by submission | Jul 30, 2009 | Story
Author : Ross Baxter
The ducting was tighter than expected, and full of choking dust and accumulated detritus. Filth caked my uniform, the billowing clouds of dirt coating the inside of my mouth and making my eyes stream. But I was nearly there. I struggled forwards to the mesh vent to lever it open and it crashed to the floor below with a painfully loud clatter. I held my breath; there was no knowing where in the ship the pirates were, and capture would result in a swift and violent death.
Dropping heavily to the floor I painfully focused my grit-filled vision. The Control Room of the Happy-go-lucky was mercifully empty. The irony of the vessel’s name still brought a thin smile to my lips; the ship was anything but that – the last six months since signing on being both unpleasant and humiliating. The other eight crew members, all relative youngsters, had been together since being cadets and formed a tight clique which bordered on the incestuous. Being more then twice the age of the eldest, and a decorated veteran of both Segmentum Wars, had instantly singled me out. They could barely bring themselves to talk to me, and when they did it was usually a joke at my expense. Long days passed without a word being said or even an acknowledgment, but I preferred that to the snide comments. The others referred to me sneeringly as “Mister Experience,” which stemmed from when the skipper, playing to her sycophantic audience, had inquired as to exactly how I’d got to be so old, given heavy losses of the last wars. I muttered something about guile and experience, which had earned both loud guffaws and my new moniker.
But they were not so cock-sure now. The cloaked pirate vessel had clamped itself to our forward accommodation section before we even knew they were there. Within minutes they cut through the outer hull and boarded us. We had only enough time to retreat to the citadel, a small armoured section of the ship designed to provide a modicum of security in events such as this. The skipper had not even managed to send a distress signal.
The panic in the citadel was almost comical. Pirates never spared anyone; once they had taken what they wanted, which may include the ship itself, a quick death would be the best one could expect. Only now did the crew of the Happy-go-lucky turn to “Mister Experience”, and I assured them I would put my guile and experience to good use. Christ knows how they expected me to turn the tables on the cut-throat boarders, but they were happy to clutch at whatever straw was offered.
Quickly scrutinizing the plasma-engine controls, I closed all vents and maximised the port and starboard feeds. I withdrew the over-ride key and pocketed it; the plasma drives would be critical in around two minutes and could not now be closed down. Claxons screamed throughout the ship but it was already too late.
I bolted for the aft-escape pod and strapped myself in. With only myself in the ten-man craft there was plenty of room, and enough rations to last for weeks until rescue. Yanking the red launch control I braced myself against the acceleration as the pod fired itself into the void. I braced again moments later as a huge shockwave, the violent epitaph of the Happy-go-lucky and the pirate ship, flung the pod still faster away. I smiled; living proof of exactly how guile and experience can ensure one reaches old age.
by submission | Jul 29, 2009 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
Richard reached for the jug of water on the coffee table and stopped, face caught between a frown and a smile. He sat back in his chair and spoke to the couple.
“Mrs Lyell, Patricia, you were saying that Thomas had been distant lately.”
The woman on the couch glanced at her husband uneasily, then spoke.
“For the last three weeks when I’ve got home from work, he’s been sat in the front room with the lights off. He doesn’t talk to me when I get in, just waits for me to say something. He’ll sit there in silence until I do. He never starts conversations any more, won’t sit at the table with me for dinner. It feels like I’ve done something wrong and he won’t tell me what it is.”
Richard turned to the man on the couch.
“Thomas, do you have anything you want to say about this?”
The man stared back, stubborn. Richard knew without asking that he was here only at the woman’s insistence.
“Sometimes, I don’t have much to talk about.” he said, pausing after this for so long that Richard was about to ask a follow up question when he continued, “I don’t do much any more, so I don’t have much to say. I’m happy to talk, I just don’t know what to say.”
Patricia shot a despairing look at Richard, who kept his eyes on Thomas.
“Mrs Lyell, the problem is that your husband is dead.”
The woman looked up in shock at the words, and then, just as quickly, looked at her husband. He seemed not to react. Richard continued, gentle words with iron cores.
“He died of a heart attack two years ago. You had him restored from a digital backup last year, but he’s not your husband any more. He’s an electronic representation. He can’t touch anything, because he’s a projection. I’m only able to talk to him today because we have a projection rig in the building. He doesn’t do much because he can’t leave the house. He’s not a real person.”
Tears welled in Patricia’s eyes.
“But I don’t think that! He’s perfectly real to me. I don’t think any of the things you said.”
Richard looked over at Thomas.
“Your husband does. Don’t you, Thomas?”
The hologram of Thomas Lyell looked at the floor, refusing to meet the counselor’s gaze. Finally he nodded. Richard turned back to the sobbing widow.
