by submission | Sep 14, 2010 | Story
Author : Ellen Couch
I chose this job. I guess I just wanted to stay close to home.
The big work was done before I was born. Grandad was in demolition- Nana said watching him work was dead exciting. But everything that was coming down came down a long time ago. There are pictures of Nana in front of what Mam called ‘sky scrapers’. The idea of being that high terrified me.
They jumped at the chance to leave. Mam and Dad weren’t that old. They wanted to try for another baby. Down here the rules about that are very strict. That’s why my job is so well paid. Nobody wants it.
I know there are others like me. I don’t see them, of course. We’re not supposed to leave our Remit. But sometimes, if I’m right out on the edge of the farm, there will be a figure in the distance, silhouetted against the endless fields. But whoever they are, they’ve as much work to do as me. And there’s the counsellor if I want to talk.
It’s not a bad life. One of the perks of the job is getting first crack at whatever we can get to grow. My first tomato was a revelation, after nothing but nourishment pills.
They’re talking about reintroducing livestock. Just to see how the animals get on. Maybe one day they’ll be able to repopulate, but not in my lifetime. Probably not for a few lifetimes.
Sometimes, the loneliness gets so bad all I can do is lie in bed, shaking.
But the wheat grew this year. Next week, I’m going to learn to bake bread.
by submission | Sep 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Cosmo
Every day I am losing more of my sight. Every night, the edge of the moon blurs a little more. I can no longer see the stars. In its way, this slow drift into obscurity comforts me. It reminds me of my mortality.
The city streams by several thousand feet below as the zepp glides through the night. Rock and metal flow together, become a light-specked river, as above a cold wind snaps through the zepp’s mainsail. I lean over the railing, trying to make out individual buildings, and try my best to ignore the scraping of talons against the elevator wing and the following thunk as Aryan lands upon the deck.
The HARPY joins me at the rail, c-fiber wings retracting soundlessly into his back. For a few minutes we stand and say nothing. I can almost hear his eye shutters irising as he tries to infer my line of sight.
“I don’t understand,” he says at last, rotating his head towards me. “Every night you come out here. What do you expect to see?”
“Nothing,” I reply, trying to keep everything out of my voice. My hand rises, almost unconsciously, to feel the silver cross that rests beneath my shirt. Aryan knows about it, and I know it irritates him. He has taken it from me once before, but sees no harm in me keeping it.
“Your body is failing. We offer you treatment.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You are going to let yourself die?”
“Death is natural,” I reply.
In the ensuing silence I can feel him contemplating forcing the surgery upon me. But he knows that I would escape it afterwards. “I see,” he says. “Why do you wear that cross?”
“Who were you?” I ask. “I mean, before?”
For a moment, I think he is going to respond. Perhaps this time I have caught him off guard. Perhaps, somewhere deep within that network of wires and nanotech, he retains a vague recollection of his past. “I don’t remember,” Aryan finally says. “It is not important.”
“It’s the most important thing there is,” I respond. “It’s why you will never understand.”
Something changes about him. Aryan shifts his weight uncomfortably from talon to talon, then suddenly throws himself over the railing. I watch moonlight spark from his body as he plummets towards the earth. I can hardly see him when he opens his wings and veers left.
Below, the city streams by. Through this long journey, I have been keeping track of the latitudes and longitudes. Somewhere ahead of us, the city breaks against the Dead Sea. Somewhere below, the ruins of Jerusalem lie, sinking slowly beneath wave after wave of metal.
by submission | Sep 11, 2010 | Story
Author : Jacqueline Rochow
Private Collins remained at attention as the guard ran the scanner over him. Satisfied that he carried no electronic devices, the guard left him alone with Sergeant Peters.
“At ease, private. Take a seat, will you?”
Nervously, Collins did as he was told. “Sir?”
“You’re here because you ticked certain consent boxes when you joined us seven years ago. Particularly, an automatic consent to top secret missions. I’m a fair man, private, and I know a lot can change in seven years, so I’m going to give you the chance to walk out of this room now. If you don’t, the only way you’re leaving is in the cockpit of a one-man craft with some top secret orders. Understand?”
