by submission | Nov 1, 2008 | Story
Author : Jeremy M. Hall
“Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen of Third Platoon, Alpha Company, Harod’s Harriers, ” Sergeant Major Clarkson intoned, “you have become the official guinea pigs for the outfit. If you look at the table in front of you, you will notice that there is a new weapon. This weapon will hopefully become your next best friend. You have permission to pick up the weapon and carefully examine it. One of the first things that you will notice is that there is no ammo clip and only one outlet. That outlet leads to a nanofactory, which will turn anything into a projectile. Our illustrious leader has decided that you are going to field test these on your next mission. Briefing is in ten minutes.”
*
Like most missions that Harod sends her troops on, it didn’t take long for it to go up the “shit creek,” even though it was a simple convoy escort mission. Third Platoon was Tail End Charlie, following the client’s last vehicle from the mission approved distance; in some ways it’s the worst position because you have to watch front, sides and back. Something jumped into the midst of the convoy, bounced up in the air, and exploded.
“Bouncing Betty!” the driver screamed, skidding to a stop next to the remains of a damaged vehicle. Third poured out of the transport, setting up a perimeter around the wreckage amidst the onslaught of the ambush precipitated by the bomb.
They looked at their guns stupidly as nothing happened when they pulled the triggers.
“You have to load them, Dumbasses!” Clarkson yelled over the din.
There was a collective “Oh!” as Third scrambled at the ground, picking shit up off the ground. Dirt, rocks, sticks, debris, and anything else at hand were shoved into the barrels of the new-fangled weapons. The troopers were immediately rewarded with a green light, and they did what they were trained to do: shoot anything that moved outside the perimeter, with spectacular effect. The streams of bullets were different depending on what was shoved in the barrels, with metals giving off a nice green, also taking on armor-piercing characteristics; carbon based matter rewarded a purple projectile, but also doing much better as anti-personnel rounds; silicates created a yellow round, but wasn’t as good as metal or carbon rounds. Third quickly started experimenting with materials.
What had started as a simple ambush became a pitched battle. The enemy poured more and more troops into the area, trying to destroy the Harriers, as they tried to recover the injured and supplies from the damaged vehicles, as per the contract. While the Harriers had always exercised good firing discipline, something every infantryman faces during protracted engagements is the shortage of ammunition. Except for Third Platoon; if anything they were having fun at the expense of the attackers.
“Hey Bucher! Watch this!”
A stream of fire belched from the end of Migola’s rifle, streaking out and setting an ambitious ambusher on fire.
“What in the Hell did you load in that thing?”
“Finally have a use for rations.”
“Which one was it?”
“The Goulash.”
“Remind me to re-label those as ammunition. They were inedible anyways.”
by submission | Oct 31, 2008 | Story
Author : KJ Hannah Greenberg
Charles lingered in the treetop. Not munitions or bribery had coaxed him from his lair. Charles defended his sanctuary with occasional conflagrations and, less frequently, with bad puns. Charles continued to sup on jerboae and lorikeets. He even succeeded in catching a kestrel. Meanwhile, news crews recorded his actions.
Although the neighborhood, minus a ferret or two, remained rapt by Charles’ conduct, Doris didn’t notice, so preoccupied was she with her mailbox. Closing the lid, Doris sighed. Whereas the postal service insisted on placing parcels beneath Doris’ letter bucket, and whereas it had lost jewelry and flour sent by dim relatives, it was the lack of Wilson ’s correspondence which agitated Doris .
Wilson , busy hitchhiking through the Middle East , had reiterated, electronically, that he had sent hundreds of tacit missives. Doris had received two dozen. In contrast, Doris, who disbelieved that Mom pilfered mailbox treasures, had written, daily. Letters could not be interesting to a parent who could eavesdrop on private calls or “just happened” to walk on intimate moments.
Charles spun within his arboreal fortress. Forgetting, due to hunger-imposed hypoglycemia, that tail thrashing broke branches and caused humans to scurry forward with all manners of camera lens, he also snuffed and snorted. The chimera needed to scream and to belch (bandicoots are hard to digest), but he stymied himself remembering the incident he caused at a nearby house. Doris ’ roof, next in his line of sight, didn’t seem any more fireproof, though its layered grass looked serviceable against inclement weather. So, Charles continued his moral gymnastics.
Doris left her mailbox. Mom chastised her for loving Wilson , especially whenever Doris ’ bed resounded in the kitchen below. Even a university degree, lambasted Mom, would be better than canoodling with Dr. Hichkins’ scion.
