by submission | Aug 13, 2008 | Story
Author : L.Hall
“I loved a woman once..”
Lil looked up sharply, immediately checking the oxygen gages. Walkers usually started talking morosely when they had a pressure leak. If that was so, she’d need to pull him in quickly. All the gages showed 80%, no pressure leak.
“Robert, you need to focus on the crack.. that last shower really pockmarked us. We don’t want to lose any hull integrity.” She leaned over and looked out the port side, checking visually to see if the dull metal suit was still tethered to the exit port. His voice crackled over the speaker..
“Robert… Robert… You haven’t called me that in a long time, Lil. Just Bob and maybe Lieutenant..”
Lil began to feel a sort of panic creep inside her stomach. She immediately started recall procedures, watching the tether slowly tighten. As Robert began to move very slowly away from the damaged hull, he began to chuckle. Lil felt her stomach tightening and began to mutter, “aw jesus, I’m gonna lose him.” over and over.
“You wanna know why people can’t handle walking, Lil?” his voice crackled and pushed through the silent control room. The two other techs in the room had stopped and joined her at the port side window.. “They can’t handle the space of it. The sheer size of the emptiness. It does something to them.”
“Walkers.. they like it. Because, you know, Lil.. the emptiness here can’t even touch the emptiness in them.”
The tether kept slowly pulling him back to the dull metallic exit port. Lil kept mouthing “I’m gonna lose him” over and over like a mantra.. praying to the universe that he would keep talking until they could actually get him in the door. The suit moved at an excruciatingly slow pace, his face hidden by the reflective coating.. She could see the light from the nearby sun glimmer on his helmet.
By this time, a third of the crew were at port side windows, gazing out silently. The suit was maybe a dozen meters away from the exit port, where a medical team stood at the ready.. waiting. If they could just get him in….
“Lil…” the voice crackled over the system.
“Robert?” she said quietly into the mike, unsure of what to say. Protocol procedures didn’t really prepare a person for it, and she silently ticked off the meters watching the suit slowly move.
“I… I think I’m going to go for a walk with the stars.”
Lil watched as he went offline with the communication system, took the metal cutters and cut the tether. One of the techs began to sob as they watched his thick gloved hands pulled at one of the connectors, creating a small breach in the pressure suit.. Oxygen began to leak out, leaving a small crystalline trail as it propelled him minutely away from the ship.
Lil reached down and called a recover team, knowing full well it would take the better part of an hour for the ship to be readied, crew assembled and maneuvered to where it could pick up his body. As the crew slowly and quietly drifted back to the tasks at hand, Lil stood at the window.. watching his final walk.
by submission | Aug 10, 2008 | Story
Author : Phillip English
It began with the PC release of Armageddon.
No, it’s not what you’re thinking, the kids didn’t rise up and swallow us with anarchist notions imbued through Satanic images found in a video game. The violence presented in that game was simply a marketing decision to best accomplish the dual objectives of getting kids interested and setting the bar high enough for the inevitable clones to work under. These initial foundations placed the emphasis on pitting the player versus the standard computer opponent, the omniscient overlord mixed of equal parts masochist and voyeur. We didn’t yet have the technology to start collecting the data, but like I said, we needed to get kids interested. Blood, gore, and demons with rocket-launchers was the best way to ensure they would bug their parents to buy computers, and with them the games that they would spend hour upon hour playing, bashing away at the keyboard like the most obedient of Shakespeare’s monkeys. We wanted it to become the norm to be able to look into any family household on a weeknight and see a pimply face glued to the screen, blasting away at aliens, demons, zombies, or humans. It was a gamble, conservatives are never quite as predictable as people say, and we weren’t sure if they would allow such a thing into their households without a fight.
But it worked. Whether it was because we’d provided the parents with another convenient method of distracting the kids, or because the kids were too damn good at getting what they wanted, it didn’t matter. Riding on the backs of casual games filled with rainbows and fluffy animals, the shooters infiltrated the market and began amassing admirers. We poked and prodded the market–an advertisement here, an embarrassed admission of addiction by a celebrity there–and their popularity grew exponentially. Our investments in networking eventually produced the infrastructure necessary to set the ball rolling on our grand experiment. Businesses, homes, and countries were gradually wired, and with that came the thirst for human competitors that didn’t get stuck on the corners of virtual buildings, or shot circles into the clouds. From that point, ladies and gentlemen, it was on for young and old. Even before the internet became convenient and commonplace, players went to great lengths to blow the crap out of each other; kids dragged their PCs for miles to each other’s houses for a few hours of violent heaven. When the ‘net did arrive, there was always someone willing to have a shot at ripping you a new asshole in the back of your head, next door or next continent.