“Y… yes. “
Peters stared idly at his fingers for several seconds, then looked up to see that Collins was still there. “Good man. Tell me, have you ever heard of Taxcelon?”
Collins racked his memory. “Weren’t there old folk tales about… some hugely powerful immortal entity? Destroyed whole planets before just disappearing one day? That was –”
“A long time ago, yes. The official story was mysterious disappearance; in actuality, we caught it.”
“How?”
“Tricked it. Some genius engineers rigged up a device that imprisons it inside a material body. Such a form severely limited its abilities. It was only as smart as the brain it was inside, couldn’t do much beyond move material objects. No idea how the thing works, but that doesn’t matter; the important thing is, what the hell could be done with it then? Killing its host would cause it to automatically take another, and we were worried that over time it would figure out how to control that. An enemy with no mercy, a huge grudge and the ability to possess anyone? Not a good thing. A prison doesn’t work as a prison if the inmate can suddenly become one of the guards, does it?”
“So… what happened?”
“We built a guardless prison from scratch. A shell, if you will.” Peters slid a small star map across the table. “You know how the entire Alpha Centauri area has been a no fly zone for as long as anyone can remember?”
“Yes…”
“That’s because of this nearby star, here. We picked a planet and seeded the entire thing with single-celled life, left the entity’s poor host there and took off.”
“Oh! So if it dies –”
“Taxcelon reincarnates into bacteria indefinitely. That was the plan. The no-fly zone is to avoid the remote possibility of it hitching a lift off the planet, but in bacteria it shouldn’t be able to remember what it is or think at all anyway.”
“And there’s a problem?”
“The thing about life is that it doesn’t stay the same for long. That planet, see, now has intelligent life. Smart enough that, assuming Taxcelon is inside one of ‘em, it should be able to remember some stuff, possibly even work a little of its old power. And that species is inventing space travel.”
“So you want me to kill them.”
“From a distance. Make sure you get everything intelligent but leave some bacteria or something, enough to ensure that life will continue. Mission details are in your ship. Get going.”
“Yes sir.” Collins’ salute and stride were purposeful. He had a very important mission.
Once he was alone, Peters remotely checked the condition of the explosive charges hidden in Collins’ ship. It was a pity about the kid, but they couldn’t risk him bringing Taxcelon back by accident.
“That’ll buy us a few billion more years,” he muttered to himself.
by submission | Sep 8, 2010 | Story
Author : Geoff Revere
“I’m resigning. That’s it. I’m done!” Doctor Holmes spouted, pacing back and forth before the commandant’s desk, his hands shaking. “The boy was eighteen Michael, eighteen!”
“You’re referring to Private Loman?” the commandant asked.
“You know damn well who I’m referring to!” Holmes spat, clearly forgetting to whom he was speaking. “How could you let this happen? There were supposed to be rules, protocols! This is unacceptable!” With a gentle hum, automated climate controls lowered the temperature and humidity in the room, doing nothing to cool the doctor’s temper.
“Unacceptable? The boy understood the risk. He knew about the food shortage experiment before he allowed himself to be plugged into the Hive. Can we be blamed if it was him the collective chose to sacrifice?”
“Sacrifice? You call what they did to him sacrifice?”
“THEY didn’t do anything to him. The Hive is one mind. Every action and decision is checked and approved by the collective. In a very real sense, Loman chose this for himself, for the good of the Hive.”
“I refuse to believe that. He could never have chosen this. Did you read his file? Did you even talk to the boy before you plugged him in? He was the only candidate, the only person who ever really wanted to be part of the Hive. He actually thought the collective consciousness was a desirable way to live. No arguments. No conflict. I tried to explain the uncertainties, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t care that we’ve never proven if the Hive makes decisions based on unanimity or majority rule!”
The commandant eyed Holmes coldly. That was the crux of his argument, then. Was the boy for or against the decision to sacrifice members of the Hive? True, they couldn’t prove how the hive mind really worked. The technology had been stumbled upon by a start-up networking company and quickly snatched by the government. It was just as likely the boy had been murdered as he had been a willing volunteer.