Doris shrugged her way home and returned to her bedroom to compose. She and Wilson could travel to New York City after she won the speculative fiction writing prize. Doris described a scaly mouth sucking on a lion-like paw.
Charles watched and snorted afresh. He knew himself to be no more a manifestation of someone else’s intrusive thoughts than in any other respect imaginary. A proper monster, hatched from a proper egg, Charles was neither fabrication nor delusional invention. His source was his venerated mother.
Charles twinged again as he scanned the garden. Something rustled among the spiny-headed rush and common wallaby grass. Maybe he could take a small swoop; he was very hungry.
Doris clicked to another screen. An editor liked Doris ’ contention that individuals ought to be measured against their own norms. That woman wanted Doris to email biographical data plus a photo for Doris ’ pending work.
Such data, though, would reveal Doris ’ sixteen years and would necessitate parental permissions. Mom hated Doris ’ mass media rhetoric, caring nothing for ethical dilemmas. To wit, Mom had threatened to cancel Doris’ cable access and to disallow Doris a private postbox. What’s more, Mom instructed the postmistress to preview Doris ’ mail.
Doris scowled at her computer. It was vital to evade demographic questions. She enjoyed publishing, but enjoyed electronic access to Wilson even more. Doris rescinded her submission.
In the interim, the fire brigade that destroyed Charles’ nest designed to destroy him. Charles tweaked his ears as an armed vehicle entered the hamlet on an auxiliary road.
The next morning, Doris forwent visiting her mailbox. Fretting made her sloppy. There’d be no envelope from Wilson , anyway.
Fretting made Charles sloppy, too. He shuddered within Doris ’ mail receptacle, reflecting on just how close the municipal buccaneers had been to finding him.
by submission | Oct 30, 2008 | Story
Author : Phillip English
Once the guests had arrived and were seated in the confines of the oak-panelled meeting room, the host for the evening rose to the lecturn, introduced himself, and began to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you may be aware of the theory that the people that look the most like us are the people that we tend to be attracted to. Men find women who have similar facial construction to themselves more attractive. I think there was even a Crime Drama episode that featured this as a plot device once.”
The gathering chuckled, more at the assumption that they watched public webdramas than the reference.
“What is not well known is that the same theory applies not only to sexual preferences, but social preferences as well. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to have the same tastes in music as someone who has the same facial features as yourself.”
A few people in the room scoffed slightly at this, but the speaker put up his hands imploringly and continued. “I know, I know, it sounds crazy. How can these factors possibly be correlated? We thought the same thing when we first started our surveys. But the strange coincidence of guys with jug-ears and blunt noses loving Led Zeppelin was just the beginning. We cross-referenced any number of parameters and had them come up with the same facial influence. Eating habits, exercise, your religion being influenced by whether your eyes are spaced evenly or not. We never expected to find anything like this, and we still aren’t sure if it’s something hidden in our genes, or a very subtle social ripple effect. But to be honest, the origins aren’t something we care about.”
The crowd was amused, but obviously waiting for the point. The speaker sensed this. “I can see we’ve got a very discerning crowd here, so let’s cut to the chase. What does this mean to you? Well, as some of you might have guessed given the administrative alumni that are present, the principle extends to political views as well. People are more likely to vote, believe in the principles of, and follow unbendingly someone who shares facial characteristics with themselves.” The speaker smiled at the mixture of bored and impatient nods in the crowd. He rose and moved to stand next to a door on the opposite side of the room, whispering to one of his security aides on the way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have been working non-stop with the world’s most skilled plastic surgeons, facial recognition software specialists, genetic therapists, and data miners for the past five years on a top-secret project. The project was code-named ‘Narkissos’, and tonight I have the pleasure to introduce you to the result of that project.”
The speaker reached forward and opened the door to let a man through. The new man was wearing an exquisitely tailored suit, polished shoes, and dark glasses. As he removed the glasses with two manicured fingers, the crowd gasped.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the man who is everyone.”
by submission | Oct 27, 2008 | Story
Author : William Tracy
A luxurious coat of trees springs from the earth’s skin. The morning’s clouds have burned off, and the jungle canopy stretches to the horizon in every direction. A single towering industrial complex pierces the rolling sea of leaves.
