by submission | Jul 5, 2010 | Story
Author : K.S. Kim
It’s certainly nothing new. Shipping off the old to make way for the new. They used to call them homes for the elderly. They would have them everywhere, just to make it easier for the younger generation to pursue their everyday lives and goals, without having to care for the increasingly longer living old.
“It only makes sense to let us care for your elderly.”
The man on the soft screen was trying to convince my son to send me away. It made my blood boil. It wasn’t fair.
“…so offer nutri-solutions and muscle stimulants to encourage the revitalization and rejuvenation of dead or dying ce…”
I wasn’t even paying attention. My son’s eyes and ears, on the other hand, were glued to him, a sign of respect I wish he gave me sometimes.
“…ave the state-of-the-art virtual plane if your elderly prefers to experience life to it’s fullest but are physically unab…”
Oh yeah, sure, take all that anti-age tech that my generation heralded to try and make it seem any less cruel. My son sure seems to appreciate the idyllic image of an army of old minds in young bodies running freely on a farm somewhere. My parents used to tell me that my dog was running around free on a farm somewhere too. I found out that they had to put Koenig down. It was a lie to make my seven year old self feel better.
I wonder if my son realizes that they plan on putting me down.
“…ment plans are flexible and based on your insurances and current…”
Though, I guess I’ve lived long enough. I’ve spent the last four decades on the GenShip, “Malenfant”. My son must have grown tired of having his father haunt his every step.
“…ply for a Virtual Manifest in our systems if you ever want to visit. It’s very convenient and comes included with the Uploaded Legacy Packa…”
Great! Now their talking about making a damned copy of my mind?
“…chever decision you make, we suggest you move quickly. Your father’s brain is deteriorating quickly. He’s starting to show signs of the Ancestry Disease. That’s most likely thanks to the fact your father’s anti-aging involve a good deal of out-dated methods and from using expi…”
He’s bad-mouthing the tech that helped him make a business. If it wasn’t for our generation and our discoveries, you wouldn’t even be alive today. I swear, this generation has no respect for what came before. They only care about what comes after.
“…emory loss is usually the first major thing we notice. It’s okay though, we’ve seen this very often and we can restore much and continually maintain the rest of their mind. We just have to upload him before he get’s stuck in a repeating loop. Otherwise, even in a digital state, he may forever be stu…”
It’s certainly nothing new. Shipping off the old to make way for the new. They used to call them homes for the elderly. They would have them everywhere, just to make it easier for the younger generation to pursue their every… wait. This seems familiar…
But I wasn’t even paying attention anymore.
by submission | Jul 3, 2010 | Story
Author : W. Kevin Christian
Damn it, he thought. The delirium had stopped. Again he felt the pain and heat. Burning, sizzling, scorching heat, like tar on a summer sidewalk.
It was the middle of the third week. Changes had begun innocently enough around day three. A little fatigue, a headache, a bit of a cough. Nothing much. Nothing he couldn’t handle anyway. But now . . . now he felt as if he had eaten the Devil’s heart for breakfast.
$150,000! God I’m a cheap bastard, he thought.
He had done many stupid things for a quick buck, but this was far and away his masterpiece. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, it did with odds like he had anyway. His chance of winning was 78 percent for God’s sake! He didn’t have to do anything either. He just had to avoid doing one thing. Dying. Billions of people did it every day.
He had felt like a dangers-be-damned pioneer making a mad dash for free land. He remembered the quiet, smoldering excitement as the needle had pricked his arm. He had been terrified, ecstatic, anxious, remorseful and everything in between. $150,000! And all he had to do was live? In three to four weeks he would be back to his old self, he had thought, puttering around the house like normal people do. Not the house for long, though. He would buy something new. A down payment on something big and regal, something he could raise a family in one day. But not for one day—for many years. Many long, happy, Hallmark years full of golden turkeys, training wheels, and scraped knees. And all for a month’s work? He would have been stupid not to take the deal.
Plus, he would be famous.
Now the ceiling camera buzzed and blinked as it zoomed in. On 166 million television screens across America human beings watched sweat pour down his forehead. His blue eyes had turned the darkest shade of gray.