“Say something,” Holmes demanded.
The man behind the desk sneered. “The Hive is the future of the military. They work as one, coordinating effortlessly. Exacting. Efficient. Sacrificing a soldier was the best choice, strategically, in that situation. The only question was whether the Hive would do what was moral or what was best. Now we know.”
The commandant hadn’t addressed the chief concern. Seconds ticked by. The climate controls lowered the temperature another few degrees. Realizing he would never get the concession he wanted, the doctor finally sat down.
“They didn’t just let the boy starve, you know,” Holmes sighed, his head in his hands.
“Your resignation is noted in my logs.”
“They could have at least shot him. But I suppose that would have been a waste of ammunition, right?”
“You understand you can never talk to anyone about this project. To do so would be to forfeit your freedom, as per your contract.”
“Did you know what they would do? Did any of the other behavioral specialists predict this outcome?”
“I expect your office to cleared by the end of the day. You’ll receive reassignment orders in a few weeks. You’re dismissed.”
Holmes looked up into the commandant’s eyes, half expecting some show of pity or remorse. He was met instead by the harsh blackness of years of military service. Exacting. Efficient. He would find no sympathy here. At last the doctor stood to leave.
“They ate him, Michael. They fucking ate him. And when it gets out, it’ll be on your head, not mine.”
by submission | Sep 6, 2010 | Story
Author : Helstrom
The blank page seems to stare at me – it always does. It’s an anachronism. I am of an older generation of writers. I like the feel of keys submitting to my fingertips, the facsimile of a sheet of paper presented on a luminescent screen. It is the only light in the room now. On the desk, a full glass of scotch, and a threateningly empty bottle beside it. Smoke curling up from the ashtray. The little wooden Komodo dragon I bought in Indonesia once.
A bit further off, more anachronisms. Books, lined up sternly on a set of shelves. I don’t have mine for nostalgic flair, I actually read the damn things. Something about the touch of paper, the smell of ink, the actual turning of a page. Writers are supposed to be like that, I guess. I’m not that much older, really, that’s bullshit. I just like the taste of it – “an older generation of writers”.
I think about the tens of thousands of words I have committed to this blank page, only to be erased and forgotten forever. Times like these, I wish I could call them back somehow. There must have been something good in there. Something I could salvage now. Jesus Christ, anything to get this blank page to fill up. Blank pages seem to fill up by themselves once you get them started – getting them started being the trick, of course.
Chasey stirs on the bed, the dim blue of the screen shining on her curves. Chasey? Stacy? Maybe she’s called Charlie, even. It’ll be short for Charlotte but I’ve always been a sucker for girls with boys’ names. Like Charlie or Sam or Alex. There might be some bi-curiosity in that. Given the night we just had, though, I think Charlie would beg to differ. Maybe I should write something about her.
A few words come out but they’re pretty vulgar. Not bad, per sé, but more like something you would start off a racy novel with. The kind they sell at gas stations. The cursor backs over them quickly. I’ll hang myself before I start writing dreck like that. Or at least I’ll stop paying the rent.
I light up another and take a sip of scotch, which I know I’ll regret once the glass is empty and the bottle gives out nothing but fumes. Charlie mumbles in her sleep and rolls over, two soft blue crescents highlighting her butt. I turn away and stare back at the blank page again, hoping it wi—
— Getting back in your own head is a little disorienting at first, but you get used to it —
“Hey man,” I say, tossing the chip on the counter, “What soft shit you call this?”
“You wanted something long.” Says the dude.
“Yeah, something long-time. Fuck is this?”
“It’s good stuff. Don’t worry, has sex too.”
“Right, just after I write the great American novel? Give me something else.”
“Philistine.”
The dude takes the chip back, hands me another from the regular box. I slip it in and right before it starts, I notice he’s tapping at an antique laptop. Idio—
—I’m on a circular bed, must be at least ten feet across. Mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice. Two Asian girls in platform heels, nothing else, walking up to me. This is better.