The structures are girded by a labyrinth of pipes of myriad sizes and hues, crisscrossing and splitting and joining. The maze is punctuated by dire chemical hazard placards. The steel monoliths sparkle in the afternoon sun, altars to unknown gods.
A solitary robot trundles along a catwalk high above the forest floor. A twisting vine struggling to reclaim the structure for nature is crushed unseen by the lumbering machine.
Methodically following the radio beacons studding its path, the robot turns a bend and travels toward the center of the complex. It leaves the living forest for one of metal, where constellations of colored lights blink on and off. Ubiquitous embedded microcontrollers read their instructions from solid-state wafers, then sleep until their next jobs arrive.
Solenoids twitch open and shut, and a gasp of steam escapes a vent. The cloud is swept away by a tug of wind that sets the trees to whispering amongst themselves. The robot notes the change in atmospheric pressure with its internal barometer, but feels nothing.
It reaches its destination, and stops. Guided by barcodes burned into the structure, it mates a canister to a socket, forms a seal, and flushes fluid into the system. The pipes scream as precipitates dissolve and reagents flow again.
Its job done, the robot turns and descends a zig-zagging ramp spidering down from the sky. The sun slips away to roost in distant mountains. Its glow floods the jungle, and sets the sterile machinery alight. The robot’s infrared unit recalibrates to compensate, and it continues forward.
The robot reaches the ground, and returns the spent solvent canister to its hopper. The machine moves on. The feeble twilight—so fleeting in the tropics—comes and goes. Gleaming sequins appear in the sky, shy and self-conscious. They are drowned out by the abrupt onslaught of nauseous sodium vapor lamps sprouting from the buildings at regular intervals.
A jaguar leaps into the robot’s path. The machine stops, its infrared camera tracking the animal’s body heat. The cat snarls at the robot, but the robot cannot hear. The creature glides into the night, and the machine resumes its dogged march.
Now the jungle is alive with sound. Unseen beasts roar, scream, call, chirp, and sing. Oblivious, the robot moves to a tool bin. Servos whine as it peruses the implements one at a time, digesting the information from RFID tags. Finally, the robot mates a repair attachment to its arm. It turns to continue, then hesitates.
For a moment, the machine wishes it could see the sunset.
by submission | Oct 26, 2008 | Story
Author : Phillip Gawlowski
The glitter of hyperspace was replaced with stars, as we crashed through the light barrier. Sensor input filled the screens, and the computer placed markers on the transparent steel.
“There.” Mike pointed at a small blip. “That looks promising.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ll start there, and then look at the two closest planets. The green first, the red one last. But first this blue ball.”
A strong storm tore at our ship’s wings as we made our way to the surface at a spot where we might find what we were looking for.
“Isn’t it strange, that the computer picked a place in the middle of ruins?”, said Mike.
“Yeah. But no matter what parameters we feed that thing, it always points us to that location. So, we’ll take a look.”
“Just to shut her up, eh?” Mike chuckled.
“Just to shut her up.” I grinned.
It must have been a city, once. A large one, too. There were towering ruins everywhere, making the approach more difficult than I liked. Especially with the wind, and now rain, too. Good thing that we could rely on the computer to guide us. I only needed to think about where I wanted to go, and the computer brought us there, correcting for atmospheric eddies.
I picked a nice, wide spot in the middle of the open place. “Larger than I thought,” I said.
“True. 850 acres, I guess. What do you think?”
“Give or take. C’mon, grab your suit. We are going out.”
Mike and I waited for the airlock’s cycle to complete. The atmosphere was breathable, but we hadn’t come this far to risk the mission on some fungus or bacterium in the air that’d kill us. And while the computers aboard the ship were sophisticated, they weren’t fully autonomous yet. I heard the hiss of the airlock through the membrane of my suit, and waited for the lock to open. A desolate, deserted spot vista greeted us, the ruins looming over us in all direction, like some memorial for a long forgotten people. I hesitated, and stepped outside, looking at the grey and brown soil. I doubted we’d find what we needed, but Mike carried the cryo-unit nonetheless.
We searched for an hour or two, until we found what we were looking for. With care we packed it into the cryo-unit, and watched until the unit’s diagnostic lights changed from red, to amber, to a comforting green. “Okay, let’s take off again.”
I nodded, and turned to follow Mike, until a sign caught my eyes. I could barely make out the script. It was old, and the alphabet was archaic. “Centr.l Park”, it read.
I looked back at the dying tree, whose leaves we were sent to gather, and hastened back to the ship.