166 million American television screens cut to a commercial for fabric softener. The ad had cost its maker dearly. Airtime for such a highly rated show was extremely valuable, after all.
The lights shimmered and melted before his eyes. “150,000 dollars!” he muttered to himself with a gurgle or chuckle.
When 166 million television screens cut back the misery had left his eyes. The delirium had returned.
The corner of every television screen displayed his heart rate. It was starting to look irregular. It would jump up a bit and then come back down. Meanwhile, the sweat continued to pour.
He mumbled various nonsense as a thin, yellowish liquid slithered down his chin. “I like it in blue, but I can still see how you’d like the green,” he said. “What’s wrong with leather? I can pull it off . . . Typhoid? That’s still around? . . . I think I’ll get the lobster! I can afford it now . . . Let’s go skydiving! You only live once, right?”
His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Suddenly his heart rate tore up to 200 beats per minute and he convulsed violently as blood bubbled from his lips.
“150,000 dollars!” he screamed. “But that’s a 300,000 dollar value!”
by submission | Jul 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Phill English
We welcome. They are quickening their destruction of planets at an exponential pace.
We acknowledge. But what can be done? We encouraged their growth, gifted them technology that could build worlds. They were only exerting their free will by opposing our wishes.
We accept. Nevertheless, the destruction must cease. The planets are the three-dimensional extrusions of our energy source. If they are destroyed, thus are we.
We agree. But what can be done to halt their wave of ruin? We are not able to manifest in the physical realm and those who receive our inspiration are burned as heretics.
We are aware. However, we believe there is an expedient solution to their expansion.
We inquire. What knowledge is known that grants insight into this problem?
We reveal. They worship their weapons as religious fanatics. An entire society centred around the power of utter annihilation that our weapons have granted them. They have forgotten the ways of hand-to-hand combat. Another species could invade them with few casualties.
We are thoughtful. The introduction of one species to control another. We concur with your proposed action. Which control species is appropriate for our needs?
We are grateful. There is a species that excels in such matters. They require less than a century’s guidance to place them at the level of the Varlaxx.
We are impressed. There are no other parameters that might halt their subsumption of the troublesome race?
We are proud. None that are known and therefore none that are knowable.
We are satisfied. Encourage these ‘Terrans’ to take up arms against the Varlaxx.
We begin. Observe our preservation.
* * *
We welcome. The Terrans have not solved the problem in the way that was expected.
We acknowledge. Their expansion was unforeseen. Their uncontrolled breeding has spread a blight over a greater number of planets than even the Varlaxx could extinguish.
We are distraught. Their abuse has diminished us. They arrive on paradise and within a few short millennia have reduced its wonder to a landscape of dust.
We grieve. They know not what they do.
We die. There is nothing left.
by submission | Jun 30, 2010 | Story
Author : John Logan
“I don’t want you to die,” said Vincent.
The words didn’t actually transfer as sound to any part of my ear. They were signals which ran from a dermal connection on Vincent’s body, through my hand, and up into my brain where they were interpreted by my cerebral cortex with the help of a nano-sized mechanism called a Xybot.
“So what,” I said. I actually spoke these words but Vincent understood. He just had his own way of communicating because he didn’t have a mouth. He was a gun. A Black Widow Class V made by the Demiyan Corporation. The shiny silver of his body turned a tint of green. A trick he often used to convey his mellow mood. He was only supposed to use it for camouflage, but Vincent loved melodrama.
“Why don’t you sleep on it?” he said. “We can talk again tomorrow.”
I lifted my hand, Vincent included, so that I felt the cold touch of his muzzle next to my temple. “Because I don’t want you to talk me out of it like last time,” I replied.
There was a pause. “You aren’t a bad person,” he said. He often told me this. It was one of the many techniques he used to console me.
“Of course I am. I shot that woman,” I said. “She just wanted her freedom, that’s all.” The memory of it stung me like it had happened just today and not two years ago on a colony world that orbited a star six light years away.
“I shot her,” said Vincent. “Not you. I’m to blame.”
My hand shook and I could feel my resolve weakening. He would have made a good psyche doctor. In fact I often wondered if one of the technicians at Demiyan hadn’t slipped a little something extra into his AI.
