by submission | Aug 19, 2009 | Story
Author : Jeff Phillips
Grace took her hat off, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of her aged hand. She hated the angle of the sun at this time of day, but this was the only place on the grounds where she felt alive. Butterflies lit on the hummingbird bushes that flowed musically from the wind. For just a moment, she saw the faint ghostly image of a cursor blinking to the right of her view. She froze, allowing the image to blink, blink, blink until it disappeared. Grace knew, just like any other institution resident would, that the cursor wasn’t real. It was only misfiring neurons, replaying sensory input from 52 years of computer use.
The institutions–thousands of them across the world–were created for patients like Grace Dawkins. Everyone born after the mandatory integration of the “Internet” into the human brain became a patient, almost without exception. The only individuals who escaped the symptoms of the integration residue were those who lived in all-natural communes in desolate areas, or those with brain damage who never fully integrated to begin with.
Grace grew up in Pittsburg, one of the first ten cities to be integrated with the wireless, government-funded “I-Net” hubs. After a resident received the minor outpatient surgery necessary to link up, the collective consciousness of the world was accessible with a thought. At that time, 33-year-old Dr. Grace Dawkins was the lead bioengineer for the project at the Department of Homeland Security, to which Congress gave the funding. Grace remembered the years of human testing, from low-level brain-machine connections to the first real mind-controlled computer. And she had been in the lab when Dr. Shah became the first human to interact with the original Internet using only his mind. She never would have proposed the project if she had known about the consequences. Elderly people who were connected more than half of their lives began to have intrusive leftover images from the half-brain, half-computer I-Net. Flashes, flutters, ghost images, and withdrawal symptoms started showing up as the integrated population aged. Scientists and doctors from the government’s own agencies began to question the safety of I-Net. Dr. Grace Dawkins and her life’s work eventually became a curse to humankind, sending millions of people to institutions late in their lives in order to disintegrate from I-Net.
A deep-red cardinal landed on the bird feeder and scared the other, smaller birds away in a flutter. Grace’s eyes picked up the action which released shocks of electricity in the vision center of her brain. That’s why she loved this place–so full of action and life. It was the only place at the institution that gave her sensory input that came anywhere close to I-Net. Although the amount of information was miniscule compared to being linked to every computer in the world, this garden reminded her of that feeling. Grace imagined for a moment that she could access data about the cardinal, the weather, the evergreen trees in the background—anything she wanted to know more about. Her mind instinctively tried to link up to I-Net, but then a flash of words entered her mind in a jumbled mess and she felt dizzy, reminding her how profoundly the net had corrupted her brain.
Grace took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and listened to the singing birds.
by submission | Aug 18, 2009 | Story
Author : L. Mellancorps
Allis coughed. Jard pulled his knife out of its sheath.
Jard carries a hunting knife he found in a museum, so it’s probably even older than the video cassettes he likes to collect. It has a blade as long as my forearm with a thick, leather-wrapped hilt. It’s scary looking, sure, but I don’t know why he keeps that old knife. He has to sharpen its edge with a piece of scrap-steel every time we get back from an expedition. He says he doesn’t mind the extra work.
Jard sliced through the twisted nylon ropes holding the body to the wall and let it drop. The corpse cracked as dried joints gave way, and one curled finger skittered across the floor. Allis dry-heaved a few times before we could continue.
Allis does not handle corpses as well as the rest of us do, even if they’re only skeletons. I don’t blame her much in this case, though. Even though the body was old, I could tell someone had really messed up this poor kid. He didn’t look more than thirteen years old, and someone had broadened his smile with a razor blade. Ear to ear, his face was split open in a disgusting grin, and around his neck hung a sign that read “Liar.”
Jard sheathed his knife and we went on. Allis kept her head down and I thought for a minute she was crying, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
Allis really shouldn’t come on these expeditions if she’s going to lose her cool at one dead kid. It’s not unusual to find corpses this far out from base. There are probably still rural areas that haven’t even been explored. As far as his being a kid goes, I’ve seen worse. The orphan gangs that chose rural outposts after the apocalypse ended up completely barbaric. We’ve stumbled across cannibals, cults, even a few feral bands that attacked us with snarls and fingernail-claws.
Jard, of course, has a theory for this. He says they got that way because they left their angels behind. He says that angels tell us how to live, but they live in the past. He says that if we stay close to our past, our angels can help us in the present.
I don’t think Jard knows anything about angels, but when he talks like that, it makes me want to remember the times before Beleuchtung.
That night, Jard played us a song on his harmonica, another thing he found and kept from the old times. It took him a long time to clean it and figure out how to play it, but now he’s pretty good, and sometimes I’m glad he has it with him.
