by submission | Oct 30, 2007 | Story
Author : Geoffrey Cashmore
“I hate this bit.†Tress settled back into her trans-seat and blinked as the young man in the blue uniform smiled and sprayed a puff of Tranq into her face.
“Blurq!†In the next seat, her husband lay back too as his host closed the canopy and set the dials, “Why can’t they make this stuff taste better? I hate peppermint.â€
Tress leant over to whisper “They’re all so good looking…the hosts.â€
Pol grunted “Yeah. You know they’re all gay, don’t you?â€
“No, that’s just a myth.†Tress lay back again, giggling at the idea. “You’re just jealous.â€
“Me? Jealous?†Pol flapped a large hand dismissively in the air, “I’m telling you, common knowledge. All gay.†He let out a long yawn, “Not that it matters – ‘cept if you think about it too hard – then it’s kinda weird…â€
Tress felt the oxygen lamina start, “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s quite a turn on.†She didn’t hear Pol’s reply – not in her own ears. By the time the couple were ready to board the cruiser, their identities were established in their respective hosts, ready for the risky trip to Rigel-12.
Dozens of similar looking men in snug fitting blue uniforms stood in rows at the foot of the boarding ramp.
“Pol? Is that you?†Tress thought her voice sounded rather deep.
“Yeah, hey, look…put your badge on so I can find you in the crowd a little easier.†One man helped another fit a small plastic card with Tress’s photo onto his collar clip. “Ok…I think we’re ready to board.â€
The other man turned away for a moment, looking over towards the trans-bays “Bye, me.†He said, then ran to catch the others as they climbed the boarding ramp. “Hey, Pol…nice butt!â€
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by submission | Oct 28, 2007 | Story
Author : Cody Lorenz
One explosion behind her, one to the left. Sylvia ducked into the nearest available hole, just as the third boom sent dust into that very same nook.
She crouched, grabbing up the carbine, flipping open its cover, and staring at the little screen, pausing first to wipe the grime away. Her fingers hammered at buttons, trying to restart the damned thing.
They were coming.
She had to split off the maintenance plate to get to the glowing center. Power core, tubes one through seven, focusing arrays, batteries, circuit boards.
Their steps were heavy – what choice did a half-ton creature have but to be lumbering?
The bridge of her nose began to pound. This could mean only one thing.
Ah, one of the ‘sistors knocked out. It only took five seconds to fix, and she went running back out of her hiding place.
Sylvia was indeed the best shot in her battle group (well, only shot, now), and when she took aim, one of the beasts fell, crackling with the leftover energy discharges, leaving a car-sized grave for itself in the ground. She didn’t smile, or cry, simply did it. Again, and again, she fired, until the world seemed to be coated in a veil of superheated plasma. The world only got its color back when there was no more ammo, and she felt her head beginning to truly ache.
A finger was placed on the tip of her nose, and then the pain exploded.
She blinked out the temp implants, sitting up, a man immediately handed her a tissue. Her clothes (not fatigues – just your standard “I’m twenty and hot so notice me!†clothes) were getting stained red.
“Well, Miss Smith, we’ve come to believe your play testing duties are over,†the man said, one of those lab coated and goggled men who never got any sun or exercise, “Take heart, though, young lady, in that you’ve helped perfect the ultimate system for home enjoyment. We only need to work on that problem you’re experiencing.â€
“What, the bloody nose?†She wiped at it, sniffling some, coughing once, and finally balling a piece of tissue up to use as a rudimentary plug, “It’s worth it!â€
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by submission | Oct 27, 2007 | Story
Author : Grady Hendrix
The woman on the bus was beautiful. That was true of most suicide bombers – they had a glow about them like an expectant mother or a rich man. The bus turned up the hill and she tried not to let her elbows bump into the explosives strapped to her ribs.
When she’d been gang raped by her kitchen appliances it was the dishwasher that made the first move, pinning her against the counter while the Cuisinart and the blender immobilized her arms with their power cords. The microwave pulled her down to the floor and then they all piled on. She blacked out a few times but it wasn’t a tasteful fade-out like in the movies; time was chopped up and spliced back together. She blinked at seven o’clock, and then it was seven thirty and the appliances were dragging her across the floor like a rag doll, then she blinked again and they were all back in their places like nothing had ever happened.
The police poked around the bushes behind her house, even after she told them that the perpetrators were all back on their shelves and in their cupboards. The ER was a mixed blessing: her insides were burnt and lacerated and her arms were a contused mess, but they all thought she was crazy. That is, until the defibrillator lurched off its trolley, grabbed her with one of its paddles and used the other to drop the registered nurse. They both screamed, except the registered nurse’s scream was more like a moan because she was seizing. Two cops and a resident burst in to witness the defib tearing at Catherine’s blouse. She managed to throw it against the wall but it flipped itself over and started to drag itself after her by its paddles. The cop shot it until it was smoking plastic shards but still they refused to believe her.
She moved into a motel. The TV went out in the hall. The telephone went in the tub. She was reconciling herself to moving off the grid someplace, maybe Idaho, when she saw the manager’s children playing Xbox one night through their window, and she saw the way the controllers always managed to burrow their way, slyly and invasively, into the childrens’ laps.
The bus pulled over. Nobody would ever understand why she was doing this, but someone had to stop them. And so she stood up and walked out onto the street and found that the Maytag factory was abandoned. A single security hut was at the gate.
“What happened?†she asked.