“Patricia, after the heart attack, they gave you grief counseling. They never gave it to Thomas. You don’t need marriage counseling, you need bereavement therapy.”
The consultation ended fairly quickly after that. The problem was identified, and Thomas was already looking more hopeful five minutes later when he was switched off for transit back to the house. As Mrs Lyell was leaving, Richard’s assistant popped her head around the door.
“Your next client isn’t for an hour, Dr Furr. Want me to switch you off in the meantime?”
“No, I like the view out of the window at this time of day. Are you heading to lunch?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back in 45 minutes.”
“See you then.”
She left. Richard sat in his chair and stared at the water jug.
He was thirsty. He’d been thirsty for four years, ever since they had switched him on and a lawyer he had never met before explained about the car crash. The water jug was an affectation, something to make him feel more human.
These days, despite what he said to his clients, feeling human was hard to come by.
by submission | Jul 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Samuel Evrard
“Oh. Fuck.” As the blinding light of the teleporter dimmed, Sarin knew she was in trouble. There were a dozen pig faced man-creatures wielding crude clubs in front of her, crowded around a small fire where something was being roasted. She had interrupted their dinner, and they didn’t look happy about it.
“Abort abort abort! Recall!” Even as she yelled this, she had already begun running. Not quite running, really, sprinting was a more accurate term. The pig men were chasing her, yelling in a strange, guttural tongue. Last time they’d used the teleporter, David had got sent to a dimension with beautiful elfish people who used sex instead of spears to solve conflicts. They’d had a hard time getting him back from there.
And she’d got fucking pig men.
“RECA-HA-HAAL!” her voice cracked as she ran over the uneven ground, and a bluish light surrounded her. Then she was gone.
And then she was back. David and the others were laughing, Sonya was literally crying from her fits of laughter.
“Oh what, you didn’t want to stay and start up diplomatic relations with hominus baconus?” David teased. He snorted and puffed his face in crude imitation of the pigmen and danced around her. She kicked him in the knee.
“Ow!” Everyone laughed even harder.
“Oh to hell with all of you.” Sarin stormed off the teleportation platform, David still hopping around on one leg, clutching his injured knee.
“Aw come on, it’s not like we did it on purpose – you’d be laughing if it had been one of us. We’ll mark the coordinates down and make sure no-one gets sent there again. Lighten up!” Sonya put a hand on her shoulder, her other still wiping tears from her eyes. She sighed. “We can send you back to the sex planet if you want, Sarin, but you said you wanted someplace new!”
“Harumpf.” Sarin was still mad, but she couldn’t help a little bit of a smile tease her lips. “It was pretty funny, I guess.”
“That’s the spirit! Look, once the administrator figures out we actually managed to get this thing working we won’t be able to have any fun with it, so we should have fun while we still can!”
“Whatever” Sarin shoved her lightly, but it was too late, she was done being mad.
“Okay! I’m up!” Josef, the fat German yelled. “Gimme the camera, Sar.” She took the tiny camera off her head slapped on his bald head. In the survival suit he looked like some jogger from hell.
“Ready to go?” David was back at the controls.
“Ja!” Josef was enveloped in bluish light and disappeared.
“Hey Sar, go grab a few more beers from the fridge, we still have the whole night till the administrator comes in in the morning!”
Sarin laughed and stepped walked out the room, hearing peals of laughter from the rest of the staff. Apparently Josef had gotten into a situation even worse than hers, or at least more hilarious. This wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d started working on the top-secret teleporter project, but she had to admit, if they were going to meet a bunch of aliens without government permission, drunk as hell and partying was probably the way to do it.
They could fire her in the morning if they wanted, but before that, she wanted to go back to the pig planet with a machine gun and a skillet. Second contact would be far less pleasurable for those damn monsters.
by submission | Jul 26, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Holland
Their time was up – 100 years had past. Fourteen vitrified bodies began the slow warming process. The cryoprotectants that had saved their bodies from the ravages of water’s freezing expansion were slowly pumped out, replaced with fresh blood. The centennial slumber was over.
One week later the fourteen men met in a comfortable conference room. The men were all intelligent, ambitious, successful, and borderline insane. Most were hard working citizens by profession, but they were all compulsive gamblers by addiction.
It had begun the instant millionaire Peter Mortiarty, half eaten doughnut in hand while sitting in a cheap plastic chair at the Tuesday night meeting of the local chapter of Gambler’s Anonymous, had a sudden thought. He loved gambling. He was good at it, and he had made a fortune at it in the stock market. Mortiarty abruptly stood up and left the meeting – right in the middle of Donald’s sobbing confession of a brief, but torrid affair with a video poker machine in the back corner of a bar. Thirteen people, two months, and 86 million dollars later, Mortiarty set in motion the ultimate game of proposition gambling. Fourteen players would wager on the future 100 years from now – then freeze themselves to see the results. It was the ultimate gambler’s dream that was coming to fruition at this very moment.