Jard’s pack is heavier than anybody else’s. He carries his knife, his harmonica, his favorite video cassettes, a bottle of Coke he doesn’t let anyone open, even a book. I know he can’t read, but he says it’s a holy book, so he doesn’t let us tear out its pages for kindling. I doubt it’s really a holy book. I think he just likes saving things from the old times, back before the Trans-Con Collapse, the photo-technology boom, back before Beleuchtung. He does it to remember.
Jard played for a long time on his harmonica that night. He played until Eli took my place on watch. He played until the coyotes stopped howling. He played until the fire dimmed, the moon rose, and Allis finally fell asleep.
I couldn’t help wondering, as I fell asleep, if the rest of us could borrow Jard’s angels.
by submission | Aug 17, 2009 | Story
Author : Michael Varian Daly
~About a million miles out from the planet, space began to quiver and distort.
After a few seconds, the Susapan scoutship Illaun dropped into normal space. It was small by Susapan standards, twenty six miles on its axis, a bit over seven at its widest diameter, its smooth ovoid surface a mother-of-pearl swirling.
But only a half dozen Triads called Illaun home, so there was plenty of room.
Noseemateemah, voted Captain for this voyage, checked the instruments, wrinkled zir’s massive brow.
“No electromagnetic activity whatsoever,” zee beamed to zir’s shipmates. Zee received collective Dismay/Confusion.
“There should be at least a basic technology available,” beamed Kashiatosopate, Illaun‘s XO. A collective Sigh went through the ship.
“Blind landing,” was the Group Thought. An atmospheric shuttle was activated.
“I’m going down myself,” beamed Noseemateemah. All knew zir well enough not to waste time debating the matter.
Close in, biosigns were detected. Noseemateemah chose a spot nearest the largest grouping, a community of about six hundred or so clustered on a temperate coastline.
Saamerah looked up from reweaving her fishing net to watch the spherical shuttle land upon the beach. She kept sewing while observing.
A seam in the sphere opened and out came this huge being, somewhat pyramid shaped, with six flexible looking arms around its thick midriff and walking on..Saamerah counted, ‘seven, eight’…ten legs. She estimated the creature weighed a quarter ton at least, though it moved quite gracefully.
It stopped in front of her, held up all its arms, palms out.
“Universal sign of friendship,” she thought. She stopped sewing and responded in kind.
The creature looked at her with a pair of wide green eyes, made squawking sounds with its lipless mouth.
“I do not understand what you’re saying,” said Saamerah.
“Ah, thank you,” said the creature in Saamerah’s tongue. “I am Noseemateemah. Is this Dirt?”
“Dirt?”, she said. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Is this the world called Dirt?” Noseemateemah said.
Saamerah thought for a moment, then laughed.
Noseemateemah recognized amusement. “Why is that funny?” zee asked.
“Earth,” said Saamerah. “This world is called Earth, which granted is a word for ‘dirt’”
Noseemateemah turned a bright purple. Saamerah though it a lovely shade.
“Deity, I feel like a fool.” Zee bowed slightly. “My apologies, friend.”
“No worries, Noseemateemah,” Saamerah smiled, “It’s an obvious semantic mistake.”
She extended her hand. “My name’s Saamerah, by the way.”
Noseemateemah gently grasped Saamerah’s hand. “Greetings, Saamerah.”
Zee then looked around. “What happened here?” zee asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The cities? The civilization? Where did it all go?”
Saamerah heard some distress in Noseemateemah’s tone and felt a kinship for this odd looking being.
“Got rid of all of it,” she said.
Noseemateemah’s eyes got even wider, which actually amazed Saamerah, and zee’s mouth hung open. “Got rid of it?”
Saamerah laughed again, felt a bit guilty about that.
“Oh, we have buckets of tech, just not here.” She gestured around. “Only a few hundred thousand Small Earthers like me live here. The rest, about two billion or so, live on the Orbitals on the other side of Sol.”
Noseemateemah made a trilling sound that Saamerah swore was laughter.
“Deity Bless, I nearly had a stroke.” Zee huffed a great sigh. “I was worried.”
“So, what brings you to these parts, friend Noseemateemah?”
Zee’s lipless mouth curled up in an actual smile.
“This was our home world once, about twenty thousand Solanums ago,” zee said, “Some of us got nostalgic and wanted to see what was going on with the old place…”
Noseemateemah looked straight into Saamerah’s eyes, “Cousin.”
It was now Saamerah’s turn to gawp.
by submission | Aug 16, 2009 | Story
Author : Subsplot
Alex carefully swung his arms back, making sure he kept his posture right and his hips level. The head of the gold club reached past its apex, and then smoothly but with some force he brought it back in a graceful arc that lifted the ball cleanly of it it’s makeshift tee, spinning it up and away from him. ‘Yep,’ he thought to himself, ‘that’s a good drive, it probably even reached escape velocity. Shame this suit gets so encumbering’.