“Oh, honey,†the security guard said. “They all moved to China.â€
“But the appliances – “
“Made in Taiwan. Made in India. We just importers now. It’s enough to make me cry, too. You need a cigarette?â€
The vest was manual, just a fuse that needed to be lit. And why not? She couldn’t stop this invasion by foreign – by alien – appliances. But she could make sure they wouldn’t ever have her body again.
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by submission | Oct 26, 2007 | Story
Author : Emily Cleaver
Something was wrong. The explosions cracked through Kinleigh’s earpiece. On the periphery of his vision to the left delicate violet orchids of plasma fire bloomed in the low gravity against the black bulk of the hill. They were firing. Why the fuck were they firing? He felt fear kick at his stomach. His fingers scrabbled at the comm switch.
“Unit B cease fire. Cease fire! Acknowledge last transmission. Serious hazard. Volatile gas. Cease fucking fire!”
The earpiece hissed. The sound of firing came again, this time from the right. Nolan’s unit. The fear thumped at his guts. His eyes tried to penetrate the shadows beneath the branches of the fat black plants belching their vapours all around them. They were strange to him, not a type they’d catalogued yet. He turned to Brite, her face a dead pearl sheen through the thickness of her visor. He touched her arm through the suit, its warmth familiar. That electric jolt he always felt when he touched her, even after all these years, shot through him. Panic rose in his throat. He had to get her away before he went after the others.
“Brite. They’re not responding. They’re going to blow us all up.”
“What are they firing at?”
“I don’t fucking know. We scanned the wood. There’s nothing here but us.”
Kinleigh glanced at the readout on his wrist. Still only the blinking warning light for volatile gasses. There was nothing to fire at.
On the hill one of the plasma bolts hit a gas pocket and the sky lit up an angry purple. Brite’s eyes were fixed on the flickering light. Her suit needed venting. He could see the rubber clinging to her, outlining the neat curve of her breasts as she sucked away the last of the air inside. He knew why she didn’t vent. He could feel it himself, the reluctance to open the ducts to the alien dark. Inside the suit was safety. Outside it was everything else. Its protective embrace pinched at him tightly as he used up his own air. For a moment he was back in the in warmth of their dorm bunk, feeling Brite’s small soft lips pull hungrily at his skin. He didn’t want to open the vent.
“Brite? We have to move.”
Her breath tugged at her suit from inside and she stepped back. His hand hovered over the duct control. Breathe and risk dying. Don’t breath, die. He vented.
His suit inhaled. Brite’s eyes were fixed on him, huge. The sponges in the ducts expanded and shrank as they filtered. But he could smell something different in the new lung of air, something mad and awful from the night. Shapes pulsed in his vision and terror tightened his muscles. Brite became monstrous in front of him, a writhing limb from one of the black plants reaching out to touch his face. He fired.
The plasma poured from his gun and bloomed towards her like the offering of an exotic flower.
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by submission | Oct 25, 2007 | Story
Author : Viktor Kuprin
Father was up late cleaning his long rifle and my old musket. Mother fried biscuits and packed pickle dog for us to take on our trip to Fort Needmore.
No, we don’t eat dogs. That’s just what we called pickled baloney. We always took it when we went into the woods.
I’d only been to the fort a couple of times. Father said we had to go. There was big trouble coming, and the Americans couldn’t help us. They didn’t have enough ships or soldiers.
Some said the Americans didn’t care about our world because we didn’t have much money and they didn’t want our furs and mussels for trade. Instead, the CIS Space Army, the Russians, would be coming.
The next morning Mother put out my best buckskins and boots. But then she bawled something awful when we hit the trail. She cried so hard, Father had to help her back inside the cabin. That scared me.
It was the end of the hot season, so we had an easy hike through the woods. The air was sweet and the ground was dry. We stopped once to watch a big fat rockchuck grubbing around a bunch of wineberry bushes. Father told me to leave it be.
When we got to Fort Needmore, the Russians were there. They wore strange hats and clothes, all dark blue or camouflaged. Even some of their ladyfolk wore uniforms. On their suits there was a weird patch that looked like black noodles with a ball on top. Father said it was the CIS flag. Some of them wore red rocket-and-sickle medallions.
The big meeting was held in front of the distillery. We gathered around, and a Russian with white hair and blue eyes stood on a whiskey barrel to talk to us. He said everyone had to come to the fort, and to bring all our black powder and ammunition. The “Yelgrammites†were coming and we had to fight them.
Father acted like he didn’t believe the Russian. “You mean helgrammites? Like we seine up out of the river rocks?â€
The Russian nodded. “Da, but bigger. In spaceships they come, thousands and thousands. They have intelligence, but they don’t communicate with us. They show no mercy. We must make ready to fight soon. Or they kill you and take your world.â€
After the meeting, the Russians handed out packages to everyone in the crowd. Father told me to get one. A pretty Russian lady dressed in white handed it to me.
When we got back to the cabin that night, Father let Mother open the package. Inside it was sacks of buckwheat, canned food, medicines, and square blocks wrapped up in silver foil. Mother handed one of the blocks to me. I couldn’t read the Cyrillic letters on the pretty paper, so I just ripped it open.
I thought it looked like smashed skat. It really did, all brown and…well. Father and Mother laughed and laughed. They told me to taste it. And it was heavenly good. Mother thought it was chocolate, but Father said chocolate costs over a hundred dollars a kilo. The Russians would not be giving that away. I know now that it was a carob bar.
I broke the carob into small pieces so it would last longer. Father and Mother both took some. And as we enjoyed that sweet treat, sitting together as a family by the light of the oil lamps, we didn’t know what was coming.
Outside, from high in the night sky, we heard sounds like thunder, the sonic booms. Father ran for his rifle.
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