Bill Kearney, the moderator who had been hired by Mortiarity’s trust fund, brought the meeting to order.
“Gentlemen, welcome to 2150 A.D. I trust your sleep was uneventful. If everyone is ready and remembers the rules, we will begin.”
Murmurs of agreement rose from the room. There had been extensive rule setting beforehand concerning allowable wagers, determination of odds, and undercutting.
“Every wager has been looked over by a panel of experts and the items have been selected in random order. Wager #1: Portugese will emerge as the new international language – No.”
Several of the men snickered and glanced over in the direction of Marvin Hasgrow, a Fortune 500 CEO. “What?” he exclaimed. “Davis gave 240 to 1 on that!”
A scoreboard kept a running total of each player’s score, changing after each wager was awarded. Davis moved up slightly to seize the early lead.
“Wager #2: The exact value of Pi will be determined – No.”
Joey Dollins, a mathematician, smirked smugly across the room at Hussein Powell, another mathematician.
The announcements continued; each one was met with mixtures of groans and cheers, laughter and tears, glaring and high-fiving. The wagers ranged from World War III to the price of pineapples, from intergalactic exploration and colonization to the number of Chicago Cub’s World Series victories. The drama continued well into the third day.
Throughout the entire process, each man exhibited a drunken giddiness that could only manifest in union with the satisfaction of a deep, powerful addiction. Experiencing this euphoric, exhilarating rush was the reason of their existence. Their hands were shaky and sweaty, pupils dilated, and breathing shallow – a feat only the purest of gambling could inspire in all fourteen of them at once.
In the end, James Griggs, a polymer chemist, emerged as the highest point winner and wore the ecstatic smile of a first grader after scoring his first soccer goal. Peter Mortiarty finished a disappointing third and sat slumped over, sulking.
The initial thrill already fading away, the fourteen now faced the task of reintegrating into society, seeing and learning how thing operated 100 years in the future. They had to learn fast. In one year’s time, they would all meet again for another round of wagers and another 100 years of slumber.
by submission | Jul 25, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
I can’t stop staring at the massive crater, watching the clouds of dust that blow out past its rim before curling down into the bowl and dissipating. For the hundredth time I wonder why the crater hasn’t filled up with water; maybe it just doesn’t rain anymore. I always forget to ask. A lack of rain would explain the dust that tints the sky red, that covers the ruins of the city and transforms them from twisted buildings into indistinct burial mounds. I had decided that some virus or pollutant had killed the plants and that, in turn, had allowed the soil to blow freely… but maybe it was just a simple lack of rain.
The robot glides noiselessly through the doorway with my lunch.
“Greetings! I have the meal you requested!” They always sound excited. I take the tray and place it on the table by the window.
The spindly metal creature does its equivalent of standing at attention and asks the same thing as always – “Is there any other service I can provide?” I tell it I have some questions and it waits eagerly. I’ve already tried asking about the crater, asking for the location of any other humans, asking to travel. I try asking about the rain this time.
“I’m sorry, weather information is not currently available!”
Of course not. Always the same answer, with the automated systems trying to access networks that no longer exist. I allow the robot to leave, and go back to staring out the window.
The landscape is hard to read with the buildings knocked over and covered in dust, but the more I think about it the more I’m sure my old apartment should be in the crater – if it even still existed by the time whatever it was happened. I leave the bland recycled food and wander downstairs, past floor after floor of empty offices and idle robots. I stop on the ground level for a moment to once again look at the electronic notice on the main doors – “Until further notice the government has implemented a mandatory lockdown for public safety reasons…” before heading to the basement where the hum of the building’s independent power plant vibrates up through the soles of my shoes. Once more I pace down the long hallway with the countless cryogenic chambers, the time capsules filled with what could be the only other humans on Earth.
I want to smash all of the electronics so that the robots are forced to revive everyone, but I know that most of them were frozen when they were already dead or about to be. I asked if others had been healthy and had set a specific date for decanting like myself, but the robot excitedly informed me that it couldn’t give out privileged client information. If I forced the robots to open them all up, thaw them all out, wouldn’t it be worth it if even one person survived? I know I won’t do it. I can’t stand the thought of killing any of them even though I know that they’ll never wake up, that someday the power will fail and they will seamlessly transition from sleep to death. Some of it is selfish too; I’m not sure how many people the robots can provide for. Better to play it safe, lonely though I am. Heading back to the stairs, I take one last look back along the endless vault of frozen humanity. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I head back upstairs to watch the sun set over the crater.
