by submission | Apr 10, 2009 | Story
Author : Suzanne Borchers
Agnes glanced up at the tiny yellow dot that hardly pierced the vacuum of black sky. She crouched over in her threadbare spacesuit touching Carl as their gloved hands picked through the rubbish pile. Her stomach fed upon itself, while her eyes searched for bits of discarded food.
“The supply ships will be here soon.” Carl tried to straighten up, failed, and collapsed on the ground.
“You’ve been saying that for years, you old bear.” She sat down beside Carl, enveloping his gloved hand in hers.
“They promised,” he whispered before his heart pumped one last time.
Startled, Agnes realized his passing. She carefully removed his helmet and touched Carl’s cheek.
She thought back to their joyful arrival buoyed with youthful hope, later childless loving and mourning her empty womb, failed hydroponic gardening, crumb rationing.
A sigh escaped. “I’m coming, my old bear.”
She unfastened her helmet, falling beside him.
by submission | Apr 9, 2009 | Story
Author : Daedalus
I look around, one last time, at the empty apartment and the packed bags.
One last time? Nicholas Jameson will see those old, beat-up duffels often, but I can’t think of him as being me. As being real. It isn’t my new face I see in the mirror, courtesy of Tabula Rasa’s plastic surgery, it is his. It isn’t my brand-new driver’s license in my pocket, it’s Jameson’s.
Still, I tell myself it was worth it as I begin to feel sleepy. “‘Tis better to have loved and lost…” Bullshit. What did Tennyson know about loss? Better a new life, a new person, than this wretched loser. I try to silence my doubts, but if life is so terrible without Her, how can I live without even her memory?
I won’t. Nicholas Jameson will. I’ll fall asleep, and the nanobots will go to work on my amygdala. Nicholas Jameson will wake up, happily ignorant of the breakup, the obsession, the thousand unsuccessful drinking binges…
As my eyes begin to droops, I look around desperately for a pen, for some way to tell this new person who he once was…
—
Nick Jameson woke up in the middle of leaving for a new apartment. Making a mental note to get more rest, he checked to make sure nothing was forgotten. The raise had come as a bit of a surprise, but Nick had always been a hard worker. He could hardly wait to make the spacious new apartment his home.
“Well, time for one last check,” he muttered, wandering into the small bedroom. He looked under the beds, on the bedside table, in the drawer–
Nick froze. His mouth was dry, and there was a ringing in his ears. What the hell? It was just a photograph, no doubt left by the previous occupants. Strange that he’d never noticed it. It was of a happy couple, holding hands and basking in love. It was a cheerful picture, so why did he feel so sad? It wasn’t jealousy… Meh. A mystery for another time.
Turning to leave, Nick Jameson suddenly grabbed the photo and shoved it into his pocket. No point in leaving it behind, after all.
by submission | Apr 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Gwen Harper
The math, of course, came first.
It took a while, nearly forty years, for the technology to catch up to the possibilities in her set of equations.
They said it was impossible, the body of those who considered themselves enlightened thought. Even if such a thing would work – as the numbers, indisputable, cold, facts those numbers, indicated – it would not have the effect that its creator sought.
The human mind is more than data they said, and such a rich medium of data as the human experience could not just be coded.
Even if that were possible, somehow, using some fuzziness of logic that escaped all but the best and brightest of them, it wouldn’t really be more than a simulation.
You could replicate, or so the theory went, the human personae, but you could neither store nor transfer it.
She, the grand architect, disagreed.
They told her it was tantamount to homicide. Suicide, maybe, if you believed it would merely be a copy.
Legislators seized on the whole thing. They’re good at that, those legislators. Excellent at seizing on the crux of a perceived problem and dragging out every last little bit. Clearly, said those experts legal and – ostensibly – scientific, the very notion involved the commission of a crime, but what sort of crime. Precisely where, they asked, loudly, where all could see and hear, did the ethical transgression occur?
What, precisely, could they charge her with?
She held the patents, by hook and by crook. She knew that this would work – she’d had four decades to make certain of that. It would work, precisely as she had envisioned. Injunctions were filed; long winded speeches became sound bytes on the newsfeeds.
A simple matter, on reflection, it was. And – viewed from the right perspective, something of a solution to all of humanity’s considerable ethical, spiritual, and moral problems. Not an escape, as some had proposed, but a new thing. A wholly new way of being, of existing.
Others, perhaps others closer to the architect, laid their fears down like confessions. Others questioned her judgment, if not her equation.
