by submission | Feb 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Michael Merriam
“We never had much,” she said. “The freighter was our life. Now it’s all lost, ripped apart by a neutron star.”
I sat next to her. I couldn’t answer. My mind was dazzled, my eyes locked on her naked body stretched out on the bed we shared. She reached out her arms, and I fell into her embrace.
My lips on her neck, I stroked the flat of her stomach, reached beyond with one hand until she pulled me onto and into her body.
I was a silly child. She had over two decades on me, my lovely, melancholy lover.
Later — days or weeks later — we sat on the rocks overlooking the dead lighthouse, long abandoned, nature carving it up.
“Do you think the stars will give back what they have taken, at the end?”
“I don’t know.”
And I didn’t. I still don’t.
She was a beautiful burning demon, all alabaster skin and black hair. She seemed an artist’s creation, unreal, ethereal. In that moment she frightened me.
“I think they will.” She turned, leaned on me. I place an arm around her, held her tightly.
Soft sobs and crashing surf were all.
#
Autumn.
A cool breeze blew off the sea as I watched the crowd gather like ghouls and vultures. The white and red van, its ugly blinking eye atop, sat parked with doors open wide. I didn’t need to go down. I knew.
I didn’t travel to Mars Station to see her casket fired into the sun, as was her right as a navigator. I didn’t want to watch it blaze in the an instant before evaporating or deal with dour strangers and weeping women, black shrouded, staring, whispering, asking questions I wouldn’t answer.
I would remember my lover for her laughter, her sweat-covered skin after sex, her gentleness in all things.
“Do you think the stars will give back what they have taken, at the end?”
“I don’t know.”
I still don’t.
by submission | Feb 10, 2010 | Story
Author : Sean Wallace
“Now, we all look forward to entering the Archangel when we retire, but what about those people who go there before then? Constance Vyke reports on the people who keep Archangel running…”
Constance, pretty in a thin, blonde sort of way, starts her report through a practiced smile. “Thank you Milo. The Archangel Station, owned and run by the UN, has been running for almost thirty years; taking us in when we become elderly and giving us a life of pleasure and joy in our most fragile years. Not everyone who comes here does so for the Grace Chambers though. I’m here with Nigel Howard, Chief Engineer for the Archangel and he is, as you can see, a great deal younger than 65.”
Nigel offers a small smile, slightly confused. “Hello there Constance.”
“First of all, I’m certain our viewers would like to know how you can cope with being so close to the Grace Chambers?”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said it isn’t tempting, but thankfully you need specific implants to be able to join the residents; implants stored and inserted planetside. So there’s no way for me, or anyone else here, to ‘dip in’.”
“But how can you cope with it? Bliss and joy happening so close to you and you cannot take part in it… even I’m feeling the pull, and I’ve only been here a few days.”
“Firstly, if you work on the Archangel you get to retire five years early. Plus, without people like us, no-one would be able to enter Gracie…”
“Gracie? Is that what you call them?”
“Oops, sorry.” Nigel wipes his hand down his eyes and coughs. “Yeah, it’s the nickname we gave the Intethlon Quantum Core GC20. It’s a lot less of a mouthful. But yeah, we do an important job, maybe the most important job there is, so you get a lot of satisfaction out of it.” The increased numbers of suicides and high level of substance abuse went unmentioned, especially after Head Office had some serious words with him about ‘appropriate responses’.
“Anyway,” Constance says, slight annoyance peeking through her media-friendly tones, “what’s a typical day like up here? What do you do every day?”
“Well, we don’t work every day Constance. But for me, a typical day involves nothing more than your usual space station Chief Engineer; I read reports, ensure the tech is all in working order, manage the new arrivals and deliveries…”
“And it’s really not difficult to see hundreds of people enter the Grace Chambers, Gracie?”
“Really, it’s not a problem.” Nigel coughs and balls his fists. “… but anyway, we get everyone in, give them the introduction and then fit them into the chambers for their new life. Then we send back any deceased for planetside burial and ensure that the next day’s work is prepared. That’s about it; as I said, nothing more than the typical station.”