His partner, chief pilot of the mining support vehicle, watched the ball zip away towards the lunar horizon before returning his attention to the sensor readouts of the flat-backed floater rig.
“I’m pretty sure these environmental conditions are considered cheating,” he remarked over the intercom. “Who brings a club and balls as their luxury items anyway?” Lex gestured at his face plate with the club in a mock show of anger, his intercom erupting in a burst of white noise.
“You, my friend, don’t know your history. The first missions here used golf to prove the laws of gravity. The simple physical model anyway.”
“Those twentieth century Neanderthals played golf! Did they have time between trying to kill each other? What are you aiming at, anyway?” Lex could tell by the tone in his colleague’s voice that he wasn’t really interested in the answers. Still, it wasn’t as if they had anything important or pressing to do so he decided to indulge him, as much to wind him up as anything.
“Golf is a truly ancient pastime, the sport of gentle men of all ages,” he mocked, “and I’m aiming at that piece of junk with the old flag on the Tranquil Sea. I stuck some piping and a location signal in the ground, there’s now a proper hole and I always know its direction.”
“Why? I mean, why trip over there?”
“Slight detour. I was doing some physical checks on a group of surface sweepers, I don’t know, was curious. It must be an old piece of junk, it’s a national flag, the United America’s I think. Pretty good way point actually, you should add it in to your template. I’ll give you the signal frequency.”
“Now who doesn’t know their history.” The driver laughed as he maneuvered over a particularly large crater rim, locking on to the atom forge contained deep at its center. “It’s a US flag, planted on one of the first ever missions, the junks some sort of landing strut, there’s already a locator there.
Lex started. “You mean I’ve been smashing golf balls at a piece of ancient heritage!”
“And desecrating a national flag. I hear they used to kill people for that.” More chuckling, Lex threw his partner an evil side glance as he lifted the gold cover on his face plate, the shadow in the crater making it less then helpful now.
“Who in mercy lands on the Tranquil Sea. There’s nothing there.”
“Think that was the point, makes a good soft landing. Space in case you overshoot.” Lex looked over his shoulder again in the direction of his makeshift green.
“You’re not going to tell control, are you?” Lex was suddenly nervous. This was less than the professional behavior expected of the Luna surface teams and his group liked to believe they were more than that, made a point of being the best, efficient, safe, consummate professionals.
“What’s the point, in one sixth of a G it’s not like you’re going to have dented it. Doubt you’ve even hit it.” Lex gave him another spiteful glare.
by submission | Aug 15, 2009 | Story
Author : Apollyn
So here we are. You and I on the verge of time. Ready to bungee jump right off the scariest edge my eyes have seen. I’ve done this and yet I am this close to turning my back on you and walking away. I can feel my heart all over my body – various pulses here and there, each and every one of them yelling at me to run away because the stakes are too high. And they are high indeed.
A bungee jump through time clears out pieces of you since every violent rush through the temporal matter causes severe untreatable amnesia. And after a whole lot of jumping around you’re up to your neck in Alzheimer’s. Because when we attained the innermost understanding of time we found out that jumping around it is fun. Later on we found out that travelling around it, never mind the purpose or the effect, causes some sort of temporal cancer. A disease that eats your memories out throwing you around your own sense of time. Which is… well, we all got it right in the end – our very own well known Alzheimer’s disease which twists your mind and memory around and leaves you a wrecked shell rushing through time. Only this one’s kind of self caused instead of genetic.
These are the risks of time bungeeing besides being lost in a temporal twist of course. But there are also the benefits. The adrenalin rush. The chance of going through time in a single jump and getting right where you long to be – this very high of falling in love with a particular one; the most precious first kiss; that first cry of your child; a very last goodbye…
And in the end it’s worth it. If even for the adrenalin of knowing when I’m going to be in just a few seconds. If even for the heartbeat in my throat leaving me breathless. If even for holding your hand on this verge. It’s not pretty around here, but I’m not here for pretty. I kind of hate this place with the inky sticky darkness, with the whispers coming from the endless down that’s waiting to devour my own time, with the horror shaking my hand each time I dare to take a breath. But I’m all prepped up now and the guys around the corner are screaming at me to jump. It takes just one step to be down there and fall in love with you once more. I’ll rush through us in the blink of an eye and maybe I’ll get to say the one goodbye you never heard me say in your own genetic Alzheimer’s temporal dimension. You’re nothing but a ghost now here on this verge.
A single step over this edge will let me hold you again. You’re smiling.
I’ve done this a whole bunch of times. I close my eyes. I throw myself into this reality generated void. My last wish – when I’m through with this I hope the jump would send you right into oblivion.
