by submission | Sep 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Ben Spivey
10:25am, on the wall hung an old analog clock. The second hand ticked once forward then once back; the battery was close to dead. Josh sat in front of his pc; its glow illuminated his sharp face.
Behind him his fiancé slept under a neon blue blanket. Her arm hung over the bed’s edge making the implant barcode visible on her wrist. The numbers read 9780502. They signified everything from bank records to birth caste.
He flicked up the room’s light switch. The bulb hesitated to glow and the numbers on his wrist read 9780500. Untouchable.
“Wake up Scarlet.” He said.
She pulled the blue over her amber hair, “Sleepy” her voice came through muffled like static.
He pulled the blanket past her waist. She put her hands on her face, “The light,” she moaned.
He put on his parka and pulled the hood over his forehead; strapped his boots.
Out of bed she wiggled into a pair of black leather pants that complimented the tank top she slept in, as well as her curves.
11:15am, garbage, knee high, lined the streets gutters. Caste 00 was restricted to the slums, the alleys. 02 moved freely.
11:19am, blanket sky was gray as the sun selectively broke through in circled spots.
“How do I look?” she asked pushing Audrey Hepburn sized glasses to the top of her head.
“Stunning,” he said while patting his pocket, making sure he remembered his wallet.
11:27am, brown brick building, Tokyo neon sign read: Red Shift.
He took her by the hips and held her close, “That’s the place.”
They stand for a second deep in each other’s eyes.
“You deserve this,” she said.
Inside the Red Shift an anorexic man who looked like a Soho street dealer said, “You’re late,” as he disappeared behind a red taffeta curtain. From behind the curtain he said, “Name’s David.”
11:46am, he reappeared, goggles strapped to his face. “Payment?”
Josh put $78 onto the counter. David’s eyes reflected through the goggle’s black tint. Behind the taffeta curtain was a hallway decorated exclusively with Virgin Mary candles and pictures.
11:51am, “Sit down,” David said opening a case full of various electronic gadgets and rusted surgical tools. “Give me your wrist. Relax. First a shot first, disrupt the tags.”
“Will this work?”
“You’ll be caste zero two before you know it.”
The needle went in smooth; David smiled crooked.
11:54am. “I feel dizzy,” Josh said.
“That’s your girl out there?”
Josh nodded like a drunk, “Scarlet.” He slid out of his chair like a dead fish. The floor was cold and ubiquitous. “Drugged me,” he squeaked and coughed. He watched the room twist and spin. It reminded him of when he was a child at the park. His legs couldn’t understand his brain telling them to stand. He dragged his weight toward the exit, toward David walking away, toward Scarlet. He gasped air; his vision turned black
11:59am, “Scarlet?” David asked, resting his sandpaper elbows on the curve of the front counter.
“Everything alright?”
“Fine,” he assured her, he paused, “Follow me.” They walked past Virgin Mary. “I’ve got my own problems you know? I’m double zero too,” David held up his scared wrist, removed flesh; he’d long cutout his barcode. “To be set free; you’re my ticket, I need your barcode.”
In a flash she sees Josh laying flat, his eyes glossed. “God,” She gulped; turned too run; she felt a needle slide into her neck.
“You won’t feel a thing,” David said as she collapsed to the floor. Holding her wrist he began to cut out her barcode.
by submission | Sep 17, 2008 | Story
Author : William Tracy
The president leaned back into the couch on Air Force One with a smile and a sigh. She had been in office for only a month, but she was already getting used to the perks.
The secretary of defense cleared his throat. “Mrs. President, we need to talk.”
“Yes?” she sat up again.
“As you may recall, in 2004 then-President Bush committed the United States to making a manned landing on Mars by 2020. You are going to have to tell the American people that it isn’t going to happen.”
“Well, if it’s a budget matter–”
“No it isn’t. We cannot land a man on Mars.”
“Really? I listened to NASA’s presentation last week, and their plan seemed pretty complete.”
“Technology is not the issue, either. We landed on the moon in 1969! Yet we haven’t gone back since 1972.”
“Well, manned moon missions are expensive. Funding dried up.”