“Alright then, Nigel, just before I go I’d like to ask what the first thing you’re going to do after you retire is?”
Having thought long and hard about this over the decades he’d worked on the Archangel, the truth sprang to answer the question itself; “I’m going to Solar-sail to Mars.”
“Thank you very much for your time Nigel.” Constance turns back to the camera. “There you are viewers, normal people doing amazing work up here in the Heavens. For MSN-BBC, I’m Constance Vyke.”
“Constance Vyke there. We’ll see you after these messages…”
by submission | Feb 9, 2010 | Story
Author : Eric Kimball
It starts as the faintest quiver of sound, a slight singsong beat carried by the wind. The few stray notes that reach my ears instantly spring to the forefront of my consciousness.
“Mother, he’s here!”
“Hmm?” Mother replies flatly.
The mechanical calliope is louder now, adding to the urgency in my voice. “The Good Humor man is here!”
“Oh, and you want to get something?”
This strikes me as a very dumb question, but I simply reply, “Yes, please, may I go?” Now is not the time to anger Mother.
“Very well, but don’t take long.”
“I won’t,” I say in mid-stride. I emerge in time to see a battered white truck with a yellow emblem crawling down the road. Other people are here and we all cluster about the truck in a teeming, churning mass. After jostling in a crowd that resembles a tiny war more then a queue, I reach the front.
Sam, the Good Humor man, looks over at me with his big plastic grin. “Hey there buddy, what’ch get’en today?”
I pause for a moment, looking at the brightly colored board. Behind me, the crowd shifts angrily, but I ignore the collective impatience.
“I’d just like a Neapolitan, I think,” I say after considering all the options.
“Gotta love the classics, buddy,” Sam says, extending a plastic packet with his piston-driven arm. The packet drops into my hand as Sam turns his cold glass optical ports and poorly painted head to the next customer.
I tear open the wrap with a single pull and then guide my trembling hand to the cybernetic socket at the back of my skull. There is a quick jolt of pain as the chip comes to rest in its socket, sending short circuits through my body and brain. Then the experience fills me.
First kiss, first date, first time someone says “I love you,” the sweet bubbling strawberry of love in blossom. I savor the sensation, feeling the excited butterflies in my stomach, drinking in every moment of it. Then the next emotion overtakes me, the cool, smooth, creamy sensation of a love in full bloom. A walk hand in hand with a loved one, a soak together in the hot tub, the simple pleasure of waking next to them, I float through oceans of vanilla bliss. Last, I descend into the dark, decadent chocolate sensation of love-making: not sex, but the velvety sinful sensations around the borders of intercourse, a nibble of an ear, a gentle caress, the contentment of post-coitus. These feelings coat my body in thick, warm syrupy streams.
Eventually the sensations fade, receding with each beat of my heart like an ocean tide. I remove the expended Emotional Emulator from the back of my skull, a thin trail of smoke wafting from the charred circuit.
Before returning to my work station, I take a moment to watch the others. Some dance to invisible music, others laugh at an unspoken joke, and others quiver in sexual ecstasy. The “real thing,” as the outsiders like to call it in their ridiculous flyers, is a shallow imitation of the Good Humor chips.
Besides, who has time for the “real thing”? From morning alarm until the beginning of another sleep cycle, we’re occupied with debugging code, swapping circuits, and defending the perimeter. But it’s worth it. Only an AI like Mother can create the Emotional Emulator chips. If we keep her happy and functional, then trucks will be sent, loaded with their simple electronic pleasures. After all, it’s the simple pleasures that make life worth living, is it not?
by submission | Feb 8, 2010 | Story
Author : Bill Lombardi
Troy sat by his bedside. Watching.
Hours past and then Jon’s eyes slowly opened. “I’m thirsty.” His voice wavered, his strength beginning to ebb.
Troy poured him a glass of water and stood by him holding the straw. He took several sips. Coughed. Troy wiped his chin. Soon he was asleep again. Troy sat and waited.
