaking, I’m undead.” Jax erupted with laughter.
Pursing his lips with subtle amusement, the doctor offered a nod. “I suppose so.”
Turning pale, Jax straightened his posture. “Sir, I have a question.”
“Go ahead,” the doctor replied, still distracted by the comedic nature of their exchange.
“Did the Zs take the Moon Base, or do we still have control?”
The doctor blinked, focusing on him with narrowed eyes. “The Zs?”
“The zombies, sir,” Jax clarified matter-of-factly.
Turning from the table, the doctor rubbed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes to release the tension. “Undead,” he said aloud, identifying the trigger word. Sighing, he reached into the folds of his lab coat as he turned back, producing a pistol that he easily leveled at the man’s head and fired. Gore splashed against the wall and the body collapsed forward on the table, lifeless. Tilting his head to the ceiling, the doctor stoically spoke his report, “Subject twenty-seven terminated due to faulty data transfer. Download incomplete.”
The main door opened into the room, giving way to an officer dressed in a formal uniform with numerous trinkets shining proudly on his chest. Casting a disapproving look at the fallen soldier, he redirected his disdain to the doctor. “What happened this time?”
“General,” the doctor offered a lackluster greeting. Replacing the pistol, he braced both hands atop the table with a heavy, weary push to his feet. “The system still isn’t able to separate actual events that the subject experienced from dream sequences that he perceived as real. He apparently remembered a dream fighting zombies on the Moon. The word undead must have caused the server context recognition to give him a packet of information that he thought was real.”
“Well, fix it,” the general demanded, turning around to exit. “We’ve got plenty of vegetables left for you to practice on, but let me know if you run out of bullets.”
Frowning after the general, the doctor took a moment to recuperate before looking up to the ceiling again. “Sally, send in someone to make arrangements for the body, please. Then contact the coma ward. We’re going to need another blank disc.”
by submission | Dec 3, 2011 | Story |
Author : Robert Vennell
I stumble down the road through the hazy tungsten half-light. Padded headphones suck out the ambient noise and replace it with the hum of distorted guitars.
An empty street, a dim coating of artificial light and the buzz of electric instruments.
I have to remind myself I’m really here. It feels like I’ve withdrawn into some back-room in my head, and am now watching my life play out through my eyes, as if it were happening to someone else.
From this vantage point i begin to speculate on what a bizarre and unnatural circumstance this is. That on a small planet orbiting a relatively small sun in an ordinary solar system on the outskirts of a galaxy like any other; a bipedal primate such as myself is walking down paved roads illuminated by synthetic lights listening to recordings of manufactured music.
In the light of these thoughts I can’t help but feel greatly pessimistic about humanity’s chances. Surely a species that no longer concerns itself with its own survival cannot exist indefinitely.
I turn the corner and press on, no particular destination in mind. A white cat stalks across the road, catches sight of me and then bolts off in the opposite direction. It occurs to me that there the other species that inhabit our planet are constantly engaged in a struggle for survival, and yet to we privileged homo sapiens born into developed nations surviving is easy. To meet the challenges of life the human brain underwent rapid expansion in brain capacity to the point where we have developed societies and structures that render the struggle for survival almost irrelevant. Now the hard part is trying to keep those advanced brains of ours constantly entertained and stimulated.
From the moment we wake up in the morning to when we go to sleep at night our minds are occupied not with things to aid our survival but things to keep us from boredom. Tasks and jobs we can do so that our lives can have purpose and meaning. Television, movies, music, literature; things we can consume to keep our brains active and ticking over.
I wonder if such an unnatural system can sustain itself.
A street light catches my eye. It is flickering and buzzing, and eventually it burns itself out and the street is cloaked in darkness.
Suddenly my brain feels stuffy, the constant pounding of music in my ears aggravating and i take my headphones off and revel in the cool breeze rushing against my ears. Reconnecting with the sounds of the world around me, i feel like I’ve slipped back into my body for a time.
My dreamy speculations about the fate of the world seem dramatic and unimportant now. I amble off towards a distant street light, reassuring myself i will go to bed earlier in future.
by submission | Nov 30, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Jopek
A man lies gripping a slowly tumbling boulder of ice and stares into the distance of space.
His broken femur pokes sharply into the material of his white skinsuit threatening to rupture it. His foot and leg are numb, his boot full of thickening blood. Here, deep in the planetary rings, the light is weak and the shifting ice unnerves him. In his concussed state waves of vertigo sweep over him, making orientation painful.
His spaceship will be crossing the planet’s terminus soon, allowing him perhaps one more chance at rendezvousing with it. An explosion has ripped the jetpack from his back and shredded the sample bags he was towing. Now he can only improvise a method of propulsion by cannibalizing his remaining suit pressure.
He’d been trailing Sharon back to the ship when the explosion flung them apart. She had nearly reached the airlock. Twice already he has glimpsed her body for scant seconds before she is eclipsed by the drifting ice fragments.
He can make one last effort to try and reach the ship when it comes about its orbit again, although he has no idea how badly damaged it is. He sights the blue corona of the ship’s tail flare and tracks it unsteadily.
Her body appears then in his peripheral vision, emerging from the ice field, floating amidst mangled metal and accretion stones. As he gapes, suddenly a pocket opens, a random confluence of space with her at its center. The scarlet bloom splashed across her torso is punctuated by the bright yellow lumishaft protruding obscenely from her chest. The lumishaft has activated upon impact and splays morose yellow light in all directions.
He finds the ship again, now arcing towards its closest approach. Through blurred eyes he watches her broken body drifting closer. He feels like he is falling, falling, falling, but the ship is nearly there. Nearly. The ship is coming for him — she is coming for him. The watery reflection of red and yellow in his eyes is joined by the shocking blue of plasma thrusters.