But how could you cast away the flesh so casually one asked.
She smiled and said you’ll see.
And so the nation and the world talked, and talked, hot air likely contributing to the enhancement of an already rosy warm climate.
As the hour drew near, and the world grew strident its belief that they could put a stop to this sort of crime, she found a sense of peace where none had existed before.
This would work, she would be the first, and it would be all hers, for as long as she felt content to hold it. Which probably wouldn’t be long, as the architect had never been a greedy woman.
They key to unlocking the code, the equation, the difference between all things had been maintaining their symmetry. In the right proportions, anything made of matter or energy could safely be changed from one to the other – the rest of it had been mitigating loss of one as it became the other.
That last night, the longest night, was all preparation. Cords and wires, and tests – countless tests, were run, attached, documented, and run again. The immense blue crystalline slab of memory was wheeled in and its backups run.
She didn’t say good bye, for it wasn’t good bye.
She dismissed them all, that small contingent that had believed in her and her work. The lights went out, and in a moment of Frankenstein glee, she threw the switch.
At 0917 pm 21 December 2036, she committed immortality.
by submission | Apr 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Imran Nazar
He found himself waking up in a field. There was nothing unusual about that; he’d camped up in fields many times during his travels. Something was different this morning, though. For one thing, he could feel the wind over his face, and that meant he was in the open.
He opened his eyes. Expecting to see the dark green of his tent over him, he found a blue sky, tinged with the orange of a rising sun. He was indeed in the open, so where was his tent?
He sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to focus. Around him, there was just grass; it was an open field, and he was apparently asleep right in the middle. He couldn’t remember finding this field; even if he had picked this place to sleep overnight, his tent would’ve been over him, and he’d be nearer the woods. Maybe the tent blew away last night, but he couldn’t see it now. He’d have to find another at some point.
He looked behind him, and there was a house in the distance. With the sun behind it, lying in its own shadow, the house looked stark. He could see, though, that it was a wooden house. The walls were lime-washed, and it looked like some of the windows were broken. The front door had been boarded over at one point, but the board had fallen away on one side.
He felt himself being drawn to the house, for some reason. Maybe because the side window was open just enough for one person to get through, though anything useful was probably long gone. His plan was to head further south today; his old map showed a village by the road, which might prove a good source of food for the next couple of weeks.
He got up, and made ready to leave. Instead of heading south, he turned around to face the house. He found himself walking towards the open window, as though something was pushing him towards it; as though a command had been given.
> GO NORTHEAST
by submission | Apr 4, 2009 | Story
Author : Trevor Foley
Dear Miss March,
I’ve read pamphlets: “88 Reasons the World Will End in 1988”, “Give ‘Em Hell in 2012”, and my favorite “Apocalypse is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose”. I proved the world’s going to end next month: Your month. I’m writing, because Step 9 requires I make direct amends with those I’ve harmed. I saw you half naked online and said, “I’d kill for one night with her.” Three days later I proved, by lengthy equation, Apocalypse coincides with the month you’ll appear in Playboy.
With the foreknowledge of our demise, I’ve become an accomplice in our doom. I refuse to calculate the how, maybe, because my heart can’t bear the truth, but in any case, my willingness to ignore this slow train coming makes me equally guilty for our destruction. Since I’ve doomed us all, perhaps you’d spend a night with me. I have a waterbed.
Included with this letter is a mix tape. Mostly they’re songs about the Apocalypse, starting with “The Apocalypse Song” by St. Vincent. There’s also a track with the chorus “What a man, what a man, what a mighty, mighty man,” which I’d like to play while I climax.
I read intelligence is one of your turn on’s, which is also why I included a copy of my Master’s Degree and a picture I clipped out of the newspaper of me holding my trophy after winning the city chess tournament. The trophy’s really big…and hard. Just like me, but I don’t have it anymore, because I dropped it walking home from said chess tournament.
O, I also make delicious guacamole, so if you’d like, we can eat it off each other!
On a sadder note, my cat, Tuxie, (because his fur looks like a tuxedo) died two days ago. We should visit him at the pet cemetery…
That’s all I’ve got really…
Reply as soon as you get this. I’m sending this via the U.S. Postal Service, so we’ll probably only have more like twenty-seven or twenty-six days once it’s arrived.
Sorry about the Apocalypse!
Love,
Alan Gibbons
P.S. When you write back don’t spray your letter with perfume, I’m allergic.