The secretary shook his head. “That’s only half of the story. In 1973, both the United States and Russian governments secretly signed a pact to make no manned missions to the moon or beyond.”
For the first time, the president looked concerned. “What?”
He tried a different tack. “We’ve had working nuclear rockets since the sixties that could easily and cheaply get us to Mars and beyond. Did we use them? No!” The secretary leaned forward. “Instead, the United States government clandestinely funneled money into Greenpeace to protest the use of nuclear power in any form, specifically to generate political opposition to any such project.”
“Well, Greenpeace is an environmental organization. Why wouldn’t they protest nuclear power?”
“It’s clean, and essentially renewable if you use breeder reactors. A nuclear power plant actually produces less radioactive waste than a coal-fired plant that releases radon gas straight into the atmosphere!”
“Well, after Chernobyl, who could blame–”
“The Chernobyl incident was triggered deliberately.”
The president looked shocked.
“The reactor melted down after every single safety system present was disabled for a ‘test’. The Russians aren’t stupid. Sabotaging Chernobyl was their way of holding up their end of the bargain.”
“You’re telling me that for thirty years the United States and Russia have been secretly pushing anti-nuclear propaganda?”
“That’s not all. We’ve had complete—highly classified—plans for faster-than-light spaceship drives since the late eighties. Never tested, but the physicists say they should work.”
“But why?”
“In 1972, the United States and Russian governments were contacted by an extraterrestrial agent. Our planet was brought to their attention by the X-ray radiation generated from nuclear tests. At their behest, we halted manned exploration of the solar system.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“They agreed not to vaporize us as long as we stay on the reservation.”
by submission | Sep 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Josh Zingg
Ariston crunched his way along Access-01 toward what was left of the capitol, keeping his head down and goggles tight over his eyes. The wind surged at him, and he felt its coarse touch wearing away his spirit. Wasn’t much left to wear, these days. He pulled aside his face cloth and sneezed into the air, immediately regretting it as the gale blew his dusty spit back on him. He sighed internally and wiped a gloved hand over the pockmarked chest plate of the old Sanja mk. II he wore under his various wraps.
He looked up and squinted, not because of the light, since of course there wasn’t much anymore, but because his goggles were so abraded he had a hard time seeing. The signal lights of the SC guard stations blinked lazily at him through the haze, and he could see the distant lights of the city and the dull black edifice they had dropped in the middle as a command center. “Reconstruction Nexus” they called it in the leaflets they kept dropping on every village they could spot.
“This cutting edge modular facility will serve as the central hub of the Sol Consortium’s reconstruction efforts. It serves as a home base for the J9 Precipitators hard at work in the upper atmosphere and houses the peacekeepers ensuring your safety throughout the area surrounding Ouranopolis.”
Lyle snorted at the thought, puffing a bit of dust out of his red nose.
Picking up his pace he adjusted the thin cloth covering his mouth and nose in the vain attempt to get a few clean breaths. He heard a rumbling from behind him and hurled himself to the side of the road, tucking his head and rolling down the embankment. Seconds later, a huge APC trundled by, weighed down with “peacekeepers” and entirely heedless of pedestrians. With the wind always howling in your face it took you a while to hear the things coming. Their solid tires churned the gravel of Access-01 and their engines were brutish Clodians, built for strength over grace, but no sound overpowered the ever-driving wind for long.
For a long moment Ariston just lay there in the ditch, his chest laboring in the thinned air. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine it was a year ago and he was lying on green grass in Independence Park. The sky above him was a pure blue dotted with fluffy clouds here and there. A cool breeze blew from the northeast, rustling the squat native trees. All of Eleuthera’s lifeforms were rather squat, but they had a certain elegance to them. He could smell the Sunbursts in bloom all around and Eirene was next to him… Eirene.
His eyes snapped open and he looked up, not at a clear blue sky but at a whirling brown smear, streaked with darker bands. He could make out a diffuse glow on the horizon where the bloated red sun was rising. High above him he noticed one of the peculiar eddies in the dust storm that marked the presence of a Precipitator. The massive SC gravships trolled the stratosphere, straining out the dust and particulate matter kicked up by their own mass drivers a little over two standard years ago.
by submission | Sep 14, 2008 | Story
Author : JY Saville
“Iridescent,” she said without looking. “Aren’t they?”