A man lies gripping a slowly tumbling boulder of ice and stares into the distance of space.
by submission | Nov 27, 2011 | Story |
Author : M. J. Hall
We wait.
We the shadow-women, the marginalized, the dispossessed. We wait, for our time of power is near.
Long ago, the elite decided that natural means of reproduction were far too messy for those of great wealth and status. As the clone banks churned out replacement generations, the ruling class forswore the pleasures of the flesh for more aesthetic pursuits. The conservative leaders built their clean cities on the surface, in the light; while we, the primitive and carnal, we were banished to the secret places underground.
But gradually, creeping through the shadows into the undertunnels of the city, the influential found us, the pleasure-women. We had hidden, we members of the oldest profession, when the Conserves turned society against us. But having turned away from prurient pursuits, it was those same Conserves who then sought us out, found our warrens in the tunnels, richly draped in silks and velvets. Our sensual dens, they found.
From us they learned passion and ecstasy anew, all the gratification that flesh can give, all the desire that had been purged from the sterile Aboveworld. The libidinous, lascivious, satyric realm was ours to teach, and they learned.
And we learned, too . . . .
We learned their secrets. All their whispers in the night, their murmurs in sleep. We listened . . . .
The leaders, the rulers in this capitol city, whispering to us in the darkest hours underground. A quiet susurration, barely heard above the rustle of silk, all the humdrum details of a bureaucrat’s routine. They murmured to us, we the illiterate and disenfranchised. What would we know of leadership, of intergalactic policy? How could we understand all the secrets of empire and polity?
They came in our beds. They spilled in our sheets, whispered in our ears, all the secrets of this capitol planet. We learned . . . .
And then we met. We, the shadow-women, relegated to the dark places underground. We met, and spoke, and shared our knowledge.
Our mothers—mothers brewed an herbal infusion, a sweet tea, to ease the clientele into sleep. But somewhere along the generations of pleasure-women, we realized another quality of the tea. Words whispered as the client sleeps become impulses, yearnings, desires upon waking.
We learned. We spoke. And now, we move . . . .
There are many of us, secreted away in the gloom. But to each one of us, so many of you come for comfort, for pleasure, for easement. So many, many elites in a city of rulers, on this imperial planet that rules the entire ‘verse. So many, many ears into which we whisper suggestions that become urges, inexorable compulsions upon waking.
We, the shadow-women, the pleasure-givers. We meet, we decide, we direct. From the deepest depths, from the shadows, we rule.
A vote? Tomorrow? Yes, but for now, drink. Relax. Sleep. Let me whisper in your ear . . . .
We wait. You snore. We whisper . . . and we wait.
by submission | Nov 26, 2011 | Story |
Author : J. S. Kachelries
This will be my greatest invention! Of course, my invention bar is not set very high. The phaser thing sort of worked. It was able to set the living room curtains on fire, but I got second degree burns on the palm of my hand when the damn thing overloaded. My transparent aluminum project turned my wife’s collection of frying pans into a melted lump of not-at-all-transparent scrap metal. All I have left of the “holodeck” experiment is a black den with a yellow grid pattern, and about $10,000 of worthless projection equipment. But this will be different. This will be the world’s first working transporter. To paraphrase Dr. McCoy, I will be rich beyond the dreams of Avarice.
I’ve been working on the transporter secretly in the garage, because I’ve been trying to keep a low profile ever since my wife walked into the force field that I had set up in the bathroom. She was really hot, literally. But, she eventually forgave me for that one too. After all, she’s a psychologist, and they want to see the good in people. Besides, I have a flawless back-up plan. I turn on the ol’ charm, and she melts like a Changling at an orgy. Okay, I know what you’re thinking, “This guy is obsessed with Star Trek.” Nothing could be further from the truth! Believe me; I have it completely under control.
Anyway, back to my newest invention. I only had a four hour window to complete my test before my wife and Wesley returned from the movies. It took me three hours to collect the final components from the TV, microwave, vacuum cleaner, and other various household appliances, and assemble them into the transporter and receiver platforms. Now, all I needed was our pet cat. “Heeeyyy, Spot, it’s time for you to boldly go where no feline has gone before.”
With Spot happily munching on the fillet of salmon that I had placed on the transporter pad, I booted up the laptop and initiated the transport command. I’m not exactly sure what happened next. I know the lights went out, there were a series of relatively “minor” explosions, the garage windows blew out, and there were fireworks bursting from the transporter pad. Spot yowled like I had shut the car door on his tail, again. When I got my vision back, Spot was gone. I guess he transported somewhere, but he wasn’t on the receiver pad, or anywhere in the garage. Oh, this is not logical; the uneaten salmon remained smoldering on the transporter pad. Why hadn’t it transported along with Spot? Looks like I have a mystery afoot. That’s when I heard my wife’s car pulling up the driveway. I had been hoping for more time. Oh well, I opened the garage door manually to let her in.
“Scotty, do I smell smoke? You promised me no more inventions. Is that part of the stereo?”
Hmm. I wonder how Jean-Luc would handle this. I looked into her dark black eyes and said, “Hi, honey. How was the movie? Uh, by the way, you didn’t happen to see Spot anywhere when you drove up?” Her scowl made her look like an angry Romulan, but I guess that’s being redundant. I could hear the wail of fire engine sirens, again. This might be harder than getting an interest free loan from a Ferengi. Okay, it’s time to engage the ol’ charm. “Imzadi, is that a new outfit you’re wearing? Wow, you really look great. Have you lost weight?”