And the data started trickling in.
It was shoddy data–approximations everywhere and no way that we could possibly start to make the kind of predictions we needed to–but it was data nonetheless. And all we needed to do was record it, take into account inaccuracies, and wait for the tech to evolve as we knew it would, and did. Three-dee space was followed by realistic body physics, was followed by interactive environments, was followed by dynamic scenarios, was followed by virtual reality, was followed by well-immersion and psychokinetics. Every hour of every day there was someone playing, feeding us their decisions, offering us their probabilities. Where would they turn? Would they run if a shot was fired near them? How low on health did they have to be before they decided to go kamikaze? Would they help their friends if they were under fire? Would commander players retreat when faced with overwhelming odds? Through it all we collected. We built a data set filled with astronomical hours of playtime, devised more all-encompassing models by the minute, made sure every variable was refined to perfection. Then, we extrapolated forward.
Our finger is paused over the button that will begin the war to end all wars.
Game on.
by submission | Aug 9, 2008 | Story
Author : Robert Niescier
When the captain sent the message, he wasn’t thinking of the texture of the button his finger had depressed. He didn’t hear the low bass of the shields as they were freely deactivated, allowing missiles long kept at bay to whisper through the fading dust. His eyes were focused forward, towards a screen portraying vessels that did not want to be seen, but he looked only because there was nothing else to look at. He was not thinking about the awe he had felt when the fleet had materialized before his small operation, nor the pit-wrenching horror when the battleships had commenced their bombardment. He wasn’t thinking of the crew that, when presented with two options: to run and hide, or to send a high-powered message and warn their distant home, chose to run. He wasn’t thinking of the cries, the pleas, the threats the crew had made when he had overruled them. He had thought of his wife and his children before, but they were no longer on his mind. He did not pity or champion himself, or wonder if the message would arrive too late, or if the information he had so meticulously selected for transmission would be enough to save his home.
Instead, his mind wandered to an old song he had heard when he was young, a slow, symphonic melody that had moved him to chills but whose name he could never identify. He wished he could have listened to it one last time.
by submission | Aug 8, 2008 | Story
Author : William Tracy
“The commander will see you now.”
King Kôrtof stepped through the doorway. His body was adorned with precious metals and gems, a show of power. Planet Tokonia had little to boast of but its mineral wealth—even as that wealth was rapidly becoming a political liability.
The king stopped in his tracks. The back the commander’s chamber was occupied by a massive aquarium with fishes from Old Earth, a display of wealth greater than the Tokonians could ever hope to match.
The commander stood up and shook hands with the dazed king. “Welcome, welcome.” The two sat down.
“You have a wonderful planet here, King Kôrtof. Your people are happy, your agriculture and mining are prosperous.”
At the left end of the tank, two striped cichlid fishes herded around a cloud of babies.
“However, you have been threatened by the Confederacy of Planets. I want you to know that the Sharkün Empire is here to help you.”
Just below the aquarium’s surface, two massive arowanas cruised silently.
“The Confederation wants to strip you of your powers and force on your people what they call democracy.” The commander let out a short laugh. “Democracy!” He looked the king in the eye. “The Sharkün Empire is like you. We will protect you and we will let you keep your sovereignty.”
At the right end of the tank, two red-throated cichlids squared off. Facing each other, they opened their mouths wide, flared their gill covers, and distended their throats in a ritual display.
“All we want is mining rights, and for our mining companies to operate on your world under our own laws.” He eyed the king. “Unfortunately, your advisors have informed us that many of the prime sites that we are interested in happen to lie underneath your most productive farming regions. Of course, we can easily import more than enough food to feed your people.”
The red-throated cichlids made a sudden motion. They circled in lockstep, each fish chasing the other’s tail.