“She had a kid with her,” I said softly. “Do you think he survived the purge?”
Vincent felt suddenly heavy in my hand and so I lowered him.
“Nothing survived the purge, you know that,” he said. “Government policy dictates the extermination of all rebels.”
I sighed and stood. The idea of all those people dying under a hail of Kryon rays didn’t sit well with me. Moving to the window, I stared out into the night. A freight ship, the size of a small island, was just taking off. Many of the men on board looking forward to a little rest back home on Mars. I must have stood there just staring for a long time because when Vincent next spoke it startled me out of my dark thoughts.
“I want you to be happy,” he said.
“Well I’m not,” I said. “So why don’t you just let me kill myself.”
“It would be inconvenient,” he said. “I would have to wait for a replacement.”
He was of course talking about the next soldier unlucky enough to be paired with him. Vincent was much older than me—the intelligence that was Vincent, not the gun. I’d never thought to ask him about my predecessors.
“How many have there been before me?” I asked my melancholy forgotten momentarily as the question piqued my curiosity.
“Many,” he said and I felt a creeping feeling of jealousy now that he had confirmed I was not the first. The emotion was unexpected.
“Anyway, I don’t need you,” I said annoyed. “I’ll just hang myself.”
“No you won’t,” he said. “You tried that last time without success.”
Vincent always brought out the worst in me. “I hate you,” I said.
“I know,” he replied.
by submission | Jun 28, 2010 | Story
Author : Liz Lafferty
Three weeks ago, there were lights on the horizon. Solar lights from the small town to the south flickered in the night, reminding me that I lived within walking distance.
One day, I woke up and life was different. An eerie dark mist had settled over the desert region. Not the desert you’re used to. This desert was lush and fertile. Animals roamed freely in grazing herds. The area was desert because no one wanted to live here.
In my time, people are afraid to be alone.
The second night without lights passed without incident. My cat paced inside the battery illuminated walls of my earth home. I huddled on the floor, cushioned by numerous pillows, reading by a small lamp. I debated the merits of walking to town to find help or at least find answers.
The next morning, I opened the door and stepped outside. Except for the battery operated clock, I couldn’t tell the time. There was no sun overheard. I couldn’t even make out a glowing orb behind the mist, but it must be there because the temperature of the air wasn’t unpleasant.
I slid my hand through the darkness. I couldn’t see the tips of my fingers.
My cat screeched and shot into the darkness.
“Kitty. Come back. Kitty,” I said. My voice wavered. My ears hurt from the crushing silence of the mist. “Kitty?” I whispered.
I backed into the house and slammed the door. I stumbled through the front room, falling into the welcome arms of the cushiony pillows. I covered my head with a blanket and turned on one of the remaining battery lights. It flickered. Shaking it roughly, the glow came back.
Twisting the single braid that hung over my shoulder, I convinced myself that I should leave – take what supplies and lights I had and head toward the town. One day’s walk should do it.
I volunteered to live here. I had the misguided notion I could live alone, except I felt nothing but dread since the mist had settled over the land, suffocating the life out of me and everything around me. Had it only been four days?
The darkness seemed to invade my home. Slowly, one by one, the batteries dimmed than died. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds and minutes away with excoriating awareness. My ears hurt at the pounding. My psyche grasped at the only sound that made feel alive. Tick. Tick.
Would I have felt better to hear the grating sound of metal, the creaking sound of the house as it swayed in the wind, creeping things flitting across my floor?
I hadn’t moved from my spot for several days, except to find the gun hidden away in my closet. I horded the dry food from the kitchen and the water bottles were stacked next to me. In my head, I counted the clicks of the clock; with my hand, I counted and recounted the number of bottles remaining, before I had to make the terrifying journey to refill them.
Maybe once they were empty, I would stop. I could just stop eating. I could allow myself to die. Here in the mist. Alone.
I tried not to think of what was out there. Why they called this place the desert. It was both a place and a state of mind, I decided in one of my more lucid moments.
A sound, a new sound, pulled me from my lethargy. I gripped the gun.
Something pounded at my door.
Boom. Boom.
The door rattled.
I pulled the trigger.