When he awoke next he asked, “Is it day”?
“No. It is night.”
“Can you see the stars?”
Troy went to the balcony doors, drew the curtain and opened them. He looked up at the moonless sky. “There are many stars.”
“Can you see the Big Bear?”
“You mean the Great Bear. Yes.”
“I remember lying in the field out back at night naming as many constellations as we could.”
“And you were always incorrect.”
Jon laughed weakly which led to another bout of coughing. Troy moved to his side and helped him sit up until it passed and then he gently laid him back down.
“You’ll stay with me?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know why I ask. We’ve been together for as long as I can remember.”
He placed a cool hand across Jon’s forehead and soon he was asleep again – and the ever present Troy sat and waited.
Several days passed and he never woke again.
They came and took him and Troy watched from the window as the vehicle pulled away. All of Jon’s things had been packed and removed. Only Troy was left. He looked around at the empty rooms and on the floor in a corner was an image. He picked it up. It was of the two of them when they had visited China. On the Great Wall. They both stood backs against a turret, blue sky above. Troy remembered that day. They had walked and seen as much as they could while the sun still shone. Taking images. Troy folded it and placed it in the pocket of his pants and then went to stand by the door. The service would be by soon to wipe his memory and shut him down. He looked around at the empty rooms again. And waited.
by submission | Feb 7, 2010 | Story
Author : Matthew Banks
“It thinks,” said the emaciated man, blinking up at the doctor with red-rimmed eyes. The doctor looked down at him for a moment, then turned to the display mounted on the wall. The multiscan of the man’s brain was mostly normal, except for the bright blob sprouting from the left hemisphere. The doctor turned to the man. He was mostly normal, too, except for the weeping ulcer on his chest. But as with all his other symptoms, the ulcer was abnormal, as demonstrated by the glossy white molars sprouting in a clump from its center. The doctor suppressed a disgusted sneer and turned back to the display.
“It probably does think,” she said, stroking her chin, “I don’t know what Dr. Glasseter told you, but it’s no brain tumor. It’s a pleurineoplasm.”
“A what?”
The doctor rolled her eyes. That was the problem with these longevity treatments: people got them without having any idea how they worked or what side-effects there might be. She frowned at the patient. “I think your brain is trying to grow an extra lobe.”
The man blinked. “Why?”
The doctor scowled, and the man recoiled. “Why? What do you think? It’s the Novos. How long have you been taking it?”
“A few years.”
The doctor shrugged. “Well, there you go, then. Your body is throwing off stem cells like crazy, and without any real regulation, sometimes they get confused. Didn’t they explain all of this to you after the surgery?”
The man self-consciously touched the scar beneath his armpit where a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic had pulled a fully-formed kidney out of the patient’s lung. The doctor wanted badly to shake her head at the man and laugh.
“Well…he said, looking down at the floor and swallowing loudly. He looked up with renewed confidence. “Just the price of immortality, I guess.”
This time, the doctor couldn’t help but laugh. The man squinted at her. When she regained her composure, she walked up to him and pointed at the toothy lesion on his chest.
“Immortality? You’re going to keep getting those. Dentate teratomas are the most common side-effect of Novos. How long do you think it’ll be before you get one in your brain? Or you get one in your heart that gets gingivitis and gives you a fatal blood infection? Mr. Greene, you’ve been suckered.”
He scratched at the lesion and picked aimlessly at its teeth. “I was running laps a week after the lung surgery. Whatever accidentally grows on or in me, I can have it removed and recover just fine.”
“No you can’t,” the doctor said. Her voice had grown solemn, and the patient stared at her, startled.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t have the brain growth removed. Thanks to the Novos, it’s already forged connections with pretty much every anatomical structure. That’s why you’re hearing the voices, that’s how you can tell it thinks: you’re hearing the neoplasm’s thoughts. If we tried to remove it, we’d probably take most of your brain with it. I project you’ve got about two months before you’ve got too much brain to fit in your skull and you slip into a coma and die.”
The patient looked up at her. He scratched his toothy lesion and blinked wetly.