Henry Deaton shook his head, exasperated that his wife still couldn’t remember the colour of his eyes.
“Never mind,” he replied.
He raced up on deck and peered through the reinforced bubble covering the ship as it sailed the methane seas of the oil-rich planet that had made his fortune. As long as Lydia had her silks and jewels she was happy; she had no time for Henry’s eyes.
“Captain!” came a shout, and Henry turned to watch, longing for excitement.
A young boy ran barefoot along the deck. The captain emerged from the cabin opposite Henry and surveyed the dirty youngster with distaste.
“Well?”
“Captain,” panted the boy. “There’s a hole, they’ve made a hole.”
“What are you talking about, boy?”
“The ship, they’ve broken the ship: the giant barnacles.”
The captain looked astonished for a second then laughed, cuffed the boy around the ear and dismissed him.
“Giant barnacles!” he repeated to himself, shaking his head as he ducked back through the doorway.
Henry watched the boy with interest as he slunk back along the deck. On a whim, he followed.
Three floors below deck Henry lost the boy in a crowd of jostling men, but he barely noticed as he realised what all the activity was about. The wall bulged alarmingly, and the six-deep crew were straining to push it back into place, trying to strengthen it with a patch. Whether it was giant barnacles or metal fatigue, something had cracked the outer hull, and the immense pressure was threatening to crush their vessel like a toy boat in a storm. Not knowing what else to do, Henry muscled into the pack and added his weight.
It soon became clear, at least to Henry Deaton, that they were not moving the thick wall, and with all the crew here, other important tasks were being neglected. He looked around for signs of authority, but all Henry could see was the imminent onset of panic reflected in the eyes of his companions. He squirmed out of the mass of bodies and ran for the stairs.
“Captain!”
The captain flung open his door and looked disdainfully at the dishevelled passenger who’d had the audacity to hammer upon it.
“Captain,” Henry continued, “The boy was right, the ship’s been holed.”
“Now don’t you try and tell me it’s giant barnacles,” growled the captain. “If there was anything amiss, don’t you think I’d know? What do you think these are for? Decoration?” He gestured to the gleaming banks of monitors behind him, then slammed the door before Henry could reply.
Rousing the captain again was futile, and there was nothing more he could do below deck, but a sick fascination drew Henry back to the scene of the struggle. He raced back below but froze at the foot of the stairs, eyes wide with terror. Had Lydia been there, she would have seen that they were black, like the bottom of the sea.
by submission | Sep 13, 2008 | Story
Author : William Tracy
I am an airplane.
The wind whistles down my fuselage as I soar in the bright sky, the earth spread beneath me. I pull a barrel roll for the sheer joy of it, weave through an invisible slalom course in the sky.
A voice crackles in my mind. “You aren’t here to have fun, soldier.”
I straighten my course. “Yes, sir.”
“Get your job done and get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
I lose altitude, and skim low over the hilltops. Plumes of dust rise from a column of trucks ahead of me—the enemy convoy.
Right on schedule.
I arm a missile, and target a bridge ahead of the convoy. Ready … the lead vehicle is driving onto the bridge … now.
The weapon skips ahead of me, rocket purring. In a flash of light, the bridge slips into billowing smoke. I swoop overhead to the sharp staccato of automatic gunfire.
I am hit in my left wing. My ailerons twitch involuntarily with the pain. Warm hydraulic fuel seeps down my wing, only to be lapped away by the brisk air.
Now this is personal.
I double back, empty my last three missiles into the remainder of the convoy, and open up with my machine guns as I pass. I turn again, and strafe the wreckage one more time.
The voice in my mind clears its throat. “That’s enough.”
“Yes, sir. Returning to base now.”
I weave artfully back and forth, dodging fire until I am out of range. Then I load the return vector and activate the autopilot. After verifying the diagnostic output, I disengage.
My senses return to my body a thousand miles away. I reach back and release the plug from the base of my skull. I stretch comfortably and sit up, systematically popping my knuckles one finger at a time.
Damn, I love this job.