“These same advisors have also expressed concern that displacing these farms will leave much of your population unemployed. They even suggested that these people would starve because they would be unable to pay for the food imports!” The commander gestured broadly. “If this truly is a problem, our corporations will gladly employ these people in our mines. It may be hard work, but it is honest work.”
The red-throated cichlids suddenly faced each other, and locked jaws. The two animals shook and wrestled, each testing the other’s strength.
The commander smiled kindly at the king. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Yours is a tertiary system, a backwater world. You have always had hostile neighbors, few resources. You couldn’t possibly have defended yourself from the Confederation alone.”
The striped cichlids attacked a tiny yellow fish that had wandered into their territory. It dashed across the aquarium, interrupting the red-throated fishes. They broke off their battle, and one chased the yellow fish away, up toward the surface of the tank.
“We will protect you from the Confederation of Planets. All we want is the mineral rights. You and your people can keep their sovereignty.”
One of the arowanas lunged toward the little yellow fish, which barely darted away alive.
“All you have to do is sign this document.”
The other arowana swerved to intercept the yellow fish, and swallowed it whole.
“Do we have an agreement?”
“Yes…”
The king wasn’t paying attention.
King Kôrtof was watching the fish.
by submission | Aug 6, 2008 | Story
Author : Michael Varian Daly
Roegher was dying, which he did not think a tragedy. Everyone was dying one way or another. He was just dying a bit faster and, as he was The Last True Man, his impending death was ‘special’.
He had actually been ‘dying’ for nearly a century and a half, starting right after The Prohibition when the augmentations that gave him longevity were turned off or dialed back. There had been much beating of breasts and rending of garments over that, but Roegher had not been a part of that nonsense.
He knew that The Time of True Men was over. The Rebellion of The Sons of Hercules had proved that to all but the most die hard Masculinists. He himself had lost a daughter and two grand daughters in that nightmare.
There had been seven centuries of peace before that. Yes, there were violent feuds between Cult Clans, but those were resolved with personal duels or, if need be, by Cavalry Wars; hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Sisters on horseback with sabers and lances upon an open plain.
Once the fighting was done – usually with few killed – both sides held a festival for the dead, sang, danced, got drunk, and had sex together…and the matter was settled.
But the Supermen of Ashkelon, engineered to be Perfect Men by one Cult of well meaning but misguided Sisters, proved to be too Perfect and founded a Masculinist Republic. After a century of conflict, a dozen worlds had been ravaged, Ashkelon was reduced to a slagheap, and the Sons were all dead, along with over twenty million others.
The Grand Council and Assemble of The Sisterhood declared The End of Men, a Prohibition, and no more True Men were to be born. Males in the womb would be allowed come to term, but most were aborted anyway. What was the point?
Some True Men protested or bemoaned their fate. Many simply committed suicide or downloaded into Mandroids.
Not that it mattered all that much. Even before The Prohibition, three quarters of all Full Humans – Mandroids were not counted – were Sisters, a steady trend for centuries. Why bring male children into a Matriarchy?
While all that raged around him, Roegher tended to his garden. The Soil was Mother no matter what sun shone in the sky.
Roegher had laughed at all the Masculine/Feminine ‘balance of energy’ debates. There were thousands of Mandroids for every Sister, all cyborgs based on Y-Chromosome DNA. “That balances out nicely,” he thought.
For a while he had been an advisor on Mandroid psychology and trained many Sisters in that field. He got along well with the simple minded Workers and the idiot savant Harlequins. The Sliders, the Sisterhood’s living starships, unnerved him, their brilliant minds like sharp cold steel. But he lived most his life dirtside, so no matter.
He had however visited Gaea one last time before it was encased in a Temporal Variance Sphere to be healed. That was a cherished event.
Now, as his life wound down to its end, he was content. His four life mates had borne two dozen daughters by him and there were many, many more grand, and great grand, daughters. They came to visit him, some out of love, some out of curiosity. But they were all kind and gentle with him and many would be there when he passed.
Plus The Priestesses of Eriskigal had assured him that his next Reincarnation was as a Sister. All things considered, Roegher knew he had nothing to complain about and planed to go out smiling….as befitted The Last True Man.
